Church Fathers Who Denied the Immaculate Conception

Categories: History · roman catholicism · Theologians17 Comments

Recently I had the privilege of participating in a discussion with some Catholic brothers over at the Reason and Theology channel on our respective views of the virgin Mary. Thank you, Michael, Erik, and William for having me! For anyone interested, we are talking again on February 9. I thought it might be useful to compile some of the quotes I referenced that I regard as countervailing data among the church fathers with respect to the third Marian dogma, the immaculate conception of Mary. That way those following the debate can look them up for themselves. I know there is…

Why Augustine on Creation?

Categories: Augustine · Creation Issues18 Comments

Several people have asked about my book on Augustine’s doctrine of creation, and what kinds of readers might be interested in it, so I thought I’d provide a little bit of context for what the book is about, who it’s for, why I wrote it, etc. This is a book that came out of our year in Chicago. We spent the 2017-2018 school year living on campus at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where I worked at the Henry Center as a research fellow in connection with the Creation Project. Basically that meant that my job was to write. It was…

Five Books to Read by Church Fathers

Categories: Athanasias · Augustine · History · Irenaeus · Theology6 Comments

One of the questions I get a lot about theological retrieval is where to start. Lots of people see the value of reading ancient texts but are unsure exactly where to dive in. So I thought it might be useful to identify five classic texts from the church fathers that (1) are significant, theologically and historically, (2) are relatively easy to read and understand, and (3) in some cases tend to get neglected. Any list like this is bound to be somewhat arbitrary and leave important works out, so take this all with a grain of salt. But these works…

Theological Retrieval for Apologetics

Categories: Augustine · Creation Issues · History6 Comments

In my Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals I give a number of reasons why I think retrieving the theology of the historic church is valuable in our culture right now. One that I don’t discuss, but have been thinking more about lately, is its role in apologetics and cultural dialogue. People tend to think of theological retrieval as primarily an academic interest, but I think it is useful in a wide variety of practical contexts, including apologetics. Here are two great examples of retrieval “at work.” First, in his 2009 debate with Christopher Hitchens, which I have enjoyed watching many times,…

Four Reasons Evangelicals Should Still Read Karl Barth

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During my first year of seminary I discovered Karl Barth. He was grappling with theological challenges that were new to me, he was operating within a theological tradition that was largely foreign to me (names like Ritschl, von Harnack, etc. meant nothing to me at that time), and there was an aura about his approach to theology that felt reverent and profound. I became intensely interested. Many an afternoon of 2006 and 2007 was spent struggling through Romans and Church Dogmatics—and then onto the secondary literature, especially Bruce McCormack. With enough distance from that episode now to have some critical…

Why We Misunderstand the Beatific Vision

Categories: Heaven · History · Theologians · Theology4 Comments

I’ve been reading Hans Boersma’s helpful and interesting book Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition (Eerdmans 2018). For a while I’ve been wanting to learn more about this intriguing and often neglected doctrine, so now I’m finally getting around to it. The beatific vision is widespread throughout the early and medieval church, East and West, and into Protestantism (especially the Reformed tradition). Yet many evangelical today have never heard of it, or misunderstand it. As Kyle Strobel puts it, “few doctrines are as ‘standard’ in the history of theology, and ignored in contemporary theology, as the beatific vision.”…

Why Study Anselm?

Categories: Anselm2 Comments

For the past four years, I’ve been pursuing a PhD in historical theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. I graduated this past Saturday. The whole experience has been very rewarding, and I’m grateful that the Lord opened the door for me to do it. I don’t take that for granted. I had abandoned the dream of doing a PhD and committed myself to local church ministry, and then surprisingly God opened the door to do this one on the side, while continuing on in ministry. For me, the degree wasn’t really about any job requirements, but simply about learning, and wanting…

Looking Back At Favorite Blog Posts and Series

Categories: Book Reviews · Devotional Thoughts · History · Literature · Philosophy · Science · Scripture · Theologians · TheologyLeave a comment

I’ve been blogging for just over 6 years now. Its been a far more enriching experience than I had expected. My primary purpose in blogging has always been my own learning: I find that I learn best in a dialogical, two-stage process of both (1) reading and (2) writing. Stage 1 typically involves carefully reading a book with my pen in hand, making notes on the pages and inside the back cover as I struggle with how to place and understand the book. (Sometimes, of course, it could also be an article, movie, etc.) The key in this stage is…

A Primer on Divine Simplicity

Categories: The Trinity · Theologians · Theology9 Comments

D.A. Carson observed at the 2010 NEXT conference that evangelicals tend to be relatively weak in the area of theology proper, or the doctrine of God.[1] One aspect of the doctrine of God that has been a hallmark of patristic, medieval, and reformed thought, and yet tends to receive less attention today, is the doctrine of divine simplicity. Richard Muller has observed, “the doctrine of divine simplicity is among the normative assumptions of theology from the time of the church fathers, to the age of the great medieval scholastic systems, to the era of Reformation and post-Reformation theology, and indeed,…

Truth and Struggle

Categories: Luther1 Comment

I was reading a bit about Luther the other day. I really admire him. I was especially struck this time by the intensity of the struggle that preceded his so-called “tower experience” in which he came to understand the doctrine of justification by faith from Romans 1:17. I cannot figure out whether this experience came after his posting the 95 theses in October 1517 or before, but it does seem to have come after a great deal of struggle and courage. I’m researching and writing much about Anselm these days, and I’m also struck by the intensity of the struggle he…