All Loves Excelling

Good quote from Bunyan in his work “All Loves Excelling” on the mediatorial dominion of Jesus Christ: He has obtained to be made of God the chief and high Lord of heaven and earth for us…’All things’ saith he ‘are delivered unto me of my Father, and all power in heaven and earth is given…

An Attempt at a Tertium Quid in the Lapsarian Debate

The age-old Post-Reformation debate between infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism is useful at times, and, personally, I have flip-flopped between both. At this time, though, I have developed what I think is somewhere between the two of them. You internet theologians let me know what you think: Works of God with Respect to Himself and Creatures I.…

Book Review: Compel Them to Come In

Compel Them to Come in: Calvinism and the Free Offer of the Gospel by Donald MacLeod My rating: 4 of 5 stars MacLeod’s new work echoes much of what is said in Murray’s much-shorter work, albeit in a more readable format. It has an interesting structure, addressing divine sincerity in the middle of the book…

Eternal Functional Subordination…Continued

Debates in the Reformed circles of the Church range from petty to vicious to important, and I have no interest in jumping into unnecessary argumentation. But, I think the debate over whether Jesus is eternally, but functionally, subordinate to the Father in the Triune Godhead is an important one. The debate itself is basically over,…

Certainty and Doubt

Christians have looked warily at postmodernism for some time now.  Its amorphous nature has never been appealing, and its candy-shop variety of metaphysical conclusions has been hard to accept.  Sure, one can enjoy certain aspects of so-and-so’s post-structuralism, or rejoice in what’s-his-face’s view of textual analysis, or delight in another fellow’s critique of modernism’s epistemological…

The Historical Jesus Goes To University

The Historical Jesus Goes To University Though I agree with J. Gresham Machen that McGrath’s form of liberal/progressive Christianity is “another religion”, I still applaud McGrath’s recent post for showing that scholars across the board recognize Jesus as an historical person.

Never the Twain Shall Meet

Paths Christians Take When They Encounter Evolutionary Theory  As a student in Seminary, I’m surrounded by the theological debates of the day.  Within Reformed circles, the debates mainly revolve around confessional subscription, Sabbath observance, and the doctrine of sanctification. But, more Church-universal issues are centered around things like doctrine of Scripture, the nature of authority,…

How to Do History and Science

I’ve been reading through Michael Licona’s, “The Resurrection of Jesus,” and think that his first chapter is seriously helpful in beginning a conversation on the philosophy of history and science.   He has an excellent paragraph on the relation of scientific inquiry to historical inquiry located on pg. 66 of this pdf, under heading 1.2.12,…