ayres on augustine on the trinity

Over the past few years, Lewis Ayres and Michel Barnes have together offered a brilliant and very necessary re-reading of Augustine’s trinitarian thought, correcting misconceptions that have dominated trinitarian theology for the past couple of decades. My exciting news of the day is that Ayres Augustine and the Trinity is slated for publication in [...]

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i believe…

A few articles of faith on the sovereignty of God in history
I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we [...]

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the function of impassibility

What is the function of the doctrine of divine impassibility? Paul Gavrilyuk captures it nicely. The doctrine is not intended to rule out all divine emotions, but rather, within the context of recognising that everything we predicate of God we do so analogically, impassibility serves as an apophatic qualifier that acknowledges that God [...]

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a really long book

One of the tedious comments often made against classical theism is that it is ‘Hellenistic’, rather than biblical. The accusation stems from the seminal work of Adolph von Harnack, and is all to common in contemporary theology. I’ve commented on this before, albeit in somewhat riper language than I would now use, quoting [...]

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poetry or prose?

Isaiah 40-55 is almost all poetry; the only significant exception is 44:9-20, a critique of idols and idolatry.
Tom Wright, in a Bible reading given at the OICCU in 1993 suggests a reason for this shift:
The distinction between the true God and the false gods is like the distinction between poetry and prose. the true [...]

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which one god?

The unity of God is a Triune unity. The being of the One God is the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is clear in the way Paul, in 1 Corinthians, takes up the Shema, and puts Christ and the Spirit right in the centre of it.
As Tom Wright has [...]

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person or function?

Today at the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, at Westminster Central Hall in London, Keith Ackerman pointed out one of the problems of the heresy of preferring to call God ‘Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier’, rather than ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’: it reduces the divine persons to functions.  The Father is reduced simply [...]

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why would you do that?

Assuming I ever get round to studying for a PhD, I hope that it will be on some aspect of the doctrine of God. When I mention this to people, I sometimes get some funny looks. Or the question: What use is that? What’s going to be the practical benefit? It’s [...]

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my son, the beloved

‘You are My Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased’ (Mark 1:10)
The Father’s declaration at Jesus’ baptism contains (at least) three OT allusions.
You are my Son. Psalm 2:7: ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’ Jesus is God’s appointed King, who has inherited all the nations of the [...]

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perfect begetting and the filioque

A friend drew my attention to this great quotation from Augustine, which demonstrates the correctness and necessity of the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed ([the Holy Spirit] proceeds from the Father and the Son).
We find that the Spirit proceeds from the Son also. But the Father gave Him this too, not as to [...]

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