Henry Center: Recent Episodes
Henry Center
The Henry Center seeks to bridge the gap between the academy and the church by cultivating resources and communities that advance Christian wisdom. To learn more, please visit our website at henrycenter.org. The best way to stay connected with us is to subscribe to our newsletter, but we're also on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube. We'd love to see you at one of our upcoming events, hosted at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. This podcast features our public lectures where scholars and pastors offer careful reflection on a range of biblical, theological, and ecclesial topics.
Post-Lecture Interview with the Speaker
Lecture Title - Inadequacy: The Surprising Secret to Being Useful to God
The NBA champions this year was a team made up of fewer stars and less glitz than their opponents. We might say that humility triumphed over hubris. There are lessons-a-plenty in this for an evangelical church that routinely produces all-stars. Such an approach endangers the recipients of such adulation and discourages those who are by-passed in the process. In this lecture, Alistair Begg will consider God's pattern of using unlikely and ordinary characters and address the possibility that what we regard as a hindrance may be the key to usefulness in God's service.
Alistair Begg (DDiv Westminster Theological Seminary) is Senior Pastor at Parkside Church. He is author of many books, including Name Above all Names (Crossway, 2013), Pathway to Freedom: How God's Laws Guide Our Lives (Moody, 2021), and Brave by Faith: God-Sized Confidence in a Post-Christian World (The Good Book Company, 2021).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
Debate Question - Is Social Justice an Essential Part of the Mission of the Church?North American Evangelicals have recently experienced a revival of interest in issues of social justice. The growing sentiment among many today is that Jesus preached "good news to the poor," and was indeed among the poor and marginalized. These Christians believe that the implications of these facts should renew the church's understanding of the gospel and its mission. Rightly or wrongly, this interest in social justice is transforming the blueprint and vision of ecclesial ministry. For others, this blueprint conjures up concerns about 20th century liberal Protestantism and a watering down of the gospel's message of salvation. The defining mission of the church, for them, continues to be the sharing of the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to all nations, generations, and social classes. The issue of social justice, though important, is not to be considered as an essential part of the mission of the church. The Henry Center for Theological Understanding, in its Trinity Debates forum, is pleased to provide a public venue for addressing this question by hosting two prominent voices from competing perspectives. Jim Wallis will answer "Yes" and R. Albert Mohler will answer "No."R. Albert Mohler, Jr. (PhD Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is author of many books, including Words From the Fire: Hearing the Voice of God in the 10 Commandments (Moody, 2009) and The Gathering Storm: Secularism, Culture, and the Church (Thomas Nelson, 2020). He hosts two programs, “The Briefing” and “Thinking in Public,” and also writes a popular blog.Jim Wallis is the Director of the Center on Faith and Justice and inaugural chair in Faith and Justice at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. He is author many books, including God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (Harper Collins, 2006), America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America (Brazos Press, 2017), and Christ in Crisis?: Reclaiming Jesus in a Time of Fear, Hate, and Violence (Harper Collins, 2020). He is founder and was President of Sojourners, served on the White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and also served as Vice Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Values of the World Economic Forum.The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
Lecture Title - A Kingdom of Friends: Matthew’s Vision for the “We” of Discipleship
Matthew’s Gospel presents a profound and nuanced vision of what it means to flourish as humans through becoming disciples of King Jesus. Flourishing in the kingdom of heaven requires a proper relationship to God, to other believers, and to the world outside of the church (“I, We, and They”). In this lecture, we will examine the vision Jesus gives for life together—the “we” of discipleship as a kingdom of true friends whose lives are marked by mercy and forgiveness. This vision can be seen especially in Joseph, the exemplar of the virtue of mercy, and the sophisticated and shocking “household code” of Matthew 18–20.
Jonathan T. Pennington (PhD University of St. Andrews) is Professor of New Testament Interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of multiple books, including Reading the Gospels Wisely: A Narrative and Theological Introduction (Baker Academic, 2012), The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing (Baker Academic, 2018), Jesus the Great Philosopher: Rediscovering the Wisdom Needed for the Good Life (Brazos Press, 2020), and Come and See: The Journey of Knowing God through Scripture (Crossway, 2023).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
Debate Question: Is the Lutheran Approach to Pauline Justification "Justified"?
Martin Luther and other reformers viewed Pauline justification as primarily, if not exclusively, a forensic matter between us and God. We are justified before God, through faith in Jesus Christ, according to his finished work on the cross. If one believes the gospel message, then one is justified before God. Reconciliation (with God and with other humans) is a necessary implication of justification but is not part of justification as such. New perspectives on Paul have challenged this account of justification (both historically and exegetically). Rather than being merely a forensic matter focused on human salvation and its relationship to divine satisfaction, this approach suggests that Pauline justification is essentially about human liberation and the reconciliation of people one with another. Rather than being merely a forensic matter focused on human salvation and its relationship to divine satisfaction, this approach suggests that Pauline justification is essentially about human liberation and the reconciliation of people one with another.
Douglas A. Campbell (PhD University of Toronto) is Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School. He is author of Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography (Eerdmans, 2014), Paul: An Apostle’s Journey (Eerdmans, 2018), and Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God’s Love (Eerdmans, 2020).
Douglas J. Moo (PhD University of St. Andrews) is Kenneth T. Wessner Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. He is author of The Letter to the Romans (NICNT; 2nd edition) (Eerdmans, 2018) and A Theology of Paul and His Letters: The Gift of the New Realm in Christ (Zondervan Academic, 2021). He currently serves as chair for the New International Version translation committee.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL
Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
Sermon Title - Finishing Well (1 Cor. 9:24-27)Bryan Loritts comes from a long legacy of faithful men and women extending from his great, great grandfather Peter, an illiterate slave who loved the Word, to his father, Dr. Crawford Loritts. He celebrates this legacy in his sermon on 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. In this passage, Paul urges his readers to run with radical excellence and to compete with sacrificial endurance. No Christians will have a free pass on suffering, but those who run with integrity in the midst of it can finish well. Loritts urges us to continue the legacies of finishing well, which we have received from our faithful predecessors in the Gospel.
Bryan C. Loritts (DMin Liberty University) is the president and founder of the Kainos Movement and the Teaching Pastor at The Summit Church. He is the author of the books The Dad Difference (Moody, 2020), Insider Outsider (Zondervan, 2018), and Saving the Saved(Zondervan, 2016).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us! https://twitter.com/henry_center https://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/ https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
Sermon Title - The Multi-Ethnic Church (Eph. 2:11-22)
In a sermon on Ephesians 2:11-22, Brian Loritts makes a passionate appeal to Bible believing Christians to note the Gospel's vertical and horizontal dimensions. The Gospel addresses both reconciliation between God and sinners and reconciliation of all peoples in Christ. Loritts laments the fact that the modern church in America has resisted multi-ethnic unity. In so doing, American Christians have not embodied the radical unity that made the early church such a stunning validation of gospel power. He claims, "multi-ethnic is a symptom of the Gospel being lived out," and calls Evangelical pastors and leaders to embrace the opportunity to affect change and to pursue the kingdom vision of Revelation 7.
Bryan C. Loritts (DMin Liberty University) is the president and founder of the Kainos Movement and the Teaching Pastor at The Summit Church. He is the author of the books The Dad Difference (Moody, 2020), Insider Outsider (Zondervan, 2018), and Saving the Saved(Zondervan, 2016).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
Lecture Title - Transformed by the Renewing of the Mind: The Use of Scripture in "Spiritual Formation"
The Apostle Paul tells us to "not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom. 12:2). But how are we to go about renewing our mind? We will explain the role of scripture in the renewing of the mind, and the role of the pastor and the congregation in this process. We will also discuss the ways in which use of scripture fails to renew the mind-as often seems to be the case in our "Bible based" churches. What can be done about that? The larger picture of Christian "spiritual formation" will be discussed. How does it relate to "growth in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ"? Does being saved have anything to do with transformation of character?
Dallas Willard (PhD University of Wisconsin) was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. Within his interests were metaphysics, contemporary European philosophy, ethics and the history of ethics. An author of many books, his last one being Living in Christ's Presence: Final Words on Heaven and the Kingdom of God (InterVarsity Press, 2017).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
Lecture Title - Transformed by the Renewing of the Mind: The Use of Scripture in "Spiritual Formation"
The Apostle Paul tells us to "not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom. 12:2). But how are we to go about renewing our mind? We will explain the role of scripture in the renewing of the mind, and the role of the pastor and the congregation in this process. We will also discuss the ways in which use of scripture fails to renew the mind-as often seems to be the case in our "Bible based" churches. What can be done about that? The larger picture of Christian "spiritual formation" will be discussed. How does it relate to "growth in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ"? Does being saved have anything to do with transformation of character?
Dallas Willard (PhD University of Wisconsin) was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. Within his interests were metaphysics, contemporary European philosophy, ethics and the history of ethics. An author of many books, his last one being Living in Christ's Presence: Final Words on Heaven and the Kingdom of God (InterVarsity Press, 2017).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
Sermon Title - Gracing & Disgracing Grace: Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Preaching on Jesus’ famous parable of forgiveness (Matthew 18), Rev. Ralph West warns us against Disgracing Grace, in a manner similar to the Unforgiving Servant. This doesn’t mean that forgiveness is easy. It wasn’t easy for Jesus, and it isn’t easy for us. Whenever evil is put on a face, someone that looks a whole lot like us, we all become nervous. Yet, when our debt in relation to God is put in perspective–following Jesus arithmetic, a difference of $50,000,000 to $34–to not forgive is to disgrace grace. As with the parable, when the role is reversed, and we are not debtors but creditors, how will we respond? Will we grace grace or will we disgrace grace?
Ralph D. West (DMin Beeson Divinity School) is Founder and Senior Pastor of The Church Without Walls and Adjunct Professor of Preaching at the George W. Truett Theological Seminary.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2015 Kantzer Lecture #6 - Possibility and SalvationIn the final lecture Blocher concludes by accounting for the place of possibility in God’s response to the intrusion of evil, contending that the truth about evil can only be known through God’s response of salvation. Blocher maintains that in the biblical portrait that evil is an intruder, preceding salvation. Salvation is God’s reply and repair to the damage that has been done by evil. Blocher offers three instances of the relation between salvation and possibility. The first is the real possibility of certain occurrence of God’s working out of election in the created order. Second is a treatment of how Christ created the real possibility of certain occurrence of salvation for future believers by dying on the cross. Third is the real possibility of certain non-occurrence regarding salvation for humankind apart from grace and the real possibility with certain occurrence of their salvation by grace. In concluding his Kantzer lectures, Blocher considers the final state in which there is no real possibility for evil, for the alien intruder will no longer have a place. God’s victory over evil shall be total and definitive—if we cannot answer whence and why, we have this sure hope: God will be all in all.Henri A. G. Blocher (DD Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Professor Emeritus at Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique. He is author of In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (IVP Academic, 1984) and Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (IVP Academic, 2000). Blocher was a member of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (1975-1980), served the World Evangelical Fellowship/Alliance in a number of capacities, and taught in schools in Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada, and the US.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!
https://twitter.com/henry_center
https://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/
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2015 Kantzer Lecture #5 - Was Evil "Possible" Before it Arose?The fifth lecture explores the question of whether evil was possible before it arose, either ontologically or logically, as related to God and to humanity. Accordingly to Blocher, evil is neither ontologically nor logically possible with God. That God who is sovereign should permit decrees and that his beloved creatures should choose against him to their own destruction remains an opaque mystery. As for humanity, evil is only a logical possibility before the original disobedience. The consequence of partaking of the tree, on the other hand, is a newfound real possibility to sin. Refusing to go beyond the non-impossibility of evil, Blocher declares the whence of evil another opaque mystery. There is no rational explanation. Our natural desire is to order things, but evil is a thorn in the flesh of reason. Our intelligence was made to understand the rationality and beauty of the good. If we yield to the temptation of our intelligence regarding evil, ultimately to sort out the disorderliness of evil, then we deny its proper hiddenness. We must not understand, for this is to deny the essence of evil. In this light, all explanations of evil are disordered accounts of disorder. The only place where evil is preserved in its scandalous character is in Scripture.Henri A. G. Blocher (DD Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Professor Emeritus at Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique. He is author of In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (IVP Academic, 1984) and Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (IVP Academic, 2000). Blocher was a member of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (1975-1980), served the World Evangelical Fellowship/Alliance in a number of capacities, and taught in schools in Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada, and the US.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!
https://twitter.com/henry_center
https://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/
https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/
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2015 Kantzer Lecture #4 - "Possibility" in Biblical PerspectiveBlocher’s fourth of six lectures is an attempt to discern through Scripture the contours of possibility. Blocher first analyzes possibility with respect to God. He argues that Scripture associates various notions of possibility with God. For example, things can be possible without actually happening. There is a legitimate notion of divine possibility, but it lies on the grain of God’s relationship to creation, not in God’s own essence. Concerning possibility in God Blocher concludes, “mystery, not mastery, is the object.” Blocher then considers possibility and humanity, submitting that humans have received active power from God, but that this power is limited. The power of human beings is allows for a variety of possibilities. This power, while being completely dependent on God, contains a certain passivity not present in God. However, created possibilities cannot run against God’s plan. Although it may be asked whether human possibilities so surrounded still deserve the name, Blocher contends that self-determination and the use of motives to make decisions demonstrate human involvement in willing.Henri A. G. Blocher (DD Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Professor Emeritus at Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique. He is author of In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (IVP Academic, 1984) and Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (IVP Academic, 2000). Blocher was a member of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (1975-1980), served the World Evangelical Fellowship/Alliance in a number of capacities, and taught in schools in Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada, and the US.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!
https://twitter.com/henry_center
https://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/
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015 Kantzer Lecture #3 - Thinkers on "Possibility"Whereas in the first of his Kantzer lectures, Blocher introduced the function of possibility in explanation of evil in the thought of many important theologians and philosophers, in this his third lecture, he considers various philosophers’ concept of possibility itself. After Leibniz, Blocher argues, possibility is such a common concept in human reason that it is difficult to interrogate. He analyzes possibility under the rubric of potentia (“potential”) in ancient Greek philosophy, handed down from Plato to Aristotle and eventually to Plotinus. Blocher continues his typology by arguing that Augustine, Aquinas, and Scotus adopted an increasingly problematic notion of possibility under the rubric of freedom. Scotus culminates this movement when he assigns possibility to God’s very essence. Subsequently, Blocher characterizes the clash of determinism resulting from scientific advances and the possibility inherent in the libertarian accounts of freedom resident within modern philosophy.Henri A. G. Blocher (DD Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Professor Emeritus at Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique. He is author of In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (IVP Academic, 1984) and Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (IVP Academic, 2000). Blocher was a member of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (1975-1980), served the World Evangelical Fellowship/Alliance in a number of capacities, and taught in schools in Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada, and the US.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!
https://twitter.com/henry_center
https://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/
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2015 Kantzer Lecture #2 - Exploring the Quasi-Concept and the Area of EvilContinuing his analysis of the idea of evil, lecture two provides some “impressionistic” starting points to the idea of evil, before giving an analysis of Leibniz’s threefold articulation of evil as metaphysical, physical, and moral. We often apply the idea of evil in at least one of four senses: (i) evil is what is not as it ought to be; (ii) evil is the negation or privation of what was previously “good” (e.g. blindness is the negation of the good of sight); (iii) evil is not merely a negation, but also entails some active force in our experience of the world; and finally, (iv) evil is singular in that it is not a constituent feature of the created order. Based on these phenomenon of evil, Blocher concludes that evil is not fundamentally metaphysical or physical, but moral, what Scripture refers to as “sin.” It is an inward act that rejects the order of God’s creation. At bottom evil is rooted in the hatred of God, a rage against him, and the rejection of the order of his creation.Henri A. G. Blocher (DD Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Professor Emeritus at Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique. He is author of In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (IVP Academic, 1984) and Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (IVP Academic, 2000). Blocher was a member of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (1975-1980), served the World Evangelical Fellowship/Alliance in a number of capacities, and taught in schools in Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada, and the US.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/
Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5
Connect with us!
https://twitter.com/henry_center
https://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/
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2015 Kantzer Lecture #1 - Introduction: Evil Possible—A Misleading FacilityAt the outset of his 2015 Kantzer Lectures, Henri Blocher recognizes three central questions that arise from the fact of evil: Whence does evil come? What is evil? How long, O Lord? Blocher admits there is legitimacy of the human search for a rational explanation of the evil and notes the important role that the idea of “possibility” plays in many theodicies, including, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Barth, Maritain, and Ricoeur. Despite the concept’s widespread appeal, Blocher’s overriding concern is that the concept has been insufficiently “interrogated” in these various approaches to account for the whence of evil. In characteristic fashion, Blocher suggests that because reason cannot be deployed without presuppositions, it must be deployed from within the “fiduciary framework” of a biblical worldview, which this lecture series hopes to develop.Henri A. G. Blocher (DD Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Professor Emeritus at Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique. He is author of In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (IVP Academic, 1984) and Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (IVP Academic, 2000). Blocher was a member of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (1975-1980), served the World Evangelical Fellowship/Alliance in a number of capacities, and taught in schools in Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada, and the US.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
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2013 Kantzer Lecture #8 - The Understanding of God Implicit in the EucharistIn the final Kantzer lecture of the series, Nicholas Wolterstorff turns to conclude his exploration by unpacking the theological implications of the Eucharist for his project. Noting that this is not the place to adjudicate between competing understandings of the act, Wolterstorff selects one account—that of John Calvin—and examines the understanding of God implicit in it. Wolterstorff notes that traditional uses treat the “this is my body” and “this is my blood,” whereas Calvin includes “for you,” and this plays a crucial role in his account. He goes on to explore the force of the copula is, and argues that the concepts of partaking and sealing are central to Calvin’s account. Wolterstorff concludes that the understanding of God implicit in the Eucharist is a uniquely intimate compared with the other areas already explored. It is that “The God of unsurpassable excellence not only stoops down to listen, hear, and speak to us: he stoops down to dwell and work within us in the person of Jesus Christ. In listening and speaking, there is a certain distance between the interlocutors: in communion in the Eucharist, this distance is removed.”Nicholas Wolterstorff (PhD Harvard University) is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. He is author of many books, including Reason Within the Bounds of Religion (Eerdmans, 1988), Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2008), and United in Love: Reflections on Justice, Art, and Liturgy (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2013 Kantzer Lecture #7 - God as One Who SpeaksHaving completed his exploration of God as one who listens, Wolterstorff now turns to the understanding of God implicit in the belief that God is one who speaks. He begins by pointing out that in a good many of our liturgical acts we are listening to what God says by way of what humans say. Wolterstorff begins his exploration by critiquing Karl Barth’s account of the Word of God, finding it insufficiently grounded in the words actually spoken by Jesus, and too reliant on the concept of revelation, which plays a relatively minor role in Scripture. Also finding Barth’s claim that all of Scripture points to Christ as contestable, Wolterstorff suggests that David Kelsey’s account of three independent but interacting story lines—creation and preservation, redemption, and consummation—to be a more helpful guide. Wolterstorff concludes that God not only presently listens, but also presently speaks to us in the liturgy: it is an act of mutual address.Nicholas Wolterstorff (PhD Harvard University) is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. He is author of many books, including Reason Within the Bounds of Religion (Eerdmans, 1988), Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2008), and United in Love: Reflections on Justice, Art, and Liturgy (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2013 Kantzer Lecture #6 - God as One Who Hears FavorablyWolterstorff begins his sixth lecture by unpacking the understanding of God implicit in the liturgical act of requesting that God would hear our addresses favorably. What view of God is implied by the participant’s refrain, “Hear our prayer oh Lord”? After surveying the possible moods or stances appropriate for supplication—wishfulness, desperation, confidence—Wolterstorff turns to the Lord’s prayer, which he argues should be paradigmatic for Christian liturgical forms of prayer. He goes on to affirm that the Lord’s prayer is best understood as a declaration that the kingdom is God’s and the prayer for its ever fuller manifestation: when the kingdom is fully manifested, God’s name will be hollowed, his will be done, we will be forgiven as we forgive. Guided by N.T. Wright’s recent work How God Became King, Wolterstorff goes on to explore the content of what it means to pray “thy kingdom come.” He concludes by suggesting that when we ask God to accept our prayers, we’re asking God to accept our concrete longing for the coming of God’s kingdom.Nicholas Wolterstorff (PhD Harvard University) is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. He is author of many books, including Reason Within the Bounds of Religion (Eerdmans, 1988), Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2008), and United in Love: Reflections on Justice, Art, and Liturgy (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2013 Kantzer Lecture #5 - What Are We Saying When We Say that God Listens?Wolterstorff responds to questions raised by portraying God as the God who listens and speaks. After responding to potential objections that “listening” and “speaking” are anthropomorphisms not properly predicted upon God, he proposes an alternative reading of Thomas Aquinas on the issue. Though normally understood to be affirming the view that if a predicate applied literally to creatures it could not be applied literally to God, Wolterstorff argues that Thomas clearly held that some of his claims were literally true of both God and creatures. He goes on to argue, based in part on Aquinas participatory ontology, that Aquinas’ account of the doctrine of analogy pertains to the act of predicating, not to what is predicated – it pertains to the copula (the is of a statement such as God is wise), not to the predicated (wisdom). Wolterstorff concludes that the Maimonides style critique fails, and therefore we should not shrink from affirming that God is one who listens and speaks.Nicholas Wolterstorff (PhD Harvard University) is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. He is author of many books, including Reason Within the Bounds of Religion (Eerdmans, 1988), Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2008), and United in Love: Reflections on Justice, Art, and Liturgy (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2011 Kantzer Lecture #7 - The Being of God as Gift and Grace: On Freedom and Necessity, Aseity and the Divine AttributesIn his seventh and final lecture, Professor McCormack concludes with a treatment of God’s being and attributes. Of particular interest is his notion of Freedom. Freedom, he suggests, is not freedom in the face of options. Rather, God’s freedom is the freedom to follow through with the course of action that God has elected from all eternity to do and to be. It is a freedom with which God elects to be our God, elects us to be His people, and it is a freedom with which God does not elect to be himself in any other way.Bruce L. McCormack (PhD Princeton Theological Seminary) is Chair of Modern Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Previously, he was Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. One of his major publications is Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (Clarendon Press, 1995).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2011 Kantzer Lecture #6 - The Processions Contain the Missions: Reconstructing the Doctrine of anImmanent TrinityIn this sixth lecture, Professor McCormack develops his doctrine of the immanent trinity by grounding his conclusions in the teaching of the New Testament as expounded in the fourth lecture, and in line with the Christology he constructed in the fifth lecture. The basic contours of his doctrine are essentially those of Karl Barth in Church Dogmatics I/1. As a result, McCormack first lays out and defends Barth’s doctrine of the immanent trinity before reconstructing aspects of Barth’s doctrine as McCormack finds necessitated by Barth’s doctrine of election and his later Christology.Bruce L. McCormack (PhD Princeton Theological Seminary) is Chair of Modern Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Previously, he was Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. One of his major publications is Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (Clarendon Press, 1995).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2011 Kantzer Lecture #5 - Which Christology? Refining the Economic Basis of the Christian Doctrine of GodIn this fifth Lecture, Professor McCormack begins the constructive work of his project. His goal is to develop a thoroughly post-metaphysical doctrine of God. For McCormack, this means that everything said about God must be founded on what can be known through the history of His revelation in Jesus Christ. Thus, he begins with Christology. As a Doctrine of God grounded in a theological ontology of God as “being-in-action,” we know God’s being only as it encounters us in His actions toward us in Christ.Bruce L. McCormack (PhD Princeton Theological Seminary) is Chair of Modern Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Previously, he was Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. One of his major publications is Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (Clarendon Press, 1995).
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2011 Kantzer Lecture #4 - The God Who Reveals Himself: The Mystery of the Trinity in the New TestamentIn the fourth lecture, Professor McCormack provides dense exegesis of the relevant biblical material regarding the problem of the trinity in the New Testament. This pertains in particular to the biblical witness to deity of the Son, His relationship to the Father and to the Spirit. Endorsing an apocalyptic-eschatological reading of the New Testament, McCormack argues for a vision of the New Testament in which the theological ontology of God is metaphysically underdetermined. This is the case because the New Testament witness is not concerned with metaphysical and speculative thinking, but with proper worship.Bruce L. McCormack (PhD Princeton Theological Seminary) is Chair of Modern Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Previously, he was Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. One of his major publications is Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (Clarendon Press, 1995).The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2011 Kantzer Lecture #3 - The Great Reversal: From the Economy of God to the Trinity in Modern TheologyIn this survey of the Doctrine of God in the modern world, professor McCormack narrates the rise of modern theology from Spinoza, through Kant’s critique of classical metaphysics and on to the philosophical theology of Hegel, all of which engendered the philosophical and theological milieu in which the likes of Hermann, Ritchsl, and Barth found themselves. In particular, Professor McCormack is concerned with demonstrating the anti-metaphysical thinking that necessarily arose as a characteristic of modern theology.
Bruce L. McCormack (PhD Princeton Theological Seminary) is Chair of Modern Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Previously, he was Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. One of his major publications is Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (Clarendon Press, 1995).The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2011 Kantzer Lecture #2 - From the One God to the Trinity: The Creation of the Orthodox Understanding of GodBruce McCormack inaugurated his Kantzer Lectures by surveying the contemporary theological and ecclesiological landscape in America, including denominational transformation and doctrinal erosion in the evangelical church. In particular, McCormack explored the state of evangelical thinking regarding the Doctrine of God. In this lecture, he surveys the history of the doctrine of the Trinity.Bruce L. McCormack (PhD Princeton Theological Seminary) is Chair of Modern Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Previously, he was Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. One of his major publications is Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (Clarendon Press, 1995).The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2011 Kantzer Lecture #1 - Is the Reformation Over? Reflections on the Place of the Doctrine of God in Evangelical Theology TodayBruce McCormack inaugurates his Kantzer Lectures (the first of seven) by surveying the contemporary theological and ecclesiological landscape in America, including denominational transformation and doctrinal erosion in the evangelical church. In particular, McCormack explores the state of evangelical thinking regarding the Doctrine of God. He does so by way of two test cases: the subordination debate and the McCall-Piper debate. In each case, McCormack articulates the basic argument of the opposing sides before demonstrating the inadequacies of both. In the end, a new way forward will be the doctrine of God he develops in the succeeding lectures.Bruce L. McCormack (PhD Princeton Theological Seminary) is Chair of Modern Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Previously, he was Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Seminary. One of his major publications is Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (Clarendon Press, 1995).The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5Connect with us!https://twitter.com/henry_centerhttps://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter
2009 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #6
Professor Williams's sixth and final lecture dwells on the relation of election to several key themes: universalism, justification, perseverance, and above all, assurance. Though he insists that election grounds assurance, nevertheless, all must heed both the promises regarding salvation and the warnings for falling away. One and the same individual receives both promise and warning. The truly exceptional contribution of Williams's lecture is his Christocentric doctrine of assurance. More than good works or the internal witness of the Spirit, there is only one to whom we can turn for faith and assurance of salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ.
2009 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #5
In this fifth lecture, Williams turns more explicitly toward systematic theological formulation. His primary questions include the paradox of man’s freedom and God’s call, and the question of God’s justice and mercy in the decision to elect some but not all. Williams is quick to re-emphasize the provisional nature of our conclusions this side of the eschaton. His model theologian here is Charles Simeon, who Williams believes would have centralized paradox in his theology rather than relieved it, had he developed it further.
2009 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #4
In his fourth lecture, Professor Williams turns his attention to election in the New Testament. He is particularly concerned with predestination and election statements and the proper deployment of such statements in systematic formulation. Williams himself advocates for reading these statements along broadly Augustinian lines, and in doing so, he proposes a moderate form of single predestination. This entails a passive view regarding God’s action towards the non-elect. That is to say, the non-elect are “passed over” rather than actively predestined to reprobation.
2009 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #3This third lecture begins the biblical consideration of the doctrine of election with a survey of election in the Old Testament. The primary trajectory of Williams's lecture is towards evaluating the dichotomy of election as privilege and election as responsibility. Leslie Newbigin and his emphasis upon election as responsibility becomes Williams’s primary interlocutor. Williams concludes that we ought to maintain the component of responsibility in election, but not at the expense of privilege in election.
2009 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #2
In this lecture, Williams takes account of the enduring influence of Barth’s doctrine of election. He briefly lays out the major contours of Barth’s construction before going on to evaluate its merits. The lecture, however, becomes as much about instruction in interpreting other theologians and speculation as it is about the doctrine of election itself. Williams concludes that in Barth, atonement and election are swapped. The universal extent of the atonement is moved to election and election (and reprobation) to atonement, Jesus as the reprobate one.
2009 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #1
Few issues in Christian theology have sparked as much controversy over the centuries as the question of election. In these lectures, Stephen Williams offers a rich and nuanced account of the doctrine of election, arguing that we should diminish the role of “system” in Christian theology.
After expounding the Bible’s teaching on election, Williams turns to questions of theological method and substance. He maintains that the subject of predestination must be considered in a wider biblical context than it often is and that we cannot expect to understand election within a comprehensive systematic framework. What matters is the relation of particular truths to the particulars of life, he says, not the systematic relation of truths to each other.
2007 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #6
In his sixth and final lecture, Professor Webster turns to the church. He begins by appraising the recent trend of elevating ecclesiology to a sort of first theology. Ultimately his remarks are critical, especially regarding the movement's ontological re-ordering of Christ and the Church. Webster’s correction involves properly understanding the fundamental dependence of the ecclesial body upon the incarnate and resurrected body of Christ. Finally, Webster concludes his series with a pneumatologically rich sketch of a theology of Word and sacrament for the church today.
2007 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #5
The primary focus of Professor Webster’s fifth lecture is on the presence of the exalted Christ as the church’s head. The task of filling out the presence of the exalted Christ entails developing Christ’s fulfillment as Prophet, Priest and King. The location of the exalted Christ’s presence is the church and the church is the social sphere where the exalted Christ’s Lordly rule is exercised. In this context, Webster articulates the relationship of Christ’s pre-existence to his existence as the exalted Christ, the nature and mode of his presence with his creatures as the exalted one, and its implications for creatures’ ongoing fellowship with their Creator.
2007 Kantzer Lecutres, Lecture #4
In the fourth lecture of the series, Professor Webster carefully explicates each word of the all-important phrase, “the Word became flesh.” In so doing, Webster’s discussion spans an impressive breadth of theological relationships, including the relationships of immanence and transcendence, created and uncreated, human and divine, history and eternity, Word and flesh. Webster works to situate the human history of this divine life within the history of God’s covenant with Israel.
2007 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #3
In this third lecture, Professor Webster addresses three primary subjects relating to God’s presence with God’s creatures: the omnipresence of God to creaturely reality, divine providence, and the covenant between God and creatures. With respect to the omnipresence of God, Webster speaks in particular to the immensity of God, a special description of God that speaks to God’s unqualified transcendence over spatial relations. Webster then develops a view of providence that is both protological and teleological. Finally, Webster offers an account of the covenant as the special history of God with God’s freely chosen creatures.
2007 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #2
Webster's second lecture is composed of three sections. First, Webster offers an initial orientation to God’s perfections, most notably, the notion of God’s aseity. Second, he moves to a description of God’s perfections in God’s own life, namely, in God’s Trinitarian life. Third and finally, Webster moves to a brief exposition of the divine perfections in God’s external relations, the sending of the Son and procession of the Spirit.
2007 Kantzer Lectures, Lecture #1
In this first lecture, John Webster introduces the project at hand. Webster first reviews several proposals for the nature of Christ’s presence to us that have been offered in the last half-century, he then goes on to outline his own proposal. Webster indicates that in the coming lectures, the question of fellowship will go beyond the nature of God’s presence with us in the incarnation. Ultimately, the nature of God’s presence with humanity will be grounded in the divine perfections themselves.
In this chapel message, James K. A. Smith speaks to life in theological education with the Augustinian insight that in order to know rightly, our loves must be healed, particularly through the Spirit-charged practices of corporate worship and spiritual discipline.
A conversation with Craig Carter about Augustine and modernity, and how we should think about Christ and culture.
Who or what am I? Who can say? This lecture surveys different theological accounts of personhood as it shows how human persons are echoes of God—Homo respondens.
John Perkins, born in rural Mississippi in 1930, shares an autobiographical journey of pursuing justice in a world overwhelmed by oppression and brokenness. His perseverance through the Civil Rights Movement and his voice within the evangelical church continue to shape how Christians understand justice and reconciliation. With his vast ministry experiences in many different contexts, Dr. Perkins’s courage and kindness seeps through in a reinterpretation of present situations through a gospel perspective.
Today’s moral and social challenges are complex, and Christians are often ill-equipped to address the disruptions and disputes of ideological battles. Malformed responses to the challenges expose not only deficiencies of theological imagination but also a frailty of discipleship. How does Scripture encompass culture and human flourishing as an essential aspect of faith? In response to theological reflection, we will explore practices of discipleship—a catechesis of civic discipleship—that seek to be faithful to a distinctive Christian identity and to foster a rich life in common with others in our pluralistic society.
Christians in the first century were largely marginalized in their world, yet possessed power to develop communities of love and justice that transformed lives. Humility was a chief identity marker for early Jesus-followers. Christian Scripture presents paradoxes related to power and humility: (1) God’s power is often most evident in those society views as insignificant; and (2) Humility dismantles exploitative and dehumanizing practices. Following Jesus includes using power and privilege rightly, especially for those in leadership roles such as teaching, administration, and pastoral service. By taking a deep look at power and humility in the Bible, we can develop perspectives and practices that reject injustice—we will instead find new ways to invigorate our commitment to human flourishing.
In Leisure the Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper explains that stillness and quietness of soul are necessary to see the real—especially that all things have been created through Christ and for him. But bounded by a culture of “total work,” we live lives of quiet desperation, exhausted and unable to slow down and attend to the arts. This lecture explains why contemplating poetry must be central to theological education. Poetry uniquely slows us down to attend to the real, teaches us how to see the transcendent in the ordinary, and opens us up to new possibilities for engagement with the world.
Suffering from an epidemic of scandal, the scourge of celebrity, and the general malaise (if not antipathy) toward the church, it’s a difficult time to be a genuine pastor. Truthfully, though, it’s always been a difficult time to, as St. John of the Cross said, put “love where love is not.” The good news is the Spirit always stirs amid the ruins. When we open our eyes to see and open our ears to hear, the Spirit restores our hope and renews our imagination.
Contemporary art can often be unexpected or downright unsettling in its form and subject matter. In that, it may actually remind us of the startling actions and embodied metaphors employed by Old Testament prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah. They intentionally disrupted their audiences for the purpose of calling them to repentance. By likewise reframing our discomfort with certain contemporary artworks as an invitation to self-examination, we open up new, generative possibilities. This lecture uses examples from the Art Institute of Chicago to explore how artworks might serve as a prompt to personal confession and a growing love for the God who loves us.
What is theological education for? In times of tumult, transition, and upheaval, returning to this most basic question can provide guidance for what we’re doing. Likely, all of us would agree that the pursuit of learning—some type of knowing—is at the heart of theological education. But given that the subject matter of theological education centers upon the triune God, the type of knowledge we are after is one that draws the closest possible relationship between knowing and loving. This lecture explores the Pauline relationship between knowledge and love as it pertains to the goal of human existence, how we read Scripture and do theology, and how we use knowledge and learning for the good of others.
We live in a frenetic age of unrealistic expectations, fostered by unrelenting voices both outside and inside of us. Through subtle and not so subtle forces we are constantly expected to do more and be more. Exhaustion, shame, and anxiety pervade, and all too often they also shape the church’s life. In this context, one of the great gifts Christians can give the world is to rediscover a healthy vision of what it means to be truly human, bringing us back to a more realistic and gracious view of discipleship.
We live in an age of increasing anxiety about the future of the church, as many are asking about what makes the church relevant within the world today. The true relevance of the church, however, is not found by looking to the world, but above the world. The theological backdrop of the church’s mission is Jesus’ ascension into heaven. The distinctness of Christian mission emerges from these strange cosmological events, as Christ’s ascension gives the church’s mission a heavenly orientation. This lecture will show how the renewal of mission depends upon having a clear vision of the ascended Christ.
Many are asking questions about what it means to fulfill the Great Commission today, wondering how we are to be formed as disciples who can live faithfully in this complex cultural time. Exploring the origins of the term, “the Great Commission,” and the role this final command of Jesus has played in shaping contemporary conceptions of discipleship helps us consider how to live out Jesus’ parting words today. Connecting this historical account of the Great Commission with the larger narrative of Scripture, we see a vision of discipleship emerge that involves being attentive to our everyday vocations, our locations and communities, and intentional cultural engagement.
The New Testament does not say much about the mother of Jesus, but what is recorded offers a powerful example of Christian faithfulness. In some instances, however, she has been lifted up only as an example for women, especially for those of the Catholic or Orthodox expressions of the faith. Attention to her story reveals both an affirmation of female embodiment in God’s redemptive plan as well as an exemplar for all believers no matter their sex. She points the way to her Son, embodied male in a uniquely inclusive way, so that all believers find their holistic identity in him.
It is usual to expound the idea of creation by referring to "law" as the principle of regularity and predictability that inheres in the order of the world. But the term "law" is often supposed to be equivocal, meaning one thing as applied to creation and something else as a norm of free human conduct. In this lecture, O'Donovan argues that in its various theological uses the concept of law is consistent, and always implies the notion of creation. Through it the task of ethics is located in between the givenness of created order and the openness of action, which thereby acquires its significance as "history."
Augustine is well known for his abstract reflections, early in his career, on the role of human free choice in introducing sin into God's good creation. But this, for Augustine, was just one small part of the larger story of human willing in relationship to God. In this lecture, we will consider how Augustine understood God's grace and human willing in the larger context of God's providential plan for human beings as revealed in Scripture. At the same time, we will see how Augustine applied this larger picture on a micro-level, to the challenges of the Christian life that his flock faced on a day-to-day basis. As Augustine grapples with specific parts of the biblical story where human willing comes to the fore, we see him developing not just a diagnosis of how human willing went wrong, but a richly biblical and trinitarian vision of the art of willing rightly.
The Christian concept of creation is contested in the present age for many reasons, but one of those reasons is the incredibility of a distinctiveness of humanity beyond the explainable and the material. Figures from the past century—from Walker Percy to Wendell Berry to Marilynne Robinson—though have drawn from theology, biology, psychology, and the humanities to suggest that the mysteriousness of human nature points beyond itself to a greater mystery of the cosmos. Christian theology can account both for the human similarity to the rest of nature and the human predicament of alienation from nature, and from ourselves. A sense of humanity as a paradox of integrity-in-brokenness, intelligibility-in-mystery, cultivation-in-conservation, and wayfaring-in-habitation can help us to reconcile the tensions between imagination and reason, community and individualism, and realism and justice while maintaining what we intuit to be true—that humanity is unique—alongside the challenges to that uniqueness in questions about whether humanity is alone in the universe or can be replicated by an algorithm.
When we explore the goodness of any thing, we encounter it through a complex network of interactions: there is the good of its occurrence, the good it does for us and those who enjoy it, the good it may elicit from us in response. Philosophical accounts have discussed whether the good is one or many, whether it is a “description”, whether it is primarily attached to things, states of affairs or actions, and whether it is ontologically prior to evil. Theology has a strong interest in these discussions, since it speaks in four ways of the good, none of them dispensable: the goodness of God, the goodness of his action, the goodness conferred on his creation, and the goodness commanded of it.
Paul, in his debate with a wisdom group at Corinth, addresses Greco-Roman attitudes toward (idol) food (1 Cor 8:1–13; 10:23–30), sex (6:12–20), and entertainment (15:32). He engages with a kind of moral naturalism which motivates the Corinthians’ behavior. While he acknowledges that natural desire can serve as partial index of what is good, Paul nevertheless warns against letting anything have power over us (1 Cor 6:12). Food, drink, human intimacy, and play are physical and social pleasures that are good gifts from our Creator. They can, however, be dangerously idolatrous and addictive. Paul offers instruction on how we can enjoy pleasures as created goods without turning them into idolatrous practices.
The long-awaited second volume of Katherine Sonderegger’s Systematic Theology arrived in 2020. It is a book about the Inner Life of God, exploring the Immanent Trinity, the Holy Life of the One God. It is, admittedly, an “unusual dogma of Trinity,” having not Persons but Processions as its foundation and insisting that the doctrine is a deliverance of the Old Testament itself. In the author’s own words, “it is a strange book, a disorienting one, and, some would say, an impossible one.” In the words of others, the book is “magnificent,” “a marvel,” “faith-filled,” “a hymn of praise,” “like listening to someone pray.”In addition to this panel discussion, there is also a written symposium published in Sapientia, our online periodical. The essays in this symposium are written by the panelists and serve as a foundation for the event.
Our knowledge of nature is based on observation and experiment, and thus is objective. Our knowledge of ethics—the good—is based on culture, religion, and philosophy, and so seems subjective. If this usual story is correct, then how can these orders be united? How can this “gap” between facts and values be overcome? I will argue that understood in the right way, there is no gap. I will then offer a big picture explanation for how the good fits into the natural order. Or, rather—as ultimately makes more sense—how the natural order fits into the good.
Although we sometimes praise a person who suffers for not sinking under his suffering, we still suppose that the sufferer is to be ranked more among life’s losers than among life’s winners. The disability rights movement is an exception to this general attitude—it wants others to see that those with disabilities are people to celebrate. The Christian tradition has held an analogous position as regards suffering in general: those who endure serious suffering are not the pitiable losers of life or even the heroic overcomers of tragedy but rather are those specially loved by God. This lecture looks closely at the relevant Christian doctrines to explain this attitude towards suffering and to distinguish it from the neighboring perverse attitude that sees suffering as an intrinsic good.
Most of us realize we’re not as good as we could be. But can we become better? In this lecture Miller outlines some steps that we can take to grow in virtue and become better people. He begins by clarifying what virtue is, and why it is important, and then discusses how most of us fall short of virtue, an idea familiar from the Christian tradition but also confirmed by empirical research in psychology. With this background in place, he turns to highlighting at least four different ideas for improving our characters that should appeal to both Christians and non-Christians alike.
Much Christian thinking about creation and environmental issues focuses only on the creation narratives and the concept of stewardship that they generate. We need to look further at the Bible’s insistence that creation itself constitutes a part of the glory of God, such that our actions in and with creation either enhance or diminish God’s glory. And we also need to build an eschatological dimension into our environmental theology and practice. What does the Bible say about the destiny of creation in the purposes of God, and how should that affect our attitudes and actions within it now?
From its earliest moments, the Christian community pointed to miraculous events—paradigmatically, the resurrection of Jesus—as disclosing the truth about God and his saving action on their behalf. In spite of their centrality in early Christian proclamation and belief, Christians in the modern era have tended to approach the category of ‘miraculous events’ with a measure of skepticism. Many believe that modern science has called the plausibility of belief in miracles into question; others have argued against their historical reliability. In this lecture Craig Keener will discuss the contributions and limitations of conventional science and historiography in examining miracles, and some evidence globally for the sorts of experiences described in the earliest Christian sources.
Time is an inescapable reality of human life and one of the fundamental building blocks of human society. To be bound to time and aware of our finitude is a unique characteristic of human anthropology. Christianity’s robust theology of time teaches believers to relinquish our limited time into the hands of a God, who freely created time, entered time in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and promises eternal, bodily human life to those who believe. This lecture will explore how early-modern Christians presented the Bible’s teaching on God’s activity in time during a period undergoing calendar reform and rapid scientific advancements in astronomy and horology. Recognition of a “Divine Clockmaker” takes on new meaning when contextualized by early-modern attention to charting the dating of the universe and God’s activity in sacred chronology. Attention to the history of time measuring and how it comes to bear on the Christian life during the rise of modern science provides an opportunity to engage the framework and attitudes of the past in fruitful ways as Christians today.
Robust forms of Christian theism are unapologetically committed to the possibility and actuality of healing. In some cases this healing takes place through natural causes; in others through direct divine intervention. Moreover, in many cases healing does not take place. Once we allow both these propositions, devout believers are faced with two very challenging problems. How do we attribute divine causation to natural events? How do we reconcile the absence of healing with a strong doctrine of providence? This paper will seek to provide a persuasive response to these challenges.
Modern discourse about the human person often emphasizes the extent to which humans are “plastic” and thus capable of being transformed in remarkable ways. Our brains are malleable, we have the technological capacity to reshape our bodies in seemingly countless ways, and even things we once imagined to be relatively stable features of human identity (e.g. sex, gender, and race), are increasingly viewed as subject to change. In this age of plasticity, it can be difficult to know what we should think about the task of defining what it means to be human, particularly when there are elements in the Christian tradition itself that challenge the idea of a stable and easily identifiable human nature. This paper explores the challenges presented by plasticity and various kinds of “posthumanism,” suggesting that at least some common theological critiques may not be as strong as they seem.
What happens when an electrical engineer and computer scientist starts to give AI the skills of emotional intelligence? This talk will highlight cutting-edge capabilities being given to technologies, such as robots that appear to have emotion, and wearable technologies that can measure and in some cases, forecast human mood and stress. Where is this technology taking us? What are the implications for our future? As AI technology rapidly develops, what are the challenges that the church needs to prepare for related to our humanity and the promotion of human flourishing?
Probably no greater obstacle complicates the dialogue between theology and science than the notion of divine intervention, commonly understood to involve divine interference in the laws of nature. Many scientists and some theologians complain that divine intervention complicates and, at the limit, subverts the project of explanation by causation. Accordingly, modern theologians are often reluctant to ascribe any effective causation to God. This lecture attends to biblical depictions of God communicating verbally, suggests divine interjection as an alternative model for understanding special divine action, and explores the strengths, weaknesses, and variations of this inform-active model (Deus dixit) over alternative models that privilege physical causation (Deus ex machina).
In this lecture, Ury will examine the decline of the concept of personhood in the modern era along with its corresponding separation from the doctrine of the Trinity, and then trace the theme of personhood—both human and divine—through the creation narratives. The question of evolutionary or creationist perspectives will be addressed as they pertain to a full understanding of human personhood. Ury aims to show that if we are able to discern the essence of created personhood in its fullness then it is possible to define the nature of sin and of salvation in such a way that God the Creator is revealed as not only able to remove the consequences of sin but as also able to recreate a human person in his image in time and eternity.
Scholars frequently note Martin Luther’s powerful imaginative capacity for entering into the world of the Bible, which was nowhere more vividly displayed than in his interpretation of “the dear Genesis.” This lecture will introduce Luther’s dramatic reading of the story of Adam and Eve, exploring the powerful connections he finds between God’s goodness, human goodness (imago Dei), and the good creation. Our universe, however, is not Luther’s cosmos. And his narration of the fall was just as dramatic as the creation. Can Luther’s readings of the lost promise of our “first parents” still be useful to theology today?
The New Testament directly refers to the ‘fall of man’ as an event on a few occasions (e.g. Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 15; 1 Timothy 2). But it insists at every turn that humankind exists in a ‘fallen’ state. In some places (2 Peter 2; Matthew 25; Revelation 20) this fallen state and its consequences are associated with an analogous fall of supra-human forces; in others (Romans 8) the fall is said to implicate the created order itself. We will survey all of these aspects of ‘fallenness’ in the NT, with particular emphases on the figure of Adam in the proceedings; the distinction between Fall as event and fallenness as a state of affairs; and the significant role of physical death in the discussion of fallenness in the NT.
Christian interpreters from very early on presumed that the Adamic fall was a primordial cataclysm with ramifications for the whole human posterity; but they did not all concur on the precise nature of its causes and consequences. Blowers’ lecture will track three major trajectories of patristic interpretation. First is a tradition viewing the fall as an adumbration of the perduring patterns of human sin, a preview of the continuing reinvention of moral evil, generation after generation, beginning with Adam and Eve. Second is a tradition that understood the fall as an apocalypse of sorts, insofar as it provided a catalyst for revealing the fullness of the Creator’s sacrificial love for his creation and his resourcefulness in sustaining it. Third is a trajectory that acknowledged the fall as a fateful tragedy, one that called into question the very stability of human nature, its penchant to relapse into nothingness, and the fact that human beings were haunted by the very freedom that was supposed to be a gift.
The notion of the “fall” of Adam and Eve, our first parents, has played an important role in Jewish and Christian theology. It has been used to explain the “brokenness” of the world, and it has also been declared unbiblical, or at least of little historical and theological consequence. This paper will focus on sound reading strategies and show, first, why we should indeed read the Hebrew Bible as presenting the “fall” as a reality. Second, it will consider some of the consequences (for humankind, and for the non-human creation). Third, it will show its importance in the rest of the Bible beyond Genesis 1–11. Finally, it will take up the matter of the enduring relevance of the “fall,” and how the world can still be called “good.”
Where has Adam gone? The central figure in Genesis 1–5 is missing in the rest of the Old Testament. It is surprising that the personal name “Adam” occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament except the single reference in the genealogical list in 1 Chronicles 1:1, “Adam, Seth, Enosh.” In order to hold Adam in canonical perspective, therefore, we must return to Genesis 1–5 to ask what the text demands of us as twenty-first century readers. This paper returns briefly to the question of the ancient Near Eastern location of the text, proposing that we ask only as much of Genesis 1–5 as that location will allow. The result is an exploration of the fundamental questions of genre and worldview in the opening chapters of the Bible as a means of establishing what is and is not reasonable in our reading of Adam, concluding with a few implications for our current dialogue.
This lecture explores the Apostle Paul’s various appeals to Adam with a view to the question whether his appeals require a historical, individual “Adam” in order to make sense of what he is saying. It focuses particularly on Romans 5:12–21, arguing that 1) the importance of a historical Adam depends to some degree on the exact nature of the way Paul connects Adam’s sin and death with the sin and death of all humans; and 2) on the most likely construals of the relationship, a historical Adam would appear to be necessary to account for Paul’s theological conclusions.
The character named Adam appears on about one page of the Bible, but his doctrinal significance suffuses all Christian thought. To set Adam in theological perspective primarily means to set him in relation to God (systematic Adamology must be theological in the strong sense), which this paper does by way of a Trinitarian survey. Pneumatologically speaking: Adam had the Holy Spirit from the beginning, but in a singular way. Christologically speaking: Adam’s constitution is illumined when the eternal Son takes to his own person a God-centered human nature. Patrologically speaking: Adam’s vocation was to live out a relation of created sonship, being consciously under God’s law. This Trinitarian analysis shows Adam’s unique way of representing creaturehood itself to God.
American evangelicals began seriously to engage natural history in the early nineteenth century, when Benjamin Silliman became the first professor of natural history at Yale. He and his pupil, Amherst geologist Edward Hitchcock, embraced “deep time” in geology and defended its consistency with Genesis. Hitchcock went further, exploring in depth the implications of this popular new science for theodicy and natural theology. Regardless of whether subsequent authors knowingly accepted or rejected their conclusions, these two antebellum natural historians have substantially influenced evangelicals down to our own time. This paper presents some of their most important attitudes and ideas, with an eye on the modern evangelical conversation about origins.
Most discussions and debate on Adam focus on issues tied to Genesis, but does the relationship to Jesus help us assess some of the issues raised about Adam? Our study will work backwards by asking how Jesus and the NT treat the issue of Adam. What does that mean for what we say about how Genesis presents the issues tied to genre and symbolism? In particular how Jesus and Paul handle the figures of Adam and Eve will receive attention. Then we will consider the implications of the results of our examination.
The resurrection of the body is one of the central doctrinal claims of the Christian faith. It is also the source of Christian hope when faced with the death of a loved one. But what happens between now and then? When a child asks their parent where a departed loved one is “now,” how should Christians respond? Do the souls of those who have died in faith go to be with the Lord now, awaiting to be reunited with their resurrected bodies? Or are traditional Christian beliefs in an immaterial soul that is separable from the body misplaced—an unscriptural incursion of Platonic metaphysics that has misshaped our expectations of the afterlife?
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3) These words from Jesus’ high priestly prayer light up the darkened sky, the night Jesus enters, to face betrayal, arrest and death. These luminous words tell us that knowledge of God and of His Son is the supreme blessing, life eternal; and the acts of that night tell us that such knowledge is desperately far from us. How should we understand these two truths: that human reason can know God; and that reason fails to do so? It seems that humanity has been created to know God “by nature,” yet God’s very presence among us does not meet with rational faith but rather denial and rejection. What kind of reason is this? And what kind of nature? This lecture examines both.
This presentation examines recent studies on prayer in the fields of anthropology and the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and applies those findings to Jonathan Edwards’ views of prayer. In Edwards’ personal life, his sermons and other writings, and in requests from his congregation (“prayer bids”), what was the focus of prayer, particularly petitionary prayer? What was its purpose? Through which mode of causation was God most likely to act? How did God “answer” or respond to prayer requests? How did one learn to recognize the presence of God in prayer? CSR research opens up constructive possibilities for addressing these questions both in Edwards’ day and ours, yet also raises other questions regarding the nature of human personhood.
The contemporary church in America is faced with the task of discipling believers to recognize the grandeur, wonder, and beauty of the created universe, and therefore the sovereignty, majesty, transcendence, and provision of God. The immanent frame in which modern people live, which is strongly shaped by our mediating technology, creates a barrier for us to perceive what is right in front of us: the goodness of creation. It inclines us to see creation as a purely material phenomenon, measurable, controllable, containable, conquerable, and mundane. To disciple believers towards an awareness of their contingency and God’s majesty, we must teach an attentiveness to creation and a protection of interiority from the encroachment of technology of distraction. We must have eyes to see and minds with space to reflect.
Geoffrey Fulkerson moderates this discussion between Christoph Schwöbel (Pannenberg), Stephen Williams (Polkinghorne), and Murray Rae (Gunton) as part of A Modern Creature conference. They discuss pneumatology and eschatology in relation to creation, English translations of German theology, and more.
Joel Chopp moderates this discussion between Katherine Sonderegger (Barth), D. Stephen Long (Balthasar), and Kevin Vanhoozer (Torrance) as part of A Modern Creature conference. They discuss the boundaries of the natural, whether there is such a thing as forbidden knowledge, and more.
“Pneumatology,” as a distinct area of theological study about the Holy Spirit, does not come into being into the later twentieth century. Before that “pneumatology” referred to a general study of “spirit,” which might or might not include God’s Holy Spirit. The rise of pneumatology was in part motivated by modern moral concerns about the character of the created world, especially physical suffering. Radner traces some of this development and consider how modern pneumatology has obscured central Christian claims about mortality and about the divine grace of embodied human limitations.
Philosopher William Halverson argues that the great divide in Western thought is between those with a naturalistic worldview and those who have a nonnaturalistic one. For those who practice science, naturalism dominates the work environment. This is especially challenging for the Christian who experiences liminality or marginality as a result. This presentation offers a frame of reference involving two principles as a way forward to a deeper understanding of our expectations: the principle of proximity to the anthropological, and the principle of methodological subsidiarity. Plato, Augustine, Leo XIII, and Bernard Ramm figure in the discussion.
In this talk, Tom McCall offers an overview of the theological landscape in discussions of “the historical Adam” and the doctrine of original sin. After briefly summarizing some important developments in paleonanthropology and genetics, McCall surveys several recent theological proposals. He then turns to the venerable doctrine of original sin, exploring how the traditional doctrinal options map onto the current discussion.
D. Stephen Long offers a response to Katherine Sonderegger's Scripture & Ministry lecture, "Faithfulness in an Age of Technology: Theological Reflections on Nature and the Natural," followed by a discussion by Drs. Long, Sonderegger, and Luy.
Theological Reflections on Nature and the Natural.Fundamental to Scriptural teaching on creation and to doctrine is the very idea of nature and the natural: we are placed in the midst of a fruitful world that is to be tended and imitated; we are to join in its joyful praise of our Lord. Yet Scripture also teaches us about artifacts and manufacture of all kinds: city walls and streets, houses and the goods in them, the design and fashioning of every decorative and devout element of the Temple, the heavenly Jerusalem, a City of God. How should Christians attentive to these lessons think about technology? We are surrounded by it; we are fascinated by it; it controls much of our lives. Has this supplanted nature in Christian lives; should it? In this lecture, Katherine Sonderegger will reflect upon how a Christian shaped by the Doctrine of Creation should approach such complex and every-day matters.
In this address, Vanhoozer suggests that pastors engage science not head-on, but indirectly, at the metaphysical level, by using the Bible to help congregations imagine reality in theological rather than secular terms. Appeal to the philosophy of science helps to remind us that scientists depend on the imagination (world-pictures) too, and that physics and the other sciences can’t appeal to scientific evidence to establish a materialist or secular picture. In fact, the attempt to do so is a category mistake.
We understand the Biblical Creation Story best if we consider what kind of text it is, what were the needs of the first audiences, and what social setting it was intended for. We will appreciate how reading it aloud in worship enabled its ancient audiences to live faithfully in the land, admiring the creation as a work of craftsmanship, and seeking to form a life of imitating God, and this fortifies them (and us) against some prominent temptations.
Genesis 1 repeatedly says that God saw that his emerging creation was good and then that it was very good. This lecture explores what this goodness (tob) means in its ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and canonical context and its implications for a Christian doctrine of creation and the comprehensive ethical vision evoked by this emphasis. An assessment will be made of the extent to which (evangelical) Christians are faithful to this vision and what such faithfulness might look like today.
In classical theology, there is an old and difficult question of whether God has a real relation to the created order. The worry is this: if God is really related to the creation (as, say, a mother is really related to her children) then this seems to jeopardize his doctrine of divine aseity. But God is metaphysically and psychologically independent of the created order (i.e., exists a se). So he cannot have a real relation to the creation. However, this poses serious conceptual problems for the Christian theologian. In particular, it generates a worry about how God can have a true relationship to his creatures if he doesn’t have a real relation to them. In this lecture, Crisp will turn to Jonathan Edwards’s idealist account of creation to see whether what he says about God’s act of creation provides resources for addressing this issue.
This paper offers an argument against panentheism. Although the doctrine has proven difficult to define, this paper provides a working definition of the view, and proceeds to argue that given this way of thinking about the doctrine, it has serious theological drawbacks. It then explores some of these theological drawbacks. In a final section this paper gives some reasons for thinking that the classical theistic alternative to panentheism is preferable, all things considered.
The cerebral cortex of the human brain, on which all our beliefs, memories, and conscious life depend, consists of two hemispheres—a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. Recent neuroscience has discovered that humans continue to have much the same conscious life, memories, and beliefs if either their left hemisphere or their right hemisphere is removed. Suppose the cerebral cortex to be removed from the brain of each of three humans; and the cortex of one of these humans, Alexandra, to be divided into its two hemispheres, and one of these hemispheres to be integrated into the brain of one of the other humans, Alex, and the other hemisphere to be integrated into the brain of the other human, Sandra. Then both Alex and Sandra would have some of the brain and almost all of the memories, and type of conscious life of Alexandra and would both claim to have been Alexandra. For each of these persons, for example Alex, it is totally compatible with everything we could ever know about the brain and mental life of the earlier Alexandra and the subsequent Alex, that Alex is Alexandra; and it is also totally compatible with everything we could ever know that Alex is not Alexandra. But there could only be a difference between Alex being and Alex not being Alexandra if there is something extra beyond the brain matter and beyond the mental life which makes that person Alexandra, and that must be an immaterial soul. I go on to develop the consequences of this scientifically possible experiment for the nature of humans, and to reject philosophical objections to my interpretation of it.
Wolfhart Pannenberg was involved in the dialogue with the natural sciences from the beginning of his theological formation. His engagement with the sciences is characterized by the determination neither simply to incorporate scientific findings into a theological account of reality nor to adapt theological reflection to the state of scientific theory, but to challenge scientific methods, hypotheses, and theories from a theological perspective. Pannenberg has attempted to develop a theology of nature in which the concept of contingency plays a crucial role—both for science and theology. In Pannenberg’s magisterial Systematic Theology (1988–1993) the different aspects of his theology of nature are integrated into the framework of a comprehensive view of the Spirit as a field of force. This essay will build on Pannenberg’s achievements and offer them as an encouragement to explore further aspects in the dialogue between theology, philosophy, and the sciences.
After outlining Polkinghorne’s scientific understanding of the way the world is, this paper notes his commitments to critical realism and natural theology before giving an account of his theological understanding of creation. It notes the influence of two seminal figures—Jürgen Moltmann and W. H. Vanstone—with particular emphasis on their role in the formation of Polkinghorne’s central idea of creation as kenosis. The exposition draws on a range of his work with particular reference to the first and second editions of Science and Creation and The Work of Love. In conclusion, it raises critical questions on the role of science in theological construction.
Among the prominent features of Colin’s Gunton’s extensive writing about the Christian doctrine of creation, three are of seminal importance. These are: first, that the Christian doctrine of creation is an article of the creed, second, that God creates out of nothing, and third, that creation is the work of the triune God, Father, Son and Spirit. This paper explores the reasons for Gunton’s insistence on these three features of the doctrine of creation and discuss their importance in rendering the world accessible to scientific enquiry.
For T.F. Torrance, theological and scientific inquiry stand or fall together. Whereas Western scientists and theologians, ancient and modern, too often depend on universal methods and criteria, Torrance’s fundamental axiom is to think everything, from amoebas to the Alpha and Omega, in ways appropriate to their respective natures. Scientific theology thus begins with incarnation—the self-communication of God in space-time—also the controlling center for the doctrine of creation, insofar as “all things were created through him and for him” (Col. 1:16). Viewing creation through the lens of Christology allows Torrance to integrate theology and science, and to argue that theology contributes something to our knowledge of the natural world hidden from the natural sciences, namely, its contingent order, triadic relationality, and proleptic conditioning by redemption.
William Burt Pope’s three-volume Compendium of Christian Theology (ca 1881) is a carefully-wrought dogmatics emphasizing the organic unity of Christian thought and the deep continuity of the entire Christian tradition. Pope’s doctrine of creation programmatically distinguishes between the divine act of primary creation (God calling all things into existence) and the divine work of secondary creation (the formation of an ordered universe). The former is the realm of metaphysical inquiry and apologetic argumentation; Scripture chooses to say little about it, and science can say nothing in principle. Secondary creation, on the other hand, is the domain of both the biblical account and of scientific investigation, and also stretches forward into the doctrine of providence. This paper examines how Pope deploys the distinction in order to preserve the main lines of a Christian systematic theology.
This paper examines the status and stature of the human in Barth's doctrine of creation and covenant. Barth clearly advances some strong claims for human uniqueness and dignity in his doctrine of creation. He interweaves covenant and creation, so that the doctrine of creation is shaped by human, historical aims and laws. He considers the human relation of encounter the imago Dei, and even more, that Christ in his incarnate life is the goal and pattern and agent of the whole of creation. But there are other notes as well. Barth minimizes traditional claims that the human being is especially prized as creature above others, or that rationality and inwardness are gifts to honor above all other creaturely powers. Barth is more open to biological continuity in the whole natural realm than many traditionalists, and shows more interest in embodiment than those who focus on mind-body dualism or strong accounts of a separable soul. Barth is also well known as a critic of all things bourgeois, and considered elevated claims to human culture and the moral life so much puffery and self importance.
Evangelicals wanting good precedent to embrace evolutionism alongside a robust doctrine of biblical authority often cite Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield as their prime example. J. I. Packer called him a theistic evolutionist, but Warfield in his day expressly refused that position, finding it insufficiently supernaturalistic and impossible to square with scripture on key points. His qualified acceptance of biological evolution is the subject of renewed interpretive disagreement today, and requires careful discrimination of concepts and terms—but the larger and more interesting story concerns the pervasive developmentalism in his theology.
Drawing on Auguste Comte, Balthasar traces historical “progress” from an earlier epoch in which humanity conceived itself as “being spirit within nature” to a modern, scientific epoch that sets humanity against nature. In the first, humanity is a “mirror” of nature, in the second it is a “window.” Philosophy becomes anthropology rather than cosmology. The study of the human individual opens a window to limitless possibilities for uniting humanity but also the peril of destroying it. What science needs, suggests Balthasar, is an “integrally human” absorption of it into philosophy and theology, one that works against a strong distinction between nature and supernature, and resists the reduction of creation to utility by interpreting it with the transcendentals of truth, goodness and beauty.
Tom McCall moderates this discussion between Kevin Hector (Schleiermacher), Bradley Gundlach (Warfield), and Fred Sanders (Pope) as part of A Modern Creature conference. They discuss God's providence over primary and secondary creation, the continuity between creation and new creation, and more.
(1) Schleiermacher defends a theological diagnosis of characteristically modern anxieties about the possibility of freedom in a world governed by the laws of nature. The diagnosis, simply stated, is that relative antitheses (such as that between freedom and necessity) come to seem absolute just insofar as one is forgetful of that which transcends the world, namely God. (2) Schleiermacher then elaborates a theological solution to this problem, the basic steps of which are as follows: (a) God is simple, which means God is not only eternally in-act, but eternally in one act; from this, it follows (b) that the fabric-like character of creation can be understood as an expression of this one act; (c) this one act of God comes to full expression in the incarnation, which shows us (i) that God’s single act is an act of love, and (ii) that the fabric of creation is thus an expression of that love; and, finally, (d) the Spirit of Christ gives us eyes to see more and more of God’s wise love in creation and, so, to reconcile more and more of the apparent antitheses between freedom and necessity.
Some have claimed that the Reformers put so much emphasis on the doctrine of redemption that a proper doctrine of creation was obscured or lost. Karl Barth went so far as to claim that there can be no Reformation natural theology—that nature can be seen as creation only by those who know the Redeemer, that nature cannot be known apart from special grace. Edwards, however, argued that nature has its own integrity apart from the order of grace. For the greatest Reformed theologian between Calvin and Barth, God created “the nature of things” with its own objectivity apart from the order of redemption. Thus the regenerate can discuss creation with the unregenerate in the public square without having to appeal to special revelation that the unregenerate do not share.
Yahweh alone is self-existent, nothing else is. This assertion flies in the face of all the other world-views, which insist in one way or another that it is matter that is self-existent. Thus, the question must arise, did the present cosmos arise out of pre-existing matter, or did I AM produce this cosmos from nothing? Does the Bible give us the answer to the question, or is the idea of creation from nothing only an inference? And does it really matter that much, anyway? In this lecture, Oswalt will lay the biblical foundations for the Christian idea of creation out of nothing and show why a great deal hinges upon it.
One of the great debates in modern theology involves the relationship between nature and grace in our understanding of creation. Does a Christian view of creation require us to approach this discussion exclusively from the perspective of grace, focusing on the centrality of Christ, the gospel, and the eschatological end for which God created the universe? Or should the doctrine of creation begin from a “natural” standpoint, seeking to understand the nature and purpose of creation in its own right before exploring how the doctrines of grace contribute to our understanding of creation? Although such questions may sound somewhat academic, they have vital implications for how we address ecological concerns, approach human flourishing, and engage in interdisciplinary dialog with the modern sciences. If theology is the study of God in relation to that which he created, then questions about the nature of creation, often neglected in Protestant theology, stand at the center of the theological task.
n this conversation Dr. John Oswalt discussion the relationship between the doctrine of creation ex nihilo and the book of Isaiah. This discussion followed Dr. Oswalt's Scripture and Ministry lecture, Creatio ex Nihilo: Is It Biblical, and Does It Matter?
In this conversation, John Oswalt examines the theological stakes in the Christian affirmation of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.This discussion followed Dr. Oswalt’s Scripture and Ministry lecture, Creatio ex Nihilo: Is It Biblical, and Does It Matter?
In this conversation Dr. John Oswalt unpacks how the doctrine of creation ex nihilo relates to the Christian understanding of progressive revelation.This discussion followed Dr. Oswalt’s Scripture and Ministry lecture, Creatio ex Nihilo: Is It Biblical, and Does It Matter?
Genesis was written to an ancient Bronze Age people. Once we understand this, it solves a lot of our modern scientific problems with this text.
What if there’s another way to look the Creation story? If we look at Genesis 1 from different angles, is it possible that science & faith could actually line up? Is it possible to be a modern, educated, scientifically-minded suburbanite AND believe that this is the very Word of God?
The psalmist wrote “The heavens declare the glory of God.” The field of modern astronomy is revealing amazing wonders in the heavens, from baby stars to distant galaxies to the Big Bang. These discoveries, when seen through the eyes of biblical faith, give exciting insights into our theological understanding of Christ the Creator, including his glory, the goodness of creation, creation from nothing, and even the redemptive love of Christ.
Edwards’s creative insights benefited much from Isaac Newton’s natural philosophy and the resultant scientific and technological advances of the English Enlightenment. Edwards was deeply enamored with natural philosophy, and he warmly embraced its new discoveries. He saw within it striking implications for revitalizing theology, which resulted in both scientific and radical theological innovation from which we might still glean today.
Genre assumptions are so intuitive we hardly think about them. Whether walking into a movie theater, picking up a new album, or opening a book, our assumptions about the genre that we’re about to encounter shape how we understand it. The same is true of Scripture. While concern for genre-sensitivity is widely acknowledged, the vexed problems associated with determining the genre of a particular text and what exegetical and theological implications follow remain a pressing set of issues in evangelical theology, particularly with regard to the opening chapters of Genesis. In this symposium, Drs. Todd Beall, Tremper Longman, and John Oswalt, will each weigh in with their view of the genre of Gen. 1–3 and discuss some of the implications these questions have for a Scripturally faithful and a scientifically informed doctrine of Creation.
The book of Genesis sketches the foundations not only of human society and creatureliness but of the church and Christian worship. To help make sense of both origins and ends of creation, the book draws our attention to the doctrine of the covenant and the pledge that people are drawn “into the family of God.” In this lecture, Allen will follow the basic theological moves of the doctrine of the covenant in this fundamental text, seeking to sketch its implications for a number of theological and anthropological concerns, not least the doctrine of creation.
The rise of natural philosophy (science) during the early Enlightenment (1650-1750) posed tremendous challenges to theologians of all stripes. Among the principal questions were such issues as the dimension, capacity, and design of Noah's ark, the origin and universal extent of the deluge, calculations about the amount of water necessary to inundate the entire globe, and the use of fossil evidence from European and American sites. The debate involved the brightest minds of the time — men of the cloth like Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton in Europe, and Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards in New England. Smolinski's presentation focuses on how these clergymen employed the best historical, theological, and scientific evidence of the day, and achieved a remarkable consensus in upholding the authenticity of the Mosaic flood account. In fact, New England furnished some surprising archeological evidence in its confirmation.
This lecture shines light on what has become an obscure idea: literal meaning and interpretation. Literality has become obscure because different biblical interpreters mean many different things by it. Yet literality matters if Thomas Aquinas is right that only Scripture’s literal sense establishes doctrine. In this lecture, Vanhoozer will explore the diverse meanings of literality by examining the history of interpretation, using the opening chapters of Genesis as a case study, in particular, the creation of light and lights. He will then examine arguments for and against young-earth creationism, a flash point in the debate over the necessity of literal interpretation for biblical authority. The constructive proposal that emerges sets out a properly dogmatic account of creation and introduces the concept of “theological literality,” a notion used to highlight the importance both of divine intention for understanding the literal sense of Scripture and of literality for understanding the personal agency of God.
Historically the Church has faced numerous moral, philosophical, and spiritual challenges to majority or even consensus interpretations of Scripture. Evolution is regarded by many not only as a significant challenge to orthodoxy but even as decisive evidence favoring naturalism and atheism. Others regard it as fertile ground for theological reflection that not only coheres with but supports orthodox, Christian belief. Is evolution friend or foe of the faith? In this talk, Michael Murray will consider a thirteenth-century challenge to orthodoxy, the resolution of which proves instructive to contemporary Christian scholars, who are tasked with the responsibility of negotiating the boundary between the book of God’s word and the book of God’s works.
Matter Matters; Scripture Matters More; Creation by, through, & for Christ Matters MostThomas Aquinas says that Scripture transcends science and that Christian doctrine must be founded on the literal sense. Medievals read the book of Nature through the interpretive lens of the Bible. By way of contrast, modern thinkers often reverse the hermeneutical polarities. Both scientists and theologians want to say something about the world, its material nature, intelligibility, and origin. This lecture poses general questions about doctrine and its biblical basis before dealing with the specific discourse of creation. It will be argued that the “creation project” is ultimately a triune project (an economy) whose aim is summation in Christ. From this vantage point, the lecture concludes with some observations about the place of dogmatics in the discussion about the relationship between astrophysics, metaphysics, and biblical poetics.
In Genesis, the book of beginnings, we discover the foundation for our understanding of who God is, who we are as human beings, and the world in which we live — both what is good about it as well as for what has gone wrong. It is thus not surprising either that we find ourselves coming back to Genesis 1-3 week-upon-week and generation-upon-generation, or that it has been among the most divisive passages of the Bible. In this opening address, Greg Waybright narrates the story of his own church, representative of so many, and how one pastor has learned to appreciate the complex relationship between science and theology. Providing pastoral guidance for how we the church must respond, Waybright will suggest several theological priorities and attitudes of heart and mind that are vital for a God-honoring church-edifying response in the midst of these divisive times.
Anniversaries are as much about taking stock in the present and anticipating the future as they are about remembering the past. Accordingly, as reformation celebrations are happening throughout the Western world to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 theses, the prophetic-like question of rightly seeing the current state of Protestantism and faithfully guiding us into its future is no less urgent. Two of our current theological luminaries, Kevin Vanhoozer and Peter Leithart, have recently published works that engage the present state of Protestantism and propose directions for its future. Join us as these theologians tell us about their recent publications and interact on the question of the end (cessation, limit, or purpose) of Protestantism.
Whether one traces the origins of evangelicalism to the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, or back further to the great awakenings in the 18th and 19th centuries, the age the earth has been a pressing question throughout its history. Evidenced by the question’s staying-power, a satisfying resolution has remained hard to come by. At bedrock the debate raises several important exegetical and theological questions addressing issues like biblical authority, the proper interpretation of opening chapters of Genesis, and the relation between scientific and theological knowledge, to name only a few of the more difficult ones. In this year’s debate, prominent evangelical voices C. John Collins and Al Mohler will debate this important question and the wider issues surrounding how one responds to it.
Genesis 1–3 introduces the reader to a unique creature. One who is not only animate and gendered, but one who, unlike all the other creatures, is made in the ṣélem (“image”) of the Almighty. Genesis describes the animation of the creature and its installation in God’s garden as a precursor to the calling of all callings—the stewardship of creation. As the great story of redemption makes clear, the role of image-bearer is ̒ādām’s first and final calling. Yet with the fall, the image is twisted, and thereby God’s servant perverts his calling. In this lecture, Richter connects these great themes of Genesis—creation, fall, restoration—with the prophet Isaiah’s vision of what was and what is to come
When we think of the doctrine of creation, our minds often immediately turn to the opening chapters of Genesis. And this is where our minds should turn first–but if we stop there, we are liable to miss the full scope of the Scriptural witness of God's acts in creation. Creation is not merely a preface to Christian teaching–it permeates the whole Bible, informing nearly every aspect of what we know about God and our relationship to him. In this dialogue, Sandra Richter discusses the role that creation plays in the book of Isaiah, moving from God's good creation and the garden of Eden, to his recreation of all things and the New Jerusalem.This dialogue followed Dr. Richter’s Scripture & Ministry lecture, The Servant, the Idol, & the Image of God: Isaiah’s Conversation with the Creation Account.
Many disagreements over what to make of Genesis 1–11 stem from different ways of reading the text. I suggest that we can provide a critically rigorous approach to interpreting the Bible by taking linguistic, literary, and philosophical insights from C.S. Lewis, and bringing them into conversation with ideas from modern linguistics, such as lexical semantics, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics.Lewis gives guidance in how to talk about imagistic language as having genuine referentiality; he also provides the tools by which we can return the category of phenomenal language to respectability. Further, this study will allow us to evaluate to what extent it is proper to say, as many do, that the Bible writers held a “primitive” picture of the world, and what function their portrayal of the world and its contents had in shaping the community.
Dan Bowman of Relief Journal is a poet who thinks about story a lot. As in, "Let's read the Epic of Gilgamesh, 'cause as soon as we learned to write we wrote stories."
It is assumed that the most relevant question in contexts of suffering is the “Why?” question: “Why has God allowed this to happen?” Gallons of ink have been spilled on “theodicies” that seek to defend belief in a good God in the face of human suffering. It is not clear that any answer has proved either convincing or helpful. In this talk, Torrance will argue that it is the “Where?” question (Where is God?) that is most pertinent to the struggles of those suffering loneliness, pain and bereavement. To this question, the Gospel provides a profound response that is more pastorally relevant and, indeed, intellectually satisfying than speculative answers to the “Why?” question.
God made various covenants with Abraham and his descendants. The promises contained in those covenants and the prophecies that grew out of them led the people of Israel to believe that God would establish a kingdom for her and greatly bless her. Kingdom blessings would include a right spiritual relation between God and Israel, but the blessings would also be material. Among those promises, the Jews understood the blessings to include the promise of land. Did Israel misunderstand what God covenanted and prophesied that he would do? If so, what did God actually promise Israel? If not, whatever happened to Israel’s kingdom? Was it fulfilled, or forfeited, or is it still future?
Prominent public atheist Richard Dawkins contentiously calls the God of the Old Testament “the most unpleasant character in all fiction: . . . a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, . . . capriciously malevolent bully.” While no Christian would agree with such a hyperbolic statement, the God of the Old Testament has indeed been a stumbling block for many faithful folk. If the problem of evil and suffering is among the foremost intellectual challenges to belief in a benevolent God—how could a God of love and forgiveness, of tangible action and eternal hope coincide with such massively gratuitous and apparently pointless evil and suffering in the world—then the problem appears even more acutely when examining divine action and human suffering in the Old Testament. This year’s debate will feature four Christian perspectives addressing the topic, along with responses from each.Dennis Magary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, “Divine Action and Human Suffering in the Book of Job” Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary, “God, Human Suffering, and Death in the Old Testament”Paul Gavrilyuk, University of St. Thomas, “Patristic Treatments of Divine Anger in the Old Testament”Paul Copan, Palm Beach Atlantic University, “Current State of the Question: Promise and Pitfalls”
Edwards was not only a great theologian and philosopher. His pastoral ministry deserves closer attention in the academy and amongst those on the front line in churches. Of particular note is his overlooked ministry of mentoring: he took trainee evangelists and ministers into his home, debated theology with them based on his Miscellanies, gave them popular novels to read, wrote informal letters to them treating them as peers, and cultivated the art of conversation like in the best circles of London. These priorities shed light on his understanding of the church, Christian spirituality, the Reformed worldview, and the needs of potential leaders in a time of rapid social and theological transition. Edwards empowers a rising generation of leaders through his practice of one-on-one soul care, providing us with an example and instruction for our own ministry.
In his well-known book How We Die, the late medical doctor Sherwin Nuland influentially argued that death in our day has become dehumanized and depersonalized. As a consequence, he suggested, the dying process now involves unnecessary suffering as doctors try everything to save us from death. Worst of all, death has become consumed by the doctor-patient relationship, and often by a clinging to impossible hopes about the extension of our earthly life, rather than being a time to focus on our other relationships and on bringing our earthly lives to a close. In this light, Levering will ask what difference Christ makes. By examining stories about the deaths of early Christians (not including martydoms), he will consider how we die in Christ and how this should be combined with our legitimate desire for top-notch medical care.
Without exception, human beings come face to face with suffering and evil. We may entertain only the vaguest and most cliché-driven grasp of such matters until we ourselves suffer, or until we ourselves recognize the sheer malignity of evil in ourselves or others—and then suddenly we swirl around and gradually sink into faith-devouring despair. Far better is it to build the mental and emotional structures, generated by Scripture itself, that train us how to think about suffering and evil before the evil day comes. This lecture seeks to establish six major pillars that together support a way of thinking about such matters—or, to change the metaphor, a kind of prophylactic medicine to ward off the most debilitating elements of despair.
Sapientia contributing editor Brad Fruhauff sits down with Think Christian editor and Filmspotting co-host Josh Larsen to talk about film criticism and The Martian, discernment and cultural engagement, and the books and films that inspired him.
Sapientia contributing editor Brad Fruhauff sits down with Think Christian editor and Filmspotting co-host Josh Larsen to talk about film criticism and The Martian, discernment and cultural engagement, and the books and films that inspired him.
Sapientia contributing editor Brad Fruhauff sits down with Think Christian editor and Filmspotting co-host Josh Larsen to talk about film criticism and The Martian, discernment and cultural engagement, and the books and films that inspired him.
What does it mean to be hidden with Christ in God? In this sermon, J. Todd Billings expounds Colossians 3:1-4 and reflects on our union with Christ in both his death and resurrection as a man living with cancer. Christ, seated at the right hand of God, reigns supreme as King and Lord, and no principality, power, disease, sin, or even death has the final word against God. God writes the end of the story, and until then, we are hidden with Christ in God - both in the sense that our victories are often not visible victories and in the sense that we are hidden in the hands of God, safe and secure in the midst of calamity. The night gives way to morning, and God will make things right.
Often Christians inhabit a theological vision guided by instrumental outcomes – a growth in the evangelistic and social outreach of the church, a revitalization of community and discipleship. But what happens to the church’s witness when all of our grand plans and visions for change stop short against the brick wall of death? In this lecture, J. Todd Billings reflects upon the way in which death, although the last enemy to be destroyed through Christ, also has the possibility of exposing the nature of a Christian hope which goes beyond trusting in our own efforts and plans.
Resurrection hope is often muted in churches today as cultural forces of the modern West deny the reality and potency of death. What does genuine resurrection hope entail? Cancer patient J. Todd Billings and Taylor Worley recognize the tendency to equate hope with healing and prolonging life as long as possible. In this discussion, they emphasize that true resurrection hope resides in our participation in Christ's resurrection. Healing and resuscitation are temporary, but resurrection in our glorified bodies is the only permanent solution to death.
Praying for healing is a controversial topic because it is difficult to know how to pray for someone with an incurable illness. Should "incurable" even be part of a Christian vocabulary? What does it mean to pray with someone rather than pray for someone? What theological assumptions undergird the way we pray? Do we believe in the power of prayer or the power of God? What is the role of prayers of lament? J. Todd Billings is joined by Taylor Worley and Geoff Fulkerson in discussing these questions and offering practical guidance for walking with people who are suffering.
In his exposition of Psalm 40, D. A. Carson examines the psalmist David's response to God when the gloom of suffering and darkness is lifted. David appropriately offers joyful praise, in both personal testimony and public proclamation, to the God who pulls him out of a slimy pit. David then devotes himself to the living God and anticipates the ways that he will rely on God's help in the future in the face of his enemies and his own sin. We, too, must depend and wait on the God Who Helps and declare that "the Lord is great" indeed. May the Lord, our help and our deliverer, think of us and not delay.
In John 4:7-14 and 6:27-40, Jesus uses the universal symbols of bread and water to draw people to himself, awakening in them a sense of their deeper hunger and thirst. He is the greater Jacob and the greater Moses, offering people the living water and bread of life - eternal life - that will satisfy them forever with himself. Those who eat and drink of Christ will never hunger or thirst again. Applied to our theological work, Christ reverses the wisdom of the world that elevates the pursuit of truth over truth itself and is more enamored with the brilliancy of its presentation than with He who is Wisdom in person. We are tempted by things that can only satisfy for a time, but Christ is the final food and final drink, the one in whom all the fullness of deity is present and in whom we are filled perfectly and entirely so that there is no more hunger and painful thirst.
In the second message, Ivanoff emphasized that reconciliation is a journey that requires tears. Restored relationships require deep pain. And true neighbors (Luke 10) are those who are willing to enter into stories of brokenness – marriages on the rocks, racial tensions, uncomfortable places – and be fully present. True neighbors offer their lives and don’t hide behind band-aid solutions. There are many social ills that plague native peoples in the U.S., and most can be traced to social injustices (one of the most tragic being the Trail of Tears). To continue making progress, moreover, people must also move from being a neighbor to lamenting. To be gripped by the high cost of reconciliation is to embrace lamentation in prayer. For “reconciliation without lament cheapens hope.” By entering into people’s stories and lamenting with them, we together place our ultimate hope in the reconciling power of the cross.
In this first of two Timothy Series chapel messages, Ivanoff spoke from his own journey of understanding about the pain experienced by his people (Alaskan Eskimo) at the hands of the US government and, surprisingly, American missionaries. The indigenous Alaskans discovered that to become a Christian was to become an American. Cloaked in the message of salvation was the idea that the “savages” must be “civilized” and conformed to the American expression of Christianity. Discipleship was replaced with assimilation, and the local languages, customs, and even surnames were changed in the name of America’s imperialistic brand of Christianity. It is a tragic story shared by countless other indigenous peoples. The idea that Christianity, the “white man’s religion,” decimates local peoples has to be rewired. Yet, is this not the hostility that the cross of Christ put to death (Ephesians 2)? Alaskan Eskimos were once “far away” – literally, on the other side of the world from Jesus’ Palestine. Yet the blood of Christ has brought them near. The reconciling work of Christ now enables forgiveness and restoration