Fred SandersA scene from the Leben der heiligen Altväter (1482)
Saved by Word and Spirit: The Shape of Soteriology in Donald Bloesch’s Christian Foundations
The late Donald Bloesch did not allocate one of the seven volumes of his Christian Foundations series to soteriology, so there is no single book to turn to in order to examine his doctrine of salvation. Earlier in his career, he did write entire books on the subject: in fact, close attention to the experience of piety and the Christian life was the main motif his first publications, and significantly dictated the formal and material decisions of his influential two volume Essentials of Evangelical Theology. Nor is Bloesch’s soteriology distributed evenly across all seven volumes of Foundations: it is focused in two volumes. Those two volumes are the books on Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord (1997) and The Holy Spirit: Works and Gifts (2000).
Redefining Progress in Trinitarian Theology: Stephen R. Holmes on the Trinity
In various ways, much of the best new work on the doctrine of the Trinity can be considered counter-revolutionary. Nicaea was more doctrinally holistic than merely a refutation of one heresy; Augustine was not merely as bad Colin Gunton alleged; Aquinas did not sever the treatise on the One God from the treatise on the Trinity; De Régnon was overly schematic with his East-West distinction, and so on. The new wave of counter-revolutionary trinitarianism begs to differ, and is finding ways to leap over the orthodoxies of the recent past to get back in touch with a longer narrative that makes more sense. Steve Holmes’s book is the feistiest of this new wave of counter-revolutionary trinitarianism, and serves as a kind of clearing house for all the recent moves, stating them more succinctly, more coherently, and more explosively.
“Reading Spiritual Classics as Evangelical Protestants” (from Reading the Christian Spiritual Classics)
Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel edited a wonderful book called Reading the Christian Spiritual Classics: A Guide for Evangelicals (IVP, 2013). J.I. Packer called the book “an absolutely unrivaled mapping by experts of the whole church’s…
Honest to God, a Voice from Heaven? Communicative Theism in Vanhoozer’s Remythologizing Theology
At the 2012 ETS national conference, Mark Bowald emceed a set of critical interactions with Kevin Vanhoozer’s major work on the doctrine of God, Remythologizing Theology. These essays, by John Franke, Steve Wellum, Oliver Crisp, and…
The L.A. Theologian
A lovely profile by theologian friend James Arcadi, attempting to make sense of some of the regionalist work I’ve done: It’s the middle of winter and 75 degrees and sunny at Biola University in La Mirada,…
Review of Treier and Lauber’s Trinitarian Theology for the ChurchScripture, Community, Worship
The Trinity was forgotten for a period of “centuries of doctrinal tragedy,” until suddenly in the middle of the twentieth century, theologians rediscovered it. Several decades after that ecumenical rediscovery, evangelical theologians are finally catching up. “So goes…
Trinitarian Theology’s Exegetical Basis: A Dogmatic Survey
One of the chief obligations laid upon trinitarian theology in our time is that it renders the doctrine of the Trinity with unprecedented clarity as a biblical doctrine, or, to speak more precisely, as a doctrine that is in the Bible. If there ever was a time when theology could afford to hurry past this task, with an impatient wave of the hand in the general direction of scripture, that time is not now.
Review of Budde and Wright’s Conflicting AllegiancesThe Church-based University in a Liberal Democratic Society
The central idea of this set of essays (which grew out of a 2002 conference at Point Loma Nazarene University) is that all modern Christian university education has been distorted and truncated by the constraints placed…
Review of Jowers’ Karl Rahner’s Trinitarian Axiom“The Economic Trinity is the Immanent Trinity and Vice Versa”
[an excerpt:] He reminds us that Rahner is so committed to revelation as a transcendental phenomenon, in which God is known by creatures only as he imparts himself to them, that as a corollary Rahner rejects…
Review of Bowman and Komoszewski’s Putting Jesus in His PlaceThe Case for the Deity of Christ
The case as perceived by scholars for the deity of Christ is stronger now than it has been for a long time, and those who went through seminary more than a decade ago should take a…
Review of Bergmann, Creation Set FreeThe Spirit as Liberator of Nature
Sigurd Bergmann is a theologian who teaches at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Creation Set Free, a volume in Eerdman’s Sacra Doctrina: Christian Theology for a Postmodern Age series, is Bcrgmann’s first…
Review of Keay’s Alexander the CorrectorThe Tormented Genius who Unwrote the Bible
When Cruden’s Concordance was first published in 1737 in London, it was immediately recognized as a revolutionary research tool. In the American colonies, Jonathan Edwards read a magazine ad that same year for a work “more…
Review of Paul Molnar’s Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity
Paul D. Molnar’s important book on the Trinity is probably best understood as a voice of dissent against the prevailing tendency of late twentieth century trinitarian theology. The most influential Trinity books from the decades just…
Don Giovanni: The Absolute Man and the Patience of God
Something strange, and theologically significant, happens when you listen to Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The peculiar phenomenon I have in mind has been reported by ordinary music lovers as well as by some of the most insightful…
Trinity Talk, Again
Abstract: The doctrine of the Trinity has, in the past couple of decades, reclaimed its central place in Christian God talk. Theologians are now using it to render every doctrine more explicitly Christian, and to sharpen…
The State of the Doctrine of the Trinity in Evangelical Theology
[In this article I attempted to name the most important trends in evangelical Trintarianism, and make some guesses about how they would develop in coming years. Much of the reportage and analysis is still worth reading,…
Review of Anatolios’ AthanasiusThe Coherence of his Thought
As the title indicates, this book describes the theology of Athanasius of Alexandria as a coherent system. What may be surprising to many readers is that a book-length treatment of Athanasian theology does not already exist….
Review of Hunt’s What Are They Saying About the Trinity?
Anne Hunt is a Roman Catholic theologian who teaches at Yarra Theological Union in Melboume, Australia. This brief book on the Trinity is part of Paulist Press’ popular What Are They Saying About … ? series,…
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