Is God in control? If God is in control how can I be free? If I am free, how can God be in control? Few theological tensions feel as sharp as this one. The question has animated Christian theology from Augustine's controversy with Pelagius. It continued to the sixteenth-century disputes between Arminius and his Reformed … Continue reading Participating Without Competing: Removing Competition From Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom
Author: Donnie L. DeBord
Understanding God’s Pure Actuality in Christian Theology
The question is not whether God is living, loving, and free. Those affirmations belong to the unanimous confession of Christian theology across every era and communion. The question is what those words mean when predicated of the One who says, "I AM WHO I AM" (Exod 3:14). Can a being who lives, loves, and acts … Continue reading Understanding God’s Pure Actuality in Christian Theology
Divine Blessedness and Divine Impassibility
Grief Without Deficiency Christians confess that God is blessed. This does not just mean that God is in a good mood. It means God has fullness of life in himself. He lacks nothing. He is not moving toward happiness. He is perfect joy already. Paul calls him “the blessed God” in 1 Timothy 1:11. Psalm … Continue reading Divine Blessedness and Divine Impassibility
There Is No Evil Deity: Against the Myth of an Eternal Satan
The idea that Satan is eternal alongside God is a theological error with deep roots and serious consequences. If granted, it fractures the doctrine of God. The Christian confession begins not with conflict but with being: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1). The thesis of this paper is straightforward … Continue reading There Is No Evil Deity: Against the Myth of an Eternal Satan
The Wisdom of Knowing Our Limits: What Did Socrates Really Mean?
Socrates is often quoted as saying that he was wise because he “knew that he knew nothing.” It is one of the most famous lines in the history of philosophy. It sounds humble. It sounds clever. It sounds almost mystical. But it is not exactly what Socrates meant. To understand what he meant, we have … Continue reading The Wisdom of Knowing Our Limits: What Did Socrates Really Mean?
Theology That Breaks and Heals: Learning to Write with Puritan Depth
The Puritans had no patience for theology that didn’t break the heart or heal it. For them, doctrines weren’t just true. Doctrines were soul-shaping. A theological proposition that left the reader unchanged, unmoved, unbroken or uncomforted had failed its essential purpose. Truth about God was meant to do something, not merely to inform. The word … Continue reading Theology That Breaks and Heals: Learning to Write with Puritan Depth
God Is Our Refuge and Strength: Finding Warmth in Psalm 46
What do you do when you flip the switch and nothing happens? When the heat does not come on. When the pipes stay dry. When night falls early and the cold settles in, not just outside the house but inside your thoughts. Moments like these strip life down to its essentials. They expose how much … Continue reading God Is Our Refuge and Strength: Finding Warmth in Psalm 46
Leaving, Dwelling, and Returning
Lexical Repetition, Narrative Architecture, and Covenant Movement in Genesis The apparent tension between God’s command to Abraham to leave his land and kindred and God’s command to Jacob to return to his land and kindred is not a loose thread in Genesis. It is a carefully woven feature of the narrative. When read in isolation, … Continue reading Leaving, Dwelling, and Returning
Did You Wake Up Feeling Angry or Blessed??
Most of us did not wake up planning to be angry. We woke up to a screen. Before coffee, before prayer, before hearing a real human voice, we were interrupted by an angry headline. Another video. Another fire. By noon we were already carrying a low grade tension, not quite rage, not quite despair, but … Continue reading Did You Wake Up Feeling Angry or Blessed??
The God of Promises
Genesis 21 does not begin with Isaac. It begins with God. “The Lord visited Sarah as he had said.” That sentence is doing more work than it looks like. Scripture could have said, Sarah conceived. It could have said, the promise came true. Instead, it says the Lord visited her. God does not fulfill his … Continue reading The God of Promises
Donnie's Dogmatics 