It is possible a grieving Christian has never asked whether God possesses passive potency. Suffering saints ask whether God cares. Does God remain distant from the hospital room, the grave, the battlefield, and the abused? Does the Father of mercies look upon human anguish without being touched by it? The doctrine of divine impassibility often … Continue reading The God Who Cannot Be Overcome: A Scriptural, Dogmatic, and Historical Defense of Divine Impassibility
religion
The Blessedness of God and the Triune Life of Love
John Owen said: “The blessedness of God consists in the ineffable mutual inbeing of the three holy persons in the same nature.” This statement moves beyond a merely negative account of divine perfection. God’s blessedness is not simply the absence of need, sorrow, or deficiency. It is the positive fullness of the Father’s, Son’s, and … Continue reading The Blessedness of God and the Triune Life of Love
Eternal Generation Without Emanation: Origen’s Distinction Between Nicene Sonship and Gnostic Procession
What is the relationship between Origen’s theology of the Son’s eternal generation and the emanationist metaphysics that permeated the intellectual environment of the second and third centuries. Since the nineteenth century, scholars have noted the apparent affinities between Origen’s language and that of Middle Platonic and Gnostic systems: the Son proceeds from the Father, is … Continue reading Eternal Generation Without Emanation: Origen’s Distinction Between Nicene Sonship and Gnostic Procession
The Warm Comfort of the Unchanging Impassible God
A strange suspicion has settled into modern Christian thought: if God cannot suffer, then he cannot love. If God’s emotional life isn’t volatile, then God isn’t really “involved” with my life and care about me. This modern, dare I say novel(?), view is also based on Scriptures which seem to show God’s emotions changing repeatedly … Continue reading The Warm Comfort of the Unchanging Impassible God
HOW WE LOST THE HAPPY GOD: A HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE’S DECLINE
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him… What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives.” Nietzsche’s parable was not a just a sociological report. It was a theological diagnosis. The modern West, he argued, had not merely ceased to … Continue reading HOW WE LOST THE HAPPY GOD: A HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE’S DECLINE
John Owen On The Blessed God Who Gives Himself to His People
What kind of God do Christians worship? Is God lonely, seeking fulfillment through creation? Does he require our worship in order to complete himself? Or does he possess within himself an inexhaustible fullness of life, joy, and delight? Few theologians answer these questions with greater depth and warmth than John Owen (1616–1683). Although Owen never … Continue reading John Owen On The Blessed God Who Gives Himself to His People
The God Who Does Not Become Good
Most of us think of virtue as something that develops. A young physician learns compassion at the bedside of suffering patients. A husband grows in patience through years of marriage. A church leader becomes wiser through mistakes, disappointments, and hard conversations. We admire these virtues precisely because they were not present in their mature form … Continue reading The God Who Does Not Become Good
The Blessed God and the Fecundity of Triune Plenitude: Discovering Theological Foundations in Jonathan Edwards’s Discourse on the Trinity
Edwards begins his discussion of the Trinity with a reflection upon God’s happiness: “When we speak of God’s happiness, the account that we are wont to give of it is that God is infinitely happy in the enjoyment of himself, in perfectly beholding and infinitely loving, and rejoicing in, his own essence and perfections.“¹ At … Continue reading The Blessed God and the Fecundity of Triune Plenitude: Discovering Theological Foundations in Jonathan Edwards’s Discourse on the Trinity
Beyond the Fourfold Method: Petrus van Mastricht and the Unity of Theology as the Doctrine of Living for God Through Christ
Modern theological education is built upon a division of labor. Biblical scholars perform exegesis. Systematic theologians construct doctrine. Historical theologians trace doctrinal development. Practical theologians focus on ministry and application. Spiritual formation is often assigned to yet another field. The result is a theological encyclopedia composed of specialized disciplines, each possessing its own methods, literature, … Continue reading Beyond the Fourfold Method: Petrus van Mastricht and the Unity of Theology as the Doctrine of Living for God Through Christ
What is Theology??: From Revelation to Holy Living and The Theological Method of Petrus van Mastricht
Petrus van Mastricht (1630–1706) has increasingly attracted scholarly attention for his massive Theoretical-Practical Theology and especially for his famous fourfold method of exposition, doctrine, polemics, and practice. Modern discussions often present this fourfold structure as Mastricht’s distinctive contribution to Reformed orthodoxy. While this observation is certainly correct, it risks mistaking the visible architecture of Mastricht’s … Continue reading What is Theology??: From Revelation to Holy Living and The Theological Method of Petrus van Mastricht
Donnie's Dogmatics 