Most of us learned to read the Bible by asking necessary questions: Who wrote this? When? What did the words mean in their original setting? These questions matter, bu they are not sufficient.We can master the historical background, chart every verbal parallel, and diagram Greek clauses with surgical precision, yet still sense that the text … Continue reading Remember the Theological Context of Each Text: The Capstone of Exegesis
Divine Simplicity and the Blessed Life of God
There are doctrines that stand quietly in the background of Christian theology, doing immense conceptual labor while receiving little devotion in return. The doctrine of divine simplicity is one of these. It appears austere at first glance. Yet when read with Scripture in one hand and the Fathers in the other, it becomes luminous. Simplicity … Continue reading Divine Simplicity and the Blessed Life of God
Thinking Through Scheeben on God’s Actuality
III. There is a still deeper and more exhaustive conception of the Divine Substance contained in the expressions, “God is His own existence;” “God’s essence is existence;” “God is Being;” ὁ ὤν, He Who is, Jehovah. The Schoolmen express this by saying, “God is a pure act (actus purus);” that is, pure actuality without any … Continue reading Thinking Through Scheeben on God’s Actuality
Thinking About God: Thinking Through Sheeben’s Dogmatik and Trying to Simplify
Imagine you’re twelve years old, and someone asks you the biggest question ever: What is God really like? Not just “God is love” or “God is powerful,” but how can we even begin to picture or understand the One who made everything? Here’s the thesis: We cannot see or know God directly the way we … Continue reading Thinking About God: Thinking Through Sheeben’s Dogmatik and Trying to Simplify
Impassibility???
Few doctrines generate more suspicion in modern theology than divine impassibility. The claim that God does not suffer, is not emotionally injured, and cannot be overcome by passions appears, at first glance, to flatten the vivid emotional texture of Scripture. Terence Fretheim, whose work on divine suffering has been broadly influential, argues that the Old … Continue reading Impassibility???
The Ever-Faithful God: Divine Blessedness as the Ground of Divine Faithfulness
This essay argues that the biblical doctrine of divine faithfulness is grounded in the positive and inexhaustible blessedness of God’s own life. Scripture does not present divine reliability as mere steadiness or covenant persistence under strain. Rather, God remains faithful because he is full. His promises stand because nothing in him fluctuates, diminishes, or requires … Continue reading The Ever-Faithful God: Divine Blessedness as the Ground of Divine Faithfulness
Exegetical Theology: a Methodological Proposal
Introduction: Recovering the Order of Theology Christian theology has always required method even if it is not acknowledged . From the patristic era onward, the church has wrestled with the relationship between Scripture and doctrinal formulation. Yet in modern theological practice, the disciplines have frequently drifted apart. In the early centuries, doctrinal controversies were exegetical … Continue reading Exegetical Theology: a Methodological Proposal
2 Natures in 1 Person??
To understand the logic of the hypostatic union, we must let Scripture shape our understanding. The doctrine is not a speculative construction. It is, rather, the product of a disciplined process of listening to the biblical data, which speaks in ways that resist simplification. The New Testament refuses to let us say less than this: … Continue reading 2 Natures in 1 Person??
Participating Without Competing: Removing Competition From Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom
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
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
Donnie's Dogmatics 