Augustine on The Renewal of Our Minds

"Since, therefore, we must enjoy to the full that truth which lives unchangeably, and since, within it, God the Trinity, the author and creator of everything, takes thought for the things that he has created, our minds must be purified so that they are able to perceive that light and then hold fast to it.  Let us consider this process of cleansing as a trek, or a voyage, to our homeland; though progress towards the one who is ever present is not made through space, but through integrity of purpose and character.  This we would be unable to do, if wisdom itself has not deigned to adapt itself to our great weakness and offered us a pattern for living; and it has actually done so in human form because we too are human"  (On Christian Teaching, 1.22-23).

I'm always encouraged to hear truly masterful theologians stress the importance of the renewal and sanctification of our minds.  (For another look at the sanctification of human reason, see the opening chapter of John Webster's Holiness.)

Good Collection of Essays

I'd like to commend Engaging the Doctrine of God: Contemporary Perspectives a volume edited by Bruce McCormack and featuring quite a few significant voices in biblical and theological studies.  The volume was published by Baker and Rutherford House in 2008.  I'm still reading through it, but here's a taste of the contents:

"Christian Origins and the Question of God" by N. T. Wright

"The Wrath of God" by D. A. Carson

"John Calvin and the Hiddenness of God" by Paul Helm

"Jonathan Edwards's God: Trinity, Individuation, and Simplicity" by Oliver Crisp

"Life of and in Himself: Reflections on God's Aseity" by John Webster

"God and the Cross" by Henri Blocher

"The Compassion of God: Exodus 34:5-9 in the Light of Exodus 32-34" by Pierre Berthoud

"The Sovereignty of God" by Stephen Williams

"The Actuality of God: Karl Barth in Conversation with Open Theism" by Bruce McCormack

"The Doctrine of God and Pastoral Care" by Donald MacLeod

Some highlights: 

-Carson weighs in on the personal nature of God's wrath, the impassibility of God, and the  implications of the wrath of God for configuring the atonement

-Webster pursues a particular, positive account of God's aseity as plenitude of life of and in himself

-Blocher offers a critique of Moltmann and Jungel's "crucified God" theologies and seeks conceptual  clarity on the topic

Any thoughts?

Theoretico-Practical: Turretin's Take on Theology

Richard Muller and others in recent years have worked to clean up the reputation of the Reformed scholastic theologians. Often these theologians (Francis Turretin among them) are pegged as rigid and rationalistic, but that assumption has been challenged with some conviction. I find these words from Turretin to be quite pastoral and downright exciting:

"[T]hat theology is more practical than speculative is evident from the ultimate end, which is practice. For although the mysteries are not regulative of operation, they are impulsive to operation. For there is none so theoretical and removed from practice that it does not incite to the love and worship of God. Nor is any theory saving which does not lead to practice (Jn. 13:17; 1 Cor. 13:2; Tit. 1:1; 1 Jn. 2:3, 4; Tit. 2:12)."

Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, p. 23

Thoughts?

Providence, Permission, and Pastoral Care

John Calvin's thoughts on divine providence are not to be overlooked, regardless of one's evaluation of them. I continue to seek to gauge how the concept of divine permission fits into his scheme (as well as my own). Calvin judges that God decrees all things and within his decree allows certain things to happen but always with a view to working through them for his own good purposes. Yet often he gives the appearance of arguing that God always prods all agents to act in all the ways in which they act.

Here are two quotes from Calvin's section entitled "No Mere 'Permission!'" (Institutes, I, xviii, 1):

"[T]hat men can accomplish nothing except by God's secret command, that they cannot by deliberating accomplish anything except what he has already decreed with himself and determines by his secret direction, is proved by innumerable and clear testimonies (of Scripture)."

"[F]rom these (teachings of Scripture) it is more than evident that they babble and talk absurdly who, in place of God's providence, substitute bare permission - as if God sat in a watchtower awaiting chance events, and his judgments thus depended on human will."

It's quite a task to weigh these statements' implications for our view of God and the spiritual life, but let us mark well that Calvin himself parses them in his Institutes, commenting that without such a view of providence life would be simply unbearable. In short, he was a man whose theology was intensely practical and pastoral.

Between Extremes

Sometimes setting up one's own perspective as the mediating or "holistic" one can be a rather cheap way to win an argument. Two examples. (1) If the options are framed as hardcore fatalism, Calvinism, and the utter loss of divine sovereignty, Calvinism might prematurely appear best (this is not to say that it couldn't appear that way after further thought!). However, Calvinism and Arminianism both are probably somewhere in the middle with hardcore fatalism and open theism on the edges. Let the curious scrupulously explore Holy Scripture and the Christian tradition to weigh Calvinism and Arminianism. (2) If the options are framed as chauvinism, complementarianism, and over-the-top feminism, complementarianism might prematurely appear best (as with Calvinism, this isn't meant to imply that it couldn't appear that way after further thought). However, complementarianism and egalitarianism both are probably somewhere in the middle with chauvinism and over-the-top feminism on the edges.

Having said all of this, as I'm reading through Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics, I pick up that he regularly situates his work between two extremes in such a way that it pushes him to take extra care in his theological formulations. In other words, in his case, a between-extremes approach proves beneficial. On the matter of the authority of Scripture and the relationship between word and Spirit, Bavinck masterfully avoids Rome's desire to ground the authority of Scripture in the authentication of the church and also Radical Reformers' desire to bypass the constraints of the word and view the Spirit's speaking apart from Scripture as the supreme authority for Christian belief and praxis. On the doctrine of God, Bavinck continually presses on between the blunders of deism and pantheism, maintaining God's immanence and independence and transcendence. On the matter of ecclesial power, he again walks the line between Rome and the Radicals and ends up arguing that both in their own way ascribe the state's power to the church!

Thoughts on doing "between-extremes theology" for refinement rather than caricature?

Who Sparked Your Interest in Things Theological?

Hopefully for each one of us our pastors were instrumental in convincing us of the importance of theological reflection. That said, I'd like to hear which scholars and authors really got the ball rolling for folks and why their work proved so influential.

Millard Erickson's Christian Theology was a major catalyst for my desire to seek out further theological study. Christian Theology has been a standard text in the world of evangelical theological education and I came to appreciate it for several reasons. First, I noticed that he works hard to exemplify level-headed treatment of difficult issues. In one of his more recent works (What Does God Know and When Does He Know it?) he analysed the open theism debate in (I think) an admirably even-handed manner even as he remained committed to a traditional perspective on divine foreknowledge. Second, as a result of his patient approach to perplexing and heated questions, Erickson's Christian Theology made me feel like I wasn't just naively buying into given theological positions. Third, to be frank, I remember liking his work because I agreed with most of his conclusions!

Who sparked your interest in things theological and why?

Theology and the Spiritual Life

Here are some connections I've found between theology and the spiritual life:

1) Theology creates space for genuine wonder.

2) It engenders humility before the incomprehensibility of God.

3) It keeps me from becoming discouraged in church. (Having some understanding of what God is up to among his people offers hope when church appears, from my limited point of view, to be uneventful.)

4) It helps us read and respond to the concrete situations of life, including inner personal dynamics related to human sinfulness and God's work in sanctifying us.

5) It gives us the ability to move naturally within the framework of the gospel so that we can have intelligent, compelling conversations with those outside the faith.

Getting Started

The Reformed scholastic theologians mapped out the discipline of theology in terms of theologia archetypa and theologia ectypa. The former pertains to theological knowledge only God can possess, the latter to a creaturely theological knowledge that we human knowers can gain as we attend to God’s self-revelation. Theologia ectypa is further unpacked by distinguishing between two subspecies: theologia viatorum (theology of travelers, of saints on the way) and theologia beatorum (theology of glorified saints). So theologia viatorum denotes the kind of theology that we do in the midst of our present limitations, but it is no less exciting for that! To borrow terminology from Kevin Vanhoozer (see his Drama of Doctrine), Christian doctrine is much needed for us to know how to participate fittingly in the drama of redemption. It serves to guide the church in putting on “local productions of the kingdom of God.” In light of the high importance of Christian theology, I look forward to doing a bit of theological blogging and (hopefully) conveying something of the life-giving character of thinking theologically.

Thanks to Bobby for creating a design and setting things up!