Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A Brief Comparison of Calvin’s Institutes with the Westminster Confession and Catechisms regarding the shape of imputation This essay is a brief argument that the soteriology of John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion regarding union with Christ and the imputation of his righteousness is the same as…
The thoughts in this paper were largely prompted by a study of Walter E. Krebs, “The Word and the Sacraments,” Mercersburg Review (July, 1867), 366-383. The discussion in this paper presupposes my earlier studies of baptism, “Baptismal Efficacy and the Reformed Tradition: Past, Present, and Future” and “Calvin on Baptism,…
Sometimes our systematic theology creates an illusion of precision. For example, we distinguish the ground and instrument of justification. Justification is grounded in Christ’s work alone, and is instrumentally received by faith alone. That makes good sense and guards us from thinking that faith itself is somehow meritorious. All the…
Whenever we participate in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we remember Christ and His Work for us. We remember. And in remembering, we imitate God, as His creatures made after His image. God remembers. This is mysterious to us because we usually think of remembering in the context of our…
It is standard in paedobaptist circles to argue for the baptism of infants out of the Old Covenant system. Because there is no explicit command in the New Testament, we are left to the broader principles and patterns of Scripture. In the Old Covenant, we continually find that the children…
Luther popularized the law/gospel hermeneutic. Luther argued that any demands God made upon us fell into the category of “law” and could only condemn. By contrast, anything God gave us was “gospel” and came with no strings attached. Calvin paid lip service to this law/gospel antithesis, even though it was…
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Coleridge wrote, “Shakespeare knew the human mind; and its most minute and intimate workings, and he never introduces a word, or a thought, in vain or out of place: if we do not understand him, it is our own fault or the fault of copyists and typographers; but study, and…
If Pascal were alive today, he would have a blog. Jonathan Edwards too.
A thesis, which may prove, when the actual evidence is examined, to be wholly wrong: The thesis: Psychology and its related disciplines do not arise from clinical study or laboratory research, but as a branch of literary criticism. Evidence (extremely thin): Coleridge was the first to use the phrase “psycho-analytic.”…
INTRODUCTION How are we to live in this world of vapor? Solomon tells us again and again to rejoice (e.g., 5:19-20), and implies that this joy comes in community with others. That theme of community is explicit in chapter 4, as Solomon reflects on the evils that destroy neighborliness and…
James Smith offers this summary of one strand of Derrida’s essay, “Violence and Metaphysics”: “since philosophy is ‘primarily Greek,’ ‘it would not be possible to philosophize, or to speak philosophically, outside this medium.’ . . . But could one conceive philosophy otherwise? This, Derrida will show, is precisely what Levinas…
Questioning the “self-present” ego did not begin with postmodern skeptics. Pascal already raised the question, what is the ego? and answered, “Suppose a man puts himself at a window to see those who pass by. If I pass by, can I say that he placed himself there to see me?…
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