Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
So far I have claimed that, especially in this era of fragmentation, we seek some way to integrate our lives. I have suggested that the view that modernity holds of what knowledge is has actually been a critical source of the fragmentation we sense in the modern West. Imagining knowledge…
The Theopolis Institute has appointed John Crawford as Executive Director. John has been a student in the Junior Fellows Program this year, and proven to be an enthusiastic and articulate advocate of Theopolis's vision. "Theopolis brings a unique, comprehensive paradigm to cultural change - with the Church at the center,"…
Metaphor is already intrinsic to the Trinity. Jesus is not the Father. And then again, He is indwelt by the Father, and He in turn indwells the Father. “He who has seen Me,” Jesus said, “has seen the Father.” This fundamental is/is not relationship is the relationship of metaphor. A…
James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the diaspora, greetings (James 1:1). Though the epistle of James is considered a "general" epistle, the letter originated from particular circumstances that can be discerned from the New Testament. In order to sketch its…
Before considering the details of the Leviticus, we must have before us certain matters that have been established in Genesis and Exodus. These are things that we as Israelites already know when we first hear Moses report what God dictated to him in Leviticus. Adam Let us begin with Adam.…
For Part 1 of this series, click HERE . The great question for the emerging East, Asia and other awakening third world areas, for an emerging nation like China is, “what fate awaits them?” They are now emerging from an analogous paganism that the West emerged from centuries ago. Here…
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McGrath notes that Augustine interpreted the genitive in the phrase “righteousness of God” in Rom 1 objectively, so that it was understood as the righteousness that God gives in saving sinners (in “making” them righteous). Ambrosiaster, as I pointed out in an earliet post, interpreted the genitive subjectively - the…
Ambrosiaster writes, “Iustitia est Dei, quia quod promisit dedit, ideo credens hoc esse se consecutum quod promiserat Deus per prophetas suos, iustum Deum probat et testis est iustitiae eius” (PL, 17.56b). McGrath explains: “God, having promised to give salvation, subsequently gives it, and as a result is deemed to be…
Nevin wrote: “There is more a great deal in Christianity, I firmly believe, more in the idea of hte Holy Catholic Church, than has yet been attained, either in the way of knowledge or in the way of life, by the Protestant Reformation.”
There was a consensus among the theologians of Trent, McGrath argues, that justification was “factitive,” a view that excluded that “a sinner may be justified solely as a matter of reputation or imputation, while remaining a sinner in fact.” But of course that raises the question, What exactly is a…
McGrath traces the odd development in Lutheran Orthodoxy of the notion that regeneration and faith precede justification in such a way that “where Luther had understood justification to concern the unbelieving sinner, orthodoxy revised this view, referring justification to the believing sinner.” This takes Lutheran Orthodoxy back in the direction…
McGrath notes, “While justification was universally understood to involve the regeneration of humanity, the opinion that an ontological change is thereby effected within humans is particularly associated with the period of High Scholasticism and the development of the concept of created grace. The earlier medieval theologians expressed the change effected…
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