“Systems of theology are like a cheap sweater. If you find one strand of yarn sticking out and pull on it long enough, the whole thing will eventually unravel” (From Whatever Happened to the Reformation?, p. 64).
Because the Triune Participles Are Infinite
“Despite the caricatures, the biblical view of God is not that of an infinite metaphysical iceberg” (From Whatever Happened to the Reformation?, p. 63).
Give No Offense to the Greeks
“Paul clearly had Greeks on his mind and used the illustration of a Hebrew trunk with many Greek branches . . . And God did what he did because He wanted the olives to taste different. This is just another way of saying that Christians were called to acquire a taste for Greek food” (5 …
Thus Revealing the Problem With the Definition
“Further in the background lurks another question that the ‘evangelical’ advocates of this [open theism] position have not really faced. Is God himself a moral being, with free will? If he is invulnerable to temptation, how could he be considered a moral being by their definitions?” (From Whatever Happened to the Reformation?, p. 62).
New Olives
“If the Hebraic trunk was an olive tree, God had determined to take a number of wild olive branches from the Gentile world and graft them in. This kind of grafting produces, necessarily, a new kind of olive” (5 Cities, p. 80).
The Great Cosmic Stare
“The orthodox view is dismissed as reducing the omniscient God to nothing more than a great, cosmic stare, and the new view is couched in all the exciting terminology of a new and different marketing campaign. This view is exciting, not boring, like ‘orthodusty.’ But like all marketing campaigns, this one bears watching. The claim …
Problems Downstream
“The argument is simple enough to follow. If God knew my future actions, then I would not be free. I must be free. Therefore, God does not know my future actions. What is not so simple to follow is the cascading series of additional and heretical waterfalls waiting for us a little farther downstream” (From …
Though Sometimes It Is the Bigger Miracle
“The God who makes sons of Abraham out of rocks can certainly make sons of Abraham out of sons of Abraham” (A Primer on Worship and Reformation, p. 74).
Not Seeing What We Did
“The father says, in effect, by keeping him at arm’s length from any covenant blessings, that his profession of faith and trust is more worthy of soubt than credence, and this is the first (twisted) covenantal lesson the child learns. Christian parents are commanded to teach their children to believe, and instead, in the name …
The Works
“The Christian church specifically rejected this Hellenizing tendency, most notably at the Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon. For the church to affirm as it did that the ultimate Truth and Reality became a living, breathing man — having ten toes, ten fingers, the works — was mortally offensive to the Greek mind” (5 Cities, pp.71-72).