“Our reason is the mental ‘organ’ given to us by God to enable us to apprehend what he reveals to us. Just as the eye receives light, so the mind receives and accepts the truth. When we speak this way, we are not making eyes a separate authority alongside light. The rods and cones in …
Sola, Not Solo
“The classical Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura does not mean there are no other spiritual authorities. The claim rather is that there are no other ultimate and infallible authoriities. The Scriptures alone are infallible, and the Scriptures alone are ultimate and supreme” (From Whatever Happened to the Reformation?, p. 65).
Though Some Unravel Quicker Than Others
“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).