Wyatt Graham

Faith | Books | Culture

God’s Simplicity Means God Is His Attributes

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Over the past while, some Christians have disagreed about how to talk about God’s nature. The disagreement centres on how to talk about God’s attributes. Everyone agrees that the Bible says God is just, merciful, and holy. 

Yet some conclude that each attribute of God can be distinguished in God because the Bible says God is each of these things.  Others say that each attribute of God cannot be distinguished in God but only in our minds. 

At the heart of the debate then is this: in God, are his attributes distinct, or is God One and we perceive his attributes as distinct things? 

I affirm that all that is in God is God because it better matches God’s revelation in Scripture and accords with reason. [Read more…] about God’s Simplicity Means God Is His Attributes

Eternal Submission? Not Arianism, but still Wrong

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In 2016 Evangelicals debated about the best way to affirm that God is one and yet Father and Son. The old answer is: the Father begets the Son eternally; the Son is eternally begotten. Beget and begotten are old words to describe how fathers generate children. A mother births them; a father begets. 

In recent years, evangelicals attempted to find a new way to talk about Father and Son. They said that the Father relates to the Son because he has paternal authority; the Son relates to the Father in a mode of submission. Authority and submission distinguish Father and Son. 

For the most part, people found the new approach insufficient. It implied eternal inferiority of the Son, implied two wills, and inserted the human life of Jesus where he obeyed the Father into God. It unintentionally implied a creaturely characteristic in God since Jesus’s creaturely obedience to the Father gets imported into how God is eternally! 

Recently, however, a theologian reaffirmed that the Father eternally has authority over the eternally submissive Son. Interestingly, the theologian cited Augustine and Hilary of Poitiers as proponents of his position.  [Read more…] about Eternal Submission? Not Arianism, but still Wrong

Mesmerized by The Phone, Missed My Daughter

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Today, I took my daughter to swimming lessons. With five other parents, I observed the class. I should say: I observed. At one point during the class, I looked around and saw every parent—all five—mesmerized by their phones. No parent watched their child. All watched their phones. 

I am not uniquely virtuous. Last week, I was mesmerized by my phone. I missed my daughter when she dunked her head under water. She told me, don’t look at your phone! I mostly obeyed. I looked at my phone, but not for long. The compulsion to look took over, and I fell into a mania of technology. But I held on to my sanity. I stopped, and here is what I saw. 

I saw a young boy tell my daughter, You are doing great! I watched my daughter swim in the deep end with a life jacket. I walked near her and told her she did great. She looked at me with glee, a smile broken across her face, saying something like, That is my daddy! 

Whatever moment we had, we had because I was not memorized by the screen but by her. She knows I saw. I know I saw. We know that we love each other.  [Read more…] about Mesmerized by The Phone, Missed My Daughter

Online Media Should Lead to Reading Books

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Do not exclusively read articles online. Think of online articles as portals to books. Articles may answer an important question, give insight into an issue, and help us to know what to seek and to know.

But books deliver the contemplative ruminations that thinking requires. Online articles are an appetizer. Both are important. And the media of books and the internet are here to stay.

But there is an ordering. First the short article. Then the book. [Read more…] about Online Media Should Lead to Reading Books

Today’s Freedom Enslaves

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He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity

– Ecclesiastes

Our word freedom plays an important role in society. We live in a free and democratic society, the Charter tells us. The United States of America promises liberty and freedom for all. Their declaration of independence guarantees the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Freedom in North America defines our vision of the good life.

We are free people. The USA broke free from England. Canada became a nation with a Charter of rights and freedoms. We can vote. We can choose what we want—we select what pleases us. At one level then, we enjoy political freedom. 

At a different level, today’s freedom enslaves us. It exploits our free choices so that we become servants to our own desires. Byung-Chul Han’s writings have made this argument persuasively, I believe. We live in a society that runs on achievement. We must achieve results. But the product, more often than not, is us. We exploit ourselves freely and so become a slave to the drive to perform, get results, and show value.  [Read more…] about Today’s Freedom Enslaves

Suspicion Leads to Fear and Anger

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We have become increasingly suspicious of others over the past decade, no doubt connected to the internet’s constant flow of information. Spend a few minutes on social media, then you will hear every opinion under the sun. The most sensational it is, the more we stare or leer. Soon, we find that government and friend alike must be up to some nefarious ends.

Such suspicion makes us fear others (and so isolate) and be angry at others who fail us. 

Suspicion Is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

In the latter case, our expectation of the government or group or person’s failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since we do not think they will succeed and are nefarious at the core, we do not contribute or join them to make a positive change. Then time passes and tribes develop. A group falls or fails, and the accuser says, aha! I told you so.

But then what if we started without a baseline of suspicion? What if we committed to mutually support each other? Would we not see government or group as part of who we are, a community of people whom we can affect and work with?

[Read more…] about Suspicion Leads to Fear and Anger