Wyatt, thank you for this charitable piece. I'm 25, and have been deeply influenced by Comer over the past 5 or so years. I read his 'The Ruthless Elimination Of Hurry' a couple of years ago and it was deeply helpful (for a distracted/anxious 20 year old trying to understand the easy yoke of Jesus). I grew up in a PCA church (that I was not very fond of for a long time), and have found much solace in people like Comer who have preach what I find to be a deeply practical theology.
That being said, I had a bit of a pit in my stomach while reading this. That is what happens I think when someone has a thoughtful critique of one of your heroes!
On immutability, I wonder if this is an issue of definitions? I have been confused by immutability because it seems to be a favorite for reformers, but scripture seems to raise questions for it.
I feel frustrated with how loudly folks brandish immutability without also affirming the other moments of God's responding to his children.
Ie.
Genesis 18 Abraham pleading with God for Sodom and Gomorrah
2 Kings 20 where Hezekiah pleas directly against God's word to him, and God grants him his wish.
Or even Mark 6 where Jesus intends/wills (Abbott-Smith, 204) to pass by the disciples then decides to meet them.
I bring those examples up all as moments where the scriptures do not seem to be prioritizing God's immutability. Again, I am advocating for a both/and that you mentioned, and have benefitted much from people delving into these moments of God's seemingly pliability. Maybe this is an issue of nature vs expression. I don't know if those are the right terms, for instance, God is love in his essence. He cannot not be love. He is unchangeable. But he can change His mind how He is responding to particular moments without ever weakening his unchanging essence?
I suppose the place where I take most exception in your piece is when you said, "In other words, the word relation refers to the ineffable relation between the Father and Son through a relation of eternal generation that has no psychological meaning."
I may just need your help understanding this because this to me is where you most misunderstand Comer too. I guess to be incredibly blunt, to say that the eternal relationship of the trinity has "no psychological meaning" is denying the imago dei in humanity. I think for Comer it is the fact that God is relational within himself that so greatly informs how we relate to him and to one another. Though I do see where it seems he takes an almost casual approach to how we can participate in this "inner life of God" which your examples made a strong case for.
Okay, those are some thoughts, I'd love to hear from you, and I hope I have reflected the same charity you humbly showed in your article.
God is unchangeable in his essence, purposes and perfections. First, we have to understand that if we deny God's immutability, then that necessarily denies the perfections in his knowledge and wisdom which then denies his perfection in omnipotence at which point we know longer have God, but a pantheistic notion of a god. Moreover, if he's not immutable in all of his divine purposes, then what are we doing placing our hope in a god who changes just like his creatures do? God is never becoming, never increasing or decreasing (especially in knowledge or power), but is always what he is and his intentions are infinite and perfect.
What you are referring to is immutability vs immobility. The use of anthropocentric language is all over the Bible yet we have to understand that in the context of the clearly divine and transcendent nature of God that Scripture also vehemently affirms. In the Scripture you referenced, it is not God who's changing, but man. To deny that is to deny God's omniscience and once you do that, you no longer have a God capable of being the Alpha and Omega.
This is ultimately the problem with Comer's view of God which denies God's decretive function of God's will. Once you deny one aspect, such as God's immutable decretive will, then you necessarily have to deny the other aspects such as perfect and absolute knowledge, wisdom, infinity, and power to do all that he pleases. This results in a god who cannot possibly be a creator of anything and at that point we are no longer talking about Christianity.
A really helpful critique respectfully written. It seems that defining God's personhood through the categories of human personhood is the root issue? Having taken this primary step, any theology and practice that then flows out of this becomes skewed, which is precisely the point I guess that Comer is intending to underline...
This is a great post. I have a tendency to look at this from the perspective of trying to say too much. Comer tries to say way more than can be (or should be said) given the tradition and scripture. But I also find John Piper doing the same thing. I don't take your essay as a defence of Piper but isn't his theology (and others like him) quilty of overstating things that can be said with a robust understanding of tradition and scripture?
Absolutely excellent. Wow. I’ve spent a few years now thinking and writing about this exact topic (the problem of human and divine agency). I usually tend to defend Comer against a certain sort of Reformed critique. And, generally, I tend to think the agency problem—in the Bible and in the fathers—is more complex than modern popular shorthand Reformed notions of “sovereignty” and “monergism” make it out to be. But you have tackled the nuances so well. I’d love to talk with you more about this sometime.
My addition to the conversation, which you were already implying, would be a framework I call “Mixed Agency” or “Stacked Agency,” where God is not seen as an agent among agents but the Agent of/over agents.
“In the beginning, God did not create things. He created agents, that is, choosers/actors/governors. Like Shakespeare, he is the author and conductor of the play. But unlike Shakespeare, God is the only playwright whose characters are actually real.”
Okay, so I read Wyatt Graham’s long article criticizing John Mark Comer, and honestly, I’m not really buying it. Graham acts like he’s got the whole Christian tradition on his side, but he comes off as super one-sided. He makes it sound like there’s only one “correct” way to talk about God, and if Comer doesn’t line up perfectly with Augustine or Calvin, then he’s basically out to lunch. But that just seems unfair. There’s been a lot of different voices in Christianity over the centuries, not just these old dudes. Comer is trying to make sense of a real problem—why there’s evil in the world and what that means about God—and he’s doing it in a way that might help normal people who are struggling. I’m not convinced Graham understands that Comer’s trying to connect people with God on a personal level, not just give them a theology lecture.
Also, Graham keeps going on about “classical theology” and “the tradition,” like that automatically wins the argument. He doesn’t admit that “classical theology” itself came from people wrestling with Scripture in their own times and places. Theology isn’t frozen in the past; it can grow, develop, and learn from different perspectives. Comer is reading the Bible and dealing with modern thinkers like Greg Boyd and N.T. Wright, who are part of today’s conversation. Just dismissing their ideas as “unorthodox” doesn’t prove anything. All it does is show that Graham wants to stick to one narrow viewpoint.
And honestly, Graham’s approach feels way too academic, as if the best way to fix people’s spiritual struggles is to bury them under a mountain of old theological terms. Comer is trying to reach ordinary people who are hurting. Sometimes Christians want to know that it’s okay to question or struggle with stuff like evil, chaos, and suffering. Comer says God’s not pulling every single string to crush you, and that resonates with people who feel crushed. Graham might have fancy answers, but does he remember that believers also need empathy and a God who feels near, not just a perfect “first cause” outside of time?
In the end, I think Graham’s critique misses what Comer is doing. Comer’s not trying to burn down two thousand years of theology. He’s just trying to help people see that following Jesus means engaging with tough questions and trusting that God is good, even when the world isn’t. Sure, Graham has his points, but being so rigid about “the right doctrine” makes it sound like there’s no room for new perspectives within a solid Protestant Christian faith. Comer is on a mission to make faith feel real and personal, and people clearly appreciate that. Isn’t that something worth taking seriously before tossing his ideas aside?
I am fairly new to JMC and even newer to Wyatt Graham (I literally stumbled here because I was trying to grasp what about JMC's stuff rubs me wrong sometimes); but I am not new to Christianity nor its history of writings through the centuries. That's my preface.
I understand your sentiment about how there sometimes can be a sense of gatekeeping: Whose perspective and voices are "orthodox" enough to be allowed. Comer certainly seems to like throwing around "orthodox" and claiming it for himself, so it seems reasonable that part of the debate ought to be over what exactly is orthodox. Of course, the ground for that (as I think we--me, you, Comer, Graham, etc.--all would agree) is the Bible. The discourse over the centuries always has been who is reading and interpreting it rightly--or as rightly as we can. In that sense, part of these critiques of theology almost have to happen: If our view of God informs what we do, and we get our view of God from Scripture, which requires us to interpret what we see there; then all of the above becomes necessary in some capacity.
Now, I would agree that we can't just point to the Church Fathers. Modern voices have done some excellent work in helping us continue to make sense of this ancient faith in our modern context. At the same time, even the modern voices always will be pointing back to those ancient commentators because they are the ones who lived in the same cultural and religious space and so are most likely to have the best grasp of the teachings. Why was Paul such a formidable apostle? Because he was a Jewish Jew in the Roman Empire who learned from the Risen Christ! Leaving aside the power of the Spirit working through him, he's got a good position from which to explain what God has done in Jesus Christ and what God intends for those in Christ Jesus to do. In that sense, there is a certain level of appropriateness in preferencing ancient voices ("classical theology," "the tradition," etc.) over modern voices who seem to be throwing out those. Christianity today didn't get where it is by reinventing the wheel every few years. In some ways, we're still experiencing a lot of negative effects from the Protestant Reformation, whatever good things it produced! At any rate, I would press that theology doesn't "grow" because the subject of theology doesn't grow: God is the same yesterday, today, and forever! Our understanding, particularly as it relates to our current context, certainly can though.
But that brings us to what I understand is the crux of your critique: Preferencing academic theology over practical theology doesn't really help anybody. True, to a certain extent. I think Comer, Graham, and I (you? others) understand that the practical theology has to flow out of the "academic theology." If that is well-established, then we are well-equipped to act it out. If, however, we cast aside elements because they make our practical work too difficult or too messy, then I would reckon that we have made a misstep. That seems to be the point that Graham has made: Comer wants to chuck out some theology because it doesn't fit the praxis which he wants to promote. And so much of the praxis is good! We just don't have to throw away theological principles because they are too complex.
I say all of this as somebody who does this hard work every week as a pastor. How can an unchanging God "change his mind" multiple times in the beginning of Genesis? How can a good God even let evil into the world at all (since allowing it would seem to be not good)? How can this God who is above all things also be Immanuel, God with us? I can't say that my answers always make perfect sense or are perfectly satisfactory--I don't reckon that they will be this side of heaven--but I don't resort to throwing out parts that don't fit (which seems to be the basics of what Graham is saying of Comer). Instead, I present the witness of Scripture in its multiplicity of parts and say, "At the end of the day, God's ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts higher than our thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)
All of that to say: Maybe Comer could spend a little more time grappling with the God of the Bible in all of his self-disclosure then refine his teaching which brings people closer to this God. If there is a difficult, jagged edge to this God, rather than try to buff it out, maybe our theology needs to expand still more. Maybe the answer for how to understand God's immanence and what he wants to do through us isn't less transcendence but, paradoxically, more.
Gosh this is really illuminating. Comer was a teacher at the nondenominational church I went to for a year, but eventually I ended up entering the process of converting to orthodox Christianity, because well…. Heresies don’t lead to good places.
I can recall him teaching things like the need to pray to work with god to establish his kingdom among us… I would sum up comers view, though maybe I’m also influenced by the broader church’s view, as something like: God is the person beyond who loves us dearly and if we just reach out to him we will meet him. Thus we should pray to try to enter a relationship with him where we hear him speak to us directly and guide our actions in the world, and feel the “presence of the Holy Spirit.”
In contrast, I quickly learned that this is a very very heretical view once I started coming to the Orthodox Church. God is not a person — he is three persons, one essence, and everywhere present. He’s not completely inaccessible — but no, he will not speak to us in prayer. The Orthodox Church teaches that this is more often than not demonic deception, as God has laid out his word in the Bible, he has no need to speak to us in this way. If we want to feel his presence, we must first give up our sin, so we can be transformed in holiness and likeness to him. The fruits of the spirits come as holy replacements to the passions.
It’s sort of a reversal: Comer recommends seeking God out through spiritual experience, the Orthodox Church sternly warns against this—stressing that god grants us salvation, the process of healing, through the church and through giving up our sin. Its honestly more and more scary as I think about it 😓 nauseating, really
Arrived at this article because I was curious about Comer’s theology. But it was the discussion about views on suffering that was especially helpful. Thank you for the way this was laid out Wyatt, and for providing some further reading on the topic.
I have enjoyed Comer’s “Practicing the Way” disciplines. What I have found with him is that, like many modern day Preachers, he does in fact seemingly stay in a comfortable place theologically, as far as how the world views us. And why I think that is, because of his normal Sunday audience. He is trying not to “chase away” potential converts. He also is trying to reach a lot of practicing Buddhist’s. At one point because he was being very vague about sexuality and other high topic concerns in modern church, I thought he was going progressive. So I attended one of his Pastors conferences online and got some clarity. Doesn’t mean I don’t have concerns but it calmed some fears. I think we all tend to buck whatever system we came out of because of whatever faults they had, but it is dangerous when we throw the baby out with the bathwater.
But God exists outside of time, and so he does push domino one at Time A into domino two at Time B. Zeus may work that way, but not the God of the Bible.
So you accept the Boethian- Einsteinian doctrine that I learned from C S Lewis years ago and have always accepted. We need to have a discussion of that!!
Wyatt, thank you for this charitable piece. I'm 25, and have been deeply influenced by Comer over the past 5 or so years. I read his 'The Ruthless Elimination Of Hurry' a couple of years ago and it was deeply helpful (for a distracted/anxious 20 year old trying to understand the easy yoke of Jesus). I grew up in a PCA church (that I was not very fond of for a long time), and have found much solace in people like Comer who have preach what I find to be a deeply practical theology.
That being said, I had a bit of a pit in my stomach while reading this. That is what happens I think when someone has a thoughtful critique of one of your heroes!
On immutability, I wonder if this is an issue of definitions? I have been confused by immutability because it seems to be a favorite for reformers, but scripture seems to raise questions for it.
I feel frustrated with how loudly folks brandish immutability without also affirming the other moments of God's responding to his children.
Ie.
Genesis 18 Abraham pleading with God for Sodom and Gomorrah
2 Kings 20 where Hezekiah pleas directly against God's word to him, and God grants him his wish.
Or even Mark 6 where Jesus intends/wills (Abbott-Smith, 204) to pass by the disciples then decides to meet them.
I bring those examples up all as moments where the scriptures do not seem to be prioritizing God's immutability. Again, I am advocating for a both/and that you mentioned, and have benefitted much from people delving into these moments of God's seemingly pliability. Maybe this is an issue of nature vs expression. I don't know if those are the right terms, for instance, God is love in his essence. He cannot not be love. He is unchangeable. But he can change His mind how He is responding to particular moments without ever weakening his unchanging essence?
I suppose the place where I take most exception in your piece is when you said, "In other words, the word relation refers to the ineffable relation between the Father and Son through a relation of eternal generation that has no psychological meaning."
I may just need your help understanding this because this to me is where you most misunderstand Comer too. I guess to be incredibly blunt, to say that the eternal relationship of the trinity has "no psychological meaning" is denying the imago dei in humanity. I think for Comer it is the fact that God is relational within himself that so greatly informs how we relate to him and to one another. Though I do see where it seems he takes an almost casual approach to how we can participate in this "inner life of God" which your examples made a strong case for.
Okay, those are some thoughts, I'd love to hear from you, and I hope I have reflected the same charity you humbly showed in your article.
All from a young student,
William
God is unchangeable in his essence, purposes and perfections. First, we have to understand that if we deny God's immutability, then that necessarily denies the perfections in his knowledge and wisdom which then denies his perfection in omnipotence at which point we know longer have God, but a pantheistic notion of a god. Moreover, if he's not immutable in all of his divine purposes, then what are we doing placing our hope in a god who changes just like his creatures do? God is never becoming, never increasing or decreasing (especially in knowledge or power), but is always what he is and his intentions are infinite and perfect.
What you are referring to is immutability vs immobility. The use of anthropocentric language is all over the Bible yet we have to understand that in the context of the clearly divine and transcendent nature of God that Scripture also vehemently affirms. In the Scripture you referenced, it is not God who's changing, but man. To deny that is to deny God's omniscience and once you do that, you no longer have a God capable of being the Alpha and Omega.
This is ultimately the problem with Comer's view of God which denies God's decretive function of God's will. Once you deny one aspect, such as God's immutable decretive will, then you necessarily have to deny the other aspects such as perfect and absolute knowledge, wisdom, infinity, and power to do all that he pleases. This results in a god who cannot possibly be a creator of anything and at that point we are no longer talking about Christianity.
A really helpful critique respectfully written. It seems that defining God's personhood through the categories of human personhood is the root issue? Having taken this primary step, any theology and practice that then flows out of this becomes skewed, which is precisely the point I guess that Comer is intending to underline...
This is a great post. I have a tendency to look at this from the perspective of trying to say too much. Comer tries to say way more than can be (or should be said) given the tradition and scripture. But I also find John Piper doing the same thing. I don't take your essay as a defence of Piper but isn't his theology (and others like him) quilty of overstating things that can be said with a robust understanding of tradition and scripture?
This is excellently written well argued. I appreciated the irenic tone. No straw man detected.
Thank you. Yes, irenicism was my intent.
Great article, thank you
This is excellent, sir! Thank you so much.
Really good stuff, Wyatt. I’m tempted to do a close reading on Comer’s definition of the gospel from this sermon of his: https://practicingthewayarchives.org/teaching/the-four-american-gospels
Maybe you’ll get to it before I can.
Absolutely excellent. Wow. I’ve spent a few years now thinking and writing about this exact topic (the problem of human and divine agency). I usually tend to defend Comer against a certain sort of Reformed critique. And, generally, I tend to think the agency problem—in the Bible and in the fathers—is more complex than modern popular shorthand Reformed notions of “sovereignty” and “monergism” make it out to be. But you have tackled the nuances so well. I’d love to talk with you more about this sometime.
My addition to the conversation, which you were already implying, would be a framework I call “Mixed Agency” or “Stacked Agency,” where God is not seen as an agent among agents but the Agent of/over agents.
“In the beginning, God did not create things. He created agents, that is, choosers/actors/governors. Like Shakespeare, he is the author and conductor of the play. But unlike Shakespeare, God is the only playwright whose characters are actually real.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/rossbyrd/p/the-spirit-or-the-kick-drum?r=c2xi0&utm_medium=ios
Okay, so I read Wyatt Graham’s long article criticizing John Mark Comer, and honestly, I’m not really buying it. Graham acts like he’s got the whole Christian tradition on his side, but he comes off as super one-sided. He makes it sound like there’s only one “correct” way to talk about God, and if Comer doesn’t line up perfectly with Augustine or Calvin, then he’s basically out to lunch. But that just seems unfair. There’s been a lot of different voices in Christianity over the centuries, not just these old dudes. Comer is trying to make sense of a real problem—why there’s evil in the world and what that means about God—and he’s doing it in a way that might help normal people who are struggling. I’m not convinced Graham understands that Comer’s trying to connect people with God on a personal level, not just give them a theology lecture.
Also, Graham keeps going on about “classical theology” and “the tradition,” like that automatically wins the argument. He doesn’t admit that “classical theology” itself came from people wrestling with Scripture in their own times and places. Theology isn’t frozen in the past; it can grow, develop, and learn from different perspectives. Comer is reading the Bible and dealing with modern thinkers like Greg Boyd and N.T. Wright, who are part of today’s conversation. Just dismissing their ideas as “unorthodox” doesn’t prove anything. All it does is show that Graham wants to stick to one narrow viewpoint.
And honestly, Graham’s approach feels way too academic, as if the best way to fix people’s spiritual struggles is to bury them under a mountain of old theological terms. Comer is trying to reach ordinary people who are hurting. Sometimes Christians want to know that it’s okay to question or struggle with stuff like evil, chaos, and suffering. Comer says God’s not pulling every single string to crush you, and that resonates with people who feel crushed. Graham might have fancy answers, but does he remember that believers also need empathy and a God who feels near, not just a perfect “first cause” outside of time?
In the end, I think Graham’s critique misses what Comer is doing. Comer’s not trying to burn down two thousand years of theology. He’s just trying to help people see that following Jesus means engaging with tough questions and trusting that God is good, even when the world isn’t. Sure, Graham has his points, but being so rigid about “the right doctrine” makes it sound like there’s no room for new perspectives within a solid Protestant Christian faith. Comer is on a mission to make faith feel real and personal, and people clearly appreciate that. Isn’t that something worth taking seriously before tossing his ideas aside?
I am fairly new to JMC and even newer to Wyatt Graham (I literally stumbled here because I was trying to grasp what about JMC's stuff rubs me wrong sometimes); but I am not new to Christianity nor its history of writings through the centuries. That's my preface.
I understand your sentiment about how there sometimes can be a sense of gatekeeping: Whose perspective and voices are "orthodox" enough to be allowed. Comer certainly seems to like throwing around "orthodox" and claiming it for himself, so it seems reasonable that part of the debate ought to be over what exactly is orthodox. Of course, the ground for that (as I think we--me, you, Comer, Graham, etc.--all would agree) is the Bible. The discourse over the centuries always has been who is reading and interpreting it rightly--or as rightly as we can. In that sense, part of these critiques of theology almost have to happen: If our view of God informs what we do, and we get our view of God from Scripture, which requires us to interpret what we see there; then all of the above becomes necessary in some capacity.
Now, I would agree that we can't just point to the Church Fathers. Modern voices have done some excellent work in helping us continue to make sense of this ancient faith in our modern context. At the same time, even the modern voices always will be pointing back to those ancient commentators because they are the ones who lived in the same cultural and religious space and so are most likely to have the best grasp of the teachings. Why was Paul such a formidable apostle? Because he was a Jewish Jew in the Roman Empire who learned from the Risen Christ! Leaving aside the power of the Spirit working through him, he's got a good position from which to explain what God has done in Jesus Christ and what God intends for those in Christ Jesus to do. In that sense, there is a certain level of appropriateness in preferencing ancient voices ("classical theology," "the tradition," etc.) over modern voices who seem to be throwing out those. Christianity today didn't get where it is by reinventing the wheel every few years. In some ways, we're still experiencing a lot of negative effects from the Protestant Reformation, whatever good things it produced! At any rate, I would press that theology doesn't "grow" because the subject of theology doesn't grow: God is the same yesterday, today, and forever! Our understanding, particularly as it relates to our current context, certainly can though.
But that brings us to what I understand is the crux of your critique: Preferencing academic theology over practical theology doesn't really help anybody. True, to a certain extent. I think Comer, Graham, and I (you? others) understand that the practical theology has to flow out of the "academic theology." If that is well-established, then we are well-equipped to act it out. If, however, we cast aside elements because they make our practical work too difficult or too messy, then I would reckon that we have made a misstep. That seems to be the point that Graham has made: Comer wants to chuck out some theology because it doesn't fit the praxis which he wants to promote. And so much of the praxis is good! We just don't have to throw away theological principles because they are too complex.
I say all of this as somebody who does this hard work every week as a pastor. How can an unchanging God "change his mind" multiple times in the beginning of Genesis? How can a good God even let evil into the world at all (since allowing it would seem to be not good)? How can this God who is above all things also be Immanuel, God with us? I can't say that my answers always make perfect sense or are perfectly satisfactory--I don't reckon that they will be this side of heaven--but I don't resort to throwing out parts that don't fit (which seems to be the basics of what Graham is saying of Comer). Instead, I present the witness of Scripture in its multiplicity of parts and say, "At the end of the day, God's ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts higher than our thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)
All of that to say: Maybe Comer could spend a little more time grappling with the God of the Bible in all of his self-disclosure then refine his teaching which brings people closer to this God. If there is a difficult, jagged edge to this God, rather than try to buff it out, maybe our theology needs to expand still more. Maybe the answer for how to understand God's immanence and what he wants to do through us isn't less transcendence but, paradoxically, more.
These kinds of elitist posts are common for reformed guys who have never been in the trenches of pastoral ministry.
Gosh this is really illuminating. Comer was a teacher at the nondenominational church I went to for a year, but eventually I ended up entering the process of converting to orthodox Christianity, because well…. Heresies don’t lead to good places.
I can recall him teaching things like the need to pray to work with god to establish his kingdom among us… I would sum up comers view, though maybe I’m also influenced by the broader church’s view, as something like: God is the person beyond who loves us dearly and if we just reach out to him we will meet him. Thus we should pray to try to enter a relationship with him where we hear him speak to us directly and guide our actions in the world, and feel the “presence of the Holy Spirit.”
In contrast, I quickly learned that this is a very very heretical view once I started coming to the Orthodox Church. God is not a person — he is three persons, one essence, and everywhere present. He’s not completely inaccessible — but no, he will not speak to us in prayer. The Orthodox Church teaches that this is more often than not demonic deception, as God has laid out his word in the Bible, he has no need to speak to us in this way. If we want to feel his presence, we must first give up our sin, so we can be transformed in holiness and likeness to him. The fruits of the spirits come as holy replacements to the passions.
It’s sort of a reversal: Comer recommends seeking God out through spiritual experience, the Orthodox Church sternly warns against this—stressing that god grants us salvation, the process of healing, through the church and through giving up our sin. Its honestly more and more scary as I think about it 😓 nauseating, really
Looks like Comer should do what we all should do.....read and trust the Word of God more.
Arrived at this article because I was curious about Comer’s theology. But it was the discussion about views on suffering that was especially helpful. Thank you for the way this was laid out Wyatt, and for providing some further reading on the topic.
I have enjoyed Comer’s “Practicing the Way” disciplines. What I have found with him is that, like many modern day Preachers, he does in fact seemingly stay in a comfortable place theologically, as far as how the world views us. And why I think that is, because of his normal Sunday audience. He is trying not to “chase away” potential converts. He also is trying to reach a lot of practicing Buddhist’s. At one point because he was being very vague about sexuality and other high topic concerns in modern church, I thought he was going progressive. So I attended one of his Pastors conferences online and got some clarity. Doesn’t mean I don’t have concerns but it calmed some fears. I think we all tend to buck whatever system we came out of because of whatever faults they had, but it is dangerous when we throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Typo?
God the Word of the Father suffers impassibility in his own flesh. That is how God can suffer.
That’s correct. I have an article coming out soon that explains this with Logos coming out soon
Should it say that he suffers impassibly? Not that he suffers impassibility?
Oops, yes. I totally missed that! Ha.
Typo?
But God exists outside of time, and so he does push domino one at Time A into domino two at Time B. Zeus may work that way, but not the God of the Bible.
Yes, needed the NOT
So you accept the Boethian- Einsteinian doctrine that I learned from C S Lewis years ago and have always accepted. We need to have a discussion of that!!