Wyatt Graham

God: Two Processions, Four Relations, Three Persons

March 21, 2024 by wagraham Leave a Comment

How is God the one God of Israel and Father, Son, and Spirit? How does that make sense?

The answer involves the biblical description of God as Father, Son, and Spirit, whose relations distinguish each from one another (e.g, Son of the Father). Connected to this, the Bible also teaches that the Son and Spirit proceed from the Father.

Let me outline how the Bible speaks about God in these ways and before giving a formal explanation, so that you can get a handle on the doctrine of God in Holy Scripture.

Divine Impassibility: Does God Experience Fleshly Passions?

March 14, 2024 by wagraham Leave a Comment

Divine impassibility is the answer to the question, “Does God have flesh like we do?” The Bible often locates passions in the flesh such as when Peter speaks of “the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Pet 2:11) or when Paul speaks of “the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24).

Now, the answer is that God does not have nerves, lungs, hormones, etc. God is Spirit (John 4:24). And when Paul and Barnabas claim to be human and not divine they speak of themselves as having like passions (ὁμοιοπαθεῖς) as other humans (Acts 14:15).

From this point of view, God does not get hangry due to hunger; short of temper due to lack of sleep; or tired due to exhaustion. No flesh with its limits limit God.

But this does not mean that God lacks Love, Joy, and other attributes that the Bible affirms of him. It simply means that God loves without flesh; he loves as Spirit.

Repent Boldly. It’s a Super Power.

March 12, 2024 by wagraham Leave a Comment

After a public rebuke of someone by the majority, Paul said, “comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.”

That is, encourage this person. Or else Paul warns, we will be “outwitted by Satan.”

Satan loves discouragement, loves sorrow in us. He wants us to see rebuke and repentance as “putting someone in their place.”

But if both rebuke and repentance are putting someone in their place, then the devil has won. Rebuke should be done because we will the good of another. And if someone repents, that’s courage, boldness, strength, power, overcoming. [Read more…] about Repent Boldly. It’s a Super Power.

How to Afford a Family as a Millennial or Old Gen-Zer

January 18, 2024 by wagraham Leave a Comment

One reason why millennials delay marriage and family has to do with cost.

A home is no longer 4x income but, say, 12x. And saving for a down payment takes much longer. Rent too has gone up so that a 2-3 bedroom townhome or equivalent could be $4000 + all sorts of fees. It makes it FEEL unaffordable since the cost of living has risen fast since the 90s.

*FT / The housing crisis is still being underplayed*

However, I also think that millennials as a rule can afford children, but they’d have re-shape their whole lives. If they are DINKY, one partner would probably need to work part time. They may need to move out of a very expensive city to a cheaper one, get new jobs. [Read more…] about How to Afford a Family as a Millennial or Old Gen-Zer

If Perseverance is a Gift Why Do People Seem to Fall Away from Faith?

January 15, 2024 by wagraham 1 Comment

Augustine (rightly) says that both the beginning of end of faith is a gift of God, both the initial belief and the perseverance to the end (Rebuke and Grace, and Perseverance). As Paul says, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6).

But this “fact” does not reduce human experience to nothing. We know that people profess faith, have “initial enthusiasm” as Paul Carter recently noted. And this initial enthusiasm often wanes, and so does one’s professed faith. There is no reason to deny this regular experience because the Bible affirms that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion.

I find this to be one of the oddest things people do: oppose experience to faith as if they contradict each other. [Read more…] about If Perseverance is a Gift Why Do People Seem to Fall Away from Faith?

Reflections on Predestination in Augustine, Fulgentius, and the Reformation

January 10, 2024 by wagraham Leave a Comment

I like how Augustine and Fulgentius and others in the early church talk about predestination. They teach what the Bible says on these matters, but they have a sort of holy reverence for the doctrine so that they don’t speak about such mysteries lightly.

I find the way in which some young Calvinistic people talk about predestination and reprobation harsh. And so did Augustine, and in his work on Perseverance, he instructs a group of people to teach on this doctrine without harshness. After all, Augustine says, you are talking to Christians in church! Why not assume the best about them.

And so we can make salvation feel like the whims of God’s will, even though that is far away from the truth. God’s essential goodness alone provides the ground for his predestining grace given to us in time as the Spirit awakens faith in our hearts.

Predestination is good news that God gives grace to people who don’t merit it by their good works, because they cannot; the one who sins, Jesus tells us, is a slave to sin. And so we are all enslaved to sin because all people die; and death, as Paul says, is the wages of sin. So if we all die, we must all sin; and if we sin, we must all be slaves of sin.

So only can God’s grace that awakens our evil will to make it a good will save us. That is, predestination saves us because grace awakens our faith and hearts; grace is predestination applied in time, or actualized to use the older language. [Read more…] about Reflections on Predestination in Augustine, Fulgentius, and the Reformation