Wyatt Graham

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God

Can We Still Trust Evangelical Theology?

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A number of recent evangelical theologians have reshaped and redefined one of the most central doctrines of Christianity: the doctrine of God. In particular, the dogmas of divine simplicity, eternality, infinity, immutability, impassibility, and triune relations of origin have been widely redefined and even rejected. 

Yet these doctrines have been a mainstay of biblical Christianity for centuries, for millennia. These teachings appeared in Christian confessions and in the great writings of Christian theology. Until the twentieth-century, almost every Christian thought they were biblical. But that is no longer the case. 

This change confronts us with the question: can we trust our theology? Is it correct? Why are we biblical now but not then? What makes us right and them wrong? What confidence can we have in unshakeable revealed truth if we cannot agree on the central topic of Christianity anymore, namely, God? 

Before answering that question, consider the following proofs for the above statements. The following paragraphs list the doctrines mentioned above and then cites evangelical theologians who either redefine or reject these doctrines. Afterward, I will reflect briefly on what this means and whether or not we can still trust evangelical theology. (Preview: we can)  [Read more…] about Can We Still Trust Evangelical Theology?

Is God Identical to His Attributes?

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God is good, loving, and merciful. And while this affirmation makes good sense, it does lead to the question of how God is good, loving, and merciful. We sometimes are good. Sometimes not. But God always is and does good. So when John says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8), he means something different than the phrase “Stephanie is a loving person.”

The traditional answer is bound up in the idea of God’s simplicity. In short, God simply is who he is (Exod 3:14). So that means God is love by nature. And the two terms are basically interchangeable. To say Love is to say God because Love defines God by nature. The nature of God is identical to his properties or attributes. 

While most Christians had affirmed this answer (it appears in the Reformed confessions and early Christian thought), some have now challenged the idea that God is identical to his properties. [Read more…] about Is God Identical to His Attributes?

Some Say Divine Simplicity Is Nonbiblical and Incoherent. Is it?

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Christians across the ages have confessed God’s simplicity, and it also remains as a stalwart foundation for the reformed faith. The Belgic Confession (1561), for example, begins by affirming that God is “ single and simple spiritual being.” And Francis Turretin (1623–1687) remarks, “The orthodox have constantly taught that the essence of God is perfectly simple and free from all composition” (1992: 1:191).

Divine simplicity means that God has no parts or possibility. He is actually and always who he claims to be. 

Yet some today reject divine simplicity as being nonbiblical and incoherent. Is it? [Read more…] about Some Say Divine Simplicity Is Nonbiblical and Incoherent. Is it?

What Does “Pure Act” Mean, and Why Should I Care?

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Sometimes Christians talk about God as being pure act. While such language sounds good and wholesome, it is unlikely that even those who use the phrase know what it means. To define God as pure actuality is abstract, obscure, and strange. 

And also very true. 

God is pure act. If he was not, he would not be God and we would be of all people most to be pitied. For God’s promises may not be sure, his desires in process, and his goals merely a possibility. 

The basic idea behind God’s pure actuality follows from God’s eternity. Since God exists eternally and so has no beginning, cause, or potentiality, then he is pure act (Thomas, Sum. Cont. Gent. 1.16). Let me try to unfold what this means.  [Read more…] about What Does “Pure Act” Mean, and Why Should I Care?

Why Do Christians Worship Jesus as God?

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Jesus stands at the centre of the Christian faith. Christians place their trust in Jesus and shape their life around him. They also worship him as God. And yet: Jesus was a Jewish person who lived during the first century in Palestine.

So how does this Jewish man become an object of Christian devotion and the centre of a faith to which billions of people subscribe? Put another way, how did intensely monotheistic Jewish men and women come to worship the man Jesus Christ? Added to this question, did early Christians (i.e., those in the first century) worship Jesus as God?

To answer these questions, we need to listen to the testimony of Jesus’ disciples or to a record of their testimony of Jesus. [Read more…] about Why Do Christians Worship Jesus as God?

Why God’s Unchangeability Is So Important

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Christians confess God to be unchangeable. He does not change or mutate. He is immutable. For many today, however, this doctrine seems archaic and odd.

Archaic because the doctrine is called “the immutability of God” and odd because God seems to change. After all, he creates the world, is sometimes angry, and at other times generous. Most of all, God entered into the world of change when he became man, when he became incarnate. The apostle John asserts, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14).

But despite our perception of God changing, God does not change. Instead, we change and God consistently (read: changelessly) expresses himself towards us. (I wrote on this here). Even if all this is persuasive, you might still think, “So What? Why Does it Matter?” Here’s my answer: a changing god is not perfectly compassionate, comforting, or (conceivably) faithful. In other words, a changing god is not God. [Read more…] about Why God’s Unchangeability Is So Important