Part One God is not, in any of the great theistic traditions, merely some rational agent, external to the order of the physical universe, who imposes some kind of design upon an otherwise inert and mindless material order. He is not some discrete being somewhere out there, floating in the great beyond, who fashions nature in accordance with rational laws upon which he is dependent. Notice that Hart has in mind the general consensus among theistic religions about God, not …
Author: Paul Henebury
Part Eleven This is the final part of this exploratory series on the rapture of the Church. It’s main purpose has been to show that none of the competing positions on the “taking out” of the saints merits more than an “inference to the best explanation.” Within the Rules of Affinity this would be a C3. I have looked at posttribulationism and midtribulationism in the last post; here I shall look at the prewrath and pretribulational views. PreWrath This view …
Domain For Truth have posted some Presuppositional Apologetics materials by Dr. Brian Rickett. Worth checking out! https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/presuppositional-apologetics-2014-paschal-lectures-by-brian-rickett/ P.S. There is also a fine essay by SLIMJIM about teaching Systematic Theology. …
Review of Invitation to Biblical Interpretation: Exploring the Hermeneutical Triad of History, Literature, and Theology, by Andreas J. Kostenberger & Richard D. Patterson, Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, hdbk, 891 pp This large volume has already positioned itself as a premier textbook for hermeneutics for evangelicals. The authors; one an OT commentator, and one a NT commentator, have put a lot of thought into their production. The publisher has produced an attractive, well planned volume. But why buy this book over …
Part Seven Facing The Evidence I want to move forward a bit now to the subject of evidence. Probably many of you have heard the old dictum that scientists “follow the evidence wherever it leads.” Often scientists themselves promote this idea, and others catch on and parrot it themselves. It sounds very dignified. Almost pious. And, as philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn and Michael Polanyi have shown, it is almost totally false. Several years ago, a well known, oft …
Gary V. Smith, Interpreting the Prophetic Books: An Exegetical Handbook, Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2014, pbk, 214 pages. This book by a recognized expert on the Prophetic literature serves as a competent introduction to the topic. It is well arranged and readable. The beginning grad student is always kept in mind. Smith includes useful information even for those familiar with the field. The first chapter covers style, genre and parallelism, etc. The author’s illustrations of parallelism in the Prophets is …
Part Ten As I bring this series to a close, I want to provide some summaries of the various rapture positions, along with a few pros and cons. Of course, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and I understand that much more could be said in support of each position. Still, my main goal has been to come at the doctrine from a slightly different angle and to present the theological issues which arise. Posttribulationism The posttrib position …
Part Six Since the Enlightenment, when unaided human reason was promoted to a place above the authority of the Holy Scriptures, it has been presumed that mankind can, at least in principle, explain himself and his surroundings without recourse to “the God hypothesis.” Although they couldn’t agree among themselves about how to rely on the human mind, they “knew” at least one thing: God – if He or it existed, would have to pass their examinations and fit within their …
Part Five Last time I drew attention to some fallacious ideas which circulate on the airwaves and in popular culture. There are many more. In fact, even Christians have manufactured some pretty misleading mottoes and aphorisms which they use as watchwords instead of Scripture. Perhaps I’ll come back to that later, but right now I want to press on with the subject of worldviews. As we have seen, a worldview is essentially an interpretation and outlook on life and its …
A review of David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, Yale University Press, 2013, 376 pages, paperback. Among the most learned and entertaining, if not sometimes infuriating writers on the theological scene today is David Bentley Hart. He is the author of such notable books as The Doors of the Sea, The Beauty of the Infinite, and Atheist Delusions. Alongside this is his impressive portfolio of articles (in particular for First Things). His ‘Christ or Nothing’, ‘Laughter …
