Open Theists all deny that God has exhaustive foreknowledge of the future, but they differ in their accounts as to why this is so. They tend, however, to want to maintain the doctrine
of omniscience in spite of the limitation in question. Some say that God is omniscient in spite of the limitation because the claims about the future that he does not know are not true in the present, but will only come to be true later, and omniscience doesn’t require knowing anything that isn’t true. Others say that all claims about the future are truth, but some of them are unknowable and God is omniscient in virtue of knowing all that can be known. These positions share a common theme, however, and it is this: the future is composed of two parts, one part open to omniscience and the other part not. The part of the future that is not open to omniscience is the undetermined part, with future free actions being the prime and motivating example of such.
Here I will term this division aspect of Open Theism “the Asymmetry Thesis”, the thesis that the part of the future that is determined by present and past events is secure in truth value
and falls within the scope of omniscience whereas the parts of the future that remain undetermined by the present and past do not fall within the scope of omniscience and perhaps are
not secure in truth value. The Asymmetry Thesis faces serious troubles, and here I intend to cast doubt on its plausibility. I will argue that, given Open Theist assumptions, there is no part of the future that can be known to be true, including the determined part of it. I will begin by explaining what one needs to say to defend the Thesis and then say why it fails.
The author of the above paper is Jonathan L. Kvanvig, Baylor University.
When discussion between Arminians and Calvinists focuses on the economic revelation of redemption, the means of faith and the christocentric nature of salvation, their differences on election and security recede into a theoretical background as common ground emerges in theology and practice.
The author of the above article is John Mark Hicks, Lipscomb University.
This study was an attempt to determine if God might provide a secure base for theological exploration. It was predicted that those displaying secure
attachment with God would be more willing to “explore” their theological “world.” Participants were 117 undergraduate students who completed
measures of attachment to God, Quest religious motives, and Christian orthodoxy. Overall, the study supported the experimental predictions. Specifically, the participants in the study who saw God as a “Secure Base” were more engaged in theological exploration and were more tolerant of Christian faiths different from their own. These same subjects also reported more peace and less distress during their spiritual journey. Yet, despite their exploration, these participants fully embraced the core doctrines of Christianity. Overall, these results suggest that the attachment paradigm might significantly illuminate research involving religious maturity, apostasy, and religious intolerance.
The author of the above article is Richard Beck, Abilene Christian University.
In asking about the reality of faith in the 21st century, the following questions arise: What is the meaning of faith? And what makes faith a reality? More importantly, however, to the question of the reality of faith is the reality of God, and it is this question of God that is under discussion in
the present essay. For instance, if the Father-God of Christian tradition belongs to history, that, of course, has far-reaching implications for one’s
thinking about the reality of faith. In this essay I want to examine the work of H. M. Kuitert and Alain Badiou to show that a choice has to be made about this. It will be my argument that true faith can better be imagined without than with God.
The author of the above essay is Gerrit Neven, Theological University Kampen.
The modern world has, according to the current wisdom, witnessed three quests for the historical Jesus. The first was the nineteenth century German endeavor so ingeniously and memorably reported by Albert Schweitzer. The second was the new quest, inaugurated by Ernst
Käsemann’s famous 1953 lecture in Marburg and then carried on by some of Rudolf Bultmann’s students and a few others. The so-called third quest, christened such by N. T. Wright, is the name now often attached to the labors of the present moment.5
The author of the above paper is Dale C. Allison, Jr., Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Do we who claim to be trinitarian in doctrine actually demonstrate a conscious belief in that truth? What difference does trinitarian theology make in our churches and in our personal lives? Are we satisfied with a doctrinally accurate formulation in our statements of faith, while living out a Christianity that is more in conformity with modalism or tritheism or even practical Unitarianism? These and other questions are being asked in a flood of new books and articles. At present, the doctrine of the Trinity probably is the most discussed aspect of theology. Although other issues, such as Openness Theism, are more in the news, the real focus in western Christianity is on working out the practical implications of trinitarian belief.
The Christian formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity began as a Christological project. The Apostolic Fathers were faced with the daunting task of harmonizing the scriptural data concerning Jesus Christ with biblical monotheism. Since the majority of the ancient theologians recognized the true deity of Christ, while at the same time holding to belief in God as one personal divine spirit, they recognized that some reasonable explanation had to be reached. As a part of the same theological process, they also took steps to account for the deity of the Holy Spirit. It was the question of the Son of God, however, that defined the task which resulted in the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.) and its Chalcedonian explication (451 A.D.).
The author of the above article is Jack K. Willsey, Northwest Baptist Seminary.
Modern Christian thinking recognizes a clear theoretical distinction between heresy and schism. This is expressed, for example, with legal precision in the Roman Catholic Church in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Yet it is not a topic that attracts much scholarly attention. Perhaps the development of an ecumenical consciousness and the heightened sensitivity to past injustices that had been brought about through an inquisitorial mindset may explain much of the current lack of interest. There is an effort today to focus on what unites Christians rather than what divides them. Part of the reason also may lie in the fact that these two terms actually may not be distinguished so easily in practice. In theory at least heresy is to orthodoxy as schism is to orthopraxy. However, as many a modern fundamental theologian would point out, the separation of fides quae from fides qua is not always possible. What one believes and how one acts are intricately interwoven.
The author of the above article is Geoffrey D. Dunn, Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University.
‘The more anyone sees that the bishop is silent, the more let him fear him’ (Ign. Eph. 6.1). The silent bishop has been the topic of much scholarly speculation in Ignatian scholarship. Hypotheses to explain what Ignatius meant by this elliptical reference range from a defence of soft-spoken, insecure leaders to full-blown Gnostic schemes. In this essay I return to the silent bishops of Asia Minor to locate them in a rhetorical culture in which rightly timed speaking and controlled speech are the measure of a man. Ignatius’ admiration of the silent bishop is but a small part of the Greek rhetorical culture of the bishop of Antioch’s social world, and belongs to his larger use of civic ideals to persuade the Asia Minor churches to give up their discord in favour of ecclesial peace.
The author of the above article is Harry O. Maier, Vancouver School of Theology.
Ronald H. Nash wrote a three part series on the place of Jesus in salvation for the Christian Research Journal.
Part One, Is Jesus the Only Savior? The Answer to Religious Pluralism. Here.
Part Two, Is Belief in Jesus Necessary? The Answer to Religious Inclusivism. Here.
Part Three, Is There Salvation After Death? The Answer to Postmortem Evangelsim. Here.
When discussion between Arminians and Calvinists focuses on the economic revelation of redemption, the means of faith and the christocentric
nature of salvation, their differences on election and security recede into a theoretical background as common ground emerges in theology and practice.
The author of the above article is John Mark Hicks, Professor of Theology, Lipscomb University.
In venturing upon a discussion of the address of the apostle Paul at Athens, recorded in Acts xvii. 22-31, I am mindful that I am not entering upon a largely neglected field of investigation. The passage is so replete with exceptional and arresting features that the commentators and the historians of early Christianity have been stimulated to treat it at considerable length. Moreover, a remarkable number of learned monographs have been
devoted to its interpretation.
The author of the above article is N. B. Stonehouse, Professor of New Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, U.S.A. (1949).
In the following essay I will offer some exploratory reflections on the use of the ad hominem argument within a presuppositional apologetic methodology. More specifically, my purpose is to clarify its role in producing an epistemological crisis for the unbeliever. After first mapping the nature of the controversy between presuppositionalists and evidentialists over the issue of ‘‘objectivity’’ and ‘‘rationality,’’ I will survey CorneliusVan Til’s brief comments on the ad hominem argument’s use and usefulness, particularly the guidelines he employs in articulating its proper application. If, as Van Til seems to suggest, the ad hominem argument is intended to facilitate a coming to epistemological self-consciousness on the part of the unbeliever, a problem emerges. Given the presuppositionalist’s insistence on the presuppositional nature (circularity) of all thought and predication, and subsequently that these ultimate commitments (presuppositions) are unfalsifiable (hold revisionary immunity), then what is the point of argument? The answer will require a brief consideration of Van Til’s language of antithesis and the role this language can and often does play in obfuscating the nature of the common ground that exists between believer and unbeliever. In an attempt to achieve greater clarity with regard to the role of argument in producing an epistemological crisis, I will explore two recent attempts to a) explore the nature of epistemological crises, and b) analyze the role of the ad hominem as a form of practical reason. For the former I will examine the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, and with regard to the latter I will turn to the writings of Charles Taylor. In the end I will conclude that presuppositional apologetics is not stalled by its commitment to the normative role of ultimate commitments. The ad hominem argument of Van Til, once clarified and enlarged by the insights provided by MacIntyre and Taylor, serves to promote lively argument with the unbeliever - argument circumscribed by the theological limitations imposed by Scripture itself.
The author of the above article is Michael W. Payne, Associate Professor of Theology and Missions at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson,
MS.
This article examines the association of idolatry with erroneous ideas about the natural world in the writings of late antique Jewish and Christian authors. It follows two polemical genres. The first is the hexaemeral commentaries composed by Philo of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea and Augustine, which positioned the hexaemeron against the background of natural philosophy and used various critiques of idolatry to revise or refute pagan natural philosophy. The second genre is that of heresiology initiated by Irenaeus of Lyon and adapted by Augustine to refute Gnostic and Manichaean cosmological myths and disregard for the creation account in Genesis. The article analyses a variety of ways in which the prohibitions against idolatry figured in methodological questions about how to conceptualize the natural world, how to locate the sources of conceptual error, and how to distinguish those errors from truth.
The author of the above article is Isaac Miller, Assistant Professor of History, Oberlin College.
Much has changed in Reformation historiography over the last two decades. Long established temporal and geographical frameworks have been thoroughly revised and reappraised. If theology, politics, social movements, and economic trends were once treated as discreet areas of study, nowadays scholars in the field are much more appreciative of how these themes inform each other. This review essay appraises a selection of works that are indicative of the richness and variety that characterizes Reformation and Counter-Reformation scholarship today.
The author of the above essay is R. Po-chia Hsia, Professor of History, Pennsylvania State University.
Many intelligent Christians are puzzling today over what is being called "the new perspective on Paul." Seminary students run across it in their New Testament course reading and perhaps class lectures. Pastors hear about it from fledgling theologues wanting to impress them with their newfound knowledge of the latest thing in Pauline studies. Laypeople find it being peddled ubiquitously on the internet, on websites, in chatrooms or in various online discussion groups, as well as in numerous books on the Christian market, even from conservative evangelical publishing houses.
The author of the above paper is J. Ligon Duncan, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, and Adjunct Professor of Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary.
‘The references to Darius the Mede in the Book of Daniel have long been recognised as providing the most serious historical problem in the book.’ Yet the Bible clearly declares that after the death of the Chaldean king Belshazzar ‘Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old’ (Dn. 5:30-31). This Darius was ‘son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who became king over the realm of the Chaldeans’ (9:1). He ‘set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty satraps, to be throughout the while kingdom; and over them three presidents, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss’ (6:1-2). Daniel held a position of authority at least during the first regnal year in Babylon of this king (6:1; 9:1) and, according to the traditional translation of 6:28, ‘Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.’ Thus Darius the Mede appears to have been succeeded by Cyrus and this verse is considered ‘the clearest evidence of the book’s belief in a Median empire between the Babylonian and the Persian’.
The era of postmodernism is still upon us, and no part of our theologies or ministries have found exemption from its influence. Indeed, perhaps now more than ever before Christians are recognizing the responsibility imposed upon us to respond to post-modern and post-enlightenment challenges greeting us at the doorsteps of our homes and churches. And yet, even now, years after names like Jacques Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer have become almost commonplace, many well-intentioned people still tend to assume their challenges (which are admittedly guided by obscure and mysterious terminology) to be entirely esoteric and reserved only for those ivory-tower thinkers who rarely get their hands dirty with “real life” affairs. This is clearly an unfortunate and perhaps even dangerous belief when, in truth, the contrary is the case. Since the death of modernism many new developments have become very practical or “hands-on” in response to the legacy of the Age of Reason, especially as worked out in contemporary hermeneutics (the theory of interpretation). Contemporary hermeneutics encapsulates many of the fundamental postmodern challenges facing this as well as the next generation of Christians. This is perhaps no more evident than in the challenge to make sense of human experience outside the authority of the natural sciences by describing the facts of our situatedness (our finitude, context bound nature, etc.) without succumbing to empty and abstract theories or any pseudo form of logical positivism which locates meaning entirely within the realm of the objective and measurable.
The author of the above article is Jason C. Robinson, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON.
The history of scholarship about the Dead Sea Scrolls contains many intriguing twists and turns. By now over a hundred distinct theories have been spun about the significance of these astounding finds from the Judaean Desert, with many scholars having sought to link the Scrolls to the New Testament. As background to the articles that follow, this is an attempt to trace landmark studies in the Scrolls’ interpretations from the discovery of the so-called Zadokite work in 1898 to around 1990.
The author of the above article is Professor Garry Trompf, Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney, N.S.W., Australia.
The article surveys recent scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls and traces the contours of interpretative trends in scroll research since the 1990s. The publication of all of the Dead Sea texts in the early 1990s has given scholars unprecedented access to the entire corpus. Many aspects of the scholarly consensus that emerged out of the enterprise of the first generation of scroll researchers in the 1950s have proven remarkably resilient. However, in other respects, the scrolls have raised new questions about their authors and their community, as well as the early Jewish environment
in which the corpus came to be written.
The author of the above article is Mark Harding is the Dean of the Australian College of Theology.
For a long time Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) was thought of more as a preacher of hellfire and revival than as a theologian, and rather as a Calvinist theologian than a philosopher of importance, and he was dismissed accordingly. Yet Edwards was more than a hellfire preacher, more than a theologian. This New England divine was one of the rare individuals anywhere to recognize and answer the challenges posed to traditional Christian belief by the emergence of new modes of thought in early modern history — the new ideas of the scientific thought and the Enlightenment. His force of mind is evident in his exposition of the poverty of mechanical philosophy, which radically transformed the traditional Christian dialectic of God’s utter transcendence and divine immanence by gradually diminishing divine sovereignty with respect to creation, providence, and redemption, thus
leading to the disenchantment of the world. Edwards constructed a teleological and theological alternative to the prevailing mechanistic interpretation of the essential nature of reality, whose ultimate goal was the re-enchantment of the world by reconstituting the glory of God’s majestic sovereignty, power, and will within the order of creation.
The author of the above article is Avihu Zakai, senior lecturer in early modern history, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
I have a passionate interest in the apostle Paul. Many people think this passion is unusual because I am a Jew not a Christian. What's more, I like to think of myself as a feminist. What's a nice Jewish feminist doing studying the apostle Paul? After all, from a Jewish perspective, Paul is a heretic who had a demented view of Judaism. From a feminist perspective, Paul is an ally of Christian conservatives who wish to keep women in a subordinate position to men.
Nevertheless, my interest derives naturally from my professional commitments. I am a Jewish New Testament scholar who teaches in a Christian seminary, and, after some years of studying and teaching Paul, I have come to the conclusion that Paul was a committed, well-intentioned Jew, even if the subsequent uses of his teachings were abominable where Jews and women are concerned. Moreover, I believe Paul was largely driven by the fact that he was both a Jew and a citizen of the wider Hellenistic world that encompassed the ancient Mediterranean in his day. These two components of his identity caused him to realize that the world is a diverse and complex place. In my view, Paul is one of the first people in the history of Western civilization to deal directly with the problem of multiculturalism. As a modern American Jew, I do not end up in the same place Paul ends up (with Christ), but I appreciate how he wrestled with life in its multitudinous complexity and how boldly and constructively he faced questions about human diversity. In my view, Paul's theological vision can be summed up by Galatians 3:28: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." Exploring the essence of this dictum, particularly the implications for gender and intercultural relations, is the driving force behind my passion for Paul. Because my understanding of Paul deviates rather significantly from traditional as well as au courant scholarly views, I will begin by briefly describing the typical understanding of Paul and his writings.
The author of the above article is Pamela Eisenbaum, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Christian Origins at the Iliff School of Theology.
The question of the immutability of God is not a new topic of debate. Nor is it a trivial matter. Disputants on all sides believe that they are defending a view of the nature of God that is essential to a coherent theological system, and one that is true to the biblical revelation. J. Pelikan observes, however, that the "early Christian picture of God was controlled by the self-evident axiom, accepted by all, of the absoluteness and the impassibility of the divine nature." Thomas Weinandy points out that the "early Christological controversies and debates were never concerned with the
immutability and impassibility of God as such," and Reinhold Seeberg observes that among the early apologists the true Christian doctrines included, "There is One God, the Creator, Adorner, and Preserver of the world. . . . The invisible God is unbegotten, nameless, eternal, incomprehensible, unchangeable Being." Irenaeus himself asserted, "let them learn that God alone, who is Lord of all, is without beginning and without end, being truly and for ever the same, and always remaining the same unchangeable Being."
The author of the above article is Thomas A. Howe, Professor of Bible and Biblical Languages, Southern Evangelical Seminary.
John Shelby Spong's thesis that a post-canonical process of literalization caused episodes in the Gospels to be misunderstood as historicail narratives when they had been intended by their authors and received by their original readers as purely metaphorical tales does not hold up to the scrutiny of either literary or historical analysis. It is also theologically unnecessary, motivated apparently by a drive to legitimate a reading of the texts that is better obtained through a recognition of the hermeneutical limits of authorial intent, an appreciation for polyvalence, and an adoption of postmodern reading strategres.
The author of the above article is Mark Allan Powell, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio.
This article first examines the history of the debate over biblical inerrancy within modern evangelicalism. Second, it examines traditional arguments both for and against inerrancy. We will demonstrate that inerrancy is an important doctrine to promote and defend, but caution is urged in choosing arguments to support it. Not all arguments for inerrancy are valid.
The author of the above article is Stephen L. Andrew.
This article seeks to illuminate Jesus' Jewishness by introducing the perspective of covenant and a new concept, covenant path searching. The concept reflects a phenomenon discernible in all Judaism of the time: the activity of trying to find out how to keep faithful to the covenant. The analysis suggests that Jesus refrained from such an activity thus remarkably departing from the contemporary covenant thinking. This does not necessarily mean detachment of Jesus from Judaism or that he should be pictured as an antinomian. The so-called eschatological covenant of later Old Testament prophetic books could offer an explanation. The texts foretell an inner knowledge of God’s will which renders pursuing questions of covenant loyalty futile.
The author of the above article is Tom Holmén, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland.
Prayer is not by any means a new topic of theological concern. Indeed, The Index to Religious Periodical Literature – to mention only one bibliographical source – lists a host of articles on prayer every year since the early 1970s. Several journals have even dedicated entire issues to the subject. And while prayer may not be new to the arena of theological concern, the direction from which the issue has been addressed in recent
decades is somewhat new. For instance, the field of pastoral theology has devoted attention to prayer and biblical scholars and others have combined the insights of critical Psalms interpretation with interests in prayer and pastoral counseling and ministry. More recent scholarship has examined the dialogic discourse of Psalms within various frameworks, including Mikhail Bakhtin's discourse theory. It is within this convergence of interests over the last three decades that the authors strive to make a contribution by suggesting a way to structure the life of prayer using the Psalms (and Role-taking theory) that has practical benefits for both the individual and church.
The authors of the above article are Robert Moore-Jumonville, Ph.D is Associate Professor of Religion at Spring Arbor University, and Robert H. Woods, Jr., Department of Communication Spring Arbor University.
The recent interest in "practices" has created a multi-faceted discussion in theological circles, a discussion that has brought together insights from many other disciplines such as ethics, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. However, there has been little extended theological analysis about how the many claims about how practices function in our lives are related to the quite similar claims traditionally made about the work of the Holy Spirit. This is not surprising, for many of the implicit and explicit understandings of the work of the Holy Spirit, at least in mainline and academic circles in the last century, have been formed around the notions of revelation, inspiration, and miracle, and so do not fit precisely with the kind of "action" practices have on us. Protestant conceptions of what it means to be a Christian have often centered on our beliefs or our response of faith to revelation; therefore, the work of the Holy Spirit has often been conceptualized in ways that make sense the process of coming to faith in those beliefs and propositions or the response of faith to revelation. However, the renewed emphasis that the Christian life is an ellipse centered on the twin-foci of beliefs and practices - this shift, which I think is a quite fruitful shift, may cause us to have to broaden our notions of the Spirit's work in certain ways. I believe this broadening will create healthy winds of change and yet coming from the Reformed tradition, I want this broadening to be done carefully in order not to sacrifice certain key theological themes, such as the Reformation theme of sola gratia. This paper is an attempt to begin to do precisely that. To that end, I will highlight four distinctions found in the work of certain theologians that can help us better conceptualize the overlap between human "practices" and the work of the Holy Spirit.
The above paper was written by David L. Stubbs, Western Theological Seminary.
The compressed, elusive narrative of Gen 9:20–27 has been an exegetical puzzle since antiquity. The terseness of the account, with its inexplicable features and subtle hints of sexual transgression, has left generations of readers and scholars feeling that there is more to the story than the narrator has made explicit. As many have pointed out, interpretive debates generally revolve around two interrelated questions: (1) the nature of Ham's offense (why would Ham's "seeing" Noah’s nakedness merit a curse?), and (2) the rationale for Canaan's punishment (if Ham was the perpetrator, why was Canaan cursed?)
The above article was written by John Sietze Bergsma and Scott Walker Hahn, Franciscan University of Steubenville.
In recent years we have heard some rather severe statements about the status and quality of evangelical scholarship. While I share some of the concern of those who have issued these condemnations, I have preferred to try to alleviate the problem by contributing positively to the corpus, rather than complaining about it. This is a case of lighting a candle, rather than cursing the darkness.
The above essay was written by Millard J. Erickson, distinguished professor of theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University.
Postmodernism is a term that is much in vogue these days in academic circles, and like all such terms and the movements associated with them, is exerting considerable influence upon contemporary theology. If we are to understand postmodernism and its significance for theological life and work, we must first arrive at a reasonably precise definition: just what is postmodernity? what is postmodernism? are they two different concepts or can the terms be used interchangeably? The first difficulty is that there is considerable confusion as to just what the postmodern is. Theologian Tyron Inbody compares it to "intellectual Velcro dragged across culture" which "can be used to characterize almost anything one approves or disapproves."
The above essay was written by Daniel J. Adams, a Presbyterian theologian teaching at Hanil Theological Seminary in Korea.
This is the transcript of Dateline's show on the Last Days of Jesus. The scholars interviewed for the show include Paula Fredriksen, Aurelio Professor of Scripture, Boston University; Craig A. Evans, Professor of New Testament, Acadia Divinity College; Marcus Borg, Hundere Professor of Religion, Oregon State University; John Dominic Crossan, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, DePaul University; and Bishop Nicholas Thomas Wright, Bishop of Durham.
