Currently Browsing: Books
Dec 7, 2010
Posted on Dec 7, 2010 in Book Reviews, Books
I have been working through The Theology of B.B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary. I thought this section in chapter 2 was helpful in defining apologetics.
A Right Definition of Apologetics
“Apologetics does not merely teach men how to defend Christianity; if it were only this, then it would belong to the discipline of practical theology. Nor does apologetics set out merely to vindicate Christianity in its various branches of thought, against opposing thought; if it were this, it would presuppose the faith it defends and, thus, properly take its place as the “culminating department of systematic theology.”
So, according to Warfield, apologetics is not merely defense or vindication but the establishment of Christianity.
The function, then, of apologetics is “to investigate, explicate, and establish the grounds on which a theology–a science, or systematized knowledge of God–is possible.” p.65
Theology is not:
- Science of faith or religion.
- Science of the Christian religion.
Rather, theology is the science of God, “in which case it deals with a body of objective facts, truth God has revealed about himself.”
What then, are these principal facts upon which Christianity is built? (p.66)
- The reality of its subject matter
- The capacity of the human mind to receive into itself and reationally to reflect this subject-matter
- The percipient and understanding mind.
Therefore, it is the role of apologetics to establish:
- The existence of God
- The capacity of the human mind to know him
- The accessibility of knowledge concerning him
But certainly, before we draw it [theology] from the Scriptures, we must assure ourselves that there is a knowledge of God in the Scriptures. And, before we do that, we must assure ourselves that there is a knowledge of God in the world. And before we do that, we must assure ourselves that a knowledge of God is possible for man. And, before we do that, we must assure ourselves that there is a God to know. Thus we must inevitably work back to first principles. And, in working thus back to first principles, we exhibit the indispensability of an “Apologetical Theology,” which of necessity holds the place of the first among the five essential disciplines.”
Nov 3, 2010
Posted on Nov 3, 2010 in Books, Interviews
I am really excited about All That Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us
by Stan Guthrie. It was released this month, but last April I did a series of posts in which I interviewed Stan about his forthcoming book.
I find it really helpful in sermon preparation when authors look at scripture and collect all of what scripture says about a particular topic or theme–see also John Piper’s What Jesus Demands from the World
Part 1 Story behind All That Jesus Asks
Part 2 How Stan was personally impacted by the writing of All That Jesus Asks.
Part 3 Surprising themes that emerged as Stan researched the questions of Jesus
Part 4 How can Pastors grow as communicators as a result of All That Jesus Asks?
Part 5 How can this book be used evangelistically?
Oct 10, 2010
Posted on Oct 10, 2010 in Book Reviews, Books
I’m going to be working through The Theology of B.B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary over the next couple (or more?) months. My plan is not to give a detailed summary of each chapter or section, but rather, post some reflections after reading. For a good interview with Fred Zaspel and summary of the book see Justin Taylor’s post.
Why I think this book is important (after reading the first chapter):
- B.B. Warfield might be the most important man in 20th century evangelical history that you know nothing about.
- Fred Zaspel’s attention to historical detail. It was fascinating to read the history of Presbyterianism and Princeton. Is it for everyone? No. But it is helpful to set the scene to help understand liberalism.
- This is a different kind of theology book. It is not a systematic theology text, nor is it a historical study, but it seems to weave the two together well. I am looking forward to reading more.
- Warfield combated the liberal tendencies of the day by continually asserting that Christianity is supernatural. “Here is the Christian worldview, a frank confession of the ‘absolute supernatural’ that pervades the Christian faith that is ‘incumbent on every Christian’–a supernatural God, a supernatural redemption, accomplished by a supernatural Savior, interpreted by a supernatural revelation and applied by the supernatural operations of His Spirit.” p.59
Some interesting quotes:
“Warfield observes that this liberalism did not arise directly from unbelief but indirectly, in an attempt to rescue what was considered “essential Christianity’ from the onslaught of philosophical and scientific materialism.” p.46
“H. Richard Niebur (1894-1962) famously described the early twentieth-century theology this way: ‘A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministrations of Christ without a cross.’” p.47
An era of change it was. Christianity was being offered a new set of beliefs…Religion had advanced also, and it was needful for Christianity to shed its ancient relics in order to keep up with the times…The very nature of the church is thrown into question. Just what is the church? Is it the pillar and ground of the truth? or is it more a religious society, or a business? And by what rule are such questions decided? What is the source of authority? change was the leading characteristic of the day, and virtually all that was distinctively Christian hung in the balance.” p.51
“In his 1880 inaugural lecture at Western Theological Seminary, Warfield referred to a ‘certain looseness of belief’ that had ‘invaded’ several quarters of the church.” p.52
Aug 27, 2010
Posted on Aug 27, 2010 in Book Reviews, Books
I previously posted Chris Spano’s summary of Fred Sanders’ new book The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything
Chris serves as a ministry resident at College Church and I really respect the way he thinks about theology and tying it in with historical movements and how doctrine has been thought about throughout the history of the church. He taught a class in one of our Adult Communities last school year that was very thoughtful and provocative. I hope you enjoy his review and even if you don’t have time to read the book that you benefit from the ideas in the book and Chris’ interaction with them. Thanks, Chris for your work!
Review by Chris Spano
Few people (if any) would accuse me of being an expert in Trinitarian theology. Still, Trinitarian theology is my favorite loci in Christian theology and I have read a fair bit of it—especially in the last couple of years. In my view, Sanders’ book is excellent and I would highly recommend it to faithful and thoughtful Christians who are seeking a deeper understanding of Trinitarian theology, and therefore, a deeper and richer understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Triune nature of God can be a very complicated thing to understand. To Sanders’ credit, The Deep Things of God is not overly esoterical; it is appropriately simple without becoming simplistic; for those familiar with the history of Trinitarian theology, there are many insightful observations made between the lines, which are well worth pondering. (I wish Sanders would have been more willing to expound the development of Trinitarian theology in Christianity; perhaps he did not because there are ample resources for this specific investigation elsewhere). Even so, some theological concepts in this book may be a bit too deep for the average Christian to grasp without having previously studied Biblical teaching about the Triune God. Still, even for those whose only knowledge of Trinity is that woman from The Matrix, the excavation may be challenging, but there are nuggets of gold ready to be dug up from between the covers of this book.
I would now like to quickly evaluate Sanders’ two main claims: First, that the Trinity is the gospel. Second, therefore, since evangelicals are inherently gospel people, we are “profoundly” Trinitarian, “whether or not [we] know it” (27).
Regarding claim #1: In my view, Sanders is absolutely correct to claim that the Trinity is the gospel. I also think that, presented with the evidence, most evangelical Protestant Christians would heartily agree. Last year I taught and adult Sunday school class at my church entitled: Trinity and Christology. For thirteen weeks, we traced the historical development of these two foundational doctrines in historic orthodox Christianity. All along my goal for the last week of class was to demonstrate (as Sanders puts it) that the Trinity is the gospel. (Specifically, I wanted to illustrate the inherently Trinitarian structure of penal substitutionary atonement—the doctrine that Christ died vicariously in the place of sinners to reconcile God with man). All thirteen weeks proved to be an intellectual exertion of faith seeking understanding, but for me, the final five minutes of the last class were worth all the effort. When I was finished teaching and it was time for questions, one very thoughtful and insightful woman named Ashley raised her hand and said with inquisitive assurance, “I don’t think it’s even possible to think about salvation without thinking about the Trinity!?” Exactly. I expect that if you read this book you will have an insightful experience similar to that of Ashley. Regardless of who delivers the package, once you receive the gift of understanding how the gospel is inherently Trinitarian, I believe you will never be the same. Ever since receiving this gift from the team of Augustine, Anselm, W.G.T. Shedd, and C.S. Lewis, two aspects of my life have changed rather dramatically: how I read the Bible and how I pray—Sanders’ two examples of implicit Tinitarianism are perfect.
Regarding claim #2: In my view, Sanders’ claim that, as gospel people, evangelicals are profoundly (even if only implicitly) Trinitarian is correct—and also incorrect. It’s correct insofar as we are indeed implicitly Trinitarian. Not to belabor the point, but if the Trinity is the gospel (which it is), then belief in the gospel is indeed—and cannot be otherwise—an essentially Trinitarian reality. When I first believed the gospel, I didn’t have a clue about the Triune nature of God—and neither did most of the rest of us! But, as Sanders points out in chapter four, our union with Christ by faith in Christ through the Spirit’s power is nothing less than our participation in the eternal Trinitarian fellowship shared between, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Once I believed, then I was prepared to understand this. As the relationship between the Trinity and salvation became clearer, it did not feel like I was learning something “new.” It felt so intuitively obvious that I almost immediately felt like I had always known this to be true. It was a necessary part of who I am as a Christian—or rather, a necessary inference given who I am in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Still, I believe it’s incorrect insofar as we are not profoundly Trinitarian. As the online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it, something implicit “is capable of being understood from something else though unexpressed.” Profundity, however, is “having intellectual depth and insight” of things “difficult to fathom or understand.” Think of the distinction between implicit and profound in this way. Implicit knowledge derived from experience is nothing to pooh-pooh at! We live by it. But we are disinclined to consider implicit or intuitive knowledge and understanding as profound expertise. For example, if my sons were (to appropriate Sanders’ language) ‘cold toward Einstein’s theory of general relativity, confused about its meaning, and noncommittal about its importance,’ even though they constantly experience the pull of gravitational force, I would not accuse them of being physicists ‘whether or not they know it.’ The point is, there is a difference between being implicitly/intuitively and profoundly Trinitarian—at least in the way we typically use these words. But profundity comes with concerted and vigorous reflection upon and study of what we intuit or observe to be true—whether in general revelation (physics and farming) or special revelation (theology). In my mind, we must acknowledge that evangelicals are implicitly Trinitarian given their doctrinal emphases vis-à-vis the gospel. It would be wiser, however, to reserve the accolade of profundity for a time when we implicitly Trinitarian evangelicals, who are “bedeviled by spiritual shallowness” (11), have plumbed ‘the deep things of God.’ Sanders’ claim that evangelicals as a whole are profoundly Trinitarian is not as much incorrect as it is the result of a conflation of language. Of course some evangelicals, like Sanders, are profoundly Trinitarian. By God’s grace, may some become many—and may The Deep Things of God get the party started!
Aug 27, 2010
Posted on Aug 27, 2010 in Articles, Books
I asked our resident Trinity expert, Chris Spano, to review Fred Sander’s new book The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything
The Summary is posted below, with the review to follow in the coming days.
Summary
Recently, one of my best friends, John, composed the following lament in an e-mail exchange: “Why have some of the best Trinitarian defenses of the last twenty years been from…[the Roman] Catholics…and [Eastern] Orthodox?” This is a lament because John’s implied observation is: ‘Evangelical Protestants have not been producing robust Trinitarian theology.” Enter Fred Sanders.
Sanders, an associate professor of theology at Biola University’s Torrey Honors Institute, corroborates John’s observations. According to Sanders, evangelicals “are not currently famous for their Trinitarian theology” and “the evangelical movement is bedeviled by a theological and spiritual shallowness” (11). Therefore, many (if not most) evangelical Christians are “cold toward the doctrine of the Trinity, confused about its meaning, or noncommittal about its importance” (14).
And yet, Sanders rejects the implicit conclusion of John’s observation, namely: evangelicals at large are scarcely Trinitarian people. Paradoxically, Sanders advances the provocative thesis that “evangelical Christians have been in reality the most thoroughly Trinitarian Christians in the history of the church” (9). According to Sanders, this is because evangelical Protestants get the gospel right and “the Trinity belongs to the necessary presuppositions of the gospel” (19)—or even more insistently, “the central claim of this book is that the Trinity is the gospel” (98). To clarify, Sanders’ logic is syllogistic: Evangelicals are—by very definition—gospel people. The Trinity inherently belongs to/is the gospel. Therefore, evangelicals are inherently (and therefore “profoundly”) Trinitarian, “whether or not they know it” (27).
Sanders defends his thesis in three parts. First, in chapters 1-2, Sanders addresses some introductory matters: Trinitarian theological methodology and the ‘immanent Trinity’—who the Triune God is “first and foremost” in himself, irrespective of who God is for us in the Son and by the Holy Spirit (26). Second, in chapters 3-5, Sanders outlines the relationship between the Trinity and salvation, “showing salvation’s size, the gospel’s shape, and our point of access into it” (25). Third, in chapters 6-7, Sanders seeks to demonstrate that Bible reading and prayer are the most “profoundly Trinitarian” features of evangelical praxis, which assume and exhibit the high quality of evangelical Trinitarianism. Given that this is a book written by an evangelical for evangelicals, Sanders uses the life and theology of prominent evangelicals throughout history to illustrate his arguments in every chapter.
