Theology

Goodreads Review of Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards

Kirk E. Miller

Freedom of the WillFreedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely brilliant!

Not any easy read by any stretch of the imagination. But what is given up in ease of ready is made up for in philosophical precision and leaving no stone unturned.

I can see how JE could be misunderstood as advocating a rather mechanistic view of human volition since he does argue for determinism. But in my understanding, that would be to misunderstand the fundamental premise of JE’s view–that man’s volitions, BECAUSE THEY ARE TRULY THE VOLITIONS OF MAN, are absolutely necessary as necessitated by man’s desire.

As JE himself says, “Nothing that I maintain, supposes that men are at all hindered by any fatal necessity, from doing, and even willing and choosing, as they please, with full freedom; yea, with the highest degree of liberty that ever was thought of, or that ever could possibly enter into the heart of any man to conceive.”

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Justin Taylor, “Day” in Genesis 1-2, and Pre-Evolution Interpretation

Kirk E. Miller

In a recent post at The Gospel Coalition (also see this older post), Justin Taylor discusses “Biblical Reasons to Doubt the Creation Days Were 24-Hour Periods.”

I’ve written about the creation debates before. And if you’ve talked to me in person about these matters, you’ve probably heard make something like the following comment:

One of the reasons (it would seem to be the main reason) interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 and the nature of God’s creative work have become so stinking controversial is the arrival of evolutionary theories. Since Darwin, proposing anything besides a 24-hour-day-view of the “days” in Genesis 1 immediately became way more controversial than it was prior to Darwin. This is due to the fact that anti-macroevolution Christians view Genesis 1-2 as a battle ground. If you walk there now, you’re going to step on a land mine even if you were not the originally intended target.

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Outline of Biblical Testimony to the Deity of Christ (Murray Harris)

Kirk E. Miller

I’m currently working on an ordination-type personal statement of faith; and I ran across this great resource in the back of one of my books.

An Outline of the New Testament Testimony to the Deity of Christ” by Murray J. Harris in Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992), 315-317.

A. Implicit Christology

1. Divine functions performed by Jesus

a. In relation to the universe

(1) Creator (John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2)

(2) Sustainer (1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3)

(3) Author of life (John 1:4; Acts 3:15)

(4) Ruler (Matt. 28:18; Rom. 14:9; Rev. 1:6)

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A Tabular Comparison of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)

Kirk E. Miller

I found this tabular comparison between the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) by James N. Anderson and thought I’d share it in case anyone else might find it useful.

For those of you who don’t know, in the 17th century, English Baptists constructed an original confession now called the First London Baptist Confession of Faith (1644). It is Reformed in terms of soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). In other words, it’s ‘Calvinistic’ in the typical sense of how that word is often used today.

However, the authors of this second confession basically reduplicated the Westminster Confession in an attempt to align themselves much more closely to Reformed (specifically Covenant) Theology. In other words, they not only sought to align themselves with Reformed soteriology, but also, to some degree, with Reformed theology more broadly.[1]

Nonetheless, being Baptists, they obviously didn’t reduplicate everything in the Westminster Confession.[2] So, we find differences.

This chart makes it very easy to examine those differences.

Notes

[1] For this reason, New Covenant Theology adheres to the First London Confession but rejects the Second.

[2] Note: baptist distinctives are incompatible with full-on, traditional, Reformed covenant theology by definition of holding to baptist ecclesiology (doctrine of the church).