Blog - Christian Theist In A Postmodern World - Page 7

Theological question – Are holy affections fruits of true religion?

In A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, Jonathan Edwards asserts that the way Christians live is the real sign of having a true Christian faith. Since “true religion, in great part, consists in holy affections,” a believer who lives in the true religion necessarily should have holy affections (p. 141). However, the opposite is not true: the fact that someone might possess several religious affections does not mean she is living out a true religion. Discerning the mysterious ways of the Spirit’s work, therefore, is never done with one’s understanding but of the Spirit’s. Then, the result of being obedient to …

How Vincent Donovan challenges and redefines the concept of mission?

When Christianity began expanding to other lands outside of Jerusalem, at the beginning, there were religious practices of the Early Church that linked Christianity to Jewish traditions. As time passed by, many cultures adopted Christianity, and those practices disappeared, giving birth to a local gospel. Places like Europe and North America later developed their “own” Christianity, and when missionaries from these places went abroad in a missional field such as Asia or Africa, not only they shared the Gospel but also their culture, customs, and worldviews. An example of this process, Father Vincent J. Donovan in Christianity Rediscovered shares significant insights about …

Theological question – In what sense is God an omnipotent being?

Regarding the nature of God, Thomas Oden in Classic Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 1992) discusses the different kinds of attributes we apply to God, such as pre-relational attributes (pre-time, pre-world, pre-space), essential attributes (e.g., infinite, eternal, immeasurable), relational attributes (omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence), moral attributes (holiness, justice, love), and personal attributes (life, will, spirit). On the same subject, Michael S. Horton in Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology (Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005) tells us about communicable vs. incommunicable attributes of God, where the second ones are attributes that only God can have. And finally, Justo L. González in Mañana: Christian Theology …

Newbigin and Bauckham on how Christians should understand missions?

Authors Richard Bauckham in Bible and Mission and Leslie Newbigin in The Open Secret discuss the concept of mission and how it should be understood correctly by Christians today. While Bauckham initially explains the idea of metanarrative and universalist cultures, and how overemphasizing them challenges the way Christians do mission today; Newbigin, instead, associates missions with the very ministry of Jesus and his baptism by John the Baptist. Both authors agree that mission is God’s work as he uses mission as a means of not only proclaiming the Gospel but also bringing justice to the entire world. Bauckham writes: This …

The New Testament as a diverse set of expositions of a single gospel claim

The New Testament as we know is not only varied in its literary and artistic style but also in its content. Nonetheless, the New Testament has a very strong unity when presents Christ as the savior of the world and his ministry as a predestined plan that God orchestrated before the foundation of the world. All that is said in the New Testament points out Christ directly or indirectly. For example, the Gospel of Luke, the Book of Romans, and the Book of Hebrews may differ on their understandings of the meaning of Jesus’ death, yet together they paint one …