In Evangelical circles, self-love is an idea and practice often viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility, most often being equated with selfishness. Little distinction is made between an unhealthy self-focus and a possibly healthy, biblical self-love. In Christian circles, the biblical and evidential need...
The Triadic (a.k.a. “tripartite”) model of Biblical anthropology declares that humans are composed of three distinct parts – spirit, soul, and body (1 Thes. 5:23). The New Testament uses the Greek words psyche (soul) and pneuma (spirit) to describe discreet parts of the human with...
In Created in God’s Image (1994), Anthony Hoekema (1913-1988) appraises Biblical anthropology in a comprehensive way, but also brings to light modern thinking on the areas that continue to develop or remain contentious. In doing so, he opens up the student of scripture to important...
The current majority view in evangelical Christendom regarding the makeup of man is dualism, that is, two components, the physical (body) and the immaterial (soul or spirit). This view, however, is currently finding challenge from an anthropological monist, or physicalist view, as well as the...
Alvin Plantinga is a modern luminary of philosophy, known especially for his successful defeater for the logical problem of evil, a truly historic achievement in philosophy, and a significant undermining of the most formidable possible defeater to faith in the Christian concept of God (Catholicism,...
In Our Idea of God, Thomas V. Morris explores how we might think about understanding the idea and person of God without the Bible. He is not excluding the Bible, nor limiting himself to natural theology, but he is asking us to consider starting points...
In Christian leadership and laity, the word “inerrancy” is often misunderstood because it is ambiguous until it is well defined and qualified by a handful of important attributes. For the sake of clarity in writing and discussion, this paper defines a usable taxonomy based on four attributes, bifurcated into mutually exclusive values, including precision (Empirical vs. contextual), scope (Total v. limited), specificity (Verbal v. dynamic), and locus (Original v. subsequent). Through examination of the sixteen possible and impossible combinations, four highly probable inerrancy types are identified as worthy of further discussion and use, named Literal, Semantical, Devotional, and Metaphorical inerrancy. In conclusion, some possible avenues for further development of the attributes, and quantification of individual commitment to these types are suggested.
In Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith, author Michael Reeves attempts to present the doctrine of the triune God as a “solution and a delight,” not an “oddity and a problem” (2012, p. 10). Through a combination of sometimes cringeworthy “hip”...
