God of Our Fathers
“To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.”
ISAIAH 40:25
~
Protestantism today has an idolatry problem. Not merely in the sense of worshipping false gods—of pleasure, wealth, or politics—but in the sense of worshipping the Triune God of Scripture according to images and ideas of our own devising. Whether it’s a God who suffers and changes alongside his creatures, or a “Trinitarian circle dance” of divine personalities, or a hierarchically-arranged Trinity that serves as a blueprint for gender relations, modern evangelical theology has strayed far from historic Christian orthodoxy. Needing a God that can be put on a greeting card or in a praise song, our idolatrous hearts shrink the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob down to size, and make him more like us.
Amidst this scramble to make God more relevant, we seem to have forgotten that the only God truly capable of saving us is a God who is radically other and transcendent, far above our imaginings. This incomprehensible God is not the God of the philosophers, as modern revisionists frequently charge, but the God of the Bible. The essays in this volume, written by scholars and pastors deeply concerned for the life of the church, seek to retrieve and defend the tradition of classical theism as the historic Protestant faith, rooted in Scripture, philosophically coherent, and still relevant to the needs of the church today.
"The Davenant Institute’s motto, “adtendite ad petram unde excisi estis,” is the exhortation of Isaiah 51:1 to “look to the rock from which you were hewn.” In a general sense, the Institute recognizes in these words a summons back to the sources of Protestant Christian theology. But in this volume, with its careful attention to the classical doctrine of God, its vigilance to name defections and failures in worship and confession, and its patient tracing of the way back to theological normalcy, the motto resonates with its deepest possible significance: to look to God, our rock, in whom alone is our salvation."
—FRED SANDERS, FOREWORD
"This collection of high quality essays challenges us to think more carefully about the knowledge of God and his ways. These exemplary studies are historically informed, theologically astute, and, for those who discern the true place of the theology in the life of the church, of great practical importance."
—REV'D DR MICHAEL MCCLENAHAN
PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, UNION THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, BELFAST
Contents
Melanchthon’s Unintended Reformation?: The Case of the Missing Doctrine of God
E.J. Hutchinson, Hillsdale College
Natural Theology and Protestant Orthodoxy
David Haines, Veritas International University
Divine Action and the Meaning of Eternity
Steven J. Duby, Grand Canyon University
‘Arid Scholars’ vs. The Bible? A Theological and Exegetical Critique of the Eternal Subordination of the Son
Alastair Roberts, The Davenant Institute
Can the Trinity Save Everything? Herman Bavinck, Missional Theology, and the Dogmatic Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity
Gayle Doornbos, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto
Biblical Inspiration and the Doctrine of God, with Attention to the Example of John Webster
Timothy G. Harmon, University of Aberdeen
Encounter with the Triune God in the Reformed Liturgy for the Lord’s Supper: Eucharistic Prayer or Communion Order?
Christopher Dorn, Independent Scholar
Classical Theism in a World Come of Age
Joseph Minich, University of Texas at Dallas
