Doctrine of God

There are many ways to think about God's attributes. They can be divided between those that affirm something about God and those that deny something about God, those that are communicable to creatures ( i.e. can exist in or be communicated to them somehow) and those that are incommunicable, and...

Is the conversation about God's attributes "old fashioned" and "western"? Regarding systematic theology, one often encounters the critique that the logical ordering of various topics is "western" or "Greek" or "academic"--all of which are really meant as synonyms for "bad" and "wrongheaded."...

In part one of this series , the doctrine of middle knowledge was set forth and explained on its own terms. Its principal concern is to reconcile the sovereignty of divine agency and the liberty of human agency by inserting a third logical moment between God's natural knowledge and visionary...

Middle knowledge, otherwise known as Molinism , derives its name from a 16th century Jesuit named Luis de Molina (1535-1600). There is evidence that within a decade of Molina's death, his view of middle knowledge had a profound influence upon the theology of James Arminius--though there is some...

True believers may, and do, experience times when they feel as if God has forgotten them. They feel as if the divine no longer takes interest in them. David felt this as well. He expresses this in Psalm 31 in language that may make one wonder about God, however. There we read, "How long, O LORD?...

In my first article on the topic of theology proper, I discussed why we must know the God who created us. I will now explain how we can know that God whose ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts higher than our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9) Christianity is a religion of revelation, and our God...

The very root and beginning of all theological study is known as theology proper or the doctrine of God. Within this field, the existence, being, and attributes of God are considered and his character is defined within the limitations common to human beings. All Christian theology (from Greek...

The words "it pleased God...to create," in Westminster Confession of Faith 4.1, refer to divine willing, to the decree of God. Creation is due to the will of God. It is not necessary to the divine essence, however. The Triune God is God without creatures and in no absolute sense (or necessary to...

With the first verse in the Bible, we are confronted with the necessity of the interpretive priority of theology proper ( i.e. , answering that and what God is ) to account for the economy ( i.e. , answering that and what God does ): "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:...

Cornelius Van Til, former professor of Christian apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, PA, professed to have stood on the shoulders of classic Reformed theological giants such as Abraham Kuyper, Benjamin B. Warfield, and Herman Bavinck.1 While not everyone is agreed on...