I am currently working on an essay on the external works of the Trinity. Below is an excerpt, which focuses on the “oneness” of those external works. Scripture repeatedly draws our attention to the connection between the oneness of God and the oneness of God’s agency in his external works. In response to God’s wonderful […]
Getting to know the RTS Orlando faculty: Zachary Cole
In the latest installment in our series, “Getting to know the RTS Orlando Faculty,” we have the opportunity to hear from the Orlando faculty’s newest addition, Dr. Zachary Cole. Beginning June 1, Dr. Cole will serve as Associate Professor of New Testament. (For an introduction to the series as a whole, see here.) 1. Tell us […]
Divine agency in Nicene perspective
God acts. God is known by his acts. Few theological propositions are more foundational to Christian theology and theological method than these two. The modern “revival” of trinitarian theology relied on a version of these two propositions in its quest to discover the so-called “immanent Trinity” by means of the “economic Trinity.” That quest has […]
A model of retrieval for biblical exegesis
Holy Scripture is the cognitive principle of theology, the supreme source from which the treasures of divine wisdom are drawn and the supreme norm by which our grasp of those treasures is measured. To borrow a metaphor from Matthew 13:44, Holy Scripture is the “field” in which the “treasures” that theology seeks to acquire are […]
Ten theses on the externally directed works of the Trinity
I posted the following theses last week on Twitter. I am reposting them here for the sake of ease in reading them. (1) Because the divine nature is one, there is one divine agency. (2) However, only persons, not natures act. (This is missing in some post-2016 discussions.) (3) In order to appreciate how divine […]
“Idiocy” in trinitarian theology
We sometimes miss significant aspects of biblical teaching on the Trinity because we are unfamiliar with philosophical terms and concepts common in the ancient world. One such example is the Greek term ἴδιος and the philosophical concept of a “natural property” to which the term sometimes refers. The semantic range of ἴδιος is fairly broad. […]
