Schleiermacher and Reformed Scholastics on the Divine Attributes

Schleiermacher's doctrine of the divine attributes has been controversial from its day until the present, with various nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century figures seeing it as a theological novum. Recent work has clarified Schleiermacher's understanding of the status of the attributes, challenging the simplistic readings of his critics. However, the charge of novelty still has not been addressed. I argue in response to this charge that Schleiermacher's doctrine is best explained as an inheritance of the Reformed tradition. Not only is Schleiermacher's doctrine of the divine attributes nearly identical to that of his Reformed Scholastic predecessors, but Schleiermacher holds the same conceptions for the same reasons.     

The Divine Fractal: 1st Order Extensional Theology

Philosophia - In this paper, I present what I call the symmetry conception of God within 1st order, extensional, non-well-founded set theory. The symmetry conception comes in two versions....     

Toward a Comprehensive Theology of Divine Action

This paper proposes a fundamental premise for the conversation between science and theology: In our experience of the natural world we encounter an excess of awareness and of meaning that overwhelm our perceptions, language, and thought. We attempt to construct the coherence of our awareness through our science, and we attempt to render it meaningful in our thoughts and language. Metaphor and symbol are primary vehicles for our attempts at meaning. Since its task is to articulate meaning, theology must acknowledge this premise, if it is to engage the sciences adequately.     

God's Attributes as God's Clarities: Wolf Krötke's Doctrine of the Divine Attributes

Abstract: For the Berlin systematic theologian Wolf Krötke, the doctrine of the divine attributes presents God as, first, one who is clear and luminous in himself, and, second, as one who communicates his clarity in the eventfulness of Jesus Christ. Krötke modifies the traditional approach to the doctrine by redescribing God's attributes in terms of clarities which, in turn, are indicative of the glory of God. In this article, I expound and analyse Krötke's understanding of the clarities of truth, love, power and eternity as proper to God in his relationally rich reality shining forth, with an eye to the character of the renewal of human life thereby effected. Critical comments are also raised in relation to Krötke's proposal, particularly with respect to his lack of a robust doctrine of the immanent Trinity and the necessity of maintaining such.     

Re‐imagining Divine Simplicity in Trinitarian Theology

This article reconsiders the relationship between divine simplicity and trinitarian theology based on historical and systematic grounds. I first show that in its early emergence, simplicity was not understood as posing intuitive incompatibilities with the development of trinitarian language. This provides good reason to question the assumption that incompatibility of this kind exists between simplicity and Trinity. I then argue that simplicity deeply enriches the doxological dimension of trinitarian theology. Divine simplicity forces us into the habit of questioning our understanding of the Trinity based on concepts that we are familiar with. As a result, it magnifies our sense of the Trinity's ‘super‐abundant richness’. I conclude that trinitarian theology will lose a great deal of its doxological potential if we give up the doctrine of divine simplicity.     

Divine Unity and the Divided Self: Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian Theology in its Psychological Context

In the last hundred years Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian theology has received a substantial amount of attention. Unfortunately, it has been appropriated because of its perceived psychological content—so much so that Gregory's Trinitarian theology becomes re–stated as the Trinity as "personal relationship" or as "locating consciousness(es) in the Trinity." To be sure, a knowledge of Gregory's psychology reveals its role in his Trinitarian theology; however, it also makes clear that personal relationship or consciousness are not important, substantial psychological concepts in the way that they are often taken to be by contemporary interpreters. Rather, Gregory's psychology takes its fundamental shape from a concern for the integrity of the will in its action.