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Learning from the Fathers: Nicaea at 1700
This year (2025) marks the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea—the first ecumenical council of Christendom that declared that God the Father and Jesus are homoousios (of one essence or nature). There have already been many recaps and discussions of the Creed and its aftermath, and it has been my privilege to make a couple of more general contributions. But I thought it might be helpful to offer some less-commonly noticed features of the fourth century disputes that might still help us today. 1. It Began with Classical Theology Gone Bad. The Arians were strong believers of the absolute transcendence and simplicity of God. The Arians were strong believers…
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The Storied World: Impassibility, Incarnation & Virtual Reality
In recent months, I have been thinking and writing about the significance of stories, divine impassibility and the incarnation. Here is a post to draw some of those threads together in the light of our Christmas hope. Some of this is an adaptation of a paper I gave up at EV church earlier this month. Here’s an odd truth to consider. The world we live in is virtual. I don’t mean that it is a mere illusion or a light-show, or that there is another physical reality behind it. I mean that it doesn’t have self-existence. The world is not a series of objects existing alongside God. Rather, God is…
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God, Trinity & Jesus
This is discussion paper that I presented at an EV Church symposium in December 2022. The paper summarises some of the main points of my doctoral thesis. it also seeks to bring some of the main points of historic orthodoxy to bear on recent evangelical debates about eternal subordination of God the Son and how Jesus’ human life relates to his eternal sonship. 1. Everything in the Trinity begins with the God the Father. … yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through…
