If beauty is ultimately God’s self-knowledge and communicative self-delight, we can explain easily enough why other theories of beauty have defined beauty as harmony and symmetry, or truth and goodness, or pleasure and delight. For Trinitarian love is the ultimate and absolute form of harmony and unity, being a symmetry not of objects but of… Continue Reading
Over the past year or so I have been asked repeatedly to express an opinion about the current Trinitarian debates. I have hesitated to speak for several reasons. First, the Holy Trinity is a mystery that I do not fully understand. Second, what we can understand (however relatively and partially)—that is to say, what is… Continue Reading
Too often, contemporary Christianity sees all emotions or affections as essentially equal. For this reason, many conclude as long as some kind of religious emotion is evoked, some good has been done. Augustine did not believe that all loves were equal. In fact, he distinguished between different kinds of genuine spiritual love. This comes out… Continue Reading
Yesterday at the national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, I presented a paper evaluating Isaac Watts’s Trinitarian views. I hope to get the paper published soon, but in the meantime, here are several of the very relevant implications I drew related to the boundary of Christian fellowship, the importance of church tradition and creeds,… Continue Reading
The Christian faith is Trinitarian. We worship the one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One of the ways we rightly respond to the truth of the doctrine that God is one and three is that we as Christian congregations worship that Triune God. Indeed, our worship should be Trinitarian. Our worship should be Trinitarian… Continue Reading