The third volume of my tetralogy on divine action represents a significant departure from traditional genres of systematic theology. On the surface, the work looks like a standard treatment of the loci of systematic theology and thus could readily be dismissed as archaic at worst and conventional at best. However, it is placed very deliberately…

It has been a long time since I have so thoroughly enjoyed a theology book. Abraham’s book is written with verve and vitality. The prose simply sparkles. The mix of standard academic terminology with “bog Irish” and homespun Texan is delightful. The book is by turns both witty and worshipful, both convicting and fun. It…

I first met Bruce Fields in 1988 when I relocated from Southern CA to Arlington Heights, IL to become Sr. Pastor of the Orchard Evangelical Free Church. Bruce had just moved from teaching and coaching at Trinity College to teaching theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Within a few moments of meeting, we quickly became…

There is something naturally compelling to Abraham’s call for theology’s return to the language of divine personal agency. It is as if theology had languished under a spell, which was preventing us from seeing the obvious: that there is no metaphysical quandary about the claim that God acts. Invoking an open concept of action, he…

In his search of a viable concept of divine action, Billy Abraham almost in passing provides a complete survey of Christian dogmatics. Ranging from the doctrine of God to eschatology, in this third part of his tetralogy all the main topics of classical doctrinal reflection are carefully probed. Given the fact that God’s actions figure…

William Abraham’s book is a pleasure to read, not just for its insight, clarity, and wit, but also for its bold invitation to “reconceive,” and even “reinvent” contemporary theology (p. 22). Describing himself as “a retrievalist and a renewalist” (p. 32), he’s also something of a cheerleader, urging theologians to “keep their nerve” (pp. 62,…

When I requested the first two volumes of William J. Abraham’s Divine Agency and Divine Action tetralogy (Oxford University Press, 2017­–), I must admit I did not expect them to shape my thoughts on divine action and, by extension, providence quite so much as they have. Before reading Abraham’s fine work, I accepted without question…

In 1973 I came to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School to commence my studies in Philosophy of Religion. In order to get my feet wet, I decided to begin by taking a fourth term summer school class in Apologetics with Prof. John Warwick Montgomery. Enrolled in the class with me was a nattily dressed, young Indian…

There are two kinds of facts: normative and non-normative. Facts about how things should be, what is or is not properly functioning, what is right or wrong, what is healthy or not, and what is good or bad are normative. Facts about how things are or how they could be or statistically tend to be…

Neo-Aristotelianism is indeed resurgent in contemporary philosophy. The renaissance has been underway for at least fifty years, beginning with a new focus on classical metaphysical themes by Roderick Chisholm, David M. Armstrong, Alvin Plantinga, and Robert M. Adams. In the 1960’s and 70’s, these anglophone philosophers began digging themselves out of the rubble of logical…

My overall aim in this brief response to Paul Gould’s lead essay is to draw the reader’s attention to an area of contemporary moral philosophy—Neo-Aristotelian metaethics—that is ripe for rediscovery in the wake of the ongoing resurgence of Neo-Aristotelianism in metaphysics and philosophy of science. Sketching A Metaphysical Picture Let me begin with a thumbnail…

I am grateful to Professor Gould for his invitation to respond to his introductory remarks for this symposium. Professor Gould is especially interested in a framework for philosophical thought and a particular comprehension of nature, that, as he says, held sway for millenia. He refers to this as the “Neo-Aristotelian picture,” according to which “the…