(Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this conversation. I feel a bit like an amateur player who inexplicably finds himself at the big table for the World Series of Poker. But the subject is irresistible, and I welcome the opportunity to explain what I meant when I said to my friend Dan Treier…

While most reformers rejected the Roman sacrament of penance, they nevertheless believed confession was still essential the life of the believer. Recognizing its pastoral necessity, they sought in numerous ways to retain the symbolic heart of the practice, taking steps such as making private confession voluntary and emphasizing the use of communal confessions within their…

When I first read Dan Trier’s (excellent) introductory essay, which raises the question of this Areopagite, I thought about it really hard for at least an hour! While reflecting on the biblical, scientific, and philosophical material that I think I understand, a distinction between ‘chance’ and ‘randomness’ eventually emerged. You the reader will have to…

The Hebraic intellectual world on display in the Bible, unlike the rest of the ancient Near East, creates the epistemological condition for a logic of signs and wonders against chance. Conversely, in a Near Eastern conceptual world that understands every doorway, cat’s path, moonrise, etc., ad infinitum to be discrete nonverbal signals from the gods,…

Throughout the history of the church, prayer has been seen as an indispensable spiritual discipline, and this remained true during the era of the Reformation. In this encouragement to prayer, Lutheran pastor Johann Spangenberg (1484-1550) calls on his audience to reach out to the Lord, knowing with confidence that he is listening and ready to…

When we flip a coin before a sporting event, are we forcing God to choose an outcome for our own meaningless enjoyment? Or is it a mistake to view God as acting like a magic 8-ball toy who gives answers any time we ask? Many Christians in the West speak theologically in ways that imply…

I appreciate the question. It is an important one, given the ways in which issues about chance come up both in scientific reflections and in everyday life. The question is difficult to answer in a few words (I have a whole book on the subject). To begin with, it is useful to ask what each…

While some have argued recently that the Reformation was a significant cause in the secularization of western society, particularly insofar as it lead to the increasing privatization and individualization of religion, this potential consequence was neither intended nor imagined by the reformers. Even the most radical reformers, such as Austrian Anabaptist Leupold Scharnschlager (d.1563) argued…

One recent morning I gave my friend John Wilson, the longtime editor of Books & Culture, a copy of my new book, Introducing Evangelical Theology. By early evening he was tweeting his dissent about p. 122. There I summarize parameters from Donald Bloesch: “God’s providence is personal: we do not believe in fate. God’s providence…

We are pleased to announce the Henry Center Public Lectures and Events for the 2019–20 academic year. All Trinity events are free and open to the public, and will also be made available via live stream. God said . . . and it was so: Divine Action, Contingency, and Modern Science The whole of the…

Deerfield, IL — The 2019–2020 recipients of the John Stott Award for Pastoral Engagement are Gavin Ortlund, Wesley Vander Lugt, Ryan O’Dowd, Mike Woodruff, Ben Dockery, Matt O’Reilly, Greg Gilbert, and Rafael Bello. This year, the Creation Project is focusing upon the topic of divine action, and these churches will be engaging the topic in ways…

In the summer of 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a letter to W. H. Auden telling of his surprise while working on The Lord of the Rings: “I met a lot of things along the way that astonished me.” This feeling, that the characters in a novel can come to carry such powerful voices…