(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…

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,…

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…