Evangelical Christians have long held firmly to the reality and importance of authorial intention: the intention of the author is key to establishing the meaning of the text. Accordingly, when it comes to finding the meaning of a biblical passage, knowledge of the original context becomes vital. Thus, concentrated study of the relevant “material” context,…

Gijsbert van den Brink is to be congratulated on a well-written, lucid volume on this important and controversial topic. His attention to the range of different views in Chapter three is notable and generous. In each generation systematic theology has to articulate Christian belief in relation to the major issues of the day and the…

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…

The era of the Reformation is often seen as a watershed in the practice of personal Bible reading, as the invention of the printing press and new vernacular translations made the Scriptures more available and affordable to a wider audience. While the Reformers advocated for their adherents to read the Scriptures regularly for themselves, these…

Hans, as always, it is a pleasure to interact with you whether in person or in writing. You raise cogent points that get to the heart of the matter and ask insightful and probative questions. This case is no exception. Let me do my best to respond to your questions in the space available. Are…

These are all good questions and I will direct my additional comments toward three basic issues Hans raises: 1) the role that current scientific understandings do or should play in shaping biblical exegesis; 2) how biblical understandings might shape interpretations of data and natural history proposals; and 3) regulations for scientific community and navigating the…

First, I agree I was a little loose in my language switching between “science” and “nature.” But I don’t want to accept a high wall of division between them, either. Science is the study of nature, and to the degree that we do good science, what science tells us is what nature tells us. Clarifying…

I am honored beyond comparison that my colleagues and role models of scholarship took the time to read and respond to my suggestive paper. I would like to offer an all too brief and unfairly loaded rejoinder to each—I hope the conversation will spur others of like kind among those reading. I should also note…

Something Like an Introduction To begin, an anecdote: I was asked recently to referee a paper for a philosophy of religion journal. I ended up declining to review the paper because I knew who its author was, but I did read it. I’ll not name the author here, of course, but I will tell you:…

Introduction As the only philosopher in a symposium on “Biblically Sensitive Philosophy,” I feel considerable pressure to represent my people well. But I feel a competing interest to defend the value of biblical texts as data for philosophical consideration and analysis. Indeed, the latter claim needs defense. Some of the challenges that Dru discusses in…

Introduction: Theology and Philosophy (In General) Lesslie Newbigin saw Western intellectual history as the confluence of two streams, one flowing from Greco-Roman antiquity, the other from the Christian Scriptures. The barbarian tribes that called Europe home during the medieval and early modern periods “were taught to think in Greek and Latin, but the story that…

There is no single view about the authority of Scripture held amongst analytic theologians. There is no single view about how to use Scripture in theological argument among analytic theologians either. This should come as no surprise to those acquainted with analytic theology. It is, after all, a methodological approach to doing theology that is…