I would like to begin by thanking Matthew Wiley, who has taken the lead in organizing this symposium, as well as the four colleagues who have taken the time during this most unusual season of academic life to engage with my work. It is a privilege to be given the time and space to think…

The strengths of Dr. McFarland’s Christological proposal lie in (a) its epistemological draw, and (b) its deep roots in Chalcedonian reasoning. Indeed, the force of McFarland’s epistemic claims emerge from an elegant reading of the Chalcedonian heritage and its implications. Yet, I wonder if, in McFarland’s zeal to center the human nature of Christ, he…

The central thesis of Ian McFarland’s book, The Word Made Flesh, seems straightforward enough: the Christology hammered out in the Chalcedonian Definition remains “the most adequate account of Christian convictions regarding Jesus” (p. 3). But upon closer inspection, McFarland’s “Chalcedonianism without reserve” is quite arresting, even provocative. He suggests that the classic distinction drawn between…

“As the voice, so the vision of God is the end of the creature; no one looks on the Lord and lives.” —Katherine Sonderegger “Whoever wishes to deliberate or speculate soundly about God should disregard absolutely everything except the humanity of Christ.” —Martin Luther In 599, Gregory the Great was alerted that the Bishop of…

The two-nature doctrine of Chalcedonian Christology has often been joined to a “partitive” impulse in biblical exegesis according to which distinct aspects of Jesus’ incarnate ministry are categorized either as manifestations of his deity (e.g., miracles), or manifestations of his humanity (e.g., suffering and dying). Ian McFarland wishes to resist this partitive tendency while preserving…

In The Word Made Flesh (p. 8), I claim that a proper application of the distinction between hypostasis and nature in a Christological context entails the following two theses: When we perceive Jesus of Nazareth, we perceive no one other than the God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. When we perceive Jesus…

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…

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…

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…

David Fergusson’s The Providence of God: A Polyphonic Approach is an important recent contribution to studies of the doctrine of providence and divine action, and I am grateful for the opportunity to engage a little with it in a public forum. In this essay, I will focus on Professor Fergusson’s reshaping of double agency and the…

The doctrine of providence is harried on many fronts. Horrendous evil, human freedom, modern science, pastoral abuses, and the diverse witness of Scripture each challenge theologians, who seek to present providence. David Fergusson enters this fray with his recent release The Providence of God: A Polyphonic Approach (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Fergusson presents a cumulative…