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 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…

Professor Fergusson’s The Providence of God: A Polyphonic Approach is an impressive contribution to the search for an adequate Christian doctrine of divine providence. The merits of the book are many, and there is much to appreciate. Fergusson’s discussion is grounded in consideration of Scripture (including both the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament and the New…

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…

Many contemporary approaches to divine providence strive towards a relational and explicitly Christian, read Trinitarian, account of the doctrine, and David Fergusson’s work numbers among these. The goal is a praiseworthy, good, and powerful God, who is neither distant nor dominant, thus enabling dignified creaturely action. However, Fergusson risks absenting the Father in various ways…

Fred Sanders is usually writing about the Trinity. The burden of his 2010 volume The Deep Things of God was to show how the doctrine of the Trinity “inherently belongs to the gospel.” Years earlier he wrote his dissertation on “Rahner’s Rule” and the immanent Trinity. Then there is his 2016 volume in Zondervan’s New Studies…

Irenaeus did not author a commentary on Genesis, as did other early Christian thinkers. Nor did he write as much about the creative activity of God as other early theologians. But no early Christian used creation to such advantage as Irenaeus of Lyons. To appreciate what Irenaeus made of the creative activity of God it…

I was a doctoral student at the University of Aberdeen in 2008 when John Webster was composing his essay “Trinity and Creation.” It was initially delivered as a plenary session at the 2009 meeting of the Society for the Study of Theology eventually published in IJST (the version from which I will be quoting), and…