Reformed Theology

Why don’t we immediately see God the Holy Trinity jumping from the pages of Old Testament scripture? It is a sincere question a Muslim, a Jew and even a newer Christian all may ask. Reading the Old Testament by its own light, not by the light of the New, may push us to regard God as an...

Some years ago, J. Ligon Duncan, chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary, declared in a sermon at the historic First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, MS that God was “not an undifferentiated monad!” Precisely so. The God of Scripture is Triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is a Triunity ...

In the history of the Church her doctrines have been understood and organized through seven distinct yet interrelated topics or categories: Scripture, God, Man, Christ, Salvation, Church and Last Things. These distinct yet inseparably related doctrines reveal that the doctrine of the Trinity is the...

I have a question for you. Can existence be separated from attributes? Perhaps a definition or two is in order. My guess is that you know what it means to exist. But what is an attribute? An attribute is a quality, feature, or characteristic about a person or thing. So, for example, think of a fire...

In recent years, the doctrine of the simplicity of God has fallen on hard times and faced various misunderstandings. It does not impinge on God’s infinite nature and his majestic glory that is beyond us. Rather, the simplicity of God means that God is not composed of parts. He is not a complex...

It is an ironic point not lost on many theologians that the doctrine of divine simplicity is not so simple. To study the doctrine you must be prepared to welcome an expansion of your theological vocabulary. Every time I read or listen to something on simplicity I frequently pause and consult a...

God cannot learn anything new. Perhaps that is a new idea to you? The church, when it has been sound and orthodox, has always confessed this (see the WCF 2.1). It is an implication of at least two of the Triune God’s incommunicable attributes: simplicity and omniscience. Omniscience simply means “...

‘Grace’ could easily be seen as one of those doctrines every child from a Christian home ought to know from Kindergarten. Whether it be through the acronym God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense , or just the plain and often repeated ‘God’s unmerited favour’, it would be easy to check it off as ‘learnt’...

Today theology has fallen on tough times and that includes confessional theology. Listen closely to contemporary conversations, because depending on the participants the discussion will usually include a wink and a nod, as if to say, the narrative, of which these confessional documents are a part,...

Some folk seem to have the misapprehension that holding to a confession and catechisms (as do Presbyterians, the continental Reformed, Reformed Baptists, Lutherans, and Anglicans, just to name a few) thrusts a straightjacket on the theologian or the average Christian precluding freedom to follow...