Subscribe to our mailing list.
All Blog Posts With Tag: systematic theology
The New Testament witnesses to numerous resurrection appearances of the risen Jesus during the evangelium quadraginta dierum ("the gospel of forty days" as Karl Barth called it) between the Empty Tomb and the Ascension. But which scripture is the oldest account and original form of them all? Many of the […]
The Resurrection Appearances: 1. The Argument for Historical Facticity (September 16, 2017)
The Resurrection Appearances: A Seven Part Series
Part 1. The Argument For Historical Facticity
Is the resurrection of Jesus Christ a historical fact? In a fascinating and illuminating section of Wolfhart's Pannenberg's Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, he critically examines the New Testament witness regarding the resurrection appearances of Jesus and the reports of the […]
Wolfhart Pannenberg on Death Before the Fall of Humanity (September 7, 2017)
Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928-2014) argued that there was death before the Fall of humanity described in the Creation Stories (Gen 1-3). Pannenberg's explanation of death in prehuman history enables us to better understand the Doctrine of Creation, and how evolutionary sciences may be interpreted in respect to it, and how to […]
Related: creation, Death, death before the fall, evil, Evolution, Fall, sin, suffering, systematic theology, Wolfhart Pannenberg
Wolfhart Pannenberg on Why the Historical Adam was Mortal before the Fall (September 2, 2017)
Was the Historical Adam ever immortal? Wolfhart Pannenberg says that if we look closely at the biblical text, then we will discover that the answer is no! Pannenberg believes that the Fall caused a shortening of human life, but this does not mean that humanity was ever immortal before the […]
What are angels? Evangelicals are so infatuated with angelic myths, that it's almost impossible to answer! From ancient times, to this very day, the movement of the stars, lightning strikes and earthquakes have been explained by angelic activity, but now all these events may be entirely explained by modern science. […]
Charles Hodge’s Famous Footnote on Friedrich Schleiermacher (February 12, 2015)
I had believed that Charles Hodge (1787—1878) would have spit on the grave of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768—1834) upon visiting him, but I have been proven wrong. To my surprise, I recently learned from W. Travis McMaken at Die Evangelischen Theologen about a famous footnote in Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology (II.iii.9) that shows Charles […]
Jürgen Moltmann on Unfinished Summas and Natural Theology (July 15, 2014)
Unfinished Barcelona Cathedral (Sagrada)
Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics is 8,000 pages and unfinished. Thomas Aquinas' great theological system, The Summa Theologica, is unfinished too. All the medieval summas are unfinished in the same way as the medieval summas are unfinished. The post-magesterial reformers of the 16th and 17th century also produced […]
Louis Berkhof On Dichotomy and Hermetical Method (January 14, 2014)
Louis Berkhof
Hermeneutics and exegesis, i.e. the interpretation of scripture, is a difficult task! The Bible consists of multiple genres, contexts, authors, and situations with some writings distanced by over a millennium and this fact makes it very difficult to construct dogmatics from these eclectic texts. Often, two different scriptures will […]
Abraham Kuyper and Karl Barth on Creation as Revelation (June 10, 2013)
In Judeo-Christian history of thought, there's always been core belief that God is creator, and that the world has not always existed but was creation by God in the beginning. (Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen […]
Louis Berkhof’s Summary of Christian Dogma (August 23, 2012)
At my local church, I've been leaning heavily on Louis Berkhof's "Summary of Christian Dogma." I'd place Berkhof's "Systematic Theology" at the top of my list for one-volume systematic theologies, and this short book is a concentrated summary of that work. If you teach an overview of Reformed Christian Dogma […]
