Systematic Theology

About the Authors Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The Angel Quiz Lou Whitworth: An overview, in quiz format, of the origin and background of angels and demons, angels in the New Testament and Old Testament, and the future state of angels and demons.
The Biological Basis for Gender-Specific Behavior (Chapter 16) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Catholics at Home First Things, May 1997: What are the essential components of orthodoxy? The author, a traditional Lutheran, reflects on these issues as he wrestles with his own understanding of orthodoxy apart from Roman Catholicism.
Catholics in Exile First Things, May 1997: What issues separate orthodox Lutherans form the rest of their denomination on the one hand and from Roman Catholicism on the other? This reflective essay, written by a Lutheran pastor, attempts to sort out these differences.
Charity, Clarity, and Hope: The Controversy and the Cause of Christ (Chapter 26) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The Church as Family: Why Male Leadership in the Family Requires Male Leadership in the Church (Chapter 13) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
A Critique of Grudem's Formulation and Defense of the Doctrine of Eternity William Lane Craig: It is shown how the attempt of one theologian to explicate the doctrine of divine eternity is logically inconsistent and his attempts to defend an atemporal understanding of eternity mistaken.
The Danvers Statement (Appendix 2) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Did Moses Write the Pentateuch?: A look at Mosaic authorship of the first five books of the Bible, and the challenges to that claim.
The Doctrine Of God's Preservation John H. Stoll, Ph.D.: Once an individual has willfully accepted the regenerating work of Christ, and is justified (i.e. declared righteous by God), it is impossible for God's child to become an eternally lost person. There are five Biblical principles that undergird this doctrine.
The Doctrine Of Justification John H. Stoll, Ph.D.: The doctrine of justification is basic to our understanding of God's way of salvation. This outline lists the source, the grounds, the means, and the evidence of our justification.
Embraced by the Light of Deception Russ Wise: Betty Eadie's best-selling book Embraced by the Light is a combination of biblical images and spiritual deception.
Episopalians: The Leftward Center First Things, November 1997: In this article, the author considers the current state of the Episcopalian Church. As in other denominations, the questions of the ordination of women and the legitimacy of homosexuality, have split the Church into liberal and traditional factions.
The Essence of Femininity: A Personal Perspective (Chapter 25) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The Family and the Church: How Should Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Work Out in Practice? (Chapter 20) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Foreword: For Single Men and Women (and the Rest of Us) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Freemasonry and the Christian Church Russ Wise: Many staunch Christians are Masons, and see no conflict between the two organizations. This essay takes a look at the roots and beliefs of Freemansonry from a Biblical perspective, offering historical evidence of the occultic influence in high-level Masonry.
God and Real Time William Lane Craig: Whether God is timeless or temporal depends on whether an A-Theory or B-Theory of time is correct, where the former posits tensed facts and the latter only tenseless facts. Given the superiority of the A-Theory, it follows that God is temporal. But since the Special Theory of Relativity relativizes simultaneity to reference frames, the question arises as to which "now" is God's "now"? In order to answer that question, we must distinguish between time and our measures of time. Relativity concerns only measured time and so does not affect God's real time. How does God's time relate to measured time? Contra Alan Padgett, God's time must coincide with a measured time, most plausibly the cosmic time of the General Theory of Relativity.
God's Pattern Of Salvation John H. Stoll, Ph.D.: The Hebrew and Greek words for "salvation" imply the ideas of deliverance, safety, preservation, healing, and soundness. Salvation is the great inclusive word of the Gospel, gathering into itself all the Redemptive acts and processes:
A Harvest of Evangelical Theology First Things, May 1996: Dogmatics is not a subject one identifies with evangelicals. Reviewer Carl Braaten in this essay sorts through several books that attempt to define dogmas from an evangelical point of view. Despite this common theme, these authors have radically differe
Head Coverings, Prophecies and the Trinity: 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 (Chapter 5) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The High Calling of Wife and Mother in Biblical Perspective (Chapter 22) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Historical Creeds of the Christian Faith The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed: Our basis of Christian unity is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are the two earliest universal Christian creeds, accepted as accurate statements of scriptural truth by all three major branches of the church, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant.
History of Vatican II First Things, November 1996: In this article, George Weigel reviews "History of Vatican II"(2 vols) which is edited by Giuseppe Alberigo. Several contributors convey the story of Vatican II. Documentation includes the preliminaries, the Council itself, and its aftermath. This thor
Humanity: Good News and Bad News Enjoying God: Theology for Your Head and Your Heart (Chapter 5): Since the beginning of recorded human history, philosophers, theologians, and more recently, psychologists have pondered the question, "what is our basic human nature?" Or, another way of asking the question might be, "when you strip away all our learned responses, all our societal conditioning, what is the basic inner core that is common to all people everywhere?" Scholes continues his study of doctrine.
Husbands and Wives as Analogues of Christ and the Church: Eph. 5:21-33 and Col. 3:18-19 (Chapter 8) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The Inevitability of Failure: The Assumptions and Implementations of Modern Feminism (Chapter 18) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Inspiration of the Bible Rick Wade: What Jesus said of Scripture and the nature of apostolic teaching are two of the main issues in Rick Wade's examination of the inspiration of Scripture.
Is It Legal for Religious Organizations to Make Distinctions on the Basis of Sex? (Chapter 19) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Jesus the Jew Jonathan Went: The author looks at issues surrounding the question of the "historical Jesus" and discusses the Jewishness of Jesus
"Lest Anyone Should Fall": A middle Knowledge Perspective on Perseverance and Apostolic Warnings William Lane Craig: Apostolic warnings against apostasy pose a difficulty for the classic doctrine of perseverance of the saints because either the warnings seem superfluous or else it seems possible for the believer to fall away after all. The attempt to construe the warnings as the means by which God effects perseverance fails to distinguish the classical doctrine from a Molinist doctrine, according to which believers can fall away but in fact will not due to God's extrinsically efficacious grace. A Molinist perspective is coherent and, unlike the classical doctrine, does not render superfluous the apostolic admonitions.
Male-Female Equality and Male Headship: Genesis 1-3 (Chapter 3) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Mary Through the Centuries First Things, February 1997: Jaroslav Pelikan is the author of "Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture." It is reviewed by Edward T. Oakes. This book particularly explores Mary's role in the Church's doctrinal development.
The Meaning of Authority in the Local Church (Chapter 14) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The Meaning of Kephale ("Head"): A Response to Recent Studies (Appendix 1 Part A) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The Meaning of Kephale ("Head"): A Response to Recent Studies (Appendix 1 Part B) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The Meaning of Kephale ("Head"): A Response to Recent Studies (Appendix 1 Part C) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Men and Women in the Image of God (Chapter 12) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The Mystery Of God Incarnate Paul D. Adams: Excerpted from a thesis submitted to Denver Seminary, this paper is a defense of the classical, historic doctrine of the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth. After laying out the views of John Hick, which could be said to represent much of the current thinking on Jesus' deity, a historical, biblical defense is put forth to demonstrate that Jesus is indeed the Son of God and God the Son. No other doctrine of the Christian faith is more critical for the Church to understand and defend than the identity of Jesus of Nazareth.
Our Approach: Convictions, Persuasions, and Opinions Enjoying God: Theology for Your Head and Your Heart (Chapter 1): "Doctrine" and "theology," somehow these words sound stiff and dull. However, "doctrine" is just another word for teaching, and theology simply means knowledge of God. Scholes introduces the topics for his book "Enjoy God: Theology for Your Head and Your Heart."
An Overview of Central Concerns: Questions and Answers (Chapter 2) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Preface Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Principles to Use in Establishing Women in Ministry (Chapter 21) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Probe Answers Our E-Mail: Inductive Reasoning: Answers the question, 'What is Inductive Reasoning?'
Probe Answers Our E-Mail: Purpose of God: Answers the question, 'What is the Purpose of God?'
Psychological Foundations for Rearing Masculine Boys and Feminine Girls (Chapter 17) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: Psychological Foundations for Rearing Masculine Boys and Feminine Girls (Chapter 17)
Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood A Response to Evangelical Feminism: No abstract available for this article
Review of Paul Helm's Eternal God William Lane Craig: Paul Helm's Eternal God is an important defense of the construal of divine eternity as timeless. I show that Helm's construal presupposes a tenseless (or B-Theory) of time without sufficient justification.
Role Distinctions in the Church: Galatians 3:28 (Chapter 7) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Satanism: The World of the Occult Russ Wise: A look at the attrctions into Satanism and the occult from a Christian perspective.
"Silent in the Churches" On the Role of Women in 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36 (Chapter 6) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
The Sinfulness of Humanity Dr. Bob Pyne: Over the last couple of years we have witnessed some incredible events in our world. In Europe, communism has become a thing of the past. In South Africa, apartheid finally appears to be on the way out. The former Soviet Union is in the throes of reorganization as it moves toward democracy and free enterprise. It's easy to be optimistic when looking at the trend of world events, but it's a little more difficult when one takes human nature into consideration. The sinfulness of humanity may be an uncomfortable subject, but it is absolutely necessary to understand sin in order to understand both ourselves and the world in which we live.
Talbott's Universalism William Lane Craig: Thomas Talbott rejects the Free Will Defense against the soteriological problem of evil because (i) it is incoherent to claim that someone could freely and irrevocably reject God, and (ii) in any case, God would not permit such a choice to be made because it would pain the saved. I argue that a Molinist account escapes Talbott's objections. It is possible both that in no world realizable by God do all persons freely accept salvation and that God alone will endure the pain of knowledge of the lost.
Talbott's Universalism Once More William Lane Craig: In the debate between universalism and particularism, three questions need to be addressed: (I) Has it been shown that it is inconsistent to affirm both that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent and that some persons do not receive Christ and are damned? (II) Can these two affirmations be shown to be consistent? (III) Is it plausible that both affirmations are true? In this on-going debate with Thomas Talbott, I argue that Talbott has failed to show the above affirmations to be inconsistent, that while one cannot prove them to be consistent, it is plausible that they are, and that it is also plausible that both affirmations are in fact true.
Theories of Evolution First Things, March 1997: This is a transcript of Pope John Paul II's address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996. What did the Pope really say about evolutionary theories? Did he reverse Church teaching on the subject?
Two Basic and Parallel Biblical Principles John H. Stoll, Th.M., Ph.D.: God's revelation to mankind has two significant and parallel lines of truth in the Bible, that impact the life of every Christian: 1) the Kingdom of God, and 2) Sanctification of life. These two primary principles are like the two sides of a coin, they go together: one side is God's promises to mankind, and the other is mankind's response to God. Taken together they form an indissoluble bond between God and the believing Christian. The Bible is the source book from which this understanding comes, and it is the responsibility of every Christian to know and understand these two basic principles, in order to comprehend God's program for mankind, as well as to know how to live in a sinful world.
The Valuable Ministries of Women in the Context of Male Leadership (Chapter 11) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Virtuoso Theology: The Bible and Its Interpretation First Things, December 1996: "Virtuoso Theology: The Bible and Its Interpretation" was authored by Frances Young and reviewed by Paul M. Blowers. This book is intended to guide the reader toward a Biblical interpretation model based on the teachings of the Church Fathers. Issues s
A Vision of Biblical Complementarity (Chapter 1) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
What Does It Mean Not to Teach or Have Authority Over Men?: 1 Timothy 2:11-15 (Chapter 9) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
What's Wrong with Evangelical Theology? First Things, August/September 1996: As liberal Christianity sought to define itself through human experience (rather than the Bible and doctrine), it lost anything that was distinctively Christian. Evangelical Christians face a similar problem. In his book "No Place for Truth," David Wel
Where's Dad? A Call for Fathers with the Spirit of Elijah (Chapter 23) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Wives Like Sarah, and the Husbands Who Honor Them: 1 Peter 3:1-7 (Chapter 10) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Women in Society: The Challenge and the Call (Chapter 24) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Women in the History of the Church: Learned and Holy, But Not Pastors (Chapter 15) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article
Women in the Life and Teachings of Jesus (Chapter 4) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: No abstract available for this article