If you take just a breezy glance through the archives of Themelios, TGC’s online theological journal, you can get a fairly good glimpse of the theological movements and controversies for the last 40 years. For example, inerrancy is always controversial, but interestingly, the debate led into other issues of hermeneutics and canon. During the mid-70s, there were lots of questions about whether early heretics were really heretics and how the simplicity of Jesus’ teachings relate to the complicated history of orthodoxy. From the late-70s to the mid-80s, a deep concern settled over Europe with Jürgen Multmann’s christology and Theology of Hope, which revived interest and controversy over Barth. Multmann’s Crucified God poked at a fire stirring in feminist and liberation circles. The late-80s sounded the alarm against cults and spotlighted public ethics, especially related to the AIDS crisis. Throughout the 90s and into the early 2000s, Open Theism dominated discussions on the doctrine of God, only to be replaced by a wave of responses to the New Perspective on Paul.
Robert Letham makes a good point in his article “The Trinity—-Yesterday, Today, and the Future” that if a student or minister (or a scholar, for that matter) invests all of his thinking and devotion into the last 30 or so years in controversies over the Trinity, he’s liable to be confused, imbalanced, or worse, heretical! It’s best, he says, to remind ourselves of how the church has always thought about the Trinity. Always having a finger in history guards against being a single-issue Christian and provides a fresh voice for pressing controversies.
I remember having lunch with an old professor when he mentioned the danger of arrogance in theological studies. It shows up everywhere, he said. He went on to say that ignoring theology all together doesn’t help either. The Bible never tells us ignorance is the remedy for pride. He suggested that whatever field you’re in, whether biblical, theological, or historical studies, always maintain a robust doctrine of God. He said it guards against two forms of pride. It consistently reminds us of how small we are. And it reminds us that we need help from more thoughtful and holier men and women and stops us short of fearing authority and snubbing Christians whose shoulders we should be standing on.
Mindful of this challenge, I asked theologians Fred Sanders and Kevin Vanhoozer to provide an annotated list of suggested books on the doctrine of God. Their lists contain a fairly wide range of difficulty, from popular to technical. They are good suggestions—-enough to keep you humble and hungry for God.
Fred Sanders, professor of theology in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University
Anselm, Monologion (circa 1070)—- Less famous than his Proslogion (with its ontological proof) or his Why God Became Man (with its satisfaction account of the atonement), the Monologion is Anselm’s calm and concise doctrine of God the Perfect Being. Think of it as what Augustine would have written if he’d had a more philosophical way of speaking: “There is a certain nature or substance or essence who through himself is good and great and through himself is what he is . . . “
Frederick Faber, The Creator and the Creature (1856)—- Faber sketches, in prose that verges on being actually too gorgeous, both “what it is to be a creature” and “what it is to have a creator.” This book is kind of a spirituality of createdness, and succeeds better than any other book I know at showing the implications of the mere existence of God. Faber was so Roman Catholic that he worried the pope, and this book is full of phrases like “the composition of this work has been a charity towards souls,” which can be a barrier for Protestant readers; but it’s a barrier well worth climbing, because Faber’s gifts are so unique that there’s just not a Protestant Faber out there anywhere.
Stephen Charnock, Discourses on the Existence and Attributes of God (1682)—- A book so big that reading it is almost a lifestyle choice, but there’s something great on every page. Charnock follows the Puritan pattern of presenting doctrine first, followed by devotion or application. It’s a method that works especially well for the doctrine of God’s attributes. Another Puritan worth reading on this doctrine is Richard Baxter, whose book The Divine Life takes up a number of God’s attributes, and immediately shows how deeper knowledge of that attribute transforms the believer.
A. W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy (1961)—- This tiny book by Tozer is the best place to start. He gets so much right, and kindles such a fire, that if you start with Tozer, you never know, you might just end up in Charnock.
Gerald Bray, The Doctrine of God (1993)—- A very stimulating book that spends a great deal of its time on the Trinity. Confident, independent-minded, but deeply formed by a comprehensive knowledge of the tradition, Bray pointed the way forward for evangelical theology in this book, especially in sections like “the priority of the personal in knowing God,” which is a kind of evangelical-trinitarian manifesto.
Three single-volume treatments of the entire doctrine of God from evangelicals: John Feinberg, No One Like Him; John Frame, The Doctrine of God; and Allen Coppedge, God Who Is Triune. These books are interesting for their similarities and differences, with three fine evangelical minds attempting to answer the question, “What needs to be covered in a doctrine of God?” Feinberg’s is the most explicitly philosophical, Frame’s the most thematic (he is developing his “theology of lordship” here above all), and Coppedge’s is self-consciously Wesleyan.
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1 (1936)—- Barth is at his best in the doctrine of the divine perfections, which he celebrates with obvious delight. Some of his writing is as thrilling as a good novel, as he introduces one perfection, then brings in another one, and weaves them together in front of the reader. The exciting dialectical interplay of God’s perfections give us a glimpse of what it means to confess that the God who holds all these perfections is the living God. As always, evangelicals will want to read Barth with caution. A good guide through the hard passages is Rob Price’s recent Letters of the Divine Word: The Perfections of God in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics.
T. F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (1996). Even from the title you can tell that Torrance is committed to asserting that the doctrine of the Trinity simply is the doctrine of God. It’s not enough to have a Trinity chapter buried somewhere around page 400 of your doctrine of God; the whole doctrine ought to be explicitly about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit throughout. This is also my recommended place to start reading Torrance if you’re looking for an entry point.
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology (2010). Vanhoozer is staging a serious intervention in the modern theological conversation about God. If you’re going to venture out into academic theology, you definitely want Vanhoozer as a guide to the pitfalls and the promise of engaging that literature. He argues against a movement that he labels “voluntary kenotic-perichoretic relational panentheism,” which is as bad as it sounds, and draws theology back to its task of theologically interpreting Scripture in order to confess who God is more accurately.
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Kevin J. Vanhoozer, professor of systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (2010)—- This is an extremely accessible guide to the doctrine of the Trinity and its importance for all aspects of Christian faith, life, and thought. Required reading for any Christian having trouble connecting the doctrinal dots between the Trinity and the gospel. Sanders relates the identity of God as Father, Son, and Spirit to the good news that whoever believes in Jesus Christ will have eternal life with God.
William Schweitzer, God Is a Communicative Being: Divine Communicativeness and Harmony in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (2012)—- A helpful contribution both to our understanding of America’s greatest theologian (Jonathan Edwards) and to the doctrine of God. Schweitzer makes a good case for seeing “communication” as possibly the most central concept in Edwards’s understanding of God in himself (i.e., the Trinity) and of God’s relationship to the world. The triune God is essentially good because he is essentially disposed to communicate his knowledge, love, and joy—-in other words, himself—-to others.
Thomas Weinandy, Does God Suffer? (2000)—- This is a superb contribution to contemporary debates about the suffering of God. Weinandy takes on the “new orthodoxy,” namely, the view that God’s love implies God’s suffering. He corrects caricatures of Patristic and Medieval theologians, discusses the significance of the Incarnation, and in the process makes a compelling case that the God who is impassible is more impassioned and compassionate than a God who is affected by the world.
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (2012)—- This book seeks to understand God’s being on the basis of God’s communicative action, in particular his divine speech acts. What must God be if God can do things (e.g., create, promise, justify, judge) by saying? In particular, does God “suffer” the effects of his dialogue with human beings? The proposal that emerges is a fresh restatement of classical theism (and divine impassibility) that nevertheless accounts for God’s dialogical interaction with human creatures and his love for the world.
John Webster, God Without Measure: Essays in Christian Doctrine (2013)—- John Webster is one of the most important contemporary theologians producing constructive Christian doctrine in the English language. This forthcoming collection of essays treats the nature of God and God’s work in providence and redemption. Each chapter is a model of “theological theology”—-exemplifying faithful discipleship in the realm of reason through hard thinking and clear writing about God and the gospel on the basis of Scripture in the service of the church.
www.thegospelcoalition.org
I think that you are looking for practical ways to humble yourself, so I will offer this.Keep in mind that humbling yourself before God is to repent of your own pride and ego, and give complete dominion of your life over to Him. In order to do that, you need to be aware of the ways that you are blocking God from doing that. This is done through confession. The main reason we confess is not to inform God of our deeds and attitudes – He already knows. The reason is that by confessing, we take responsibility for the fact that we have willfully turned away from His will. When we have spoken the sins, one by one, we are fully able to take that responsibility, and then repent.
With that in mind, here’s a suggestion for you.
Start praying, and ask God to empty you of yourself. Read Psalm 51.10-12 and ask for a clean heart. Then ask the Holy Spirit to help you identify the sins that are keeping you at a distance from God. Here are some prompts:
Are you seeking your own feelings or the opinions of others over the will of God?
Are you neglecting to be thankful and give Him praise because of your own emotions?
Have you made Him your spiritual Santa Claus expecting Him to deliver the gifts you want?
Have you thought that you have better solutions than He?
Are you thinking of Him as an angry parent rather than the God of all?
Have you neglected seeking His will for your life?
Have you neglected His love letter to you – the Bible – because they are just words?
Have you allowed your own desires to overshadow His will for you?Clearly, I’ve chosen these particular things from the posts I’ve read from you. But these are all things to lay down at the foot of the cross so you can ask for forgiveness. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you how you’ve shut God out, by word, deed or attitude. If it’s helpful, write a list. We tend to sin in the same ways over and over, and for visual people like me, it’s good to have the list to refer back to.
The purpose of listing and confessing your sins is not about making you feel bad. The purpose is to identify clearly where your thinking is out of sync with God. This is why God requires confession. When you have completed your list, ask the Holy Spirit to continue to identify these sins, and as soon as you think of it, confess.
Once you’ve confessed, release it all to God. Ask Him to cleanse you of it and He will. Ask Him for help with your emotions, to give you the peace that surpasses understanding. Thank Him for His wonderful grace, and ask Him to help you to catch yourself before you return to old habits so that your repentance is ongoing.
Now that you have confessed everything you can, it’s time to ask God to replace all the muck that He removed from you and replace it with Himself. Tell Him that His opinion is the only one that matters, and that you pledge to follow His will as best you can. Tell Him that your desire now is for Him. Everything else is a distant second. Ask for His counsel on how you should live, what you should do, and whom you should serve. If you have asked like a small child, with no reservations, then He will lead you.
Something amazing might happen right away, or it could take time. This is an on-going process as you draw closer to God. Never say it didn’t “work”, because you don’t know, and don’t allow how you feel to guide you. Instead, be lead by faith in the One who loves you enough to send His son to die for you so that you could come to Him.
To humble yourself before the Lord is to actively choose to release all selfishness, self will, self absorption…all SELF, and replace it with God. It’s to recognize your need for Him, and that you are nothing without Him. It’s to place yourself in the arms of Jesus and choose to stay there.
www.christianforums.com
It’s hard to believe I’ll be celebrating 20 years of being on staff at Life.Church this coming May. Am I really that old? No—I just started before puberty is all! I’m now the Campus Pastor at our location in Rio Rancho, NM, and I’ve really grown up at this church in more ways than one. I have grown so much over the past two decades in my relationship with God, in how I lead, how I parent, and how I am a husband.
It’s an interesting experience to develop as a man at the same time the place you work and worship also develops from infancy to adulthood.
One thing I think about a lot are the growing pains that the church went through in the first years and how I experienced many of those personally at the same time—and sometimes one triggered the other. Once, I counted up how many times I’d had a direct boss change. I came up with 17 times!
Being someone that struggles with pride and stubbornness this gave God a lot of great opportunities to burn that stuff right out of me. Burn with a nice searing white-hot heat. When I first started, it was just me and Craig. Being able to learn directly from him was literally life-changing. When that mentor-student relationship changed, it was a hard pill to swallow, but as I look back on it all I see that God had plans for me to learn from many different and great leaders.
While having the same boss forever would’ve been great (and hear me correctly on this—Craig, it would’ve been wonderful to have you as my boss for all these years, and I mean that), I would’ve never have been able to learn directly from the members of the Directional Leadership Team, our Oklahoma City campus pastor Chris Beall, and the list goes on and on. How each of these leaders deals with conflict is unique, how they choose to lead a meeting is different, how they strategize and calendar their days is all unique to them. I would’ve missed out on all of that and more I perhaps wasn’t even consciously aware of.
Change.
That’s what I’m really talking about. How do we deal with change? What attitude do we choose to take on when our goal is moved, our team gets a new leader, our project gets redirected? I dealt with it poorly in the early years. But luckily, those DLT guys loved me and didn’t fire me. Instead, they gave me the opportunity to change, grow, and become a leader and pastor. Those guys and many others did it by addressing my issues head on, with love, and without shying away from them.
When new staff comes on at Life.Church and I get a chance to speak with them, I give them this advice, whether they ask for it or not: Stay humble and hungry. Show grit. Be determined to learn, grow, and seek out feedback. Understand who you are and how sin has bent you away from God and how He, many times through others in the Body of Christ, can shape you and make you into who He knows you can be.
Resilience. Another word that Jerry Hurley, a member of our Directional Leadership Team, talks about a lot. Resilience will take you far.
So, how do we stay humble and hungry, full of resilience and grit? Keep a close personal, daily relationship with God and choose daily to stay humble and hungry. I believe no matter what you do in life, this skill set can take you far, perhaps more than any other.
Learn more about change and how to lead through it from Pastor Craig’s leadership podcast. Click the link below to listen.
churchonline.life.church
