Theology

Pettegrew on the Cessation of (All of) the Spiritual Gifts

February 24, 2009 by Phil Gons

I had a discussion with a friend over dinner a few days ago, and we were talking about books on the Holy Spirit that we liked. We talked about Sinclair Ferguson’s The Holy Spirit, and then Larry Pettegrew’s The New Covenant Ministry of the Holy Spirit came up. I commented on Pettegrew’s unique view that all of the gifts—not just miraculous and revelatory ones—were temporary and had passed with the time of the apostles. My friend responded with surprise, thinking I was talking about someone else or just mistaken. So when I got home that evening, I pulled out Pettegrew’s book and found what seems to me to be evidence in favor of my reading of Pettegrew. (If memory serves me correctly, my Pneumatology professor, Gary Reimers, is actually the one that tipped me off to Pettegrew’s view.) I sent some key quotes on to him, and, to my surprise, he still wasn’t convinced. So I’ll let you decide.

A Case of Major Plagiarism

January 10, 2009 by Phil Gons

The weekend before Christmas I was doing some reading and research on the Trinity (which is what I spend most of my weekends doing), and I stumbled across something in a journal article that sounded very much like something I had read in a systematic theology book. So I opened the book to compare, and sure enough it was verbatim (the only difference being a single word missing the italics from the original source).

So I turned back to the article expecting to see that the author was quoting a large portion from the theology book and that I was simply reading somewhere in the middle of the quote, but I saw no quotation marks and no mention of the author’s work. Perplexed I started comparing further, wondering if perhaps this was just a very long extended quotation. To my shock I discovered the the author of the journal article had reproduced without quotation marks nearly verbatim (somewhere between 95% and 99% identical content) the entirety of his 24-page article from the other individual’s theology book—almost a complete copy and paste with just a handful of very minor cosmetic changes. The only credit he gave to the author of the content was a mention in his first footnote where he listed a few sources on the doctrine of the Trinity. At the end of the footnote, he mentioned his particular indebtedness to the author whose content he plagiarized. (Most readers have no idea how indebted he really was!)

Theo-Logic by Hans Urs von Balthasar for $27

January 9, 2009 by Phil Gons

Ignatius Press is having a nice sale on a number of volumes. I just picked up Hans Urs von Balthasar’s three-volume Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory in hardback for just $27. That’s just a tad more than the cost of one of the volumes at Amazon.

Here are the three volumes in the set:

Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory, Vol. I; The Truth of the World
(Retail: $29.95; Amazon: $21.86; Ignatius: $9.00 $29.95)
Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory, Vol. II; The Truth of God
(Retail: $29.95; Amazon: $21.86; Ignatius: $9.00 $29.95)
Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory, Vol. III; The Spirit of Truth
(Retail: $34.95; Amazon: $26.56; Ignatius: $9.00 $34.95)

The Second Best Book in the World

December 12, 2008 by Phil Gons

I read an endorsement recently that really grabbed my attention. A well-known individual described a book that is not very well known in these terms:

This book is much better than any other book in the world, excepting the Bible, in my opinion.

The individual was Jonathan Edwards.

The book was Peter Van Mastricht’s A Treatise on Regeneration, which was published by Soli Deo Gloria, now a part of Reformation Heritage Books.

Wow! I want to read that book. I wonder how it compares with John Piper’s Finally Alive.

Two New Theology Books Now on My Wishlist

November 18, 2008 by Phil Gons

P&R just published J. van Genderen & W. H. Velema’s Concise Reformed Dogmatics, which the publisher describes as “a crystallization of the best confessionally Reformed Dutch thought in a single, manageable English-language volume.” The translation is the merger of Gerrit Bilkes’s and Ed M. van der Maas’s separate English translations of the original 1992 Dutch edition, Beknopte Gereformeerde dogmatiek.

It is the product of a multistep process of comparing the two translations and combining their strengths. With an eye for clarity and theological integrity, a team of readers—including W. H. Velema, the lone surviving author, together with Lawrence W. Bilkes and Gerald M. Bilkes—checked the entire work.

One might be tempted to question if this nearly 1,000-page tome rightly bears the descriptor concise. Compared to many systematic theology books, 1,000 pages is by no means brief, but held to the standard of other Dutch works like those of Bavinck (3,024 pp.), Kuyper (3,486 pp.), and Vos (≈1,900 pp.), it is definitely on the smaller side.

Wanted: A Dutch-to-English Translator

November 17, 2008 by Phil Gons

Abraham Kuyper Yesterday I stumbled across Kuyper’s dogmatic theology, Dictaten dogmatiek: College-dictaat van een der studenten, on Princeton’s digital online library. By the subtitle, it appears to be dictations from one of his students. I really wish I knew even enough Dutch to work through some of this with profit. Better yet, I wish I knew someone who knew Dutch and would be willing to translate his section on the Trinity for me: Hoofdstuk I. Het Dogma de Sancta Trinitate. It’s only 44 pages. Any takers?

Also, how about we get someone to translate the whole thing—all 3,486 pages of it—into English for print and digital publication?

Piper on the Election

October 31, 2008 by Phil Gons

Good stuff. John Piper shares his heart on womanhood, race, abortion, the prophetic perspective, the sovereignty of God, and the gospel as they relate to the election.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YGjGbZNyIBY

HT: JT

Does the McCall–Yandell Argument Work? Feinberg Says No

October 20, 2008 by Phil Gons

I commented briefly in the second half of this post on why I think that the McCall–Yandell argument fails. (To get up to speed on what that argument is, see my two previous posts here and here.) A couple of days ago I stumbled across a quote in John Feinberg’s No One Like Him that demonstrates nicely why that argument doesn’t succeed.

In the last section of his chapter on the Trinity, “Logic and the Doctrine of the Trinity,” Feinberg is responding to criticisms that challenge the logical coherency of the doctrine.

Timothy Bartel raises an objection that parallels the McCall–Yandell argument very closely, the only difference being which properties are in view. McCall and Yandell attacked the notions of authority and submission, but if their argument is applied consistently, it would have to encompass any properties that the three don’t share in common.