Read the Church Fathers

This has been a fun journey the last few years of reading the Church Fathers. Until recently though, I've

been reading what I wanted to read and wasn't on a plan, but now I am since finding this website.

So why should you read the works of the Church Fathers? Well, for one, communion with the saints happens and secondly it gives insight into the Early Church and for me that's been invaluable.

Link: Read the Fathers

Lost on the web

I thought that I lost this blogger page for a few years, but I'm glad to finally have it back.

So what has the Theology Geek been doing for the last three years? Well, traveling Asia and studying Trinitarian theology and some acting in South East Asia.

More to come soon..

More theology soon

I will post some more theology soon. I've been traveling and haven't had much time to write on this blog though I have been writing for another theological blog and will get back soon to the theology geek.

Luther's theology of the cross

Carl Trueman has an exellent article on it here. 

Against Calvinism

I'm reading through a few new books, but the one that I will talk about here is Against Calvinism by Roger Olson. 

I'm only half way through the book and I must say like all the other books by Olson it is well written and thought through. Am I convinced of Arminianism? No. I'm not even sure if he is truly a classical Arminian him self. Because in his other writings I see influences of Moltmann concerning the sovereignty of God. But then like most Calvinist, I think most Arminians differ on things too. 

Most forms of Calvinism Olsen is against. So if you were thinking that he is warm to any of it he isn't. He only likes revisionist Calvinism stripped of Reformed theology containing no TULIP, John Piper and no Sproul.

Is it a good read? It's ok. Like his other books I read them as fast as I can and then get out of Dodge!

Ken

Sitting along the South China Sea

Yesterday, I was sitting along the South China Sea and thinking about a book that I read earlier this year called The Promise of Trinitarian Theology and one of the passages was about the richness of God's being and how everything in turn because God is Trinity is different in life. We no longer can look at things the same.......

Thoughts on Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas

My thoughts? I think that he is brilliant! I've made myself read through Plato and other philosophers and it's downright fascinating how Thomas can quote from them and then in turn relate it to Christian theology and doctrine without blinking an eye. Aquinas is fascinating in many respects both as a philosopher himself and a theologian and it's hard to distinguish the two. So, should you read Thomas Aquinas?? The answer is yes!

Worship Wars

NT Wright on contemporary worship music.

Final Cut Pro X

Final Cut Pro X is the most awful software I've every used in my life! I've been a Final Cut Pro user since version 1 and before that I was a Premiere user on the Mac. I've never seen such a goof up piece of garbage! Sure you can edit with it and make sense out of your movie scenes/clips, but it's a far cry from being a professional app. Along with Final Cut Pro X Apple has discontinued Apple Color, which with all it's faults was a great program(along with Shake). So, which leaves me no option but returning to Adobe or Avid, because Final Cut Pro 7 is almost outdated as an editing app!


The bottom line is that most professionals have left Apple to the kids and iPhone junk! Apple in my mind has turned to less creative stuff and its materialistic junk. Creative professionals need a company that will stand behind them and Apple has turn out to be not that type of company. So bye, bye Apple!!

Back from Hong Kong

Hong Kong was lovely, but the people there are down right stinking rude. They will cut in front of you in a coffee line, make fun of your chinese, etc. Lovely city, but crappy people(character). Lovely country though of old and new.

Master of Puppets Mario Version

Super Mario version of Metallica's Master of Puppets.

Listen

Liturgical Theology-Simon Chan

"This kind of worship that gives worshipers an immediate "high" may not even be good for their spiritual development in the long term; what truly forms worshipers is regular church attendance in a church that practices normative liturgy." Simon Chan-Liturgical Theology  


I think this is an important quote, because many in the free church today seek an immediate high. They go to the extreme ends of the earth, to far cities, or drive for hours just to find that new high. We can never do that as Christians to have real sustained growth in holiness(sanctification). Hence, we need Word and Sacrament.

Working my way through Summa Theologica byThomas Aquinas

Working my way through Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas has been a joy. But I will say that it's not for the faint in heart, because the work is so stinken long. I'm saying that, because it might just take me a full year to read through it and on top of that you really need some knowledge of philosophical history and terms to really digest some of the stuff he is saying at times.

Predestination: John Calvin vs. Thomas Aquinas

More on the doctrine of Predestination and Thomas Aquinas from a interesting Catholic blog. I say interesting, because it looks like they were all once Reformed and now in the Catholic church.


Read. 

Summa Theologica and Predestination

I've been working my way through Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas and I found out for first hand that his doctrine of Predestination is much like Calvin's own. Calvin never invented it, but it's been part of Church and Church history. 


Here is a good post entitled Aquinas on Predestination at Helm's Deep. 

Reading, reading and more reading

I just completed reading Simon Chan's Liturgical Theology and all I can say again is wow! These Pentecostals of today are fascinating and so smart about theology. I can remember a day when there wasn't such a phrase "Pentecostal Scholar"....how things have changed!

Ken

Calvin on being a good minster of the Word of God and Scholarship

"None will ever be a good minister of the word of God, unless he is first of all a scholar." -- John Calvin

How My Mind Has Changed in This Decade: Part Two by Karl Barth

Read more....."The positive factor in the new development was this: in these years I had to learn that Christian doctrine, if it is to merit its name and if it is to build up the Christian church in the world as she must needs be built up. has to be exclusively and conclusively the doctrine of Jesus Christ -- of Jesus Christ as the living Word of God spoken to us men.....I should like to call it a christological concentration -- I have been led to a critical (in a better sense of the word) discussion of church tradition, and as well of the Reformers, and especially of Calvin." 

Hillsong United - Hosanna

Comparable to a hymn it's Hillsong United's song Hosanna. 

Double Predestination: The Elected Ones and the Crowd of the Condemned By Jürgen Moltmann

Here is an interesting essay by Jergen Moltmann commenting on Karl Barth and his reworking of Calvin's doctrine of Double Predestination. 

“The doctrine of election is the sum of the Gospel because of all words that can be said or heard it is the best: that God elects man; that God is for man too the One who loves in freedom,” said Karl Barth in § 32 of his Church Dogmatics (trans. is from Bromiley ed.). Why is this so? Because “God took upon himself the condemnation of sinful men with all consequences, and elected man to participate in his eternal glory (§ 33).” Is Barth teaching “double predestination?” Yes! But in a new dialectical form: God took the condemnation upon himself in order to embrace all in his election of grace. This is the new dialectical form of the old doctrine of “double predestination.” 

He goes on further and address what some say is Barth's Universalism. 

"Another question is whether universalism is the result of this reformulation. The answer is “No,” because we are witnesses of the Gospel not judges in the final judgment of God. Whether God will in the end embrace all with his transforming grace is His sake, ours is the witness of the Gospel to everybody."

Read more...