Biblical & theological studies

Biblical exegesis and commentary

Francis J. Beckwith  Review of Hermes and Athena: Biblical Exegesis and Philosophical Theology, ed. by Eleanore Stump and Thomas P. Flint Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.  Who Were the Nephilim? Michael Kelley  The Burden of God: Studies in Wisdom and Civilization from the Book of Ecclesiastes (694 k) Thomas Schirrmacher  Law or Spirit? Galatians Between Legalism and Antinomianism (442 k) : Cover Paul is fighting against the abrogation of the Old Testament Law as well as against using this Law as way of salvation instead of God's grace.

Theological studies

Joel Herndon  Sola Scriptura and the Church Fathers Herman Bavinck  Calvin and Common Grace Horatius Bonar  Assurance of Salvation G. W. Bromiley  Sacramental Teaching and Practice in the Reformation Churches (1.8 MB) Jorge Ruiz - Westminster Hoy  N.T. Wright Or the Recatholisation of Protestant Thought Spanish - N.T. Wright o la Recatolización del Pensamiento Protestante  No Dispensationalism Before Darby, Review of Dispensationalism Before Darby by William C. Watson  An Overview of Millennial Systems, with a review of The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth about the Antichrist, by Kim Riddlebarger  Fake Theology: Radical Two-Kingdom Theory, a prehistory and a review, a review of Saved to be Warriors: Exposing the Errors of Radical Two-Kingdom Theology, by Bret McAtee

Norman Shepherd’s error in a nutshell

Reformed theology in its scholastic origins had a system of distinctions about the aspects of justification which it referred to as “causes”. They might vary in the number of categories but often distinguished 1) the efficient cause; God, who effects the justification 2) the meritorious cause; Christ’s merit 3) the instrumental cause; faith which apprehends the meritorious cause 4) the material cause; believing man who is the entity being saved 5) the formal cause; what is transferred to man, the imputed righteousness of Christ and 6) the final cause; the end or goal of justification. Robert Rollock, to take an example almost at random, in his “Treatise on Justification” lists four causes, but breaks down the efficient cause into meritorious and instrumental subcategories. (See Mid-America Journal of Theology 27, (2016): 99-110.) Norman Shepherd set these distinctions aside and spoke merely of the “ground” of justification. “Ground” then became a horribly ambiguous term which might take on any or several of the above meanings, or change from one to another in the course of the argument without the reader being alerted. Shepherd’s error, then, was to conflate the six causes into one ground, and at the same time the conflation into a single term served as a camouflage of his error, as he did not have to contradict distinctions he didn’t make or refer to. Strangely, Shepherd’s colleagues at Westminster Seminary accepted to debate him in these ambiguous terms, a condition which ensured nothing could be resolved clearly or proved.

Contra Federal Vision

When the Tyler branch of Christian Reconstruction fell apart amid the excesses of ecclesiasticism, one faction, working with fellow spirits mainly in the PCA, introduced the Federal Vision, deviously named to suggest that it was not the attack on federal theology that was. This movement amalgamated several heretical doctrines such as the confusion of justification with other aspects of salvation (already a feature of Tyler Reconstruction influenced by Norman Shepherd), institutional and sacramental interpretations of Christian standing, denial of the assurance of salvation, adoption of the New Perspectives on Paul’s view of law and justification, and an affinity for postmodern irrationality. See also the Monergism page.

Contra Mundum