10 Years of Study: Tips and Reflections

            This year marks a milestone for me. I’ve now been studying theology and apologetics for a decade. It has been quite the ride. A full detailing of everything I’ve done and everyone I’ve met is more of a book than a blog article. But, this seems like a good time to share some of what I’ve learned and how I got to where I am now. I think others out there, especially those just getting started in their own studies, could be encouraged by what I have to share. Perhaps church leaders could find this helpful for how they should counsel those in their congregation who they suspect have similar interests to what I have had. This article will lay out some of my personal journey into apologetics and theology, some major events along the way, and things I wished I knew 10 years ago.

So how did it start?

“What must I do?”

While I never voiced it as such, that was, in effect, my question one Sunday 10 years ago. I was 15 years old, in my freshman year of high school. A youth group retreat that weekend had made me seriously start to evaluate my walk with God. It wasn’t anything to do with what was said by the speaker during the retreat, or what was said in our small group breakout discussions. (I remember almost nothing from the speaker.) It was something my youth pastor had said in reference to our speaker. It was something along the lines of “how deep and challenging” these talks were. I was jarred with the realization that I didn’t feel challenged by it.

I was homeschooled growing up (meaning I was supposed to be self-motivated in my studies), and in high school my grandpa (a retired teacher) doubled as my math teacher. Seeing that I had a knack for mathematics, he had high expectations and pushed me hard to do well, never accepting less than my best. (For reference, I began doing calculus my sophomore year.) Luke 12:48 was frequently cited to me. After that retreat, I knew there was an imbalance in my life. I was getting challenged to do my best with what God had given me in school, in math. But not in church, with my faith.

I realized I was…different from others. I was utterly fascinated with things others weren’t. Anytime someone talked about the background to a passage, or talked about what I would later come to know as apologetics, I was taken in. I would pay closer attention any time anyone would say “Our versions have ___, but the Greek word…”. Any detail, any scrap that pointed to something I wouldn’t get in a devotional or hear on the average Sunday, and I was yours. The earliest apologetics I was exposed to was Ken Ham speaking at my church on Genesis (I grew up 15 minutes from the Creation Museum).^[1] In such talks I heard the statistics on young people leaving their faith, and quite honestly, I was concerned. If it’s 70 or 75 percent of young people that won’t last, I didn’t like my chances!

So, I was self-motivated, interested in deeper things, concerned with the state of the church, and now I realize I want to be challenged in my faith just as I am in school. In the words of Michael Jordan in the docuseries The Last Dance, “That’s all I needed.” It was time to take things into my own hands. I didn’t know where this would take me, and I still don’t, but I knew it was time to start studying. I didn’t know what I should study, so I asked my dad.

Neither of my parents really were in a position to direct me in this venture, but I didn’t know any better. My dad (bless his heart) referred me to where most any Baptist (or general evangelical) who didn’t know any better would have if someone asked them who to read if they wanted to study theology: John Piper. We only had one of his books, Don’t Waste Your Life. It turned out to be meh, not what I was after. I asked to try something else we had. I was handed our copy of Mere Christianity. Immediately I knew this, THIS at last was bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. I don’t remember the order of my early reads, but they began with a heavy dosage of C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters (my favorite of Lewis), The Great Divorce…and I never looked back.

            I very quickly gravitated to one of my youth leaders in particular, the only person I knew at the time who was trained in theology and apologetics. He served as a real mentor in my early stages. He remains a close friend and one of the most educated people I know. My sophomore year of highschool I read his ThM thesis on the sons of God in Genesis 6 (spoiler alert: they’re divine beings and Nephilim doesn’t mean “fallen ones”)^[2] as well as a couple papers by some guy named Michael Heiser^[3] that he cited on the Divine Council. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had just been exposed to the field of biblical studies. Around Easter 2014, my youth leader published a short book^[4] on apologetics for the Resurrection of Jesus, and he referred to the work of some guy named Gary Habermas that looked pretty cool.

Fall of 2013 (start of my sophomore year) I read Bruce Shelley’s Church History In Plain Language for school, and the following fall I read Habermas and Licona’s The Case for The Resurrection of Jesus, which cited early church fathers such as Justin Martyr and Eusebius of Caesarea. I figured that if they formed a part of the case for the Resurrection, they would be important to know, so I read them shortly thereafter…You can see where this is going. Before I’d even graduated highschool, I’d read dissertations, patristic primary sources, and academic articles on biblical studies. All because I wanted to give God my best.

For what it’s worth…

          I’ve been at this for ten years now. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, not just about arguments and ideas, but about my own trajectory and how I got to where I am. If I could go back and do some things differently, I would. But there are some things I wouldn’t. Perhaps you or someone you know is just getting started into apologetics or has just begun asking questions on theology. Some of the following points may strike you as obvious, others perhaps not. Some of my mistakes you will go ahead and do anyway, in which case…good luck, I guess. So, for what it’s worth and in no particular order, here’s 10 tips/takeaways I have from my own growth over the years. I am by no means a master at this, but I do know a thing or two by now.

Shut Up.

          This is one thing that I (largely) did well, although I wasn’t always happy about it. It is a real temptation for apologists to view those not so intellectually inclined as patients in need of the life-saving drug of apologetics. There is a legitimate “cage-stage” for apologetics in a similar way to Calvinism. It naturally breeds a sort of “me vs. the world” mentality that leads one to want to take on the world straightaway upon discovery. (See some very wise words from Frank Turek and others in this video.) That might make for a good movie, but is foolish to do in reality. Even the apostle Paul took 3 years after his conversion prior to going up to Jerusalem (Galatians 1:15-18), and the apostles sat under Jesus’ teaching for at least that long. Speaking of movies, I’ve always liked the first Thor movie. Anthony Hopkins’ Odin has a line that has always resonated with me: “A wise king never seeks out war. But he must always be ready for it.” The Christian life is nothing less than a war (Ephesians 6:10-17), but we must know how to actually use the weapons we fight with. That takes time to learn, particularly when one spends any length of time studying apologetics or theology. And, per Colossians 4, our speech is to be graceful and well-seasoned “so that we may know how to answer everyone.” Be a wise king, and prepare for war, but don’t go kicking around for a worldview fistfight. Don’t try and start teaching others. Reading On Guard and The Case For Christ does not qualify you to start teaching an apologetics class. You may have just attended a really cool conference, but all that means is you know where to start looking for answers. In Braxton Hunter’s (of Trinity Radio fame) terms, you’re an “answer finder”, not yet an “answer giver”.

It was a long, long time before I was really able to put my study into practice. I wasn’t encountering challenges to my faith, had no skeptical friends, and was never challenged by a professor in a God’s Not Dead kind of way. This frustrated me when I was younger, but now I see God’s wisdom in keeping me from what he did. At times I lacked intellectual humility, and there were certain areas I hadn’t studied that I needed to. To fully tell this story would make this article even longer, but in 2018 I had another one of those defining events. I found myself in a not-so-desirable job with a lot of time on my hands to listen to podcasts. It was at this time that I discovered Capturing Christianity as well as Dr. Craig’s Defenders class episodes. During this year I experienced nothing short of a Renaissance, in two ways. First, I pretty much discovered philosophy then. Until that point, my apologetics intake had basically just been Resurrection and Gospel reliability, but now I was starting to see the importance of needing good philosophy. (More on that later.) Second, for the first time I really started to grasp just how much was out there and came to grips with my own inability to master it all. Stay aware of your own fallibility and finitude.

Also, the less you talk, the more you can listen, which is a superpower in the apologetics arena. You will be a worthless apologist if you cannot stop making your own point long enough to hear someone else make theirs. So, if you want to go far in apologetics, step one is to shut up.

Seriously, Shut Up.

          It’s worth repeating. Shut up.

You are going to make mistakes.

          This is something else that I’ve done well at. There are several ways in which you will make mistakes. One is speaking on a certain subject and doing it poorly, and another is being wrong on a certain topic. On the first mistake, my first opportunity to do some speaking on apologetics came my senior year of high school. We had a new youth pastor who wanted the upperclassmen to take some leadership, which I was glad to see. A friend and I were asked if we would do something on apologetics for biblical inerrancy, and we, excited at the chance to do some apologetics, eagerly said yes and started preparing. We decided to do a comparative analysis of Scripture compared with the Book of Mormon and the Qu’ran. We found a couple verses from each that contained either a historical or scientific error or else internally contradicted itself, pulled some stereotypical fulfilled prophecies from the Bible, and spoke on that.

            You may already see the multiple problems here. If I could go back and get this opportunity again, I would say no for several reasons. First, I now consider inerrancy to be practically indefensible. I still affirm it (and the virgin birth; if you know, you know), but it is notoriously difficult to defend and argue for, for the simple fact that the territory one is covering is just so vast. One would need to be a master in archaeology, Egyptology, Assyriology, hermeneutics, and ancient near eastern literature. And that’s just for the Old Testament. Even with the Old Testament, we encounter the question of genre. Surely it means different things for 1 Kings to be inerrant from what it means for Proverbs to be inerrant. There’s so much to Scripture that trying to defend it all is inefficient. Second, inerrancy is hardly an essential Christian doctrine. It has become one in contemporary evangelicalism, but we have much bigger fish to fry, such as the deity of Jesus, the Trinity, the Atonement, the Resurrection, etc.^[5] Third, we cherry picked verses. Were they actual problems? Yes, but I don’t think there was a whole lot of epistemic virtue in how we went about it. Fourth, we lacked the categories to actually make a coherent argument in this way. The only logic we had was deduction. Had we attempted an abductive argument, we could have perhaps made it decent. Even still, our conclusion still wouldn’t have been strong, but as it is, inerrancy simply doesn’t follow from the premises that other books contain problems and ours has fulfilled prophecy. Youth pastors, it is truly wonderful if you have students who are bright and/or have a passion for apologetics. So come alongside them and help them learn, but in all likelihood they are not yet ready to teach on it.

Start slow.

          This may depend on one’s age. I started in high school, but others come to apologetics in their adult years. Last year I read over 35 books. That is the most I’ve ever read in one year. The first couple years it was about one book per month. Early on in my journey, my goal was just to read 10 pages per day out of at least 1 book. Progress was slow, but it was progress. Yes, it took me a month to read Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, but I still read it and learned from it. You climb mountains one step at a time, and getting started as a thinking Christian is the same way. It takes time to learn, especially things like historiography, church history, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, epistemology, biblical studies, etc. Be patient with yourself, and give yourself the time to learn.

Start small.

          I have not always done this very well. When I was 16 years old I discovered Logos Bible Software, and downloaded the app to my phone. There were some free books, and I was so glad to find one that looked good. It was Augustus Strong’s Systematic Theology. It said theology in the title and that’s what I wanted more of, so I started reading it. Some of it I tracked just fine. Other stuff, not so much, and I admitted defeat after a couple months and a little over 100 pages. It was some time before I had the categories of “lay friendly” and “academic”. In philosophy I had another hiccup while in college. I’d heard of Richard Swinburne before, and I knew I needed to read him, so I ordered The Existence of God and got started. I was 100 pages in prior to realizing that I wasn’t getting a lot out of it simply because I didn’t yet have the philosophical chops. So I gave it to a philosophy major friend who enjoyed it more than I could.

The resurrection was one area I did this well in: I started with my youth leader’s book, In Defense of Easter, which is very accessible. After that, it was Licona and Habermas’ The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (still accessible but more information heavy) before moving on to Licona’s dissertation, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. After that, everything’s been fair game. Go a couple books in before you really get into the weeds. You have to walk before you can run.

Find someone more experienced.

Kylo Ren was actually wrong when he told Rey “You need a teacher.” That’s because Rey was written to be perfect and have no flaws of any kind. There was no ignorance of the Force she needed to overcome. She didn’t need a teacher, but you do, because unlike Rey, you are realistic and relatable. (Although you do have just as much claim to be a Skywalker as she did.) At any stage in your apologetics journey, you can always benefit from someone who’s been doing it longer coming alongside you. Seek out a master to be a padawan to, and have a teachable spirit. I am indebted to my youth leader for being that to me, as I have only been blessed by his guidance. Church leaders, there is a good chance you have an opportunity to step up and have a direct influence in the life of a budding apologist.

Read broadly.

Do this especially while you’re busy shutting up. This is applicable in multiple ways. First, in the subjects you study. One mistake I made is I took too long before getting into philosophy. Find a lay-friendly book on epistemology (perhaps Dew & Foreman’s How Do We Know?), and then get into some metaphysics (Hasker’s Metaphysics is quite good as a first read). The soul is another topic that is crucial to know. JP Moreland’s The Soul is a good first step in that direction. I am by no means an expert in any of those areas and I don’t claim to be a philosopher, but I am conversant with the general issues in those areas. Also, read primary sources. A pet peeve of mine is when people only live in the secondary literature on early Christianity and medieval theology. I’m sure books published by Crossway on church history are ok, but please, read Irenaeus, Eusebius, Augustine, Boethius, and Aquinas for yourself. They don’t bite. Also, it’s just a great feeling when you read a scholarly work on some topic and it cites a primary source you’re familiar with. 

A second application of this is in the views that you read. You’re a dualist about the soul? Ok, fine, but what opposing views have you heard or read? You believe in eternal conscious torment? Cool, but what conditionalists or universalists have you heard or read? The reason I mention dualism and eternal torment specifically is that, as with probably most Christians, those were views I once held. But, a funny thing happened. Upon diving into the arguments for conditionalism^[6] (otherwise known as annihilationism) I became persuaded that it made the best sense of Scripture and my belief in eternal torment for the wicked was false. I had begun listening to the Rethinking Hell podcast in 2018, and over the next two and a half years I sat with the arguments, and I tried to resist them, but in January 2021, I was at last dragged kicking and screaming into the annihilationist camp.

Last year, I went philosophy-heavy in my reading, focusing on the philosophy of mind. I was a committed dualist^[7] despite reading physicalists such as Nancey Murphy, Penelope Rowlatt, Joel Green, and emergentist William Hasker. But then another funny thing happened. I read idealists Keith Ward and Bernardo Kastrup, and I realized that I had no good counter to the idealist case. I wasn’t dragged kicking and screaming here, as I had been intrigued by the notion of idealism for some time, but I have become persuaded that, absent consciousness, the physical world does not exist.

Reading broadly is helpful, but it must be coupled with epistemic humility. You might be wrong about things you can’t possibly imagine thinking differently on. If you want to live the thoughtful and contemplative life, you must have the courage to follow the evidence, wherever it leads. This is not for everyone, and I do not intend to disparage those that don’t have this courage. Studying broadly carries with it the risk that you will find an opposing viewpoint persuasive. But it will be indispensable for those Christians that want to get the most out of studying disciplines relevant to apologetics.

Read Scripture.

          This is something that I had already been doing when I found apologetics, as shortly after I began studying, I finished reading through the whole Bible for the first time. It is absolutely imperative that one not neglect the study of Scripture as they study their reasons for why they believe it. Another big pet peeve of mine is apologists that don’t know Scripture well. You’re claiming to defend something and you don’t even know what it is? “That’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for him.” One of the greatest apologetic benefits to knowing Scripture is that you won’t get caught off guard by the skeptic who thinks they’ll bring something out of the Bible that is supposed to concern Christians. One does not need to sacrifice a deep knowledge of Scripture for robust study of early Christianity, philosophy, or biblical studies. I’ve been able to hear Dr. Lydia McGrew, philosopher and apologist, speak on more than one occasion, and on one of those I asked her about the relationship between her academic study of Scripture and her personal study. I’ll never forget her response: “I try to keep them as close together as possible.” Words for the cerebral Christian to live by.

 Ask around.

This is easier done today than 10 years ago. It’s been very interesting to watch the landscape of apologetics change. Today, it’s actually not so uncommon for a church to have a group that meets to discuss apologetics. Pastors seem to have begun warming up to the idea. Some apologists have become household names: Frank Turek, Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig, Sean McDowell, Alisa Childers, etc. Many people who wouldn’t consider themselves very apologetics-oriented absolutely loved Koukl’s book Tactics. Today, if you were to ask people in your church if they’d be interested in meeting every other week to talk about this or that book in apologetics or theology, I suspect you’d get some bites. For several years I was rather pessimistic about what the average churchgoer really wants. I used to think they didn’t want to be challenged, but I was wrong. People are starved for good content. They enjoy hearing something that makes them think about this or that passage in a new way. I think more people than not really want to be pushed, they just don’t know how. I also think the average person is more capable than they’re given credit for when it comes to theology. If you can understand algebra and pre-calculus in high school, there is no reason why you couldn’t also understand Lewis, Craig, or Moreland. Of course, not everyone is in the Swinburne-tier of intelligence, but I believe the interest is there.

Also, there’s been an increase in apologetics resources put out by women that are in a unique position to speak to mothers. The more mothers that know some apologetics means more kids that know some apologetics, which bodes well for the future. No longer is apologetics almost exclusively a male enterprise.

 Have a favorite.

            I know, I know I just said to read broadly. But what I want to bring out here is that generalizing has its limits. It’s important to have a passing familiarity with multiple disciplines, but don’t let that keep you from having a favorite, something that’s really your bread and butter. Perhaps the topic of the problem of evil is your favorite, or maybe the moral argument, or fine-tuning. For me, anything to do with biblical studies/early christianity is my favorite to read and talk about, whether it’s history or theology. I love both Old and New Testament studies, as well as Second Temple Judaism and early church history. But, I also enjoy metaphysics, philosophy of time, and the history of philosophy. Not everyone has all those interests, though. Not everyone has the same drive that I do, which is ok. But find your wheelhouse, and I bet you would be surprised at how relevant it is to apologetics and how it can impact your evangelism. I write this also to appeal to those that may feel as if they are outclassed when it comes to intelligence. You may feel that you’re just the average Joe and will never arrive at PhD-level knowledge. Perhaps you really are not as bright as someone else, and that’s ok. You can still find some area that you can get conversant in. Apologetics is still for you. God still wants your mind along with the rest of you. It just takes putting one foot in front of the other.

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^[1] While I remain a tentative Young Earth Creationist, today I am often disappointed with what passes for “apologetics” in young earth circles. Arguing for a young earth and a literal global flood is not apologetics, as they at best are only tertiary doctrines, if they even rise to the level of doctrine. Further, the rhetoric of those such as Ken Ham is unhelpful to good dialogue between faithful Christians who differ on Genesis. I am very thankful to Answers in Genesis, though, for the role they have played in my own growth.

^[2] For a detailed and accessible book on the topic, see: https://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Sons-Nephilim-Tim-Chaffey-ebook/dp/B07TWT6Q5N?ref_=ast_sto_dp

^[3] This was written before Heiser’s passing, and I phrased it tongue-in-cheek as a tribute to his influence on my thinking and that of many other students of the Bible. Perhaps only two or three others have impacted me as much as he has.

^[4] Tim Chaffey, In Defense of Easter (2014)

^[5] Yes, yes, I know Scripture is where we learn about those things. But who really wants to first argue for the inerrancy of ALL of Scripture so you can rationally affirm the truth of some of it? Is that really the best way of going about things?

^[6] Conditionalism is often the preferred term for annihilationism, but I myself am indifferent on the term. It highlights the aspect of man’s nature that is essential for our view of final punishment: that immortality will be a gift of God given on the basis of faith in Christ, not the destiny that awaits everyone regardless of their life as is required in eternal torment and universalism.

^[7] For the unfamiliar reader, dualism is the view that humans are composed of two substances, a material body and an immaterial soul. Physicalism (very broadly defined) is the view that persons just are their material bodies or some part of them, typically the brain. Emergentism is sometimes called emergent dualism, as it postulates that that immaterial part of us, our mind/soul, emerges from the complexity of the arrangement of our material parts, similar to a magnetic field from a coil with an electric current sent through it. Idealism is broadly defined as the thesis that reality is basically mind-like, or that the material depends on the mental.

Lately our current culture has been weighing deeply on my mind. I’ve thought on it, prayed about it, and tried to speak to it. However, the division that is occurring is mind numbing and I really haven’t seen anything like it. I am partially angry, partially sad, and even partially amused.

The writing was on the wall for decades that this was the direction we’ve been heading, as many people simply shouted at each other across party lines rather than taking sustainable action which would create viable results. Instead, we manufactured band-aids and pandering ideals.  We so desperately need to remember whom we are to serve: God and each other.  After all, we are created in the image of God and yet so many of us want to try to fix this world by attacking the symptoms rather than the cause: sin.

However, what I have found increasingly disturbing is how Christians have become conformed to this world.  They think, speak, and advocate just as the world does. I’ve seen Christians excusing miserable behavior in the name of faux justice by saying that rioting, vandalism of property, and silencing swaths of people because what they say makes us uncomfortable is justified due to (real or imagined) systemic racism. It’s so much easier to slap a label on them and walk away, but in reality, this only serves to bring further havoc to our social environment.  So, let’s talk about this.  Let’s talk about what’s happening.

Racism. The new unpardonable sin. Not only is it unpardonable, but it has also become the new Salem Witch Trials: Suspect someone of racism? They’re guilty and cannot be proven innocent.  We throw these “witches” into the metaphorical water and watch until they float and reveal their racism, or they drown under all the character attacks of accused racism. Either way, it’s a lose-lose. The angry mob says that certain behaviors or ideas are sure signs of the evil that is hidden deep down, so they set up a rigged trial and be sure that nothing is left in its wake.  It’s almost become a new cult or religion where a singular view is considered doctrine, and all opposers are damnable heretics.  Worse yet, Christians are being sucked into this worldly view alongside the world.  Instead of being resistant and “testing all things,” (1 Thess. 5:21) we buy whatever popular narrative is trending at the time.  We don’t just bite it- we swallow it- hook, line, and sinker.

I’m amazed at my own personal treatment, not including everyone else’s, during these times. In the last two weeks, I’ve been called a ‘supremacist’ and ‘racist’ by many.  Someone even said “Will has bought into white supremacist Christianity.”  So of course, I looked at my Korean wife and we both laughed. However, part of me was also angry and disturbed that this rhetoric has become the norm and is used so flippantly.  I can’t help but think, how have we gotten to the point where we can’t even speak to one another for a moment without such labels being so irresponsibly thrown around?

As I reflect, I can’t help but find irony in how history always repeats itself and responds in pendulum swings. Years ago, blacks were considered property, dogs, less than human who didn’t deserve any real opinion or view, and now the new race that’s popular to hate is white people. By telling whites to apologize for their privilege, or at least admit they have it is how we’re expected to help heal the world.  Should that fail to effect the desired change, the next best step is to beat your neighbor with a crowbar and burn down a local mom and pop shop.  How someone uttering such words or the ensuing actions helps the world, I’ll never understand, but nevertheless this is what is being demanded.

Even stranger is how white people are told, “You can’t understand your privilege because your privilege blinds you.” So, I can’t see or understand something that I can’t see or understand?  So, I’m just supposed to blindly accept that white privilege is a concept based upon some person, white or black, telling me it is one? In fact, many of those telling me such things are white college age adults, who are almost ashamed of their own pigmentation – which is equally puzzling. While many of my black friends are saying that they don’t see this either. Which begs the question: whose commands am I to blindly follow? What it really comes down to is whether someone feels you have committed such a crime, regardless whether or not you have, especially if they are a person of color.

Voddie Baucham calls this “ethnic gnosticism,” which is “the phenomenon of people believing that somehow because of one’s ethnicity that one is able to know when something or someone is racist.” This happens all the time.  It’s a form of identity politics.  “You can’t speak on ___ because you’re a _____”  Telling people that they have authority over a topic because they happen to fall under some sort of skin deep adjective is absurd.  It’s another form of racism/sexism: treating someone differently and silencing them based on their immutable characteristics. In fact, if you have to keep bringing up someone’s race to delegitimize their position – they’re not the racist. If you have to keep referencing someone’s immutable characteristics so that way you don’t have to listen to them? They are not the one committing the sin.

Furthermore, demanding that one people group repent of their ancestors’ sins, apologize, and bow down to a different group is equally immoral and condescending. Let me be clear: to apologize for something you never did is immoral; to blame people who have never committed such atrocities or crimes is evil. In addition, demanding such an apology doesn’t generate a sincere apology- it’s pandering, which is an insult to both parties.  This isn’t to downplay the sins of the past.  However, empty words and hollow talk fix nothing, and pandering sentiments merely fall upon on self-gratified ears.

On top of that we had people, not so long ago, advocate for a de-segregated society. We had heroes like Rosa Parks take a stand and say, “I’m human too, and my rights are the same as everyone else’s.”  She didn’t need the front of the bus.  She merely knew that it was her human right to be treated as an equal.  So many rightfully fought for a de-segregated society. Now, we have places like Williams College that are offering “affinity housing,” which is a nice way to say “segregated dorms.” We have now come almost full circle where those fighting for equality are advocating for segregation.  Instead of progress, we have discovered regression.  This is the natural consequence of intersectionality.  This is the natural outflow when all you see is someone’s skin color, gender, sexuality, etc.

If you buy into this philosophy of intersectionality, where different groups have different levels of oppression, then you have been deceived by an idolatry of ideology; one that promises equality but delivers inequality.  Let me explain: intersectionality says that at the top of the social ladder are straight white males and depending upon race, sex, gender, sexuality, etc., you are on different tiers.  In believing this, you are buying into a dangerous philosophy that in the end will not create equality, but rather segregation, because in an effort to make everyone equal, you’ve only succeeded in dividing people further.  Additionally, if you advocate for special treatment or recognition because of the color of your skin, your gender, or your sexuality, then you’re not advocating for equality.  Instead, you’re supporting superiority.  It becomes increasingly immoral when people want (and are given) constant special treatment for their immutable characteristics.

Don’t believe me?  Think of all the posts, shows, and blogs talking about white people.  There’s literally a show on Netflix called “Dear White People…”  Now, with all those things in mind, insert any other ethnicity in there and the world would’ve lost its mind.  Why?  Because according to intersectionality, we white people are free game since we at the ‘top’ of this invisible social ladder.  This is one of the many reasons I wholeheartedly reject this twenty-first century doctrine. It only serves to create further inequality.

This isn’t to say we should live in a “color blind” world either.  That world is extremely boring and un-colorful.  It’s great to recognize our God given differences.  It creates appreciation for different cultures and people groups.  My wife is beautifully Korean and I am pasty white.  To acknowledge this isn’t immoral.  We shouldn’t strive to silence black, Latino, island, Indian, Asian, white, etc.  Instead, appreciate them.  I don’t wish to be color blind, I strive to love the colorful.  To respect that with one another we create God’s world.  Instead of judging someone’s experience, understanding, or morals based on their skin color, I wish we could have a world that truly judged one another on our actions, our morals, and our values.  I often say that “the issue isn’t race, it’s culture and values.”  We need to return to where these values come from: God.

See, only with God can we truly claim racism is immoral.  Think about it, if we are just evolved monkeys, the result of a cosmic accident, useless accidental pieces of meat orbiting around a ball of gas, to live and die with no meaning – then what’s wrong with racism?  Wouldn’t this be our Darwinian instincts to be tribal and care for our “own kind?”  Who’s to tell the baboon that his prejudice against the chimpanzee is wrong?  This is just nature taking its course.  The fittest fighting for the top of their respective ladders.  Only if we accept that God created us in His own image, that God has a moral law, and to despise another person is to despise a fellow image of God can we find true unity, because only in Him is our true identity.

Furthermore, we have people defending and even advocating for the destruction of property which has resulted in dozens of innocent deaths.  Some killed in riots, another killed by being crushed under a statue, others losing their livelihoods – who committed no crimes.  This shows that when we handle issues wrongfully, it only causes more death and more pain.  If you advocate for such things – you too are part of the problem.  As a civilized society, we must remain civilized.  Let’s talk, have discussions, share ideas, and give solutions to these problems.  Violence, destruction, and death is an option that will not get us anywhere.  Destruction only begets destruction.

Then there are those who keep shouting bumper stickers, “BLACK LIVES MATTER!” or “ALL LIVES MATTER!”  Yes, yes, yes.  We know.  We agree.  Black lives are part of all and all are part of black lives.  They are part of each other so no reason to shout them.  Now you may ask, “Do you agree with the BLM movement?” My answer is simple: I disagree institutionally but agree morally.  The institution stands for things that I am directly opposed to (abortion, intersectionality, neo-marxist theory, etc.) but the moral that black lives matter?  Absolutely they do.

This isn’t to say racism doesn’t exist.  It most certainly does.  But when we start labeling everything we don’t like as “racist,” then we actually hurt the cause against real racism.  It merely becomes a buzzword that leads to The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  We are so quick to hand this out like candy on Halloween that its very impact has lost its savor.

On top of all this, we infer motive all the time.  For people who say “judge not,” we sure like to judge someone’s motive.  If someone advocates against violence in the black community they’re labeled as a “stupid SJW commie libtard” and if you speak on deeper issues like the fatherless rates in the black community, drug use, violent crime or any other thing you’re an “unforgivable KKK white supremacist racist hack.”  In reality, we’re all advocating and speaking to issues that exist and want to speak to these issues.  Instead of speaking, we label and attack, leaving the issues unaddressed and making the trench that divides even deeper.

So instead of dealing with the cultural issues that have a deep impact on minority groups, we spit in each other’s faces so we can feel a little bit more virtuous.  When we should be talking about how to keep drugs out of the inner cities, how to encourage two parent households, how to prevent the disproportionate black abortions, how to get men to step up as men, have properly trained people in the police force, and proper accountability measures set for such situations – instead we just scream insults at each other or vandalize a city square.  This not only leaves crucial issues unaddressed, but hurts the masses.

People speak of having compassion and empathy, yet don’t even have enough empathy to listen to differing perspectives.  What really happens is that we have empathy for that which we care about and hatred toward anyone else’s view that varies from our own.  In the end, we have selfish bias masquerading as compassion. People love their labels because it saves them from addressing complex topics and helps them feel self-righteous. Unfortunately, it actually does nothing for those in actual pain right now. Recently, I was even called a white supremacist racist for merely disagreeing with vandalism. Of course, I pointed out the obvious refutation to this: my wife is literally Korean.

Then the laughably pathetic thing happened.  I was told she was my token card to deny racism, and that secretly she was terrified to tell me that I was a miserable racist for fear of me domineering over her with my whiteness.  I was angry for a moment, because this was not just disrespectful to me, but to my loving wife.  So, I merely pointed out the obvious: “So because we disagree on this point, you accuse me of being a racist, I show you very obvious evidence that I’m not a racist, and now you twist even that to say I’m racist?  Yet, if I agreed with you on this issue, you’d say that my interracial marriage was brave and beautiful and against the social constructs.  So in the end, I am whatever you choose to perceive me to be no matter what the facts are to the matter.” This is the nature of the conversation nowadays.  We want to label and twist whatever people say to shut them down.  Intellectual honesty, decency, and respect be damned – we have a narrative we demand be followed.  It’s either you agree with the status quo of our perceived beliefs, or you’re a leftist shill or a racist (depending who you’re talking to.)  You’re either for us, or you’re against us.

People, ideas have consequences, and what you’re seeing happen right before your eyes is when bad ideas are allowed to blossom and set their roots.  Consequences happen.  The lack of morals on a number of various fronts has caused unspeakable pain and evils in this world.  It’s time we wake up and see things as they ought to be.  It’s time we recognize one another as humans.  Brothers and sisters.  Children of God.  Image bearers of the Creator.  It’s time we laid down pitchforks and torches.  It’s time to stop following mobs and the next big thing.  The world is manipulating us to keep us divided.  Black lives most certainly matter, powers need to be kept in check, but the answer isn’t attacking and hating one another.  This only creates more disdain in our world.

I greatly disagree with many people.  I’m a pastor after all – we don’t do what we do to win popularity contests.  However, I will always do my best to respect and love one another, because behind every sentence spoken is another person whom God shaped in the womb.  People whom He loved and put in the world.  In the end, if you want real change, you must see things through a framework that isn’t about race/gender/sexuality, but rather right versus wrong.  Moral vs immoral.  Righteousness vs. unrighteousness.  Godly vs. ungodly.  The only way you can find a clear picture of this is through surrendering to the creator of the universe: God.

Let me encourage you to stop insulting and attacking one another, and instead speak to one another.  Listen, love, and even correct one another if needed.  The philosophies today are washing away the masses and only leave destruction in their wake.  Choose a better way.  A higher way.  A transcendent way.  Put your faith in Jesus Christ, approach things as He did.  With grace and truth.

Galatians 3:28

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

By Jordan Ferrier

A layperson’s response to Chris Stockman’s assertion that the God of Classical Theism cannot forgive sinners because forgiveness requires an immutable, atemporal, God to change.

Classical Theism (CT) is a vast topic. In 2023, Fuqua and Koons released a book, Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God. Taking a look at the table of contents, the individual essays have many types of Classical Theists: there are chapters that reflect a wide variety of faith backgrounds; Jewish, Islamic, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox. 

 CT spans a great deal of time, from Parmenides, who lived about 500 years before Christ, to John Duns Scotus (at least), who lived 1200 years after Christ’s triumph over Satan.

In Deuteronomy 6:4, Moses told Israel that God had told him to tell them, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

If you believe that God is one, you are some sort of Classical Theist; however, for over a millennia, Christian theologians have been asking, “God is one what?” and different Classical Theists have answered that question in different ways, which leads to quite a bit of confusion.

To try and clear up this confusion, I will try and present two very different views of God that were held by two of the theologians that Stockman referred to in his article, Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430 A.D.), and Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274 A.D.)

Augustine was born in 354 in North Africa. His mother was a Christian, and his father was a pagan. While he received a Christian education, when he was 18, Augustine moved to Carthage and fully indulged in its pagan culture and had a son out of wedlock at the age of 19. While he was 19, Augustine read Cicero and declared that while rhetoric was his profession; his heart was in philosophy. Augustine became a Manichaean and struggled with the Epicurean problem of evil. After teaching rhetoric at Carthage, Augustine moved to Italy at the age of 29 and opened a school of rhetoric. After a few years, Augustine moved to Milan, read the works of Plato and Plotinus, and fully embraced Christianity at the age of 33. Augustine worked to fuse Platonic philosophy with Christian dogmas, and continued to struggle to resolve the problem of evil. Augustine returned to North Africa at the age of 34, where he served many years in the church at Hippo as a Priest and eventually as Bishop. (A much fuller account of the life of Augustine may be found at newadvent.org, St. Augustine of Hippo).

After converting to Christianity, Augustine had to reconcile how evil came into the world with his belief in the God of the Bible. We need to think through how Augustine thought of God, and how Augustine rationalized an answer to the problem of evil, which allowed him to believe that God existed, was Omnipotent, and Omnibenevolent.

The problem of evil has 3 basic components:

An Omnipotent God could stop evil from coming into the world.

An Omnibenevolent God would want to stop evil from coming into the world.

We could easily blame a previous evil for a current evil, but the problem of evil asks how evil came into the world. To answer, “How did evil come into the world”, we need to restrict the discussion to how the first evil came into the world, rather than how evil keeps coming into the world today.

Augustine believed that Adam committed the first sin (Romans 5:12), that God, by his Omnipotent power could have stopped Adam from sinning, thus, it must be good that there is evil in the world.

Augustine wrote, “Nor can we doubt that God does well even in the permission of what is evil. For He permits it only in the justice of His judgment. And surely all that is just is good. Although, therefore, evil, in so far as it is evil, is not a good; yet the fact that evil as well as good exist, is a good. For if it were not a good that evil should exist, its existence would not be permitted by the Omnipotent Good” (Enchiridion, C. 96).

Augustine used what I call an “Omni-benevolence category theodicy”.  This category of theodicy tries to explain why it was good for God to ordain, permit, or otherwise allow evil to come into the world, because God, being Omnipotent, could have stopped evil from coming into the world.

How God can will evil to happen, and it is good that evil happens, was a conundrum Augustine solved by stating, “Accordingly, in the case of these contraries which we call good and evil, the rule of the logicians, that two contraries cannot be predicated at the same time of the same thing, does not hold” (Enchiridion, C. 14). 

God can will evil, and it is good that God wills evil, because the rules of logic do not apply to God’s Omni-benevolence. 

Augustine also believed that everything happens as God wills, “Nothing, therefore, happens but by the will of the Omnipotent, He either permitting it to be done, or Himself doing it” (Enchiridion, C. 95).

In Parmenides, Plato writes, “Must it not be of a single something, which the thought recognizes as attaching to all, being a single form or nature.”

For Augustine, God was one essence, and the essence of God is a will. God is to be conceived of as one will, and the forms of God’s will would be a perfect will, an ordaining will, a will of permission, etc. 

For Augustine, some of the attributes of God are incomprehensible. For example, why did God love one twin and hate the other? Because, “The love, therefore, wherewith God loves, is incomprehensible and immutable” (Tractate 110).  

God, prior to creation, willed everything that would take place, and knew everything that would take place.  After creation, God either did everything himself, or permitted the creatures he created to do what he willed prior to creation of the universe. 

Augustine also spent a great deal of time on Romans 9 and how the election of Jacob and Esau, before they were born, fit into the will of God. Prior to any person being created, God willed the eternal destination of each person. God being in the Heavens, and doing as He pleases, means that God could permit Adam to sin and bring evil into the world, and God could choose to save some from eternal destruction, and pass over others and permit them to spend eternity in hell.

Augustine wrote, “The condemnation of those whom in His justice He has predestined to punishment, and to the salvation of those whom in His mercy He has predestined to grace” (Enchiridion, Ch. 100).

Any parent will tell you that it is difficult to think of one of your children suffering eternal conscious torment in the fires of hell. Augustine had to reconcile a God who is love, whose will is always done, who could give the gift of faith to every person which would guarantee their salvation, with people going to hell. 

Augustine wrote, “Accordingly, when we hear and read in Scripture that He ‘will have all men to be saved,’ although we know well that all men are not saved, we are not on that account to restrict the Omnipotence of God, but are rather to understand the Scripture, ‘Who will have all men to be saved,’ as meaning that no man is saved unless God wills his salvation: not that there is no man whose salvation He does not will, but that no man is saved apart from His will; and that, therefore, we should pray Him to will our salvation, because if He will it, it must necessarily be accomplished” (Enchiridion, Ch. 103).

Again, Augustine is convinced that an Omnipotent God could save all, so God must have willed many not to be saved. How could a good and just God, will most people to spend eternity in hell, when God could save every single one?

Augustine answers this question in On The Trinity, Book 5, Chapter 1, by positing that God is without passion. If God suffered when a person made in His image went to hell, then God would want to save everyone:

The “creator though He lack nothing, ruling but from no position, sustaining all things without having them, in His wholeness, yet without place, eternal without time, making things that are changeable, without change of Himself, and without passion”.

If God could be made to suffer passion by the creatures He made, God would not send anyone to hell. For Augustine, God being impassible means that God dispassionately predestined most people to hell when he created the world.  God wills all people to sin, and God wills to forgive some people. This is all done prior to creation, according to the will of God, which makes the will of God immutable. God is able to forgive the sins of the elect because God willed to forgive the sins of elect prior to God creating the world, which means God can forgive without His will changing. 

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century was a revival of Augustinian theology. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk.  John Calvin stated that he agreed with Augustine. 

John Calvin wrote, “In a word, Augustine is so wholly with me, that if I wished to write a confession of my faith, I could do so, with all fullness and satisfaction to myself, out of his writings” (EPG, p. 20).

Calvin, “It would be utterly absurd to hold, that anything could be done contrary to the will of God . . . Whereas, Augustine proves, by this very argument, that everything that is done on Earth, is effectually ruled, and overruled, by this secret providence of God. Nor does he hesitate to conclude, that everything that is done, is done by the will of God” (EPG, p. 190).

Calvin, “But it could not be otherwise. Adam could not but fall; according to the foreknowledge and will of God” (EPG, p. 76).

Calvin, “The eternal predestination of God, by which He decreed, before the fall of Adam, what should take place, in the whole human race, and in every individual thereof, was unalterably fixed and determined” (EPG, p. 108).

Calvin, “Augustine then adds this short sentence; ‘These are the mighty works of the Lord! Shining with perfection in every instance of His will . . . (God) accomplished what He willed, righteously, and with the height of all wisdom: overruling the evils done, to the damnation of those whom He had justly predestinated to punishment, and to the salvation of those whom He had mercifully predestined to grace” (EPG, p. 26).

Calvin, “Augustine testifies, that men are not chosen because they believe; but, on the contrary, are chosen that they might believe”, “Again, in another place, he says, ‘Who created the reprobate but God? And why? Because He willed it? – Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?’” (EPG, p. 23).

Hopefully you can see from those quotes that Calvin is saying the same thing about Augustine’s version of Divine Simplicity as what I have been describing. This version of Divine Simplicity means that everything takes place necessarily, as God willed it from eternity past, and God is immutable (steadfast) so what he decreed and ordained to happen from eternity past will not change: Calvin, “All we say is that God is in charge of the world which He established and not only holds in his power the events of the natural world, but also governs the hearts of men, bends their wills this way and that in accordance with His choice, and is the director of their actions, so that they in the end do nothing which He has not decreed, whatever they may try to do. Accordingly we say that those things which appear to be in the greatest degree due to chance happen of necessity – not by their own innate properties but because the purpose of God, which is eternal and steadfast, is sovereign in governing them” (BLW, p. 38). Calvin continues, “Accordingly everything that happens, happens of necessity, as He has ordained” (BLW, p. 39).

Martin Luther, a monk in an Augustinian order of the Roman Catholic Church, said much the same thing, “You openly declare that the immutable will of God is to be known, but you forbid the knowledge of His immutable prescience. Do you believe that He foreknows against His will, or that He wills in ignorance? If then, He foreknows, willing, His will is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so: and, if He wills, foreknowing, His knowledge is eternal and immovable, because His nature is so. From which it follows unalterably, that all things which we do, although they may appear to us to be done mutably and contingently, and even may be done contingently by us, are yet, in reality, done necessarily and immutably, with respect to the will of God. For the will of God is effective and cannot be hindered; because the very power of God is natural to Him, and his wisdom is such that He cannot be deceived. And as His will cannot be hindered, the work itself cannot be hindered from being done in the place, at the time, in the measure, and by whom He forsees and wills” (BW, Sect. 9). 

Luther is rejecting simple foreknowledge, that God knows what will take place in the future: Luther is saying that God wills what will take place in the future, so God knows what will take place in the future.

Luther goes on to clarify what he meant by things “even may be done contingently by us, are yet, in reality, done necessarily”.  While God is a necessary being, we are contingent beings, thus, when Luther says something is done contingently, he means that it is done by a contingent creature, not that the choice was contingent upon the creature’s decision, “But, (that we may not be deceived in terms) being done by contingency, does not, in the Latin language, signify that the work itself which done is contingent, but that it is done according to a contingent and mutable will – such a will as is not to be found in God!  Moreover, a work cannot be called contingent, unless it be done by us unawares, by contingency, and, as it were, by chance; that is, by our will or hand catching at it, as presented by chance, we thinking nothing of it, nor willing anything about it before” (BW, Sect. 9).

Thomas Aquinas lived in the 13th century, about 900 years after Augustine. The Roman Catholic Church was completely Augustinian by this time. Augustine was a “Doctor of the Church”, and to go against Augustine would be to go against the teaching Magisterium, which would be tantamount to saying that the Roman Catholic Church was not the Church Jesus founded on Peter, the rock. 

In his book on Thomas Aquinas, G.K. Chesterton remarks, “St. Thomas, for all his love of Greek philosophy, saved us from being Platonists” (Ox, p. 12).  Chesterton continues, “So the Thomist was free to be an Aristotelian instead of being bound to be an Augustinian” (Ox, p. 18).

Chesterton was simply pointing out the historical fact that Luther, Calvin, etc., were Augustinian Platonists, while people like himself (and C. S. Lewis) were Thomistic Aristotelians. Aquinas would recycle the same words Augustine used, while giving them very different meanings, which means we need to pay careful attention to the details to grasp the differences between the two.

For Aquinas, God is one essence, and is to be conceived of as His attributes. 

Rather than the essence of God being a will, Aquinas taught that God’s essence is His existence.

Aquinas gave an example similar to this:

A Pterodactyl has essence and used to have existence.

An Ostrich has essence and has existence.

A Pegasus has essence but has never had existence.

Pterodactyls had existence, but no longer do.

An Ostrich currently has both essence and existence.

The Pegasus is a mythological creature that has an essence, but has never had existence.

Essence and existence are separable in created beings. 

God, having Aseity, was not created, thus, essence and existence are not separable in God, God’s essence is His existence.

Aquinas, “God is the same as His essence or nature” (Prima Pars, Q3, A3).

“Therefore, it is impossible that in God His existence should differ from His essence” (Prima Pars, Q3, A4).

Aquinas agreed with Augustine that “God is truly and absolutely simple” (Prima Pars, Q3, A7).

However, Aquinas disagreed with Augustine that everything happens as God wills it: “The foregoing is to set aside the error of certain persons who said that all things proceed from God according to His simple will, which means that we are not to give an explanation of anything except that God wills it” (SCG, 1.87.5).

We need to return to the problem of evil.

Aquinas wrote, “Whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of Divine Omnipotence” (Prima Pars, Q25, A3).

Aquinas used what I call an “Omnipotence category theodicy”. This type of theodicy shows that it is logically impossible for God to stop evil from coming into the world after God creates creatures with real freedom.

For example, when God created Adam:

Adam was created in the image of God

Adam was created with rectitude of nature

Adam was adorned with the light of reason

Adam’s will was ordered to the good.

Benevolence is “to will the good of another”, and God, being Omni-benevolent, willed the good of Adam.

God did not both will the good of Adam and for evil to befall Adam. That would be logically contradictory.

God gave Adam real freedom. This good gift was given through the freedom to eat from every tree, with a prohibition of eating from one tree. Even Omnipotence could not give freedom and withhold it at the same time, thus, contrary to Augustine, God could not stop Adam from eating from the prohibited tree after Genesis 2:17.

God did not want Adam to do the opposite of what God commanded Adam to do.

God did not give Adam permission to sin.

God did not allow Adam to sin; to allow something implies the power to stop it from taking place.

God did not will Adam to sin. If God willed Adam to sin, then it is a sin to do the will of God.

Aquinas rejected the Nominalism of Augustine (that two contraries can be predicated of God’s goodness at the same time, thus the rules of logic do not apply to God), and taught that God cannot do what is logically contradictory: give real freedom to Adam and withhold it at the same time, or, lie to Adam and remain the Truth, because a being that is both the truth and a liar is logically contradictory and nonsense.

Ed Feser, in his “Beginners Guides to Aquinas” states, “Aristotle and Aquinas would also be baffled by the modern tendency to think of causation as essentially a relation between temporally ordered events” (p. 20). Feser continues, “For Aristotle and Aquinas, it is things that are causes, not events; and the immediate efficient cause of an effect is simultaneous with it, not temporally prior to it” (p. 21).

Now, if that paragraph does not make much sense to you, perhaps you can concede that the task of explaining Thomistic Divine Simplicity is a bit tricky.

A comparison between the “Kalam cosmological argument” vs Aquinas “argument from motion for the existence of God” may bring some clarity.

The Kalam states that everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist; Therefore, the universe has a cause. God did not begin to exist, God has always existed; Therefore, God is the cause and creator of the Universe.

The Kalam invites the reader to think back in time to the beginning of the universe. It is an argument that uses temporally ordered events. While I am not opposed to the Kalam as an argument for the existence of God, there are a few things to consider:

Could it be argued that God wound up the world and walked away?

Could it be argued that the prior event caused the current event, which stretches back to the creation of the world, which implies that everything was determined by how God created the world? After all, Atheists (like Sam Harris) concede that temporally ordered events means that everything is determined by the universe, and humans do not have free-will.

Can it be proven scientifically or philosophically that the world began to exist?  Aquinas didn’t think so, instead, he thought that the fact that the Universe began to exist could only be known by Divine revelation.

To explain how Aquinas explained causation, I need to define and explain several terms:

Power is “potent”, as in, God is Omni-potent; thus, God is all powerful.

A potential is “potency”.  A dog has the potential to wake up and run across the room.

While the dog is asleep, it is both potent (having the power to run), and potency (having the potential to run).

Act is “actuality”. The dog in the act of running has actualized the power to run and “moved” from the potency of running to the act of running.

In agreement with Aristotle, Aquinas stated, “potency does not raise itself to act; it must be raised to act by something that is in act” (SCG, 1.16.3).

Aquinas, “God is eternal: Everything that begins to be or ceases to be does so through motion or change. Since, however, we have shown that God is absolutely immutable, He is eternal, lacking all beginning or end (SCG, 1.15.2).

Aquinas is saying that God is immutable because God does not move from potency to act, because anything raised from potency to act must be raised by another that is in act; thus, “There is no passive potency in God” (Aquinas, SCG, 1.16).

Next we need to discuss the four causes: efficient, material, formal, and final cause.

Several years ago, I wanted to get a dog for my kids to enjoy.  Before we bought the dog, I wanted to have a fenced in backyard, so I could let the dog out the back door in our suburb and not have to worry about it.

My work, every evening and weekend for months on end was the efficient cause of the fence.

The type of fence I built, made of wood, plastic, and metal, was the material cause.

The fact that it was a fence was the formal cause. You may be imagining a chain link fence, a wood picket fence, a fence made of vinyl panels, etc.; However, when you are driving through a suburb and see a fence, you know it is a fence, because it takes the form of a fence.

The final cause of the fence is fencing. The fence keeps the dog in and the neighbors out. 

In summary:

Efficient cause: person

Material cause: wood, etc.

Formal cause: fence.

Final cause: the good of fencing.

Now, it probably is not too difficult for you to think of examples in your own life where you are the efficient cause, there is a material cause, where you form the material to effect a final cause.

The same four causes also apply to God.

God is the efficient cause of the Universe.

Matter is the material cause of the Universe.

Planets, people, animals, etc. are the formal cause.

The final cause is that what God created He ordered to the good (i.e., Adam and Eve).

After power, potency, act, and the four causes, I need to explain what is necessary and what is an accident.

Think of a loaf of bread that just came out of the oven.

What is necessary for the substance you just took out of the oven to be called a loaf of bread?

Does it have to be moist? No, you could have baked it until it was dry.

Does it have to be dry? No, it could be moist.

It is not necessary for dryness or moistness to be present for the substance to be a loaf of bread, so things that are not necessary are called “accidents”.

God is a necessary being, so there are no accidents in God.

The creatures that God creates are not necessary beings, so we are contingent.

God being necessary is a different “order” than contingent beings.

When God is the efficient cause of all things, God is the – first order efficient cause – of all things.

God, by the fact that he is upholding the Universe at this very moment, is the first order efficient cause of the entire Universe, and the fact that God is upholding the Universe is what makes it possible for a second order (contingent) person to be the efficient cause of building a fence.

The Thomist asks, “What attributes must God necessarily have prior to God creating anything?”

This is done by a process of remotion, where we remove what God is not, to know what God is (See SCG, 1.14).

God is not nonexistent, God is existence, which is the attribute of Aseity.

God is not finite, God is infinite.

God is not unjust, God is justice.

God is not willing the evil of another, God must be Omni-benevolent.

R.C. Sproul explains the Augustinian perspective of everything happens as God wills: 

When evil comes into the world by God’s sovereign will, it is good that evil occurs (NC, 2007).

Vs.

Aquinas, “God cannot will evil” (SCG, 1.95).

God is not impotent, God must be Omnipotent.

God is not composed of potency and act, God must be pure actuality.

God is not composed, God must be simple (not divisible).

God is not changing (moving from potency to act), God must be immutable (always in actuality).

God is not created or His creation, God must be transcendent to His creation.

God does not fail to uphold the Universe, God is immanent to His creation.

God is not a liar, God is truth.

God is not unreliable, God is faithful.

God is not hate, God is love.

Etc.

Necessary attributes are pure actuality, they do not move from potency to act. 

For example:

God is love.

Love is the essence, being, and substance of God.

Because God is love, God is jealous for those he loves.

Jealousy is not a necessary attribute, rather, it is the attribute of love in action.

Aquinas states, “An accident depends on a substance” (SCG, 1.23.7)

Jealousy is an accident, dependent upon the substance of love.

While God is jealous, and jealousy is an accident, jealousy is not a necessary attribute, or part of the essence, being, or substance of God.

God is just.

Because God is just, God hates evil.

While God hates evil, evil is an accident, evil is not a necessary attribute, or part of the essence, being, or substance of God.

When Thomists say that there are no accidents in God, that does not mean that the accidents of jealousy, grace, mercy, wrath, sovereignty, etc. are not attributed to God: those things are characteristics of God, that are attributed to God, that flow from the essence of God, and God is simultaneously all of His necessary attributes, but God is not simultaneously all of His characteristics.

As creatures, we are composed of both potency and act.

A tree has the potential to be cut down and made into a table.

The table has the potential to be cut up and used as firewood.

We all know a person who squandered their potential.

In Deuteronomy 30, God tells Israel through Moses, “I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction” (v. 15). Moses then explains that the choice is theirs to make. God has given contingent creatures the real freedom to choose to obey or disobey, and the choice is contingent on their decision.

The people Moses was speaking to had a will, an intellect, and a conscience.  Paul explains “their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them” (Rom 2:15). 

Choice is a function of the intellect, which is informed by the conscience.  

People make choices, and then they either have the will to carry out that choice or not.  

God cannot be good and withhold the grace people need to be able to choose him.

God cannot force people to freely choose him.

God has told us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

When God gives the freedom of choice to people, like when God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to choose, and God gave Israel the freedom to choose, God still knows what will be chosen.

As Calvin explains, foreknowledge is not the cause of things (Institutes, 3.23.6).

Aquinas, “The Divine will does not remove contingency from things, nor does it impose absolute necessity on them” (SCG, 1.85).

God knew that the people of Keilah will hand David over to Saul (1 Samuel 23).

God knowing that the people of Keilah will hand David over to Saul did not cause it to happen.

God knowing that the people of Keilah will hand David over to Saul did not make it necessary that it happen.

God knew what will happen if David stayed in Keilah. God knew what will happen when he told David that the citizens of Keilah will hand David over to Saul if David chose to stay in Keilah.

God knew what will happen in both possible contingent futures.

When a choice is made by a contingent creature, and it is contingent upon their choice, people are able to do otherwise than what God wills. People are able to do otherwise than what God predestined. When God gives the freedom to choose to people, like he did to all the people of Israel, God cannot make every person choose life and prosperity.  Foreknowledge does not cause an event to happen, and foreknowledge does not make an event necessary; God can intervene, like He did with David, and David made a different choice with his intellect, with the additional information God gave him.

For God to know how to correctly advise David, and for God to know how best to intervene, God needs to know all possible contingent futures. This is why in Thomistic Classical Theism, God is said to exist in eternity, outside of created time, because God is transcendent over His creation, and God simultaneously knows all possible contingent futures, which means that God knows how best to interact with each and every one of us.

The death of the timeless God has only taken place in the small minds of the philosophically inept.

This explanation started out by stating it would be: A layperson’s response to Chris Stockman’s assertion that the God of Classical Theism cannot forgive sinners because forgiveness requires an immutable, atemporal, God to change.  Stockman also pointed out that for God to forgive, God would have to suffer passion and be “moved to do something in response to something outside of Himself”.

Aquinas, and Scripture, both say that “God is love”. For Aquinas, God is love in pure actuality. Each of God’s attributes extends to every other attribute, and God’s attributes are all co-extensive simultaneously. 

God’s love is just.

God has the wisdom to love justly.

God has the power to wisely love justly.

The attributes of God that are necessary are all simultaneously one, because God doesn’t stop being just when he loves, and God doesn’t cease to be love when he dispenses justice.

God being impassible means that a contingent creature cannot swap places with God (a necessary being), and become the first order causation that moves God from the potency to love to the act of loving. 

This would be like a stream rising higher than its source. 

God is love, and God is already, and always, in the act of loving his creation. God is immutable because God does not change from potency to act. God can forgive sinners because sinners do not have to be the cause of moving God from the potential to love them to the act of loving them.

Stockman also wrote, “Classical Theism fundamentally denies that God even stands in a real relation to the world at all”, then quotes Aquinas, “But in God relation to the creature is not a real relation, but only a relation of reason; whereas the relation of the creature to God is a real relation, as was said above in treating of the divine names”. 

The Question Stockman quotes from is Prima Pars, Q28, “Whether there are real relations in God?”

Aquinas answers, “Therefore as the Divine procession are in the identity of the same nature, as above explained, these relations, according to the Divine processions, are necessarily real relations” (Prima Pars, Q28). The relations Aquinas is considering are the concepts of paternity and filiation in God. As is stated in Q28, “The Father is denominated only from paternity; and the Son only from filiation. Therefore, if no real paternity or filiation existed in God, it would follow that God is not really Father or Son, but only in our manner of understanding; and this is the Sabellian heresy”.

For Aquinas, God is one nature and His creation is of a different nature. 

If Stockman wants us to be in real relation to God, in the way Aquinas is discussing, then we need to be in very nature God. 

If each of us is in very nature God, then God is a Quadrinity (or Trillioninity), rather than a Trinity.

For Aquinas, the creature is separate from God, and God is transcendent above His creation. 

Stockman has simply misunderstood the definition of relation, and has stated something about Aquinas that is incorrect. If you have read this far, you can probably grasp how easy it is to misunderstand meanings when reading either Augustine or Aquinas.