The Bible teaches that angels are incorporeal and immaterial spirits. They can temporarily assume physical forms for specific purposes, but do not have their own proper bodies. And their nature is distinguished from that of human beings.… Read More Four Reasons Angels Do Not Have Bodies
We are to distinguish between articles of faith (or res fidei, matters of faith, and fundamental points of faith). Matters of faith I reduce to three:
1. Fundamental points.
2. Supra-fundamentalia, superstructions built upon fundamentals.
3. Circa-fundamentalia, things about matters of faith.
For praeter-fundamentalia, things indifferent and beside the foundation in matters of religion and moral carriage, I acknowledge none. Fundamentals are the vital and noble parts or the soul of Divinity.… Read More How To Classify The Fundamentals Of The Faith
Lucas Trelcatius (1542-1602)A Brief Institution of the Common Places of Sacred Divinity. Wherein the truth of every place is proved, and the sophisms of Bellarmine are reproved.Translated by John Gawen in 1610. II.ix Of Man’s Justification Before GOD. The Confirming Part. The second degree of application [of Redemption by Christ] which is here made on… Read More Of Man’s Justification Before God
“For educated men distinguish the end of the work from the end of working” (Samuel Rutherford, Disputatio Scholastica de Divina Providentia, p. 215). [1] This is a basic introduction to a distinction that one will commonly come across in reading Reformed Theology. This distinction will greatly assist in one’s understanding of theological concepts. We will define… Read More Reformed Scholasticism: Distinguishing Ends
Although “the authority of the holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God (1 Thes 2:13; 2 Tim… Read More The Authority of Scripture and the Testimony of the Church
“The Scripture is the Word of God written in a language fit for the Church by men immediately called to be the Clerkes, or Secretaries of the Holy Ghost, 2 Peter 1:21: ‘For prophecie came not in old time by the will of man, but the holy men of God spake as they were carried… Read More The Apostles and Prophets: Secretaries of the Holy Ghost
Adding on to our last post summarizing a few scholastic concepts: Causality: Five Metaphysical Distinctions, this post briefly considers another important principle often used in Reformed Theology and gives a few examples of the principle in practice. Principle of Proportionate Causality. “The logic of causality also dictates that proximate or closely related causes produce only proximate or… Read More What It Does Not Have, It Cannot Impart
Metaphysics is the philosophical knowledge concerned with the fundamental nature of knowing and being. Since God is the creator of all things, it is important that we understand the natural world around us and His revelation to us in Scripture in a precise and logical manner. The metaphysical distinctions of causality are crucial in understanding Reformed… Read More Causality: Five Metaphysical Distinctions
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