Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Genetic Fallacies in Actions
In his newest book Histories and Fallacies: Problems Faced in the Writing of History, Carl Trueman presents two versions of the genetic fallacy in action. Interestingly, they both are used by Christians to support their view of our nation, but perhaps not surprisingly, for different ends. In case you’re a bit rusty on what the…
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The Attributes of God
[This post is part of The Christian Faith series] These two chapters of The Christian Faith start the second section of the book: God Who Lives. Chapter 6 covers the incommunicable attributes of God, while chapter 7 covers the communicable. This distinction is fairly typical of Reformed theology. In a way it is based on the distinction…
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A Brief Note on Criticism
I thought after the last post I offered on Horton’s The Christian Faith, it might be helpful to clarify a few things. While at times I may be critical of Horton’s work, it is nonetheless an admirable achievement. Not everyone can write a systematic theology, much less do so while still relatively young. Part of…
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Scripture and The Church
[This post is part of The Christian Faith series] One of the benefits I can hopefully pass along to you the reader in going through Michael Horton’s The Christian Faith is the additional insights that are coming from an ongoing discussion of the book in a graduate level systematic theology seminar. In many cases I will try…
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Revelation as The Source of Theology
[This post is part of The Christian Faith series] It donned on me over last week that it might be a little too ambitious to go chapter by chapter, so I’ve going to combine some here and there to simplify things a bit. In this case, we’ll take chapters 2 and 3 of The Christian Faith together.…
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Paradigms for Knowing God
[This post is part of The Christian Faith series] The Christian Faith is split up into 6 parts: Knowing God: The Presuppositions of Theology God Who Lives God Who Creates God Who Rescues God Who Reigns in Grace God Who Reigns in Glory As you might notice, these divisions more or less follow traditional systematic theology categories,…
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The Christian Faith: Introduction
[This post is part of The Christian Faith series] In the introduction to The Christian Faith, Michael Horton lays out the idea that Christian theology, rather than being dull dogma, is a dogma that is drama. He takes this from a Dorothy Sayers quote and then uses it as a launching pad for the rest…
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Evaluating Theological Writing
Yesterday, I posted a link to some of John Frame’s thoughts on how to write a theological paper. Justin Taylor highlighted one of the points and then linked you to the rest of them. The whole discussion is appendix F in Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. In appendix E though, Frame goes over how…
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The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way
[This post is the beginning of a series on The Christian Faith] You may or may not be aware at this point, but among systematic theologies, there is a new kid in town looking for some friends to play with. Michael Horton’s The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way was released…
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Critique of Introducing Covenant Theology
Overall, I am in some ways sympathetic to the project Michael Horton is attempting in Introducing Covenant Theology. I would say I like the idea of it all, but he leaves many questions unanswered. I would consider myself Reformed in my theological leanings, or you could use the word Calvinist(ic) if you wanted to. However,…
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