Salvation by Faith
Salvation by Faith

Author: Hyonam Kim

Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Published: 2019-10-07

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 3647564613

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The doctrines of covenant, faith, and the order of salvation are crucial components of early modern Reformed soteriology. In seventeenth-century England, these three major doctrines of Reformed theology, which had been taken over undeveloped from the Reformers, took a mature shape, but aroused controversies among diverse Protestant groups. Modern historical scholarship on Reformed orthodoxy has produced little significant research that deals with these doctrines synthetically. This examination explores the broader role of faith in relation to these two significant doctrines for salvation in the early modern Reformed theology, with specific reference to the thought of Thomas Goodwin. To this end, Hyo-Nam Kim examines Goodwin's life to review his religious experience and to understand his socio-theological context. Goodwin's soteriology was sharpened by his battles on two fronts: The first is the threat of Arminian, Neonomian, and Socinian soteriologies that tended to place meritorious value on faith and on human acts. The second is the Antinomian errors that undervalued faith and human responsibility. Goodwin regarded faith as a key concept for his soteriology. Faith plays a central role in the covenant theology not only because a lack of faith was the immediate cause of breaking the covenant of works, but because saving faith was ordained in the covenant of redemption, and actually functions in the covenant of grace, as the instrument and a condition for the recovery of the relationship of mankind with God. Examination of Goodwin's ordo salutis provides specific insight into the place and function of faith in the covenant of grace since each element of an ordo salutis refers to the blessings prepared for the elect to be finally saved. Together with the role of faith in Goodwin's covenant theology, therefore, the reconstruction of Goodwin's ordo salutis and the close examination of the role of faith in each blessing confirm that although faith may be said to be both an instrument and a condition for salvation, faith is the perfect instrument both for making salvation totally God's gracious work, and for showing that the elect are not passive objects in the covenant.

The Logic of the Body
The Logic of the Body

Author: Matthew A. LaPine

Publisher: Lexham Press

Published: 2020-11-04

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1683594266

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"Do not be anxious about anything." When it comes to stress and worry, that's all we really need to say, right? Just repent of your anxiety, and everything will be fine. But emotional life is more complex than this. In The Logic of the Body, Matthew LaPine argues that Protestants must retrieve theological psychology in order to properly understand the emotional life of the human person. With classical and modern resources in tow, LaPine argues that one must not choose between viewing emotions exclusively as either cognitive and volitional on the one hand, or simply a feeling of bodily change on the other. The two "stories" can be reconciled through a robustly theological analysis. In a culture filled with worry and anxiety, The Logic of the Body offers a fresh path within the Reformed tradition.

Grace and Freedom
Grace and Freedom

Author: Richard A. Muller

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-06-17

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0197517471

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Grace and Freedom addresses the issue of divine grace in relation to the freedom of the will in Reformed or "Calvinist" theology in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. It focuses on the work of the English Reformed theologian William Perkins, especially his role as an apologist of the Church of England, defending its theology against the Roman Catholic polemic, and specifically against the charge that Reformed theology denies human free choice. Perkins and his Reformed contemporaries affirm that salvation occurs by grace alone and that God is the ultimate cause of all things, but they also insist on the freedom of the human will and specifically the freedom of choice in a way that does not conform to modern notions of "libertarian freedom" or "compatibilism." In developing this position, Perkins drew on the thought of Reformers such as Peter Martyr Vermigli and Zacharias Ursinus, on the nuanced positions of medieval scholastics, and several contemporary Roman Catholic representatives of the so-called "second scholasticism." His work was a major contribution to early modern Reformed thought both in England and on the continent. His influence in England extended both to the Reformed heritage of the Church of England and to English Puritanism. On the continent, his work contributed to the main lines of Reformed orthodoxy and to the piety of the Dutch Second Reformation.