Continue reading »]]> …. if anyone is interested! …. I’ll be blogging through bits and pieces of it as I go! Hopefully it’ll be interesting, and even somewhat helpful.  Here it is:

“What is the ‘pneumatalogical location’ of the nexus between the Opus Dei and Opus Hominum in a theological description of church?”

When Karl Barth finds fault with Calvin’s ecclesiology due to his ambiguity on the relation between the Opus Dei and Opus Hominum, and the consequent possibility of historicizing tendencies, he proposes an alternative ecclesiological model: the visibility of the church is no more than a crater formed by the explosion of a shell.  In other words, in Calvin’s ecclesiology the Opus Dei and Opus Hominum are ambiguously close together, and in Barth’s ecclesiology the Opus Dei and Opus Hominum never come together at all in the earthly life of the community.  This is chiefly illustrated by their respective sacramental theologies, and in particular Barth’s replacement of the means of grace by the means of gratitude.

We will attempt to navigate between the Scylla and Charbydis of these twin errors, by retrieving John Owen’s Christological insights to bring the Opus Dei and Opus Hominum together by reference to the perfecting work of the Holy Spirit.  As the immediate operator of the Opus Dei with Opus Hominum, the Holy Spirit affords a way of construing the visibility and the invisibility of the church without distorting the integrity of, or the relation between the divine and human elements in the church.  We will conclude our study with a sketch of how such a Christology might be able to undergird a more robust ecclesiological model, illustrated by a sacramental theology utilising the means of grace.”

Continue reading »]]> Carl Trueman, of Westminster Theological Seminary is one of the best historical theologians I’ve heard before (along with Ashley Null who’s speaking at Moore College at the moment). Carl is the keynote speaker at the “Confess or Die” conference at the Presbyterian Theological College in Sydney this weekend. I’ll hopefully have some thoughts up about that over the weekend.

But here’s a great video to check out. It’s Carl Trueman speaking about John Owen, who was described by John Webster as the greatest ever english speaking theologian! Check it out! And if you’re free over the weekend, come down to the Confess or Die conference!