Henri Blocher on the Trinity

Here is a video by Henri Blocher, giving a lecture on the Trinity at Moore College.  The video is two lectures, Don Carson then Henri Blocher.  Blocher's lecture starts about halfway through (about 1:13:50).

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Published: 14 September 2015 14 September 2015

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Secularized Trinitarianism

One of the insights of classical Trinitarianism, seen in Augustine and others, is that the the temporal sendings of the Son and Spirit reflect (in some way) the eternal processions of the the Son and Spirit (from the Father).  Put more simply: what God does as revealed in the pages of the New Testament (sending the Son and Spirit), reflects something of who God is in eternity.  Theologians have parsed the details on what this means, but more on that at some other point.

My interest here is something I just read in Herman Dooyeweerd's In the Twilight of Western Thought. Dooyeweerd is summarizing post-Kantian thought in Europe.  He is summarizing a general tendency which permeated this era.  He writes of the "firm belief in eternal values or ideas, which realize themselves in the temporal order of the historical process in wealth of individual forms" (p. 54).

Dooyeweerd is here summarizing a trend whereby, in reaction to Kant's understanding of a universal moral law which everyone knows, Romanticism and post-Kantian Idealism was trying to carve out room for the importance of individuality (but without sliding into moral anarchy).  In trying to resist Kant's understanding of this universal moral law (which its detractors saw as diminishing the importance of individuality and particularity), Dooyeweerd summarizes the viewpoint of what he calls the "historical school" (which existed alongside of romanticism and post-Kantian idealism, on Dooyeweerd's view).  This "historical school" uses some of same language of (Edmund) Burkean conservatism: the organic nature of a culture, the importance of allowing relationships and institutions to grow naturally, etc.).

Dooyeweerd suggests that while this "historical school" was embraced by many folks--including many Christians, in part because it seemed be an ally in resisting the principles of the French Revolution--it still was rooted in a fundamentally non-Christian and humanistic and Rousseauian understanding of reality (i.e., unbridled and untethered reality, unformed by Christian teaching/formation/structuring is good).

It is at this point in the discussion that Dooyeweerd says that the more radical consequences of this "historical school" (still being fundamentally humanistic and Rousseauian) were kept in check.  And, these consequences were kept in check because of what was mentioned above: the "firm belief in eternal values or ideas, which realize themselves in the temporal order of the historical process in wealth of individual forms" (p. 54).  That is, instead of seeing all reality held in being, and led, and structured by the three persons of the Godhead, a secularized Trinitarianism (these "eternal values or ideas" which over time "realize themselves in the temporal order") is seen to structure reality and provide meaning and coherence to reality.

We are indeed worshipping beings.  We will have our objects of worship: either the Triune God of Holy Writ, or gods of our own making.

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Published: 12 September 2015 12 September 2015

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Arius Notes

Attached are simply some notes on Arius which might be helpful.

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Published: 10 September 2015 10 September 2015

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Arius' Letter to Constantine

Here is Athanasius' Letter to Constantine.

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Published: 10 September 2015 10 September 2015

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