Favorite Non Reformed Theologian - Page 3

reformedlostboy · #81 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 06:40 PM

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Originally Posted by Pilgrim

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Originally Posted by servantofmosthigh

Does anyone know if Ravi Zaccharias is Reformed or not?

No. He is an evangelist with the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

that definitely qualifies him as my choice for favorit unreformed theologian/preacher/evangelist/apologist ... whatever kind of label we would want to put on him. I love hearing him speak because he challenges me to think about things. Thinking about everything I have been taught in the past is one way God worked in me for reformation. Ravi helps me to think about evangelism in a whole new way and I like how he can explain almost anything or answer any question with a cross centered approach.

Hippo · #82 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 06:59 PM

I have a real soft spot for Harry A. Ironside, "Holiness- the false and the true" is an amazing book and pretty much anything he wrote is worth reading.

py3ak · #83 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 08:09 PM

Assuming we have to exclude theologians before the Reformation, or the category simply doesn't apply. Therefore, Karl Rahner.

danmpem · #84 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 08:39 PM

Augustine! Oh, wait...

PuritanCovenanter · #85 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 08:54 PM

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Originally Posted by Pilgrim

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Originally Posted by Simply_Nikki

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Originally Posted by danmpem

That's exactly where I got the idea he was a Calvinist. There were people who would call asking about the doctrines of grace and all that, and he would help them think with him as to how he defines certain words, what limits he puts on human will, etc. I would be interested in seeing something recent he's said or written to show he's not a Calvinist.

And even then I wouldn't believe him. He just needs to come out of the closet and admit he's a 5-pointer!

I went to Moody Bible Church for about 6 months, I thought they were somewhat reformed leaning, or at least calvinistic. I was always on the edge, wondering if they were or not. Then an easter sermon removed all doubt when I heard Dr. Lutzer say.. something like (and this is not a direct quote) "Jesus is standing, knocking at the door of your heart why won't you let him in?"

I still thing he is a very good preacher though. But I left his church soon after that and joined a presbyterian one.

Obviously there's some disconnect at work between his belief and practice. Either that or he has changed his views. In The Doctrines That Divide he defends Calvinistic soteriology.

Dr. Lutzer is a Calvinist. I met him at a Reformation and Revival Conference at First Baptist Church of Carmel, Indiana back in the early to mid 90's. I have even heard him defend Calvinism on Moody Radio when He was the Pastor at Moody. I don't know if he is still there or not.

Pilgrim · #86 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 08:55 PM

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Originally Posted by Hippo

I have a real soft spot for Harry A. Ironside, "Holiness- the false and the true" is an amazing book and pretty much anything he wrote is worth reading.

He is another good one. I don't know whether he was Calvinistic in his soteriology or not. He was dispensationalist, but unlike Chafer et.al. he upheld the Lordship of Christ. He wrote a book titled Unless Ye Repent or something like that that attacked the no lordship teaching.

PuritanCovenanter · #87 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 09:18 PM

I imagine not many of you guys have never heard of Gil Rugh. I use to listen to him a lot on the radio about 15 years ago. He has a radio program called Sound words. I always appreciated his radio program.

Everyone on the radio that I use to listen to was always dispensational which drove me crazy but that was how it was. I felt I was a man on a island all alone in Indianapolis when I returned from the military service.

Ivanhoe · #88 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 09:54 PM

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Originally Posted by AV1611

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Originally Posted by yeutter

My favorite is St. Thomas Aquinas.

I have not read a great deal of him, but I plan to. Where should I start?

Amazon.com: A Summa of the Summa: Thomas: Books
Amazon (Thumbnails)

(a good cheap reading of Aquinas. You get to read him and get Kreeft's insights, but does not do justice to St Thomas' eschatological foundationalism. As John Milbank points out, Kreeft (not by name) and others read a correspondence theory of truth back into Aquinas.

Amazon.com: Truth in Aquinas (Radical Orthodoxy): John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock: Books
Amazon (Thumbnails)

(Expensive, but one of the best books I have read. Ultra hard to read, but worth it. Makes the claim that Aquinas held to a neo-platonic ontology of participation over against standard Aristotelian readings of Aquinas)

Amazon.com: The Christian Philosophy Of St Thomas Aquinas: Etienne Gilson: Books
Amazon (Thumbnails)

(the basic Thomist treatment of Aquinas. straightfoward)

Amazon.com: After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism: Fergus Kerr: Books
Amazon (Thumbnails)

(very easy to read and quite provacative in its suggestions)

Amazon.com: Revolutions in Worldview: Understanding the Flow of Western Thought: W. Andrew Hoffecker: Books
Amazon (Thumbnails)

(contains Leithart's essay on medieval theology, easily worth the price of the book)

Barnpreacher · #89 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 10:25 PM

Piper, MacArthur, Mohler.

danmpem · #90 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 10:40 PM

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Originally Posted by Barnpreacher

Piper, MacArthur, Mohler.

Piper and Mohler aren't Reformed? Well, I know they aren't Reformed in the Presby sort of way, but I think being Reformed Baptists are close enough.

Ivan · #91 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 11:22 PM

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Originally Posted by PuritanCovenanter

Dr. Lutzer is a Calvinist. I met him at a Reformation and Revival Conference at First Baptist Church of Carmel, Indiana back in the early to mid 90's. I have even heard him defend Calvinism on Moody Radio when He was the Pastor at Moody. I don't know if he is still there or not.

Yes, he is still there and doing quite well. He has at least two programs on Moody Radio. He's a good one.

Barnpreacher · #92 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 11:38 PM

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Originally Posted by danmpem

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Originally Posted by Barnpreacher

Piper, MacArthur, Mohler.

Piper and Mohler aren't Reformed? Well, I know they aren't Reformed in the Presby sort of way, but I think being Reformed Baptists are close enough.

All three men regularly borrow from the dispensational principles of Scripture. I would think that would disqualify them from being "Reformed." I know this is an ongoing argument. Maybe it would have helped if the thread would have been entitled, favorite non-Calvinist theologian.

Grymir · #93 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 01:24 AM

Karl Barth

Grymir · #94 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 01:30 AM

Just Kidding.

Ravi Zacharias is perhaps my fav. J. Vernon McGee is up there! His bible bus is good, but come Sunday, that man knew how to preach!! I also like to listen to Fulton John Sheen (especially his black and white days) and read First Things. That's about as non-reformed as you can get. Besides Barth.

timmopussycat · #95 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 01:35 AM

Robert Farrar Capon (Canadian Anglican, I think) of whose work I know only one paragraph but it is choice:

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The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar of 1500-year-old, 200 proof grace—a bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your own bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started. Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale.

Anybody know where this comes from? I found it attributed to Capon but no source was given.

danmpem · #96 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 01:35 AM

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Originally Posted by Barnpreacher

All three men regularly borrow from the dispensational principles of Scripture. I would think that would disqualify them from being "Reformed." I know this is an ongoing argument. Maybe it would have helped if the thread would have been entitled, favorite non-Calvinist theologian.

Gotcha. One thing I was wondering, when did/does Piper borrow from any dispy principles? I thought he was somewhere between CT and NCT.

DMcFadden · #97 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 02:09 AM

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Originally Posted by danmpem

Gotcha. One thing I was wondering, when did/does Piper borrow from any dispy principles? I thought he was somewhere between CT and NCT.

Wild stab in the dark . . .

Piper idolizes his old NT prof Dan Fuller. Fuller has been roundly criticized for his attempt to cobble together a mediating position which reconceptualizes CT. In fairness to Piper he does not hold his mentor's views on justification, faith, and obedience. Still, critics of Fuller sometimes attribute to Piper the sins of the mentor. I think it would be a significant error to find dispensational elements in Piper, but I do not claim to be a scholar on the Piper corpus.

Barnpreacher · #98 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 07:43 AM

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What does John Piper believe about dispensationalism, covenant theology, and new covenant theology?
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By DG Staff January 23, 2006

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There are three main theological camps on the issues of law, gospel, and the structuring of God's redemptive relationship with humankind: dispensationalism, covenant theology, and new covenant theology. Many have written to us asking about the differences between these three views, and so before discussing John Piper's perspective we will give an overview of each.

Dispensationalism
It can be hard to summarize dispensational theology as a whole because in recent years multiple forms of it have developed. In general, there are three main distinctives.

First, dispensationalism sees God as structuring His relationship with mankind through several stages of revelation which mark off different dispensations, or stewardship arrangements. Each dispensation is a "test" of mankind to be faithful to the particular revelation given at the time. Generally, seven dispensations are distinguished: innocence (before the fall), conscience (Adam to Noah), government (Noah to Babel), promise (Abraham to Moses), Law (Moses to Christ), grace (Pentecost to the rapture), and the millennium.

Second, dispensationalism holds to a literal interpretation of Scripture. This does not deny the existence of figures of speech and non-literal language in the Bible, but rather means that there is a literal meaning behind the figurative passages.

Third, as a result of this literal interpretation of Scripture, dispensationalism holds to a distinction between Israel (even believing Israel) and the church. On this view, the promises made to Israel in the OT were not intended as prophecies about what God would do spiritually for the church, but will literally be fulfilled by Israel itself (largely in the millennium). For example, the promise of the land is interpreted to mean that God will one day fully restore Israel to Palestine. In contrast, non-dispensationalists typically see the land promise as intended by God to prophesy, in shadowy Old-covenant-form, the greater reality that He would one day make the entire church, Jews and Gentiles, heirs of the whole renewed world (cf. Romans 4:13).

In many ways it is thus accurate to say that dispensationalism believes in "two peoples of God." Although both Jews and Gentiles are saved by Christ through faith, believing Israel will be the recipient of additional "earthly" promises (such as prosperity in the specific land of Palestine, to be fully realized in the millennium) that do not apply to believing Gentiles, whose primary inheritance is thus "heavenly."

Covenant Theology
Covenant theology believes that God has structured his relationship with humanity by covenants rather than dispensations. For example, in Scripture we explicitly read of various covenants functioning as the major stages in redemptive history, such as the covenant with Abraham, the giving of the law, the covenant with David, and the new covenant. These post-fall covenants are not new tests of man's faithfulness to each new stage of revelation (as are the dispensations in dispensationalism), but are rather differing administrations of the single, overarching covenant of grace.

The covenant of grace is one of two fundamental covenants in covenant theology. It structures God's post-fall relationship to mankind; pre-fall, God structured His relationship by the covenant of works. The covenant of grace is best understood in relation to the covenant of works.

The covenant of works, instituted in the Garden of Eden, was the promise that perfect obedience would be rewarded with eternal life. Adam was created sinless but with the capability of falling into sin. Had he remained faithful in the time of temptation in the Garden (the "probationary period"), he would have been made incapable of sinning and secured in an eternal and unbreakable right standing with God.

But Adam sinned and broke the covenant, and thereby subjected himself and all his descendants to the penalty for covenant-breaking, condemnation. God in His mercy therefore instituted the "covenant of grace," which is the promise of redemption and eternal life to those who would believe in the (coming) redeemer. The requirement of perfect obedience for eternal life is not annulled by the covenant of grace, but is rather fulfilled by Christ on behalf of His people, since now that all are sinners no one can meet the condition of perfect obedience by his own performance. The covenant of grace, then, does not set aside the covenant of works but rather fulfills it.

As mentioned above, covenant theology emphasizes that there is only one covenant of grace, and that all of the various redemptive covenants that we read of in the Scripture are simply differing administrations of this one covenant. In support, it is pointed out that a covenant is in essence simply a sovereignly given promise (usually with stipulations), and since there is only one promise of salvation (namely, by grace through faith), it follows that there is the