The Henry Center Archive

Lecture Title - Historical Roots of the American Evangelical Encounter with Natural History

American evangelicals began seriously to engage natural history in the early nineteenth century, when Benjamin Silliman became the first professor of natural history at Yale. He and his pupil, Amherst geologist Edward Hitchcock, embraced “deep time” in geology and defended its consistency with Genesis. Hitchcock went further, exploring in depth the implications of this popular new science for theodicy and natural theology. Regardless of whether subsequent authors knowingly accepted or rejected their conclusions, these two antebellum natural historians have substantially influenced evangelicals down to our own time. This paper presents some of their most important attitudes and ideas, with an eye on the modern evangelical conversation about origins.

Edward B. Davis (PhD Indiana University) is Professor of History of Science at Messiah College. He is author of numerous articles and essays, and is the editor of the 14-volume The Works of Robert Boyle (Pickering & Chatto, 1999–2000).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

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Lecture Title - Systematic Adamology in Trinitarian Perspective

The character named Adam appears on about one page of the Bible, but his doctrinal significance suffuses all Christian thought. To set Adam in theological perspective primarily means to set him in relation to God (systematic Adamology must be theological in the strong sense), which this paper does by way of a Trinitarian survey. Pneumatologically speaking: Adam had the Holy Spirit from the beginning, but in a singular way. Christologically speaking: Adam’s constitution is illumined when the eternal Son takes to his own person a God-centered human nature. Patrologically speaking: Adam’s vocation was to live out a relation of created sonship, being consciously under God’s law. This Trinitarian analysis shows Adam’s unique way of representing creaturehood itself to God.

Fred Sanders (PhD Graduate Theological Union) is Professor of Theology in the Torrey Honors College of Biola University. He is the author of multiple books, including The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (Crossway, 2010), The Triune God (Zondervan Academic, 2016), and Fountain of Salvation (Eerdmans, 2021).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

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Lecture Title - The Type of the One to Come: Adam in Paul's Theology

This lecture explores the Apostle Paul’s various appeals to Adam with a view to the question whether his appeals require a historical, individual “Adam” in order to make sense of what he is saying. It focuses particularly on Romans 5:12–21, arguing that 1) the importance of a historical Adam depends to some degree on the exact nature of the way Paul connects Adam’s sin and death with the sin and death of all humans; and 2) on the most likely construals of the relationship, a historical Adam would appear to be necessary to account for Paul’s theological conclusions.

Douglas J. Moo (PhD University of St. Andrews) is Kenneth T. Wessner Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. He is author of The Letter to the Romans (NICNT; 2nd edition) (Eerdmans, 2018) and A Theology of Paul and His Letters: The Gift of the New Realm in Christ (Zondervan Academic, 2021). He currently serves as chair for the New International Version translation committee.

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/

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Lecture Title - From Jesus to Adam: Working Backwards on a Theological Problem

Most discussions and debate on Adam focus on issues tied to Genesis, but does the relationship to Jesus help us assess some of the issues raised about Adam? Our study will work backwards by asking how Jesus and the NT treat the issue of Adam. What does that mean for what we say about how Genesis presents the issues tied to genre and symbolism? In particular how Jesus and Paul handle the figures of Adam and Eve will receive attention. Then we will consider the implications of the results of our examination.

Darrell L. Bock (PhD University of Aberdeen) is Executive Director of Cultural Engagement and Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He is the author of over 40 books including Jesus the God-Man: The Unity and Diversity of the Gospel Portrayals (Baker Academic, 2016), How Would Jesus Vote? (Simon & Schuster, 2016), and Cultural Intelligence: Living for God in a Diverse, Pluralistic World (B&H Academic, 2020).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ 

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Lecture Title - Symposium on the Intermediate State

The resurrection of the body is one of the central doctrinal claims of the Christian faith. It is also the source of Christian hope when faced with the death of a loved one. But what happens between now and then? When a child asks their parent where a departed loved one is “now,” how should Christians respond? Do the souls of those who have died in faith go to be with the Lord now, awaiting to be reunited with their resurrected bodies? Or are traditional Christian beliefs in an immaterial soul that is separable from the body misplaced—an unscriptural incursion of Platonic metaphysics that has misshaped our expectations of the afterlife?

J. P. Moreland (PhD University of Southern California) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Biola University. He is author or editor of over a dozen books, including The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters (Moody, 2014), The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2018), and Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (2nd edition) (IVP Academic, 2017).

J. Richard Middleton (PhD Free University Amsterdam) is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary. He is the author of The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Baker Academic, 2005), A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014), and Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God (Baker Academic, 2021).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/

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Lecture Title - Right Reason, Fallen Reason

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3) These words from Jesus’ high priestly prayer light up the darkened sky, the night Jesus enters, to face betrayal, arrest and death. These luminous words tell us that knowledge of God and of His Son is the supreme blessing, life eternal; and the acts of that night tell us that such knowledge is desperately far from us. How should we understand these two truths: that human reason can know God; and that reason fails to do so? It seems that humanity has been created to know God “by nature,” yet God’s very presence among us does not meet with rational faith but rather denial and rejection. What kind of reason is this? And what kind of nature? This lecture examines both.

Katherine Sonderegger (PhD Brown University) is William Meade Chair of Systematic Theology at Virginia Theological Seminary. She is author of a three-volume series in constructive dogmatics published by Fortress Press: The Doctrine of God (2015), The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity: Processions and Persons (2020), and Divine Missions, Christology, and Pneumatology (forthcoming).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ 

Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5

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Lecture Title - Prayer: Jonathan Edwards and the Cognitive Science of Religion

This presentation examines recent studies on prayer in the fields of anthropology and the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and applies those findings to Jonathan Edwards’ views of prayer. In Edwards’ personal life, his sermons and other writings, and in requests from his congregation (“prayer bids”), what was the focus of prayer, particularly petitionary prayer? What was its purpose? Through which mode of causation was God most likely to act? How did God “answer” or respond to prayer requests? How did one learn to recognize the presence of God in prayer? CSR research opens up constructive possibilities for addressing these questions both in Edwards’ day and ours, yet also raises other questions regarding the nature of human personhood.

David W. Kling (PhD University of Chicago) is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. He is author of A Field of Divine Wonders: The New Divinity and Village Revivals in Northwestern Connecticut 1792-1822 (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), A History of Christian Conversion (Oxford University Press, 2020), and The Bible in History: How the Texts Have Shaped the Times (2nd edition) (Oxford University Press, 2023).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ 

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Lecture Title - Discipling Towards Transcendence in a Distracted Age

The contemporary church in America is faced with the task of discipling believers to recognize the grandeur, wonder, and beauty of the created universe, and therefore the sovereignty, majesty, transcendence, and provision of God. The immanent frame in which modern people live, which is strongly shaped by our mediating technology, creates a barrier for us to perceive what is right in front of us: the goodness of creation. It inclines us to see creation as a purely material phenomenon, measurable, controllable, containable, conquerable, and mundane. To disciple believers towards an awareness of their contingency and God’s majesty, we must teach an attentiveness to creation and a protection of interiority from the encroachment of technology of distraction. We must have eyes to see and minds with space to reflect.

O. Alan Noble (PhD Baylor University) is Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University. He is author of Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age (InterVarsity Press, 2018) and You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World (InterVarsity Press, 2021). He is Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Christ and Pop Culture.

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ 

Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5

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Lecture Title - Faithfulness in an Age of Technology: Theological Reflections on Nature and the Natural

Fundamental to Scriptural teaching on creation and to doctrine is the very idea of nature and the natural: we are placed in the midst of a fruitful world that is to be tended and imitated; we are to join in its joyful praise of our Lord. Yet Scripture also teaches us about artifacts and manufacture of all kinds: city walls and streets, houses and the goods in them, the design and fashioning of every decorative and devout element of the Temple, the heavenly Jerusalem, a City of God. How should Christians attentive to these lessons think about technology? We are surrounded by it; we are fascinated by it; it controls much of our lives. Has this supplanted nature in Christian lives; should it? In this lecture, Katherine Sonderegger will reflect upon how a Christian shaped by the Doctrine of Creation should approach such complex and every-day matters.

Katherine Sonderegger (PhD Brown University) is William Meade Chair of Systematic Theology at Virginia Theological Seminary. She is author of a three-volume series in constructive dogmatics published by Fortress Press: The Doctrine of God (2015), The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity: Processions and Persons (2020), and Divine Missions, Christology, and Pneumatology (forthcoming).

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Discussion Topic - The Spirit in the Beginning and the End

Geoffrey Fulkerson moderates this discussion between Christoph Schwöbel (Pannenberg), Stephen Williams (Polkinghorne), and Murray Rae (Gunton) as part of A Modern Creature conference. They discuss pneumatology and eschatology in relation to creation, English translations of German theology, and more.

Murray A. Rae (PhD Kings College, London) is Professor of Theology at the University of Otago. He is author of Christian Theology: The Basics (Routledge, 2015) and Architecture and Theology: The Art of Place (Baylor University Press, 2017). He is also co-editor of the T&T Clark Handbook of Colin Gunton (T&T Clark, 2021).

Christoph Schwöbel (PhD Philipps Universität Marburg) was Chair of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews. His publications include Word and Spirit: Renewing Christology and Pneumatology in a Globalizing World (De Gruyter, 2014), Der entgrenzte Kosmos und der begrenzte Mensch (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), and Luther Heute: Ausstrahlungen Der Wittenberger Reformation (Mohr Siebeck, 2017).

Stephen N. Williams (PhD Yale University) is Honorary Professor of Theology at Queen’s University and served as a Senior Research Fellow with the Creation Project. His books include Revelation and Reconciliation: A Window on Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 1996), The Shadow of the Antichrist: Nietzsche’s Critique of Christianity (Baker Academic, 2006), and The Election of Grace: A Riddle without a Resolution? (Eerdmans, 2015).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/ 

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