The Henry Center Archive

Lecture Title - Freedom, Necessity, and the Love of God: Schleiermacher on Creation

When theologians tell the story of modern theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher is almost always cast as the villain. He is customarily portrayed as a sort of arch-accommodationist, a theologian who all-too-willingly revises Christian commitments so as to render them acceptable by the lights of science. As it happens, however, the customary portrayal of Schleiermacher is wrong, and his actual approach to science turns out to be much more robustly theological—and, I think, more interesting—than is usually recognized. In this chapter I argue that Schleiermacher defends a distinctively theological diagnosis of characteristically modern, science-induced anxieties about the possibility of freedom in a mechanistic world governed by the laws of nature. I conclude by arguing that there are several interesting insights we might glean from Schleiermacher’s approach, the most important of which is (what I would term) his practical doctrine of creation, that is, his emphasis on the sort of practices and dispositions one would have to cultivate such that one could treat the world—including oneself—as God’s good creation. This approach, in turn, opens up a different way of thinking about the practice of natural science, a way that, at least to my unscientific ears, sounds promising.

Kevin W. Hector (PhD Princeton Seminary) is Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor of Theology and of the Philosophy of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is author of many articles, chapters, and books, including Theology Without Metaphysics: God, Language, and the Spirit of Recognition (Cambridge University Press, 2012), The Theological Project of Modernism: Faith and the Conditions of Mineness (Oxford University Press, 2015), and Christianity as a Way of Life: A Systematic Theology (Yale 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.

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Lecture Title - Jonathan Edwards and "the Nature of Things": Reclaiming a Doctrine of Creation for the Reformation Tradition

Some have claimed that the Reformers put so much emphasis on the doctrine of redemption that a proper doctrine of creation was obscured or lost. Karl Barth went so far as to claim that there can be no Reformation natural theology—that nature can be seen as creation only by those who know the Redeemer, that nature cannot be known apart from special grace. Edwards, however, argued that nature has its own integrity apart from the order of grace. For the greatest Reformed theologian between Calvin and Barth, God created “the nature of things” with its own objectivity apart from the order of redemption. Thus the regenerate can discuss creation with the unregenerate in the public square without having to appeal to special revelation that the unregenerate do not share.

Gerald R. McDermott (PhD University of Iowa) is the former Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School. He is author, co-author or editor of many books, including The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently about the People and the Land (Brazos Press, 2017).

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 - Creatio ex Nihilo: Is It Biblical, and Does It Matter?

Yahweh alone is self-existent, nothing else is. This assertion flies in the face of all the other world-views, which insist in one way or another that it is matter that is self-existent. Thus, the question must arise, did the present cosmos arise out of pre-existing matter, or did I AM produce this cosmos from nothing? Does the Bible give us the answer to the question, or is the idea of creation from nothing only an inference? And does it really matter that much, anyway? In this lecture, Oswalt will lay the biblical foundations for the Christian idea of creation out of nothing and show why a great deal hinges upon it.

John N. Oswalt (PhD Brandeis University) is Visiting Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. His publications include The Bible among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? (Zondervan Academic, 2009) and The Holy One of Israel: Studies in the Book of Isaiah (Wipf and Stock, 2014).

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 - The Natural, the Supernatural, and the Meaning of Creation

One of the great debates in modern theology involves the relationship between nature and grace in our understanding of creation. Does a Christian view of creation require us to approach this discussion exclusively from the perspective of grace, focusing on the centrality of Christ, the gospel, and the eschatological end for which God created the universe? Or should the doctrine of creation begin from a “natural” standpoint, seeking to understand the nature and purpose of creation in its own right before exploring how the doctrines of grace contribute to our understanding of creation? Although such questions may sound somewhat academic, they have vital implications for how we address ecological concerns, approach human flourishing, and engage in interdisciplinary dialog with the modern sciences. If theology is the study of God in relation to that which he created, then questions about the nature of creation, often neglected in Protestant theology, stand at the center of the theological task.

Marc Cortez (PhD University of St. Andrews) is Professor of Theology at Wheaton College and a previous Henry Resident Fellow of The Creation Project. His publications include Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed (T&T Clark, 2010), the T&T Clark Reader in Theological Anthropology (T&T Clark, 2017), and Resourcing Theological Anthropology: A Constructive Account of Humanity in the Light of Christ (Zondervan Academic, 2018).

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

Watch the HCTU on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HenryCenter

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Lecture Title - Christ and the Cosmos

The psalmist wrote “The heavens declare the glory of God.” The field of modern astronomy is revealing amazing wonders in the heavens, from baby stars to distant galaxies to the Big Bang. These discoveries, when seen through the eyes of biblical faith, give exciting insights into our theological understanding of Christ the Creator, including his glory, the goodness of creation, creation from nothing, and even the redemptive love of Christ.

Deborah B. Haarsma (PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is the President of BioLogos. She is co-author of Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design (Faith Alive, 2011), and co-editor of Delight in Creation: Scientists Share Their Work with the Church (Center for Excellence in Preaching, 2012).

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

Watch the HCTU on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HenryCenter

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Lecture Title - Jonathan Edwards on the Twenty-first Century

What are the most helpful insights that we can gain from Jonathan Edwards’s theology today? This lecture uses the contrast between Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century to reflect on some of the most characteristic traits of later American culture to which Edwards’s “theology of active beauty” provides particularly helpful alternatives.

George M. Marsden (PhD Yale University) is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (Oxford University Press, 1980), The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (Oxford University Press, 1994), and Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Press, 2004). His biography of Jonathan Edwards won virtually every major historical prize, including the Bancroft Prize, the Merle Curti Award, the Philip Schaff Prize, and the Eugene Genovese Prize.

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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Symposium Title - History, Science, Poetry, or What? Understanding the Genre(s) of Genesis 1–3

Genre assumptions are so intuitive we hardly think about them. Whether walking into a movie theater, picking up a new album, or opening a book, our assumptions about the genre that we’re about to encounter shape how we understand it. The same is true of Scripture. While concern for genre-sensitivity is widely acknowledged, the vexed problems associated with determining the genre of a particular text and what exegetical and theological implications follow remain a pressing set of issues in evangelical theology, particularly with regard to the opening chapters of Genesis. In this symposium, Drs. Todd Beall, Tremper Longman, and John Oswalt, will each weigh in with their view of the genre of Gen. 1–3 and discuss some of the implications these questions have for a Scripturally faithful and a scientifically informed doctrine of Creation.

Todd S. Beall (PhD Catholic University of America) is Adjunct Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at The Master’s Seminary. He is the author of various books, chapters, and articles on the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Creation Studies.

Tremper Longman III (PhD Yale University) is Robert H. Gundry Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies and Distinguished Scholar of Biblical Studies at Westmont College. He is author of How to Read the Psalms (IVP Academic, 1988), How to Read Proverbs (IVP Academic, 2002), and How to Read Genesis (IVP Academic, 2005).

John N. Oswalt (PhD Brandeis University) is Visiting Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. His publications include The Bible among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? (Zondervan Academic, 2009) and The Holy One of Israel: Studies in the Book of Isaiah (Wipf and Stock, 2014).

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

Watch the HCTU on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HenryCenter

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Lecture Title - Into the Family of God: Creation, Covenant, and the Genesis of Life with God

The book of Genesis sketches the foundations not only of human society and creatureliness but of the church and Christian worship. To help make sense of both origins and ends of creation, the book draws our attention to the doctrine of the covenant and the pledge that people are drawn “into the family of God.” In this lecture, Allen will follow the basic theological moves of the doctrine of the covenant in this fundamental text, seeking to sketch its implications for a number of theological and anthropological concerns, not least the doctrine of creation.

R. Michael Allen (PhD Wheaton College) is John Dyer Trimble Professor of Systematic Theology and Academic Dean at Reformed Theological Seminary. He is co-author of A Companion to the Theology of John Webster (Eerdmans, 2021) and author of The Fear of the Lord: Essays on Theological Method (T&T Clark, 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/ 

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

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Lecture Title - Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards on Natural Philosophy and Noah's Flood

The rise of natural philosophy (science) during the early Enlightenment (1650-1750) posed tremendous challenges to theologians of all stripes. Among the principal questions were such issues as the dimension, capacity, and design of Noah's ark, the origin and universal extent of the deluge, calculations about the amount of water necessary to inundate the entire globe, and the use of fossil evidence from European and American sites. The debate involved the brightest minds of the time — men of the cloth like Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton in Europe, and Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards in New England. Smolinski's presentation focuses on how these clergymen employed the best historical, theological, and scientific evidence of the day, and achieved a remarkable consensus in upholding the authenticity of the Mosaic flood account. In fact, New England furnished some surprising archeological evidence in its confirmation.

Reiner Smolinski (PhD Pennsylvania State University) is Professor of English at Georgia State University. He is editor of a ten-volume edition of Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana (Mohr Siebeck, 2010-present) and the co-editor of A Cotton Mather Reader (Yale University Press, 2022).

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

Watch the HCTU on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HenryCenter

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Lecture Title - From the Literal Interpretation of Genesis to the Doctrine of Literal Six-Day Creation

This lecture shines light on what has become an obscure idea: literal meaning and interpretation. Literality has become obscure because different biblical interpreters mean many different things by it. Yet literality matters if Thomas Aquinas is right that only Scripture’s literal sense establishes doctrine. In this lecture, Vanhoozer will explore the diverse meanings of literality by examining the history of interpretation, using the opening chapters of Genesis as a case study, in particular, the creation of light and lights. He will then examine arguments for and against young-earth creationism, a flash point in the debate over the necessity of literal interpretation for biblical authority. The constructive proposal that emerges sets out a properly dogmatic account of creation and introduces the concept of “theological literality,” a notion used to highlight the importance both of divine intention for understanding the literal sense of Scripture and of literality for understanding the personal agency of God.

Kevin J. Vanhoozer (PhD University of Cambridge) is Research Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2010), Faith Speaking Understanding: Performing the Drama of Doctrine (Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), and Hearers and Doers: A Pastor’s Guide to Making Disciples Through Scripture and Doctrine (Lexham Press, 2019).

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

Connect with us!

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