God of Our Fathers: Classical Theism for the Contemporary Church

by W. Bradford Littlejohn

when we seek to make the pervasive biblical warnings against idolatry relevant to the modern world in this way, we manage to miss a central strand of the Bible’s teaching on the subject: that we can make an idol of Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel.

a hunger for a God who is like me, a God who can relate to me, and meet me where I am, a God who is real enough to be there beside me in the midst of suffering.

Beyond this, we must show that philosophy really can be a handmaiden to theology, not a competitor, that the rigorous conceptual distinctions formulated by our forefathers actually serve to illuminate the biblical text—a text which, left entirely on its own and uninterpreted, would degenerate into self-contradiction.

Re-creation or redemption does not usurp nature but restores it, reorients it, and directs it to its final end. Grace, then, is not opposed to nature but sin.

Certainly, creation is the place where re-creation occurs, but according to Bavinck, creation is not merely the stage for re-creation. If it is only a stage, then, grace swallows up nature. God’s glory and attributes are more clearly and magnificently displayed in re-creation, but it is not the sole display of God’s glory.