At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, a theological commando unit was condemned by an academic court for logical fallacies they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security academic conference to the underground. Today, still wanted by the personal theists, they survive as theologians of fortune. If you have a philosophical theology problem, if no one else can help you with theology proper, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... the A-Team.
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| The A-Team: Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). |
Seriously speaking (but not too much, and yes, I can do that, too, if I want), these three men are pretty much still very alive through their works. I have always loved Augustine and Anselm, two thinkers who have helped me in diverse ways. Recently, I came to appreciate more also the third man, Aquinas.
Many Protestants have a strict and negative judgement of Aquinas (especially with that threatening golden chain...... Did you get it? Golden chain! Aquinas wrote a commentary called Golden Chain, and in the picture I put a golden chain on Aquinas... Funny, right?...... Right? ... 😐 ) ... Anyway! Certainly, I totally disagree with him at points (transubstantiation, justification, probably epistemology, just to name a few) and one needs to read him with discernment (thing that is also true not only for Augustine and Anselm, but for all non-inspired writers in general). Nevertheless, I think that reading Aquinas' theology proper judiciously (that is, his treatments of God's unity and trinity) may help Protestants with theology proper and philosophical theology. Richard A. Muller quotes Aquinas several times in connection with the Reformed Scholastics in his Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1 and elsewhere, while James E. Dolezal recovers Aquinas' defence and exposition of divine simplicity and God's triunity. Of course, looking for someone more comprehensively and systematically orthodox, I would go for other theologians, such as Stephen Charnock (1628-1680) or Francis Turretin (1623-1687), Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) or Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965). But the main point I would like to make here is that the A-Team members are honorary ambassadors of that approach to theology that is usually called "classical theism" and that I embrace.
Therefore, the A-Team will be at the centre on my first short series of blog posts. In the light of the current controversy on trinitarian subordinationism caused by theologians such as Wayne Grudem and Bruce A. Ware, I will quote the A-Team on the equality of the three persons of the Godhead (and I will comment them when the passage becomes tricky). I have to say that I have not read Grudem's and Ware's arguments but from secondary sources. However and with all due respects to the two scholars, it seems clear to me that their views are seriously defective, not only because of exegetical fallacies but also for mistakes pertaining to theology proper and philosophical theology. In this regard, instead of proposing novelties (that, at the end, are not new at all), I think that listening to the voices of the past is much more profitable and safe.
The series will have three blog posts, one for each theologians. I do not plan to make it particularly articulate and to develop it in depth. But do not worry, this blog is just at the beginning and I am just warming up.
Stay tuned. Stay classic.
