Consider the first line of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” The first thing we say about God is, implicitly, that he is triune and second that he is almighty. The ancient Christian church knew nothing of a God who is contingent upon creatures. I doubt that the heretics Arius and Pelagius would agree that God is contingent upon creatures. The Athanasian Creed (probably from the 5th century) is quite clear about the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is one, not merely by social relation but in being, and three in person.

One of the most remarkable developments in late modern evangelical theology was the rise of the so-called doctrine of “Open Theism.” This doctrine holds that the future is genuinely unknown to God. It is “open” to him and he to it. According to the Open Theists, God is contingent upon the free, unknown choices of humans. To understand how far askew things have become in late-modern evangelical theology, piety, and practice, in this context, those who hold to the doctrine of Middle Knowledge (Molinism; media scientia) are considered relatively conservative. When the Evangelical Theological Society met to consider the status of Open Theism, whether it may be considered a legitimate evangelical theological option, the case was argued that it implicitly denies latter of the two articles that ETS members must uphold, the Trinity and the Inerrancy of Scripture. The society was not persuaded. Clark Pinnock was perhaps the leading advocate of Open Theism. Late in his career, he also argued explicitly that the Mormons might be right, that God might have a body. See Most Moved Mover for more. It does not seem too much to say that the doctrine of God is crisis among Bible-believing evangelicals and perhaps even in Presbyterian and Reformed circles where some are arguing that the unity in the Trinity is not one of being but of a personal, social relationship. The doctrine of “Social Trinitarianism” at least verges upon (and in my view, crosses over into) the heresy of Trithesism, the doctrine that God is three rather than one. There has been hardly a peep about this nor has much been said about the proposal that, when he enters into covenant with us, God may be said to take on “covenantal properties” such as mutability. On this see the terrific work of James Dolezal, God Without Parts. The ecumenical Christian doctrine that God is sovereign remains deeply offensive. Recently David Bentley Hart, a theologian in the (Greek) Orthodox tradition declared that he should rather be an atheist than believe in a sovereign God who elects unconditionally and who reprobates sinners.

So, it behooves us to re-learn our doctrine God because, contrary to the cliched account of the history of Reformed theology, our doctrines do not descend out of the doctrine of the divine decree (the so-called “Central Dogma” theory) but our doctrine of God is, as it is for all Christians, at the headwaters of our theology, piety, and practice. This is so for every Christian tradition. Consider the first line of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” The first thing we say about God is, implicitly, that he is triune and second that he is almighty. The ancient Christian church knew nothing of a God who is contingent upon creatures. I doubt that the heretics Arius and Pelagius would agree that God is contingent upon creatures. The Athanasian Creed (probably from the 5th century) is quite clear about the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is one, not merely by social relation but in being, and three in person.

We worship as we do because God is what he is: holy. We live our life before God (coram Deo). It is he, our sovereign covenant-making and covenant-keeping God who has saved us by grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide).

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