Linked Together: God

Trinity
Martin Downes posted two clarifying quotes on the eternal generation of the Son to “straighten out any wonky thoughts.” (I think the reason some people back away from the doctrine of eternal generation is because it’s hard to think about it without “wonky thoughts.”)

Sovereignty
The purposes of God give our lives and this world meaning: “God’s good purpose shows us that the appearance of vanity and futility in this world is just that—mere appearance. To trust in God’s good purpose is the essence of godly faith. Thus, no Christian can be an ultimate pessimist.” —R. C. Sproul at Ligonier Ministries

God’s sovereignty and human responsibility in the Westminster Standards: “Many people in our own day try to cut through the mystery that earlier generations affirmed. They strip God of his sovereignty and claim that man decides his own fate; that he, apart from God, is the captain of his own fate. Others seek to preserve the sovereignty of God at the expense of human responsibility and freedom, biblical defined. The Westminster Standards give us a third alternative—one that respects the mystery of the relationship between divine sovereignty and responsibility and allows us to affirm both scriptural truths.” —J. V. Fesko at Crossway Blog

This Week in Housekeeping

Two recently updated theological terms.

Molinism

• Removed two dead links.
• Fixed the link to Does Matthew 11:20-24 teach Molinism (Middle Knowledge)?
• Added a link to Paul Helm’s Molinism 101.

moral argument

• Updated the formatting.
• Added related terms cosmological argument, ontological argument, teleological argument, and trancendental argument for the existence of God.
• Added Filed under Apologetics. 

Theological Term of the Week

exile, the
The time in Israel’s history when the Jews were taken into captivity, first the northern tribes to Assyria and later Judah to Babylon. 

• From scripture:

In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. (2 Kings 17:6-8 ESV).

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