Category: Articles
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Identity, Distinction, and Modal Collapse in Thomas McCall’s Divine Simplicity
Abstract Thomas H. McCall’s Divine Simplicity offers a valuable analysis of the diverse positions now gathered under the doctrine of divine simplicity, but its preferred appeal to Scotistic formal distinction and its treatment of modal collapse remain insufficient. This article develops two related objections. First, it argues that formal distinction has not been shown to…
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Natural Theology and the Shape of God: Aristotelian Metaphysics and Divine Simplicity in Aquinas
Abstract This article argues that natural theology is not a neutral or self-contained method for establishing theological conclusions but is inherently shaped by prior metaphysical and epistemological commitments. Using Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica as a case study, it examines how Aristotelian metaphysics undergirds the Five Ways and leads to the doctrine of divine simplicity. While…
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The Minimal Facts Argument as Historical Anchor in a Cumulative Case for Christianity
Abstract The minimal facts method has become one of the most influential historical approaches to defending the resurrection of Jesus, largely because it restricts itself to data that are strongly evidenced and widely granted by critical scholarship. This paper argues that the method is epistemologically valuable but often overextended. By examining the stated aims of…
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Humanity, Sin, and the Historical Adam: Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Philosophical Considerations
Abstract This article argues that affirming the historicity of Adam is essential for Christian theology. The discussion proceeds in four stages. Historically, it demonstrates that key figures such as Origen, Augustine, and Calvin regarded Adam as the first man whose disobedience affected all humanity. Biblically, it shows that Genesis presents Adam in genealogical continuity with…
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Contextual Absolutism: The Formal Model of “The One Truth”
Abstract The One Truth: Contextual Absolutism and the Battle for Doctrinal Clarity presents a bold claim: every question in life and theology has exactly one correct answer, even if that truth is complex and difficult to articulate. In an age where relativism dominates cultural discourse and doctrinal disagreement is treated as inevitable, or even desirable,…