Dr Paul Allen

The Scutum Fidei, a diagram frequently used by Christian apologists to explain the Trinity. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Here is my attempt at a very brief summary of the debate and discussion surrounding the eternal functional subordination (EFS) of the Son to the Father. We all know the incarnate Son submits to the Father, but is His submission something that extends to His eternal role/relationship as Son?  Is the Son subordinate to the Father from all eternity? Is there authority and submission within the inner life of the Trinity, even before creation and redemption? Proponents of EFS say yes. Opponents say no. Opponents say submission/subordination necessarily entails two wills. To have submission, you have to have one will submitting to another. But the Triune God has only one will. Now, the incarnate Christ submits to the Father because, as the God -man, He has two wills: divine and human. However, opponents of EFS maintain that having two wills in the Godhead wo...

Reformed from the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church  Among the twenty-odd persons martyred for their beliefs during the decades preceding Scotland 's official embrace of Protestantism (1560), there was only one woman: Helen Stirk. The only information we have about Helen Stirk's life comes to us, ironically, from accounts of her death. We know that she was married, that she was the mother of at least one child, and that she was a woman of rather remarkable faith and courage. Beyond that, her life and doings remain shrouded in mystery. Helen was arrested in Perth on the 25th of January, 1544, along with her husband, James Ronaldson, and three other residents of the town, Robert Lamb, William Anderson, and James Hunter. Perth, like most of Scotland's east-coast towns, proved to be a hotbed for reforming ideas, largely because its shipping industry guaranteed regular contact with the European continent (and thus continental books and ideas). Sensitive to the inroads ...

Louis Comfort Tiffany, Window of St. Augustine, in the Lightner Museum, St. Augustine, Florida (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) And we were baptized and all anxiety for our past life vanished away." With these joyous words Augustine recorded his entrance into the church  on this day, April 25, 387 , Easter day . He had been 33 years in coming to this public confession of Christ. Born in North Africa in 354 of a Christian mother and pagan father, Augustine became at twelve years of age a student at Carthage and at sixteen, a teacher of grammar. At this young age, he was already promiscuous. And he tells in his famous autobiography that he boasted of sins he had not had opportunity to commit, rather than seem to have fallen behind his peers in wickedness. His mother was determined to see him converted and baptized. He was equally determined to have his pleasures. He took a mistress and she bore him a son, Adeodatus, "Gift of God." For a while he resented the lad but soo...

Image via Wikipedia For combination of doctrine and piety, Augustine (354–430) has few peers in the history of Christianity . His writings inform every area of discussion in Christian philosophy , systematic theology, philosophy of history, polemics, rhetoric, and devotion. Though some views support doctrines of intercessory prayer and sacrifices for the dead, purgatory, and transformational justification, Augustine’s mighty doctrines of grace and Christ’s incarnation and sacrifice are given accurate and substantial development in the confessions of Reformed theology . After the fall of Rome , the thousand-year project of rebuilding western civilization on Christian rather than pagan thought proceeded on Augustinian concepts. The Reformation of the sixteenth century rediscovered and built upon neglected elements of Augustine’s doctrine of sin and salvation . Augustine was born in 354 at Tagaste in the Roman Province of Numidia, North Africa. Later observations on infancy and the fa...