Gotta thank you Dr. Jordan, you were instrumental to my conversion to Lutheranism! I just got baptised under the LCMS today! Praise the Lord!

I was listening to this without video so I was surprised to not hear Jordan's voice at first haha. This is awesome, you two are the ultimate Lutheran power couple

I would love to hear an episode about the Autotheos, because a long time ago you said you might do one, and there's a lot of debate surrounding it. I personally hold to it as of now, but if it blatantly contradicts the ENTIRE church leading up to it, I might have to reconsider.

You are doing a tremendous service defending classical theism from a protestant perspective. Thank you Dr. Cooper!

I really appreciated this book. Very clear and helpful.

Growing up, I would say I was a theistic personalist. I wasn't even aware of this until I came across the works of people like Feser. I would say Feser is right that theistic personalism makes God into a creature, but this is NOT to say that theistic personalists would claim that or recognize that. Theistic personalism is quite popular in contemporary philosophy of religion (e.g. Craig, Plantinga, and Swinburne). In the case of Richard Swinburne, I don't think his views are consistent with his own (present) religion of Eastern Orthodox.

Looking forward to reading this one

In regard to God’s timelessness, Thomas Aquinas says that time is a measure of change. God does not change and so God is not in time.

Looking forward to reading this volume! On another note, looks like some of those shelves are bowing from the weight on them... but that could be lens distortion.

I think this does a good job of laying out a defense of the broadly "Western" doctrine of God. I think the problem comes in the 20th-Century of Western Christianity now having to engage not only with contemporary philosophy BUT ALSO with a global Christianity which includes the Eastern traditions. The question is to what extent did 20th-Century theologians (Barthian, ecumenical or otherwise) depart from a strictly Thomistic conception of the Trinity in order to once again engage with competing models. For e.g., the Roman Church of today does not have a single doctrine of God, but allows for various schools alongside Thomism so long as they are *generally amenable* to Divine Simplicity. Eastern Catholicism allows for Palamite theology and isn't as committed to a rejection of essence/energies, Scotism complicates things as well, etc. Joseph Ratzinger's theology could be described as a via media between Classical and Social Trinitarianism (with his embrace of elements of personalism). And of course, let's not forget the Jesuit nouvelle teologie and their "transcendantal/Kantian Thomism" (Rahner, Kung). All that to say, I think a communion of the church can tolerate a number of different models while giving priority to certain schools (Dominican Aquinas for the RCC, perhaps Lutheran-Orthodox Gerhard for Lutherans). I'm not denying that this is a political compromise of sorts, but it is being realistic about where we've developed as respective communions, and we aren't going to turn these massive ships around any time soon.

I agree that the desire to be acceptable within the Academy has been deadly for Christian belief and practice. I see this with the seminary for which I have taught part time. I also did my seminary degree there, and the more conservative seminary nearby called my institution neo-orthodox. I didn’t really understand that until just recently, after reading some more recent reform theologians and your work. Now they have gotten to the point where they are going in all kinds of strange directions and I have decided I simply cannot teach there anymore. There was always a tendency to play to the Academy and as the Academy has gotten more radical, so has my seminary. It is very sad.

A book defending notions like divine simplicity and refuting the Hellenization thesis is badly needed because it is difficult to find a modern Christian philosopher or theology that holds anything like the correct doctrine of God, ideas like theistic personalism, process theology and open theism dominate the conversation

I'm going to buy my $18 Just and sinner mug.

AD said all this weeks ago with a lot less windsomness

I’d love to have the Logos version. 1:16:45

Dr. Cooper, I appreciate your thoughtful thinking. Though as a Lutheran, I follow more the dialectical theological school - Hermann, Bultmann, Barth and Gogerten - and against the scholastic bent that I think Luther uprooted with his theology of the cross.

Everyone's theology is going to be influenced by philosophy rather they relize it or not.

Your wife is beautiful inside and out!

Ok you lost me when you failed to define prolegaauma. Or what ever. I go back to Paul to keep it simple.

If God cannot have parts, he cannot have persons.