I’m starting a series on Ric Machuga’s new book Three Theological Mistakes: How to Correct Enlightenment Assumptions about God, Miracles and Free Will. I had an opportunity to give some comments to Ric about an earlier version of the text, and Wipf and Stock gave me a final copy for review.
In the Preface, Machuga sets for himself a big task:
This book addresses five big questions.
- Is the existence of God a matter of faith or knowledge?
- Does God sometimes act miraculously or are there physical causes for everything?
- Is morality absolute or relative?
- Are humans truly free or does God’s sovereignty determine everything?
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When bad things happen, is God the only cause or are they the fault of humans?
With a set-up like this, it might seem that we’re in for a polemic from one side or the other. Not so in this case. Machuga continues:
Too frequently Christians answer these questions with a Yes to one side and a No to the other side. Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth answer Yes to both, in all cases. Following their model, I will defend a ‘third way’ which transcends the dichotomies of fideism versus rationalism, supernaturalism versus naturalism, relativism versus absolutism, free will versus predestination, and God’s justice versus his mercy.
A third way that draws on both Aquinas and Barth? Set the hook, and reel me in! Indeed, Machuga addresses all these questions with careful and eloquent arguments and shows how both Aquinas and Barth can serve as resources for a philosophical theology that avoids the reductionistic trends of modern thought. Next week, we’ll look at Machuga’s take on mechanism and the limits of logic.