Defining Holiness

Of all the attibutes of God, holiness has been the most difficult for me to get a handle on. Years ago, when I was doing a series on God’s attributes, I wrote this about holiness:

Writing about God’s attributes hasn’t been easy, but of all the attributes that I’ve written about, this one has been the most difficult, because it’s not been easy for me to to understand exactly what it means that God is holy. Is it even right to think of God’s holiness in the same way we think of the other attributes of God? It doesn’t seems to be so much one among others, but rather, God’s overarching attribute—the attribute into which all the other attributes fit.

Here’s how J. I. Packer describes the holiness of God:

God is holy, different and standing apart from us, awesome and sometimes becoming fearsome to us. Holiness is a biblical technical term signifying the God-ness of God, the combined quality of being infinite and eternal; omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient; utterly pure and just; utterly faithful to his own purposes and promises; morally perfect in all his relationships; and marvelously merciful to persons meriting the opposite of mercy. God in his holiness is greatly to be praised and worshipped for both his greatness and his goodness at all times.

Quoting from Taking God Seriously: Vital Things We Need to Know (page 26).

Book Review: What's Your Worldview?

Click image to purchase on Amazon.comAn Interactive Approach to Life’s Big Questions by James N. Anderson

I’ve been quoting What’s Your Worldview? in my recent Theological Term posts, and I figure if I’m going to quote a book that much, I ought to at least do a short review, right? (See below for a list of theological terms containing excerpts from this book.)

As the subtitle says, this is an interactive book. You won’t—and shouldn’t—read it straight through. The introduction tells us it’s a little like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, with questions to answer (or choices to make) that determine where you go next in the book. 

James N. Anderson is associate professor of theology and philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, and an ordained minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

In this case, the questions for the reader found in Part 1 are the big questions with the answers that together form a philosophical view of reality—or a worldview. The reader’s answers finally take them to a page that briefly identifies and describes their own worldview, and also points out a few of its shortcomings.

The interactive concept behind this book is clever, making a difficult subject accessible—and James Anderson’s humor makes it entertaining, too. If you’re looking for an in-depth treatment of the subject of worldviews, you’ll be disappointed, but What’s Your Worldview? can’t be beat as a beginner book especially suitable for high school and college students, or anyone else who needs an introduction to worldview thinking.

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Theological Terms with excerpts from What’s Your Worldview?:

• finite godism
• materialism
• panentheism
• pantheism
• Pelagianism
• polytheism
• relativism
• skepticism
• Unitarianism

An Authoritative Message

Michael J. Kruger disagrees with the widespread scholarly opinion that the authors of the New Testament were unaware of their own authority. In the fourth chapter of The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate, he examines key passages in the New Testament that show the writers

consciously wrote books that they understood to contain the new apostolic revelation about Jesus Christ and therefore to have supreme authority in the church.

For example, compare these two statements from John’s gospel. First, there’s this promise from Jesus to his disciples:

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. (John 15:26-27 ESV)

Then there’s John’s statement about himself near the end of his book:

This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things … .(John 21:24 ESV)

Kruger writes,

… [I]t seems that John 21:24 is a declaration to the reader that Jesus’ promise in 15:26-27 to send authoritative witnesses has been fulfilled—the very book they are reading is the authoritative testimony of Jesus’ Spirit-filled disciples.

I’m over halfway through this book. I quite like it, but then I’m fascinated with everything canon related.

Since the goal of The Question of Canon is to challenge the dominant view in the academic field of modern canonical studies, it’s of less general interest than Kruger’s previous book on the canon, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books, which investigated whether Christians have warrant for believing the New Testament canon is correct. (I reviewed Canon Revisited here.) But if you’re a canon geek like me, you’ll probably enjoy The Question of Canon. Although Kruger is a scholar, he writes so that anyone who is interested can understand, so don’t let the your own non-scholarly status keep you away.