Podcast: Bonus Episode: Evangelicals, the Cross and Misunderstanding the Trinity? With Thomas Brand and Peter Sanlon
This article is part of the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast series.
In this special episode of the Affinity Talks Gospel podcast, Dr Thomas Brand and Dr Peter Sanlon discuss Tom’s book, delving into Trinitarian theology, the cry of dereliction, and the role of historical theology in shaping a deeper understanding of God.
Join host Graham Nicholls on a thought-provoking bonus episode of the Affinity Talks Gospel podcast, featuring Dr Thomas Brand, author of Intimately Forsaken: A Trinitarian Christology of the Cross, and Dr Peter Sanlon, minister and professor at Westminster Seminary UK.
This special edition explores why evangelicals often misunderstand the Trinity, especially at the cross. We unpack Jesus’ cry of dereliction – ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ – and challenges the notion that the Trinity breaks under the weight of the cross. Tom shares insights from his book, revealing how scripture and historical theology, from the Nicene Creed to the Reformers, correct common evangelical errors and lead to deeper worship of God as Father, Son, and Spirit. Peter bridges academic theology with practical church life, offering pastors and believers tools to rethink Trinitarian doctrine in today’s evolving faith landscape.
Whether you’re grappling with penal substitutionary atonement, the doctrine of impassibility, or the cry of dereliction’s meaning, this episode blends scholarly depth with heartfelt devotion, making it essential for evangelicals, theologians, and Christians seeking clarity on the Trinity, the cross, and historic orthodoxy.
To explore these themes further, get Tom Brand’s Intimately Forsaken: A Trinitarian Christology of the Cross, a powerful resource for understanding the Trinity in evangelical theology. Order now with discount code ‘Forsaken2025’ for 20% off at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-71060-5
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Topics addressed in this Podcast:
- Misunderstandings of the Trinity at the Cross
Thomas Brand addresses common evangelical misconceptions, particularly the idea that the Trinity is broken when Jesus cries, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ He clarifies that the Son’s forsakenness occurs only in his human nature, preserving Trinitarian unity. - The Cry of Dereliction’s Significance
The episode explores Jesus’ cry in Mark 15:34 as a central lens for understanding the cross, emphasising a broader Trinitarian view where the Son offers himself to the Father in the Spirit, rather than a fracturing of God’s nature. - Historical Theology’s Role
Tom and Peter discuss how historical theology, from the Nicene Creed to the Reformers, provides a foundation for correcting modern errors, using cathedral architecture as a metaphor for building doctrine from God’s nature upward. - Doctrine of Impassibility
Tom explains that God, in his divine nature, cannot suffer, but through the incarnation, Jesus suffers in his human nature, offering profound comfort for pastoral care by showing Christ’s empathy with human pain. - Balancing Scripture and Tradition
The conversation highlights the need to prioritise scripture while humbly learning from historical theology, avoiding the evangelical tendency to interpret the Bible in isolation from the church’s two millennia of insight.
Transcript
[AI Generated]
[0:11] Hello, my name is Graham Nicholls. Welcome to a special edition of the Affinity Talks Gospel podcast, a podcast to encourage Christians across the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
[0:22] We are very pleased to have joining us today Peter Sanlon and Tom Brand. We’re going to be talking about Tom’s book, but not so much just to promote the book, although we would encourage you to buy it and read it, but it’s more about what the topic of the book keys us into, and thinking in a bigger way about some of what we know about God, Father, Son, and Spirit, but also how we interact with historical theology as well. So that’s what we’re about in this episode. Peter, it’s great to have you with us. Just say a few words about yourself. Hello, my name is Peter Sanlon. I’m the minister of Tunbridge Wells Presbyterian Church, and Assistant Professor of Systematics and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary UK.
[1:13] And I’ve been a big appreciator of the Ministry of Affinity for numbers of years and enjoying reading Tom’s book. And thank you very much for the invitation to come and talk about it. Thank you. And Tom, a few words about yourself. Hi. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. It’s really good, Graham. So I’m Tom Brands, I’m the Ministry Director for the Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches, the EFCC. It’s a group of about 100 churches in the UK, Gospel Churches, and currently serving as the Chairman of the Affinity Council.
[1:46] Brilliant. Well, we’re going to get straight into it. Tom, why did you write this book? It’s obviously a subject that interests you, and you’ve obviously read a lot of historical theology and reflected on scripture as well. So you could say, well, I just did it because of that. But is there a particular reason you wrote this book?
[2:04] Yeah, so all the time growing up, my father used to recite the Nicene Creed with me as a child, and now I appreciate it massively. Then it was just a bit boring but had this kind of idea about the centrality of the trinity for christian theology.
[2:19] But growing up didn’t really understand what that looked like i remember trying to defend the idea that there’s one god and three gods and then quickly realized that was a contradiction in my teens and then even in my early 20s and trying to think actually know that at the cross somehow Jesus is that the Trinity is kind of broken at the cross and then began to read historical theology, began to understand the Nicene Creed more. Eventually then did my doctorates in this subject with Lewis Ayres up at Durham and realized that all my thinking had just been completely wrong, completely off. And then also realized with that just how many Christians, don’t understand just the basics of what the Bible teaches about the Trinity and what the Bible teaches about Christ’s cry of dereliction, and they’re so totally central to the way we understand theology and the scriptures. I really wanted to dig into it deeply and engage in it at the academic and historical level. Yeah, just one more question, one way of contesting it. Without criticizing anyone in particular, or any groups in particular, you’ve said it, that there’s lots of misunderstanding. What do you think fundamentally is the misunderstanding that people are operating on at a sort of popular level, at a preacher level, at even theological books level?
[3:42] At all those levels, most of it is driven by the idea to say that God, as God, suffers in the cross. There’s that aspect. And then also when we read Jesus saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The obvious response is that God has forsaken Jesus, but then the way we bring Trinitarian theology into that can just be incredibly confusing. In the hymns we sing at church, in many theological writings where they would say that the Trinity is broken, in the way people preach the passages in Mark and Matthew, just all over the place, there’s subtle misunderstanding. And it’s often driven by this idea that God is essentially like us because he suffers.
[4:28] Out of interest, Peter, do you share that sense that there’s a misunderstanding? Or did you read this and think, I knew this already, or everyone knows this already? I think there are different worlds that we operate in with theology and training people for the ministry. There’s the world of general philosophy and liberal academic theology. Then there’s the world of evangelical academic theology. And then there’s the popular Christian world and you know somebody might say something in the popular Christian world or have a song that’s a popular Christian song and it may actually say something that.
[5:09] Unhelpfully describes the Trinity in a way that actually is not really right or not really biblical, and I think one of the values of a book like this is it helps us engage at the high level of the academic and the theological so that we can just be better equipped to help people at the popular normal church level but you know we don’t um we don’t sort of go around complaining and get upset about every everybody who says something about god in the in the church which might not quite technically be right we’re trying to help grow and nurture churches and i think a book like this just helps us step back and and survey the field at a fairly high level very helpfully um peter you had some questions so if you want to roll into a couple of those sure i mean um you know i think i want to ask a few questions that help people who are listening or watching understand a little bit about what the book contributes. So as you read the book, it’s very worshipful. It helps you meditate and focus upon the nature of God. And it does engage at that high level of academic and philosophical. Lots of philosophers and academic theologians are quoted from all of church history.
[6:14] But one of the things you do which stands out is to help guide people through all of that. You use throughout the whole book the image of cathedral architecture and pillars in a cathedral. Can you say something about that? How do you use that imagery and how does that help people as they read the book, Tom?
[6:31] Yeah, I’m so glad you found it to be worshipful. So right at the core of my desire for writing it would be that as I was reading and engaging more in Trinitarian theology, it just led me to worship the Lord more and more and more the more I thought, oh I kind of get this but then no I don’t get it at all and God is just totally beyond and totally awesome and yet he’s my saviour on the cathedral architecture issue I really love cathedrals, I find them fascinating so much about the way they’re designed points to the trinity, and then even the shape of the cathedral is cruciform so it’s cross shaped.
[7:09] So often when we look at the cross, especially in modern theology, theologians will look at the cross and try and understand what’s happening there, and then work backwards and make assumptions about what God is like and what the Trinity is like, based on their level of reading of the cross. Whereas the way historical theology has always worked from the ecumenical creed and the confessions we start with the doctrine of God and then we work with the doctrine of God and then how do we understand the cross in light of this foundation, so that’s where the cathedral architecture comes in if we start at the ground level of the foundations in the doctrine of God, the trinity and then from there we can build up So in my book, I speak about the cry of dereliction and the cross, kind of like a cathedral tower, and it has to be supported by the foundations. So if we get the foundations right, then we can rightly interpret what’s going on in the tower. But if we start with the tower, then everything just falls apart. So that’s my thinking. And the front cover, by the way, is Westminster Abbey in the nave.
[8:17] Thank you. And so as you mentioned, one of the pillars that you describe in the book, In the cathedral is the cry of dereliction on the cross In Mark 15, Jesus crying out My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Quoting the opening verse of Psalm 22 What is it about that verse which is so important to you That you put it as a central point in the book A way into the whole issue But also a place where there’s lots of misunderstanding I don’t think.
[8:48] Yeah, thank you. So I think in evangelical theology, you mentioned the kind of different worlds in which we operate. In evangelical theology, we often take Mark 15, 34, the cry of the erection, as the dominant lens through which we understand the cross. One of the arguments that my book makes is that actually the cross is so broad and covers so much, and instead this idea of a broader understanding of the cross in Trinitarian terms, that it’s the Son offering himself to the Father in the power of the Spirit as a sacrifice to sin. And in terms of penal substitutionary atonement particularly, instead of having this idea that the Trinity is broken. So I wanted to engage in it because I think this idea of the cry of dereliction is so obviously Christological. It’s Christ speaking, and it’s Christ speaking as the incarnate Son of God to his Father.
[9:49] So immediately, all the doctrines of Christology, all of trinitarian theology just comes to bear on this one verse so i think if we get that verse wrong then everything else can sort of unravel but if we can really dig down and understand this verse um in terms of the trinity then it just illuminates so much um and then one other thing to add to that is that so often with theological books in academia especially the the tendency can be to say oh this is something new this is something novel um but in my my deepest desires were to be worshipful, to lead the reader to worship the living triune God, and then also to be in line with historic orthodoxy as much as possible, not to go beyond the way that the Lord has, by the Spirit, led the church to understand the cross.
[10:39] Wonderful. Well, yes, I find that chapter very, very powerful, and it made me want to go back and reflect on that verse again. Yeah, I do think in popular expressions of the faith, the idea of Christ being abandoned by the Father is a common term.
[11:03] That doesn’t necessarily mean people’s theology is entirely wrong, but it is probably a common term. And you wouldn’t like that term so much, would you?
[11:13] The way it’s used, the Bible uses a very similar language, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[11:21] The key issue is that people would say that this is the Father forsaking the Son in such a way that breaks the Trinity, whereas the whole of Scripture is abundantly clear that the Trinity is just unbreakable. It’s permanently Father, Son, and Spirit in perfect communion, and there’s no breaking of that communion. So my big argument is that the kind of central argument, the Son is truly forsaken at the cross by the Father, but that forsakenness as an experience is only known in his human nature. I make the argument that if you’re walking along the street and you kick a rock, if I kick a rock, it’s me that’s kicked that rock and hurt myself, but the experience is in my human nature. It’s me that’s experiencing it, but it’s in my human nature. In the same way, when God the Son experiences the forsakenness of a father, he doesn’t experience it in his divine nature, because he’s fully God. He does experience it in and only in his human nature. So the son is truly forsaken by the father, but only in and according to his humanity. You may have said in the book, and I may have missed it, but is it not analogous with his death?
[12:38] Yes, yes. But the death is broader and slightly easier.
[12:46] There’s no implication for the Trinitarian relations. Well, only that God the son didn’t die. Or God the Son did die, but only in and according to his human nature. Well, quite so. That God the Son didn’t cease to exist. Yeah. In the sense that we might use the word die. And so there is an analogy in that sense that, in the same way that God the Son didn’t cease to exist in his divine nature, but he died as a human being, would die. His blood stopped pumping and his spirit returned and so on.
[13:30] Okay, good. We’re grasping a little bit. Go for it, Peter. Well, I mean, one of the things that you do helpfully in the book is that you introduce us to technical theological terms, which have developed over the millennia to help us understand these things. You know, as Graham has just been describing and grappling there with what it means for Christ to die. One of the terms you introduce us to is the communication of idioms, which is not the kind of phrase we’re going to use in a sermon. It’s probably not going to occur in any popular worship song, but, you know, it’s proven very useful. So why don’t you just explain to us what that means and how it’s useful to us in talking about this issue? I’m just trying to think of what communication of idioms might rhyme with to get it in a hymn. I can’t think. Yeah, so the communication of idioms is that whatever happens to either of Christ’s two natures is true of God the Son. So in the Incarnation, God the Son assumes human nature so that in the Son we have his full human nature like us and his full divine nature like the Father and the Spirit. Two natures in one person. Whenever Jesus acts and does anything, speaks, performs miracles, eats, weeps, is angered, all of these things are said rightly of the one who is God the Son.
[14:54] But they are done in and according to particular natures. So when Jesus is eating bread with Mary and Martha and Lazarus, we can say that God the Son is eating bread. But the idioms, that is the properties of either nature, are communicated to the person, not to the other nature. So there’s a kind of stereotype of Martin Luther’s theology where he argues that whatever happens to the human nature happens also to the divine nature. So Luther can say that, or tries to say, that because the Son died as man, therefore God died. And it gets very, very confusing. But instead, the communication of idioms, as understood in the historic church, the church fathers, and then certainly the Reformation and in the scholastic era before that, whatever happens to either of Christ’s natures doesn’t happen to the other one but it goes directly to the person and that’s the communication of idioms, Wonderful. And that does help us a lot, I think. And, you know, maybe the pastors who read this book can sort of step back from the sermons and the popular Christian scene for a moment or two and ponder the implications of that. But then they go back and they talk about Jesus and they lead Sunday school for children and stuff. And actually, you know, we are able just to talk about God and his death more confidently.
[16:16] Another area where your book is a bridge between the academic world and the popular church world and ministry is when you talk about the doctrine of impassibility, which is one of the pillars of the book, and there’s a whole chapter on it.
[16:31] The doctrine of impassibility You argue in your chapter that the reason so many people are uncomfortable with it Is that it seems to say things about suffering That make us feel very uncomfortable And people suffering It’s just a major part of pastoral ministry We’re always visiting people who are suffering in some kind of way In body, mind or soul In relationships, So can you tell us a little bit about what the doctrine of impassibility really is and why a right biblical view of it actually really helps us in pastor ministry? Yeah. So the historic Christian church understanding of all the teaching of scripture is that God, in his divine nature, cannot suffer. He is simple, without body, parts, or passions. He is unchangeable. He says in Malachi 3.6, I, the Lord, do not change.
[17:26] And from that, then, he cannot suffer. And no external cause can affect God in any way at all negatively. And so he cannot suffer. If we just leave it there, it seems that God is very far removed and distant.
[17:43] But that’s just the awesome power of the incarnation. That at the incarnation, God, the son, the one who is impassable and immutable and simple in his divinity, he takes on human nature. So his divine nature, which cannot suffer, is joined permanently to human nature, just like us. And then as a human, he suffers, is forsaken by the Father and dies. So that’s why you get passages like Hebrews 2 speaking about that. For this reason, he had to become like us, his brothers, in flesh and blood. So it’s just awesome that if we think, as many liberals would, that God suffers in his nature, Then when I talk to someone in hospital who’s facing death or facing extreme pain or chronic pain, and we say, oh, God knows what it’s like to suffer because ultimately God suffers, it kind of just passes the buck back. And then how is God comforted in his suffering? And he can’t be because he can’t do anything about it, just like us. But instead, if we worship this God who cannot suffer because he is eternal and infinite and glorious and unchanging, and yet this same God takes on human nature, just like mine, just like yours.
[19:02] And then when we speak to the person who’s suffering, who’s going through trial or bereavement, we can say, no, Jesus knows precisely what you’re going through. He suffered physically, he suffered emotionally, he suffered spiritually. He knows what it’s like to say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And that is the only thing that I think really very, very deeply comforts us that Christ has gone through this life and gone even through death and emerged victorious after the cross.
[19:32] Wonderful, wonderful. And the book engages with an awful lot of literature and theologians and philosophers, many of whom are not reformed, not evangelical. And I was very struck a while ago reading Ned Stonehouser’s biography of Gresham Machen, the description of him going to Germany, immersing himself in liberal theology, and listening to theologians teaching things that were far removed from the Reformed biblical faith, but actually he could see things about what they said and about their piety even that he was deeply moved by and impressed by. How have you found the experience of, and in Gresham Machen’s case, actually it seemed to actually tempt him a little bit almost for a season in his life to perhaps consider not pursuing a call to the ministry, to consider even, you know, it’s difficult to tell in detail from the letters with his mother and stuff, but, you know, were there aspects of him that actually were wrestling with fundamentals of the faith? So for yourself, you know, years of reading theologians and philosophers far removed from the Reformed faith, can you say a little bit about personally how you found that experience?
[20:44] Yeah, that’s a really interesting question. Reading the philosophical backgrounds to the contemporary argument that God suffers in his nature, I found fascinating. So looking particularly at figures like Hegel and then his influence on later German idealists leading up to Barthes, I found really, really interesting. But particularly reading the Church Fathers, I remember speaking to one really reformed Orthodox guy quite recently, and he said to me well why would we read the church fathers because they’re not evangelical and and that just really kind of displayed that that typical mindset of contemporary evangelicals that is so often kind of assumed that almost as though church history starts in 1517 with luther, and and um instead we’ve got two thousand years um from the death of christ and the apostles and the church fathers. And so we want the conversation to go all the way back there as much as possible. I think that reading those church fathers and then into the Middle Ages with the scholastics, guys like Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, and then into the early Reformers, just how very clearly the Reformers took their doctrine of God, their understanding of Christology, just straight from the early church, straight from the scholastics.
[22:09] And then it was the doctrine of justification that then became utterly pivotal, that this is where we depart, that this is where we say, no, the Roman Catholic church has gone completely wrong. But even today, when we read so much evangelical theology on the Trinity, on many aspects of Christology, they would just kind of ignore the first 1,500 years of church history and then get quite a distorted view of contemporary theology. So I found that wonderful, thinking our roots in the doctrine of the Trinity go right back to the apostles, to the early church fathers. So when we say things like the Nicene Creed, it’s just awesome. We can profess our faith along with the church universal throughout the ages. It’s hugely encouraging, hugely spiritually grounding.
[22:58] The Greek Orthodox Church uses their basis, the Nicene Creed, I think, don’t they?
[23:04] So obviously that suggests there’s potential of some danger in having a kind of creedal historical understanding, but no present day interaction with scripture. I’m not saying the Greek Orthodox Church is thoroughly heretical, but I guess we would suggest there are areas in which they may not be thoroughly understanding the gospel, if that’s fair. So how do you avoid that kind of sense that you’re giving weight to historical theology that is equal to Scripture or that could…
[23:43] Give you an overwhelming way to understand and interpret Scripture that contradicts what Scripture is actually saying. What’s the control mechanism on that? Yeah, that’s really helpful. It’s Scripture first. Scripture is the Word of God. It’s infallible. The creeds and confessions are not infallible. They’re not the Word of God. But they are the way that in God’s goodness by his spirit, he has led the church to crystallize doctrine. And although a huge range of Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox would agree with things like the Nicene Creed, if we think of that as the real core of Christian doctrine, it gives us a much more generous spirit, I think. But then we must always go back to scriptures. So there would be some liberal theologians who would say, yeah, of course I agree with Mycenae, but the Bible is not God’s word. That immediately removes them from the orbit of salvation.
[24:48] But we so need to have the core of the gospel right. So even if you’ve got the best Trinitarian theology in the world, if you’re not understanding that Christ died on the cross to take away my sins in my place, that then means that salvation is not possible because the gospel is the power of God for salvation. And things like the Nicene Creed are really a minimum, so it’s quite a minimalistic statement of what we believe. But even that, of course, for some parts of the Christian church today, it’s viewed as too much. I remember being taught by a liberal Anglican theologian at seminary myself, and at the end of his lecture, he just made an off-the-hand comment to defend himself, to present himself as a reliable teacher. And he said, of course, I believe all the main points of the Nicene Creed. And it was just said quickly, and you almost could miss it, but I felt I had to put my hand up and just ask him, sorry, when you said all the main points of the Nicene Creed, which other ones do you not believe in? And suddenly he listed other things and you realize he actually didn’t believe anything pretty much in an assing. But actually, it’s a minimal part of the Christian faith and it does need to be surrounded by some of the clarifications that over time have been made by the Reformed Church. Yes. So, yeah.
[26:09] In terms of the historical theology then, some people might argue, I just need the Bible.
[26:19] And I just need to preach the Bible. I may use some commentaries or some sort of helps, contemporary helps, but basically I don’t really need any of them. I just need the Bible. So what would you say to them?
[26:32] That’s so important. That’s so common, I think.
[26:37] In the Roman Catholic Church, they’ve got one pope, and what he says potentially has the ability just to form dogma, and every good Roman Catholic just agrees with what he says. That’s an awful system. In the evangelical world, we’ve got the opposite problem. Every single individual becomes their own pope, and so can then interpret the scripture authoritatively for themselves. So that is motivated, I think, by a really good principle that the individual believer needs to read God’s Word, understand God’s Word for themselves. Yes, of course. But we then, I think, as evangelicals, can often take it too far and say, I can ignore the way that the Spirit has led the church for the last two millennia. It’s just about me reading the Bible and starting afresh.
[27:27] I think in any other discipline, we just don’t do that. If I study philosophy, if I study history, if I study any discipline, we always need to at least have a very healthy respect for the experts in the field and have this attitude that is learning from them. But in evangelicalism, often we don’t do that. So I think it’s really important just to go back to the way the Lord has led the church historically and have this humble attitude that there are so many incredible godly minds that the Lord has given to the church to teach and bless and lead by the guidance of the Spirit.
[28:08] Yeah, I think it might be something to do with the limitations of being human we have to accept. So there’s a pride in thinking I can at one and the same time overview the whole of Christian theology and understand it and kind of analyze it at any moment. And I think just at a very simple level in church membership, in our local church for example, there is an assumption that there’s a body of things that you believe, and not every believer in the church is constantly kind of assessing all of those. There is a degree of trust in the body of teaching that the church is teaching. And at times you hold up one doctrine to the light a bit more. There’s maybe some contention over some particular issue and you’re preaching through that, or you understand something just new and fresh from scripture, but you’re not constantly having to rework every single belief every time you go to hear a sermon or preach. You’re building on an assumption that there’s a body of truth.
[29:06] And I think it’s arrogant to suggest that the body of truth is only what we can develop in our local church in this particular year, as opposed to it’s a body of truth that’s a synthesis of what has been developed over the years, assessed in the light of scripture.
[29:22] So does that make sense? Yeah. We just can’t, as one human being, think that we can assess everything at one time so there has to be a degree of humility um not not accepting in a papal way um historical theology but in a humble way uh that we can’t think of everything at the same time sorry peter you were going to say something just now well no i appreciate that and i think um, When that sort of attitude takes root in churches or in evangelical movements, as I agree with you, I think it has taken considerable root in the United Kingdom.
[29:57] What you tend to get is not a very complex, rich, deep collection of truths drawn from the Bible. What you tend to get is people summarizing a very simple, basic collection of truths, which then joined to a managerial approach to church, which is pushed out as a desire to evangelize and hand on the simple, clear truths we’ve got from the Bible. And on one on one level you know it is it can be effective you know there’s a sense in which when you come to that moment of bringing the christian faith to people for the first time you know you are wanting some of the simple clear truths often but i think the problem is that.
[30:39] You end up with a very non-mysterious non-supernatural you know it’s all really quite obvious approach to christianity and the only reason somebody’s not become a christian is because somebody hasn’t explained these two or three simple truths to them clearly enough. And in contrast to that, you read your book and the meditation on the Trinity and the cross, you know, does allow space for a sense of mystery and the supernatural, and draws you into a deep worship of God, which is quite formative. So can you say something about, you know, the desire to, you know, create space for the mystery and the supernatural in your description of the trinite. So I found that the book is based, it’s kind of a big reworking of my doctoral thesis. Louis Ayres was my supervisor, I mentioned him earlier. He’s a Roman Catholic.
[31:32] And I did my master’s in philosophy. Lots of it was kind of analytic and logic. And so I came to the doctorate wanting to use those philosophical analytic skills in understanding scripture. And but in understanding the trinity particularly but then as i did that i very quickly realized that if god kind of would in his sovereignty allow himself to be fully subject to analysis in that sense then he very quickly as you said becomes just this god that we can explain with two or three points and and i remember there were times when i was writing the book grappling with it and suddenly thought oh i i understand i understand the trinity i guess it now and and then i’d suddenly remember some verse in scripture and read it and think actually no i i’m not even scratching the surface it’s just it’s just utterly beyond me and it’s like i think augustine had said he had that that uh image walking on the beach and he saw this kid um i think he was using a a little hole and trying to fill it with all the water of the sea and augustine said oh don’t don’t be silly of course you can’t fill the sea and into this hole and the boy said or in the same way you you can’t understand the living triune God.
[32:46] And I just found it awesome thinking as we read the word, as we understand more in our very limited way, the doctrine of the Trinity, it just leads us to worship. And there’s so much mystery, so much mystery. And that mystery itself leads us to more worship. And I don’t want a God that I can fully understand and grasp. I want a God I can truly know that the living God is just, he’s infinite and awesome. Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, he said in one of his sermons that if you, If you…
[33:16] Have something that you think you understand is god it’s not god yeah yeah um yeah wonderful well i mean my final question before you know me graham wants to finish up is just um you know what are you hoping that you know those two different worlds the scholarly world and the uh the church pastor type world what are you hoping those two different worlds might take from book in academia.
[33:41] There is a lot of amazing Trinitarian theology written lots of amazing stuff on divine impassibility and amusibility and simplicity but a lot of it is coming from, the more liberal end of things or the more Roman Catholic end of things so Peter your book Simply God is a brilliant example of the opposite of that and writing for this kind of popular sort of stroke academic audience and so that’s awesome but I wanted to be able to contribute to that same line of thinking that you were taking brother, and try and strengthen the reformed evangelical contribution to Trinitarian theology and then also have this clear evangelical and reformed understanding of what Jesus accomplished at the cross and to try and just to pause there I think you’re right I mean back in I think I wrote my book Simply God back in 2010 or something like that And when I was writing that, you know, one of the reasons I wrote it was because I was benefiting from the Roman Catholic scholarship and the liberal scholarship as I sifted through it. But there really wasn’t at that
[34:49] point a semi-popular level type book to introduce the themes to people. And, you know, subsequent to that, there’s been many, many, you know, better works done and more works done. But yeah, we do need that. And your work contributes at the scholarly level very helpfully as a reformed theologian. Yeah.
[35:07] And just a question about generosity. You’ve spoken, both of you, about benefiting from Catholic writers and from liberal writers, actually, and your Catholic tutor, Tom.
[35:19] Where do you draw a boundary or do you not bother in terms of are these people believers or not, in the sense the Bible would understand someone who’s saved? I find that so hard. So Cal argued that it’s possible for someone with Roman Catholic beliefs in some circumstances to be genuinely saved. I think I’d agree with him on that. But it tends to be born from an ignorance rather than a wholehearted intellectual assent to the fullness of Catholic dogma. And so i’d want to be as kind of as generous as possible and in that and this the the word peter used about the minimal um framework of the nicene creed i think as long as someone is is agreeing with that and then not also believing other doctrines that are directly contrary to the statements of the nicene creed and i’d want from that to have as broad generous approach as possible, I know for myself, there are areas of doctrine where I’ve been convinced of a different perspective, a different view. So I know previously from my point of view now, I was wrong before. And so I want to have this sense of strong reformed orthodoxy, but a humble orthodoxy as much as possible. That’s very commendable. And I think there’s degrees of fellowship, isn’t there, and generosity. So we could be generous.
[36:48] And assume, I think rightly, that there are believers in Christian denominations that are quite far from a biblical understanding on a number of areas. There are people who we would be happy to pray with and fellowship with. There are people that we’d be happy to work with. So there’s different kind of proximities, aren’t there, of working together. It’s one thing to say there are believers in this group denomination, or even to say that this denomination has the gospel, but it’s another thing to say, I want to plant and encourage churches like that. Because it may be that we don’t want to plant and encourage churches like that, because we don’t think they’re thoroughly biblical and they’re prone to many errors. So I think you can be generous, which is not quite the same as saying everything is good, everything is the same. Exactly.
[37:44] Brilliant. Well, thank you both for your time. And just remind us, Tom, about the book and the publisher. So the full title and subtitle and the publisher. So the full title is Intimately Forsaken, a Trinitarian Christology of the Cross, and it’s published by Palgrave Macmillan, who is a group with Springer Nature. So it’s an academic publisher. It’s quite expensive, so I can get everyone a 20% discount, and then there’s a possibility of more discount for people who ask me directly. Very good. Thank you both very much. Thank you. Thank you. God bless. God bless.
