Likely you were pleased there was no "Convivium 2015" in the title of this post. At last, you thought, no summaries of some inside-cricket discussions of natural law, theology, and theologians. Curb your enthusiasm. I blogged about the subject of this post in connection with last year's "Convivium 2014." Read it here. Matt showed up again in a post about natural law theory that you can read here. Indeed, Matt attended Convivium 2015 but didn't present a paper.
Tuininga should be forgiven for his lack of a written piece of scholarship because the week following the Convivium he was on the floor of the annual Synod of the Christian Reformed Church where he sustained a final round of questions before receiving unanimous approval to join the faculty of Calvin Seminary as assistant professor of moral theology. You can--and actually should--watch the one+ hour session on YouTube by going here.
Not many Protestant seminaries still have a professor of moral theology. My single class in Ethics at Reformed Theological Seminary was unusual in that our professor spend over half the semester teaching neoclassical economics and the rest on apologetics. Interesting stuff, mind you, but not the sort of a full-orbed approach to the host of contemporary ethical issues one might hope for.
I am convinced that Matt will do a great job of training generations of Calvin Seminary graduates in a Christo-centric approach to ethics. Not one that ignores the law (revealed or natural) but one that sees the ethical application of all law through the lens of the ascended Christ. And more than the application of law, ethics in Tuininga's vision is the outworking of the Christian's (and Christians collectively) new nature in union with the ascended Christ through Holy Spirit.
The Seminary and Synod could not have made a better choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment