Speak a little, maybe, to Dozol and Renahan's books and resources they have available. If someone's interested in pre-reading or pre-work, what would you recommend for them?
Dolezal Pre-Reading Recommendations
Well, I think for Dolezal, a good pre-read would be his book, All That Is In God. It's a very helpful book. It covers that material that he delivered at one of the Southern California Reformed Baptist Pastors Conferences. It was an excellent conference and an excellent set of lectures by Dr.
Dolezal on the content of of chapter 2, and so a very good preview would be to read through that book. I believe Matthew Barrett also has a book, Simply Trinity, and in chapter 1 he talks about Trinity Adrift, how did we get here. Would you recommend that book as a slightly more accessible? you know, read for chapter two, and if you can, summarize chapter one, which would help people understand why we should be at this conference.
Trinity Adrift and Modern Departures
Yeah, yeah, very good. I mean, that connects well with Trinity Adrift, the, you know, sort of the, not sort of, the subject matter of that particular chapter. It's exactly what he's dealing with, you know, largely modern departures from the historical doctrine of the Trinity, you know, something happened, you know, for, for, you know, what can we say 19 centuries, there was a, there was a soft, we dropped the ball, something happened in that 20th century. But, but for century upon century, there was very largely and clearly a common consensus on the doctrine of God, on the content of chapter 2 of our confession of faith.
And so, you know, something happened, and Matthew Barrett sort of outlines that. What happened in churches? What happened in seminaries? What happened with you know, with theological writings in the 20th century, and what can we see?
What can we observe? What can we learn? And how can we simply get back into the meat and potatoes of our received theological heritage that many have seemed to have departed from? And that's, I think, you know, in a nutshell, the subject matter of that, and it connects well with our conference, That's in part what we're trying to do here is to show what the Bible teaches with regards to the doctrine of God and to demonstrate, again, that we are the inheritors of that received theological heritage that our forebears have passed on throughout the ages and that we should receive well as the truth that concerns our blessed triune God.
Further Recommended Resources
Yeah, I think that Trinity Adrift sets the stage and then the rest of the book, Simply Trinity, deals with the positive presentation. We don't need to subordinate Jesus eternally to provide a basis or rationale for distinction. The Church has always recognized it's the eternal relations of origin that distinguish the persons one from another. So that's a good book.
I would say Scott Swain's Introduction to the Trinity has been very helpful. I think Fred Sanders' book on the Holy Spirit and Introduction, though not as probably connected to Chapter 2, is very helpful. And then by Dr. Sam Renahan, both those books I mentioned, God Without Passions, The Primer, and The Reader, very helpful.
He has another one called Deity and Decree, where he deals with chapters 2 and 3. So, yeah, very good stuff that would be a helpful precursor or pre-read before coming to the conference.