1) So I've been reading Oliver Crisp's, Analyzing Doctrine & I have a few observations. In this thread I consider Ch. 1.

He is preoccupied with gaining admission to the club of mod. university theol. He tries to prove that the kind of theol. he wants to do belongs in that club.

2) This is an instance of what I call in ISGT 'the liberal project' (LP). It is the attempt to re-state Xian doctrines in such as way as to (i) retain as much of the traditional Xian meaning as possible while (ii) making them fit into the metaphysical constraints of modernity.

3) What are these metaphysical constraints? The essence of modernity is the rejection of the theol. metaphysics of Nicaea that have undergirded the Xian doc. of God since the 4th cen. What OC characterizes as "Thomism" is actually the consensus view of 4th C pro-Nicene theology.

4) There are con. & lib. versions of the LP & this is a con. one, but that is a detail. It is the LP itself that is the problem. The mod. rejection of the theological metaphysics of Nicaea itself is illegitimate & must be rejected. Why? B/c the orthodox doc of the Trinity . . .

5) . . .abstracted fr the metaphysical context in which it flourishes in 4th C pro-Nicene theol. is reduced to a pale shadow of the orthodox doc. We see such an attenuated summ. of Trinitarianism on p 40, which OC claims is the Nicene doc, but which is really only a shadow of it.

6) The purpose of theology is to direct the ch. toward the worship of the One, True & Living God of Scrip. & to speak truthfully of the being of this One on the basis of rational reflection on gen. & spec. revelation. As physicians are exhorted, first, to do no harm, so . . .

7) . . . theologians are exhorted, first, to ensure that idolatry is excluded from our doc. of God. Maybe we cannot say as much as some would like, but at least let us avoid idolatry. The problem with the LP is that it fails in this first duty. To speak of the Triune God . . .

8) . . . truely we must not compromise his transcendence. But theol. cannot do this if it rejects the classical theism of the tradition, yet modernity dictates that this must be done. He seeks a 3rd way beyond CT & theistic personalism. But Trinititarianism w/o CT is unorthodox.

9) He calls this 3rd way "chastened theism" & suggests that it retains all that is crucial from CT but gives up certain aspects that are unacceptable to mod. philosophy. The core of my disagreement is whether his watered-down doc. of simplicity is sufficient for Trinitarianism.

10) In the next thread, I will address this issue of simplicity with ref. to his understanding of our knowledge of God. Specifically, his theory of models & his concept of mystery are problematic. The biggest problem with his concept of simplicity tho is w. ref. to the Trinity.