Theology & Principles

The following is a brief statement of my theological positions and worldview principles. It is not comprehensive. If my readers have a question or seek clarification, they are invited to contact me.

I. Theology & Ecclesiology

1. I accept the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian creeds as orthodox expositions of doctrines and dogma binding on all Christians. I also embrace the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles of Religion as a basic explanation of Christian belief and Apostolic ecclesiology and worship. However, like Fr. John Wesley, I do not accept the Reformed (or Calvinist) perspective on the relationship between the sovereignty of the Almighty God and human free will, specifically in the context of soteriology. Instead, I embrace the Arminian position. That is, God loved the world so much that the Savior died to extend salvation to whosoever would receive it. (John 3:16) While man is certainly depraved, he is afforded the prevenient grace whereby he is able to make an act of the will freely to repent, avoid willful sin, and attain to salvation.

2. I firmly embrace the historic Church's position on Apostolic Succession. That is, the succession is comprised of two facets: a.) the orthodox and historic Apostolic and catholic Faith, handed down by the Apostles by both word (Sacred Scriptures) and tradition, and passed on by their successors and Church Fathers, b.) the tactile conferral of spiritual authority to preach, teach, rule over Christ's Church, and administer the Sacraments, coming from an unbroken line traced back to one of Christ's twelve Apostles. 

3. I affirm that God can be known by the natural light of reason from the creation (Romans 1:19), and that His existence is readily demonstrated thereby. I reject the theory of human evolution and assert that man was created by God from the dust of the earth on the sixth day of creation, in His image and likeness, and has given him dominion over the earth and all things upon the earth. (Genesis 1:26-27)

4. I also affirm that God has blessed man with divinely inspired self-revelation (Sacred Scripture), inerrant in its original autographs, and that these writings, both Old and New Testaments, are "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16) These writings are the primary way we know orthodox doctrine, practices, and to a lesser extent, polity.

5. I affirm the biblical supernatural worldview as opposed to Modernism, Atheistic Naturalism, and Materialism. That is, I accept and acknowledge the external evidence of God's self-revelation, which manifests as divine acts, such as prophecy and miracles, as significant signs of the divine origin of the Christian Faith, and that such divine acts continue regardless of human era. Furthermore, I affirm the reality of the supernatural realm; that is, the reality of angels, some of whom interact with man for God's purposes, as well as demons, properly known as the preternatural realm, those fallen beings who seek the ruin of souls and afflict man through diabolic temptation, obsession, and even possession.

6. I believe that the Church, the guardian and teacher of God's self-revelation, was personally instituted by the historical Jesus, the Christ, when He dwelled among us bodily, and that the Church was built upon the testimony of Christ that the twelve Apostles bore, and which their successors, first among them the Church Fathers, treasured, taught, and for which, in some cases, were martyred. Therefore, I firmly assert that the doctrines of the Faith were handed down faithfully from the Apostles to the Apostolic Fathers.

7. I condemn any heretical deviation from the historic Faith, including any notion that doctrine evolves or changes with the current age, or which, in place of the divine deposit of doctrine and tradition, there is placed any mere human philosophical or theological idea or practice not witnessed to in the orthodox historic Church, nor made plain in Sacred Scripture. 

8. I assert that faith in Christ is not an emotion, nor is it blind, but rather is the genuine assent of the intellect to truth received from an external source. By this assent, we acknowledge and submit to the authority of the absolutely truthful God and believe to be true that which He has revealed.

-To be continued