What Is W. B. Pope's Doctrine of Creation | Fred Sanders

Lecture Title - Another World: William Burt Pope on Primary and Secondary Creation William Burt Pope’s three-volume Compendium of Christian Theology (ca 1881) is a carefully-wrought dogmatics emphasizing the organic unity of Christian thought and the deep continuity of the entire Christian tradition. Pope’s doctrine of creation programmatically distinguishes between the divine act of primary creation (God calling all things into existence) and the divine work of secondary creation (the formation of an ordered universe). The former is the realm of metaphysical inquiry and apologetic argumentation; Scripture chooses to say little about it, and science can say nothing in principle. Secondary creation, on the other hand, is the domain of both the biblical account and of scientific investigation, and also stretches forward into the doctrine of providence. This paper examines how Pope deploys the distinction in order to preserve the main lines of a Christian systematic theology. Fred Sanders (PhD Graduate Theological Union) is Professor of Theology in the Torrey Honors College of Biola University. He is the author of multiple books, including The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (Crossway, 2010), The Triune God (Zondervan Academic, 2016), and Fountain of Salvation (Eerdmans, 2021). The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world. Visit the HCTU website: https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/  Subscribe to the HCTU Newsletter: https://bit.ly/326pRL5 Watch the HCTU on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HenryCenter Connect with us! https://twitter.com/henry_center https://www.facebook.com/henrycenter/ https://www.instagram.com/thehenrycenter/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehenrycenter

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This is our archive of public lectures and conversations where scholars and pastors offer careful reflection on a range of biblical, theological, and ecclesial topics. The HCTU seeks to bridge the gap between the academy and the church by cultivating resources and communities that promote Christian wisdom. This is accomplished through a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God.