Anthony C. Thiselton on Hermeneutics

Courtesy of St John’s Nottingham is a delightful 25-minute YouTube video of Anthony Thiselton (part of a bigger project, apparently) talking about some of his major works on hermeneutics.

Vern S. Poythress on Redeeming Sociology

Vern S. Poythress, Redeeming Sociology: A God-Centered Approach (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 352pp., ISBN 9781433521294.

I don’t know they manage to do it, but this brand new book is freely available in its entirety as a 3.4 MB pdf here.

It’s along the same lines as Poythress’ earlier Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach (2006) and In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach (2009).

This one is centred around social relationships:

‘God is the Creator of the whole world in all its dimensions. He has established his own wise order for our relationships. His order and his presence are essential to life and to relationships. We need to learn how to praise God for the world of relationships that he has given us’ (11).

Alongside Scripture, he names Abraham Kuyper as a source for his thinking; but as he nicely notes:

‘In the generations after Kuyper a number of people took up Kuyper’s challenge. They worked at transformation of thought. Advances took place. But along with the advances came some misjudgments, in my opinion. So work still needs to be done. And that is why I am writing. Reflection needs to continue in the natural sciences and in linguistics and sociology. So I have produced the books in these three areas. Others, I hope, will build on what I have done and will correct what I still have left amiss’ (14).

Vern Sheridan Poythress on Language

Vern Sheridan Poythress, In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach (Wheaton: Crossway, 2009).

This entire book – all 416 pages of it – is freely available as a (4.2MB) pdf here.

In a strong recommendation, John Frame writes of Poythress’ books, including this one:

‘Not only are these books expertly researched and cogently argued, but they are explicitly Christian in their starting point, method, and conclusion (to use a phrase of Cornelius Van Til). Poythress does not merely claim that these disciplines allow a place for God, or that a theistic worldview provides useful context, or that engagement in such studies is somehow useful to Christians. Rather, he comes right in your face with the claims of Christ: All of these studies are grounded in the nature and work of the triune God, and nothing can be rightly understood apart from him. God is not merely a possibility, not merely a conclusion, but the starting point for any understanding at all.’

He continues:

‘So in the present book on language, Poythress shows that the foundation of human speech is the speech between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so that without God meaningful language would be impossible.’

There are some early reviews of the book here (by Forrest W. Schultz) and here (by John Starke).

And there is a two-part interview with Poythress about the book here and here.