Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism

“Carter shows that, far from putting God in a tidy box, the orthodox doctrine of God smashes our idolatrous tendencies and alerts us contemplatively to a better way found in Holy Scripture and prized in the Augustinian, Thomist, and Reformed traditions. Over against the mythologies of modern scientific study (even in its purportedly evangelical forms), Carter draws our gaze upward to the mysteries of the faith, outward to learn from the communion of saints, and forward to the never-ceasing call to contemplative exegesis of God's Word. Here evangelical and Reformed theological practice receives a needed recalibration.”

“Written clearly and engagingly, this book is a clarion call for evangelical Protestants to reject modern metaphysics and return to Nicene metaphysics. Carter sees the rise of what he calls 'relational theism' as a move, both conscious and unconscious, that surrenders God's transcendence in order to emphasize his activity in history. Through a detailed study of Isaiah 40-48, the author shows that transcendence, with its necessary corollaries of immutability and impassibility, is not a creation of the philosophers but a profoundly biblical idea, one that we surrender at our peril.”

“We have lots to learn from Carter's wonderful description and celebration of the biblical and theological merits of trinitarian classical theism. Carter writes with eloquence and humility, leading the reader toward an astonished inhabitation of the universal church's confession of the transcendent and sovereign Lord. Few books lead one to worship as overtly as Carter's, calling us to abandon shallow relational portraits of God in favor of delighting in the extraordinary grandeur of God.”