Essays
Determinism, Chance, and Freedom.
In the fall of 2007 Walter Isaacson, author of a new
biography of Albert Einstein, gave a lecture on Einstein
at Samford University. In advance of Isaacson's lecture,
members of the Samford faculty engaged in a series of three
hour-long discussions of the work of Einstein.
I was invited to write an essay to be addressed at one of
those discussions. I chose determinism because of its
importance to Einstein. As the setting required,
I made multiple references to Isaacson's book on Einstein.
Teaching Theology to Ministers.
A few years before I retired I was asked to write this
article for a journal published by the faculty of New Orleans
Baptist Theological Seminary.
Effects and Uses of the Doctrine of the Trinity.
In 1994 I gave this
lecture at the school where I was teaching, Beeson Divinity School at
Samford University. It was the product of a sabbatical leave which I
had enjoyed the previous semester. I have written about this topic
several times since then, but with less detail, which is why I am
making this lecture available to online readers.
We Have This Treasure.
In 1998 I gave this address to the Alabama
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in order to display that our
differences with the views of the new leaders
in Southern Baptist life were substantive, not just verbal. I described five
issues about which there was disagreement, and I argued that in each
instance our view was a treasure worth fighting for and preserving.
Theology and Science.
In 1997 a friend Nathan Smith and I created a group for the
discussion of theology and science. The group included both
scientists and theologians. In 2013 I made a first effort to
pull together some of the things I had learned from the reading
and discussion which our group did. Two friends who are
philosophers with an interest in science, Josh Reeves and Jason
Baldwin, gave me immensely helpful feedback. I then read the
essay to our discussion group and received additional feedback.
The resulting essay is offered here.