Does God's all-encompassing will restrict our freedom? Does God's ownership and mastery over us diminish our dignity? The fear that God is a threat to our freedom and dignity goes far back in Western thought. Such suspicion remains with us today in our so-called secular society. In such a context any talk of God tends to provoke responses that range from defiance to subservience to indifference. How did Western culture come to this place? What impact does this social and intellectual environment have on those who claim to believe in God or more specifically in the Christian God of the Bible? Professor of religion Ron Highfield traces out the development of Western thought that has led us our current frame of mind from Plato, Augustine and Descartes through Locke, Kant, Blake Bentham, Hegel, Nietzsche--all the way down to Charles Taylor's landmark work Sources of the Self. At the heart of the issue is the modern notion of the autonomous self and the inevitable crisis it provokes for a view of human identity, freedom and dignity found in God. Can the modern self really secure its own freedom, dignity and happiness? What alternative do we have? Highfield makes pertinent use of trinitarian theology to show how genuine Christian faith responds to this challenge by directing us to a God who is not in competition with his human creations, but rather who provides us with what we seek but could never give ourselves. God, Freedom and Human Dignity is essential reading for Christian students who are interested in the debates around secularism, modernity and identity formation.

Questions about divine providence have preoccupied Christians for generations: to what degree does God concern himself with and intervene in the affairs of everyday life? This book introduces readers to four prevailing views on divine providence, with particular attention to the questions of human free will, the problem of evil, and God's perception of time. Volume contributors and their basic viewpoints are: Paul Helseth - God causes every creaturely event that occurs. William Lane Craig - through his "middle knowledge," God controls the course of worldly affairs without predetermining any creatures' free decisions. Ron Highfield - God controls creatures by liberating their decision-making. Gregory Boyd - human decisions can be free only if God neither determines nor knows what they will be. Introductory and closing essays by Dennis Jowers give relevant background and guide readers toward their own informed beliefs about divine providence. Four Views on Divine Providence helps readers think theologically and biblically about all the issues involved in exploring this doctrine. The point-counterpoint format reveals the assumptions and considerations that drive equally learned and sincere theologians to disagreement with each other. It unearths the genuinely decisive issues beneath a philosophically dense debate. The Counterpoints series presents a comparison and critique of scholarly views on topics important to Christians that are both fair-minded and respectful of the biblical text. Each volume is a one-stop reference that allows readers to evaluate the different positions on a specific issue and form their own, educated opinion.

In imitation of classic tradition, Great is the Lord sets out the Christian doctrine of God in a way designed to illumine the mind, move the heart, and stir the soul to praise the triune God. Here, Ronald Highfield introduces students, ministers, and others to the doctrine of God held by the majority of the church from the second to the twentieth century. This traditional opinion reveals God to be triune, loving, merciful, gracious, patient, wise, one, simple, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, omnipresent, immutable, impassible, and glorious.

Highfield draws on scripture, tradition, and widely esteemed theologians to correct common misunderstandings and superficial criticisms. He examines the modern practice, even among evangelical or conservatives, of first rehearsing the shortcomings of "traditional" theological teaching and then claiming that classical doctrines paint God as uncaring, uninvolved, and a threat to human freedom. Great is the Lord revisits this classic doctrine so accused to discover that, far from being the creator of such an unpleasant god, it actually preserves our confidence in God's love and his liberating action better than its opponents do. That traditional doctrine, Highfield argues, grounds our dignity and freedom in the center of reality, the Trinitarian life of God.

Highfield's work here maintains the highest intellectual standards, while offering a true theology for the praise of God.