First Things Podcast How to Talk About God (ft. Hans Boersma)
7 snips
Nov 20, 2025 
Hans Boersma, a theologian and author, delves into intriguing theological topics surrounding modernity and God-talk. He discusses the cultural disenchantment that distances God from people, and how divine simplicity suggests God is unchanging and beyond human comprehension. Boersma critiques the Western identity thesis for potentially making God feel either too distant or too immediate. He advocates for a return to Christian Platonism and elaborates on the Eastern distinction between God's essence and energies, emphasizing the importance of divine participation.
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Theology Shapes Cultural Disenchantment
- Modern culture's disenchantment partly stems from theological ways of talking about God that separate God from the world.
- Hans Boersma argues our conceptions of divine simplicity facilitated this separation and weakened resistance to practical atheism.
What Divine Simplicity Affirms
- Divine simplicity affirms God is not a being made of parts and is wholly transcendent.
- Boersma stresses this is apophatic: it rules out creaturely composition but doesn't positively define God's inner nature.
The Identity Thesis And Its Cost
- The Western identity thesis identifies all God's attributes with his essence to safeguard divine transcendence.
- This move, rooted in Augustine and Aquinas, intensifies monotheism but can sever God's relational presence with creation.
