Just to be clear, one more time, as I move on from this event, let me share the basic timeline and technicalities that took place with central admissions at the University of Geneva.

This is what happened at central admissions at the University of Geneva (see infographic below). Before you get to this point though you first must be principally (academically and aptitudinally) approved by whatever faculty you’re applying to, and receive an official letter of approval by a member of said faculty who has agreed to be your doctoral supervisor (in my case, the dean of the faculty, Christophe Chalamet). I was effectively operating as his doctoral student for approximately 4 months as he wanted to start working with me right away (and he thought the central admissions thing would just be a formality). And my MA degree was purely academic with a thesis and defense. My MA from Multnomah has allowed others to enter PhD programs all across America, the UK, and other parts of the world. So, yes, the fact that this came down to a bureaucratic inefficiency is definitely frustrating (to say the least!).

One positive I take away from it though is knowing that I was approved adequate to the task to do a Doctor of Theology degree at the Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Geneva. I was approved by the dean of the Faculty of Protestant Theology to do high level doctoral work. And for me I take that as a high honor from the Lord, and as a witness to His work in me. Soli Deo Gloria

I just submitted this as a PhD proposal to a very old school in the heart of Central Europe (i.e., not Geneva, somewhere else now). Someone is interested in potentially supervising me for the doctorate (I will leave everything and everyone unnamed for now; we’ll see if it comes to fruition). Anyway, I had no examples given to me for formatting purposes; no expectations of what was being looked for; and so I did it on the fly, and actually rather quickly. It is going to require a full rewrite. But at least I know now what the expectations are, so on and so forth. Since I will be doing a full rewrite I figured I shouldn’t let this go to waste, and so it will serve now as my next blog post. If you count all of the text it is just over 4,000 words. If you just read the body it is only around 2,000 words.

UNIVERSITY OF

FACULTY OF PROTESTANT THEOLOGY

GOD’S SANCTIFICATION

HUMAN AGENCY IN A DOCTRINE OF SANCTIFICATION IN THE THEOLOGIES OF KARL BARTH AND THOMAS FORSYTH TORRANCE, WITH AN ETHICAL TEST

Robert Allen Grow

PhD proposal in systematic theology and theological ethics

presented to

October 2026

1. AREA OF RESEARCH

            Systematic Theology, Theological Ethics.

2. PROVISIONAL TITLE OF THE THESIS

            God’s Sanctification: Human Agency in a Doctrine of Sanctification in the Theologies of Karl Barth and Thomas Forsyth Torrance, with an Ethical Test.

3. PRESENTATION OF THE PROBLEM

            The goal of the present work is to pursue how a doctrine of sanctification has taken formation in the theologies of Karl Barth and Thomas F. Torrance. Both theologians, respectively, operate with a christological objectivism which when applied to a doctrine of sanctification might tend to undercut the role that human agency and personal intentionality in the ‘working out’ of one’s salvation entails. In the most pronounced way this thesis intends on engaging with the christological, the anthropological, the pneumatological and ethical loci as those broader doctrinal categories entail the particulars of this study. This thesis will seek to detail the respective doctrines of sanctification in each theologian, and then constructively engage with them with the purpose of presenting a critically conceived doctrine of sanctification in the after Barth tradition. Furthermore, as a test-case and application of the findings in Barth’s and Torrance’s theologies, this study will attempt to flesh out human agency in a doctrine of sanctification pressed into the ethical domain of the relationship between Christians and state violence. This test-case will be deployed in such a way that attempts to understand how Barth’s and Torrance’s offerings operate when placed into a real-world situation. The hope is that this test-case will illustrate whether Barth’s or Torrance’s respective offerings on human agency in a doctrine of sanctification, stand up to real world pressures within the Christian existence.

3.1 Why does human agency in a doctrine of sanctification in a ‘Christological Objectivism’ invite further engagement?

A doctrine of sanctification is typically understood as the ‘subjective’ aspect of the soteriological combine (juxtaposed with a doctrine of justification and glorification). That is, sanctification within a Protestant frame, is that aspect of salvation wherein the human agent is understood to be actively ‘working out’ their salvation.[1] As the Apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:12–13). This locus classicus points up what might appear to be competing themes; that is, between the human agent, ‘the one who works out salvation,’ and God ‘who works in you to will and to act,’ in this agential fulcrum of salvific workings. More pointedly, this apparent competition between God and humanity, in the soterio-logic of the Gospel reality, appears to potentially place divine agency into a contraposing position vis-à-vis the human agent wherein the divine being swallows up the human being, to the point that the divine being is the only one who has performative agency in the totality of the salvific event. Hence, a ‘christological-objectivism’ ostensibly obtains wherein individual human beings/agents have no real personal agency within the circumscription of God’s life for them in Jesus Christ. This is what a christological-objectivism is referring to in the theologies of Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance.

Conversely, Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, and his best anglophone student, Scottish theologian, Thomas Forsyth Torrance, both have been criticized on the assumption that they operate with a christological objectivism within their respective anthropological and soteriological offerings. That is, because of the emphasis these theologians, respectively, place on ‘God’s being in becoming’[2] for the world in Jesus Christ; as God is understood to be the electing God who has freely and graciously become the elected human for the world, they are criticized with constructing a ‘metaphysical human,’ a human (in Christ) operating behind the back of individual human beings (in toto). As such, the concern is that if this were to be the case, that both Barth and Torrance, respectively, sublimate an integral human agency by the singular human agency of Christ for them. Thus, human agency becomes a mere phenomenological phantom acting out a determinacy absolutely funded by God’s agency, as that is diffuse for humanity, in the singular humanity of Christ. Therefore, in this understanding, the criticism maintains that both Barth and Torrance are guilty of mis-offering an account of human agency, particularly as that is played out in a doctrine of sanctification, wherein the human agent is freely and ostensibly ‘working out their salvation,’ compelled by their own, albeit contingent, gift of human freedom coram Deo.

The dilemma this thesis will seek to identify if in fact Barth and Torrance, respectively, operate with a monistic relationship between God and humanity in a doctrine of sanctification. Wherein, the ostensible ‘christological objectivism’ present in both Barth’s and Torrance’s theologies, constructs a situation that so makes God, as ‘the author and perfector of faith,’ the absolute terminus of the total event of working out one’s salvation, that the human agent ends up having no real integral agency of their own in the process of becoming ‘set apart’ (sanctified unto God).

After the details of Barth’s and Torrance’s doctrines of sanctification have been presented vis-à-vis human agency, within that doctrine, this thesis will constructively engage with the themes present within said theological themes, and make a turn to the ethical question of a doctrine of sanctification and human agency within the question of the Christian’s role in state violence (e.g., war etc.). The application of a doctrine of human agency within this ethical and “sanctificational” ambit, particularly as these themes have already been treated by engagement with both Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance will provide a concretization in the real and present world in a way that puts Barth’s and Torrance’s theories of human agency and sanctification to the test. As a case study, in this section of the thesis, I will engage with the assassination plot made on Hitler’s life by the Abwehr Resistance that Bonhoeffer was associated with as he was faced with the reality of the atrocities made by Hitler himself and the Third Reich. Bonhoeffer will make an excellent study, insofar that he was a known Christian pacifist, but who also ostensibly ended up engaging in a plot to commit tyrannicide against Hitler.[3] It is the ethical dilemma of honoring Christ, and being faced with the pressures of state violence, that will help flesh out the entailments of human action in the face of state pressures to conform to its activities rather than the mortifying call of Christ on the Christian’s life. Bonhoeffer’s situation will help amplify and delineate what has been found in Barth’s and Torrance’s theories on human agency in a doctrine of sanctification.

3.2. What are the parameters and methodology deployed for critically ascertaining human agency in a doctrine of sanctification for Karl Barth and Thomas F. Torrance?

Karl Barth, as noted previously, is often accused of offering the Christian theologic with a ‘christomonism’ wherein everything, both divine and human, is reduced to a purely metaphysical activity of an overriding God unilaterally acting in an imposing way upon his creatures.[4] Thus, the implication, again, becomes one wherein Barth is said to leave no space for a genuine creaturely action before God. But this could potentially misunderstand Barth’s proposal. Barth’s thinking is enlivened by his covenantal theology, a covenantal theology intent on maintaining a proper theological taxis in a God–world relation. To this end Barth makes the following statement,

The fellowship of God with man . . . is fellowship in a specific an irreversible order of before and after, above and below. God unconditionally precedes and man can only follow. The free God elects and wills. The free man must elect and will what God elects and wills. God is the giver and man the recipient. Man is an active, not an inactive recipient, yet even in his activity he is still a recipient.[5]

Even in this brief passage from Barth it is already indicated how Barth seems to elide the type of criticism he is often made the brunt of. Barth doesn’t seem to be offering an attempt to diminish human agency before God, but to highlight and amplify the human agent’s ground and aim; its source and power; and this in a non-competitive relationship with God.

Similarly, Thomas Torrance is accused of making human agency merely an annex of the vicarious human agency of Jesus Christ.[6] Torrance maintains that human agency is derived by the human being objectively brought into union with Christ’s vicarious humanity for them. In this procedure, Torrance argues that humanity is humanized and elevated to a capacity to share in the divine freedom that comes for humanity simpliciter in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. Torrance writes (in extenso):

What overwhelms me is the sheer humanness of Jesus, Jesus as the baby at Bethlehem, Jesus sitting tired and thirsty at the well outside of Samaria, Jesus exhausted by the crowds, Jesus recuperating his strength through sleep at the back of a ship on the sea of Galilee, Jesus hungry for figs on the way up to Jerusalem, Jesus weeping at the grave of Lazarus, Jesus thirsting for water on the Cross—for that precisely is God with us and one of us, God as ‘the wailing infant’ in Bethlehem …, God sharing our weakness and exhaustion, God sharing our hunger, thirst, tears, pain and death. Far from overwhelming us, God with us and one of us does the very opposite, for in sharing with us all that we are in our littleness and weakness he does not override our humanity but completes, perfects and establishes it.[7]

The final clause from the above passage reflects, in nuce, Torrance’s belief that humanity being objectively in Christ, by Christ assuming humanity as the Logos ensarkos, just does entail the means through which humanity becomes genuinely human (and thus free for God) in Christ’s humanity for them.

Even based on the cursory presentations of Barth’s and Torrance’s positions on what it means to have genuine human agency before God, it becomes clear that they both, in their respective ways, seem to think that what it means to be human comes from a christologically (objectivist) grounded basis. But there is also an example given of the ways they might depart. Barth seems to think human agency as a given within a pneumocentric covenantal relationship established between God and humanity in Jesus Christ. As is further evident from Barth’s Church Dogmatics IV, where he emphasizes the awakening activity of the Holy Spirit in certain people’s lives, wherein they become aware of their election and freedom for God, and as a result of this recognition actively respond in correspondence with the Son’s first response for them, to God’s free grace offer of salvation (inclusive of justification/sanctification). Alternatively, Torrance seems to simply maintain that it is the humanity subsumed by Christ’s humanity wherein humanity comes to have freedom for God. For Torrance there seems to be less place given to the person and work of the Holy Spirit, as he sublimates that work to a purely christological rostrum. This thesis will interrogate Torrance’s position more fully in an attempt to discover if his position offers a Spirit-centric Theanthropology, in terms of human agency in a doctrine of sanctification, or not. And it is precisely at this point that the greatest point of dissimilarity, even with the broader similarities between Barth and Torrance, might be revealed. Barth seems to have a pneumocentric covenantally based christological objectivism in place, whereas Torrance seems to be operating with a strong emphasis on the vicarious humanity of Christ without the fortification of an intentionally developed Spirit based covenantal system of theology. It might be right at this point of ostensible departure that Barth’s and Torrance’s theologies, respectively, have the greatest capacity to cross-pollinate each other as they are brought into constructive convergence.

To be clear, this thesis will attempt to accurately tease out the theme of human agency and a doctrine of sanctification and then stress-test the results of that, as that is present in the theologies of Barth and Torrance, respectively. As sketched above: if my suspicion is correct, with reference to Barth and Torrance, Barth’s pneumocentric covenantal framing of a human agency and doctrine of sanctification, could lead to the idea that human agents before God have the Spirit endowed freedom to say yes or no in the face of evil. In fact, Barth’s theory of human agency within the mortifying frame of the Christian life, might very well demand that ‘actively’ resisting evil with the good, is indeed a requirement for the Christian’s sanctificational life coram Deo. On the other hand, Torrance’s ostensible placement of human freedom as participation with the vicarious humanity of Christ, without an intentional sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s presence (parousia) and work in that participation, might lead the Christian, when faced with evil, to a place of indifference. That is to say, without the demand to act (as Barth’s position seems to require), if the Christian just is in a space of freedom before God, without the necessity to act, per se, then this might indicate that Torrance’s thinking on human freedom, particularly as that is applied to the Christian life (sanctification), might present a lacuna, insofar that the freedom the Christian participates in through union with Christ (unio cum Christo), ends up being vacuous and ethereal with no real-world point of contact.

Hence, this is what a reference to the Bonhoeffer situation will help test. Bonhoeffer, was indeed, as a Christian person, faced with the height of evil by way of the Third Reich. Referencing his situation will only be used to place pressure on what has been found in regard to Barth’s and Torrance’s offerings, respectively. This exercise will not be an attempt to explore the details or debates surrounding Bonhoeffer research, per se. Instead, it will be the place where this study has a place, a proving ground wherein the theologies of Barth and Torrance can be exposed when applied to a real-life historical situation. Will Barth’s pneumocentric covenantal framing of human agency vis-à-vis a doctrine of sanctification offer the type of human freedom and activity before God that would end up serving someone like Bonhoeffer well (and thus Christians in general when faced with similar pressures), or will Torrance’s framework and emphasis on the vicarious humanity of Christ offer the more fruitful way forward for a Bonhoeffer? And maybe neither Barth’s or Torrance’s respective offerings will provide the most coherent Christian frame for negotiating these types of ethical matters in the real-world. That is what the Bonhoeffer-test will help this study prove one way or the other.

Given these ostensible similarities and disparities between Barth’s and Torrance’s thinking on human agency this thesis, again, intends on teasing these themes out further in their respective theologies. But what of a procedure? How do I intend on treating the theme of human agency in Barth’s and Torrance’s theologies?

1. I will engage in a close reading of both Barth’s and Torrance’s corpora, which most acutely relate to human agency and a doctrine of sanctification. This will involve particular focus on CD IV/2 and CD IV/4 in Barth’s theology, and The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons; Trinitarian Faith; Calvin’s Doctrine of Man; Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ; Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ; Divine and Contingent Order; The School of Faith: The Catechisms of the Reformed Church; Scottish Theology: From John Knox to John McLeod Campbell, in Torrance’s theology.
2. I will utilize a dogmatic-constructive and comparative-critical reading strategy as I engage with the above works by both Barth and Torrance, respectively.
3. I will use the doctrine of sanctification in Barth’s and Torrance’s theologies as the lens through which I ascertain how they see (if they do) a genuine human agency operative and actionable before God in a doctrine of sanctification
4. I will place the total findings in both Barth’s and Torrance’s theologies on human agency in a doctrine of sanctification into a constructive convergence in an attempt to produce a theological understanding of both anthropology and sanctification, as that is funded within a christological-pneumatological ambit. Within this constructive development, I will apply these dogmatic conclusions to a real-world ethical situation, with reference to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s role, as an avowed pacifist, within the Abwehr Resistance Circle, in its attempt to assassinate the Führer. I will use this particular scenario not to expand on the thesis itself, but only to put the doctrines of human agency in sanctification in the theologies of Barth and Torrance to the test in a real-world, concrete situation that entails the questions of human agency and sanctification coram Deo.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Sanctification

Chapter 3. Thomas F. Torrance’s Doctrine of Sanctification

Chapter 4. Karl Barth and Thomas F. Torrance in Conversation on a Doctrine of Sanctification

Chapter 5. Constructive Offering on a Doctrine of Sanctification

Chapter 6. Testing Karl Barth’s and Thomas F. Torrance’s Doctrine of Sanctification, Ethically

Chapter 7. Conclusion

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barclay, John M. G., and Simon J. Gathercole, eds. Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment. London: T&T Clark, 2006.

Barclay, John M. G. Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.

———. Paul and the Gift. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015.

———. Paul and the Power of Grace. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020.

Barth, Karl. Against the Stream. London: SCM Press, 1954.

———. Church Dogmatics. Vol. III/4, The Doctrine of Creation. Study ed. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2010.

———. Church Dogmatics. Vol. IV/2, The Doctrine of Reconciliation. Study ed. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2010.

———. Church Dogmatics. Vol. IV/4, The Doctrine of Reconciliation: Fragment, The Christian Life. Study ed. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2010.

———. Community, State, and Church: Three Essays. New York: Doubleday, 1960.

Busch, Eberhard. Karl Barth and World Peace. Publication details to be verified against the edition consulted.

Chiarot, Kevin. The Unassumed Is the Unhealed: The Humanity of Christ in the Christology of T. F. Torrance. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013.

Cortez, Marc. Christological Anthropology in Historical Perspective: Ancient and Contemporary Approaches to Theological Anthropology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2016.

———. Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies: An Exercise in Christological Anthropology and Its Significance for the Mind/Body Debate. London: T&T Clark, 2008.

———. Resourcing Theological Anthropology: A Constructive Account of Humanity in the Light of Christ. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2017.

———. Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: T&T Clark, 2010.

Eastman, Susan Grove. Paul and the Person: Reframing Paul’s Anthropology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017.

Green, Clifford. “Bonhoeffer’s Christian Peace Ethic, Conditional Pacifism, and Resistance.” In The Oxford Handbook of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, edited by Michael Mawson and Philip G. Ziegler, 345–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Gunton, Colin E. Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Toward a Fully Trinitarian Theology. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2003.

———. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997.

Hauerwas, Stanley. With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2001.

Hunsinger, George. Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.

———. Torture Is a Moral Issue: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and People of Conscience Speak Out. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008.

Jüngel, Eberhard. God’s Being Is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth. Translated by John Webster. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001.

———. Justification: The Heart of the Christian Faith. London: T&T Clark, 2001.

Kaltwasser, Cambria. Karl Barth on Friendship with God: Prayer, Partnership, and Transformation. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2026.

Kilby, Karen. Suffering and the Christian Life. London: T&T Clark, 2019.

Letham, Robert. The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship. Revised and expanded ed. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2019.

Mawson, Michael, and Philip G. Ziegler, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

McCormack, Bruce L. Karl Barth and American Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011.

———. Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909–1936. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

———. Orthodox and Modern: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008.

———. The Humility of the Eternal Son: Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

McSwain, Jeff. Simul Sanctification: Barth’s Hidden Vision for Human Transformation. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2018.

Moltmann, Jürgen. On Human Being: Christian Anthropology in the Conflicts of the Present. Translated by M. Douglas Meeks. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015.

Nation, Mark Thiessen, Anthony G. Siegrist, and Daniel P. Umbel. Bonhoeffer the Assassin? Accepting the Challenge of Bonhoeffer’s Pacifism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013.

Nimmo, Paul T. Being in Action: The Theological Shape of Barth’s Ethical Vision. London: T&T Clark, 2007.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Anthropology in Theological Perspective. Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985.

Radcliff, Alexandra S. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T. F. Torrance and J. B. Torrance. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2016.

Strollo, Megan Fullerton. Theologies of Human Agency: Counterbalancing Divine In/Activity in the Megilloth. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022.

Tanner, Kathryn. Christ the Key. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Thielicke, Helmut. Theologische Ethik. Band 1, Prinzipienlehre: Dogmatische, philosophische und kontroverstheologische Grundlegung. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1951.

———. Theological Ethics. Vol. 1, Foundations. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979.

Torrance, Thomas F. Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009.

———. Calvin’s Doctrine of Man. London: Lutterworth Press, 1949.

———. The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996.

———. Conflict and Agreement in the Church. 2 vols. London: Lutterworth Press, 1959–60.

———. Divine and Contingent Order. London: T&T Clark, 1998.

———. Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008.

———. Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994.

———. Scottish Theology: From John Knox to John McLeod Campbell. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996.

———. The School of Faith: The Catechisms of the Reformed Church. London: James Clarke, 1959.

———. Theology in Reconstruction. London: SCM Press, 1965.

———. Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988.

van der Kooi, Cornelis. This Incredibly Benevolent Force: The Holy Spirit in Reformed Theology and Spirituality. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018.

Webster, John. Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

———. Barth’s Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth’s Thought. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998.

———. Holiness. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003.

———. Word and Church: Essays in Christian Dogmatics. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001.

Williams, Rowan. Being Human: Bodies, Minds, Persons. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018.

Yoder, John Howard. Karl Barth and the Problem of War. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1970.

———. The Politics of Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 25, The Doctrine of Reconciliation: IV/2, §§ 65–66, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley, Study ed. (London: T&T Clark, 2010), § 66.

[2] Eberhard Jüngel, God’s Being Is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth, trans. John Webster (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001).

[3] Clifford Green, “Bonhoeffer’s Christian Peace Ethic, Conditional Pacifism, And Resistance,” in Michael Mawson and Philip G. Ziegler eds., The Oxford Handbook of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 345.

[4] Helmut Thielicke, Theological Ethics, vol. 1, Foundations, ed. and trans. William H. Lazareth (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 107.

[5] Karl Barth cited by John Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 108.

[6] Robert Letham, The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Its Historical Context (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2009), 106–7, 269. See also, Kevin Chiarot, The Unassumed Is the Unhealed: The Humanity of Christ in the Christology of T. F. Torrance (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013).

[7] T.F. Torrance, Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 13 [emphasis mine].

This is what part of my About Me page looks like here at the blog (below). Unfortunately, for some overwrought admissions filter that SwissUniversities use to identify foreign degree (to them) equivalencies my degrees from Multnomah were flagged (even though they are fully accredited degrees, with the highest American accreditations possible). Their system ostensibly flags schools that are outside the parameters they set, and if in fact your school doesn’t match exactly within those parameters your application is flagged, a rejection letter is automatically generated, and the process at that level never gets started (they don’t look at your transcripts, your CV etc.) That apparently is what happened to me, and there is no way really to make an appeal with central admissions at UNIGE without going through what could turn into a legal process (because the degrees at UNIGE themselves are state funded and thus tied into the country’s legislation for education). As a result, even though the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Geneva saw potential and merit and competence in me to study for the doctor of theology with them (which I take with soberness and as no small matter), because of the technicality built into central admissions screening process, my application was immediately flagged once they began a search on my double alma mater.

Interestingly, my degrees from Multnomah work for all schools in America, the UK, most of Europe, Australia, South Africa, so on and so forth, as far as being readily eligible for entrance into PhD programs thereat. But the Swiss university system has a very strict, and again, I’d say overwrought system, that artificially weeds out people who in fact have equivalent degrees to pursue study with them at the various schools in Switzerland. So, some folks end up getting “weeded out” even when they are fully eligible; simply because the parameters they build into their software screening system is, in my view, much too rigid.

Anyway, since the Faculty of Protestant Theology approved me to principally study for the Doctor of Theology degree with them (which denotes the competency and value and potential they see in me by God’s grace), I am going to keep this as part of my formal education listing (history), because outwith central admission’s overwrought stringency I would have fully made it into the program. Which in fact, as noted, I did on the side that really matters to me: the faculty of theology’s judgment. And when I say, faculty of theology, more pointedly I am referring to its Dean, Professor Dr. Christophe Chalamet.

So, honestly, I am heartbroken and crushed over this. But I also know the Lord knows best.

FORMAL EDUCATION

Faculty Recognition for Doctoral Study (Doctorat en théologie) — Principally approved by the Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Geneva to pursue doctoral research in Systematic Theology under Professor Dr. Christophe Chalamet (8 June — 14 October 2026). Geneva, Switzerland.(Note: While the Faculty of Theology and Dean Chalamet approved candidacy, general admissions did not formalize matriculation due to an administrative technicality—read more here).

ThD (Doctor of Theology, ecclesiastical degree/academic discipline), Systematic and Historical Theology. Martin Luther School of Bible and Theology. October 15, 2022. San Juan, Puerto Rico.

MA (Master of Arts advanced track, magna cum laude), New Testament Studies, Historical and Systematic Theology, Koine Greek. Multnomah Biblical Seminary. May 16, 2003. Portland, Oregon. (Accredited by the Association of Theological Schools – ATS).

BA (Bachelor of Arts), Double Major: Biblical Studies, Systematic Theology; Minor: Koine Greek. Multnomah Bible College. May 18, 2001. Portland, Oregon. (Accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities).

PS. Because this principal approval was a very significant thing, made by a very prestigious school and faculty (the school John Calvin himself founded as the Academy of Geneva), I am going to most surely keep this tied to my educational history timeline. If nothing else it bears witness to Christ of the work He has started in me, and will continue to do in me until it is finally complete in consummate glorification and vision.