I’m just about to begin a year of research as a Henry Fellow at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I’ll be commuting Monday through Thursday from Texas to Illinois. That will be a lot of fun (not!). What will be a lot of fun (and interesting too) is exploring the philosophical underpinnings of the doctrine of divine activity with a group of scholars. My specific project is to explore neo-Aristotelian accounts of divine creative activity.

There is this widespread idea—I’m not sure where it started or how we got here—that dinosaurs roamed among humans in the pre-Internet age. Ok, well not really. Let me try again. There is this widespread idea today that anything before the smartphone age is ancient. Novelty is king and queen today. Being “progressive” or “a forward-thinker” are the new monickers of the contemporary intelligentsia.

Stories awaken. Research informs. Drama shapes. Arguments challenge. Heroic escapes. These are some of the reasons why I read books. 2017 was a record year: 58 books read, for a total of 361, since I started keeping a book log on June 1, 2009. For each book read I record the date completed, title, author, and a one sentence summary. As is now tradition, in this blog post I list my favorites of the year in philosophy, apologetics, fiction, non-fiction, and devotional reading: