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Dr. Philip J. Fisk

Dr. Philip J. Fisk

Guest Associate Professor of Historical Theology

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Education, degrees
  • 2015: Ph.D. in Historical Theology, Institute of Post-Reformation Studies (IPRS), and Jonathan Edwards Center Benelux, ETF Leuven
  • 2008: Master of Theology (Th.M.) in Historical Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA in association with The John Owen Centre, London
  • 1986: Master of Divinity (1986), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL
  • 1981: Bachelor of Science (1981), Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL
Academic positions and teaching experience
  • 2022–: Guest Associate Professor of Historical Theology, ETF Leuven
  • 2015–2022: Senior Researcher in Historical Theology, ETF Leuven
  • 2008–2015: Research Assistant in Historical Theology, ETF Leuven
  • 1986–1988: Instructor of English as a second language (1986-1988), English Language Services, River Forest, IL
Church ministry
  • 2017–:  Ministry at the International Baptist Church (IBC) – Brussels
  • 2008–2017: Ministry at the EGL, Leuven, Belgium
  • 1992–2008; Missionary in Belgium with the Evangelical Free Church of America-ReachGlobal in partnership with the Vrije Evangelische Gemeenten, in Ghent, Zwijnaarde and Knokke-Heist.
  • 1990–1991: EFCA Missionary in Zaïre
  • 1983–1985: Missionary intern in Zaïre with the EFCA
Selected Bibliography

Books

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

  • “Jonathan Edwards on Election.” In T&T Clark Handbook of Election, edited by Edwin Chr. van Driel, 311–31. London: T&T Clark Bloomsbury, 2023.
  • “Jonathan Edwards and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. Aesthetic Theology and The Art of Beautiful Thinking.” In Edwards, Germany, and Transatlantic Contexts, ed. Rhys Bezzant, 113–33. New Directions in Jonathan Edwards Studies 3. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2022.
  • “The Incomprehensibility and Knowability of God in Protestant Prolegomena.” In On Knowing God: Interdisciplinary Theological Perspectives. Jakobus Kok, Martin Webber, and Jeremy Otten, eds, 27‒68. Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 80. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022.
  • “Introduction. On Knowing God: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.” In On Knowing God: Interdisciplinary Theological Perspectives. Jakobus Kok, Martin Webber, and Jeremy Otten, eds, xi‒lvi. Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 80. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2022.
  • “Jonathan Edwards and Samuel Clarke on Liberty and Necessity: A Matter of Distinction, and Why it Matters.” Jonathan Edwards Studies 10 (2020): 67–79.
  • “Que Sera, Sera: The Controversial 1702 Harvard Commencement Quaestio on Whether the Immutability of God’s Decree Takes Away Human Freedom of the Will.” In Jonathan Edwards within the Enlightenment: Controversy, Experience, & Thought, edited by Daniel N. Gullotta and John T. Lowe, 283–98. New Directions in Jonathan Edwards Studies 7. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020.
  • “Petrus van Mastricht and Freedom of the Will.” In Petrus van Mastricht (1630-1706): Text, Context, and Interpretation, edited by Adriaan C. Neele, 111–26. Reformed Historical Theology 62. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020.
  • “The Tension between Jonathan Edwards’s ‘Controversies’ Notebook and Freedom of Will on Whether Reality Is Open and Contingent.” In The Global Edwards: Papers from the Jonathan Edwards Congress held in Melbourne, August 2015, edited by Rhys S. Bezzant, 121–35. Australian College of Theology Monograph Series. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2017.
  • “Divine Knowledge at Harvard and Yale: From William Ames to Jonathan Edwards.” Jonathan Edwards Studies 4 (2014): 151–78.
  • “The Theological Backdrop to Divine Knowledge at Harvard and Yale: From William Ames to Jonathan Edwards.” Theologica Wratislaviensia 7 (2012), 21-49.
  • “Calvin’s Metaphysics of Our Union with Christ.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 11 (2009): 309–31.
  • “The Unaccommodated Bavinck and Hodge: Prolegomena with Natural Certainty.” Trinity Journal 30 (2009): 107–27.
  • “Jonathan Edwards’s Freedom of the Will and His Defence of the Impeccability of Jesus Christ.” Scottish Journal of Theology 60 (2007): 309–25.

Paper Presentations

  • “Edwards and the Art of Beautiful Thinking: Some Methodological Repercussions,” Keynote Address, Global Jonathan Edwards Congress, Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, 6 July 2023.
  • “Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, and Reformed High Orthodoxy.” The Jonathan Edwards Centre, University of Liverpool, UK, 19 October 2022.
  • “G.W. Leibniz and Jonathan Edwards on Moral Necessity, The Principle of Sufficient Reason, and the Origin of Evil.” The Jonathan Edwards Centre, University of Liverpool, UK, 15 June 2021 (online).
  • “The Relation of Contingence to Creation ex nihilo and its Implication for Edwards’s Use of That Grand Principle of Common Sense: A Line of Inquiry.” The International Jonathan Edwards Conference, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 2-4 October 2019.
  • “Jonathan Edwards’s Turn from the Classic-Reformed Tradition and His Innovative Notion of Freedom of the Will.” The Puritan Research Center Colloquia, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2 May 2019.
  • “Jonathan Edwards’s Innovative Notion of Freedom of Will: An Historical-Theological Approach.” Evangelical Theological Society, Denver, Colorado, 13 November, 2018.
  • “Should Christian Exclusivists, Holding to the Crown Rights of King Jesus Today, Tolerate Toleration in Today’s Pluralist Society? An Historical-Theological Approach to Understanding the Relationship of Saints and Society.” Neo-Calvinism and Europe: Religion, Nation, Culture, Fifth European Conference on Neo-Calvinism, Leuven, Belgium, 29 August 2018.
  • “The Will to Love God Above All Else: Luther, Edwards, and the Bondage of the Will.” Annual REFORC Conference on Early Modern Christianity, Faculty of Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw, Poland, 24-26 May 2018.
  • “The Wise Order and Connection of Things in a Wise Decree.” Jonathan Edwards Congres: The Global Edwards, Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia, 24-28 August 2015.
  • “Reformed Freedom? The Nexus between New England Commencement Broadsides and Edwards’s Freedom of Will.” Christianity in Today’s World: Jonathan Edwards JEC Poland, Ewangelikalna Wyzsca Szkola Teologiczna (EWST), Wroclaw, Poland, 31 May-1 June 2011.