Books by Douglas Vickers

In an age of theological innovation and doctrinal discount, the heritage of evangelical Reformed theology is in increasing danger of betrayal. Old established understandings of ""the faith once delivered to the saints"" are under attack, disturbing the peace of the church, tarnishing its witness, and challenging its purity. Against the pressures of newer fashions in thought, Douglas Vickers here returns to the seventeenth-century confessions of faith and illustrates from successive chapters common to three of those confessions the ways in which, and the reasons why, traditional beliefs and doctrinal constructions are to be preserved. Among questions examined with biblically informed insight are the relation between eternity and time and its significance for the gospel of redemption, the meaning and function of saving faith, the accomplishment of redemption by the incarnate Christ, the significance of his heavenly high priestly office, the high doctrine of the Christian believer''s union with Christ, and the implications these doctrinal realities hold for the Christian life.In a discussion of contemporary theologies, When God Converts a Sinner examines such innovations as the New Perspective on Paul, Federal Vision theology, Shepherdism, and other attempts to effect a paradigm shift in historically received theology.Dr. Douglas Vickers, keenly aware of historical theology and current developments, addresses vital biblical and theological issues of the day. A vigilant watchman on the walls, he provides necessary correctives to the siren songs of discordant voices heard within the church and to the minor side tracks and major derailments of contemporary theology.Robert E. Davis, Pastor, Covenant Church, Millers Falls, MassachusettsDouglas Vickers is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts. Throughout his academic career in the social sciences, he has maintained a close and productive interest in doctrinal and apologetic theology. His most recent theological titles include The Texture of Truth, Divine Redemption and the Refuge of Faith, Christian Confession and the Crackling Thorn, and The Fracture of Faith. He is a member of Covenant Church at Millers Falls, Massachusetts.

The contemporary church exhibits an elasticity and diversity of doctrine that at times sits oddly with biblical foundations. The presuppositions that God is and that God has spoken too often give place to the assumed priority of the explanatory competence of human reason. In that, the theology of the church is captive to the thought forms of an Enlightenment rationalism on one hand, or the looseness of postmodernist assumptions of individual autonomy on the other. In those respects, theological argument proceeds from man to God, and not--as in its biblically revealed contours--from God to man. The Divine Purchase calls the church back to a clear commitment to the gospel of redemption. The kernel of the gospel resides in the apostolic statement that Christ ""purchased the church with his own blood."" That divinely ordained accomplishment projects the only remedy for the human condition in the present decaying culture and its intellectual uncertainty and confusion.

Noted economist Douglas Vickers reexamines the relationship between economics and moral philosophy. He addresses three main issues: first, the historical means by which economics has consciously surrendered its original association with ethical categories and criteria;

Presenting an examination of the place and significance of time in economic theory, Douglas Vickers takes up the interrelated issues of uncertainty, ignorance, and criteria of choice. In the discussion of these questions he explains that the conventional thought-forms of probability are not generally applicable to theory-building in economics.

The place of money capital in the theory of the firm has remained a relatively neglected question in traditions of economic analysis. In this highly integrative work, issues in production, pricing, capital investment and financial theory are brought to new levels of interdependence.