Paul D. Molnar

Professor
Ph.D. Fordham University (Contemporary Systematic Theology)M.A. St. John's University (Dogmatic Theology and Moral Theology)B.A. Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception (Philosophy)

Paul D. Molnar, Professor, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Systematic Theology, Trinitarian Doctrine, Christology, Theological method.

Research Interests:  Trinitarian Doctrine, Christology, Revelation, Theological Epistemology, Theological Method, the Theology of Karl Barth and Thomas F. Torrance.

Paul D. Molnar, a Past-President and current Board Member of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, Board member and Editor and Publisher of the Karl Barth Society of North America Newsletter, is actively engaged in research in the area of Systematic Theology. 

 

Refereed Journals:

His most recent publications related to his special interest in Trinitarian Theology and Christology include the following articles in Refereed Journals:

  • "Conflicting Visions of Grace and Nature:  Appraising the Views of Thomas F. Torrance and Karl Rahner" forthcoming in Participatio: Journal of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, 2023.
     
  • “‘Torrance, Justification by Grace Alone, and ‘Liberation Theology’” forthcoming in Participatio: Journal of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, 2023.
     
  • “Is God’s Triunity Constituted by His Decision for Election? Barth and the Current Discussion” Article Review of Tyler Frick’s Karl Barth’s Ontology of Divine Grace: God Is His Decision published in the Journal of Theological Studies Vol. 74, Pt. 1, April 2023, pp. 340-54.
  • “Karl Barth and Catholic Theology:  Does Barth Undo the Deep Grammar of Nicene Faith?” in Pro Ecclesia Volume 31, Number 4, November 2022, pp. 521-41.
     
  • “What Difference Does One’s View of God Make in Understanding Sin and Salvation? Some Suggestions from Karl Barth” in the Scottish Journal of Theology 2022, 75, pp. 55-67.
     
  • “Do Christians Worship the Same God as Those from Other Abrahamic Faiths?” in Cultural Encounters Vol. 15 No. 2 Summer 2020, pp. 39-72.
  • “The Perils of Embracing a ‘Historicized Christology,’” Modern Theology 30:4, October 2014, pp. 454-80.
     
  • A Response to Bruce D. Marshall’s “The Absolute and the Trinity” entitled “Beyond Hegel with Karl Barth and T. F. Torrance,” Pro Ecclesia Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Spring 2014, pp. 165-73.
  • “The Obedience of the Son in the Theology of Karl Barth and of Thomas F. Torrance,” Scottish Journal of Theology 67 (1), February 2014, pp. 50-69.


Book Chapters:

  • Chapter Three entitled “Gunton on the Trinity” in the T&T Clark Handbook of Colin Gunton, ed. Adnrew Picard, Myk Habets & Murray Rae (London: T&T Clark, 2021), pp. 41-58
     
  • Introduction to the T&T Clark Handbook of Thomas F. Torrance, ed. Paul D. Molnar and Myk Habets (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2020), pp. 1-10.
     
  • Chapter Five of the T&T Clark Handbook of Thomas F. Torrance entitled “Thomas F. Torrance and Karl Barth: Similarities and Differences,” ed. Paul D. Molnar and Myk Habets (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2020), pp. 67-84
     
  • Chapter 2 entitled “Barth on the Trinity,” in the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth, ed. George Hunsinger and Keith Johnson (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 2020), pp. 24-34.  This work was published in February 2020.
     
  • Chapter 42 entitled “Barth and Roman Catholic Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth, ed. Paul Dafydd Jones and Paul T. Nimmo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 670-86.
     
  • Chapter 17 entitled “Thomas F. Torrance,” in The History of Scottish Theology, Volume III, ed. David Fergusson and Mark Elliott (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 227-41.
     
  • Classical Trinity: Catholic Perspective,” in Two Views on The Doctrine of the Trinity, ed. Jason S. Sexton and Stanley N. Gundry, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), pp. 69-111.
     
  • ​“Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque” in Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the 21st Century, ed. Myk Habets, (London/New York: Bloomsbury Academic, T & T Clark, 2014), pp. 20-39.
     
  • Thy Word is Truth’: The Role of Faith in Reading Scripture Theologically with Karl Barth,” in Thy Word is Truth: Barth on Scripture, ed. George Hunsinger, (Eerdmans, 2012).

Books:

  • Freedom, Necessity, and the Knowledge of God in Conversation with Karl Barth and Thomas F. Torrance (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2022)
     
  • Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology, 2/e (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017)
     
  • FaithFreedom and the SpiritThe Economic Trinity in BarthTorrance and Contemporary Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015).
     
  • Thomas F. Torrance: Theologian of the Trinity,(Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2009).
     
  • Incarnation and Resurrection: Toward a Contemporary Understanding, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007).
     
  • Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology, ( London/New York: T & T Clark/Continuum, 2002 (hardcover) and paperback in 2005.
     
  • Karl Barth and the Theology of the Lord’s Supper: A Systematic Investigation, (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1996). 

He is widely recognized as an authority on contemporary Trinitarian Theology and the theology of Karl Barth and of Thomas F. Torrance and was a Consulting Editor to TheDictionary of Historical Theology (Eerdmans, 2000), as well as author of the entry on Karl Barth, which the Library Journal singled out as one of the three best entries of the 314 entries in the volume.  He contributed three entries to The Westminster Handbook to Karl Barth (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2013) on the Incarnation, the Trinity and the Lord’s Supper.  He is currently a Consulting Editor with the Scottish Journal of Theology, a Contributing Editor with Cultural EncountersA Journal for the Theology of Culture, and on the Editorial Board of Participatio, the Journal of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship.

Molnar has been invited to lecture in such international settings as Auckland, New Zealand when he spoke at an International Symposium on the Trinity and taught a Graduate Course on the doctrine of the Trinity in May and June of 2009 at Laidlaw-Carey Graduate School; he also gave two lectures at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand which is the largest research University in Southeast Asia.  Most recently he was invited to lecture at the Universities of Edinburgh in 2011, St. Andrews in 2011 and 2013, and Aberdeen in 2011.  He also presented a lecture entitled, “Karl Barth and the Importance of Thinking Theologically within the Nicene Faith” at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina on February 23, 2014; he gave a lecture at the Eighth annual Karl Barth Conference at Princeton Theological Seminary on June 17, 2013 entitled “The Importance of the Doctrine of Justification in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance and of Karl Barth.”

Molnar is General Editor of the Series: Issues in Systematic Theology published by Peter Lang and has edited fifteen volumes in that series.  In 2010 he was invited to give four interviews with Grace Communion International on Trinitarian Theology and the theology of Thomas F. Torrance which were published online.  His book on Torrance was featured at a Meeting of the Karl Barth Society of North America in San Francisco held in connection with the Annual Convention of the American Academy of Religion.  And a Symposium on that book was published in Cultural Encounters in 2012.