A Word from the Republisher

A Word from the Republisher

By Matthew Lankford

“Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.” — Proverbs 23:23
“Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD.” — Joel 2:17

It is with reverence for God's truth and deep gratitude for His providence that I offer this republication of Dr. J. Virgil Dunbar’s dissertation, Practical Consequences of Following Monistic Theology, originally submitted to the California Graduate School of Theology and approved by President Harold B. London and Dr. Charles Corwin.

This work was not retrieved from obscurity but personally preserved by Dr. Dunbar, who graciously sent it to me upon request. It is my honor and solemn stewardship to make it publicly available for the edification of the church, that others may benefit from his labor and be better equipped to stand fast in the truth of the gospel amid a rising tide of philosophical and spiritual confusion.

Dunbar’s work confronts one of the most foundational and destructive errors in theology: monism—the belief that all things, including God and creation, are ultimately one substance. This ancient lie, recycled endlessly in the systems of Gnosticism, Eastern mysticism, Mormonism, pantheistic science, and liberal theology, obliterates the Creator–creature distinction and replaces the personal, sovereign, triune God with a vague divine essence. Such a view is not merely erroneous—it is an act of rebellious suppression of the truth (Rom. 1:18), born of autonomous reasoning that seeks to erase the antithesis between God and man.

The stakes could not be higher. If God is not distinct from His creation, then sin is not moral rebellion but illusion. If Christ is not true God and true man in one person, then He is not a Mediator but a mystical archetype. If salvation is understood as fusion into the divine essence rather than justification by grace alone through faith alone in the imputed righteousness of Christ alone, then the gospel is lost and replaced with self-deifying mysticism. Dunbar faithfully exposes this threat and defends the biblical doctrine that God is absolutely sovereign, utterly holy, and graciously near—not by ontological collapse, but through the incarnate Son, who alone bridges the infinite chasm between Creator and creature.

This is no mere academic thesis. It is a pastoral, polemical, and practical resource that helps believers test the spirits, refute philosophical idolatries, and cling to sound doctrine. In an age of cosmic pantheism, therapeutic deism, and image-driven pseudo-Christianity, Dunbar's defense of biblical dualism—not metaphysical dualism, but the covenantal distinction between God and man—is both timely and timeless.

I also commend to you Dr. Dunbar’s companion work, Christ Can’t Be Pictured: God Is Not Like Art. It addresses the idolatrous impulse to represent God visually—another outgrowth of monistic theology that collapses the infinite into the visible. Virgil’s book reminds us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ by faith in His Word, not by sight or the imaginations of men. As our Lord declared: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

It has been my privilege to bring these works to light. My prayer is that they would serve to strengthen the saints, warn the careless, and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ—the eternal Son of God, uncreated and not part of creation as to His divine nature, yet who truly assumed to Himself a real, complete human nature—body and rational soul—from the substance of the Virgin Mary, made like us in all things except sin (John 1:14; Heb. 2:14–17; 4:15). In His one divine person, He remains the Maker, Sustainer, and Judge of all things, and in that same divine person subsisting in two natures, He is our only Mediator—God with us. And in that same glorified humanity, He will return visibly to judge the world in righteousness.

May the Lord use this work to strengthen His people, guard His truth, and glorify His Son.

Soli Deo Gloria.
— Matthew Lankford