Meet the new PhD candidates of the Graduate School FRT VU!

David Alinurdin

I am currently an assistant professor at Southeast Asia Bible Seminary, Indonesia. For the past six years I have been teaching systematic theology and biblical studies for undergraduate programmes, as well as being the editor for our seminary's academic journal. Prior to that, I spent ten years in church ministry as a full-time pastor in a Chinese Methodist Church in Jakarta until being asked to return to my alma mater to equip young people who are called for full-time ministry.

The title of my research is The Problem of Divine Action: Finding a Theological Framework of God’s Action in the World. This research is focused on Noninterventionist Objective Divine Action (NIODA). Considered as the standard model of divine action in the current dialog between science and theology, NIODA could be scientifically plausible. Nevertheless, according to critics, it is still theologically inadequate based on the notion of Christian doctrine built on biblical theology and the trinitarian theological tradition. So, I am going to try to come up with a theological framework for an adequate notion of divine action that draws on overarching biblical theology themes on God’s action in the world from creation to new creation.The research question is, taking a cue from the current scholarly debate on NIODA, how can we construct a framework that supports a full-fledged Christian-theological notion of God’s actions in the world and still remains scientifically plausible?

Mark Shaw

I am pursuing my PhD parttime next to my job as consultant. My research project focusses on a topic in theology proper, metaphysics and philosophy of religion.

More specifically, I am interested in theoretical advantages of perfect being theism as an ultimate explanation of reality.