Hays gives what would be his commencement address, for graduating high school students, reminding them not to be driftwood – or a beetle, reacting, being moved by the furniture of life rather than moving it – but rather they should recognize that they will die, live wisely, and understand that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The beginning of wisdom
Hays comments on skepticism. All skeptics are selective skeptics, or they would refute themselves, having no frame of reference. They need to treat some knowledge as reliable to treat other possible sources as dubious. Not all skepticism is bad. Now, the question is whether God sees to it that people know what they need to know – to fulfill His purposes. Epistemology was originally devised by pre-Christian pagans (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, the pre-Socratics), and Plato held that the only objects of knowledge are timeless truths. Truth was all important – how can we know anything? Contemporary epistemology in large measure shares these priorities. Hays lists how this appears in some religious areas as well, and points out that the common problem is that they see no value in error. Yet, the Fall happened because of error, and that was for God’s purposes. The examples go on. Joseph. The crucifixion. Pharaoh. God deludes a subset of humanity (2 Thes. 2:10-12). Or even secular history: Hitler invading Russia. The terrorist who doesn’t know enough to do harm. “A Christian epistemology should learn from Christian historiography. It should learn to appreciate the utilitarian value of false beliefs in grand scheme of things. “A Christian epistemology should learn from Christian historiography. It should learn to appreciate the utilitarian value of false beliefs in grand scheme of things.” God uses human error as an instrumental factor to advance the chain-of-events and fulfill his overarching purpose. Skepticism about scepticism
Engwer again shows the inconsistency of argumentation against the existence of Jesus, where the denier will accept claims about Julius Caesar, but doesn’t reckon with his own skepticism of the textual transmission of Tacitus. The argument is, “Christian A was dishonest and forged document B, so maybe Christian C was dishonest also and forged document D.” The denier plants seeds of doubt and expects the audience to fill gaps in lieu of argumentation. Establishing Quite Clearly That Jesus Didn't Exist
Manata continues debating Gerety, who says that there is contradiction in Scripture, and in God. Manata points out that paradox results from an unarticulated equivocation by the revealer – like a three dimensional being telling a two-dimensional being that a cone is circular and a cone is triangular. He wouldn’t have the capacity to understand how to reconcile these, when in truth, they are both true. Manata cautions against sloppy language – there is no contradiction for us, just the appearance of it. Gerety seems to think that God can believe in paradoxes Himself, but God exists, no contradictions exist, so God isn’t a contradiction. A Green Stye
Arminians often allege that in Calvinism God is the author of sin (not the term is a metaphor, so it doesn’t mean much in itself), but they probably mean that God would be the cause of sin. But they still need to define cause, since it isn’t trivial, and there are different ways of thinking about it: i) The basic idea of counterfactual theories of causation is that the meaning of causal claims can be explained in terms of counterfactual conditionals of the form “If A had not occurred, C would not have occurred”. ii) Negative causation occurs when an absence serves as cause, effect, or causal intermediary. Causation, at the end of the day, has to do with difference making, be it a positive or negative. In examples of negative causation, involving a counterfactual theory of causation, events have a default setting in terms of what would eventuate absent artificial intervention – like letting a tiger out of a cage. iii) But if God decreed the fall, is God the cause of Adam’s sin? Does the decree make a difference to the outcome – would things have gone down differently if it was not predestined? The decree isn’t God’s intervention, preventing Adam from doing something he would otherwise naturally do. We’re talking about God’s choice of a possible world: There is nothing in particular that Adam as a possible agent would do. When God decrees the occurrence of a hypothetical scenario, he’s not making an agent do something he wouldn’t, since there is no one thing a possible agent would do. God selects on possible outcome, which makes a difference in the sense that absent the action there would be no outcome, but not that Adam would do something else. Hays draws an analogy – there is a possible world where a card player is dealt a royal flush; this dealing is effectively random in that world, as a result of the combinatorial variables. God decrees that the royal flush is dealt, so now the dealing is both determined and random, and the possible coincides with the actual. The possible outcome is indeterminate inasmuch as there is more than one hypothetical outcome. There are as many hypothetical scenarios as God can coherently hypothesize. Possible outcomes could be otherwise, but not actual outcomes. There is one actual outcome from the dealing as a result of God choosing to instantiate that outcome. The authorship of evil
Hays points out that on a Scripturalistic epistemology, not only don’t public demands, apologies, and recantations count as knowledge, but they don’t even count as probable knowledge (he’s debating a Scripturalist asking for just that, when this individual denies the possibility of sense knowledge or extrascriptural knowledge). Note that The Westminster Divines do not restrict knowledge to the explicit or implicit teaching of Scripture. Indeed, in the very section you allude to, they also mention the “light of nature.” It seems Scripturalists deny sense knowledge yet presuppose it in interpreting WCF and Scripture, and while they distinguish between knowledge, opinion, and ignorance, their own statements on the aforementioned grounds don’t rise to ‘knowledge.’ If you limit all knowledge to Scripture, you cannot know Scripture (e.g. terms in Scripture are defined by extrabiblical usage as well). The axiomatic insistence that revealed truth could never appear paradoxical to man is groundless. Moreover, such an insistence requires an extrabiblical argument and would not rise above opinion to knowledge, and by the Scripturalists epistemology would not be known. Sean of the Dead
Hays posts secularists attempting to account for morality. Edis takes morality as politics, and trying to provide a basis for it is to try to transcend the politics of it. He makes more ought statements: An intellectually coherent scientific naturalism must come to grips with moral ecologies and moral pluralism. It must act against the desire to make morality transcend politics. By doing so, however, naturalism renders itself socially useless, perhaps even dangerous, in many contexts. Hume takes moving to ought statements as seemingly inevitable in establishing systems of morality, but that it is absurd, for to begin with empirical facts is to begin with what is the case, not what is normative, by definition, and to conclude with what ought to be using an argument founded on empirical facts is fallacious since the premises by definition exclude normative statements. The conclusion derives what ought be from premises that merely say what is. 'Good,' according to Moore, is a simple property which cannot be described using more basic properties. Committing the naturalistic fallacy is attempting to define 'good' with reference to other natural, i.e. empirically verifiable, properties. Ruse argues for a phenomenal morality, in that the truth is moral nihilism, but the apparent objectivity of truth is an adaptation to keep us social, and that is a game that we cannot escape. We intuit moral objectivity, we regard it as such, but that doesn’t mean it is objective. He agrees with Hume’s law. Ethics has no justification because it just is. Ethics are illusory. [he makes the most odd ought statement here:] at some level, morality has to have some sort of force (lest we start to cheat). Russell seems to view the arbiter between good and bad as the feelings, and the majority feeling on the matter, comparing differences to jaundice and colourblindness. Smith chalks up the illusion of meaningfulness as advantageous from a Darwinian point of view. Anthology of secular ethics
Hays quotes Dawkin’s labeling of theism as the deceit of an imaginary friend, with the benefits of pretending someone is there, etc. He asks, who wants to believe a lie? Hays then quotes Carl Sagan fondly writing of extraterrestrials, and the help they would probably bring. Imaginary friends
Hays writes that the Scripturalist cannot learn what the Bible teaches through the use of his senses, for Scripturalism rejects the senses as a source of knowledge. The Bible is the only source of knowledge for him. The subject of knowledge cannot even know about the object of knowledge (i.e. the Bible) because that object is the only source of knowledge. On these terms people can have no innate knowledge of the Bible, so they can’t learn of it that way – Scripturalists reject that mode of knowledge, since it would mean that the human mind is the immediate source of knowledge. the scripturalist makes claims about other positions, people, etc. that rely on extrascriptural knowledge, so he can’t know these things. Hays writes that we shouldn’t come to Scripture with an extrascriptural presumption regarding the presence or absence of revealed paradoxes. Rather, we should find out what God has revealed. Our posture is to listen and learn. Not superimpose an extrascriptural presumption on the nature of what God is permitted to tell us. It would seem that the presence of unresolved paradox in abstract disciplines indicates that reality is far more complex than the human mind – paradox is the predictable result of a finite mind that’s trying to grasp an object of knowledge far more complex than the subject. You're dethpicable!
When a Scripturalist says that extrascriptural claims are only opinions because they don’t rise to the level of knowledge, is his statement about extrascriptural claims a true statement, since by his own position he cannot know extrascriptural claims, so he cannot know that extrascriptural claims are only opinions? Again, can on these grounds the distinction between knowledge, opinion, and ignorance be known, since it is not in Scripture? Is Scripturalism Scriptural-
Manata points out that Arminians tend to try to defeat Calvinism using the gut-reaction problem of evil, rejecting the Calvinist understanding of God on the basis of a moral intuition about what a good God wouldn’t do. Yet, unbelievers have powerful gut-reaction moral intuitions about a God who would let rape happen, etc. and Arminians reject these reasons for objecting to God’s existence. The Arminian should really be consistent here. How 'bout 'dem apples
Scripturalists also cannot know the laws of logic, since they presuppose them in going to the Scripture. Their criteria for knowledge, charitably defined as “if a claim is justified as knowledge by virtue of it being a word from God, then any proposition not verified by a word from God must be shown to be just as certain as a word from God in order to be known” by a supporter, is itself extra-scriptural and must be justified to move beyond opinion, on their grounds. The immediate point at issue is not whether statements of Scripture are true, but whether statements about Scripture are true. Under scripturalism, how is it that the latter can ever count as knowledge? Rather, statements never rise to the level of knowledge. Knowledge is a state of mind. Statements are either true or false. What is true and what is knowable are two different things. In principle, a falsehood is knowable. It can be known to be false. Did John Robbins know anything-
Manata points out that Turretinfan’s claim (he’s a Clarkian) that man has innate knowledge is at odds with the Scripturalist experts have written. A Quick Note on Scripturalist Context
DeYoung writes that as churches, in dealing with the sin of homosexuality, we need courage, humility, love, hope, and prayer; not peace-loving, conflict-avoiding, middle of the road compromising; not hostility or gay jokes; not rage. Pray that we be a welcoming place for strugglers, sinners, and sufferers, that God would rid us of unrighteous anger, cowardice, compromise, and fear. A Sermon on Leviticus 18-1-30 (Part 4)
Spurgeon writes that in John 6:47-48 the order is telling, for only a living man can eat: first, life through believing on him, and then food to sustain that life. The best spiritual food in the world is useless to those who are spiritually dead; and one very essential part of the gospel is that truth which our Savior so plainly taught, "Ye must be born again." All attempts at feeding are worthless unless a person is born again. No Need to Feed the Dead
Theology, Powlison says, is the compass that points to true north as the storm of life swirls around us. Studying theology is essential, but we cannot neglect studying the realities of human experience of this world. Powlison- Pastoral Ministry and Literature
Here’s an argument at RBF blog that anecdotally argues for the Lord’s Day on the first day of the week, based on the timing of the Lord’s appearances, the day on which Pentecost occurred, Paul and Luke assembling with the people of God to break bread on the first day of the week, and Paul ordering the Christians in Corinth to follow the pattern that had already been set with the churches in Galatia. The article infers from this that people are not to present offerings whenever they wish. The Lord’s Day
While unbelievers protest that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth are unhistorical, Philo and Josephus both record the practice in a similar context of burying the crucified dead. The burial of Christ
Hays quotes EJ Young on Psalm 139:16, pointing out that David is marveling at the preciousness of God’s knowledge, on the grounds that God has ordained his every day, that David is not the master or captain of his fate, but that every day and every event is written in God’s book: David doesn’t resent this at all, but embraces it, knowing that all that God does it right; yet, for some odd reason, many professing believers resist, resent, and outright deny that God has mapped out our entire life before we even existed. It’s understandable that pagans and atheists detest this, or even those under dictatorships, or rebellious teens. but why would a professing believer resent divine control, the idea that God has a blueprint for his life? More than that, they positively despise the idea, claiming that God is a puppeteer and we’re reduced to robots. Lucifer was the first Arminian. The first libertarian. The very first creature to crave his emancipation from God’s dominion. The only explanation is that one does not trust God with his life, that He can’t be trusted to author your life. So how can they have faith in Him. Do they instead think that they’re wiser than God? Rather, every single person is a story in God’s book. Your days are numbered
Turk writes that the criterion of “blameless” for an elder is the term that means "that which cannot be called into to account; unreproveable; unaccused; blameless." It does not end after he gets tenure. It means that there is nothing to blame him for. The opposite of Cretan culture. Blameless
Johnson, commenting on complaints about the church’s failure to reach men, points to the tendency in the past centuries to temper hard truths, to cushion things, and to use flowery rhetoric to impress the audience about the speaker’s sophistication. Spurgeon abhorred the trend. He criticized effeminate speaking, and speaking with lisps, and converting r’s into w’s! No one remembers the effeminate preachers of the past (who at the time were absolutely certain that they were more "relevant" because they were more in tune with their own times than Spurgeon was), but Spurgeon is still read. The Bible says the church ought to be led by men, and every man in the church ought to aspire to be like the perfect man, Jesus Christ. And this involves the manly proclamation and defense of the truth of Scripture, and the living reflection of the embodiment of Christ’s character. Manly Men
Johnson rails against the trend in the church to look for effeminate (weak, soft, dainty) and vulnerable leaders. That’s not a slur against femininity or women. “The point is that certain qualities which are admirable traits for mothers and wives are dishonorable mannerisms for men to exhibit (or hide behind) when duty calls them to proclaim truth boldly or defend the faith against error.” There are times to be gentle, but the pulpit is not for wimps, for it entails the declaration and proclamation of God’s word as the oracles of God. Today, sponginess and hesitancy are virtues over accuracy and plain speech, people just want to have fun, not have the word preached. The whole drift of the evangelical movement reflects a steady movement away from the one, singular New Testament command that ought have first place on every pastor's agenda: "Preach the word . . . in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.") "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong" (1 Corinthians 16:13). Some More Thoughts on Effeminate Evangelicalism
Spurgeon warns against the horrid sin of setting sin before others, of leading them into sin, and teaching children sinful ways, and so participating even in the sins of others, for which the hottest place in hell is reserved. The Sin of Setting Temptation Before Others
Johnson responds to a criticism, writing that “Most of the seminars, rallies, and books targeting evangelical men have actually made the situation worse. They are either dominated by feminine themes (personal relationships, dealing with your emotional hurts, learning the various "love languages," and other forms of sensitivity training)—or else they tend to paint a picture of masculinity that sounds like it is taken from The Brothers Grimm rather than Scripture.” Cusswords are proof that men are coming to grips with being men in the churches (referring to the critic)??? Johnson calls Eldridge’s perspective that every man “longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue” as an unbiblical irresponsible little boy's notion of manhood. The fault isn’t women, its the who are too timid, too lazy, too fainthearted, too self-absorbed, too immature, too emotionally dysfunctional, too crude, too in love with fleshly values, or whatever, and have turned the church over to women. It’s a sin problem. Real manliness is defined by Christlike character, the fully orbed fruit of the Spirit, “rounded out with strength, courage, conviction, strong passions, manly love, and a stout-hearted willingness to oppose error and fight for the truth—even to the point of laying down your life for the truth if necessary.” Going into the woods and making noise isn’t manly. More on the Sissification of the Church
Challenge: Well, Jesus hung around with prostitutes and sinners!
Response: ...and called them to repentance, so they became exes. Correct. When contextualization is made a dodge (NEXT! #12)
Challies writes about how men are de facto considered predators in our culture, and how children are even being raised to view things this way. E.g. an ad campaign for Virginia's Department of Health features a picture of a man's hand holding a child's hand with these words plastered over it: "It doesn't feel right when I see them together." The message seems clear. "The implication is that if you see a man holding a girl's hand, he's probably a predator." This is damaging children’s relations with men. Fewer and fewer men teach in elementary schools. There are some tragic anecdotes illustration the hurt from this stuff. Challies notes most predators are men, and there is wisdom in teaching children to be careful. An Inflated Predator Panic
Here’s a remarkable video from John Piper. No, Mr. President. Killing Is Killing No Matter What We Call It
16 Passages that Emphasize God's Uniqueness
Among other things, Phillips points to the fact that most Christians eat ham as a retort against those who wrongly use God’s immutability as justification for continualism. Misusing God's immutability as a continuationist dodge (NEXT! #13)
"Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression? The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and forever to your past. . . . Never look back at your sins again. Say, 'It is finished, it is covered by the Blood of Christ.' That is your first step. Take that and finish with yourself and all this talk about goodness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you. What you need is not to make resolutions and to live a better life, to start fasting and sweating and praying. No! You just begin to say, 'I rest my faith on Him alone, who died for my transgressions to atone.'" D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, page 35. http://christisdeeperstill.blogspot.com/2009/05/just-begin-to-say.html
