2010-09-05

Challies posts an elaborated version of the Lord’s prayer, which may be helpful to break us out of rote recital of it. The Lord's Prayer

Bird doesn’t like the use of the term synergism to describe something bad about a soteriology, whether it be Second Temple Judaism, or whatever. That is, that such synergism is the kind of bad thing Paul warned about. He argues that any soteriology wherein salvation involves a human response, be it whether God animates the response directly or indirectly, is in some sense synergistic. That is, anywhere that is a divine sovereignty/human responsibility tension. He thinks that we should “evaluate soteriologies (ancient or modern) by looking at the type of divine action, its efficacy, and the human response that makes it effective in a particular scheme.” [I think this is a helpful caution, but I think the term still has its usefulness – as he says, it is synergistic in a sense, but if ‘synergism’ refers not merely to the fact that God and man both do something, but more specifically to a soteriology with those kinds of salvific actions for which credit and fame, etc. are due, then the word isn’t defined out of existence. That and it has enough freight in theological conversation to be useful (e.g. in contrast to monergistic)] Synerism-

Bayly notes that the corpses of two babies were found in a Hollywood basement, and police are investigating for foul play. But “Dig down into any sanitary landfill or filter the sludge of any sewage treatment plant and you can have as many infant corpses as your heart desires--tens of millions of them across our nation… little babies are being slaughtered all around us every day, to the tune of 1,300,000 per year.” “It's as if a couple guards at Treblinka were on a walk through the woods and came across the corpses of two Jews who appeared to have been murdered by civilians lacking proper credentials, and the guards issued a press release announcing their suspicion of foul play.” Dead babies everywhere

Sola panel has a meditation on Hannah (Samuel’s mother). Hannah is a nobody, but her small story is caught up in a bigger story. And Mary, mother of Jesus, is also the insignificant wife of an insignificant member of an insignificant tribe. “Hannah is a nobody, and so are we. Like Hannah, we have nothing to bring to God but our need. It's not the proudly self-sufficient but the broken and contrite in heart, those who realize they are nobody, who receive God's gift of salvation won through the death and resurrection of Jesus (Ps 51:17; Matt 5:1-12; Luke 18:9-14; 1 Cor 1:18-31). The gospel shows that God's character hasn't changed: he is still the one who humbles the proud and exalts the humble, the God of the nobody.” The God of the nobody

James Anderson has some comments on Hawking, concluding, “Unfortunately even the best physicists aren’t immune to embarrassing themselves when they turn their hands to metaphysics — and they’re most at risk when it comes to religiously controversial topics.”: i) Hawking must be speaking loosely, because the idea of self-creation is literally just plain incoherent. Something can only cerate if it already (logically) exists. ii) Nothing has no power to create because it is literally no thing. It’s not obvious what Hawking means, but he can’t literally mean this. iii) How could the law of gravity explain the universe? The law of gravity is a law of nature, the idea of which much philosophical ink has been spilled. At a minimum a law of nature such as the law of gravity describes how the natural universe operates, typically in terms of the mathematical relationships between quantifiable physical properties in a closed system. But how then could there be a law without nature itself? The laws of nature surely presuppose the existence of nature. If there was no universe, to what would the laws refer? Thus it is prima facie implausible that the law of gravity or any other physical law could even in principle explain the existence of the universe. The laws of Scotland presuppose the existence of Scotland. iv) The laws of nature, to all appearances, are contingent laws (e.g. the speed of light could have had a different speed). The use of empirical observations to discover the laws of nature merely underscores the point. Even if the laws of nature could explain the existence of a contingent universe, this merely pushes the problem back a step: “Why are the laws of nature the way they are and not otherwise?” v) Hawking could avoid this by asserting that the laws of nature are logically necessary. Now that would be a stupendous scientific breakthrough to prove (which he hasn’t). If so, though, our knowledge of them would be couldn’t be based on empirical observation since it cannot in principle establish necessary truths; they could only tell us what actually is and not what must be. vi) Hawking must have in view a metaphysical law, for gravity is a physical law. Hawking intends to leave physics, so it is more than a little ironic therefore to find Hawking declaring on the very first page of his new book that “philosophy is dead.” Why then is he turning to philosophy? Philosophy is alive and well, despite its mistreatment at the hands of scientists. vii) Arguing the universe has no beginning does not do anything to answer why it exists. Thomas Aquinas recognized that even an eternal universe demands an explanation for its existence if it exists contingently. viii) The objections to multiverse explanations for fine-tuning are mature. Also, there is simply no credible empirical support for the existence of a multiverse. “It’s no secret that such hypotheses are constructed precisely to avoid recourse to theistic or quasi-theistic explanations. They are, in short, religiously motivated rather than empirically motivated.” ix) A multiverse doesn’t solve anything - why would a multiverse exist at all? Unless the multiverse is thought to be necessary (as God does in classical theism). Yet if the multiverse is another kind of physical entity it isn’t obvious how it could exist necessarily. Physical entities are paradigm cases of contingent entities. Stephen Hawking Versus God 

Interestingly, Bird takes issue with Dan Ortlund over what appears to be an emphasizing the indicative of Christian sanctification to the diminishment of the imperative. “One of the standard features of Christian ethics is that it has an indicative part (what God has done for us in in salvation) and an imperative part (how we are to live in consequence). In other words, because of what God has done for you, now you should live in a manner worthy of your salvation.” He detects that believing more in the grace of God, etc. is being used, true as it is, to supplant the requirement to actually deliberately adopt changed attitudes and behaviours (which isn’t moralizing, but the genuine call to work out what God has worked in). There is clearly an intellectual aspect about knowing the call of God and his promises, but thereafter we are called to add certain virtues to our life in order to life a godly life. [Of note, in certain Presbyterian circles I heard the indicative supplanting the imperative, even to the point of calling any imperative legalism, unless it is filtered through a typological Christological grid first, which is not what Peter did in appealing to Sarah. It seems to stem out of a fear of Roman Catholic-esque meritorious thinking, because it is thought that to suggest that Christians need to obey God is to acquiesce to such legalism] Christian Sanctification - Indicative but no Imperative-

Beggar’s All: This posts cites White on Nicaea, who takes issue with the idea that the Trinity was political, on account of the fact that many at Nicaea were themselves brutally persecuted for holding fast to the faith, on 12 years before the council. “Why would anyone think that those kinds of men who had gone through so much, would roll over and accept some kind of new teaching and new god and new deity on the authority of the very state that had been persecuting them for so long? How does that make one wit of sense?” Council of Nicaea in 325 AD – Excellent Question!

Aomin: White comments on Calvary Chapel: “if you tell folks to believe sola scriptura they will naturally follow on to tota scriptura, which means you will have to be consistent in your teaching and theology. If you embrace human traditions in opposition to biblical truths, you will be "found out" by someone reading the Bible consistently. And that is what happens, over and over again, in the Calvary Chapel movement. The great non-denominational denomination has embraced an anti-sovereignty, anti-Reformed polemic that simply cannot stand up under consistent scrutiny. As a result, people taught by them keep running into passage after passage that seems to be saying the exact opposite of what they are hearing from the pulpit in regards to the sovereignty of God's grace in salvation.” And thus: Calvary Chapel Bibliology Produces Another Believing Calvinist

Hays notes the circularity of Romanist argumentation: “Before we can determine the truth of the papacy, we must appeal to the final authority of the papacy.” Running in place

Hays points out that Catholic apologist and philosopher Michael Liccione has admitted that not a single Catholic dogma can be demonstrated by Scripture alone. Nulla Scriptura

Phil Johnson points out the horror of the offense to God in false religion. Whereas we tend to regard all religion as inherently noble and honorable, false religion is gross sin. “No sinner is more lost than the religious sinner. If you have ever done much personal evangelism, or if you have unbelieving family members who are in bondage to some religious tradition, you know what I am talking about. There is no salvation for the person who thinks his religion can earn him a righteous standing before God.” So Mark 2:17. False religion lures people into a damning sense of self-righteousness. We need to view false religion from a more biblical perspective. The reality is, of all the gross wickedness that runs rampant in this fallen world, nothing is quite as evil as religion that departs from the truth. The Worst of All Evils