db on altmc

Don Bromley nails it!!! If you are not reading Think Theologically you are wrong. And if you are, keep an eye out for Bromley, he seems to be a good thinker. Here is his lengthy post:

My favorite scene from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy:

Ron: “Mmm. San Diego. Drink it in. It always goes down smooth. Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diago, which of course in German means a whale’s vagina.” Veronica: “No, there’s no way that’s correct.” Ron: “I’m sorry, I was trying to impress you. I don’t know what it means. I’ll be honest, I don’t think anyone knows what it means anymore. Scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago.” Veronica: “Doesn’t it mean Saint Diego?” Ron: “No. No.” Veronica: “No, that’s what it means. Really.” Ron: “Agree to disagree.”

This classic scene from Anchorman illustrates an absurd application of the phrase, “Agree to disagree.” Does “San Diego” mean “Saint Diego,” or was the translation lost hundreds of years ago? Of course Veronica Corningstone is right and Ron Burgundy is wrong, regardless of whether they “agree to disagree,” or whether they declare it a “disputable matter.” San Diego means Saint Diego. But they may still “agree to disagree” as a way to, in essence, call a truce and spare the relationship. After all, Ron’s ignorance isn’t doing anyone any harm. What does that have to do with Ken Wilson’s A Letter to My Congregation: An evangelical pastor’s path to embracing people who are gay, lesbian and transgender in the company of Jesus?

“Disputable Matters” in Romans 14

In Chapter 4 and 5 of ALTMC Wilson discusses Romans chapter 14 as a template for handling controversial issues in the church. In Romans 14 Paul alludes to a conflict between the “strong” and the “weak.” The “weak in faith” refrained from eating meat, which they were persuaded was “unclean,” or drinking wine—they ate only vegetables. And they treated certain days as more sacred and special than others. The “strong” had a faith which allowed them to eat meat, drink wine, and to regard each day as any other. Paul exhorts each group to refrain from judging the other, or treating the other with contempt. “The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them… One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind” (Romans 14:3, 5, NIV). Wilson’s basic argument can be summarized as follows: 1) The “weak” had strong moral convictions about eating meat and observing certain special days (e.g. the Sabbath). These were most likely the Jewish Christians. They would correspond to the “conservatives” today, who have strong moral convictions about homosexuality. The “strong” of Paul’s day did not share these convictions and felt free to eat meat and treat each day the same. Most likely these were the Gentile Christians. They would correspond to the “liberals” today, who do not share the conservatives’ beliefs about the sinfulness of homosexual behavior. 2) The morality of eating meat or observing holy days was a first-order moral issue of Paul’s day, rooted in Old Testament commands, and threatened to split apart the church. It would correspond to the issue of homosexuality in the church today. 3) Paul commands the “weak” and the “strong” to respect each other’s convictions regarding meat eating and holy days. They should not judge or hold each other in contempt. The person who is convinced that eating meat is wrong should obey their own conscience. The person who in not convinced that it is wrong is free to eat. Likewise, in the church today those who believe that homosexual activity is a sin are free to believe so. Those who do not believe that it is a sin are free to believe so and act accordingly. Each person should do what they are convinced is the right thing, and not judge the other. They should “agree to disagree.” 4) Issues which are not “Dogma” (an essential truth of Christianity) or “Doctrine” (central teaching of a Christian tradition) are “Opinion” and should be treated as “disputable matters.” This is particularly true when faithful Christians, both citing biblical truths, disagree on an issue. The heart of Wilson’s argument is that in Romans 14 Paul is dealing with a first-order moral issue for which there were compelling scriptural arguments to be made on both sides. It was “disputable” because it was not a clear-cut case of right or wrong, biblical or unbiblical, moral or immoral. Rather, both sides were making reasonable appeals to Scripture and were convinced in their own consciences. Regarding the issue of eating meat and drinking wine, Wilson writes:

The vegetarianism of the weak may have been to avoid meat improperly drained of blood. While this practice is widely considered acceptable to many Christians today, there is strong biblical reason to avoid it, even for those not obligated to keep kosher. After all, this practice was first introduced in the book of Genesis in the time of Noah, to reinforce the sanctity of life— the image of God in humanity. (ALTMC, Kindle Locations 1597-1600).

And regarding the observance of “special days,” Wilson takes the view that this refers to Sabbath observance (this is not established by the text itself, which does not mention “Sabbath” (sabbaton), but it’s a possibility). He writes:

Take Sabbath-keeping, a matter that has receded to the status of a secondary moral or even a “merely ceremonial” concern in the contemporary church. Indeed, there is a strong case to be made that observance of the Sabbath is binding on Christians. It is, after all, a command enshrined in the Ten Commandments. Even more, it is embedded in creation—God having rested from his work on the seventh day. In this sense, Sabbath-breaking could be regarded as a sin against nature, because it violates God’s created order. (ALTMC, Kindle Location 1620-1623).

According to Wilson, the contention between the strong and the weak was truly over first-order moral issues. However, while it is certainly arguable that “the weak” believed these were moral issues, it is abundantly clear that Paul counted himself among “the strong,” who did NOT consider these moral issues at all. Paul writes, “I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself” (verse 14). Here Paul is echoing the teaching of Jesus, who said, “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them… For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:15, 18-22, NIV) [Side note: Isn’t it interesting that Jesus calls out “sexual immorality” (Greek porneia) as something that truly does defile a person? Jesus and his audience would have included homosexual activity, along with adultery, incest, and bestiality, as porneia. Refer to any good theological dictionary of the New Testament. Also refer to Thomas Lyon’s excellent discussion of porneia in his post, On the Road Between Ephesus and Thyatira: An Alternative Model to Ken Wilson’s in ALTMC, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3] Paul’s words also reflects Peter’s vision In Acts 10, where the Lord says, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (verse 15). Paul continues to clarify this in Romans 14, where in verse 20 he again reiterates, “All food is clean…” The point could not be any clearer. The Jewish food laws no longer had any bearing on Christians. Eating or drinking certain things did not make one “unclean.” Eating meat, or refraining from eating meat, was not a truly a moral issue, regardless of what “the weak” believed. The same is true of the “special days” which were no longer required. Hence Paul writes to the Galatians, “You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you” (Gal 4:10-11, NIV). In other words, you are no longer under that Law, including the observance of special days, you are free in Christ! Observing “special days” was not truly a moral issue, regardless of what “the weak” believed. Paul clearly expresses that the issues of dispute in Romans 14 were not truly moral issue at all, but rather issues of ritual uncleanness and tradition, which had no moral bearing on Christians whatsoever. Furthermore, Paul’s rationale for treating this issue as a “disputable matter” was NOT that there were compelling biblical arguments on both sides of this issue, so “agree to disagree.” The “weak” were “weak in faith” precisely because they had not appropriated the truth: that food laws and observance of special days were no longer binding upon the people of God. As James D. G. Dunn writes in his Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 38B, Romans 9-16:

In this case the weakness is trust in God plus dietary and festival laws, trust in God dependent on observance of such practices, a trust in God which leans on the crutches of particular customs and not on God alone, as though they were an integral part of that trust. …Paul is quite clear that the position they hold to is one characterized by a deficiency in faith. By implication they are putting too much weight on the outward form of the covenant people (2:17–29); too much weight on their physical (fleshly) membership of Israel (13:14); they are not living out of complete dependence on God like father Abraham (4:19–21). Paul is in no doubt: the attitude thus expressed is deficient, “weak.”

So why didn’t Paul simply correct “the weak” and instruct them to stop refraining from eating meat? Why didn’t Paul simply tell “the weak” to stop observing special days? He writes, “I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean.” (Romans 14:14, NIV) In other words, despite the fact that all foods are clean and acceptable, if someone is convinced that certain foods are “unclean” they should abstain, for the sake of their own conscience. The food is “unclean” for that person. If at some point their faith becomes strong, and they come to understand (as Paul does) that no food is unclean, they could then eat without sin. Do you see the distinction? Let me make a silly analogy. Remember the children’s rhyme, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back”? Well, we know that stepping on a crack does not break your mother’s back. But if someone were convinced that it really would, they shouldn’t do it! It is not a matter of whether stepping on a crack is actually a moral issue—it is clearly not! Stepping on cracks in itself is amoral, not a matter of right or wrong. What is a moral issue is doing something that you are convinced in your conscience is wrong. Something that is not objectively a moral wrong can become a moral wrong if it is a matter of conscience. But this argument does not work both ways! If something truly IS a moral issue, a sin, then one’s conscience on the matter does not change the fact one way or the other. Abusing a child is a moral wrong whether or not one believes it to be. The fact that a person can justify it to themselves, or that their conscience is not bothered, does not thereby make it morally neutral. Female infanticide (as was and is practiced in many cultures) is a moral wrong regardless of what one may believe about it. As Saint Augustine said, “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” When it comes to sin, there are moral absolutes which do not depend upon individual belief or conscience. These are never “disputable matters.” We cannot “agree to disagree.” The disputable matters of Romans 14, eating meat and observing certain special days, were not first-order moral issues. They were morally neutral cultural boundary markers which threatened to split the church along ethnic lines. This point is beautifully made in N. T. Wright’s brilliant paper, Communion and Koinonia: Pauline Reflections on Tolerance and Boundaries.

In all these things he wants Christians to stop thinking of themselves as basically belonging to this or that ethnic group, and to see the practices that formerly demarcated that ethnic group from all others as irrelevant, things you can carry on doing if you like but which you shouldn’t insist on for others.

Carry on doing it if you like—as long as it’s not harming anyone, and you don’t insist on everyone else doing so. But actual issues of sin and morality are not disputable matters! N.T. Wright goes on:

At this point there can be no dispute, no room for divergent opinions: no room, in other words, for someone to say ‘some Christians practice fornication, others think it’s wrong, so we should be tolerant of one another,’ or to say ‘some Christians lose their tempers, others think it’s wrong, so we should tolerate one another’. There is no place for immorality, and no place for anger, slander and the like. And then, immediately, as though to emphasize the point I’m making, Paul concludes the passage by saying (v.11) that ‘in that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but in Christ is all in all.’ Paul is absolutely clear about the standards expected of the new humanity, and equally clear that distinctions relating to ethnic, social and cultural origin become irrelevant.

Paul’s advice on actual moral issues is NEVER, “Just do what your conscience tells you,” or, “Agree to disagree.” Paul believed, as we should, that certain things were harmful and sinful and should never be done, regardless of what one may believe about them. There are moral absolutes. People, even Christians, are sometimes genuinely wrong about what is acceptable moral behavior. They may even cite a Bible verse or biblical concepts such as “freedom” and “love” to support their actions. But the existence of disagreement does not qualify something as a “disputable matter” if it is a matter of morality.

Dogma, Doctrine, Opinion

Ken Wilson cites Roger E. Olson’s book The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity, as being helpful in thinking through the criteria of what can be considered a “disputable matter.” He summarizes Olson’s categories as:

Dogma: Olsen [sic] defines dogma as truths essential to Christianity itself; to deny them is to follow something other than Jesus. Christian identity is at stake… Doctrine: Olsen defines doctrine as a secondary category of teachings central to a particular tradition of Christians. These can be very significant matters that define entire traditions: predestination or free will; how we understand the saving work of Jesus; the nature of church and sacraments… Opinion: Olsen defines opinion here as matters of speculative nature about which there is no consensus in the church (used in its broad sense.) Examples might include the age of earth, mode of baptism and criteria for ordination… (ALTMC, Kindle Locations 1726-1727, 1735-1737, 1739-1740).

These categories allow Wilson to determine the following “reasonable criteria” for what is to be treated as a “disputable matter” in the church:

1. When it doesn’t involve a matter of basic Christian dogma such as we find in the great ecumenical creeds (Apostles, Nicene, Chalcedonian, etc.). 2. When the debate brings two or more biblical truths into dynamic tension (e.g. mercy-judgment, law-grace, free will-predestination) so that both parties make reasonable appeals to Scripture. 3. When faithful Christians take different views on the issue. (ALTMC, Kindle Location 1743-1744, 1746-1748, 1756)

Therefore, because the matter of modern-day same-sex activity between committed persons fulfills all three criteria, it should therefore be treated as “Opinion” and as a “disputable matter.” However, when Roger Olson defines “Opinion,” he is clear that it only includes issues on which there is not consensus because they “are not clearly taught in Scripture” (Kindle Location 689, emphasis mine). They are “Mere guesswork without strong justification,” or “Speculative interpretations of obscure passages of Scripture” (Mosaic, Kindle Locations 689-690, 730). Olson gives examples of Opinion such as, “Beliefs about intelligent life on other planets, the age of the earth and the exact details of the events of the end times such as the identity of the antichrist” (Mosaic, Kindle Location 708). In other words, these are topics which are not clearly taught in Scripture, they are speculative. To include the issue of same-sex activity, on which there has been two millennia of church consensus, as “Opinion” is to misunderstand Olson’s categories. While few would argue that same-sex activity is a matter of Dogma, it would best fit Olson’s description of a “secondary belief” or “Doctrine.” Olson writes, “’What saith Scripture?’ is the touchstone of the doctrine category. Beliefs that seem to be clearly revealed in the biblical witness but not essential to belief in Christ are placed there” (Mosaic, Kindle Locations 728-729).

Are Issues of Sexual Morality “Disputable Matters”?

In a different letter Paul writes to a church where their consciences were not bothered by the fact that a man was sleeping with his father’s wife. In fact, they were proud of it! Look how “free in Christ” we are! No legalistic adherence to irrelevant Old Testament rules here! How did Paul handle this situation? Did he commend them for acting according to their conscience? Did he insist that those in the church who felt that incest was wrong refrain from judging those who did not?

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?… I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. …Expel the wicked person from among you.” (1 Cor. 5:1-3, 13, NIV)

Wait a minute, aren’t we supposed to act according to our conscience and not judge those whose conscience differs from ours on moral issues? And certainly sleeping with your father’s wife is not a matter of Christian Dogma or Doctrine, according to Wilson’s definition. It’s not in any of the Creeds. There’s certainly a tension between the biblical concepts of law and grace, judgment and mercy. And didn’t the Corinthian Christians have a good argument to make about “freedom in Christ”? Weren’t they Spirit-filled believers? So shouldn’t this have been treated as a “disputable matter” and “agree to disagree”? No! Paul tells them to throw the guy out! In fact, Paul goes on to instruct the church in Corinth:

…You must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. (1 Cor. 5:11, NIV)

You can see where the logic of “agree to disagree” leads. There are innumerable issues upon which “Good Christians” may disagree that should nevertheless not be considered “disputable matters.” Is it okay to marry more than one woman at a time? Aren’t there “Good Christians” who believe so, and with some scriptural arguments? Should we therefore treat this as a “disputable matter” in our churches today? If you’re 25 years old and single is it okay to have sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend, as long as you’re monogamous and plan to someday marry them? There are certainly “Good Christians” who believe so, and could make a scriptural case. Should we treat this as a “disputable matter” in our churches and youth groups? Is it okay to have an abortion as a means of birth control, when a pregnancy would be problematic? There are certainly “Good Christians” who believe so. No, because these are issues of morality, where matters of sinning are involved. They are not issues where there’s “no harm” if one does them or doesn’t do them, they are matters of sin. There are indeed things which Christians may disagree upon, and behave differently, without harm. In the Roman church the eating of meat, drinking of wine, and the observance of certain special days was among them. There was no harm or sin if one did them or did not do them, as Paul made clear. “Food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do” (1 Cor 8:8, NIV). It was not a moral issue. The Reformers referred to matters such as this as adiaphora, or “matters of indifference.” These were actions that morality neither mandates nor forbids. They are Olson’s “Opinion.” Today there are many examples of adipahora in the Christian church. Am I allowed to dance? Am I allowed to drink or smoke? Can I read Harry Potter novels? Am I allowed to date in high school? There are many opinions among Christians on these issues. I believe that Scripture neither clearly mandates nor clearly forbids these things, and one is not sinning in doing or refraining. So if someone in the church felt strongly that they should not date in high school, I would encourage them not to do so! There is certainly no harm in them refraining. If Scripture did clearly mandate or forbid it, and if it were an issue of sinning, it would not be adiaphora! It would not be a “disputable matter”! Matters which are not truly “moral,” which do not involve sin, and which are not clearly prohibited in scripture, may be regarded as “disputable” in the church. But some things are harmful regardless of what we may believe about them, or regardless of what our society’s prevailing view is. Can modern-day homosexual activity be considered a “disputable matter”? As Richard Hays writes in his brilliant The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethic:

Though only a few biblical texts speak of homoerotic activity, all that do mention it express unqualified disapproval. Thus, on this issue, there is no synthetic problem for New Testament ethics. In this respect, the issue of homosexuality differs significantly from matters such as slavery or the subordination of women, concerning which the Bible contains internal tensions and counterposed witnesses. The biblical witness against homosexual practices is univocal. (Moral Vision, Kindle Location 10849-10852, emphasis mine) Romans 1 presents, as we have seen, a portrayal of humankind in rebellion against God and consequently plunged into depravity and confusion. In the course of that portrayal, homosexual activities are— explicitly and without qualification— identified as symptomatic of that tragically confused rebellion. To take the New Testament as authoritative in the mode in which it speaks is to accept this portrayal as “revealed reality,” an authoritative disclosure of the truth about the human condition. Understood in this way, the text requires a normative evaluation of homosexual practice as a distortion of God’s order for creation. (Moral Vision, Kindle Locations 11010-11014, emphasis mine) If Romans 1— the key text— is to inform normative judgments about homosexuality, it must function as a diagnostic tool, laying bare the truth about humankind’s dishonorable “exchange” of the natural for the unnatural. According to Paul, homosexual relations, however they may be interpreted (or rationalized: see Rom. 1: 32) by fallen and confused creatures, represent a tragic distortion of the created order. If we accept the authority of the New Testament on this subject, we will be taught to perceive homosexuality accordingly. (Moral Vision, Kindle Locations 11024-11027, emphasis mine)

Sins such as sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly (which Jesus mentions in Mark 7 as the sins that truly defile) are not “disputable matters.” On this there can be no debate, at least not if we accept the Bible as authoritative and are following the way of Jesus.

atheism

Thanks to Amy Hall for summarizing a New York Times interview with Alvin Plantinga:

Philosopher Alvin Plantinga made a few quotable points in an interview posted by the New York Times on Sunday.

On the claim that lack of evidence for theism is evidence for atheism:

Lack of evidence, if indeed evidence is lacking, is no grounds for atheism. No one thinks there is good evidence for the proposition that there are an even number of stars; but also, no one thinks the right conclusion to draw is that there are an uneven number of stars. The right conclusion would instead be agnosticism. 

In the same way, the failure of the theistic arguments, if indeed they do fail, might conceivably be good grounds for agnosticism, but not for atheism. Atheism, like even-star-ism, would presumably be the sort of belief you can hold rationally only if you have strong arguments or evidence.

On whether or not the existence of imperfections in the world is evidence against God:

I suppose your thinking is that it is suffering and sin that make this world less than perfect. But then your question makes sense only if the best possible worlds contain no sin or suffering. And is that true? Maybe the best worlds contain free creatures some of whom sometimes do what is wrong. Indeed, maybe the best worlds contain a scenario very like the Christian story. 

Think about it: The first being of the universe, perfect in goodness, power and knowledge, creates free creatures. These free creatures turn their backs on him, rebel against him and get involved in sin and evil. Rather than treat them as some ancient potentate might — e.g., having them boiled in oil — God responds by sending his son into the world to suffer and die so that human beings might once more be in a right relationship to God. God himself undergoes the enormous suffering involved in seeing his son mocked, ridiculed, beaten and crucified. And all this for the sake of these sinful creatures. 

I’d say a world in which this story is true would be a truly magnificent possible world. It would be so good that no world could be appreciably better. But then the best worlds contain sin and suffering.

On the atheist argument that “we no longer need God to explain the world”:

Some atheists seem to think that a sufficient reason for atheism is the fact (as they say) that we no longer need God to explain natural phenomena — lightning and thunder for example. We now have science. 

As a justification of atheism, this is pretty lame. We no longer need the moon to explain or account for lunacy; it hardly follows that belief in the nonexistence of the moon (a-moonism?) is justified. A-moonism on this ground would be sensible only if the sole ground for belief in the existence of the moon was its explanatory power with respect to lunacy. (And even so, the justified attitude would be agnosticism with respect to the moon, not a-moonism.) The same thing goes with belief in God: Atheism on this sort of basis would be justified only if the explanatory power of theism were the only reason for belief in God. And even then, agnosticism would be the justified attitude, not atheism.

On the problem with believing in both materialism and evolution:

[I]f there are only material entities, then atheism certainly follows. But there is a really serious problem for materialism: It can’t be sensibly believed, at least if, like most materialists, you also believe that humans are the product of evolution…. The belief that both materialism and evolution are true…can’t rationally be held.

Read the rest of the interview to find out why.

knowledge and obedience

From John Frame in The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God:

Knowledge subject to God's authority. In Scripture knowledge is very closely linked with righteousness and holiness (cf. Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). These "go together" (1 Cor. 8:1-3; 1 John 4:7f.). Knowledge of God, in the fullest sense, is inevitably an obedient knowledge. Let me sketch five important relations between knowledge and obedience.

1. Knowledge of God produces obedience (John 17:26; 2 Peter 1:3, 5; 2:18-20). God's friends necessarily seek to obey Him (John 14:15, 21; etc.), and the better they know Him, the more obedient they become. Such a relation to God is inevitably a sanctifying experience; being near Him transforms us, as the biblical pictures of God's glory being transferred to His people, of His Spirit descending on them, and of their being conformed to His image indicate.

2. Obedience to God leads to knowledge (John 7:17; Eph. 3:17-19; 2 Tim. 2:25f.; 1 John 3:16; cf. Ps. 111:10; Prov. 1:7; 15:33; Isa. 33:6). This is the converse of the previous point; there is a "circular" relation between knowledge and obedience in Scripture. Neither is unilaterally prior to the other, either temporally or causally. They are inseparable and simultaneous. Each enriches the other (cf. 2 Peter 1:5f.). In my view, some Reformed "intellectualists" (Gordon Clark has applied this label to himself) have failed to do justice to this circularity. Even in the writings of J. Gresham Machen, one often finds the slogan "life is built upon doctrine" used in a way that distorts the fact that in some senses the opposite is also true. It is certainly true that if you want to obey God more completely, you must get to know Him; but it is also true that if you want to know God better, you must seek to obey Him more perfectly." [The circle goes even farther: knowledge originates in God's grace and leads to more grace (Exod. 33:13), which leads to more knowledge. In this case, however, there is a "unilateral" beginning. Grace originates knowledge, not vice versa.]

This emphasis does not contradict our earlier point that knowledge is by grace. Knowledge and obedience are given to us simultaneously by God on the basis of Jesus' sacrifice. Once they are given, God continues to give them in greater and greater fullness. But He uses means; He uses our obedience as a means of giving us knowledge, and vice versa.

3. Obedience is knowledge, and knowledge is obedience. Very often in Scripture, obedience and knowledge are used as near synonyms, either by being set in apposition to one another (e.g., Hos. 6:6) or by being used to define one another (e.g., Jer. 22:16). Occasionally, too, knowledge appears as one term in a general list of distinctly ethical categories (e.g., Hos. 4:lf.) and so is presented as a form of obedience (cf. Jer. 31:31f.; John 8:55 [note the context, esp. vv. 19, 32, 41]; 1 Cor. 2:6 [cf. vv. 13-15; "mature" here is an ethical-religious quality]; Eph. 4:13; Phil. 3:8-11; 2 Thess. 1:8f.; 2 Peter 1:5; 2:20f.). In these passages, obedience is not merely a consequence of knowledge but a constitutive aspect of it. Without obedience there is no knowledge, and vice versa.

The point here is not that obedience and knowledge are synonymous terms, interchangeable in all contexts. They do differ. Knowledge designates the friendship between ourselves and God (see below), and obedience designates our activity within that relation. But these two ideas are so inseparable from one another that often they can legitimately be used as synonyms, each describing the other from a particular perspective.

4. Thus obedience is the criterion of knowledge. To determine if someone knows God, we do not merely give him a written exam; we examine his life. Atheism in Scripture is a practical, not merely a theoretical, position; denying God is seen in the corruption of one's life (Pss. 10:4ff.; 14:1-7; 53). Similarly, the test of Christian faith or knowledge is a holy life (Matt. 7:21ff.; Luke 8:21; John 8:47; 14:15, 21, 23f.; 15:7, 10, 14; 17:6, 17; 1 John 2:3-5; 4:7; 5:2f.; 2 John 6f.; Rev. 12:17; 14:12). The ultimate reason for that is that God is the real, living, and true God, not an abstraction concerning whom we can only theorize, but one who is profoundly involved with each of our lives. The very "I am" of Yahweh indicates His presence. As Francis Schaeffer says, He is "the God who is there." Thus our involvement with Him is a practical involvement, an involvement with Him not only in our theoretical activity but in all of life. To disobey is to be culpably ignorant of God's involvement in our lives. So disobedience involves ignorance and obedience involves knowledge.

5. Therefore it is clear that knowledge itself must be sought in an obedient way. There are commandments in Scripture that bear very directly on how we are to seek knowledge, that identify the differences between true and false knowledge. In this connection, we should meditate on 1 Corinthians 1-2; 3:18-23; 8:1-3; and James 3:13-18. When we seek to know God obediently, we assume the fundamental point that Christian knowledge is a knowledge under authority, that our quest for knowledge is not autonomous but subject to Scripture. And if that is true, it follows that the truth (and to some extent the content) of Scripture must be regarded as the most certain knowledge that we have. If this knowledge is to be the criterion for all other knowledge, if it is to govern our acceptance or rejection of other propositions, then there is no proposition that can call it into question. Thus when we know God, we know Him more certainly, more surely than we know anything else. When He speaks to us, our understanding of His Word must govern our understanding of everything else. This is a difficult point because, after all, our understanding of Scripture is fallible and may sometimes need to be corrected. But those corrections may be made only on the basis of a deeper understanding of Scripture, not on the basis of some other kind of knowledge.

world-view clash

Summary - how do we know anything at all?

Here is Al Mohler's take on the Nye-Ham debate:

Last night’s debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham attracted a huge international audience and no shortage of controversy—even before it began. Bill Nye, whose main media presence is as “The Science Guy,” and Ken Ham, co-founder of Answers in Genesis and founder of the Creation Museum, squared off in a true debate over one of the most important questions that the human mind can contemplate. That is no small achievement.

I enjoyed a front row seat at the debate, which took place even as a major winter storm raged outside, dumping considerable amounts of snow and ice and causing what the local police announced as a “Class Two” weather emergency. Inside the Creation Museum there was quite enough heat, and the debate took place without a hitch. Thankfully, it also took place without acrimony.

The initial controversy about the debate centered in criticism of Bill Nye for even accepting the invitation. Many evolutionary scientists, such as Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, refuse to debate the issue, believing that any public debate offers legitimacy to those who deny evolution. Nye was criticized by many leading evolutionists, who argued publicly that nothing good could come of the debate.

Interestingly, this points back to the famous debates over evolution that took place in nineteenth century England, when Anglican churchmen faced early evolutionary scientists in (mostly) civil public exchanges. Back then, it was the churchmen who were criticized by their peers for participation in the debate. Now, the table has turned, indicating something of the distance between the intellectual conditions then and now.

Of course, Bill Nye might have felt some moral obligation to debate the question, since he had launched a unilateral attack on creationist parents in a video that went viral last year. In that video, Nye told creationist parents:

“[I]f you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine, but don’t make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can—we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems.”

But if Nye had launched the attack, he did not arrive at the debate in a defensive mode. A protege of the late Carl Sagan and the current CEO of the Planetary Society, Nye was in full form last night, wearing his customary bow-tie, and immaculately dressed in a very expensive suit. He took notes with a very fine writing instrument. I like his style.

Ken Ham is a veteran debater on the issue of origins, and he was clearly prepared for the debate. Ham’s arguments were tight and focused, and his demeanor was uniformly calm and professional. The format allowed for a full expression of both arguments, along with spirited exchanges and questions submitted from the audience. What the 150 minute event lacked was any requirement that the debaters answer each other’s questions. That would have changed the way the debate concluded.

The central question of the debate was this: “Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?” Ham stuck to the question tenaciously. Nye, on the other hand, tried to personalize the debate and kept changing the question from creation to “Ken Ham’s creationism.” Ham was unfazed, and kept to his argument.

As the debate began, it was clear that Ham and Nye do not even agree on definitions. The most friction on definition came when Nye rejected Ham’s distinction between “historical science” and “observational science” out of hand. Nye maintained his argument that science is a unitary method, without any distinction between historical and observational modes. Ham pressed his case that science cannot begin without making certain assumptions about the past, which cannot be observed. Furthermore, Ham rightly insisted that observational science generally does not require any specific commitment to a model of historical science. In other words, both evolutionists and creationists do similar experimental science, and sometimes even side-by-side.

Nye’s main presentation contained a clear rejection of biblical Christianity. At several points in the debate, he dismissed the Bible’s account of Noah and the ark as unbelievable. Oddly, he even made this a major point in his most lengthy argument. As any informed observer would have anticipated, Nye based his argument on the modern consensus and went to the customary lines of evidence, from fossils to ice rods. Ham argued back with fossil and geological arguments of his own. Those portions of the debate did not advance the arguments much past where they were left in the late nineteenth century, with both sides attempting to keep score by rocks and fossils.

In this light, the debate proved both sides right on one central point: If you agreed with Bill Nye you would agree with his reading of the evidence. The same was equally true for those who entered the room agreeing with Ken Ham; they would agree with his interpretation of the evidence.

That’s because the argument was never really about ice rods and sediment layers. It was about the most basic of all intellectual presuppositions: How do we know anything at all? On what basis do we grant intellectual authority? Is the universe self-contained and self-explanatory? Is there a Creator, and can we know him?

On those questions, Ham and Nye were separated by infinite intellectual space. They shared the stage, but they do not live in the same intellectual world. Nye is truly committed to a materialistic and naturalistic worldview. Ham is an evangelical Christian committed to the authority of the Bible. The clash of ultimate worldview questions was vividly displayed for all to see.

When asked how matter came to exist and how consciousness arose, Nye responded simply and honestly: “I don’t know.” Responding to the same questions, Ham went straight to the Bible, pointing to the Genesis narrative as a full and singular answer to these questions. Nye went on the attack whenever Ham cited the Bible, referring to the implausibility of believing what he kept describing as “Ken Ham’s interpretation of a 3,000 year old book translated into American English.”

To Bill Nye, the idea of divine revelation is apparently nonsensical. He ridiculed the very idea.

This is where the debate was most important. Both men were asked if any evidence could ever force them to change their basic understanding. Both men said no. Neither was willing to allow for any dispositive evidence to change their minds. Both operate in basically closed intellectual systems. The main problem is that Ken Ham knows this to be the case, but Bill Nye apparently does not. Ham was consistently bold in citing his confidence in God, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in the full authority and divine inspiration of the Bible. He never pulled a punch or hid behind an argument. Nye seems to believe that he is genuinely open to any and all new information, but it is clear that his ultimate intellectual authority is the prevailing scientific consensus. More than once he asserted a virtually unblemished confidence in the ability of modern science to correct itself. He steadfastly refused to admit that any intellectual presuppositions color his own judgment.

But the single most defining moments in the debate came as Bill Nye repeatedly cited the “reasonable man” argument in his presentation and responses. He cited Adolphe Quetelet’s famed l’homme moyen—“a reasonable man”—as the measure of his intellectual authority. Writing in 1835, Quetelet, a French intellectual, made his “reasonable man” famous. The “reasonable man” is a man of intellect and education and knowledge who can judge evidence and arguments and function as an intellectual authority on his own two feet. The “reasonable man” is a truly modern man. Very quickly, jurists seized on the “reasonable man” to define the law and lawyers used him to make arguments before juries. A “reasonable man” would interpret the evidence and make a reasoned judgment, free from intellectual pressure.

Bill Nye repeatedly cited the reasonable man in making his arguments. He is a firm believer in autonomous human reason and the ability of the human intellect to solve the great problems of existence without any need of divine revelation. He spoke of modern science revealing “what we all can know” as it operates on the basis of natural laws. As Nye sees it, Ken Ham has a worldview, but Nye does not. He referred to “Ken Ham’s worldview,” but claimed that science merely provides knowledge. He sees himself as the quintessential “reasonable man,” and he repeatedly dismissed Christian arguments as “not reasonable.”

In an unexpected turn, near the end of the event, Nye even turned to make an argument against Christianity on grounds of theodicy. He asked Ham if it was “reasonable” to believe that God had privileged a personal revelation that was not equally accessible to all. Nye’s weakest argument had to do with his claim—made twice—that billions of religious people accept modern science. He provided a chart that included vast millions of adherents of other world religions and announced that they are religious but accept modern science. That is nonsense, of course. At least it is nonsense if he meant to suggest that these billions believe in evolution. That is hardly the case. Later, he lowered his argument to assert that these billions of people use modern technology. So, of course, do creationists. There are few facilities in the world more high-tech than the Creation Museum.

Nye is clearly not a fan of theistic evolution, since he argued that a purely natural argument should be quite enough for the “reasonable man.” He seemed to affirm a methodological agnosticism, since he sees the question of a “higher power” or “spiritual being” to be one of little intellectual consequence. He did argue that nature is a closed system and that natural selection can allow for absolutely no supernatural interference or influence. In this respect, he sounded much like Stephen Hawking, who has argued that God may exist, but that there is nothing for him to do.

Ken Ham is a Young Earth Creationist (as am I), but the larger argument was over worldviews, and the debate revealed the direct collision between evolution and the recognition of any historical authority within Genesis 1-11. As if to make that clear, in making one of his closing arguments, Bill Nye actually went back to cite “this problem of the ark.”

The ark is not the real problem; autonomous human reason is. Bill Nye is a true believer in human reason and the ability of modern science to deliver us. Humanity is just “one germ away” from extinction, he said. But science provides him with the joy of discovery and understanding.

The problem with autonomous human reason is made clear by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 1:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Rom 1:18-23 ESV).

The problem with human reason is that it, along with every other aspect of our humanity, was corrupted by the fall. This is what theologians refer to as the “noetic effects of the fall.” We have not lost the ability to know all things, but we have lost the ability to know them on our own authority and power. We are completely dependent upon divine revelation for the answers to the most important questions of life. Our sin keeps us from seeing what is right before our eyes in nature. We are dependent upon the God who loves us enough to reveal himself to us—and to give us his Word.

As it turns out, the reality and authority of divine revelation, more than any other issue, was what the debate last night was all about. As the closing statements made very clear, Ken Ham understood that fact, but Bill Nye did not.

The central issue last night was really not the age of the earth or the claims of modern science. The question was not really about the ark or sediment layers or fossils. It was about the central worldview clash of our times, and of any time: the clash between the worldview of the self-declared “reasonable man” and the worldview of the sinner saved by grace.

ham and guy

Thoughtful insight by Mike Wittmer (I also did not watch the debate):

I did not see the debate last night between Ken Ham and The Science Guy, but I did see many posts on Twitter and Facebook and read the USA Today story in this morning’s paper. Many Christians rightly point out that Ham wrongly thinks the only orthodox way to read Genesis 1 is the way he reads it, but in their (often scornful) posts they may be missing a more fundamental point.

USA Today quotes Bill Nye saying to Ham, “Your assertion that there is some difference between the natural laws that I observe today and the natural laws of 4,000 years ago is extraordinary and unsettling.”

This is roughly the same point that Abraham Kuyper made 100 years ago. Kuyper said there are two kinds of scientists in the world, normalists and abnormalists. Normalists such as Bill Nye believe the world they see behaves in the same way it always has. Abnormalists believe there has been a cataclysmic, catastrophic Fall that has dramatically damaged our world. We don’t know all the ways the Fall has changed our world, but we must believe it did.

Poor Bill Nye. He is observing an accident scene and doesn’t even know there has been an accident. And poor us, if we think that our more enlightened reading of Genesis 1 will earn any more respect from him. If you are a Christian who believes what the Bible says about a historical Adam and a historical Fall, then though you may not agree with Ham’s overly narrow reading, you must still agree that he is on your team. He may be naïve on some of his details, but his theological instincts are Kuyperian (which is a sophisticated way of saying he’s right).

how we believe

Michael Patton's open and honest discussion on the importance of how we believe ...

How we believe. No, not “what we believe” or “why we believe it.” How we believe is what I want to talk about.

We had Craig Keener at the Credo House last week. On Friday, he gave a presentation to a packed house on miracles. This was based on his excellent work called Miracles. During this presentation, Keener shared the fruit of his research as, among other things, he has catalogued what he believes to be legitimate attestable miracles from God that are going on around the world. In the book and presentation he gave examples and demonstrated how these miracles can and should be believed due to the testimonies and evidence that he gathered for each. And the evidence, for many of them, was very compelling . . . or at least it should have been.

I have trouble believing things. So when Keener was sharing his stories, even though I am the one who brought him in to give this presentation, I found them all hard to believe. Why? I don’t know. I am skeptical. I don’t normally believe people when they tell me this or that about how God intervened in a supernatural way. In the back of my mind, I am patting them on the head saying “I am glad you believe this and I am not going to do anything to take away from your belief, but I don’t.” Maybe “don’t” is not the best word. It is more that I reserve my right to suspend judgment on this “miracle.”

But in truth, I need to believe more of these miracles stories. There are so many of them that I don’t have any other legitimate explanation for. For example (and this was not part of Keener’s presentation), J. P. Moreland once told me when I asked him why God does not heal amputees a story that continually possesses my mind when these kind of things are on the table. He said that he once witnessed a guy who was missing an ear (it was just skin where the ear should be) and had it grow back as people (including Moreland) prayed for him. He said that they watched as there was a break in his skin, blood that came out, and a slight “ear” formed. What is interesting about this story is that the ear did not grow completely back. When the miracle was all done, he just had a hole there, a bit of an ear, and could hear out of it.

This is one story that I think I believe. Or at least I believe it some.

I suspend believe on “miracle” stories for many reasons. One is that most of the stories I hear are not falsifiable. In other words, they can’t be proven wrong. I think that this is convenient for fabrications and misunderstandings. After all, back pain, hurt knees, and short legs are very hard to verify. I am not saying that this does not happen. Maybe many of these are true and I am missing a boat that would give some more flesh to my faith. But, seeing as how most of the stories are not falsifiable, I wonder why God would perform so many unsubstantial (from a verification standpoint) miracles and be so absent (relatively speaking) from miracles that would leave everyone speechless. You know, miracles such as raising the dead, healing the blind, and making a paralytic walk. Those are the things we see in the New Testament and, more importantly for me, these are the type that are hard to deny.

The second reason I suspend belief is because I don’t, in most cases, trust the person telling the story. I don’t know his or her character. I don’t know if they have integrity in this area (not that I am claiming much), I don’t know whether they are critical enough to share these claims. Maybe they just want it to be true so they pass it on (albeit in a more objective sense). It takes a while for me to trust people, especially when it comes to this stuff. Claims of God’s interventive action are too important for me to “just believe.” For me it is dishonoring to God for me to believe something just because I want it to be true or because it fits into a worldview I desire to be true.

Therefore, I suspend belief (at least in my mind) because I am honoring God. For me to really trust someone, it takes time. It take a revelation of an honest character that is willing to wrestle with weaknesses, able to admit shortcomings. and does not believe things just because it fits into a desired framework that makes them feel better. J. P. Moreland, however, told a story that has all the makings for my belief. Therefore, I think I believe it. The story was certainly not something that was obscure like back pain. He says he watched an ear grow back (at least in part). Moreland is no lightweight uncritical scholar. Over the years he has gained my trust both through personal interaction and through scholarly writings. He has also had the courage to change his theological position on some things that would be hard to change. As well, the story itself contains an element of embarrassment in that the ear only grew partially back!

So, I think to myself: He is either lying, misunderstood what he saw, or it happened. Assuming I understood the story he told (and I sometime doubt that), These are the only three choices that I can think of. The first two are very hard to believe. Therefore, I think I believe the third.

This is the way it is with so many of Keener’s stories in his book. They seem so legit. I think I believe them. I want to believe them.

But why is my belief so tentative in things like this? If it stands up to scrutiny (which I think it does), why not really believe it? The answer, I believe, comes down to an understanding of how I believe. The what and why are in place. They are defined and strong. But the how is getting in the way of my full commitment here.

Experiences such as this are not and will never be the foundation of my faith (at least I hope). And they should not be the foundation of yours. But they do turn a two-dimensional faith into one that is three-dimensions. And I do desire to believe them (at least the ones that are legitimacy revealing God’s presence in the world). And you should too. After all, if God is working in miraculous ways in the world today (and I believe he is), we need to be able to rejoice about such actions, even if we never experience them first-hand.

In the next blog post I am going to try to do what I originally intended here and explain more about how we believe. I suppose, for now, a good question would be this: do you believe the Moreland story? Why or why not?

natural law

A mouthful on natural law by Doug Wilson:

“The idea of a binding moral covenant on all persons, with salutary relevance even for the spiritually unregenerate, gave the covenant of works tremendous impetus for political theology” (Glenn Moots, Politics Reformed: The Anglo-American Legacy of Covenant Theology, p. 80).

Of course all Reformed thinkers know that everything is connected, but we can still sometimes be surprised at how closely connected it all can be. What do natural law, the covenant of works, theocracy, regeneration, and homosexual marriage have in common? They are all different aspects of the same subject, that’s what.

For reasons I went over a number of times in the Federal Vision fracas, I really don’t like using the name “covenant of works.” It just confuses things, and one of the things it confuses is the crucial need for a “covenant of works.” I much prefer to use covenant of creation, or a name the Westminster Confession uses elsewhere, covenant of life. But unless we hold to a covenant of creation, distinct from a covenant of grace, we will have no basis for speaking to certain public policy issues of the day, like homosexual marriage.

Several books could be written on this, and I'm going to try to do it in just several paragraphs, so bear with me. If the church is going to speak authoritatively in the public square — theocracy — then there needs to be a basis for speaking to the non-believers. The covenant of creation provides that basis. Suppose one of them comes back with “Well, we don’t believe in your covenant of creation,” and asks you what you think of them apples. The reply is that the covenant of creation is the only possible basis for natural law, which he does recognize (perhaps in spite of himself). He cannot account for this natural law within the framework of his worldview, but it is there nonetheless. For example, the late Christopher Hitchens did not use the language of natural law, but he sure appealed to it all the time.

If there is to be a intersect between church and state, then we have the problem of the wheat and tares times ten. Not only do we have to have a theological framework to deal with the baptized unconverted, but we also have to have a framework to deal with the unbaptized unconverted. How do we declare the lordship of Christ over all things when a significant number of people are obviously outside the covenant of grace?

Failure to look these facts straight in the eye will tend, inexorably, to transform the claims of theocracy into ecclesiocracy, and from that into a separated ecclesiocracy. And when our separated ecclesial community gets out to the woods of Montana, we will not practice homosexual marriage among ourselves out there. But we will have absolutely nothing to say to the infidels in San Fransisco, and if anybody suggests that we send them a prophet to declare their wicked ways to them, we will find our theological toolchest to be empty of tools, and full of excuses. You see, we don’t believe in natural law and nature/grace dualisms.

hopes and god's word

Walt Mueller posts My Hopes, Homosexuality, and God's Word:

This morning I ran across and posted this thought-provoking quote from J.I. Packer: "Our business is to present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought clothed in Christian terms. . . . Confusion here is fatal."

I'm sure that all of us are guilty here on something. It's just that most of us don't know it. . . which is, by the way, the reason we should engage in ongoing, never-ending, deep introspection of every nook and cranny of our lives. . . all conducted under the illumination of God's Word.

I was hit by this reality again the other night while spending more time in James K.A. Smith's Everyday Discipleship, the chapter entitled "Can Hope Be Wrong?" in particular. Smith offers up his critique of the "New Universalism" . . . the kind of universalism propagated by Rob Bell in his book Love Wins. This new brand of universalism is what Smith calls a "christocentric" or "evangelical" universalism. In other words, all human beings will be saved in Christ. Smith says that what drives this increasingly popular belief is not a close reading of the Bible's claims about eternity, but an understanding of the nature of God that leaves people saying things like "I can't imagine a God who would send a person to hell" and "I hope that God doesn't send people to hell."

Smith goes on to ask this question: "Are these hopes and imaginings sufficiently warranted to overturn the received, orthodox doctrines concerning final judgment and eternal damnation?" Then, he critiques each. When he critiques the hermeneutic of hope, he wonders if our hopes can ever be wrong. His example is personal. He loves his wife and he can't even begin to imagine a life without being husband and wife forever. But then he reads the words of Jesus in Matthew 22:30. . . words that clearly say that at the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Now, the dilemma for Smith when he asks, "Should I nonetheless hope that marriage endures in eternity? Should I profess that I can't know this (since Scripture seems to suggest otherwise), but nonetheless claim that somehow hoping it might be true is still faithful? Or should I submit even my hopes to discipline by the authority of Scripture?"

Wow. Read that last question again. Those are powerful and timely words that apply to so much more than who gets to go to Heaven and whether or not we will be married in eternity. Smith reminds us that when "what I hope for" eclipses a more theocentric approach to these and other issues, we are in trouble. And that's what I think J.I. Packer is driving at as well.

While I was reading all of this, I rewound to the evening about thirty-five years ago when one of my best friends sat me down to tell me that he was gay and that he was embracing his homosexuality. When he asked me for my response, a battle began to rage inside of me. I wanted more than anything else to tell him that there was nothing at all wrong with his decision, his leanings, and his embracing this kind of sexuality. I wanted to love, affirm, and accept my friend. I hoped that his same-sex behaviors wouldn't matter. But on the other side was my need to submit my hopes (some, which if I'm honest, still hold true today on a whole plethora of issues) to someone bigger than myself. And so the battle continues between my hopes. . . driven by my belief that I might just have all of this (and everything else) figured out better than the One whose will and way I must submit myself and my hopes to. . . and my need to have those hopes disciplined.

10 theses on postmodernism

I'm not sure what I think of the details here. I know I have mixed emotions and I'll need to sort that out later. But for now, some of this was very, very good.

Ten Theses on Postmodernism by Doug Wilson:

1. Truth is objective, ultimate, absolute, personal, alive, and triune. 
2. Because of this ultimate reality, it is possible for creatures who were fashioned by this living God to know Him as the personal and ultimate truth, as well as to know lesser truths in the created world that we see all around us. We know Him apart from that world, and we know Him through and in that world. We know. Some of us only wish we didn’t.
3. Objective truth does not mean uninterpreted truth. Objectivity in our knowledge of truth means that our interpretation lines up with God’s interpretation of it. Thinking God’s thoughts after Him is not the same thing as guessing or having opinions. The standard of absolute knowledge is how God knows a thing. The standard of creaturely knowledge is how we know a thing, measured against what God ordained as possible for a creature in our circumstances to know.
4. The fact that truth is objective does not mean that it is constructed out of rough cut two by fours. Those two-inch deep dogmatists, ostensible defenders of the faith, who think that objectivity stands or falls with their pat answers are a big part of our problem. They only provide the pomos with a conservative group to feel superior to, and to have a reasonable point in feeling that way.
5. Truth is more complicated than an eight-foot-long stud wall, with the studs on sixteen inch centers. But it is also more organized than a sticky, undifferentiated mass. We do not have to choose between simplistic and unyielding, and complex and incoherent. How about complex and unyielding?
6. When the pomos taught us that all truth claims were disguised power grabs, they were telling us more about their purposes than they were actually intending to. So Christians who believe the press releases put out by the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (NICE) really need to get out more.
7. On a related front, the pomo rot has gotten to the realm of science, producing something called “post-normal science,” and you can see the results in phrases like “global warming,” “sustainability,” and every other form of statist hoohah and tyrannical cant. Christians who go for this stuff, unwittingly or not, are just carrying bricks for Pharaoh. Doesn’t matter if they have John 3:16 stenciled on the side of their hod.
8. When modernity announced that the modern age was built by their guys, the secularists, the Christians who believed them were way too easily duped. There should have been less gullibility around here and more checking. Secularism did not fill the houses with good things, did not dig the wells, and did not create great and goodly cities (Dt. 6:10-11). The law required us to give the glory to God for these good things. Instead we have now fallen for the pomo lie that they are not actually good things. The modernist says that “my power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth” (Dt. 8:17). The pomo says, “Yeah, well, to say that you can actually get water out of your wells is logocentric, imperialistic, self-serving, and totalizing.” And the consistent Christian just thanks Jesus for all the stuff.
9. The inconsistent Christians writes articles for academic journals explaining how it turns out that the Scriptures, rightly understood, were all along saying just when the latest breeze from off the Zeitgeist Bay would seem to indicate they ought to have been saying. Currently, since the breezes are south by southeast, this actually means saying that the Scriptures can’t be rightly understood, but we can try to fix that later. When you are in the mood for some respectability, and that old familiar ache settles in your evangelical throat, don’t let the fundamentalists get in the way. They think the truth is made out of two by fours anyway, and they will be happy to provide you with any additional cover you might need as you slink out of the faith to accept a post at Calvin College.
10. Jesus is Lord, and not just in our hearts. The only consistent Christian answer to all the contemporary pushing and shoving is some form of resurgent Christendom. We can debate the details later.

knowing god

... God and his ways are knowable—not perfectly or comprehensively in this life (1 Cor. 13:12), but truly (John 14:9). ~ John Piper

questioning

It is common among postmodern innovators to blame feelings of guilt on those whom they perceive condemn them for their questioning. No. It is not the questioning per se that is called into question, it is the heart behind the questions. Questioning is good and it is right.

Francis Schaeffer in Form and Freedom in the Church:

But someone will say, ‘Didn’t Jesus say that, to be saved, you have to be as a little child?’ Of course he did. But did you ever see a little child who didn’t ask questions? People who use this argument must never have listened to a little child or been one. My four children gave me a harder time with their endless flow of questions than university people ever have. . . . What Jesus was talking about is that the little child, when he has an adequate answer, accepts the answer. He has the simplicity of not having a built-in grid whereby, regardless of the validity of the answer, he rejects it.

(ht)

booby-traps

I couldn't agree more with RC Sproul Jr's post 5 Common Expressions I’ve Never Understood:

Common sense may be more common than sense. There are any number of shorthand aphorisms in the world and in the church that shape our thinking, but don’t stand up to scrutiny, at least right away. Below are five common expressions that might fit under the banner of common sense, that I just can’t make sense out of. There may be good arguments behind all or some of them, but that is rather a far thing from being a self-evident truth.

1. We shouldn’t judge people. This one we hear from both the world and the church. With the church it even comes complete with a proof-text, Matthew 7:1. While Jesus warns us to not be too quick to judge, to judge with charity, to judge in a manner we would like to be judged, even He is in this very text calling us to judge, but to judge well. A blanket condemnation of all judging is, well, condemning, and therefore judging. It is hoisted on its own petard.

2. Jesus loved the most vile sinners, but hated the Pharisees, the religious conservatives. Really? Did Jesus hate Nicodemus? How about Joseph of Arimathea? They were both Pharisees He was likely rather close to. Did Jesus love the adulterous, incestuous, murderous Herod? How about that spineless and corrupt Pilate? Even a cursory reading of the New Testament reveals that the calculus Jesus used for His grace was rather simple. The question wasn’t how spectacular of a sinner you were, but how repentant you were. When Jesus compared the proud Pharisee who prayed, “I thank you God that I am not like other men,” to the tax collector who prayed, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18), He wasn’t saying the former was bad because he was a Pharisee, and the latter good because he was a tax collector. The difference was in the repentance. What an irony then that in our day we proudly present ourselves as the sinners, praying, “I thank you Lord that I am not like other men. I sin openly and unrepentantly. I mock those who affirm Your law, and do not judge like those vile judgers.”

3. Sending good thoughts your way. What? Have you ever been sitting around, when suddenly a “good thought” popped into your head, followed by this thought, “Hey, how nice of, hmm, let’s see here. What’s the return address on this good thought, so I can thank the sender?” Thoughts (a) do not travel across space magically, and (b) even if they did they have no magic power to change anything. Weird that people who think praying to the Living God is fruitless and powerless nevertheless think that their sent thoughts can change the future.

4. You think you’re always right. The Creator is always right. Fallen creatures, however, aren’t so fallen as to actually believe that they are always right. We do—those beings that never fell, those that are fallen, those redeemed, even those perfected—however, always believe we’re right. To think I’m always right is to claim to be infallible. To always think I’m right, however, is nothing more than to think. It is to believe what we believe. In addition, that I believe something has no bearing on whether it is true or not. That I always agree with me, just like you always agree with you, doesn’t make me arrogant. It merely means I don’t have a split personality. No one ever said, “I believe X, but I think I’m wrong.”

5. Christians shouldn’t divide over doctrine. The first question I have is, “Well, what should we divide over?” But the more foundational question is, “Who are the Christians?” There are issues that divide Christians. But there are also issues that divide Christians from non-Christians, some of whom actually claim to be Christians. Is claiming to be Christian sufficient to preclude division? Not according to the Bible. The New Testament tells us to have nothing to do with those who preach a different gospel (Galatians 1:8). That’s a doctrinal matter. It tells us we should have nothing to do with professing believers who are sexually immoral (I Corinthians 5). That’s a doctrinal matter. But worst of all, are not those who make this claim dividing themselves from Christians who believe we should divide over doctrine? The statement itself is doctrine, and is divisive.

Rumor is that the Soviets when fighting in Afghanistan, in an effort to discourage the Afghans took to booby-trapping toys. I suspect these little nuggets of received wisdom are the devil’s own version of the same strategy. We play with these intellectual toys, but soon enough they blow up in our hands.

love child

Doug Wilson posts The Love Child of Baghdad Bob and Tokyo Rose:

In The Ballad of the White Horse, Chesterton has a great line about the men who will come to threaten the West in the future, men who work “by detail of the sinning, and denial of the sin.” As Chesterton put it in another context, to be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, is the mark of decadence.

In my post yesterday, I made a play on words on a rap artist who wants to be a bad ass, and a catamite who wants an ass that is bad. This was objectionable to a few commenters, and opaque elsewhere, and so here I am, following up.

If the culture wars were a tennis game, the besetting sin of Christians in the game is that of not keeping their eye on the ball. What is at stake, what are they trying to do, and what are we trying to do?

When we engage on the subject of homosexual relations, and we say something clear and pointed, they always want us to back down, to unsay it, to qualify it. The demand for apologies is routinely used as a weapon of choice. Those on the other side want us to withdraw the substance of the whole thing, and then, because we are suitably abashed, sign ourselves up for the next available session in their tolerance camps.

Fellow Christians, who do not yet understand the game that is being played on us, want us to retract what we said for the way that we said it. We are hurting the cause. We are making heterosexuality look mean-spirited. They say this because they are tender-hearted and believe the protestations of outrage from the other side, which, in my mind, is like believing editorials written by the love child of Baghdad Bob and Tokyo Rose.

The Christians who do this are divided into two groups. One group is conscientious about following Christ, but confused about what He requires of us in His rules of engagement. The other group, usually the really indignant one, is the group that was busy paving the way for future compromises, busy helping (unwittingly) to throw magic powder on the fire, and your recent ribald comment smells like burnt marshwiggle.

The only place where I would take issue with Thabiti’s valiant response to the barrage he went through is in a related area. I know that I am Monday morning quarterbacking here, but this same point came up in my exchange with Thabiti a few months ago, and I think it bears mentioning again. In his second piece, he apologized (unnecessarily, in my view) for the way he had used the phrase “gag reflex.”

“But I do see how such a loosely defined and provocative term can be hurtful—not only to my cause, but more importantly to people. For writing in this way, I offer my sincerest apology to every reader, not just those hurt.”

Now I also want to say that the mere existence of controversy is no ground for refusing to seek forgiveness, whenever forgiveness must be sought. But the necessity of doing so must be governed by what the Bible defines as an offense, and Thabiti was guilty of no biblical offense in his first post. He was just being the man, and people didn’t like it very much. They never do. In contemporary discourse, there are few things as offensive as that.

His apology was principled, just like his first post was principled, but in the case of the apology, it just happens that I differ with the principle. But given that disagreement, what difference did it make to those advancing the cause of sodomy? None at all. They will throw whatever rocks they have available, whether it is “that man refuses to apologize, the desperado!” or it is “even he acknowledged that he went too far . . .” That is how Jonathan Merritt played it.

Now, to my line in my post. I made a play on words — not a joke — and I did it to draw attention to what we are actually talking about. Chesterton says somewhere (this is my Chesterton morning) that when we are comparing a blunt or vulgar word with a polite euphemism, the blunt word is the one that carries the moral assessment with it. That is why people in these circumstances don’t like them. They want parades in favor of “committed relationships,” and not parades celebrating anal intercourse. But that is what this is about. Right?

We want the euphemism, not because we are too delicate to hear, but because we are too cowardly to fight.

Thus it is, in our day, we can have numerous Christian men developing a swish in their walk, along with a metrosexual limp-wristedness, and coy ironies suffused throughout their lisping words, and everyone is okay with the drift. If you object to the development, you are a Pharisee, and who wants to be a Pharisee? So there we all are, lazily circling the drain. But if, looking at all this, somebody else in the Christian world comes along and says something like poofter, the moral universe suddenly rights itself, absolute moral standards come suddenly into focus, the Bible becomes the black letter Word of God, and such things must not even be named among you (Eph. 5:3). All of sudden, moral clarity, like a flashbulb went off, rebuking and blinding the legalist, and then we are all back in the dark again, trying to cop a feel.

Do not use the Pauline injunction to keep people from saying “cop a feel,” while maintaining those dimly lit conditions in the church that enable us to actually cop one.

First, to do so is the strain the gnat and swallow the camel. Second, that is not what Paul meant. Paul named that kind of sin, and the prophets did also. We need to define propriety by the Bible, cover to cover. We do not define propriety by what the laugh tracks of gay-friendly sitcoms have catechized and conditioned us to scorn.

And third, this is worldview sumo-wrestling. You are either pushing them in a direction they do not want to go, or they are pushing you. If they are pushing you in a direction you do not want to go, you cannot fix that problem by changing your mind, and finding a verse that make it okay to lose.