Brain Cramps for God

Romans 8:26-27 -- "Help in our Weakness"

2010-02-28T22:53:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, ²⁹ but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. 27 And he³⁰ who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit³¹ intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God’s will.

Notes:

²⁹ tn Or “for we do not know what we ought to pray for.”

³⁰ sn He refers to God here; Paul has not specifically identified him for the sake of rhetorical power (for by leaving the subject slightly ambiguous, he draws his audience into seeing God’s hand in places where he is not explicitly mentioned).

³¹ tn Grk “he,” or “it”; the referent (the Spirit) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

Biblical Studies Press. (2006; 2006). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible. Biblical Studies Press.

Sermon Notes:

The Spirit prays for believers, interceding for them in their weakness. In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness the Spirit himself intercedes for us.
The Spirit prays for us in our weakness, asking for what we do not know to ask for. We do not know what we ought to pray for...but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
The Spirit asks for what is God’s will for us.
- God does not expect us to always know His will.
- In our weakness and groaning, God understands us perfectly.
- God works in us and for us in ways we do not know or understand.
- Our God has done (and will do) everything we need to enable us to bring Him glory — even in our weakness.

Moral Reasoning and Parental Notification Laws

2010-02-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

Each side in the parental notification issue has their "poster children" for why parental notification laws should, or should not, be passed. On the "should" side are the instances where boyfriends and statutory rapists talk and/or coerce their pregnant underage girlfriends into abortions without their parent's knowledge - in one prominantly quoted case leading to the death of the girl from complications of the abortion because the parents did not know that a surgery had been performed.

On the "should not" side you are advised to go read "Abortion and parental notification laws" and the two posts (here and here) the author links written by someone who works within the justice system processing judicial exception requests to parental notification laws.

However, I really am not interested - at least in this post - about the "poster children" . . .

[As a disclaimer, I (as the parent of a 17 year old girl) believe that there is no reason why my daughter should be able to get surgery without adult supervision (her parents or a judge) just because it happens to be an abortion rather than having a mole removed. Indeed, as someone who believes that an unborn child is the type of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end, I am much more comfortable with her getting the mole cells killed without my permission than I am with having an unborn child killed.]

What I am interested in is the concepts of moral agency and moral reasoning - not only as regards parental notification in specific but also more generally about human moral decisions in general. This post is triggered by this comment in the linked post above:

Don't you think that if your child isn't coming to you, you've already failed and lost the "rights" to make their decisions?

And the expression rational "moral" agent; what does that mean? It sounds like a nebulous expression for "I'll decide when you're ready to start agreeing with me on all topics"!

Is disagreeing with your personal, religious and political ideas the type of thing that makes someone incapable of their own "moral" agency?

Not trying to be a pain, just throwing it out there. I'm not sure how we can legislate that every parent gets exactly the type of relationship with their child that they desire.

While the "poster children" examples on both sides are indeed rare exceptions designed to evoke an emotional response, the questions in this comment - despite their inherant hostility and condescenion - are more fundamental to the real questions:

the expression rational "moral" agent; what does that mean? It sounds like a nebulous expression for "I'll decide when you're ready to start agreeing with me on all topics"! One of the common defenses of the unfettered right of a woman to choose to have an abortion is that to inhibit that by law, or even by moral pronouncements, is to demean a woman as a moral agent - that somehow it is believed that she is impaired from making these decisions on her own. This is presented as a misogynist impulse designed to control woman and the decisions about their own body:
This is a very unforgiving perspective, not to mention a punitive one. As Digby has said over and over again, the laws intended to strike down Roe aren't about ending abortion. They're about regulating women's sexuality, so that Papa always guides the family. After all, he's the only one who can think clearly enough to lay down the law.
I think all humans are impaired moral agents - again, all humans are impaired moral agents [different link]. I believe we are moral agents - I think the hyper-determinists on both ends of the spectrum are wrong: we do have real moral choices that we can make that are neither determined by our "synapses firing just so" (the brain vs mind discussion), our culture, and/or our experiences; or by an omnipotent God. We are not robots programmed by nature/nurture or God.

That we are all (mostly all at least) moral agents capable of making, and being responsible for, our own decisions does not mean we make the right decisions. This is my favorite list (compare Aquinas's Summa Theologica, Prima Secundæ Partis, Question 94, Articles 4 and 6) of the some the reasons we reason poorly:
1. insufficient experience: we do not know enough to reach sound conclusions;
2. insufficient skill: we haven't learned the art of reasoning well;
3. sloth: we are too lazy to reason;
4. corrupt custom: it hasn't occurred to us to reason;
5. passion: we are distracted by strong feeling from reasoning carefully;
6. fear: we are afraid to reason because we might find out we are wrong;
7. wishful thinking: we include in our reasoning what we are willing to notice;
8. depraved ideology: we interpret known principles crookedly; and
9. malice: we refuse to reason because we are determined to do what we want.
Actually, only (maybe) #8 and (certainly) #9 make us "bad people" or "a criminal". In the other seven, the community and the culture bears an equal, and sometimes greater, responsibility for training and equipping us to reason well; and establishing "known principles" clearly. That is where parental notification laws come in. We (rightly IMO) assume that:
- as we mature we get better at moral reasoning;
- children, until they grow gain maturity and learn to become effective moral agents, are more greatly affected by all of the reasons above; and
- in the meantime parents have the responsibility to protect children from the mistakes this natural weakness in moral reasoning brings about
Certainly, in a culture where our ability to make moral decisions about wearing seat belts, motorcycle helmets, using cell phones while driving, etc. is constantly being impinged upon - it is difficult to complain about impinging on a 17 year old girl's decision to go ahead with a medical procedure that both ends a developing human life and that can have unknowable impacts on the future mental and physical health of the girl. Why, in this most critical of decisions imbued with some of the most intense emotional pressures (both internal and external) is the need to have the wisdom provided by many counselors lessened or absent? It is, in my opinion, because those in the pro-choice movement who oppose parental notification laws are probably suffering from some combination of numbers 5, 7, and 8 (and perhaps in some cases number 9) above.
I'm not sure how we can legislate that every parent gets exactly the type of relationship with their child that they desire . . . Don't you think that if your child isn't coming to you, you've already failed and lost the "rights" to make their decisions? No. There are a few false dichotomies here:
- that the desire to be notified and involved in the decision implies the desire to make the decision.
- that the child will only not inform the parent because the parent is a bad parent. What of the child who has such a good relationship with a parent that they do not wish it damaged because they have so clearly botched their duties as a moral agent by getting pregnant (assuming the consensual sex that is the cause in the vast majority of cases)? I can guarantee that my own daughter would both say that I am a very good parent (because I am willing to let her be an uncoerced moral agent); and that I would be the last person she would want to come to and say "I am pregnant" to - if for no other reason than because she has so "patiently" explained to me as she became sexually active that she is not "stupid" and will not have unprotected sex and/or get pregnant.
- that parenthood is a "right" that we can lose. Certainly, parental rights can be taken away and given to the state (hence judicial bypass BTW); but parenthood is a responsibility both legally and morally and not a right. The state exists, IMO, not to usurp that responsibility but to give aide and support to more organic relationship between parent and child.
Is disagreeing with your personal, religious and political ideas the type of thing that makes someone incapable of their own "moral" agency? Yes really. This reminds me of the "not while you live under my roof" answer in parenting. If we have a responsibility to raise our children to be competent moral agents - and morality is not individually determined but is tied to family, community, and culture - then, yes, while my child lives under my roof and within my responsibility disagreeing with my moral reasoning is indeed grounds for me believing they are not yet capable moral agents. If they do not like it, they can move out and establish their own moral context outside my responsibility - but not my concern.

One of the (bad IMO) results of the Enlightment is addressed by A.J. Conyers:

"What is Enlightenment?" asked Immanuel Kant. It is the capacity "to use one's intelligence without being guided by another." "Have courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment". Thus stand side by side, in unmistakable opposition, two ideas of the way one lives in the world. One is that of attentive listening to the guidance of another, whether of a wise guide, or tradition, or of God. The other is the notion of the self-determined "free" man, who without listening to another, becomes the master of his own soul.

However you feel about how that quote applies to mature moral agents, I do not "get" how a 16 year old girl is the "master of [her] own soul" or body.

Romans 8:22-25 -- "Waiting Eagerly in Hope"

2010-01-27T21:32:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. 23 Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,²⁵ groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, ²⁶ the redemption of our bodies. ²⁷ 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance.²⁸

Notes:

²⁵ tn Or “who have the Spirit as firstfruits.” The genitive πνεύματος (pneumatos) can be understood here as possessive (“the firstfruits belonging to the Spirit”) although it is much more likely that this is a genitive of apposition (“the firstfruits, namely, the Spirit”); cf. TEV, NLT.

²⁶ tn See the note on “adoption” in v.15.
²⁷ tn Grk “body.”
²⁸ tn Or “perseverance.”

Sermon Notes: In Romans 8, Paul unfolds great assurances for the children of God — even though we “suffer” and “groan.”

Being justified by faith in Jesus Christ means:

no condemnation because we are “set...free from the law of sin and death”
new life “in the Spirit” free from the domination of “flesh” to be led by the Spirit
new inheritance as “sons of God” adopted as children of God
certainty of coming glory

affirmed by perseverance in suffering suffering is confirmation we are “co‐heirs with Christ”!
part of a creation that waits “in hope”

“the creation”—waits for coming “glory”
“the children of God”—wait eagerly for coming “glory”

All of creation “groans” in anticipation of future glory.
God’s people also “groan inwardly” in anticipation of future glory.
We have “the firstfruits of the Spirit” now.
Yet we “groan inwardly.”
And we “wait eagerly” for what we do not yet fully have: “our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

Our salvation in Christ is “now and not yet.”
Just as God has given us bodies suitable for this earth, so God will give us new bodies suitable for a new earth

God has given us a salvation with a certain future experience of glory.
God’s people should be greatly influenced by “hope.”

This is why we “groan inwardly” for something much better.
This is why we can be confident and hopeful people!
This is why we are able to “wait for it patiently.”

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory. 3 Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance, character, and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For the Christian who believes God, our future changes our present!
- Our salvation is incomplete—so we “groan inwardly” (8:23)
- Our salvation is glorious—so we “wait eagerly” (8:23)
- Our salvation is certain—so we “wait patiently” (8:25)

The Strength of Uniqueness

2010-01-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

There were a couple of diaries at Street Prophets reflecting on some of the political and social aspects of two strategy/war games -- Chess and Go: "Metaphor and The Game of Go . . ."

Part 1 is really mainly introduction - Part 2 is the one I really caught and involved myself in. My comments in the diary itself were mainly to correct some more or less serious errors (IMO) about chess - a game I both palayed and organized tournaments in a past "life". However, the real point of interest to me was some the underlying philosophical assumptions of the author:

I will step aside from the contention that there is some eastern and western philosophical differences when it comes to actual warfare - the experiences of the modern era just do not support that in my opinion. Nor do I wish to fall into some idealistic notions of eastern vs western spirituality. First, they are probably stereotypical; and, second, they idealized western view ignores some of the horrible outgrowths of the differences.

However, this point in the chart:

is interesting to me on a political, social and theological level. A good disclaimer here is that what I am about to say may have nothing to do with what the other author meant, believed, or desired to convey. It is only about how it struck me, and the place it spun me off to.

The first thought is that western enlightenment thought, while glorying in the individual, has led to an economic and political system that attempt to detach humans from the very sources of their uniqueness and create interchangeable "stones" that can replace each other easily when it comes to industry, the state, and the military. Folks are, IMO, deluded in believing that breaking the bonds to family, community, and religion that they give themselves an autonomous existence as free-acting individuals; but they really weaken themselves and become attached to the industry, the state, and the military. They cease to be part of organic structures and become part of modern organization - a modern organization that resembles a machine with human interchangeable parts rather than any naturally occuring structure.

You see this "scizophenia" in the problems facing "progressive" politics. On the one hand, they wish to honor diversity of language, culture and belief; and on the other uphold enlightenment concepts that led to the modern capitalist state - or even worse the modern socialist ones. Modern nation states need the strength of homogenity and all of those interchangeable and easily replaceable "stones". Socialism is even more detrimental to diversity - it's whole reason for existence is to create a "new man" and then a new society; and for that to occur anything that divides "the class" from its goals (and leadership) is despicable and must be crushed.

The conservative movement, even on an ideal level, has a similiar problem. While recognizing, as Russel Kirk did, that:

Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems; conservatives resist what Robert Graves calls "Logicalism" in society [see "Civilization without Religion?" for more on Graves]. . . .
Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a "classless society." With reason, conservatives have often been called "the party of order." If natural distinctions are effaced among men, oligarchs fill the vacuum. Ultimate equality in the judgment of God, and equality before courts of law, are recognized by conservatives; but equality of condition, they think, means equality in servitude and boredom.

they too are wedded to a concept of nation state and commerce that only works well with masses of interchangeable "stones" for industry and the military.

Against both of these comes Christianity as taught in scripture:

1 Corinthians 12:12-27: For just as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body – though many – are one body, so too is Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Whether Jews or Greeks or slaves or free, we were all made to drink of the one Spirit. For in fact the body is not a single member, but many. If the foot says, “Since I am not a hand, I am not part of the body,” it does not lose its membership in the body because of that. And if the ear says, “Since I am not an eye, I am not part of the body,” it does not lose its membership in the body because of that. If the whole body were an eye, what part would do the hearing? If the whole were an ear, what part would exercise the sense of smell? But as a matter of fact, God has placed each of the members in the body just as he decided. If they were all the same member, where would the body be? So now there are many members, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you,” nor in turn can the head say to the foot, “I do not need you.” On the contrary, those members that seem to be weaker are essential, and those members we consider less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our unpresentable members are clothed with dignity, but our presentable members do not need this. Instead, God has blended together the body, giving greater honor to the lesser member, so that there may be no division in the body, but the members may have mutual concern for one another. If one member suffers, everyone suffers with it. If a member is honored, all rejoice with it. Now you are Christ’s body, and each of you is a member of it.

The Body of Christ is not a machine composed of interchangeable "stones" indistinguishable from each other; and each of its parts is unique and essential to its functioning - operating by use of gifts and talents given by birth, upbringing, or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Back to Chess: one of the principle skills of the game is the recognition that each piece, with its differing modes of capture, movement, etc. has unique strengths and weaknesses which must be used together coherantly as the game progresses. Even the "lowly" pawn constitutes the backbone of the strength of its side - and the uncompensated loss of a single pawn can lead inexorably to defeat for the side that loses it. Further, recognition that an opponent undervalues any of their pieces or pawns gives you a route to victory: simply attempt to force the opponent to trade the pieces they most value and continue play with the ones they have less use for, or skill in using. You do not, however (except in a unique circumstance) simply have the ability to train your Knight to be a Queen when you need one.

This is a lesson that applies to life as I see it: each of us is a discreet and unique individual with particular gifts and skills that make us unequal to every other person; and yet we only become strong in organic community with other humans where those strengths and weaknesses are balanced, valued and honored. Our strengths do not come out as identical "stones" in the organizations of industry, the state, or the military.

I will take Chess over Go

Romans 8:19-21 -- "The Renewal of all Things"

2010-01-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 8:19 For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God²⁴ who subjected it – in hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

Notes:

²⁴ tn Grk “because of the one”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

Sermon Notes: The sermon (and note sheet) began with the "The tantalizing promise of Ephesians 1:9‐10…":

He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ – the things in heaven and the things on earth.

Also, in the following notes it is important to keep in mind Romans 8:16-18, where the definition of "children of God" resides:

The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children. And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ) – if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us.

So now Paul discusses:

The longing of the creation. (v 19). The “creation” is made to depend upon (and to follow) what God does with His children.
that the creation was “subjected to frustration.” (v 20) Creation shared the penalty of man’s fall.
that Creation will be set free—from its slavery to decay. (v 21a)
Creation will be “brought into” the freedom of the glory of God’s children. (v 21b)

This all points to:

The glorious future of creation is connected to our glorious future as children of God.
When we see a suffering creation, we should remember the cause (man’s sin) — and know that God intends to liberate His people — and change all creation.
We should view ourselves as part of an entire suffering creation — which longs for “glory”!
We should have a biblical view of creation.
If we are true children of God, we will one day rule over God’s renewed, renovated, regenerated creation.
We can glorify God by working to experience the glory of His design for all things.
At this present moment we are being prepared for something “glorious.”
We live today—in faith—in a totally victorious God!

Christian Carnival CCCIX (309) is up

2010-01-06T09:33:00.000-08:00

Go read the excellant posts linked at RodneyOlsen.net. Jeremy Pierce's standard blurb about the Carnival:

The Christian Carnival is a weekly collection of some of the best posts of the Christian blogosphere. It's open to Christians of Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic convictions. One of the goals of this carnival is to offer our readers to a broad range of Christian thought. This is a great way to make your writing more well known and perhaps pick up some regular readers. For examples of past carnivals, see the Christian Carnival archive.

To enter is simple . . . [go to that link to find out more]

Blog Tour:Catch-up Part I

2010-01-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

A style that I seemed to have settled into is that whenever I have a brief hiatus from blogging (or do not have much to say) I tend to start up again with posts that tour blogs I am interested in.

I had a mini-hiatus and I filled up my Google Reader with literally hundreds of posts that I had not read through. In a smaller group, I had some "starred items" that I had marked with the intent to perhaps blog on myself.

I went through and cleaned out my Reader on Sunday, and thought that I might highlight some posts that I think are interesting - with a strong emphasis on some series and/or topics that I found attractive but have not written on:

C. Michael Patton at Parchment and Pen has a series titled “. . . And Other Stupid Statements”:

"Belief is No Good Without Practice": Part I, Part II, and Part III
Translation in our generation: “Since right belief (doctrine, systematic theology, understanding, etc) does not evidence itself in practical matters immediately and causes people to be arrogant, we should not even worry about belief at all and just get out there and “do” what we know is right. Orthodoxy is bad. Orthopraxy is good . . .
"You Ask Me How I Know He Lives . . . He Lives Within My Heart"
As started by Luther and developed further by Melancthon and others, the understanding of faith was expressed in three separate yet vitally connected aspects: notitia, assensus, and fiducia
1. Notitia: This is the basic informational foundation of our faith. It is best expressed by the word “content.” Faith, according to the Reformers, must have content or substance. You cannot have faith in nothing. There must be some referential, propositional truth to which the faith points. The proposition “Christ rose from the grave” or “God loves you” for example, provide a necessary information base or notitia that Christians must have.
2. Assensus: This is the assent, confidence, or assurance that we have that the notitia is correct. Here we assent to the information, affirming it to be true. This involves evidence which leads to the conviction of the truthfulness of the proposition. According to the Reformers, to have knowledge of the proposition is not enough. We must, to some degree, be convinced that it is really true. This involves intellectual assent and persuasion based upon some degree of critical thought. While notitia claims “Christ rose from the grave,” assensus takes the next step and says, “I am persuaded to believe that Christ rose from the grave.”
But these two alone are not enough, according to the Reformers. As one person has said, these two only qualify you to be a demon, for the demons both have the right information (Jesus rose from the grave) and are convicted of its truthfulness. One aspect still remains . . .
"I Was Going to Preach this, but the Holy Spirit Led Me to This"
The idea it conveys is that the particular message that was prepared was not of God (at least at that time) and this new message was most certainly of God. In fact, the new message is miraculously of God! Why? Because I did not really prepare for it. It must have been God who prepared it. “I just step back when that happens and let God do his thing. Who am I to interrupt God?”
"One White Lie Will Send You to Hell For All Eternity"
I have to be very careful here since I am going against what has become the popular evangelical way to present the Gospel, but I don’t believe this is true. Not only do I not buy it, I think this, like the idea that all sins are equal in the sight of God, is damaging to the character of God, the significance of the cross, and I believe it trivializes sin. Let me explain . . .
"The Trinity is Like 3-in-1 Shampoo"
“The doctrine of the Trinity is like an egg: three parts, one thing.” Ever heard that? How about this, “The doctrine of the Trinity is like a three leaf clover: three leaves, one clover.” Or how about THIS, “The doctrine of the Trinity is like water: three forms (ice, steam, liquid) one substance.” But the greatest I ever heard was by a guy in one of my classes. He said that he thought that the Trinity was like 3-in-1 shampoo: three activities, one substance.”

Stupid statements. Creative, but stupid. Don’t use them. Any of them. Ever.

Explanation coming… Hang with me . . .
"The Bible Says it, therefore it's True"
Just because the Bible says something, this does not make it true. We follow the Bible in what it teaches, but not everything it records is intended to be teaching in the proper sense. Our goal as Christians is to be good interpreters of the Bible, being able to discern when something is being taught or when something is being told.

Here are five ways that we can mistakenly believe that the Bible is teaching truth or principles when it is not . . .
"All Sins are Equal in God's Sight"
It is very common within popular evangelicalism to answer this question in the affirmative. This was one of the main assumptions in a book that I just recommended last week. Most find this theological concept very appealing and accept it, I am afraid to say, without doing much homework.

I think this tendency to assume that all sins are equal in the sight of God comes by means of three influences . . .
"When We Get to Heaven, We Will Be Timeless"
The statement, “When we get to heaven, we will be timeless” represents a fundamental misunderstanding of Christian theology. To have this view of the afterlife, one must either be, as I said, either a modified pantheist or an atheist.
"Nothing Could Be Further from the Truth"
Overstatement, unqualified superlatives, and non-contingent propositions, are related and can be thought of as different ways of saying the same thing. In fact, you might say that they all belong in the same semantic domain that we might call “imbalance.” Once I detect imbalance, I usually have a hard time going on. Think of phrases like these . . .
"In Heaven, We Will Be Bowing Down Before the Throne of God 24/7"
Simply and unspiritually put, that does not sound like too much fun. The answer was always the same when I would timidly admit my fear of ultimate and eternal boredom: “When you are in heaven, sinless and in perfect submission to God’s will, you will be perfectly and joyfully content bowing before the throne of God all day, everyday.”

I would think to myself (although I would never admit it), I am not sure that I want to go there. I mean, I love God and certainly don’t mind bowing before him, but 24/7? If this is something that I will enjoy, it probably is not really me in the resurrection. For years I lived with the unspoken shame that I did not really want to go to heaven.
"Everyone Who Disagrees with Me is a Liar"
The presupposition is this: Whenever someone teaches something you disagree with, the rhetoric employed to combat such is accusations of lies. In other words, if someone does not teach the truth in your opinion, they are lying. Period. No question about it.
"I Don't Want to Know About God, I Just Want to Know Him"
I have been in discussions with a gentleman who reads this blog and, occasionally, will take one of my theology courses. The main topic of discussion is the necessity of theological discourse for the average Christian. Whether it be big words, concepts, or ideas, this gentleman does not think such things are necessary for the Christian life. He prefers the simplicity of loving God and leaving the rest to the theologians. His basic argument is that such things can and often do take away from our ability to live the Christian life due to their “side-tracking” nature.

Let me paraphrase a comment he would typically make:
“Whether you are a Calvinist or an Arminian, a traducianist or creationist, believe in soul sleep or intermediate bliss, believe in transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or memorialism, none of these ultimately makes any difference. In fact, these beliefs serve more to bring about sinful divisiveness than anything else.”
"God Comes Before My Wife"
I would say from experience that if your marriage is not going well, nothing is going well. Your ministry, insights, and everything else will suffer when your wife is not your priority. And if it does not, then that may be an even bigger problem: apathy. Apathy toward your marital relationship. Solution: Redirect all passion to ministry. What a terrible place to be. Understandable, but terrible.
"If the Bible is Not Inerrant, then Christianity is False"
When Greg rejected the doctrine of inerrancy because of his inability to reconcile the discrepancies, did this necessarily mean that he had to walk away from the faith?

Romans 8:17-18 -- "Suffering and Glory"

2010-01-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 8:17 And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ)²² – if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him. 18 For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared²³ to the glory that will be revealed to us.

Notes:

²² tn Grk “on the one hand, heirs of God; on the other hand, fellow heirs with Christ.” Some prefer to render v. 17 as follows: “And if children, then heirs – that is, heirs of God. Also fellow heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.” Such a translation suggests two distinct inheritances, one coming to all of God’s children, the other coming only to those who suffer with Christ. The difficulty of this view, however, is that it ignores the correlative conjunctions μέν…δέ (men…de, “on the one hand…on the other hand”): The construction strongly suggests that the inheritances cannot be separated since both explain “then heirs.” For this reason, the preferred translation puts this explanation in parentheses.

²³ tn Grk “are not worthy [to be compared].”

Note Sheet: The note sheet points out the parallelism in the two verses - Christ's suffering and glory in verse 17; and our present suffering and future glory in v 18. These things are tied together.

How should the follower of Christ respond to suffering?

What we should not do…:
1. We should not be surprised by it.
2. We should not doubt God.
What we should do…:
1. We should see suffering as belonging to this present time.
2. We should humble ourselves and find peace and privilege in sharing the experience of our Master.
3. We should let suffering convince us of our weakness and need.
4. We should depend upon God’s Spirit to transform us—as we endure with confidence in His certain love.
5. We should let suffering move us closer to our brothers and sisters in deeper relationships.
6. We should let suffering motivate us to long for the full joy of our eternal home—and know it is “not worth comparing with the glory” we shall soon experience.

Does God Feel Emotions?

2010-01-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Not having spent a lot of time studying theology - I am at home with the exposition of scripture. As someone who could be close to being a "Biblicist", I certainly have not had much use for concepts of God divorced from the clear teaching of scripture.

In a discussion over at Vox Populi there was a running debate (well, not really a debate) in the comment thread about whether God feels emotion. The person holding forth the position that God did not feel anger, or joy, or any other emotion related it to the theological positions of Aquinas and others. Most of the comments by "Benyachov" were fairly rude and arrogant - but the main point seemed to be that to believe that God has emotion is an unwarranted characature of God:

Based on your overly literalistic anthopomorphism carried to it's logical extreme, God MUST be some kind of Bird since he has "wings" or he must have an appendage like "wings". Your reasoning here is just plain silly. Yet even here with your use of the phrase "similar to human emotion" you are all but admiting this verse must be understood analogously and not literally.

Now, one of those principles of reading the Bible is not to allow one isolated passage to overwealm others- and there are literally hundreds of places in scripture where God is described as having wrath, joy, anger, love, etc. Is all of this anthopomorthic "nonsense" or bad understanding of the ancient use of these words? Also, if "Benyachov"'s entire point is that we can only know how God feels by imperfect analogy rather than by literal understanding from our own emotions then why insult someone over this? After all, "Benyachov" has no more understanding about what "exactly" God feels than his antagonist did.

I didn't find "Benyachov" to be a particularly inviting to have a conversation with - I wasn't in the mood to be insulted. However, he did recommend an essay on the theology here: Does God Have Emotions?. In looking at that essay, it seems that Benyachov has pushed the argument too far. From the essay:

Thus, I will argue that classical theism has much more to say in its defense than is usually admitted by its detractors. God is indeed personal, and knows and loves us, but we simply cannot assume that what is true of human persons, knowledge and love (which involve change and dependence) is true of the divine persons and knowledge and love. To make that assumption, as process and open theists blithely do, is to compromise God’s transcendence.

and

When we ask, does God have emotions? the most straightforward, correct answer is, Yes, because he became man. Jesus is both God and man, fully divine and fully human. So, Jesus has human emotions: joys, desires, fears, sadnesses, and so on. The Christian faith holds that Jesus is one divine person but with two natures, human and divine. I do not wish here to examine in detail this central dogma (since I will concentrate on the question of whether God has emotions in his divine nature), but briefly the following should be said. A person is an intelligent and free subject of actions, a morally responsible agent. A nature is the intrinsic source of characteristic actions, that by which or with which one acts. In Christ, the one who acts is God himself, so he is a divine person. But Christ can act by his divine nature or by his human nature (or by both). Thus, after the Incarnation, literally, God does suffer as we suffer, he does have emotions as we have emotions, since it is the person who has the emotions, even though he has these emotions by his human nature.

Traditionally it was believed that at least one main reason why God became man was so that the God-man Jesus Christ could be a mediator. God’s transcendence, that is, the infinite difference between his perfection and ours, did, from our angle, make approaching him difficult, certainly somewhat frightening. God became man, however, and we humans can now be personally united to God, brought within the divine family (the Trinity), in Jesus Christ.

However, the author of the essay draws back from this:

But the question remains: is God affected in some way by our actions? Does he literally suffer when we suffer or do wrong? Does he really become angry, repent of his actions, or rejoice at the repentance of a sinner? Does he literally feel joy over the way things are in himself, and in his creation?

The classical view, as articulated for example by Saints Augustine, Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, said that God is immutable, impassible, and non-temporal. In other words, since God is perfect, he does not change. Since he is perfect, he does not undergo change from any other being (he is impassible). And since he does not change, there is in him no distinction between past, present and future. On the classical view, to be sure, God does delight in his goodness and loves his creatures, but this cannot be interpreted as meaning that God is changed by, or different because of, his creatures.

This seems to be what "Benyachov" is hanging His argument on - that feeling emotion would mean God has changed; but this doesn't actually seem to be the essayist's position here or as he continues.

Both "Benyachov" and the essayist hang their hats, at least partially, on Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas writing about "passions":

Therefore acts of the sensitive appetite, inasmuch as they have annexed to them some bodily change, are called passions; whereas acts of the will are not so called. Love, therefore, and joy and delight are passions; in so far as they denote acts of the intellective appetite, they are not passions. It is in this latter sense that they are in God. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii): "God rejoices by an operation that is one and simple," and for the same reason He loves without passion. -- Summa Theologica, Part 1, Q 20

Aquinas places the love of God as an act of will rather than a passionate act (at least in a bodily material sense). However, Aquinas also distinguishes between two different parts of passion:

In the passions of the sensitive appetite there may be distinguished a certain material element--namely, the bodily change--and a certain formal element, which is on the part of the appetite. Thus in anger, as the Philosopher says (De Anima iii, 15,63,64), the material element is the kindling of the blood about the heart; but the formal, the appetite for revenge.

so that there are non-materially based elements of passion God could have - assuming they did not imply imperfection. Aquinas therefore distinguishes between non-material passions God could have, and those He couldn't:

as regards the formal element of certain passions a certain imperfection is implied, as in desire, which is of the good we have not, and in sorrow, which is about the evil we have. This applies also to anger, which supposes sorrow. Certain other passions, however, as love and joy, imply no imperfection. Since therefore none of these can be attributed to God on their material side, as has been said (ad 1); neither can those that even on their formal side imply imperfection be attributed to Him; except metaphorically, and from likeness of effects, as already show (3, 2, ad 2; 19, 11). Whereas, those that do not imply imperfection, such as love and joy, can be properly predicated of God, though without attributing passion to Him, as said before

Of course, God would not have the problem with the formal element of passion invoking the material element - He doesn't have a body to be materially affected by His emotions: it has to stay confined to the formal element that Aquinas accepts.

The interesting emotion in the list is anger. Obviously, scripture talks about God being angry, and having wrath which I see as a close analog to anger. Does being angry presuppose that you have sorrow about something you lack? My pastor's definition of "wraith" :

The wrath of God is the settled, consistant, pure, deeply felt, eternal rejection of evil

Now, assuming "deeply felt" does not require a physical body and reaction, does this disagree with Aquinas? If it does, which is right (is Thomas Aquinas the final authority)? Can "anger" be attributed to God with the same kind of definition - something that is settled, consistant, pure and eternal?

Back to the essayist: he does not seem so inclined to say that God does not have emotion in Himself, only that we cannot really know what God's nature really is:

Scripture and the teaching of the Church reveal that God loves us, that he invites us to enter into personal communion with him, that he is three persons in one being, that the second person became man and died for our sins. However, according to the second view of divine impassibility--the view I think more likely correct--even revelation does not enable us in this life to know what God is in himself. Revelation tells us about God through this new personal relationship. That is, the personal relationship, which involves much more than a mere causal relationship, remains the vehicle by which we know about God.

The essay is an argument against process theology and open theism - the ideas that God is not immutable and that our choices and behaviors alter God. It is not an argument that God doesn't love, or have joy - it is an argument that

we do not apprehend any nature of knowledge or love held in common by us and God, and so we cannot infer from the characteristics of human knowledge or love to divine knowledge or love.

I can accept that to a large extent.

One question this whole discussion does raise for me: if Christ is the vehicle by which God can bodily feel human emotions - and Christ is one nature with God and our way of knowing God as much as we can know Him - did God change during and after the Incarnation? Did he have to learn about who we were by becoming who we were in order to be our mediator? Or did God hold that in His nature, through Christ, from the beginning - before the Word became flesh and lived among us? He did, after all, create us in His image and, according to the Psalmist, know us in our inner most beings even before Christ was with us.

So, some help on this from the theologians out there. Does God have emotions?

Romans 8:15-17 -- "We are Co-heirs with Christ"

2010-01-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear¹⁸, but you received the Spirit of adoption¹⁹, by whom²⁰ we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness to²¹ our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ)²² – if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.

Notes:

¹⁸ tn Grk “slavery again to fear.”

¹⁹ tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).”

²⁰ tn Or “in that.”

²¹ tn Or possibly “with.” ExSyn 160-61, however, notes the following: “At issue, grammatically, is whether the Spirit testifies alongside of our spirit (dat. of association), or whether he testifies to our spirit (indirect object) that we are God’s children. If the former, the one receiving this testimony is unstated (is it God? or believers?). If the latter, the believer receives the testimony and hence is assured of salvation via the inner witness of the Spirit. The first view has the advantage of a σύν- (sun-) prefixed verb, which might be expected to take an accompanying dat. of association (and is supported by NEB, JB, etc.). But there are three reasons why πνεύματι (pneumati) should not be taken as association: (1) Grammatically, a dat. with a σύν- prefixed verb does not necessarily indicate association. This, of course, does not preclude such here, but this fact at least opens up the alternatives in this text. (2) Lexically, though συμμαρτυρέω (summarturew) originally bore an associative idea, it developed in the direction of merely intensifying μαρτυρέω (marturew). This is surely the case in the only other NT text with a dat. (Rom 9:1). (3) Contextually, a dat. of association does not seem to support Paul’s argument: ‘What standing has our spirit in this matter? Of itself it surely has no right at all to testify to our being sons of God’ [C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:403]. In sum, Rom 8:16 seems to be secure as a text in which the believer’s assurance of salvation is based on the inner witness of the Spirit. The implications of this for one’s soteriology are profound: The objective data, as helpful as they are, cannot by themselves provide assurance of salvation; the believer also needs (and receives) an existential, ongoing encounter with God’s Spirit in order to gain that familial comfort.”

²² tn Grk “on the one hand, heirs of God; on the other hand, fellow heirs with Christ.” Some prefer to render v. 17 as follows: “And if children, then heirs – that is, heirs of God. Also fellow heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.” Such a translation suggests two distinct inheritances, one coming to all of God’s children, the other coming only to those who suffer with Christ. The difficulty of this view, however, is that it ignores the correlative conjunctions μέν…δέ (men…de, “on the one hand…on the other hand”): The construction strongly suggests that the inheritances cannot be separated since both explain “then heirs.” For this reason, the preferred translation puts this explanation in parentheses.

Sermon Notes:

Those led by the Spirit are sons of God. (vs. 14)
The Spirit frees us from the life of slavery that leads to fear.
The Spirit brings us into being “adopted” by God.
The Spirit creates personal intimacy with God.
The Spirit testifies with our spirit: we are God’s children.
If “children”—then “heirs”: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ
We share in His suffering and we share in His glory.
God’s “children”—and also “heirs of God”
- All God’s children are “heirs”
- The poor of this world inherit the richest inheritance
- Our inheritance is eternal and imperishable (1 Peter 1:3‐5)
- Begins with our needs met on earth (Phil. 4:6,19)
- But the greatest part is yet to come (Phil. 1:23)
- Full possession when Christ appears (1 Peter 1:13)
- New bodies in a new creation (1 Cor. 15:42‐44, 49; Rom 8:23)
- Fully purchased by the blood of Christ (Heb. 9:15‐18)
- A gift of God’s eternal predestination and purpose (Eph. 1:11)
- The Spirit given as a “deposit” and “guarantee” (Eph. 1:13‐14)
- Enjoyed in fullness after faith, patience and struggle (Rev. 21:7)

1 John 3:1-2: (See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called God’s children – and indeed we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know him. Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that whenever it is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is.

“Heirs of God”—and also “co‐heirs with Christ”

Christ Himself is the “heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2)
All those in Him share His inheritance (Gal. 3:28‐29)
Christ shares His glory and throne with believers (Rev. 3:21)
Our new bodies will “be like His glorious body” (Phil 3:20‐21)
The reward and glory of His completed work (John 17:4‐5, 24)

The most humble child of God recieves all of this

“Sufferings” and “glory":

How do I view suffering?
What happens to me when I suffer? Good or bad?
What is the long term result of suffering in my life?

Romans 8:12-14 -- "If by the Spirit"

2009-12-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 8:12 So then,¹³ brothers and sisters¹⁴, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh 13 (for if you live according to the flesh, you will¹⁵ die),¹⁶ but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are¹⁷ the sons of God.

Notes:

¹³ tn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.

¹⁴ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.
¹⁵ tn Grk “are about to, are certainly going to.”
¹⁶ sn This remark is parenthetical to Paul’s argument.
¹⁷ tn Grk “For as many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these are.”

Sermon Notes: There was a two month hiatus between the last sermon and this one so there was a review of what had been covered:

In “the Gospel” we find “the power of God for salvation” (1:16)
- we experience “the righteousness of God” (1:17) — “through faith in Jesus Christ” (3:22‐23)
we are “united” with Christ—in His death and resurrection. In our “union with Christ”—we have a new “life principle”—that we must understand… and practice
The divine principle of “death to the old”
and
“life to the new.”
God has called us to participate in that principle by choosing “death to the old” and choosing “life to the new”
Followers of Christ have been freed from the slavery of sin and “flesh” ruling their lives—and have been placed in a new realm where the indwelling presence of God’s Spirit rules.
Romans 8:9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him.
Paul says: “This is true of you — so live this way! Reject the rule of the flesh and choose the rule of the Spirit.”

Now, on to the current passage -- How do we do this?

We must believe God gives freedom from sin—and see our obligation to not be ruled by it. (8:12-13a)
God gives us His own Spirit to indwell us — to enable us to live as His people. God gives us His power, in our inner being, by the Spirit (Ephesians 3:16,20 Philippians 2:12‐13). “by the Spirit” = listening for His leading, obedience to His will, and dependence on His power (8:13b)
God calls us to a lifestyle of continually choosing to “put to death” the things that hold us back from God’s best. (8:13c)
“For sin will have no mastery over you…” (Romans 6:14)
“You also lived your lives in this way at one time… But now…” (Colossians 3:5‐9)
“If your hand or your foot causes you to sin…” (Matthew 18:8‐9)
“I subdue my body and make it my slave,…” (1 Corinthians 9:24‐27)

“If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23‐25)
God promises us freedom and “fruitfulness” — as we “live by the Spirit.”

“…you will live…” (8:13d)
“live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16)

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22‐23)
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.”

How are you living out this principle?
What are you now “putting to death” — so you can “live” more fully the way God wants you to live?

Doing:

This week, look for anything “of the flesh” that keeps you from fully experiencing being led by the Spirit of God.
Depending upon the power of God’s Spirit, choose to “put to death” that sin.
Ask God to “fill” you with His Spirit—and enable you to please God in that area of your life.

CHRISTmas as a Universal Impulse

2009-12-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

A woman online who is a non-Christian Unitarian Universalist was peeved by a follower of Christ who:

had a history of complaining about non-Christians keeping "their hands off of CHRISTmas"
always spelled CHRISTmas like that (emphasizing Christ in Christmas)

She didn't have a problem with those two items at all until it got connected together with this on Christmas day:

he commented: "I win at CHRISTmas. I got Super Mario Bros Wii!!"

Certainly, we have no clue about the breadth of this Christian's feelings about Christmas day. And, I am not going to focus on the materialism of Christmas - at least not directly. I commented on her post about what I saw as the "wins" for me this Christmas:

seeing my older step-daughter today
seeing my wife's joy at the gifts she recieved - and seeing her older daughter
my younger daughter nearly begging me to spend time with her at a movie ("Avatar") and the eventual conversations on substantive issues that movie may raise with her.
cooking breakfast for my family, and now getting ready to cook dinner.
attending Christmas morning mass with my MIL at her Catholic Church. She was blessed by it - and I "won" in her being blessed.

Her response to that comment is what really triggered this post:

I think the issue I'm having is ... all the things that were wins for you, are wins for me also. Or would be, I mean, if I had a wife and daughters. ;-)

I think there are relatively few parts of a modern Christmas celebration that aren't shared by the whole world, and I think the holiday is richer for it.

I do think winning can be ... not about a gift, but the gift can be a powerful symbol of a win. My sister, with whom I had a rather rocky relationship most of our lives (until she moved out of my parents' house a year ago) and who is on a very limited budget, happened to see something she thought I would like for my house ... and got it right; it's exactly my taste, and I didn't think she knew or cared what I would like. That's a win. It would have been better to see her in person, but that wasn't possible. So if he'd posted and said "John Doe's wife/sister/whoever knows him better than anyone else, he/she gave him Super Mario Bros because he/she knows he loves games like that" then I wouldn't have disputed that was a sort of win.

But if one is going to insist that Christmas is a purely Christian holiday, shouldn't there be some Christ in there somewhere?

Absolutely, but in the United States (or really in the world) what does that mean? It reminded me of three things:

A quote from Christ
Matthew 10:34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, 36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.
Christ certainly divides the United States, if not the world. People can see His death and resurrection as proof of God's love and grace; or as proof that the God of Christian scripture - if real - is a brutal sadist unworthy of being followed.
A quote from C.S. Lewis
The world does not consist of 100 per cent Christians and 100 per cent Non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand.
As much as my life is proof that God does not let go of what is His easily, there is certainly truth in this when it comes to how one acts even if there is (and I think there is) perserverance of the saints.
A quote from John:
1 John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. 8 The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
I generalize this (as a believer in natural moral law) perhaps more than John would have (he is talking to followers of Christ here). I believe that love is a general revelation in the world that overflows from God's nature into his creation - and particularly into humans that were created in his image. Certainly, John is not saying that a mother's love for her child, or the love between two people, makes one a Christian (see this same chapter in verses 1-6 and 9-10) - only that we creatures love because the Creator is love and that love flows from Him. The more we are connected to Him, the more we love; and the less we are connected then the less we love.

So, the celebration of the birth of the Savior brings all of this out: love vs selfishness, giving vs greed, and service to others vs self-service. The nature of Christ, and God, brings out the best and worst in Christians and non-Christians alike drawing some closer, and driving others farther away. This season is either a blessing, or a curse, to Christians and non-Christians alike.

It is impossible to take Christ out of Christmas, or for Him not to be the reason for this season (and every other one). What is not impossible is for us to suppress God in ourselves; and to ignore our impulses to love and serve as our Creator loves and serves.

'Twas the Day Before Christmas

2009-12-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

And all through this house - we are having a hard time getting into the Christmas Spirit (even the mouse). I have noticed a number of folks both in the blogosphere, and in real life, seem to be experiencing this.

Part of it for us is that the children are older. That brings both bad and good: our older daughter serving in the Navy will be visiting tomorrow because it is Christmas (probably wouldn't otherwise - for good reasons). Our younger daughter is still living at home, but is old enough to have a job, boyfriend, etc. Again, she has had her attention elsewhere.

I am working 60+ hours a week so my attention is elsewhere (and I am exhausted when home), and my wife is having a particularly hard physical time right now -- she has also been distracted and tired. So, the tree didn't go up until Saturday and the house is still not fully decorated with all the little Christmas things we usually put out. There was a major spurt of that activity yesterday and it will finish (whether finished or not) today. I realized when I dug out the favorite Christmas music yesterday as part of that process that we have not listened to Christmas music in the house until yesterday. I was spurred on to find our music here by "decorating" my Christmas Christian Carnival post yesterday with the family's choices for our favorite Christmas music. You can see the seven songs I picked here

The shopping is not done really - and will not be: the financial situation is not conducive to the kind of gifting we all would do otherwise. Indeed, only the youngest daughter has had the money to buy gifts - and she is finally ramping up and getting excited in that area. I have a love/hate relationship with the "commercialization" of Christmas: certainly the shopping furor does distract from celebrating the birth of the Savior; and I love picking out and giving gifts - and it is something I haven't really been able to do for years. One of my gifts is giving my wife whatever shopping money we have to do the shopping. This isn't just male laziness and lack of interest - it lifts her up to be able to shop for her children and family.

Which brings up the question here. Are we as a family so imbued with the "normal" ideas of Christmas - decorating, gifting, cards, etc - that the joy over celebrating the birth of Christ doesn't even enter into the equation? Probably a little - although we are all aware of Christ on a daily basis so I am not going to be too hard on us for this. The lack of an "advent" tradition in our household probably lends to this - we do not build up theologically to Christmas day. Indeed, Christmas (while celebrated) is not a major celebration at my church - Christ's death and resurrection are far more important theologically than His birth.

As our family transitions to a rapidly approaching "empty nest" and we (as older folks) start to lose the energy and interest in the decorating, shopping, etc that go with this season - we need to proactively change our ideas about what constitutes preparation for the celebration of the birth of Christ in our household.

Got any ideas for next year.

Christian Carnival CCCVII - "A Carnival of Praise"

2009-12-23T00:35:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 9:6
For a child has been born to us,
a son has been given to us.
He shoulders responsibility
and is called:
Extraordinary Strategist,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.

* * * * *

Rodney Olsen presents "Where did the magic go?" posted at RodneyOlsen.Net.

Luke 2:8-20 There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David’s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.”

At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises:

Glory to God in the heavenly heights,
Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.

As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.

Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told!

Ridge Burns presents "The Culture of Christmas" posted at Ridge’s Blog.

. . . Liberia had no electrical service, so it was run by a generator. Where no one could see, where no one would drive by, this one Christian family wanted to celebrate the birth of Christ by lighting up their little hut . . .

Kathryn Lang presents "Troubles with a Discouraged Husband" posted at Proverbs 31 Living.

“What are you passionate about?” The question seems easy enough for me. I ask it all the time. But my husband was stumped by the question.

“To tell you the truth, I know of nothing that I am passionate about.”

Diane R presents "Presbyterians (PCUSA) and the "Gay" Question" posted at Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet.

Why don't more theologically conservative churches within mainline denominations just leave? The answer might just lie in this post.

Tom Gilson presents "Wishing and Celebrating" posted at Thinking Christian.

Starbucks says, "See the world not as it is, but as it could be.... Wish. It’s what makes the holidays the holidays." But isn't Christmas is a lot more real than wishing the world wasn't the way it is?

* * * * *
Mary’s Hymn of Praise
“My soul exalts the Lord,
and my spirit has begun to rejoice in God my Savior,
because he has looked upon the humble state of his servant.
For from now on all generations will call me blessed,
because he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name;
from generation to generation he is merciful to those who fear him.
He has demonstrated power with his arm;
he has scattered those whose pride wells up from the sheer arrogance of their hearts.
He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up those of lowly position;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, remembering his mercy,
as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

* * * * *

Jeremy Pierce presents "Satisficing Without Supererogation" posted at Parableman.

A difficult problem about whether God could have made the world better and its connection with moral theory.

Annette presents "Holiday Baking" posted at Fish and Cans.

no....not heavily Christian, but hey...it's an entry of a fun day. :) And I am a Christian so it's all good. :)

Henry Neufeld presents Reconciling the Gospel Genealogies posted at Participatory Bible Study Blog.

There are generally two reactions I hear to this in Sunday School classes and church pews–it’s either fascination, as if the genealogies make or break the Bible or complete indifference, as in “who cares?”

Both reactions miss the point.

Rey from the Bible Archive guest hosts Search for Arete's Dr. Mike who posts a series on higher criticism and catfish.

Dr. Mike Russell from recently wrote this excellent series on higher criticism based on a question I posted on Theologica.

Vocation and Submission

2009-12-06T00:16:00.000-08:00

One of those common misconceptions that I run into is expressed in this comment.

And here we differ because I cannot believe in a loving God who created me with a long size ten foot only so that he can break the arch and bind it into a child's size four.

That is no God of love. It is no deity I can fuel with worship any more than I would willingly feed someone who raped me.

At this moment, I am not sure what exactly what was being commented on. And, frankly, I am not sure its important - this post is about what it provoked in me and not about what it was meant to convey. So, lets look at a couple of things I have posted on in the past:

Submission (upotasso): We, as followers of Christ, are to be submissive: to God's will, to civil authority, to authority within our churchs, etc. Now, this is not slavery, or any sort of external binding:
In non-military use, it was "a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden"
Just so we are clear that being submissive has a pretty impressive pedigree: Lexie, back when Intellectuelle was active, gave this magnificent example of submission:
"Jesus allowed Himself to be subjected to the cross. He could have opted out, but He chose not to because of His love for us. Restraint of strength is one expression of power. Choosing to submit and serve is another expression of power."
Now, in order to submit you have to have someone (or something) submit to; and it has to be voluntary and unforced. This brings up the second word --

Vocation:
The familiar term "vocation", used in both religious and secular contexts, is rooted in the Latin vocatio, meaning "call" and is related to Latin-based words such as "voice" and "invoke." The Greek word is klesis and is found in our words "cleric" and "ecclesiastical". It is the root of the New Testament word for the Church, ekklesia, a point that is not etymologically significant except in that assemblies of all kinds were referred to with the same term. To say that the church consists of those "called out", however, is significant for more reasons than can be traced through linguistic usage: it was the reality to which the church had always attested.

Vocation is the idea that we are called by something higher and outside of ourselves. Taking on that calling requires that we adopt "a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden" - that we submit to the calling and allow ourselves to voluntarily be bound by it. Vocation implies submission because of the four features mentioned by Conyers:

The idea of a call implies an agent outside of the one who is subject to the call.
One does not simply "choose" a course of action, but one responds to a summons. A person might be "free" in either case; but in the case of one responding to vocation, the freedom is not an inner-directed impulse, but the use of the will to respond to an unforeseen and perhaps unknown reality.
The summons is often against the will of the one who is called into service.
Muhammed first believed himself to be mad. Moses complained that the Israelites, to whom God sent him, had never listened to him and therefore neither would Pharaoh, "poor speaker that I am." Jeremiah, the Hebrew prophet, not only resisted the call, but continued to complain that God had overpowered him and placed him in an impossibly difficult circumstance, even protesting that God's call had made him "like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter." Jonah attempted to flee from the Lord to Tarshish, rather than going to Nineveh where he had been called. Jesus prayed to be delivered from his appointed calling.
The calling involves in almost every case hardships that must be overcome in order to answer the summons.
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Muhammed, Mani (the founder of Manichaeism), Socrates, Jesus, and Paul all found themselves under threat of death by their community. Zarathustra is sent into exile. Jesus' moment of public vocation is followed by temptation in the wilderness. Paul's vocation is accompanied by physical ailments, imprisonment, beatings, and exile.
From the point of view of answering to the summons, the greatest danger appears not in this kind of resistance, but in the possibility of being diverted or distracted from the goal.
The whole of Joshua's reiteration of the covenant with Israel, after they had settled the land of Canaan, was devoted to the threat and the consequences of being distracted from their promise to "serve the Lord" and to the warning against being tempted by other gods. In all of the Deuteronomic history of Israel . . . the chief standard by which the nations of Israel and Judah and their kings are judged is their faithfulness to God, measured by their resistance to distraction by the religions of their neighbors. And the last petition in Jesus' model prayer, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;' is an invocation against this distraction.

Now I am not going to get to pluralistic and say that it doesn't matter what calling you submit to that is higher than, and outside of, yourself - that could entail placing God second. One of my favorite definitions of depravity is:

. . . by virtue of the Fall, human beings are turned entirely away from God. Augustine understands this in terms of love: humans love God with the love due creatures and love creatures with the kind of love due to God. Luther understood it in terms of trust: we will trust anything with our ultimate well-being other than God. Either way, all of our faculties--even our good ones--are no longer directed at the love, trust, and glorification of God but are rather turned inward towards ourselves or outward at other created things.

So, there is nothing more worthy of submission than God, and nothing that takes the place of submitting to God.

However, Conyers in his book makes this point:

Sooner or later violence overtakes a society that functions chiefly on the basis of the rivalry of competitive desires, on the basis of choice, or on the basis of "freedom" defined as the unhindered will [desire]. Modern secular society is the longest experiment in history attempting to elevate "choice" or this kind of freedom to the level of a basic social principle. It should not be surprising, though I think to many the awareness of this has not surfaced, that modern life is also the most violent period in the history of mankind.

We do indeed need to be bound to something (not by something) higher than and outside of ourselves - to lose some of those "fingers and toes" for a calling greater than ourselves. While nothing substitutes for God, almost anything is better than nothing - to sacrifice self for a noble cause seems to not only be lost in popular US culture - but scorned.

It is this loss of vocation - the submission to a calling from something outside of and greater than ourselves - in favor of "freedom" and "choice" that led me to say that modern society has not really shown itself to be improved morally.

Matthew 1:19-25: Just Wow

2009-12-03T00:14:00.000-08:00

Jared Wilson at The Gospel-Driven Church saw an amazing metaphor in this passage:

Matthew 1:19 Because Joseph, her husband to be, was a righteous man, and because he did not want to disgrace her, he intended to divorce her privately. 20 When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: 23 “Look! The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep he did what the angel of the Lord told him. He took his wife, 25 but did not have marital relations with her until she gave birth to a son, whom he named Jesus.

The post really isn't long enough to excerpt it - so I am going to post it whole:

The Gospel as Marital Union,
by Jared Wilson

Was reading Matthew 1:18-25 this morning and it struck me for the first time ever to see a little shade of the gospel in Joseph's "acceptance" of Mary. Learning she was with child, he was going to divorce her quietly in order to spare her public disgrace. But the angel told him Mary was pregnant with the Christ-child, conceived by the Holy Spirit, and so Joseph gladly took her to himself. Where he saw reason for divorce, he now saw the presence of Christ and pursued oneness.

It's not a perfect analogy (Mary hadn't sinned in this instance, of course), but it just made me think of all the reasons God has to divorce himself from me, from his people. Yet he is appeased by Christ in us, appealed to by the new life the Spirit has conceived in us. And we are approved by God -- perpetually, finally, eternally -- because of Christ in us, the hope of glory. He render us a spotless Bride.

This, from J.C. Ryle:
“Let us take comfort in the thought that the Lord Jesus does not cast off His believing people because of failures and imperfections.

He knows what they are.

He takes them, as the husband takes the wife, with all their blemishes and defects, and, once joined to Him by faith, will never leave them. He is a merciful and compassionate High priest. It is His glory to pass over the transgressions of His people, and to cover their many sins.”

I really suggest you pay some attention to Jared Wilson.

Culture wars: For Our Names Sake

2009-12-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

[Point ten of Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]

Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to hell because . . ."

10. The culture war is carried out for our name’s sake, not Jesus’. I am not a fan of gay marriage or Roe v. Wade, and even though I would vote to outlaw the former and repeal the latter, neither of those actions in themselves will make a single unbeliever say “How wonderful Christ is!”

The bitter truth is that the Christian culture war is not carried out for Jesus’ glory and renown, but for ours. It makes “Judeo-Christian values” the end-game, the treasure of our mission. And that is idolatry. Nobody was ever legally or argumentatively or even culturally convinced to believe in Jesus. But millions have been loved and served and submitted to into believing.

Dying for somebody says a whole lot more than debating them.

I cannot add anything to this. This series has marked a transformation for me.

* * * * *

Jared Wilson:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

Moi:

it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

John Mark Reynold -- "An Odious Law: Uganda and Homosexuality"

2009-12-01T23:10:00.000-08:00

John Mark Reynolds:

Uganda may pass a law that could lead to the death penalty for homosexual behavior.

The proposed law is odious.

Due to the legacy of colonialism, Western people should be sensitive about interfering in sub-Saharan African politics and modest in making moral pronouncements regarding Africa, but this law deserves universal condemnation. Uganda experienced many evils under colonialism, including the loss of basic liberties.

Experiencing evil does not give a free pass to do evil and this bill is wicked.

It is not a close call.

Some fringe Evangelical support may be behind the bill and so American Evangelicals have some obligation to comment and hopefully urge rejection of this hateful, useless, and dangerous piece of legislation by all Christians.

Hopefully conservatives who follow the Prince of Peace would not need much persuading to convince them that this is a bad bill. However, since at least some extremists have supported it, an argument is necessary.

Traditional Christians should strongly oppose this bill on moral, political, and pragmatic grounds.

Reynolds gives a list of reasons the law is wrong and should be opposed:

Moral:
- it places the life of the citizens of Uganda, fellow humans created God’s image, in peril for grossly insufficient reasons
- the punishments in the bill are radically disproportionate to any harm done through the putative crimes, even if one views them as crimes. Punishment must always fit the crime!
- the bill forces citizens who dissent from the bill to act as government informers or face prosecution.
Political: This expansion of government power anticipated in such a bill is enormous.
Pragmatic:
Of course, the main reason to oppose the bill is that it is morally bankrupt, but it is also useless and counterproductive and associates the good name of traditional Christians with barbarism.

Read the rest of the post, and then make some noise - and if you can figure out a way to make it directly to the Ugandan government all the better.

Romans 8:9-11 -- "The Spirit of God Lives in You"

2009-12-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 8:9 You, however, are not in⁷ the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but⁸ the Spirit is your life⁹ because of righteousness. 11 Moreover if the Spirit of the one¹⁰ who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ ¹¹ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you.¹²

Notes:

⁷ tn Or “are not controlled by the flesh but by the Spirit.”

⁸ tn Greek emphasizes the contrast between these two clauses more than can be easily expressed in English.

⁹ tn Or “life-giving.” Grk “the Spirit is life.”
10 sn The one who raised Jesus from the dead refers to God (also in the following clause).

¹¹ tc Several mss read ᾿Ιησοῦν (Ihsoun, “Jesus”) after Χριστόν (Criston, “Christ”; א* A D* 630 1506 1739 1881 pc bo); C 81 104 lat have ᾿Ιησοῦν Χριστόν. The shorter reading is more likely to be original, though, both because of external evidence (א2 B D2 F G Ψ 33 Ï sa) and internal evidence (scribes were much more likely to add the name “Jesus” if it were lacking than to remove it if it were already present in the text, especially to harmonize with the earlier mention of Jesus in the verse).

¹² tc Most mss (B D F G Ψ 33 1739 1881 Ï lat) have διά (dia) followed by the accusative: “because of his Spirit who lives in you.” The genitive “through his Spirit” is supported by א A C(*) 81 104 1505 1506 al, and is slightly preferred.

Sermon Notes:

Why has God done this (put His Spirit in our body)? For:
- the deepest kind of relationship
- the deepest work of change in us
- the most complete “salvation”
How can we be “led by the Spirit of God”?
- The essential 1st thing: Be certain we “belong to Christ”
- The essential 2nd thing: Believe God’s Word -- “His Spirit lives in you”
- The essential 3rd thing: Choose to “live by the Spirit”

Culture wars: Missionally Challenged

2009-11-29T12:29:00.000-08:00

[Point nine of Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]

Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to hell because . . ."

9. It mangles mission. The culture war sets the Church above and against the world, rather than in but not of the world. It turns us into picketers and politicos. It makes us suspicious and speculative and sensationalist. It takes relationship completely out of the missional equation. It turns us from peaceful ambassadors for Christ into pontificating warriors for Christianity. It does not ask us to serve and sacrifice, which are non-negotiables for Christian mission, but to maneuver and argue.

Paul, the main example of preaching the Gospel in scripture, gave us an example of the "what to do":

Acts 17:22 So Paul stood before the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. 23 For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you.

and an explanation of the centrality of the Gospel:

1 Corinthians 9:16 For if I preach the gospel, I have no reason for boasting, because I am compelled to do this. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward. But if I do it unwillingly, I am entrusted with a responsibility. 18 What then is my reward? That when I preach the gospel I may offer the gospel free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights in the gospel. 19 For since I am free from all I can make myself a slave to all, in order to gain even more people. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew to gain the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) to gain those under the law. 21 To those free from the law I became like one free from the law (though I am not free from God’s law but under the law of Christ) to gain those free from the law. 22 To the weak I became weak in order to gain the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that by all means I may save some. 23 I do all these things because of the gospel, so that I can be a participant in it.

We need to understand the implications of this.

* * * * *

Jared Wilson:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

Moi:

it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

Culture wars: Sign "The Manhattan Declaration"? Not Me.

2009-11-28T11:18:00.000-08:00

At the moment I am writing this line 178,536 people have signed "The Manhattan Declaration" - A Call to Christian Conscience. It is probably clear from my series on the culture wars that I will not be a signer of the Declaration - but some comments are in order.

Their website front page reads:

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:
the sanctity of human life
the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
the rights of conscience and religious liberty.
Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The question is not primarily whether I believe that these truths are "foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society" - largely I do (at least in 2 of the 3 major points). It is also not whether I think

"we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them."

Followers of Christ (or any person) should do exactly that for whatever they believe - especially those things that are critical in their view to human dignity and the well-being of society.

The question is "how" does a follower of Christ (at least this one) do these things? I am almost finished with a series based Jared Wilson's ten reasons the "culture war is going to hell". Jared's answer of "how", and mine, is: Preach the Gospel. As Paul said to the church in Corinth:

1 Corinthians 2:1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come with superior eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed the testimony of God. 2 For I decided to be concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and with much trembling. 4 My conversation and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on the power of God.

As Jared Wilson said in point 8 of his 10:

Jesus knew heart change didn’t come through political power, cultural pressure, or zealotry, so he was keenly disinterested in those things.

Jesus carried this through in His ministry despite the "culture war" of His day. The Pharisees and other "believers" were attempting to hold the line against the Pagan culture of the Roman occupiers and general Helenizaton of Jewish culture. This struggle to defend God's people against the corruption of Paganism gradually ramped up from around the time of Jesus' birth thru three Jewish Wars with Rome - and the complete destruction of Jewish culture in Judea. Jesus, in His ministry, did not take part in these cultural and political struggles.

However, we have a duty as citizens in a democracy to "render unto Caesar" our vote, our taxes, etc. - we are to be politically active as followers of Christ. Indeed

it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

I see the implied mistake in that point most in the abortion struggle. While I think there is almost no chance abortion will ever be illegal in the United States, there is every chance that we can continue to bring more and more people to a view of the unborn child that is in line with God's. We can substantially decrease abortion, but it is by doing the work on peoples' hearts mentioned above - and not by all the political action in the world. We would be much better off spending the money we are using to fight the abortion political battles supporting and expanding the pro-life pregnancy centers around the country. Or, helping woman with the financial, social, etc. pressures that can lead someone to reject giving birth to their child and aborting it instead.

Gay marriage is of course a political battle - first and foremost. However, should we be actually waging it. The folks in favor of same-sex marriage have not made this case to me:

what part of this is so unclear to you? the rights denied gay people are the rights that you as a straight person enjoy: the rights for each of us to marry the single person of our choice and make a life together with appropriate civil protections and responsibilities. It's called equal protection. It's no different than if I were denied the right to marry someone of a different faith, a different color, a different home town.

I do not think the equal protection arguments apply to gay marriage. However, the folks opposed to same sex marriage have not made this case to me that "[this truth is] foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society", or that it is "inviolable and non-negotiable" on a civic level in the eyes of God. The part of the declaration on marriage that is true for me is:

We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.

To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. . . . We must work in the . . . cultural, and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.

The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture

That, coupled with Jared Wilson's statement:

It is the height of weirdness to expect people who don’t know Jesus to act like they do especially when we can’t get our own house in order. So long as large numbers of Christians continue contributing to the divorce statistics, the porn industry, and more acceptable sins like gluttony and gossip and greed, we have zero business telling the world how to act. Judgment begins at the house of God.

points the way the battle over marriage in the Body of Christ should be waged. Short of someone convincing me that this is either a legitimate equal protection issue, or that civil society is in real danger, I will have to rest on the Body of Christ focusing on the real issues in Christian marriages. Once we have improved that with the help of God, then our marriages will be "salt and light" or a "light on a hill" in a dark world.

Certainly, the third main point in the declaration is also entirely a political battle - and one that needs to be fought in the public square. The pressure to turn freedom of religion into freedom from religion is obvious to me. The religion clauses in the Constitution have a balance between the state adopting one religion (or giving it a higher place) and free exercise of all religions. We hear way too much about the former without the latter. This is a civil, and not a religious, issue. Followers of Christ should be fighting for the free exercise of any religion or moral/ethical viewpoint in the country. That would include, BTW, the rights of atheists in Florida to erect a billboard in a largely Christian area. If we are going to argue for a completely open public square, rather than a restricted (or even empty) one, then we shouldn't complain about the other voices that appear in that square. Goose meet gander.

If the Manhattan Declaration was structured such that I could sign on to the third point on freedom of conscience and religious liberty without the other two - then I would indeed sign that part. However, for the sake of the Kingdom of God followers of Christ must stop fighting out our moral battles in the courts and legislative assemblies of the kingdoms of men. As Allan Bevere commented in his own post on the church's loss of its unique polity in the US:

Christians are so caught up in Constantinianism they cannot comprehend how the church's mission might look different.

We need to figure this out.

Culture wars: What Jesus Did Not Do

2009-11-27T12:57:00.000-08:00

[Point eight Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]

Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to hell because . . ."

8. It has no root in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus knew heart change didn’t come through political power, cultural pressure, or zealotry, so he was keenly disinterested in those things.

This is the "big one", at least to me, in this series: Jesus, in His ministry, bowed out of the "culture war" of His day - or took a side that those who do want to impose morality through political power or cultural pressure may not like.

The political and social climate in Judea at the time of Jesus' ministry had every possible opportunity for Jesus to become a culture warrior on both the political and cultural levels - and He rejected those choices.

By 30AD, Judaism was beginning to ramp up for the the three Roman-Jewish wars to come. There were two primary schools of pharisees - Hillel and Shammai - and one of the primary distinguishing characteristics between the followers (and not so much the leaders) of the two schools was about rigid adherance to Jewish law and customs as a guard against encroaching Roman culture and Hellenization. The Dead Sea Scrolls show that this process was well advanced at the time of Jesus' ministry.

It would be Shammai's school that would eventually team up with the Zealots to take political control of Judea - and launch the rebellion against Rome 35 years after Jesus' death. The process of ramping up to this war was well underway during Jesus' ministry.

However, if Jesus' ministry lined up with either of these schools - it was Hillel's. He did not, in scripture, deride the Hellenization of Jewish culture, call for rigid adherance to religious rules and traditions as a guard against the corruption of tradition, or team up with the Zealots in an anti-Roman campaign.

Indeed, it was the opposite. Jesus spoke against the burdens that excessive religious rules placed on God's people; and it was the Zealot among His apostles that decided Jesus was not the "culture warrior" Messiah he expected, and betrayed him to the Sanhedrin.

[Update: It has been pointed out that I have confused Simon the Zealot with Judas Iscariat. There is no mention is scripture that Judas was a Zealot. Many of my teachers in the past have speculated on this - including that there was some relationship between Simon and Judas before they joined Jesus.]

* * * * *

Jared Wilson:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

Moi:

it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

Romans 8:5-8 -- "Opposite"

2009-11-26T14:58:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 8:5 For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by⁵ the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the Spirit. 6 For the outlook⁶ of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Notes:

⁵ tn Grk “think on” or “are intent on” (twice in this verse). What is in view here is not primarily preoccupation, however, but worldview. Translations like “set their mind on” could be misunderstood by the typical English reader to refer exclusively to preoccupation.

⁶ tn Or “mindset,” “way of thinking” (twice in this verse and once in v. 7). The Greek term φρόνημα does not refer to one’s mind, but to one’s outlook or mindset.

“There are two ways, one of life and one of death;
and between the two ways there is a great difference.”
The Didache

Sermon Notes: Matt Bowen talked about:

Magnets:
“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”
Compasses:
“Have their minds set on what that nature desires…have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”
Vistas:
“The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”

Apologetics: Epic Fail at the Pet Store

2009-11-26T08:07:00.000-08:00

I was having a chat with someone who seemed to believe apology was only about Christian apologetics. It isn't, as the examples in this comment point out. The definition I would hang with in the set was from Wiki:

In modern times, apologists refers to authors, writers, editors of scientific logs or academic journals, and leaders known for defending the points in arguments, conflicts or positions that receive great popular scrutinies and/or are minority views.

Right after posting that, I ran across a skit from Monty Python that is one of my all-time favorites - along with the Lumberjack Song of course (and the Cheese Shop . . .). It is, IMO, an example of Epic Fail at apology by the shop owner.

Admittedly, the evidence against the position he was defending was pretty conclusive.

Happy Thanksgiving

Culture wars: Fear and Comfort

2009-11-22T17:13:00.000-08:00

[Point seven Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]

Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to hell because . . ."

7. It makes idols of comfort and safety and propriety and power. The culture war is largely driven by fear. We’re afraid our public schools will ruin our children, we’re afraid gay people will ruin our families. We’re afraid a Democrat will ruin our country, we’re afraid liberals will ruin our neighborhoods. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to protect our family, and safety of course is not a bad thing. But neither is it a biblical virtue. Ditto comfort.

This point of Jared's is a bit harsh - so I will narrow my commentary a bit. I say it is harsh because, as a comment at the original post pointed out:

I’m not sure I understand the bit on fear and so forth. Setting oneself against the world, in the world, is not the same thing as reacting fearfully to public schools, gays, liberals or whoever.

I have argued consistantly against the usefulness of the term "homophobia" to describe folks who are opposed to homosexuality on scriptural and/or theological grounds -- it is not fear that drives their opinion. Attributing folks opposition to abortion as the "fear of women controlling their lives" and opposition to gay marriage as "fear of gays" are the classic "talking points" I see on the political left. Wrong, and common.

Perception is everything (except right) so it is worthwhile to point out that whatever the true motivation of the culture warriors - fear seems to stick rather well to their arguments. Also, some folks arguments are so lacking in rational explanation (it may exist - but I do not hear it) that it appears to be based in reactionary fear even if it isn't. One example is that gay marriage threatens God's institution of marriage -- the "how" of that has never been made to me at least.

If the arguments are based on real fear - then this (not doubt) is the exact opposite of faith. People fear because they do not trust that God is in charge and will make all things work for the Good.

And, there is no basis in scripture to believe that God is concerned for the safety or comfort of followers of Christ - indeed exactly the opposite. We are promised adversity in His name, and told that that adversity is there to give us character and not contribute to our safety or comfort.

I believe the Gospel teaches the adversity of society, and its continual (and increasing) separation from God's intent for our social relationships as a major opportunity to bring folks fearful about the future into the presence of God to experience the peace that faith in Him can bring. That doesn't happen if the follower of Christ is as fearful and concerned for their own comfort as the non-believer.

* * * * *

Jared Wilson:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

Moi:

it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

Jesus is Magic?

2009-11-22T09:56:00.000-08:00

I keep a lot of different folks on my Google Reader list from a lot of different perspectives - people that I think offer the most intelligent examples I have found for a particular niche I am interested in.

One of those sites is Common Sense Atheist. Occasionally, those places put things up that make me question why I keep them on my list. Luke just posted one of those: "Jesus is Magic".

Admittedly, up to now I haven't had a real sense of why belief in a Creator God and belief in magic are not the same; and Luke gave me the opportunity to get this defined for myself.

First, I will use Luke's definition of magic:

The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.

The practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature.
The charms, spells, and rituals so used.

Luke makes no argument from that definition - he just states it and then assumes his case is made

So do Christians, Muslims, Hindus, other religious believers,1 new agers, indigenous believers, and shamans believe in magic? [no overreaching generalities there]

Yes. Yes they do.

And then goes straight to the "Bulverism":

Believers: Jesus is magic. Have the balls to admit it.

My response in the comments there [with some alteration in the translation]:

Actually, you have supported my position that Christianity is not based on magic - at least as it is understood theologically.
The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural.
What example would you give of an art used to forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural within orthodox Christianity - especially since it is explicitly warned against in scripture

The core of the definition is about witchcraft, or neo-Paganism, and the idea that the natural world can be controlled by use of spirits in that world. The idea that spirits occupy the natural world, and that world can be controlled by controlling those spirits is pantheism, or panentheism, and not theism. Certainly this is not part of any orthodox Christian teaching -- again, it is warned against.

Even if you want to say that Christians believe that there are (or can be) supernatural causes to natural events (I will grant that) - then your definition would say those folks have to believe that they can forecast and/or control those events by invoking the supernatural. That is expressly what is warned about in the passages linked above. I would have to say that it is not warned against because it is a hoax -- it is warned against because the ruler of this world is Satan. Any spiritual beings that would allow someone to predict or control natural events would be a being of this world; and that being would come under the auspices of the ruler of this world. Not good for a Christian to invoke.

If I invoke Jesus to control something (prayer) it is not to control a natural event, but to either give me supernatural power to control my actions, or perhaps intervene in the lives of others -- or asking for that power to protect me not from natural events but other supernatural "powers and principalities". The latter is obviously not included in your definition (I am not attempting to invoke the supernatural to control something natural); and the former is based on the general Christian belief that humans were created separate from, and distinct from, the natural world. As CS Lewis said, when you look at a human being you are looking at an eternal creature - a physical being with a spiritual/eternal nature. Prayer to control my natural self is aimed at - again - the supernatural part of me and not the natural part. Prayer to help others is aimed at God motivating the supernatural part of someone else to cause its physical self to step in and involve themselves in the life of the object of the prayer. Again, outside the definition you have given of magic.

And, by your definition, even if a Christian out there attempts to invoke Jesus (and not the spirits of this world) to control or predict natural events (I am sure some do) then Jesus isn't magic by your definition - He is the supernatural force being invoked and not the person practicing the magic. And, of course, if the person actually succeeds in controlling or predicting natural events in this manner I have no reason to believe that it was actually Jesus or God that responded to the request.

You are usually much better than this. Perhaps you should have the cahones admit that you know that theism is not pantheism -- and that you intentionally use the word magic to demean theists when you know it doesnt apply.

Or, if your balls are not really applicable - how about using your common sense and intelligence.

The interesting thing about this is that I am sure atheists at the site will find all sorts of examples of Christians that invoke the supernatural to control the natural: snake handlers may come up, perhaps Benny Hinn and faith healers. In the latter case, I expect Benny would say faith healing only works if the disease has a (evil)spiritual source - although the few times I have glanced at his gig I do not see that distinction made.

So, what should we orthodox Christian theists think when Christians invoke God to control or predict natural events? Is that indeed magic? If it works, do you think God is the supernatural being that makes it work? Is this what is warned about in the scriptural admonitions against magic?

Culture wars: Storing Up the Wrong Stuff

2009-11-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

[Point six Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]

Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to hell because . . ."

6. Its treasure is temporary. I am not overly concerned with the culture war because it is a battle for something that doesn’t last. Culture is temporary. I am far more interested in the transformation of peoples through the transformation of people than I am in the subduing of culture through the modification of behavior. Nobody ever got into heaven by acting better.

In the comments at the original post some folks seemed to have missed his elaboration here. Culture is temporary - we should not be necessarily fighting to transform the ones we are in.Wilson distinguishes between transforming "culture" by transforming behavior; and transforming "peoples" by transforming people. I think that is a very reasonable and important nuance.

As the Gospel transforms individual folk it will transform communities and nations ("peoples"). Put enough transformed people into one place, and the culture will adapt to them. A change in beavior will follow transformation -- I doubt transformation really follows a change in behavior. Stated another way: it is the Holy Spirit (a work of God) that transforms folks from the inside and truly modifies their behavior; and not cultural pressure to modify their behavior.

Also,as Jared points out, it is not our behavior in any case that moves us into the Kingdom of God.

* * * * *

Jared Wilson:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

Moi:

it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

Romans 8:3-4 -- "The Son and the Spirit"

2009-11-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 8:3 For God achieved what the law could not do because¹ it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Notes:

¹ tn Grk “in that.”

Sermon Notes:

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

One of my favorite sayings is that God's Grace provided what His justice demanded:

God did - what people are unable to do (v.3):
- God sent His own son—to accomplish what the law could not do.
- Christ fully embraced the human condition—but did not sin.
- God sent His Son as a sin offering. (literally: “for sin”)
Where is the “place” of sin being condemned? God performed an act of judicial condemnation on sin in (the flesh of) Christ on the cross.
As our substitute, Christ “was made sin for us” and suffered the wrath of God’s judgment upon sin (in His body on the cross).
Romans 3:25 God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed.

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”)
God executed His judgment on sin in the death of His Son.
God’s purpose of grace in condemning sin is stated in v.4:
- How could God’s demands of righteousness be “fully met in us”?
  2 Corinthians 5:21 God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.
- There is “no condemnation” for believers (vs. 1) - because “in Christ” - their sin has been “condemned.”
  “Christ became what we are so we might become what Christ is.”
- Though law did not have power to overcome sin, God’s purpose was always to have a people who would obey His will. Paul does not separate God’s “righteous requirements” from the lifestyle of the Christian.
- Believers are not left to live the Christian life in their own strength. The Holy Spirit lives in us and enables us to live in ways we could never experience by ourselves.
- God provides - in Christ - the full completion of the law’s demands and sends the Spirit into our lives to empower a new obedience to His will. Christians are now directed by the Spirit - and not by the flesh.

1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you were healed.

Culture wars: Fighting the Wrong Foe

2009-11-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

[Point five of Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]

Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to hell because . . ."

5. It battles against flesh and blood. We’re not supposed to do that.

I do not really have that much to say on this one. The point is rather simple -- the truly important struggles believers go through are spiritual and not political. The truly important struggles that non-believers go through are spiritual and not political.

When we pick the wrong foes to struggle with -- we waste our time, energy, etc. We may also lose spiritual allies because we consider our political differences to be more important. The people who may need to hear the Gospel from us have become our political enemies. We also may not be "armed" appropriately:

Ephesians 6:13 For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm therefore, by fastening the belt of truth around your waist, by putting on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 by fitting your feet with the preparation that comes from the good news of peace, 16 and in all of this, by taking up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 With every prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and to this end be alert, with all perseverance and requests for all the saints.

We have to be prepared to fight the right foe with the right equipment.

Jered Wilson:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

Moi:

it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

Discussion Question: On Science and Morality

2009-11-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

It seems rare for two intelligent folks with diametrically opposed views actually have a civilized, engaging conversation. It seems to me it is even rarer when one is an atheist and one is a follower of Christ who wrote a pretty scathing indictment of Dawkins, Hitchens and company.

The atheist is Luke at Common Sense Atheist and he wrote a post called "The Irrational Atheist (notes in the margin, part 2)". Vox Day wrote The Irrational Atheist and has a blog called Vox Popoli.

I am following both of them in Google Reader. On the Vox Day side, The Irrational Atheist provided most, if not all, the basis for a couple of my posts. I also posted the beginnings of an exchange of letters between Luke and Vox.

However, what has gotten my attention this time is this set of comments by Luke. First, he quotes VD from the chapter "The Case Against Science":

[One] question that none of the New Atheists dare to ask is whether science, having produced some genuinely positive results as well as some truly nightmarish evils over the course of the last century, has outlived its usefulness to Mankind. Man has survived millennia of religious faith, but if the prophets of over-population and global warming are correct, he may not survive a mere four centuries of science

Rather than go into defensive mode, Luke says:

This is an argument I have thought about advancing myself, long before I read The Irrational Atheist. And Vox is right; I cannot imagine one of the New Atheists considering it. Vox also handily dismantles 5 of the usual pro-science responses to this argument. I will give a 6th response below. But first let me elaborate the argument.

The idea goes like this. Perhaps it would have been better if Galileo, Locke, Hume, and Kant had never awakened us from our dogmatic slumbers. Neither science nor religion are inherently destructive – both have their Gandhis and their Muhammeds, their Borlaugs and their Oppenheimers – but at least religion kept mankind ineffective. We could only kill a few thousand people at a time and with great effort, and we certainly couldn’t destroy the atmosphere or oceans of the whole planet.

But since science is knowledge, science is power. Science made mankind effective. Effective for good, yes, but also effective in evil. So now we have the power to eradicate diseases and feed the whole world on relatively little land, but we also have the power – should we choose to use it – to make our planet uninhabitable or simply blow it to smithereens . . . I am very concerned about the effectiveness science has granted man, especially when I survey the moral character of those in power. But I think science was inevitable. So it is up to us to use science for good and not for evil. And that will be a hard battle. Perhaps the hardest of all, and the most important.

This is what I am interested in exploring here. What moral or ethical structure is necessary to, as Luke says:

. . . become a highly moral species very quickly so that we use our scientific effectiveness for good and not for evil?

I will posit as a starting point for the discussion that the system must recognize the intrinsic worth of humans and present this statement from David Gushee as my answer to the question:

. . . all human beings, at any and every stage of life, in any and every state of consciousness or self-awareness, of any and every race, color, ethnicity, level of intelligence, religion, language, gender, character, behavior, physical ability/disability, potential, class, social status, etc., of any and every particular quality of relationship to the viewing subject, are to be perceived as persons of equal and immeasurable worth and of inviolable dignity and therefore must be treated in a manner commensurate with this moral status.

Of course, Gushee's underlying foundation for our intrinsic value is that we are created imago dei - in the image of God. Luke would not agree with that; and I disagree with this statement by Luke:

. . . one aide to becoming a highly moral species very quickly is to leave behind our religions that are explicitly based on Scriptures written by the morally backward humans of several millennia ago.

It is not the age of the morality, but its effectiveness that matters -- and I think that religion (generally, not just Christianity) has served as a relatively (not perfectly) effective moral teacher and restraint -- certainly in relationship to any secular moral foundations that have been seen up to now. Also, while folks were scientifically backwards millennia ago, it is very much a part of this discussion whether they were morally backwards. IMO, modernity has not progressed humanity on a moral level - that is why we are having this discussion.

For many in this age, the first question would be: Why do we need some sort of "core moral foundation"? I think because humans need to have their moral reasoning reinforced. We are not perfect moral agents for a number of reasons (compare Aquinas's Summa Theologica, Prima Secundæ Partis, Question 94, Articles 4 and 6):

insufficient experience: we do not know enough to reach sound conclusions;
insufficient skill: we haven't learned the art of reasoning well;
sloth: we are too lazy to reason;
corrupt custom: it hasn't occurred to us to reason;
passion: we are distracted by strong feeling from reasoning carefully;
fear: we are afraid to reason because we might find out we are wrong;
wishful thinking: we include in our reasoning what we are willing to notice;
depraved ideology: we interpret known principles crookedly; and
malice: we refuse to reason because we are determined to do what we want.

As Luke and Vox have pointed out, up to now humans have erred for all those reasons, and now due to advancing science some of those humans have incredible power to save or destroy at their fingertips. Humanity seems to need to re-anchor its moral foundations and moral reasoning in some way that will move it forward (and not horribly backwards) in the future.

So again, the question to discuss:

What ethical and/or moral principle, if generally accepted by society, would best encourage the good use of scientific progress, and discourage its bad use?

Keep in mind that this question only has a indirect relationship to politics - this is about the moral and ethical foundations of a society; and not it governance and laws (although that certainly should be impacted by the society's moral foundation)

Culture wars: How to Look Like a Hypocrite

2009-11-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

[Point four of Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]

Jered Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to hell because . . ."

4. It is often hypocritical. It is the height of weirdness to expect people who don’t know Jesus to act like they do especially when we can’t get our own house in order. So long as large numbers of Christians continue contributing to the divorce statistics, the porn industry, and more acceptable sins like gluttony and gossip and greed, we have zero business telling the world how to act. Judgment begins at the house of God.
1 Peter 4:17 For it is time for judgment to begin, starting with the house of God. And if it starts with us, what will be the fate of those who are disobedient to the gospel of God?

Hypocrisy is an interesting subject when talking about followers of Christ. As I have been going through Romans the Gospel message has unfolded:

No one is worthy - no not one. No one is righteous by their own acts.
God, through Christ, imputed righteousness to us by our faith - not by our works.
Once we have been justified by faith, a process of sanctification can begin which extends into eternity.
During that process of sanctification, we continue to struggle with our own desires which pull us away from God.
It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit that gives us the supernatural help needed to win that struggle

In what one person described as "more than the mother of all Evangelical slacker verses", Paul talks about this internal struggle:

Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. 15 For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. 21 So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. 23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

All followers of Christ lose that war - far more often than we like - and then (hopefully) repent (turn away from) the sin and look back to Christ and continue that process of sanctification; and that internal war we are never free from. We are all hypocrites by Paul's lights: we all do things different from what be believe; and fail to do things we do believe in. All of us.

What is the best way to "look like a hypocrite" -- talk about "other people's sin". If you focus on enforcing morality on others by law, then you will constantly be at odds with your own inability to enforce that morality on yourself; and God has promised He will "bring you down" for that kind of self-righteousness and moralism. One can look at a long list of followers of Christ (Haggard, etc.) who were caught moralisticly preaching on a sin they themselves were continuing to commit.

However, if you talk about the Gospel (humbly of course), then you will be talking about your own failures and the only solution to that -- coming to the Cross; and allowing the Holy Spirit to change you from the inside out. I will finish as I will finish all of posts in this series:

Jered Wilson:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

Moi:

it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

Romans 7:21-8:2 -- "Rescued - And Free"

2009-11-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 7:21 So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. 23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be¹ to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then,² I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but³ with my flesh I serve⁴ the law of sin.

The Believer’s Relationship to the Holy Spirit

8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.⁵ 2 For the law of the life-giving Spirit⁶ in Christ Jesus has set you⁷ free from the law of sin and death.

Notes:

¹ tc ‡ Most mss (א* A 1739 1881 Ï sy) read “I give thanks to God” rather than “Now thanks be to God” (א1 [B] Ψ 33 81 104 365 1506 pc), the reading of NA27. The reading with the verb (εὐχαριστῶ τῷ θεῷ, eucaristw tw qew) possibly arose from a transcriptional error in which several letters were doubled (TCGNT 455). The conjunction δέ (de, “now”) is included in some mss as well (א1 Ψ 33 81 104 365 1506 pc), but it should probably not be considered original. The ms support for the omission of δέ is both excellent and widespread (א* A B D 1739 1881 Ï lat sy), and its addition can be explained as an insertion to smooth out the transition between v. 24 and 25.

² tn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.

³ tn Greek emphasizes the contrast between these two clauses more than can be easily expressed in English.

⁴ tn The words “I serve” have been repeated here for clarity.

⁵ tc The earliest and best witnesses of the Alexandrian and Western texts, as well as a few others (א* B D* F G 6 1506 1739 1881 pc co), have no additional words for v. 1. Later scribes (A D1 Ψ 81 365 629 pc vg) added the words μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν (mh kata sarka peripatousin, “who do not walk according to the flesh”), while even later ones (א2 D2 33vid Ï) added ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα (alla kata pneuma, “but [who do walk] according to the Spirit”). Both the external evidence and the internal evidence are compelling for the shortest reading. The scribes were evidently motivated to add such qualifications (interpolated from v. 4) to insulate Paul’s gospel from charges that it was characterized too much by grace. The KJV follows the longest reading found in Ï.

⁶ tn Grk “for the law of the Spirit of life.”

⁷ tc Most mss read the first person singular pronoun με (me) here (A D 1739c 1881 Ï lat sa). The second person singular pronoun σε (se) is superior because of external support (א B {F which reads σαι} G 1506* 1739*) and internal support (it is the harder reading since ch. 7 was narrated in the first person). At the same time, it could have arisen via dittography from the final syllable of the verb preceding it (ἠλευθέρωσεν, hleuqerwsen; “has set free”). But for this to happen in such early and diverse witnesses is unlikely, especially as it depends on various scribes repeatedly overlooking either the nu or the nu-bar at the end of the verb.

Biblical Studies Press. (2006; 2006). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible. Biblical Studies Press.

Sermon Notes: First, a review of Romans 7 up to now: If we are not “under law” and if we are “free from law” then:

What is the purpose of the law? What does it do... and not do?
1. The law shows us the reality and extent of sin. (7)
2. The law provokes sin. (8)
3. The law results in spiritual death. (9-10)
4. The law reveals that sin deceives and puts to death. (11)
5. The law shows the ways God wants people to live. (12)
6. The law exposes sin for what it is—showing sin to be the true cause
  of separation from God (“death”). (13)
The law is spiritual—but I am unspiritual (“fleshly”). (14)
In my “flesh”—I live a life of struggle against sin. (15-16)
Sin lives in me—and I have no power (in my flesh) capable of overcoming it. (17-18)
In my flesh, I cannot do the good I want to do, and I cannot keep from doing the evil I do not want to do. (18-19)

Which brings us to the problem: There is a powerful presence of sin in me. (20-21). Here the notesheet linked above had to much important information to even try to summarize. Listen to the audio and follow the notesheet is the only advice I can give.

Evangelicalism, Politics, and the Gospel

2009-11-09T10:17:00.000-08:00

[Crossposted from Street Prophets]

In the discussions that is going on about the Roman Catholic Church, and its change, I made a comment (I will get there in a minute). Starwoman responded with:

Thanks for this very clear and helpful comment about what the strategy is wrt Evangelicals, theology, and civil marriage laws.

I'd be interested in a diary from you on the theology behind Evangelical (and other Reformed, maybe) attitudes towards the relationship between church and state.

I can try to do that - but it may not work out.

The starting point is the comment I made:

I think you are right that the Catholic Church's belief in natural theology is going to move them quicker on this issue - at least compared to Evangelicalism. The idea that God's order can partially be discerned in nature confronts the RCC with both the homosexual behavior of animals and the rising belief that homosexuality in humans is genetic.

However, the Protestant Reformation, while holding to natural moral law (that God's character overflows into us through conscience) rejected natural theology - that theological truths could be discerned in the natural physical order. Even in natural moral law, I am a bit unique in holding such a high view of it among Evangelicals. I think it makes me a closet RC in their eyes :-).

That was the whole point of sola scriptura after all. I think that the Evangelical hestitancy to accept natural moral law has led to some mistakes: I think a moral law reading of Romans and Genesis yields a much different result than most of my ilk read it - but then I have a admitted desire to relax the scriptural injunction against homosexuality as much as possible without becoming Bishop Spong.

So, generally Evangelicalism holds that all of nature was distorted by the fall so natural theology is out - including even relaxation on gay issues if homosexuality was actually proven to be genetic; and they do not particularly like natural law to the degree I do - so mostly they follow a divine command ethic based on scripture.

So, for Evangelicalism, it is deciding that this is not a divine command that they wish to enforce on non-Christians by civil law that you have to desire.

I believe Evangelicalism has damaged its missional role by its political involvement. And that is not because its political involvement has been conservative, or socially conservative, or focused on the wrong platforms and issues.

I think Evangelicalism, and the Body of Christ in general, is infected with Constantianism. I stopped cross-posting here because I was about to get far less political, and far more "religious" in my writings - and I was about to stop "biting my tongue" about certain things. Most of that would make me far more the "crazy uncle John" than I already was/am. Obviously, the series I am cross-posting here is part of that. While that series based on a critique of Evangelicalism's role in the culture wars - it, for me, is really a pointed critique of followers of Christ and their relationship to politics in general - whether conservative or progressive.

The pivotal article that "snapped" my view was by Allan Bevere and was called "On Why the Church in America Cannot Speak Truth to Power". Just so it is clear, that is not a phrase that politically conservative Christians use, and Bevere's post is aimed not at political conservatives but all political action by Christians. Bevere gives two reasons why:

the vast majority of Christians in America have accepted the Constantinian notion that the primary political task of the church is to rule, to be in charge. What that means at the very least is that Christians are to play a prophetic role in the political court of Washington DC.
it means that most Christians have accepted the modern dichotomies of left/right, liberal/conservative, Democrat/Republican
"And therein is the heart of the problem. That most Christians in America believe that the church's primary role is to affect policy in Washington DC betrays the mistaken belief that the primary political action in this world is to be found in the White House and on Capitol Hill, when the New Testament clearly indicates that the primary agency of politics is located in nothing less than the community of faith known as the church. In order for the church to speak truth to power it must recover its unique polity apart from the earthly polity known as the nation state; for it is God and not the nations who rules the world.

My great concern is that when Christians in America want to play the role of prophet in Pharaoh's court, they end up looking, not like the wise sage, but the court jester that gets used by the king for his or her own comical and unsavory purposes.

The people of God have been co-opted; it is time for the church to recover the politics of witness." -- Allan Bevere

I wish I could give the answer that quote implies when asked about how Evangelicalism views the relationship of church and state - but I cannot (yet). However, Evangelicalism is shifting politically and where it is going to move to is uncertain.

To understand Evangelicalism, you have to understand its roots. It was born when the Fundamentalist movement became more and more separatist - not just not "of the world" but not even "in the world". Billy Grahmn and folks with him saw (rightly IMO) that we could not just be a "city on a hill" (a beacon outside the culture) but also "salt and light" in the culture. This is the cultural mandate that these comments (and Jered Wilson's answers) at "Funny, I Don't Feel Neoconnish" - the post that started my series on the "culture wars".

Jered Wilson: “... it is theologically naive and demonstrably false to think laws or policies make anyone a Christian.”

Responder: What if this is not the primary goal?

Jered Wilson: Oh my. Well, there we disagree. I think worship of Jesus should be the primary goal of the Christian’s engagement with the world, to do it and to do it compellingly in word and deed so that others may wake to want to, as well. Worship of Jesus trumps everything, including strong marriages, etc. In fact, what I’m saying is that it is the gospel that produces the fruit of strong marriages, etc.

Responder: What about the goals of having fewer marriages to fail, fewer unjust abortions be performed, and fewer people suffer the pain and regret of having an abortion? Are those goals worthy of fighting for, or not?

Jered Wilson: Yes. I refer to those things in my post, actually. I fight for those things almost daily, although almost none of that fighting is done in the political realm.

or this general comment about the entire post:

Responder 2: My reaction, which is a concise rebuttal to the accusations of moral crusading: You are much to either/or, refusing to acknowledge the need for public virtue. Culture Warriors never claim to be savings souls, but the preservation of prudence & a just society.

Jered Wilson: This is patently false, as even a cursory reading of my post indicates. I am only advocating a different — and more Jesusy — route to public virtue. On culture warriors not aiming for saving souls, two things:
a) Why not? Isn’t that better than just well behaved pagans?
b) I don’t know what area of the nation you live in, but in both the Bible Belt I’m from and the Northeast I’m currently in, the conflation of legislated morality and soul salvation is alive and well.

Responder 2: Secondly, your stance is completely against the grain of eschatological hope.

Jered Wilson: I have no idea how this can be true. It would be true if I did not believe in the kingdom inaugurated and yet to be consummated, if I distrusted Jesus’ promise to return, or if I believed Christians have no obligation to share the gospel in word and deed. But none of those things are true, so your accusation is untrue.

Responder 2: Do not throw the the baby out with the bathwater. You sound much too anabaptistic and against the grain of the cultural mandate.

Jered Wilson: I don’t know what “cultural mandate” you refer to. Was there an official memo I missed? Or do you mean something like the Great Commission, Great Commandment, Sermon on the Mount, or related?

Evangelicalism has bought into the idea that "engagement with the culture" means political involvement to pass laws to reform the culture from above. In a look-ahead at a future point in Jerad Wilsons's critique:

Jesus knew heart change didn’t come through political power, cultural pressure, or zealotry, so he was keenly disinterested in those things.

and something from Allan Bevere as well:

In cosying up to the principalities and powers, Christians on the left and the right have chosen the politics of power over the politics of witness; indeed, they cannot even imagine, in spite of what they say, what the politics of the Kingdom of God might look like apart from the politics of left and right. Take the recent health care debate as an example-- Christians on the left argue that health care is a right and Christians on the right proffer that health care is a commodity-- and neither side bothers to consider the possibility that both "rights" and "commodities" are notions not found in Scripture and that both concepts are theologically problematic.

[and]

As Christians, instead of identifying ourselves as primarily kingdom citizens, we see ourselves first and foremost as Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals. The Sermon on the Mount gets eclipsed by the political platforms of the DNC and the RNC. We like to say that we transcend such earthly contrived political conventions, but we can point to very little evidence to show that this is indeed the case. James Dobson is clearly a conservative Republican and Jim Wallis is obviously a liberal Democrat. The only truth they speak to power is their own Republican or Democratic truth to the power of the other party. The criticism of their own is basically absent or woefully inadequate at best. It appears that both men desire to play the role of Nathan in David's court, but they find they only have influence in that court when "David" is part of their own party; and then their prophetic denunciations are reserved only for the opposition outside the court and not those who are in power. They have very little of a prophetic nature to say to the king from their own party whom they serve. In other words, the church cannot speak truth to power because the church itself is up to its armpits in power and, therefore, has a stake in such power.

Did that answer the question about Evangelicalism's view of the relationship of church and state? You tell me.

It did however more deeply defiine this evangelical's view of the relationship between politics and the Gospel.

Culture wars: Going Forth Naively

2009-11-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

[Point three of Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]

Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' are going to hell because . . ."

3. It is theologically naive. It is the height of weirdness to expect people who don’t know Jesus to act like they do.

The C.S. Lewis quote in the last post in the series speaks to this well -- and so does the one from J. Budziszewski. Indeed, this may be one of those points that just stands on its own. I really do not even want to go into people who do know Jesus not acting like they do - that is covered in a future point about hypocrisy.

I think it is worth mentioning a couple of points here:

Since I believe in natural moral law (not natural theology), there are some ways that folks can be expected to act like they know Jesus even if they don't - just because of God's general revelation to all of humanity in the form of our conscience. See J. Bud's point about some Chrisitan morality being enacted into law and some not.
Christians ability to act like they know Jesus comes from the ministry of the Holy Spirit - which of course must not be ignored.

Also, the two general points I want to continue to stress:

Jered Wilson:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

Moi:

it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

Other than that, I will let the folks that comment flesh this out some more if they wish

How We Discuss: Probabilities and Bulverisms

2009-11-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Two things caught my eye this week related to the way discussions seem to go online:

"The Sufficiency of Probability in the Christian Belief" , Parchment and Pen, C. Michael Patton
"Bulverism" , God in the Dock, by C.S. Lewis

The second one is first - Lewis's discovery of Bulverism:

We have recently “discovered that we exist” in two new senses. The Freudians have discovered that we exist as bundles of complexes. The Marxians have discovered that we exist as members of some economic class. In the old days it was supposed that if a thing seemed obviously true to a hundred men, then it was probably true in fact. Nowadays the Freudian will tell you to go and analyze the hundred: you will find that they all think Elizabeth [I] a great queen because they all have a mother-complex. Their thoughts are psychologically tainted at the source. And the Marxist will tell you to go and examine the economic interests of the hundred; you will find that they all think freedom a good thing because they are all members of the bourgeoisie whose prosperity is increased by a policy of laissez-faire. Their thoughts are “ideologically tainted” at the source.

Now this is obviously great fun; but it has not always been noticed that there is a bill to pay for it. There are two questions that people who say this kind of thing ought to be asked. The first is, are all thoughts thus tainted at the source, or only some? The second is, does the taint invalidate the tainted thought - in the sense of making it untrue - or not?

Now, of course

The only line they can really take is to say that some thoughts are tainted and others are not - which has the advantage (if Freudians and Marxians regard it as an advantage) of being what every sane man has always believed.

and

In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method [Note: This essay was written in 1941.] is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became to be so silly.

Like Lewis

I see Bulverism at work in every political argument. The capitalists must be bad economists because we know why they want capitalism, and equally Communists must be bad economists because we know why they want Communism. Thus, the Bulverists on both sides. In reality, of course, either the doctrines of the capitalists are false, or the doctrines of the Communists, or both; but you can only find out the rights and wrongs by reasoning - never by being rude about your opponent’s psychology.

Now, anyone who has been involved in very many discussions online between atheists and theists, or between conservatives and progressives, has seen the symptoms of Ezekiel Bulver's invention. Here is one example:

We know the gospels were written decades later by educated, Greeks. I do not see any sense in arguing this point with you as you seem to be an ultra conservative who believes that Mark wrote Mark and that John wrote John. The overwhelming consensus of scholarship is againt you but I know you do not care.

So, without having actually presenting the evidence for what they (all dem der smart people) know, I believe the obviously silly because I am an ultra-conservative that "doesn't care". Or, this one

I, as a Harvard Professor, with very little concern for, or interest in the teachings of the Roman Catholic church, believed the Pope was infallible. Most Roman Catholics, outside the Ivory Tower types that seem to inhabit this place, have even less concern for these minutia, just believing any pearls of wisdom dropped from the alter as gospel truth. You can wring your hands all you want on this issue, but your church has blood on its hands from it's dealings with the GLBT community and there is no end in sight for their continuing down this hateful path.

Maybe the best (or is that the worst?) example of Bulverism I have seen this week was pointed out by Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse -- the political left and right ascribing motives to the killer at Fort Hood without really having an evidence to know why the killings occurred.

The rationalizations for Major Hasan’s rampage - his motives, his state of mind, even the environment in which he carried out his horrific attack - are being tossed about the blogosphere on both sides as if everything that can be known about the circumstances has already been revealed.

This must be the case because without any definitive word from authorities, from his friends and associates, or from Hasan himself, both lefty and righty blogs have already “solved” the mystery of motive and any argument to the contrary is “racist,” or “pro-jihad,” or “hate speech,” or “political correctness.”

As Lewis said:

Until Bulverism is crushed, reason can play no effective part in human affairs. Each side snatches it early as a weapon against the other; but between the two reason itself is discredited.

* * * * *

The other interesting thing. C. Michael Patton starts with:

I often play this game with my kids that drives them crazy. Sitting in the room, with no one but us, while they are not looking I will slap them on the rear and act like I did not do it. They turn and say, “Daddy! I know you did that.” I say, “I did not.” ”Then who did it?” they respond (thinking they have settled the issue with this one question). I say, “A guy ran into the front door and slapped them and then ran out.” They look at me like I am crazy. “Look!” I respond to their skepticism, “The door is not locked. It is obvious that someone could have come in since the door is not locked.” Upon further looks of skepticism, I have them go check the door to see if it is locked or not. Once they check and see it is unlocked, I have won the day. I have poked a hole and their certainty and even caused them to confirm it. No longer possessing the indubitably that I have required for their epistemic verification, they now have lost poise in their former confidence. In other words, I tricked them into thinking that one has to be absolutely certain about something before it can be believed.

What happens when we are challenged in our beliefs:

once we cannot account for the door being unlocked, we find ourselves wondering why we are being forced to check the door in the first place. Yet we do it anyway. When the door is unlocked, those who are epistemically conditioned to find this substantial, like my children, enter into a state of suspended belief, doubt, or skepticism or opt for a “leap of faith” that demands no evidence, and then sneer at those who do demand evidence as if it is passé.

Patton does tell us what the kids really should say

“Daddy, I don’t care if the door is unlocked. It does not play a sufficient part in your proposition to warrant a disregard of the greater areas of viability with regard to our belief that you are the one who slapped us.” And if I respond, “But you don’t know with perfect, absolute, and infallible certainty,” they should say, “No daddy, probability is sufficient to warrant, yea, demand a belief such as ours and, as a consequence, to reject your alternative.” Well, if they said it like that, I would be scared, but you know what I am saying.

The point for us, as our beliefs are challenged, is to understand that

Probability is sufficient. We neither need to go into intellectual hibernation and accept our beliefs on blind faith nor do we need to suspend our belief until all the objections, no matter how improbable, are answered (i.e. we don’t need to check the door).

What I posed to my children was merely a possibility to explain the slap, but possibilities do not create probabilities. We are responsible in this life to act upon the revelation given to us, not to seek absolute indubitably.

* * * * *

As we stand ready to "explain the reason for our hope", we are going to be confronted with both Bulverisms and folks doing no more than pointing at the door and telling us it is unlocked. We need to challenge the truth of people's positions long before we talk about their psychology in believing them. And, as Collins said:

. . . believe that the resurrection of Christ is probable to such a degree that the only rational option is for all people to fall on their face and worship him.

Culture wars: Moralism is the Medium

2009-11-05T12:01:00.000-08:00

[Point two of Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]
"
Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to Hell because . . ."

2. Its medium is moralism, not gospel. It makes kingdom militancy about religion, not gospel. It seeks a Christian coercion of others toward better behavior, not an incarnational sharing with others of the better Way.

When I think about moralism I think about a few different passages and excerpts. First, after the famous passage on homosexuality along with a large "sin list" in Romans 1, there is this passage.

Romans 2:1 Therefore you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge someone else. For on whatever grounds you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment is in accordance with truth against those who practice such things. 3 And do you think, whoever you are, when you judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, and yet do not know that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?

This, IMO, changes the whole focus of the Romans 1 section - including the part on homosexuality. Next, is Jesus:

Luke 6:42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while you yourself don’t see the beam in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

That is not really a criticism of attempting to legislate morality - it is more a criticism of hypocrisy. However, it is not really separable. This speaks to the idea of legislating morality very well:

The third moral error of political conservatism is moralism. According to this notion God's grace needs the help of the state; Christianity merely asks the state to get out of the way. We might say that while instrumentalism wants to make faith a tool of politics, moralism wants to make politics a tool of faith; on this reading, what instrumentalism is to secular conservatives, moralism is to religious conservatives. Surprisingly, though, many religious conservatives seem unable to tell the difference. Whether someone says “We need prayer in schools to make the children holy” or “We need prayer in schools to make the country strong,” it sounds to them the same.

Now I am not going to complain that moralism “imposes” a faith on people who do not share it. In the sense at issue, even secularists impose a faith on others—they merely impose a different faith. Every law reflects some moral idea, every moral idea reflects some fundamental commitment, and every fundamental commitment is religious—it proposes a god. Everything in the universe comes to a point. For moralism, therefore, the important distinction is not between religion and secularism, but between faiths that do and faiths that do not demand the civil enforcement of all their moral precepts.

To the question “Should the civil law enforce the precepts of the faith?” the biblical answer is, “Some yes, but some no; which ones do you mean?” The New Testament contains literally hundreds of precepts. However, Christianity is not a legislative religion. While the Bible recognizes the Torah as a divinely revealed code for the ruling of Israel before the coming of Messiah, it does not include a divinely revealed code for the ruling of the gentiles afterward. To be sure, the Bible limits the kinds of laws that Christians can accept from their governments, for “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). However, it does not prescribe specific laws that they must demand from them.

It is not even true that all of God's commands limit the kinds of laws that Christians can accept. To see this, contrast two such precepts: (1) I am prohibited from deliberately shedding innocent blood; (2) I am prohibited from divorcing a faithful spouse. Both precepts are absolute in their application to me, but that is not the issue. If we are speaking of governmental enforcement, then we are speaking of their application to others. The former precept should require very little watering down in the public square, for even nonbelievers are expected to understand the wrong of murder. That is why I may be confident in condemning the legalization of abortion. But the latter precept requires a good deal of watering down in the public square, for before the coming of Christ not even believers were expected to understand the true nature of marriage. “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard,” said Jesus, “but it was not this way from the beginning” (Matthew 19:8). No doubt the Pharisees to whom He was speaking were scandalized by the idea that their civil law did not reflect God's standards fully. They must have been even more offended by the suggestion that it was not intended to. Among religious conservatives this suggestion is still a scandal, but it does not come from liberals; it comes from the Master.

Christians, then, may certainly commend a law as good or condemn it as evil. They may declare it consistent or inconsistent with the faith. But not even a good law may be simply identified with the faith; Christians must not speak of a tax code, marriage ordinance, or welfare policy as Christian no matter how much, or even how rightly, they desire its enactment or preservation. That predicate has been preempted by the law of God. The civil law will be Christian—if it still exists at all—only when Christ himself has returned to rule: not when a coalition of religious conservatives has got itself elected. -- J. Budziszewski

and, finally, C.S. Lewis:

"The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question-how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one . . . the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not. " -- Mere Christianity

Moralism denies the freedom we have in Christ (see pretty much all of Romans again) to those who do not know Christ. While, as Paul says, all things are legal for us (even if they are not good) - the moralist tells folks that God restricts their freedom even if they are not Christians. This is the type of religion Christ accused the Pharisees of loading down people with:

Luke 11:46 But Jesus replied, “Woe to you experts in religious law as well! You load people down with burdens difficult to bear, yet you yourselves refuse to touch the burdens with even one of your fingers!

Again, this is a condemnation of hypocrisy - but there is little difference in expecting someone to carry a burden that you should, but will not, carry; and telling them they are expected to carry one that you know you are not required to carry at all. Indeed, the latter is exactly anti-Gospel. If the Good News is that God's Grace saves us even though we are sinners, why would we attempt to impose religious requirements on folks who have the same grace available to them - especially before they are even part of the Body of Christ?

As mentioned under point 1 -- and will probably be mentioned under every point -- it is incumbant upon Christians to work for right order and justice in the society in which we live. However, our duties to the Body of Christ, the Great Commission, and the Kingdom of God trump our requirements as Christian citizens of a nation state.

Romans 7:7-25 -- "The Real Problem With Me"

2009-11-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I¹⁴ would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else¹⁵ if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”¹⁶ 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires.¹⁷ For apart from the law, sin is dead. 9 And I was once alive apart from the law, but with the coming of the commandment sin became alive 10 and I died. So¹⁸ I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death!¹⁹ 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it I died.²⁰ 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. 13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin.²¹ 15 For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate.²² 16 But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good.²³ 17 But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it.²⁴ 19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. 21 So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. 7:22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. 7:23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be²⁵ to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then,²⁶ I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but²⁷ with my flesh I serve²⁸ the law of sin.

Notes:

14 sn Romans 7:7-25. There has been an enormous debate over the significance of the first person singular pronouns (“I”) in this passage and how to understand their referent. Did Paul intend (1) a reference to himself and other Christians too; (2) a reference to his own pre-Christian experience as a Jew, struggling with the law and sin (and thus addressing his fellow countrymen as Jews); or (3) a reference to himself as a child of Adam, reflecting the experience of Adam that is shared by both Jews and Gentiles alike (i.e., all people everywhere)? Good arguments can be assembled for each of these views, and each has problems dealing with specific statements in the passage. The classic argument against an autobiographical interpretation was made by W. G. Kümmel, Römer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus. A good case for seeing at least an autobiographical element in the chapter has been made by G. Theissen, Psychologische Aspekte paulinischer Theologie [FRLANT], 181-268. One major point that seems to favor some sort of an autobiographical reading of these verses is the lack of any mention of the Holy Spirit for empowerment in the struggle described in Rom 7:7-25. The Spirit is mentioned beginning in 8:1 as the solution to the problem of the struggle with sin (8:4-6, 9).

15 tn Grk “I would not have known covetousness.”
16 sn A quotation from Exod 20:17 and Deut 5:21.
17 tn Or “covetousness.”

18 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “So” to indicate the result of the statement in the previous verse. Greek style often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” but English style generally does not.

19 tn Grk “and there was found in/for me the commandment which was for life – this was for death.”

20 tn Or “and through it killed me.”
21 tn Grk “under sin.”
22 tn Grk “but what I hate, this I do.”
23 tn Grk “I agree with the law that it is good.”
24 tn Grk “For to wish is present in/with me, but not to do it.”

25 tc ‡ Most mss (א* A 1739 1881 Ï sy) read “I give thanks to God” rather than “Now thanks be to God” (א1 [B] Ψ 33 81 104 365 1506 pc), the reading of NA27. The reading with the verb (εὐχαριστῶ τῷ θεῷ, eucaristw tw qew) possibly arose from a transcriptional error in which several letters were doubled (TCGNT 455). The conjunction δέ (de, “now”) is included in some mss as well (א1 Ψ 33 81 104 365 1506 pc), but it should probably not be considered original. The ms support for the omission of δέ is both excellent and widespread (א* A B D 1739 1881 Ï lat sy), and its addition can be explained as an insertion to smooth out the transition between v. 24 and 25.

26 tn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.

27 tn Greek emphasizes the contrast between these two clauses more than can be easily expressed in English.

28 tn The words “I serve” have been repeated here for clarity.

Sermon Notes:

Is God’s Law the problem? No (v.7)
What does God’s Law do?
1. The law shows us the reality and extent of sin.
  “…through the law we become conscious of sin.” Romans 3:20
2. The law provokes sin.
3. The law results in spiritual death.
4. The law reveals that sin deceives and puts to death.
5. The law shows the ways God wants people to live.
  Psalms 19:7 The law of the Lord is perfect
  and preserves one’s life.
  The rules set down by the Lord are reliable
  and impart wisdom to the inexperienced.
  8 The Lord’s precepts are fair
  and make one joyful.
  The Lord’s commands are pure
  and give insight for life.
  9 The commands to fear the Lord are right
  and endure forever.
  The judgments given by the Lord are trustworthy
  and absolutely just.
  10 They are of greater value than gold,
  than even a great amount of pure gold;
  they bring greater delight than honey,
  than even the sweetest honey from a honeycomb.
  11 Yes, your servant finds moral guidance there;
  those who obey them receive a rich reward.
  12 Who can know all his errors?
  Please do not punish me for sins I am unaware of.
  13 Moreover, keep me from committing flagrant sins;
  do not allow such sins to control me.
  Then I will be blameless,
  and innocent of blatant rebellion.
  14 May my words and my thoughts
  be acceptable in your sight,
  O Lord, my sheltering rock and my redeemer.
6. The law exposes sin for what it is—showing sin to be the true cause of separation from God (“death”).
The law is spiritual—but I am unspiritual (“fleshly”).
In my “flesh”—I live a life of struggle against sin.
Sin lives in me—and I have no power (in my flesh) capable of overcoming it.
In my flesh, I cannot do the good I want to do, and I cannot keep from doing the evil I do not want to do.
The problem: there is a powerful presence of sin in me.
Christ has rescued me!

My Comments: I quote this passage a great deal, because I think it serves as one of those testimonies to why folks do not follow either their conscience, or what they know to be right. It highlights the ways in which we distort God's general and specific revelation to us through our desire to please ourselves.

One person commenting on its use made this point:

Paul's argument in Chap 7 can be viewed as much more than just the mother of all evangelical slacker-confessions.

I see it as a point-blank refutation of the widespread Greek philosophic view that true knowledge must determine conduct for the wise man. Plato and others held that it was impossible for any rational and mature man to actually do a thing he knew was wrong. But Paul sees that the righteousness that seeks conformity with the teachings of Moses and Jesus was so transcendent that its requirements transformed this kind of wisdom into foolishness.

On the one hand, the "reach" of the Mosaic Law, under the hands of the priesthood and Pharisees, extended to such behaviors as implicated the Divine Will in a comedy of external and quotidian observance.

And on the other hand, Jesus, in brushing many of these laws aside, had alluded to divine standards which challenged human nature almost to the point of mockery.

"Don’t get me started on definitions and proofs of adultery," Jesus seems to warn, "because I tell you, your guilt has already arrived with your intent to act, whether or not she consents to your wicked advances" (Mt. 5:28)

And again, how often have we heard and accepted the higher morality of love for enemies (Mt. 5:44) and the non-resistance of evil (Mt. 5: 39) and yet failed to act accordingly in the presence of an offensive one?

Paul knows what the result must be of the annunciation of these and other divine teachings. The whole strange evolutionary mix of primitive human institutions embedded in Greek philosophy and Mosaic Law have been rendered of little or no effect in terms of the true righteousness of God. But this astonishing fact can only be a part of the good news if it includes a glad answer to the question, "How then, can we be saved?"

Which answer we have, by God’s grace, in the supreme faithfulness which underlay the life and death of his Son.

Next: 7:21-8:2 -- "Rescued - and Free"

Church Life: A Focus on Direction

2009-11-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

It seems to go along with my other post today on "Foolish Expectations" -- how does a church define and set expectations based on the Headship of Christ rather than the world.

My church is starting that process over the next eight weeks - the introductory message is here. The core passage (there has to be one of those) was:

1 Thessalonians 1:2 We thank God always for all of you as we mention you constantly in our prayers, 3 because we recall in the presence of our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The theme of the the examination of the direction of the church will be:

Faith - Love - Hope

Following Jesus Together

With focus on these ideas:

Faith towards God
Love for each other
Hope for the world

For those in ministry who frequently think about how to set these kind of goals and directions - I encourage to listen to the next 8 weeks.

Culture wars: Foolish Expectations

2009-11-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

[Point one of Jared Wilson's criticism of the "culture wars": (Index)]

Jared Wilson: "The 'culture war' is going to Hell because . . ."

1. Its expectation is foolish. Whether you believe America was ever a Christian nation or not, it is theologically naive and demonstrably false to think laws or policies make anyone a Christian. You cannot create or recapture a people for Christ by illegalizing sin. (Which, by the way, is not to say that certain sins shouldn’t be illegal. It is only to say that, for instance, outlawing gay marriage or repealing Roe v. Wade won’t make anybody a Christian, much less make America “a Christian nation.”)

In my opinion, the expectations are not just foolish because they are about the kingdom of world instead of the Kingdom of God -- they are foolish because the struggles against abortion and gay marriage are not going to succeed even on a secular level.

In the case of abortion, even the overturn of Roe v Wade - throwing abortion back to the states - will not end abortion. Forty percent of abortions in the US are performed in the four states where abortion was legal before Roe; and there is no reason to believe that is going to change if Roe was repealed - unless there is massive cultural change. The hope of significantly reducing abortion lies in making abortion unchosen and not in making it illegal - and that comes from transforming people's hearts and their moral and ethical views.

As long as the predominate philosophy in the US is centered in utilitarianism and pragmatism - then women in significant numbers will make their decisions based on the worth and utility of the unborn child to them personally (and the way that child fits into their career, plans, etc); and not the child's intrinsic worth in God's eyes. That will be, as Paul said, foolishness to them.

In the case of gay marriage, the typical arguments ignore God's power to protect to what is important to Him. Frankly, I have lost track of why we care about secular gay marriage: it is adultery, selfishness, and rebellion - and the same utilitarianism and pragmatism - that is destroying marriage in the US; and not whether two men or two women get married. Beyond marriage, same sex attraction is complicated - and folks are going to go with what they feel is "right in their own eyes" unless they see it through the eyes of God (and that view matters more than their own). Without being willing to answer the call of Someone higher and outside of themselves they will do what they feel is best for them. That call comes not from the moralistic condemnation of those around them, but from God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. How will they hear that call through the din of His followers?

However, this issue goes beyond just homosexuality and abortion. The entire theme of the Bible is that God gave us increasing amounts of legal direction (none, Noahide, Mosaic) until, as Paul points out relentlessly in Romans, it was proven that law could not make us righteous -- and that we not able to follow those laws. The law could only convict us of sin, rather than keep us from sin. Then, God gave His Son so that the laws could be written on our hearts, and we could have supernatural power to follow God's will in the form of the Holy Spirit. Yet, Christians still falter even with the Helper inside us and no law to bind us. Yet, we expect a law written in Washington or some state capital to hold folks to a righteousness pleasing to God.

This goes beyond just Christians on the political right and includes those on the political left. They expect God's justice to be done by the government in Washington or the various states. The Kingdom of God will no more be instituted by the moralistic expropriation of the wealthy to give to the poor than by the moralism of opponents of gay marriage: greed, selfishness, lack of concern for those around you, and laziness cannot be legislated out of existence. Every attempt to do so in the world has led to tyranny. As Allan Bevere noted in "On Why The Church in America Cannot Speak Truth to Power":

"And therein is the heart of the problem. That most Christians in America believe that the church's primary role is to affect policy in Washington DC betrays the mistaken belief that the primary political action in this world is to be found in the White House and on Capitol Hill, when the New Testament clearly indicates that the primary agency of politics is located in nothing less than the community of faith known as the church. In order for the church to speak truth to power it must recover its unique polity apart from the earthly polity known as the nation state; for it is God and not the nations who rules the world.

My great concern is that when Christians in America want to play the role of prophet in Pharaoh's court, they end up looking, not like the wise sage, but the court jester that gets used by the king for his or her own comical and unsavory purposes.

Certainly, Christians have a duty as citizens to pursue right order and justice to whatever degree is possible within the culture, but when we attempt to overlay our particular political ideology onto the Gospel we drive folks away who do not agree with our political ideology - and the Kingdom of God trumps the policies of the nation state. As Paul said:

1 Corinthians 9:19 For since I am free from all I can make myself a slave to all, in order to gain even more people. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew to gain the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) to gain those under the law. 21 To those free from the law I became like one free from the law (though I am not free from God’s law but under the law of Christ) to gain those free from the law. 22 To the weak I became weak in order to gain the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that by all means I may save some. 23 I do all these things because of the gospel, so that I can be a participant in it.

Jared's wise expectation is:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

Culture wars: Jared Wilson Enhanced

2009-10-31T17:54:00.000-07:00

I mentioned how much I liked Jared Wilson's "Funny, I don't Feel Neoconnish" posted at Evangel. His ten points about why the "culture wars" are going to hell --

-- seem like they are each the core of a post; and that is what I am going to do over a bit of time. As I finish them, I will turn the points up above into links to the expanded posts.

Jared's conclusion seems good to post in this index as well:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

See Also:

Sign the "Manhattan Declaration"? Not Me
Fundamentally Changed: "No Compromise on the Gospel"

Romans 7:1-6 -- "Free From Law to Live By the Spirit"

2009-10-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

The Believer’s Relationship to the Law

(NET) Romans 7:1 Or do you not know, brothers and sisters¹ (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person² as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her³ husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage.⁴ 3 So then,⁵ if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her⁶ husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress. 4 So, my brothers and sisters,⁷ you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God.⁸ 5 For when we were in the flesh,⁹ the sinful desires,¹⁰ aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body¹¹ to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, because we have died¹² to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.¹³

Notes:

¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.
² sn Here person refers to a human being.
³ tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).
⁴ tn Grk “husband.”
sn Paul’s example of the married woman and the law of the marriage illustrates that death frees a person from obligation to the law. Thus, in spiritual terms, a person who has died to what controlled us (v. 6) has been released from the law to serve God in the new life produced by the Spirit.
⁵ tn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.

⁶ tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).
⁷ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.
⁸ tn Grk “that we might bear fruit to God.”
⁹ tn That is, before we were in Christ.
¹⁰ tn Or “sinful passions.”
¹¹ tn Grk “our members”; the words “of our body” have been supplied to clarify the meaning.

¹² tn Grk “having died.” The participle ἀποθανόντες (apothanontes) has been translated as a causal adverbial participle.

¹³ tn Grk “in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”

Biblical Studies Press. (2006; 2006). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible. Biblical Studies Press.

Sermon Notes:

How does “Law” relate to this “Gospel” of Jesus Christ?
Paul now teaches us: God has “released us from the law” through
union with Christ.
Principle: law has authority over people—as long as they live.
illustration: death frees from the law of marriage
Principle: death frees from obligation to law.
Release from law through union with Christ: In our union with Christ and His death (6:1-11) — we also “died to the Law”—so that we now “belong to Another.”
1. Believers are delivered from obligation to live by law —through spiritual union with Christ in His death.
2. God’s purpose is to free us from obligation to law—that we might “belong” completely to Christ.
3. God’s intent for our lives is “that we might bear fruit to God.”
4. The old life: “in the flesh”
  The new life: “serve in the new way of the Spirit”
God’s good design for His people is for us to live in the daily experience of “serve in the new way of the Spirit.”

Going Deeper into the Word:

What is the connection between having “sin” as “master”—and being “under law”? (6:14)
Why is it necessary for the follower of Christ to be “not under law but under grace”? (6:15) What is the problem with “law”?
How do we explain that we have “died to the law through the body of Christ”? (7:4)
What are the advantages of being “released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit”? (7:6)
What does it personally mean to you to live “in the new way of the Spirit”?

Next: 7-25 -- "The Real Problem With Me"

Culture wars: To Jared Wilson -- Amen

2009-10-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

There is a new group Evangelical blog - called Evangel - at First Things. There are some interesting things about that sentence alone - First Things is primarily (although obviously not entirely) a Roman Catholic magazine of a politically conservative nature. None of the contributors to the Evangel blog are Roman Catholic.

Now for folks that do not see the difference between believing in fairies and believing in a Creator, personal God the distance between these two groups may not seem great. However, within the Body of Christ there is a marked tension between Evangelicalism as a movement within Protestantism and the Roman Catholic church. A very marked tension.

That distance has become less marked of recent - for both secular political and theological reasons. The differences between theological liberalism and theological conservatism have become even more marked than the differences that led to the Reformation and beyond. The battle for the truth around whether:

God is capable of accomplishing His will even by miraculous means within His own creation;
the resurrection of Christ was an actual, bodily event;
the Bible has authority in the present day

are defining issues across the Protestant landscape - even within Evangelicalism where those three issues were the defining issues for its creation as a movement. This is not to mention evangelism - spreading the Good News - itself which has seemed menaced, in my opinion, particularly within Evangelicalism. So, the unwillingness of the Roman Catholic church to bend in the winds of modernism is attractive to, and unity building with, those who do not believe God bends in those winds either.

Politically, for much of theologically conservative Christianity the legal battles against gay marriage and abortion have thrown Roman Catholics and politically conservative Evangelicals together often and for good reason - they stand on common ground on those issues.

Which brings me back to this new Evangelical blog at a largely Catholic magazine. For me it is wonderful - the list of bloggers there is impressive:

Matthew Anderson -- Mere Orthodoxy
Hunter Baker
Collin Brendemuehl -- Evangelical Perspective
Jared Bridges
Joe Carter
Kevin DeYoung
Gene Fant
Sarah J. Flashing -- The Center for Women of Faith in Culture
James Grant
Amy Hall -- A-Team Blog
David T. Koyzis -- Notes from a Byzantine-Rite Calvinist
Mark Olson -- Pseudo-Polymath
Russell D. Moore
Roger Overton -- A-Team Blog
Jeremy Pierce -- Parableman
John Mark Reynolds
Robert E. Sagers
Fred Sanders
Justin Taylor
Frank Turk -- Pyromaniacs
David Wayne -- Jollyblogger
Jared C. Wilson -- The Gospel-driven Church

If you wanted to set up a group of feeds to understand some of the depth of Evangelicalism - there is your list. Or, perhaps, just set up a feed to Evangel. However, this post is not just about a new and exciting (at least for me) blog.

It is about one post on that blog by Jared Wilson: "Funny, I Don’t Feel Neoconnish". Now, keep it mind that this is a Evangelical who is part of the emerging church writing at a blog sponsored by a magazine which is centrally interested in conservative politics of the United States. The opening line pretty much says it all:

The culture war will go to hell

Here are the reasons he gave (you will have to go read the text for each reasons - and the comments):

Its expectation is foolish
Its medium is moralism, not gospel.
It is theologically naive.
It is often hypocritical.
It battles against flesh and blood.
Its treasure is temporary.
It makes idols of comfort and safety and propriety and power.
It has no root in Jesus’ ministry.
It mangles mission.
The culture war is carried out for our name’s sake, not Jesus’.

His conclusion:

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

To Jared Wilson -- Amen

Christian Carnival CCC (300) - Silver Denarii Edition

2009-10-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

As Jeremy said when he assigned me this Carnival - the 300th is a big edition. So, wanting some kind of theme - I put "three hundred" into a Bible search. Other than "mighty men" and shields in the Old Testament, I came up with this passage:

John 12:1-8 Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he had raised from the dead. So they prepared a dinner for Jesus there. Martha was serving, and Lazarus was among those present at the table with him. Then Mary took three quarters of a pound of expensive aromatic oil from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus. She then wiped his feet dry with her hair. (Now the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfumed oil.) But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was going to betray him) said, “Why wasn’t this oil sold for three hundred silver coins and the money given to the poor?” (Now Judas said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money box, he used to steal what was put into it.) So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She has kept it for the day of my burial. For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me!”

The Cast of Characters

Jesus
Leadership/Grace/Love/teaching

Kaye presents "Whiny Brats" posted at Silencing the Stones.

After getting a bit frustrated with my son, I have a bit of a revelation about myself.

Angela presents "Fool, Foolishness, Folly" posted at He Speaks To Me.

A study of
"Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him. Answer a fool as his folly deserves. That he may not be wise in his own eyes." (Proverbs 26: 4-5 NAS)

Lazarus
Redemption/Salvation

Rick Schiano presents "Let Go, Forget the Past, but not All of It" posted at Ricks Victory Blog.

There are two men in the Bible that made huge mistakes and went through majoring grieving because of those errors. They are Peter and Judas. Let’s look at the lives of these two men and see what happened to them to cause this grief.

Andrea presents "Sin and the Snake" posted at Unfailingly Loved.

We play with it, and we play with it and we play with it – until it plays with us.

Mary
Discipleship/follower/student

michelle presents "Meditation On Isaiah 58:1-12" posted at Stepping Out In Faith To The Nations...

What does fasting really mean to me? What is the kind of fasting the Lord wants from us? I know in the past, when I’ve tried to fast for things, for answered prayers, for selfish reasons, I haven’t had much success. That kind of fast is just too hard or it is I am fasting for all the wrong reasons.

Becca presents "Mothering as a Journey" posted at Inspiration for Mothers.Com.

Spiritual journeys are not about reaching the destination - for when you reach the destination the journey is over - they are all about how you travel.

Barry Wallace presents "Pride, that epidemic vice" posted at who am i?.

After a week of fall break, or “fall reading days”, things are once again back in full swing here at Southern. Our latest lecture in Biblical Counseling concerned the putting off of pride, and the putting on of humility. Dr. Scott, I believe, very accurately described pride as an “epidemic vice”.

Michael presents "Security in God" posted at Chasing the Wind.

Where do you find security in times of trouble? Wealth? Job? People? David teaches us in Psalm 62 that security is found only in God.

Herbert Anderson presents "Top 50 Blogs for Online Scripture Study" posted at A Blog of Biblical Proportions.

Do you like to analyze scripture from the Bible? Or, do you simply want daily solace through a meditative verse? The following list of top fifty blogs for online scripture study includes blogs that range from the daily verse variety to scholarly studies that include Hebrew poetry and more.

Melissa Hedding presents "Grown Up" posted at Finds For Families.

How parenting helps us grow more Christ-like.

Jody Neufeld presents "What should a congregation following Jesus Christ in ministry look like?" posted at Jody's Devotionals.

A congregation following Jesus would . . .

David Porter presents "God's Survival Guide for Enduring Economic Hard Times" posted at A Boomer in the Pew.

This current recession has been very difficult for a great many in our nation . . . One of the first things that the Christian must wrap their minds around is that God is in control, is sovereign, and in a most mysterious way has ordained this.

loswl presents "Conquering The Sinful Nature" posted at W2W Soul: Windows to The Woman's Soul.

Woman to Woman, if we’re really honest with ourselves, we have either said or thought similar expressions of frustration, upon failing a test or trial that we have faced and continue to face.

Martha
Servanthood/Missions/Ministry

Richard H. Anderson presents "You satisfy the hungry heart" posted at dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos Theophilos .

“The proposition of a priestly agenda for reconciliation” is a provocative thesis

John
Reportage/observation/stories/evangelism/apologetics

Ken Brown presents "Stargate, the Christian Story, and the Role of Humanity in the Universe" posted at C. Orthodoxy.

Stargate Universe well illustrates the problem (watch it on Hulu). The show follows a group of people who have been transported to an ancient starship hurtling through the far reaches of the universe, “several billion light years from home.”

John presents "Free Will and the Quantity of Evil" posted at Brain Cramps for God.

A post about free will and the "problem" of evil

Weekend Fisher presents "Did any of the gospels claim to have been written by an eyewitness?" posted at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength.

Weekend Fisher reviews a misstatement of facts in Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities. Part of a series on stock claims against the New Testament.

Brian Marchionni presents "False Hope in Advertising" posted at Boston Bible Geeks.

A series of ads funded by eight atheist groups are being posted in the New York subway system. The ads will show a blue sky with the words, “A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?”

Jeremy Pierce presents "Fate Without Providence" posted at Parableman.

J.J. Abrams wants to have fate without providence.

Diane R presents "Great Book out on Secularism and Christianity" posted at Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet.

What happens when a secularist becomes a Christian? A review of a great interview with a former secularist.

Henry Neufeld presents "Comforted" posted at Jevlir Caravansary.

She wasn’t comfortable with this visit, but it was her duty. He had lost his son just three weeks earlier and she had conducted the funeral. The death had been sudden, tragic. The man had lost his wife only three years earlier, and his son was his life. At the funeral he had been devastated. Now he looked peaceful, almost happy. It was very strange . . .

Marcus Maher presents "Book Review: Are You the One Who is to Come?" posted at Seeking the truth....

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of book reviews on new books in theology or biblical studies (no more than 12 months old). I hope to provide one review per month.

The Perfumed Oil
wealth/possessions/finance/work/politics

FMF presents "A Man Skilled in His Work" posted at Free Money Finance.

I've never written about what the Bible has to say about your career. I have talked about the value of hard work (which the Bible regularly highlights in Proverbs), but never your job/career itself. So let's talk about it now, starting with this verse:

Jay Richards presents One Best Way on Immigration? posted at The Enterprise Blog.

The blog is about the NAE’s recent resolution on immigration reform, specifically questioning whether the policy endorsements of the resolution follow from any distinctively evangelical belief.

Romans 6:15-23 -- "Free - and a Slave"

2009-10-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

The Believer’s Enslavement to God’s Righteousness

(NET) Romans 6:15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves¹³ as obedient slaves,¹⁴ you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness?¹⁵ 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed¹⁶ from the heart that pattern¹⁷ of teaching you were entrusted to, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. 19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.)¹⁸ For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness. 21 So what benefit¹⁹ did you then reap²⁰ from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now, freed²¹ from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit²² leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 23 For the payoff²³ of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Notes:

¹³ tn Grk “to whom you present yourselves.”
¹⁴ tn Grk “as slaves for obedience.” See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.
¹⁵ tn Grk “either of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.”
¹⁶ tn Grk “you were slaves of sin but you obeyed.”
¹⁷ tn Or “type, form.”
¹⁸ tn Or “because of your natural limitations” (NRSV).
sn Verse 19 forms something of a parenthetical comment in Paul’s argument.
¹⁹ tn Grk “fruit.”
²⁰ tn Grk “have,” in a tense emphasizing their customary condition in the past.

²¹ tn The two aorist participles translated “freed” and “enslaved” are causal in force; their full force is something like “But now, since you have become freed from sin and since you have become enslaved to God….”

²² tn Grk “fruit.”

²³ tn A figurative extension of ὀψώνιον (opsōnion), which refers to a soldier’s pay or wages. Here it refers to the end result of an activity, seen as something one receives back in return. In this case the activity is sin, and the translation “payoff” captures this thought. See also L&N 89.42.

Biblical Studies Press. (2006; 2006). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible. Biblical Studies Press.

Sermon Notes:

“you are slaves to the one whom you obey”
“Freedom” is deliverance from enslaving powers that prevent people from becoming what God intended!
Habitual obedience leads to a condition of slavery.
I become slave to whatever I obey.
Two Positions: you are slaves to the one whom you obey - whether you are slaves to
1. sin, which leads to death
2. obedience, which leads to righteousness
Two practices: slavery to impurity or slavery to righteousness
1. “you used to…” offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness
2. “so now…” offer the parts of your body in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness (“sanctification”)
Two results: “death” or “eternal life”
Two benefits:
1. When you look back, what was the “benefit” of that life?
2. Now that you are a slave to God, what is the “benefit”?

Next: 7:1-6 -- "Free From Law to Live by the Spirit"

The Problem of Evil: Free Will and the Quantity of Evil

2009-10-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

Luke at Common Sense Atheism is continuing his series Arguing about Evil with the post "Plantinga’s Free Will Defense". Go read that.

This was started as a comment there, and then got to long-winded to keep as a comment.

Hi Luke,

First, a person with an antisupernatural bias should be careful about dismissing supernatural reasoning in an argument about the existence of God - indeed supernatural beings could be causing some of the natural distress. As you implied, this wouldn't be the first place I went - I think all of nature was "broken" in the Fall.

Second, a bit of a nit-pick with your slipping in the comment about Hitler and his genes. I do not think genes are deterministic of someone's evil. Frankly, I have a problem with slipping Hitler in at all - the problem of evil is not about the extremes; it is about the day-to-day decisions of regular human beings and not about the most cruel monsters. However, more importantly, if we are going to make evil a deterministic result of bad genetics (as that implies) then are you saying that - along with Dawkins - you see a possible ultimate solution to evil in society being based in some form of eugenics?

You are glossing over the implications of free will way to quickly. First, let's talk about what free will is in my view:
. . . a better definition is that it is the ability to decide between alternatives. Desire is a passion, an emotion; but will is a choice between two or more desires . . . Freedom is not in unlimited options, but in unfettered choice between whatever options there are. As long as the choosing comes from the individual rather than an outside force, the decision is made freely. Free will means the ability to make an unforced decision between two or more alternatives. [I am following Norm Geisler's presentation of the "problem of evil" in When Skeptics Ask -- all the quotes are from there unless otherwise stated]
This obviously allows more determinism in our free will decisions than the extremes of the discussion sometimes allow. Geisler also states the potential vs actualization issue in a much more accessible manner:
That doesn't make Him [God] responsible for evil. He created the fact of freedom; we perform the acts of freedom. He made evil possible; men made evil actual. Imperfection came through our abuse of our moral perfection as free creatures.
If we were created free, as a basic decision and committment of God in creating humanity, then unless God intervenes in that freedom almost continually in an overt way, then we will have evil.

Evil is not a thing-in-itself, it is the absence of good; or a corruption in the good. If your shiny car rusts are you going to complain that oxygen and water are evil and God shouldn't have allowed them to exist? This is the exact nature of our human corruption. Another way it has been put: it is a bad relationship between good things:
In some cases, though, evil is more easily explained as a case of bad relationships. If I pick up a good gun, put in a good bullet, point it at my good head, put my good finger on the good trigger and give it a good pull. . . a bad relationship results. The things involved are not evil in themselves, but the relationship between the good things is definitely lacking something. In this case, the lack comes about because the things are not being used as they ought to be. Guns should not be used for indiscriminate killing, but are fine for recreation. My head was not meant to be used for target practice.
Frankly, the world is getting more corrupt, and the relationships between good things are getting more out of whack, because of the arrogance of humanity about its own ability to accomplish what it wishes by its own lights without thinking about the price - and because we are becoming more self-involved and self-indulgent. It is a long-term unintended consequences of utilitarian ethics, and our viewing people not for their intrinsic value, but for their utility and benefit to us and society. They are not worthy because (and simply because) they are human but because of what they can accomplish that benefits us.

The famous Christian triumverate that aggravates these bad free will choices is "the world, the flesh, and the devil". Plantinga mentions the last one - and your desire utilitarianism embodies the second and first. As James said:
Where do the conflicts and where do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, from your passions that battle inside you? You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask; you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so you can spend it on your passions.
You wish to promote an ethical system around human desire - and mention the stronger ones (the passions) as being an particularly important gauge. Individual human desire and passion, especially in the west, is largely controlled by greed and envy promoted by the base economic system and culture - especially if you try to account for the whole culture's aggregate desires. The "world" also, because it wants us isolated and more pliable, promotes individualism and a destruction of vocation:
In modern society as well, it is only when people are drawn outside themselves to a greater call or vocation that true community can be built - otherwise we have the "competition of desires" that is the source of the violence and greed of modern life. -- A.J. Conyers, "The Era of Bloodshed, The Listening Heart
That is the same "competition of desires" you wish to make central to the ethical system. So, your complaint about God, to me, boils down to you complaining because God allows someone like you to exist - or really have the possibility of existing. Do not get me wrong - I do not think you personally are evil. However, you are promoting an ethical system based on the aggregate desires of the majority that can only lead - in power - to even worse relationships than the world has seen up to now.
Sooner or later violence overtakes a society that functions chiefly on the basis of the rivalry of competitive desires, on the basis of choice, or on the basis of "freedom" defined as the unhindered will [desire]. Modern secular society is the longest experiment in history attempting to elevate "choice" or this kind of freedom to the level of a basic social principle. It should not be surprising, though I think to many the awareness of this has not surfaced, that modern life is also the most violent period in the history of mankind. -- Conyers
And God, in allowing you free will, has not stopped you - and indeed allowed you to exist in the first place. God allows you to hold a philosophy inimical to His desires and purposes. He has allowed a corruption in His created order to exist by your personal decision to believe, and advocate for what you believe.

That is the "problem" of evil. Free will means you and I essentially agree: the evil in the world comes because people choose to be evil. Period. It has really nothing to do with God - other than His original free will choice to create us that way; and God's unwillingness to "second guess" His original intent by interfering in our bad choices. If that is the case, then the issue is the best way to deal with the evil in the world; and not wasting our energy talking about whether the existence of human corruption means that God does or does not exist. Obviously, I think desire untilitarianism to be the exact opposite of a solution to the corruption and bad relationships in the world (evil) whether God exists or not.

Again, this is not personal to you - it is aimed at the view of the world you hold. Your view can change - it is not determined by your chemistry, upbringing, etc. You, IMO, have free will.

Free will is the essential core of the "problem of evil". Do you have free will or not? Should God have given you free will or not?

What is the benefit of free will - if it indeed leads to evil necessarily? First of all, as C.S. Lewis explored in his sci-fi trilogy, the fact of our freedom did not have to be actualized into acts of evil. Second, even if that evil had to be actualized, freedom still leads to a greater good:
. . . evil cannot be destroyed without destroying freedom. As we said before, free beings are the cause of evil, and freedom was given to us so that we could love. Love is the greatest good for all free creatures [Matt. 22:36], but love is impossible without freedom. So if freedom were destroyed, which is the only way to end evil, that would be evil in itself -- because it would deprive free creatures of their greatest good. Hence, to destroy evil would actually be evil. If evil is to be overcome, we need to talk about it being defeated, not destroyed.
Which, of course, finally actually brings us into Christian theology and its understanding of how God attempts to moderate (and eventually end) the corruption of the good -- and the bad relationships between people (and people and things) -- that characterize human life.

Romans 6:12-14 "Sin Shall Not Be Your Master"

2009-10-24T19:59:00.000-07:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

The text:

(NET) Romans 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 13 and do not present your members to sin as instruments¹⁰ to be used for unrighteousness,¹¹ but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments¹² to be used for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

Notes:

¹⁰ tn Or “weapons, tools.”
¹¹ tn Or “wickedness, injustice.”
¹² tn Or “weapons, tools.”

Biblical Studies Press. (2006; 2006). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible. Biblical Studies Press.

My Comments: This section was also included in the last post - see notes there as well.

Study Notes:

What has God done to equip us to live as His people?
- He sent His Son—to purchase our forgiveness by His blood. (Romans 3)
- He (in the cross) has changed our deepest “identity.” (Romans 6)
- He gives us Himself — His Spirit — for the ability to live by that identity. (Romans 8)
This is because Jesus promised his followers that we would be more than believers:
John 14:20 You will know at that time that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.
So, we must
- Know:
  - God’s (spiritual) truth that we are “united with Him”; we were “baptized into” Christ Jesus Himself
  - “our old self” (man) = “dead”; “our body of sin” is brought to powerlessness
  - Christ died to end the rule of death and sin; we are “in” Him—(in His death and resurrection
- "Count ourselves":
  - to be dead to the rule and power of sin
  - to no longer be under slavery to sin
  - to be “alive to God”—having new life—in His eternal life
  We “count” as true for ourselves—on the basis of what God has done for us in Christ.
- do not offer: I can now choose to “not let sin reign” in my life. (I have new ability because of what God has done.)

So, God has accomplished the essential work to change
- our position before Him,
- our identity as His children and
- our ability to live in His daily grace.

Next: 15-23 -- "Free - and a Slave"

Theistic Arguments: Reasonable Expectations

2009-10-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

The "straw that broke the camel's back" for this post was this comment over at Common Sense Atheism:

Hey don’t you know Bill Craig and Plantinga have proven Christian theism?

Now, I love those guys; and I fashion myself as a Christian apologist. However, do I think I can prove Christian theism?

No - I cannot. Do I think it is RIGHT? Well, yes -- as my pastor said:

The truth about God, and the truth about the cross, and the truth about the blood of Christ, and the truth about our salvation - are logical, understandable, they are sound, consistent, and are to be appropriated with the human mind through the power of the Holy Spirit.

and

Some Christians in America have also become anti-intellectual. They will say things like:
"Do not try to understand this with your mind - just believe"; or
"Faith is not really a reasonable thing"; or
"Faith is not intended to be logical"; or
"Faith is a leap in the dark"; or
"God's thoughts are above our thoughts".
What do all these mean? Does that mean God is not logical? That His logic is different from ours? That He would say 2+2=15; but we cannot understand that so we just have to believe? If you hear something like that you should hear a large warning horn going off somewhere - these things are not true.

Also, for the Christian:

How do we trust the authority of the Bible? Christians are famous for circular reasoning: we believe the Bible is the word of God and study it because in the Bible it says it is the word of God. So, how do we know it is the word of God (without circular reasoning)? This is a question we should be able to answer. Carl went through a period of time in his life during his teenage years when he really began to wonder if it was true or not. He spent about a year and a half trying to figure out whether the Bible was trustworthy or not . . . if you are one of those people who do not know whether they can really trust the Bible - then you need to deal with that first. Do not primarily read the Bible if you do not trust it.

So, I am not saying we are not holders of the truth. However, while we know the truth we are unable to prove it. It is axiomatic for Christians that the truth is going to be ignored:

Romans 1:21-22 For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

Now, of course, we do not stop talking about the truth just because folks do not listen. What do we expect though? And what does that expectation mean to our "style" when talking about the truth? Frankly, non-Christians generally have as much warrant for their positions as we do - whether they are right or not. They also have the same inability to prove that their conception of God - or the lack of God(s) - is right.

So, none of us can prove we are right; and we mostly all have warranted belief. To me, this means that we have to let Ephesians 4:29-32 guide us

You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. You must put away every kind of bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and evil, slanderous talk. Instead, be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you

and maintain our civility and patience, treat others as we wish to be treated, and wait for when the Holy Spirit softens their hearts.

So,

set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess.

and lower your expectations and relax - it is not us that win people to Christ: it is God.

Romans 5:21-6:14 "A New Identity "

2009-10-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

Audio file
Note sheet

The text:

(NET) Romans 5:21 so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Believer’s Freedom from Sin’s Domination

6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.¹ 5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.² 6 We know that³ our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us,⁴ so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.)⁵ 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know⁶ that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die⁷ again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you too consider yourselves⁸ dead to sin, but⁹ alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 13 and do not present your members to sin as instruments¹⁰ to be used for unrighteousness,¹¹ but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments¹² to be used for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

Notes:

¹ tn Grk “may walk in newness of life,” in which ζωῆς (zōēs) functions as an attributed genitive (see ExSyn 89–90, where this verse is given as a prime example).

² tn Grk “we will certainly also of his resurrection.”

³ tn Grk “knowing this, that.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

⁴ tn Grk “may be rendered ineffective, inoperative,” or possibly “may be destroyed.” The term καταργέω (katargeō) has various nuances. In Rom 7:2 the wife whose husband has died is freed from the law (i.e., the law of marriage no longer has any power over her, in spite of what she may feel). A similar point seems to be made here (note v. 7).

⁵ sn Verse 7 forms something of a parenthetical comment in Paul’s argument.

⁶ tn Grk “knowing.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

⁷ tn The present tense here has been translated as a futuristic present (see ExSyn 536, where this verse is listed as an example).

⁸ tc ‡ Some Alexandrian and Byzantine mss (P94vid א* B C 81 365 1506 1739 1881 pc) have the infinitive “to be” (εἶναι, einai) following “yourselves“. The infinitive is lacking from some mss of the Alexandrian and Western texttypes (P46vid A D*,c F G 33vid pc). The infinitive is found elsewhere in the majority of Byzantine mss, suggesting a scribal tendency toward clarification. The lack of infinitive best explains the rise of the other readings. The meaning of the passage is not significantly altered by inclusion or omission, but on internal grounds omission is more likely. NA27 includes the infinitive in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.

⁹ tn Greek emphasizes the contrast between these two clauses more than can be easily expressed in English.

¹⁰ tn Or “weapons, tools.”
¹¹ tn Or “wickedness, injustice.”
¹² tn Or “weapons, tools.”

Biblical Studies Press. (2006; 2006). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible. Biblical Studies Press.

My Comments: Most of this ground was covered at the end of this post, and in these posts:

with the exception of verses 12-14:

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

Carl is using this message as a way to summarize and tie together this entire presentation on our having a new identity, why we have a new identity, and what that identity should mean for our behavior. This is of course a key passage in presenting Paul's view on how being justified by faith and Christ's action alone should still lead to a changed set of behaviors - even though that behavior is not a basis for our justification.

Bob Deffinbaugh calls verses 12-14 the "Practical Implications of Our Union With Christ":

Instead of continuing to present the members of our bodies to sin, as instruments of unrighteousness, we must present our bodies to God, as those who have been raised from the dead. Now that we are Christians we must present our bodily members to God as the instruments which He may use to produce righteousness, in and through us. It is not enough to forsake sin; we must aggressively pursue righteousness.

Next: 12-14 -- "Sin Shall Not Be Your Master"

"The Trilemma":An Invitation to a Shredding

2009-10-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

The headline quote on my blog is called "The Trilemma": fool, demon, or God. Now, personally, I think most folks fall into one of those or the fourth which Lewis says is not open: great moral teacher. I was over participating in a thread at Common Sense Atheism and someone said

“By and large, [C.S. Lewis's] theology, like his apologetics, is embarrassingly incoherent, unsound, incomplete, and generally bad” I agree. I created a thread on freeratio about and it generated some good discussion. It can be found here:

and pointed to this other thread and his opening quote there:

Theres the trilemma, which has been shredded to pieces, even though it was self evidently stupid to being with, . . .

Now, I have heard Christians say the same about the Trilemma, but since it is still my banner quote - obviously no one has convinced me yet it is "shredded" or "self-evidently stupid" (I think more of myself than that). So, I invited folks over to shred it for me and perhaps make me change my banner quote

So, here is the entire passage of Mere Christianity the Trilemma is a part of - and I am going to break it into pieces (numbered for easy reference in the comments) so that folks can shred more capably. It is from Chapter 8 - "The Shocking Alternative"

1. That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended-civilisations are built up--excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to us humans.

Other than the Satan part, which my rationalist invitees (and many of my Christian brethren) won't buy, is there any disagreement about this being true of historical (and current) human social and political institutions and systems?

2. And what did God do? First of all He left us conscience, the sense of right and wrong: and all through history there have been people trying (some of them very hard) to obey it. None of them ever quite succeeded.

Any disagreement yet? I truly hope not.

3. Secondly, He sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and by his death, has somehow given new life to men.

I have been told so many times about this by so many pagans I think it is unassailable

4. Thirdly, He selected one particular people and spent several centuries hammering into their heads the sort of God He was--that there was only one of Him and that He cared about right conduct. Those people were the Jews, and the Old Testament gives an account of the hammering process.

Now, we are into a Christian theological view - whether or not you agree you have to grant this for the sake of the discussion. The criticism is that Lewis is incoherant as a Christian, and that this is self-evidently wrong for a Christian to say.

5. Then come the real shock. Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time.

Now, Jesus Seminar aside, any disagreement that the Bible presents Jesus saying this about Himself? Again, whatever you think of the Bible, this is internally consistant, isn't it? [I will be happy to provide chapter and verse if you think he did not claim any of that in the Gospel accounts]

6. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it.

Problem yet?

7. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else.

That is right, correct?

8. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

It got him crucified, right?

9. Now the core of the argument: One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct.

If you are going to derail this, that is the first key point you have to derail - is it "asinine fatuity" for you to forgive Fred for a sin he committed against Joe. But, there is more.

10. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences.

That is correct, right? Not only that, he could forgive those sins and Fred could be instantly healed of some illness - and not be told to go tell Joe he was sorry.

11. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin.

I cannot argue with that

12. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.

True isn't it? Now, you might try to come up with people more conceited than this - but besides being really hard, it would be really pointless in the discussion, wouldn't it?

13. Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less so unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is 'humble and meek' and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

If you are going to say he is "a great moral teacher" - then you have to jump in there. This is the standard "meek and mild teacher of truth" basis for the "great moral teacher - but not God" view of Christ.

14. I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

Would he?

15. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

Especially, since he demonstrated the power to heal along with his "conceit" to forgive sin. I am not sure lunatic is actually a choice there - maybe only demon or God.

16. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.

Actually, that really is a dilemma as stated by Lewis. Shred away now.

17. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

I too agree, that along with the Resurrection, this choice was really not left open to us. Son of God and great moral teacher, but not the second without the first.

Vox Day vs Luke:My Comments on the Exchange

2009-10-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

I am not going to continue blogging on the exchange as it continues. I will continue to post the links to the new letters on the original post as I see them. I was fascinated by the discussion, which is why I condensed the first 6 letters into one post. I had originally peppered that post with my own editorial comments, but then deleted them all. There are some things I want to say about the discussion and the topics raised:

First, they are beginning to devolve dramatically. In Luke's letter #4 he accuses Day, in his letter #3, of insulting him much:

Holy crap that’s a lot of insults. I tried to count them but couldn’t. I can see that your readership is impressed and excited by your continuous stream of insults, but I come from a different tradition (analytic philosophy) that values clarity, argument, and evidence – not insults. I agree we should leave the topic of evolution behind. But I’m sure our readers will remember that one of us gave argument and evidence for his views on evolution, and the other did not.

Maybe - Vox can be harsh. Frankly though, Luke may have earned harshness (although Day is welcome to be merciful and not give Luke what he has earned - and, IMO, should be merciful):

he continued to attempt to steer the discussion into evolution vs creationism (and keeps trying to bait him here even while saying the topic should be left behind). Day is correct - this is the most common, and lamest, tactic on the atheist side in these kinds of discussions. I learned something from the way Day handled it.

he claims knowledge of Christian theologies - but really knows little that is obvious in the letters. He has even attempted the theological version of the multiverse theory to explain why he couldn't keep track of Day's views, or be expected to know them. Day rightly pointed out that Luke should have done his homework after initiating this exchange, and that the points Luke doesn't understand are the core of orthodox Christianity and not, as Luke has attempted to imply, some odd "Vox Day Christianity". Early on, if Luke didn't understand the references made, he should have asked questions to clarify the point - rather than skating by and then accusing Day of obscurantism later.

he brought up the criticisms of Day's obscurantism and other argument flaws first - he drug the argument into personalities. Day said nothing about the obnoxious baby examples that Luke - IMO - tried to bait him with from the first along with evolution.

He refuses to read (or acknowledge) what Day wrote. In Luke's 4th letter he wrote:
Vox, do you agree with me that even if the traditional theistic arguments establish theism, and even if Jesus rose from the dead, this still would not establish the truth of Christian theism?
Vox answered that question yes two letters ago.
Your next step was to say, roughly, that Christian belief is justified because the existence of evil provides better evidence for Vox Day Christianity than for any other worldview – that is, that Vox Day Christianity provides the best explanation for the evil we observe in the world.
I love the "Vox Day Christianity" bit - that is not an insult huh? Is that a way to insulate this Christian "multiverse" from the others in case the discussion goes badly? Anyway, Luke is ignoring Vox's real answer to this question. Vox said he was a Christian because it explained evil better. His answer to Christian belief being justified:
The reason Christianity is rationally justified even though the ontological argument, cosmological argument, teleological argument, the magical resurrection of Jesus, and the existence of evil do not entail the complete truth of Christianity – which, according to 1 Corinthians 13:11, every Christian knows we cannot know – but they still suffice to establish the Bible as the most credible authority regarding that which is unknown.
Exactly. If you give me the Resurrection, then you give me the Bible. Jesus being raised from the dead was the sign God gave the world to prove Jesus' bona fides; and, through Christ's testimony, the bona fides of scripture.

Perhaps that is all that Luke has - arguments over neo-Darwinist evolutionary mechanisms and discussions of God as psychotic mass murderer. Maybe. Hopefully not or this series of letters is going to end quickly or get even uglier. If the latter happens, I am curious who will walk away from the bloodbath first.

It is obvious to me that Luke walked away from Christianity without any real deep study of it before he went, and hasn't really studied it since. As he said in letter #4:

While I am interested in discouraging your highly numerous insults, I’m not interested in defending my knowledge of theology. I’m sure you know theology much better than I do, for as an atheist I consider it akin to the systematic study of imaginary fabrics.

Which comes back to - first - do not claim knowledge you do not have. While it is very possible Day baited Luke with those obscure references (they were obscure to me) in order to trap him, he may also have assumed that an evangelical who claimed to have studied deeply and then became an atheist would not find them obscure at all. However, the second point solves the problem either way: ask questions. Do not proceed if you do not understand what was just said. If you do the first, and fail at the second, do not criticize your opponent for obscurantism -- take responsibility for your own actions.

Further, in letter #4 Luke is trying to squeeze out of explaining his own moral/ethical system. I think he believes it will be far more productive from his viewpoint to make Day explain the existence of evil. I am interested in Vox's next reply both to Luke attempting to shift discussion away from his ethical system, desirism, and how Day explains evil. For me, it is the lack of good and not a thing-in-itself. That, of course, kills all the explanations that require dualism - an evil power equal to God. Evil is the corruption of what God created and not something created by God. You can argue that God should have created robots incapable of corruption - but that is a completely different issue.

Whatever that case, Luke should not be able to dodge explaining the ethical system that he thinks is better than the one "Vox Day Christianity" embraces. After all, he has already said he didn't expect Day to study his stuff deeply, and that they would figure out what they both believe as they go.

Vox Day vs Luke: Nosing into a Discussion

2009-10-19T00:21:00.000-07:00

I have quoted The Irrational Atheist by Vox Day in three major posts:

"War and Religion" and "The Problem Isn't God" based on Chapter 6: "The War Delusion"
"Atheism, Utopianism, and Totalitarianism" based on Chapter 13: "The Red Hand of Atheism"

I added Vox Popoli -- Vox Day's blog -- to my reading list and, lo and behold, ran into the 6th letter (3 from each side) in a dialogue between Day and Luke Muehlhauser at Common Sense Atheism. Apparently, Luke requested this dialogue and kicked it off with his first letter at his blog

Luke's 1st letter: Luke presents that, as opposed to me, he had spiritual experiences of God that his intellect eventually rejected:
I grew up a non-denominational evangelical Christian. I loved God and had vivid spiritual experiences that transformed my life for the better. Then I did some studying and learned that all my reasons for believing in God were really bad reasons. I really wanted to be a Christian, and I begged desperately for God to show himself to me, but in the end I had to admit I had no better reasons to believe in God than to believe in Shiva or fairies.
After the intro, the questions:
1. Why are you a Christian?:
  . . . for the sake of argument let’s say all the theistic arguments succeed, and all the atheistic arguments fail. Let’s say the modal ontological argument establishes the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-good being. Cosmological arguments establish this God as the creator of the universe. Design arguments establish that he purposely designed the universe to host intelligent life. Historical analysis shows that Jesus rose from the dead. Let’s say all that is true. My question is, Why are you a Christian? A Christian asserts a huge number of highly dubious propositions that are not established even if all these arguments are granted.
2. How do you know?
  It seems that to believe all that “extra” stuff of Christian doctrine, you must rely either on your own personal interpretation of the Bible (a library of texts written by dozens of authors with differing views across several centuries and cultures) or else you must rely on some personal revelation given directly to you by God (while denying the validity of personal revelations apparent to members of every other religion).
3. Evolution:
  Common descent by natural selection and old-earth theory are extremely well-confirmed scientific theories, far better supported by the evidence than other well-established theories you would probably never think to question, like Relativity. Yet you seem to deny evolution and support Young Earth Creationism. Is this correct? If so, how do you conclude such things, given the evidence?
4. God's morality
  You seem to be saying that someone who creates something has the moral right to do whatever he wants to it. But I don’t see how this can be supported. For one, it would mean that God could be morally right to sexually molest children, mutilate their genitals, torture them, and let them die slowly. Surely this is not what you mean? This principle would also mean that if we create a human baby through an artificial process and grow it in a petri dish, we would be morally permitted to rape, mutilate, torture, and kill this baby. Again: surely this is not what you mean?
Day's 1st letter:
- Old Business:
  1. Why are you a Christian?
    Because I believe in evil. I believe in objective, material, tangible evil that insensibly envelops every single one of us sooner or later. I believe in the fallen nature of Man, and I am aware that there is no shortage of evidence, scientific, testimonial, documentary, and archeological, to demonstrate that no individual is perfect or even perfectible by the moral standards described in the Bible. I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus Christ is the only means of freeing Man from the grip of that evil. God may not be falsifiable, but Christianity definitely is, and it has never been falsified. The only philosophical problem of evil that could ever trouble the rational Christian is its absence; to the extent that evil can be said to exist, it proves not only the validity of Christianity but its necessity as well. The fact that we live in a world of pain, suffering, injustice, and cruelty is not evidence of God's nonexistence or maleficence, it is exactly the worldview that is described in the Bible. In my own experience and observations, I find that worldview to be far more accurate than any other, including the shiny science fiction utopianism of the secular humanists.
  2. How do you know?
    I don't concern myself much, if at all, with the conventional extra-Biblical dogma that you describe and in which many Christians believe. I am dubious about the concept of the Trinity as it is usually described, do not await an eschatological Rapture, have no problem admitting that the moral commandments of God are arbitrary, and readily agree that the distinction between the eternally saved from the eternally damned appears to be more than a little unfair from the human perspective. On the other hand, I know that evil exists . . . I also know the transforming power that Jesus Christ can exercise to free an individual from evils both large and small because I have seen it in the lives of others and I have felt it in my own life . . . It may amuse you to learn that one girl who knew me only before I was a Christian happened to learn about The Irrational Atheist and wrote to me to express her shock: “The fact that you wrote this book proves there is a God.” . . . there's no reason this would mean anything to you . . . just as an observable transformation in one of my close friend's lives made a distinct impression on me. I certainly do not deny the experiences or revelations of those who subscribe to other religions. I merely question the specific interpretation ascribed to them by those who lived through or received them. After all, the Bible informs us that there are other gods and that those gods are capable of providing such things at their discretion. Among other things, I studied . . . the sacred texts of various religions . . . I have yet to encounter one expressing a religious perspective that can be legitimately confused with the Christian one, nor, in my opinion, do any of these alternative perspectives describe the observable material world as I have experienced it as well as the Christian one does. I think it is astonishing that an ancient Middle Eastern text is frequently a better guide to predicting human behavior than the very best models that the social sciences have produced despite having an advantage of two thousand more years of human experience upon which to draw. I suspect that unless you can understand why the first book in C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy is called Out of the Silent Planet, unless you fully grasp the implications of the temptation of Jesus in the desert, you cannot possibly understand much about Christianity or the degree of difference between it and other religions.
  3. Evolution:
    I am not a Young Earth Creationist. I don't know how old the Earth or the race of Man is, nor, I contend, does anyone else. I have never been impressed with Bishop Ussher's reasoning or his chronology. I even did some similar calculations when I was seven or eight and concluded at the time that even if one took the Biblical account seriously, there appeared to be a considerable amount of missing information that rendered the chronology incomplete. . . . . . . I am a skeptic who is highly dubious about the theory of evolution by natural selection for three reasons. First, I see it as a dynamic and oftentimes tautological theory of little material value to science. . . Second, the predictive models evolutionary theory produces are reliably incorrect and fall well short of the standard set by the hard sciences. . . Third, the theory of evolution by natural selection does not rest on a scientific foundation, but a logical one; it is no more inherently scientific than the Summa Theologica.
  4. God's morality:
    I will simply note that if a different being had created the world, then a different morality would obviously apply. For more on this, consider reading the second appendix in The Irrational Atheist entitled “Two Dialogues”. I believe logic dictates that the Creator alone has the right to set the standards for His Creation. His game, His rules. In keeping with that principle, God always has the absolute right to do as He sees fit, which just so happens to be precisely the answer He gave to Job and company.
- New business:
  1. Intellectual laziness:
    It would seem to me that reading the book and then asking questions would be the rational way to go about the process, so perhaps you could enlighten me as to why that is often not the case. I know you've read at least part of The Irrational Atheist, but had you completed it, you would know that some of your assumptions about certain Christian beliefs don't apply to me.
  2. No further discussion of evolution:
    Since our discourse is not intended to be about evolution, but religion proper, I will not go into further detail on the subject in this dialogue except to say that all three of those statements can be verified in substantial detail by anyone who wishes to investigate the matter.
Luke's 2nd letter:
- Old Business:
  1. Why are you a Christian? How do you know?
    You write as if Christianity is the only worldview that has an account of evil, but this is absurd. All religions have an account of evil. So evil is just as much evidence for their truth as for the truth of Christianity. In fact, many religions have a better account of evil than Christianity does. Consider Zoroastrianism. According to Zoroastrianism, evil is caused by Angra Mainyu, an evil god roughly equal in power to the good creator god, Ahura Mazda. Later, Judaism trimmed things down to just one God, which is theoretically simpler but introduced a major problem: the problem of evil. If there’s only one God, and he’s all-good and all-powerful, then how can there be so much pointless suffering in the world? Or consider Buddhism. Buddhism claims that suffering is the result of desire. Most philosophers today would essentially agree. Contrast this with the Christian concept of evil as a roaming magical force that hunts us down and seeks to destroy us. Which is more plausible? Or consider the atheistic/deistic hypothesis that the universe is indifferent to the joy or suffering of humans and animals. This seems to fit the facts much better than the hypothesis that an all-powerful, perfectly loving God controls our universe . . . you say that other gods probably do exist, and that members of other religions probably do have genuine experiences of non-Christian spirits. But, you say, Christianity is different than those other religions . . . No doubt, Christianity is different. Every religion is different from all the others. But uniqueness is no measure of truth.
  2. Evolution: Read most of Luke's reply there. I am going to cut out any non-theological discussion of evolution at this point. Luke had one theologically-oriented reply:
    You’re right, there isn’t. But there is also no conflict between the concept of Zeus as an origin of lightning followed by natural electric processes. The natural electric processes explain lightning by themselves, so there’s no reason to postulate an additional magical being hiding forever behind the curtain.
  3. God's moral rights:
    I don’t want to discuss the problem of evil here, but suffice it to say that an all-good, all-powerful God doesn’t fit very cleanly with the amount of pointless suffering we see all around the world. A conflict between an evil god and a good god, of roughly equal power, explains things much better. You seem to think that God is “morally right to sexually molest children, mutilate their genitals, torture them, and let them die slowly.” Why? Because he created them. In your words: “His game, His rules.”
  4. Intellectual laziness:
    that’s not an atheistic tendency. It’s a human tendency. We are all short on time. But I know how you feel. I have skim read your book, enough to know that you and I agree about much of what the New Atheists have written. But no, I did not read every word. I have not browsed your blog archives. And I wouldn’t expect you to read my book or blog archives, either. I think we can clarify our views for each other well enough as we go along.
- New Business
  1. Existence of evil:
    I would like to see you argue for the existence of evil. I think you are adding unnecessary metaphysics to your observations about the world – extra metaphysics that should be shaved off by Occam’s razor. Perhaps you will say that evil is the best explanation for certain events we all dislike . . . To say that the situation requires us to posit “evil” in addition to ordinary things like beliefs and desires is like saying that lightning requires us to posit “Zeus” in addition to ordinary things like electrons. Or perhaps you will say that we know evil exists because we all strongly feel it to be so. But our feelings – even universally held feelings – are often wrong. For thousands of years, people felt they were at the center of the universe, that spirits lived in rocks and trees and rivers, that disease was the product of demons and sin instead of viruses and germs, and so on. Humanity was dead wrong about damn near everything for thousands of years because it trusted its feelings. Only when some of us started to trust rigorous testing and measurement instead of our feelings did our knowledge about our universe start making rapid progress.
Day's 2nd letter: There is only old business - no new
1. Evolution: Again, nothing theological - read Day's comments in his letter
2. Intellectual laziness:
  I can only say that when I initiate a public discourse with an established figure whose views are well-known to the audience, I prefer to operate out of as little ignorance as possible. If you happen to feel otherwise, that is certainly your prerogative.
3. Why I am a Christian? How do I know?
  I was a little disappointed by the way your second letter appeared to indicate that this discourse is already on the verge of devolving into the very sort of debate that you originally proposed avoiding. Fortunately, I think we can avert that by focusing on the question you originally posed to me, namely, why I am a Christian.
  - I have never denied that other religions possess accounts of evil. Every worldview except that of the rational materialist has a more or less coherent account of evil, but the salient point is that those accounts of evil are all very different. Therefore, the question is: of those various accounts of evil, which most closely parallels the evil that we can observe and experience in the material world? . . . Clearly your conclusion is incorrect because evil cannot provide the same evidence for the truth of competing accounts of evil. Also incorrect is your description of the Christian concept of evil as “a roaming magical force that hunts us down and seeks to destroy us”. Evil can be external but it is internal as well, because the Christian concept of evil is simply that which violates the Will of God. Satan is merely one of many evils, perhaps the greatest example of it, but far from the only one.
  - I very much agree with you when you write that “an all-good, all-powerful God doesn’t fit very cleanly with the amount of pointless suffering we see all around the world.” Of course, your statement does little more than confirm your unfamiliarity with both the Bible and Christian theology that I originally suspected, for . . . The Christian God does not rule this world. The being that Jesus described as “the prince of this world” in John 14:30 does. To fail to understand this vital point is to completely fail to understand Christianity
  - I have no problem whatsoever admitting that the resurrection of Jesus Christ, even if it were demonstrated to be an incontrovertible historical fact, does not conclusively prove that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that there is an immortal soul, that Heaven exists, or that Jesus is the only way to it. This isn't in dispute; Jesus not only knew all this himself, but he outright predicted that there would be many men who would refuse to believe despite the wondrous signs they had been shown.
  - The reason Christianity is rationally justified even though the ontological argument, cosmological argument, teleological argument, the magical resurrection of Jesus, and the existence of evil do not entail the complete truth of Christianity – which, according to 1 Corinthians 13:11, every Christian knows we cannot know – but they still suffice to establish the Bible as the most credible authority regarding that which is unknown.
4. Existence of evil:
  I am curious, however, in your interest in seeing me argue for the existence of evil. While I have no objection to doing so given the obvious relevance of the matter, I must first understand something about your definition of evil. Do you believe in the existence of objective evil or do you believe that evil is a purely subjective matter?
5. God's moral rights:
  I am pleased that you find my perspective to be consistent. That you find it terrifying is entirely appropriate, since I think people should be terrified by the idea that the world is ruled by an intelligent, evil, genocidal being. I would find it terrifying too, were it not for the fact that I believe in a greater power that has given men the ability to be free of that rule. Fear, and freedom from it, is an important theme in the Bible as we would not so often be told “do not be afraid” if there was not something to quite reasonably fear.
Luke's 3rd letter:
- Old Business:
  1. Why I am a Christian? How do we know?
    [Regretfully, at this writing part of Luke's 3rd letter is inaccessible. I am not sure where Luke was going on the 1st page of his letter before the fold. We will have to derive his other answers from Day's third letter until his site programming is fixed.]
- New Business:
  1. Violation of your own blog rules:
    I agree evolution is a tangent, but once again I can’t let you get away with what you’ve said. In your first letter, you made many unsupported (and false) assertions about evolution, . . . I responded by quoting your assertions verbatim and then directly rebutting them with relevant evidence, argument, and examples. In your second letter, you again refused to support any of your claims about evolution, and instead resorted to empty hand-waving . . . Your repeated refusal to support your own claims is a direct violation of your own rules for your own blog
  2. Accusation of obscurantism:
    You seem hell-bent on demonstrating that I misunderstand you at every turn. But it is not surprising that I misunderstand you, as you continuously make vague claims and then refuse to explain what they mean, let alone defend them.
  3. Knowledge of Christian theology:
    I am too familiar with Christian theology – or rather, Christian theologies. I know that Christians defend a bewildering array of contradictory doctrines, and of course I don’t know in advance which ones you adhere to. For example, you defend the view that God’s goodness is arbitrary (and thus God would be good even if he raped and mutilated millions of children for the fun of it), and that members of other religions genuinely experience their own gods. These are pretty non-standard doctrines, and I could not have predicted you would hold them. The same goes for your non-omnipotent concept of God, which we’ll come to later. The problem is not that I have incorrectly grasped the central aspects of Christian theology. The problem (for our discussion) is that you have rejected them, in favor of less popular doctrines.
Day's 3rd letter:
- Old Business:
  1. Existence of evil:
    I am certainly interested in discussing which religious or philosophical account of evil best fits the observable evidence as well as further exploring the details of your beliefs, especially those that concern what appears to be little more than a hedonistic spin on utilitarianism, we cannot reasonably move forward until you answer the questions I asked you in my previous letter. While your dissertation on desirism did imply an answer of sorts, it is necessary to clarify your precise beliefs regarding the existence of evil and its nature in order to avoid making any false assumptions about them. I will close by repeating them here now, with the addition of one more question raised by your third letter.
    1. Do you believe in the existence of evil?
    2. If you believe that evil exists, is its nature objective or subjective?
    3. If you believe the nature of evil to be objective, what is that objective basis?
    4. What is the mathematical equation you used to calculate the three probabilities for metaphysical naturalism, orthodox Christian theism, and desirism?
  2. Violation of blog rules:
    I am mystified by your decision to selectively quote the rules of my blog to me as if they were applicable here. But, as you have appealed to those rules, I shall quote the two that are most relevant as they will suffice to bring your repeated attempt to derail this discussion to an end.
    3. Cross-comments and off-topic comments will usually be deleted. If your comment gets deleted, deal with it. Don't try to argue with me about it, I'm truly not interested.
    10. Any insertion of evolution or Creationism into a post that is not directly and specifically related to either subject will be deleted. Repeated efforts to do so will result in banning.
    The mere existence of Rule #10 shows how your attempt to turn a discussion about Christianity into one about evolution and/or Creationism is tiresomely predictable . . . exactly the pointless sort of thing that this discourse was proposed to avoid.
  3. Obscurantism:
    To charge me with making false assertions and empty hand-waving because I made the mistake of directly answering one of your irrelevant questions is a very strange thing to do, especially when one considers that in that very same letter you neglected to answer the only questions I have asked of you. . . . you wrote that I failed to explain why Out of the Silent Planet is titled as it is, and what the implications of Satan's temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert are . . . “the Silent Planet”, refers to the Earth, which, being “bent”, is not ruled by the Old One (the Creator God) or Maleldil the Young (Jesus Christ), but by its bent Oyarsa (angelic planetary principality), who represents Lucifer/Satan. This idea of a world which is ruled by an evil being in rebellion against the Creator God is based on the fundamental Christian theological doctrine of the Fall [see Mere Christianity, "The Shocking Alternative"] , which has been told many times in Western literature and is most clearly demonstrated in the Bible by the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert. When Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in return for his worship, Jesus did not argue that the world was not Satan's to give as he presumably would have if it were a false offer . . . instead he merely refused it. This strongly suggests that the world is not completely under the direction and control of the Creator God as most atheists assume Christians believe, but is instead ruled by an evil, intelligent, and malicious being who seeks to be worshipped in the place of God . . . While the atheist can, as many Christians do, wonder about why a deity of sufficient power to end the reign of an evil ruler would not act immediately to do so, it is as illogical for a Christian to blame God for the actions of Satan . . . The inherent conflict between a benevolent Creator and a fallen world leads inevitably to the very mainstream Christian doctrine of free will, which is why some atheists such as Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett are so determined to prove that free will does not exist, or is at best an illusion.
  4. Knowledge of Christian theology:
    To paraphrase what I wrote in my first letter, if you don't understand that the world is fallen, evil, and bent, if you don't understand that Satan is the prince of this world and the god of this age, you cannot possibly understand the most basic concept of Christianity . . . you begin by errantly claiming that I denied God's omnipotence by asserting that Satan rules the world. But I did nothing of the kind. Would you similarly claim that I deny God's omnipotence because I also assert that King Henry VIII ruled England? You are making precisely the same mistake for which I criticize Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris in TIA, by confusing capability with action . . . note that a rejection of omniderigence is not a rejection of omnipotence because the two concepts are not identical. To be all-powerful is not synonymous with being all-acting, much less all-controlling, and the foundation for my critique of omniderigence and its concept of a Master Puppeteer God is the rather obvious observation that the God who knows that the sparrow falls is not necessarily the God who killed the sparrow
- New Business:
  If you're looking to find the point where Christian orthodoxy and I part company, then note that it is actually divine omniscience that I question, because I don't see any Biblical claim or theological requirement for it.

Also:

My comments on this exchange

Luke's letter #4