The wild rise of atheism in the midst of a culture that was — note, was — so under the influence of Christian theism, is a phenomenon of the twentieth century. although atheism’s roots go back to the Enlightenment (and earlier), the expansion of atheism in the 20th century was phenomenal. Christians suddenly find themselves surrounded by people who, if not outright atheist, are certainly agnostic. If there is a God, he’s “the Big Guy up in the sky,” to borrow a phrase I heard from one Australian.
But atheism has spread like a wildfire (or, as we say in Australia, a bush fire). It has left a trail of burned-out homes and killed thousands of people who were swept up in its spread. While atheism has a long history, it is the meteoric spread of atheism that needs to be accounted for. Its scorched earth policy means total annihilation of competing world views.
How did atheism get such a strong foothold that now nothing seems capable of halting it? What has fueled this devastation that simply tramples over anything that stands in its way, leaving a trail of destruction in the lives and homes of so many people?
Mob activity in Oakland, CA this past week, reminded me of another instance of activity by a small but noisy crowd. The year, 1916, the city, Dublin, at that time containing the greatest number of poor per capita in Europe. The aim of the small crowd in this instance was the liberation of Ireland.
Odd-ball information. That’s what keeps some of us running.
And here’s a key question. Which Bible did Jesus use? Now before you rush in and say the Old Testament, think about this. The predominant “Bible” in Jesus’s day was the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Most, if not all, quotations from the Hebrew Bible that are found in the New Testament come from the Septuagint.
But the problem does not stop there. The little book of Jude (vv. 14-15), right at the end of the New Testament has a quotation from the now-called apocryphal book, I Enoch. Does this NT quotation establish Enoch as being Scripture, and therefore should it be included in the canon of Scripture? If not, why not?
Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matt 5:48
A MUSIC SCHOOL, where students from age three upwards learn various instruments, is a great place to learn about perfection. A significant number of the students in this particular school learn either violin or piano, and for very young students, the violin has some added attraction. For a start, it’s possible to buy an instrument in fractional sizes so that the very young can fit their arms and hands around the instrument. No such ease exists with piano, and young students must simply learn to spread their fingers and extend their hand in order to cope with the physical dimensions of the instrument.
How difficult it is on the hearing of adults as these young students, especially the violinists, struggle to master their instruments. One of the few things more difficult to endure than someone learning the violin is a beginner on the bagpipes.[1]
When people speak of capitalism they immediately think of the profit motive — making money. But is this what the Scriptures teach?
The Scriptures certainly encourage the wise use of money and prudent management. But is this the same as the “profit motive” spoken about in contemporary capitalism?
When an entrepreneur starts a business and he experiences some success, he soon has the excuse to offer an opportunity for someone to share in the business activities. It might be a bookkeeper, a receptionist, or a salesperson.
Step back, for a moment, and consider the scene. God has blessed this individual. God has enabled this person to use use his God-ordained talents to the point where now, in order to take his God-given talents to the next level, he needs help. So he offers employment to someone. But to whom should he offer employment?
Since the kingdom of God on earth is not confined to the mere ecclesiastical sphere, but aims at absolute universality, and extends its supreme reign over every department of human life, it follows that it is the duty of every loyal subject to endeavour to bring all human society social and political, as well as ecclesiastical, into the obedience to its law of righteousness. It is our duty, as far as lies in our power, immediately to organize human society and all its institutions and organs upon a distinctively Christian basis. Indifference or impartiality here between the law of the kingdom and the law of the world, or of its prince, the devil, is utter treason to the King of Righteousness. The Bible, the great statute-book of the kingdom, explicitly lays down principles which, when candidly applied, will regulate the action of every human being in all relations. . . .”[1]
When is Education Not Education?
This is a complaint. A complaint about teachers. In particular, teachers of musical instruments, especially piano, but more than that.
Here’s the nature of my complaint. But before I give you the basis of the complaint, answer this question:
Which group of teachers has the highest failure rate?
If you answered public school teachers, you’d be close, but not close enough.
If you answered Seminary professors you might also be close, but again, not close enough.
Maybe you thought of college professors in general. And while you might have some basis for this, you would not even be close.
Here’s my answer. Music teachers!
These are the teachers who offer to teach your child an instrument – piano, violin, flute, cello, clarinet, guitar, harp – you name it.
But look at how many students take music lessons then quit as soon as they are teenagers.
Now they would probably quit Math and English classes if they could, too. But music is one subject that mom and dad say is optional.
But the fact that it’s optional is not why the kids quit.
They quit because they can’t play the instrument.
“Most heresies begin with a partial use of Scripture and end with an alien faith.” — R.J. Rushdoony
Myth — a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence. — Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
CONTENTS
1. The Problem Defined
2. Mirror Theology
3. From the Mountain Top
4. The Meaning of Sovereignty
5. Anthropomorphism: Smoke and Mirrors
6. Whatever Happened to Sin?
7. The Myth of Libertarian Free Will
8. Is God Irresponsible?
9. God Overboard
10. Conclusion
When Marcus Tullius Cicero introduced philosophy into the Roman Empire, he helped set the stage for one of the most volatile debates as Christianity spread throughout the Empire. His influence on Renaissance thinkers ensured the clash of ideas that eventuated between Erasmus and Martin Luther. Cicero was a statesman, lawyer, politician, and a gifted orator. But he was more than a famous citizen and politician: he was a philosopher in the Greek tradition, an ardent defender of the freedom of the will, what is called “libertarian free will.”
Libertarian free will is the idea that in order for man to have choice and true contingency it cannot be as Luther argued, and Augustine before him, the free will of a created being, as distinct from the free will of an uncreated being. In order to qualify for the name, some people argue that man’s free will must be identical to God’s free will. They may not phrase it exactly like this, but this is what the demand for libertarian free will requires. What they believe is that in order for man to be “free” he must be beyond the control of God.
The debate has raged for well over two millennia. Can anything new be added? Maybe nothing new, but an improved emphasis on the key issue at stake here is important.
The Problem Defined
Defenders of libertarian free fall into a pattern. They deny God’s infallibility, they renounce the traditional views of his omniscience and his immutability, they assert God is everlasting but he is not timelessly eternal, and, naturally, they disavow any concept of the eternal decrees. Any God who knows the future infallibly destroys human choice, they say. If God knows now (at this moment) that you are going to get run over by an 18-wheeler tomorrow afternoon at 4:45 pm, then there is nothing you can do to prevent that. You cannot choose to take another route and thereby avoid the collision with the trailer.
No sound Christian theology can be attached to the Aristotelian notion of ‘the analogy of being.’
Shall we as Christians, facing the wisdom of the world in modern form, dare to do what Paul tells those who are his work in the Lord to do? Shall we dare to be steadfast and unmovable, never doubting the objective truth of the message that we bring, never doubting that the wisdom of the world has again been made foolishness with God? Shall we have full confidence that our labour will not be in vain in the Lord?
ROMANISM
The Roman Catholic cannot answer these questions in the affirmative. He refuses to challenge the ‘wisdom’ of the world in the ‘order of nature.’ ‘Did not God,’ he says,’ create man in His own image?’ ‘And is not man,’ he adds, ‘surrounded with the revelation of God? Why should he not then be able to interpret nature aright? Was not Aristotle right when he concluded from the fact of motion in the world that there must be an Unmoved Mover back of the world?’
The Protestant replies pointedly that the God of Aristotle is not the God of Christianity. The God of Aristotle did not create the world, knows nothing of the world, knows nothing of himself. He’ is not a person, let alone the triune God of Christianity. Aristotle’s God is an It. Yet Aristotle was not inconsistent in his reasoning. On his premises, his highest principle of knowledge and of being could be nothing else than an It. But man cannot worship an It. He must always come back to a person. He must begin and end his system of thought either with himself or with God. An d since Aristotle does not begin with God but with man (that is, with himself), he ends his system with man (that is, with himself). And what Aristotle did has been done over and over again. In modern times it has been done by such men as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel and many others following them.
To be sure, the Protestant continues, the non-Christian thinker has said many things that, in themselves and formally, are true. When Aristotle said that God is pure Act he said verbally the same thing that the soundest of Christian theologians also says. Yet the Christian theologian would be referring to the internally self-complete, triune God, and Aristotle would be referring to an abstract principle of logic or being. No greater difference i n content could be imagined. So also when the Stoics asserted that man is the offspring of God, the Apostle Paul does not hesitate to accept such a statement as formally true. But for the Stoics, man was of a piece with God, while for Paul man was created by God. In content there was the difference of truth and falsity between them. Again, when the pantheist says that he believes in the immanence of God and when the deist says that he believes in the transcendence of God, shall the theist say that he is richer than both because he believes in both the transcendence and the immanence of God? If he did, he would be building the house of his theology as children build their houses of blocks. The immanence of the pantheist spells identity between man and God, while the transcendence of the deist spells separation of man from God. How then can these two concepts of identity and separation be added together and produce the theistic conception of the relation of God to man?[1] The meaning of words derives from the total system of which they form a part.
Still further, the Protestant adds, non-Christian thinkers in general, and non-Christian scientists in particular, may discover much that is true about the universe that is made by God. Perhaps most of the great discoveries of science have been made by those who are not Christians. But such discoveries could not have been made unless the universe is what the Christian says it is, namely, created and controlled by God. There would be no order in nature and no rationality of relationships to be found anywhere in the universe had not God made them. Therefore the possibility of science itself presupposes the truth of the Christian concept of God. When, then, the non-Christian scientist discovers truth, this is not because of, but in spite of, his own theory of being and of knowledge.
It is not difficult to see what happens if the Christian fails to challenge the wisdom of the world in ‘the order of nature.’ If he keeps quiet, the proverbial elephant is given permission to push his trunk through the window! Soon the order of ‘the supernatural’ is adjusted to the order of nature as interpreted by the natural man. The Roman Catholic starts his philosophy with the idea of ‘being’ in general. Aristotle says that ‘being’ is analogical. Applied to the relation between God and man this idea of ‘ the analogy of being’ implies that man takes his beginning from pure potentiality but ends up with becoming pure actuality. If the idea of the ‘analogy of being in general’ could allow for the meaning of history — which it cannot — then it would involve man’s total separation from God in the past and his total identification with God in the future. Thus the entire Pauline gospel of man’s creation by God, his breaking of the covenant at the beginning of history, and work of Christ in history, and the work of the Holy Spirit in the application to sinners of the work done for them by Christ, would be denied. No sound Christian theology can be attached to the Aristotelian notion of ‘the analogy of being.’
The moral of all this for Protestants should surely be challenge the wisdom of the world in every dimension. If it is not challenged in every dimension, it cannot be effectively challenged in any one dimension. If a tunnel is to built under a river it may be wise to start from both sides of the river at the same time, but it cannot be wise to have two engineers working, each from one side, without agreement on a general plan of construction.[2]
Never Let The Facts Get In The Way of A Good Theory
I had another epiphany. You know, one of those “aha” moments when someone switches on a light.
The light on this occasion was Dr. Greg Bahnsen, and I was listening to the CD set Defending the Christian World View Against All Opposition. It’s a great set. No. It’s a brilliant set.
But what got me thinking was his comment about facts. Facts convince no one. You cannot start with the facts and end up with biblical truth. To attempt to reason that way is to reverse the process.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 9:10).
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