Ian Hodge, Ph.D.
Donkey Exegesis: What You Can Learn From Judaism vs. the Messiah
When Yeshua HaMashiach walked on earth and conducted his ministry, the Gospels record many occasions when he confronted the Pharisees. He accused them of using their traditions to overturn the true meaning of the Torah. He did not hold much respect for the opinion of the Torah-teachers. Thus, Yeshua insisted, “unless your righteousness is far greater than the Torah-teachers and the P’rushim (Pharisees), you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!”[1]
To this day there are those who are still confused about Yeshua and the way he confronted the religious leaders of his people, the Israelites. The confusion is found among Christians who mistakenly think the problem with Judaism is that it is bound to the Torah, whereas Christians are released from the Torah. A similar confusion exists among many Jews who mistakenly think Yeshua was not the promised Messiah because he did not accept the Torah as explained by the official Jewish interpreters.
The truth of the matter is that both the Jews and the Messiah held a high view of the Torah. What brought them into conflict was their different methods of interpretation.
What is the reason for this confusion? R. Travers Herford, in his book, Talmud and Apocrypha,[2] outlines the background to the development of Judaism following the Babylonian exile. Herford highlights the importance of Ezra’s call back to Torah, and the oath that the Jewish people took at that time, the “binding covenant” (Neh. 9:38).
Since there was no Old Testament canon at the time of Ezra, Herford recognizes the importance of the Torah which “ranked above all the rest of Scripture” Thus, “the Torah stands as the primary though not the only source of the later Jewish ethical teaching.”[3] Over time, other documents obtained importance in Jewish ethical teaching, the documents that form the Old Testament, the Prophets and the Writings.
Why, then, the hostility between Yeshua and the Pharisees? They both agreed on the importance of the Torah and the prophetical books. What they did not agree upon was the method of interpretation. It was the way they interpreted the Scriptures that divided the Jews from the Messiah, and continues to do so today.
Unfortunately, many Christians follow the Pharisees rather than the Messiah on this issue.
What became a matter of interpretation for Judaism was the idea that some of the Scriptural content was ethically higher than other parts. Although all the parts of Scripture were considered equally divine, they were not of equal importance. Thus, Yeshua’s words about tithing mint, dill and cummin, but neglecting the weightier matters highlighted this practice. This idea also lay behind the question, “Which is the most important commandment?” Yeshua’s reply, by pointing to the summary of the Torah, indicates they are all equally important.
Judaism developed not only the idea that some Scripture was of a higher ethical value than other parts, but that their “advancing ethical consciousness” was capable of determining which were the higher ethical components. As Herford says, “they naturally drew from it that to which their own ethical consciousness responded.”[4]
Judaism developed two systems of approaching God’s law, the halachah and haggadah. These two systems revolve around the idea of obligation. When the Rabbis made halachah, it was necessary to accept and obey. Haggadah, on the other hand, carried no such obligation. But it was halachah that the Messiah attacked so mercilously. “Woe to you, you blind guides! You say, `If someone swears by the Temple, he is not bound by his oath; but if he swears by the gold in the Temple, he is bound.’ You blind fools! Which is more important? the gold? or the Temple which makes the gold holy?”[5] Here the Messiah draws attention to their conflicting halachah. In an effort to “comply” with Torah, the Jewish rabbis had merely undermined the real meaning of Torah.
In the early Maccabean period, Jose ben Joezer was influential in developing “the idea that the Torah contained more than the written word, that there were Torah which never had been written, and which, therefore, was none the less valid though no written text contained or confirmed it.”[6] Hence the formal introduction of the Unwritten Torah, and those who proclaimed its teaching “did so on the authority of their own reason and conscience, and not by seeking their authority in the written text.”[7] They did this, even though they had little foundation for it. But since the religious life of the people became less associated with the written Torah, it became the “replacement theology” of Judaism, and hence the confrontation with the real author of the written Torah, the Messiah.
Thus, Unwritten Torah “transformed the Torah from being only a written document already ancient and in danger of becoming obsolete into a continuous revelation keeping pace with the ages. . . .”[8] The Unwritten Torah “made possible an ethical advance in the teaching given . . . by actually annulling an express command in the written Torah and replacing it by a halachah in accordance with a higher moral standard.”[9] Such an approach “threw upon the teachers the responsibility of giving, as Torah, that which in their own mind and conscience was the highest, truest, and best.”[10]
It is not too difficult to see how Judaism became known for its lack of uniformity in belief in the broader ethical issues. Apart from the Shema, acceptance of the unity of God, beliefs were not necessarily uniform, even though the idea was to enforce halachah rulings. Thus, says Herford, “there never has been in Judaism any declaration of belief holding the same position as the Creed holds in the Christian religions.”[11] When there is no fixed theology, there cannot be a Creed — an “I believe” — that has broad acceptance.
It has been noted by some modern scholars that Judaism has developed no systematic theology, and this is considered a favorable response to Scripture. Christians, it is suggested, should emulate Judaism and come to the Scriptures in the same manner. The Hebrew mindset does not seek certainty in its doctrine. Such a view is Greek in origin, so it has been claimed. Yet this same Hebrew mind that rejects “certainty” is absolutely certain there should be no certainty. This is nuts!
Once you go down this path you create your own contradictions. There’s no certainty in doctrine? Are you certain about that? Because if you are, you simply contradicted the idea that there should not be certainty.
Such a view about systematic theology, however, reveals a large ignorance on the part of the proponents. All thinking is “systematic.” The only question is whether a person’s systematics will be biblical or not.
To come to the Scriptures in the same manner as the Pharisees in Jesus time is to invite the same condemnation. “If you understood Moses and the Prophets, you would know who I am,” declares Yeshua. You can imagine the confusion in the minds of the Teachers at that time. They were the experts on Moses – self-declared experts – teaching the people of Israel how to obey the commandments.
Yet Yeshua’s biting condemnations were never withdrawn. While ever the Pharisees held to the idea that they only needed to draw from Torah “that which their own ethical consciousness responded to,” you begin to the see the problem. Judaism had effectively found yet another way for man to be in control of determining truth and error, right and wrong, good and evil. He was still not prepared to sit in absolute subjection to the word of God as the supreme authority. Rather, it was his “advancing ethical consciousness” that equipped the Jew with the ability to create a hierarchy out of God’s commandments. Such a process allows man to sit as the final arbiter of what is and is not important. And this is what brought the conflict between HaMashiach and the Jews, and the words of Jeshua: “by your tradition you make null and void the word of God!”[12]
The same situation exists today in Christianity. You do not have to look very far or wide to find Christians playing the equivalent of “pin the tail on the donkey” when it comes to selecting which of God’s commandments is valid, and how far it should be taken today. For some, it is time to dust off the old coat of written Torah and explore the new universe of Unwritten Torah. This becomes the “higher ethics” of contemporary Christianity which too has unhinged itself from written Torah.
The Pharisees were flabbergasted at Yeshua’s suggestion they did not really understand Torah and were “blind guides” to the people. Their response to his accusations? Kill him! Today, however, the blind guides continue to use their “advancing ethical consciousness” to tell us how to creatively select from Torah. In the process, they kill both the Torah and the kingship of the Messiah.
The words of Yeshua, in response, are just as valid today: “Blind guides! – straining out a gnat, meanwhile swallowing a camel. . . . [Y]ou appear to people from the outside to be good and honest, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and far from Torah.”[13] The Jewish rejection of Yeshua as the Messiah is thus a rejection of his method of interpreting Scripture. Thus, he could throw this challenge to them: “But don’t think that it is I who will be your accuser before the Father. Do you know who will accuse you? Moshe, the very one you have counted on! For if you really believed Moshe, you would believe me; because it was about me that he wrote. But if you don’t believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”[14] In the name of Torah, they were “far from Torah”. They had even interpreted Torah in such a way that they did not recognize what Moses had written about the Messiah.
These words of condemnation from the Messiah should cause us to consider our own attitude to Torah. Do we, in the name of Torah, place ourselves “far from Torah”? Am I under the description of a “blind guide”?
What would Yeshua have to say to the Christians today to get them to reconsider their views on both the words of the Torah and the Messiah’s method of interpretation.
[[10]]Ibid., p.68f.[[10]
[[14}}John 5:45-47.[[14]]
The Myth of Libertarian Free Will
“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.
When Marcus Tullius Cicero introduced Greek philosophy into the Roman Empire, he helped set the stage for one of the most volatile debates as Christianity spread throughout the Empire. Cicero was a statesman, lawyer, politician, and a gifted orator. He was, following the Greeks, an ardent defender of the freedom of the will, what is referred to as “libertarian free will.” Cicero was not just a famous Roman citizen, he was a philosopher in the Greek tradition.
This 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. Man’s free will in order to qualify for the name, it is argued, 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.
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 will fall into a pattern. They deny God’s infallibility, they deny his omniscience, they deny his immutability, they say God is everlasting but he is not timelessly eternal, and, naturally, they deny any concept of the eternal decrees. Any God who knows the future infallibly destroys human choice. If God knows now that you are going to get run over by an 18-wheeler tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 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.
It follows they reject the idea of the eternal decrees of God, whereby everything that comes to pass occurs because God planned it that way and ensured it would transpire. To them, this idea destroys human choice and contingency. Proponents of libertarian free will see a logical incoherency with the idea that somehow God can decree whatsoever comes to pass and yet, at the same time, hold man responsible for his actions. They see God’s eternal decrees as fatalism, destroying human contingency and genuine choice, believing God’s will and man’s will cannot coincide at the same time on the same issue.
In order to defend libertarian free will, its proponents must therefore deny what has traditionally been understood about God. How do they do this? What’s their rationale for this?
Mirror Theology
They get their views by looking into a mirror. There they see a being – a human being. They notice things, make observations, and then draw conclusions such as this. That person in the mirror is a self-conscious being. Here the person in the mirror is aware that there is subjectivity and objectivity to his self-awareness. He (subject) is aware of something else (object). So far, so good.
Not only do they see a being in the mirror, but they also see a person. To be a person, they suggest, requires things such as “remembering, anticipating, reflecting, deliberating, deciding, intending, and acting intentionally.” These activities are evident in the temporal person in the mirror before them. Again, so far, so good.
They see in the mirror a self-conscious person but also a person who has choice. A person looking into a mirror can remain looking in the mirror or he can choose to look elsewhere. There is nothing in the mirror that indicates man is a puppet dangling on the strings of the Master Puppeteer. All they see is free choice and contingency. Again, their observation is accurate. But it’s not their observations that are the problem; it is the conclusions they make from their observations.
They draw their conclusions – conclusions that are not essential from their observations. First, they conclude that consciousness “requires a precondition of temporality.”[1] A timeless God would have “no contrast between attention and nonattention.” In other words, he cannot exhibit the characteristics of being a person like the one seen in the mirror. Self-awareness “necessarily implies mental transition.”[2] For example in order to be a self-aware person requires “that God must be able to shift his attention from the object of His consciousness to Himself as the subject of that consciousness.”[3] If he cannot do this, he’s not self-conscious. So the traditional view of God is rejected and a changing God who is subject to the conditions of time is substituted. “Any being who is self-conscious must exhibit change. . . . In other words, self-conscious beings logically must be temporal beings.”[4] As a result, both time and change are now everlasting conditions of the God who is no longer eternal in the traditional sense.
Second, they similarly conclude that you cannot be a person and exhibit the characteristics of the timeless God. Attributes of personhood as seen in the mirror are determined to be the standard of personhood which applies to both God and man. A person without a past has nothing to “remember”. Since they want a God who “remembers” in just the same way the person they see in the mirror remembers, they conclude that the orthodox view of God is the wrong one.
This argument gets really interesting when they move into the concept of a tenseless God. If there is no past, present or future for God, he cannot recognize that the Battle of Avarayr took place before the Battle of Waterloo. For him, everything is timeless, so there is no past present or future. In the free will view, only a being that is temporally located can speak of the past and the future, as well as the present.
And finally, the point of contention, choice. If God has eternally decreed everything that comes to pass, you have no genuine choice. They conclude, therefore, that the eternal decrees mean fatalism. In their desire to avoid fatalism, however, some people turn to another false idea, deism, or a modified deism. This is the belief that God does not intervene in the activities of the natural world, or if he does, it is only ex post facto – after the fact. Libertarian free will requires the god of deism, because this seems to be the only way to avoid fatalism.
In summary, the eternal decrees have been thrown out, so too have omniscience, infallibility, immutability, and everlasting time is a substitute for timeless eternity. This, they assert with confidence, is what “logic” demands of the “facts” – the facts they have observed in the mirror.
So you are tempted to ask: how do they know God’s consciousness requires “a precondition of temporality”?[5] And if they could answer this question coherently, without contradictions, would that not mean they were capable of penetrating the mind of God exhaustively in order to make the conclusion? Since they cannot penetrate the divine being to answer this question, it must be they simply assumed God must be like the person they see in the mirror.
It is true that “remembering” is a part of what it means to be a human person. And God certainly uses the phrase “remember” when the writer of Exodus says, “God remembered his covenant.” But a similar question arises to the one asked above. While it may be true that created beings remember things from the past, how do they know that God’s remembering is identical to this? They offer no proof for their assertion; they merely assume that God’s remembering is identical to the kind of remembering done by the person in the mirror. Then they conclude that “in some fundamental way, we shall have to treat God after the model of human personal being.”[6] In other words, God is to be made in the image of man.
From the Mountain Top
In addressing the ideas of the “openness” of God and the idea of libertarian free will, it is clear that “logic” is going to be held out by those on both sides of the argument. Both sides insist theirs is the only coherent response to the issue of free will. But in amongst all of the talk, one lone voice stands out apart from the rest. That’s the voice that insists – demands – that free will assumptions are put to the test of real logic – presuppositionalism. Among other things, this is a recognition that arbitrariness has no place in the discussion. It’s also the understanding that people arrive at their conclusions because they have already predetermined the truthfulness of their position. This is as true for the traditional theists as it is for the free will theists.
But now comes the real issue: which of the two explanations of God and man is coherent? And what are the criteria for coherency? In other words, what are the rules of logic? Or, what are the preconditions of intelligibility? That is, in order for this to be true, what needs to be in place? In order to respond to these questions, you first need to get your doctrine of God and your theory of knowledge sorted out.
The traditional view of God is wrapped up in the via negativa approach in its description of God. In other words, other men have peered in the mirror just like the free will theists, and made opposite conclusions. If what I see in the mirror is created human being, says the traditional theist, then God must be the opposite (negative) of that. If I see a being that is finite, then God is infinite; if I see a being that is changeable, then God is unchangeable; if I see a being that makes choices, these cannot be the choices of an uncreated human being, but the choices of a created being. For it is a created being that is seen in the mirror.
In that mirror, however, both sides of the free will debate see a human being that is limited. It does not matter how we understand the outworking of those limitations, everyone recognizes in the mirror a person who has not reached his full potential. They see an object where actuality and potentiality are yet to be fully realized And so, the traditional theists understand that in God – uncreated being – potentiality and actuality are both fully complete. “In God,” says Van Til, there is eternal accomplishment.”[7]
What does this mean? It means that God is not becoming God, he has never been anything else. He is not becoming anything. He is fully God. He’s not learning new things, gaining new powers, improved understanding, nor has he any unrealized potential. For example, if God can choose not to be God, this means that he has the potential to do that, but just hasn’t done it yet. Maybe he’ll get around to it one day.[8]
What does this do for a theory of knowledge? It means that all knowledge is tied up in the concept of the God as the one who is eternally and fully accomplished. Without this, there is no “true truth,” to borrow a phrase from Francis Schaeffer, just random guesswork. There are no laws of science, no laws of logic that can supply the foundation for a universal statement of any kind. Instead, you end up with Kantian solipsism, for you cannot get law and order out of randomness or chaos.
There’s an interesting declaration by God in Isa. 45:18: “For thus says ADONAI, who created the heavens, God, who shaped and made the earth, who established and created it not to be chaos, but formed it to be lived in: ‘I am ADONAI; there is no other.’” Here you see the express declaration that God has created order in the universe, not chaos. This is the very foundation of scientific law or even the laws of logic. But this does not deter the free will theists who suggest that God has actually created “the necessary conditions for the existence of the chaotic element in history. . . .”[9]
If this were true, then the free will theists have created an enormous hurdle to overcome. If the universe is one of chance then no laws can function, including the law of contradiction. So every time they try to use “logical possibility” as a grounds for their view, they have completely undermined their own position. This is the ultimate embarrassment, to find your own views contradict themselves. But, since there is no law of contradiction they can say whatever they like. They substitute incoherency for coherency, then wonder why orthodox Christian dogma is what it is.
If God is completely self-sufficient, then, as Van Til argues, he is both absolute rationality and absolute will. Among other things, this means that since God is fully complete and self-sufficient, there is nothing to which God might be held accountable. For example, God is not accountable to some standard called the Good, a Platonic concept. He is the standard. There is nothing by which he can measure himself. He is the “I AM who I AM.” He is not the “I AM” of Plato’s Good; he is not the “I AM” of earth; he is simply “I AM who I AM.”
Ask this question: To whom or what is God accountable? Who is going to delegate to God responsibilities then hold him accountable for how well he carries them out? You might think it’s a dumb question, but it’s at the heart of the free will debate. Here’s why.
Free will theism demands that in order to be responsible, man must have libertarian free will. That means he cannot be unduly influenced by anyone – especially God – in his decision making. He must be in all respects like God concerning freedom of choice.
With this in mind you can see why the orthodox view of God became the dominant view. There was no logical alternative. Any concept of human free will as a first cause threw mankind into an intellectual bind. For starting from himself, man cannot climb the ladder of logic and knowledge. In fact, he does not know if he is even on the right ladder, since his presuppositions don’t provide the framework for him to get a valid reference point. It’s like trying to use a GPS system without a satellite.
The Meaning of Sovereignty
The free will theist, thus, confuses uncreated and created being. He attributes to the divinely uncreated being, God, the attributes of humanity, and thus makes God in the image of man. In so doing, he destroys any concept of a God who is fully complete within himself. And without that, you don’t have a God who exercises sovereignty over his creation.
Oh no, says the free will theist, we still believe in the sovereignty of God. We still believe in omniscience; we’ve just redefined it. God does know all the potentialities, all the possible choices you might make. He just doesn’t know which one you will make until you make it.
Now if God is not the absolute, self-determined God, he is certainly discovering the choices of his creatures’ “free” actions. It’s as if God is in a game of cosmic chess. He sees on the chessboard of the universe all the possible moves that can be made. But he doesn’t know which piece of the game of life will be moved until someone moves it. At that point, God learns something new. Now he’s no longer anticipating. Now he knows the actual decisions of his creatures. Now he is no longer in a state of indecision, waiting to find out which way you are going to move. Now that you’ve moved, God can respond; but not until he’s learned what you have done.
Then you ask yourself, how can God provide an accurate and absolutely reliable Scripture if he’s still learning? How can his predictions in Scripture be relied upon? When you read God’s challenge in Isa. 44:7, “Who is like me? . . . let him foretell future signs and events,” their view makes God nothing more than a cosmic poker player who’s calling a bluff over his opponents. Maybe he can tell the future, maybe he can’t. Who’s willing to use this as the ultimate criterion for their definition of the true God?
“Well,” says the free will theist, “he knows the future for some people completely, but he doesn’t know it for everyone.”[10] On what basis can they say this is a universal truth about God? How do they know this is even remotely true unless they know which ones he knows it for? Again, they assume to know exhaustively the mind of God.
Soon you will get a reply. It is “logical possibility” that drives the free will theist. Free will theists believe that if they can suggest a “logical possibility” then this is proof of their claims. Just as an inebriated person might claim that pink elephants are a “logical possibility,” there is no necessity that pink elephants really exist. Similarly, just because free will theists claim the “logical possibility” of time without change,[11] this is not a proof that there really is any time that has no change whatsoever. In other words, just because you can conceive of something does not make that conception true. To prove the idea of time without change would at least require proof that aging does not take place, or else proof that aging is not a change. Just saying there is time without change does not make it a true statement.
Here is the line in the sand. On one side are the Christian theists who build on what the Old and the New Testaments teach about God. On the other side of the line are the open theists who insist that God is not self-determinative, that he is at this moment being determined by your choices, my choices, and the choices of billions of people currently on earth, that he is not in total control of his creation, since he has abdicated that position. To whom, you ask? Why God has abdicated his self-determination to man, of course. God will now become what man determines by his “libertarian free will.”
What is Man?
If God is absolutely self-determinative, however, what does that make man? If man is created – created even in God’s image – then man cannot be self-determinative. Created man, rather, is determined by his environment, the environment in which he finds himself as a created being. He was not created and placed in a vacuum. Rather, he was placed in a universe that has God’s “invisible qualities – both his eternal power and his divine nature – clearly displayed” (Rom. 1:20, CJB, see also Psalm 19.). Further, at creation man was in the Garden, in the presence of God, knew God intimately, and knew that God had laid down an ethical demand. It is this environment that makes man’s choice genuinely moral, not as a first cause, but as a second cause. Adam was created with perfect character and in this environment he and Eve rebelled against their Creator.
It is this environment that is denied by the idea of libertarian free will. For them, Adam had to be away from all “influence”. He had to be “free” to act univocally (lit. one voice) rather than analogically (similarly, or an imitation). He had to have no character, because it was up to him to create character by his libertarian free will choices. Yet, as Van Til explains, it is this very issue of univocal versus analogical action that defines the difference between the self-determinative God and the God-determined creature. For only a self-contained, fully complete and self-determined God can act univocally, from within himself, whereas man must receive his true knowledge from another source and reproduce it. Man cannot create knowledge starting from himself. The creation account indicates that Adam and Eve needed God’s special revelation, apart from creation, to know there was a tree whose fruit should not be eaten. They could not have determined that for themselves.
Whatever Happened to Sin?
What’s at stake here? Sin! Man cannot act univocally unless he, like God, is self-sufficient. But if man is self-determinative, then sin becomes an impossibility for him, just as sin is an impossibility for God. In the words of Van Til,
“Christians need to become fundamentally conscious of the fact that man cannot think and cannot act truly unless he thinks and acts analogically. The very presupposition of man’s being able to sin is that from the outset God created him a perfect moral character. And the very possibility of sin implies the plan of God as its background. Man cannot sin in the blue. Does this make God responsible for sin instead of man? On the contrary, this is the only way in which man can be considered responsible. Only an analogical act is a responsible act.”
The demand for libertarian free will is a demand for man to be as God. And if this were true, there would be no sin for man and no need of a special act of redemption by God.
No wonder you find the open theists talking the language of Cicero. Like their Roman counterpart who followed the bankrupt ideas of the Greek philosophers, the modern day Cicero’s are going to argue that God cannot be what Scripture says he his, that man cannot be what Scripture says he is, and as a consequence, Scripture cannot be what Scripture declares itself to be.[12]
The Myth of Libertarian Free Will
Libertarian free will creates the idea of a self-limiting God in order to make way for an unlimited free will in man. But you cannot argue this way and maintain genuine human responsibility and accountability. If the very essence of God is his self-determination, then libertarian free will introduces its own incoherency into the debate. Van Til again: “In the first place it would be self-contradictory for God to limit himself. It is of his very essence to be self-determinative. And since he is eternal he cannot be self-determinative at one time and no longer self-determinative at another time. The idea of self-limitation of God sacrifices the self-sufficiency of God.”
Thus the God of libertarian free will is a self-limiting God who, in turn, is no longer self-sufficient. If he is no longer self-sufficient, then he is no longer absolute will and absolute rationality. He is, instead, fallible, changeable, and potentially somewhat capricious. Now with that background, how do you expect to be able to solve issues? Such a God cannot even give you a valid starting point, an infallible revelation from and of himself.
How can man find true freedom of the creature if he ‘liberates’ himself from the background of the absolute plan of God? In order to achieve this kind of freedom man “has to start his moral activity in a perfect blank, he has to continue to act as a moral blank and he has to act in the direction of a moral blank,” argues Van Til.
This is an impossibility for man, a nonsense. Yet this is the myth proposed by the proponents of libertarian free will. That somehow, man can escape completely any environment of God, and from this perfectly blank state he can bring forth genuine human freedom. But it is not this kind of freedom Scripture indicates, since “true freedom for man consists in self-conscious, analogical activity.” Hence, when Scripture refers to any idea of man’s liberty, it is within the context of God’s law, as man acts the way God designed him to act rather than the way he determines he is willing to act.
According to libertarian free will, God is bound by the free decisions that men make. In freeing man, they have merely hog-tied God, the reverse of the orthodox view.
Is God Irresponsible?
When Van Til says that only an analogical act can be a responsible act, the immediate opposite comes to mind. Does it mean that univocal acts are irresponsible acts? If so, does this mean that God’s actions – truly univocal – are irresponsible?
The answer to these questions is tied up in the concept of responsibility and accountability. Accountability is to be held to an ideal, a standard. God cannot be held to any concept – say, Plato’s Good – any more than he can be held accountable to anyone other than himself. By definition, then, God’s actions are always “responsible” because they cannot be anything else. But to say it like this is to imply that the application of the word “responsible” to God is inappropriate. You can only use the phrase “responsible and accountable” if there is an external standard by which the actions are measured. No such standard exists in relation to God.
Man, on the other hand, is created being, and therefore his origin begins and continues in the background of God. Not only is man created, but he is placed in an environment created by God. Therefore man’s actions are “responsible” actions precisely because he is an analogical creature. Not only made in God’s image, but also put into an original moral environment by one instruction: do not eat.
This is why man’s responsibility is only possible because of God and his creation. It is this backdrop that creates true responsibility and accountability – not for man as a first cause (univocal) but for man as secondary cause (analogical).
God Overboard
All this, however, is thrown overboard to gain libertarian free will, despite their best protestations. They argue that God is “dynamically omniscient,” or “the description of God as a timeless being is not reconcilable with the logic of the concept of person.” Or they offer the startling conclusion that “since tensed facts can be known only by a temporary being, God must be temporal.”
A timeless God is not reconcilable to which standard? Logic and the concept of person. There’s the key. They have a man-centered view of what it means to be a person, they add to this the finite logic of man, and attempt to make statements of universal proportions about God.
Did these views come from Scripture? No. They were derived by “logic” and peering in the mirror of humankind. Then these conclusions were taken as the principles by which Scripture would be read. In other words, they start outside the Scriptures, in nature, attempt to read their conclusions back into the Scriptures, and end up with Rushdoony’s idea of “an alien faith.”
Conclusion
Once you grasp the central starting point of libertarian free will – created order – you understand that its idea of theism and yours are not even close. This is a rerun of the tempter’s lie in Eden: eat of the fruit, and the created order will henceforth determine what is true or false, right or wrong, good or evil. This is an epistemological framework from below, not from above, and like the devil in the temptation of the Messiah, exhibits a profound misuse and misunderstanding of what Scripture teaches.
If libertarian free will were true it would place man’s actions in a univocal void – away from God, and therefore away from responsibility and accountability. By eliminating God’s eternal decrees as the backdrop to man’s activities, libertarian free will instead places man in the position of God – responsible only to himself. This cannot be even close to the truth, given the language of Scripture in the early chapters of Genesis. Further, if man is ultimately univocal, then his salvation depends on himself. All he has to do is make the right choices. He cannot be so “dead” in sin that he needs the regenerating work of the Spirit of God. That would, in effect, deny his libertarian free will.
It makes you wonder why God went to all the trouble if all it needed was man to make the right “libertarian free will” choices.
Debt and the Bankers
Every so often, you get an accumulation of business collapses. When this happens, it is called a recession. In my book, Making Sense of Your Dollars, I outlined the biblical view of debt, and argued that the Bible is anti-debt.[1] That proposition generated several responses from subscribers. Most of them were attempting to tell me that my understanding of debt was wrong, and that by a judicious use of debt one could become better off, financially speaking. But the economic events around the world provide adequate evidence of the illusory nature of wealth built on debt.
Of course, it is not just regular businesses that fail. Banks fail, too. More than one prominent fund manager has gotten into difficulty owing to the use of debt. This should come as no surprise to us. When financial institutions (e.g. banks) borrow “short” and lend “long” you know that there is great potential for financial ruin for many people.
It is a strange, if not ludicrous, idea that a bank or any other institution, can borrow money from “depositors” with the promise that the money is “at call,” yet lend that same money out for periods of up to 25-30 years. You’re told that banks are the safest place for your money. This may not be correct, even though government guarantees depositor funds up to some amount. (A government guarantee is about valuable as the paper they use for money.) The banks are playing the game: borrow short, lend long, and pocket the difference.
What many people don’t understand is the legal relationship they have with a bank. They believe, falsely, that when they deposit money in the bank their relationship with the bank is that of depositor to trustee, and that the bank is holding their money in trust to be returned on demand. Such is not the case, however, and there is legal evidence to prove otherwise. There is some evidence for this view, for your bank statement indicates the bank holds your account as their liability. But, there is more.
At one time in English history bankers were legally considered to be bailees. A bailee, according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, is a person with whom a delivery in trust is made, upon a contract (expressed or implied), that the trust shall be faithfully executed. Thus, bankers contracted to return the specific goods given to them in trust for safe-keeping.
However, with the development of metallic coinage, a shift began to take place in the legal relationship that existed between bankers and those who made deposits with them. According to Dr. Mark Skousen,[2]
The change was an evolutionary one. During the 17th and 18th centuries, bank customers filed suit over fractional reserve banking and the legal status of customers’ deposits. In nearly every case, the courts ruled consistently that the banker was only a debtor and not a bailee or trustee. Why? Principally because money or coins in storage were not specifically identifiable. This was the sine qua non in any case involving theft or robbery of property – the stolen property or goods must, according to the courts, be identifiable. But individual customers’ coins could not be identified. Thus, because of the fungible nature of money, the banker could not be held accountable as a bailee. The courts treated the banking situation just as they would any other case dealing with fraud or theft; they simply did not see the special nature of money deposits; thus, ‘the bailment of money, in the shape of loose and therefore unidentifiable coins, where the bailor’s only action for the recovery of the money is one of debt.’[3]
The issue was not laid to rest in England until the early 19th century. Again, some depositors challenged the traditional rulings of the English courts, arguing that “banks should be held to a degree of responsibility little or nothing short of that which belongs to the class of bailees under which common carriers, innkeepers, and others are ranked.”[4] However, “The court, in Pitts vs. Glegg, laid it down, in 1833, that sums which are paid to the credit of a customer with a banker, though usually called deposits, are in truth loans by the customer to the banker. . . .”[5]
Note the shift in thinking. The bankers do not have to return the actual money deposited with them because of the difficulty of identifying the money as belonging to a particular depositor. They are to return the amount, that is, the equivalent value of the deposit, however. (Only lawyers, judges, and economists could come up with the difference between the money and the amount) But where will they get the money to pay this amount? The current practice is from another depositor who has just placed his money in the bank. This game ends, however, when people stop putting money into the bank while current depositors withdraw their funds. Then everyone learns the bitter lesson: the storage house is empty.
There you have one of the best kept secrets in the financial world: bankers are borrowers, and when you deposit money in the bank you are little more than an unsecured lender to the bank. This information will be small comfort to those who have lost their life’s savings in the past, believing in the fiction that their money is safe in the banks. It will be even less comfort to those who have just lost their savings in the collapse of other financial institutions.
Next time you deposit money in the bank and think you have somehow avoided the pitfalls of fellow savers who have lost their money recently, think about these words of Lord Cottenham, in the case of Foley vs. Hill, in 1848:
The money placed in the custody of a banker is, to all intents and purposes, the money of the banker, to do with it as he pleases; he is guilty of no breach of trust in employing it; he is not answerable to the principal if he puts it into jeopardy, if he engages in a hazardous speculation; he is not bound to keep it or deal with it as the property of his principal; but he is, of course, answerable for the amount, because he has contracted, having received that money, to repay to the principal, when demanded, a sum equivalent to that paid into his hands.[6]
It is of little consolation to those who have lost everything to learn that “the courts did feel, however, that the use of the term ‘deposit’ was misleading, though they still permitted its use by bankers.”[7] Everyone’s been relegated from the status of depositor to that of unsecured lender to the bank.
TRULY, fools and their money are soon parted. Which is why those who follow the biblical teaching will do their best to avoid debt, not only as a borrower, but also as a lender. Borrowers, apparently, cannot be trusted — especially when the borrowers are governments who lack any semblance of fiscal responsibility, and bankers, who are legally protected from their moral obligations by the politicians who make the law.
Managing For Success
Why do so many small businesses fail? Why do so many churches fail? Same question, same answers. Here are some suggestions how to avoid failure.
It is not always easy to balance theory and practice, yet that is the challenge of business. At the end of the day, we may theorize as much as we like, about prices, markets, the quality of our goods, or our selling skills. But if our business is to survive, we must take our theorizing and fuse it with practical realities.
Management as a necessary practice in every business, but especially small business. If a business has grown beyond a certain size it has already learned that management in some form is essential. What smaller businesses need to realize is that management is the key to growth and without it the business is usually
retarded.
Judaism vs. Christianity
Is Yeshua (Jesus) the Anointed One, Promised in the Old Testament?
Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his book, “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity”, has this to say about Judaism:
God is waiting for the sinner. Up to the last day, God is waiting for his return. Man has to respond. The question of original sin is not of primary importance for the Jew. The problem is not how shall I be saved. The problem is how shall I serve God at this very moment.
Elsewhere in this book Heschel is critical of Christianity because it does not recognize, or at least, some Christians never read, the Old Testament.
This is an interesting criticism. To which the Christian might validly respond, but Jews do not acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, and read the New Testament.
Both arguments have some validity. By themselves, however, neither position explains the unique differences that separate Judaism and Christianity.
Why ObamaCare Will Win
I know what you’re thinking. What would this Australian know about American politics? Right?
You may be right. I don’t know much.
But I do know my Project Director, Carol. She’s almost my age , and one of the hardest workers in the company. She works to support her husband and daughter. Why?
For one thing: health insurance.
You see, Carol had her own consulting business. Making decent money, her husband, 10 years older, was in real estate. They had been paying their health insurance for 19 years. On time, too.
Then it happened. She had a car accident. Her back was broken in two places. Three months later, her husband had the first of three heart attacks. She sued for the insurance money, got paid, but had to settle earlier than was possible in order to get money.
Her husband was in hospital, ready for an operation, when the news came. Your health insurance has been canceled.
For an American, those six words are some of the deadliest it is possible to hear. “Your health insurance is canceled.” Now what do you do?
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Is The Earth Standing Still?
[Author: Gerardus D. Bouw, Ph.D. This article was originally published in 1988 by the then Tychonian Society. It is now named The Association For Biblical Astronomy, 4527 Wetzel Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44109. Click here for more details.]
To hear tell, geocentricity, the ancient Biblical doctrine that the earth is fixed motionless at the center of the universe, died over four centuries ago. At that time Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astrologer, suggested the sun and not the earth was the center of the universe (heliocentrism). Copernicus knew his proposal was heretical to Christian thought and the Bible. Thus he delayed the publishing of his idea for about thirty years. For the next hundred years a debate raged in scientific and theological circles. By 1650 the consensus shifted from geocentricity to heliocentrism, even though there was no scientific evidence favoring either model.
Geocentricity has not been without its spokesmen over the years. Among the educated scientists who attested to geocentricity were three generations of Cassinis (astronomers who dominated French astronomy from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries), and astronomers and educators ordained by the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church well into the twentieth century. Others, such as John Jasper (a famous black, nineteenth century Baptist preacher from Richmond, Virginia) and William Lander (a nineteenth-century English writer) were quite vocal in their belief that geocentricity is truly a Biblical idea. They, as well as reformers such as Luther, perceived the world (and Christians, in particular) would not only bring into question the authority of the Bible but also weaken science itself by embracing heliocentrism.
Neoplatonism and Calvinism
Neoplatonism, with its division of worldy and spiritual realms, has played havoc with Christian belief. Not even a great scholar such as John Calvin was completely devoid of its influence.
For example, in his Harmony of the Four Last Books of the Pentateuch, in his introduction he makes these comments. He claims that “God protests that he never enjoined anything with respect to the Sacrifices: and he pronounced all External Rites but vain and trifling.”
The first part of this statement is rather startling. God never “enjoined” (i.e. imposed) Sacrifices? This is statement is an amazing misrepresentation of the Torah. If there is one thing that is very clear, Sacrifices were not only commanded, but also expected, from God’s people.
Did God really pronounce “all External Rites but vain and trifling”? There’s a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ answer to this question. It is certain clear that God says that External Rites without faith have no meaning and value in his sight. Time and time again God tells his people that he does not want sacrifices that were external only. The sacrifices were to come from a life of faith and obedience. But this does not mean that God did not want the sacrifices; he just wanted them done the right way.
Having dismissed the Sacrifices, he soon resolves the question of the Political Ordinances. He says, “nothing will obviously be found in them, which at all adds to the perfection of The Second Table.” You might be tempted to ask, “was The Second Table of the Law perfect without the Political Ordinances? Now Calvin does not answer this question directly, you have to figure out what he really means. Since Calvin was a very clear communicator, he leaves is with very little doubt on this question. For Calvin, the Second Table was understandable in its perfection without the Political Ordinances. For Calvin, the moral law equalled the Ten Commandments only. The idea that all the other laws were “case law” applications to further explain the meaning of the Ten Commandment seems remote to Calvin.
The laws of the Torah, argues Calvin, “are not, to speak correctly, of the substance of the law.” Not of the substance of the law? This is an incredible admission. Fortunately, Calvin did not always follow his own advice, so his commentaries on the Pentateuch have some value. But it is now easy to see why Calvin dismissed the laws on usury so readily; he did not think such laws were valid. But he did think usurers should be run out of town.
But we have still not finished with Calvin. For in the same context, before writing these comments, he says that “due care must be taken to affix them [the "many Precepts" - IH] to their respective Commandments in order to present the Law as a whole.”
So here you see Calvin his a fourfold division of the Torah: the Moral Law (Ten Commandments), Precepts, External Rites (Sacrifices), and Political Ordinances. In order to discover which of the 600+ laws of the Torah belong under which heading, you’ll have to read Calvin’s comments everywhere on the Pentateuch.
Needless to say, the Scriptures themselves do not provide ready categories such as this. So Calvin will have some freedom to determine that with his advanced (or higher) ethical consciousness, he can provide the categories which somehow the biblical writers failed to make so clear. Along the way, Calvin’s advanced ethical consciousness permits him to determine which of the laws of God are not longer necessary (e.g., Sacrifices).
It is Calvin’s ambiguity on the Torah that attracted Rushdoony’s criticism of Calvin, and Rushdoony has good grounds to be critical. And, as Rushdoony explains, this view of Calvin helped turn people away from Biblical law and towards Enlightenment thought as now man, unaided by explicit divine revelation, will solve some of the ethical problems all on his own — using his enlightened higher ethical consciousness.
This view of Calvin opens the doorway immediately to subjectivism, the root of Pietism and the modern Protestant movement which dismisses the written Torah as God’s revelation for godly living in all areas of life, and substitutes the “discovery” of revelation through prayer and a non-literal reading of much of Scripture.
Calvin’s neoplatonism is seen in his reference to the “Spiritual Worship of God.” In such worship, there is no place to “speak correctly of the substance of the law, no avail of themselves in the Worship of God, nor are required by the Lawgiver himself as necessary, or even as useful, unless they sink into this inferior position.” In other words, perhaps God assigned some very small value to the Law, and it’s only as we assign such as similar value are the laws of any use to us. You will read Psalms 9, 19 and 119 in vain to find such a view expressed about any of the laws of God.
But now the “Spiritual Worship” is to take place without “External Rites”. IN other words, true Spirituality is inward. That is not the message of the Messiah, nor St. Paul, nor any of the Old Testament prophets. Greek influences remained in Calvin, despite his successes elsewhere in this regard. But in the matter of the Torah of God, Calvin is not a reliable guide.
See also The Myth of Calvinism.
R2K Theory in Practice: Why Churches Fail
It is fascinating to operate in two “worlds” — one of the pragmatic business world, and the other the highly theoretical and philosophical world of ecclesiastical polity and theory.
Trying to get a business man to operate in terms of principles can be a challenging exercise at the best of times. But the businessman is a success to the extent that he provides good product and service, plans and manages the business, and treats his employees with some kind of professionalism. Planning, means setting future goals, then working towards them. It also means holding employees accountable in some form to the plan, or at least holding them accountable to the portion of the plan for which they are responsible.
But the frustration is equalled by trying to get church leaders to operate like businessmen and put plans into place then work the plan. Instead, you get words like this: “We have plans but we don’t make them public. That’s the way of the world. We’re spiritual over here, and God will bless our spirituality.”
How R2K and Its Opponents Fail to Address the Real Issue
One of the issues in Christian debate is R2K. This is “Radical Two-Kingdom” theology – church and state. R2K stands for the idea that the realm of the church is to be governed by the Law of God in Scripture, while the state is only to be governed by “natural” law, not Scripture.
The mistake of this view is obvious. It’s origins are in neoplatonism’s notion of the dichotomy between spirit and matter. But what is not so obvious is that the common response to R2K also contains its own error. The respondents to R2K theology call for functional separation of church and state, but both are under God’s law. While that sounds good and proper, the error is this.
Systematic Theology vs. Greek Abstractionism
If you haven’t noticed, Scripture is under attack from all sides — within and without the Church. This, however, should not be surprising.
Man’s desire is to be his own god, determining what is good and evil, right and wrong, truth and error. Man lives in God’s world, so in order for him to be his own god, it is necessary to eliminate all meaning out of the universe, other than the meaning that man himself provides.
In order for man to be god, he must eliminate God, YHWH. He does this with false arguments in philosophy, science, biology, history, music, language, and, of course, theology. Man’s efforts at doing this, however, result in absurdity.
Freedom and Utopianism
Freedom for the individual is a necessary social condition so that people can fulfill their callings. But freedom does not exist in abstraction. Nor does it exist between the ears only. It requires an environment where a person has the liberty to act, without restraint, in order to achieve certain goals. This atmosphere, or social condition, is a political system that has minimum government, allowing individuals to pursue their God-given callings in the way they think best.
There is a force at work today that aims to take freedom away. This force is religious in nature and anti-Christian in its motivation. It is, like all non-Christian belief systems, an endeavor to create heaven on earth — Utopia — without God. While its aims might be noble, its results are disastrous. For, “at utopia’s roots there is defiance of God, pride unlimited, a yearning for enormous power and the assumption of divine attributes with a view to manipulating and shaping mankind’s fate.”
Presuppositional Logic
I need to say this again. I am a slow learner. Duh!
Now, after 30 years of thinking I was a presuppositionalist, Dr. Greg Bahnsen has changed my mind. I was close, but not close enough.
There are two things that challenge all thinking: infallibility and omniscience.
Example:
Premise 1:The Greek (humanistic) mind is based on making conclusions, finding answers.
In Praise of Monopolies
The copyright in music debate creates an opportunity to re-think the purpose of copyright and similar laws, such as patent protection. Neither copyright nor patents have an illustrious beginning. Used by the powers in authority as an attempt to either limit free speech or raise money, the laws had a purpose to protect the position of those in authority. In other words, they were used to protect a monopoly.
More recently laws such as copyright, patents and trademarks are used to create monopolies not of political power but of economic power. Music writers sell their compositions to music publishers who invest the time and money in print and marketing to create sales. The publishers and shareholders want a return on their investment. They are clearly not happy if someone gets access to the same product without paying for it. Book writers do the same.
So do hamburger suppliers. If you want to buy a McDonald’s hamburger, you have no choice but to go to the licensed McDonalds monopoly somewhere and buy. As much as this might be an inconvenience, you cannot go to the Burger King outlet and buy a McDonald’s hamburger, just as you cannot buy Taco Bell at McDonald’s. They each protect their property by insisting only approved sales outlets can sell their food, for which the parent company receives a percentage of the sale. This is just as much a monopoly as is the publishing of songs, so the attack on the publishing industry for protecting its monopoly could be construed at the same time as an attack on all forms of endeavor to protect the fruit of one’s labor and capitalize on it by creating a monopoly selling outlet.
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Unbelief or Disobedience – Which Is It?
IS SALVATION BASED ON BELIEF OR ACTIONS?
Sometimes, you just have to charge into a controversy, head down, full speed ahead. And taking on a topic that has been debated for 2,000 years and still remains a dividing line among the Christian community, is asking for trouble. But, here goes . . .
It is suggested by some that the Reformation “solved” the problem of salvation: faith or works. One or the other. Take your pick, choose sides, and do battle. There is, apparently, no compromise. Luther tried to simplify the problem by suggesting that the book of James did not belong in the canon of Scripture for it went against his idea of salvation by faith alone.
After making the statement that Luther used so effectively from Rom. 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law”, the writer, Paul goes on to point out that both the circumcised and the uncircumcised are to be justified through faith. But . . . he does not stop there. St. Paul then makes this often neglected statement in Rom 3:31 (from the Wycliffe NT translation).
Destroy we therefore the law by faith? God forbid [Far be it]; but we stablish the law
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