He chose poorly

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself (1 Cor 11:29).

There are churches that fence the table because this is supposed to protect reckless communicants who deny the real presence. But if their interpretation is correct, shouldn't there be empirical consequences for communicants who deny the real presence? Why doesn't this ever happen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA7J0KkanzM

If true, some interpretations will have observable effects. Some interpretations predict for certain results. If that doesn't happen, it ought to call the interpretation into question. 

This isn't melodramatic. Consider what happens to some sinners in the OT, viz. Gen 19:26; Num 12:10; 16:32; 26:10; 2 Sam 6:7. Or Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). Or the fate of Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:23).

Out of Egypt I called my Son

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58485b63440243698143794a/t/58d11fc4f7e0abbf2db8ae8b/1490100164904/STR+Issue+8.1_Quarles.pdf

What's it like to live under sharia?

Anecdotes from people who have lived in Muslim nations (warning: some bad language):

"[Serious] People who have lived under Sharia law, what was it really like?"

Am I dying?

Apple-bobbing

Choosing is paradoxical. In the nature of the case, choices are future-oriented. It's too late to make choices about the past. So we deliberate and decide with a view to the future.

However, our actions in striving to achieve the goal impact the very future we aim for. We're reaching for a goal, yet the act of reaching for the goal disturbs the goal. Like apple-bobbing, where the very effort to pick an apple pushes the apple way.  

So the future becomes a moving target. By perturbing the future, the future we end up with isn't the same future we began with. 

A tale of two journeys

https://arcdigital.media/a-tale-of-two-journeys-7e4505b5c295

Nicene subordinationism and unitarian subordinationism

The core of Clarke's subordinationism is as follows. Certain names or titles in the Bible, including “God”, always are nearly always refer to the Father, giving him a kind of primacy among the three. The word “God” is used in higher and lower senses, and in his view the former always refer to the Father. The God of Israel, the one true God, just is the Father of Jesus. Further, he is the main and the primary and ultimate object of Christian worship and prayer, and as the sole recipient of the highest kind of worship. In his view, the Son of God has all the divine attributes but one, that of existing a se that is, existing and not being in any sense derivative of or dependent on anything else. To the contrary, “The Father Alone is Self-existent, Underived, Unoriginated, Independent” (Clarke, Scripture, 123). It is contradictory to suppose that something has this property in any sense because of another thing. In his view the Son and the Holy Spirit (like the Son, a personal agent or self distinct from the Father) exist and have their perfections because of the Father. Both are functionally and ontologically subordinate to him, and in the Spirit is at least functionally subordinate to the Son. What sort of dependence relations are these? The Son and Spirit derive their being from the Father as from a “Supreme Cause”, but we are not to infer from this that the Father existed before them. The Bible doesn't enlighten us on the nature of this dependence relationship, but seems to presuppose that it always was (i.e., that infinitely back in time, the Son and Spirit existed in dependence on the Father). Thus, “Arian” subordinationists (see section 3.1 above) are speculating groundlessly when they say there was a time when the Son didn't exist. And if a “creature” must at some time begin to exist, then neither Son nor Spirit are creatures. Still, Clarke thinks that we should affirm with some of the early church fathers that this derivation of the Son from the Father is “not by mere Necessity of Nature, (which would be in reality Self-existence, not Filiation;) But by an Act of the Father's incomprehensible Power and Will” (141, original emphases). Clarke argues that the New Testament teaches the eternal existence of the Son, and that he is (co-) creator of the world. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trinity/unitarianism.html#17t18tCenEngSub

1. What's striking about Clarke's position is how Nicene subordinationism and unitarian subordinationism (a la Clarke) share a common platform. There's not much difference. In both cases, the Father is the fons deitas. The Father is unoriginate while the Son is originate. The Son has divine attributes derivatively. 

We might say unitarian subordinationism is a modification of Nicene subordinationism or Nicene subordinationism is a modification of unitarian subordinationism. I'm referring to their logical relationship, not chronological relationship. 

That's one reason I reject Nicene subordinationism, The scheme is inherently unstable. A gateway drug to unitarianism. By contrast, I take the same position is B. B. Warfield, John Frame, John Feinberg, and Paul Helm (among others).

2. On a related note, it's common for Catholic apologists to claim that you can't derive the Trinity from Scripture alone. Orthodox Christology and Orthodox Trinitarianism are postbiblical developments. Only the authority of the church can bridge the gap.

It wouldn't surprise me if some modern-day unitarians are lapsed Catholics. They agree with Catholic apologists that the Trinity can only be warranted by the makeweight of the magisterium, but having lost confidence in "the Church", they lost confidence in the Trinity. So Catholic apologetics is another gateway drug to unitarianism. 

Don't Extraordinary Claims Need Extraordinary Evidence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HgRWvqf-wM

Kinder gentler Islam

During the debate between Robert Spencer and James White, White said:

The question becomes, if we're using laws of abrogation to come up with all of this type of interpretation to begin with, what do you do with the people that you live with today who look at the stories of Muhammed and they emphasize the stories when he was a minority prophet, when he himself was seeking religious freedom, upon what basis are those abrogated and if they do believe those things to be relevant to their faith today, do you say to them, you're not a true Muslim, or do you just simply say, well historically the large portion of your leaders in the past have not taken the same perspective that you have (21-22 min.)

Presumably, White is using that as a hypothetical example of how Muslims could legitimately develop a nonbelligerent version of Islam, given the range of sources available to them. Or perhaps he's appealing to his anecdotal experience of individual Muslims who actually say they take that approach. 

But there's a fundamental problem with his paradigm-case, because it plays straight into Spencer's argument that there's a progressive strategy in Islam: 

First phase:       tolerance, 

Second phase:  defensive jihad, 

Third phase:     offensive jihad 

(7-8 min.)

Muhammad's irenic message when he was a minority prophet was a tactical pose. When you're outnumbered by potential adversaries, you advocate religious freedom. You bide your time until you gain the upper hand. Once the balance of power shifts in your favor, you drop the pose and switch to jihad. Since that example is just a cynical stratagem, that's not a genuine alternative to the jihadist interpretation of Islam. To the contrary, that's a softening up exercise. Lulling potential adversaries into a false sense of security, then striking when it's too late for them to strike back. How does Muhammad's ruse de guerre present a genuine, irenic alternative to the jihadist tradition? It doesn't. Just the opposite.

Critical race theory

http://hlrecord.org/2016/02/racism-justified-a-critical-look-at-critical-race-theory/

Arian and humanitarian unitarianism

To my knowledge, there are roughly two kinds of unitarians: Arians and humanitarian unitarians.

(In this post I'm excluding Muslim and Jewish unitarians.)

1. Arian unitarianism

Arians regard the Son as the first creature. God made the Son, and the Son made everything else. Arianism is dualistic. 

A tactical advantage of this position is that Arians can more easily accommodate many NT passages that describe the Son as preexistent. 

A serious disadvantage is that by making a creature God's all-purpose agent, they blur the difference between God and creatures. Everything the OT says about Yahweh is transferrable to the Son, even though the Son is merely a creature. A creature co-opting all the classic monotheistic texts. 

2. Humanitarian unitarianism

Humanitarian unitarians regard Jesus as merely human. He didn't exist at all priori his conception. Some humanitarian unitarians are physicalists. 

A tactical advantage of this position is that humanitarian Arians can more easily maintain a distinction between God and Jesus.

A serious disadvantage is that humanitarian unitarians must someone reinterpret all the NT passages pointing to the preexistence of Christ (e.g. John 1:1-5; 8:58; 12:41; 17:5; Col 1:16-17; Heb 1:2,10-12; 

So unitarians face a conundrum regardless of which option they select. 

Memory wipe

In responding to universalist Thomas Talbott, Craig floated the hypothesis that God might wipe the recollection of lost loved ones from the memories of the saints.  That way, the saints could enjoy eternity, since they'd be oblivious the hellish fate of their lost loved ones.

I don't think there's anything necessary wrong with the idea that God might erase certain traumatic memories. However, in the case of parents, siblings, spouses, and kids, we're not talking about fairly isolated memories, but the time we spend with them day in and day out for decades. So many other memories are necessarily entwined with the life we shared in common. It would be like people with senile dementia who suffer from huge gaps in recalling their life. 

“The true danger for Catholics is bad Catholics”

From here: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/06/important-repost-true-enemies-of-church.html:

Bethel

D.A. Carson writes the following in his book Praying with Paul: A Call to Spiritual Reformation (pp 161-165):

In 2 Corinthians 4:16–18, Paul writes, "Though outwardly [lit., in "the outer man"] we are wasting away, yet inwardly [lit., in "the inner man" - exactly the same expression as in Eph. 3:16] we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporal, but what is unseen is eternal." Paul's body, his "outer being," is wearing away under the onslaught of years and of persecution; the "inner being" is what is left when the outer man has wasted completely away.

Most of us in the West have not suffered great persecution, but all of us are getting older. In fact, sometimes we can see in elderly folk something of the process that Paul has in mind. We all know senior saints who, as their physical strength is reduced, nevertheless become more and more steadfast and radiant. Their memories may be fading; their arthritis may be nearly unbearable; their ventures beyond their small rooms or apartments may be severely curtailed. But somehow they live as if they already have one foot in heaven. As their outer being weakens, their inner being runs from strength to strength. Conversely, we know elderly folk who, so far as we can tell, are not suffering from any serious organic decay, yet as old age weighs down on them they nevertheless become more and more bitter, caustic, demanding, spiteful, and introverted. It is almost as if the civilizing restraints imposed on them by cultural expectations are no longer adequate. In their youth, they had sufficient physical stamina to keep their inner being somewhat capped. Now, with reserves of energy diminishing, what they really are in their inner being is coming out.

Even for those of us who are still some distance from being senior citizens, the restrictions and increasing limitations of the outer being make themselves felt. My body is not what it was twenty years ago. Every time I take a shower, a few more hairs disappear down the drain never to be seen again. I have arthritis in two or three joints; I have to watch my intake of calories; my reaction times are a little slower than they used to be; in a couple years I shall need reading glasses. And some day, if this old world lasts long enough, I shall waste away, and my outer man will be laid to rest in a hole six feet deep. Yet inwardly, Paul insists, in the inner being, we Christians "are being renewed day by day."

The Christian's ultimate hope is for the resurrection body. But until we receive that gift, it is our inner being that is being strengthened by God's power. In a culture where so many people are desperate for good health, but not demonstrably hungry for the transformation of the inner being, Christians are in urgent need of following Paul's example and praying for displays of God's power in the inner being. In short, Paul's primary concern is to pray for a display of God's mighty power in the domain of our being that controls our character and prepares us for heaven...

Picture a couple carefully marshaling enough resources to put together a down-payment. They buy their house, recognizing full well that it needs a fair bit of work. They can't stand the black and silver wallpaper in the master bedroom. There are mounds of trash in the basement. The kitchen was designed for the convenience of the plumber, not the cook. The roof leaks in a couple of places, and the insulation barely meets minimum standards. The electrical box is too small, the lighting in the bathroom is poor, the heat exchanger in the furnace is corroded. But still, it is this young couple's first home, and they are grateful.

The months slip past, then the years. The black and silver wallpaper has been replaced with tasteful pastel patterns. The couple has remodeled their kitchen, doing much of the work themselves. The roof no longer leaks, and the furnace has been replaced with a more powerful unit that also includes a central air conditioner. Better yet, as the family grows, this couple completes a couple of extra rooms in the basement and adds a small wing to serve as a study and sewing room. The grounds are neatly trimmed and boast a dazzling rock garden. Twenty-five years after the purchase, the husband one day remarks to his wife, "You know, I really like it here. This place suits us. Everywhere we look we see the results of our own labor. This house has been shaped to our needs and taste, and I really feel comfortable."

When Christ by his Spirit takes up residence within us, he finds the moral equivalent of mounds of trash, black and silver wallpaper, and a leaking roof. He sets about turning this residence into a place appropriate for him, a home in which he is comfortable. There will be a lot of cleaning to do, quite a few repairs, and some much-needed expansion. But his aim is clear: he wants to take up residence in our hearts, as we exercise faith in him.

When people take up long-term residence somewhere, their presence eventually characterizes that dwelling. The point was well understood by Jean Sophia Pigott when in 1876 she wrote a poem addressed to Jesus...

Make my life a bright outshining
Of Thy life, that all may see
Thine own resurrection power
Mightily put forth in me.
Ever let my heart become
Yet more consciously Thy home.

Truth decay

I'd like to make another point about the debate between Spencer and White:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBCWsabA5Y4

White repeated a couple of things he's said on several occasions:

i) Due to inconsistencies in early sources of Islam, as well as alternative interpretive grids, there is no one true expression of Islam. Every version of Islam is an artificial package in which some traditions are arbitrarily prioritized at the expense of others.

ii) Apropos (i):

When someone yells "Allahu akbar", yes, you need to recognize that this person is claiming an Islamic understanding of what they're doing, but then you also have to be honest and go look when a Christian does something, don't we want to be able to ask the question how much this person really know, how well studied were they, what perspective are they coming from…we want to have that kind of freedom and we need to extent that freedom to the other side (31-32 min.)

But there's a fundamental flaw in that comparison: his argument from analogy only works if White goes onto say there's no one true expression of Christianity. Hence, an adherent of one Christian tradition may credibly and justifiably disassociate himself from words or actions by adherents of other Christian traditions on the grounds that their behavior or theological interpretation doesn't reflect his own faith-tradition. 

Problem is, that's theological relativism. On that view, divergent theological traditions within church history are like poker games: Omaha, Taxas hold'em, and Seven-Card Stud are all poker games. None is more authentic than the others. Each plays by different rules.

Likewise, that would amount to saying Arianism, Arminianism, Gnosticism, Catholicism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, Mormonism, Swedenborgianism et al. are simply different expressions of Christianity, none is more or less true than the others. 

But White wants to be able to say more than just "Don't blame me for the priestly abuse scandal–because that doesn't represent my own faith tradition!" (for example). He wants to take a far stronger position. He wants to be able to say that some Christian traditions are much truer than others. That there's an absolute standard of comparison. And along the spectrum of truth and falsehood, Roman Catholicism (to take one example) suffers from many fundamental falsehoods. So his analogy is vitiated by equivocation, because the parallel breaks down at the critical point of comparison. 

A Conditional Problem for Adherents of Universal Divine Love

https://www.jamesagibson.com/2017/06/22/a-conditional-problem-for-adherents-of-universal-divine-love/

Handicapping the Spencer/White debate

I'd like to comment on the recent radio debate between Robert Spencer and James White, hosted and moderated by Michael Brown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBCWsabA5Y4

1. The larger context of this debate is the current political situation in the Mid-East, Africa, Europe, the UK, and the USA, where Muslims are a source of violence and oppression. Apologists for Islam claim that critics are misrepresenting Islam. 

The burning question is whether the very nature of Islam is the source of the problem. Does Islam pose an existential threat to Jews, Christians, and democratic societies?

Is terrorism an authentic expression of Islam? Indeed, a more authentic expression of Islam?

2. One weakness of the debate was a myopic focus on terrorism or jihad. But that's not the only expression of Islamic violence. You also have honor killings, gang-rape, &c. 

3. White takes the position that Islam can develop in tolerant as well as intolerance directions. No particular development is more authentic or legitimate than another. In addition, he said his aim is to reach people where they are, reach them with what their beliefs are rather than enforce something on them.

Let's take a comparison: both Catholicism and Mormonism have undergone dramatic development. But certain kinds of development are inconsistent with the prophethood of Joseph Smith. There comes a point at which an intellectually honest Mormon should stop tweaking the Mormon paradigm and admit the paradigm is fundamentally flawed because Joseph Smith was a charlatan.

Likewise, there comes a point at which an intellectually honest Catholic must admit that post-Vatican II theology can't be squared with a divine teaching office. What we have is not a continuous logical development, but a dramatic break with the past. Compare the Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors, positions taken by the BPC under Leo XIII, or Pius X's Oath Against Modernism, with subsequent positions. Compare Unam Sanctam (ratified by two ecumenical councils) with subsequent positions. Compare the Tridentine anathemas with subsequent developments. 

Protestant apologists rightly point out that these developments are illegitimate in the sense of sabotaging the notion that the Roman Magisterium enjoys special divine guidance and protection from serious error. 

Presumably, James White agrees with that. By parity of argument, certain developments in Islam would be incompatible with the prophethood of Muhammad. There's a point beyond which you can't keep tweaking the same paradigm. If the paradigm needs that much tweaking, then that's a flawed paradigm from the get-go. You need to scrap the paradigm. White either believes that Islam raises parallel issues or not. Does he take a different approach to Islam than Catholicism or Mormonism? 

4. White said Spencer's approach can lead to one of two things. Do we want to actually try to argue to Muslims that to be a true Muslim you need to become violent?

i) We need to distinguish between pragmatics and principle. People can relieve a dilemma in one of two directions. It's better that Muslims be inconsistent than consistent. 

ii) However, Christian apologists routinely take an opposing position to a logical extreme as a wedge tactic. Consider atheism. Christian apologists routinely contend that consistent atheism is logically committed to moral and existential nihilism. In theory, an atheist could be persuaded by the argument, then choose the nihilistic horn of the dilemma. Do we want an atheist to become a psychopathic killer? No.

But surely White doesn't think we should avoid pressing an atheist on the logical consequences of atheism. How else can we argue against atheism?

5. White said he can't look into people's hearts and minds to divine their intentions. True, but so what? In many situations, we're entitled to draw reasonable inferences about people's motivations. That's unavoidable. White is a culture warrior. He routinely comments on the ideology that's driving secular progressive and social justice warriors. 

6. White suggested that Spencer's position is inconsistent because Spencer is skeptical about the existence of the historical Muhammad. 

i) Spencer responded by comparing Muhammad to Macbeth. A fictional character can have a clearly identifiable profile. 

ii)  In addition, there's an elementary distinction between an outsider's perspective and an insider's perspective. Historians, philosophers, and Christian apologists are supposed to practice critical detachment. They have their own view of an ideology or religion, but they may also adopt the opposing viewpoint for the same of argument to evaluate it from the inside out. 

Obviously, Spencer doesn't have the same view of Islam that devout Muslims do. But the question at issue is how Muslims view Muhammad. Assessing Islam on its own terms. The inner logic of Islam given Muslim presuppositions. Even if Spencer thinks Muhammad is a legendary figure, Muslims do not. 

7. Is there a presumption in favor of taking Muslim disclaimers at face value? Do Muslims engage in dissimulation? White introduced the example of Yasir Qadhi. That, however, raises the question of whether White is being played by Qadhi. For instance:

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/06/christian-minister-james-white-has-kindred-spirit-in-jihadi-imam-yasir-qadhi

Unitarian body-snatchers

Continuing my response to a hapless unitarian:

https://theologyandjustice.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/hays-non-exegesis-of-john-1034-6-where-is-the-exegesis/

Given that these beings are called gods, and they were called “god” by Yahweh, the word of God came (ἐγένετο—it’s the aorist tense, meaning this happened in the past) to them…

That's a popular misunderstanding of the aorist. 

The aorist-tense form predominates in narrative or when events are spoken of as complete….Although it is often used in contexts where an English past tense (e.g., "he want," "she bought") is required in translation, it is not limited to an English past tense. Sometimes the aorist tense is used to refer to present action, general truisms, or even timeless truths…More important is how the aorist tense-form depicts the event from the standpoint of the speaker or writer as a complete event. Stanley Porter, Jeffrey Reed, & Matthew Porter, Fundamentals of New Testament Greek (Eerdmans, 2010), 38-39.

Evidently, Montero hasn't studied verbal aspect theory. 

In “the father is one” … a phrase that doesn’t come up at all; anytime the Shema is invoked it uses the actual language of the Shema (God and Lord); so you’re speaking hypothetically about something which didn’t happen and thus can’t really be a frame of reference. 

Why can't hypothetical cases furnish a frame of reference?

However even so, the “one” in the phrase “the Father is one” would be the masculine εἷς, and refer not to “unity”, but rather to what it means in the Shema, a Unique personal identity, Yahweh is one, he alone is the God of Israel, that’s what it means. In John 10:30 “one” is the neuter ἕν and refers NOT to unique personal identity but to unity—thus the word doesn’t mean the same thing, it’s in a different form and has a different meaning. So no, it doesn’t evoke the Shema at all, because not one word is the same, and the one word that IS the same is in a different form and has a completely different meaning.

i) Since Deut 6:4 wasn't written in Greek, why does Montero insist that a Greek translation must use a particular synonym for "one"?

ii) Moreover, is he suggesting that εἷς means "unique personal identity"?

Why wouldn’t the Unitarian interpretation provoke that reaction? How many first/second century messianic pretenders died violent deaths? I have the answer, all of them.

Is Montero suggesting they were all executed on a charge of blasphemy? 

You’re assuming by the way that they are saying he makes himself “God” and not “a god” …. There is nothing in the text to warrant that assumption.

Here's a unitarian dilemma. On the one hand, they say the anarthrous construction means "a god" rather than "God". And they say that's not blasphemous because it's is used in the OT for human kings as well as angels. On the other hand, the Jewish establishment accused Jesus of blasphemy, even though, on the unitarian interpretation, that's not blasphemous. 

They ended up killing him for claiming he was the “son of man” (never interpreted in Judaism as being Yahweh), so there are plenty of reasons.

Actually, they convict him of blasphemy for calling himself the "son of God". 

If Jesus said he was from the Father, the unique agent of the Father, and that he was the Christ—and then he was contradicting what the religious leaders said, is it a surprise they wanted to kill him? Is it a surprise that someone who they thought of as a heretic who claimed to be the messiah and speaking on behalf of God would be seen by his enemies as committing blasphemy?

That's quite surprising–indeed, highly incongruous–on unitarian assumptions. On the unitarian interpretation, there's nothing heretical about those messianic claims. So there's this internal contradiction in the unitarian explanation of the Jewish allegation. 

Right but John was written in Greek and it quoted the LXX when it quoted the Hebrew Bible. 

I don’t really understand your point here, why then do the gospel writers constantly use the LXX in regards to scripture quotations? 

Where does Montero come up with that notion? For instance, in his standard commentary on the Greek text, Nolland documents how often Matthew, when quoting the OT, translates straight from the Hebrew text, producing translations that are independent of the LXX. Cf. J. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew (Eerdmans, 2005), 29-33.

Likewise, Keener says:

John's eclectic use of Hebrew and LXX text-types suggests either knowledge of Hebrew or a memorized, strongly Palestinian tradition. C. Keener, The Gospel of John (Hendrickson, 2003), 1:173.

Montero is overgeneralizing about use of the LXX in the Gospels. 

Everything attributed to Jesus you claim necessitates him being Yahweh in the flesh was also attributed to figures in the OT. Hebrews talks about how Moses took Israel out of Egypt, countless passages in the OT say that it was only Yahweh who took them out of Egypt—does that mean Moses is Yahweh? No. The OT says salvation only comes from Yahweh, yet it calls various kings and judges saviors of Israel, are they Yahweh? Common now.

Here's another central dilemma for unitarians. On the one hand, they vehemently deny that Jesus is Yahweh. On the other hand, when the NT repeatedly attributes Yahwistic claims to Jesus, they say that's possible because an agent can act on Yahweh's behalf. Ironically, their creaturely Jesus becomes interchangeable with Yahweh because there's nothing left to distinguish Jesus from Yahweh. Everything the OT says about Yahweh to set him apart from false gods is transferrable to Jesus. If a creature can always step into Yahweh's shoes, then there's nothing uniquely divine about Yahweh. Let's take a few examples:

i) Yahweh is the Creator of the world

This is one of the defining features of OT theism that differentiates the true God from false gods. The foundational text is Gen 1, yet Jn 1 identifies Jesus as the Creator God of Genesis.

Another striking example is Ps 102, which depicts the God of Israel as the eternal, preexistent Creator of the world. Yet Heb 1:10-12 identifies the Son as the Creator God of Ps 102. 

ii) Yahweh is the eschatological judge

This is another defining feature of OT theism that differentiates the true God from false gods. Jer 17:10 is a good example. Not only does that describe Yahweh's role as the eschatological judge, but what qualifies Yahweh to exercise that prerogative is his omniscience. 

Yet Rev 2:23 ascribes this passage to Jesus. Not only does Jesus assume the role of eschatological judge, but he can discharge that role because he enjoys the divine attribute of omniscience.

iii) Yahweh is the first and last

That occurs in a locus classicus of OT monotheism (Isa 41:4; 44:6, & 48:12). That's a distinction which demarcates the true God from false gods. Yet that's applied to Jesus in Rev 22:13.

iv) Obeisance proper to Yahweh

In a locus classicus of OT monotheism, Isa 45:23 describes the obeisance due to Yahweh alone. Yet that's applied to Jesus in Phil 2:9-11. 

v) Vision of Yahweh

Isa 6:1-5 describes Isaiah's overwhelming vision of Yahweh's incomparable holiness and glory. Yet Jn 12:41 says Isaiah actually saw the Son on that occasion. 

vi) The Shema 

Deut 6:4 is the fundamental creed of OT monotheism. Yet 1 Cor 8:6 is a binary Shema making the Father "God" of the Shema and Jesus "Lord" of the Shema. 

Unitarianism is like Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, where Jesus replicates everything that makes God God. He is said to be a creature, yet he's a duplicate of God. 

Jesus is distinguished from Yahweh, Yahweh acts THROUGH Jesus, not vice-versa

Once again, appealing to agency to salvage unitarianism is self-defeating. In that event, Yahweh is not the Creator of the world. At best God made one creature, and the first creature made everything else. Yahweh is not the eschatological judge. That's delegated to a creature. Yahweh is not the recipient of unique obeisance. That's reassigned to a creature. And so on and so forth. Unitarianism strips Yahweh of everything that makes him Yahweh. A creature co-ops every Yahwistic role, attribute, and prerogative.  

So those to “whom the word of God came” are called gods, does that mean that the readers of the prologue are called gods? 

John's readers aren't characters in Ps 82, so that's a non sequitur. 

Also the “distinction” between Yahweh and the other gods of Psalms 82 is that the other gods die … Jesus died, if that was Jesus’s point then that’s a very contradictory point.

On the mythopoetic interpretation, the gods in Ps 82 don't actually die since they don't actually exist. That's a satirical fiction.

Outer darkness

Jesus uses "outer darkness" (Mt 8:12; 22:13; 25:30) as one of the images for hell. What is that image supposed to conjure in the minds of readers?

The light/darkness, inside/outside contrast may trade on the metaphor of a fortified city. If you arrive after the city gates close at night, you will be stuck outside. You will be exposed to the elements as well as the dangers associated with the night (e.g. nocturnal predators). 

James White v. Robert Spencer: Is True Islam Always Violent Islam?

During second hour, Michael Brown hosts a debate between James White and Robert Spencer:

http://thelineoffire.org/2017/06/21/should-we-engage-in-interfaith-dialogue-with-muslims-and-a-debate-between-robert-spencer-and-dr-james-white/

http://www.voiceofrevolution.com/lineoffire/shows/line_of_fire_06_21_17.mp3

“Pope Francis” Brings Doctrinal Anarchy, Leads People Astray

“Pope Francis” Brings Doctrinal Anarchy

The National Catholic Register is probably one of the most mainstream Roman Catholic publications that there is in the US. No one can claim that it’s either liberal or progressivist. They are purely the milquetoast EWTN Catholics. And now they have come out with the headline “Doctrinal Anarchy” in association with the fact that Bishops’ conferences around the world are coming up (as “Pope Francis” intended) with conflicting “interpretations” of the Amoris Laetitia statement.

Since the publication last year of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family Amoris Laetitia, a “doctrinal anarchy” that was feared and predicted at the synods on the family is becoming apparent.

Belgium’s bishops have become the latest to read the exhortation as giving — under certain conditions but with an emphasis on the primacy of conscience — access to the Sacraments for some civilly remarried divorcees without an annulment.

They follow the bishops’ conferences of Malta, the Philippines and Germany, as well as some bishops from other countries who have issued similar guidelines and statements for interpreting Amoris Laetitia’s controversial Chapter 8.

By contrast, Poland’s bishops’ conference last week became the first national conference to declare that Amoris Laetitia has not changed Church doctrine on Holy Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, and that they continue not to have access to the Sacraments as the Church considers them to be living in an objective state of adultery.

I found this article (and a related one) among Jerry Walls’s Facebook posts. Regarding the “doctrinal anarchy”, he asks the question, “are conservative Roman Catholics now accusing their own Church of what they normally accuse Protestants?”

One writer there, Mark Daviau (a recent “Catholic Convert” who seems to be representative of such folks), apparently gave a response to the effect that “It’s no big deal; the pope wasn’t speaking ex cathedra and no dogma was changed”. For many Roman Catholic converts, this is their stock-in-trade. For them, the fact that “Roman Catholic Dogma” is not changed, is 100% of the reason for their “faith in the Church”. Nothing else matters. Never mind it is the case that Rome adds layer upon layer of obfuscation as time goes on, which, in reality, does change Roman Catholic dogma.

As Raymond Brown has said, “Essential to a critical interpretation of church documents is the realization that the Roman Catholic Church does not change her official stance in a blunt way. Past statements are not rejected but are requoted with praise and then reinterpreted at the same time” (Raymond E. Brown, “The Critical Meaning of the Bible,” New York, NY: Paulist Press ©1981, Nihil Obstat and Imprimitur, pg 18 fn 41).

Francis Beckwith, the took issue with this, noting (as in the screen capture nearby), that the real issue is (assuming Rome’s definition of “marriage” is correct) that Amoris Laetitia allows people to live with sin that’s equally as culpable as if they were to “watch pornography and miss Mass” on Sundays (both mortal sins if done with the knowledge that they are such).

What “Pope Francis” seems to be doing is creating a public mood in which, more and more Roman Catholics accept the practice, leading to a situation in which the sensus fidelium is that such things are all right. Some years down the road, some other pope or council will then recognize this practice as being part of “The Tradition” – the old doctrine will be “requoted with praise and reinterpreted at the same time” to give the appearance that it was always a part of Roman teaching. It existed in the teaching of the Apostles in “seed form”.

This is the same way that the Marian dogmas of 1854 (“Immaculate Conception”) and 1950 (“Assumption of Mary”) were given credibility.

"From Sleep Paralysis to Spiritual Experience: An Interview with David Hufford"

From Sleep Paralysis to Spiritual Experience: An Interview with David Hufford by John W. Morehead.

David Hufford has been pursuing research on the "Old Hag" sleep paralysis phenomenon for quite some time. Perhaps his best-known work on this is The Terror That comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press; 2nd ed, 1989). Hufford joined the faculty of the Penn State College of Medicine in 1974 in the Department of Behavioral Science. When he retired in 2007 he held a University Professorship and was chair of the Department of Humanities with appointments in Departments of Neural and Behavioral Science, Family & Community Medicine, and Psychiatry. Hufford is now University Professor Emeritus at Penn State College of Medicine, Senior Fellow for Spirituality at the Samueli Institute, and Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Hufford is also a founding member of the Editorial Boards of Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing and Spirituality in Clinical Practice.