What about Roman Catholic miracles?

One of the first points to make is that this isn't a one-way street. Just as there are Catholic miracles that need to be addressed by Protestants, there are non-Catholic miracles that need to be addressed by Catholics. And they'll have to appeal to the same kinds of explanations Protestants appeal to, even though Protestants are often accused of acting like atheists and such when they do so. I want to provide some examples of non-Catholic miracles that Catholics need to explain, then outline some of the explanatory options.

Van Til on common ground

In this post I'm going to outline my understanding of Van Til on common ground. This is occasioned by Fesko's new book, which I haven't read. I have been reading Dr. Anderson's serial review. I won't document my interpretation by quoting Van Til. I'm not that invested. I'm going to rely on memory. I will also be adding some of my own refinements. 

1. Antithesis/common ground

In Van Til's analysis, there's a tension between antithesis and common ground. The tension isn't internal to Van Til's analysis. Rather, it reflects the instability of non-Christian thought. 

2. Metaphysical common ground

If Christianity is true, then reality is Christian. The non-Christian exists in a Christian reality. Not a Christian culture, but reality in toto. His physical environment as well as his mind. 

At the metaphysical level, the degree of common ground between Christian and non-Christian is total. The non-Christian cannot escape reality. He can deny elements of reality, but since there's no alternative to reality, his flight from reality will always be parasitic on the very reality he labors to overthrow. There is no metaphysical antithesis whatsoever.  

3. Hypothetical antithesis

i) To the extent that the non-Christian is epistemologically self-conscious, his goal will be to provide a systematic alternative to the Christian worldview. The aim will be zero common ground between Christianity and the non-Christian alternative. His position will be developed in conscious opposition to Christian theism. However, that's subject to various caveats. 

ii) Because there's only one reality, if that reality is Christian, then it's impossible for the non-Christian, however ingenious and indefatigable, to develop a thoroughgoing alternative to reality. So the effort to devise a consistent alternative to Christian theism is doomed to fail. It will always fall short of the goal. 

To cast it this in Calvinistic terms, the non-Christian lives in a divinely-defined reality. There are no random events. By virtue of predestination and providence, everything has a purpose. Everything happens for a reason. Moreover, God is the source of possibilities and necessities as well as actualities. There can be no wholesale point of contrast. 

So there's a certain paradox or dilemma in the antithetical relationship between Christian theism and non-Christian alternatives. The non-Christian program cannot succeed. There is no other reality to fall back on. The construction materials derive from Christian reality. All the resources at the disposal of the non-Christian are ultimately Christian in origin. I don't mean historically, but metaphysically. 

iii) We need to distinguish between non-Christian views that originated independently of Christianity (e.g. ancient Greco-Roman atheism, Buddhist atheism) and non-Christian views that evolved in reaction to Christianity (e.g. Renaissance/Enlightenment atheism). 

On the one hand, the antithesis between Christianity and modern Western atheism may be more extreme because Christian theism is the default foil. 

On the other hand, the antithesis between Christianity and modern Western atheism may be less pronounced in some respects than pre-Christian atheism because modern Western atheism is ironically influenced by Christianity in a way that pre-Christian atheism wasn't. For instance, Buddhism didn't target Christianity but Hinduism. 

In a sense, the outlook of Buddhist atheism is more foreign to Christianity than modern Western atheism inasmuch as Buddhist atheism originated without any reference to Christianity. 

iv) It's my impression that Roman Catholicism is the default foil for Renaissance/Enlightenment atheism. That's the primary target. But if, like Van Til, you regard Roman Catholicism as a highly defective representative of Christianity, then that adulterates the antithesis. In a sense, atheists were right to oppose Catholicism, although they opposed the good as well as the bad in Roman Catholicism. And their alternative was bad.

By the same token, the foil for Buddhism and Greco-Roman atheism is pagan polytheism. Once again, that adulterates the antithesis. They were right to oppose pagan polytheism. The problem lies with their alternative. 

4. Practical epistemological antithesis

i) Most non-Christians are pretty thoughtless. They're not attempting to construct a wholesale alternative to Christianity. 

ii) Due to common grace, non-Christians often retain some common ground with Christians. That varies from one individual to the next as well as from one society to the next. 

Common Grace and the ‘Already and Not Yet’ Theme of Scripture

Already spring, and not yet finished shoveling snow.

We’ve been treated to at least one more snowfall, this one having been “inaugurated” on the first day of spring. It looks as if the snowfall will continue for another day or so.

While I was out shoveling, I was reminded of the phrase “already and not yet” as it applies to our redemption in Christ, as we still live in this fallen world.

It’s already spring, but I’m still shoveling.

One of the striking themes in the NT is that of the “already–not yet.” God has inaugurated his kingdom, but he has not consummated it. He has begun to fulfil his saving promises, but he has not yet completed all that he has started. No one can grasp the message of the NT if redemptive history is slighted. The NT does not negate the OT but fulfills it (Thomas Schreiner, “New Testament Theology”, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ©2001, p. 14).

I’m amazed at the common grace of God, enabling us to see (foresee) traces of His plan in the midst of common, everyday life. I wonder how many people will be complaining of the snow, all the while, missing this quite evident symbol of our current place in redemptive history.

The promised new creation will become a reality at the coming of Jesus Christ. God’s covenantal promises will then be fulfilled, and the groaning of the old creation will end when the new world dawns with all its stunning beauty.

What will make the new creation so ravishing is a vision of God and his dwelling with his people. Believers will enter the new creation with the resurrected bodies that they have been awaiting eagerly in the interval between the already and the not yet.

They will receive the reward of eternal life and the kingdom promises that they grasped by faith while on this earth. The final inheritance and salvation that were longed for will then become a reality (p. 864).

We are already redeemed. Until then, the task of shoveling snow is made lighter, knowing that it’s already spring, and the snow won’t last long at all.

Common grace and paradox

I recently linked toDavid Engelsma's review of a new biography about Gordon Clark:

https://douglasdouma.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/david-engelsma-reviews-the-presbyterian-philosopher/

While I agree with some of what Engelsma says, there are times when his bias clouds his judgment:

i) The CRC has been on the skids for decades, as has Calvin College and Seminary. 

However, at the time of the Clark Controversy, I believe Louis Berkhof was the nemesis of Herman Hoeksema. It would be absurd to suggest that Berkhof doesn't represent authentic Reformed theology. Moreover, the CRC continued to have orthodox representation in later figures like Anthony Hoekema. 

ii) In addition, the OPC, which was founded over 80 years ago, hasn't followed the downward spiral of the CRC. To the contrary, it's maintained an impressive degree of theological stability and conservativism despite changing hands so often.

iii) Although liberals in the OT department at Westminster Seminary were in danger of adulterating the orthodox stance of the seminary, that trend was recently reversed under new administration, and the reversal enjoyed significant support from other departments of the seminary. So Engelsma's predictive trajectory is unreliable. 

iv) Perhaps owing to his age, Engelsma's attack on theological paradox is rather dated. If you're going to attack the principle of theological paradox, a better foil would be the more recent and rigorous formulations by James Anderson. 

I myself don't find Christian theology paradoxical, although it inevitably has dimensions that exceed human comprehension. 

v) Engelsma seems to be oblivious to the fact that Clark's theology became increasingly eccentric in his later years. Flirtations with idealism and occasionalism. Dubious formulations of the Trinity and the hypostatic union. A Sandemanian definition of saving faith. Necessitarianism regarding the creation of the world. 

Moreover, some of these aberrations represent the outworking of his disdain for sense knowledge. 

vi) He fails to mention that Norman Shepherd's views got him fired from Westminster. 

vii) He doesn't bother to explain how the Federal Vision is the logical outworking of theological paradox and/or common grace. 

Invariably, indeed necessarily, the truth being, in fact, rigorously logical, the doctrine of universal, ineffectual grace in the “paradox” drives out the doctrine of particular, sovereign grace.

i) Common grace is not ineffectual. Rather, it serves the purpose for which God intended it.

ii) Common grace is something of a catch-all category, so assessing the claim depends on which elements are included in the package. I prefer the position of Paul Helm and William Young to John Murray in this respect. 

iii) Since, moreover, it denotes something different from saving grace, it's misleading and confusing to use the same designation ("grace") for both. But, unfortunately, that's the standard label.  

Under the influence of Westminster Seminary, the OPC has approved a covenant theology that expressly denies all the doctrines of grace of the Westminster Standards, including justification by faith alone, with special reference to the children of believers.

I'd like to see documentation for that sweeping allegation. 

Olson on hyper-Calvinism

I will comment on this post:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2015/04/why-hyper-calvinism-is-consistent-calvinism/

I know, I know. I will be accused of being “uncharitable” simply for deconstructing Calvinism.

I don't accuse him of being uncharitable. I accuse him of being a hack. 

Knowing full well that many Calvinists who visit my blog will wrongly take offense, I forge ahead anyway. 

I don't take offense at Olson's hatchet jobs. To the contrary, he invariably performs an unwitting service to the cause of Calvinism by illustrating the weakness of Arminian objections. 

There are many folks out there who are confused about Calvinism and have not considered it from every angle. Before they commit to it, they should consider it from every angle.

i) Not coincidentally, those are the folks who are predisposed to leave Calvinism for freewill theism. They never understood Calvinism in the first place.

ii) If you want to understand Calvinism, you need to begin with some good Reformed expositors. For instance:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/02/select-bibliography-on-reformed-theology.html

iii) After that, it's good to read the critics. 

Some years ago, in one particular episode of intra-Calvinist controversy over this issue, the Christian Reformed Church officially affirmed that the gospel message proclaimed to sinners, including the non-elect (!), is a “well meant offer” of God’s grace unto salvation. The denomination affirmed that even from God’s perspective it is a well meant offer to the non-elect. Most Calvinists agree with this; those that do not and therefore avoid indiscriminate evangelism rightly deserve the label “hyper-Calvinist.” The pastor-theologian at the center of that particular controversy was Herman Hoeksema…Hoeksema left the CRC over this issue, believing that the gospel message cannot be a well meant offer to the non-elect and that therefore indiscriminate evangelism should be avoided, and founded his own Reformed denomination.

i) If Olson were an honest critic, he'd engage the clarifications of David Engelsma in Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel and Common Grace Revisited.

ii) Moreover, Olson oversimplifies the issues, and reflects ignorance over the breadth of the historical debate. For a corrective:

http://reformedpresbyterianveritasdocuments.blogspot.com/2009/01/free-offer-of-gospel-dr-william-young.html

http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2009/02/language-and-theology-of-free-offer.html

iii) On the Dutch-Reformed side, the debate was bound up with the theory of common grace. Hoeksema was reacting to Kuyper's formulation of common grace.

I think Hoeksema was wrong to reject common grace. However, that doesn't mean Kuyper's formulation is above criticism. There's arguably tension between Kuyperian common grace and the Kuyperian principle of antithesis. 

The non-elect have no real chance of being saved. God will not extend to them the “inward call” which is the basis for regeneration.

That's not what an evangelist is "offering." He's in no position to extend to them the inward call. He doesn't have the power to regenerate people. 

And we can easily construct a parallel argument for freewill theism. An Arminian evangelist can't make people accept the message. He can't make people believe the Gospel. He can only tell them what they ought to believe.

The results are out of his hands, whether you think divine agency is the decisive factor (Calvinism) or human freewill is the decisive factor (Arminianism).

The issue at the center of the hyper-Calvinism controversy is this: Is the “outward call”only, by itself, without the inward call, a well-meant offer to the non-elect? The answer should be obvious. And yet…non-hyper-Calvinists do not see the obvious. Only hyper-Calvinists see it.

i) Notice how often he uses adjectives ("obvious") as a substitute for arguments. He can't actually show how his conclusion is true. 

ii) Notice, too, how Olson's objection applies to anything whatsoever. Arminians fail to see the obvious problems with Arminianism. Only non-Arminians see it.

The objection is essentially circular, for you always have this insider/outsider dichotom between adherents and non-adherents, whatever the theological, philosophical, ideological position. In the nature of the case, insiders don't view their position the same way outsiders do. Otherwise, outsiders would become insiders and insiders would become outsiders. So Olson's objection is self-refuting. 

The argument that Calvinist belief in unconditional particular election of individuals to salvation leads inexorably, logically, to hyper-Calvinism (a la Hoeksema) should be transparent to any thinking person.

In that event, nothing should be simpler or easier than for Olson to explicate how he arrives at his conclusion. Give us a stepwise argument. 

Imagine any hypothetical but realistic scenario in which I “offer” a great gift to a group of people or an unknown individual indiscriminately all the while knowing that some of them are ineligible from the outset for the gift. There are only a hundred gifts but I offer it to a thousand people. Even if I somehow know that only a hundred will ask to receive the gift, my indiscriminate offer to the thousand cannot be called a well-meant offer. It was deceptive.

That's equivocal. You don't offer it to everyone. Rather, you offer it to everyone who will take it. That's easy to formulate:

If you repent of your sins and trust in Christ for salvation, God will save you. 

Here's a related treatment:

http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/38/38-3/38-3-pp403-412_JETS.pdf

I suppose now that someone will argue that I have misrepresented hyper-Calvinism. It is an essentially contested concept; there is no “official” definition.

Actually, I think hyper-Calvinism should be retired from the theological lexicon. It's become an umbrella term to cover a number of disparate positions. And it's often defined by critics.

Dogs and wolves

This post isn't really about dogs and wolves. That's just an illustration. But I need to develop the illustration a bit before I apply it. 

Dogs are wildly popular pets. There are two reasons that dogs "bond" with humans (and vice versa):

i) Dogs are descended from social animals (wolves). So they have an innate capacity to form social bonds–unlike cats (except for lions).

ii) Dog breeders enhance that capacity by suppressing certain traits while cultivating other traits that make them friendlier around humans. 

Of course, different dog breeds are bred for different physical and temperamental traits. You have guard dogs, hunting dogs, sled dogs, sheep dogs, &c. Not all dogs are bred for friendliness, and dogs used in dogfights are bred to be vicious. 

But pet dogs are bred to have great rapport with humans. This is based on their innate capacity as social animals, enhanced by domestication and selective breeding. 

To my knowledge, dogs are much better at reading human body language than wolves or chimpanzees. At a certain level, they understand us. 

On the other hand, wolves are reputedly much smarter than dogs at problem-solving skills. That makes sense.

It might be that a dog breed like a sheep dog would be closer to a wolf in its problem-solving abilities. I don't know what dog breeds have been tested against wolves in that respect.

Speaking for myself, looking into the eyes of a wolf is a unique experience compared to other wild animals. 

For one thing, they instantly take us back to the experience for our Ice Age forebears. That's the world in which our distant ancestors had to survive. 

In addition, you do a double take. It's kind of jarring.

On the one hand, wolves remind us of dogs. And some dog breeds retain a lupine appearance. So wolves remind us of dogs. There's that family resemblance.

They trigger similar associations. We're conditioned to subconsciously associate wolves with what we expect from dogs. If I make eye contact with a dog, what is the dog's expression? When does a dog register when it sees a human? But wolves are another story. 

i) One difference is automatic hostility. Wolves are not our friends. In the wild, they view humans as potential prey. When hunted, they learn to fear humans. 

ii) But there's something even deeper: the complete absent of rapport. Wolves are not simpatico with humans. When you look into the glinty amber eyes of a wolf, that animal doesn't connect with you. It's like an alien life-form. There's no psychological affinity. The look of recognition is gone. 

To my knowledge, even "tame" wolves are dangerous. They inhabit in a world of invisible lines. If you inadvertently step on the invisible line of a "tame" wolf, it will attack you. 

A wolf is a reminder of what your lovable pet dog would be like without selective breeding. 

And in that respect, wolves are like dogs without common grace or special grace. Wolves are the canine analogue to the damned. 

Some unbelievers are already quite lupine in this life. Other unbelievers can be brave, decent, kind, loyal, and honest. They exhibit common grace virtues. But when they go to hell, the dog reverts to a wolf. Centuries of selective breeding undone. It flips back to its wild ancestors. Deevolves–in the microevolutionary sense. 

Both like and unlike the person you knew. Recognizable, but something essential is now missing. Something crucial is lost. All that's left is savage. Inhuman. Sociopathic. 

Taking Wood to the woodshed

David Wood recently posted a clip of W. L. Craig answering a Muslim questioner. That precipitated a dust-up in the combox:

http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2014/11/william-lane-craig-how-muslim-concept.html

I'll begin by commenting on Craig, then commenting on Wood:

i) I appreciate the fact that Craig challenges Islam.

ii) Every Christian apologist will take his own theological viewpoint as the standard of comparison. As a freewill theist, Craig naturally frames the debate from his own theological perspective. So I'm not offended.

iii) Craig is an outspoken critic of Calvinism. So the fact that some Reformed commenters took issue with how he framed the alternatives doesn't come out of the blue. He regards Islam and Calvinism as significantly parallel. 

iv) In fairness to Craig, this was a brief, off-the-cuff reply to a question from the audience. Had it been a lengthy, prepared answer, it might have been more logical. 

That said:

i) The way he frames the issue is a false dichotomy: either God loves every sinner or God hates every sinner. Either God loves every unbeliever or God hates every unbeliever. Clearly, though, that doesn't exhaust the logical or theological alternatives. What about a God who loves some, but not all, sinners (or unbelievers)? Craig's forced option is a false antithesis. 

ii) Moreover, Craig says a perfect God is an all-loving God, which he sets in contrast to conditional love. But it's highly ironic for a freewill theist to cast the issue in that way. For in freewill theism, including Craig's Molinism, salvation or damnation is contingent on human response. Salvation is conditional. God accepts you provided that you become a Christian. And that depends on your independent choice.   

By contrast, Calvinism espouses unconditional election. That draws attention to another false dichotomy in Craig's representation. It's not as though God's love is either universal and unconditional on the one hand, or selective and conditional on the other hand. What if God's love is selective, but unconditional? 

In Calvinism, God doesn't favor some people because they are pious. Rather, they are pious because God favors them. 

iii) Now, there's a sense in which salvation in Calvinism has conditions. There are certain general requirements, like faith, repentance, and sanctification. However, what God demands, he gives. He ensures compliance in the lives of the elect. So it's not conditional in the libertarian sense (pace Craig). Rather, it's a sure thing. 

iv) Moreover, does Craig's God really love everyone? The devil is in the details:

Now I think that it is obvious that, all things being equal, an omnibenevolent God prefers a world in which all persons are saved to a world containing those same persons some of whom are lost. But (4) is stronger than this. It claims that God prefers any world in which all persons are saved to any world in which some persons are damned. But again, this is far from obvious. Suppose that the only worlds feasible for God in which all persons receive Christ and are saved are worlds containing only a handful of persons. Is it not at least possible that such a world is less preferable to God than a world in which great multitudes come to experience His salvation and a few are damned because they freely reject Christ? Not only does this seem to me possibly true, but I think that it probably is true. 

Now we have seen that it is possible that God wants to maximize the number of the saved: He wants heaven to be as full as possible. Moreover, as a loving God, He wants to minimize the number of the lost: He wants hell to be as empty as possible. His goal, then, is to achieve an optimal balance between these, to create no more lost than is necessary to achieve a certain number of the saved. 

But it is possible that the balance between saved and lost in the actual world is such an optimal balance. It is possible that in order to create the actual number of persons who will be saved, God had to create the actual number of persons who will be lost. It is possible that the terrible price of filling heavenis also filling hell and that in any other possible world which was feasible for God the balance between saved and lost was worse. It is possible that had God actualized a world in which there are less persons in hell, there would also have been less persons in heaven. It is possible that in order to achieve this much blessedness, God was forced to accept this much loss. Even if we grant that God could have achieved a better ratio between saved and lost, it is possible that in order to achieve such a ratio God would have had to so drastically reduce the number of the saved as to leave heaven deficient in population (say, by creating a world of only four people, three of whom go to heaven and one to hell). It is possible that in order to achieve a multitude of saints, God had to accept an even greater multitude of sinners. 

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/no-other-name-a-middle-knowledge-perspective

So, according to Craig, although there are feasible worlds in which everyone is saved, without violating their freewill, God opts for a feasible world in which some people are damned. The heavenbound are saved on the backs of the damned. They pay the price for God to save more people overall. 

Now, whatever else you said about that scenario, how does God love everyone if some people are saved at the expense of the damned? How is sacrificing some humans to save other humans loving towards those who lose out? 

Bogie & Bacall

Movie legend Lauren Bacall has died at 89. To say she peaked early would be an understatement. What's striking about Bacall is that her legend was based entirely on three classic films from the 1940s which she made with Bogart. For decades, she coasted on those early achievements. She will always be remembered for the first impression she made in her very first film. Everything was anticlimactic after that.  

Although she made some other films over the years, did Broadway, and the talk-show circuit, that's almost all forgettable and forgotten. She gave a good performance in The Shootist, with John Wayne, but many actresses could have played that part just as well. If you didn't know it was Lauren Bacall, you wouldn't pay that much attention.

Although reviewers talk about her sultry voice and sultry looks, her voice deteriorated from sultry to brassy, and she didn't try to hang onto her looks.  

Reviewing Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Roger Ebert said:

There is a kind of movie that consists of watching two people together on the screen. The plot is immaterial. What matters is the "chemistry," a term that once referred to a science but now refers to the heat we sense, or think we sense, between two movie stars. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have it, or I think they have it, in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," and because they do, the movie works. If they did not, there'd be nothing to work with. 

What makes the movie work is that Pitt and Jolie have fun together on the screen, and they're able to find a rhythm that allows them to be understated and amused even during the most alarming developments. There are many ways that John and Jane Smith could have been played awkwardly, or out of synch, but the actors understand the material and hold themselves at just the right distance from it; we understand this is not really an action picture, but a movie star romance in which the action picture serves as a location. 

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mr-and-mrs-smith-2005

Bacall never had the starpower to make it on her own. People enjoy watching her with Bogart. They click. 

Audiences enjoy watching screen couples who obviously enjoy each other. There's an element of common grace to this. They may not be admirable people in real life, but they project a certain ideal. God made men and women for each other.

Responding to evil

Some Christians have responded to the Newtown massacre by invoking collective guilt or spiritual self-examination:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/12/14/a-day-for-hatred/

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/a-lesson-for-all-from-newtown

Although there’s something to be said for that, it doesn’t really fit the situation. Christians didn’t murder his mother. Christians didn’t murder the school children. We didn’t murder our own mothers. We didn’t murder anyone. So the comparison is simply false.

Moreover, given who you and I are, most of us are simply incapable of doing what Adam Lanza did. Let’s be honest. Let’s be realistic. It’s inconceivable that most of you would murder your own mother, shoot her in the face, then walk into an elementary school, look trusting young boys and girls in the face, then shoot them dead.

Turning the crime back on ourselves fosters a deceptive moral equivalence that dilutes righteous condemnation. A cheap pietism.

The “we are sinners, miserable sinners all” refrain is too easy and too inaccurate. It doesn't come to grips with the real situation. There’s a better way of making the point that some Christians are trying to make.

I suspect that most of us have the same potential for evil, although that’s contingent on how early in the process God might act. The degree to which that potential is developed depends on special grace and common grace.

Given the social conditioning that God gave me, I’m not capable of doing what Lanza did. But, counterfactually speaking, if I’d been brought up as an Aztec, Spartan, Assyrian, Samurai, or something along those lines, then I might well be capable of doing what he did. I might do that without blinking an eye. I might relish it.

My social conditioning wouldn’t make me evil; rather, it would cultivate my innate propensity for evil. By the same token, social conditioning can restrain evil. My moral formation may be such that, given my formative experience, I am now no longer capable of committing certain aggravated evils. There was an earlier stage in the process where I could have gone one way or another, but at this point my character has set, like dry cement.

God uses our circumstances to make us what we are. Indeed, God creates our circumstances.

So instead of beating our breast when we see a horrific story like the Newtown massacre, we should thank God that he spared us from developing our propensity for evil to that degree, or anything close to that. We should thank God for whatever goodness we have.