Justification Apart From Baptism After The Time Of The Apostles

Gavin Ortlund recently posted a YouTube video about the common assertion that baptismal regeneration was universally accepted by the early church. Ortlund is a credobaptist, as I am. He discusses some of the relevant Biblical passages, whether infants should be baptized, and other issues, but not much is said about early views of the relation between baptism and justification. Some commenters beneath the video mentioned that they hadn't come across many discussions of such topics, presumably meaning that credobaptists rarely address the relevant patristic issues.

We've been discussing the issues here for many years, and I want to link some of those threads for anybody who's interested. See here for an overview of the history of belief in justification through faith alone between the time of the apostles and the Reformation. Read the comments section of the thread as well, since other relevant information is discussed there. Regarding how passages like John 3:5 supposedly were universally interpreted early on, see here. Timothy Kauffman has argued that the church fathers have often been misinterpreted on baptismal issues like these. I disagree with many of his conclusions, but you can go here for links to his material and my brief response to it. Ortlund often referred to 1 Peter 3:21 in his video. I don't think the salvation mentioned by Peter is justification, so the reference to salvation isn't even relevant, but what the passage goes on to say probably contradicts the concept of justification through baptism. See here for a discussion of that passage and other Biblical material. You can find many other posts about the relevant Biblical passages elsewhere in our archives. See here on Galatians 3:27, here on the idea that baptism isn't a work and the notion that it should be assumed to be present in passages that don't mention it, and so on.

The Significance Of Galatians 2:9

I've often discussed how unlikely it is that Galatians 2:9 would have been written if the earliest Christians had believed in a papacy. Not only is Galatians a good place to go when addressing the doctrine of justification, but it's also a good place to go when the papacy is being discussed. But notice that Galatians 2:9 is also significant in the context of the historicity of the gospels and Acts. Those documents portray Peter, James, and John as the most prominent members of the Twelve (for non-papal reasons), frequently putting Peter and John together, and Galatians 2:9 has Peter and John together as reputed pillars of the church (James the son of Zebedee being dead by then). And the prominence of James the brother of Jesus in Galatians 2:9 is what we'd expect from Acts. So is the placing of Paul and Barnabas together. There's other relevant material in Galatians as well, but 2:9 is a good passage to remember as one that concisely illustrates so much.

Overcoming The Temptation To Take Revenge

"Awe your heart, then, with the authority of God in the Scriptures; and when carnal reason says, 'My enemy deserves to be hated,' let conscience reply, 'But doth God deserve to be disobeyed?' 'Thus and thus hath he done, and so hath he wronged me'; 'But what hath God done that I should wrong him? If my enemy dares boldly to break the peace, shall I be so wicked as to break the precept? If he fears not to wrong me, shall not I fear to wrong God?' Thus let the fear of God restrain and calm your feelings….Set before your eyes the most eminent patterns of meekness and forgiveness, that you may feel the force of their example….Remember that by revenge you can only gratify a sinful passion, which by forgiveness you might conquer. Suppose that by revenge you might destroy one enemy; yet, by exercising the Christian's temper you might conquer three - your own lust, Satan's temptation, and your enemy's heart." (John Flavel, Keeping The Heart [Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2019], 82, 84)

Deeply-Rooted Doctrines

"Beloved, our condition needs much endurance; and endurance is produced when doctrines are deeply rooted. For as no wind is able by its assaults to tear up the oak, which sends down its root into the lower recesses of the earth, and is firmly clenched there; so too the soul which is nailed by the fear of God none will be able to overturn." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On John, 54:1)

The Conjuring 3 And The Evidence Against The Warrens

The third installment in the Conjuring series is coming out in late May in England and in early June in the United States. The first two installments were among the most popular horror movies ever made. Like other popular movies, their influence overflows into other contexts. One of those other contexts is the predictable discussions of Ed and Lorraine Warren that come up whenever a Conjuring movie is released.

There's a large amount of material on the web discussing the case The Conjuring 3 is based on. The best articles I've come across are this one in the Washington Post that was published in 1981, shortly before the trial of Arne Johnson began, and this one published in 2014 in the Hartford Courant. And here's a more recent article that summarizes how various aspects of the case have developed over the last few decades.

I want to quote and comment on some portions of the first two stories linked above, since I found those portions especially pertinent to evaluating the genuineness of the case. First, from the Washington Post story:

The Moral Value Of Intellectual And Apologetic Work

"On the one hand, writing the way [the apostle Paul] usually writes - developing precise arguments with cogency and clarity - is not, in my view, morally neutral. It is a sign of honesty. To give reasons for what you believe and to strive for clarity that reveals what you truly think are marks of integrity." (John Piper, Why I Love The Apostle Paul [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2019], 94)

Some past correspondences with Steve Hays

A longtime Triablogue reader and a friend of Steve Hays thought some of their past email correspondences might be beneficial for others to read. He granted us permission to post these correspondences. He preferred to be anonymous so I've edited and anonymized the content. Of course, "SH" refers to Steve Hays.

Jesus' Fulfillment Of Prophecy Wasn't Faked By Him Or The Early Christians

Sean McDowell recently posted a brief video on Twitter responding to the idea that Jesus lied about being born in Bethlehem. You can see a somewhat longer response in the original YouTube video. His comments are good as far as they go, and he's deliberately being concise, but much more could be said.

I have a collection of resources on the evidence for Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, and I'll be saying a lot more about the subject during the Christmas season later this year. However, there's more evidence for, and more ancient and modern non-Christian acknowledgement of, Jesus' background in Nazareth and Capernaum, which fulfills Isaiah 9:1. See here regarding problems with alleging that Jesus or the early Christians made up the claim that he was raised in Nazareth. And you can go here to read my interaction with a skeptic on these issues in a thread last year. Here's an interaction with a skeptic in the Sean McDowell thread.

There are a lot of other prophecy fulfillments that are similarly unlikely to have been fabricated by Jesus or the early Christians. See here for a collection of examples.

One good teacher or more than one?

"In considering whether Jesus said something or not, we should remember that it is simpler to suppose that one genius came up with remarkable teaching than to posit that multiple people had brilliant ideas and all independently attributed them to the same prior teacher….If we want to say that Jesus told none of the parables, we need to have at least three individuals who created different parables in order to explain those unique to each source. This is problematic when we know that soon afterward, parables were not a popular form for early Christian authors to use. If we suppose that Jesus told some of these parables and others were put on his lips by followers, again we have multiple parable tellers at different periods, with parables suddenly going out of fashion among Christians….Some of Jesus's parables, such as the parables of the sower, good Samaritan, and prodigal son, are viewed as masterpieces of composition. It is far simpler to suppose that the founding figure of the new religion was the creative genius for these stories than to suppose that several later creative geniuses all credited their less creative founder with their great compositions." (Peter Williams, Can We Trust The Gospels? [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2018], approximate Kindle locations 1712, 1725)

Maybe it's time to give the Germans a break

One question often brought up in studying World War II is the question of how the average German could have allowed the Gestapo and the S.S. to take over their country and kill so many people unopposed.

Perhaps we should ask the Canadians.

The Lord Is Your Home

"Be not discouraged to go from this country to another part of the Lord's earth: 'The earth is His, and the fulness thereof.' This is the Lord's lower house; while we are lodged here, we have no assurance to lie ever in one chamber, but must be content to remove from one corner of our Lord's nether house to another, resting in hope that, when we come up to the Lord's upper city, 'Jerusalem that is above,' we shall remove no more, because then we shall be at home. And go wheresoever ye will, if your Lord go with you, ye are at home; and your lodging is ever taken before night, so long as He who is Israel's dwelling-house is your home (Psa. xc. 1)." (Samuel Rutherford, Letters Of Samuel Rutherford [Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012], 43)

Deceptive Nostalgia

Nostalgia is often misleading. Our reasons for valuing something in the past were trivial or sinful. One of the questions Christians should ask themselves is how Christian their nostalgia is. And how much has it matured over time? If your most valued memories are trivial ones, that's a problem. If the memories that move your emotions the most and the ones you want to talk to other people about the most are sinful or are focused on less significant aspects of life, that should change.

There's nothing wrong with being nostalgic about holidays spent with relatives, a trivial song, or whatever. But are those things accompanied by nostalgia about your relationship with God, time spent doing more significant things in life, music of a more Christian and mature nature, etc.?

When I hear people talk about their most valued memories, their best experiences in life, and so forth, I'm often astonished at how immature they are. Even Christians often express sentiments of such an immature, and sometimes even anti-Christian, nature. What's going on in your life if what you most value has so little to do with God and has matured so little over time?

I love to tell the story; more wonderful it seems
Than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.

Is it a moral imperative to get off of Social Media yet?

For the past five months, I've stayed off Facebook completely and I am happy to report that the world did not end. I did not go crazy or suffer at all for this. In fact, I think I am probably more sane than before.

Even setting aside the political aspects that are so simple to dive into when it comes to Facebook and Twitter in particular, Social Media is really better described as Antisocial Media because it makes it easier for people to engage in their depravity. To that end, it serves as a great illustration that Calvinism has something going for it, insomuch as basically good people left to their own devices would end up shaping a social media platform that is basically good too. But what you actually find when people are left to their own devices is that they group together to bully those they disagree with, create cancel mobs to attack individuals who “step out of line”, will willfully pass on things they know are lies if it serves their own goals, and the more anonymous they are, the more corrupted they become.

The greatest irony of living in a culture where the average person has the most access to every single bit of information that they ever had in history, is that the average person will ignore all of it. It used to take a research team months of combing through dusty books in the reference section of libraries to find out information about what, say, a 19^th century historical figure once said. Today, we can find that information in a thirty second long internet search, and that's “too much work”. So rather than check to see if Ronald Reagan really said, “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”, we pass it on in our timeline because the meme looked cool. (For the record, the quote, which I actually did see on a picture of Ronald Reagan on Facebook, does indeed have an attribution, but it wasn't said by Reagan. The attribution is: Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich. “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League.” London, England. March 1850.)

But while I can make my argument about the objectively evil nature of Social Media without touching on the political aspects of Social Media, the reality is that the political aspects cannot be ignored either. And it's those political aspects which drive the question I asked in the title. Silicon Valley very clearly has an iron grip on Social Media platforms, and Silicon Valley very definitely has a specific political bent. They are also not shy about using their power to enact that political change. The problem is the political change they implement is almost universally contrary to Biblical principles. And lest there be confusion, I don't mean in the sense of setting up a theocracy. I'm talking about the basic, bare-bones aspect of civic governing which the Bible condemns as being evil even in countries which were never in a covenantal relationship with Him are being promoted by the policies being pushed forward by Silicon Valley.

Naturally, one can still use those platforms to push for the Gospel. In that regard, one could make the claim that Social Media is like the printing press. It makes it possible to spread either good or evil messages, but the person who writes the message is the one responsible for whether or not it is used for good or evil.

Except that there are certain truthful statements that you can write on Facebook—statements which are merely affirmations of the Gospel—which will get your account banned. In that way, it's not like the printing press, for the printing press doesn't have editorial control over what people use it for. Mark Zuckerberg does have that control over what you say on Facebook. Jack Dorsey does have that control over what you say on Twitter. Susan Wojcicki does have that control over what you say on YouTube.

Also, we must be cognizant of the fact that these “free” platforms constitute the richest companies in the world right now, and you must ask yourself how is it possible for a company that does not charge users to access it to not only make money, but THAT MUCH of it? It's scarcely hidden that everything you do or say on those platforms is feeding social algorithms designed to modify your behavior, primarily into purchasing more things. That is, the platform is not the product—it is the bait. You are the product being sold to the advertisers.

But it's not just advertisers who are willing to buy your attention. If Microsoft, Toyota, or Dasani can purchase manipulation efforts to get you to buy their product, what makes you think a foreign government couldn't pretend to be a corporation seeking advertising when they are really pushing subversion? And what's to stop Silicon Valley from doing it themselves when they want more power under our own governmental structure?

Manipulation occurs on that level as well. Specific viewpoints are promoted while others are suppressed. This isn't an accident. This is the whole point of the Social Media ecosystem. This is designed to make you feel isolated and alone simply for holding to positions that they do not want you to hold, and it's designed to amplify positions they want you to hold far beyond their actual power. Look no further than the astonishing power that LGBT advocates have when the May 2018 Gallup poll showed that only 4.5% of Americans identify as LGBT. Now, if you “misgender” someone, you can actually lose your job, and the fact that everyone knows this despite the fact that those who live outside of cities (that is, the majority* of people in the US), rarely have even met a transgendered person.

This manipulation does have an effect, as evidenced by the way that people's views on social issues such as homosexual marriage have so rapidly shifted in recent years. True, one could argue the LGBT movement has always had a disproportionate amount of political power, but it is undeniable that things have changed much faster since the inception of Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005, bought by Google in 2006), and Twitter (2006).  It is not primarily through the influence of Hollywood, which has been blamed in the past. The numbers for the entertainment industry are in free fall, and they've burned off most of the cache of support they used to have. But regardless, pressure from Hollywood remained the same from the 90s through the early 2000s.  Yet Obama ran in 2008 on a platform opposed to gay marriage. By 2012, those who agreed with Obama's position a mere four years previously, were getting banned on the social media platforms. And by 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was now affirmed.

Today, social ideas, especially those relating to the so-called “Woke” movement, are still gaining traction at a rapid pace even through historically conservative Christian institutions. This is almost certainly traceable to the fact that those who are presenting woke content on social media are being promoted on the platform, while the voices of those who object to it are being banned. The disproportionate banning of voices from the right—voices who are nowhere near as extreme as the voices on the left which are being promoted—certainly is shifting the Overton Window ever more quickly to the left.

So, is it a moral imperative to avoid social media? I'll let you come to your own decision. But if you want to use it, for your own mental health, remember that the audiences there are not real. That is, they are not representative of how people really think. They are the cultivated result of social manipulation, and they are specifically designed to influence you on your own feed. The fact that you see some of what your friends have written on Facebook, for example, may make you think that you're getting a genuine sample of what your friends really think. You are not. Facebook commonly does not share every post that your friends have written, and often when they do display it to you it's hours or days later—anyone who uses the platform has run into the experience where they see a post from someone five days after they wrote it, while the entire time they saw the same four posts at the top of their feed. This is intentional, not accidental. Facebook is using their algorithms to decide when to parcel out data they have problems with so they can claim neutrality by delivering it while still manipulating you so you don't respond quickly or see it when the post is most relevant. And only a fool would think they are smart enough to avoid being manipulated when that manipulation is the basis by which Facebook is a multi-billion dollar company.

The only way to actually avoid the manipulation is to avoid social media altogether.

* And if you're wondering why I say that the majority of the US doesn't live in cities, according to https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/05/america-a-nation-of-small-towns.html, 39% of the US population lives in cities with more than 50,000 people (which comprise only 4% of all “incorporated places” in the US). Contrast that with the 37% of Americans who don't live in “an incorporated place” at all. The rest live in small towns, of which 76% have fewer than 5,000 people, and 42% of those had fewer than 500 people.

Reports Of Disembodied Hands

In my post yesterday, I quoted some comments by Stephen Braude about how reports of paranormal events are sometimes "similar in so many peculiar details" (The Limits Of Influence [Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1997], 26). An example I've noticed that goes across multiple types of paranormal phenomena is the involvement of disembodied hands. The appearance of disembodied hands is a recurring theme in Braude's discussions of various mediums in his book cited above (43, 142, 146, etc.). As I've discussed elsewhere, disembodied hands were sometimes reported in the Enfield Poltergeist. The post just linked refers to how Alan Gauld and A.D. Cornell discuss the appearance of disembodied hands in their book on poltergeists and hauntings.

It wouldn't be too hard for people to occasionally lie or be honestly mistaken about seeing a disembodied hand, but the frequency with which it's reported and the highly credible nature of some of those reports are significant. It seems more likely that something paranormal is going on than that all of the witnesses have been mistaken in the same unusual way.

How The Nature Of A Miracle Can Be Evidential

"Even if witnesses were biased or predisposed to experience paranormal phenomena, that would not explain why the biased misperceptions or reports are similar in so many peculiar details. One would need an elaborate psychological theory (to say the least) to explain why people of dissimilar backgrounds and cultures, with apparently no common needs to experience bizarre phenomena of any sort, independently report (for example) 'raining' stones inside a house or the intense heat of apports." (Stephen Braude, The Limits Of Influence [Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1997], 26)

Religious And Occultic Aspects Of The Enfield Poltergeist

In a conversation in 1978, Margaret Hodgson told Guy Playfair that she'd seen an apparition in the context of using a Ouija board a few years earlier, apparently in 1974, and that she'd recently seen the same apparition in the context of the Enfield case. See the relevant section of my post here for more about what Margaret and her sister reported regarding their use of a Ouija board leading up to what's typically considered the poltergeist's onset in August of 1977. Margaret's experience in 1974 could be identified as the start of the poltergeist instead, depending on what standards you apply. And both the use of a Ouija board leading up to late August of 1977 and the girls' impression that their Ouija board use was connected to the poltergeist make it relevant to an evaluation of the case. But it doesn't get discussed much.

There are many other aspects of the case that are of an occultic or religious nature that have likewise been neglected. More research needs to be done on the subject, but I want to provide an overview of what I know at this point. Some of what I'll be citing comes from Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair's Enfield tapes. I'll make reference to them by using "MG" to designate a tape from Grosse's collection and "GP" to designate one from Playfair's. MG32A is Grosse's tape 32A, GP41B is Playfair's 41B, etc.

Drifting Off Course Into Comforts

"Is this not a beautiful thing, when a man has a great, worthy, single passion in life and burns for it all the way to the end?...I would rather see a man die abruptly, on his way to one last conquest, than to see him drift off course into the comforts of old age." (John Piper, Why I Love The Apostle Paul [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2019], 28)

A Good Resource On The Virgin Birth

Nick Peters just started a new web site on the subject. It features collections of material supporting the virgin birth in written, audio, and video form. If you have any ideas about other material to include, he's taking suggestions.

Death for Life

I have often heard the charge from atheists that the idea of divine justice requiring the death of Christ in order for us to be saved is simply a ludicrous belief to hold to. Of course, this conundrum isn't limited to atheists as there are many non-Christian theists (and even some who call themselves Christian) who have issues with substitutionary atonement as well, but I am most familiar with the atheist objections given the circles that I run in. Regardless of who makes the complaint, the objection seems to boil down to the fact that it seems to be illogical for someone to gain eternal life at the expense of the life of an innocent person.

What has struck me is that not only is it not illogical to have this understanding, but it's actually the way things already are in our everyday life. Recently, I've been in some discussions regarding diet. Specifically, I had surgery on my feet back in November, and through the recovery process I need to maintain a lot better control over blood sugar levels in my diet. As a result of this need, the wound care clinic that provides the post-op care required me to attend a diabetes nutrition class. Ironically enough, the dietitian in that class came to the conclusion that I need to eat even more carbohydrates. In fact, she recommended that I have upwards of 250 grams per day. I think anyone who's ever had to control their blood sugar ought to realize just how ridiculous following that advice would be. (Incidentally, I usually maintain around 50 grams of carbohydrates per day and still have fasting blood sugars that are a tad higher than they want.)

Anyway, the point is that I've been thinking about diet lately, so it was natural for my brain to consider that topic when I thought about the objection that penal substitution makes no sense. I made a simple observation, one that is obvious, but which most of us do not think about. That is, whether you are consuming meat products or vegetable products, you are eating things that were, at one point, alive.

We do not consume inanimate objects, like dirt. Our food is the product of living beings. And it's not just byproducts—some of which we can eat (e.g., milk, honey, fruit, etc.), but none of which provide enough nutrients on their own to sustain life. To live, we need to eat animals and entire plants, killing those creatures in the process.

In other words, to consider that eternal life requires the sacrifice of an eternal living Person is somehow incomprehensible is to ignore the fact that our mortal life already requires the sacrifice of mortal beings. We live every day because animals and plants have died. It didn't have to be this way. Plants, after all, can use photosynthesis and get their energy directly from the sun. In that aspect, there's no reason why God couldn't have created human beings, and even all other animals, with photosynthesis. So I have to think that the very fact that we consume plants and animals was already meant as a picture for us of the coming sacrifice Christ would make on our behalf as well.

Which, as a further thought exercise for the future, might also have some bearing on the supralapsarian vs. infralapsarian debate too. I leave that thought exercise up to the reader.

Jesus' Career Reflected In His Teachings And Early Christianity

In a 2005 article ("What was Jesus' occupation?", Journal Of The Evangelical Theological Society, vol. 48, no. 3 [September 2005], 501-19), Ken Campbell argued that Jesus and Joseph should be thought of as builders rather than carpenters. They would have worked with wood, but mostly with other materials. What I want to highlight here, though, are some points Campbell makes about the characteristics of Jesus' teachings and how consistent they are with a traditional Christian view of Jesus' background. They're what you'd expect from somebody like Jesus. I wouldn't go as far as Campbell does (e.g., referring to his conclusion about Jesus' occupation as "incontrovertible"), but the information Campbell cites is useful. You'll have to read his entire article to get the full picture, but what's below is a portion of what he wrote. I'll follow his comments with some of my own:

Other Agreements Among The Gospels About Jesus' Nonverbal Characteristics

In my last post, I discussed how the gospels agree about an aspect of Jesus' posture in the context of prayer. Because the gospels are documents about a teacher, they give a lot of attention to what Jesus said, and readers have a tendency to focus on those parts of the gospels. So, we're more likely to notice patterns in the verbal aspects of Jesus' life than in his nonverbal characteristics. And I think far more research has been done on the former than the latter. But I want to provide some other neglected examples of agreements among the gospels about Jesus' nonverbal characteristics.

He sometimes wept publicly (Luke 19:41, John 11:35).

He sometimes used spit in his healings (Mark 7:33, 8:23, John 9:6). Though spit was viewed positively at times in ancient sources, it was often viewed negatively as well. Raymond Brown referred to how "[Matthew] is in confrontation with Pharisees and in his account of the ministry [of Jesus] he is most careful not to give them anything they can use against Jesus (e.g., his omitting the spittle miracle narrated in Mark 8:22-26)." (The Birth Of The Messiah [New York, New York: Doubleday, 1999], n. 28 on 143) So, including that sort of detail in these healing accounts caused unnecessary offense.

And notice something else about the healings in Mark 8 and John 9. Both involved blind men, and both healings were done in multiple stages. So, not only do Mark and John agree in having Jesus use spit, but they also agree that he used it in the context of healing the blind in particular and that he sometimes healed the blind in multiple stages. That's a highly unusual series of agreements, and it's highly unlikely that Mark and John (and/or their sources) hit upon such agreements by chance in the process of making up stories.

Jesus was sometimes very confrontational, as we see with the temple cleansings (Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-18, Luke 19:45-46, John 2:13-22). It's likely that he cleansed the temple twice, not just once. Something that can get lost in the controversy over how many times he cleansed the temple is that all of the gospels are agreeing that Jesus had such a character that he behaved that way and did so in such a public context.

And he seems to have been good at avoiding crowds and avoiding the assaults of his enemies when he wanted to (Matthew 8:18-23, Mark 1:35, 6:31-32, Luke 4:30, 5:15-16, John 8:59, 10:39). Notice the overlap between those nonverbal characteristics and his verbal skills of a similar nature (e.g., Mark 4:1-12, Luke 20:19-26, John 6:60-66). The harmony between his words and actions is striking. He seems to have been both physically and mentally agile.

These are just several examples. Much more could be said about agreements over Jesus' moral character, interests, ways of handling particular types of situations, etc. I've been focused on the gospels, those documents give us the most material to work with, and some of the agreements exist only among the gospels. But we should also look for overlap among other sources (e.g., Old Testament theophanies that we think involve Jesus, Old Testament prophecies about him, Acts, comments about Jesus in the New Testament letters, Revelation).

The 6%

George Barna teamed up with the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University and conducted 30-minute long interviews with 2,000 people designed to discover what worldview they profess to hold, as well as what worldview they actually end up living in their lives (link to study here). It should not be much of a surprise that they found 88% of Americans “embrace an impure, unrecognizable worldview that blends ideas from these multiple perspectives.” In fact, “Biblical Theism” only scored a whopping 6% in the survey...but that still managed to get the majority out of the worldviews presented.

Those worldviews are:

• Biblical Theism (6%)
• Secular Humanism (2%)
• Moral Therapeutic Deism (1%)
• Postmodernism (1%)
• Nihilism (1%)
• Eastern Mysticism/New Age (< 1%)
• Marxism/Critical Race Theory (<1%)

This study shows one of the problems with trying to pigeonhole people into one of these worldviews. The vast majority of people are Syncretists, wherein they grab a mishmash of things they like from various worldviews and smash them all together. Barna even explicitly labels them as such in his own results.

Of even greater concern than just the fact that only 6% of Americans can be considered Biblical Theists is the fact that when you take the numbers of characteristics that match “a moderately high number of beliefs or behaviors that meet various worldview specifications, but not quite enough to qualify as being a true adherent of that worldview” then the highest scoring trend in the US is those who hold to Moralistic Therapeutic Deism at 38%. Biblical Theists are in second place at 31%. This means that not only are 94% of Americans not Biblical Theists, but 69% of them aren't even close to being Biblical Theists.

It would be easy to say that syncretism isn't that bad. There's quite a bit of overlap between various views that people hold to, and besides Exodus 20:3 just says not to have another god before Yahweh, not to not have any other gods at all.

Of course the command in Exodus 20:3, “You shall have no other gods before me”, does not mean “Yahweh must be first on the list, but the other gods are okay after that.” “Before me” has a different understanding in older English, meaning “in the presence of”. For example, “I am going to be presented before the king.” Thus, the passage in Exodus carries that connotation, as in: “When you are present before me, you shall have no other gods.”

Still, I gather most readers here already know that. What may be a bit less obvious is the fact that when Israel committed most of her sins against God, such as those that led up eventually to the Babylonian captivity, Israel never really turned her back completely on God. That is, they didn't cease to offer sacrifices to Yahweh in order to add sacrifices to Baal. They simply sacrificed to both. Elijah points this out in 1 Kings 18:21, for example, asking the people of Israel, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”

More could be mentioned, but I believe the point is made for the purposes of this post. Namely, the sin that caused the downfall of Israel was the very sin of syncretism that currently plagues the United States. God never made a covenant with the United States, even though He has made a covenant with His Church. How do you think a post-Christian American society will fare in the grand scheme of history?

Humanists Being Humanists....

American Humanist Association Board Statement Withdrawing Honor from Richard Dawkins

[Richard Dawkins's] latest statement implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient. ...Consequently, the AHA Board has concluded that Richard Dawkins is no longer deserving of being honored by the AHA, and has voted to withdraw, effective immediately, the 1996 Humanist of the Year award.

I'm sure he's devastated by the removal of something he probably forgot he received since it is worth exactly zero cups of coffee down at Starbucks. Frankly, it's somewhat ironic that you have the AHA "withdrawing honor", something which in the atheistic universe is just made up and has no basis in objective reality according to their own criteria.

Actually, I guess it makes perfect sense as to why criticizing something that was just made up and has no basis in objective reality would result in the removal of an award which is just made up and has no basis in objective reality after all...

Still, we live in a world where something can be memory-holed and treated like it never happened due to something you say 25 years after the fact. Isn't progress grand?

Agreement Among The Gospels About Some Practices Of Jesus

When discussing issues like the credibility and consistency of the gospels, matters such as Jesus' language and teachings often get a lot of attention, as they should. For example, he frequently refers to himself as the Son of Man in the gospels, whereas he's referred to that way much less often elsewhere. Another category that ought to be brought up in this context is what the gospels report about various nonverbal practices of Jesus, such as his posture:

"Here I am drawing attention to the Gospels' agreement in both John and the Synoptics that it was Jesus' habit to look up to heaven when praying [Matthew 14:19, Mark 6:41, 7:34, Luke 9:16, John 11:41, 17:1]….Though lifting up one's hands to heaven was also a possibility, the Gospels do not say that Jesus did that; they mention only that he looked up to heaven. They did not have to note his physical gestures in prayer, and it is interesting that when they casually do so in the course of telling a story, they note the same gesture and that John agrees with Mark on this point, though in different contexts." (Lydia McGrew, The Eye Of The Beholder [Tampa, Florida: DeWard Publishing, 2021], 386)

The Significance Of The Early Patristic Sources

They support a high view of the New Testament documents, such as their authorship, genre, historicity, and Divine inspiration. Because of that, skeptics often try to cast doubt on the significance of those patristic sources. Critics will often take an unusually negative view of the dating of the documents, their authorship, the quality of the sources they had access to, the quality of their information, the degree to which they disseminated the more valuable information they had, etc. So, it's important to evaluate and reevaluate those issues from time to time.

There's an element of truth to the approach skeptics often take toward these sources. As a general principle, earlier sources are better than later ones. And even the earliest patristic sources are patristic sources, meaning that they generally postdate the New Testament documents. Memory fades over time. Though some contemporaries and eyewitnesses of Jesus and the apostles would have lived into the late first century and beyond, there were fewer of them as time passed. Some apostolic documents and other relevant literature would have been preserved over time, but there would be fewer such documents available later than earlier. Some patristic sources were significantly close to the apostles relationally, chronologically, geographically, and such, but others weren't. From a Christian perspective, the New Testament documents were Divinely inspired in a way in which the patristic sources weren't. And so on.

However, much more can be said on the other side, in support of the value of the early patristic sources, than skeptics suggest. There's a danger of overestimating these sources, but also a danger of underestimating them. And even some Christians underestimate them, as a result of overreacting to Roman Catholicism or for some other reason.

For example, there are some passages in First Clement that ought to receive more attention than they normally do in this context. Section 5 refers to the martyrdom of Peter and Paul as having occurred in "our own generation". The admonition in section 44 that it would be unjust to remove church leaders who were appointed by the apostles and have served well in those offices seems to assume that some leaders appointed by the apostles were still alive. Section 63 refers to messengers being sent who "from youth to old age have lived blameless lives among us". So, we have one apostolic church (Rome) writing to another (Corinth) and mentioning the presence of witnesses who had been part of their community "from youth to old age", which would go back to the middle of the first century. Those witnesses were contemporaries of the apostles, close witnesses of the apostles' interactions with the Roman church and more (they witnessed the activities of close associates of the apostles, like Mark and Luke, related to Rome; they witnessed apostolic documents sent from Rome, not just documents written to that city; etc.).

I've written elsewhere about similar evidence pertaining to Papias, Polycarp, Quadratus, etc. You can search our archives for other examples.

The Problem Of Ignorance Of The Church Fathers

"Far too many Evangelicals in the modern day know next to nothing about these figures [the church fathers]. I will never forget being asked to give a mini-history conference at a church in southern Ontario. I suggested three talks on three figures from Latin-speaking North Africa: Perpetua, Cyprian, and Augustine. The leadership of the church came back to me seeking a different set of names, since they had never heard of the first two figures, and while they had heard of the third name, the famous bishop of Hippo Regius, they really knew nothing about him. I gave them another list of post-Reformation figures for the mini-conference, but privately thought that not knowing anything about these figures was possibly a very good reason to have a conference on them! I suspect that such ignorance is quite widespread among those who call themselves Evangelicals" (Michael Haykin, Patrick Of Ireland [Scotland: Christian Focus, 2017], 9-10)

That ignorance causes major problems in interactions with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, atheists, Muslims, and other people whose beliefs and practices are highly relevant to the church fathers. The situation isn't as bad everywhere as Haykin's experience in Ontario, but it doesn't have to be so bad in order to be a significant problem.

I wrote an overview of how to study the church fathers several years ago. And I'll have more to say about the earliest fathers later this week.

Marcion's Corroboration Of Lukan Authorship

Given Marcion's high view of Paul and low view of the other apostles, his acceptance of the gospel of Luke while rejecting the other gospels makes the most sense if Marcion thought the third gospel had a close connection to Paul.

Concerning Marcion's corroboration of the authorship attributions of the other gospels, see here.

The Beloved Disciple's Galilean Interests

I recently finished reading Lydia McGrew's The Eye Of The Beholder (Tampa, Florida: DeWard Publishing, 2021). There are portions of the book in which she interacts with Richard Bauckham's arguments that the author of the fourth gospel was a disciple of Jesus named John, but not the son of Zebedee, one who lived in Jerusalem and didn't travel much with Jesus. You can read Lydia's book for a lot of good responses to Bauckham's case. I want to highlight some points here that I don't recall seeing in Lydia's book. But some of my points are closely related to hers, and I may be forgetting some of what she said.

A Good Discussion Of Many Resurrection Issues

Last week, Jonathan McLatchie did a question and answer session with Tim and Lydia McGrew on Jesus' resurrection. A lot of issues came up during the discussion, and it's worth watching.

You may also want to occasionally check Lydia's YouTube channel for updates, since she keeps adding new videos, like her recent ones on the historicity of the fourth gospel.

The Hope Cherished By The Nations

"And it is in Him, too, we already see the concluding expression of the prophecy fulfilled: 'In His name shall the nations hope.' [Isaiah 11:10, Romans 15:12] And by this fulfillment, which no one can deny, men are encouraged to believe in that which is most impudently denied. For who could have hoped for that which even those who do not yet believe in Christ now see fulfilled among us, and which is so undeniable that they can but gnash their teeth and pine away? Who, I say, could have hoped that the nations would hope in the name of Christ, when He was arrested, bound, scourged, mocked, crucified, when even the disciples themselves had lost the hope which they had begun to have in Him? The hope which was then entertained scarcely by the one thief on the cross, is now cherished by nations everywhere on the earth, who are marked with the sign of the cross on which He died that they may not die eternally." (Augustine, The City Of God, 20:30)

How To Begin Studying The Enfield Poltergeist

Different people have different interests, so I'll recommend a broad range of resources. You can choose which ones are best under your circumstances (e.g., what sort of balance of written, audio, and video resources you want).

It's helpful to have some background information on poltergeists in general, so you could start with a Psi Encyclopedia article that provides an overview of the subject. A good book on the topic is Alan Gauld and A.D. Cornell, Poltergeists (United States: White Crow Books, 2017).

I wrote an article that outlines some of the evidential issues involved in evaluating the credibility of witnesses. It provides many examples from the Enfield case.

It's good to know the layout of the house where most of the activity occurred. You can find an image of a floor plan online here. Look over it before you start studying the case, and have it on hand to consult when needed. If you want a paper copy, you can print the one just linked or find it in the first edition of Guy Playfair's book mentioned below. The latest edition of the book, which I'll be recommending below, doesn't have the floor plan.

After you've consulted however much of that background material you're interested in, watch this BBC television segment from November of 1977 as an introduction to the case. It's about twelve minutes long.

The best documentary is one that aired on Apple TV+ in October of 2023. The second-best one aired on BBC Radio on December 26, 1978. The host, Rosalind Morris, was an eyewitness of some of the events, she interviews a lot of other eyewitnesses, and they're given a lot of time to speak.

If you want some other video documentaries, start with Interview With A Poltergeist, which came out in 2007. Another one aired on the Paranormal Channel the following year. It's not as good, but each has some strengths the other one doesn't have.

I've written tributes to four of the most important figures in the case. Those tributes will give you a lot of information about those individuals, their involvement in the case, and their credibility: Peggy Hodgson, Maurice Grosse, Guy Playfair, and John Burcombe. Those posts provide a lot of biographical information and references to other sources you can consult, but the posts aren't biographies. They're tributes that focus on the individuals' involvement in the Enfield case. Though the post on Peggy Hodgson is the longest, it's the one you should read if you only want to read one of them. She's the most important witness in the case, and she's often been underestimated and misrepresented.

The two books to get on Enfield (as opposed to poltergeists in general) are Guy Playfair's This House Is Haunted (United States: White Crow Books, 2011) and Melvyn Willin's The Enfield Poltergeist Tapes (United States: White Crow Books, 2019). Read them in that order.

For an introduction to skepticism about the case, you could start with Anita Gregory's review of Playfair's book mentioned above ("This House Is Haunted, An Investigation Of The Enfield Poltergeist", Journal Of The Society For Psychical Research, vol. 50, 1979-80, pp. 538-41). You can access the article at the Library of Exploratory Science site. Other skeptical overviews have been written by Joe Nickell and Deborah Hyde, among others. You can listen to a 2017 edition of the MonsterTalk podcast to hear from a few skeptics discussing Enfield.

If you want to research the case further, see my series of posts here. That material goes beyond an introductory level (e.g., discussing Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair's audio tapes recorded during their investigation of the case; addressing Anita Gregory's doctoral thesis, which covers Enfield). I reference a lot of articles, books, videos, and other resources along the way, so you can find many more sources to consult there. The page just linked includes descriptions of some of the contents of each post, so you can use Ctrl F to search for what you're interested in, in addition to using a search engine.

The Garden Of Suffering For Our Joy

"Every time we walk in a garden I think we ought to recollect the garden [of Gethsemane] where the Saviour walked, and the sorrows that befell him there. Did he select a garden, I wonder, because we are all so fond of such places, thus linking our seasons of recreation with the most solemn mementoes of himself?" (Charles Spurgeon)

The Contrasting Ordinariness And Extraordinariness Of The Risen Jesus In Luke

I've often referred to the significance of the ordinariness of Jesus' body in the resurrection accounts in the gospels and Acts (e.g., here). An especially striking example is what we see in Luke's writings. The ordinariness of Jesus' resurrected body comes between the glorious appearance of the angels in Luke 24:4-5 and the gloriousness of Jesus' resurrected body after the ascension in Acts 9:3 (see, also, 26:13-14). Luke recognized the significance of that sort of impressive appearance and wanted to highlight it in passages like the ones I just cited. But he doesn't refer to Jesus as having had such a body prior to the ascension. Instead, he and the other gospel authors describe Jesus' pre-ascension resurrection body in more ordinary terms. That's best explained as a historically accurate memory of what was experienced with Jesus after he rose from the dead, a memory that was contrary to common expectation and reflects significant restraint on the part of the early Christians. We see that in sources other than Luke as well, but what's significant about Luke is how Jesus' ordinariness there contrasts so much with the extraordinariness of the appearance of Jesus and other figures in the nearby context.

The Beloved Disciple, A Fisherman

I've addressed this subject in the past, but Lydia McGrew has a fuller and better treatment of it in her new book on the fourth gospel:

Then there is the story of the disciples rowing across the Sea of Galilee…According to John 6.19, it was "about twenty-five or thirty stadia," which is simultaneously more precise than the Synoptics and also not hyper-precise. It is, in fact, just what one would expect from someone who was there, was capable of estimating distance under the unpropitious circumstances of a storm at night, and had a mind that tenaciously retained such details.

The mention of the Sea of Galilee relates to another matter: The Beloved Disciple does not seem to be a landlubber. Not only does he know multiple names for the Sea of Galilee (6.1), he has a good idea of how far the disciples had rowed when they were about halfway across it. Even more striking, when Peter decides in 21.3 to go fishing, the Beloved Disciple is one of six who immediately decide to go with him. While a normally stay-at-home Jerusalem disciple [like the one proposed by Richard Bauckham] probably would have traveled to Galilee to meet Jesus after the resurrection (cf. Matt. 28.10), it does not follow that he would jump at the chance to stay up all night fishing in Peter's boat [John 21:3-4]. Why would he? A "Beloved Disciple" from Jerusalem who was neither the son of Zebedee nor a traveler would presumably not be a fisherman and would have no particular reason to go on such an expedition. The disciples are not planning to see Jesus on this particular occasion nor expecting a miraculous catch of fish. They're just going fishing. It seems a reasonable inference from all of this that the Beloved Disciple was familiar with and comfortable on the Sea of Galilee, and even perhaps that he was familiar with fishing, which again does not fit well with the hypothesis that he was a non-itinerant Jerusalem resident. (The Eye Of The Beholder [Tampa, Florida: DeWard Publishing, 2021], 146-47)

Where To Begin In Discussions Of Gospel Authorship

I've become increasingly convinced that Luke 1:1-3 is a good place to start in discussions about gospel authorship. Luke refers to his use of prior sources in the opening of his gospel, and the written nature of his own work makes it unlikely that he's referring only to oral sources. (To read more on the subject, go here.) There's widespread agreement that Luke used at least one of the other canonical gospels as one of his sources. And once two or more gospels of such prominence were in use, there would be a need to distinguish among them in libraries, when using them during church services, and so on. We have a lot of evidence that the gospels were distinguished in such contexts by means of authorship attributions from the second century onward. And continuity is more likely than discontinuity. It makes more sense that the gospels were distinguished by means of author names in the first century than that they weren't. That scenario better explains the widespread acceptance of the practice later and the absence of any comparable or better alternative. If somebody is going to argue that the gospels circulated anonymously early on, he should be asked how he thinks the pre-Lukan documents Luke refers to in the opening of his gospel were distinguished from one another (the pre-Lukan context) and how Luke's gospel was distinguished from those other sources (the context from the time of Luke onward).

Unusual Agreements In Terminology In Easter Passages

Peter Williams has noted that there are some Easter passages in the Synoptics and John that have some unusual language in common. Jesus addresses his disciples as "my brothers" in Matthew 28:10 and John 20:17. The gospel of John doesn't repeat what the Synoptics reported about Jesus' comments on letting the cup pass in the Garden of Gethsemane, but John does have Jesus referring to drinking the cup in 18:11 (Can We Trust The Gospels? [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2018], approximate Kindle location 1782).

Hearing And Touching The Resurrected Jesus

Discussions of the resurrection appearances tend to focus on seeing Jesus. The tradition of referring to them as appearances is one factor, and there are other reasons for the focus on sight. People tend to value sight above the other senses. Paul focuses on seeing the risen Jesus when addressing his apostleship in 1 Corinthians 9:1, and other resurrection passages similarly emphasize sight (e.g., Mark 16:7, John 20:18). For these and other reasons, discussions of the resurrection appearances are often highly focused on the visual aspect of the encounters, often inordinately so. Critics of Christianity have an interest in simplifying the accounts, as if only a visual experience needs to be explained. And you sometimes come across the claim that only Luke and John refer to people touching the resurrected Jesus, with the suggestion that such details were fabricated in later accounts. The allegedly more developed nature of Luke and John's material is cited as evidence for the evolution of the gospels over time. What I want to do in this post is address some neglected evidence for the involvement of other senses, namely hearing and touch, in the encounters with the risen Jesus.

I'm going to discuss why we should think the resurrection appearances likely involved hearing and touching even if some or all of the resurrection accounts in the gospels and Acts are rejected. Those accounts shouldn't be rejected, and we and others have argued for that conclusion in depth elsewhere. But it's significant that the concept that the resurrection appearances only involved sight doesn't hold up well even under highly skeptical views of the material in the gospels and Acts.

Another Reason Why A Resurrection Body With Wounds Wouldn't Be Fabricated

I've written about the significance of how Jesus is portrayed as having retained his crucifixion wounds after his resurrection in the gospels of Luke and John. Here's another reason why the early Christians are unlikely to have made up such a detail:

"They [critics of resurrection] also make eager use of all the deformities and blemishes which either accident or birth has produced, and accordingly, with horror and derision, cite monstrous births, and ask if every deformity will be preserved in the resurrection. For if we say that no such thing shall be reproduced in the body of a man, they suppose that they confute us by citing the marks of the wounds which we assert were found in the risen body of the Lord Christ." (Augustine, The City Of God, 22:12)

Neglected Evidence For The Empty Tomb

Disputes over the historicity of the empty tomb usually focus on the gospel accounts. But there's a lot of evidence outside the gospels that should get more attention.

Notice the number and variety of contexts in which Christians were interested in Jesus' burial long before the gospels were written: prophecy (Isaiah 53:9), creeds (1 Corinthians 15:4), theology (1 Corinthians 15:36), ceremonies (Romans 6:4), tracking the location (the tradition behind the Holy Sepulchre site). And notice that these contexts involve more than the mere fact that Jesus was buried. If the empty tomb tradition that's so widely attested from the time of the gospels onward isn't the same tradition that was of such early and widespread interest to Christians before the writing of the gospels, then where is that earlier tradition? Did it universally disappear and get universally replaced by what we see in the gospels? Continuity is more likely than discontinuity. For more about these pre-gospel sources, see here.

The letters of Peter also contain some material that tends to be neglected in this context. See here regarding those letters.

Justin Martyr provides some evidence that's typically not discussed. He not only refers to Jewish corroboration of the empty tomb, as Matthew's gospel does, but also cites a first-century Jewish source in the process. And he refers to how the empty tomb was corroborated not only by the earliest Jewish opponents of Christianity, but also by pagans. For a discussion of all of this material in Justin, see here.

Steve Hays' Contribution To Easter

"he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully" (2 Corinthians 9:6)

When Steve went through last year's Easter season, he knew he was going to die soon. You couldn't tell from looking at how productive he was.

In a post about Steve last year, I mentioned that some of my earliest memories of him come from the context of working with him on This Joyful Eastertide, an e-book about Jesus' resurrection. Some of his other e-books and many articles he wrote over the years also addressed the resurrection. And he did it in a lot of depth. He often discussed the subject in private correspondence as well. He wrote a post in 2017 summarizing how he would make a case for the resurrection. Over his lifetime, he must have written thousands of pages of material on the subject, often interacting with the latest scholarship and skepticism.

He enjoyed light and often wrote about the subject. Thinking of his legacy in the context of Easter, I'm reminded of one of the great Old Testament passages about resurrection, with its reference to stars:

"Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake…Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever." (Daniel 12:2-3)

This joyful Easter-tide,
Away with care and sorrow!
My Love, the Crucified,
Hath sprung to life this morrow.

My flesh in hope shall rest,
And for a season slumber;
Till trump from east to west,
Shall wake the dead in number.

Death’s flood hath lost his chill,
Since Jesus crossed the river:
Lover of souls, from ill
My passing soul deliver.

Had Christ, that once was slain,
Ne’er burst His three day prison,
Our faith had been in vain;
But now hath Christ arisen,
Arisen, arisen, arisen!
(George Woodward, This Joyful Easter-Tide)

"Sunrise lies beyond the setting sun. It cannot be reborn in the east unless it dies in the west. And once it dies, there's nothing left to keep us here. Only darkness remains. Unbelievers rage against the dying light. But for the saints, our light must die below to then ascend to the zenith of meridian glory. Before we rise to light everlasting, our sun must set." (Steve Hays, A Backward Providence, 21-22)

Pierce on Dr. Seuss

Jeremy Pierce:

Here is what I don't see a lot of people saying in response to the Dr. Seuss books that the publisher will no longer be making. Theodore Geisel was a very progressive, liberal-minded person, anti-racist in the most literal sense of that term. Yet he portrayed people in ways that we today recognize to be stereotypical and somewhat offensive. People have been calling him a racist for years, when his views were anything but. How could the author of the Sneetches, an explicitly anti-racist story in the literal sense of that term, be counted as a racist just because he had absorbed some of the stereotypical imagery of his day and brought it out in his depictions of people from around the world when wanting to expose children to multi-cultural stuff and to think more globally?

A Good Discussion Of First Clement

James White recently had a good discussion with Stephen Boyce about First Clement. They talk about the letter's significance with regard to Trinitarianism, the canon of scripture, justification, church government, and other subjects.

Easter Resources 2021

Last year, I wrote a short post about which evidence for Jesus' resurrection we should be most focused on. A few years ago, Steve Hays wrote a lengthier article about how to make a case for the resurrection. Those are a couple of places you could go to start the process of studying Easter issues.

And here are some examples of other relevant issues we've addressed over the years:

Does everything we do have eternal significance?

What Really Matters in Life
James Bejon

What follows is an article written for my church newsletter. It is heavily influenced by thoughts prompted by David Field's "Not the Least Lash Lost", which I consider to be a simply superb and must-read piece of work.

Scripture does not provide us with many details about the afterlife, but it is profitable for us to think deeply about the fact and nature of it. Absent an afterlife, life is 'vanity'. The world goes round and round in circles, and who knows whether our brief lives' accomplishments will profit the wise or the foolish in the days to come? (Let us eat and drink, for 'tomorrow' we die.) Yet, as Christians, we have a sure hope. Our actions and their consequences continue on into the next world in some way. But in what way? Insofar as they are rewarded (or not) at the judgment seat? In part, no doubt. But might there not be more to it than that? Martin Luther is reported to have said, "If I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant my apple tree today". Would we? It all depends on how we view life's continuity-discontinuity questions.

Consider the flood. The flood was a major discontinuity in world history. But the people who left the ark were the same people who boarded it. Like every other man in history, Noah was a product of his past life and past decisions. What he did before he boarded the ark determined the kind of man he would be when he left the ark and stepped out into God's new creation. (People, after all, are not abstract entities; they are the sum products of their pasts and past decisions.) So, what about the day of the Lord's return and of the Resurrection? To what extent does our pre-resurrection life affect our post-resurrection life? Might not what is true of Noah be true of us? Let us put the question in more practical terms. Does everything we do have eternal significance? Or just some things? Cooking the dinner, disciplining our children, doing a good day's work, caring for a relative who may or may not be saved: Are these tasks ultimately irrelevant necessities? Or is there more to it than that? My suspicion is as follows: everything we do, in some way or other, reverberates on into eternity. At times, Scripture emphasises the discontinuity between the present world and the world to come (e.g., 2 Pet. 3), while, at times, Scripture emphasises the continuity between the two worlds. (At Christ's return, for instance, the kingdoms of the world become his kingdoms, and the deeds of the saints follow them into the heavenly realms and clothe in preparation for their return, and the kings of the earth thereafter bring their glory to the city of God: Rev. 11.15, 14.13, 19.8, 21.23-26.) Both sides of the coin are vital for us to appreciate.

Consider, by way of illustration, Jesus' resurrection body—a body whose appearance marked the genesis of a new age. Weren't the hands with which Jesus broke the bread en route to Emmaus in some sense the same hands which were nailed to the cross a few days before hand? And which fashioned wood in Nazareth? And which Mary and Joseph held as they walked Jesus as a young child? Wouldn't Jesus have looked like Mary and inherited certain traits from her? Didn't Mary's actions in that sense at least survive on into the resurrection world? (And might not similar things be able to be said of our own hands and what they have done?) Consider, in this connection, Paul's statements in 1 Cor. 15. The bodies which we commit to the earth when we die are the same bodies which are raised. (Continuity and discontinuity again.) Our bodies together with whatever has affected them are the raw materials of the resurrection. What grows in the resurrection depends on what seed is planted. And, as a result, Paul says, our toils are not 'in vain' (15.58). Now, does that word 'vain' remind you of our initial reference to Ecclesiastes (vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas)? The reminiscence, I suspect, is deliberate. Precisely those labours which are rendered vain by death—the labours of planting and plucking up, healing and punishing, keeping and casting away, weeping and laughing—are redeemed and preserved in value by the resurrection. As one writer puts it, "When we are raised,...the work we have done in the present, in the service of [our] new master, will, [no doubt to our great surprise], turn out to be part not only of who we are, but of the new world he will have brought into being".

But what about our sins? Well, we will not live in eternal regret at what we did or failed to do in the present life. (Our sins will not be 'remembered' against us.) Of that much I am sure. But just as, here on earth, our consciousness of our sins affects—and even heightens—our sense of gratitude as we worship (Luke 7.41-47), so too, I believe, they will do in eternity. When we sing, 'Worthy is the Lamb who was slain', we will know exactly what he was slain for, since the more we know about Christ's work, the more we will appreciate it. The nature of our failures will inform Christ's people of the scope and glory of Christ's work of forgiveness, just as the nature of our frailties and disabilities will inform Christ's people of the scope and glory of Christ's work of restoration. We may not all have the same ministries, bodies, or abilities as one another, but everything we do in life ultimately matters.

When everyone did what was right in his own eyes

"Applying the Christian Ethic to Specific Issues" (James Anderson)

Book and ebook

John Piper's new book Providence is available. I trust it'll be a good book and worth reading, but that's not the primary reason I'm mentioning it. The primary reason I'm posting about it is because if you order Piper's book through WTS Books, then, according to WTS Books:

Order the hardcover version and receive the eBook FREE. Download link will be emailed after purchase is completed. eBook does not need to be in cart if purchasing hardcover edition.

I think this is a good idea in general, though I could see exceptions where it might not be a good idea. At least I think it might be a promising way for some publishers and bookstores to push back against companies like Amazon, which apparently controls around 80% of the US book market (isn't that effectively a monopoly?). That is, publishers and bookstores offering both the book and the ebook bundled together in some way might be able to attract customers away from Amazon and to their bookstores as well as to give customers who have purchased their book-ebook bundle real ownership over what they've purchased. I think many customers are concerned that Amazon could just "disappear" their purchased ebooks if Amazon wanted to. This would help quell those fears or concerns.

I assume the main concern from publishers is that giving away free ebooks along with physical books (or just bundling an ebook together with a physical book and marketing the ebook as free but really charging for both) could open the door to people pirating ebooks if the ebooks have no DRM protection. I'm not sure how to fix this. Perhaps one could put in place legal requirements that Amazon (and other booksellers) must adhere to before they can remove purchased books if they don't already exist? However, even if publishers prefer DRM protection (or something like it) for their ebooks, offering a physical book + ebook would reassure customers that they own their books because they possess a physical book even if the ebook is removed.

Of course, all this assumes a lower price point for the bundle than for the ebook-book if each was purchased separately. Otherwise there'd be no advantage for people buying the book-ebook bundle.

I guess Amazon could follow suite and do the same. Unless they're broken up somehow.

Anyway I just think we should try to find new ways to have more diversity in the book market and not have to rely on near-monopolies like Amazon.

Update: Desiring God has made Piper's book free to download as a pdf.

The Eye of the Beholder is out

Jason already noted that Lydia McGrew's latest book The Eye of the Beholder is out.

I wanted to point out Lydia has released a short trailer about her book too:

In addition, Lydia has a meaty post about her book. Her post includes free material like the book's table of contents, its first chapter, and its conclusion. Not to mention endorsements by very notable NT scholars like Stanley Porter and Tom Schreiner. Schreiner is the icing on the cake for those of us who are Reformed, I think.

Finally, since it might be of interest to Triablogue readers, a friend who already has Lydia's book informs us that Lydia has a dedication to Steve Hays in her book and cites him in her book too.

We live in a novel, not a computer simulation

Here's a great interview with James Anderson on the simulation hypothesis and the authorial analogy for the God-world relation. By the way, Parker Settecase's Parker's Pensées podcast is fun and interesting if you enjoy musing on philosophy, theology, and/or philosophical theology from a Reformed perspective. Not to say these are always the subjects under discussion in his podcast, but I think that's his inclination. Parker has had a number of fascinating guests as well as topics on his podcast. He seems like a good guy to grab a beer with too.

To boldly go where no one has gone before

My aim is to preach the gospel where Christ has not been named, so that I will not build on someone else's foundation (Rom 15:20 CSB).

I appreciate the apostle Paul's attitude about his ministry of missions, church-planting, evangelism, apologetics. He wants to go where no one has gone before with the gospel. He wants to go to those people who have never heard the good news. He wants to be the first in a mission field. The first to share the gospel with a people in a place that hasn't heard about Jesus. That's a noble desire.

I think what the apostle Paul said could be taken on as a kind of principle by other Christians too. Let's consider apologetics. Apologetics paving the road for evangelism or used in concert with evangelism. Of course, there are many commonly used arguments in defense of Christianity and/or in order to critique other worldviews. Nothing necessarily wrong with a Christian apologist using these bread and butter arguments.

However, it likewise would be a good idea for Christian apologists to develop novel arguments, develop novel approaches to old arguments, revitalize retired arguments, and so on. For example, Jason Engwer and Steve Hays have done significant apologetic work involving the occult. Another example is Tim and Lydia McGrew have revitalized the argument from undesigned coincidences. These are the sorts of thing I have in mind.

Of course, what those arguments might be could vary depending on where or when one is ministering. The apologist needs to know their audience, as it were. The apologist needs to be like "the Issacharites, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do" (1 Chron 12:32). Arguments involving science and religion might better suit a secular college student on a typical US campus. Arguments involving fulfilled messianic prophecies might better suit an orthodox Jewish friend. Arguments about Jesus' power over evil spirits might better suit Papua New Guineans. Arguments involving the historical Jesus might better suit Muslims. And there's tremendous room for creativity within these classes of arguments.

Point being, I guess I'm not really saying much in my already long-winded post, only that it's good to use commonly used apologetic arguments, but it's also good to push boundaries (within orthodoxy) in developing new arguments, honing old arguments, etc. We can advance the kingdom of God in terms of apologetics too, I think. At least, those promoting other worldivews don't usually stand still, neither should we.

McLatchie on Swamidass

Jonathan McLatchie comments on Joshua Swamidass' theory regarding Adam and Eve and human evolution:

An innovative and provocative attempt to harmonize evolutionary theory with an historical Adam and Eve has recently been proposed by computational biologist Joshua Swamidass of Washington University in St. Louis. [10] Swamidass proposes that Adam and Eve lived approximately six thousand years ago, in accordance with the traditional creationist understanding. He argues that Adam and Eve did not have parents and were in fact created de novo, as described in Genesis 2. Consistent with a face-value reading of Genesis, Swamidass proposes that Adam was formed from the dust of the earth and Eve from Adam’s side. However, Swamidass argues that Adam and Eve were not the first humans. Rather, their genomes became ‘mixed’ with the rest of the human population outside of the garden through interbreeding (that is, humans who, unlike Adam and Eve, arose naturally through evolutionary processes), such that all extant humans can be said to trace their genealogical ancestry back to Adam and Eve, even though their genetic ancestry includes other lineages, unrelated to Adam, as well. Swamidass points out that universal genealogical ancestors (that is, individuals to whom all modern humans can trace their ancestry) are common, arising often throughout human history. Swamidass proposes that “Adam and Eve are to work as priestly rulers alongside Yahweh Elohim, to expand the Garden across the earth. Civilization is rising, and a new era is coming. Their purpose is to welcome everyone into their family, in a new kingdom of God.” [11] Swamidass distinguishes between what he calls “biological humans” and “textual humans.” [12] For Swamidass, “Biological humans are defined taxonomically, from a biological and scientific point of view. From at least AD 1 onward, they are coextensive with textual humans.” [13] On the other hand, “Textual humans are the group of people to whom Scripture refers. I argue that this group is defined by Scripture to be Adam, Eve, and their genealogical descendants, including everyone alive across the globe by, at latest AD 1. They are a chronological subset of biological humans, meaning that some biological humans in the past are not textual humans, but all textual humans are biological humans.” [14]

While Swamidass’ model is superficially attractive in that it does not require positing thousands of gaps in the Genesis genealogies, the problems that it raises are too intolerably great for me to commend Swamidass’ solution. For one thing, in what sense, if any, can non-Adamic biological humans be considered to be fully human? Are they affected by original sin, and did Jesus die to save them? Swamidass conjectures that these biological humans bear God’s image but “are not yet affected by Adam’s fall. They have a sense of right and wrong, written on their hearts (Rom. 2:15), but they are not morally perfect. They do wrong at times. They are subject to physical death, which prevents their wrongdoing from growing into true evil (Gen. 6:3).” [15] The Scriptures, however, make no such distinction between biological humans and textual humans. Swamidass’ view would seem to suggest logically that those individuals who were biological (but not textual) humans are qualitatively indistinct from other animals. But in that case it makes no sense to call their deeds evil, or to postulate that they had a sense of right and wrong. Moreover, if they, as Swamidass suggests, “do wrong at times”, then does this not suggest that Adam’s fall is but one of many falls that have occurred in human history? The theological ramifications that accompany this scenario are too severe for me to entertain Swamidass’ proposal.

Handing orphans over to sodomites

"Major Evangelical Adoption Agency Will Now Serve Gay Parents Nationwide"

An Overview Of The Eye Of The Beholder

Here's a new video in which Lydia McGrew provides an overview of her book that just came out on the historicity of the gospel of John. You can order the book at Amazon or at Barnes & Noble.

How The Personality Of The Enfield Poltergeist Differed From The Personalities Around It

I said a lot about the subject in my 2019 article on the poltergeist voice. I want to expand upon what I wrote there in relation to a certain aspect of the poltergeist's personality.

The poltergeist communicated in a variety of ways (e.g., speaking, knocking, writing), and it communicated through a variety of sources. Most significantly, the poltergeist voice manifested through multiple individuals, not just one, and sometimes was manifested in a disembodied form or through a dog. And some fraud hypotheses would propose that more than one person faked the knocking and writing incidents, for example, which means those hypotheses propose that multiple personalities were behind those phenomena. Even those who believe in the authenticity of one type of phenomenon sometimes reject the authenticity of another (e.g., accepting the knocking while rejecting the voice). So, when there's continuity across multiple types of phenomena and multiple individuals manifesting the phenomena, that continuity can have some significance for a wide variety of views of the case. That's especially true if the continuity involves something that seems to differentiate the poltergeist from the individual(s) thought to have faked the case or thought to have produced the poltergeist through psychic activity.

Watch Over Your Heart

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life (Prov. 4:23). The heart of man is his worst part before it is regenerated, and the best afterward; it is the seat of principles, and the foundation of actions. The eye of God is, and the eye of the Christian ought to be, principally fixed upon it. The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is to keep the heart with God." (John Flavel, Keeping The Heart [Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2019], 13)

Read Some Portions Of Lydia McGrew's Upcoming Book On John's Gospel

She's posted the first chapter and the conclusion of the book.

What's wrong with illegal immigration?

Philosopher Bill Vallicella makes a number of good points regarding illegal immigration.

"When Amazon erased my book"

As many know, conservative Catholic political philosopher and ethicist Ryan Anderson (PhD, Notre Dame) had his book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment removed from Amazon mere days ago. This represents the latest battle in the culture wars. A battle which is all the more pressing in light of Biden's Equality Act. The left and its sympathizers will seek to cancel even the most reasonable, informed, and charitable voices if the voices dissent from leftist convictions or commitments. Anderson writes about all this and more in his First Things article "When Amazon erased my book". I don't agree with everything, but it's still worth a read.

For now, people can still purchase Anderson's book on Encounter Books (the book's publisher), Christian Book, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores.

Update. From Ryan Anderson:

Update 2. From Abigail Shrier:

Read the rest of the thread.

Lydia McGrew on Pastor Coates

"We must obey God rather than men" (Lydia McGrew)

The Greatest Song Will Always Be The Song Born Of Suffering

"Suffering will stop, but singing will not. But suffering will not be forgotten. Because we will sing about it for all eternity — not ours, but Christ's. [Revelation 5:9-10]… Singing will remain, rooted in suffering, forever. The greatest song will always be the song born of suffering. We will never forget the price Jesus paid so that forgiven sinners could sing with everlasting joy. So, take heart. Though singing is sometimes stopped by suffering, nevertheless, our most common experience in this world is that singing sustains in suffering. And if the slain Christ is your song, then for you (and all the redeemed) the day is coming when suffering will be no more, and singing will follow the end of suffering forever." (John Piper)

Inconsistencies In Some Anti-Christian Views Of The Paranormal

Bruce Greyson, one of the leading researchers of near-death experiences, recently wrote a book on the subject, which is coming out soon. You can read a story from the New York Post about it here. The book and the media coverage of it provide further reasons for Christians to be prepared to discuss paranormal issues.

Here are some relevant comments from a recent discussion I participated in:

Laymen's Lounge interviews Frame

Here's a brief but edifying interview with Prof. John Frame. (And I never would have guessed Prof. Frame's favorite movie is Casablanca! A classic movie I've never seen.)

By the way, for those who don't already know, the Laymen's Lounge has a lot of good interviews and other resources.

The two deaths of Ravi

"Apologetics After the Two Deaths of Ravi Zacharias" (Doug Groothuis)

Materialism and mysteries

Prof. James Anderson responds to Bart Ehrman's (I guess one could call it) mysterian materialism in his post "Materialism and Mysteries".

Is physical determinism reality?

Natural law arguments against same-sex marriage

Jason Engwer and Lydia McGrew, among others, recently made several helpful comments about same-sex marriage and related issues. Their comments are well worth reading and taking to heart.

Lydia alluded to natural law arguments against same-sex marriage. Here's Tim Hsiao outlining the general argument:

Making sense of the Ravi Zacharias scandal

I've read and seen several Christians reflecting on the Ravi scandal. I think the person who gets closest to what I'd want to say is David Wood. It's a long video, but Wood makes several insightful observations and as is often the case Wood is keen in his psychological analyses.

The Akedah

Regarding God testing Abraham's faith by telling Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering in Genesis 22:

I think there's dramatic irony in Gen 22. The events of the story turn out to be the opposite of what one would have expected at the climax of the narrative.

My understanding is human sacrifice to various gods occurred among many ancient Neareastern cultures. An ancient Neareasterner (like Abraham) might not unreasonably expect Yahweh to be like these other gods too.

Yet Gen 22 has a twist ending. The twist ending of the story is that Yahweh isn't like other gods.

Quite the contrary. Yahweh doesn't demand Abraham sacrifice Isaac. Rather Yahweh "provides" a ram caught in a thicket by its horns for Abraham to sacrifice. As such, Abraham learns Yahweh is the God who "provides", not a god who takes. Yahweh is the God who unilaterally blesses his followers, not a god who requires things in a quid pro quo fashion from his followers. Yahweh is the merciful God, not a god who must always exact his pound of flesh. Yahweh blessed Abraham because Abraham trusted Yahweh, not because Abraham literally killed and sacrificed his son Isaac in exchange for blessings like a pagan god might wish. These are the kinds of lessons Yahweh imparted to Abraham - and to us.

So this was a happy reversal of fortunes from Abraham and Isaac's perspective. They didn't have to do what they thought they had to do.

What's more, this happy reversal of fortunes in turn points to the One who reversed their fortunes - namely, Yahweh. Such that Abraham and Isaac, along with the audience, are led to ask: what kind of God is this, this Yahweh? Yahweh is not like heathen gods. Instead Yahweh is the God of promise, provision, blessing, grace.

Ed May's Materialism

Alex Tsakiris recently interviewed Stephen Braude. He makes a lot of significant comments during the interview, but a segment I found especially interesting was one about Ed May. You can click on the link just provided to watch that segment on the YouTube video of the interview. Braude's comments about his private interactions with May are worth hearing. You can listen to Tsakiris' interview with May here. And here's a post I wrote about the significance of the interview.

How To Argue Against Same-Sex Marriage

It's still important to argue against it, though few people are doing it. See here for an overview of some of the relevant arguments. And here's a post where I discussed how I expected the issue to develop after the Supreme Court's 2015 decision, given the nature of the American people. Much of what I said there is still applicable. But we've now had several more years of political developments, and the large majority of Republicans and Christians have shown themselves unwilling to discuss the subject much, if at all. Life consists of more than politics, though, and how people view marriage is important in non-political contexts, not just political ones. Changes outside of politics can, and often do, lead to political changes. But the arguments for a Christian view of marriage ought to be made, even if we don't get the political changes we want.

See here for some comments I made about the significance of holidays like Valentine's Day in this context.