Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different by Tullian Tchividjian
"Christ-centered, church-committed, kingdom-contoured, future-focused, and counter-cultural all the way" - J. I. PackerRead the Foreword by Tim Keller
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Unfashionable
Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different by Tullian Tchividjian
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Miracles, multiple histories, and many worlds
Eager to improve upon the Copenhagen Interpretation, the thirty-odd academics differed on the best ways to talk about a completely quantum mechanical (non-Copenhagen) universe. Some think of it as ‘Everettian,’ i.e. as a ‘multiverse’ composed of a large but indeterminate number of branching autonomous ‘worlds’ in the sum of which everything that is physically possible happens…The sticking point was not his logic or his mathematics, but the implication that in some sense (hence the name ‘Many Worlds’ theory) it pointed to the actualization of all possibilities…Deutsch was joined in that analysis by conference organizers Simon Saunders and David Wallace of Oxford; both have written extensively on how to deal with uncertainty in an Everettian multiverse wherein all outcomes are realized.
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=many-worlds-in-oxford
From what I’ve read, many atheists champion the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics because they think it eliminates the need for God.
But one ironic implication of the formulation I just quoted is that if the many-worlds interpretation is correct, then there’s an actual world that corresponds to Bible history–where the events of OT and NT history occur.
And it seems to me that the same holds true for Feynman’s theory of multiple histories.
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=many-worlds-in-oxford
From what I’ve read, many atheists champion the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics because they think it eliminates the need for God.
But one ironic implication of the formulation I just quoted is that if the many-worlds interpretation is correct, then there’s an actual world that corresponds to Bible history–where the events of OT and NT history occur.
And it seems to me that the same holds true for Feynman’s theory of multiple histories.
Bureau of Weaker Siblings
The year is 2037. Progressives have had tremendous success in the public square. Owing to their strict logic and eminent consistency, they have succeeded in winning the hearts of many laymen, as well as the hearts of the nine old and young, male and female, not to mention hermaphroditic supreme court justices, over to their side. Peter Singer's arguments were considered persuasive too. Society has thrown off the old chains of "Christendom" in viewing man as special and above the animals. The 47th amendment made "Speciesism" a crime (don't ask what the other 19 were). The logic of "love" and "understanding" continued to march on. People can't help who they love, and love is beautiful, so men and boys regularly make the trip to Vegas. Parents? That you ask shows you're still trying to shackle culture with Christian ideals. (If not, then at least theistic-religious ideals--and we'll have none of that in our naked public square. In line with Brooke Allen, the ideal is to expel all 'religious' thought from the public square. It's a private thing now and we are strict separationists. So the story goes...) The role of the 'parent' in this society is much worse than how Dalrymple described the parents of England's "under class" back in the late 90's. However, there's still a church, and that's a good thing. There are Christians living in this society, just as there were Jews in Babylon. These Christians still debate. One group, representing the Marijuana Theological Journal, continued to protect themselves from the attacks of no one and justified this by saying that no actual attacks were good attacks. I happened upon a letter from this group, where the 2k theory was defended, and I post it for you:
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Bureau of Weaker Siblings
April 10th, 2037 by Sherryl G. Kidnee
Imagine the following scenario (not apparently one conceived by John Lennon): a hotel owner refuses to let out a room to couples whom he knows may engage in fornication, adultery, sodomy, zoophilia, or pedophilia. The owner decides upon this policy out of his own Christian convictions. But the owner conducts his business in a civil polity that grants civil rights to fornicators, adulterers, sodomites, zoophiles, and pedophiles. What is the owner to do?
This is a conundrum which supposedly trips up two-kingdom thinking because the idea of a distinction between civil or common and religious realms denies the possibility of the existence of anything like a Christian hotel. If no such religious hotels exist, then apparently the owner should, according to 2k logic, change his policy and make rooms available to those who violate God’s laws. But if he insists on his policy, informed by his conscience, then he should sell his hotel because he lives in a land that will prohibits “Christian” hotels. One other option is to suffer the penalty for his violation of civil rights and either pay a fine or go to jail.
This test case for two-kingdom thinking actually fails to recognize that the alternatives here are actually more than two, and that the either-or approach that afflicts so much anti-thetical analysis does not do justice to the variety of God’s creation and providence. First, the hotel owner could actually appeal to natural law as a common standard for local laws. He could argue that sexual encounters outside marriage are inappropriate because they ignore the telos of sex, namely, procreation and reproduction. If we had time, we could extrapolate this argument to argue that Christians ought not sell condoms--hindering procreation, 'n all. Outlaw felacio too. Second, if natural law is unavailable to this Christian hotel owner, he could appeal to the mercy of his local magistrate and petition for an exception to the laws of the county, city, or state. If he asked for such an allowance, he might actually find a kinder hearing than if he simply asserted to the town council, while wagging his finger, that the state’s laws were an affront to God’s moral will. However, it may take a while to get this kind hearing since it is said that the line to see magistrates stretches for miles. What, with all those goldfish complaining, via fish whisperers, dog whisperers, etc., that it is their Nemo given right to have big tanks just like the angelfish (on the docket tomorrow: Should we reclassify angelfish as something less religious? You know what Jefferson said in that letter...), the dogs and cats complaining, too; indeed, there's even rumor that a dolphin is 3 "persons" back from the front. So, you will wait patiently. Besides, what good will it do to simply assert, while wagging a finger, that God says man is special?
Third, to ensure that his hotel was thoroughly Christian, he could also deny rooms to liars, blasphemers, idolaters, thieves, and murderers, as well as anyone who has considered such acts and words in his or her heart. Of course, the owner might have to go out of business because no patron, not even a saint, could meet the owners’ righteous standards. However, some conservatives are at least right about some things; such as, solutionmannia often forgets that there's tradeoffs. Letting known thieves into your establishment, in the name of 2k consistency, might have unfortunate economic consequences, thus one may find himself not letting some sinners into his or her establishment while also not being a "hypocrite" in need of log removal. Fourth, so we don't violate "rights," we could make sure we clean the room used for the porno conference quickly to make room for the church service at 9:00--or, are Christians the only ones not allowed to rent hotel rooms? Fifth, the owner could show his zeal for God’s law by also refusing to cohabit with his spouse and children for violating any one of God’s laws in heart, word, or deed.
The last option might be the most ingenious of all. If the Christian hotel owner is a member of a Presbyterian Church, he might prevail upon his session to petition the local magistrate in a case “extraordinary,” as tolerated by the Confession of Faith, ch. 31. What the session could do would be to work with the local government to establish a Bureau of Weaker Siblings in which the church would provide members of a public committee whose charge would be to evaluate the religious scruples of this hotel owner, and similar cases, to determine if he qualifies as one of St. Paul’s weaker brothers. Owners who cannot provide services to sinners, or to those who perform certain, more heinous kinds of sin, clearly lack the strong conscience that allows other Christians to regard such services to sinners as a legitimate part of their calling before God and love of neighbor—such as providing a quite place for zoophiles and pedophiles. In fact, you can show your exemplary neighbor-loving capabilities by providing excellent room service: like bringing up room service for two, a plate of eggs and a trough of hay. If a person, like the hotel owner in this example, were approved by the bureau as a weaker sibling, then he could gain permission from the state to be exempted from the scope and sanctions of laws that violated his conscience. Certificates of Weakness would be valid ideally for sixty days, and renewable, after meeting monthly with the Bureau, up to ten times. You can even get a special license that allows you to draw the line at abortions in your hotel, if you're weak enough. If you're a strongman, just make sure you send some neighbor-loving pillows up to the room--I hear killing children is hell on the back.
**********************************
Many a sound and beneficial principle becomes a dangerous absurdity when it becomes a fetish. -- Thomas Sowell
It can only be hoped that those who want to "take culture back for Luther", transforming it into a legitimate culture ala 2k's theological principles--no small hint of irony here--will chill out on the culture warring--even if many of them write well in a cool, edgy, hip and relevant kind of way--will not forget that a little salt does some good, even if you like paprika better. In addition, hitting the breaks on the "let's show people how rebellious we can be" car actually will do "good" for the city were have been sent to live in, and you can still wear a leather jacket and aviator glasses if you want to.
****************************************
Bureau of Weaker Siblings
April 10th, 2037 by Sherryl G. Kidnee
Imagine the following scenario (not apparently one conceived by John Lennon): a hotel owner refuses to let out a room to couples whom he knows may engage in fornication, adultery, sodomy, zoophilia, or pedophilia. The owner decides upon this policy out of his own Christian convictions. But the owner conducts his business in a civil polity that grants civil rights to fornicators, adulterers, sodomites, zoophiles, and pedophiles. What is the owner to do?
This is a conundrum which supposedly trips up two-kingdom thinking because the idea of a distinction between civil or common and religious realms denies the possibility of the existence of anything like a Christian hotel. If no such religious hotels exist, then apparently the owner should, according to 2k logic, change his policy and make rooms available to those who violate God’s laws. But if he insists on his policy, informed by his conscience, then he should sell his hotel because he lives in a land that will prohibits “Christian” hotels. One other option is to suffer the penalty for his violation of civil rights and either pay a fine or go to jail.
This test case for two-kingdom thinking actually fails to recognize that the alternatives here are actually more than two, and that the either-or approach that afflicts so much anti-thetical analysis does not do justice to the variety of God’s creation and providence. First, the hotel owner could actually appeal to natural law as a common standard for local laws. He could argue that sexual encounters outside marriage are inappropriate because they ignore the telos of sex, namely, procreation and reproduction. If we had time, we could extrapolate this argument to argue that Christians ought not sell condoms--hindering procreation, 'n all. Outlaw felacio too. Second, if natural law is unavailable to this Christian hotel owner, he could appeal to the mercy of his local magistrate and petition for an exception to the laws of the county, city, or state. If he asked for such an allowance, he might actually find a kinder hearing than if he simply asserted to the town council, while wagging his finger, that the state’s laws were an affront to God’s moral will. However, it may take a while to get this kind hearing since it is said that the line to see magistrates stretches for miles. What, with all those goldfish complaining, via fish whisperers, dog whisperers, etc., that it is their Nemo given right to have big tanks just like the angelfish (on the docket tomorrow: Should we reclassify angelfish as something less religious? You know what Jefferson said in that letter...), the dogs and cats complaining, too; indeed, there's even rumor that a dolphin is 3 "persons" back from the front. So, you will wait patiently. Besides, what good will it do to simply assert, while wagging a finger, that God says man is special?
Third, to ensure that his hotel was thoroughly Christian, he could also deny rooms to liars, blasphemers, idolaters, thieves, and murderers, as well as anyone who has considered such acts and words in his or her heart. Of course, the owner might have to go out of business because no patron, not even a saint, could meet the owners’ righteous standards. However, some conservatives are at least right about some things; such as, solutionmannia often forgets that there's tradeoffs. Letting known thieves into your establishment, in the name of 2k consistency, might have unfortunate economic consequences, thus one may find himself not letting some sinners into his or her establishment while also not being a "hypocrite" in need of log removal. Fourth, so we don't violate "rights," we could make sure we clean the room used for the porno conference quickly to make room for the church service at 9:00--or, are Christians the only ones not allowed to rent hotel rooms? Fifth, the owner could show his zeal for God’s law by also refusing to cohabit with his spouse and children for violating any one of God’s laws in heart, word, or deed.
The last option might be the most ingenious of all. If the Christian hotel owner is a member of a Presbyterian Church, he might prevail upon his session to petition the local magistrate in a case “extraordinary,” as tolerated by the Confession of Faith, ch. 31. What the session could do would be to work with the local government to establish a Bureau of Weaker Siblings in which the church would provide members of a public committee whose charge would be to evaluate the religious scruples of this hotel owner, and similar cases, to determine if he qualifies as one of St. Paul’s weaker brothers. Owners who cannot provide services to sinners, or to those who perform certain, more heinous kinds of sin, clearly lack the strong conscience that allows other Christians to regard such services to sinners as a legitimate part of their calling before God and love of neighbor—such as providing a quite place for zoophiles and pedophiles. In fact, you can show your exemplary neighbor-loving capabilities by providing excellent room service: like bringing up room service for two, a plate of eggs and a trough of hay. If a person, like the hotel owner in this example, were approved by the bureau as a weaker sibling, then he could gain permission from the state to be exempted from the scope and sanctions of laws that violated his conscience. Certificates of Weakness would be valid ideally for sixty days, and renewable, after meeting monthly with the Bureau, up to ten times. You can even get a special license that allows you to draw the line at abortions in your hotel, if you're weak enough. If you're a strongman, just make sure you send some neighbor-loving pillows up to the room--I hear killing children is hell on the back.
**********************************
Many a sound and beneficial principle becomes a dangerous absurdity when it becomes a fetish. -- Thomas Sowell
It can only be hoped that those who want to "take culture back for Luther", transforming it into a legitimate culture ala 2k's theological principles--no small hint of irony here--will chill out on the culture warring--even if many of them write well in a cool, edgy, hip and relevant kind of way--will not forget that a little salt does some good, even if you like paprika better. In addition, hitting the breaks on the "let's show people how rebellious we can be" car actually will do "good" for the city were have been sent to live in, and you can still wear a leather jacket and aviator glasses if you want to.
He said/she said
Whenever a sex crime is alleged, either the accuser is the victim or the accused is the victim.
On the one hand, it’s a terrible thing to be the victim of a sex crime. And that can be compounded if no one believes you. If you’re stigmatized for coming forward. You’re victimized twice over. You suffer alone.
On the other hand, it’s an equally terrible thing to be falsely accused of a sex crime. At one stroke you can lose everything. You reputation. Your job. Your kids (as CPS swoops in). Your marriage. And your freedom (if your wrongly convicted and imprisoned).
Moreover, it’s hard to defend yourself against a false charge. For the very allegation renders everything you say suspect. Even if there’s no hard evidence to corroborate the charge, people no longer look at you the same way. You’ve lost the presumption of trust.
Some accusers are genuine victims. But some accusers are malicious liars. And some accusers are self-deluded–often with the help of a therapist who plants ideas in the mind of the patient. We’re very susceptible to a therapist who encourages us to shift the blame.
These are all well-documented phenomena.
On the one hand, it’s a terrible thing to be the victim of a sex crime. And that can be compounded if no one believes you. If you’re stigmatized for coming forward. You’re victimized twice over. You suffer alone.
On the other hand, it’s an equally terrible thing to be falsely accused of a sex crime. At one stroke you can lose everything. You reputation. Your job. Your kids (as CPS swoops in). Your marriage. And your freedom (if your wrongly convicted and imprisoned).
Moreover, it’s hard to defend yourself against a false charge. For the very allegation renders everything you say suspect. Even if there’s no hard evidence to corroborate the charge, people no longer look at you the same way. You’ve lost the presumption of trust.
Some accusers are genuine victims. But some accusers are malicious liars. And some accusers are self-deluded–often with the help of a therapist who plants ideas in the mind of the patient. We’re very susceptible to a therapist who encourages us to shift the blame.
These are all well-documented phenomena.
Analogical Thoughts
Due to the length of the blogroll, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. So I’d like to draw attention your to a blog that’s actually been around for just over a year, but may still be flying below your radar screen.
The great James Anderson has a blog entitled “Analogical Thoughts.” It’s on the sidebar under BLOGSPOTTING.
Dr. Anderson recently moved from some place out in the sticks called Edinburgh (is that on the map?) to the cradle of civilization in Charlotte.
Among the blogs you view on a regular basis, be sure to move his blog to the front row.
The great James Anderson has a blog entitled “Analogical Thoughts.” It’s on the sidebar under BLOGSPOTTING.
Dr. Anderson recently moved from some place out in the sticks called Edinburgh (is that on the map?) to the cradle of civilization in Charlotte.
Among the blogs you view on a regular basis, be sure to move his blog to the front row.
Tabloid apologetics
“For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish—that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder” (2 Cor 12:20).
“Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not” (1 Tim 5:13).
We live in a tabloid culture. The gutter press. Yellow journalism run amok.
Since some Catholic epologists like Dave Armstrong were never all that ethical to begin with, it’s not surprising that they share the moral compass of a tabloid talk show host.
(I wouldn’t be surprised if some Protestant epologists are guilty of the same vice.)
Here we need to draw a simple, but morally significant, distinction. Suppose someone shares a rumor with me about another person. The rumor is potentially damaging to his (or her) reputation.
Now, suppose I know enough about the other person to find the rumor credible. I’m entitled to form a private opinion about the veracity of the rumor.
But I’m not entitled to pass the rumor along. I’m not entitled to publicize the rumor. Unless I have hard evidence that the rumor is true, I should keep my mouth shut.
There’s a name for this behavior: gossip. And it’s a sin.
To circulate a harmful rumor is gossip. The Bible condemns gossip.
Armstrong is just a gossipmonger. He tries to cloak his vice as something noble and virtuous, but underneath the sanctimonious costume he’s just a tawdry little gossip. He’s like a schoolgirl eagerly textmessaging her friends the latest salacious bit of tittle-tattle about another student in a whispering campaign of character assassination.
“Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not” (1 Tim 5:13).
We live in a tabloid culture. The gutter press. Yellow journalism run amok.
Since some Catholic epologists like Dave Armstrong were never all that ethical to begin with, it’s not surprising that they share the moral compass of a tabloid talk show host.
(I wouldn’t be surprised if some Protestant epologists are guilty of the same vice.)
Here we need to draw a simple, but morally significant, distinction. Suppose someone shares a rumor with me about another person. The rumor is potentially damaging to his (or her) reputation.
Now, suppose I know enough about the other person to find the rumor credible. I’m entitled to form a private opinion about the veracity of the rumor.
But I’m not entitled to pass the rumor along. I’m not entitled to publicize the rumor. Unless I have hard evidence that the rumor is true, I should keep my mouth shut.
There’s a name for this behavior: gossip. And it’s a sin.
To circulate a harmful rumor is gossip. The Bible condemns gossip.
Armstrong is just a gossipmonger. He tries to cloak his vice as something noble and virtuous, but underneath the sanctimonious costume he’s just a tawdry little gossip. He’s like a schoolgirl eagerly textmessaging her friends the latest salacious bit of tittle-tattle about another student in a whispering campaign of character assassination.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Into darkness
I used to think that Dave Armstrong was just a jerk. Not deeply evil. Just a jerk.
In that respect he was easy to make light of. However, reading his post on James White and Patty Bonds has forced me to revise my opinion of him–downward.
He isn’t just a narcissistic little jerk. He’s actually evil. It’s not something we can spoof or satirize anymore. He’s crossed a line of no return.
I’m going to make two brief observations in this post.
1.The conduct of the Catholic epologists like Armstrong illustrates a fundamental problem with Catholic apologetics. It’s unregulated. And because it’s unregulated, Catholic epologists represent a cross-section of Catholics generally. As a result, we’re treated to the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Now, I have no objection to lay apologists. But that’s because I’m a benighted Protestant who doesn’t know any better.
By contrast, it’s strange that an institution which claims to be the one true church on earth, with a divine teaching office at its disposal, has, by default, contracted out the defense of the Catholic faith to anyone with a Blogger account. You’d think the one true church might wish to exercise a bit more quality control over its public image.
Catholic epologists like Armstrong are exploiting Patty Bonds as a stalking horse to attack the theology of James White. Since they can’t beat him in a formal, moderated debate, they are using Patty Bonds as a weapon.
Not only does that say something about some (not all) Catholic epologists, but it also reflects on their spiritual superiors. Where are the shepherds?
2.Patty Bonds claims to be the victim of incest. She has a blog in which she has gone public with her accusations.
In so doing, she is calling on readers, strangers, to evaluate her charges. Normally, this is none of my business. And, in a way, it remains none of my business.
However, she wants us to form an opinion regarding her allegations. So, in that event, how should someone like me react to her accusations?
i) To begin with, we need to avoid a double standard. The media still uses a double standard. You can see this in the way mothers who murder their children are treated.
Suddenly the feminists remind us of how emotional woman are, how they suffer from postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis. It’s all the husband’s fault. He was such a cad.
But we should avoid treating women as if they were special. That’s sexist and paternalistic.
In terms of possible motives, a woman has as much incentive to be honest, dishonest, or self-deluded as a man. There’s no presumption that women are more or less likely to tell the truth than men are.
ii) If a perfect stranger tells me that he or she was sexually molested, and I have no evidence beyond his or her say-so, then the most responsible course of action is to reserve judgment.
To say I don’t believe you doesn’t mean I disbelieve you. It doesn’t mean I think you’re a liar or self-deluded. Rather, it means that I’m in no position to render an informed opinion.
iii) In contrast, there are some highly publicized cases which have been investigated by the news media, and/or adjudicated in the courts, and or resolved in out-of-court settlements, with a tacit admission of guilt (e.g. nolo contendere).
In cases like that, it’s responsible for an outsider like me to form a provisional judgment. Otherwise, the morally and intellectually responsible course of action is generally to suspend judgment.
Of course, there can be complications. Sometimes there’s a financial incentive which may cast doubt on the motives of the accuser. On the other hand, victims can sometimes have a legitimate financial incentive.
iv) At the risk of stating the obvious, the innocent profess their innocence, but the guilty also profess their innocence. Both the innocent and the guilty have an incentive to profess their innocence–although the innocent have a different incentive than the guilty.
Hence, the mere profession of innocence carries no presumption one way or the other. And the same holds true for accusations. Victims have an incentive to proclaim their victimization, but those who were never victimized also have an incentive to proclaim their victimization.
v) Charges of incest have been popularized by celebrities. And in our copycat culture, this moves down the food chain. It can even reach epidemic proportions. Take the “Wenatchee sex ring.”
From what I’ve read, charges of child molestation can be the weapon of choice in custody battles.
On the one hand, some men are rapists. On the other hand, some men are falsely accused of rape. The Duke Lacrosse case is an infamous example.
The rape charge is also a weapon of radical feminism.
Dorothy Rabinowitz has written on cases like this in No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times. Cf. Elizabeth Loftus & Katherine Ketcham, The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse; Richard Ofshe & Ethan Watters, Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, And Sexual Hysteria.
It’s a great pity since this makes it all the harder to sift genuine cases of sexual abuse from false accusations. In most cases, an outsider ought to withhold judgment.
vi) In considering the probability of incest, I’d like to know the statistical breakdown on biological fathers, stepfathers, and live-in boyfriends. Is there a higher frequency in one group than another?
vii) Finally, I notice that the name of “Diane” crops up quite often in Patty Bonds’ account. In evaluating her claims I’d like to know more about the degree of influence which Diane is exerting in this relationship. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, “counselors” can have a highly suggestive impact on what the patient “remembers.”
In that respect he was easy to make light of. However, reading his post on James White and Patty Bonds has forced me to revise my opinion of him–downward.
He isn’t just a narcissistic little jerk. He’s actually evil. It’s not something we can spoof or satirize anymore. He’s crossed a line of no return.
I’m going to make two brief observations in this post.
1.The conduct of the Catholic epologists like Armstrong illustrates a fundamental problem with Catholic apologetics. It’s unregulated. And because it’s unregulated, Catholic epologists represent a cross-section of Catholics generally. As a result, we’re treated to the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Now, I have no objection to lay apologists. But that’s because I’m a benighted Protestant who doesn’t know any better.
By contrast, it’s strange that an institution which claims to be the one true church on earth, with a divine teaching office at its disposal, has, by default, contracted out the defense of the Catholic faith to anyone with a Blogger account. You’d think the one true church might wish to exercise a bit more quality control over its public image.
Catholic epologists like Armstrong are exploiting Patty Bonds as a stalking horse to attack the theology of James White. Since they can’t beat him in a formal, moderated debate, they are using Patty Bonds as a weapon.
Not only does that say something about some (not all) Catholic epologists, but it also reflects on their spiritual superiors. Where are the shepherds?
2.Patty Bonds claims to be the victim of incest. She has a blog in which she has gone public with her accusations.
In so doing, she is calling on readers, strangers, to evaluate her charges. Normally, this is none of my business. And, in a way, it remains none of my business.
However, she wants us to form an opinion regarding her allegations. So, in that event, how should someone like me react to her accusations?
i) To begin with, we need to avoid a double standard. The media still uses a double standard. You can see this in the way mothers who murder their children are treated.
Suddenly the feminists remind us of how emotional woman are, how they suffer from postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis. It’s all the husband’s fault. He was such a cad.
But we should avoid treating women as if they were special. That’s sexist and paternalistic.
In terms of possible motives, a woman has as much incentive to be honest, dishonest, or self-deluded as a man. There’s no presumption that women are more or less likely to tell the truth than men are.
ii) If a perfect stranger tells me that he or she was sexually molested, and I have no evidence beyond his or her say-so, then the most responsible course of action is to reserve judgment.
To say I don’t believe you doesn’t mean I disbelieve you. It doesn’t mean I think you’re a liar or self-deluded. Rather, it means that I’m in no position to render an informed opinion.
iii) In contrast, there are some highly publicized cases which have been investigated by the news media, and/or adjudicated in the courts, and or resolved in out-of-court settlements, with a tacit admission of guilt (e.g. nolo contendere).
In cases like that, it’s responsible for an outsider like me to form a provisional judgment. Otherwise, the morally and intellectually responsible course of action is generally to suspend judgment.
Of course, there can be complications. Sometimes there’s a financial incentive which may cast doubt on the motives of the accuser. On the other hand, victims can sometimes have a legitimate financial incentive.
iv) At the risk of stating the obvious, the innocent profess their innocence, but the guilty also profess their innocence. Both the innocent and the guilty have an incentive to profess their innocence–although the innocent have a different incentive than the guilty.
Hence, the mere profession of innocence carries no presumption one way or the other. And the same holds true for accusations. Victims have an incentive to proclaim their victimization, but those who were never victimized also have an incentive to proclaim their victimization.
v) Charges of incest have been popularized by celebrities. And in our copycat culture, this moves down the food chain. It can even reach epidemic proportions. Take the “Wenatchee sex ring.”
From what I’ve read, charges of child molestation can be the weapon of choice in custody battles.
On the one hand, some men are rapists. On the other hand, some men are falsely accused of rape. The Duke Lacrosse case is an infamous example.
The rape charge is also a weapon of radical feminism.
Dorothy Rabinowitz has written on cases like this in No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times. Cf. Elizabeth Loftus & Katherine Ketcham, The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse; Richard Ofshe & Ethan Watters, Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, And Sexual Hysteria.
It’s a great pity since this makes it all the harder to sift genuine cases of sexual abuse from false accusations. In most cases, an outsider ought to withhold judgment.
vi) In considering the probability of incest, I’d like to know the statistical breakdown on biological fathers, stepfathers, and live-in boyfriends. Is there a higher frequency in one group than another?
vii) Finally, I notice that the name of “Diane” crops up quite often in Patty Bonds’ account. In evaluating her claims I’d like to know more about the degree of influence which Diane is exerting in this relationship. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, “counselors” can have a highly suggestive impact on what the patient “remembers.”
Determinism, alternate possibilities, and the grandfather paradox
Davis Lewis once wrote an article on the coherence of time-travel. My immediate interest is not in his defense of time-travel. Rather, what's interesting is his analysis of the ambiguities concerning what an agent can or cannot do. In that respect, his discussion is applicable to the debate between libertarians and compatibilists. Here is part of what he said:
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I have argued so far that what goes on in a time travel story may be a possible pattern of events in four-dimensional space-time with no extra time dimension; that it may be correct to regard the scattered stages of the alleged time traveler as comprising a single person; and that we may legitimately assign to those stages and their surroundings a personal time order that disagrees sometimes with their order in external time. Some might concede all this, but protest that the impossibility of time travel is revealed after all when we ask not what the time traveler does, but what he could do. Could a time traveler change the past? It seems not: the events of a past moment could no more change than numbers could. Yet it seems that he would be as able as anyone to do things that would change the past if he did them. If a time traveler visiting the past both could and couldn’t do something that would change it, then there cannot possibly be such a time traveler.
Consider Tim. He detests his grandfather, whose success in the munitions trade built the family fortune that paid for Tim’s time machine. Tim would like nothing so much as to kill Grandfather, but alas he is too late. Grandfather died in his bed in 1957, while Tim was a young boy. But when Tim has built his time machine and traveled to 1920, suddenly he realizes that he is not too late after all. He buys a rifle; he spends long hours in target practice; he shadows Grandfather to learn the route of his daily walk to the munitions works; he rents a room along the route; and there he lurks, one winter day in 1921, rifle loaded, hate in his heart, as Grandfather walks closer, closer,. . . .
Tim can kill Grandfather. He has what it takes. Conditions are perfect in every way: the best rifle money could buy, Grandfather an easy target only twenty yards away, not a breeze, door securely locked against intruders. Tim a good shot to begin with and now at the peak of training, and so on. What’s to stop him? The forces of logic will not stay his hand! No powerful chaperone stands by to defend the past from interference. (To imagine such a chaperone, as some authors do, is a boring evasion, not needed to make Tim’s story consistent.) In short, Tim is as much able to kill Grandfather as anyone ever is to kill anyone. Suppose that down the street another sniper, Tom, lurks waiting for another victim, Grandfather’s partner. Tom is not a time traveler, but otherwise he is just like Tim: same make of rifle, same murderous intent, same everything. We can even suppose that Tom, like Tim, believes himself to be a time traveler. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to deceive Tom into thinking so. There’s no doubt that Tom can kill his victim; and Tim has everything going for him that Tom does. By any ordinary standards of ability, Tim can kill Grandfather.
Tim cannot kill Grandfather. Grandfather lived, so to kill him would be to change the past. But the events of a past moment are not subdivisible into temporal parts and therefore cannot change. Either the events of 1921 timelessly do include Tim’s killing of Grandfather, or else they timelessly don’t. We may be tempted to speak of the “original” 1921 that lies in Tim’s personal past, many years before his birth, in which Grandfather lived; and of the “new” 1921 in which Tim now finds himself waiting in ambush to kill Grandfather. But if we do speak so, we merely confer two names on one thing. The events of 1921 are doubly located in Tim’s (extended) personal time, like the trestle on the railway, but the “original” 1921 and the “new” 1921 are one and the same. If Tim did not kill Grandfather in the “original” 1921, then if he does kill Grandfather in the “new” 1921, he must both kill and not kill Grandfather in 1921—in the one and only 1921, which is both the “new” and the “original” 1921. It is logically impossible that Tim should change the past by killing Grandfather in 1921. So Tim cannot kill Grandfather.
We have this seeming contradiction: “Tim doesn’t, but can, because he has what it takes” versus “Tim doesn’t, and can’t, because it’s logically impossible to change the past.” I reply that there is no contradiction. Both conclusions are true, and for the reasons given. They are compatible because “can” is equivocal. To say that something can happen means that its happening is compossible with certain facts. Which facts? That is determined, but sometimes not determined well enough, by context. An ape can’t speak a human language—say, Finnish—but I can. Facts about the anatomy and operation of the ape’s larynx and nervous system are not compossible with his speaking Finnish. The corresponding facts about my larynx and nervous system are compossible with my speaking Finnish. But don’t take me along to Helsinki as your interpreter: I can’t speak Finnish. My speaking Finnish is compossible with the facts considered so far, but not with further facts about my lack of training. What I can do, relative to one set of facts, I cannot do, relative to another, more inclusive, set. Whenever the context leaves it open which facts are to count as relevant, it is possible to equivocate about whether I can speak Finnish. It is likewise possible to equivocate about whether it is possible for me to speak Finnish, or whether I am able to, or whether I have the ability or capacity or power or potentiality to. Our many words for much the same thing are little help since they do not seem to correspond to different fixed delineations of the relevant facts.
Tim’s killing Grandfather that day in 1921 is compossible with a fairly rich set of facts: the facts about his rifle, his skill and training, the unobstructed line of fire, the locked door and the absence of any chaperone to defend the past, and so on. Indeed it is compossible with all the facts of the sorts we would ordinarily count as relevant is saying what someone can do. It is compossible with all the facts corresponding to those we deem relevant in Tom’s case. Relative to these facts, Tim can kill Grandfather. But his killing Grandfather is not compossible with another, more inclusive set of facts. There is the simple fact that Grandfather was not killed. Also there are various other facts about Grandfather’s doings after 1921 and their effects: Grandfather begat Father in 1922 and Father begat Tim in 1949. Relative to these facts, Tim cannot kill Grandfather. He can and he can’t, but under different delineations of the relevant facts. You can reasonably choose the narrower delineation, and say that he can; or the wider delineation, and say that he can’t. But choose. What you mustn’t do is waver, say in the same breath that he both can and can’t, and then claim that this contradiction proves that time travel is impossible.
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/merlinos/Paradoxes%20of%20Time%20Travel.pdf
*******************************************************************************
I have argued so far that what goes on in a time travel story may be a possible pattern of events in four-dimensional space-time with no extra time dimension; that it may be correct to regard the scattered stages of the alleged time traveler as comprising a single person; and that we may legitimately assign to those stages and their surroundings a personal time order that disagrees sometimes with their order in external time. Some might concede all this, but protest that the impossibility of time travel is revealed after all when we ask not what the time traveler does, but what he could do. Could a time traveler change the past? It seems not: the events of a past moment could no more change than numbers could. Yet it seems that he would be as able as anyone to do things that would change the past if he did them. If a time traveler visiting the past both could and couldn’t do something that would change it, then there cannot possibly be such a time traveler.
Consider Tim. He detests his grandfather, whose success in the munitions trade built the family fortune that paid for Tim’s time machine. Tim would like nothing so much as to kill Grandfather, but alas he is too late. Grandfather died in his bed in 1957, while Tim was a young boy. But when Tim has built his time machine and traveled to 1920, suddenly he realizes that he is not too late after all. He buys a rifle; he spends long hours in target practice; he shadows Grandfather to learn the route of his daily walk to the munitions works; he rents a room along the route; and there he lurks, one winter day in 1921, rifle loaded, hate in his heart, as Grandfather walks closer, closer,. . . .
Tim can kill Grandfather. He has what it takes. Conditions are perfect in every way: the best rifle money could buy, Grandfather an easy target only twenty yards away, not a breeze, door securely locked against intruders. Tim a good shot to begin with and now at the peak of training, and so on. What’s to stop him? The forces of logic will not stay his hand! No powerful chaperone stands by to defend the past from interference. (To imagine such a chaperone, as some authors do, is a boring evasion, not needed to make Tim’s story consistent.) In short, Tim is as much able to kill Grandfather as anyone ever is to kill anyone. Suppose that down the street another sniper, Tom, lurks waiting for another victim, Grandfather’s partner. Tom is not a time traveler, but otherwise he is just like Tim: same make of rifle, same murderous intent, same everything. We can even suppose that Tom, like Tim, believes himself to be a time traveler. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to deceive Tom into thinking so. There’s no doubt that Tom can kill his victim; and Tim has everything going for him that Tom does. By any ordinary standards of ability, Tim can kill Grandfather.
Tim cannot kill Grandfather. Grandfather lived, so to kill him would be to change the past. But the events of a past moment are not subdivisible into temporal parts and therefore cannot change. Either the events of 1921 timelessly do include Tim’s killing of Grandfather, or else they timelessly don’t. We may be tempted to speak of the “original” 1921 that lies in Tim’s personal past, many years before his birth, in which Grandfather lived; and of the “new” 1921 in which Tim now finds himself waiting in ambush to kill Grandfather. But if we do speak so, we merely confer two names on one thing. The events of 1921 are doubly located in Tim’s (extended) personal time, like the trestle on the railway, but the “original” 1921 and the “new” 1921 are one and the same. If Tim did not kill Grandfather in the “original” 1921, then if he does kill Grandfather in the “new” 1921, he must both kill and not kill Grandfather in 1921—in the one and only 1921, which is both the “new” and the “original” 1921. It is logically impossible that Tim should change the past by killing Grandfather in 1921. So Tim cannot kill Grandfather.
We have this seeming contradiction: “Tim doesn’t, but can, because he has what it takes” versus “Tim doesn’t, and can’t, because it’s logically impossible to change the past.” I reply that there is no contradiction. Both conclusions are true, and for the reasons given. They are compatible because “can” is equivocal. To say that something can happen means that its happening is compossible with certain facts. Which facts? That is determined, but sometimes not determined well enough, by context. An ape can’t speak a human language—say, Finnish—but I can. Facts about the anatomy and operation of the ape’s larynx and nervous system are not compossible with his speaking Finnish. The corresponding facts about my larynx and nervous system are compossible with my speaking Finnish. But don’t take me along to Helsinki as your interpreter: I can’t speak Finnish. My speaking Finnish is compossible with the facts considered so far, but not with further facts about my lack of training. What I can do, relative to one set of facts, I cannot do, relative to another, more inclusive, set. Whenever the context leaves it open which facts are to count as relevant, it is possible to equivocate about whether I can speak Finnish. It is likewise possible to equivocate about whether it is possible for me to speak Finnish, or whether I am able to, or whether I have the ability or capacity or power or potentiality to. Our many words for much the same thing are little help since they do not seem to correspond to different fixed delineations of the relevant facts.
Tim’s killing Grandfather that day in 1921 is compossible with a fairly rich set of facts: the facts about his rifle, his skill and training, the unobstructed line of fire, the locked door and the absence of any chaperone to defend the past, and so on. Indeed it is compossible with all the facts of the sorts we would ordinarily count as relevant is saying what someone can do. It is compossible with all the facts corresponding to those we deem relevant in Tom’s case. Relative to these facts, Tim can kill Grandfather. But his killing Grandfather is not compossible with another, more inclusive set of facts. There is the simple fact that Grandfather was not killed. Also there are various other facts about Grandfather’s doings after 1921 and their effects: Grandfather begat Father in 1922 and Father begat Tim in 1949. Relative to these facts, Tim cannot kill Grandfather. He can and he can’t, but under different delineations of the relevant facts. You can reasonably choose the narrower delineation, and say that he can; or the wider delineation, and say that he can’t. But choose. What you mustn’t do is waver, say in the same breath that he both can and can’t, and then claim that this contradiction proves that time travel is impossible.
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/merlinos/Paradoxes%20of%20Time%20Travel.pdf
Terminating John Connor
In one episode (“Adam raised a Cain”) of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, Derek is killed by a Terminator. In the next episode (“Born to Run”), John Connor is whisked off into the future, where he’s reunited with Derek.
This raises a number of logical and dramatic problems. A premise of the whole Terminator franchise is that you can change the future by traveling back into the past and changing the past. That’s why Skynet keeps sending Terminators into the past to kill John Connor. If, however, killing a person in the present doesn’t erase his future self, then the exercise is futile.
Indeed, the very fact that John Connor exists in the future, so that Skynet must send Terminators back into the past to kill him, already forecasts the failure of their efforts–for if they had succeeded in killing him, there would be no future John Connor whom they must eliminate by sending Terminators back into the past.
There is, to be sure, a disanalogy. Derek came from the future. So, in that sense, he already had a future existence–unlike John, whose actual life-history extends from some point in the past (the moment of conception) to the present.
Still, that distinction doesn’t solve the problem. For, by traveling back into the past, the future Derek is no longer there, in the future. Hence, if you kill him in the present, he has no future counterpart, waiting for the present to catch up with the future.
Perhaps we could try to get around this by claiming that the Derek who traveled back into the past is not the future Derek in toto, but the Derek who, on one day in the future, went back into the past. If, on May 5, 2020, Derek travels goes back, then there’s no longer a Derek on May 5, but maybe there’s a Derek on May 4 or May 6.
Assuming that this is coherent, it would make it difficult for Skynet to terminate John Connor. For there is more than one John Connor to terminate. John Connor has many past and future doubles. A John Connor for every instant along the timeline.
But one of the problems with this scenario, and, indeed, the primary problem with all time-travel scenarios, is the order of causality. If the order of time tracks the order of causality, and effects can’t precede their causes (admittedly a circular description), then it’s not possible treat temporal objects as discrete units which can be excerpt edfrom one point along the timeline, and reinserted at another point. Temporal objects are continuous for the duration of their existence.
This is what makes it difficult to construct a philosophically or scientifically coherent model of time travel. And, of course, Hollywood screenwriters have never been overly concerned with the philosophical or scientific details.
It’s striking, though, that some people insist on the principle of parsimony in science while they can’t resist the principle of plenitude in science fiction. Occam’s razor for science, but Leibnizian or Meinongian opulence for science fiction!
Some folks attempt to ground time-travel in a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, where branching timelines constitute alternate histories. But even if we were to stipulate to all of the controversial assumptions and consequences of that interpretation, it isn’t the same thing as time travel. Except at the initial point where these alternate histories fork off in different directions, there is no point of contact.
And even if there were, that would raise issues of personal identity. Commuting from one alternate history to another is not the same thing as moving backward or forward within the same world history.
Bracketing the metaphysical quandaries for a moment, some folks think we have actual evidence of time-travel. They point to reported timeslips. The celebrated case of Annie Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain is a noteworthy example.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that they really had the experience they describe, would this be an actual case of time-travel?
Not necessarily. An alternative explanation is telepathy. They were perceiving the past through the memories of others.
Finally, one might contend that retrocausation only generates temporal antinomies given the conventional view of causation. Suppose, though, we challenge the theory of causation which generates temporal antinomies? Then what?
For example, Jonathan Edwards was an occasionalist. He regarded spatiotemporal existents as essentially discontinuous rather than continuous. Earlier events didn’t cause later events. Rather, God was the direct cause and sole cause of all events. Geulincx was another Reformed occasionalist.
On that view, a future event would be causally insulated from an earlier event. So, in theory, it would be possible to rearrange the order of events. And that would sidestep the grandfather paradox.
However, this strategy cuts both ways. If I’m not making things happen, then I can’t change anything. Even if I traveled back into the past, I couldn’t change the future. For, on this view, I’m causally inert.
Yet you could still salvage time-travel. The time-traveler would not be the agent. Rather, God would be the agent. God would be causing the time traveler to move backward in time, or skip ahead.
But there is another problem with occasionalism. If I insert a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger, that seems to have an effect. I’m not in the same condition after I pull the trigger as I was before I pull the trigger.
But an occasionalist can also explain (or explain away) this phenomenon. He could say that God has arranged events to simulate causal relations.
Now, before you dismiss this as absurd, keep in mind that this is quite similar to another convention in SF literature: virtual reality.
There are many variants on this theme. For example, aliens subject abductees to virtual stimuli to study their reaction. Virtual reality simulates causal relations. And this is not ad hoc. Rather, it’s designed to simulate an environment wherein there are apparent consequences for one’s actions. Illusory, but a functional illusion.
(For a Scriptural instance in which God creates a collective illusion, cf. 2 Kgs 6:15-23.)
Offhand, occasionalism is the only mechanism I can think of to coherently model time-travel. Of course, that doesn’t make it true–or even plausible. But given the popularity of time-travel scenarios, and given the further fact that many SF buffs are ardent secularists, it’s someone ironic that only a theist has the metaphysical resources to pull this off.
I myself am not an occasionalist. And I have no concrete reason to believe in time travel.
However, I’d suggest that if a Christian novelist wants to write about time-travel, and if he wants to treat time-travel, not merely as a literary convention, but as a realistic possibility, then occasionalism might be the best way (or only way) of grounding this scenario.
This raises a number of logical and dramatic problems. A premise of the whole Terminator franchise is that you can change the future by traveling back into the past and changing the past. That’s why Skynet keeps sending Terminators into the past to kill John Connor. If, however, killing a person in the present doesn’t erase his future self, then the exercise is futile.
Indeed, the very fact that John Connor exists in the future, so that Skynet must send Terminators back into the past to kill him, already forecasts the failure of their efforts–for if they had succeeded in killing him, there would be no future John Connor whom they must eliminate by sending Terminators back into the past.
There is, to be sure, a disanalogy. Derek came from the future. So, in that sense, he already had a future existence–unlike John, whose actual life-history extends from some point in the past (the moment of conception) to the present.
Still, that distinction doesn’t solve the problem. For, by traveling back into the past, the future Derek is no longer there, in the future. Hence, if you kill him in the present, he has no future counterpart, waiting for the present to catch up with the future.
Perhaps we could try to get around this by claiming that the Derek who traveled back into the past is not the future Derek in toto, but the Derek who, on one day in the future, went back into the past. If, on May 5, 2020, Derek travels goes back, then there’s no longer a Derek on May 5, but maybe there’s a Derek on May 4 or May 6.
Assuming that this is coherent, it would make it difficult for Skynet to terminate John Connor. For there is more than one John Connor to terminate. John Connor has many past and future doubles. A John Connor for every instant along the timeline.
But one of the problems with this scenario, and, indeed, the primary problem with all time-travel scenarios, is the order of causality. If the order of time tracks the order of causality, and effects can’t precede their causes (admittedly a circular description), then it’s not possible treat temporal objects as discrete units which can be excerpt edfrom one point along the timeline, and reinserted at another point. Temporal objects are continuous for the duration of their existence.
This is what makes it difficult to construct a philosophically or scientifically coherent model of time travel. And, of course, Hollywood screenwriters have never been overly concerned with the philosophical or scientific details.
It’s striking, though, that some people insist on the principle of parsimony in science while they can’t resist the principle of plenitude in science fiction. Occam’s razor for science, but Leibnizian or Meinongian opulence for science fiction!
Some folks attempt to ground time-travel in a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, where branching timelines constitute alternate histories. But even if we were to stipulate to all of the controversial assumptions and consequences of that interpretation, it isn’t the same thing as time travel. Except at the initial point where these alternate histories fork off in different directions, there is no point of contact.
And even if there were, that would raise issues of personal identity. Commuting from one alternate history to another is not the same thing as moving backward or forward within the same world history.
Bracketing the metaphysical quandaries for a moment, some folks think we have actual evidence of time-travel. They point to reported timeslips. The celebrated case of Annie Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain is a noteworthy example.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that they really had the experience they describe, would this be an actual case of time-travel?
Not necessarily. An alternative explanation is telepathy. They were perceiving the past through the memories of others.
Finally, one might contend that retrocausation only generates temporal antinomies given the conventional view of causation. Suppose, though, we challenge the theory of causation which generates temporal antinomies? Then what?
For example, Jonathan Edwards was an occasionalist. He regarded spatiotemporal existents as essentially discontinuous rather than continuous. Earlier events didn’t cause later events. Rather, God was the direct cause and sole cause of all events. Geulincx was another Reformed occasionalist.
On that view, a future event would be causally insulated from an earlier event. So, in theory, it would be possible to rearrange the order of events. And that would sidestep the grandfather paradox.
However, this strategy cuts both ways. If I’m not making things happen, then I can’t change anything. Even if I traveled back into the past, I couldn’t change the future. For, on this view, I’m causally inert.
Yet you could still salvage time-travel. The time-traveler would not be the agent. Rather, God would be the agent. God would be causing the time traveler to move backward in time, or skip ahead.
But there is another problem with occasionalism. If I insert a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger, that seems to have an effect. I’m not in the same condition after I pull the trigger as I was before I pull the trigger.
But an occasionalist can also explain (or explain away) this phenomenon. He could say that God has arranged events to simulate causal relations.
Now, before you dismiss this as absurd, keep in mind that this is quite similar to another convention in SF literature: virtual reality.
There are many variants on this theme. For example, aliens subject abductees to virtual stimuli to study their reaction. Virtual reality simulates causal relations. And this is not ad hoc. Rather, it’s designed to simulate an environment wherein there are apparent consequences for one’s actions. Illusory, but a functional illusion.
(For a Scriptural instance in which God creates a collective illusion, cf. 2 Kgs 6:15-23.)
Offhand, occasionalism is the only mechanism I can think of to coherently model time-travel. Of course, that doesn’t make it true–or even plausible. But given the popularity of time-travel scenarios, and given the further fact that many SF buffs are ardent secularists, it’s someone ironic that only a theist has the metaphysical resources to pull this off.
I myself am not an occasionalist. And I have no concrete reason to believe in time travel.
However, I’d suggest that if a Christian novelist wants to write about time-travel, and if he wants to treat time-travel, not merely as a literary convention, but as a realistic possibility, then occasionalism might be the best way (or only way) of grounding this scenario.
"Soul Nourishment First"
From George Müller:
May 9, 1841Some might also be interested in praying through Scripture.
It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost, for more than fourteen years. The point is this:I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.The difference, then, between my former practice and my present one is this:
Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experiential communion with the Lord.
I began therefore to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon his precious Word, was, to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.
The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for a while making confession or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it, but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and then my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, either very soon after or at a later time, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer, except when I felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the Word of God for food, or for refreshment, or for a revival and renewal of my inner man, before I gave myself to prayer.
But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour, on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc., and often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray. I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart, first being nourished by the truth, being brought into experiential fellowship with God, I then speak to my Father and to my Friend, (vile though I am, and unworthy of it), about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.
It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this point. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet, now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is, to obtain food for his inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow.
Now, what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts. When we pray, we speak to God. Now, prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a formal manner, requires, generally speaking, a measure of strength or godly desire, and the season, therefore, when this exercise of the soul can be most effectually performed is after the inner man has been nourished by meditation on the Word of God, where we find our Father speaking to us, to encourage us, to comfort us, to instruct us, to humble us, to reprove us. We may therefore profitably meditate, with God’s blessing, though we are ever so weak spiritually; nay, the weaker we are, the more we need meditation for the strengthening of our inner man.
Thus there is far less to be feared from wandering of mind than if we give ourselves to prayer without having had time previously for meditation. I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God, I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials, in various ways, than I had ever had before; and after having now above fourteen years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it.
In addition to this I generally read, after family prayer, larger portions of the Word of God, when I still pursue my practice of reading regularly onward in the Holy Scriptures, sometimes in the New Testament, and sometimes in the Old, and for more than twenty-six years I have proved the blessedness of it. I take, also, either then or at other parts of the day, time more especially for prayer. How different, when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Ad Reppert
So far Victor hasn't caught on. Let me say it bluntly:
Victor said he had "strong intuitions" against a "liar God."
This is just like Victor saying he has "strong intuitions" against a "rebrobater God."
I gave him arguments meant to show that his intuitions against the latter were wrong, or based off a wrong understanding of Calvinism. But he didn't buy any of it. Nope, the intuitions trumped anything I said.
Okay, fine. Can't win 'em all. So I waited. As usual, Victor tossed out some argument that worked at cross-purposes with other things he has said. Victor does this quite regularly. He doesn't bother to see how something he says "over there" fits in with something he said "over here." At least not usually. And not ever when it comes to arguing against Calvinism. But that's fine. His blog is a sounding board. He's not trying to be rigorous.
I then pointed out that his poorly-thought-out reasons for denying his "strong" anti-deity-lying "intuitions" don't pass the Reppert test needed to deny a "strong intuition."
Now, Victor doesn't like this game. He wants to be able to just assert that he can "see" a good reason for a liar God even if he can't show one. Okay. Whatever. It's a free country. Not very conducive for honest debate, but I'm sure it works to allow maximum sleepage at night.
So, Victor doesn't want to touch my "I'm a better Reppert than Reppert when it comes to defending intuitions" argument with a ten-foot pole. He wants me to touch his primo argument against Calvinism, though. That's fine. I'm game. I'll touch his argument. Give it some noogies. Kick some dirt in its face. Basically, see how it stands after I give it a wedgie, a swirly, and steal its pocket protector. See if it comes back after some lessons with Miyagi and delivers a crane technique--which none can defend. Perhaps it will do so to the music, "You're the best, around, yeah!"
So let's take a peep at what Reppert has to say:
I'm fairly sure. But all I need to do to undermine your Arminian proof texts is claim that God said those texts to "get more people to heaven," even though they were false. I thus used the exact same argument as you. If yours works, so does mine. How do you non-arbitrarily adjudicate?
I expect a bibliography of "most Calvinists" otherwise this looks like demagoguing.
You're also being dishonest with Carson. You at least need to admit that Carson also says that there is "truth" in the claim that God "hates" the reprobate (22). And, you need to at least admit that Carson says that "God loves you unconditionally" is only true in "the fourth sense," i.e., the electing love sense (24). You would also need to admit that Carson says that God "loves everyone in exactly the same way" is only true when speaking of "providential love" (ibid).
Victor, this is nothing but an assertion. C'mon, you have to know this.
When you have an argument for the above, let me know. If you think you have given one where you post your numero uno argument against Calvinism, you'd be mistaken; here, let me show you:
Two is hopelessly confused, being vague and ambiguous; refusing to draw important distinctions. Anyway, I DENY that the Bible teaches that Jesus atoned for the sins of all men whomever. You don’t just get to assert that he did so. Since this is in dispute, it is question begging to MERELY offer proof-texts without attendant argumentation, like exegesis.
So, your argument doesn't even get off the ground. But we'll continue:
From here you move into your argument:
Let's ignore the point that you've recently argued that Scripture might not be true, and so it seems you can't make this semantic argument, for the time being.
Let's also ignore that you have no strong intuitions against Calvinism that aren't strong intuitions against a straw man Calvinism.
But it is true that for those Christians who accept inerrancy that the Bible trumps intuitions. For example, we let it trump intuitions that a trinity is irrational. Or that killing an innocent man is immoral, no matter what. Or that it is okay to allow terrible evils to occur if you have the power to stop them. See, Reppert denies all these strong intuitions on the basis of the text--but, he'd rather you didn't know this about him as he gets all red-faced when you bring it up.
Continuing...
Of course this is just flat-out false.
Right. So, for some, this means God gets the "oogy-boogies" deep down in his tummy.
Otherwise, people have to do the work of hermeneutics, grammatical-historical exegesis, etc.
Desire. v. "to wish or long for; crave; want." This must be what the Bible means, after all, I looked at "the English." So, this is how Reppert imagines his God. How utterly sad. Really, I mean it.
And, does Reppert reason this way when the Bible says things like "the Arm of the Lord?"
Not only that, since when did Victor become a six day creationist? Or does "day" "morning" and "evening" and "first" not mean what we mean by it, in English?
Does Reppert hold that God is in time? That he has a body? The he "repents" like we do? Is he now admitting his an open theist? Worse? Does Reppert think he can solve the great issues of philosophical theology by claiming that since the Bible uses certain words, and we Americans mean certain things by those words, therefore, God is "in time" or "changes" or "is ignorant?" I mean, what does it mean in English when I ask, "Where are you?" It means I don't know and I'm looking. So does Victor think God and Adam were engaged in a game of hide-n-seek? Really, I'm shocked Victor is arguing at this puerile level. Some would say that I shouldn't be.
Which, as I've shown above, can be pretty dang far.
Victor is projecting. He thinks the Calvinist would be as sloppy as he is and make these moves WITHOUT ARGUMENT. As if we would just ARBITRARILY hold a "deviant" (question begging epithets are no-nos unless you're a professional philosopher) meaning and then ARBITRARILY disallow others to do that. This kind of uncharitable treatment of one’s opponents is why it is very hard to give Reppert's arguments any respect. It's actually getting annoying. And old.
Victor demagogues again. Let's also remember that Victor's God, at least last time I checked in, knows everything yet chose to create people who he knew would be in hell if he created them.
As long as we're going to refuse to do justice to the variegated nature of God's love as taught in the Bible, this is fine. Let's also remember that the Bible says God hates some people.
But as Calvinist D.A. Carson says, "Nevertheless, the cliché that God hates the sin but loves the sinner is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times on the first fifty psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner..." (69).
Uh-oh, Reppert's argument just got turned on its head. I just caught Reppert with his hand in the cookie jar. I now have my own "semantic argument." How can Reppert's fluffy, marshmallow God be said to "hate" anyone?
Victor is now confusing children's hymns with the Bible. That's sad.
Victor, do you actually think that passes for an *argument*? If a student of yours tried to pass this off would you accept it? Care to spell out what, precisely, is so objectionable here? We've done this before and you are unable to move past first base. You have some vague, un-thought-out "feelings" fluttering about in your mind, but whenever you try to put pen to paper your arguments go nowhere.
Of course, the problems here are obvious. This is sheer question begging epithets. Demagoguery. As if God is like O.J. and the sinner like Nicole. This is a utterly pathetic argument, Victor. That you try to pass this off as a good argument is horrible.
Of course Victor, liberal that he is, can't seem to get the idea of trade-offs. Showing the love Victor wants to the perp. is to be unloving towards the victim.
Also, where's the argument that God "wants" sinners to sin. Spell it out. Precisely. Explain what you're trying to get at. Is it that since God determines that S sin God wants S to sin? How does that follow?
Anyway, I've pointed out several problems for you on this before. See, God determined that Jesus would be murdered--as even you must admit, for the Bible's pretty clear here--does that mean God "wanted" people to murder?
BTW, have you read the Bible? How does it fit with your view of God as "wuving?" If you were God, and a "wuver", would you do half the stuff you read about in the Bible? Would you send "lying spirits?" Would you "harden hearts?" Would you "cause people to believe the lie?" Would you "wipe out men with a flood?" Would you have an innocent man murdered? Oh, God had a "good reason," you say? So, you can do the most manifestly unloving actions--on your terms--so long as there is a good reason? So you grant we're off the hook? No? You say you must know this reason? Well I've already answered you on this point. I have also asked for you to tell me that good reason why 10,000 children were molested this year, rather than 9,999?
Steve Hays had something good to say here: "The God of Calvin is the good shepherd, who names and numbers his sheep, who saves the lost sheep and fends off the wolf. The God of Wesley is the hiring, who knows not the flock by name and number, who lets the sheep go astray and be eaten by the wolf. Which is more loving, I ask?"
Sorry, Victor, I find your argument wholly unconvincing as well as strikingly bad.
Victor said he had "strong intuitions" against a "liar God."
This is just like Victor saying he has "strong intuitions" against a "rebrobater God."
I gave him arguments meant to show that his intuitions against the latter were wrong, or based off a wrong understanding of Calvinism. But he didn't buy any of it. Nope, the intuitions trumped anything I said.
Okay, fine. Can't win 'em all. So I waited. As usual, Victor tossed out some argument that worked at cross-purposes with other things he has said. Victor does this quite regularly. He doesn't bother to see how something he says "over there" fits in with something he said "over here." At least not usually. And not ever when it comes to arguing against Calvinism. But that's fine. His blog is a sounding board. He's not trying to be rigorous.
I then pointed out that his poorly-thought-out reasons for denying his "strong" anti-deity-lying "intuitions" don't pass the Reppert test needed to deny a "strong intuition."
Now, Victor doesn't like this game. He wants to be able to just assert that he can "see" a good reason for a liar God even if he can't show one. Okay. Whatever. It's a free country. Not very conducive for honest debate, but I'm sure it works to allow maximum sleepage at night.
So, Victor doesn't want to touch my "I'm a better Reppert than Reppert when it comes to defending intuitions" argument with a ten-foot pole. He wants me to touch his primo argument against Calvinism, though. That's fine. I'm game. I'll touch his argument. Give it some noogies. Kick some dirt in its face. Basically, see how it stands after I give it a wedgie, a swirly, and steal its pocket protector. See if it comes back after some lessons with Miyagi and delivers a crane technique--which none can defend. Perhaps it will do so to the music, "You're the best, around, yeah!"
So let's take a peep at what Reppert has to say:
I'm not at all sure that an generally trustworthy God who lied only when it was to the benefit of everyone could not be trusted in general. Can we only trust people who live up the the Kantian standard on lies? Do you even believe in living up to the Kantian standard on lies?
I'm fairly sure. But all I need to do to undermine your Arminian proof texts is claim that God said those texts to "get more people to heaven," even though they were false. I thus used the exact same argument as you. If yours works, so does mine. How do you non-arbitrarily adjudicate?
I see that you didn't track back to the argument I actually presented previously. My own views on the issue have evolved somewhat, particularly when I make a distinction between points that might convince the "choir" of anti-Calvinists like myself as opposed to points that might cause a problem from the standpoint of Calvinists themselves. Most Calvinists do not say that God just doesn't love those who are not elect. Carson, for example, thinks that you can say "God loves you" to any person regardless of their election status or whether they are converted.
I expect a bibliography of "most Calvinists" otherwise this looks like demagoguing.
You're also being dishonest with Carson. You at least need to admit that Carson also says that there is "truth" in the claim that God "hates" the reprobate (22). And, you need to at least admit that Carson says that "God loves you unconditionally" is only true in "the fourth sense," i.e., the electing love sense (24). You would also need to admit that Carson says that God "loves everyone in exactly the same way" is only true when speaking of "providential love" (ibid).
The difficulty isn't that Calvinists say God loves the elect differently from the way he loves the reprobate. It is that God's treatment of the reprobate, on the Calvinist view, doesn't meet the criteria for the use of the word "love." The question is whether the Calvinist can assert the biblical claim that God loves every person and mean it. I say that to do so would be a travesty of language.
Victor, this is nothing but an assertion. C'mon, you have to know this.
When you have an argument for the above, let me know. If you think you have given one where you post your numero uno argument against Calvinism, you'd be mistaken; here, let me show you:
First of all, we must describe the biblical jigsaw puzzle. What there seems to be, in Scripture, is prima facie support for three claims.
1) God can, and does, sovereignly determine all human destiny. (The usual Calvinist proof-texts for this, Rom 9, Eph 1, John 6:44. etc. etc.
2) God loves all persons, wants them to be saved, and died for all of their sins. (John 3: 16, I Tim 2: 4,2 Cor 5: 15, 2 Pet 3: 9 etc. etc. )
3) God punishes some persons eternally in hell. (Mt 25: 41-46, Rev. 21: 8, 2 Thess 1: 9).
Two is hopelessly confused, being vague and ambiguous; refusing to draw important distinctions. Anyway, I DENY that the Bible teaches that Jesus atoned for the sins of all men whomever. You don’t just get to assert that he did so. Since this is in dispute, it is question begging to MERELY offer proof-texts without attendant argumentation, like exegesis.
So, your argument doesn't even get off the ground. But we'll continue:
Calvinists claim that they can put the jigsaw puzzle together in their own favor. They maintain the exegesis of the relevant passages leads to one and only one conclusion.
From here you move into your argument:
Now, in order for an appeal to special revelation, such as this one, to work, we have to insist on what I call the principle of semantic integrity. First, we must believe that Scripture is not only true, but interpretable and translatable. Otherwise, 4 simply wins by default. Remember too, that the Calvinist thinks that biblical case for Calvinism is sufficiently strong that even if we have strong intuitions that a God who did this would not be good, we ought to set those intuitions aside and accept what God has revealed in his Word.
Let's ignore the point that you've recently argued that Scripture might not be true, and so it seems you can't make this semantic argument, for the time being.
Let's also ignore that you have no strong intuitions against Calvinism that aren't strong intuitions against a straw man Calvinism.
But it is true that for those Christians who accept inerrancy that the Bible trumps intuitions. For example, we let it trump intuitions that a trinity is irrational. Or that killing an innocent man is immoral, no matter what. Or that it is okay to allow terrible evils to occur if you have the power to stop them. See, Reppert denies all these strong intuitions on the basis of the text--but, he'd rather you didn't know this about him as he gets all red-faced when you bring it up.
Continuing...
What this means is that in order for Scripture to have any real authority we have to insist on what I call the Principle of Semantic Integrity. Let's call it PSI for short. Words have to mean what they mean in the language into which the Bible was translated.
Of course this is just flat-out false.
If we say God loves people, the word "love" has to mean something recognizable as love in English.
Right. So, for some, this means God gets the "oogy-boogies" deep down in his tummy.
Otherwise, the translators need to go find another word.
Otherwise, people have to do the work of hermeneutics, grammatical-historical exegesis, etc.
If it says he desires all to be saved, then the use of "desires" has to be consistent with normal use of the terms.
Desire. v. "to wish or long for; crave; want." This must be what the Bible means, after all, I looked at "the English." So, this is how Reppert imagines his God. How utterly sad. Really, I mean it.
And, does Reppert reason this way when the Bible says things like "the Arm of the Lord?"
Not only that, since when did Victor become a six day creationist? Or does "day" "morning" and "evening" and "first" not mean what we mean by it, in English?
Does Reppert hold that God is in time? That he has a body? The he "repents" like we do? Is he now admitting his an open theist? Worse? Does Reppert think he can solve the great issues of philosophical theology by claiming that since the Bible uses certain words, and we Americans mean certain things by those words, therefore, God is "in time" or "changes" or "is ignorant?" I mean, what does it mean in English when I ask, "Where are you?" It means I don't know and I'm looking. So does Victor think God and Adam were engaged in a game of hide-n-seek? Really, I'm shocked Victor is arguing at this puerile level. Some would say that I shouldn't be.
Of course some deference must be paid to the difference between attributing something to God and attributing it to humans, but this deference can only go so far.
Which, as I've shown above, can be pretty dang far.
What is more, if the Calvinist helps himself to deviant meanings for the terms he finds inconvenient, the Arminian, the Universalist, or even the Jehovah's Witness can do the same thing. A postmodern nightmare looms.
Victor is projecting. He thinks the Calvinist would be as sloppy as he is and make these moves WITHOUT ARGUMENT. As if we would just ARBITRARILY hold a "deviant" (question begging epithets are no-nos unless you're a professional philosopher) meaning and then ARBITRARILY disallow others to do that. This kind of uncharitable treatment of one’s opponents is why it is very hard to give Reppert's arguments any respect. It's actually getting annoying. And old.
Does God love those whom he has not elected? People who are, basically, everlasting toast as a result, ultimately, of a choice by God?
Victor demagogues again. Let's also remember that Victor's God, at least last time I checked in, knows everything yet chose to create people who he knew would be in hell if he created them.
My inclination is to say that the only sensible response is to say no. God's love is only for the elect, and the lost are people God hates.
As long as we're going to refuse to do justice to the variegated nature of God's love as taught in the Bible, this is fine. Let's also remember that the Bible says God hates some people.
But Calvinist D. A. Carson says "Of course I tell the unconverted that God loves them." Why, because, he finds attempt to exegete around passages indicated that God loves everyone to be unconvincing because there are "simply too many texts on the other side of the issue."
But as Calvinist D.A. Carson says, "Nevertheless, the cliché that God hates the sin but loves the sinner is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times on the first fifty psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner..." (69).
Uh-oh, Reppert's argument just got turned on its head. I just caught Reppert with his hand in the cookie jar. I now have my own "semantic argument." How can Reppert's fluffy, marshmallow God be said to "hate" anyone?
Jesus loves me and everyone else, the Bible tells me so.
Victor is now confusing children's hymns with the Bible. That's sad.
What he proposes is, I think, a mainstream Calvinist response, which is that although God loves everyone, his love for some is not an electing love. That kind of love is restricted to, you guessed it, the elect. But the question is whether someone God destines for perdition when he could have destined them otherwise can sensibly, in any recognizable sense, be considered to be loved by God. I think ordinary usage makes it clear that some conduct toward another person is inconsistent with the idea that God loves them.
Victor, do you actually think that passes for an *argument*? If a student of yours tried to pass this off would you accept it? Care to spell out what, precisely, is so objectionable here? We've done this before and you are unable to move past first base. You have some vague, un-thought-out "feelings" fluttering about in your mind, but whenever you try to put pen to paper your arguments go nowhere.
Take for example an abusive husband. Ann Coulter once said "Liberals love America like O. J. loved Nicole." At some point abuse becomes so severe that no sensible person can reasonably call it love anymore.
Of course, the problems here are obvious. This is sheer question begging epithets. Demagoguery. As if God is like O.J. and the sinner like Nicole. This is a utterly pathetic argument, Victor. That you try to pass this off as a good argument is horrible.
Now, the Calvinist might respond "Ah, but these people in hell are getting their just deserts. God loves them, but is giving them what they deserve." But does this make sense? A family member of a victim who wants nothing more than to see the murderer get his just deserts doesn't love the murderer. The murderer's family member may accept that the murderer ought to receive just deserts and may desire that, but cannot be said to love that murderer unless he desires that that murderer cease to perform those actions that result in the murderer's receiving further punishment.
Of course Victor, liberal that he is, can't seem to get the idea of trade-offs. Showing the love Victor wants to the perp. is to be unloving towards the victim.
Also, where's the argument that God "wants" sinners to sin. Spell it out. Precisely. Explain what you're trying to get at. Is it that since God determines that S sin God wants S to sin? How does that follow?
Anyway, I've pointed out several problems for you on this before. See, God determined that Jesus would be murdered--as even you must admit, for the Bible's pretty clear here--does that mean God "wanted" people to murder?
BTW, have you read the Bible? How does it fit with your view of God as "wuving?" If you were God, and a "wuver", would you do half the stuff you read about in the Bible? Would you send "lying spirits?" Would you "harden hearts?" Would you "cause people to believe the lie?" Would you "wipe out men with a flood?" Would you have an innocent man murdered? Oh, God had a "good reason," you say? So, you can do the most manifestly unloving actions--on your terms--so long as there is a good reason? So you grant we're off the hook? No? You say you must know this reason? Well I've already answered you on this point. I have also asked for you to tell me that good reason why 10,000 children were molested this year, rather than 9,999?
Steve Hays had something good to say here: "The God of Calvin is the good shepherd, who names and numbers his sheep, who saves the lost sheep and fends off the wolf. The God of Wesley is the hiring, who knows not the flock by name and number, who lets the sheep go astray and be eaten by the wolf. Which is more loving, I ask?"
Sorry, Victor, I find your argument wholly unconvincing as well as strikingly bad.
Legendary embellishment
Let’s compare two different accounts of the same event:
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.
***********************************************************
So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
What would be the standard liberal explanation for the differences between these two accounts? It would go something like this:
The first account represents a primitive Jesus tradition. The second account was written by a later author. He may have used the earlier account, but he heavily redacted the earlier account. He embellished the primitive Jesus tradition with a welter of fictitious details. Indeed, as we compare these two accounts, we can see the myth of the Ascension evolving before our very eyes! Pious imagination run amok!
But there’s just one little problem with that explanation. Both accounts were written by the same author. These are taken from Lk 24:50-53 and Acts 1:6-16, respectively.
Not only do they share common authorship, but they’re really two parts or two installments of a unified work. Luke already had the Book of Acts in mind when he was writing the Gospel of Luke. But there was only so much you could put on one scroll.
In the account for the Ascension recorded in Lk 24:50-53, Luke said less than he knew. He had more information at his fingertips. More he intended to write about.
He included a very brief account of the Ascension, partly to give his gospel a logical conclusion, and partly to foreshadow his history of the early church. The tail-end of the Gospel of Luke is a way of introducing the Book of Acts.
So even though Acts 1:6-16 contains a fuller account of the Ascension, it in no way represents a legendary expansion.
And that, in turn, should forewarn us that just because a writer is selective in what he reports, leaving out various details, this isn’t because he’s reporting all he knew.
Hence, the fact that one account may be more detailed than another, or contain different details, isn’t evidence of literary embellishment or discrepant reportage.
It just so happens that, in this case, we have two accounts by the same author, so we can compare them. In the case of Matthew, Mark, and John, we don’t have that frame of reference. So it’s easy for liberals to postulate legendary embellishment. But, as I just documented, that inference is clearly fallacious.
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.
***********************************************************
So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
What would be the standard liberal explanation for the differences between these two accounts? It would go something like this:
The first account represents a primitive Jesus tradition. The second account was written by a later author. He may have used the earlier account, but he heavily redacted the earlier account. He embellished the primitive Jesus tradition with a welter of fictitious details. Indeed, as we compare these two accounts, we can see the myth of the Ascension evolving before our very eyes! Pious imagination run amok!
But there’s just one little problem with that explanation. Both accounts were written by the same author. These are taken from Lk 24:50-53 and Acts 1:6-16, respectively.
Not only do they share common authorship, but they’re really two parts or two installments of a unified work. Luke already had the Book of Acts in mind when he was writing the Gospel of Luke. But there was only so much you could put on one scroll.
In the account for the Ascension recorded in Lk 24:50-53, Luke said less than he knew. He had more information at his fingertips. More he intended to write about.
He included a very brief account of the Ascension, partly to give his gospel a logical conclusion, and partly to foreshadow his history of the early church. The tail-end of the Gospel of Luke is a way of introducing the Book of Acts.
So even though Acts 1:6-16 contains a fuller account of the Ascension, it in no way represents a legendary expansion.
And that, in turn, should forewarn us that just because a writer is selective in what he reports, leaving out various details, this isn’t because he’s reporting all he knew.
Hence, the fact that one account may be more detailed than another, or contain different details, isn’t evidence of literary embellishment or discrepant reportage.
It just so happens that, in this case, we have two accounts by the same author, so we can compare them. In the case of Matthew, Mark, and John, we don’t have that frame of reference. So it’s easy for liberals to postulate legendary embellishment. But, as I just documented, that inference is clearly fallacious.
The Alleged Absence Of References To Physical Evidence In The Earliest Accounts Of Jesus' Resurrection Appearances
I want to repost, in its own thread, something I wrote elsewhere. James McGrath recently repeated a common claim about the early Christian accounts of Jesus' resurrection appearances:
The creed of 1 Corinthians 15 is a creed, not a biography or church history, for example, so we wouldn't expect many details about the nature of the resurrection appearances there. Still, the details we do have there (the fact that some of the witnesses were unbelievers beforehand, the involvement of coordinated group activity, etc.) are inconsistent with naturalistic theories.
Mark's gospel doesn't narrate any resurrection appearances, so, again, we wouldn't expect the details McGrath is referring to there. But the empty tomb implies a physical resurrection, the Jewish context suggests that the witnesses would have looked for physical evidence, and human nature in general suggests that physical evidence would have been sought. The idea that hundreds of resurrection witnesses living in a first-century Jewish context would have all, or even mostly, failed to seek physical evidence is highly unlikely. It's even more unlikely that such a lack of interest in physical evidence would have continued for decades, until around the time when McGrath thinks Luke and John were written.
How does McGrath know that Luke significantly postdates Matthew? He doesn't.
As the contrast between the discussion of the resurrection witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15 and the lack of such details about resurrection appearances in Mark's gospel illustrates, a later account can be a less detailed account. An author can leave out details he's aware of. Luke suggests that his material goes back to the original witnesses (Luke 1:1-4). The absence of some of his details in a source like Mark's gospel or Matthew's gospel isn't sufficient reason to reject Luke's account.
Matthew tells us that the risen Jesus' feet were touched (Matthew 28:9). And when a passage like Matthew 28:17 tells us that people "saw" Jesus, with references to an empty tomb and the touching of His feet in the context, the likely meaning of "saw" is a reference to physical vision.
The same observation applies to 1 Corinthians 15. Paul was a Jew writing about other Jewish resurrection witnesses, referring to a physical burial of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:4), referring to how the same "it" that was buried is raised (1 Corinthians 15:36, 15:42-44, 15:53-54), etc. Thus, when Paul refers to how Jesus "appeared" and was "seen" (1 Corinthians 9:1), the likely implication is that physical appearances and physical vision were involved.
Luke and John, written some 50 years after the fact, are the first to introduce a physical element to the encounter with Jesus.
The creed of 1 Corinthians 15 is a creed, not a biography or church history, for example, so we wouldn't expect many details about the nature of the resurrection appearances there. Still, the details we do have there (the fact that some of the witnesses were unbelievers beforehand, the involvement of coordinated group activity, etc.) are inconsistent with naturalistic theories.
Mark's gospel doesn't narrate any resurrection appearances, so, again, we wouldn't expect the details McGrath is referring to there. But the empty tomb implies a physical resurrection, the Jewish context suggests that the witnesses would have looked for physical evidence, and human nature in general suggests that physical evidence would have been sought. The idea that hundreds of resurrection witnesses living in a first-century Jewish context would have all, or even mostly, failed to seek physical evidence is highly unlikely. It's even more unlikely that such a lack of interest in physical evidence would have continued for decades, until around the time when McGrath thinks Luke and John were written.
How does McGrath know that Luke significantly postdates Matthew? He doesn't.
As the contrast between the discussion of the resurrection witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15 and the lack of such details about resurrection appearances in Mark's gospel illustrates, a later account can be a less detailed account. An author can leave out details he's aware of. Luke suggests that his material goes back to the original witnesses (Luke 1:1-4). The absence of some of his details in a source like Mark's gospel or Matthew's gospel isn't sufficient reason to reject Luke's account.
Matthew tells us that the risen Jesus' feet were touched (Matthew 28:9). And when a passage like Matthew 28:17 tells us that people "saw" Jesus, with references to an empty tomb and the touching of His feet in the context, the likely meaning of "saw" is a reference to physical vision.
The same observation applies to 1 Corinthians 15. Paul was a Jew writing about other Jewish resurrection witnesses, referring to a physical burial of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:4), referring to how the same "it" that was buried is raised (1 Corinthians 15:36, 15:42-44, 15:53-54), etc. Thus, when Paul refers to how Jesus "appeared" and was "seen" (1 Corinthians 9:1), the likely implication is that physical appearances and physical vision were involved.
Faith, doubt, and disbelief
“None of these traditions and narratives can be said to remove doubt. Yet even though they suggest that doubt was not eliminated altogether for those who had the original Easter experiences, some conservative Christians today not only claim a higher degree of certainty than the apostles seem to have had, but make such certainty the standard of their Christian orthodoxy. If the apostles do not meet the criteria of their ‘fundamentals of the faith’, nor do the New Testament authors, then something is terribly wrong with this definition of Christianity.”
“Be that as it may, the point remains that Easter is not about historical certainty. In Matthew, it even explicitly includes doubt. And by making the day a day for celebrating certainty, we risk losing one of the most important steps that may help us to experience the ‘resurrection power’ that drove early Christianity and has continued to transform lives down the ages.”
“I wish you a happy Easter. But to get there, you may need to experience the uncertainty the earliest disciples felt. And then, finding no certainty to cling to, may you know the powerful, life-transforming effect of letting go. It is like being reborn, like being raised from death to life.”
http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2009/04/celebrating-easter-with-doubting.html
This is a good example of how McGrath misinterprets the Bible to justify his own experience.
1.Since McGrath doesn’t regard the NT as a reliable source of historical information, it’s duplicitous of him to cite these narratives as if he believes them, as if they describe real events.
2.These incidents are not recorded to justify doubt. They are not turning doubt into a paradigm of faith. Rather, they are recorded to remove doubt. To reassure the reader.
3.McGrath is not a doubter. McGrath is a disbeliever. Far from being doubtful, McGrath exhibits a high degree of certainty when it comes to disbelieving the miraculous elements of the Bible. This is another example of his duplicity. He casts himself in the role of an honest doubter when, in fact, he’s a doctrinaire unbeliever.
“Be that as it may, the point remains that Easter is not about historical certainty. In Matthew, it even explicitly includes doubt. And by making the day a day for celebrating certainty, we risk losing one of the most important steps that may help us to experience the ‘resurrection power’ that drove early Christianity and has continued to transform lives down the ages.”
“I wish you a happy Easter. But to get there, you may need to experience the uncertainty the earliest disciples felt. And then, finding no certainty to cling to, may you know the powerful, life-transforming effect of letting go. It is like being reborn, like being raised from death to life.”
http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2009/04/celebrating-easter-with-doubting.html
This is a good example of how McGrath misinterprets the Bible to justify his own experience.
1.Since McGrath doesn’t regard the NT as a reliable source of historical information, it’s duplicitous of him to cite these narratives as if he believes them, as if they describe real events.
2.These incidents are not recorded to justify doubt. They are not turning doubt into a paradigm of faith. Rather, they are recorded to remove doubt. To reassure the reader.
3.McGrath is not a doubter. McGrath is a disbeliever. Far from being doubtful, McGrath exhibits a high degree of certainty when it comes to disbelieving the miraculous elements of the Bible. This is another example of his duplicity. He casts himself in the role of an honest doubter when, in fact, he’s a doctrinaire unbeliever.
Jesus Risen From The Dead For His People
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about how the early Christians viewed the resurrection of Christ and Christians.
"When the early eyewitnesses saw the risen Jesus, what did they actually observe? We might say that they saw walking, talking eternal life. In short, to witness the resurrected Jesus was to witness the reality of the afterlife: For forty days, the light of heaven focused on the land of Israel. It is no wonder this experience changed their lives forever!...Every ounce of evidence for Jesus' resurrection is also evidence for the believer's resurrection." (Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Beyond Death [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1998], pp. 266-267)
"When the early eyewitnesses saw the risen Jesus, what did they actually observe? We might say that they saw walking, talking eternal life. In short, to witness the resurrected Jesus was to witness the reality of the afterlife: For forty days, the light of heaven focused on the land of Israel. It is no wonder this experience changed their lives forever!...Every ounce of evidence for Jesus' resurrection is also evidence for the believer's resurrection." (Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Beyond Death [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1998], pp. 266-267)
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Reformed historicism or Reformed cessationism?
I’m going to briefly discuss the relationship between Reformed historicism and Reformed cessationism. I’m not going to assess the truth or falsity of these positions. Rather, I’m simply interested in their mutual consistency, or lack thereof.
Right now I’m using “cessationist” in the narrow sense of Calvinists who deny the occurrence of postapostolic miracles. Not all cessationists are that extreme. But I’m confining myself to the extreme version.
(I don’t use “extreme” as a pejorative adjective. Sometimes the true position represents a logical extreme.)
Reformed historicism applies various NT prophecies to various events and institutions throughout the course of church history.
I don’t use the adjective “Reformed” to suggest that cessationism or historicism are Reformed distinctives. Rather, I’m referring to a subset of cessationists or historicists who happen to be Reformed.
Calvinists who take this position tend to pride themselves on their strict subscription to the Reformed confessions, catechisms, and creeds, &c.
Let’s begin with a summary of the evidence by Francis Nigel Lee, who is, in his own right, a very traditional, confessional Calvinist:
14. Calvin indicated that though the AD 600 Gregory the Great was the first bishop at Rome to be called sole pope, Gregory himself had regarded that new title as a mark of antichrist! Yet Calvin saw especially the AD 1415 papal burning of Huss as a clear evidence of the antichristian nature of the papacy. On Daniel 12:4ff, Calvin commented in 1561: "At the present time, in the papacy . . . impiety prevails."
15. Calvin especially insisted that both II Thessalonians 2:3ff and I John 2:18 & 4:4ff clearly brand the pope as antichrist. Romanists, said Calvin, were wrong to regard antichrist as a yet-future tyrant who would harass the church for but three and a half years. Even a ten-year-old, stated Calvin, can see that the centuries-long papacy is itself indeed antichrist! Yet the papal "antichrist will be annihilated by the Word of the Lord . . . Paul does not think the Christ will accomplish this in a moment . . . Christ will scatter the darkness . . . before His coming" by "the preaching of this doctrine." For "we fight by Christ’s power, and are armed with God’s weapons . . . We are victorious . . . We can no more be conquered, than can God Himself . . . Victory is certain!"
16. Calvin’s views were expounded in Britain especially by his student John Knox together with the rest of the "six John’s" in the 1560 First Scots Confession. There, the Protestants’ "True Kirk is distinguished from the filthy synagogues" of Romanism. Especially against the latter, the Confession sounds the trumpet blast: "Arise, O Lord, and let Thy enemies be confounded . . . Give Thy servants strength to speak Thy Word in boldness, and let all nations cleave to Thy true knowledge!"
17. The Calvinistic Second Scots Confession of AD 1580 also known as the Scottish National Covenant denounces "all kinds of papistry in general. We detest and refuse the usurped authority of that Roman antichrist. Many are stirred up by Satan and that Roman antichrist to subvert secretly God’s true religion . . . We therefore . . . protest!" Indeed, this Protestant ‘protest’ was effective. For the Preamble to the 1618ff international Calvinistic Decrees of Dordt declared that also in Holland "the Church was delivered by the mighty hand of God from the tyranny of the Romish antichrist and the terrible idolatry of the papacy." Christians were leaving Romanism, Revelation 18:2-4!
18. The 1646 Calvinistic Westminster Confession of Faith denounces "popish monastical vows." It denies "the pope any power or jurisdiction" over magistrates, citing here not only II Thessalonians 2:4 but also the ‘666’ passage of Revelation 13:15-17. It calls "papists . . . idolaters." It describes "the popish sacrifice of the ‘mass’ . . . [as] most abominably injurious to Christ’s one sacrifice." Indeed, it terms "transubstantiation . . . repugnant not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense and reason" and indeed "the cause of manifold superstitions, yea, of gross idolatries."
19. More specifically, the Westminster Confession further insists about deformed churches, that "some have so degenerated as to become synagogues of Satan. Revelation 18:2; Romans 11:18-22 . . . The pope of Rome . . . is that antichrist . . . that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God. Matthew 23:8-10; II Thessalonians 2:3-4, 8-9; Revelation 13:6."
20. Finally, the Calvinistic Westminster Larger Catechism insists that, in the Lord’s Prayer, the petition ‘Thy Kingdom come!’ is a plea for the destruction also of the ecclesiastical antichrist and indeed precisely through the good works of the Spirit-empowered Church as Christ’s own spiritual weapon! "We pray that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in, [and] the Church furnished with all gospel-officers and . . . purged from corruption." Further, "we pray that God would so over-rule the world and all in it that our sanctification and salvation may be perfected [and] Satan trodden under our feet. Romans 16:20!"
http://www.fpcr.org/blue_banner_articles/lee1.html
Before proceeding any further, we should also spell out what some of the NT texts on the Antichrist have to say:
“For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Mt 24:24).
“The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false” (2 Thes 2:9-11).
“It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people” (Rev 13:13).
These passages, and other suchlike, are clearly describing the same general phenomenon. It’s a Scriptural motif.
Several consequences follow from this hermeneutical position:
i) If, a la historicism, we apply these prophecies to the church age, then historicism entails a belief in postapostolic miracles. These are not divine miracles, to be sure. They are demonic or diabolical miracles. But they are still miraculous.
They differ in their source of origin. And the devil, as a finite agent, can’t do whatever God does. But he does enjoy superhuman powers. And he can transfer those powers to demoniacs.
ii) Not only is that true in general, but if we identify the papacy in particular with the Antichrist, then–ironically enough–a Reformed historicist is committed to the occurrence of Catholic miracles. For the pope and his minions would have the same preternatural powers as the Bible ascribes to the Antichrist and his functionaries.
On this view, Catholic miracles would be demonic or diabolical. But they’d be miraculous all the same.
iii) This, in turn generates a dilemma for the confessional Calvinist. You can relieve the contradiction by either ditching confessional historicism, or by ditching confessional cessationism, but I don’t see how you can logically maintain both positions at once.
Right now I’m using “cessationist” in the narrow sense of Calvinists who deny the occurrence of postapostolic miracles. Not all cessationists are that extreme. But I’m confining myself to the extreme version.
(I don’t use “extreme” as a pejorative adjective. Sometimes the true position represents a logical extreme.)
Reformed historicism applies various NT prophecies to various events and institutions throughout the course of church history.
I don’t use the adjective “Reformed” to suggest that cessationism or historicism are Reformed distinctives. Rather, I’m referring to a subset of cessationists or historicists who happen to be Reformed.
Calvinists who take this position tend to pride themselves on their strict subscription to the Reformed confessions, catechisms, and creeds, &c.
Let’s begin with a summary of the evidence by Francis Nigel Lee, who is, in his own right, a very traditional, confessional Calvinist:
14. Calvin indicated that though the AD 600 Gregory the Great was the first bishop at Rome to be called sole pope, Gregory himself had regarded that new title as a mark of antichrist! Yet Calvin saw especially the AD 1415 papal burning of Huss as a clear evidence of the antichristian nature of the papacy. On Daniel 12:4ff, Calvin commented in 1561: "At the present time, in the papacy . . . impiety prevails."
15. Calvin especially insisted that both II Thessalonians 2:3ff and I John 2:18 & 4:4ff clearly brand the pope as antichrist. Romanists, said Calvin, were wrong to regard antichrist as a yet-future tyrant who would harass the church for but three and a half years. Even a ten-year-old, stated Calvin, can see that the centuries-long papacy is itself indeed antichrist! Yet the papal "antichrist will be annihilated by the Word of the Lord . . . Paul does not think the Christ will accomplish this in a moment . . . Christ will scatter the darkness . . . before His coming" by "the preaching of this doctrine." For "we fight by Christ’s power, and are armed with God’s weapons . . . We are victorious . . . We can no more be conquered, than can God Himself . . . Victory is certain!"
16. Calvin’s views were expounded in Britain especially by his student John Knox together with the rest of the "six John’s" in the 1560 First Scots Confession. There, the Protestants’ "True Kirk is distinguished from the filthy synagogues" of Romanism. Especially against the latter, the Confession sounds the trumpet blast: "Arise, O Lord, and let Thy enemies be confounded . . . Give Thy servants strength to speak Thy Word in boldness, and let all nations cleave to Thy true knowledge!"
17. The Calvinistic Second Scots Confession of AD 1580 also known as the Scottish National Covenant denounces "all kinds of papistry in general. We detest and refuse the usurped authority of that Roman antichrist. Many are stirred up by Satan and that Roman antichrist to subvert secretly God’s true religion . . . We therefore . . . protest!" Indeed, this Protestant ‘protest’ was effective. For the Preamble to the 1618ff international Calvinistic Decrees of Dordt declared that also in Holland "the Church was delivered by the mighty hand of God from the tyranny of the Romish antichrist and the terrible idolatry of the papacy." Christians were leaving Romanism, Revelation 18:2-4!
18. The 1646 Calvinistic Westminster Confession of Faith denounces "popish monastical vows." It denies "the pope any power or jurisdiction" over magistrates, citing here not only II Thessalonians 2:4 but also the ‘666’ passage of Revelation 13:15-17. It calls "papists . . . idolaters." It describes "the popish sacrifice of the ‘mass’ . . . [as] most abominably injurious to Christ’s one sacrifice." Indeed, it terms "transubstantiation . . . repugnant not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense and reason" and indeed "the cause of manifold superstitions, yea, of gross idolatries."
19. More specifically, the Westminster Confession further insists about deformed churches, that "some have so degenerated as to become synagogues of Satan. Revelation 18:2; Romans 11:18-22 . . . The pope of Rome . . . is that antichrist . . . that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God. Matthew 23:8-10; II Thessalonians 2:3-4, 8-9; Revelation 13:6."
20. Finally, the Calvinistic Westminster Larger Catechism insists that, in the Lord’s Prayer, the petition ‘Thy Kingdom come!’ is a plea for the destruction also of the ecclesiastical antichrist and indeed precisely through the good works of the Spirit-empowered Church as Christ’s own spiritual weapon! "We pray that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in, [and] the Church furnished with all gospel-officers and . . . purged from corruption." Further, "we pray that God would so over-rule the world and all in it that our sanctification and salvation may be perfected [and] Satan trodden under our feet. Romans 16:20!"
http://www.fpcr.org/blue_banner_articles/lee1.html
Before proceeding any further, we should also spell out what some of the NT texts on the Antichrist have to say:
“For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Mt 24:24).
“The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false” (2 Thes 2:9-11).
“It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people” (Rev 13:13).
These passages, and other suchlike, are clearly describing the same general phenomenon. It’s a Scriptural motif.
Several consequences follow from this hermeneutical position:
i) If, a la historicism, we apply these prophecies to the church age, then historicism entails a belief in postapostolic miracles. These are not divine miracles, to be sure. They are demonic or diabolical miracles. But they are still miraculous.
They differ in their source of origin. And the devil, as a finite agent, can’t do whatever God does. But he does enjoy superhuman powers. And he can transfer those powers to demoniacs.
ii) Not only is that true in general, but if we identify the papacy in particular with the Antichrist, then–ironically enough–a Reformed historicist is committed to the occurrence of Catholic miracles. For the pope and his minions would have the same preternatural powers as the Bible ascribes to the Antichrist and his functionaries.
On this view, Catholic miracles would be demonic or diabolical. But they’d be miraculous all the same.
iii) This, in turn generates a dilemma for the confessional Calvinist. You can relieve the contradiction by either ditching confessional historicism, or by ditching confessional cessationism, but I don’t see how you can logically maintain both positions at once.
Reppert on God's Father
It is interesting to note that Reppert has claimed that:
1. The Calvinist God might very well be a devil.
and
2. He has also claimed that God could be a liar.
However, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).
1. The Calvinist God might very well be a devil.
and
2. He has also claimed that God could be a liar.
However, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).
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