Potential Objections To The Immediacy Of Justification

I've written before about the Biblical theme of the nearness of redemption, the concept that you can be justified at any moment through a means you always have access to. That theme is inconsistent with baptismal regeneration and every other form of justification through works.

But somebody could raise an objection along the lines that what these passages (2 Corinthians 6:2, etc.) are addressing is the nearness of starting the process of getting justified, not obtaining justification itself. There are some problems with that view.

How Baptismal Justification Conflicts With The Nearness Of Redemption

The concept that salvation is at hand, often expressed by the phrase "Today is the day of salvation", is common in scripture (2 Corinthians 6:2, Hebrews 4:7) and Evangelicalism. In the first of the two passages just cited, we see not just the term "today", but even "now". In Romans 10:8, Paul writes of the nearness of redemption in a context in which faith is mentioned as the means of justification without any reference to baptism or people sent to baptize (whereas people sent to proclaim the gospel message are mentioned). Tertullian advocated justification through baptism, but conceded that "in days gone by, there was salvation by means of bare faith, before the passion and resurrection of the Lord" (On Baptism, 13). Cyril of Jerusalem, one of the church fathers who used highly efficacious language both when discussing faith prior to baptism and when discussing baptism, commented, "Die to thy sins, and live to righteousness, live from this very day….Say not, How are my sins blotted out? I tell thee, By willing, by believing. What can be shorter than this?" (Catechetical Lectures, Prologue, 5, 8) A line of a popular hymn tells us, "The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives" (Fanny Crosby, "To God Be The Glory"). That theme doesn't go well with the concept of justification through baptism, however. Under baptismal justification, not only are we not justified the moment we believe, but we often have to wait until a baptism days, weeks, or months later.

All These Things Accrued To Us Through His Poverty

"Then he proceeds afterwards to the head and crown of his persuasion. 'For ye know the grace of our Lord, that though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.' [2 Corinthians 8:9] 'For have in mind,' says he, 'ponder and consider the grace of God and do not lightly pass it by, but aim at realizing the greatness of it both as to extent and nature, and thou wilt grudge nothing of thine. He emptied Himself of His glory that ye, not through His riches but through His poverty, might be rich. If thou believest not that poverty is productive of riches, have in mind thy Lord and thou wilt doubt no longer. For had He not become poor, thou wouldest not have become rich. For this is the marvel, that poverty hath made riches rich.' And by riches here he meaneth the knowledge of godliness, the cleansing away of sins, justification, sanctification, the countless good things which He bestowed upon us and purposeth to bestow. And all these things accrued to us through His poverty. What poverty? Through His taking flesh on Him and becoming man and suffering what He suffered. And yet He owed not this, but thou dost owe to Him." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Second Corinthians, 17:1)

A most unlikely revival

The following is from the foreword of Greg Beale's little book Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom:

Easter Resources 2020

I've been posting a collection of Easter resources each year for about a decade:

2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019

There's an archive of our posts with the Easter label here. And you can search for posts with other labels by replacing the word Easter in the URL with another phrase (Resurrection, Empty Tomb, Cross, etc.). Keep clicking on Older Posts at the bottom of the screen to see more posts.

We've written some e-books that address Easter issues. See the e-books section of the sidebar to the right.

A few years ago, I posted a collection of articles on skeptical myths about the church fathers. Many of those articles address Easter issues.

Here are some examples of posts we've written on Easter subjects over the years:

Miracles On Video
Easter Prophecy Fulfillment
Resurrection Evidence Outside The New Testament
Early Non-Extant Documents On The Resurrection
Evidence For The Empty Tomb
Early Affirmation Of The Empty Tomb From Gentile Non-Christians
Jesus' Burial And Empty Tomb Outside The Gospels And Acts
Evidence For The Shroud Of Turin
Fifty Agreements Among The Resurrection Accounts
The Consistencies Among The Resurrection Accounts In 1 Corinthians 15, The Gospels, And Acts
The Restrained Nature Of The Resurrection Accounts
The Contrast Between The Prominence Of Female Witnesses In Luke And Their Lack Of Prominence In Acts
Alleged Errors And Contradictions In The Resurrection Accounts
Harmonizing The Resurrection Accounts
The Context In Which The Gospels Were Composed
How Early The Synoptics And Acts Were Written
The Authorship Of Matthew
The Authorship Of Mark
The Authorship Of Luke And Acts
The Authorship Of John
The Authorship Of The Pauline Letters (see the comments section)
The Historicity Of Acts
Easter Material Corroborated In The Letters Of Peter
Why It's Significant That The Earliest Sources Don't Narrate The Resurrection Appearance To James
Evidence That Saul Of Tarsus Saw Jesus Risen From The Dead
The Spiritual Body Of 1 Corinthians 15
Why Didn't The Risen Jesus Appear To More And Different People?
Why Doesn't Jesus Appear To Everybody?
Matthew 27:52-53
How The Apostles Died
How To Make A Case For The Resurrection
Independent, Converging Lines Of Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection
What If Alleged Miracles, Like Jesus' Resurrection, Were Caused By A Currently Unknown Natural Process?
Miracles In The Modern World
Reviews Of Debates On Jesus' Resurrection

After the 2019 Easter Resources post linked above, Steve Hays linked an article on astronomical evidence for the date of the crucifixion. Here's something I wrote about Jesus' fulfillment of the first three Servant Songs in Isaiah. Steve presented an argument for penal substitution based on the events surrounding Jesus' death. I wrote a post addressing the common claim that the guards at the tomb, people touching Jesus' resurrection body, and other such details in the resurrection accounts were fabricated in an attempt to make the resurrection seem more credible. Steve linked a video of Darrell Bock and Gary Habermas discussing the evidence for the resurrection and its implications. He also posted some Good Friday artwork and music (here, here, here, here, and here). And he posted a satirical video about the regulative principle of worship and Easter. I wrote about the significance of prophecy fulfillment in the context of Easter. Steve responded to a skeptic of the resurrection. His response addresses Paul's view of the resurrection, the empty tomb, and a lot of other issues. I wrote about how the gospels are corroborated in the letters of Peter. The post addresses the crucifixion, the empty tomb, whether the author of the letters claims to have been a resurrection witness, and other issues related to Easter. Steve wrote about the appearance of Jesus to Paul on the road to Damascus, the nature of the appearance and the evidence for it. Later, he posted some excerpts from a book about the resurrection of the Servant in Isaiah 52-53. In another post, he addressed the light motif in scripture and how it relates to resurrection. He later discussed the passages in John 20 that refer to Jesus appearing to people after the door where they were had been locked. He also wrote about the implications of idealism for Jesus' death and resurrection. I made some suggestions about how we should argue for prophecy fulfillment, such as by using the Servant Songs to argue for fulfillment in the modern world. Steve linked an article by Gary Habermas on how Jewish scholars have viewed Jesus' resurrection. I wrote about some connections between Easter and Christmas in Isaiah's Servant Songs. Steve posted about a recent book by Lydia McGrew, and he commented on some issues related to Easter in the process. He then commented on John 20 and whether and how the resurrected Jesus walked through walls. He also linked a video by Michael Brown about Matthew 27:52-53. I expanded on the theme of light in the gospels, in connection with Jesus seeing himself as the light of Isaiah's Servant Songs. Steve addressed some alleged contradictions among the gospel accounts about the women who went to Jesus' tomb and, in another post, the women at the cross. I wrote about video evidence for miracles, which is relevant to disputes over the possibility of miracles and what evidence we have for them. The post discusses some of the principles involved in evaluating miracle claims and the significance of video evidence, and I provide links to some online videos of miracles. Steve quoted Lydia McGrew on the earliest evidence for the resurrection. He also quoted her on the subject of harmonizing the resurrection accounts.

Bishop Barron's inclusivism

Ben Shapiro asks Bishop Robert Barron about salvation according to Catholicism. I don't recall Shapiro asking William Lane Craig or Ravi Zacharias this question, but it's possible I missed it. Shapiro may have asked John MacArthur, but I didn't watch that episode.

What’s the Catholic view on who gets into heaven and who doesn’t? I feel like I lead a pretty good life - a very religiously based life - in which I try to keep, not just the ten commandments, but a solid 603 other commandments as well. And I spend an awful lot of my time promulgating what I would consider to be Judeo-Christian virtues, particularly in Western societies. So, what’s the Catholic view of me? Am I basically screwed here?

No surprise Barron gives a terribly unbiblical response:

No. The Catholic view - go back to the Second Vatican Council - says it very clearly. I mean Christ is the privileged route to salvation. "God so loved the world he gave his only Son that we might find eternal life." So that’s the privileged route.

However, Vatican II clearly teaches that someone outside the explicit Christian faith can be saved. Now, they’re saved through the grace of Christ, indirectly received. So the grace is coming from Christ. But it might be received according to your conscience. So if you’re following your conscience sincerely - or in your case you’re following the commandments of the law sincerely - yeah, you can be saved.

Now, that doesn’t conduce to a complete relativism. We still would say the privileged route - the route that God has offered to humanity - is the route of his Son.

But, no, you can be saved. Even Vatican II says an atheist of good will can be saved, because in following his conscience, if he does - John Henry Newman said the conscience is "the aboriginal vicar of Christ in the soul" (it's a very interesting characterization) - it is, in fact, the voice of Christ if he is the Logos made flesh, right? He's the divine mind or reason made flesh. So when I'm following my conscience I'm following him, whether I know it explicitly or not. So even the atheist, Vatican II teaches, "of good will", can be saved.

Just a brief response for now:

1. Why bother becoming a Catholic if what Barron says is true. Heck, why bother becoming a theist if what Barron says is true.

2. Barron equivocates between "following one's conscience" and "following the commandments of the law". The two aren't necessarily the same. Especially if we're referring to the 613 commandments in rabbinic Judaism. It's not as if a non-Jew's conscience (however "intact" it may be) would necessarily tell him to follow kosher laws, observe Shabbat, and wear a tallit with tzitzit.

At best, I think, conscience might coincide with the Noahide laws, but even that's hardly a given. Does a pagan's conscience necessarily tell them not to worship an idol? Doesn't a good Buddhist (Mahayana) think he's doing right by his conscience in what he does for Buddha? Doesn't a good Muslim have a clear conscience when worshiping Allah? Yet post-Vatican II Catholicism even accepts that good people in other religions can be saved.

Or take the prohibition against murder. One could be a good communist who believes murder is wrong, but who doesn't consider killing the bourgeoisie "murder". One could be a modern American progressive Catholic who believes murder is wrong, but who doesn't think abortion is murder. That's not what their conscience tells them.

3. Perhaps Barron would reply these people have a seared conscience. A good conscience would have to align with biblical morality. But how far does that go? Wouldn't a Catholic in Barron's vein accept that worshiping a false god could somehow be done unto the true God? Similar to how Emeth in The Last Battle worshiped Tash. Yet biblical ethics would say that'd be a clear violation of the ten commandments.

4. I don't follow how Christ being the Word (Logos) made flesh means our conscience is "the voice of Christ". I don't doubt God could well speak to us through our conscience. I could even agree with Barron's conclusion that a good conscience is God's voice. However I don't see what this has to do with Christ being the Logos.

5. Of course, much turns on the phrase "of good will". What does that mean exactly? Who decides? I suspect much of this turns on Catholic natural law. All this would suggest severe faultlines in Catholic inclusivist soteriology, but I'd have to do a lengthier post about all this.

From son of Sam to son of God

https://world.wng.org/2020/01/finding_life_in_a_life_sentence

Demons are real and Jesus saves

The power of the word

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world." (John 4:39-42)

1. I suppose this is the difference between a friend telling you about Jesus vs. you coming to know Jesus yourself. Roughly speaking, this seems to illustrate knowledge by description vs. knowledge by acquaintance.

2. A person can see all the facts and evidences for Christianity and even intellectually assent to belief in Christianity. Take many people who grew up in Christian households. However that's not the same as a person coming to trust and commit themselves to the one, true, and living God, who is the God of the Bible. Consider Bethan Lloyd-Jones' testimony:

[Martyn Lloyd-Jones'] own wife had come into a state of concern and conviction. Having attended church and prayer meetings from childhood, Bethan Lloyd-Jones had always believed that she was a Christian. Not until she heard Martyn preach for the first time (on his second visit to Sandfields in December 1926) was she confronted, in his sermon on Zacchaeus, with an insistence that all men are equally in need of salvation from sin. The message shook her, even frightened her, and she almost resented the teaching which appeared to place her in the same condition as those who had no religion at all. In a sense she had always feared God; her life was upright, and yet she knew that she had no personal consciousness of the forgiveness of sins, no sense of inward joyful communion with Christ. In Mrs Lloyd-Jones' own words:

I was for two years under Martyn's ministry before I really understood what the gospel was. I used to listen to him on Sunday morning and I used to feel, Well, if this is Christianity I don't really know anything about it. On Sunday night I used to pray that somebody would be converted; I thought you had to be a drunkard or a prostitute to be converted. I remember how I used to rejoice to see drunkards become Christians and envy them with all my heart, because there they were full of joy and free, and here I was in such a different condition.

I recall sitting in the study at 57 Victoria Road and I was unhappy. I suppose it was conviction. I felt a burden of sin, and I shall always remember Martyn saying, as he looked through his books, 'Read this!' He gave me John Angell James' The Anxious Enquirer Directed. I have never forgotten what I read in that book. It showed me how wrong was the idea that my sin could be greater than the merit of the blood of Christ - his death was well able to clear all my sins away. There, at last, I found release and I was so happy.

(Iain Murray. The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones: 1899-1981, p 110.)

3. Many people read the Bible but the Bible is a dead book to them. It's no different than reading other ancient texts like Homer, Thucydides, Virgil, Suetonius, the Bhagavad Gita, Norse mythology, the Quran, etc. They might believe in its general historical reliability, that it teaches good morals like loving our neighbors, and so on, but ultimately the Bible isn't any different from other books.

However, on Christianity, the Bible is not a dead book, but a living book: "For the word of God is living and active..." (Heb 4:12). The problem isn't the Bible, but the problem is the person. Their spiritual dullness or deadness: stony hearts. Their spiritual blindness: they see but do not truly see. Their spiritual deafness: they have no ears to hear.

God the Father

I descend from a line of addicts, dropouts, felons, & cultists.

I grew up dirt poor above a bar.

Prostitutes serviced their Johns outside my window.

I got expelled from high school my freshmen year & arrested several times.

I was following the path of family.

But God...

— Michael Foster (@thisisfoster) May 16, 2019

..called me to Himself through the simple preaching of the gospel by some no-name evangelist.

One day I was an atheist, the next day a Christian.

God the Father brought be me into His household and gave me a new family line.

There now was a fork in the Foster family line.

— Michael Foster (@thisisfoster) May 16, 2019

Becoming a godly patriarch begins with submiting to the rule of the Father from which all fatherhood derives its name (Eph 3:15).

He works powerfully by His Spirit in His children.

I am not my father. I am becoming like my Father.

And that has changed everything.

— Michael Foster (@thisisfoster) May 16, 2019

The journey within a journey

Life as a journey is a familiar and fundamental metaphor. And the Christian pilgrimage is a variation on that metaphor. But the familiarity of the metaphor may obscure the multiple dimensions of the metaphor. It operates on at least two levels. There's the individual level. Everyone is on a personal journey. Each life is a journey. It has a starting line, course, and finish line. 

But at another level, all of us are born into a journey. Born on the road. Like a caravan that left long before we were born. It will arrive at the final destination long after we die. We find ourselves born in the course an ongoing trek. We immediately take our place in the caravan. Many have gone before. Aging pilgrims tell us the old old story of the original embarkment. And they tell us where we're headed.

When we're born into the world, we have no idea what to expect. For all we know, the world might be unrecognizably different than it is. Think of science fiction and fantasy movies and novels about surreal worlds. Suppose you were parachuted into one of those mind-bending landscapes. That would be utterly disorienting. And even those are severely limited by the provincial, earthbound experience of the human authors. 

We must discover what reality is like. We don't know in advance. Try to remember what it's like to see the world through a baby's eyes. To be bathed in warm water by a loving mother. Or nursed. Or see a butterfly for the first time. 

After we get used to it, it's easier to take for granted, as if it had to be that way. But what if it hadn't been that way? What if we were born into a world far stranger or far worse? 

If we're lucky, we learn that reality had to have certain parameters. It couldn't be just any way. It had to have a God. 

However, we're confronted with competing narratives. The Biblical backstory and counter narratives–as well as rival narratives about the destination. Guides who misdirect us. 

In Hebrews 11 we see a journey within a journey. A procession of pilgrims on their way to the unseen country. Each has his own pilgrimage, from beginning to end. Then there's the overarching journey of the procession itself. That was written 2000 years ago. But the caravan continues, as we pick up where they left off. And we will hand it off to the next generation, when we reach the unseen country, one by one, while they retrace our steps. 

When are we saved?

When are we saved? That's an important question. Is there a simple or single answer to that question? What's the benchmark? 

1. In traditional Catholicism/Lutheranism/Anglicanism, there's a sense in which you are saved when you are baptized. That's the benchmark. I reject that paradigm, for reasons I've given on multiple occasions. 

2. In popular evangelism, it's customary to say that you are saved when you are converted. That's the benchmark. On one definition, that's a useful answer. But there are limitations to that answer:

i) What about lifelong Christians? They don't have a conversion experience. They were believers for as long as they can remember.

ii) Moreover, to equate salvation with conversion doesn't explain why conversion saves you. 

3. Here's a deeper explanation: to be saved means that if you were to die at that moment, you'd go to heaven. In a sense, that shifts the benchmark to the moment of death rather than the moment of conversion. 

4. However, that explanation has complications. Freewill theists generally believe that you can lose your salvation. Ben Witherington likes to say that you're not eternally secure until you're secure in eternity. So a freewill theist might distinguish between getting saved and saved for good–or final salvation. 

So the answer depends on where you put the benchmark: conversion or final salvation. On one definition, you are saved when you begin going down the heavenbound road. On another definition, you are saved when you arrive at the heavenly destination. 

5. Here's a variation on the same metaphor: before you got saved, you were on a hellbound road. Getting saved is turning off the hellbound road and turning onto the heavenbound road. 

But in traditional freewill theism, once you get onto the heavenbound road, there are exits back to the hellbound road. 

6. There are some freewill theists who don't think you can lose your salvation (e.g. Charles Ryrie, Charles Stanley, Zane Hodges). 

7. You also have freewill theists who believe in postmortem conversion. Both roads extend into the afterlife. You can die on the hellbound road, but after death, take the exit to heaven. So that relocates the benchmark to a postmortem setting. 

8. For their part, Calvinists sometimes debate whether the elect undergo a transition from wrath to grace. Prior to regeneration and justification, were the elect under God's wrath? Put another way, were they lost prior to regeneration and justification? In Calvinism, what's the benchmark for salvation? 

9. Reverting to the metaphor of the journey, prior to regeneration/justification, the elect are on road leading to hell. And if they continued in that direction until they died, they'd be damned. When they are regenerated/justified, they exit onto the heavenbound road. 

You might say they were lost in the sense that if they maintained the initial trajectory, they'd end up in hell. That's the end of the road they started down. 

Or to vary the metaphor, in order to be saved, in the sense of reaching heaven, they must pass through various checkpoints along the way. Mountains to cross and rivers to ford. If they were to drop out of the race before negotiating the necessary checkpoints, they'd be damned. 

10. However, in the case of the elect, the hellbound trajectory or hellbound destination is hypothetical. Even if they started out in the wrong direction, they were predestined to turn off the hellbound road and turn onto the heavenbound road. Athough they haven't arrived at the heavenly destination, that outcome is inevitable. 

So in what sense were they lost–or were they? To vary the metaphor, suppose a father takes his young son hiking. At one point the son wanders off and loses his way. He doesn't know how to get back. He doesn't know the right direction.

However, the father is watching his son the whole time from a hill. He can see his son on the trail. 

The boy is hopelessly lost in the sense that the boy can't find his way back on his own. But in another sense the son was never lost because his father is his guide even when he can't see his father. While the son lost track of his dad, his dad never lost track of his son. The boy was always safe–under his father's watchful gaze. 

What is salvation?

There are different concepts of salvation. How we define salvation is crucial to the vision and mission of the church. 

1. Alienation from nature

According to secular environmentalism, humans are simply animals. Technology alienates humans from their natural surroundings. In addition, technology upsets the balance of nature. Humans become too dominant and destructive to the ecosystem. 

"Salvation" is to regain our sense of where we belong in the natural order. Our place. 

To sacrifice human flourishing for the common good of the ecosphere.

2. Escape from divine punishment

In traditional theology, one of God's duties is to punish wrongdoers. That's what makes God a just God.

In liberal theology, a punitive God is unthinkable. The doors of hell are locked from the inside. 

3. Divine alienation

It's common to say man is alienated from God. More controversial is to say there's a sense in which sin alienates God from man. In liberal theology, the impediment to fellowship is entirely at man's end, not God's end. 

4. Deliverance from death and physical impairment 

That awaits the afterlife

5. Emancipation from demonic influence

Especially in cultures dominated by witchcraft. 

6. Deliverance from destructive passion

Reason is often the slave of passion. Unbridled passion destroys relationships. Results in violence.  

7. Deliverance from depression, self-loathing, and mental illness

Sometimes that happens in this life although complete healing may await the afterlife.

8. Escape from the wheel of reincarnation

According to Hinduism and Buddhism

9. The state becomes the church

In secular ideology, the state saves humans from their destructive and self-destructive impulses. 

Hostile testimony

An irony in the Gospels is that sometimes the disciples misunderstand Jesus, and sometimes his enemies misunderstand Jesus, but sometimes his enemies are quicker to pick up on what he means than his disciples. 

There's a sense in which it's possible to agree with Jesus too soon. Where premature agreement is a way of keeping Jesus at a safe distance. 

The enemies of Jesus took him more seriously than some of his followers. They were quicker to discern that he posed a threat to what they represented. Sometimes, if a reader reflexively agrees with a statement in the Gospels, that means he didn't let the message get in. He simply greets it at the door. Shakes hands. Then shuts the door–with the message standing outside on the porch. That's why hostile testimony can have a particular value. 

Soldier of Christ

http://www.dennyburk.com/soldier-of-christ/

Shades of faith

In Reformed soteriology, there are some clearcut groups of people. The primary distinction is between elect and reprobate. That's fixed. 

An overlapping distinction is between regenerate and unregenerate. It's overlapping because election and regeneration go back to God's timeless choice, whereas regeneration occurs in time. The elect can be regenerated at different stages of life. Unlike election and reprobation, regeneration is fluid in that respect. 

There are other related, generally clearcut distinctions. You have a group of people who live and die outside the pale of the Gospel. You have another group who are devoted to atheism. Likewise, you have a group who consciously repudiate the Christian faith.

There is, though, an in-between group, or type of group. For instance:

Since Christian faith is primarily trust rather than intellectual mastery, even a young child can give a credible profession. In judging what is credible leaders must take into account the capacities of the one who is expressing faith. 

For very young children, the children’s response to their parents is the primary avenue for expressing their relation to God. Parents represent God to their children, by virtue of their authority, their responsibilities, and their role as a channel for God’s blessings. Children first learn what God is like primarily through their parents’ love and discipline. The Fatherhood of God is represented through a good human father. God’s forgiveness of sins is represented primarily through the parents’ forgiveness and patience towards their children. 

http://frame-poythress.org/linking-small-children-with-infants-in-the-theology-of-baptizing/

Although Poythress is referring to young children, the principle raises questions about analogous situations. If a parent, especially a Christian parent, can be a temporary stand-in for God or Christ, and if trusting a parent is implicit faith or vicarious faith, then can some adults, who are not professing Christians, be saved indirectly because a Christian friend or family member subliminally represents Christ to them and for them? 

They are the closest that some people come to Jesus. Insofar as that they love, trust, and admire their Christian friend or family member, and do so in part for his Christian virtues and graces, are they believing in Jesus via a Christian representative? Does he stand for Christ in their affections, even if they don't consciously make that connection? 

There are certain passages where believing in or acting on behalf of a Christian representative is equivalent to believing in or acting for Jesus:

The King will reply, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" (Mt 25:40). 

The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me (Lk 10:16). 

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me (Jn 13:20).

Unlike inclusivism, which cuts the nerve of evangelism, this still depends on a Christian witness and Christian presence. 

Some people, due to social conditioning, have a tremendous impediment to Christian faith. An impediment they never entirely overcome. Are there situations where a Christian friend or relative forms the bridge? What I've discussed is too speculative to furnish a firm answer. It may be enough to give reason for hope, but not enough for confidence. 

That Hideous Strength

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/conversion-in-c-s-lewis-that-hideous-strength

Pointless Prayer

As a Calvinist, I’ve lost track of the number of times someone has said to me, “If God is sovereign, there’s no point in praying.” Of course, the immediate rejoinder is obvious: “Only if God is not sovereign is there no point in praying.” Still, the typical meaning behind the statement seems to be, “If God has determined everything that will happen, then it’s pointless to pray because God has already made up His mind about what will happen.”

I think it’s time to turn the tables though. Especially regarding Arminians who pray for the salvation of other people. Indeed, not only do I think these prayers are utterly pointless, but if God really is the God that Arminians imagine, then such prayers demonstrate an utter lack of faith in Him.

I make that claim due to the following claims that Arminians—at least those I’ve interacted with—have asserted. First, Arminians claim that God loves every person everywhere with a universal and benevolent love. Second, Arminians claim that God wants every single individual person ever created to be saved. Third, only those who freely choose can believe in Him; God does not want robots.

So given these claims, it becomes fairly straightforward to demonstrate that it is futile for an Arminian to pray for the salvation of anyone. The most obvious way is by looking at the third claim. Since God wants us to be free and He does not want robots, what exactly is the prayer supposed to accomplish? Is the Arminian praying that God violate someone’s freewill? Obviously not. But what, precisely, is the prayer for salvation supposed to do?

Perhaps it is designed to ask God to bring about more opportunities for someone to be saved. Let’s examine that for a moment. Suppose an Arminian has a friend we’ll call Jim Bob, and the Arminian prays “Lord, I ask you to bring about more opportunities for Jim Bob to be saved.” But doesn’t God already want everyone saved? And if He does, why does He need you to prompt Him to try extra hard in Jim Bob’s case? Is He not already doing all that He can for Jim Bob?

Or look at it this way. Jim Bob and Billie Sue are both unsaved individuals. If you pray for Jim Bob to be saved, but not Billie Sue (because you’ve never met her and don’t know she exists), does this make it more likely for Jim Bob to be saved than Billie Sue? Does God give more attention to Jim Bob than Billie Sue? Certainly God doesn’t love Jim Bob more than Billie Sue, because of the first claim of Arminianism that God loves all universally.

So what, precisely, does the Arminian’s prayer accomplish when he prays for Jim Bob? God was acting toward Jim Bob in a specific manner before the prayer, and according to Arminian precepts, He acts in the exact same manner after the prayer too. Not only that, but God was acting the same way toward Billie Sue too. Thus, such a prayer is completely ineffectual. It accomplishes absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Except it’s worse than that for the Arminian. It’s not so much that such a prayer accomplishes nothing, but rather that it accomplishes the proclamation that the Arminian does not actually believe in Arminianism! After all, what would prompt an Arminian to pray for Jim Bob except that he doubts God really loves everyone with the same universal and benevolent love? In short, by praying for Jim Bob, the Arminian is ultimately saying, “God, I don’t really think you love everyone the same, so please save Jim Bob.”

Of course, I would anticipate an Arminian to say, “No, we believe God wants all saved, but we are just lifting up that request for Jim Bob in particular for…reasons.” Well, in that case, the Arminian is not mimicking the God he claims is real, for the Arminian is being very particular in asking salvation for one person and not for another. But that aside, the Arminian would be asking God to do…what God is already doing. This seems to me to fly in the face of Matthew 6:8, which in the ESV states: “Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” The “them” in the first clause is the Gentiles who “heap up empty phrases” in their prayers: “Lord, I ask you to please keep doing what you’re doing that I know you’re going to be doing whether I ask or not but I’m going to ask it anyway because this is in no way a heaped-up empty phrase.”

After all, it’s not like Arminians can use the Calvinist concept of God ordaining the means as well as the ends. See, a Calvinist can argue that God uses the means of prayer in order to enact His will, choosing to not do something until He has moved His people to pray for it. Hence, the means to the end are established. But that doesn’t work for the Arminian here, because God is going to love everyone universally and He is going to want all saved and He is going to do all He can without violating their free will, irrespective of what anyone prays.

Or do Arminians really think that God would have saved Jim Bob if only we had prayed for him, but since we didn’t pray for Jim Bob then Jim Bob never got the chance to believe? Really? God’s going to withhold salvation for a person because someone else failed?

No, any way you look at it, the conclusion resounds: Every time an Arminian prays for anyone to be saved, he has torn down the foundation of his own worldview and proclaims that he knows in his heart that Calvinism is true.

To hell and back

Predictably, John Loftus tries to make hay of David Wood's conversion story. This begins with feigning shock. He's shocked! Or so he says (twice!). Is Loftus really that naive about the ways of the world?

He descends into the subway as he tells his dark past. Then he emerges topside when describing his conversion.

That plays on Plato's allegory of the cave as well as Dante's Inferno. In addition, Victor Reppert thinks the subway is based on the Green Witch incident in the Lewis's Silver Chair. 

http://cslewisjrrtolkien.classicalautographs.com/cslewis/bookexcerpts/silverchair.html 

For anyone who thinks my deconversion story away from faith is a bit shocking (it isn't much at all) just compare David's conversion story towards faith, as seen in the video link below. If someone wants to discount my deconversion story due to my personal experiences, then how much more should they discount David's conversion story due to his personal experiences. After all, if personal experiences led us each to adopt different conclusions about God, then the personal experiences leading me to change my mind pale by comparison to his. 

That's such a simpleminded contention. Who says experience has no bearing on truth-claims? What about the argument from religious experience? 

There's no uniform principle here. It depends on the nature of the experiences and the inferences we draw from that experience. 

If David adopted his faith due to the experiences he describes in the video--experiences which show him to be an irrational angry young man--then how rational could this irrational angry young man have been when he adopting his faith at that time?

i) To the contrary, David explains that he was striving to be a rationally consistent atheist. Since atheism entails moral and existential nihilism, that implicates a behavioral counterpart.

At the same time, David explains that atheism generates an insoluble dilemma. How can you be a rationally consistent atheist when atheism is irrational at rock bottom?

ii) There's also the question of mental illness. David mentions, at the time, his mom's abusive boyfriend and a dad who was living out of town (or out of state). If I were going to play armchair psychologist, I'd suggest his social alienation and imaginary social life (e.g. communicating with animals) was a defense mechanism which took the form of dissociation. 

iii) BTW, some abilities he said he thought he had at the time (telepathic communication with animals, controlling the weather) are things I've read about in connection with witchcraft among Eskimos and Africans. He may have been off his rocker, but there may also be an occultic element to it. That's not the first explanation I'd reach for in his case, but I know next to nothing about his childhood. 

iv) Another question is how representative "sociopathology"  is in the general population. For instance, Vikings is a popular TV drama. Yet the characters do on a regular basis what David did on one occasion. Hacking old men, women, and children to death. 

And even though that's fictional, throughout history you have many men who get a thrill out of killing people. They kill people for fun. And not just killing, but doing so in the most brutal ways they can imagine or devise. 

Fact is, a sociopathic streak lies just beneath the sociable facade of many humans–especially men. It doesn't take much provocation to bring that to the surface. It's a question of whether people think they can get away with it. Look at warrior cultures. Look at all the atrocities committed around the world, past and present. 

A Christian can chalk that up to original sin. A Darwinist can chalk that up to our predatory animal ancestry. 

If atheists succeed in secularizing our culture, we may well revert to the unbridled savagery of our pre-Christian forebears. There will no longer be a moral or spiritual restraint on our baser impulses. 

Aside from what I've said above, consider three more sets of questions: 1) With such a past how damaged of a person do you think David is? Would you like to be married to him (or work with him) and have a fight that most close people do?

I've never felt the slightest inclination to marry another man. 

2) How likely is it David would return to his former hatred and behavior if he rejected his faith now at a later age?

In other words, if David reverted to atheism, with its moral and existential nihilism, would he take that more seriously than Loftus?

The Eternity of Hell-Torments

By the late great evangelist:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/whitefield/sermons.xxviii.html