A monkey's uncle?

[Quote] Their remarkable progress led to a vast, ambitious vision: to spell out the full complement of genes in the human genome. As Walter Gilbert of Harvard University put it, “The search for this ‘Holy Grail’ of who we are has now reached its culminating phase. The ultimate goal is the acquisition of all the details of our genome.”

This astonishing achievement has indeed transformed our view of ourselves, but not in the way that was anticipated. The first surprise was that there were so few genes. Rather than the predicted 100,000 or more, the finally tally of about 25,000 was very puzzling, and all the more so when compared with the genomes of other animals much simpler than ourselves. There are about 17,000 genes in a fruit fly and about 26,000 in a sea urchin. Many species of plants have far more genes than we do–rice has about 38,000, for example.

In 2001, the director of the chimpanzee genome project, Svante Paabo, anticipated that when the sequencing of the ape’s genome was completed, it would be possible to identify “the profoundly interesting genetic prerequisites that make us different from other animals.” When the complete chimpanzee sequence was published four years later, his interpretation was more muted: “We cannot see in this why we are so different from chimpanzees.”

In the wake of the Human Genome Project, the mood has changed dramatically. The old assumption that life would be understood if molecular biologists knew the “program” of an organism is giving way to a realization that there is a huge gap between gene sequences and the way living organisms grow and behave.

R. Sheldrake, Morphic Resonance (Park Street Press 2009), xvi-xviii.

Jeremy Pierce on Reformed theodicy

[Responding to Victor Reppert]:

Jeremy Pierce said...

There are two key claims in the argument:

1. God's reasons are all reducible to acting for his glory.

2. Everyone deserves far worse than they get in this life.

I can think of one influential Calvinist who holds the first claim to be true, John Piper. I don't see how it's essential to Calvinism. In fact, plenty of Calvinists don't want to engage in that kind of reductionism of all of God's motivations to that one motive. They're happy to put God's love on part with God's pursuit of his own glory. (They won't make it more fundamental, or they'd be denying some clear statements in scripture.)

But I think you can run the argument without claim (1). Doesn't the argument fully work as long as everyone deserves worse than they get in this life? And isn't that something all (non-Pelagian) Christians should believe, given that we are all being given grace not to go to hell immediately and forever? There's nothing particularly Calvinist about that.

I'm not sure it's right to say this dissolves the problem of evil, either. What it does is provide an explanation for why God allows evil. Why isn't that just another theodicy? Or does any theodicy dissolve the problem of evil?

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/10/calvinism-as-eliminativist-solution-to.html#c4442577332664627407

Gordon, you have to keep in mind what it is to give God glory. It's not that his glory increases or anything like that. God receiving the glory is just people recognizing that God is good.

If God is the most perfect being possible, and all goodness comes from God, then God receiving the glory is just recognition of goodness wherever it is and acknowledgment of God as the source. This includes recognizing that a human being is intrinsically good and seeking the person's good because of it.

So the kind of love you have in mind is not just compatible with the things Piper says. It's guaranteed by it. God's glory requires God to appreciate the intrinsic goodness in every part of his creation. Piper's premises require that.

So I don't think Piper's view eliminates love for created beings at all. I don't think his way of stating things is helpful communicatively, and I'm not sure I want to put God's glory at foundation with nothing else at that level of explanation, but I don't think Piper's view can fairly be accused of implying that God can only love himself.

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/10/calvinism-as-eliminativist-solution-to.html#c801719815818943772

Barqueing up the wrong tree

Francis J. Beckwith said...

“Is it just me, but why is that there has never been a great Calvinist saint on par with Augustine, Aquinas, or John Paul II? When I think of Reformed theology, holiness and love do not jump out at me.”

i) That’s a very revealing comment coming from somebody who likes to accuse his opponents of “bigotry.” I’d be hard pressed to find a more bigoted statement than his.

ii) I also don’t know how the conversation suddenly jumped from the proper way to designate members of the church of Rome to the piety of Calvinists.

iii) How we answer his question depends, in part, on whether we judge saintliness by Catholic standards or Biblical standards. For example, is devotion to the Black Madonna of Częstochowa a mark of sanctity or idolatry?

Likewise, this is how John-Paul II responded to Cardinal Law’s complicity in the priestly abuse scandal: “Archpriest of the Patriarchal (now Papal) Liberian Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. Member of: Congregations: for the Oriental Churches; for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; for Bishops; for the Evangelization of Peoples; for the Clergy; for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life; for Catholic Education; Pontifical Council for the Family.”

http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/documentazione/documents/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_law_bf_en.html

Is that a mark of the late pope’s saintliness or his moral blindness?

I also don’t know why Beckwith thinks Augustine can be so holy and loving, but a Calvinist cannot. What’s the differential factor, exactly? It can’t very well be belief in predestination.

Is it that, after his conversion, Augustine sent his longtime mistress packing, a woman who bore him a son? Why not do the honorable thing and take her to be his wife?

On the other hand, George Whitfield (to take one example) does strike me as an example of saintly Christian character.

iv) As a rule, holy folks aren’t famous folks. They generally lead quiet, unobtrusive lives. Godly mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, brothers, sisters, and friends who live and die in self-effacing obscurity. Some of them are backwater missionaries or small town pastors. The whole notion of “great saints” whom we can tabulate bespeaks a cult of celebrity which is incongruous with true sanctity.

“No offense, but you have no idea of the joy and peace I have found on the Barque of Peter. For once, I know what why it is important to be holy.”

For someone who’s full of peace and joy, Beckwith seems pretty irritable.

As far as the “Barque of Peter” is concerned, Catholicism is like a superyacht with a glorious upper deck while the lower decks are taking on water. A fantastic view–until it sinks below the waterline.

“It's not just because I'm ‘grateful to God,’ which sounds like something I need to conjure up.”

Christians need to “conjure up” a spirit of thanksgiving? Gratitude to God is just a conjuring trick?

“Rather, it's about kneeling prostrate at the altar at which the Eucharist rests and allowing the grace of God to transform me from the inside out. It is indeed quite a gift, these sacraments.”

When I read this sentence, I can’t suppress the mental picture of devotees who prostrate themselves before images of Buddha, Kali, Lakshmi, Ganesha, &c. Christ and Krishna become interchangeable.

An Interview With Gary Habermas

I just listened to a July 12, 2008 interview with Gary Habermas. He discusses Antony Flew's conversion from atheism to deism and addresses charges that Flew is senile, is just believing whatever the people around him tell him to believe, etc. (For those who don't know, Habermas is a friend of Flew and has been in frequent contact with him for years.) He also mentions that he's gotten an offer from a publisher to write a three-volume series on the resurrection. They would allow him up to eight hundred pages for each volume, based on the estimate he gave them as to how much material he has. I don't know whether he's decided to accept the offer since that interview, but if it's accepted, that could result in a series of books covering more than two thousand pages.

Riding high in the saddle

Francis Beckwith is in a tizzy. Sometimes you have to wonder when the poor guy isn’t in a tizzy. Apparently, “coming home” hasn’t brought him the peace of mind he was seeking.

One of my pet peeves is the intentional overuse of "Rome," "Roman," "Romanist," etc. by Protestant critics of Catholic theology. Here's why: the Catholic Church is a collection of many churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome. It's catechism--The Catechism of the Catholic Church--is that of all these churches that are in communion with one another and with the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. The theology found in that text, therefore, is not Roman Catholic theology. It is Catholic theology. That's the way the Church understands itself. Common courtesy suggests that those who are critical of that theology summon the respect to refer to it as such.

I am a member of a parish that is in the Latin Rite, and thus, I am, in that sense, "Roman" Catholic. But if, let's say, my wife and I moved to Austin and we became members of Our Lady's Maronite Church, we would still be Catholic, in communion with the Bishop of Rome, but not technically "Roman" Catholic. We would be Maronite Catholic.

I, of course, do not believe that people who use the phrase "Roman Catholic" without knowing its pedigree are intending anything more than to label. Others, however, are less noble in their purposes.

Consequently, anyone with any grasp of the issues knows full well that the Catholic Church is no more the Roman Catholic Church than is the United States of America the District of Columbia of America.

Just as it is not wise or polite to insist on calling a man "black" who asks you to call him an "African American," one should call Catholicism by the name it calls itself rather the label its ignorant or bigoted critics insist on calling it.

If an individual Catholic wants to be called a "Roman Catholic," that's his business, and I will respect him by calling him nothing but that. On the other hand, if the Church with which he is in communion insists on calling itself "Catholic," he and the Protestant should comply, if for no other reason than that it is charitable to do so and charity is a virtue.

I guess it should not surprise me that a Protestant would not only protest against the Catholic Church but also the Catholic Church's use of the word Catholic. He's not pleased with just leaving our church and having his own church; he wants to take our name and give us a new one. So much for the "priesthood of all believers." :-)

You wouldn’t expect a philosophy prof. to exhibit quite so much philosophical naiveté.

i) For starters, when speakers (or writers) use a designation, it’s not necessarily to make a point about the referent. Oftentimes, it’s just a common way of referring to something. A conventional, recognizable designation.

In that context, such usage carries no special significance one way or the other. There’s no subtext.

ii) At other times, the speaker will, indeed, use a designation to make a point. But one of the odd things about Beckwith’s outrage is that “Roman Catholic” or “Roman Catholicism” comports perfectly well with the self-understanding of his denomination. According to the official legend that underwrites his denomination, Peter, as vicar of Christ, was the first bishop of Rome, and he ordained a line of successors. That’s why Catholic apologists and theologians stress “Roman primacy.”

Why Beckwith imagines this usage to be ignorant, or bigoted is puzzling.

iii) It’s even more puzzling when you consider the fact that he himself entitled his book “Return to Rome.” And that’s also the name of his blog.

The fact that he’s so hypersensitive about this innocuous designation on the lips of Protestants must betray some insecurity on his part.

iv) Conversely, and ironically, the reason he gives for why a Protestant speaker should defer to “Catholic” usage is the very reason a Protestant might balk. To the extent that this designation is taken to reflect the self-understanding of his denomination, that’s an excellent reason to avoid it.

A self-designation can be a propaganda device: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter…”

In cases where a self-designation is propagandistic, a speaker has every right to resist that terminology.

Mainland Chinese party officials might well regard it as more charitable and polite to designate their totalitarian regime the “People’s Republic of China,” but I’ll stick with “Red China.”

Mormons might find it more charitable and polite if we called them “Christians” rather than “Mormons.” After all, the self-designation of their cult is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” That reflects their self-understanding.

Since, however, that self-designation is a propaganda tool, I’ll stick with “Mormon.”

Likewise, the abortion lobby prefers to peddle euphemisms like “woman’s choice” or “medical procedure.” Does charity or courtesy oblige me to be a party of their agenda?

To take his own example, when race-baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson insist on “African-American” to denote and promote their brand of identity-politics, I reserve the right to opt out of that linguistic extortion.

v) I can’t help noticing that the church of Rome only discovered the virtues of courtesy and charity rather late in the day. If, for example, you read the text of Exsurge Domine (available online), the language and countermeasures proposed by Pope Leo X to describe and suppress the nascent Protestant movement doesn’t strike me as overly charitable or courteous.

I also can’t help but notice that this discovery seems to time with the church of Rome’s loss of temporal power. And therein lies a moral: the true test of charity is not to be charitable when you have to be, but to be charitable when you don’t have to be.

Once his denomination no longer had state sponsorship to back its brass knuckle policies, then it suddenly discovered the virtues of tolerance. Funny how those in power are quick to advocate tolerance the moment they fall from power. But I’m sure that’s purely coincidental.

vi) For Beckwith to image that Protestants are “taking our name,” as if the church of Rome held the copyright to “Catholic,” is symptomatic of his insular self-absorption.

This sort of opining about someone’s inner life and thought processes from an online interview is unseemly. The meanness was palpable.

I have no idea how people like Mr. Turk can so causally and without regard for others claim to know every jot and tittle of what lurks in a person’s spiritual journey. It made me ill when I read it two years ago, and it makes me ill to read again now.

To take something so personal, profound, and moving and turn into a condescending blog entry in order to get a rise out of your fundamentalist Amen corner is beyond the pale.

But what just sticks in my craw is the arrogant flippancy of people like Turk who think they can move from a brief interview to pronounce on the seriousness of a person’s spiritual journey.

Of course, that complaint is wholly duplicitous. Like so many converts and reverts, Beckwith is using his life story to justify his change of religious alliance. An exercise in autobiographical apologetics. Since he himself has made that large part of the argument, then his personal narrative is fair game.

In fact, virtually every Christological heresy in the history of the church is the consequence of someone trying to split the difference.

That’s often the case. And it’s highly ironic that Beckwith would bring this up since church of Rome has always tried to split the difference between sola gratia, on the one hand, and human freedom or merit, on the other. So, by his own yardstick, “Catholic” soteriology is analogous to Christological heresies.

It seems to me that the issue on which the Reformation ultimately turns is the nature of grace. Once I could not in good conscience hold to forensic justification and imputed righteousness, I had no choice but to return to the Church of my baptism.

i) That’s quite illogical. Even if you reject forensic justification and imputed righteousness, it’s not as though the church of Rome is the only alternative. Why not become an Anabaptist or Eastern Orthodox, or any number of other options?

ii) Does Catholic theology reject imputed righteousness? Sure, there’s more to Catholic theology than imputed righteousness–like congruent merit and infused grace. But doesn’t Catholicism also subscribe to the vicarious atonement of Christ? Likewise, isn’t the treasury of merit vicarious merit?

All I am suggesting is that Evangelicals like Turk learn how to read others with an eye toward learning rather than “gotcha.” If he had not read the interview locked and loaded, and if he had taken the time to understand Trent as Trent understood itself rather than how philosophically untutored low-church fundamentalist American Christians read it...

i) I’m struck by how often Catholic converts and reverts exhibit this overweening pride. Why do so many of them act like self-important prigs? I always have to ask myself, are they so proud of themselves because they're Catholic, or are they Catholic because they're so proud of themselves?

I’d just note in passing that if a man is that full of himself, then there’s not much room left over for Jesus.

ii) Moreover, Beckwith is not a church historian or licensed Catholic theologian. He’s not some great authority on Tridentine theology. He’s just a layman–like you and me.

A word of advice to Beckwith: Don’t get on your high horse when you ride a Shetland pony.

iii) To further an ecumenical agenda, there’s a lot of historical revisionism afoot regarding the original intent of the Tridentine Fathers. And it isn’t just beetle-browed fundies who see it that way. To take a few examples from different sides of the debate:

Robert D. Preus, Justification and Rome (Concordia 1997)

http://wordalone.com/docs/wa-german-professors.shtml

http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9912/articles/dulles.html

Arguing For The New Testament Text (Part 3)

As Harry Gamble explains, the early heretical opponents of Christianity had the New Testament text in common with the orthodox mainstream. Rather than accuse the mainstream of significantly altering the text, they seem to have accepted the text and attempted to get around it by means of a less literal form of interpretation:

"This means that what was at stake between gnostic and non-gnostic Christians was not principally which books were authoritative, but rather how the scriptures were to be rightly interpreted. In point of fact, gnostic Christians employed virtually all the books that were used in the church at large. The difference lay not in the documents, but in different hermeneutical programs." (Lee McDonald and James Sanders, edd., The Canon Debate [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002], p. 293)

Trypho, a Jewish opponent of Justin Martyr, comments that he's read one or more of the gospels (Dialogue With Trypho, 10). And Justin cites the gospels and alludes to other New Testament documents frequently in his dispute with Trypho. Justin makes much of alleged Jewish corruption of some portions of the Old Testament text (Dialogue With Trypho, 71-73, 120), yet both he and Trypho seem to assume a common text for the New Testament. (There would have been some textual variants, of course, but they apparently weren't of much significance.) Why would Justin have put such emphasis on Old Testament corruption if he thought that significant corruption of the New Testament was a common Christian practice? Why is there no need for him to interact with any such charge from his Jewish opponents?

Some early opponents of Christianity did make the charge of textual corruption, but it seems to have been a minor charge that didn't come up very often. Celsus, a second-century Gentile critic of Christianity who got some of his information on the religion from Jewish sources, wrote:

"Certain of the Christian believers, like persons who in a fit of drunkenness lay violent hands upon themselves, have corrupted the Gospel from its original integrity, to a threefold, and fourfold, and many-fold degree, and have remodelled it, so that they might be able to answer objections." (cited in Origen, Against Celsus, 2:27)

Notice that Celsus cites no evidence for the claim. And he only brings the charge against some Christians, not all. He doesn't even claim that it's a majority. Celsus often exaggerated. On the subject of unity, for instance, he wrote:

"Christians at first were few in number, and held the same opinions; but when they grew to be a great multitude, they were divided and separated, each wishing to have his own individual party: for this was their object from the beginning....being thus separated through their numbers, they confute one another, still having, so to speak, one name in common, if indeed they still retain it. And this is the only thing which they are yet ashamed to abandon, while other matters are determined in different ways by the various sects." (cited in Origen, Against Celsus, 3:10, 3:12)

He's speaking hyperbolically. But when this critic of Christianity who often exaggerated was addressing the New Testament text, he only referred to what "certain of the Christian believers" did.

As you read through Origen's entire treatise Against Celsus, it seems that the two men argue on the basis of the same text, aside from relatively minor variants. If Celsus had much knowledge of some significantly different earlier text, one wonders why he didn't make more use of it.

Origen's response to Celsus assumes that Celsus was addressing textual corruption, but some scholars think that he may not have even been discussing the subject (Henry Chadwick, ed., Origen: Contra Celsum [New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003], n. 2 on p. 90). Instead, he may have been referring to the existence of multiple gospels among Christians (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and others among some professing Christians). If so, then Celsus' charge isn't even relevant.

But Origen possessed a copy of Celsus' treatise, which we don't have, and his reading of Celsus seems preferable. Origen was in a good position to comment on the text of the New Testament. He traveled widely, he was in contact with many Christian and non-Christian sources, and his life reflects well on his character. He responded to Celsus:

"Now I know of no others who have altered the Gospel, save the followers of Marcion, and those of Valentinus, and, I think, also those of Lucian. But such an allegation is no charge against the Christian system, but against those who dared so to trifle with the Gospels. And as it is no ground of accusation against philosophy, that there exist Sophists, or Epicureans, or Peripatetics, or any others, whoever they may be, who hold false opinions; so neither is it against genuine Christianity that there are some who corrupt the Gospel histories, and who introduce heresies opposed to the meaning of the doctrine of Jesus." (Against Celsus, 2:27)

Celsus doesn't say much about the subject, and Origen doesn't spend much time on it. He doesn't seem to be aware of any significant need to defend the general reliability of the transmission of the text.

Celsus' charge doesn't carry much significance, and Origen confirms what we saw in earlier sources like Irenaeus, Dionysius of Corinth, and Justin Martyr. Altering of texts was considered shameful, and steps were taken to avoid it and to condemn those who practiced it.

"Two Books"

I’m now going to comment on chapter 8 of Dembski’s new book. I didn’t cover that in my general review because, while the issue he raises is important in its own right, that’s something of a side-issue in relation to his main thesis. So it’s best to treat that separately.

“To undermine the constancy of nature for theological gain preserve the integrity of neither science nor theology,” The End of Christianity” (71).

While this is true up to a point, it needs to be qualified:

i) The constancy of nature is a scientific presupposition, not a scientific discovery. A metascientific axiom by which science infers causes from effects.

Without a doctrine of divine creation and providence to ground this assumption, induction is viciously circular.

ii) Moreover, Dembski believes in creation ex nihilo as well as miracles.

“God gave humanity two primary sources of revelation about himself: the world that he created and the Scripture that he inspired. These are also known as the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture…God is a God of truth. As the author of both books, he does not contradict himself (71-72).

Unfortunately for Dembski, this hoary metaphor is fatally equivocal in two fundamental respects:

i) Nature is not very bookish. A book generally contains verbal assertions or propositions. While not every sentence is assertive (i.e. questions, commands), most sentences are assertive. And in the case of non-fiction, they make factual claims. They have truth-value.

By contrast, nature makes no assertions. Nature contains no propositions. Nature doesn’t say anything. Nature is a fact, not a factual assertion. Nature doesn’t assert anything to be the case. Therefore, it’s strictly nonsense to characterize the issue the way Dembski does.

We simply draw inferences from nature. We try to infer causes from effects. Sometimes all we have is trace evidence. We have to interpolate. Fill in the blanks as best we can.

ii) Moreover, to say that nature is revelatory hardly means that nature is self-revelatory. If nature is a medium of God’s self-revelation, this doesn’t mean that nature was designed to reveal anything about itself, such as the age of the universe.

Now, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that nature contains evidence sufficient to date its point of origin. But that’s not a valid inference from Dembski’s premise. That doesn’t follow from the status of nature as a mode of divine revelation. Dembski would need to mount a separate argument to yield that conclusion.

“As distinct witnesses to the work of God, these books can be read individually or together. When read individually, they have an integrity of their own that must not be undermined by using one to invalidate the other” (71).

i) I don’t know how far Dembski intends to take this. Is nature self-explanatory? Is nature its own commentary? Why did God reveal Gen 1-3 if nature is self-interpreting?

Indeed, in Bible history we see an alternation between event-revelation and word-revelation. God’s words interpret God’s deeds. So general revelation is not autonomous.

It’s like looking at a painting. You can learn a lot about a painting just by studying the work of art. But, at the same time, there’s only so much you can learn about it from the artifact itself. It helps to know something about the painter. About his time and place. About his values. You can’t necessarily infer artistic intent from what you see on the canvass. Correct interpretation requires some knowledge of the painter as well as the painting.

ii) I’d also add that there are obvious hazards to scientific autonomy. Science is no better or worse than its practitioners. Science can be politicized. Become a tool in the hands of social engineers–from behaviorists and Social Darwinianist to climatologists, sociobiologists and transhumanists. Should we really deliver ourselves into the hands of anyone who calls himself a scientist?

“Theology may led us to question certain claims of science, but any refutation of those claims must ultimately depend on scientific evidence” (71).

Seems to me that’s overstated. Any scientific refutation depends on scientific evidence. But in some cases it would be possible to refute a scientific theory on philosophical grounds–to take one example.

“Likewise, science may lead us to question certain claims of theology, but any refutation of those claims must ultimately depend on exegetical evidence” (71).

Agreed.

“Theology requires metaphors and concepts that come from our understanding of nature and therefore form science. How can we understand that Jesus is the ‘Lamb of God’ without knowing something about biology. How can we understand that God is light without knowing something about physics?” How can we understand that faith can move mountains without knowing something about orology” (73).

This is a half-truth. Once again, it suffers from a fatal equivocation.

You don’t need to understand modern science to understand Biblical metaphors. These metaphors are prescientific. They simply depend on ordinary observation and experience–as well as a cultural and literary tradition. No scientific theorizing, which goes beyond and behind ordinary perception, is required.

“The history of biblical interpretation includes cases where interpretations of Scripture once universally held were later abandoned–and for scientific reasons no less! For instance, at the time a young earth was unquestioned, the Church also taught that the earthy was stationary. Ps 93 states that the earth is established forever and cannot be moved. A face-value interpretation of Psalm 93 seems to require geocentrism. And yet young-earth creationists accept the Copernican Revolution. We read this psalm today as endorsing not geocentrism but the stability of God’s works” (75).

Two problems:

i) While I agree with Dembski’s interpretation of Ps 93, he doesn’t bother to argue for his interpretation on exegetical grounds. So, as it stands, his paradigm-case is question-begging.

ii) Actually, I don’t think that a “face-value” interpretation of Ps 93 seems to require genocentrism. That’s quite deceptive. Dembski isn’t coming to this text with the mindset of an ancient Israelite. Rather, his impression of the text is filtered through later scientific theories and controversies like Ptolemaic astronomy. Geocentrism is a system of celestial motions. Celestial mechanics.

Ps 93 doesn’t teach a system. It doesn’t discuss the relative position of the earth. There’s nothing about the position of the earth in a dynamic system involving the sun. It doesn’t attempt to situate the earth at the crossroads of time and space.

That’s a theoretical grid which postdates Ps 93. It reflects the synthesis of Babylonian star charts with Greek mathematics.

Because the modern reader is a child of science, there’s danger of seeing so much more in the text than is actually there. Reading the text through the subsequent history of science.

“Charles Hodge faced the challenged of balancing the science of his day with the interpretation of Scripture” (76).

But, of course, that example cuts both ways. If you read Hodge’s attempt to harmonize Scripture with science, the exercise is hopelessly obsolete. So that example accentuates the peril of reinterpreting Scripture in light of the “cutting edge” science of the day. We have to revise our interpretation every decade or so–in which case our interpretation is external to the text rather than internal to the text. An extraneous gloss which we superimpose on the text, rather than finding that explanation within the text itself–or the historical horizon of the target audience.

Survival of the misfits?

One of the standard arguments for evolutionary psychology is that true beliefs are adaptive whereas misbeliefs are maladaptive. True beliefs confer a survival advantage. Hence, natural selection selects for organisms and species with an accurate perception of the world around them.

Yet you have Darwinians like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett who rail against the religionists. Rail against the millions of Christians who deny the theory of evolution. Rail against the billions of religious people around the world.

But that generates a paradox. If misbelief is maladaptive, and religious beliefs are false, then faith is maladaptive. Yet it’s arguable that religionists vastly outnumber atheists.

If, on the one hand, all religious beliefs are misbeliefs, then natural selection is disproportionately selecting for false beliefs. In that case, it’s a highly unreliable belief-forming mechanism.

If, on the other hand, religious beliefs are maladaptive, then shouldn’t natural selection have weeded out most pious hominids a long time ago?

When Dawkins indicts the majority of the human race as deluded, isn’t he simultaneously indicting the reliability of evolutionary psychology? But if, by his own tacit admission, natural selection can’t be trusted to yield true beliefs, then doesn’t that reduce his atheism to self-refuting skepticism?

These aren’t anomalies to a normally reliable process. Not isolated cases or random exceptions. By his own testimony, this is pretty pervasive. So where does that leave the original argument?

Arguing For The New Testament Text (Part 2)

It's important to understand how the documents of the New Testament would have originated and initially circulated. We shouldn't think that an author would compose a document on his own, without telling anybody else much or anything about it, then send that one copy away and pay little attention to what happened with it afterward. It's not as though Paul would write a document like 1 Corinthians without anybody else knowing of it before its completion, then would send that one copy out and do little or nothing to track its status thereafter. If such a scenario had occurred, then we could imagine somebody getting hold of that one copy and significantly altering it without anybody else's knowledge. It would still be highly unlikely that such corruption would occur with all or even most of the New Testament under such conditions, but theories of widespread textual corruption would at least be more reasonable under those conditions.

In reality, document production in antiquity was often a highly public procedure. And some of the New Testament documents explicitly reflect that fact. To use 1 Corinthians as an example again, Paul has a co-author (1:1), other people with him (16:19-20), and a scribe (16:21). Commenting on the gospel of John, Craig Keener notes:

"Besides any skills John had acquired [which could change at different times in his life], he undoubtedly would have had help; even the most literate normally used scribes, and Josephus’s staff included style editors to improve his Greek. John would have been an unusual writer if he published the work entirely by himself." (The Gospel Of John: A Commentary, Vol. 1 [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003], pp. 101-102)

It was common for documents to be read and commented upon publicly prior to their wider circulation. Steve Mason comments:

"An author normally composed a work gradually and by constant revision, presenting it in stages to ever-widening concentric circles, moving from closest friends to more remote associates through a combination of oral recitation and distribution of partial drafts. The cycle of oral presentations typically began in the intimate setting of a private residence, perhaps at a dinner party, and moved as the author gained confidence in the work to rented auditoriums. The oral dimensions of this entire process, even with written texts, should always be kept in mind." (Josephus, Judea, And Christian Origins [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009], p. 52)

And authors commonly kept a copy of their document before sending out another copy to be circulated:

"There is also evidence that even private letters regularly had copies made (e.g., Cicero, Familial Letters 9.26.1; 7.18.1; Letters to Atticus 13.6.3)....As noted above, scholars for a number of years have suggested that Paul might have made copies of his letters at the time he was writing them with his scribe and missionary companions. This would follow the pattern of many ancient writers - among them, Seneca and Cicero as literary authors (who speak of actual letters, not composites made out of the fragments of earlier letters), and Zenon as a documentary writer - who made copies of their letters before having them dispatched. This allowed the writers not only to refer to their letters in the future - perhaps explaining why 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Colossians and Ephesians, among others, have verbal material in common - but to have the copies either with them or in the possession of their companions....Paul is widely regarded in classical studies as one of the great letter writers of the ancient world. If that is true - and his corpus of letters argues that it is - then it is logical to think that Paul followed the conventions of ancient letter writing, including producing copies." (Stanley Porter, in Craig Evans and Emanuel Tov, edd., Exploring The Origins Of The Bible [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2008], pp. 189-190, 195, n. 106 on p. 195)

Thus, an author didn't entirely give up control of the transmission of his text to other people. He kept a copy himself and could restart the copying process anytime he wanted with his own edition of the original.

Once a community received a document like a letter from Paul, the document would commonly be read publicly (1 Thessalonians 5:27). Thus, even those who were illiterate could become witnesses to the original text by means of hearing it read publicly early on.

Authors often took steps to ensure the preservation of their text and to monitor the status of the text's circulation. Thus, ancient authors often commented on subjects like what titles were being applied to their works in libraries, how some people were interpreting their work inaccurately, how some people were altering their text, etc. Their concern over the text didn't end once the first copy was sent out. Thus, the second-century Christian Dionysius of Corinth wrote:

"For I wrote letters when the brethren requested me to write. And these letters the apostles of the devil have filled with tares, taking away some things and adding others, for whom a woe is in store. It is not wonderful, then, if some have attempted to adulterate the Lord’s writings, when they have formed designs against those which are not such." (cited in Eusebius, Church History, 4:23)

Irenaeus wrote:

"I adjure thee who mayest copy this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by his glorious advent when he comes to judge the living and the dead, to compare what thou shalt write, and correct it carefully by this manuscript, and also to write this adjuration, and place it in the copy." (cited in Eusebius, Church History, 5:20)

Such concern by authors for the preservation of their work was common. The idea that men like Dionysius and Irenaeus would have had such concern and would have monitored the circulation of their work, yet men of far higher authority and influence in the church (such as the apostles) didn't, is absurd.

The apostles and other authors and relevant witnesses would have lived into the late first century and beyond. See, for example, Richard Bauckham's Jesus And The Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006).

Benny Hinn, Heroin, And A Long Trail Of Other Scandals

Justin Taylor has blogged about a Nightline interview with Benny Hinn. Hinn's performance in the interview is highly unconvincing. Below are some comments I posted in that thread, accompanied by some further comments on drug issues, which weren't accepted by Justin Taylor's blog for some reason. I suspect that something in the HTML coding from one of the links wasn't able to go through.

Ignorant skeptics sometimes compare Jesus Christ to Benny Hinn, on the basis of vague similarities like the fact that both men have been viewed by many people as miracle workers. I have an article here that discusses some of the many differences between the two men.

A resource on Benny Hinn that's seldom mentioned is Yves Brault's Behind The Scenes: The True Face Of The Fake Faith Healers (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Dorrance Publishing Co., 1997). Brault attended Hinn's church, and he writes about some of his family's experiences with Hinn and other individuals and ministries.

Hinn promises miracles, then tries to prevent investigation of his alleged miracles.

You can watch a devastating expose of Benny Hinn online, by CBC's The Fifth Estate, here.

Hank Hanegraaff of the Christian Research Institute asked Hinn for his three best-documented miracles. When the documentation was provided, all three were found to be inauthentic.

Hinn has repeatedly been documented to have made false prophecies. He predicted that Fidel Castro would die in the 1990s, for instance.

Members of Hinn's staff have been caught in various scandals. Here's some video footage I saw years ago in another context, in which Hinn seems to be giving some sort of drug to a member of his staff. I've seen this footage from three different sources, but I've never seen any documentation that would give it further authentication. It does look as though Hinn is encouraging some sort of drug use in the video, and his staff does have a history of heroin problems. The video appears to be taken from a story by Tony Pipitone from WKMG, channel 6, in Orlando. There might be additional information that exonerates Hinn in some manner, but the video looks bad, and I've seen it used by multiple sources.

I've found little information about this video online. If you go to this page, and use the Ctrl F feature on your keyboard and search for "Pipitone", you'll see a post by somebody (illusionbuster) who raises some doubts about the negative implications of the video. I find his reasoning unconvincing, though.

I have a longer version of the video that I saw years ago, found at the end of a VHS tape titled The Signs And Wonders Movement Exposed: Ministry And Music, Vol. 1. The tape series (of which the tape in question is the first part) was put out by National Prayer Network in England and features Dave Hunt, Roger Oakland, and some other critics of modern miracle claims like Benny Hinn's. You can watch an online version here. Go to the 47-minute mark in the first video.

At the close of the tape, they run a more extensive version of the video in question. They include footage of Tony Pipitone and some other reporters introducing the story. They explain that the video in question is an "amateur" video. They say that Hinn canceled an interview scheduled with them after seeing the footage. This edition of the video also includes subtitles of what somebody in the video was saying. It's hard to tell who's doing the speaking, but it seems to be David Delgado, who smokes the pipe after Steve Brock hands it to him. According to the subtitles, Delgado (or whoever is speaking) makes the comment "I thought this was vice." He then explains that he had hidden the pipe before Benny Hinn walked by. Apparently, Hinn saw the pipe and gave it back to Brock and Delgado to smoke. In the footage that follows, Delgado is clearly under the influence of some sort of mind-altering drug. But there's no indication of how that second footage relates to the first. It was soon after that when Delgado died as a result of heroin abuse.

Perhaps what Delgado and Brock were smoking, which Hinn gave them, was something more innocent. I don't know. But the video at least raises some significant questions. If Hinn was just giving the men tobacco or something else more innocent to smoke, why did he cancel his scheduled interview with WKMG? It's possible that multiple sources using this video are misrepresenting it in order to make Hinn look bad or that multiple sources have misunderstood it. But I find that unlikely. The people behind the VHS tape mentioned above don't strike me as the sort of people who would do that. The most obvious explanation of the evidence I've seen so far is that Hinn gave his staff a mind-altering drug to smoke. Why else would the people who put the video together run footage of David Delgado under the influence of something mind-altering just after running the video involving Hinn? If there's no connection between the two clips, then it's misleading to run them together in that manner.

But even if there's a more innocent explanation for the video, it would just mean that one scandal surrounding Hinn's ministry has been taken off the list, while many others remain.

Arguing For The New Testament Text (Part 1)

(This will be a three-part series.)

Many skeptics consider criticism of the New Testament text a significant argument against Christianity. Why did Bart Ehrman initially become so popular among skeptics? He addresses a lot of issues outside of his expertise, such as the problem of evil and Jesus' resurrection, but his popularity has been due primarily to his work on the text of the New Testament. Yet, there isn't much there for skeptics to use. On some of the most foundational issues related to the text, Ehrman agrees with conservative Christians:

"Most of these [textual] differences are completely immaterial and insignificant....In fact, most of the changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and away the most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple - slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another....when scribes made intentional changes, sometimes their motives were as pure as the driven snow....And so we must rest content knowing that getting back to the earliest attainable version is the best we can do, whether or not we have reached back to the 'original' text. This oldest form of the text is no doubt closely (very closely) related to what the author originally wrote, and so it is the basis for our interpretation of his teaching....In a remarkable number of instances - most of them, actually - scholars by and large agree [about what the earliest attainable text said]....It is probably safe to say that the copying of early Christian texts was by and large a 'conservative' process. The scribes - whether non-professional scribes in the early centuries or professional scribes of the Middle Ages - were intent on 'conserving' the textual tradition they were passing on. Their ultimate concern was not to modify the tradition, but to preserve it for themselves and for those who would follow them. Most scribes, no doubt, tried to do a faithful job in making sure that the text they reproduced was the same text they inherited." (Misquoting Jesus [San Francisco, California: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005], pp. 10, 55-56, 62, 94, 177)

We have a large amount of evidence about the nature of the text from the second century onward. Thus, skeptics who (unwisely) want to keep making a major issue of the text of the New Testament have to push their speculations about widespread textual corruption back into the earliest decades of church history. That timeframe, therefore, is where the discussion should be focused, yet textual discussions often don't focus there. Since we have so much evidence from manuscripts and other sources from the second century onward, discussions are often heavily weighted toward a consideration of that evidence. And it does have some significance. But I would recommend that Christians only address that later data briefly, then spend most of their time on the earliest decades of church history. The implications the later sources have for earlier church history are worth discussing at length, but establishing the state of the text in the second century and later shouldn't be our focus. There isn't much doubt that we have a lot of data on the text of the gospel of John, for example, in manuscripts and other sources from the second century and beyond, and it's widely acknowledged that the textual differences in that timeframe are relatively minor. What Christians need to do, primarily, is get explicit and detailed about the implications that evidence has for the earliest decades of Christianity and discuss in detail the other evidence relevant to those earliest decades. What I want to do in this series of posts is briefly outline some of the issues that ought to be brought up.

It's often noted that the text is more varied early on than it is later. The earlier manuscripts differ from one another more than the later manuscripts differ from each other. We're supposed to conclude, therefore, that textual variations probably would have been greater in the earliest decades of church history. But that's like saying that a turtle would do better than a snail in a race with a horse. So what? Neither would even come close to winning, so replacing a snail with a turtle doesn't accomplish much. There isn't much significance in saying that textual variation increases as we go earlier into church history if the earliest levels of variation aren't nearly what they would need to be in order to sustain the critical theories.

Keep in mind that people living in the earliest generations of church history didn't anticipate archeology and other means by which we've discovered manuscripts and studied the text of the New Testament. It's not as though they knew when they would have to stop altering the text so much and begin being more conservative with the text, as if they knew that they only had several decades to carry out their textual corruption. How likely is it that such disregard for the original text early on would be followed by such consistent concern for textual preservation? A concern for textual preservation in the earliest decades of church history makes more sense of the later data. We don't assume some sort of major shift in beliefs and practices as our default position.

Ironically, skeptics often make much of the alleged disunity of early Christianity, even pushing back their theories of major discord as early as New Testament passages like Galatians 2. Supposedly, Paul was opposed to James, Petrine communities differed from Johannine communities, etc. Yet, they suggest that there was some sort of unified corruption of the New Testament text. There was significant unity in early Christianity, but it was a unity on issues like the virgin birth and the resurrection, not unity in the form of something like a post-apostolic worldwide denomination or church hierarchy that had widespread control over the manuscript record. Arguments about widespread textual corruption have to take into account factors such as the number of people involved, the organizational independence of the relevant individuals and groups, the ease with which any opponent of such corruption could have preserved his own copies of the text and made known what the corrupters were doing, etc. Skeptics who understand the problems with conspiracy theories in politics and other areas of life ought to be consistent by discerning the problems with conspiracy theories about early Christianity.

Remembering The Reformation

This week's Coral Ridge Hour features a sermon by D. James Kennedy on Martin Luther and the Reformation. (Watch the videos of the program online here.) Next week's program will be on John Calvin. I just watched this week's program, and I would recommend it as an introduction to the Reformation and some of the related issues. It's good to see Kennedy's ministry still bearing good fruit a couple of years after Kennedy's death, and hopefully it will continue to do so for many years to come. We'll see how many other popular ministries address Reformation issues this week and this Reformation Day. Probably not many.

Moscow Nights

-i-

I was recruited by Bill Casey to do counterespionage during the waning years of the Cold War. I got the job, in part because my mother was a Russian émigré. Russian, as well as German, were spoken at home. I also got the job because Bill knew my Dad–way back when they worked together at the OSS.

Bill showed up at the door of my dorm room one evening, unannounced–with two beefy, unsmiling aids in dark glasses who wordlessly persuaded my roommate that now might be an excellent time to go for a walk in the quad.

I remembered Bill from the times he used to visit my Dad, or vice versa. As I was bringing him a glass of bourbon, he offered me a Havana cigar while he lit up.

After a smoky exchange of pleasantries about how my Dad was doing, he got down to business. At first I rebuffed the offer. I enjoyed college. I’d already lived and traveled abroad with my Dad. While it was interesting, I tired of the nomadic lifestyle. The lack of stable friendships.

But Bill prevailed on my patriotism and adventurous streak. It wouldn’t be a full-time career. I didn’t have to join the agency. I’d report directly to him. This would all be off-the-books. A private, handshake sort of thing.

-ii-

And that’s how I ended up in East Berlin. My assignment was to recruit high-level defectors from the Stasi or the KGB.

I hung out at The Blond Venus–a local nightclub, which was a popular watering hole for officers and apparatchiks representing various, indefinable affiliations. The nightclub was a throwback to a bygone era, like something out of A Foreign Affair, with Marlene Dietrich. Indeed, as local rumor had it, The Blond Venus was where Marlene got her first break–back in the Twenties.

And that’s where I met Maksima. She sang at The Blond Venus. Indeed, she’s the primary reason many of the clientele went there in the first place–drawn to her by the fateful allure of her iridescent eyes and her imperious stride.

If I could make her my contact, she’d give me entrée to all of her contacts. One-stop shopping.

However, Maksima was both approachable and unapproachable. Deeply cynical, she’d do anything if the price was right, but she held herself aloof.

She had no more reason to trust me than anyone else. And, indeed, my motives were just as calculating as hers. At least, that’s how it started out.

Maksima loved to dance and skate. That’s the only time she lowered her guard. Where she felt free to lose herself–there on the dance floor or the skating rink. Lose herself in time and space. Music in motion. Motion in music. A place to retreat and a time to forget.

So I’d take her to a local skating rink–hoping to make her fall for me. Afterwards, we swapped stories about our Russian mothers. At first she was suspicious, but I knew too much to be making it up. And that created an emotional opening. A little crack in her towering wall of distrust.

-iii-

Unfortunately, or fortunately–as the case may be–there is always the risk in this little exercise that the intended effect should have an unintended side-effect. As it turned out, I was a little too successful for the good of the mission. As she was falling for me, I was falling for her.

So long as she was a stranger to me, so long as my cause was just, it was easy to lie to her. But as we got to know each other, I felt bad about feeding her lies. I had planned to turn her, but she was turning me. Not that she was turning me to the enemy cause. And, indeed, she herself was above politics, believing in nothing. But turning me to herself. It was reciprocal.

She became the sunlight to my moonlight, and the moonlight to my sunlight. We burned and shined in the mutual refulgence of each other’s light.

And I knew that I could offer her a better life. Encourage her to defect. Bring her back home with me to the States. And truly love her–as no other man had done. Behind the inner and outer walls of her cynicism was a passionate soul who yearned for something more, but was afraid to hope. Afraid to dream.

-iv-

So, one evening, at an outdoor café, with no one else around, I disclosed my true identity. I offered to take her with me. By then I’d made enough contacts that, with a small favor over here and a discreet bribe over there, I could whisk her out of East Berlin.

We agreed to meet on Friedrichstraße at midnight, two days later. There I prearranged her passage through checkpoint Charlie.

As I walked to Friedrichstraße, my mind was a jumble of thoughts. Bill would be disappointed. I let him down. But I could always explain to him that I cut my own, off-the-books deal. He’d understand. Such is life.

At the same time, I began to harbor second thoughts. What was waiting for me at Friedrichstraße? Was Maksima waiting for me? Eager to begin our new life together?

Or was the Stasi lying in wait? What if she’d turned me in? Cut a better deal with the authorities?

When I first got to know her, I was playing her. But what if she was playing me–all along?

As I rounded the corner…

Chapa on White on Molinism

“James White discussed Molinism on a recent dividing line. (link) His two primary criticisms of middle knowledge (God's know what you would do under any circumstances) were 1) it doesn't accomplish God's goal of giving man freewill, which makes man robots and doesn't escape unconditional election and 2) middle knowledge removes God's sovereignty and places too much in the hands of man's autonomous freewill, thereby limiting what God can do with His creation and robbing God of His glory. Awkwardly for Dr. White, sometimes he would raise both objections in the same train of thought - seemingly unaware of how at odds these to claims are to each other. Both cannot be problems at the same time. Nor were his objections based on two distinct aspects of Molinism; they were both based directly on the idea that God knows what you would do under any circumstances. It's odd that those objecting to Molinism's consistency use such inconsistent approaches such as this.”

http://www.arminianchronicles.com/2009/10/white-on-molinism.html

If Molinism is a compromise position which tries, unsuccessfully, to harmonize conflicting aims or opposing principles, then it’s internally inconsistent. It that case, a critic of Molinism can consistently raise inconsistent objections to Molinism. For the mutually inconsistent criticisms have their basis in the mutually inconsistent implications of the position under review. It’s odd that Dan Chapa overlooks that elementary point.

Inconsistent objections would be a problem in case the critic were judging a position by his own criteria. Inconsistent objections are not a problem in case the critic is judging a position by its own criteria. For in that event, the inconsistency is generated by the incoherence of the position itself.

The mythical JFK

One of the top bloggesr over at the CADRE has a comment which graphically illustrates the dangers of parallelomania:

*******************************************

Seriously, I have seen better comparisons between Lincoln and Kennedy in my e-mail than this. You know the type:

Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846 while Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946

Lincoln was elected President in 1860 while Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Lincoln's wife lost a child while living in the White House while Kennedy's wife lost a child while living in the White House

Lincoln was directly concerned with Civil Rights while Kennedy was also directly concerned with Civil Rights

Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy who told him not to go to the theater while Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln who told him not to go to Dallas

Both were shot in the back of the head in the presence of their wives.

Lincoln shot in the Ford Theatre and Kennedy shot in a Lincoln, made by Ford.

Both Lincoln and Kennedy were shot on a Friday

Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was known by three names, comprised of fifteen letters while Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was known by three names, comprised of fifteen letters

This is a much better comparison than the weak comparison between Jesus and St. Nicholas made by Anonymous. Yet, I think most people would find me a looney if I claimed that these comparisons prove that Lincoln and Kennedy are both based on myth.

http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2009/10/bad-santa.html#comment-6817577115583022545

For the love of Benji

According to Ben Witherington (Asbury Theological Seminary):
Christ died for the sins of the world, and to ransom that world. 1 Tim. 2.4-5 puts the matter succinctly. God our savior "wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all people." One could compare this to John 3.17, "God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world", or the repeated refrain in Hebrews that Christ died once for all time, for all persons, and so on. (See the discussion of these matters in my forthcoming volumes on NT Theology and Ethics entitled The Indelible Image).

http://evangelicalarminians.org/For%20Whom%20Did%20Christ%20Die.Ben-Witherington

Of course, quoting Scripture is not the same thing as exegeting Scripture. This is especially ironic considering the fact that Witherington is a NT scholar. He’s giving us some tendentious prooftexting in lieu of exegesis.

But this is not just a matter of finding sufficient proof texts (of which there are many more), it is a matter of one's theology of the divine character. God is love, holy love, to be sure, but nonetheless love, and as 1 Tim. 2.4 says, the desire of God's heart is that all persons be saved. It is not just the elect whom God loves, but as John 3.16 says, the world, for whom Christ was sent to die. It follows from this that Christ's atoning death is sufficient for the salvation of all persons, but only efficient for those who respond in faith to God's gracious provision of redemption.

Is that what follows? I don’t see where he exegetes the sufficient/efficient dichotomy from his chosen prooftexts.

Even more foundational is the understanding of the meaning of saying that God is love. Among other things, this means God is committed to relating to those created in his image in love. Now real love must be freely given, and freely received. It cannot be predetermined, manipulated, coerced or else it becomes contrary to what the Bible says love is (see 1 Cor. 13).

Once again, where’s the exegesis? How is 1 Cor 13 at odds with predetermination?

In the debate between whether the primary trait of God is God's sovereignty or God's love, it seems clear that God exercises his power in love, and for loving ends.

Is that the nature of the debate? Why is it a case of which divine trait is God’s primary trait?

And as far as that goes, what about the difference between sovereign love and ineffectual love?

Even his acts of judgment, short of final judgment, are not meant to be punitive but rather corrective and restorative. God in short, is unlike vindictive human beings, very unlike them.

i) Does this mean that God’s historical judgments are loving whereas his eschatological judgments are vindictive?

ii) It’s also hard to see how the flood, or the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the execution of the Canaanites–to take a few prominent examples–was remedial punishment for the victims.

Thus Hosea relates that God says "All my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger ... For I am God and not a human being." God, the divine parent, is not less loving than the best of human parents, God is more loving.

Well, that’s an interesting way of putting it. How would a loving parent deal with a teenage son (or daughter) who’s a drug addict?

Wouldn’t a loving parent be prepared to do whatever it takes? If a parent could wean the kid from drug addiction through coercion or manipulation, wouldn’t a loving parent resort to such measures? Rescue the child from a self-destructive habit by any means necessary?

If Christ is the perfect incarnation of the character of God, then the answer to the question, for whom did Christ die, becomes theologically self-evident--- for the world which God created and still loves.

If God loves whatever God makes, and God seeks the restoration of all his fallen creatures, then God would also make atonement for the fallen angels.

How Arminians make God a sinner

According to Billy Birch:

“First, let us define sin. The Larger Catechism states that sin is ‘any want [lack] of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.’2 This definition works as well as any other.”

If we plug that definition of sin into the phrase “author of sin,” then God would be the author of sin in case he were to transgress or be out of conformity with his laws for rational creatures (i.e. men and angels).

So, according to Birch, God must be a sinner since God is a Sabbath-breaker (Jn 5:17). Doesn’t seem like a very auspicious opening move to me, but then it’s his argument, not mine.

However, I appreciate his tacit admission that Arminian theology makes God a sinner. It’s nice to know that Arminianism would never besmirch God’s character.

“Second, let us define author. The writer to the Hebrews states that it was fitting of God the Father to perfect the author of the salvation of everyone through sufferings (Heb. 2:10). He also called Jesus ‘the author and perfecter of faith’ (Heb. 12:2 NASB). The Greek word for author is archegos and ‘primarily signifies one who takes a lead in, or provides the first occasion of anything.’3”

This is inept on several grounds:

i) Birch is defining a Latin derivative by reference to a Greek word.

ii) Birch is defining his usage by reference to two verses in Hebrews, as if that has any bearing on the sense of the phrase (“author of sin”) in historical theology.

iii) Birch is defining the Greek word by reference to Strong’s, rather than a standard Greek lexicon (e.g. BDAG, EDNT) or a major commentary on Hebrews (e.g. deSilva, Ellingworth, Lane).

“Combining our definitions, then, an author of sin would be one who is either the father, originator, founder, or pioneer of any lack of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature. This is the definition of author of sin which we will be working with in this post.”

This is hopelessly amateurish. To determine what the “author of sin” means in historic theological usage, you’d need to consult the primary source documents. How were 16-17C opponents of Calvinism using that phrase?

It’s not just that Birch is wrong. It’s worse than that. He has no inkling of how to arrive at the correct answer.

“Can God be said to be the author of sin?”

If, for the sake of argument, we play along with Birch’s amateurish definition, then the answer is yes. Birch makes God the author of sin.

God laid the foundations of the world. Therefore, God is the founder of the world. If the world we inhabit is a sinful world, then that makes God the author of sin, since he laid the foundations for that “infallible” outcome.

Likewise, God is the originator of men and angels. If men and angels fell, then that makes God the author of sin, since the end-result takes its point of origin in God’s prior action.

This is plugging Birch’s definitions into his own equation.

So, thus far, Birch’s argument yields the following results:

i) God is a sinner

ii) God is the author of sin

“What Arminius (and Arminians) wants to avoid, again, is the admission that God is one who is either the father, originator, founder, or pioneer of any lack of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.”

If that’s what they want to avoid, then, by Billy’s own argument, their effort is a miserable failure. For Billy’s argument indicts God as both a sinner and the author of sin.

“By ‘God's cooperation,’ Arminius means that since God is the sustainer of all things, and since no one or no thing can do anything without God granting it, God is said in that sense to cooperate.”

So doesn’t Arminian theology make God a necessary accomplice in every single sin?

“Arminians interpret Jesus' instruction to pray for God's will to be done ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt. 6:10) to mean that His perfect will (that which is done in heaven) is not always done on earth.”

Does this mean God also has an imperfect will?

“Arminians interpret the Lord's words to reference God's ‘perfect will’ (as opposed to His ‘permissive will’).”

Doesn’t that grossly understate the case? “Concurrence” or “Cooperation” is more than mere “permission.”

“The fact that these wicked people of Judah sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire testifies to God's permissive will, for He Himself stated that not only did He not command them to do such a wicked thing, but the thought for them to commit such wickedness never entered His mind.”

Is Billy an open theist? God doesn’t know the future? God didn’t see it coming?

“Again, concurrence is not denied. What is denied here is exhaustive determinism, i.e. that God was the one who was either the father, originator, founder, or pioneer of any lack of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.”

How is that distinction morally relevant? How does “concurrence” exempt God from complicity in the outcome?

“It is painfully obvious that God is distancing Himself from involvement in this wickedly horrible and sinful act. What or who made Judah sin? The wicked people who committed the horrible act made Judah sin, not Judah's holy and just God.”

Even if that’s “painfully obvious” in Jeremiah, how is that painfully obvious in Arminius? How is the exegesis of Jeremiah, even if we stipulate to Birch’s interpretation, germane to the logical implications of Arminian theology?

“Now, for Calvinists to suggest that God ‘influences the desires and decisions of people’10…”

This is a phrase that Billy quotes over and over again. It illustrates, once again, his inability to discuss serious issues at a scholarly level.

Grudem is basically a NT scholar who teaches systematic theology. That brings a useful, exegetical orientation to his theology.

However, theodicy crosses over into philosophical questions regarding various models of value theory and action theory. This is properly the domain of a Christian philosopher or philosophical theologian, not an exegetical theologian.

What is more, Grudem published a systematic theology which was written for popular consumption. Birch, in turn, is quoting from a digest of Grudem’s systematic theology. So Birch is quoting from a popularization of a popularization.

If Birch were serious about Reformed theodicy, he’d study some contemporary Reformed philosophers or philosophical theologians on the issue at hand. Or email them.

Instead, he frames the issue in terms of a phrase which he lifted from a pop theology text by a Bible scholar.

“But one cannot restrain from asking how God can ‘influence the desires and decisions of people; without being in some sense responsible for the results that follow.”

Even if we stick to this phraseology, it fails to draw a rudimentary distinction between responsibility and culpability. Doesn’t Birch know the difference?

“According to Calvinism's definition of God's sovereignty, He not merely influenced their desire and decision to commit that wickedness, He secretly willed it, for all things which happen have been foreordained by God's all-determining, secret decree.”

If it’s a “secret,” then who leaked the secret to Birch?

“A distinction between two modes of God's will is absolutely crucial to Arminius and his followers: the antecedent and the consequent wills of God.”

Let’s plug this into Birch’s prooftext. As he quotes it, it says: “They have built pagan shrines at Topheth, the garbage dump in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, and there they burn their sons and daughters in the fire. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing!" (Jeremiah 7:31 NLT; cf. Jeremiah 9:5). But what this really amounts to is:

"They have built pagan shrines at Topheth, the garbage dump in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, and there they burn their sons and daughters in the fire. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; however, I antecedently and consequently willed them to sacrifice their children Molech."

How does that distinction exonerate God?

“The first has priority; the second exists because God reluctantly allows human defection in order to preserve and protect the integrity of the creature…Sin is only within God's will consequently insofar as it is necessary to preserve liberty…”

i) Why does the preservation of human liberty require God to allow for sin? Billy himself defined human liberty as the freedom to do otherwise.

Well, if that’s your operating definition, then every human being can either do right or wrong. In that event, the liberty of the creature is consistent with a creature always doing good. So why didn’t God choose to create the possible world in which everyone freely chose good over evil? If human beings really have the freedom that Billy ascribes to them, then there ought to be a possible world corresponding to that alternative.

ii) Moreover, why is God obligated to respect the liberty of evildoers? What if one free agent infringes on the freedom of another free agent? Why should God respect the freedom of the mugger to beat and rob a little old lady? Why should he respect the freedom of the mugger at the expense of the victim’s life and liberty? How is that a satisfactory answer to the problem of evil?

“…in granting one permission to do something, even if against the wishes of the one who grants it…”

How is that exculpatory? If a rich, indulgent dad grants his spoiled, bratty son permission to commit date rape and murder, is he not complicit in the crimes of his delinquent son? Why does Birch think that’s an adequate theodicy?

“I pointed out to Hays that neither Calvin, the authors of the Belgic and Westminster Confessions, Dort, Erickson, or Grudem offer detailed explanations of what is meant by ‘author of sin.’ It is assumed and commonly agreed what the phrase is referring to, so much so that these Calvinists find it imperative to insist that their theology does not make God the author of sin, without defining what it means for God to be the author of sin. But when I posted on God being the author of sin in Calvinism recently, Hays felt it necessary to point out that I had not defined the term. Oy! I mean what Calvin means, what the Confessions mean, what Erickson means, what Grudem means.”

i) To begin with, the fact that a 16C reader might know what a 16C writer is talking about hardly means a 21C reader knows what a 16C writer is talking about. Suppose we applied Birch’s silly statement to Shakespeare.

ii) An accuser shoulders the burden of proof in defining his accusatorial terms.

“It is not mere invective for critics of Classical Arminian thought to connote that Arminianism inevitably leads to Open Theism, it is defamatory and deceitful ~ an attempt at constructing a straw man, thus caricaturing Arminianism to make one's system appear orthodox.”

Is Billy just a bit dense? Is that his problem? He acts as though this is a slippery slope argument. It’s not. Rather, it’s a logical argument. What does libertarianism entail? That’s the question.

Irrefutable or irrefruitable? Survival of the fruitiest

Here, direct from the horse’s mouth, are the criteria by which the church of Rome judges her own claims:

Only faith can recognize that the Church possesses these properties from her divine source. But their historical manifestations are signs that also speak clearly to human reason. As the First Vatican Council noted, the "Church herself, with her marvelous propagation, eminent holiness, and inexhaustible fruitfulness in everything good, her catholic unity and invincible stability, is a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefutable witness of her divine mission."258

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a9p3.htm

By way of comment:

1.This doesn’t mean we have to limit ourselves to Catholic criteria. But if the church of Rome falls short of her own criteria, then that’s as far as we need to proceed.

2.Criteria cut both ways. If they carry the potential to verify the claims of the claimant, then they carry the corollary potential to falsify the claims of the claimant.

3.The passage I’ve quoted can be broken down into two distinct criteria:

i) A subjective, faith criterion

ii) An objective, historical criterion

If we apply Catholic criteria to Catholicism, how does the church of Rome stack up?

4.Let’s begin with the subjective criterion. The problem with this criterion is that contemporary Catholicism acknowledges the existence of true believers outside the Roman fold.

So we have many believers who, when they apply the faith-criterion to Rome, are unconvinced by the claims of Rome. Observing the church of Rome doesn’t trigger in the a recognition of Mother Church.

So Catholicism already fails the faith-criterion. And that’s sufficient, all by itself, to falsify her claims.

5.What about the objective criterion?

I) ”Successful” propagation is no index of truth since many cults and false religions successfully propagate themselves.

ii) Same thing with “stability.”

Perhaps, though, the Catechism defines “invincible stability” as survival of the fruitiest. If so, see below.

iii) If “marvelous” is shorthand for Catholic miracles, then that raises its own set of questions:

a) We need to evaluate Catholic miracles on a case-by-case basis.

b) Reported miracles are hardly limited to Catholicism. So even if we could verify Catholic miracles, that wouldn’t single out Catholicism–in case we could verify other miracles outside of Catholicism.

c) Attestation is not the only function of miracles. Some miracles are simply acts of God’s miraculous mercy or judgment.

iv) Is Catholicism distinguished by “eminent holiness”? What does that mean, exactly?

a) Does this have reference to Catholic saints? But even if we stipulate to the eminent holiness of Catholic saints, that cuts both ways since that appeal is diluted by all the Catholic scoundrels. What about the amount of eminent iniquity we can also find in Catholic church history?

b) If, on the one hand, “eminent holiness” is defined in terms of what is distinctive to Catholic piety, then the evidence is viciously circular.

c) If, on the other hand, “eminent holiness” is defined in more generic terms, then Christian sanctity is scarcely limited to Catholics.

v) If unity is defined in Catholic terms (“catholic unity”), then the definition is tautologically true. But in that event, the definition begs the question in favor of Catholicism.

vi) If nutritious fruit is evidence of truth, then rotten fruit or poison fruit is evidence of falsehood. What’s truer is fruitier depending on the quality of the produce. The Catholic orchard or garden has its share of wormy lemons, rotten apples, and poison mushrooms.

vii) The Catholic church has fruity priests by the barrel. But unless you equate fruit-flavored piety with eminent sanctity, that kind of produce is hardly a confirmation of Roman Catholicism. Such signs are more irrefruitable than irrefutable.

Lukan ecclesiology

What are the marks of the true church? The Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the Nicene marks of the church. Of course, that’s deceptive. The Nicene marks of the church don’t define the Catholic church. Rather, the Catholic church defines the Nicene marks. It defines or redefines the Nicene marks to mark out the Catholic church.

The Catholic church has its historic roots in tradition. However, once has institution becomes well-established, it can take on a life of its own. It ceases to dependent on its historical point of origin for its continued existence. It can proceed to redefine itself. Over time, a bureaucracy may depart from its original vision or mandate.

The NT is the logical place to look for the marks of the church. For the NT church is the archetype and prototype of the Christian church.

Mind you, some details of the NT church may be timebound or culturebound. We may need to distinguish between what is normative and what is adaptive or inaugural.

But the NT church remains our standard of comparison for what is prescribed, proscribed, or permitted in Christian ecclesiology.

Catholics often act as though we Evangelicals lack a theology of the church, but, of course, that’s false. It’s just that we have a different source of theology.

As the church historian of the NT church, Luke is a major reference point for NT ecclesiology. I’ll be quoting some passages from a recent monograph on Lukan ecclesiology: G. Twelftree, People of the Spirit: Exploring Luke’s View of the Church (Baker 2009).

Of course, what Twelftree says here and elsewhere is subject to debate. But his exegetical orientation, and focus on Lukan ecclesiology, is a suitable starting point for further reflection.

And, needless to say, Lukan ecclesiology intersects with Pauline ecclesiology inasmuch as Paul was Luke’s friend, traveling companion, and theological “hero” in Acts.

So here’s what we might dub the Lukan marks of the church:

§§4.2; 14:2 The Church dispenses salvation?

“In these stories Luke’s view of the relationship between the Church and the individual’s present experience of salvation becomes clear. It is not that salvation is dependent on being part of the Church, nor even that entry into the Church is part of salvation. Rather, salvation comes about distinct from and prior to joining the Church. Yet, taking up one’s place among the other people of God is a natural and assumed consequence of being saved–being found or made whole. In short, for Luke, while salvation is not joining or re-entering the community of God’s people–the Church–it is a natural (perhaps expected or unavoidable) consequence or expression, even ongoing benefit, of it.” (49).

“Although Luke describes the Church as embodying the ministry of Jesus, he does not describe the Church as dispensing salvation. The missionaries remain mortals bringing and demonstrating the news that makes salvation possible. Moreover, although salvation is prior to and distinct from becoming part of the Church, belonging to the people of God is an assumed and natural expression of being saved…We are saved individually but live corporately (4.4 above).

§5.1 The Church and Judaism

“Luke occasionally calls his readers ‘Israel.” In the Infancy Narrative, in particular, salvation is said to come to ‘Israel.” Further, Luke insists that the group of twelve apostles must be maintained, conveying the idea that ‘Israel’ continues in the story of the Church (Acts 1:15-26). This is characterized in Luke’s description of the post-Easter community of followers of Jesus. What was expected for Israel–a kingdom, twelve leaders, the Spirit, growth, fear of the Lord, mighty works, material well-being, for example–had come to the early community of the followers of Jesus. This suggests that Luke saw the Church as the new or renewed Israel” (55).

“Also, in numerous passages, Luke introduces the word ‘people’ into the material as those hearing the message of Jesus. In Acts the followers of Jesus are called ‘a people for his (God’s) name’ (Acts 15:14; see also 18:10). The significance of this is that Luke is probably dependent on the Greek Old Testament where the ‘people’ are those God saves and leads (e.g. Zech 2:11)” (55n9).

§5.2 A synogague?

“That Luke thought of the first post-Easter followers of Jesus as a distinct group of Jews, with their own synagogue, is suggested early in Acts where he says the group totaled 120 persons (1:15; see §2.1). In any case, Luke’s undoubted knowledge of synagogues will have been informed by the Diaspora where, as I have just argued, he depicts the followers of Jesus beginning to form their own synagogues” (56-57).

§5.3 A sect?

“In that Luke also describes the Pharisees and Sadducees as sects [Acts 5:17; 15:5; 25:5] we can suppose that, in using the word ‘sect’ of followers of Jesus [24:14], Luke had similar motives: portraying them as a respectable school of thought or legitimate, perhaps even influential, expression of Judaism. In this, Luke is reinforcing for readers the view that they–Jews, Greeks, and God-fearers following Jesus–are at least a legitimate expression of God’s purposes for and promises to his people” (59).

§5.4 “The Way”

“In sharing with the Qumran people both their use of ‘the Way’ as a description of people faithful to Jewish traditions [Acts 18:25-26; 24:14] and their interest in the quotation from Isaiah 40:3 (Lk 1:76; 3:4-6), as well as what we have seen in his use of the word ‘sect,” we can reasonably suppose that the hint is confirmed that Luke held the view that members of his community were marked out from the mainstream of society as the true expression of God’s expectations of and promises to his people…the Church is being portrayed as the true and faithful expression of Israel” (61).

§5.5 Ekklesia

“In Acts 7:38 Luke uses ekklesia of the Israelites gathered in the wilderness (also Heb 2:12; cf. Josephus, Ant. 4.309)…The first feature to note about ekklesia is the implications of the answer to the question whether or not Luke wrote ‘church’ or ‘churches’ in Acts 9:31: ‘the church [or churches] throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria [all?] had peace.’ The issue at stake is whether Luke had in mind a single, universal Church distributed throughout various localities or whether he wrote of the various churches in their areas…This [singular] use of ‘church’ to represent either a region of churches or the universal Church would be unique in Luke’s writing…when Luke wants to write of groups of Christians in a number of places he uses the plural ‘churches’ (Acts 15:41; 16:5). More likely, then, Luke used the plural ‘churches’ here in Acts 9:31,which also has significant textual support (as in codex Bezae)…In short, this verse (Acts 9:31) is consistent with Luke’s use of ‘church’ elsewhere as a local gathering of the followers of Jesus. Thus, although Luke’s narrative conveys the idea that he considered the spreading numbers of followers of Jesus all belonged to the one movement that originated in the ministry of Jesus and expanded from Jerusalem, he did not use the word ‘church’ in the singular to express that idea” (62).

§5.6 A household

“To gain insight into his understanding of the local church we can note that, on a number of occasions, the local groups of followers of Jesus met in private homes…In Luke’s society the household was accepted as a semi-independent socioeconomic unit and political unit under the control of the householder. Thus, the household was a microcosm of society (cf. Mt 12:25)…A household would consist of members of the family, servants, labourers, tenants, and dependent business people. Economically, religiously, socially and personally these people were dependent on the householder who in turn had a measure of legal responsibility for his people. So, with the apparent frequent conversion of whole households and the focus of the local church in a house, Luke portrays the Church not as a collection of individuals in a city, but as people belonging to a basic social unit of care and responsibility that affected every aspect of life” (63).

§10:3 Scripture

“Not only does Luke expect his readers to find the Old Testament Christologically rich but also to mine it for ecclesiological self-understanding. In light of what he has written in relation to the texts, Luke probably expects his readers to use the Old Testament to find their place (and plight) in the biblical story…There is nothing about the speeches that suggests Luke thought scriptural interpretation was a particular prophetic gift or act” (150).

§12 Leadership

“We have not been able to find any evidence that Luke was attempting to establish an ecclesiastical system with Jerusalem as the headquarters; too much of the narrative takes place without recourse to Jerusalem or the leadership there for Luke to be seen as an early catholic or even presbyterian in this sense…Paul’s commissioning is without the direct imprimatur of any Jerusalem figure…James replaces Peter. Additionally, without attention to Jerusalem or the leaders there, Luke has Paul and Barnabas appoint leaders in churches” (175).

Cartographic ecclesiology

I’m gratified to see that Jay Dyer continues to find religious certainty in the one true church…es:

http://www.antipelagian.com/2009/10/jay-dyer-re-convertssort-of.html

It’s just one more piece evidence, as if further evidence were needed, that high churchmen enjoy a rock of stability denied the stray sheep of schismatic evangelicalism.

For Dyer, the roadmap for finding the one true church resembles a calendar. The identity the one true church varies with which pretty picture adorns which month of the calendar you’re gazing at. Every month, Dyer discovers the one true church–which differs from the last one true church, which differs from the next to the last one true church…

His compass is, without fail, oriented to true north–except when the needle is pointing northeast, or east, or southeast, or south, or southwest, or west, or…

Ecclesiology is synonymous with cartography.

Inconsolable grief

I know exactly where the tape is, in which box, on which shelf. It's an old reel-to-reel tape I used with the tape recorder my dad bought me in grade school. It has his voice on it. The box has moved around with me for a long time, but I have never listened to the tape since my dad died. I don't think I could stand it. It would be too heartbreaking.

I thought about the tape as I was watching Gregory Hoblit's "Frequency." Here is a movie that uses the notion of time travel to set up a situation where a man in 1999 is able to talk to his father in 1969, even though his father died when the man was 6. The movie harnesses this notion to a lot of nonsense, including a double showdown with a killer, but the central idea is strong and carries us along. There must be something universal about our desire to defeat time, which in the end defeats us.

There may be holes and inconsistencies in the plot. I was too confused to be sure. And I don't much care, anyway, because the underlying idea is so appealing--that a son who doesn't remember his father could talk to him via radio and they could try to help each other.

Moviegoers seem to like supernatural stories that promise some kind of escape from our mutual doom. "Frequency" is likely to appeal to the fans of "The Sixth Sense," "Ghost" and other movies where the characters find a loophole in reality. What it also has in common with those two movies is warmth and emotion. Quaid and Caviezel bond over the radio, and we believe the feelings they share. The ending of the movie is contrived, but then of course it is: The whole movie is contrived. The screenplay conferences on "Frequency" must have gone on and on, as writer Toby Emmerich and the filmmakers tried to fight their way through the maze they were creating. The result, however, appeals to us for reasons as simple as hearing the voice of a father who you thought you would never hear again.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000428/REVIEWS/4280303/1023

This illustrates the dilemma of the unbeliever.

On the one hand, Ebert can’t bear to part with this memento of his late father. Wherever he moves, wherever he lives, he takes it with him. From house to house and move to move, it’s something that remains a part of his life. Something he always takes along. Something he always keeps alongside.

On the other hand, he can’t bear to hear it. It stays in a box on a shelf–unheard. There it sits–month-after-month and year-after-year.

He clings to this little remnant of his late father. This tangible contact with the now intangible person he knew and loved and lost. He can’t bring himself to break that tenuous connection. It’s all he’s got. He can't let go. Can’t put his dad behind him or sever the tie.

And yet, he can’t bring himself to turn around. To look back. For that would only remind him of something he no longer has, something irrevocable. It would only serve to rub in the aching, incurable sense of loss–an absence made present by the present reminder of an irretrievable past.

It may also be true that we love time-travel scenarios because they express our frustration with life under the curse. A yearning to escape the curse. Escape the domino effect of youthful sin. Redeem our lost opportunities.

But in this unyielding world, with the inexorable march of time, with the inexorable effects of ill-considered deeds, there is not escape–except the illusory world of science fiction.

We seek deliverance in our imagination. By turning within. To our daydreams of a better world. A world in which we can change the past to amend the future. A world in which we have a second chance. A world in which it’s never too late. Never to late to profit from our hard-earned experience.

But if this world is all there is, then the dream of the daydreamer is trapped inside a rigid world of linear time and linear effects. Sooner or later, even a daydreamer must awaken. The alarm clock of a real world is too insistent to tune out for very long.

He can, for a time, escape into his celluloid dreams, but when he awakens he’s right back in his prison. In his dreams, he’s on the lam. But when he wakes up, as he must, he instantly return to his cell–which makes his momentary freedom all the worse.

But for the Christian, our fallen world is the dream. The nightmare. The prison. When he awakens in death, another world awaits him–outside the walls he left behind.