Soul brothers

Ed Dingess

You will reply that you personally don't know of any faith healers to whom we can turn for healing. Have you ever witnessed an indisputable, certified genuine miracle? One for which there were no natural explanations?

Lessing

Miracles, which I see with my own eyes, and which I have the opportunity to verify for myself, are one thing; miracles, of which I know only from history that others say they have seen them and verified them, are another. 
I live in the eighteenth century, in which miracles no longer happen.
The problem is that reports of fulfilled prophecies are not fulfilled prophecies; that reports of miracles are not miracles. 

Short-sighted objections

From an avid MacArthurite:

Continuationists would easily smash the cessationist position if any one of the thousands of people who claim to have the spiritual gift of healing would simply clean out a cancer ward on camera with verification by medical staff (and Jesus did this repeatedly – Matthew 4:24, 8:16; Luke 4:40), but the fact that nobody ever tries to attempt this is suggestive. 

http://mennoknight.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/cessationism-and-continuationism-and-strange-fire-oh-my-part-1/

i) I didn't realize that Jesus repeatedly cleaned out cancer wards on camera with verification by medical staff. 

ii) As a rule, Jesus didn't seek out sick people to heal. Rather, they sought him out. Is that suggestive? 

iii) Jesus only healed a tiny fraction of all the sick people alive during his earthly ministry. Is the fact that he never tried to heal everyone suggestive? Is the fact that that he never attempts to heal everyone today suggestive? 

Strange bedfellows

MacArthurites:

Continuationists would easily smash the cessationist position if any one of the thousands of people who claim to have the spiritual gift of healing would simply clean out a cancer ward on camera with verification by medical staff (and Jesus did this repeatedly – Matthew 4:24, 8:16; Luke 4:40), but the fact that nobody ever tries to attempt this is suggestive. 

http://mennoknight.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/cessationism-and-continuationism-and-strange-fire-oh-my-part-1/

It is nice to hear about a person having her hip pain taken away and his flu-like symptoms disappearing, but those miraculous healings, even if they are occasionally supernatural healings (and I am not saying they aren’t) are no where near the kind of supernatural healings recorded in the Bible. I want to see people with the gift of healing going into burn wards, veteran’s hospitals with soldiers who have lost limbs, and hospitals that specialize with spinal cord injuries. 

 http://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/my-concerns-with-bloggers-concerned-about-strange-fire/

Atheists:

Also, he [God] could say, "Folks, I'm going to do you a favor: make you immune to cancer," where from that day on no cancers are observed in anyone. It would put the oncologists out of business, but it would please everyone else, but more importantly: it would provide excellent evidence that God exists. 

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/drange-interview.html

Someone tells us that God loves us as a father loves his children. We are reassured. But then we see a child dying of inoperable cancer of the throat. His earthly father is driven frantic in his efforts to help, but his Heavenly Father reveals no obvious sign of concern. Some qualification is made -- God's love is "not a merely human love" or it is "an inscrutable love," perhaps -- and we realise that such sufferings are quite compatible with the truth of the assertion that "God loves us as a father (but, of course, ...)." We are reassured again. But then perhaps we ask: what is this assurance of God's (appropriately qualified) love worth, what is this apparent guarantee really a guarantee against? Just what would have to happen not merely (morally and wrongly) to tempt but also (logically and rightly) to entitle us to say "God does not love us" or even "God does not exist"? I therefore put to the succeeding symposiasts the simple central questions, "What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?" 

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/antony_flew/theologyandfalsification.html

Rearguard cessationism

I'm going to comment on a few of Tom Pennington's arguments, from his Strange Fire presentation:

http://thecripplegate.com/strange-fire-a-case-for-cessationism-tom-pennington/

I'm going to skip most of his arguments because I've already interacted with the arguments of the most astute cessationists (e.g. Richard Gaffin, O. P. Robertson, Dan Wallace, B. B. Warfield).

Cessationism does not mean, as our critics present it, that God no longer does anything miraculous. Cessationism also does not mean that the Spirit cannot, if He should choose, to give a miraculous ability to someone today. He’s God, He can do whatever He wants. If He wants to, He could give a language to someone they’ve never studied, it just wouldn’t be the New Testament gift, because it wouldn’t be revelation from God.

Really? That's not how another MacArthurite defines cessationism: 

Let me make one more distinction: There are two kinds of miracles noted in Scripture.1. Some are remarkable works of God apart from any human agency.2. The other kind of miracle involves a human agent, who from the human perspective is the instrument through which the miracle comes. 

http://www.biblebb.com/files/combating_charismatic_theology.htm

Pennington allows for God to miraculously empower somebody today, whereas Johnson disallows that very thing. Pennington erases the line Johnson draws. 

Of course, MacArthurites are free to disagree with each other. But when Pennington accuses "our critics" of misrepresenting cessationism, even though Johnson confirms what they say, that sends mixed signals. 

Because the primary purpose of miracles has always been to confirm the credentials of a divinely appointed messenger—to establish the credibility of one who speaks for God. 

Yet Pennington just said: the Spirit, if he so chose, could give a miraculous ability to someone today. It just wouldn't be a revelation from God. 

How, then, does that square with his claim that "the primary purpose of miracles has always been to confirm the credentials of a divinely appointed messenger—to establish the credibility of one who speaks for God"?

But how were the people to know if a man who claimed to be a prophet was in fact speaking God’s own words? Moses faced this dilemma. [Reads 4:1–5] So understand that God enabled Moses to perform miracles for one purpose only: to validate Moses as God’s prophet and Moses’ message as God’s own words. Moses was universally accepted as God’s prophet, and what he wrote were literally the words of God and came to be accepted as such. Why? Because the power to work miracles validated his claims to speak for God.

I'm sorry, but on the face of it, that claim is exegetically preposterous. In Exodus, the primary reason Moses is a miracle worker is to trounce Egyptian religion, thereby exposing the vanity of the Egyptian deities, in contrast to the omnipotence power of the one true God. See Currid's analysis. 

The first was that of Moses and Joshua, from the Exodus through the career of Joshua (1445-1380 BC), about 65 years. The second window was during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha (ca. 860-795 BC), again only about 65 years. Here in Deuteronomy Moses laid down 3 criteria for discerning a true prophet. The true prophet’s predictions must always come true (v. 21). In Deut 13:1–5, God says that if He chose to authenticate a true prophet He would do so by empowering him to work miracles as He did with Moses. Also in Deuteronomy 13, He said, even if He works miracles, the third criterion is that the prophet’s message must be always in complete doctrinal agreement with previous revelation.

If we apply Pennington's criteria to Pennington's examples, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha were the only true OT prophets. Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Malachi, &c. were false prophets, for they fail to meet the three criteria of a true prophet. Most of of them performed no miracles. 

It's also odd that Isaiah doesn't make the cut, since miracles are associated with him. Why doesn't Pennington include him?   

Consider the gift of healing. In the New Testament when someone with the New Testament gift of healing used his gifts, the results were complete, immediate, permanent, undeniable, every kind of sickness, and every kind of illness. 

i) How does he know that every NT healing was permanent? The NT contains no record of long-term follow-up studies. So what's his evidence for that claim? Is it his assumption that a temporary healing would be defective? If so, he needs to supply a supporting argument for his theological assumption.

ii) By permanent, does he mean that if Christ or an apostle cured someone, that immunized them from the recurrence of the same disease? If so, how does he know that? Suppose St. Peter healed a man of syphilis. Does that mean the man could no longer contract syphilis, even if he continued to indulge in sexual immorality?

To take another example: elderly women are a higher risk of dying from pneumonia. Did they die of pneumonia, or did they die of old age? Both. Age made them more susceptible to pneumonia. 

If Christ or an apostle "permanently" healed a younger women of pneumonia, does that mean she could never again catch pneumonia?

Or take Christ's warning to the invalid: "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you" (Jn 5:14). This insinuates that his particular disability was due to sin, and if he returned to a life of sin, his disability, or worse, would return. A potentially impermanent cure. 

iii) What does he mean by "undeniable"? Does he mean a miracle no one would deny? But atheists deny Biblical miracles in toto. 

Does he mean a miracle which no reasonable person would deny? But to say no modern miracles are undeniable in that sense begs the question. 

Moreover, it comes into conflict with his prior admission that "the Spirit, if he so chose, could give a miraculous ability to someone today." Would that be deniable or undeniable? 

The purported healings of today’s faith healers are the antithesis: incomplete, temporary, and unverifiable. 

i) What's his evidence that the healings of today's faith healers are "unverifiable"? What's his source of information for that blanket denial? 

ii) Suppose an atheist turned tables by demanding verification for Biblical miracles? What is Pennington's comeback?

iii) What's his evidence that all their healings are temporary? 

iv) What about temporary healings? To some extent I'm sympathetic to this objection. A "temporary" healing suggests a psychosomatic healing. Put another way, a "temporary" healing suggests a face-saving euphemism for a failed healing. In other words, no healing at all. So I think many temporary healings are suspect. There's a presumption against their authenticity.

v) But our assessment still comes down to the specifics. Take the famous case of Joy Davidman. She had advanced cancer which went into remission in answer to the prayer of an Anglican priest who had a reputation as a healer. Yet she suffered a fatal relapse two years later. 

vi) Where does Jas 5:14-16 fit into Pennington's paradigm? Does he think that expired in the 1C AD? If not, does he think that necessarily results in a permanent cure? 

What if a dying father or mother is estranged from his or her children? What if God heals the parent long enough to effect a family reconciliation? Does Pennington rule that out?  

Pennington's cessationism has a veneer of Scripturality, but the more you scrutinize it, the more a priori it turns out to be. 

Does Church Need to Be More Manly?

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/362029/print

Fecundophobia

http://thefederalist.com/2013/10/22/fecundophobia-growing-fear-children-fertile-women/

Meyer contra Marshall 4

"More on Small Shelly Fossils and the Length of the Cambrian Explosion: A Concluding Response to Charles Marshall" by Stephen Meyer.

Luther, Jews, and charismatics

http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2013/10/baptists-figure-out-luthers-attitude.html

Disambiguating the charismatic debate

There's a good way and a bad way to argue against continuationism. Unfortunately, these are not consistently distinguished in popular debates:

The wrong way:

Point to examples of Pentecostals run amok. Point of Word of Faith hucksters. Point to YouTube clips of "holy barking," &c. 

Universalize from these examples to continuationism in toto.

That's a bad argument because it's logically fallacious. A classic inductive fallacy: a hasty generalization. 

Moreover, it's a double-edged sword. After all, atheists use that same type of argument to discredit Christianity en masse. 

The right way:

Demonstrate from Scripture that continuationism is false.

Point to examples of Pentecostals run amok to illustrate the consequences of a false starting-point. 

See the difference? In the first case you are using examples to establish a general principle.

In the second case, you first establish a general principle, then use examples to illustrate that principle. 

In the second case, the principle is grounded in arguments independent of the illustrations. 

In the first case, the principle is dependent on the examples.

In the second case, the examples are dependent on the principle.

In the second case, this is how the examples are related to the principle: because continuationism is false, so-called excesses and abuses are not isolated incidents. Rather, these are the inevitable, unavoidable consequences of a building on a false foundation. 

Hence, it's ultimately irrelevant to distinguish between reputable and disreputable charismatics, for reputable charismatics are reputable in spite of their theology, not because of their theology. Whether they represent the majority or minority of charismatics is a red herring. 

One final clarification: what I've said doesn't mean the good way is a good argument. It may be a bad argument. But it's a good way to mount the argument. That's the proper way to frame your objection.

Your objection may still be bad, but that's the kind of argument we should engage. 

That would shift the argument to a primarily exegetical argument.

That can also be supplemented by a historical argument, for cessationism and continuationism both have broadly predictable real-world consequences. 

One mediator between God and man

In this post I'm going to comment on the difference between Christian and unitarian models of mediation. 

i) In the OT, there's a categorical difference between God and the world. Between the Creator and the creature. Time and space originate in God's creative fiat. So God is essentially transcendent.

In theory, this could lead to a deistic concept of divine action, where God acts in the world through intermediate creatures. In theory, God could be so holy, so other, so set apart, that he only speaks or acts through go-betweens. And to some extent, angels function as emissaries between heaven and earth.

However, in the OT, you also have theophanies. And you have an angel who is not a creature, like other angels, but God himself, assuming an angelic similitude. 

So, in the OT, angels don't take the place of God, as go-betweens. In the OT, God reserves the freedom to bypass angels and make "direct" contact with humans. 

ii) But in Second Temple Judaism, there's a shift. Because Second Temple literature isn't constrained by divine inspiration, it loses the balance, and sometimes becomes deistic. This is seen in the exaltation of Metatron. Because Yahweh is so sacrosanct, so unapproachable, Metatron becomes a cosmic viceregent or prime minister. The acting God. 

This illustrates the internal tensions of unitarianism. On the one hand, because God is so untouchable, he must delegate the administration of the universe to a second party. Someone must fill the gap. That exaggerates divine transcendence.

But, conversely, in order for a deputy to act in God's stead, he must be so exalted, so godlike, that this once again blurs the distinction between God and the world. The solution ends up intensifying the original tension. 

iii) We see a similar development in Islam and Medieval Judaism. Islam and Medieval Judaism aren't so much monotheistic as they are unitarian. That's because these are post-Christian developments. These exist in conscious, antagonistic reaction to Christianity. 

They accentuate the unicity and transcendence of God. But in so doing, they create a void. And they fill the void by the Neoplatonic tactic of introducing intermediaries which bridge the gap. Intermediaries which are higher than man, but just a tad than God. Not quite divine, not quite mundane. They occupy the space (as it were) between God and creation.

One obvious model for bridging a gap is to fill it in with something that occupies the interval and touches both ends. It fills the empty space in-between either side of the gap, like stepping stones.  

iv) In the NT, the Incarnate Son is a mediatorial figure, but it's a completely different paradigm. Assuming that Second Temple Judaism has any influence on this conception, the mediatorial role of Christ stands in studied contrast to the Second Temple paradigm. It's not an extension of the Second Temple paradigm, but an antithetical alternative–like green screening, where the background color exists for the sake of contrast. 

In the NT, Christ is not an intermediary between God and man in the sense of being in-between God and man, as something less than God but more than man, but as both. Not within the two sides of the gap, but on both sides of the gap. That's a radically different conception. That's not commensurable with the Second Temple model, or its counterpart in Medieval Judaism. 

A unitarian might object that this fails to solve the problem. However, the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, never viewed the metaphysical distance between God and the world as a problem in the first place. There's nothing to solve in that regard. The real problem is the ethical distance between God and sinners. 

v) To take an illustration, and that's all it is, suppose you had two warring factions. Two belligerent ethnic and religious groups. Suppose the two factions were reconciled when one faction's king marries the other faction's queen, and they have a child. The child embodies both factions.  

Where did all these Calvinists come from?

http://www.capitolhillbaptist.org/audio/2013/10/where-did-all-these-calvinists-come-from/

I admit, I was shocked that Dever never mentioned James White and his influence of reformed theology proper and his reformed apologetics in Evangelicalism and the world at large (Islam, Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, etc). Rap groups makes Dever's list as one of the most Reformed influences. But no mention of White.

So this blunderous lacuna on Dever's part skews his lecture on Calvinism. Other than that, it was a helpful overview.

Dingos and Darwin

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that Dingos illustrate a methodological problem for Darwinism. In Darwinism, a traditional way to establish common descent is to string fossils together in a presumptive phylogenic tree. 

Dingos looks uncannily like domestic dogs. So what are they? Are they domestic dogs that reverted? Are they wild canines (related to dogs, but not dogs). Are they hybrids–the issue of domestic dogs interbreeding with wild canines? From what I've read, scientists are unable to sort that out.

This is despite the fact that since Dingos are a living species, we know more about them than the fossil remains of extinct species. In addition, the white man colonized Australia a few centuries ago, so if they are either hybrids or feral dogs, that should be easier to trace historically. 

If scientists can't even sort out the evolutionary sequence for Dingos, how can they hope to sort out the evolutionary sequence extinct species from fossils scattered in time and space? 

Revive Us Again

i) Pentecostalism suffers from unrealistic expectations. I think that's due in part to the fact that modern Pentecostalism was birthed in revival. The Azusa Street Revival is the best known, but that came on the heels periodic revivals, clustered close in time. Cf. G. McGree, Miracles, Missions, & American Pentecostalism (Orbis Books 2010), Part 1. 

For those who experience a Christian revival or live through that period, that's apt to foster false expectations. In the nature of the case, revivals are exceptional. That makes them a poor paradigm for normality. It's hard to go back to the humdrum of ordinary life after the revival dies down. 

It's tempting to think your revival is not exceptional. That Christian history has finally turned a corner. The "latter rain" and all that good stuff. That this is a decisive turning point in Christian history. Your generation is different. You're something special. 

The letdown is hard to take. Hence, it's tempting to artificially stoke the fire. 

ii) Cessationism is the polar opposite. A classically risk-adverse position. If you're expectations are low enough, you'll never be disappointed. Kind of like a misanthrope whose cynicism immunizes him from disillusionment. 

iii) Cessationists often frame the issue by saying charismatics judge by experience which cessationists judge by Scripture. There's sometimes a lot of truth to that invidious comparison. And sometimes not.

iv) In my observation, cessationists unconsciously judge by experience. For instance, when they judge Paul Cain by false prophecies or judge Pentecostal worship by "holy barking," that's judging by experience. 

And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you don't fall prey to hasty generalizations. But I find it striking that many cessationists are oblivious to the fact that they, too, are judging by experience.

v) Another example is how some cessationists have a very narrow definition of prophecy. For instance, they typically define prophecy as "an infallible word from God" (or something along those lines). They think that's Biblical. They accuse charismatics of redefining prophecy.

What's ironic is that they didn't get that definition from reading the Bible. In Scripture, prophetic phenomena are much more varied. For instance, visionary revelation originally consists of images rather than words. No divine words at all. 

Likewise, there's a potential (and sometimes actual) distinction between revelatory dreams and inspired speech. For instance, Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar were both recipients of revelatory dreams. But when Pharaoh tells Joseph what he saw in his dreams, Pharaoh isn't speaking under divine inspiration. When Nebuchadnezzar tells Daniel what he saw in his dreams, he's not speaking under divine inspiration. The dream is inspired, but his own account of the dream is uninspired. The dream is prophetic, but he recounts the dream from memory. 

That stands in contrast to canonical prophets, for whom the vision and the record of the vision are equally inspired. Both visionary and verbal inspiration. 

So why do cessationists define prophecy in such unbiblical, reductionistic terms? That's a result of their experience. They've been conditioned to define prophecy that way by cessationist preachers or writers they've heard and read. 

The paradoxical thing about conditioning is that operates at a subliminal level. To be conditioned is to be unaware of your conditioning. It takes a conscious effort to reflect on your conditioning. 

Catholic miracles

A cessationist objection to modern miracles is that once we allow for modern miracles, we can't screen out Catholic miracles. Since miracles attest doctrine, God won't answer Catholic prayers. 

There are several problems with that objection:

i) First of all, it doesn't seem fair to treat all Protestant miracles as suspect just to preempt Catholic miracles. 

ii) The objection sounds admirably uncompromising. Seems to erect a thick high wall against Rome. 

Unfortunately, the wall has a backdoor. Unintentionally, this is a standing invitation for Protestants to convert to Rome. Practically dares them to convert to Rome. For if miracles attest doctrine, then it only takes one Catholic miracle for the wall to become a portal to Rome.

What starts out like firm opposition to Rome actually poises the Protestant right on the tipping-point of conversion to Rome. A single Catholic miracle will be a wholesale defeater for Protestant theology. You could hardly have a more unstable position. 

iii) A cessationist fallback is to allow for the possibility that a Catholic prayer might be miraculously answered, but attribute the source to the dark side. But although that explanation is worth considering in its own right, it succeeds by forfeiting the original premise. The miracle loses its evidentiary value as a witness to doctrine. 

iv) Why might God answer a Catholic prayer? 

Consider this. Every Protestant of Anglo-European extraction is descended from Roman Catholics, going back to our pre-Reformation forebears–or sooner. 

That was an age of high infant mortality. Modern medicine didn't exist. Other than folk remedies, which were often ineffective or positively harmful, prayer was the only recourse. And when a medieval parent prayed for a sick child, that's going to be a prayer to the Virgin Mary or St. Jude. 

So the question is, would God ever answer the prayer of a Medieval mother or father, pleading for the life of a sick child? If you say no, then you're taking the position no Protestant of Anglo-European descent was the beneficiary of God answering the prayer of a Catholic ancestor, going back scores of generations.

If, in fact, God answered the prayer, it wasn't to validate Catholic dogma, or attest the cult of the saints . Rather, it's so that hundreds of years down the line, you and I would exist today. God healed your great-great-great forebear with you in view. It was a way of creating Protestants! A delayed reaction. 

It's not the Virgin Mary or St. Jude who answered the prayer, even if it was directed at one of them, but God. 

And it doesn't stop with medieval Catholicism. Before there were Catholics, there were pagans. Every Christian today is the descendent of pagans. And that includes Christians of every ethnic group. 

So the question is whether God ever answered the prayer of a pagan parent, interceding for a sick child. Take Samson Occom, the great Mohegan missionary. He's a direct descendent of heathen Indians. Or take Abraham, a direct descendent of moon-worshipers. 

Consider their linear ancestors, many of whom were deathly ill as children. Did God never answer the prayer of their desperate parents? Or were all their lineal descendants preternaturally healthy? 

v) Someone might object that if God ever answered a pagan prayer, that would validate paganism in the mind supplicant. To that objection, I'd say two things:

a)Before Christian missionaries began evangelizing the pagan world, pagans were going to practice their pagan faith regardless of God answering or not answering any of their prayers. 

b) In addition, cessationists do make allowance for the possibility that witchdoctors have real power. They attribute that power to the dark side.

But if a sick child is healed by a witchdoctor instead of God, that will still be taken to validate paganism. Whether God answers the prayer, or permits a demonic miracle, the pagan parent or heathen onlookers will still credit that to their false gods. If that's a problem, cessationism isn't the solution. It just relocates the problem.

Pauline prophecy

i) The debate over the continuance or discontinuance of NT prophecy centers on Acts and 1 Corinthians, since those are the two NT books which have the most to say about NT prophecy. Ideally, it's best to interpret a writer's usage by his own usage. If we don't have a large enough sample, then we may have to turn to the NT generally, or the OT generally, or extrabiblical usage. But the best starting-point is the author's usage.

This is a bit challenging. The Bible doesn't contain a glossary. So we have to define terms by ostensible examples or informative descriptions. Paul's letters are occasional writings. It also depends on whether we're defining prophecy in terms of the psychological experience, or the end-result (e.g. words). But here are some efforts to get a bead on Paul's understanding of prophecy:

The criteria for identifying the presence of oracular material in early Christian literature are the following: (1) If a saying or speech is attributed to a supernatural being (i.e. to God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, an angel, a deceased person, Satan, a demon, &c.)… (2) If a saying or speech consists of a prediction of the future course of events, or reflects knowledge of the past or present that the speaker could not be expected to know by ordinary sensory means. D. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Eerdmans 1983), 247-48.

ii) This defines prophecy in terms of extrasensory knowledge of the past, present, or future–as well as sacred space (i.e. the "third heaven"). Extrasensory knowledge of external events in time and space. 

At this stage in the argument, Aune isn't confining himself to the NT. But he goes on to say, with specific reference to Paul:

With varying degrees of confidence, we suggest that the following passages contain oracular sayings: 2 Cor 12:9; 1 Cor 15:51-52; Rom 11:25-26; 1 Thes 4:16-17a; 1 Cor 12:3; 1 Cor 14:37-38; Gal 5:21; 1 Thes 3:4; 1 Thes 4:2-6; 2 Thes 3:6,10,12 (261).

Let's consider another example: 1 Cor 14:25:

The Lord knew (1 Cor 4:5; Prov 15:11) and could reveal by prophecy the secrets of hearts (2 Kgs 5:26; cf. Sir 1:30). C. Keener, 1-2 Corinthians (Cambridge (2005), 115. 

Cf. 1 Cor 4:5, where nearly identical language describes the eschatological judgment of God. Now he uses it to refer to the judgment that takes place in the present through the Spirit. G. Fee, God's Empowering Presence (Hendrickson 1994), 245n667.  

A second parallel statement [1 Cor 4:5] explains and intensifies what this means: he will expose the motives of people's hearts…The one who searches the hearts is almost an OT title for God (Pss 17:3; 26:2; 44:21; 139:23). R Ciampa & B. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Eerdmans 2010), 174.  

iii) Using 1 Cor 4:5 to gloss 1 Cor 14:25, this involves extrasensory knowledge of a second party's private thoughts, and memories. But that also includes things they've done in the past, where they were the only witness to their own conduct or misconduct. Their "secret sins."

If these examples are representative, then Paul's understands the experience of prophecy to involve extrasensory knowledge of events that happen in time and space, as well as mind-reading–which is, by definition, extrasensory. And God is the source of this extrasensory knowledge. God is omniscient, and God can convey otherwise inaccessible information to human recipients. 

iv) Thus far, this refers to the prophetic experience. Prophecy can also denote the effect of the prophetic experience. In canonical prophecy, this is a two-stage process. In the first stage, God reveals information to the prophet. In the second stage, God inspires the prophet to communicate that information through the medium of the spoken or written word.

v) This, in turn, raises the question of whether both stages are always present whenever prophecy takes place. For instance, there are Scriptural instances where God sends revelatory dreams to pagans, viz. Abimelech, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Pilate's wife. They had a prophetic experience. But when they told others what they dreamt about, their account wasn't verbally inspired (unlike the Biblical narrative of their experience).

That may be a salient distinction when we consider the question of prophecy in the church. Even if prophecy continues off and on throughout church history, that's not the same as verbal inspiration. You can have the first stage without the second. 

The Church Prior to the Reformation: “The Purgatory Industry”

Salvation according to Rome: “Ye must!”

Of course, “corporal works of mercy” are a thing that Roman Catholics MAY do. Feeding the hungry, or giving alms – these are the kinds of good works that the Scriptures require. But notice how far down they are on the Roman Catholic “list of things to do”. When we are talking about being “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”, these particular good works (those prescribed by Christ) are far down in the Roman Catholic system.

Rome does not require these things – merely points to them as good things. What it REQUIRES is that you do “the Precepts of the Church”.

As a Roman Catholic, you won’t find yourself in hell for failing to feed the hungry, or clothing the naked, etc. However, you will go to hell (at least, you would have, when I was a kid) for failing to keep the “indispensable minimums”, the “Precepts of the Church”, unless they’ve found some way to “reformulate positively” these things, the way that they’ve reformulated positively the statement “no salvation outside of the church”.

But it seems as if they may be trying. The online version of Paragraph 2041 says:

2041 The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor …

However, my version, a printed 1995 edition of the book, clearly does not say “very necessary” but “indispensable”. Now, if you were going to relax those precepts, from “indispensable” to something, well, less than “indispensable”, you might head in the direction of “very necessary”. Maybe a future edition of this will be “we kinda-sorta think you oughta do it, but hey, who are we to judge?”

Scientific progress goes "boink"

"Unreliable research: Trouble at the lab: Scientists like to think of science as self-correcting. To an alarming degree, it is not."

The Official, Papally-Sanctioned Way to Pay Someone’s Way Out of Purgatory

“God and I decree and grant
that, if you give a certain
sum of money for the repair
 of the church, your relative
gets out of Purgatory”.

Indulgence for the Dead [From the Bull in favor of the Church of St. Peter of Xancto, Aug. 3, 1476], Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484)

Roman Catholics tell us that it was the abuse of Indulgences, not the Indulgences themselves, that caused the Reformation. They say The Catholic Church does not now nor has it ever approved the sale of indulgences.

They say “the Church has never taught the selling of indulgences”, meaning it was never a doctrine, and in this, they comfort themselves. It’s not one of those two or three ex cathedra statements that has been issued all through history, and so, a miss is as good as a mile. No harm, no foul, eh?

At some point, though, you’ve got to stop with the scholastic hair-splitting. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and has a bill like a duck and quacks like a duck, at some point you are justified in saying, “it really is a duck”.

Well, in this case, it is as close to a doctrine as you can get without it being an “ex cathedra teaching”. Here (while looking up other things), I found this “plenary indulgence”, (with “plenary” meaning “total”) issued by a pope, given in exchange for money.

Denzinger (©1954): 723a In order that the salvation of souls may be procured rather at that time when they need the prayers of others more, and when they can be of benefit to themselves less, by Apostolic authority from the treasure of the Church wishing to come to the aid of the souls who departed from the life united with Christ through charity, and who, while they lived, merited that they be favored by such indulgence; desiring this with paternal selection, in so far as with God's help we can, confident in the mercy of God and in the plenitude of His power, we both [that is, “we the Pope, and God”] concede and grant that, if any parents, friends, or other faithful of Christ, moved in behalf of these souls who are exposed to purgatorial fire for the expiation of punishments due them according to divine justice, during the aforementioned ten year period give a certain sum of money for the repair of the church of Xancto, or a value according to an arrangement with the dean or overseer of said church, or our collector by visiting said church or send it during said ten year period through messengers delegated by the same, we grant as a suffrage a plenary remission to assist and intercede for the souls in purgatory, in whose behalf they paid the said sum of money or the value, as mentioned above, for the remission of punishments.

Denzinger, at least, thought highly enough of this statement to place it in his “Sources of Catholic Dogma”. I wonder if any of the Catholic Answers folks are more knowledgeable than was old Henry Denzinger.

What's a charismatic?

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/10/what-does-it-mean-to-be-charismatic/

Mind & Cosmos in a nutshell

Conflicted atheist Thomas Nagel summarizes his thesis:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos/?_r=2&pagewanted=print

Hackers will empty Obamacare enrollees' bank accounts

http://washingtonexaminer.com/john-mcafee-predicts-hackers-will-empty-obamacare-enrollees-bank-accounts/article/2537153

Does religion raise the murder rate?

http://christthetao.blogspot.com/2013/10/does-faith-in-god-up-murder-rate.html

When the perfect comes

This is part 2 of a 2-part miniseries. Part 1 is here:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/10/seeing-in-mirror.html

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known (1 Cor 13:8-10).

i) Along with Acts 2:17-18, this is the major prooftext for continuationism. Although it gives an expiration date for tongues and prophecy, most modern scholars think the Second Coming is the event which terminates tongues and prophecy.  

I'm going to reserve that argument for a prior post (see above). 

ii) A cessationist alternative is to claim that Paul is alluding to the closure of the canon. Once Christians have the complete canon of Scripture at their disposal, the need for revelatory gifts like tongues and especially prophecy will be moot.

This interpretation has generally fallen out of favor in scholarly circles, but it still has defenders in some cessationists pockets. For instance, Bruce Compton of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary tries to rehabilitate this interpretation. Let's call this the "canonical interpretation" of 1 Cor 13:8-10). 

iii) I think the canonical interpretation is exegetically dubious. However, let's concede, for the sake of argument, that Paul is alluding to the closure of the canon. Does that give cessationists what they need?

Fact is, even if you grant that interpretation, it leaves the situation highly unstable and open-ended. It fails to solve the problem which the cessationist posed for himself.

iv) To begin with, it relocates the issue to the question of when the canon was closed. On cessationist grounds, what event counts as the closure of the canon? 

After all, this was debated in the Reformation. So you could say the canon wasn't settled until the 16C, with the Westminster Confession and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. If that's the terminus ad quem, then you'd have ongoing prophecy through the patristic era, Middle ages, and Renaissance. Clearly that's far too late for cessationists.

v) Let's consider a much earlier terminus ad quem. On the basis of manuscript evidence, David Trobisch has argued that the NT canon was effectively closed by the second half of the 2C AD. His basic argument is the NT manuscripts copy the books in a stereotypical order. But you can only copy something in that sequence if that sequence is already established in the exemplar. That's what scribes do: they don't originate, they copy. So he infers that the stereotypical order of books in NT manuscripts presupposes a standardized canon at that early date. They were using a template. 

His thesis is controversial, and some of his supporting arguments are weaker than others. But his basis thesis is defensible. Cf. A. Köstenberger, L. S. Kellum, & C. Quarles, The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (B&H 2009), 23-25.

That's a very conservative date for the closure of the NT canon. I don't think an earlier date is realistic. 

But even if we accept that date, the timeframe is very problematic for cessationism. After all, the mid-2C is also a period during which the NT apocrypha were beginning to proliferate. If a cessationist takes the position that prophecy continued until the mid-2C, when the canon was effectively closed, then it's going to be harder to claim the NT apocrypha are…apocryphal. That cut-off allows for bona fide prophecy to be operative during this period. But in that case, why can't some of the NT "apocrypha" be product of genuine prophets?  

Remember, a major objection which cessationists have to continuationism is the cessationist contention that ongoing revelation results in an open canon. That jeopardizes the sufficiency of Scripture and the boundaries of the canon, for new prophecies supplement or compete with older prophecies. 

Cessationists reject the efforts of evangelical charismatics and continuationists to treat prophecy as a sub-canonical genre. But if their canonical interpretation of 1 Cor 13:8-10 forces them to push prophecy into the mid-2C, there will be serious additional contenders for the NT canon. How can they eliminate the rivals?

vi) In fairness, it might be said that this overstates the extent of the problem. There was a sizable core canon from the outset, including the four Gospels and the Pauline epistles. These were undisputed from the get-go. So Christians always had a substantial, partial NT canon.

But although I think that argument is historically sound, that falls short of the cessationist argument. According to that argument, it's precisely the completion of the canon which takes the place of living prophecy. Once Christians have the complete inscripturated revelation, then, and only then, have prophets outlived their usefulness. 

vii) But there's another problem with this argument. Thus far we've only been discussing the formal closure of the canon. Yet the cessationist argument demands more than that. It's not enough for the canon to be complete on paper. It must be accessible to Christians. According to the canonical interpretation of 1 Cor 13:8-10, Christians no longer need living prophets once they have the NT in hand. But that assumes the availability of the NT. 

Yet until the advent of the printing press, the Bible wasn't widely available to lay Christians. And even then, most Christians were illiterate. So the cessatioist argument either proves too much or too little.

viii) Perhaps this could be offset by distinguishing between private and public reading. Christians could still have access to the Bible through the public recitation of the Bible in church lectionaries. The Bible was read aloud in church.

And there's doubtless some truth to that contention. But it's not without difficulty. For one thing, that requires vernacular lectionaries. For instance, the public reading of the Vulgate would be incomprehensible to parishioners who didn't know Ecclesiastical Latin. 

Seeing in a mirror

This is part 1 of a 2-part miniseries. Part 2 is here:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/10/when-perfect-comes.html

I'm going to quote some exegesis of 1 Cor 13:8-10. To my knowledge, these are not charismatic scholars. After quoting them, I will take stock of where that leaves us.

Miguens contends that Paul presents three contrasts–partial/complete, infancy/adulthood, now/then–which refer to the gradual development of the Christian faith. This view would translate to teleion as "the maturity"–"when maturity arrives." It assumes that he wants these gifts to pass away in their lives because they are obstructing love. This last argument clearly is wrong. Although these gifts are neither essential for, nor indicative of, Christian maturity in an individual, the variety of gifts is necessary for the functioning of the body. Paul's discussion of love is not intended to persuade the Corithians to abandon their prized spiritual gifts but is meant to convince them to employ the gifts with love. Unless they are governed by love, they are spiritually barren. 

"The perfect" refers to the state of affairs brought about by the parousia. Paul uses the verb elthein in Gal 4:4 to refer to the coming of the fullness of time. Here, the battery of future tenses, the disappearance of the partial replaced by the complete, and the reference to knowing as God knows us, all point to the end time. He contrasts the present age with the age to come. The "perfect" is shorthand for the consummation of all things, the intended goal of creation, and its arrival will naturally displace the partial that we experience in the present age. 

"Face to face," "mouth to mouth," and "eye to eye" are OT idioms (see Gen 32:30; Exod 33:11; Num 14:14; Deut 5:4; 34:10; Judg 6:22; Isa 52:8; Ezk 20:35) that imply that something comes directly, not through an intermediary or medium, such as a vision or dream. D. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Baker 2003), 622-623,625. 

To what "the perfect" refers is much debated. It is scarcely related to the completion of the NT canon, as some have tried to take it; such an extraneous meaning is foreign to this context. To teleion has been understood as Christian maturity, as in 2:6. It seems, however, to express rather some sort of gaol; it has undoubtedly something to do with the eschaton or what Paul calls "the Day of the Lord" (1:8; 3:13; 5:5) or with the telos, "end" (of the present era ), as in 15:24. 

but then face to face. I.e., when "what is perfect" will have come. The phrase prosopon pros prosopon is derived from LXX Gen 32:31, were Jacob is said to have seen God; cf. Deut 34:10 (Moses knew God prosopon kata prosopon); 5:4. This phrase, which is borrowed from such OT passages and with which blepomen is understood, further suggests that Paul is thinking of God as the object of the verb, even though no object is expressed. J. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians (Yale 2008), 498,500.

Some scholars have argued that the "perfect/complete" thing to which Paul was referring was the completion of the canon or the maturing of the church, one or the other of which they attribute to the disappearance of the more spectacular gifts from most if not all churches in the postapostolic  period. The context (esp. v12) makes it abundantly clear, however, that the point at which Paul expects the gifts to pass away or disappear is when we see the Lord "face to face" and "know [him] fully, even as [we are] fully known."
Paul alludes to Num 12:6-8, which contrasts Moses' own prophetic experience with that of all other prophets…While other prophets receive revelation through visions and dreams (12:6; cf. Joel 2:28 [3:1]), Moses experiences the presence of the Lord face to face, not indirectly, and he sees his form (LXX: glory). Paul says, "Now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then face to face." 

Paul's alteration of "mouth to mouth" in Num 12:8 LXX to "face to face" may reflect the influence of Deut 34:10, which refers to Moses as a prophet whom the Lord knew "face to face."…Paul's allusion to Num 12:8, then, is consistent with the other early Jewish interpretations in understanding that in the age to come all God's people would have an experience similar to that which distinguished Moses from the other prophets. We already see the Lord as through a mirror (imperfectly) and know him as well as that experience allows (cf. 2 Cor 3:18), but the day is coming when we will see him as Moses did, face to face, an experience of knowing him as fully as we are already fully known by him. R. Ciampa & B. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Eerdmans 2010), 656,658,660.

If this interpretation is correct, then it's a death blow to cessationism. But assuming that's the case, it has limited implications. It doesn't single out a particular continuationist alternative:

i) Paul doesn't define "prophecy" (or tongues), so even if those won't terminate until the Parousia, that, of itself, doesn't tell us what continues until the Parousia. We must still endeavor to identify the nature of the charismata in question. The closest Paul comes to explicating his usage is in 1 Cor 14:25, which indicates supernatural insight into things naturally hidden from view. Tom Schreiner (a cessationist scholar) finds it necessary to supplement Paul's references to prophecy with prophetic phenomena in Acts in order to fill out the verbal placeholders. Paul, Apostle of God's Glory in Christ (IVP 2001), 360-61. 

ii) Likewise, Paul refers to the continuance of "prophecies" rather than prophets. So does this mean there will be prophets until the Parousia? Are "prophecies" equivalent to a "gift of prophecy?" Or is prophecy separable from prophets?  If, say, a Christian happens to receive a revelatory dream, does that make him a prophet? Or is that an isolated incident? A one-off event? 

iii) Trying to answer that question brings us to a related question. Assuming the continuance of these charismata, the passage says nothing about the frequency of their occurrence. It could be quite intermittent. Some or most Christians might never experience it. Some Christians might experience it once or twice in a lifetime. It might skip Christian generations. It might occur in some places, but not others. Perhaps under special circumstances. During times of crisis in church history. Or a personal crisis. 

iv) In addition, 1 Cor 13:8-10 only specifies the continuance of tongues and prophecy. So where does that leave the status of the other charismata, like healing? Is 1 Cor 13:8-10 sampling the charismata? Is that representative of the charismata generally? Or is it more restrictive? 

So even if we reject the cessationist interpretation of 1 Cor 13:8-10, that doesn't mean we should default to Jack Deere, Wayne Grudem, or Samuel Storms. For rejecting the cessationist interpretation leaves many detailed questions to be answered. We must still develop exegetical models. And we may need to leave some questions to church history to answer. 

Christianity and scientific progress

"Coyne's Twisted History of Science & Religion" by Alex Berezow and James Hannam.

"Richard Carrier on Ancient Science" by James Hannam.

Presuppositions and harmonization

"Presuppositions and Harmonization: Luke 23:47 as a Test Case" by Vern Poythress.

The Church Prior to the Reformation: The Mass

Medieval conception of Purgatory

As Protestants, we all seem to know that the Roman Church was very bad during the middle ages, but in what ways? What, precisely, was being protested?

In his work “The Reformation: A History”, Diarmiad MacCulloch gives a brief overview of the Roman Church prior to the Reformation. He introduces that overview with this passage:

Nicholas Ridley, one of the talented scholarly clergy who rebelled in England against the old [Roman] Church, wrote about this to one of his fellow rebels John Bradford in 1554, while they both lay in prisons waiting for the old Church to burn them for heresy. As Bishop Ridley reflected on the strength of their deadly enemy, which now he saw as the power of the devil himself, he said that Satan’s old world of false religion stood on two ‘most massy posts and mighty pillars … these two, sir, are they in my judgement: the one his false doctrine and idolatrical use of the Lord’s supper; and the other, the wicked and abominable usurpation of the primacy of the see of Rome … the whole system of the medieval western Church was built on the Mass and on the central role of the Pope. Without the Mass, indeed, the Pope in Rome and the clergy of the Western Church would have had no power for the Protestant reformers to challenge, for the Mass was the centerpiece around which all the complex devotional life of the Church revolved (Diarmiad MacCulloch, “The Reformation: A History” (New York, NY: Penguin Books, ©2004, pg 10).

These are the things that the Reformation was all about: the “Mass” and the Papacy. These were the two real bulwarks of Roman strength. But in what way did they exercise power in the 16th century? In what ways did they hold captive the entire continent of Europe?

NSA trove

http://news.investors.com/print/politics-andrew-malcolm/102013-675901-nsa-metadata-collections-emails-phone-numbers.aspx