Imbalance
I have a new job for you, my faithful readers. Well it’s really the same job, but I have additional instructions. In general I expect that you keep me honest and call me out if I’m making arguments or statements that are incorrect. I invite you to argue against me, because it’s in the iron sharpening iron of debate where truth is clarified - when debate is done correctly, that is. Debate can be done incorrectly, however, and when it is done incorrectly it can have devastating affects on relationships and on the clarity of truth. But when debate is done in which both sides respect each other, and do legitimately try to listen to the other side, generally they both come away with a greater understanding of how they can clarify and improve their respective views of truth. I’m very much in favor of this kind of open minded discussion. That’s why I try to hear all sides of an argument. That’s why this blog is hosted on the domain “Open Dialogue”. Because of this, I want you to specifically keep an eye out for something: Imbalance. (more…)
Is God Evil?
I found this “Motivational Poster” today:
Of course, as a believer in God who also places a high emphasis on rationality, I see this as somewhat of a challenge. There are many out there on both sides, who would have us believe that thinking and believing don’t go together. The underlying assumption is that Christians are blithering idiots who refuse to see truths or facts right in front of their faces. Unfortunately there are far too many Christians about whom that accusation is true. We have dropped the ball in many ways when it comes to dealing with rational arguments against our cause. We don’t do a good job of giving the reason for the hope that we have, and this causes us to lose credibility. (more…)
The Misunderstandings of Calvinism
As mentioned a couple posts ago, I posted a Calvinism related post on Xanga while this site was inoperable. Here is the text of that post in it’s entirety. Obviously since there were likely to be members of my audience on Xanga who were not familiar with this series, I’ve done some review in it. It should be a good refresher.
“I am a 5-point Calvinist. For those of you who don’t know, John Calvin was one of the teachers/pastors of the Protestant Reformation. The five points of Calvinism is a codification of the Reformers’ Doctrines of Grace. You may be familiar with the TULIP acornym: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints. These are doctrines in the area of soteriology, which is the study of salvation doctrine. If that is now the entirety of your knowledge of the Calvinism debate, I’m sorry but this post is going to be way over your head. Stumble on, my friend. If, however, you know what I’m talking about, read on:
On my Theological Ramblings Blog, (which is temporarily out of service due to a hacker problem that attacked my webhost) I have been writing a series of articles/essays on the Doctrines of Grace, defending their theological validity. The central motivation of my doing this is that within the last couple of years, I have encountered certain individuals who have labeled Calvinism to be ‘a loser doctrine’ and ‘a heresy’. Now, anyone who knows my stance on the Cedarville “Faculty Exodus”/ Brian McLaren & Rob Bell/ Emergent Church/ New Perspectivism thing would know that I think the word ‘heresy” is a very very very strong accusation and should not be used lightly. So I set out to defend myself against the charge of heresy. (more…)
Essentialism (aka the idiocy of Nominalism)
Essentialism is the philosophy that states that essential characteristics of a thing can be separated from its accidents. What is an accident? It’s not just when you have a car wreck. In metaphysics, an accident is a characteristic of an entity that is not essential to its nature.
For example: I have two trees. They both have roots. They both have a main trunk. they both have branches. They both have leaves of some sort. The one on the left however is generally triangular in shape. It’s leaves stay green all year long and are very thin, hard and sharp. You can guess it is some sort of evergreen tree - pine for example. On the right is a tree that is generally broccoli shaped and has broad flat leaves that are not sharp and change colors and fall off in the fall. It is a deciduous tree - a maple for example.
It should be obvious what the essential characteristics of these trees are, and what the accidents are. The essential characteristic - the things that make them trees - are the trunk, the roots, the branches, the fact that they have some leaves of some sort. If any of these were missing in either case, we would not have a tree. We would have something untreeish. If there was a green shortish stalk that didn’t have any branches, but instead had petals, we would have a flower not a tree. But the accidents - the things that are incidental and not germane to the principal - can change without changing the essence of treeness. A tree can have a triangular shape or a broccoli shape. Or it can have other odd shapes. It can be tall or short. It can be a conifer or deciduous. It can have needles or broad, flat leaves. But in any case, it has roots, a trunk and leaves of some kind. (more…)
The Truth War
I’m adding one more series to my plate here on this site. As you know I’ve taken a nose dive into the Cedarville conspiracy issue. I’ll give a brief history if for a wrap up. Cedarville has been in the midst of some philosophical controversy over the past 5-6 years, and as a result some Bible professors have been let go, for what has been cited as “violations of the faculty handbook”. These professors are some of the more “Conservative” professors at Cedarville. They stand for conservative hermeneutics. Because these conservative professors have been let go, and because certain other “Liberal” professors have not been let go, there has arisen a group of students, as personified in the Facebook group “Students who want the truth about the faculty exodus away from Cedarville,” who have jumped to the conclusion that Cedarville is intentionally trying to oust its conservative faculty to replace them with liberal faculty so that they can move away from such things as “Conservative Hermeneutics… Biblical Truth… Scriptural Authority… Her Baptist Roots…” Now there are a plethora of issues that surround this. I’ve tackled the logical error that is the assumption of what is going on – the conspiracy theory that has arisen. But now I’m going to get into some other areas of this.