Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:1-4)

The main point of these verses is the importance of paying attention to the Word of God and heeding what it says - particularly the Gospel of Christ. That’s simple enough to see, but I’m intrigued by the way he makes this point. Many times the wording of the Bible might seem confusing to many people. We wonder “Why did he say it that way? Couldn’t he have just said what he wanted us to see?” I’m a firm believer that when the wording is complex it isn’t because the writer is intending to be unclear of elusive, but rather that there is some reason why he has said it this way. So I want to show how I broke this passage down.

The Writer here makes a logical correlation. He begins this chapter with his conclusion: Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. Then he sums up his argument. Now we have to look back to Chapter 1 for his major premise. Chapter 1, in fact, in its entirety is the major premise: Jesus is superior to the Angels. Ch 1 vs 1-2 begins the comparison, by mentioning that Jesus Christ has now replaced all vehicles previously used to deliver God’s revelation. He then explains in the rest of the chapter that Christ is superior to the angels, who are one of these vehicles. As a matter of fact, our English translation may have unfairly biased our interpretation of this. We read “angel” and likely jump to the conclusion that The Writer is speaking of Gabriel, Michael and others. However, the root word for “angel”, ?????????, transliterated “ang’-el-os” or “angelus” in Latin literally means “messenger”. By implication, then, the plain sense interpretation of this would be that The Writer is referring to all those who have previously carried the revelation of God, be they angels (as we understand them), human or otherwise. This would then imply that when The Writer continues on in subsequent chapters to compare Christ to Moses, he is not simply moving from one bullet point to another, but moving from general to specific. I find this interpretation compelling for there are precious few moments in the Old Testament when the message of God was delivered by an actual angel. Most of the revelation of God had been delivered by prophets. Thus, since no mention of prophets is given in the comparison to Christ, except for Moses, it can be induced that angels is meant as a broad stroke. I don’t believe that The Writer intended Moses to be representative of all the human prophets, for I believe him to be representative of The Law instead. It would be as though someone mentioned Christ to us, we would not assume that they were talking about him as a represtentative of all the Apostles, though Jesus was certainly the greatest Apostle (btw, Apostle also means messenger :)), we would understand this to be a mention of the very foundation of our faith. It was the same for Jews: Moses was the foundation of their faith. He wrote their Torah. He lead them from Egypt and delivered them to the cusp of the Promised Land. All of this was by God’s leading, but they still looked up to him - a great deal more than we look up to Paul or Peter.

That, however, is not necessarily intrinsic to this syllogism. What is important is the major premise: Jesus Christ is a superior messenger than the angels. The minor premise may be found following the conclusion. It’s a somewhat convoluted way of presenting a logical argument, but who presents logical arguments concisely anymore? Verse 2 gives the minor premise, which is in short: “The revelation of the Angels (previous messengers) proved reliable, and those who neglected it were punished for neglecting it.” So the argument goes like this:

• A: Jesus Christ is a superior messenger than all the angels
• B: The message of the Angels proved reliable and all those who neglected it were punished.
• Therefore C: We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard (through Christ).

He goes on to explain this in verse 3 of chapter 2 when he says, “How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” This is the end of the thought that gave us our minor premise. The whole sentence is: “For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience recieved a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” See it? He’s saying If the inferior (angels) was so reliable that those who transgressed were punished, then the revelation of the superior (Christ) will be all the more reliable and the punishment for those who neglect it all the more assured, which leads The Writer to conclude that it is necessary for us to pay closer attention to such revelation lest we “drift away”, which is significantly putting it lightly. This major thought of his will become a characteristic theme of this book, showing up again at choice points in chapters 6 and 10, to the degree that many use these texts as evidence for an Arminian understanding of security.

But for today, let’s take away the point that the testimony of Christ is sure and trustworthy, and therefore it is worth our trust and consideration. Many times we behave as though we choose our beliefs based on what works for us. It’s characteristic of the world we live in. Spend any time in open air evangelism and you’ll see it all over. People want what feels good to them or what serves their needs and desires. It’s often the same rubric people use when they pick which presidential candidate will receive their vote. Candidate A promises to lead based on principals of right/wrong, and to protect the core of what makes our country what it is, while Candidate B promises to do nothing but give people what they want and so Candidate B wins. That’s an intentional caricature of the situation, of course. Many times there’s a good mixture of A and B in both parties, but the fact of the matter is, most voters look for B instead of A, which is wrong. We choose religion like we choose our fast food restaurants. Which isn’t going to keep me up at night? I can’t eat at Taco Bell - too many beans! But we should be choosing the things worthy of our faith based on the merits of them, whether they are right and true and trustworthy. The author of Hebrews says that Christ is a sure testimony, and therefore he deserves our trust and attention. And if we don’t give it to him, woe to us for the judgment will come.

Michael Patton, co-teacher of the online lay-seminary program The Theology Program, wrote an article about this on the blog Parchment and Pen. He discusses three characteristics of imbalance: Overstatement, Unqualified Superlatives and Non-contingent Propositions. In other words, statements like “I am absolutely certain that…”, or “This is the only explanation for…” or “There is no doubt that…” or “Everyone knows…” or “The Scripture is obviously clear on…”, etc. These kinds of statements for me are usually just by products of the writing process - not quite so intentional injections of eloquence, which really aren’t eloquence. It’s actually really a detractor, because it makes me sound all clichéd. But it’s also a detractor because it makes me unbalanced. It makes me at least appear that I haven’t considered the other side of the argument. I don’t want to forget to consider the other side. I don’t want to appear that way either. So if I do this, call me out. Seriously. And if it appears that there’s another side I haven’t considered, tell me about it.

You may wonder about my Calvinism series. Remember that the Calvinism series started as a bit of an outworking of my own frustration at not being able to discuss these things with anyone other than my wife (and Strugill). As I went along I tried to become more balanced with it, and will try to even more in the future. In that one, the circumstances that caused me initially to start it up pushed me toward being more apologetic - arguing for the legitimacy of the position - instead of irenic - considering all sides in an attempt to find the best explanation and refine my truth. I will try to be more balanced as we go. It’s for this reason that I think I might try to post a series of articles at the end (either in another series or as an epilogue to the first) defending my opposition (or have someone else do it so long as they play fair. Any volunteers???)

I hope that I can avoid making the kinds of mistakes that I abhor. I really detest when people try to color their opposition as unintelligent or evil. This is one of the things - quite honestly - that has initially leaned me toward Rob Bell over MacArthur in my Emergent Church issues. I’m still reading for that one, by the way. I haven’t yet come to any major conclusions worthy of cataloging. But for now, suffice it to say that Bell’s attitude generally seems to be one of humility. If you read Patton’s blog, you’ll see where he points out that in the world we live in (yes Postmodern), people look for someone who is humble. He calls it “epistemic humility”. It’s basically an acknowledgment that there’s a possibility that you could be wrong.

And that’s OK, but it’s also the rub. Postmodernism isn’t about denying absolute truth. Not really. Many many people think it is. The Emergent Church isn’t about denying doctrine for the sake of a wishy washy liberal gospel. Not really. John MacArthur thinks it is. One of the primary characteristics of postmodernism is that postmoderns are skeptical of anyone who would say “I have the answer don’t look anywhere else.” Why does that fly in the face of conservatives? Well, we believe we do have the answer. We believe that Jesus is the truth. We believe that the Bible is the truth. But the problem is that while Jesus is truth and the Bible is truth and both are infallible, we often make the illogical jump to that meaning that our interpretation of it is also infallible. This turns people off majorly. So Bell and others try to engage people in an irenic fashion, maintaining epistemic humility, which to those on the right appears to be an abandonment of truth.

But Patton has a very interesting comment that might enlighten us. He says

Please note, this is not a postmodern concession to relativism, for I am not advocating that people hide convictions or not take stand for what they believe. Neither am I saying that you cannot have great degrees of certainty and assurance about many of your convictions. I am simply telling people that if you overstate your case, no matter what it is, I will have a hard time listening to what you have to say, and I think I speak for many.

It’s not about denying the truth, it’s about modifying the way we communicate our truth so that it doesn’t turn people off. This is the problem I have with many conservatives. One of Patton’s commenters mentioned pastors who take an approach of “let me straighten out your theology”. I’ve met these kinds of pastors. The poster says, “It presumes a level of perfectionism that an honest examination of our humanity and fallibility should reject”. I as much as the next guy is as guilty as any of these people of considering ourselves to be more smart or right than we may be. We could all do with a little sharpening.

To be fair I also liked the Chesterton quotes a couple of the other commenters posted. It’s important to remember that while we are being epistemically humble, that we not throw out our convictions, and that we don’t do it just because it’s cool or a ploy to artificially create credibility, because honestly the tools of Overstatement, Unqualified Superlatives and Non-cogent propositions are all modernist credibility tricks. But true genuine humility is a good thing for the discussion.

Which is why when the Mormon’s came to my door the other day, I talked to them. I listened. I couldn’t quite divorce my roots enough to actually invite them it, but I asked them questions - ones I hoped were tough. And we left in a spirit of peace. I didn’t bash them, they didn’t bash me. And I think I might have learned something about Mormonism, because all I’ve ever known about it is what my conservative friends have told me, and I hope they learned something about Reformed Christianity. Hopefully this gives me a better understanding. Hopefully I planted a seed in their lives that God can use to bring them to greater knowledge of him.

Ultimately that’s what my goal is: to proclaim Christ’s truth however I can. Whether it’s by my attitude or actions or articulation (like the alliteration?), whenever and wherever possible, without using clichés and without worrying about trying to make sure this one gets saved, or gets right, because ultimately that’s God’s job.

My heart breaks for the people who’s only view of Christianity and God comes through the lens of closed-minded judgmental people. I’ve seen the other side and it’s beautiful and I wish they could see it for themselves. Don’t allow anyone to condemn people who try to show them. I think there might be an analogy somewhere I could draw on, but for now I’ve done about six paragraphs of digression and need to close this out. I do want to point out that I’m not all in favor of Bell and against MacArthur at this point. I think MacArthur has some great things to say and his primary concern (namely preserving the authority of Scripture) is genuine, valid and important. And Bell is not without his weaknesses. But I’ll get to that discussion later.

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.

Now I don’t think that it’s necessarily possible to convince someone to turn to Christ by engaging them in logical arguments, because I fully believe that conversion is the work of Christ, but I do believe it’s important to show ourselves to be logical, rational and intelligent. Why? Because as Christians our primary responsibility is to image Christ - to image God - to be his representatives on this earth. And God isn’t stupid! God is the pinnacle of Truth, knowledge and wisdom, and when we act in such a way that portrays us as misguided, willfully ignorant, backwards and stupid, we do God a disservice by showing an image that is false.

This does not mean that our position is wrong. I take much heart in the testimonies of C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel - guys who considered themselves to be rational and scientific and logical and set out to try to prove Christianity false, only to end up as two of it’s greatest defenders in the 20th Century (and beyond for Strobel). They came to Christ not by having some ooshy gooshy emotional experience in which they felt convicted of their sins and had some weepy sobbing walk up an aisle to the alter at a church. They came to Christ because they were convinced using their rational minds that his claims were right.

One of my favorite apologetical arguments is one C.S. Lewis made. You’ve probably heard of it. Many people claim that Jesus Christ was a great teacher - a prophet from God - but nothing more. The problem is that they forget the things that Jesus said. The prophets before him shared many characteristics with him - yes, but they all prophecied of the One to come. Jesus claimed to be that One. He stood in the midsts of the Jewish community and read aloud from Isaiah a prophecy about the Messiah and then said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That’s powerful stuff. Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to be the savior. He claimed perfection.

I love John Piper as a teacher. But he’s human. Piper makes mistakes, and if you ask him I’m confident he’d admit it. Piper’s not God. He’s not infallable. Same goes for John MacArthur. Same goes for Rob Bell. Same goes for R.C. Sproul, Rick Wilson, Bill Brown, C.S. Lewis and every other teacher in the world - Christian or atheist. Every good teacher acknowledges his own weaknesses and humanity. Jesus didn’t acknowledge any. He claimed deity.

So because of that, Lewis argued, we cannot claim that he was a good teacher. We must place him in a different category then. He was either incorrect and didn’t know it - which would make him essentially a lunatic. Or he was incorrect and did know it - which would make him the worst possible liar. Or he was exaxctly what he claimed to be: Lord. Jesus was either a Liar, a Lunatic or He was Lord. He could not have been just a mere teacher or prophet that people blew out of proportion.

I like this argument because, while it doesn’t prove anything about who Jesus was positively, it attacks the middle no man’s land that everyone likes to feel safe in. “Deniers” (for lack of a much better term), like to take that middle ground so as not to be offensive, but still not accept the full ramifications of accepting Christ. Those who push tolerance love this ground. Lewis says it hasn’t a leg to stand on. If you acknowledge the logical validity of this argument, then you must either embrace Christ fully or reject him uterlly. You cannot keep holding him at arms length and saying, “Yeah I like you over there, but don’t come any closer.”

I like this, because I think it was the argument that was the strongest in favor of Lewis turning to Christ. I feel compelled to issue some caveats here. I can feel the conservatives I know chomping at the bit of this one, so let me just get something out in the open: Yes Lewis was an Anglican. So what? There I said it.

Anyway, back to the point. I’m tying this together, I promise. As you can tell I’m rather fascinated by CS Lewis, and not just because his world of Narnia captivated me, but because he’s great at the apologetics. Two of the books I’ve wanted to read by him are The Problem of Pain (1940) and A Grief Observed (1961), particularly the latter, because it was written following the death of his wife Joy Gresham. They deal specifically with the issue Epicurus dealt with above. Pain. Evil. Suffering. Why?

This is a dilemma for us Christians, especially those of us in the reformed tradition, who hold so highly the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. It’s a problem because when stated in the way Epicurus stated it, it looks to logically prove God to be either evil or non existent. And when we don’t engage in the argument, we look either like idiots or uncaring. So here’s the argument again. It deals with the coexistence of God and evil and the fact that God hasn’t eradicated evil yet. To Epicurus God is either

1. Willing to stop evil, but unable
2. Able to stop evil, but unwilling
3. Able to stop evil and willing
4. Unable and unwilling to stop evil

If the first, then he is powerless. If the second, then he is evil. If the third, then he is not sovereign. And if the fourth he is not God.

Now I’m not going to take a two wills approach on this issue. I’ve known too many Thomists (exactly 1) to know that that won’t fly with good philosophers. There are several levels at which this breaks down. First is the assumption that God owes it to us to stop evil. Now this isn’t an altogether illogical assumption because God has proclaimed his love for us. In fact God is love, so it would be impossible for God to be unloving. But God is also just and in many cases treating someone justly is the most loving thing one can do, so allowing evil to occur to someone who justly deserves it is not evil.

Second is the assumption that the evil serves no purpose. Let me state this another way. Suppose my 8 month old son was crawling on the floor one day and finds some piece of garbage that he decides to eat. Fortunately for him I am a good parent and I see him and take it way from him. He screams and fusses at being thwarted in his desire to ingest the trash, but I don’t feel the least bit sorry for him. Now, even if I did not then pick him up and put him in his high chair where I delivered to him a plate full of good nutritius freshly prepared food for him to eat, I would not be considered evil for having allowed such a calamity to occur to him. It was for his good. Allowing the evil was a means to an end.

According to a Reformed Christian Worldview, nothing in this world occurs without God’s direct cause or intentional allowance. He is not aloof. He is not unaware. He knows. He cares. He does and he allows. Does this then make him evil for allowing bad things to happen?

First no. Because nobody is good. We often look at things like 9/11 and thing that evil is this big unfair force out there that punishes the innocent. But we are not so innocent. We are not as bad as the terrorists, or as they supposed we are, but let’s not kid ourselves, we murder infants by the thousands every day. We allow the poor to whither and die (I’m not attacking economics or politics, I’m talking about the heart of every person.) Seriously. When was the last time you went to a ball game and didn’t even notice the poor people begging on the street? And I’m no better than you. We’re not such a glistening gem of innocence are we. I don’t even have to talk about original sin here. The fact of the matter is, all you have to do is watch a fat, ugly guy think he has a chance with a pretty girl. We all think we’re better than we really are. We all think we deserve more than we really do. Why do you think our country is so obsessed with law frivolous law suits? But I digress. I think you’ve gotten my point.

Second. The evil allowed does have a purpose. God’s glory. This happens in several ways. 1) He uses it as a tool to call someone to himself 2) He will one day in the end show himself glorious by defeating evil once and for all. It’s like every hero in every book or movie. You know that moment right before the climax, when it looks like Blofeld is going to get away with his dastardly plan and Bond is going to be smashed to bits, or blown apart, or whatever. And then Bond gets out of whatever trap he’s in and gloriously thwarts the bad guys, and it’s more glorious because of it. Imagine if the movie consisted of Spectre hatching their plan, only to find Bond standing in the room. He shoots them all and walks out. Movie over. Crisis averted. It would last ten minutes. It would be boring, predictable and pointless. But when it’s done like it’s done, you’re left with that warm fuzzy when Max Zorin falls to his death, and you know Bond is the greatest hero ever.

Yeah, it’s seriously like that. In the end, when evil seems to be at it’s all time worst and Satan looks like he’s going to win, that’s when God’s going to step in and finish it all off, and the rest will just be a great denoument - for eternity. And God will be shown as the greatest hero ever.

Finally, of course, there’s Romans 8:28. Don’t scoff at it. I know it’s cliche, but it’s true. No matter what happens, it works out for good. What is good: to be conformed to the image of his son as we’ve been predestined to be. So, God gets glory in this life time by using good and bad events to shape Christians into a less distorted image of him, to reclaim their created purpose.

So, it’s obvious I think the second is true. God is able to stop evil, but he’s unwilling to stop it. By that I mean he’s unwilling to stop it now. He will stop it one day, and it will be a great event. Does this mean God is machiavellian? You decide that. I admit that it kind of does, but that doesn’t necessarily make it false. I’d like to hear your thoughts.

I’m very curious to read C.S. Lewis’s books because I want his thoughts on the issue.

“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.

I have focused my efforts primarily on trying to show people that there are some fundamental misunderstandings about what these doctrines are, and what they imply. Most of the arguments I have heard against Calvinism have come from equivocations or misunderstandings of the doctrines. Of course, it’s also true that there are many Calvinists who misunderstand these doctrines as well, and therefore misapply them. One of the big time objections I’ve heard is that Calvinism means you shouldn’t evangelize. This is patently false, and yet there are Calvinists who seem to apply the doctrines this way and therefore lend to the misunderstanding. So I wanted to illumine them and allow people to see that maybe they were misguided.

I am posting this here, as opposed to Theological Ramblings, primarily because Theo is out of order, but also because I want to sum up what I have been saying and am going to say on the other blog and to provide a tie in. This post is not at all intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the issue, but I want to highlight some misunderstandings, and the proper truth that could clarify them. I’m only going to briefly hit the first few, but I want to camp on the last one. Because while the main person who spurred me into this effor proclaims himself to be a ‘Zero-Point Calvinist’, I’m not just targeting so called ‘Arminians’ in this series. I’m targeting everyone, but primarily those of you out there who are ‘4-point’ Calvinists who are saying, “Yeah, I buy these four, but this other one I don’t quite think is right”. It’s that fifth one that I want to spend a little time on in this post.

Before I continue, I post some lyrics to two of my favorite songs:

“Pre-trib, post-trib; 5-point, no point; heal me, slay me; free will, no will
As our common ground leads to the moribund…
He came to set the prisoner free
A message of simplicity”

“I just know Jesus is the Way
I just know Jesus is the Truth
I just know Jesus is the Life
I just know Jesus is my God”

My point is that I don’t intend to be divisive or confrontational about this. You are more than free to disagree with me, and to voice that disagreement, but please do it out of a spirit of mutual respect and cooperation, because ultimately what matters is Jesus. If we can agree on “Christ’s body broken and blood poured for the sins of the world” then we can have fellowship. Don’t destroy it by being hateful. Ok, now we dive in:

Total Depravity
The Misunderstanding: Nay-sayers often accuse this doctrine of saying that mankind is as bad as he possibly could be, that there is nothing good about us, and that we are altogether worthless.

Why This Bothers People: Theologians have trouble with this because it implies that we are no longer the image of God, and therefore there is no basis for us to treat our fellow man with respect and love. If that is the case, then there is no basis for any social institutions and we are no better than the evolutionsists who build up their liberal social agendas on some humanistic notion of making the world a better place through human power because we can.

The Truth: We are not as bad as we could be. Total Depravity doesn’t say we are. All it says is that by whatever means it happened, we took part in Adam’s sin and since that day man’s nature has been tarnished. It has not been destroyed, it has been damaged. We are still ontologically good. That is to say, hear me, that at the core of our essence in who we are we are still good. BUT we are all morally corrupt. This means that our default stance is to be opposed to God and in rebellion to him. Many Calvinists misunderstand this and act like there really is nothing good about humanity. If that were true, there would be nothing worth redeeming! No, we still bear the image of God, we’ve just messed it up. Redemption is about trying to restore it. It is true that we are all morally corrupt and will not follow after God for the right reasons. We are diametrically opposed to him. Left on our own, we would never choose him. People can do good things, but rarely out of unselfish motivation and even when it is unselfish, it is not done out of a desire to please God, and the Bible says that is also sin.1

Irresistible Grace
The Misunderstanding: Many people think that Irresistible Grace means that God takes the “elect” and forces them, whether they want to or not, to be saved. The elect can desire to be unsaved as much as he wants, but God will force him into it.

Why This Bothers People: This, in the eyes of many violates the will of man. They say it would be unjust of God to force us into submission to him, because then we would be no more than robots. In fact we would be worse off, because the robot has no will, whereas we have a will that would be squashed causing us to undergo significant strife. This would make us salves to him.

The Truth: The fact of the matter is that we are slaves already. We are slaves to sin and our wills are currently violated every day - even those who have already come to faith suffer the violation of their will by this nagging chain of slavery. Irresistible Grace is about setting us free from that bondage. The objector has the wrong image in mind when he sees the word Irresistible. He imagines a fortress in which we have encamped with our defending army, and God is raging against it with an innumerable force that will inevitably overwhelm us and cause us to submit.

I offer two alternative images. The first comes from my recent experience. I need a car. My pastor the other day e-mailed me telling me he knows someone who is giving a car away for free. Now I ask you, did I take the deal? Was that an irresistible offer? The other image I use comes from a quote my band director used in Junior High and early High School. Mr Chadrick used to say, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink? Yeah, well you can sure salt his oats so he’s gonna to want to!”. We are already in our souls thirsty from salted oats. This is obvious from looking around us. Most of the people in the world acknowledge that there is some fulfillment outside of themselves that they need to seek. They understand that there is something fundamentally wrong with them that they need to fix. Unfortunately, none of them seek this fulfillment where it is actually to be found. Irresistible Grace simply points them to the right source. It’s like we’re all a bunch of horses wandering around in the desert desperately looking for water. There’s a stream nearby, but Satan is working to keep us from seeing it.2 Irresistible Grace takes us over to the water and says, “DRINK!” Now he can’t make us drink, but he can sure help us realize how thirsty we are, and the point of Irresistible Grace is that for those whom God has chosen, he will never fail to get us to see that we do need to drink.

Unconditional Election
The Misunderstanding: That God arbitrarily chooses to love some people and hate others. He therefore decides to save the ones He loves and destroy the ones he hates.

Why This Bothers People: It is a violation of man’s will, and it makes God petty. It also seems to imply that someone can want to come to Christ only to be turned away because they aren’t on the list.

The Truth: Yes. For reasons unrevealed to us, God has elected some to salvation and others to reprobation. Disagree with me? Read Romans 9. It’s clear. The problem is that God’s choice does not mean he does not “Love the world”. God still loves everyone he creates. He simply does not show that love in the same way. I know this is going to confuse you, because it confuses me. This is the doctrine that gives me the most pause, because It’s tough, but I’m forced to conclude what I’m going to say, and so I’ll say it anyway. The premise is that love means willing the beloved’s good. God loves everyone. God elects some to reprobation. It must therefore in some way be good for the reprobate to be reprobate. I don’t understand how that can be. If that makes me a heretic, please show me chapter and verse or denounce my logic by showing me my ambiguous term, false premise or invalid argument. It certainly fulfills God’s will and shows him as glorious, so I can’t argue with it. I do not stand on this nearly as firmly as the others. I’m still searching it out.

As far as the second problem goes, this is absolutely not true. Romans 10:13 says “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”. When someone places their faith in Christ, he does not first check his “election list” to see if you qualify before accepting it. No way! The opposite is true. Because of total depravity and irresistible grace (ie because we are unable to come to him without his divine intervention), nobody will come to him except those who are “on the list”.

Perseverance of the Saints
The Misunderstanding: Once Saved, Always Saved! The biggest load of nonsense on the planet. The “Eternal Security” movement is a load of baloney that would stretch from here to Mars if stacked up straight. The doctrine is that once you have “said the prayer” you are saved for good, and no matter what you do, even if you turn your back on Christ, you will still be saved in the end.

Why This Bothers People: It implies that salvation is somehow a license to do whatever you want. You’ve punched your ticket for eternity, now you’re good. Go do what you want. I once worked at a pizza joint for a Lutheran couple. They did not hold to “Eternal Security”. I was young and naïve and did. Pam constantly pounded on this fact that Eternal Security logically implies that there are no claims made upon a Christain’s conduct. I denied it then, but over time have been forced to agree.

The Truth: The Bible is very clear that sanctification is a necessary part of a Christian’s life, and that those who “persevere to the end” will be saved. 1 John 2:19 also says in no uncertain terms about those who have fallen away:

‘They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

The truth of the matter is that the elect will indeed persevere to the end, but it is not without trial and struggle. We will all struggle against our sin. This is why the New Testament is replete with encouragements for us to keep striving to be like Christ. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is he who works in you to will and to do his good pleasure”, Philippians says. Perseverance of the saints says that those who have truly been regenerated by the Holy Spirit have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who is our seal (Ephesians 1:14) unto the day. But he is not just some mark that God will look for, he is also the agent that brings about our perseverance. God does not allow his own to fall away. So if anyone falls away they were most likely not a believer in the first place. If they do come back they either a) were not a believer before and are now or b) in a very heightened state of rebellion against God’s work, a fight that the undefeated Holy Spirit won in the end.

Limited Atonement
The Misunderstanding: Calvinism teaches that Jesus did not die for everyone, only for the elect.

Why This Bothers People: This is far and away the most difficult pill to swallow for anyone. They cannot understand how it would be just for God to only have Christ die for some and not for everyone. How can we preach redemption to the world if Jesus didn’t even die for everyone. Wouldn’t we be lying when we say, “Jesus died for you” on the street corner when we hand out tracks?

The Truth: I will admit that this is a very hard truth to accept. But it is absolutely true and necessary. There are many things at work here. Before I begin let me make sure we take a step back here. However you interpret the word “foreknowledge” in Romans 8:29 “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined…”, I think that this explanation of Limited Atonement still stands. Whether you believe, as I do that, God’s foreknowledge was an active choice or that it was a prophetic glance into the future to see who would be saved, this is still valid. I contend that whether God wrote the list and then made it happen, or looked at what would happen and used that to compile his list, Christ still died an atoning death for only those on the list. However he arrived at that list, Limited Atonement still stands. Having said that, I need to start by defining my term.

The Atonement is the substitutionary act whereby Jesus Christ on the Cross took our sin upon himself and gave us his righteousness so that he would be treated as we deserve and we would be treated as he deserves.

Read that again. This is the doctrine called “Substitutionary Atonement” and it is most obviously expressed in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”(NIV). The atonement is salvation. Keep that in mind. Once our sin has been exchanged for His righteousness it is finished (as he said!). Yes, this transcends time, because God is an eternal being, meaning he doesn’t live within time, and is therefore not bound by it. At any rate, the idea is that at the atonement, Christ saved sinners. The problem is that those who object to limited atonement say that Jesus died in this way for everyone. They are falling into one of two problems. The first is that they are confusing Atonement with Propitiation. And the second is that they are in fact themselves the ones who limit the atonement.

Those who object to limited atonement most often quote 1 John 2:2, which says “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” Now, aside from the fact that it is not absolutely necessary that the phrase “whole world” apply to each individual person (It could likely mean all types of people - all levels of social stratification, all people groups, all locations, meaning that God has elect all around the world, not just in some - as is the point of Romans 9-11); Aside from that fact, is the fact that the word here is propitiation and not atonement. Propitiation is defined like this:

The satisfaction of God’s righteous fury toward sinners

I remember when I was a kid that when I would do something wrong, my parents would send me to my room. Inevitably they would come in five to ten minutes later with the paddle to administer a spanking in punishment. Put down the phones! Don’t have psychologists go after my parents! I’m glad they did it. I turned out better for it. But that’s not the point. I eventually figured out that this was the pattern, and while I was still young, I used to think that the time it took them to arrive in my room with the paddle was spent in search of said instrument of punishment. I used to actually sit in my room and pray that they wouldn’t be able to find it! LOL. Of course, I have later come to realize that the reason they had me sit in there was two fold. First, they wanted me to reflect on what I had done and why I was being punished. But the second is that they wanted to make sure they were not punishing me in anger. They wanted to calm down before punishing me, so as not to unintentionally punish me too severely - something they would regret later if they did it. So they gave themselves time to calm down. They gave themselves time to be propitiated - to have their righteous anger at the wrong I had done dismissed or abated.

God’s anger toward sinners is absorbed by Christ, but this does not mean that his punishment does not extend to those who do not believe. It is as though my mother became so angry with me one day that she wanted to tear me to shreds (this never happened by the way) and my father stepped in between us and allowed her to pummel him for a while until she calmed down, and then took me aside to spank me in a calm manner. Jesus stands between God and the world and allows God to exhaust his anger on Christ so that he will not act ‘rashly’. Why did he do this? Well it’s obvious. This is another example of how events in our time line seem to keep us in a box. Remember that God is eternal and unbound by time. Had there been no cross, there would have been no cross! Had Jesus not satisfied God’s wrath, God would have obliterated Adam and Eve the very second they bit into that fruit and there would have been no lineage out of which the Seed would be able to come to provide atonement. And it is also because of this that God is patient toward the unbelievers, allowing them to continue in their sin for a season for the sake of the elect who will be saved. This is what is often called, Common Grace.

The second possible error with rejecting limited atonement is that of limiting the atonement. Huh? I keep talking in circles don’t I? Let me put it this way. We are faced with three possible understandings of the atonement. Either

1. Jesus died for everyone in the same way
2. Jesus died for only some
3. Jesus died for everyone, but not all in the same way

I support understanding #3, as you can imply from reading above. Objectors take #1 and accuse Calvinists of #2. #2 is wrong, for it limits Christ’s death in scope, but #1 is wrong for it limits Christ’s death in power. Remember our definition of atonement? If Christ did that for everyone then why is not everyone saved? The answer would of course be, ‘because not all believe’. To which I say, ‘Is that unbelief then not a sin? And if it is a sin, is it a sin that Christ did not die for? If it is a sin Christ died for, why is anyone punished for it? If it’s not a sin Christ died for, doesn’t that change the definition of atonement and destroy salvation?’ I have to give credit where credit is due. Much of these past few paragraphs is a paraphrase of an article entitled “What We Believe About the Five Points of Calvinism” found on DesiringGod.org, written by “The Bethlehem Baptist Church Staff”, presumably under the direction of John Piper. In it they make this observation:

“…It becomes evident that it is not the Calvinist who limits the atonement. It is the Arminian, because he denies that the atoning death of Christ accomplishes what we most desperately need—namely, salvation from the condition of deadness and hardness and blindness under the wrath of God. The Arminian limits the nature and value and effectiveness of the atonement so that he can say that it was accomplished even for those who die in unbelief and are condemned. In order to say that Christ died for all men in the same way, the Arminian must limit the atonement to a powerless opportunity for men to save themselves from their terrible plight of depravity.”

This is further enhanced when we understand a simple point of justice and that’s that no one can punish the same crime twice. It would be unjust to receive two speeding tickets for the same offense. It would be unjust to go to jail twice for the same robbery. It would also be unjust for God to punish Christ for someone’s sin and then punish that person again for that same sin. So, either God does not punish Christ for any sins of the reprobate and he remains unsaved, or God punishes Christ for every sin of the reprobate and everyone is saved, or He punishes Christ for every sin except that of unbelief in Christ, which makes belief in Christ something we do to save ourselves, or rather something we undo to make ourselves unsaved, which is why it is the obvious logical conclusion to the full-on Arminian that a person who has fallen out of faith has lost his salvation.

What is at stake here is the entire Gospel! Paul says in Ephesians “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” If we’ve provided the merit of being worthy of God’s salvation blessing in and of ourselves (faith), then we have saved ourselves, and we have every reason to boast! Beloved it is absolutely vital to the doctrine of justification by faith that only the elect are benefactors of Christ’s atoning work on the cross. For the sake of preserving the legitimacy and power of Christ’s work on the cross let us not defile it by limiting it’s power! Christ died for all, but he only atoned the elect. Sufficient for all? Of course, Christ is infinite. Applied only to some? You bet.

1Romans 14:23: Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. If something is not done out of faith in Christ, ie with the desire to please God by faith in Christ, it’s sin even if it’s good. “All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment,” Isaiah 64:6.

22 Corinthians 4:4: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God”

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.

Now I’ve only touched on a couple of the characteristics of trees. There are perhaps other things that make a tree a tree. These essentials are important to discover about anything we analyze, material or immaterial. The essence of a thing is the very core of what makes it what it is. All things like it have these characteristics. Things unlike it lack these characteristics in some ways. It is in the identification of essential characteristics that we begin to be able to classify things that we see around us.

And we can establish a hierarchy. In science we have the Binomial nomenclature. That’s the ’scientific name’ given to all living organisms. It is made up of the genus and the species. Of course in science there are much larger and broader categories for classification, but the genus and species are important. The genus is a collection of entities with a certain essential set of characteristics. All species in a genus have these characteristics. Species that lack these characteristics are outside the genus. The species, then, would be the group of entities that share a certain set of characteristics that are accidental to the genus - they do not take it outside the genus - but that set them apart from other members of the genus.

So for our trees. Let’s say the genus is tree. In reality, I know, it’s likely that’s actually a phylum, but that’s not the point. The tree has roots, leaves and a trunk. Then the species is conifer or deciduous. Conifers have pointy leaves, make cones and do not change color in the fall. Deciduous trees have broad, flat leaves, make fruit or nuts and do change colors in the fall. The genus is tree, and the species is conifer or deciduous. Of course, the accidents of the species then become essentials of a new sub-genus, which will have sub-species. This is why in science you have kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, families, etc. We could go on forever.

But we don’t just do this for biology. We do it for everything. In philosophy everything can be classified. Love. What is the genus of love? Love involves willing good for the beloved. What is the species of casual love? It seeks the good of the beloved when it is convenient for the lover. What is the species of unconditional love? It sacrifices whatever is necessary to ensure the good of the beloved, no matter what the beloved is or does. See, we’ve classified something.

What’s the importance of terms? Terms identify the metaphysical realities we observe and set them apart from each other. Terms provide a framework to help us understand what we’re talking about. If we didn’t have terms we’d be like Vizzini in “The Princess Bride” yelling at Inigo, “Hurry up! Move the thing! And that other thing! Move it!!!” Terms - words - are tools to help us understand what we’re saying. Language is a tool. It is subject to reality.

What’s my point? Where am I going with this? Theology is the observation of God. In the observation of God we have created terms - words. These terms have definitions which are attempts to explain the metaphysical reality about God we have observed. Love is one of them. Trinity is another. Sovereign is yet another. They are words. They are tools. They are subject to the reality of God.

Nominalism. Nominalism denies all of this. It says that those two trees I had earlier? They have nothing in common except that I called them trees. Believe it or not. Nominalism is the belief that there is no metaphysical reality. There’s no essence. There’s no form. All we have are terms. Ideas. Expressions.

Idiotic isn’t it? Well, when I build a straw man and talk about trees, of course it seems idiotic. Nominalism, however, is much more invasive than you might think. The most obvious example of nominalism working out in real life is when a person thinks that his attendance at church and performance of certain Christian ‘rites’ makes him a Christian - apart from the essential genus of what a Christian is - real life changing faith in Christ.

But nominalism is far more pervasive than that. I can tell you right now that the heart of the entire Emergent Church issue is all about nominalism. And I’ll show you as I go. I hope that your eyes and ears are open.

The whole reason this controversy even exists is because there are those who believe the Postmodern or Emergent Church has infiltrated Cedarville. Such professors as Dr. Mills, Dr. Mortensen, Dr. Miller and others are labeled as “Emergent” and are vilified by conservative students and alumni. Having never fully researched or studied the issue, I decided to take it on full board. And in an attempt to be fair I want to look at it from both angles. To that end, I’ve bought two books. The first is The Truth War, by John MacArthur and the second is Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. These are supposedly two opposite ends of the spectrum. I intend to read both. I intend to discern what their main motives and concerns are. I intend to analyze their logic. I intend to distill whether the Emergent church really is the heresy it is accused of being.

Why am I doing this? Because I can’t allow myself to take a position without fully thinking it through. I must be convinced if I am to go to war. I’ve been implored by those around me to join them in attacks against the Emergents, and when I see what is at stake, I want to be very careful that they are given due diligence and full justice when all is said and done. I intend to find out exactly what the claims against them are and if they are valid. If I discover that MacArthur’s claims of heresy are correct, I will proclaim Bell and others to be heretics. If, however, I do not find that to be the case, I will not cease to exhaust all of my efforts to protect my brothers in Christ who are wrongfully being accused of the worst possible crime. This is not a task I take up lightly, and I will post on here as I go along.

My initial observations:

The concerns of MacArthur and his ‘followers’ (I will call them Conservatives for lack of a better term) are important and good concerns. The Gospel is important and must be defended. Truth is absolute because God is absolute. Error must not be allowed to continue.

I wonder how much of this is not just a debate over what is essential and what is non-essential. Essentials would be those things that we would say you must believe in order to be a Christian. The Apostle’s Creed is a good example of a summary of the essentials.

I wonder how much of this is not just a Nominalistic reaction to the Emergents attempting to interact with a postmodern culture, which necessarily involves throwing out old terminology. Is the terminology important if the essence is there?

I’ve noticed that a lot of Conservatives equate “Emergent Christian” with “Postmodern Christian”. I believe this to be an error. The difference is that the Postmodern Christian embraces and incorporates postmodernism into his system of belief, or rather has a postmodern worldview. The Emergent Christian, in my initial assumed estimation, reacts to postmodernism and attempts to find ways to deal with its deconstructive impact on truth, language and Christianity.

We’ll see where this leads us. We’ll see who makes more sense, Bell or MacArthur. Or maybe they both do and it’s all an equivocation. Or maybe nobody is right. Maybe we should all be postmodern. OK I’m just kidding. In case anybody is wondering, I’m not a postmodern. I’m very much modern. I have a rather fundamental way of thinking, but I’ve come over the years to see things from an essentialistic perspective, which to a nominal fundamentalist would appear to be postmodernism. Gee, I have a lot of terms to define don’t I? Oh well, that’s all for now. I leave you simply with an affirmation of what I do believe so you don’t have to wonder:

I believe in God, the Father, Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,

And in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord;
who was conceived of the Holy Spirit
born of the virgin, Mary
suffered under Pontius Pilate
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day he arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

At any rate, I do need to prime the pump a bit. Since you’ve all lost track of where I was, I’ve had several things going on on here. The biggest one has been my treatise on Calvinism. I did post an entry on this over at Xanga while this site was down. I will probably port that over here when I have a chance. I don’t have dsl at my apartment yet, though, so it probably won’t happen until next week. But when it does happen I intend to continue the series in earnest. You’re more than welcome to refresh your memory, though!

I’ve also been dealing with other random issues. You may remember that this site is originally intended to be about all things philosophical, theological and logical, so I do often times post on random things. The issue that was most on the front of my mind before the haxor came in (yes that was 1337), was the whole Cedarville controversy. I may post more on this as I continue to collect my thoughts. I’m not back in the area, and have had some good talks with many people over the issue. As I suspected, of course, nothing has yet dissuaded me from my original assumptions. Hmm… Anyway, of course you know there are two issues here involved. 1) Was Cedarville’s treatment of the profs unethical 2a) Is there theological error in the Emergent Church? 2b) Is anyone at Cedarville really emergent? (Dr. Gromacki says no, by the way) 2c) Is there really theological error in New Perspectivism? 2d) Is anyone at Cedarville really New Perspectivist? Remember I’m not stating that it’s my belief that the answer to all of these questions is no. I’m stating that I refuse to assume that the answers are yes, and that most of the people I’ve talked to about these issues have already piled onto the yes side, and I’m making a concerted effort to abstain until I have all the facts.

So my next step, of course, is to read. I’m going to read The Truth War by MacArthur, as well as a couple of books by McLaren and Bell to get a better view of that issue. I also intend to read some New Perspective stuff too. This is all just to keep my horizons open. I fully hate the idea of coming to a conclusion before the logic is examined. Especially when what’s at stake is accusing a fellow believer of something as harsh as heresy.

You can rest assured I will always stand firm in my roots. I stand for Truth and for Biblical Authority. But I despise “Paul v. Apollos” thinking and behavior.

I live in Korea, so my information is very limited. I do not know all the facts, but I can guarantee you that not being in the midst of the rumor mill gives me the ability to more objectively view the situation. I wish I knew more, but as it stands, I must be content with what I have. I do not attempt here to show new data that will bring to light any new updates to any of the situations. I only attempt to point out this trend that I see among the Cedarville community with whom I have interacted with on this issue.

So what is this trend? I have seen more and more people surrounding this issue who have exhibited behavior and illogical thought consistent with a conspiracy theory oriented mindset. I asked a question in my title: What is a conspiracy theory? A conspiracy theory is created when an entity (organization, person, etc) makes some sort of accusation against another (usually some sort of governing body), and despite the fact that this accusation, by its very nature, lays the burden of proof upon the accuser, the accuser acts and compels others to act as though the burden of proof lies on the accused. We will use the most popular recently proposed conspiracy theory for our example: 9/11.

The accusation of the 9/11 conspiracy theory is that George W. Bush and his administration either intentionally allowed or directly caused the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 for the purpose of creating an excuse to go to war with Iraq so that he could 1) get their oil and 2) finish what his father started.

This is a very serious claim. If true, then it shows George W. Bush to be the most evil man in power since Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. This kind of accusation must be proved by solid evidence before it can be given any credibility. Until then noone should take it seriously. BUT, since it was presented to the nation in somewhat entertaining semi-documentary form by a guy named Michael Moore who’s attitude through it all is, “If I’m wrong, why doesn’t the government prove me wrong?” people are falling for this nonsense. What Mr. Moore doesn’t realize is that the burden of proof does not lie with the government. It lies with him. He must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his accusation is true in order for it to be valid. But he hasn’t, so it isn’t.

The same is true with the Chemtrail/Contrail conspiracy theory. The accusation is that for whatever reason, the US Government is using airliners to dump toxic chemicals on the populus of the nation through the exhaust. Again they will say repeatedly, “If we’re wrong, why don’t they prove us wrong?” Sorry guys. The burden of proof is not on the government. It is on you. Show some solid evidence, and you’ll get some credibility.

The same goes for Cedarville. The accusation is that the Administration is intentionally forcing out Bible faculty who display conservative hermeneutics and commitments to Biblical truth because they are intentionally trying to move away from Biblical authority. If that is wrong, why don’t they prove it wrong? Because the burden of proof is not on them.

This distrubs me on two levels. First: Anyone connected with Cedarville should be above this kind of illogical thought process. Cedarville is a University. It is an academic institution. The notion that many of its students have bought into a conspiracy theory is laughable, and IMHO a much more harsh indictment of the school’s ability to do its job than whether they dismiss a couple of faculty.

Arguments against the position that Cedarville is divorcing conservative roots and that the recent firings have anything to do with doctrine:

1) Dr. Brown has spent his life fighting the effects of postmodernism. Why in the world would he change now? That would be like Ronald Regan deciding that the USA should be Communist. HUH?

2) Dr. Robert Gromacki (one of the more conservative professors) has read the books by Robert McLaren and other books including the MacArthur book on this issue. Then, armed with a proper understanding of what the Emergent Church is and what they really teach, he interviewed the Cedarville faculty most often accused of espousing Emergent views and came away convinced that “no one within the School of Biblical and Theological Studies is seeking to promote the belief systems of Brian McLaren and the Emerging Church movement.” Dr. Warren, a Cedarville trustee, collaborates this finding. You can read it for yourself at: http://www.cedarville.edu/academics/avp/truth/gromackistatement.cfm

3) Even though Dr. Hoffeditz, Dr. Mappes, Dr. Cragoe and Dr. Thigpen were among the more conservative professors in the Bible department, many conservative professors still remain. Two of the more stark examples I offer are Dr. Blumenstock and the aforementioned Dr. Gromacki. If Cedarville was indeed divorcing Biblical roots and attempting to espouse the Emergent ideals, why not “clean house” on the conservative faculty?

4) Dr. Brown has claimed that the personnel actions taken (there are only 4 that were taken by the University. All of the other 12 you will find listed in the group left on their own. In fact even one of the four actually left the University on his own (Cragoe). It was another action that caused him to do so.) were for violations of the faculty handbook. Why shouldn’t we believe him? The only reason not to believe him is if you accept the conspiracy theory. There’s no other reason not to belive him. The objection of course is to point out the lack of details in his explanation. But I answer that aside from the fact that the Administration does not owe us details, it is a matter of confidentiality and none of our business what the details were. Suffice it to say that to accuse Dr. Brown of lying here (and it would be a flat out lie) brings the burden of proof upon the accuser.

5) Inviting Emergent church chapel speakers does not imply endorsment of their point of view. I don’t care if it’s the Staley Lecture series. Chapel is a class on contemporary Christianity. A class on world religions would be remiss if it focused solely on Christianity. A class on contemporary Christianity would be remiss if it focused solely on one particular denomination or tradition. The purpose of inviting chapel speakers (especially ones who do not necessarily agree with the University’s position) is to expose students to concepts, ideas and beliefs that exist in contemporary Christianity so they can practice interacting with them in a Biblical manner while they are at school in the context of a structure in which they can ask questions and seek help. If the Emergent Church is at all part of the contemporary Christianity landscape, then they ought to be part of the Chaple program.

I could go on. I could discuss many issues pertaining to whether it is right and good to move away from a Baptist position. I could mention the incident in which the Administration supposedly demanded the documents from the grievence committee hearing on Dr. Hoffeditz - a move that was touted by the conspiracy theorists to be a cover up type move. I could point out that Dr. Brown then came out in favor of Hoffeditz’s reinstatement - hardly a cover up if you ask me. But I don’t think I have time to go into all of that.

Many people on BOTH sides of this issue are getting very angry and pointing fingers over what ultimately boils down to an EQUIVOCATION. This whole issue stems from the firing of Dr. Lambourne over his use of the word certainty (which btw I find to be a good definition… if you understand epistemology from a metaphysical standpoint, Lambourne was absolutely right) and it has gone way out of proportion to the point where people are drawing lines and taking sides when it doesn’t really matter. Remember this IT DOESN’T MATTER. And if the firing of Dr. Hoffeditz, Dr. Mappes Dr. Thigpen, and the strongarming of Dr. Cragoe was in any way related to this issue at all it was because they behaved inappropriately. I know that’s tough for some of you to swallow, seeing as how you know and love these profs. Trust me. I do to. But I had Dr. Mappes and Dr. Cragoe, and while I can’t see Cragoe losing his cool, I can see him risking his neck for something he is convicted of (a very good characteristic) and I can see Mappes losing his cool. Don’t know about Thigpen or Hoffeditz, but there is no reasonable logical reason to assume that Dr. Brown is lying when he says that they violated the faculty handbook.

Everyone else who has left has either left for completely unrelated reasons, or because they want to protest. End of story. Cedarville University is, has been, and will continue to be an institution in which students can pursue God’s truth in a free and open environment where inquiry is welcome and discussion is encouraged. If any of you have a problem with that, you can go somewhere else. If you want to be spoonfed doctrine, go to Bible college. If you want to just learn a skill or something, go to trade school or community college to get an associates degree. If you’re at the university to be at the university then use your brain.

Nominalism:

the doctrine that general or abstract words do not stand for objectively existing entities and that universals are no more than names assigned to them1

In short this is in contrast to a metaphysical epistemology which says that reality is bound to form and our knowledge of anything is an internalization of its form. In short, nominalism says ‘It is what I call it’ while metaphysics says, ‘I call it what it is’. Anyone who has traveled or lived overseas should be able to identify with the metaphysical position. When you get in your car in London and drive through the chunnel and come out on the other side to find you’re driving a voiture, are you suddenly no longer in a car? Of course not! The concept of car is tied to its form and matter, not the word assigned to refer to it. The same is true if you were to drive west instead of south and upon crossing the mountains you find you’re driving a cerbyd. Again, what you’re driving hasn’t changed, because the word has no bearing on it’s metaphysical reality.

You might ask if this is the same thing, because ultimately if we call it what it is, then it is what we call it, right? Not necessarily, because according to my Thomist friend, nominalists assert that it is the naming of the thing that creates its essence. Thus by saying something is something, you make it that way.

But let’s get out of the abstract. Let’s get to the concrete. My friend decries nominalism as one of the worst things to plague philosophy and Christianity. I don’t know enough about it to know whether that is true, but I do know three cases in which I have seen nominalism at work and in each case it is dreadfully wrong.

1. Nominal Christians

One of the major problems with Christianity are the ones who claim to be Christian, but show no evidence of actually being a Christian. The thinking goes like this: ‘I’m going to call myself a Christian, and that will make me a Christian’. But they expect that to be all that is necessary. These people may or may not go to church. They may or may not read the Bible. They may or may not serve. They may or may not pray. But they claim to be Christian as if that is all they need. But the epistemology is wrong. Saying you’re a Christian doesn’t make you a Christian. Being a Christian makes you a Christian and it should cause you to call yourself a Christian.

How do you tell the difference? I have no idea. There seems to be a fine line between nominal/carnal and authentic/struggling. This is not my arena to judge. However, the nominal Christian will have trouble becoming excited about God’s work or God’s truth. He or she will have trouble being motivated to meet with other believers. He or she may very likely do things out of a motive of looking good in front of others who expect a certain level of behavior from believers.

Don’t just say you’re a Christian. Be a Christian.

2. KJV

In my debates about the KJV (the result of which can be found here) I encountered this argument: In many places where the KJV uses the word ‘Hell’, the NIV uses other words like ‘Hades’, ‘Sheol’, ‘The Grave’ or simply ‘Death’. Why would the translators of the NIV want take Hell out of the Bible?

The flaw in this argument is, of course, nominalism. The assumption is that if the word ‘Hell’ isn’t in the Bible, then the reality of ‘Hell’ must not be in the Bible. But this is false. The concept of Hell is not inextricably tied to the word ‘Hell’. In the case of the NIV, there were several good reasons for them to translate it the way they did. I’m not going to get into it here, because that’s not the purpose of this post, but let it be said that I have no problem with it because even though the word is not there, the concept still is plain and clear

3. Baptist?

Finally, in my senior year, for reasons I will not discuss here, my then fiancee (now wife) and I changed the church we attended. This cause a stir with a certain older couple I know because we had been going to Grace Baptist Church and were now going to Grace Covenant Church. Now, aside from a discussion of whether the Baptist denomination is really the best (it clearly is in the mind of this individual), let’s examine this problem. The main objection is ‘if it doesn’t say Baptist, it’s not’. But that’s not true, because being Baptist has nothing to do with the name, but rather what the church is.

Another example of this same debate regarding Baptist took place recently at our current church: Uijongbu Baptist Church. Our constitution states very clearly and strongly that we will in no circumstances accept as a member anyone who has not been baptized in a Baptist church. This was done because our founding pastor (who has recently moved on) was a hard core ‘Big B’ Baptist. Really he is a nominalist. But anyway, it was suggested by our current pastor that we take that out and replace it with ‘a church of like faith’ because at least in this regard he is not a nominalist and realizes that there are Baptist churches that are really quite unlike us and there are other churches (Uijongbu Community Church for example) that are close enough to us that there really is no reason for the name ‘Baptist’ to be any kind of breaking of fellowship. Well the motion didn’t pass because some people don’t understand this. Oh well it’s the world in which we live.

Hope this gives you some food for thought. Any comments?

1. dictionary.com

This is probably the best time of any to mention that I am not writing this blog, and these posts on Calvinism, as a categorical systematic eisegetical defense of my unwavering belief in hardcore 5-point Calvinism. I believe in 5-point Calvinism, but I do not do so without trying to consider and reconcile the objections raised by skeptics. I also do not care if I disagree with any Calvinists on the particulars (most of it is equivocation anyway). I don’t even care if I disagree with Calvin himself. I care only that I represent soteriology accurately as it is in the Bible. I only care that I agree with Christ and his apostles.

That said, I’m going to address another side issue that’s not one of the 5 points, but is one of those fallout issues that comes from the discussion. RC Sproul actually talked about this recently in his Renewing Your Mind podcast. I don’t intend to give this issue a fully detailed treatment, because I haven’t really researched it much, but I want to at least address my initial thoughts, and open it up for discussion. Please give me your thoughts on this, because I want to inform my thinking.

The issue is this: Is salvation a monergistic act or a synergistic act? What the heck does that mean? I’m sure you’ve heard the term synergy, right? (especially if you’ve been a Red’s fan longer than 8 years because they played at ‘Cinergy Field’). Anyway, the term ’synergism’ is defined1 as follows:

1. the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements, contributions, etc.
2. the joint action of agents, as drugs, that when taken together increase each other’s effectiveness (contrasted with antagonism).
3. Theology. the doctrine that the human will cooperates with the Holy Ghost in the work of regeneration.

Synergism has to do with many areas of interest other than theology. Science often deals with the idea of synergy. Managers tend to talk about it at team building seminars. Monergism, on the contrary, seems to be a term limited solely to theology. It is defined2 as follows:

the doctrine that the Holy Ghost acts independently of the human will in the work of regeneration.

So, I’ll synthesize this for our discussion. Syngergistic soteriology suggests that God works with the human will in bringing about salvation. On the other hand monergistic soteriology suggests that God does not work with the human will in bringing about salvation

Critique of Monergism:

I have two basic problems with monergism:

1. It appears to come from the assumption of ‘hardcore’ Calvinists which denies the existence of a human will. If you read my previous post, you will know that I disagree with this estimation. Man does have a will. What does that mean? I’m still exploring that one!
2. It seems to ignore passages that speak of us choosing to follow Christ. It seems to work against the examples of conversion in the Bible where it always seems that the new believer uses his will to believe.

I don’t think this is a silver bullet, but I don’t know… hmmm…

Critique of Syngergism

My major critique of synergism is simply the observation that in our state of Total Depravity, we are helpless to will our own righteousness or salvation. How far does this extend? I don’t know…. It’s a pretty weak critique I suppose.

My Thoughts So Far

I suppose where I stand right now would be to say synergism, but a very monergistic leaning synergism, if that makes sense. In other words, I would lean toward saying that our will does come into play, and we do choose with our will to accept the gift of salvation. I would say two things though:

1. God does at least 99% of the willing and working. We only come in to do our part at the very end. We have one line in the whole thing. It’s like a wedding. The bride does everything - arranges the church, the cake, the reception, etc - and the groom just has to show up and say, ‘I do’. So it’s a synergistic event, but the groom does next to nothing. Good example? Bad example? Give me your thoughts
2. In my estimation the offer God gives us is such a greatly compelling offer that even though someone might have the option of rejecting it, nobody who has been illuminated will reject. It’s like The Godfather: ‘I’m gonna make you and offer you can’t refuse’.

I’ll probably revisit this subject when I get to Irresistible Grace, because that seems to be where this issue comes up, so we’ll see. In the meantime, give me your thoughts. I want discussion!

References:

1. Dictionary.com definition
2. Dictionary.com definition