Yep, that's what I said. I get tired of people suggesting that there is. It's ALWAYS, not just usually, but ALWAYS the case of a person suggesting this who doesn't understand how ultimate beliefs work.
The problem is a worldview conflict. The problem is in your necessary beliefs. Cognitive dissonance takes place when you hold secondary beliefs that are in conflict with your necessary beliefs (usually ingrained within you from early childhood on) concerning the nature of reality and what authorities have the ability to interpret that reality (which will also be determined by your ultimate beliefs concerning reality).
What happens is that most people, especially Westerners, hold all sorts of conflicting ideas because we pick up ideas from here and there from various places. This is even worse in a pluralistic, global atmosphere, where ideas are adopted as you were just looking for things that struck an emotional cord or thought were interesting, but have now treated ideas like an all-you-can-eat Vegas buffet. Forget the fact that chinese noodles don't really go with hot dogs in beans. Pile it on.
The problem, of course, usually occurs when one is confronted with his inconsistencies. This often happens in school or by reading a particular book or hearing lectures on the internet. It can also just occur by one's own growth in thinking about what he believes. This is where cognitive dissonance kicks in.
The individual now realizes that those secondary beliefs that are in conflict with his ultimate beliefs no longer make sense in light of them. He often doesn't realize that is what he is doing. Instead, he's largely ignorant of his ultimate beliefs and their absolute determination of what he views as viable in light of them. Instead, he'll often just pit secondary beliefs that stem from those ultimate beliefs that he now views as absolutely true against other secondary beliefs that do not stem from those ultimate beliefs, or are not compatible with them, in order to refute the validity of those secondary beliefs that cannot be true if his other set of secondary beliefs are true.
This happens a lot in religious circles in the West, simply because our primary religion is a secular humanism based in ultimate beliefs that are largely naturalistic (atheism, agnosticism, deism). That's why the academy (the Western tribal prophet) has convinced everyone that the closer your conclusions follow a naturalistic train of thought, the more it is you are doing true scholarship, coming to the objective truth of a matter (as if holding a legion of beliefs based upon an ultimate belief that is self refuting somehow gets you closer to truth, but it does get you closer to academic excellence in the cultic Western mind).
What then occurs is doubt and unbelief in those secondary beliefs. The individual, again, thinks that he is coming to see reality more clearly and that what he believed before can no longer be sustained within the framework of self evident truths (again, truths that are self-evident as long as you assume the ultimate belief system that supports them, but he doesn't usually realize this).
What you end up with is a bunch of people whining about how they need to reconfigure Christianity to make sense in light of those "truths," which is really nothing more than turning Christianity into a spiritual form of secular humanism that includes some sort of belief in a Jesus that is more accommodating to his ultimate beliefs that are largely in conflict with those the Bible would have given him.
This is what occurs in liberalism. This is why so many atheists are being made in our culture. I say this from an intellectual standpoint. The Bible is clear that God gives people who think they are wise in their worldviews, wiser than God's Word, to the foolishness of them, and hence, their minds are darkened. But from an intellectual standpoint, if one truly understands the nature of ultimate beliefs, he realizes that doubt and unbelief are not intellectual problems. They are epistemic problems. Ergo, there is no intellectual problem for Christianity. There is only an epistemic problem that will continue to create false Christians when they never realize that their beliefs and practices are based upon a belief system that is completely hostile toward Christianity, or apostates who think that they have jettisoned orthodox Christianity because they can't make sense of it as a viable belief system within the framework of what they "know to be true."
It's sad really. Not because they choose a different path, but because they don't know why they've chosen it. Indeed, they've been so deceived that they now think they could choose no other. In this way, their ultimate beliefs have not given them greater academic freedom, but an enslavement that has cut off all other choices but that which is either incoherent and mystical when they want to hang onto some form of Christianity or complete unbelief when they do not.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Reading Scripture with Charity
Everyone wants to be read with charity these days, but no one wants to read the Bible with charity. I thought these words from Pinnock and Callen were appropriate.
Something needs to be said about the use of the Bible that is appropriate to the Scripture principle, about the preunderstanding that is the foundation of good hermeneutics. First, there should be a spirit of openness to the text. If the Bible is not merely a human product but is the Word of God, without exhausting that Word, then it follows that the believers will choose to accept the discipline of its teachings and seek to walk in the light of its statutes . . . The Bible, not merely a product of Near Eastern culture, is also the written Word of God and the canon of the church. Therefore, it ought to be approached in a spirit of faith, in the context of the believing community, and received as a reliable witness to God and his relationship with us. For the church to be apostolic means that it will live under the discipline of the normative Word of God.
This attitude brings one into conflict with the pretensions of much contemporary biblical criticism that often is suspicious of the text and prepared to overthrow it in the name of critical freedom. Criticism is faulty when it lords it over the text instead of submitting humbly to the text and serving it. It very easily becomes a technology of deconstruction that exalts the judgment of the scholar and demeans the authority of the Scriptures. Criticism is useful when it illumines the meaning of the Bible, and it is harmful when it seeks to overthrow what the text was given to tell us. No one can be wiser than the Bible, the book that owes its origin to the activity of God. As a divinely willed language deposit, the Scriptures are the place to stand in order to hear God speak and a central means of grace in the life of faith. They can be effective only when the reader approaches them in a spirit of openness and faith. The crucial things is a determination to know and love and serve God under the authority of his Word (The Scripture Principle, 91).
Something needs to be said about the use of the Bible that is appropriate to the Scripture principle, about the preunderstanding that is the foundation of good hermeneutics. First, there should be a spirit of openness to the text. If the Bible is not merely a human product but is the Word of God, without exhausting that Word, then it follows that the believers will choose to accept the discipline of its teachings and seek to walk in the light of its statutes . . . The Bible, not merely a product of Near Eastern culture, is also the written Word of God and the canon of the church. Therefore, it ought to be approached in a spirit of faith, in the context of the believing community, and received as a reliable witness to God and his relationship with us. For the church to be apostolic means that it will live under the discipline of the normative Word of God.
This attitude brings one into conflict with the pretensions of much contemporary biblical criticism that often is suspicious of the text and prepared to overthrow it in the name of critical freedom. Criticism is faulty when it lords it over the text instead of submitting humbly to the text and serving it. It very easily becomes a technology of deconstruction that exalts the judgment of the scholar and demeans the authority of the Scriptures. Criticism is useful when it illumines the meaning of the Bible, and it is harmful when it seeks to overthrow what the text was given to tell us. No one can be wiser than the Bible, the book that owes its origin to the activity of God. As a divinely willed language deposit, the Scriptures are the place to stand in order to hear God speak and a central means of grace in the life of faith. They can be effective only when the reader approaches them in a spirit of openness and faith. The crucial things is a determination to know and love and serve God under the authority of his Word (The Scripture Principle, 91).
Friday, May 31, 2013
The Book of Job
I'm amazed at the attempt to interpret the Book of Job to fit modern controversies that largely have nothing to do with it. So let me just lay out what I think the Book of Job is actually arguing for.
There was a common thought that because God rewards good behavior and punishes evil behavior (you see this throughout the law and the prophets) that this means that God brings adversity only to those who sin against Him. This isn't what the law and prophets taught. It's a non sequitur based upon a false reading of those Scriptures.
Hence, we get books like Ecclesiastes, Daniel, and Job to tell us that this is a misreading. Daniel lets us know that the ultimate working out of God's rewards and punishments is at the resurrection, not necessarily in this life. Ecclesiastes tells us to look to the judgment as well, rather than this life as finding fulfillment and hope. Likewise, Job exists to tell us that God brings adversity even upon the righteous.
There exists more than one message, of course, in the book. Satan challenges God that Job only follows Him because God has brought good things into his life. But one of the main messages of the book is that man ought to follow God even through adversity because God is worthy as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe to be trusted and followed no matter what.
But another message, perhaps its main message, is that adversity in one's life is not necessarily caused by sin, nor is prosperity in one's life necessarily caused by righteousness. Job's friends represent those who have misinterpreted the law and prophets as saying otherwise. They think that if Job is suffering so badly, it can only mean that God has turned against him; and if God has turned against him, it can only mean that Job has sinned against God.
If Job was righteous, God is just and would not deliver his life into such devastation and tragedy. Job himself wants his day in court with God, and argues that God has afflicted him without cause. Hence, he calls God's justice into question.
That latter point is important, because many think that because Job does not "curse" God, this means he doesn't question His just nature. Instead, Job realizes that God's power makes him helpless against God's decisions, and so, God can do what he pleases to him, but there is no reason for Him to do so.
The epilogue corrects Job on this, not by telling us that God didn't do these things, or by saying that God is just, but instead, that God does have the right by power to do these things, but that He also understands every working in the cosmos and has reasons for them, even though these are often not discernible to finite men.
Hence, the search to find some reason that God has turned against Him, whether the reason thought up by his "friends" (i.e., that Job must be impure in some possible way) or by himself (that God must be unjustly persecuting him for no reason simply because He can) are misguided attempts to understand the necessity of God's decisions in some people's lives.
That's not the message we want because that's not a message we can control. We can't do anything about it. We want to have control and make the things we want to happen happen. But Job tells us that we really don't have the control we think we do. We cannot secure a prosperous life by virtue of our disposition to God either way. The other two books I mentioned, Ecclesiastes and Daniel, tell us that our disposition toward God does affect our judgment and resurrection, but it does not in this life, precisely, because of what we are told by these books--namely, that both righteous and unrighteous people get the same sorts of things in this life.
Of course, we are given more reasons why this is in the New Testament: i.e., they conform us to the image of Christ and complete God's creation in us from being chaotic agents into becoming agents of life. But the Book of Job is at the foundation of all of that theology.
It does not exist to comment on whether humans are totally depraved, or give us reasons why God brings tragedy into our lives. There is no reason given. It exists to humble us before God and to seek God for His worthiness of being sought, even when He takes away the immediate, visible incentives for following Him.
There was a common thought that because God rewards good behavior and punishes evil behavior (you see this throughout the law and the prophets) that this means that God brings adversity only to those who sin against Him. This isn't what the law and prophets taught. It's a non sequitur based upon a false reading of those Scriptures.
Hence, we get books like Ecclesiastes, Daniel, and Job to tell us that this is a misreading. Daniel lets us know that the ultimate working out of God's rewards and punishments is at the resurrection, not necessarily in this life. Ecclesiastes tells us to look to the judgment as well, rather than this life as finding fulfillment and hope. Likewise, Job exists to tell us that God brings adversity even upon the righteous.
There exists more than one message, of course, in the book. Satan challenges God that Job only follows Him because God has brought good things into his life. But one of the main messages of the book is that man ought to follow God even through adversity because God is worthy as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe to be trusted and followed no matter what.
But another message, perhaps its main message, is that adversity in one's life is not necessarily caused by sin, nor is prosperity in one's life necessarily caused by righteousness. Job's friends represent those who have misinterpreted the law and prophets as saying otherwise. They think that if Job is suffering so badly, it can only mean that God has turned against him; and if God has turned against him, it can only mean that Job has sinned against God.
If Job was righteous, God is just and would not deliver his life into such devastation and tragedy. Job himself wants his day in court with God, and argues that God has afflicted him without cause. Hence, he calls God's justice into question.
That latter point is important, because many think that because Job does not "curse" God, this means he doesn't question His just nature. Instead, Job realizes that God's power makes him helpless against God's decisions, and so, God can do what he pleases to him, but there is no reason for Him to do so.
The epilogue corrects Job on this, not by telling us that God didn't do these things, or by saying that God is just, but instead, that God does have the right by power to do these things, but that He also understands every working in the cosmos and has reasons for them, even though these are often not discernible to finite men.
Hence, the search to find some reason that God has turned against Him, whether the reason thought up by his "friends" (i.e., that Job must be impure in some possible way) or by himself (that God must be unjustly persecuting him for no reason simply because He can) are misguided attempts to understand the necessity of God's decisions in some people's lives.
That's not the message we want because that's not a message we can control. We can't do anything about it. We want to have control and make the things we want to happen happen. But Job tells us that we really don't have the control we think we do. We cannot secure a prosperous life by virtue of our disposition to God either way. The other two books I mentioned, Ecclesiastes and Daniel, tell us that our disposition toward God does affect our judgment and resurrection, but it does not in this life, precisely, because of what we are told by these books--namely, that both righteous and unrighteous people get the same sorts of things in this life.
Of course, we are given more reasons why this is in the New Testament: i.e., they conform us to the image of Christ and complete God's creation in us from being chaotic agents into becoming agents of life. But the Book of Job is at the foundation of all of that theology.
It does not exist to comment on whether humans are totally depraved, or give us reasons why God brings tragedy into our lives. There is no reason given. It exists to humble us before God and to seek God for His worthiness of being sought, even when He takes away the immediate, visible incentives for following Him.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
If Reformed Christianity Is Orthodoxy, Who Are All of these Other People?
For some quick definitions (in usual satirical mode):
Reformed Christianity: The progression of historic orthodox Christianity that is in submission to Christ through His external authority, the Bible interpreted through the historic Christian Church.
Liberalism: The secular progression of the religion of the Self that views the Self as the primary interpretive authority of reality (whether it admits or not).
Fundamentalism: Really conservative, and even legalistic, liberalism.
Evangelicalism: Moderately conservative liberalism.
Emerging Church: Full blown liberalism that views itself as more moderate than liberalism.
All of these incorporate some orthodoxy into them, but often have radically different definitions or are merely a hybrid between Christianity and the religion of the Self.
Reformed Christianity: The progression of historic orthodox Christianity that is in submission to Christ through His external authority, the Bible interpreted through the historic Christian Church.
Liberalism: The secular progression of the religion of the Self that views the Self as the primary interpretive authority of reality (whether it admits or not).
Fundamentalism: Really conservative, and even legalistic, liberalism.
Evangelicalism: Moderately conservative liberalism.
Emerging Church: Full blown liberalism that views itself as more moderate than liberalism.
All of these incorporate some orthodoxy into them, but often have radically different definitions or are merely a hybrid between Christianity and the religion of the Self.
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