The number one FAQ

Cerphilly Castle, Wales (photo from trekearth.com)

http://satireandtheology.blogspot.com/2008/05/evangelize-while-in-
fight-for-your-life.html

Here is a hypothetical Frequently Asked Question and I really appreciate all my readers, commenters and links.

Question:

You state you hold to Believer’s baptism/credobaptism, although infant baptism/paedobaptism has some merit. If that is so, why are you a member of a Presbyterian Church in America?

I am not intending to debate the baptism issue in this article, but please feel free to review my article and link below. I have attended Baptist churches. I have earned a MTS degree at a Baptist seminary and have interacted with Baptist theology on the subject of baptism.

http://thekingpin68.blogspot.com/2007/08/some-thoughts-on-
infant-baptism.html

I am sure there are many godly Baptists out there, and I wish to have fellowship with many, but I have not found definitive Baptists, in particular, very supportive of me as a Christian. No one has ever reached out to me over a prolonged period within a Baptist church to guide me in my Christian walk and academic pursuits. As well, a Baptist pastor and theologian did a poor job in guiding and advising me at seminary and basically implied I was not good enough to write a thesis. The truth was although he was and is a very good theologian, he did a poor job advising his first thesis student. On that issue, he was not supported by the administration that pulled his negative letter concerning my thesis work off my record, when I strongly complained of the critique. He had taken a position at another institution.

With no additional training, and a new advisor at Wales, I went on to write a much more difficult 40, 000 word MPhil dissertation thesis by distance learning, without any local advisor and passed without revisions. I am in the process of completing a more difficult yet, distance learning PhD dissertation with Wales, which is from what I have read, by some standards, the second largest University in the United Kingdom. The Presbyterian church that I am a member of has very educated pastoral leadership that has assisted me with my PhD thesis and two of my pastors have commented on my blogs. My one pastor reads my blogs weekly.

As much as I have tried on-line, no definitive Baptist blogger has linked with me. I have contacted several, but they seem to show no interest in continually reading, commenting or linking with my blogs. I have, for example, links that are definitive Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and persons that attend the Church of Christ.

Now, I must admit, I am not aware of the denomination of every one of my links and so some of you may be Baptists. But, from what I am aware, the definitive Baptists I have attempted to contact do not want to support my work. I have heard Baptist theologian Albert Mohler state on-line that those that hold to Baptist theology on the issue of baptism should attend a Baptist church. I reason that is too narrow of a perspective, particularly in the rather secular, unchurched Greater Vancouver area. The subject of Baptism would be one area of theological agreement, but as my pastor pointed out, there are more Presbyterians that hold to Reformed, Calvinist doctrines than there are Baptists.

I reason there are more important theological issues than the important issue of baptism. I hold to compatibilism and not incompatibilism. Some Reformed, Calvinist Baptist churches would agree with me on the issue of compatibilism and some non-Reformed Baptist churches would not. This is a crucial issue in regard to the problem of evil and how persons are saved or not saved by Christ. I reason God without the use of force or coercion predestines those who believe in Christ. God chooses to regenerate a person by God’s will alone. Some reason God chooses to regenerate everyone, but cannot because of human free will, but I reason the since all human beings have a corrupt nature, no one could or would choose Christ without being regenerated by God and his divine choice. God regenerates the elect and simultaneously gives persons the ability to freely believe and trust in Christ. Romans 1-3, Romans 8 and Ephesians 1 are important Chapters in regard to this topic.

Baptists are not providing me with compelling reasons to attend and join a Baptist church. I really would like to be linked with many Baptists, both Reformed and non-Reformed. But, I know from experience with two Baptist theology professors that they were skeptical concerning conservative philosophical theologians that were not pastors. If this is a common view with the Baptist movement, this is a tremendous negative.

Definitions and Bibliography

Incompatibilism:

Gregory A. Boyd explains that incompatibilism assumes since human beings are free, their wills and resulting actions are not, in any way, determined by any outside force. Boyd (2001: 52).

Compatibilism:

Compatibilism, would agree with incompatibilism that God or any other being cannot cause by force or coercion any significantly free human action, but contrary to incompatibilism thinks that God or an outside force can simultaneously determine/will significantly free human actions. Feinberg (1994: 60).

Philosopher Louis P. Pojman explains that within determinism or hard determinism, an outside force causes an act and no created being is responsible for his or her moral actions, while for compatibilism or soft determinism, although an outside force causes actions, created beings are responsible where they act voluntarily. Within hard determinism an outside force would be the only cause of human actions, while with soft determinism an outside force would be the primary cause of human actions and persons the secondary cause. Pojman (1996: 596). God would be the primary cause within Christian theism.

BOYD, GREGORY A. (2001) Satan and the Problem of Evil, Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press.

FEINBERG, JOHN S. (1994) The Many Faces of Evil, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House.

POJMAN, LOUIS P. (1996) Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, New York, Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Thanks Mom, a bad day...

Carson on Pantheism

Vancouver (photo from trekearth.com)

All is one and one for all. The Guru Musketeer

From:
http://thekingpin68.blogspot.com/2006/01/mphil-wales-2003.html

Pantheism

D.A. Carson stated:

Once again, there are many variations. The heart of the matter, however, is that this structure of thought insists that "god" and the universe are one. There is no chasm between creator and created. All that is, is god; god is whatever is.

In this worldview, not only adopted by most Hindus but the working assumption of the entire New Age movement, god is not a transcendent "other" who is personal, who can come from beyond to help us. The entire universe belongs to one order. Within this universe, however, there are levels of attainment. What Christians see as sin or evil, pantheists are likely to see as imperfections in reality that need to be removed by progressive self-realization, progressive self-improvement. The goal of human beings is not to have their sins forgiven and to be reconciled to a God who holds them to account, but to spiral up the cycle of life, perhaps through reincarnation, but certainly through meditation, self-focus, self-improvement. Carson (1990: 32)

Simon Blackburn stated concerning pantheism: "The view that God is in everything, or that God and the universe are one." Blackburn (1996: 276)

There are two major reasons why I, philosophically, dismiss pantheism. One, to me it is illogical to propose that an impersonal God can create, or somehow cause, personal beings. It makes sense that an infinite personal being could create finite personal beings with some similar characteristics, but for an impersonal being to create beings with personality seems untenable.

Two, Carson mentioned that the removal of evil in pantheism is believed to take place through self-progression. Without an objective personal God, however, what basis does pantheism have to call something evil? How is pantheism to determine what is out of order with the cosmic order? It would seem to me that an impersonal "it" that creates the Universe does not have character and is amoral, and thus it is neither good nor evil. The cosmos resulting from it would be amoral and nothing should be seen as evil within it.

It should be noted that there is a difference between God being in everything in pantheism, and God being omnipresent in Christianity. Pantheism assumes monism, God and Universe are one, God is everywhere and in everything so that each human being is in fact God. Christianity assumes God is everywhere but yet separate from his creation. What is the difference? Why am I not God? God is present where my spirit and body are present, yet he wills that I have a will separate from his, a life separate from his, the same is true for all his created beings. Therefore, I could, hypothetically, think that there is no God. As well, I could disobey him and sin.

Whereas in pantheism, those who do wrong are considered to be misunderstanding what they are a part of, however, I think this is untenable. If indeed we were part of God we could not depart from what we were, and there would be no fracture. The fact that we sin demonstrates that although God is infinite we still have the power to will not to be one with him in obedience, and thus evil exists.

The evil that exists in the world is a much greater testament to human separation from God as opposed to the concept of human union with God with misunderstanding. Human beings sin against God because their will is apart from him although his infinite being is always present, however, he can be present yet still have disobedience exist in his creation.

To make a convincing argument of how humanity, being divinity, fails to realize this fact and act accordingly, is very difficult. For divinity to remain pure and able to reincarnate human beings, for example, seems almost intellectually impossible to accomplish, when human beings within divinity continue to commit wrong actions. Pantheism does not make sense because it fails to separate God’s nature from that of his creation. If the nature was indeed the same, there would be no fracture.

BLACKBURN, S. (1996) Pantheism, in Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

CARSON, D.A. (1990) How Long, O Lord?, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House.

Please leave a comment.

However, if you want to be an evil clown on this blog. I probably will not publish your comment.;)


A photo by Sherry from Facebook. At Christmas time she is asking me to smile...

I think I needed a shave. Once I have my sleep apnea related surgery for a receding jaw, I shall have a new less 'kingpinnish' look. The lower mandible bone will be moved forward and my face will be restructured. I will appear to have more of a neck, although it is presently 20 inches in circumference. I take it the circumference of my neck is so large at the present that it contributes very much to my serious sleep apnea problems.

From:
http://www.mathgoodies.com/lessons/vol2/circumference.html


My neck, sort of...

The distance around a circle is called the circumference. The distance across a circle through the center is called the diameter. Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. Thus, for any circle, if you divide the circumference by the diameter, you get a value close to Pi.

The radius of a circle is the distance from the center of a circle to any point on the circle. If you place two radii end-to-end in a circle, you would have the same length as one diameter. Thus, the diameter of a circle is twice as long as the radius.

http://satireandtheology.blogspot.com/2008/04/presumed-funny-
celebrity-statements.html

Are you Enlightened?

Are you Enlightened?

Jupiter Lighthouse, Jupiter, Florida

From:

Enlightenment?

McGrath noted that the change took place beginning in the seventeenth century which led to the era of the Enlightenment. It shifted the defence of the gospel from revelation and Scripture to philosophy. The view was: "To defend the Christian faith, it was advisable to set aside traditional ways of justifying it, and instead to rely upon the wisdom of philosophy." McGrath (1992: 40). McGrath was critical of this approach which overlooked revelation and Scripture, and instead looked to philosophy. It changed the God represented from a personal God of Scripture to a perfect philosophical God.

He was particularly critical of seventeenth century philosopher Rene Descartes. McGrath thought that the " . . .enormous emphasis which came to be placed upon the perfection of God by Descartes was totally compromised by the undeniable fact of the existence of evil and suffering. How could a perfect being allow such imperfection to exist?" McGrath (1992: 41).

McGrath believed that this type of thinking, which he described as creating the god of philosophers, put so much emphasis on God’s perfect attributes that it took away from God’s actual experience in suffering as Christ. So when modern critics were criticizing God, they often criticised this perfect, aloof God whom they thought represented Christianity, whereas the God of revelation and Scripture suffered personally on earth. He died for the sins of humanity, was resurrected and will restore creation.

Seventeenth century revision of Christian thought was known as the Age of Reason, which led to the Enlightenment. Colin Brown described the Enlightenment as follows:

The Age of Enlightenment (German Die Aufklarung) covers roughly the eighteenth century. It is sometimes identified with the Age of Reason, but the latter term covers both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although the Enlightenment had some of its roots in seventeenth century rationalism, the ideas which characterize the Enlightenment went far beyond the rationalism of Descartes, Spinoza, and the thinkers of their time. Brown (1996: 355).

So from Brown’s idea, the roots of the Enlightenment started with philosophers like Descartes, but went beyond those men. Basically the ideas McGrath was discussing took place in the Enlightenment - Age of Reason.

David A. Pailin, of Manchester University, stated:

The Enlightenment’s criticism of the authority of tradition led to increasing secularization in attitudes and ideas. Nature is seen as an ordered whole rather than as a stage for divine interventions and supernatural happenings. So far as religious beliefs are concerned, claims to revelation are acceptable only when they are rationally justified and their contents subject to reason’s judgement. Biblical stories and accepted doctrines are not immune from criticism. Works like Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary and Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary highlight the faults of revered figures and the questionability of standard doctrines. Historical and literary investigations into the Bible develop. Reports about miracles, especially that of the resurrection, give rise to considerable discussion. There is great hostility to priestcraft and suspicion of ecclesiastical pretensions to guide human understanding. Pailin (1999: 180).

David Pailin’s comments demonstrate some of the modern assumptions made by philosophers of religion concerning Christianity. As McGrath indicated, there is a distrust of revelation and Scripture. As Pailin pointed out, revelation and ecclesiastical pretensions would often face great hostility philosophically. I agree with the Enlightenment approach to review Christian claims through reason, but it appears that more faith is put in the Enlightenment critics of Christianity than in the people who wrote the original work. Enlightenment thinking is committed to ". . . reason as the proper tool and final authority for determining issues." Pailin (1999: 179).

Enlightenment thinking has human reason as the final authority, whereas traditional Christianity uses human reason, but it assumes that human nature is fallen and God must reveal himself to that reason. Enlightenment thinking, in my view, rests on the faulty idea that finite man should be able to be the final judge regarding ideas about God.

Enlightenment era thinking, which is still prominent in liberal circles today, believes that man has the ability to reason out who God is, whereas traditional Christianity believes that God must reveal himself in order for human beings to come to some understanding of who he is. So the Enlightenment puts greater emphasis on the human mind comprehending God, whereas traditional Christianity puts emphasis on Scripture inspired by God, which must teach human beings about God.

Two problems come to mind concerning the human mind’s ability to know God. First, the human mind is finite, God is infinite. It could be said that human beings could only understand God in a limited way. This is not to say that the limited human understanding was in error or without logic, but simply limited. For this reason, I think in this relationship God would have to take the initiative in presenting himself to humanity for greater understanding, and this would lead to revelation. Second, I believe there is significant evidence in Scripture and everyday life, that humanity is imperfect and sinful, and in a spiritual condition where they would have to be transformed in order to have a relationship with God. I am not saying that human beings cannot understand things about God without revelation, but I am stating that revelation is required for a changed spirit which could lead to a relationship with God. I, therefore, do not think that human reason outside of revelation should be our final authority in theology.

BROWN, COLIN. (1996) ‘The Enlightenment’, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books

PAILIN, DAVID A. (1999) ‘Enlightenment’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd.

MCGRATH, ALSITER. (1992) Suffering, London, Hodder and Stoughton Limited.

Christianity and political philosophies

Bahia Honda Bridge, Florida (photo from trekearth.com)

A good day for a drive in southern Florida. I drove 80 to 100 mph in the freeway traffic in Florida last August. The freeway system is much better than in BC.

Today is the first warm Maple Ridge day of 2008.

From:

2003 The Problem of Evil: Anglican and Baptist Perspectives: MPhil thesis, Bangor University 

In McGrath’s second chapter entitled Blaming God he mentions some prominent modern twentieth century philosophies and discusses some of the results of these world-views. He noted that atheistic communism and western liberalism had failed to deal with the harsh realities of life that had taken place in the twentieth century, particularly during World War II. Communism and liberalism removed God from the equation, however, to McGrath, it caused more evil to take place. He stated: "Belief in God is a vital restraining factor. It curbs human evil by stressing God’s condemnation of those who inflict suffering on others." McGrath (1992: 11). McGrath believed that neither communism nor western liberalism had eliminated suffering, and thus their disbelief in God was not on strong intellectual footing.

To him, the great suffering which occurred in the twentieth century indicated there was something wrong with human nature, and that many people who attempted to blame God for those woes should, instead, have looked at world philosophies such as communism and western liberalism which ignored God. McGrath stated these philosophies that overlooked God, at the same time, overlooked his love. He noted: "Occasions of history are stained by the tears of our God who was working to bring about the day when ‘there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.’ (Revelation 21:4)." McGrath (1992: 14).

I am in agreement with McGrath that the sinfulness of human nature was overlooked by communist states such as the Soviet Union. In fact, the utopia of socialism actually led to the Soviet Union committing acts of violence in great numbers against their own citizens and those of other nations.

Communism is faulty in that it depends on the state forcing equality among people. This, however, does not end the evil of poverty, for example, but simply takes away initiative from people to advance themselves economically, and gives economic and political power to a select few government and military officials. At the same time, tyranny takes place as these select few must strongly enforce the equality that they see as necessary in order for the communist state to advance.

Christianity, on the other hand, favours shared equality. By this I mean people willingly sharing some, and sometimes all, of what they possess. But the idea is not that a state or ruling counsel should dictate this, but that it should be done willingly in love. With this world-view, people have the freedom to willingly help others.

Now with western liberalism, I think it can be argued that, unlike Communism, it does have some major social benefits because it still allows for individualistic human thought which can lead to creativity. When this is taken too far, however, it can be seen that without God, human creativity can only solve few problems because human beings are fallen and imperfect and will still commit evil acts. A person who does not believe in the God and follow Him, can make social progress, but this will be limited because social ethics can make him/her moral but cannot make him/her spiritual as in believing in and following Jesus Christ. A spiritual person seeking God’s guidance should, at least, be theoretically more open to loving and caring for others, to show other people the love God has shown each of them. God’s love being shown within someone should take them beyond morality to a personal concern about the spiritual state of others.

To play devil’s advocate, a critic could claim that Christianity has not solved suffering any better than Communism or especially western liberalism; however, I think McGrath is correct. A belief in God in society and better yet a spiritual relationship with Christ leads to the tempering of evil in a nation and the world. Christianity’s ultimate answer to evil comes through revelation, but at least that has historical evidence of Scripture behind it. Christians are disobedient to God, just as nonbelievers are, and this is probably part of the reason Christianity has not made more social progress. But I still agree with McGrath that Christ’s atoning work and resurrection is the only ultimate answer that remedies evil. This work has, of course, not been completely culminated, but I think the Scriptural evidence supports the idea that Christ will return to restore his creation.

Western liberalism shares some of Christianity’s positive views on sharing and even love, but it depends too much on the goodness of humanity. The twentieth century demonstrates that social evolution in humankind is good, but always limited. This is part of the reason why the advanced, modern, western world still produced a nation like Nazi Germany.

These people were cultured and socialized, but still spiritually blind.

MCGRATH, ALSITER. (1992) Suffering, London, Hodder and Stoughton Limited.


Acapulco, Mexico (photo from trekearth.com)

http://satireandtheology.blogspot.com/2008/04/red-mole-man-
presents-satirical.html

Inspired by the lead photo at the top of the article...


A bridge too far


Parking lot maniac


Hopes sunk today (The man on the phone may be calling his insurance company, his employer, his lawyer, or trying to get Sub Mariner, Aquaman and Popeye to help him out.)