The Church & Politics (Sermon and comments)

Enjoy it while it lasts...

September 30 2012

Sermon link from Pastor Michael Phillips

I will preface by stating that I have much overall agreement with Pastor Michael Phillips' worldview and theology. I am therefore not surprised to be in basic agreement with his views on the Church and politics.

It should be noted that I live in Canada and not the United States of America. There is less drastic left versus right, politically, present here in Canada, in my humble opinion.

Citations in Italics

Who is on the Lord's Side? Politics and Gospel

In regard to different voting preference...

Cited

THREE BAD OPTIONS 

The easiest way to explain the split vote is also the worst way: The professed Christians who voted for the wrong man did it because they were not true Christians. They said they were, but they were not, because if they had been, they would have voted for the other man, the man you did. 

A second option is slightly better than the first: The Christians who voted for the wrong man were real believers, but in casting the vote they did, they put their own wishes above God's will. 

A third way of seeing it is quite a bit better than the first two: The Christians who voted for the wrong man did not do it on purpose, but because they misread their Bibles or mistook what they heard on the radio for the leading of the Spirit. Vladimir Lenin called such people Useful Idiots, good people who can be fooled into doing bad things.
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I reason there are useful idiots within Christianity as well. People are deceived because they are not properly being directed by the Holy Spirit, the scripture and the Church to hold to reasonable and true views and theology. May we prayerfully be better with God's help by grace through faith.

Cited

AN ASSESSMENT 

What do we make of these options? 

I think there's some truth in all of them. Not everyone who calls Jesus 'Lord' is a true disciple, and false disciples in life are likely to be false disciples in the voting booth.

It is also true that real disciples of Christ are not always good disciples. We all fail to follow Jesus in some parts of life, and, for some, it's the political part. 

When it comes to the foolish and wrong things we do, we can never rule out ignorance and stupidity. We cast stupid and uninformed votes because we're stupid and uninformed! 

A BETTER OPTION 

While there is truth in all these options, they don't capture all the truth. There is another truth in the mix, and it's one we don't like to think about. It makes us uneasy because it seems to cast doubt on the clarity and sufficiency of God Word. 

I'll put it to you as bluntly as I can: Most of what we want to know about politics is not in the Bible directly, and it cannot be justly inferred from the Bible! 

What do you want to know about politics? I want to know who to vote for, what party to join, what causes to support or oppose, and how to set my priorities. 

On all these topics, the Bible says nothing. I can read it till my eyes fall out, and I won't find the answers I'm looking for. Because they're not there.
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Through my own studies, having come to similar conclusions, I would suppose there is some significant freedom of conscience for the Christian voter.

What the bible says about politics?

Cited

Firstly, the Bible teaches civil government is appointed by God, Romans 13:1.

Secondly, the Bible teaches us to submit to civil governments except when they command us to sin, Romans 13:5; Acts 5:29. 

Thirdly, the Bible teaches us to honor our rulers and pay the taxes they levy on us, Romans 13:7. 

Fourthly, the Bible commands us to pray for the salvation of our rulers, and for the wisdom to keep the peace and leave the church alone, I Peter 2:1-2.

Fifthly, the Bible tells us our rulers are not divine, our country is not the Kingdom of God, and that the good politics can achieve is never complete or permanent, or redemptive. Roman coins bore the image of Caesar and around his likeness, it said, 'Lord and Savior'. The Christians countered this false claim with a true one, saying no one but Jesus is Lord and Savior.
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I agree with his assessment via Romans 13 and related verses. This can be seen in this website's archives. Including recently...

May 21 2019

Why not the Mosaic Law?

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The Law of Moses is not a smorgasbord! We're not allowed to pick the rules we like and ignore the ones we don't. If you want to go the Mosaic route, you've got to go the whole way. And that's a dead end, or to quote Peter-- 

It is a yoke which neither we nor our fathers could bear.
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Progressive revelation means that in Jesus Christ, the Church follows a new covenant, see Hebrews and Luke 22.

Interestingly...

The sermon demonstrates how Joseph's, Hebrew Bible politics would not be acceptable to most Westernized Christians today.

Why not the sermon on the mount?

Cited

The Sermon on the Mount is not a model for the state; its a model for the Kingdom of God, which our country is not, never has been , never will be, and is not supposed to be! As much as the Evangelical Left vilifies the Christian Right for its Legalism, the movements are exactly the same. Both apply the Scripture where it doesn't belong and where it won't work.

Cited

Needless to say, not everyone agrees with me on this. Some think the Bible addresses almost every political matter, and no one is more sure it does than the Theonomist or Reconstructionist. He believes the Jewish Republic is a model for all states under the Lordship of Christ. What God wanted the Jews to do then and there, He wants us to do here and now. Oh, there may be a few difference at the margin, but in substance, the Law of Moses, should be the law of the land.
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I wrote on theonomy and my disagreements with it. I will post in comments section.

November 1 2008

N.H.G. Robinson and D.W.D. Shaw note that theonomy is an interpretation of a person’s life when ultimate ethical authority is found in the divine will. Autonomy would be self-imposed authority. Robinson and Shaw. (1999: 567). They reference Paul Tillich and note that he states that theonomy is a law or principle which brings together the law of people with the ground and source of all being. Robinson and Shaw. (1999: 567). For some autonomy and theonomy may be understood as the immanent and transcendent aspects of the ethics of theism. Robinson and Shaw. (1999: 567).

Cited

Who is on the Lord's Side?

Christian liberty means, if the Bible does not command or forbid a thing, you are free to do what you want. For example, because the Bible neither commands nor forbids drinking, you're free to drink or not to drink. What you're not free to do, however, is drink without wisdom or brotherly love. What's true of drinking goes double for politics!

ROBINSON, N.H.G. AND SHAW D.W.D. (1999) ‘Theonomy’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd.

Automa? (MPhil Edit)

Vancouver

Automa? (MPhil Edit)

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

Tuesday, January 10, 2006 MPhil Wales 2003

J. L. Mackie’s contention was that God could have created people with free will that always chose to do good.

He stated: If God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have made men such that they always freely choose the good? Mackie (1971) (1977: 32).

If there is no logical impossibility in a man’s freely choosing the good on one, or on several occasions, there cannot be a logical impossibility in his freely choosing the good on every occasion. God was not, then, faced with a choice between making innocent automa and making beings who, in acting freely, would sometimes go wrong; there was an open to him the obviously better possibility of making beings who would act freely but always go right. Clearly, his failure to avail himself of this possibility is inconsistent with his being both omnipotent and wholly good. Mackie (1971) (1977: 32).

Plantinga answered this objection by stating that Mackie’s idea is possible in a broad logical sense. However, Plantinga provided arguments against Mackie’s points. Plantinga noted that God, although omnipotent, could not have simply actualized any possible world he desired. This is because human beings who act freely inevitably made one bad judgement causing the problem of evil. So, even if God made a world with no evil in it, eventually a human being would make one mistake causing evil.

To Plantinga, in any world that God created where human freedom existed, it was partially up to God and partially up to the individual what would take place. This was the only way that human beings could truly commit actions freely. Plantinga stated that each person suffered from transworld depravity, meaning that in any possible world, they would make one mistake, causing evil. How is transworld depravity relevant in this?

As follows. Obviously it is possible that there be persons who suffer from transworld depravity. More generally, it is possible that everybody suffers from it. And if this possibility were actual, then God, though omnipotent, could not have created any of the possible worlds containing just the persons who do in fact exist, and containing moral good, but no moral evil. For to do so He’d have to create persons who were significantly free (otherwise there would be no moral good) but suffered from transworld depravity. Such persons go wrong with respect to at least one action in any world God could have actualized and in which they are free with respect to morally significant actions; so the price for creating a world in which they produce moral good in creating one which they also produce moral evil. Plantinga (1977: 48-49).

Plantinga, in my view, produced a plausible counter to Mackie’s challenge of the free will defence. Mackie raised a logical objection, but he went too far by challenging God’s omnipotence and goodness with it. The problem, as I see it, is that freedom is largely a matter of degrees. Mackie reasoned correctly that God could make free human beings who only did good, but I think Plantinga was correct to challenge his objection to God as almighty and good, as the amount of freedom these people would have would be considerably more limited than that of actual human beings. To act freely, as Plantinga put it, human beings needed the opportunity to reject God.

Yes, technically human beings could be made to only commit good acts and avoid sin, but this would not be the type of goodness God was seeking from his creatures. I think Plantinga, by the use of the word freely, indicated a type of freedom which produced a goodness which was good because it rejected evil for God, not merely goodness which avoided evil because human nature could never experience anything contrary to God.

Mackie’s view was plausible in that God could have made human beings who were not automa who would never commit evil, but these beings would quite possibly not bring about the true goodness based in a choice between a life with God and a life without God, which Plantinga, Lewis, and Augustine had all alluded to.

This is not to say, that free will is specifically necessarily the prime factor in the human fall; the cause of the human fall is not clear. J.S. Feinberg, for example, stated that desires and not free will were the cause of human sin. He rejected the free will defence because he believed that the concepts of human freedom and God creating people who do not commit evil were two compatible concepts, he is thus a compatibalist as was Mackie. Many free will defenders would see this as contradiction and would be known as incompatibalists.

I can see the plausibility of the compatibalist position; however, as I stated earlier, the degree of human freedom required to truly do good acts would likely require the ability to do wrong.

However, based on...

2010 Theodicy and Practical Theology: PhD thesis, the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter 

Saturday, September 19, 2020: PhD Full Version PDF: Theodicy and Practical Theology 2010, Wales TSD

From my PhD forward, I would state this differently. Again, I was required to write a certain way within the British academic system. I would explain that in the case of human beings and angelic beings, as finite; freedom features the logical possibility to choose to do good acts and bad acts. But I do not think the corruption and fall of a finite, significantly free entity, is necessary.

Note from January 2024

In early 2024, I would suggest that 'type' rather than 'degree' of freedom is a more accurate word for my view, PhD work, forward.

I support a compatibalist position; however, the type of human freedom required to truly do good acts did come with the ability to do wrong, which led to an embraced sinful human nature. This occurs within everyone other than God incarnate. In other words, God could create significantly free entities, both physical and non-physical, that would not commit evil and would not fall. God made physical, humanity that would fall, some being saved through the applied atoning and resurrection work of Jesus Christ. In contrast, God made at least some, non-physical, angelic beings that have never committed evil and will never fall. God incarnate, Jesus Christ, as perfect human being, never committed evil, never sinned and never will fall.

End of note

Transworld Depravity can be avoided.

God is by nature infinitely good and unable to do wrong. God is necessarily good and holy. I reason God can create significantly, free entities that would never do wrong. As finite, they could theoretically fall in corruption, but they could be made by God and influenced in such a way that they would never do wrong. I hold to compatibilism in an even stronger sense, today compared to when I wrote my MPhil.

I can basically agree to some extent with Mackie’s compatibilism, but not his atheism.

I reason God created angelic beings (some eventually corrupted and fallen) and human beings (all eventually corrupted and fallen, other than the incarnate God-man, Jesus Christ), with the eternal plan of applying the atoning and resurrection work of Jesus Christ to those  human beings, regenerated (John 3, Titus 3) within the Church.

This was predetermined within eternity:

Revelation 13:8

New American Standard Bible (NASB) 8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been [a]written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. Footnotes: Revelation 13:8 Or written in the book...slain from the foundation of the world

In the new creation, humanity shall not become corrupted and fall. (Revelation 20-22)

FEINBERG, JOHN.S. (1986) Predestination and Free Will, in David Basinger and Randall Basinger (eds.), Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press.

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

FEINBERG, JOHN.S. (2001) No One Like Him, John S. Feinberg (gen.ed.), Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books. 

FLEW, ANTONY, R.M. HARE, AND BASIL MITCHELL (1996) ‘The Debate on the Rationality of Religious Belief’, in L.P. Pojman (ed.), Philosophy, The Quest for Truth, New York, Wadsworth Publishing Company. 

FLEW, ANTONY AND A.MACINTRYE (1999) ‘Philosophy of Religion’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd. 

MACKIE, J.L. (1955)(1996) ‘Evil and Omnipotence’, in Mind, in Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger (eds.), Philosophy of Religion, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

MACKIE, J.L. (1971)(1977)(2002) ‘Evil and Omnipotence’, in The Philosophy of Religion, in Alvin C.

PLANTINGA, ALVIN C. (1977)(2002) God, Freedom, and Evil, Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

PLANTINGA, ALVIN C. (1982) The Nature of Necessity, Oxford, Clarendon Press.

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

STACE, W.T. (1952)(1976) Religion and the Modern Mind, in John R. Burr and Milton Goldinger (eds.), Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, London, Collier Macmillan Publishers.

Very brief on war

Wyoming: Apple

My Dad is staying with me for awhile. He was watching the Western/Drama film below, recently...

Wikiquote

Quotes

Shenandoah (1965) is an American drama film set in Virginia during the American Civil War. 

James Stewart character Charlie Anderson:

There's nothing much I can tell you about this war. It's like all wars, I suppose. The undertakers are winning it. Oh, the politicians will talk a lot about the "glory" of it, and the old men'll talk about the "need" of it—the soldiers, they just want to go home.
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I am a member of an Anabaptist, Mennonite Brethren church (s) of Reformed, pastoral leadership. At Columbia Bible College, which is Mennonite, I was taught forms of pacifism and non-resistance. I have officially never embraced pacifism or non-resistance.

I reason there is a biblical mandate for law and order:

Concerning Romans 13, F.F. Bruce writes that human government is a divine ordinance and has the powers of coercion and commendation which it has been given by God. By Christians obeying the state, they are serving God. Bruce (1987: 221). 

Bruce reasons that Paul does not deal with the issue of unrighteous government here, but as with Acts 5: 29, Christians must obey God and Christ and not the state when the state claims divine honours. Bruce (1987: 221).

Cranfield explains that in Romans 13, Paul is not asking for an uncritical obedience to the state, but rather that God has placed the state in authority over persons. Cranfield (1992: 321).

Mounce states that in Romans 13, that there is a divinely sanctioned role of government and that Christians are responsible to that government. It did not make any difference that the governing authorities were secular. God is the sole source of authority and established the authority for the state.

If the government oversteps its rightful domain, then according to Mounce the Christian should not obey the ruler and he notes this was done in Acts 4: 9 and 5: 29.

Concerning 1 Peter 2 13-15, Barclay explains that the concept of anarchy by the Christian is far from New Testament thought. Barclay reasons what belongs to Caesar (the state) should be given to it, and what belongs to God should be given to God (Matthew 22: 21). Barclay (1976: 205).

Both Cranfield and Barclay mention that Paul is discussing the concept of submitting to an authoritarian state, as in the Roman Empire of the New Testament era. Barclay (1976: 206) Cranfield (1992: 321). Barclay correctly point out in my view that in our modern West the need for Christians to participate in democratic government as it is for and by the people, at least idealistically. Barclay (1976: 206). 

I do agree with many Anabaptist critiques that wars are often overly politicized and not glorious in many ways. I also agree from what is implied in regard to the comments from the film that wars are often too political and lack glory, but I can acknowledge the Union side as the United States of America and its position against slavery, for one key example, was just in contrast to the Confederate States of America support for slavery.

BARCLAY, WILLIAM (1976) The Letters of James and Peter, Philadelphia, The Westminster Press. 

BRUCE, F.F. (1987) Romans, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 

CRANFIELD, C.E.B. (1992) Romans: A Shorter Commentary, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

MOUNCE, ROBERT H. (1995) The New American Commentary: Romans, Nashville, Broadman & Holman Publishers.

John Calvin: force & coercion (MPhil/PhD Edits)

Pano, France: trekearth

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

Calvin stated concerning free will:

If freedom is opposed to coercion, I both acknowledge and consistently maintain that choice is free and I hold anyone who thinks otherwise to be a heretic. If, I say, it were called free in this sense of not being coerced nor forcibly moved by an external impulse, but moving of its own accord, I have no objection. Calvin (1543)(1996: 68).

Human beings in Calvin’s thinking were not forced by God to sin, but God as an infinite being had and used the power to use their sin for the greater good. So to say that God willed evil for the greater good means that God could use sinful actions of others in order to accomplish his divine purpose. 

Calvin stated:

For we do not say that the wicked sin of necessity in such a way as to imply that they sin without wilful and deliberate evil intent. The necessity comes from the fact that God accomplishes his work, which is sure and steadfast, through them. At the same time, however, the will and purpose to do evil which dwells within them makes them liable to censure. But, it is said, they are driven and forced to this by God. Indeed, but in such a way that in a single deed the action of God is one thing and their own action is another. For they gratify their evil and wicked desires, but God turns this wickedness so as to bring his judgements (judgments) to execution. Calvin (1543)(1996: 37).

God could set up events in such a way that someone would freely choose to sin, but this is not done in such a way that God is forcing or (hard) determining one to do so.  I believe in a human fall through sinful choice. God can still will, in a sense, that these sinful actions work for the greater good, but I do not believe in a Universe where God forces and (hard) predetermines people to commit individual sin.

People are sinful in nature as they are descendants of Adam. This inherited and sinful nature means people will freely choose to sin and God does not coerce them into doing so. He may provide situations where he knows that certain individuals will sin, but his motives in this are for the greater good. This is not the most satisfying doctrine I suppose, but Biblically and philosophically valid nonetheless. This concept will be discussed throughout my thesis.

2010 Theodicy and Practical Theology: PhD thesis, the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter 

I wrote my MPhil in 2002-2003, and since then, and in my PhD my understanding of compatibilism has increased. As well, I need to point out that my academic tutor at Wales,Bangor wanted me to clearly point out that God was not, in practical theological terms, the antecedent cause of sin, as in making persons sin.

I still agree with the statement that God does not (hard) determine that people sin in the sense that I do not believe God uses compulsion or force. God was not the antecedent (preceding cause) of sin in the sense of God coercing or forcing people to commit sinful acts.The point I was making was that God does not use hard determinism to cause people to sin as if they were sinning by compulsion and not freely.

However, it should be pointed out that in another more strictly philosophical sense, as God is sovereign over all events, he is the primary cause of evil and sin and he determines and allows human beings to freely sin as the secondary cause. In that sense God is the antecedent of sin. However, God's motives remain pure in all that he wills. The statement was denying hard determinism, but not soft determinism, as in compatibilism.

With my PhD I approached the topic more from the perspective of philosophical theology and philosophy of religion and less from a practical theological perspective as with the MPhil. This is more so the case than a changing of my mind with the topic, although I do confess to have evolved and be evolving theologically, in that sense.

CALVIN, JOHN (1539)(1998) Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II. Translated by Henry Beveridge, Grand Rapids, The Christian Classic Ethereal Library, Wheaton College. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.html

CALVIN, JOHN (1539)(1998) The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, Translated by Henry Beveridge, Grand Rapids, The Christian Classic Ethereal Library, Wheaton College. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.html

CALVIN, JOHN (1543)(1998) The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, Translated by G.I. Davies, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House.

CALVIN, JOHN (1553)(1952) Job, Translated by Leroy Nixon, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House.