Individual Election, Covenant Succession & Trinity

Gen 15:1-3a; 22:1-2a
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” But Abram said, “Lord GOD, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring"...Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering"...

Do you see covenant succession in these passages, or do you see a man who learned his portion is the Triune God? What I mean is this: as a Calvinist, and especially as a Presbyterian, it is simple to see here covenant succession with God sparing Isaac and confirming to Abraham that he would have a seed that would fill the whole earth...and of course, to see Isaac is a type of Christ, a blameless sacrifice to be offered up for the benefit of those who believe.

I read through these chapters several days ago and it hit me that God added clarity to His promise when He spoke to Abraham in Genesis 15. He told Abraham (Abram, then) that He is his shield and his exceedingly great reward...and I don't believe Abraham quite "got it" yet. He responds immediately by wondering who is he going to pass this reward on to.

To establish a line for Abraham, God must establish Abraham...to establish Abraham, he must be rooted in God. To be rooted in God, he must be willing to discard what is of most value to himself. To many who read this passage, they come up with theoretical contradictions or some vain existential philosophy where the "ethical" is suspended...I'd rather not delve into such superfluous options.

What we have here is a contrast...a contradiction to those reasoning as mere men. God had to bring something out of Abraham in order to establish His Promise. Was God his exceedingly great reward? Had Abraham not obeyed, it would demonstrate that he only saw his son as the promise of God...no, Abraham was the father of faith: He shows that God is his exceedingly great reward. Had he not been willing to kill Isaac, he would have shown that God is not a reward worth passing on as an inheritance. To lose his fellowship with God was worse to him than losing his son. So true was God to him that we are told in Hebrews (by way of divine commentary) that Abraham believed God would raise Isaac from the dead.

To Christians like me, we look for the Promise to be to our children. We see children as a gift and we look toward the future...this is antithetical to much of current evangelicalism which focuses on individualism. These professing believers see little (if any) continuity between their faith and the faith of their fathers...so focused are they on themselves that their children abandon the faith for agnosticism or Romanism. The latter being a trap many Reformed men have fallen into as of late. They have so reacted to individualism that they embrace external means of salvation and a "historical" structure...the individual dies at the expense of the many.

The life of the believer is Trinitarian. God is One in Essence and Three in Person: Neither has supremacy over the other...the Essence and the Persons are equally supreme so as to make the dispensing of one to be the dispensing of all.

If you're seeking to leave an inheritance of faith to your children, your inheritance must be God...how can you pass on what you don't have? You want a seed to fill the whole earth? Do you see the physical seed as the promise or is it faith? If the former, you may have seed, but it will not be an eternal inheritance. If the latter, you must realize your inheritance is only as great as your faith in the Triune God. Your reward is not protected by you...nor is the promise tied to your descendants but to the Word of God...it is His promise. He is the Shield.

This can be seen in the fact that the offering up of Isaac is a "type-ography". There aren't just a couple of types here, there is an interwoven topography that I can't possibly exhaust on this post.

Abraham was a type of the Father, and Isaac a type of the Son...in order for the type-ography to work, Abraham is simultaneously a type of the believer...and also simultaneously, Isaac is Promise.

Insofar that Abraham is a type of us, we will be called to do things that would seem to nullify God's Promise...but only if we are to reason as mere men. We must be willing to sacrifice all things so that we gain the Promise...eternal life. You may have to love God to the point your son or your daughter hate you. You may be looking for that perfect spouse, and you're getting up there in years...it may be that you are simply to be celibate and faithful to God (or God is testing your faith to give you what is best and increase your faith)...but you may come across that man or woman who "could work"...so you consider gaining a "good" thing at the expense of being faithful to God...perhaps God will make this mate work later, so you marry them "in faith". To you, you are failing to see God as your inheritance....your exceedingly great reward. He can raise sons from stones to your name.

At the point you feel you're about to lose it all, you gain it all. Abraham received Isaac as though from the dead...so Abraham received two blessings: his great reward in God, and the promise that God said would be in Isaac. Neither of these are opposed, rather, they are unified, the latter relying on the former. Though God may seem to take all that is temporal from you, He is actually giving. Think on Matthew 7:11: "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" An argument from the lesser to the greater: if evil men can give good gifts, God will give good gifts to His sons when they ask. We cannot walk in Christ thinking that God's gifts are found only in "happy" Providences...if you find yourself in the midst of inscrutable trouble, call out to God...and look in faith at what He is giving you: He is the Father to those that believe...though you may be bitten by a viper, know God has not given you a serpent when you've asked for food. This is the difference between those who shrink back and those who truly believe. To those who shrink back, you may protect a temporal gift, but you will lose it in the end...to those of strong courage, though you lose it, you get it back and then more: God is your exceedingly great reward.

If you want a great name, a posterity extending into the future...be sure you have Something to pass on other than your DNA. Unless you are established in the Triune God, you will simply be blown away like chaff...forgotten...no posterity...no Promise. If you seek an inheritance, know that it is God...and though you lose all and die to gain the kingdom, your blood will hit the parched ground to make it fertile.

Thoughts on Abram Rejecting the Gifts of the King of Sodom

Genesis 14:21-23
Now the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, and take the goods for yourself.”But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have raised my hand to the LORD, God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth, that I will take nothing, from a thread to a sandal strap, and that I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich’

This passage struck me as I was reading the Word. I've decided to read through the Bible in 6 months (or less). If I simply read 5 pages per day, I will make it within 6, but I want to read more than the minimum. I worried that it would become a duty to perform, so I prayed God would prepare me, that His Spirit would attend to His Word, and He is faithful.

What struck me about this passage was how God had already promised Abram the entire earth after Lot chose to live among to Sodomites:
And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.”

The act of faith on Abram's part is striking. He has God's prophetic Word that he will have offspring and the ends of the earth...the token from the king of Sodom could have been interpreted as though God's Word was being fulfilled before his own eyes: plunder and riches from the hands of those opposed to God...but he didn't take the riches. He did take benefit from Pharaoh, however, when he lied and said Sarai was his sister.

So what's the difference? Why take wealth from one unbelieving nation but not another? Is there a lesson in this for us? There are several things to consider (probably more):
1) Abram received wealth from Pharaoh as, what can only be interpreted, as a free act of God's mercy and grace in spite of his sin.
2) The gifts Pharaoh gave were the result of God's mighty acts...God plagued his household for taking Sarai as a wife.
3) Abram invaded the camps of the kings Arioch, Chedorlaomer, and Tidal and rescued Lot...and not only Lot, but other peoples of the land of Sodom. These kings and their armies had put the armies of Sodom to flight when they tried to rescue their people.

It's as if Pharaoh's gifts were acceptable because he knew he was a debtor to the God of Abram, that he was subject to God's rule. Yet the pride of the king of Sodom would be fed by blessing Abram. The glory of the defeat of those kings was to belong to God alone.

I think there are many applications to be gleaned here. It's apparent that evangelicalism has succumbed to the belief that the praise of unbelievers are to be desired. That this somehow is a gold star on the progress of God's kingdom by fleshly means. Doubt me? Who buys the Purpose Driven Life, or Your Best Life Now...other than evangelicals, aren't the other consumers businessmen? The profiteers of American industry. Men who seek to amass for themselves glory, fame, and money....but to be sure, these men pay their tithe. It is a tithe much like that of the king of Sodom. These are often major donors to churches, their building programs, their outreach ministries...they have plaques on the walls of churches that rubber-stamp the achievements of the profiteers.

Unlike Melchizedek, and unlike Abram, these men do not call upon the LORD and say of Him:
“ Blessed be Abram of God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;

²⁰ And blessed be God Most High,
Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”

For these men, they finance God's wars. Any victory can be traced materially back to them. God gets the credit, but God draws from a line of credit belonging to flesh. God is not the Possessor of their finances, their families, nor their ability to make money. These are the men we seek to impress. When they curse God's name or trample upon the weak, they are given a pass...after all, we may need their line of credit someday in the future. Or, perhaps we have already received from them. They have validated our words, or works, our teachings, our ministries...our credibility resides in these men. The kingdom of God becomes the kingdom of this world: an exchange of the eternal for the finite.

God's kingdom is eternal, all flesh must bow before Him. Whether or not wealthy men or princes bow in faith to our God, if we receive from them it must not be at the cost of Christ's kingdom. If a blasphemer wants to validate a man of God, or one seeking to please God, do not be flattered by his words. His gift is not a token of his faith, it is as a banker gives out a loan. The terms of these loans accrue an interest yet to be determined and can never be repaid. At least the unbeliever who is wise enough to fear God recognizes he adds nothing to the kingdom by his own strength but only as God has caused their plunder to benefit the Kingdom of our great King, God, and Savior, Jesus the Christ. For the unbeliever who has no fear, his wealth must always be spurned. The success of the gospel may be measured by their gifts remaining in their hands. It will descend into the grave with them.

Be certain that when you seek to follow Christ, there will be revilers...be certain as well that revilers may also speak soothing words and give you gifts that will shipwreck you.

Ayn Rand: Prophetess of Evil

As I continue my reconsideration of Capitalism, I came across a link to this article that discusses the character, Ayn Rand:

...she set out to write stories that expressed her philosophy—a body of thought she said was the polar opposite of communism. She announced that the world was divided between a small minority of Supermen who are productive and "the naked, twisted, mindless figure of the human Incompetent" who, like the Leninists, try to feed off them. He is "mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned." It is evil to show kindness to these "lice": The "only virtue" is "selfishness."

She meant it. Her diaries from that time, while she worked as a receptionist and an extra, lay out the Nietzschean mentality that underpins all her later writings. The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." She called him "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism." Rand had only one regret: "A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough."

Is this the brand of Capitalism conservatives want to foster?

When God is Exchanged for Thomas Jefferson

Just a reminder to those who believe...atheism is not scary. It's that unruly child everyone knows needs a spanking.

This was an exchange I had with a pseudo atheist:

Brian: I use logic and reason. I do not believe in supernatural fantasies....I've discovered that my religious views precisely parallel those of Thomas Jefferson.

The angry, violent, revengeful, psychopathic deity you're telling me about is false. The concept of a truly just and loving Nature's God is true.

In fact, Thomas Jefferson would refer to your belief system in make-believe ghosts and spirits as "masked atheism." ...

"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this MASKED ATHEISM, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is." ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820

Thomas Jefferson was a true Christian - the only way Jesus ever wanted.

Craig: "To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings" -Thomas Jefferson (as quoted by Brian)

"I use logic and reason" Brian

Brian, what is logic and reason?

Brian: Reason and logic are the hard work accomplished by a brain in gear.

"A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected by his Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge." --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia

"[God has bestowed] reason...as the umpire of truth." --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814

Craig: What does logic look like after the brain has made it? Also, if no one's brains are functioning, can A be A and not A at the same time and in the same sense?

***At this point, Brian responds to someone else, and ignores my questions...so after10 hours, I asked***

Craig: Brian, what does logic look like? How much does it weigh? Does it taste like chicken?

****Approximately 14 hours go by...no response...so I state****

Craig: Brian, I slept on it and I realized...magical pink unicorns can't tell us anything about truth. I'm afraid that's what logic should be to you. I'm a Christian and my worldview makes immaterial things, like logic,intelligible.

I'd appreciate it if you'd simply believe in Christ that way you can use logic rather than stealing from my worldview.

PS the same goes for morality

Brian: “Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict ‘It is.’" ~John Galt's speech http://amberandchaos.com/?page_id=106

Craig, your mockery of reason marks you as an abject failure in Jefferson's hope for American citizenry:

"My hope [is] that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason." ~Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, 1791

Why don't you put on your thinking cap, jump on the team, and come on in for the big win? Or is your vision a country run by the religious-right Taliban? Salem Witch Trials, anyone?

"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy." ~U.S. Representative Christopher Shays, R-CT, (New York Times 3/23/05)

Craig: Brian,
far from being logical (which you can't be *on your own terms*), you've managed to make zero logical arguments. You've made bare assertions, made appeals to authority, used ad hominem, used circular reasoning, and used red herrings, and then changed the subject to irrelevancies such as the Republican party or theocracies.

Why don't you answer my simple question?

If you use logic, and also believe the reference from TJ that reference to immaterial things is reference to nothing...then what is logic? If it is immaterial, it is nothing (on your terms). If the laws of logic are immaterial, and true, your materialism is false. If logic is material, then you can tell me how heavy it is, what it looks like or some other tangible descriptor.

Logic cannot be immaterial and materialism cannot be true at the same time...I mean, if you want to be logical. You don't want anyone to think you're operating on blind faith, do you Brian?

Also, if anyone is following this...note that Brian is a religious man. Those who reject the transcendent, Triune God will worship what is found under the sun. For many (including Brian), it is a political order. Those political orders will always oppose Christianity as they view allegiance to Christ as a threat to total obedience to their political faith.

For Brian, the Constitution is his god, and TJ is his prophet.

Brian:Craig, I will not help you to escape your extreme bewilderment regarding reason and logic. You must do that yourself.

No, my religious views are not a "political order." Furthermore, obedience and submission are what your magical deity demands, lest he torture me sadistically for all eternity for my virtue of Independence.

Nature's God is one of Freedom, not obedience.

I've introduced the subject of politics for a practical reason. It shows religious belief in a Tyrant deity has practical consequences - Tyranny here on earth.

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." ~Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

Craig: Just so we're clear...you don't have an answer for your contradicting assertions.

When cornered, quote more Thomas Jefferson...when shown your worldview can't account for logic or morality, quote TJ and take the moral high ground. Just remember, when you do either of those things, you are not arguing from your worldview. If you continue functioning on the assumption that logic is valid, I hope you will remember our conversation. I hope you will remember that, for logic to be true, your worldview must be false. That you own words pull the rug out from under you. That you prove God's Word true by this recurring theme:

Psalm 141:8-10
But my eyes are upon you, Oh God the Lord; in You I take refuge do not leave my soul destitute. Keep me from the snares they have laid for me and from the traps of the workers of iniquity. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I escape safely.

Brian: Craig, you've neither identified any contradiction, nor do you have me "cornered."

You've just spouted inanities showing how poorly you understand the philosophical theory of materialism (which Thomas Jefferson wrote about to John Adams, above) and the mental faculty of reason.

Your belief system denigrates the mind and reason; therefore, I'm not shocked that a simpleton like you labels anybody who can think as "wicked."

"The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems [Jesus',] for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there." ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith, August, 6, 1816

Craig: Brian, I stand by what I've said. You have no idea what I know/don't know about materialism.

I'll leave the question out there for others to ponder, perhaps another prophet will take up your mantle:
If speaking of immaterial things is to speak of nothings...then what is logic?

Calling it a product of the brain would make it material...but it would not allow it to be universal. Your brain's reasoning process would be no more "truthful" than my digesting a chicken sandwich. Logic would not be a unified set of laws, rather, logic would be different to each person as my brain's activity is not your brain's activity.

You may counter: there is correct brain functioning and there is wrong brain functioning...well, who determines that? Your brain? Mine? A majority vote? That in itself is a death-blow to your notion of freedom.

All you can do is appeal to your own brain's activity...but I don't think you are the standard, are you? Probably not. Then there's the whole problem of *who* is thinking in your brain? Are you the product of your brain? If so, you're like that chicken sandwich passing through my intestines. You're not free. You're determined by an unreasoning activity of your body. That being the case, you can't argue intelligibly that your brain's activity is any more virtuous than a bowel movement.

If you are not your brain, what are you? Is your personhood immaterial? If so, we're back to your worldview contradicting itself. You would be nothing. If you are material, you're not free...all you can do is slide down the inevitable path of the digestion track as it works you out of its system.

Brian: Craig, the phenomena of consciousness from the brain does not follow that logic and reason must somehow "taste like a chicken" or any other absurdity as you posit. Nor does it follow that consciousness is supernatural — which is the foregone conclusion of your religious belief system.

I do applaud your stated interest in the relevance of contradiction. That's a good start! Run with it, because a short definition of logic is simply "non-contradictory integration."

"We believed that men, enjoying in ease and security the full fruits of their own industry, enlisted by all their interests on the side of law and order, habituated to think for themselves and to follow their reason as their guide, would be more easily and safely governed than with minds nourished in error and vitiated and debased... by ignorance, indigence and oppression." ~Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823

Craig: Is logic immaterial?

Brian: Consciousness — the capacity of awareness — is a phenomena of the physical mind that exists materially.

Reason the mind's tool to identify and integrate what you learn from your senses. Logic is non-contradictory reasoning.

If nothing existed materially, then consciousness, and subsequently of reason and logic, could not exist.

That is my complete answer to your question. If you're playing a shyster lawyer demanding a yes/no answer when it calls for clarification, they think how Jesus answered such:

"And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him." ~The Jefferson Bible, chap. 1, v. 55

I'll continue:

Mysticism posits a reality different than the one in which we live, i.e., super-natural.

Since one cannot perceive the supernatural, mystics claim faith is the way they somehow perceive it. However, faith is only faith in somebody else's authority - I told you so!

The I-told-you-so! authority sources are holy books, clergy, prophets claiming they hear divine voices, or even sci-fi authors deliberately pulling people's leg. (as is the case of L. Ron Hubbard inventing "Scientology.")

Whether you fall for L. Ron Hubbard, or the Apostle Paul's corruptions of Jesus' teachings, you're accepting as truth what he told you to accept as truth without—or in spite of—of logical evidence.

"Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Corypheus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." ~Thomas Jefferson

To clarify the above, I'll quote a Jefferson biographer:

"Like other Enlightenment rationalists, Jefferson was convinced that the real villain in the Christian story was the apostle Paul, who had corrupted the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus, which thus had, in combination with the otherworldly outlook of the Fourth Gospel, produced the monstrosities of dogma, superstition, and priestcraft, which were the essence of Christian orthodoxy." ~Jaroslav Pelikan, Jefferson And Contemporaries, pg. 5

Craig, I never, ever submit to any I-Told-You-So! Authority over my mind.

And that is our irreconcilable difference. I think. You submit and obey, as if there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus. You follow the dogma, superstition, and priestcraft. I'll be an Enlightenment rationalist.

Craig: No shyster lawyering here...I just don't want to shake a stick in the dark.

You said: "Reason the mind's tool to identify and integrate what you learn from your senses. Logic is non-contradictory reasoning."

One problem here is that you can't perceive logical truths. When I observe a tree...at that moment, I'm not perceiving that the same tree cannot also be a rock. There is no inductive inference to go from on that. So if you're basing deductive reasoning (logic) on induction (perception/empirical testing), you can't even bolster the law of non-contradiction.

Further, you would have to assume the trustworthiness of your senses for your reasoning to be correct...if you are perceiving a sharp object as being blunt, your mind may try to integrate this, but it's working from inaccurate data. In order to justify the trustworthiness of your senses, you must appeal to your senses...which would be circular reasoning...you must prove your case, not appeal to the very thing in question.

The very fact that you accept that the mind "integrates" what your senses are perceiving means you're presupposing rationality and order...yet these are the things you're supposed to be proving from your worldview...again, you are employing circular logic.

Finally, when empiricists (which you seem to be) function on the axiom that everything must be perceivable in order to be intelligible...that axiom cannot be perceived. It's self-refuting.

I have barely scratched the surface on showing the self-refuting nature of materialism...For instance: If consciousness is a product of the brain's activity, it would follow that my "self-awareness" is determined by electric impulses jumping synapses...correcting one's reasoning process would require brain surgery...and as I brought out already, since no man can justify his own experiences by appealing to his senses, you couldn't know that the brain surgeon will wire your brain properly or if you even need the surgery in the first place.

Further, it adds an insurmountable difficulty in justifying the sort of personal liberty Brian would like to establish. If he is the product of an unthinking biological process...he's simply the necessary antecedent to a succession of natural acts. Much in the same way the backside of a fly goes through his brain when he collides with my windshield

Brian: Rationality is a matter of choice. Sacrifice your mind's reason to the I-Told-You-So! authority of faith if you wish.

Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics." ~Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1792

Craig: That in no way began to speak to the critique I laid out.

I already demonstrated you sacrificed rationality to materialism. If you followed my argument, you will note I've implicitly addressed the absurdity of your equivalent of an altar call to choose rationality rather than sacrifice my mind to authority.

According to your view, I am the necessary antecedent to prior natural events. Any choice I make is the result of physical laws set in motion before my brain began.

You have not offered rationality, and you've offered nothing but bondage.

"The true religion which shall satisfy our mind and heart, our conscience and our will, must be one that does not shut us up in, but lifts us high above the world; in the midst of time it must impart to us eternity; in the midst of death give us life; in the midst of the stream of change place us on the immovable rock of salvation. This is the reason why transcendence, supranaturalism, revelation, are essential to all religion." -Herman Bavinck

Brian: EPISTEMOLOGY

You're using reason in an attempt to destroy the validity of reason. The alphabet, words, grammar are all derivatives of reason. You're using them in an attempt to destroy reason. It's obvious you've studied philosophy. But it's kind of like watching a fellow hit himself with a hammer, trying to destroy his own mind's only legitimate tool.

Regardless, you are distorting my rejection of the supernatural into a witless determinism. No, we're not deterministic robots as you falsely attribute. That's a straw-man sophistry.

DIVINE REVELATION

I reject claims that some supernatural deity is talking through a man who says he hears voices. Why? There are several rational explanations for people who hear voices from "God." They might be confidence men. Maybe they have a mental disorder.

Auditory hallucinations are a key sign of schizophrenia. I've observed that myself while working on a Psych Ward in the hospital. The victims are very sincere. I didn't take their "voice of god" hallucinations authoritatively.

The author of the Book of Mormons claims divine revelation. In my opinion, he was just a con man like L. Ron Hubbard. I don't take his "voice of god" claims authoritatively.

Paul, the self-titled "Apostle" (even though he never knew Jesus) claimed to hear divine voices. Maybe he was sincere. Maybe he was a con. Who knows? At any rate, I don't take his "voice of god" claims authoritatively.

SON OF GOD - Score: 0

Do you realize that "The Son of God" is a term that never passed Jesus' lips? (Yes, I realize the phrase is in the Gospels - but Jesus never said the term directly. It was always others attributing the term to Jesus. )

JESUS, SON OF MAN - Score: 12

Jesus always referred to himself as "The Son of Man." (I counted only occurrences in the Jefferson Bible - there are plenty more in the Council of Nicaea's selected Gospels.)

He might think it absurd how Paul the Mythmaker, and pauline Gospel authors, managed to turn Jesus into a pagan Mediterranean blood salvation cult figure and make him into a god.

It's kind of like George Washington's legend of the cherry tree, which is a fabrication by Mason Locke Weems. Calling that a fabrication doesn't mean I reject or denigrate the the First President.

I like George Washington. I like Jesus; in fact I follow his teachings as a Christian - the way I think he would have wanted.

HELL FOR THINKERS

Now Paul might want to send me to hell for — not bad actions — but mere skepticism.

But I don't accept things that appear untrue, using reason and logic and applying it to history.

And it's unjust to think a God would send me to hell to punish me for using my mind to the best of my ability.

Such absurd claims of "divine punishment" are merely human claims from those types of people are hostile to reason. And why wouldn't they be hostile? I've kept control of my mind; they've sacrificed theirs to an inferior I-Told-You-So! authority.

Ya think they're just a wee bit jealous? Are you? This cowboy doesn't submit to schizophrenic ramblings - and you do.

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus." ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816

Craig: Brian,
I'm not destroying reason...I've destroyed your worldview. Reason would only be destroyed if it happened to be synonymous with materialism...which is not...as I demonstrated.

It would do you well to learn what you are talking about when it comes to logic. From what I can tell, you have no actual acquaintance with it...it seems that, to you, something is logical if it agrees with your point of view...which is materialism. Time and again, you simply take for granted your point of view as if I somehow have the impetus of meeting with that standard...I reject it outright. It fails on its own terms...miserably...embarrassingly miserably, I might add.

I'm tempted to say we've hit the impasse...I don't believe we can go any further. When I provide logical arguments, you counter with assertion, empty rhetoric, and appeals to Thomas Jefferson...you then complete the picture with distorted oversimplifications of Christian teaching and try to make me out to be an imbecile...not terribly thought-provoking and it tests the patience of anyone with a modicum of generosity when a thoughtful interaction is returned with disrespect.

Unfortunately, this sort of rhetoric is par for the course, especially with the "New Atheist" movement. What passes for "free-thinking" and inquiry is little more than open ridicule of ideas the "free-thinker" takes no time to understand...ignorance looks from a distance, the real thinker goes to the wardrobe of ideas and tries things on to see how they fit.

When an ignorant man happens to cross a battlefield, he stops to point at all the men wearing "shiny space suits" and laughs...only to be disemboweled by one of those large, pointy things the silly chaps in shiny space suits is carrying (before he's disemboweled, he makes a remarkably astute observation about how the pointy thing in each man's hand is an attempt at compensating for something in a Freudian manner). Just before the man dies, he shouts defiantly: "PUDDING!" His fellow ignorants will applaud the martyr...he died because he pointed out the obvious. He saw the truth: Shiny space suits and men with large pointy things trying to compensate for something.

Brian Concludes

Brian: Oh my!...you've "destroyed" my world view..."disemboweled"..."pointy thing"...

Whew!

Such is typical terminology from the Obedience-Domination-Fear-Submission-Authoritarian-Taliban worldview. Angry, abused people have merely invented their angry, abusive God in their image. Unfortunately, this false fear-mongering Hellbringer deity has manifest such a danger here on earth:... See more

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity." ~Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

Nature's God —Love, Life, Liberty, Happiness, Reason— is waiting there for you to discover. I hope you do some day.

And as Jesus said to love your theological debate opponents (among other "enemies,") I'll say this:

I love you in Jesus' name and may God's peace be with you.

MY CONCLUDING STATEMENT

Craig: In conclusion, you seem to have missed the point of the battlefield analogy (sorry, couldn't resist saying "point").

It wasn't to say out how "awesome" my arguments are and that you were disemboweled...it was to shed light on the fact that ignorants mock what they don't understand...they make light of what is of the utmost seriousness. They think by saying "shiny space suits" or using sham psychology that they're actually dealing with what's in front of them.

Brian, submit yourself to Christ. His authority is supreme. His yoke is freedom. You believe error, but you are not in danger of hell because of a lack of evidence...God does not condemn men because they fail intellectually...we fail to recognize God on account of our sin. What we do know, we suppress, not because of our wisdom, but because of our sin.
Romans 1:18-20
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Romans 8:6-7
The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

1 Cor 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Cor 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

You do not need an intellectual argument, you need to repent and believe. God will give you a new heart...and the freedom and love you say you desire will be realized...only bigger, greater, and eternal.

What is Distributivism?

For a while now, I've been tinkering with taking a different route when it comes to economics. For my entire life, I've been a capitalist...not really ever questioning it. I toyed with socialism in theory as an undergrad, but didn't like collectivism...it always breeds the antithesis of individuality and the many will be ruled by the few, and the few will let the many know what's best for them.

There are excesses to capitalism, it seems. It is an approach where wealth seems to justify itself...wealth begets wealth, and you acquire more of it so more may be built. The one with more wealth will trump the one with little...how does the small man compete with the wealthy man? The many will largely become servants of the few. The value of a man's work is not so much determined by his abilities, his needs, or his family's...it is typically a cold, calculated determination by a man seeking to pay as little as possible for another man's labor that will contribute to the miser's well-being. Don't get me wrong, there are many business owners who will pay a man based on that man's need...I actually know many like this. This is not the outworking of capitalism, rather, it is the outworking of Christian faith.

Most capitalists, especially of the Austrian variety, will say this isn't necessarily true. Capitalism breeds competition when unencumbered by government intervention...and I agree that government intervention is a huge problem. How do we overcome the problem of cheaper labor in countries that do not allow individual freedoms? Global companies finance the well-being of countries that shackle the liberty of men...yet we talk about freedom and the individual...but our wealthy corporations don't really value individual liberty, they value cheap labor. That must be the case since capitalism is a cold, impersonal system where the "quantifiable" atheistic impulse is seated on the throne while the individual is shackled with no place of appeal...how do you argue with a formula? Impersonal mathematics, the logician's savior for rationality, is a most irrational way of dealing with men.

Both of these systems seem to accomplish the same ends by different means...the flattening of the many under the thumb of the few.

I may not have completely bought into distributivism, but it's critique of capitalism is quite thought-provoking. It is not socialism, and it is not communism...distributivism is about "distributing" the means of production...that is, there should not be powerful concentrations of the means of production into the hands of the few. To my mind, this should be the bed-fellow American individual liberty. If we believe the concentration of political power breeds evil, why would that not be the case economically? For Americans, the situation is doubly troubling as the means of production are not the only items with concentration into the hands of the few...the same few also have politicians in their pockets. The masses of the little man must not only compete with a leviathan of wealth, he also has skyscraping obstacles that have been placed in front of him by legislation devised by those sitting on top.

Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death. -Hilaire Belloc

Ask Antipelagian Part 1 & 2

You sent in your questions...now you have to listen to me.

You Got A Question?

I'm fielding questions on You Tube...if anyone has a question of a serious or silly nature, send me an email:

craig(at)antipelagian.com

It could a theological question, personal question, advice on cars, what puppies are best for kicking, who's going to the Super Bowl...pretty much anything you like. I plan on making a video responding to questions I receive.