Sorry to say, but your thinking on this seems awfully wooden and Old Testamentistic.

First, have you considered that magistrates enforcing the true religion was in the air ever after Constantine? Do you know that Lutherans — than which no greater 2k Christians can be conceived — also thought the magistrate should establish the true religion. The Treatise on the Power of the Papacy (1537) reads:

“But especially the chief members of the Church, kings and princes, ought to guard the interests of the Church, and to see to it that errors be removed and consciences be healed [rightly instructed], as God expressly exhorts kings, Ps. 2:10: Be wise, now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. For it should be the first care of kings [and great lords] to advance the glory of God. Therefore it would be very shameful for them to lend their influence and power to confirm idolatry and infinite other crimes, and to slaughter saints.”

So if your position is intrinsic to being Reformed, let’s make room for Lutherans.

Second, I can answer all of your questions by saying I am only doing what Jesus and the apostles did. They didn’t say the magistrate should keep both tables of the law. They had plenty of chances to. They didn’t think that Nero was obliged to embrace the true religion any more than any person would who wanted to be saved. They knew about the good and bad OT kings and still told Christians to submit to bad, pagan emperors. So the basis on which I reject your Judaic reading of the magistrate is the New Testament. It really does matter that Jesus came and fulfilled the political and ceremonial aspects of the Old Covenant.

And by the way, I practice and support infant baptism because Jesus and the apostles did.

I already answered this claim by you above. Go back and re-read the thread. I ended off by placing a burden on your shoulders, and I’m still waiting for your reply. Moreover, let’s even grant you this point. This would be ONE question I didn’t answer compared to virtually ALL of mine that YOU did not answer.

And, just to help jog your memory:

* I made some specific claims about Van Til.

* You came in and asserted that DVD’s book on NL and 2K had some relevance to those specific comments I made.

* My answer was that DVD did not critique those specific Van Tillian insights I pulled from. I asked you to show me where DVD undermined the specific claims I made in this thread.

So, that’s the dialectical context of dialogue you find yourself in.

Put differently, let’s call the Van Tilliams claims I employed here VT1, VT2, and VT3. Those are the propositions relevant to this thread. Now, let’s grant, arguendo, that DVD rebutes some Van Tillian claims we’ll call VT4, VT5, and VT6. If I didn’t appeal to VT4 -> VT6, then what is the purpose of your red herring appeal to DVD’s refutation (granted ad arguendo) of them? I specifically appealed to VT1 -> VT3 in support of some of my claims here. Therefore, to offer an appropriate and relevant defeater of my arguments, you would need to employ arguments against VT1 -> VT3, since those are the premises I used, and not arguments against VT4 -> VT…n.

There, now that you’ve made such a big deal about this, and I’ve clearly laid out your failing, the gauntlet has been thrown down and you find yourself in the awkward position of actually having to do some actual arguing rather than dismissing. or you can just dodge and dance another jig. However, since the dialectical situation has been clearly laid out, what you can’t do (well, at least “can’t” in terms of rational acceptability) is offer another one of your one line dismissals. So, ball’s in your court. Oh, sorry, you’re a baseball guy. I think the term is, “You’re up!”

You psychoanalyzed, so I was a Jed to the Jed (all things to all men).

“What I am arguing is that worldview shouldn’t take a status that the confessions hold in the life of the church.”

Why are you bothering arguing that? Who here has said that it should take the status the confessions hold? You addressed your comment to me, so did you take me as saying this (especially when I denied it three or four times)? If not, what was the point of your berating me?

“My worldview statements were general for a purpose, since I haven’t been able to surmise exactly what your worldview is in your comments, just that you have one and those who question the ultimate value of a stated “Christian Worldview” are evidently in need of some serious book learnin’.

Really? Quote me to that effect, Jed. I specifically argued against those who denied that they even had one, or denied that Christianity implies propositions about and stances toward various non-theological disciplines.

“I wish I had the time to deal with each of the issues that you bring up but I will hit on the issue that you seem to be most pressing:”

Oh, good, this is what I’ve been asking for.

“Biblical Epistemology: I actually do believe there is such a thing – “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…” However, the question in this epistemology is how expansive and how particular is it (i.e. to what degree does it extend to common sphere activities such as politics, arts, culture, etc.).”

This is a let down I actually cited a paper by Dr. Anderson making this claim, and I made it myself more than once. (Btw, the extent applies to all things we claim to know. When one claims to know something, and when ‘know’ is given a particular analysis, then this analysis applies to whatever they say they know. So if someone S claims to “know” some political proposition p, and if we, ad arguendo, analyse ‘know’ as “justified true belief,” then this means that S has a justified true belief that p.)

“Additionally how does such knowledge have continuity and discontinuity with worldly knowledge, and how much does the fear of the Lord privilege the true knower?”

Assuming I even know what you mean here, John Frame discusses this, so does James Anderson, and so did Van Til. It would be good to take some of the putative analysis of the situation as starting points. I assume you’ve read them since you’re making claims about it all? I hope it doesn’t seem arrogant, but I generally assume it’s wise to read some of the relevant literature on subjects we wish to pontificate about.

“To show my cards a bit more here, I would argue that this “biblical epistemology” has its emphases in cultic, existential/ethical, and eschatological categories, and here these have a great deal of particularity in informing us the difference between good and evil.”

Well, as David VanDrunen argues, the “fear of the Lord” is common terminology for “natural law” or “common” or, for Hart, “secular” categories (see DVD’s monograph, A Biblical Case for Natural Law).

Besides that, I can’t really make heads or tails of this. When we’re speaking about epistemology, we usually use the categories epistemologists use. How much epistemology have you read in order to weigh in on this topic? Isn’t it a critique of the Confessionalists that Reformed laymen think they can weigh in on any topic whatever just because they’re Reformed? Traditionally, those who have made claims about “biblical epistemology” have meant to discuss what the Bible has to say about common or traditional epistemological matters, i.e., the analysis of knowledge, the nature of justification or warrant, the subject, object, and relation of knowledge, the standard of knowledge, the extent of knowledge and the warrant for skepticism, etc.

“However when you expand these to cultural phenomena such as political theory, scientific theory, arts, etc I see many areas where Scripture is actually silent, or is speaks to these in a general fashion. . . .”

Of course, I made this point too. Obviously, the relevant debate would be on just how “general” or “particular” things stay or get.

I’m left wondering why you ventured into a discussion and pretended like you were arguing against my stance here when you actually stated many of the things I argued for here. Why would you enter the discussion without reading what went on before you? This seems totally irresponsible.

As far as the blow torch, see my explanation to Hart in my September 2, 2010 at 12:32 pm post.

Thanks for the psychoanalysis bud, usually a shrink will charge a pretty penny for that, if you need me to cut you a check for your probing insights into my subconscious, just give me a holler. I hope I wasn’t misunderstood here, I am not arguing that worldview is utterly irrelevant, and that a highly developed one isn’t useful in some cases. What I am arguing is that worldview shouldn’t take a status that the confessions hold in the life of the church. My worldview statements were general for a purpose, since I haven’t been able to surmise exactly what your worldview is in your comments, just that you have one and those who question the ultimate value of a stated “Christian Worldview” are evidently in need of some serious book learnin’. I am not so worried about defending Zrim or Dr. Hart here, they are big boys and they can fend for themselves.

I wish I had the time to deal with each of the issues that you bring up but I will hit on the issue that you seem to be most pressing:

Biblical Epistemology: I actually do believe there is such a thing – “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…” However, the question in this epistemology is how expansive and how particular is it (i.e. to what degree does it extend to common sphere activities such as politics, arts, culture, etc.). Additionally how does such knowledge have continuity and discontinuity with worldly knowledge, and how much does the fear of the Lord privilege the true knower? I get the sense that those who most adamantly champion worldview take this epistemology to a more exhaustive particularity that I personally see in the Bible. To show my cards a bit more here, I would argue that this “biblical epistemology” has its emphases in cultic, existential/ethical, and eschatological categories, and here these have a great deal of particularity in informing us the difference between good and evil. However when you expand these to cultural phenomena such as political theory, scientific theory, arts, etc I see many areas where Scripture is actually silent, or is speaks to these in a general fashion, where the main purpose say in the composition of a symphony is to honor God, that doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on the musical structure of the composition.

I have less of a problem with those who tout some form of worldview, and in the past I was very much concerned with this. However, maybe through the brutality of life since my early enthusiastic twenties, I am far more inclined to the sufficiency of Scripture as articulated in the Confession, since these seem to adequately present Christianity as the religion of the broken heart, than I am of formulating a worldview that seems to place a great deal of emphasis on this-worldly affairs.

If you want to interact more with the epistemology question, I’d be happy to (you’ve got my contact info), but for Pete’s sake, put down the blowtorch.

Zrim, the reason “Calminianism” is inconsistent, is because, as Roger Olson has pointed out, the two are contradictory. “The Lord ordains *whatsoever* comes to pass” cannot be smashed together with “the Lord *does not* ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”

And, actually, credo/paedo co-existence receives a very strong arguments by no less a historian and theologian as David F. Wright, who argues that this dual-practice view was the view practiced by the early church. This position has also been argued by no less a historian and theologian than Ben Witherington. This view was recently defended in the new(er) book, Baptism: Three Views, by Anthony Lane. So, your bifurcation here may well be an example of the fallacy of false dichotomy (oh no, I made another slur!).

Here’s what I see with respect to “worldviewism.”

I think the Bible, and the Confession for that matter, imply certain positions to take or views on such diverse matters as: epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, and science.

Now, I have linked to a post by Dr. James Anderson regarding the first point, I cited Dr. Hart claiming that the Bible has “some” things to say regarding politics (cf. my first post here), and I myself gave one example of the Reformed doctrine of God and how he orders and governs his world spilling over into legal matters and quantum indeterminism (a fairly strongly supported and accepted position within quantum physics).

Notice that I didn’t argue that for the amount of detail the Bible or the Confession implies about these positions (in my last response to “Bob,” I briefly discussed my view on that), I just claimed that Scripture (and the Confession) did imply some non-trivial propositions within those disciplines. Hence, any view on those positions that contradict those propositions can properly be called “Non-Christian views.”

I pointed to some inspiration behind my “via media” in Alister McGrath’s The Passionate Intellect. I hinted that there was a mixing of C.S. Lewis and Luther’s theology of the cross.

My “via negativa” charts a course between over ambituous “blueprint” conceptions of worldview (which I discussed in my last response here to Bob), and overly negative conceptions that seem to imply that there is no Christian view on these matters.

From where I’m standing, the “blueprint” approach is the cause for most of the problems “worldview” has spawned. Various legitimate views are crowded out and people are called “sinful” for holding to conceptions of the above disciplines that are underdetermined by the biblical (or Confessional) wittness. On the other hand, there are some very important, interesting, relevant, and helpful points that are made by Christianity regarding those disciplines (and others).

These points are of course not as important, not even close, to, say the importance of justification through faith alone, adoption, the nature of the church, Confessing your faith, to name but a few things. However, they are important. And, many people find them interesting and rather important for their thinking on subjects. Indeed, many lay people. Of course, this can be easily seen by the types of books that sell and the types of conferences that sell out. Should Conferences on Justification sell out? Yeah. But that’s not my point. I’m simply making the *descriptive* and non-normativbe point that lay people *do* find these things interesting and important to their lives. Humans naturally seek to bring all of their experiences together into a coherent whole.

Of course the above isn’t exhaustive, it’s just a lay-out of my thinking.

But, I do appreciate you’re guilt-by-association and poisoning of the well in your parting shot that my attempt to point out the good and the bad in worldview thinking is akin to trying to harmionize Trent and sola fide. If I said something like that, it would be a “slur.” But I’ve long given up trying to hold you to your own standards.

But from where I sit, whatever else they entail, experiments like this really only demonstrate that the eager-beaver hasn’t really understood the internal consistencies of either system and, necessarily, how they are by definition fundamentally opposed to each other. I understand this makes me one of your said radicals, but I really don’t see how one can harmonize dueling ecclesiologies (i.e. 1k and 2k) anymore than dueling soteriologies or sacramentologies. Maybe once you’ve harmonized them you could get to work on Trent and sola fide.

Humility? Surely you jest. I came here and indicate that I had serious questions for a paper I am working on. I have some thoughts that I think may prove helpful in moving the discussion forward. They will not be liked by radicals on either side. Those who conceive of the Christian worldview as a blueprint for any and all things, as well as those who conceive of the Christian worldview’s content equaling the empty set. I am the one who has indicated that some of the claims by worldviewists, or conceptions of what they think Christianity tells us about things other than how to get saved, are overreaching and underdetermined by the Bible. I am the one who said I agree with a lot of your concerns. I am the one who has said that whether the Bible hays things to say relevant for epistemology or science isn’t as important as what it has to say about salvation. I am the one who has answered every question asked of me, interacted with every criticism of my claims, bore dozens of straw men and misrepresentations and caricatures of my position. You have side-stepped, danced, ignored, mocked, joked, ridiculed, dodged and ducked many of my sincere objections to your position as well as my answers to questions I took you to be asking in good faith. You are the one taking the absolutist and no-compromising position here. You are the one who makes absolute claims about what the Bible may say about epistemology. You are the one who simply shrugs off defeaters to your claims. You are the one who tried to bully me. Eventually I got tired of your games. Did I go over board at times? Maybe. But I’m not a genteel person. There’s a saying: You mess with a bull, you get the horns. Given those facts, you then ask me if “worldviewism” comes “with a side order of humility?” Get real, Darryl.