284 thoughts on “I Believe the Bible Requires Me to Avoid Movies, and If You Go See a Movie You Don’t Believe the Bible – Huh?”

1. Darryl,
   You have failed to even make a case. “I’m over here” your critics call out, but you are over by the straw man…again.

   In the case of Prohibition, that was moralism. You’re equivocating here. Is the vanilla 2-K guy a moralist because he says the moral law intersects with everyday life, including legislation? In order for these to be the same, you must first make your case…to date, you have not, equivocation and guilt-by-association are the name of the game for you.

   To put this in perspective, as that’s what many of your criticisms need, R2k opponents point to abortion. You say rightly that Machen was opposed to drunkeness, but also opposed to Prohibition. Can you be opposed to ifanticide but not be opposed to abortion? Of course not, these are the equivalent: abortion = infanticide. Drinking alcohol does not = drunkenness. This is where there is no in-between gray stuff.

   Darryl: “But again, following the example of Machen, favoring an amendment to the Constitution is not the same as regarding homosexuality a sin”.

   This one might be a bit stickier than abortion…I’m not sure an amendment is needed given the nature of what marriage is, but that is not the same thing I’ve seen some R2kers say. Some have said that the State can sanction sodomite marriage…whereas, the R2k opponent might argue the nature of marriage is a union between a man and a woman. To relegate the definition to the State is to give to Caesar what is God’s.

   Darryl: “We don’t believe in Christian education”

   I don’t know of any who have outright said this.

   Darryl: “We take Christian liberty too far. Actually, we don’t. As I have indicated, I don’t shop at chain stores…”

   I am not aware that anyone would consider Christian liberty being materially linked to where one chooses to get their commodities (ie. food, electronics, stuff like that). What R2k critics do talk about is the way the 3rd use of the Law is qualified out of existence by R2k. Liberty, many times, becomes license and those who say as much are painted as promoting a “social gospel”.

   Darryl: “We deny the Lordship of Christ. Actually, we affirm it and recognize it everywhere, all the time. We so believe in the Lordship of Christ that we think it exists even when bad rulers occupy office…”

   As an R2k critic, I say Christ is Lord when bad rulers occupy office…yet you continue to insinuate critics only think Christ is Lord if we get the “righteous dude” into office. In keeping with your standard for this blog, this is hypocritical on your part. You are saying that we deny God’s sovereignty…please don’t put words in our mouths, Darryl.

   Why would we say you deny the Lordship of Christ? Well, at least 2 reasons by necessary inferrence, and not by bare assertion:
   1) You construct “neutral” ground where the Bible/faith/religion is defined as an impediment to living. It just so happens that most of our lives exist on these “neutral” grounds…thereby giving Christ only a theoretic Lordship…sovereign, yes, but where His Word must be obeyed, not so much.
   2) In creating “neutral ground” you end up giving up parts of Christ’s sphere to Caesar (ironically, blurring the 2-K distinction and making Caesar sovereign). Politics aside (since that is not my primary beef with R2k), in practical daily life, since most of life is conducted on “neutral ground”, man lives according to his rules, also known as “liberty”, and the chains of God’s Word may, in fact, be cast off.

   Darryl: “We deny the authority of the Bible.”

   In one sense yes (see above), in another sense, no we don’t say this. R2k give theoretical authority to the Bible just like it gives theoretical Lordship to Christ. You may think I’m putting words into your mouth, but these are arguments based on good and necessary inference. Not unlike an argument you and I may share, namely that the use of images of Christ is an implicit form of Nestorianism…some would hem and haw at such a notion, but when it comes down to it, the assumption rests on the notion that portraying Christ’s humanity doesn’t communicate His deity, thus the Nestorianism comes to light.

   Deny what I’ve said all you like, but your blog is replete with evidence to the contrary.

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2. DGH:
   The case you are making above is (I think) one and the same with “The Separated Life” booklet by J. G. Vos. The people who have the most problem with Vos’ position are usually baptistic fundamentalists, or those who used to be in such churches. It really does not take a lot to convince them with a little kindhearted education. But, of course, some will never be persuaded.

   But I agree with French. I think the general tone of modern 2K (like T. David Gordon) is beyond what Vos holds to. Gordon takes “faith and life” to mean covenant community faith and life, and I think that that is an error.

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3. Craig, if the parallel is between drunkenness and Prohibition, then the analogy with abortion is picketing at abortion clinics. The Baylys, I think you know them, have judged many 2k advocates for not joining them at the local clinic. Maybe this is why you struggle with 2k. You don’t think clearly.

   As for the question of neutrality, I’d be very curious where I have ever written of neutrality in the abstract, as if I believe anything in life stands separated from God’s creation or providential care. I have spoken favorably of the neutrality of umpires and judges — as in lacking bias when deciding contested claims of two rivals. But the word I do use is common. And that is what 2k recognizes, what believers share in common with non-believers. Funny, how you won’t even recognize that believers share in common with believers.

   I deny that my belief in the authority of Scripture is theoretical. I just happen to disagree with your interpretation of it.

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4. “Eliza”, oh, so you mean that the covenant community shares a faith and life with those outside the covenant? Again, I say – huh!

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5. Craig, when Tim Bayly says those who esteem the virtue of self-comportment over self-expression and think there are better, more dignified and neighborly ways to address the personal issue of abortion, even as they allow those who think differently their perfect liberty to act accordingly, are “unfaithful,” I wonder what you make of that.

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6. DGH: As you undoubtedly know Gordon thinks that the Bible is insufficient for the secular life of a Christian, indeed for the secular life of anyone, whereas I believe that the Bible is sufficient for the faith (of anyone who will exercise faith) and the life (whether a believer or unbeliever) of all.

   The problem as I see it is that you want to make people who hold this view look incredibly foolish by regular appeals to “Christian plumbing” (I’d love to meet your plumber; you must have interesting conversations!). Naturally we do not think the Bible tells us how to do calculus or cook a turkey. So Gordon concludes it’s insufficient for life. But neither does it tell us how to read Hebrew or does it give us the Holy Spirit, so by that reasoning the Bible is insufficient for faith also.

   One clarification about J.G. Vos’s booklet, The Separated LIfe. He says that while the church ought not to make rules about “things” because “things” are not in and of themselves sinful, it is we as human beings who do sinful things with meat, drink, etc. Nevertheless he does say that the civil magistrate might make rules about things for the protection of society, etc. I guess he means things like a minimum drinking age, etc. The difference is, in his opinion, the believer will be led by the Holy Spirit and therefore rules about things indifferent ought not to be created.

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7. Darryl, your about “common” being the superior way to talk about the overlap between the lives of believers and unbelievers (not “neutral”), is absolutely right. I might even point out that the term “common” is biblical, coming from the Law (which we are slanderously reported as rejecting) and the Prophets. Leviticus 10:10 teaches a distinction between the holy and the common. God told Moses and Aaron that he wanted to be treated as holy, so he didn’t want high priests to drink wine or strong drink when they entered the tent of meeting.

   On theocratic reasoning, then, ALL wine and strong drink should be avoided ALL of the time (precisely because the governing presupposition of theocracy is that everything ought to be holy, everywhere, all of the time). But clearly, the biblical record shows that Israel used wine and strong drink during the normal course of their lives without God’s condemnation.

   It is interesting to note, too, that the term used to contrast “holy” is not “UNholy.” It is common, or, “non-holy.” Sadly, theocrats do not have this biblical category.

   We see it show up in Leviticus 11:47 and 20:25 with reference to the “ceremonial” law of clean/holy and unclean/common foods. Yet when Israel is sent into exile for her disobedience (ahem!), God tells the prophet Jeremiah to command the people to live lives in common with the Babylonians (Jer. 29:1-10). In other words, they didn’t have to protest outside the pig butcher’s shop. Even if they didn’t eat pork themselves, they were commanded to seek the welfare of the city (very UNlike what they were commanded to seek in theocratic contexts).

   We even find the prophet Ezekiel using this distinction in 22:26.

   Of course, in the New Covenant, theocracy, holiness and commonness are radically re-oriented, but the covenant of common grace has continued from Gen. 3:14, through Gen. 8:21-9:17, through Jeremiah 29, through Acts 11, and will terminate at the Final Judgment.

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8. Zrim,
   I’m not sure it even matters what my opinion of Tim Bayly’s views are…though I have my doubts that he couched his view as esteeming “self-expression” over “self-comportment”.

   As often is the case, inaction is couched in terms of “dignity”, while there is nothing dignifying about the mutilation of tiny babies. Hmmm. Maybe I just shared my take on Tim Bayly’s view.

   Darryl said: “Craig, if the parallel is between drunkenness and Prohibition, then the analogy with abortion is picketing at abortion clinics. The Baylys, I think you know them, have judged many 2k advocates for not joining them at the local clinic.”

   I see, so there’s little difference between a Terry Schiavo looking through the window of her hospital room while being starved to death and a bottle of Jim sitting in a display window while protesters stand outside.

   Darryl: “I have spoken favorably of the neutrality of umpires and judges — as in lacking bias when deciding contested claims of two rivals.”

   If there is “common ground” (as you define it), how, pray tell, does a Reformed anthropology allow for the lack of bias on the part of the unbelieving world? You see, the fact you would liken this common ground to the role of an umpire demonstrates that there is, at some level, the assumption that man has supremacy over the Word, or in the analogy, the players. In such a scenario the competition between players is decided by one with a lack of bias. Sovereignty is squarely placed on the head of man…on the other hand, consistently-speaking, even umpires must follow the rules, so the R2ker pulls the rug out from under himself.

   Darryl: “Funny, how you won’t even recognize that believers share in common with believers.”

   As I’ve noted in the past, you tend to couch things as if your view is *the* view. Sorry, I just don’t affirm your notion of “common ground”. I happen to be Reformed, and I believe I share common ground with unbelievers, not by virtue of some umpire-esque commond ground deciding between rivals, rather, because we exist as sinners in a world created and sustained by God to whom all must give account one day. The notion of “common ground” you’re advancing is different than the common ground Paul appeals to…this is where natural theology often takes a life of its own, and while I affirm the notion of a natural theology, I reject any notion where it can in some way be interpreted rightly apart from the Word….why? Because of sin…does that mean there’s no common ground? No, that is exactly where the point of contact is, the “common ground”, if you will. .

   Darryl: “I deny that my belief in the authority of Scripture is theoretical. I just happen to disagree with your interpretation of it.”

   Deny all you like, the implicit affirmation is all over your writing…see your illustration of umpires deciding between two rivals, where God is a competitor with no jurisdiction.

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9. Chris, not to pile on, but it’s also essential to the Larger and Shorter Catechisms discussion of the Lord’s Day — the common, that is.

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10. Craig, you are wrong again. How could you possibly think I favor starving Terry Schaivo to death unless you have an animus that seeks to twist whatever I say . Be careful of the laws, to which you appeal, Craig.

    The point was the distinction between a sin and a policy designed to thwart it. Someone may oppose a sin and not support a policy to thwart it.

    The common I affirm is that which the Catechisms talk about and even the OT. But again Craig, your bias is showing.

    And why do you think I believe God is “a competitor with no jurisdiction.” Again, I say huh.

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11. Craig, btw, did you not notice that I do not think my view is the only one? That is why I can’t condemn you as faithless for disagreeing with me.

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12. I’m not sure it even matters what my opinion of Tim Bayly’s views are…though I have my doubts that he couched his view as esteeming “self-expression” over “self-comportment”.
    As often is the case, inaction is couched in terms of “dignity”, while there is nothing dignifying about the mutilation of tiny babies. Hmmm. Maybe I just shared my take on Tim Bayly’s view.

    Craig, let me help your doubts: no, Tim Bayly most certainly didn’t couch his assertions in terms self-expression over self-comportment. He couches it in terms of “those who esteem life” and “those who don’t,” or “those who like babies” and “those who hate babies.” It’s like “did you stop beating your wife?”

    And, of course, you do the very same thing here by creating a false dichotomy between “those who disdain the mutilation of tiny babies” and “those who dignify it.” It’s a form of “you don’t care like I do, therefore you don’t care.” This is the typical strategy of turning up the decibels to screed so that nobody can actually hear the other guy (can you even hear yourself?). But if you ever become so inclined to turn the volume down, the point here is that questions about proper human behavior and interaction are vastly more complex and cannot be simplistically boiled down to the categories of “good guys” and “bad guys, and the wimps who help them and are no better than the bad guys.”

    Also, you appeal to sin as to why natural revelation is insufficient in the common realm. But sinners sin because they are sinners, not because they don’t have the right book. Even in churches where the Bible is alone employed for her rule, sin abounds. What makes you think the Bible interpreting natural revelation will circumvent sin in the common realm when it doesn’t even do that in the sacred realm? Don’t you think sin is a serious condition?

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13. Darryl: “Craig, you are wrong again. How could you possibly think I favor starving Terry Schaivo to death”

    I did NOT say you favored the starvation of Terry Schaivo. I did not intend, imply, or misspeak in such a way to warrant such an assertion.

    So what did I say?
    You can’t compare protesting abortion and seeking to establish law preventing murder to Prohibition. To underscore this, I suggested we look at how similar they are…and gave you the example of a bottle of Jim in a window display and Terry Schaivo sitting in front of the window of her hospital room being starved to death.

    There is a difference between a bottle of Jim and a Terry Shaivo, right? Based on your response, I would charitably say “Darry certainly does see a difference”. So we agree: Prohibition and abortion protests are not even comparable. I’m glad we can agree on this.

    Darryl: “The point was the distinction between a sin and a policy designed to thwart it. Someone may oppose a sin and not support a policy to thwart it.”

    Parse, parse, parse. What the good doctor giveth with one hand, he taketh away with the other…but that is because in the area of what is “common ground”, man is sovereign. Theoretical opposition is thwarted by…well, fill in the blank.

    Darryl: “The common I affirm is that which the Catechisms talk about and even the OT. But again Craig, your bias is showing.”

    Define what you mean, Darryl. Don’t be coy. How ’bout I just say anything and support it with “well, I’m just trying to be Confessional and Biblical”?

    Darryl: “And why do you think I believe God is “a competitor with no jurisdiction.” Again, I say huh.”

    It follows from your analogy. A player doesn’t make calls, and according to your analogy: God is a player…I assume the other players are those competing for God’s claims…which makes man the umpire, and basically a latent participant in the game. You know, maybe he makes some pot-shots, but he’s really looking at the stands wishing someone would bring him a hot dog and a beer. It’s tough keeping God where He belongs.

    Zrim,
    you failed to even understand me. Perhaps my fault, but I don’t think so. First, I never said R2k dignifies abortion. I said it dignifies *inaction*.

    Secondly, I never said the Bible circumvents sin. I don’t even understand how such an assertion even relates to what I wrote.

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14. Craig, ok, so “2k dignifies inaction.” Isn’t that just your way of saying silence is tacit approval? Activist Christianity usually sneers when it says “inaction.”

    And I didn’t say you said that the Bible circumvents sin. I’m saying the implication of your view is that all we need to do is give sinners the Bible and the effects of sin will at least be diminished in the common realm. But it doesn’r diminish sin in the sacred realm, so why would it in the secular one?

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15. Zrim: “Isn’t that just your way of saying silence is tacit approval?”

    No.

    Zrim said: “And I didn’t say you said that the Bible circumvents sin”

    Compare to:”What makes you think the Bible interpreting natural revelation will circumvent sin in the common realm when it doesn’t even do that in the sacred realm? Don’t you think sin is a serious condition?”

    Zrim said: “I’m saying the implication of your view is that all we need to do is give sinners the Bible and the effects of sin will at least be diminished in the common realm.”

    That’s not the implication. That’s just an unsubstantiated oversimplification on your part. It has zero relevance to what I wrote. The underlying assumption is that moralism is the driving force to a non-R2k view. Again, what’s the difference between a bottle of Jim in a display window and a woman being starved to death staring through her hospital window? A lot. So can there be an equivalence between protesting the sale of liquor and protesting the wholesale slaughter of the innocent?

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16. “Eliza,” I don’t make up silly things to cause you to look bad. You say them yourself. I didn’t know someone had to know Hebrew to have saving faith.

    If you want to claim the Bible is sufficient for life, and if you want to bracket plumbing from life, fine. But then how is the Bible sufficient for all of life? I know it’s inspiring. But if the fine print is really, well, the Bible is sufficient but not really sufficient, then what exactly are you saying about the sufficiency of the Bible? It works for hard subjects like philosophy and history (apparently) but not for mundane ones like plumbing?

    Please do enlighten me.

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17. Craig, killing someone is a worse sin that drunkenness. But that doesn’t mean that protesting killing is required of all Christians. So this is your justification? Killing is wicked, so we can throw away the rules that outlaw binding of men’s consciences because the evil is so great? Well, how about the wickedness of idolatry? I’m upset about that and I protest it. But you don’t protest with me (and I’ve been to your blog). So does that make you guilty of idolatry, or tolerating it? According to your logic, it does. (And btw, since Nadab and Abihu lost their lives for offering strange fire, I’d say idolatry ranks pretty high. See, I believe the Bible, Craig. Do you?)

    As for what I mean by common, since you can read Lost Soul selectively when you want, I imagine you could find an answer if you really tried. But again, your animus is showing Craig. What, you don’t believe in charity?

    Here’s what I mean by common. The sabbath is to be SANCTIFIED by a HOLY resting all that day, even from such WORLDLY employments and recreations as are LAWFUL on other days; and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God’s worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.

    Notice the Shorter Catechism’s distinctions between holiness, lawfulness, and profanity. The Lord’s Day is holy. It is set apart from the other, common days. Worship is holy activity. Lawful employments and recreations — like banking and baseball — are lawful and common to believers and unbelievers. But lawful, common activities done on the Holy Day become profane.

    As for the umpire analogy, again your animus is working overtime Craig. Here’s the deal. God is in control of the game. He has ordained umpires to assist in a modicum of social order. These umpires, even when hostile to God, are capable of making wise decisions between two rival claims. That is not wisdom for the world to come. It is wisdom for life in this world.

    Have you not read Calvin on Cicero and Aristotle?

    “Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature? Shall we say that those men were devoid of understanding who conceived the art of disputation and taught us to speak reasonably? Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labor to our benefit? What shall we say of the mathematical sciences? Shall we consider them the ravings of madmen? No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminent they are. . . . Let us, accordingly, earn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled of its true good.” (Institutes, II.2.14)

    Man, it’s really looking bad for you, Craig.

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18. Craig, so does this mean that you don’t need to protest all sins, only the ones that you find objectionable? Or, could this mean that you favor drunkenness?

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19. Craig, fair enough. Let me clarify the shorthand of first statement then: What makes you think sinners using the Bible to interpret natural revelation in the common realm will circumvent sin? And what do you mean it’s not relevant to what you wrote? What you said was, “…while I affirm the notion of a natural theology, I reject any notion where it can in some way be interpreted rightly apart from the Word….why? Because of sin.” You seem to be saying that natural revelation needs special revelation to be intepreted because of sin. But sin also abides those who interpret SR, so now what? I mean, the church is in disarray. The Bible doesn’t keep the ecclesiastical peace, so why would it keep the civil peace?

    So can there be an equivalence between protesting the sale of liquor and protesting the wholesale slaughter of the innocent?.

    You’ll have to stop screaming, please, I can’t hear myself think to answer you. But your political ancestors, the Prohibitionists, probably would call you “inactive” and “unfaithful” for toning down the wholesale provision of devilwater to the destruction and demise of good public morals with the effete (dignified? gasp) language, “sale of liquor.”

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20. Unfortunately, I only have time for a run-by-comment…so I’ll try to get to other questions later (probably not today, I have to go to a second job this evening).

    Zrim: “You’ll have to stop screaming, please, I can’t hear myself think to answer you”

    I didn’t realize I wrote in all caps, or attached a screaming file to my comment.

    Zrim: “But your political ancestors, the Prohibitionists, probably would call you “inactive” and “unfaithful” for toning down the wholesale provision of devilwater to the destruction and demise of good public morals with the effete (dignified? gasp) language, ‘sale of liquor.'”

    To be clear, are you placing infanticide and drinking liquor on equal footing? Is infanticide part of that neutral, c’est la vie (or should we say mourir)? Of course, I used that loaded term “infanticide”, and that’s a problem. The prim-rose-path of dignity doesn’t countenance such a word. A castrated conscience will give any Christian an erudite lisp.

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21. DGH:
    In order to understand God’s Word, someone, somewhere has to translate for us non-Israeli’s. So we can read, so some can preach, so we can understand…et cetera

    The Bible is sufficient for faith and life, not just life as a covenant community member. It tells us what is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man. All men are under obligation to believe in Christ for salvation and to live according to God’s commandments. It is in that way sufficient for all of life.

    And elder takes a vow in the OPC that he believes the Bible is sufficient for “faith and practice.”
    How did you interpret that phrase when you took your eldership vow?

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22. Well now, Scripture doesn’t actually enjoin us to stop a man from putting the bottle to his lips. But it does seem to enjoin us to prevent bloodshed (hence the relevant WLC question).

    So equating with Prohibition with … umm … “mandatory pro-lifism” is not exactly right.

    It may be that forbidding abortion (or most abortions) is simply a matter of simple justice, in which case a magistrate doesn’t have any legitimate freedom in the matter.

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23. Craig, no, I am not putting abortion and substance use on equal footing. I’m putting the way you speak of abortion politically on equal footing with how the Prohibitionists did of substance use. When they characterized the legality of alcohol with “the wholesale provision of devil water to the destruction and demise of good public morals” you speak of legalized abortion as “the wholesale slaughter of the innocent.” I say this as one with politically anti-abortion views: You are using incendiary rhetoric that only serves to alienate, divide, mobilize through fear and vilify opponents.

    How would you like it if your moral and political opponents cast you as a misogynist and an oppressive hater of individual rights and privacy, blahblahblah? Maybe that girds your loins and inspires you all the more, but I think when people speak like this it only nurtures the politics of fear and loathing. It actually does more harm to the social fabric everyone claims to be trying to mend. I understand it feels good to stand on soapboxes and believe one is on the right side of righteousness, but my point is that exercising personal restraint supersedes feeling good.

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24. It may be that forbidding abortion (or most abortions) is simply a matter of simple justice, in which case a magistrate doesn’t have any legitimate freedom in the matter.

    I don’t know, Jeff. The Roman magistrate had the legitimate freedom to enforce death by crucifixion, something we moderns regard as cruel and unusual. But not only is there no biblical evidence that Caesar was somehow not free to employ crucifixion, it was used by God to justify us. In fact, it was Roman jurisprudence that was used as typological of God’s perfect justice.

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25. “Eliza,” I interpret that vow the way that you do. So maybe you haven’t heard. Some Reformed folk claim that the Bible is the best way to interpret Shakespeare and to do math calculations. Do you think that those Reformed folk are right? Those are the people who Gordon and I have in mind when bringing up plumbing.

    What exactly does “every square inch” mean to you?

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26. Zrim, it seems like you’re confusing God’s decrees with His revealed will. Judas’ betrayal was used by God to justify us, also — but that didn’t make it right.

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27. DGH: Some Reformed folk claim that the Bible is the best way to interpret Shakespeare and to do math calculations.

    Out of curiosity, who? Even CVT, who famously denied that our knowledge of 2+2=4 is different from God’s, didn’t advocate a Scripturally derived math curriculum (did he?)

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28. Guys, I was thinking about this in the shower. Zrim has questioned why abortion of all issues keeps coming up.

    Abortion-on-demand is a uniquely absurd situation. If five people die in an accident, it makes the tri-state news. If ten people die, it makes national news. Someone gets on the air saying “We have to do whatever it takes so that this never happens again.”

    The wars (or “foreign adventures” as my friend likes to say) in the Middle East get a lot of airspace: about 5k-6k American casualties and up to 750k civilian casualties. Those are rightly considered terrible.

    But our abortion laws permit us to kill somewhere in the neighborhood of 700k yearly, roughly 2k per day. There is no fallout. No news reports. No hearings.

    It’s simply an absurd situation; but because we’ve lived with the absurdity for almost two generations, we’ve lost sight of that absurdity.

    So from that perspective, I do think it’s appropriate for abortion to occupy a special place in discussions — as in, the most extreme real-life example one might consider.

    And for that reason, I think a Christian who chooses to vote pro-choice ought to set for him or herself a high burden of argument, and not merely think of it as an exercise of liberty. It should be hard to argue oneself into voting to permit such a thing.

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29. …it seems like you’re confusing God’s decrees with His revealed will. Judas’ betrayal was used by God to justify us, also — but that didn’t make it right.

    Jeff, my point isn’t to say that certain practices are right, it’s to say that the Bible doesn’t seem nearly as concerned for the rightness or wrongness of certain practices as moderns, which is to say that moderns seem much too sensitive about civil righteousness. I mean, we’re also called “slaves to righteousness,” the very concept of slavery is offensive to moderns, and yet the Bible still employs the term to describe our relationship to God.

    Even CVT, who famously denied that our knowledge of 2+2=4 is different from God’s, didn’t advocate a Scripturally derived math curriculum (did he?)

    I don’t know. But in “Foundations of Christian Education (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1990),” he did say:

    “Non-Christians believe that the personality of the child can develop best if it is not placed face to face with God. Christian believe that the child’s personality cannot develop at all unless it is placed face to face with God. Non-Christian education puts the child in a vacuum. In this vacuum the child is expected to grow. The result is that the child dies. Christian education alone really nurtures personality because it alone gives the child air and food.”

    “Non-Christians believe that authority hurts the growth of the child. Christians believe that without authority a child cannot live at all.”

    “No educational content that cannot be set into a definitely Christian-theistic pattern and be conducive to the development of covenant personality has any right to appear in our schools.”

    “What sense is there in spending money for teaching arithmetic in a Christian school rather than in a so-called neutral school unless you are basically convinced that no space-time fact can be talked about taught unless seen in its relationship to God? When speaking thus of the absolute antithesis that underlies the education policies of our schools, it is not too much to say that if any subject could be taught elsewhere than in a Christian school, there would be no reason for having Christian schools.”

    “The only reason why we are justified in having Christian schools is that we are convinced that outside of a Christian-theistic atmosphere there can be no more than an empty process of one abstraction teaching abstractness to other abstractions.”

    “No teaching of any sort is possible except in Christian schools.”

    “The ground for the necessity of Christian schools lies in this very thing, that no fact can be known unless it be known in its relationship to God. And once this point is clearly seen, the doubt as to the value of teaching arithmetic in Christian schools falls out of the picture. Of course arithmetic must be taught in a Christian school. It cannot be taught anywhere else.”

    “…if you cannot teach arithmetic to the glory of God, you cannot do it any other way because it cannot be done any other way by anybody.”

    “On the basis of our opponents the position of the teacher is utterly hopeless. He knows that he knows nothing and that in spite of this fact he must teach. He knows that without authority he cannot teach and that there are no authorities to which he can appeal. He has to place the child before an infinite series of possibilities and pretend to be able to say something about the most advisable attitude to take with respect to the possibilities, and at the same time he has to admit that he knows nothing at all about those possibilities. And the result for the child is that he is not furnished with an atmosphere in which he can live and grow.”

    “In contrast with this the Christian teacher knows himself, knows the subject, and knows the child. He has the full assurance of the absolute fruitfulness of his work. He labors in the dawn of everlasting results.”

    Ouch.

    Re your reflections on the place of abortion in the contemporary scene, again, I say this as one who rejects the rather sunny, uplifting and, frankly, politically spun term of “pro-life” in exchange for “anti-abortion” to describe his own particular views, I agree that the situation is lamentable. But, that said, I consider it just another political question amongst a host of political questions. The argument you make for why it should occupy center stage could be made for any other political question; anybody can take a political situation he finds particularly absurd to explain why it keeps popping up in circles where most others agree. But that doesn’t really explain anything, it just suggests something about groupthink, in my opinion.

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30. Zrim: The argument you make for why it should occupy center stage could be made for any other political question; anybody can take a political situation he finds particularly absurd to explain why it keeps popping up in circles where most others agree.

    No, I’m sorry. This is a false moral equivalence. The political question about whether there should be a stop-light at our intersection (there should!) is not equivalent to abortion.

    If I were to criticize pc-2k politically, it would be on this ground: not on antinomian grounds, but on the ground that it encourages a moral flattening of all issues to equally (un)important.

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31. Zrim, your extended quote of CVT’s illustrates beautifully the difference between Scriptural derivation and Scriptural framing.

    You want Scriptural derivation: if Scripture is to speak to arithmetic, it must speak exhaustively. It must tell us how to add, when to add, why to add. And unless it does those things, you declare Scripture to be “silent” on addition.

    This is simply a logical mistake. I may some things (not be silent) and yet not say all things.

    van Til’s point is simple: a nonChristian math teacher may well teach 2+2 = 4. He can give the facts. But he cannot connect those facts to the larger picture — why should I care about adding? What is the larger meaning of addition? The nonChristian can gives partial answers — so that you can pass the class, so that you can get a good job, so that you can become an engineer and solve the world’s problems and help people.

    But he cannot give the one answer that really matters: So that you can glorify God with your mind, and be better prepared to serve your neighbor.

    Math is therefore, says CVT, taken out of its proper framework and placed into a false frame, one that floats in conceptual outer space (“Why do we do math? Who cares! Shut up and calculate.”)

    I think van Til overplayed the consequences of this fact a bit. A nonChristian doing math might have the wrong frame, but might still accomplish imperfectly some things of value. In fact, many have. And the Christian can feel the freedom to “plunder the Egyptians” and take those results and use them. nonChristian math isn’t poisoned just because it comes out of a false framework. And I recall also that van Til was pushing back against Gordon Clark when he said these things.

    But overplayed or not, he’s spot on with the main point: nonChristian views of math must be either pragmatic or mystical, but they cannot connect to the very purpose of human existence: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

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32. If I were to criticize pc-2k politically, it would be on this ground: not on antinomian grounds, but on the ground that it encourages a moral flattening of all issues to equally (un)important.

    And this is where I would repeat my own distinction between morality and politics. Here you seem to speak synonymously of morality and politics. I think it’s fair to say that I am flattening out political issues, but that doesn’t mean there is no valuation or ordering of moral concerns. I can see how if you collapse the one into the other in the first place it looks like what you’re saying.

    But without such distinction is how we get the moralizing of politics and the politicization of faith, which is how we get people being disciplined for their politics as well as their behavior.

    van Til’s point is simple: a nonChristian math teacher may well teach 2+2 = 4. He can give the facts. But he cannot connect those facts to the larger picture — why should I care about adding? What is the larger meaning of addition? The nonChristian can gives partial answers — so that you can pass the class, so that you can get a good job, so that you can become an engineer and solve the world’s problems and help people… But overplayed or not, he’s spot on with the main point: nonChristian views of math must be either pragmatic or mystical, but they cannot connect to the very purpose of human existence: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

    That’s simply not the educator’s job. His job is intellectual, not affective. It’s the job of the home and church to do the affective, or instill the larger worldview (see, I can say it without flinching) that the pieces fit into.

    And this really is a large part of my own concern, the over-realizing of education to do what only the home and church have been ordained to do. The home creates, the church redeems. But the school only educates, which is neither. True enough, since human beings are involved, education may necessarily traffic into the affective domain, but educating minds is simply not the same thing as either making or redeeming people. In this way, the over-realizing of politics to effect exact justice or civil righteousness corresponds with the over-realizing of education to make or redeem people. Politics simply (and imperfectly) orders our public lives, and education simply (and imperfectly) gives us the tools to think. Neither of those have anything to do with making or redeeming people.

    Over-realizing education, by the way, is how you get certain dubious values-laced agendas creeping into public schools. No fair calling foul on “Heather Has Two Mommies” when you agree that schooling has something to do with people-making. What that is is saying someone else’s over-realizing of education is bad but yours is good. I say they’re both out of line.

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33. Zrim: And this is where I would repeat my own distinction between morality and politics. Here you seem to speak synonymously of morality and politics. I think it’s fair to say that I am flattening out political issues, but that doesn’t mean there is no valuation or ordering of moral concerns.

    OK, that’s fair. I should have been more explicit — you flatten all political issues. And that would be my criticism: where it comes to the political, all issues are treated equally. But not all political issues are in fact equal; some have moral elements to them.

    So for example, a vote for or against slots machines (recent issue in MD politics) has a significant moral component. There is not a clearly unique correct answer to the question — but the two sides are not operating in a moral vacuum. One side, the anti-gambling side, had more obvious moral weight to it.

    (which means, of course, that it lost. 🙂 )

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34. Zrim: [The teacher’s] job is intellectual, not affective.

    Wishful fantasy. If that were the sum of my job, I could be replaced with a book. In fact, it might be better for my students if I were — they might learn how to read.

    You even concede this later: True enough, since human beings are involved, education may necessarily traffic into the affective domain…

    Bingo. “Necessarily traffic” is exactly the way to put it. Which means that “intellectual, not affective” is exactly the wrong way to put it.

    And what we’re looking at here is the breakdown of dualistic thinking. You want hard categories; but your common sense rebels and creates exceptions; but then you have a hard time seeing why people (waves hand) view this as crossing your fingers.

    Far better to see it like this: Education is primarily intellectual, but it has affective and spiritual components as well.

    And the neglect of those spiritual components can be fatal. They will be present; trying to deny this and pound on the “teaching is intellectual” is simply sticking one’s head in the sand.

    Zrim: No fair calling foul on “Heather Has Two Mommies” when you agree that schooling has something to do with people-making. What that is is saying someone else’s over-realizing of education is bad but yours is good.

    No, it’s saying that on the issue of two mommies, the author is simply incorrect. No need to go global about it.

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35. Jeff, many people who support Reformed day schools. In my own congregation I regularly encountered these arguments. And it is implicit in Kloosterman’s essays for Christian Renewal against 2k. He may not mention math or Shakespeare directly, but his point is that you can’t understand natural revelation without the Bible. That would mean you need special revelation to teach Shakespeare.

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36. Jeff, you wrote: “van Til’s point is simple: a nonChristian math teacher may well teach 2+2 = 4. He can give the facts. But he cannot connect those facts to the larger picture — why should I care about adding? What is the larger meaning of addition? The nonChristian can gives partial answers — so that you can pass the class, so that you can get a good job, so that you can become an engineer and solve the world’s problems and help people. But he cannot give the one answer that really matters: So that you can glorify God with your mind, and be better prepared to serve your neighbor.”

    This may be. But it does not mean that the Christian teacher is any better at connecting the dots. We have tons of examples of bad connecting of the dots when it comes to the place of Christianity in the American founding.

    So what a Christian world and life view does, as well as a Framean biblicism, is give Christians the green light to try to vindicate their knowledge or ignorance with the glow of holy writ and regeneration.

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37. DGH: This may be. But it does not mean that the Christian teacher is any better at connecting the dots. We have tons of examples of bad connecting of the dots when it comes to the place of Christianity in the American founding.

    Sure we do. And we have tons of examples of bad connection of dots in secular academia, also. What does that prove? Certainly not this …

    DGH: So what a Christian world and life view does, as well as a Framean biblicism, is give Christians the green light to try to vindicate their knowledge or ignorance with the glow of holy writ and regeneration.

    You’re absolutely right that some Christians do a bad job of connecting the dots. But in laying it at the feet of “Framean biblicism”, you’re engaging in an argument-from-abuse … a logical error that goes beyond the evidence.

    Can’t you see the irony here?

    Let’s pinpoint the problem with the Peter Marshall theory of history. I would say, he cherry-picks data to support a preconceived idea (“America is the New Israel”). Right? In the end, Marshall is either not completely honest, or else unable to tell the difference between proof and conjecture.

    There’s nothing there that is remotely related to “world-and-viewism” or “Framean biblicism.” Or is there some command in Scripture that I missed that says, “Be mendacious with your data sets”?

    And back up a moment: Do you think van Til himself was a Framean biblicist? Did he seek a “green light to vindicate his ignorance with a glow of holy writ and regeneration?”

    See, I have vanTilian and Kuyperian colleagues here. They are unanimous in rejecting the “Christian nation” theory of American history. They are unanimous in insisting on good historical method from their students. To my mind, their existence speaks loads louder than your theory that “world-and-lifeviewism leads to vindication of ignorance.” The actual world-and-lifeviewers that I know don’t remotely resemble the world-and-lifeviewers of which you speak.

    That’s a problem.

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38. But we do agree on one thing. I agree with you that the entire unholy merger of patriotism with spirituality at places like (the old?) Coral Ridge is a significant issue in the church.

    You would find the solution by bifurcating knowledge into secular and sacred realms — what Steven J Gould called non-overlapping magisteria.

    My own history with that framework leads me to believe that it doesn’t work. In the end, Gould will insist not only on evolution, but on the non-existence of Adam and Noah. What are you going to do then?

    I would point to a different solution. Teach the man in the pew to pay no attention to the celebrities, and pay attention to the Scripture instead. And then view the entirety of creation as good-but-fallen, the arena in which we glorify God, which pursuit leads us to be as truthful and creative as possible.

    And in the process, we can see that the church transcends nations, that our allegiance to God is not the same as our patriotic duty to America, and that our hope is not in this world but the next.

    If you want to mock that as “biblicism”, then go for it; but I’ve decided to be immune to that particular criticism until it can offer something more substantial than an epithet.

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39. OK, that’s fair. I should have been more explicit — you flatten all political issues. And that would be my criticism: where it comes to the political, all issues are treated equally. But not all political issues are in fact equal; some have moral elements to them.

    Actually, I’d say that most political issues have moral dimensions to them. But since they also include other dimensions important to human endeavors, political considerations have to take into account more than just the moral aspects.

    Far better to see it like this: Education is primarily intellectual, but it has affective and spiritual components as well..

    Yes, I think that’s a fair clarification of what I am trying to say. However, you are now suggesting that the affective and spiritual are synonymous—sort of like how people make the emotional and spiritual synonymous. Education is not a spiritual project because only the home and church have been ordained for spiritual nurture.

    And the neglect of those spiritual components can be fatal.

    Then you agree with Dennis Johnson that secular schooling for Christian kids is “dangerous”? Odd for a guy who public schools—why would you put your kids into danger? But the spiritual isn’t being neglected when the child is being nurtured in the faith at home and church. It’s not being neglected, it’s being put into its right place.

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40. The actual world-and-lifeviewers that I know don’t remotely resemble the world-and-lifeviewers of which you speak.

    Jeff, speaking of matching worldviewism up with real examples, worldviewer Dr. Stob (Calvin College) once preached in the PM service of our neo-Cal church. He is the Headmaster of a Presbyterian day school. He relayed from the pulpit that only 10% of the families there attend church on a weekly basis.

    I found that not only staggering in and of itself but a real world affirmation of my theory that there is significant over-realization of education going on. It tells me that worldviewism thinks that at least one of the institutions ordained for spiritual nurture may be neglected since spiritual nurture happens in school. My bet is that those families also don’t see to it that they catechize their children (do people who skip church actually take the time to catechize at home? Doubtful). So the entire thing gets put onto the shoulders of the one institution NOT ordained for spiritual nurture, while the other two that are get neglected.

    Also, as I understand it, CVT was livid when he surveyed the state of Christian education in his time, since nobody was delivering “Christian education” as he conceived of it. That might be because, for all the lip service paid to it, nobody really knows what in thee heck it is.

    And P.S. as I understand it, the secondary worldview day schools around here in Little Geneva don’t require biblical instruction, but they do require classes on world religion, because, you know, we have to know the places we mean to transform.

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41. Zrim: Then you agree with Dennis Johnson that secular schooling for Christian kids is “dangerous”? Odd for a guy who public schools—why would you put your kids into danger?

    I would say that schooling is dangerous (and living is dangerous). Public school trades off one set of dangers for another.

    Zrim: However, you are now suggesting that the affective and spiritual are synonymous

    Quite the opposite. I used two words because they are two different things. And I was pointing out that, like it or not, education enters into both of those realms.

    Zrim: He relayed from the pulpit that only 10% of the families there attend church on a weekly basis.

    I found that not only staggering in and of itself but a real world affirmation of my theory that there is significant over-realization of education going on. It tells me that worldviewism thinks that at least one of the institutions ordained for spiritual nurture may be neglected since spiritual nurture happens in school. My bet is that those families also don’t see to it that they catechize their children (do people who skip church actually take the time to catechize at home? Doubtful). So the entire thing gets put onto the shoulders of the one institution NOT ordained for spiritual nurture, while the other two that are get neglected.

    Wow … I share your dismay. If indeed this were the kind of worldviewism I encountered, I would reject it also.

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42. Enjoy the process of educating your kids properly. Don’t get bogged down in the petty debates. I had big plans for my kids education. I wanted them to get a good classical education and started the home schooling process and ordered all classical education books and then it was all torn apart. God is good though and is putting it back together. My hope is for my grandkids now and doing my part to encourage my kids marriages- that they fight through to the end. It is a very difficult battle.

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43. Jeff,

    I think that we’re getting closer to some form of agreement, as you at least admit that your concerns with 2K are more political than moral. Moreover, you acknowledge that both sides of a political issue can have moral dimensions.

    I think that we–on this blog, at least–can agree that abortion-on-demand is a horrific practice. The difference of opinion centers on whether criminal punishment (namely, murder prosecution) is a desirable policy measure for addressing this social ill. In previous comments, I’ve addressed why criminalizing abortion as a form of murder would present a number of difficulties (notwithstanding the difficulty of seating a 12-person jury that would unanimously convict someone of such a crime, where the jury knows that life imprisonment may ensue). So, I won’t repeat my concerns here.

    For such reasons, a number of us prefer to direct our activism toward other initiatives that we believe stand a better chance of actually reducing the number of abortions (e.g., crisis pregnancy centers). This is not because we’re morally hardened, or because we believe that all moral questions are of equal weight. No. It’s because we believe that initiatives to criminalize abortion as murder are doomed to fail and that they are a complete waste of time. In general, I just don’t want to invest my time and energy into things that I believe are wrongheaded and ineffective.

    No one here is arguing that we shouldn’t work to reduce the prevalence of abortion in our society. We just disagree on the means. So, I agree with Zrim in questioning your motives in continuing to bring up the topic. It seems that you want to bind folks’ consciences to particular policy proposals for addressing abortion. You seem to join with the Baylys in suggesting that one can only be a “true” opponent of abortion if one advocates the same policy measures that you do (e.g., murder prosecutions). Such my-way-or-the-highway thinking causes splintering among pro-life advocates, which in turn works to the political advantage of the proponents of abortion-on-demand.

    I do think that worldviewism is to blame, in part, for this. Worldviewism turns every political issue into an issue of Biblical fidelity. Therefore, the advocates of worldviewism have difficulty reconciling how there can be more than one genuinely Christian way to address a political question. If two of us disagree, worldviewism requires that that one or both of us is being unfaithful. In contrast, 2K advocates recognize that political questions are complex, moral concerns may pull in competing directions, and that natural reasoning (i.e., wisdom) provides us with a reasonable means to engage the culture without having to proclaim as infidels all who disagree with us.

    Honestly, my concern is not that people aren’t catching the larger theological significance of 2+2=4. Instead, I’m concerned that Biblicists and transformationalists spend too little time familiarizing themselves with the data of living, end up proposing that 2+2=3 or that 2+2=5, and then aver that no true Christian could believe otherwise.

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44. I would say that schooling is dangerous (and living is dangerous). Public school trades off one set of dangers for another.

    I’m not exactly sure what this is supposed to mean. But what I was trying to say is that when you say “education has spiritual components and the neglect of those spiritual components can be fatal,” you seem to be making the case for those who say secular education is dangerous for Christian kids. And I’m not sure how making the case for those who would say this squares with your own practice of public schooling your own; it seems self-defeating. When I deny that education has the power to either nurture or deconstruct faith my own practice seems less vulnerable to the charge to putting my kids in spiritual harm’s way. The way I actually do that is to neglect or otherwise contradict their catechesis and/or their attendance to the means of grace.

    Quite the opposite [that the affective and spiritual are synonymous]. I used two words because they are two different things. And I was pointing out that, like it or not, education enters into both of those realms.

    I place “affective” into the category of creation, along with the intellect and the will. They are natural categories. “Spiritual” is in the category of redemption and so is supernatural. I take it that is what you mean when you say they are two different things. But if that’s the case then I still don’t see how education (read: curriculum, not catechesis) bears on spiritual development. It seems like saying that natural understanding bears on supernatural belief, or creation affects redemption. This is where probably my rigid 2k walls are coming into play (whereas yours blend), as in “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”

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45. Jeff and Bob, I’d raise the stakes by going beyond America’s Christian origins and the David Barton school or the complicated nature of political questions to the Augustinian idea — which is a very hard sell — that we can correlate God’s ways with our affairs. Whether it comes to a Christian country, a Christian lit. curriculum, or a Christian policy, trying to identify God’s understanding of earthly affairs with our understanding is a huge categorical mistake. So even while the folks at your school, Jeff, are not fans of a Christian America account of the founding, I suspect that efforts to interpret other parts of the curriculum with such reserve are not as apparent. After all, the reason for a Christian school is to supply the Christian meaning of 2+2 = 4. If that meaning is simply God is the creator and has established an order in the world that allowed the Arabs to develop a numerical system — btw, without the assistance of the true religion — that we can use for all sorts of calculations, fine. But if it enters into more grandiose claims about Christ or redemption I have to shout “stop.” And what I’m particularly troubled by is the lack of attention to all the learning in classical Christian schools that uses the wisdom and education of the pagans. If we could acknowledge the sufficiency of general revelation and human reason for a whole lot of secular stuff, then we wouldn’t need classical Christian schools when simple classical schools would be sufficient.

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46. Bob and DGH, you are both saying reasonable things here. I may not get to everything at once, but it doesn’t mean I’m ignoring things.

    In brief:

    (1) Bob, it is important and beneficial that you are being clear that abortion is a moral evil. Earlier, you seemed to side with those agnostic on the moral status of the unborn baby. It is helpful to more fully understand where you are coming from.

    (2) Bob: You seem to join with the Baylys in suggesting that one can only be a “true” opponent of abortion if one advocates the same policy measures that you do (e.g., murder prosecutions).

    No, actually not so. Briefly: magistrates must restrain evil; abortion is an evil; therefore, abortion should be restrained; the means are at liberty.

    More later.

    (3) Bob: I’m concerned that Biblicists and transformationalists spend too little time familiarizing themselves with the data of living, end up proposing that 2+2=3 or that 2+2=5, and then aver that no true Christian could believe otherwise.

    I share your concern. But I don’t limit the concern to “Biblicists and transformationalists” only.

    (4) DGH : I’d raise the stakes by going beyond America’s Christian origins and the David Barton school or the complicated nature of political questions to the Augustinian idea — which is a very hard sell — that we can correlate God’s ways with our affairs.

    I think the biggest selling point is that Proverbs appears to do exactly that.

    You spoke a while back about Scripture speaking of “wisdom.” And I agree. What is the beginning of wisdom?

    Let’s grant that by common grace, those without the true religion can create trigonometry.

    But still and all: what does Proverbs mean? Your version of 2k appears to say both of two contradictory things at once:

    * That wisdom has nothing to do with the fear of the Lord; it is a matter of simply figuring out how the world works, AND
    * Wisdom is limited to issues within the church.

    But Proverbs doesn’t appear to teach either of those things.

    So whatever agreement we may have about the value of godless trigonometry, you still owe us a clear account of what wisdom means and why it begins with the fear of the Lord.

    (4) DGH: After all, the reason for a Christian school is to supply the Christian meaning of 2+2 = 4. If that meaning is simply God is the creator and has established an order in the world that allowed the Arabs to develop a numerical system — btw, without the assistance of the true religion — that we can use for all sorts of calculations, fine.

    Fine. And one more thing: that the end of one’s education is to love God with the mind and to be prepared to serve one’s neighbor.

    Is that still fine?

    DGH: But if it enters into more grandiose claims about Christ or redemption I have to shout “stop.”

    I’ll play the drums while you shout, then. I don’t view math as inherently redemptive, nor salvific. I do view math as useful to the church, much as history is useful to the church; but it is neither the mission of the church nor a backdoor way to bring about redemption.

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47. Zrim: But what I was trying to say is that when you say “education has spiritual components and the neglect of those spiritual components can be fatal,” you seem to be making the case for those who say secular education is dangerous for Christian kids.

    No, sorry. What I’m saying is that all of secular and Christian and home education will “necessarily traffic” in spiritual matters. Whether that trafficking is beneficial or baneful is not as easy as looking at the label: some secular teachers will purposefully limit their trafficking, while others will reach over into Heather and her mommies. Some Christian teachers will display wisdom; others might purvey legalism or Arminianism.

    Zrim: But if that’s the case then I still don’t see how education (read: curriculum, not catechesis) bears on spiritual development.

    Because we are people and not robots.
    The point is that the individual parent must assess the individual teachers, peer groups, and curricula. The label (secular, Christian, homeschool) does not correlate highly with the quality of the product.

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48. To pigg-back on something Jeff hit on by mentioning Proverbs, also consider this:
    Col 2:1-4
    “1 For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words.”

    Now, this knowledge is not restricted to the knowledge of the Word, or of “spiritual” things. It does say “all”…and in this case, all means all. Paul encourages these believers to consider this in *all* circumstances, not just limited to the teaching of Spiritual things…all means all. Further, he says this to the end lest “anyone” deceive them…”anyone” means…well, anyone, even those unbelieving science and math teachers. So Paul is saying “Don’t be deceived by any persuasive words; any knowledge opposing Christ is not knowledge as all knowledge and wisdom is found in Him”.

    So we may learn accurate facts from unbelievers, but their way of knowing we must not learn. Further, what he knows (if true), though he doesn’t know it rightly, is something deposited in Christ (Van Til sounds a lot like Paul, doesn’t he?).

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49. I am not aware of good quality educational resources available to families and helps to families in discerning what quality educational resources are. There is a lot I would like to look into in regards to this in order to help my kids in their raising of their families and being a resource for them. I think classical education is the way to go but I do not see that this educational philosophy is dominant or even registers as a significant voice in the debated about educational philosophies. I know Catholics, the Reformed and Lutherans usually have the best reputations in regards to quality education in areas and communities I have lived in. I do not know much about the curricula they use and how the curricula differs among themselves, other private schools and the public schools. This should be something that families should be much more concerned with and I do not see a lot of discussion about it. It is a wonderful thing to watch the development of kids and they respond to the attention so clearly and positively. When the right philosophy and curricula come into the educational process amazing things happen and the work becomes a joy rather then tedious labor. Although labor still is part of it, it is a labor that is engaging and fulfilling.

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50. Can someone please set Craig straight. I wonder if Craig has any friends outside of his Church life and is he a real friend to them or does he look upon his relationships with unbelievers as trying to gain another notch on his belt. Maybe he needs to read some Francis Schaeffer in order to become more aware of the inherent dignity in man no matter what his or her beliefs are.

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51. And what I’m particularly troubled by is the lack of attention to all the learning in classical Christian schools that uses the wisdom and education of the pagans. If we could acknowledge the sufficiency of general revelation and human reason for a whole lot of secular stuff, then we wouldn’t need classical Christian schools when simple classical schools would be sufficient.

    Bingo. Sometimes I’ve wondered if the classical Christian school thing operates from the same principles as the Christian America thing: take a pagan method of doing a facet of earth (education, statecraft) and affix a Christian title, etc. If so, it’s odd to hear CCS types bemoan Christian Americaism.

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52. Because we are people and not robots. The point is that the individual parent must assess the individual teachers, peer groups, and curricula. The label (secular, Christian, homeschool) does not correlate highly with the quality of the product.

    Jeff, my point is precisely about what it means to be human. But if education bears on spiritual development the way some seem to suggest then maybe it’s because they think kids are altogether different creatures spiritually who, until 18 or 22, require more than home and church for spiritual development. I just find that bizarre, especially amongst those who hold that children of believers are holy and the ordinary means of grace are sufficient. I can’t but think this is to confuse natural and supernatural development.

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53. So we may learn accurate facts from unbelievers, but their way of knowing we must not learn.

    Craig, that’s why we go to church, to unlearn worldly ways. But worldly ways exist just as much in Christian day schools as they do others kinds. Despite all the effort, there really is no way to escape worldliness. Heck, even in the church, the only place to go to unlearn worldly ways, there is lots of worldliness, and that’s because sinners abide it.

    Again, I can’t help but think the confusion owes a lot to confusing natural knowledge with supernatural understanding.

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54. John: Re: educational resources: What subjects are you interested in, and at what age levels?

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55. Zrim: Sometimes I’ve wondered if the classical Christian school thing operates from the same principles as the Christian America thing: take a pagan method of doing a facet of earth (education, statecraft) and affix a Christian title, etc.

    And specifically, Platonism. Bill Davis does a nice lecture on the connection between “classical education” and Plato’s cave metaphor.

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56. John,
    you are a well-integrated, and reasonable fellow…aren’t you?

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57. Jeff,

    This caught my attention: “Bill Davis does a nice lecture on the connection between “classical education” and Plato’s cave metaphor.”

    Where can I find this?

    Thanks

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58. Zrim: “Craig, that’s why we go to church, to unlearn worldly ways. But worldly ways exist just as much in Christian day schools as they do others kinds.”

    Zrim, I realize wordly ways exist in Christian schools. You never fail to jump to unwarranted conclusions. I even said we may learn from unbelievers…I didn’t say “we must learn at Christian schools”.

    Zrim: “Despite all the effort, there really is no way to escape worldliness.”

    Astute observation. Now where did I say otherwise? I quoted Scripture. Do you disagree with Paul? Do you disagree with the Holy Spirit?

    Zrim: “Again, I can’t help but think…”

    I’m sorry for your limitation.

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59. I am going to make one more comment. It amazes me that many are not aware of the fact and do not take into consideration the enemies that rose up against Jesus, Paul and the Reformers when the Gospel and scriptures were proclaimed accurately and powerfully, ie., what their beliefs were and why they opposed the Gospel proclamation. It was not those who knew they were sinners who opposed the reforms and reformers but the entrenched religious community who had trouble with the good news of the Gospel. It was those who had control of the synagogues, churches etc., by the teaching which had become entrenched in the culture and their thinking who most violently opposed the reforms and reformers. It was those who would not listen and try to understand what the scriptures were actually teaching and saying and how it compared to what was the common way to understand things all around them. Reformers always seem to challenge the most entrenched ways of thinking which do not line up with what the scriptures actually say when interpreted properly. A lot of the ways we have learned to think need to be discarded in our lives. And this is not always easy to do.

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60. Jeff,

    I would like to see overall curricula for kids in elementary school, middle school and high school (math, history, grammar, logic, rhetoric, etc- the overall curriculum). I have grandkids from the ages of 6 months to 7 years old and my 2 boys just recently are married or getting married and do not have kids yet. I would like to be able to help them see what a good quality curricula is. And like I said, from a classical educational philosophy. I am also interested in that Plato’s cave and classical education lecture.

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61. John: “It amazes me that many are not aware of the fact and do not take into consideration the enemies that rose up against Jesus, Paul and the Reformers… It was not those who knew they were sinners who opposed the reforms and reformers but the entrenched religious community who had trouble with the good news of the Gospel. It was those who had control of the synagogues, churches etc”

    You just articulated what seems to be R2k’s mantra which is shared by the world: a hatred of authority.

    Of course, Rome seems to hates authority as well…the Reformers proclaimed the authority of Scripture, and that will always fly in the face of any unbelieving system. For Rome, the Word has authority where the Magisterium interprets it (which is nearly nowhere). For R2k the Word seems to have has authority over life that is not common (and where isn’t life common? Lord’s Day worship).

    The “common man” is not waiting for Reformers to rise up…they always rail against them because a Reformer grates against their notions of authority. Consider this: It wasn’t just the Jewish leaders that shouted Pilate into crucifying Jesus; it was the Jews in general…the common man. They may not have liked their Jewish leaders, but they shared a common profession: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

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62. Craig,

    Sometimes I fly off the handle.

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63. Craig,

    But you did not read my last couple of sentences.

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64. Craig,

    I suppose what I said could turn into biblicism too so it is tricky business. Also, I do believe in proper tradition. I try to adhere to what has been the best teaching in the historical Christian Church and probably have errors that I still function under. But I also try to stay teachable. I have found that who I listen to makes a difference so I try to discern who most accurately proclaims the truth wherever I can find it.

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65. Hi RL,

    It was part of a class lecture for a philosophy class at Reformed Theological Seminary, so let me reconstruct what I can. You could contact him directly if you want to pursue it: http://www.covenant.edu/academics/undergrad/philosophy/faculty/davis

    Essentially, Plato’s theory of knowledge is that we as embodied souls have lost contact with the true knowledge of forms. We perceive through our senses and are therefore like individuals chained up in a dark cave, with our backs to the sunlight coming through the opening behind us.

    Behind us, says Plato, are puppeteers carrying on a show with marionettes (the forms). Since our backs are turned, we see not the forms themselves, but the shadows of those forms on the wall. From them, we make inferences about the true forms themselves.

    The aim of education is to free the prisoners so that they can directly access the forms. For Plato, this happens in stages: first, concrete knowledge (grammar); then the beginnings of reason (logic); then abstract thought (rhetoric). Abstract thought is the means by which souls gain direct access to forms, which ultimately leads to knowledge of the good.

    Those who have true knowledge of the good, the philosophers, are those then best suited to rule.

    Davis’ point was that we should not reflexively accept “Classical Christian Education” as Christian per se, but as a model of education borrowed from the pagans. It was a note of caution, stemming from his concerns about Moscow, ID. But the same note of caution might be sounded concerning our local Classical Christian college, Patrick Henry: are we pursuing classical education so that we can love God with our minds, or so that we can be prepared to rule?

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66. Zrim: Jeff, my point is precisely about what it means to be human. But if education bears on spiritual development the way some seem to suggest then maybe it’s because they think kids are altogether different creatures spiritually who, until 18 or 22, require more than home and church for spiritual development.

    I don’t think you need to believe that school is a means of grace to believe that it is a spiritual influence. Teachers who deny the faith, especially ones who proselytize, are going to have a different influence from teachers who do not deny the faith (regardless of label, again).

    So my friend’s daughter, who left the faith after taking a particular sociology class, was affected spiritually by the teacher.

    You have three choices:

    (1) Deny that there is a spiritual influence (which you seem to want to do).
    (2) Attempt to minimize it by asking everybody really nicely to tie their hands behind their backs (the “secular” approach), or
    (3) Take each teacher and school on a case-by-case basis.

    I feel compelled to do the latter. (1) appears false to me; (2) appears to be wishful thinking.

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67. John, I don’t have specific knowledge about elementary education — it’s really outside my realm. I can put you in touch with a couple of schools, one Christian and one non-, whose academics I respect, and you could ask them.

    DGH, would you mind e-mailing John my e-mail?

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68. Sorry, Craig, but as a Baylyitte I thought it was reasonable to assume you had more or less the typical neo-Cal views on education. So employing secular education for covenant children isn’t handing them over to Molech, dangerous or otherwise impious?

    And I’m not sure where you get the idea that 2k has a hatred for authority. In fact, it’s the call to be submissive to and obey civil authority that gets 2k into so much hot water with Baylyittes. The howling over this point sure seems to suggest that the howlers don’t agree with what Paul has to say in Romans 13:1-6.

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69. I don’t think you need to believe that school is a means of grace to believe that it is a spiritual influence.

    Again, the distinction between “make” and “influence.” Lots of things can be said to influence us, but only homes make human beings and only churches redeem them. And when I hear some use the word “influence” in the context of education it sure sounds a lot like “make” or “co-make.” In fact, the mantra around these parts is, “I want my kids to get it at home, the school and the church,” where “it” means “religion.” Sorry, but I still don’t see any Scriptural warrant for a day school having that much power.

    So my friend’s daughter, who left the faith after taking a particular sociology class, was affected spiritually by the teacher.

    At the risk of speaking out of turn to an anecdote, apostasy is dicey and human being are complicated, so don’t you think it might be a little more complicated than that?

    Anyway, for an historical accounting of these things, consider W.A. Strong in his Children in the Early Church:

    “The early Christians lived in a society whose values were inimical to them in many respects. The pagan society around them was underpinned by a religion which they considered false, if not demonic; it was characterized by moral values they could not share; and it was entered into by an education steeped in paganism. So we might expect the early Christians to try to protect their young by providing some alternative form of education which would keep them free from the temptations and snares of the pagan world in which they lived. They had, after all, the example of the Jewish synagogue schools. But, rather surprisingly, the Christians did not take that course for several centuries. There was no fiercer critic of paganism than Tertullian (c. 160-c.225), but even he accepted the necessity for young people to share in the education on offer at pagan schools. His chosen image to describe the Christian pupil’s situation as he read the pagan authors whose work formed the ancient syllabus, was that of someone offered poison to drink, but refusing to take it (On Idolatry 10).

    “The young Origen (born c.185 AD)…is said to have received extra instruction in the Scriptures from his father, Leonides, each day before he set out for his secular schooling (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.2.7f.)…Here was a devout Christian father, later to be martyred for the gospel, who was nonetheless willing for his son to attend school, and follow the normal curriculum of the pagan classics. Origen himself became an enthusiast for secular education as a preparation for Biblical study, and in later life urged it on those who came to him for instruction (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.18.4: NE 192).
    “We hear of no Christian schooling outside the home in the early centuries. A century after Clement had written to Corinthian fathers and husbands to ‘instruct the young in the fear of God,’ the same pattern of family responsibility can be seen in Origen’s Alexandria. Christian parents were still content for their children to share a common education with their pagan neighbors, and the church was slow to copy the synagogue in providing an alternative pattern of schooling. Even when John Chrysostom (c.347-407) wrote the first Christian treatise on the education of children (On the Vainglory of the World and on the Education of Children), he addressed himself to parents, and said nothing about sending children to specifically Christian schools. The first Christian schools seem to have been those founded by the monasteries from the fourth century onwards (Marrou 1965 472-84).

    “It is worth asking why Christians did not take the opportunity to create their own schools. If we take the comparison with the Jewish community, one reason must have been that there was no need for Christian children to learn a sacred language; their Jewish contemporaries had to learn Hebrew. Those who spoke Greek could read the New Testament in its original language, and the Old Testament in Greek translation. And the New Testament Scriptures were rapidly translated into the various languages of the Mediterranean. Further, Christians did not see themselves as culturally distinct from their neighbours. An anonymous writer of the late second century expressed eloquently how Christians were in the world, but not of it:

    For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by country, or by speech, or by dress. For they do not dwell in cities of their own, or use a different language, or practise a peculiar speech…But while they dwell in Greek or barbarian cities according as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the land in clothing and food, and other matters of daily life, yet the condition of citizenship which they exhibit is wonderful, and admittedly strange…Every foreign land is to them a fatherland, and every fatherland a foreign land. (Epistle to Diognetus 6.1-5: NE 55).

    “To set up their own separate educational provision would have been to withdraw from the common life they shared with their pagan neighbours. And, while they recognized the dangers and allure of paganism, the early Christians saw no need to do that. They let their children ‘share in the instruction which is in Christ’ (1 Clement), and they allowed them access to education for the wider pagan society. They were not trying to create a Christian ghetto, but to be salt and light in their world. Their attitude to their children’s education was an expression of this open yet critical attitude.”

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70. OK, now the Thanksgiving break has officially begun.

    Bob, given two points of agreement:

    (1) (most) abortions are wicked, and we should take steps to reduce them drastically, and
    (2) The most effective solutions are the most desirable,

    Does that still give us room to vote pro-choice?

    And by “voting pro-choice”, here I’m limiting myself to direct ballot initiatives, rather than candidates. For example, in 1992, the state of MD legalized elective abortion for all nine months of gestation as a result of a ballot initiative (that passed with 2/3 majority, IIRC).

    I would argue, No. Voting to allow abortion is a species of that which “tends to the destruction of life of others” (WLC 136), as demonstrated by the sharp rise in abortion rates post-Roe.

    Now having said that, I’m open to being argued out of this view.

    So notice (Zrim, take special note) that here, I’m not arguing that all political questions are subject to definitive Scriptural answers.

    Instead, pragmatically, I’m arguing that on this one question, Scripture appears to restrict our freedom so greatly that there is unlikely to be more than one reasonable answer.

    It would be the same if there were a ballot initiative to “permit parents to use capital punishment on their children” (as was the case in Rome). Besides being a stupid idea, this particular ballot initiative would simply fly in the face of Scripture to such a great extent, that a Christian could not reasonably vote for it.

    —

    And here’s the danger that I see in pc-2k, one which could be mistaken for antinomianism. We agree that “we should work to reduce the prevalence of abortion in our society. ” And that gives us liberty to choose the means.

    But having said that, we now have to ask the question, Are you (am I?) actually seeking out the effective means of doing so? Are we putting as much energy behind this issue as it deserves?

    OR

    Are we allowing liberty to become a cover for doing nothing? We remember the famous “safe, legal, and rare” pledge by Bill Clinton.

    Given that you have liberty to pursue the best means for reducing abortions, are you actually pursuing those means? Am I?

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71. So Craig, where exactly do you get from Scripture the rule that bases on a baseball field should be 90 feet apart? Do you think Christians should have different length base paths? Why? And if Christians play baseball (not on Sunday, of course), have they bowed the knee to “common” unregenerate men?

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72. Zrim: “Sorry, Craig, but as a Baylyitte I thought it was reasonable to assume you had more or less the typical neo-Cal views on education.”

    Isn’t it amazing how every time you make assertions, I have to correct you? I am, as you say a “Baylyite”. BTW, the Baylys are not opposed to sending covenant children to public schools. You probably won’t believe this, at least one Bayly child is currently enrolled at a public school.

    Zrim: “And I’m not sure where you get the idea that 2k has a hatred for authority. In fact, it’s the call to be submissive to and obey civil authority that gets 2k into so much hot water with Baylyittes.”

    Re-read John’s comment. There’s an inherent proletariat utopianism about the “common man”. It’s like you guys are trying to save the world from faith. All lump and no leaven ala Matt 13:33.

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73. DGH: “So Craig, where exactly do you get from Scripture the rule that bases on a baseball field should be 90 feet apart? Do you think Christians should have different length base paths? Why? And if Christians play baseball (not on Sunday, of course), have they bowed the knee to “common” unregenerate men?”

    Where do you get the idea that where the Bible is silent, there is liberty?

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74. Jeff, Actually, I do think wisdom has to do with the fear of the Lord, but not with the fear of Christ. What I mean is that Leon Kass is incredibly wise. So is Wendell Berry. Neither of these men begins and ends with Christ as redeemer. Kass is a Jew and Berry is a Southern Baptist who is not overly scrupulous about theology. But both believe in a creator and that the order of the world comes from a creator.

    On the other hand, Paul thought the Greeks were wise. So did Calvin. So do I. I stand in good company. But for salvation the Greeks were dopes — Paul’s word is foolish. So you can be wise about this world and foolish about the world to come. I don’t see anyway around this dichotomy, and it is reinforced by the idea that the Bible is not nearly so sharp on mixed forms of governments as Aristotle was. But I’ll take the Bible any day for salvation. God gave us Aristotle for politics.

    The problem with using schools so that students will love God with their minds is that all Christians, educated or no, are supposed to love God with their whole being. But if you turn education into this fancy-schmancy realm where Christians with intellects get to love God better because their minds are trained, I think you have set up another two-tier system of piety, not far removed from medieval Christianity’s monastic movements.

    As for the usefulness of this to the church, I don’t know. I couldn’t justify teaching a Sunday school class on the election of 1828. I sure hope you wouldn’t teach a Sunday school class on calculus.

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75. Craig, what’s wrong with the unbelievers’ way of knowing. Don’t Christian schools have tests, periods, semesters, observation, reading, writing, libraries? Sure looks to me like believers and unbelievers have the same way of knowing the three R’s.

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76. Craig, from Paul (maybe you’ve heard of him). Seems that Galatians was very important to the Reformers.

    How about telling me where you get the measurements for a baseball field? For that matter, where do you get the length of a foot or a yard or a meter? Oh no! Where’s the proof text!

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77. Darryl, where does the Bible say where it is silent, there is liberty?

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78. Craig, Matt. 15:9.

    I’m still waiting on the base paths.

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79. DGH: But if you turn education into this fancy-schmancy realm where Christians with intellects get to love God better because their minds are trained…

    *rolls eyes*

    Please tell me how what I said could possibly be construed as this.

    DGH: I sure hope you wouldn’t teach a Sunday school class on calculus.

    No, my middle-schoolers get a three-year rotation: OT, NT, Confession, repeat.

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80. Darryl, I’d love to see some exegesis. Do you know of any scholarly commentaries that exegete the verse that way?

    Anyway, since the bible doesn’t say 2+2=4, and Christians at liberty to believe that it is 5?

    The verse seems to suggest that “mere human teachings” are not certain or necessarily true. Is that your view of 2+2=4?

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81. Craig: “Darryl, where does the Bible say where it is silent, there is liberty?”

    Craig, what’s the alternative? If you don’t have liberty, what is the silent Bible telling you to do?

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82. Darryl: “Craig, Matt. 15:9”

    I don’t think you could have come up with a more ironic proof-text. Thanks. I really wasn’t expecting any Scripture reference, I expected you to dance around like usual bombastically asking why Ikea doesn’t pass out Bibles with their furniture instead of assembly instructions. You stepped it up with the irony, though.

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83. DGH: Jeff, Actually, I do think wisdom has to do with the fear of the Lord, but not with the fear of Christ. What I mean is that Leon Kass is incredibly wise. So is Wendell Berry. Neither of these men begins and ends with Christ as redeemer. Kass is a Jew and Berry is a Southern Baptist who is not overly scrupulous about theology. But both believe in a creator and that the order of the world comes from a creator.

    I don’t want to mock this, because I’m sure you’re aware of the surface-level contradiction. But as I toss it back and forth looking for the underlying truth, I think the surface level has a lot to recommend itself: How can we divide “Christ” from “the Lord”?

    On the one hand, you seem to be saying that Solomon has generalized theism in mind: wisdom begins with acknowledging god, any god. (For Kass’s god is certainly not the triune Deity). And I’m pretty sure that Solomon did not intend that any old god was to be feared, his later polytheism notwithstanding.

    On the other, your stipulation of theism as a starting point seems to undermine your whole argument that knowledge of the created world is secular, without reference to deity whatsoever. I thought you wanted agnostic and atheist plumbers to be equally wise in the ways of plumbing as Christians.

    So after tossing it around, I’m thinking that your hair won’t split. Christ is the Lord.

    But again, I don’t want to mock, so say more.

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84. Craig, I didn’t ask you where Bayly’s send their kids, I asked you if you think employing secular education for covenant children isn’t handing them over to Molech, dangerous or otherwise impious. But since you tugged it in that direction, something tells me the Bayly’s behave a lot like my fundies who employ public schools, looking for devils under every doily, ranting about one hidden agenda or another and otherwise, behaving more like just another special interest group demanding rights than those called to seek the peace of the city, taking every opportunity to embarrass the covenant community.

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85. Jeff, I don’t buy the whole “safe, legal and rare” arguments from choicers. It amounts to saying that because the world is a big bad place we should allow some people to hold sway over the lives of others. Frankly, the unborn simply don’t have time to wait for the world to gets its act together so that the admittedly complex social conditions that give rise to the situations which make abortion look feasible get reduced. Who could argue with addressing these conditions, but make it legal in the meanitime? It’s like saying because there is poverty we should make bread stealing legal. I understand, but fubar.

    But I also remain equally unconvinced by lifer arguments that Scripture binds anyone’s conscience about how to vote, no matter how disagreeable. This is precisely the point about political liberty–it gets put to the test when our strongest held political virtues are being challenged. Like I suggested to Paul, I think it best to oppose our political opponents in the voting booth and protect their political liberty around the Table.

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86. Zrim said: “Craig, I didn’t ask you where Bayly’s send their kids, I asked you if you think employing secular education for covenant children isn’t handing them over to Molech, dangerous or otherwise impious.”

    You actually didn’t ask me anything, you asserted that I rejected public schooling because you though the Baylys do. Here’s what I mean, you said: “Sorry, Craig, but as a Baylyitte I thought it was reasonable to assume you had more or less the typical neo-Cal views on education.”

    Zrim said: “something tells me the Bayly’s behave a lot like my fundies who employ public schools, looking for devils under every doily, ranting about one hidden agenda or another and otherwise, behaving more like just another special interest group demanding rights than those called to seek the peace of the city, taking every opportunity to embarrass the covenant community”

    I don’t know what this “something” is that tells you things, but you really ought to stop listening to it. It can really make you look bad.

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87. BTW, if you have a real question, and not some ridiculously loaded one…go ahead sometime.

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88. Brian Lee: “Craig, what’s the alternative? If you don’t have liberty, what is the silent Bible telling you to do?”

    James 1:22-25
    22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

    The Bible speaks of liberty differently than R2k. The perfect law of liberty is the Word getting into a man and seeping out of his pores…this man will be blessed in *all* that he does. This man doesn’t go out in the world as if the Word is silent…he’s not so stupid as to forget his own face looks like.

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89. Craig, if the Bible is the norm for everything, how about baseball. As Jeff has reminded us over and over again, baseball is part of everything. If you want to modify your claims about the scope and authority of Scripture, fine. But otherwise, step up to the plate.

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90. Craig, maybe you haven’t heard about the Reformed tradition. Christians have liberty from the doctrines and commandments of men because the Bible doesn’t teach those doctrines or commandments. This happens to be a central thought in Paul’s writings to the early Christians. You are in the position of the Judaizers (who actually probably showed more charity) because you are trying to bind other believers with your understanding of the evil of abortion. I have no liberty to declare the destruction of innocent life good. The Bible condemns such wickedness. I do have liberty to refrain from picketing or having the same level of alarm as other people.

    This is why 2kers have been among the most vigorous defenders of justification by faith. Without that truth, Christians must keep the works of the law in order to remain in a blessed state at least in this life. But with that truth, we no longer face condemnation from the law, and cannot be bound by those who require us to do the works of the law in order to be saved.

    I do not doubt that you disbelieve justification by faith. But the Judaizers also believed in justification. It’s just that they added to justification the observance of circumcision. They thought that was pretty serious. You add concern/hatred/activism against abortion to justification. You think it is very serious. You do not talk about liberty the way that Reformed Christians do.

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91. Jeff, well you may think you got me but VanDrunen does explain the difference between Christ’s lordship as mediator and as creator. It seems to me my examples make perfect sense of that distinction. Kass and Berry recognize a creator. I’m not sure that Kass would call him Christ (nor am I sure that Solomon would either).

    The point of bringing them up was actually to show that I do think presuppositions about a creator are fairly significant when it comes to evaluating this world. Most of the people whom I regard as wise do believe in a god or gods. That is very different from those who don’t. But believing in a creator is one thing, a savior another.

    What’s interesting though for your points about biblicism is that Solomon does not say that wisdom begins with the study of Scripture. Even the Confession of Faith, chapter 21, acknowledges that people have an awareness of the creator intuitively.

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92. Paul, not that I know a ton about the history of math, but I hear the Greeks did not use Arabic numbers. So the Greeks would be completely flummoxed by the idea that 2+2 = 4. Are you meaning to suggest, that if you were Paul the evangelist, you’d go to the Greeks and require them to believe in that mathematical formulation?

    Please say no.

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93. Zrim: But I also remain equally unconvinced by lifer arguments that Scripture binds anyone’s conscience about how to vote, no matter how disagreeable. This is precisely the point about political liberty–it gets put to the test when our strongest held political virtues are being challenged. Like I suggested to Paul, I think it best to oppose our political opponents in the voting booth and protect their political liberty around the Table.

    Well, we agree on this at least: I would not discipline someone for their vote.

    For one thing: how would I know? For another: there *is* a difference between direct sin and indirect. For yet another: there is a difference between willful sin and sin that arises from foolishness. I find most Christian pro-choicers to be in the latter category.

    And I think this is an important distinction that has been somewhat disallowed here, but which I am not willing to abandon: There is a difference between saying “Thus sayeth the Lord” and “This is what we will discipline you for.”

    The Scripture does not give us liberty to be harsh and unreasonable with our children. Yet it would have to be an extreme case of harshness that would rise to the level of discipline. There are many, many areas where Scripture is not silent, yet the church courts ought not call to account.

    Insisting that discipline is the measure of what Scripture speaks to is misguided. The purpose of Scripture (in a 3rd use sense) is not to provide a judicial manual for the church courts, but to provide the individual Christian with a light for his path.

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94. DGH: I’ll keep thinking about your points, but I’m not convinced at the moment. Solomon may not have said that wisdom starts with the Law, but his father did, repeatedly. (and anyways, there is Prov 28.7).

    And the argument that Solomon would not have said that Christ is Lord is utterly unconvincing, and is completely out of character with the tenor of Vosian theology. Berry and Kass stand on the other side of the cross from Solomon.

    That said, I don’t want to deny that Berry and Kass may experience common grace that allows them to have genuine wisdom of a sort. I’m just not convinced that theirs is fully connected to its proper context.

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95. DGH: As Jeff has reminded us over and over again, baseball is part of everything.

    That was plumbing. Baseball is of the devil. Just kidding.

    But seriously, I have reminded over and over that the kind of speaking that Scripture does is not an exhaustive stipulation, but of a normative framework kind of speaking. So we should not expect, necessarily, that Scripture would have anything whatever to say about baselines and bat types — unless a particular bat type were to contravene a Scriptural norm (for example: if aluminum bats were to be hazardous to the health of the players, we might have to think about it …)

    So DGH, I’m a bit perplexed at this stage of the game why you want to ask Craig or me or anyone to produce Scriptural pronouncements on baselines. I’ve given fair notice that there aren’t any, and that the way in which Scripture speaks to baseball is not in that way.

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96. You actually didn’t ask me anything, you asserted that I rejected public schooling because you though the Baylys do. Here’s what I mean, you said: “Sorry, Craig, but as a Baylyitte I thought it was reasonable to assume you had more or less the typical neo-Cal views on education.”

    Craig, not to be petty, but, yes, I did ask you something. Here it is again, and I quote: “So employing secular education for covenant children isn’t handing them over to Molech, dangerous or otherwise impious?” So?

    I don’t know what this “something” is that tells you things, but you really ought to stop listening to it. It can really make you look bad.

    I call it intuition. It’s like a conscience, which is like a pair of eyes or legs, all of which are God-given, so all of which I heartily employ without fear. And based on my experience with Christians who, speaking of looking bad, wag their fingers at civil magistrates in their so-called “sermons,” or what I call glorified political speeches(http://www.baylyblog.com/2009/06/a-sermon-for-the-presidentand-for-the-people-of-god.html), it is usually the same who use their public school citizenship to do the same. Are you telling me a Baylyitte who castigates his magistrate doesn’t also take any opportunity to do the same thing to his school board?

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97. Voting to allow abortion is a species of that which “tends to the destruction of life of others” (WLC 136), as demonstrated by the sharp rise in abortion rates post-Roe…There is a difference between saying “Thus sayeth the Lord” and “This is what we will discipline you for”…Insisting that discipline is the measure of what Scripture speaks to is misguided. The purpose of Scripture (in a 3rd use sense) is not to provide a judicial manual for the church courts, but to provide the individual Christian with a light for his path.

    Jeff, I am putting together some statements of yours that I just find difficult to work through. Taken altogether I still don’t know just where you draw your lines. And it almost seems like you don’t think there is any place for discipline, that everything is only admonishment or exhortation. Sorry, but I happen to think discipline is a very useful category for these questions. Frankly, if God has spoken clearly on what is not permissible then it may not be done without threat of possible discipline upon unrepentance (and, btw, let it be known that my idea of the aim of discipline isn’t to merely punish and cast someone away but to restore and bring someone back). My aim isn’t to soft-peddle discipline, rather it’s to maintain a rigorous view of discipline but ask whether something can be disciplined. And my standing point has been that it is personal behavior that can be disciplined, not political behavior. Others disagree. But the answer to all of this isn’t to blur the lines between admonishment and discipline, it’s to make bright the lines between personal behavior and political action.

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98. Jeff,

    Sorry about asking for the curricula info. It is not that difficult to find a lot of information about classical education on the internet. They even have detailed curriculum for all ages. I just thought you might have some good information that you would not have to spend to much of your time gathering and sending my way. Thanks for responding and I have already found out a lot about the curriculum’s. There are some good essays written that I found about the controversies of classical education. Educational issues usually open up Pandora’s box and the debates are endless about it.

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99. Zrim,

    I can appreciate that my statements might be hard to take together. That’s partly the nature of back-and-forth bloggery, and partly the nature of the question, which is really hard.

    Here it is, as clear as I can make it:

    (1) The purpose of Christian ethics is primarily to give guidance to the individual Christian: How do I go about figuring out what I ought to do?

    (2) Given that, on any particular issue, Scripture may or may not have norms that apply. The ones that apply, must apply.

    (3) Where there are not norms, there is liberty.

    The question of discipline is separate, for this reason: In addition to Scriptural norms, a session has to weigh additional questions — Is this an issue that we should get involved in? Is this a matter of the heart that cannot be addressed by discipline, but should be addressed by teaching of the Word? Is this an area where we would do more harm than good by disciplining?

    And I would argue for that reason that the session has a higher burden of proof than an individual Christian.

    So for example, it makes sense to me that DGH believes that Scriptural teaching leads him to not shop at Wal-Mart AND ALSO that the session should not require the same decision of his entire church. That fits perfectly with the above framework.

    The place where I cut the cake differently from you is that I don’t think political decisions are separate from personal ones. Each voter is a magistrate; his personal decisions in the voting booth are political also (and often based on personal preferences anyways).

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100. Zrim, I thought you might find this interesting:

     http://www.slate.com/id/2275072/
     http://www.slate.com/id/2275256/

     JRC

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101. “Re-read John’s comment. There’s an inherent proletariat utopianism about the “common man”. It’s like you guys are trying to save the world from faith. All lump and no leaven ala Matt 13:33.”

     Craig,

     You have a funny way of twisting comments around and reading into them things which fit your bias and point of view. The Gospel is very good at breaking down social distinctions and Paul and Jesus seemed to be at ease with the common man as well as those in the upper, elitist or aristocratic classes of society. In fact, Paul seems to have developed friendships with the common man and even slaves (see the book of Philemon). In the tradition I believe in there is a place for those of superior talent and authority- after all, I do read a lot of the magisterial reformers. So, I think your comment about my “inherent proletariat utopianism about the common man” is more your conjecture than anything else. Tradition and authority holds societies together so if you think I am a Commi revolutionary you are greatly mistaken. In the Church however there are no social distinctions- we are all sinners dependent on the work of Christ and God’s grace to approach Him in worship, hear His Law and Gospel and partake of the sacraments each week.

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102. Darryl,

     “Paul, not that I know a ton about the history of math, but I hear the Greeks did not use Arabic numbers. So the Greeks would be completely flummoxed by the idea that 2+2 = 4. Are you meaning to suggest, that if you were Paul the evangelist, you’d go to the Greeks and require them to believe in that mathematical formulation?

     Please say no.”

     Oh, so your answer is to confuse numerals with numbers. Gottcha. Apart from that, nice dodge. When you have a serious answer, let me know. Oh, and what about the exegesis?

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103. Jeff, speaking of burdens, it does seem to me that to not distinguish between political and personal might entail elders asking how you voted on November 2 during a home visit. On your view, I frankly don’t see what’s to keep them from claiming your voting record as within their jurisdiction. Maybe you’re comfortable with that, but I’m of the mind that their jurisdiction is limited to your doctrinal and moral life. That can cover quite a bit when you think of it, but when you extend their limitation from doctrinal and moral to the political it makes me wonder what other arena a believer inhabits is next, educational?

     If I recall, you seemed to express reservations, for example, of URC CO Art. 14 re the language of elders “promoting God-centered schooling.” On another recent thread you said, “If the URC book of order calls for “Christian schooling” (as Zrim is interpreting it) AND the URC holds to the 3 Forms of Unity, does it not follow that at least one part of the visible church has officially declared that there is not liberty in the matter of schooling?” You may not recall this, but I do from over a year ago when I brought this same subject up you agreed with me that the language of 14 is inappropriate for the very reasons I suggest. My point here is to put in front of you the fact that you express what I think is an admirable sensitivity to educational liberty (thanks, btw), yet you seem to seize up when it comes to political liberty. Can you see how this might not make a lot of sense? The only thing I can think of is that you think politics is a different thing from education, which frankly doesn’t make much sense to me either. But, again, consider: if the jurisdiction of the church extends beyond doctrinal and moral to the political then there is nothing stopping it from extending to the educational. And if that’s true then the next question the elders might have for you after how you voted on November 2 might be, “Hey, what’s up with having your kids in public school? They’re supposed to be in a God-centered one, you know.”

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104. (Jeff, thanks for the Slate links. I’ll try to get to them, but, frankly, I think I’ve had my limit on abortion issues for a while. I hope this can be my final word on it. I have made this point already, but I think it bears repeating. The whole thing was sparked by Paul’s construction of a certain political reality, which is always risky. As I recall, he conceded along the way that he cannot think of an actual political reality these days where a believer’s conscience should be bound. That’s significant to me, because I don’t see that his hypothetical really invloves any more special or compelling moral dimension than any host of complex real issues banging around these days. It seems to me that the only way he can get anywhere on “proving” there is a political reality where a believer’s conscience may be bound is to make one up. But not only does this still not prove anything to me, I don’t see what is to be gained by starting with an obvious premise that a believer’s conscience may be bound beyond doctrinal and moral realities, especially when it is admitted that there is no real world connection to any of it. Unless the point is to simply win an argument where one defines all the rules and presuppositions and then keep declaring himself the winner in the abstract.)

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105. Zrim, I do recall, and still stand by it: *if* your interpretation is correct, then I disagree with URC CO 14.

     The (semi-snarky) reason I brought it up was to point out that your own disagreement with it is in tension with your Confessionalist tendencies, which seem to vest more authority than I’m willing to in the judgment of the visible church.

     But it’s a minor issue.

     To the larger point:

     Zrim: …it does seem to me that to not distinguish between political and personal might entail elders asking how you voted on November 2 during a home visit. On your view, I frankly don’t see what’s to keep them from claiming your voting record as within their jurisdiction. Maybe you’re comfortable with that, but I’m of the mind that their jurisdiction is limited to your doctrinal and moral life.

     And see, I can’t say that political has no overlap with moral. So if our test for “will the elders ask about it?” is “is it part of my moral life?”, then I don’t see how you yourself avoid the elders asking about Nov 2 — except by raising an arbitrary firewall that says, “the political is not moral (except that it has moral aspects to it).”

     More finger-crossing, it seems to me.

     BUT

     If our test for “will the elders ask about it?” is, “Will they take action on what they find?”, then it makes sense that an elder would not ask. For as I’ve already said, elders would (or should) not take action on my vote one way or another.

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106. Jeff, re your minor point, a Presbyterian view of authority is different from an authoritarian view of authority, as in high views are not infallible views. My disagreement with the language of the CO is not in tension with my confessionalism, it is in harmony. IOW, authoritarians put down dissent, Presbyterians expect it.

     Re the larger point, the point of asking wouldn’t be out of mere curiosity, it would a matter of examination. And if you think they can’t do that, how is that not the same sort of arbitrariness of which you accuse me? At least I have a reason–while political questions may very well have moral dimensions to them, to act politically is not to behave morally, so mind your own beeswax about how I voted–all you say is, “You mayn’t.” Moreover, how does your conclusion that they mayn’t make any sense when you’ve previously admitted that to act politically is to behave morally, thus within their jurisdiction?

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107. Zrim: My disagreement with the language of the CO is not in tension with my confessionalism, it is in harmony. IOW, authoritarians put down dissent, Presbyterians expect it.</i.

     OK, fair 'nuff. But then, why begrudge NDK his vigorous defense of the denominational stance?

     Zrim: And if you think they can’t do that, how is that not the same sort of arbitrariness of which you accuse me?

     Well, I think I’ve actually answered that. The principle is that not all moral issues rise to the level of discipline. So:

     (1) Some issues, but not all rise to the level of discipline: those that can be proved as such from Scripture (BCO 29-1).
     (2) One’s vote does not rise to the level of discipline, because it probably cannot be proved as such from Scripture, so
     (3) One’s elder should not reasonably examine someone on his voting record.

     In the case of a pro-choice vote, I can reasonably give guidance to another that we ought not carry out actions that tend toward the destruction of life. But if it came to a matter of discipline, I also recognize that the burden of proof in this case is iffy. Not a slam-dunk, as you would have it, but iffy. Thus: I would not prosecute on the basis of the vote alone. But I would give counsel (to one who asked) based on the Word of God.

     (I have to say — if the member were going beyond a vote and publicly campaigning for abortion rights, it would be very difficult for me not to see that as a clear violation of WLC 139.)

     By contrast, the arbitrariness I see in you is this:

     (1) All moral issues must be subject to discipline.
     (2) Political issues are not moral issues, and are therefore not subject to discipline.
     (3) But political issues have moral dimensions to them.

     What does that even mean, taken together? It’s contradictory.

     And the contradiction is seen clearly by laying out two different political issues:

     Issue 1: The pro-choice vote. Here, you say that because this is a political issue, the member is not subject to discipline, despite the moral dimensions.

     Issue 2: The signer of libellum. Making sacrifice to the emperor was a political act, enacted explicitly for political purposes. Yet it contained a moral — and even cultic — dimension: to sacrifice to the emperor meant considering his “genius” a deity, and thus blaspheming Christ.

     Here, you would say (or have said) that this political act *is* subject to discipline.

     And the difference, you say, is “cult” v. “culture.”

     And yet, that’s not the difference at all. The moral dimensions of both issues are cultic — obedience to the Law of God. So the principle that distinguishes “political” from “moral” is not at all clear here, especially because you admit that there are moral ‘dimensions’ to political issues — whatever that may mean.

     Or put concisely: If there are moral dimensions to political issues, then the church has jurisdiction over those moral dimensions.

     If I’m a US citizen breaking US law in Mexico, the US government has an interest in bringing me to trial.

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108. Jeff, the church has jurisdiction over the moral actions of believers, not the moral dimensions of political issues. Again, this comes back to the points about the personal nature of faith: Jesus lived and died for his people, not their politics.

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109. Paul, the question was serious. Where did math come from? Christians with a world and life view?

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110. Jeff, I suppose that Craig is more a biblicist than you. But you both seem to reflect that discomfort with general revelation setting norms or being sufficient for baseball or plumbing. Which leads me to ask, is general revelation sufficient for playing baseball?

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111. Craig,

     I meant to elaborate on the fact that I am not an Anabaptist either- although I have had a lot of association with Anabaptists and probably was one in my early years as a Christian. I would hope that anyone on this website would correct me if I was espousing Anabaptist ideas and not being aware of it. My years spent among charismatics (Anabaptists and radical reformers) probably still influences me a bit but I have made a conscious effort to try to get rid of that thinking. And I think Darryl is correct in pointing out the book of Galatians as a corrective to some of your thinking. I am sure your will be all ears on that one. Your pointing to the book of James raises lots of red flags.

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112. True correction is most effective when it comes through the local Churches we attend. I may disregard someone’s correction on a web site but I am treading on dangerous ground when I reject correction from the Pastor of my local Church. Of course, there are complications with that too because some Pastors are in error. Like I said before, this is tricky business. It behooves us all to pick carefully the Churches we attend.

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113. Luther’s commentary on Galatians is a classic too. If I am not mistaken, Luther thought his best writings were The Bondage of the Will, his commentary on Galatians and his shorter and larger catechism’s.

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114. Darryl, you’re trying to answer a question with a question. Your serious question is still a dodge. Moreover, my comment had nothing to do with where math came from (if you must know, they don’t come from anywhere, they are ideas in the divine mind). The question is about your exegesis of the verse and whether you think truths of math are not necessarily true and may be rejected upon the basis of Christian liberty.

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115. Can anyone steer me in gathering more information about the Finnish interpretation of Luther. I am hearing this more and more and modern day Anabaptist’s and charismatics (and all those who oppose Westminster West and those affiliated with them) are using this as an argument against the magisterial reformation. They are also using these Finnish writings as a defense against the modern reformation of today.

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116. DGH: Jeff, I suppose that Craig is more a biblicist than you.

     Hard to say, since “biblicist” remains an empty epithet around these parts. A definition would be nice.

     But is general revelation sufficient for playing baseball? Let me ask you: is it necessary to obey special revelation while playing baseball?

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117. Zrim: Jeff, the church has jurisdiction over the moral actions of believers, not the moral dimensions of political issues. Again, this comes back to the points about the personal nature of faith: Jesus lived and died for his people, not their politics.

     This makes no sense. Yes, Jesus died for His people.

     And this gets us to jurisdictions over moral actions but not political actions how, exactly?

     You have some unstated assumptions going on here that get you from A to E, and it would be helpful for you to lay those out clearly. I know you get frustrated with us philosophy types that want things defined. But there *is* a reason for it: namely, it forces unstated assumptions out into the open where they can be examined.

     And part of what’s taking us around in circles is that you clearly have some syllogism that gets you from “Jesus died for people, not politics” (agreed!) to “The church has jurisdiction over moral actions but not political ones, even if they have moral dimensions.” (suspect!).

     And since this syllogism is clear in your mind, everytime I deny the consequence, you take it as if I were denying the premise.

     I’m not. I agree with you that Jesus died for people and not issues. I just don’t see how that places the political actions of believers outside (as in, utterly outside in principle) the jurisdiction of the church.

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118. Paul, the exegesis would be chapter 21 of the Confession of Faith.

     So if math fell from the sky, why do we Americans use Arabic numerals and not Roman? I suppose you’d say the same thing about language as math. Then why do you speak English not Romanian?

     It might have to do something with the way that history works and your location in a specific historical context — where Arabic numerals are used and English is the known tongue. Neither Arabic numerals or English are taught in Scripture. But we do share them in common with non-believers.

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119. Jeff, biblicism is deriving truth from Scripture when it is inappropriate — that is, when general revelation will do or when the Bible is silent. Biblicism reflects a fundamental discomfort with gen. rev.’s reliability and sufficiency (for life in this world).

     Since the Decalogue is a summary of God’s revealed will, the only commandment that would inform baseball playing is the Fourth. I should not play for pay (or watch players who do play for pay) on the Lord’s Day. Once I clear that hurdle, none of the commandments come into play. I could be in right field on a slow afternoon and notice a particularly attractive woman in the bleachers. The 7th tells me not to lust. But if my head is in the game, I don’t need the decalogue to tell me to concentrate on the game.

     Do you actually go through life checking for what the decalogue says, as you go through town to pick up a son, as you rake leaves, as you relieve yourself?

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120. DGH: …biblicism is deriving truth from Scripture when it is inappropriate — that is, when general revelation will do or when the Bible is silent.

     It sounds to me like “biblicism” simply means transgressing your particular pc-2k boundaries. I was hoping for something that we could agree was wrong.

     DGH: Since the Decalogue is a summary of God’s revealed will, the only commandment that would inform baseball playing is the Fourth.

     So you mean, after all of this business about “Scripture is silent”, it turns out that Scripture has something to say after all?

     Darryl, man (look, I said it!) — this is painful. First Scripture is silent, then it isn’t, but then it really is, but then it isn’t. To me, it just looks like you’re trying to prop up a position that is obviously false. And by “false”, I don’t mean “utterly wrong”, but “not completely true.”

     And anyways, the 5th Commandment is relevant, too. It is the reason that a Christian baseball player should not take steroids or throw a scuffball, even if he is confident he won’t get caught.

     DGH: Do you actually go through life checking for what the decalogue says, as you go through town to pick up a son, as you rake leaves, as you relieve yourself?

     Not obsessively. Put it like this: do you go through the entire DE driver’s manual as you go through town to pick up your son? I’m guessing No. And yet, you have trained yourself to follow it — putting on your flicker, obeying the relevant signs, all of that has become habitual for you. IF NECESSARY, you would consciously think about, say, whether it’s legal to pass on the right in this situation. But in general, your obedience to the driver’s manual is a matter of what we in the education biz call unconscious competence.

     Something similar goes on with obedience to the Law in the third-use sense. The desire to obey the Law begins with the Spirit. Out of that flows an obedience that is partly thought-through, but partly unconscious. There are times when God brings a particular commandment to mind that causes me to repent (usually of the same behaviors …), but oftentimes, life is more or less autopilot.

     Nevertheless, whether I’m “doing” the Christian life right or wrong, the central point is

     It is always necessary for the Christian to obey special revelation.

     And if so, then by simple logic, general revelation is insufficient.

     That’s why, for example, Christians are not at liberty to take up certain jobs, like prostitution.

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121. Jeff,

     I think the point is that we want certainty on certain issues which we cannot have certainty about. That is the reality of this life. The only certainty we can have in this life is that Jesus lived and died for our sins (and some other things which the scriptures are clear about). That seems to be what Church is all about. It is the only place where certainty resides. Everything else is up in the air so to speak.

     I happen to believe that God does not play tricks with us either and in that I can trust and rest in this. I’m sure that will not be helpful either. I’m confident in trusting in the sense perceptions and cognitive abilities God has given us too. Others believe all is an illusion and think it idiotic to trust our sense perceptions and cognitive abilities. I do not understand how they live from day to day. The only certainty I can point people to is the Law and the Gospel and the Sacraments.

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122. I agree with you that Jesus died for people and not issues. I just don’t see how that places the political actions of believers outside (as in, utterly outside in principle) the jurisdiction of the church.

     How about this: when I run for office I mayn’t lie about my voting record or yours. I also mayn’t steal from the campaign coffers, or give interviews on Sunday, all because the Bible tells me so. But if I want to raise minimum wage, increase funding for after-school programs, keep another big box enterprise from coming into our fair city or even start a pre-emptive war, the Bible is utterly silent. On your view, the Bible speaks to ALL of that, there ARE Christian answers to EVERYTHING, it’s just a matter of doing the hard math (and by hard I mean impossible, like finding the whole number between four and five) and figuring out the quotients. But Jesus said his yoke was easy, not hard (or impossible).

     But if it’s every square inch covered that you want: the moral rules apply at all times and in all places regardless of the particular human domain I inhabit, be it familial, political, vocational, educational or cultural.

     It is always necessary for the Christian to obey special revelation. And if so, then by simple logic, general revelation is insufficient. That’s why, for example, Christians are not at liberty to take up certain jobs, like prostitution.

     General revelation may be insufficient for how a believer lives, but it is quite sufficient for how a society is ordered, as in the first use of the law, as in Reformed theology 101. And certain “vocations,” by definition, violate the clear moral imperatives of those who enjoy very particular indicatives, as in the third use of the law. I point that out because some here seem to think that certain vocations, like answering phones or cleaning the bathrooms rooms at Planned Parenthood, are enough to be violations of moral laws. The question isn’t “Where do you work?” but rather “What do you do?”

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123. John, I hear you about the certainty. But notice that I haven’t been arguing for certainty. I’ve been arguing a simple point, which Zrim and DGH sometimes agree to, and then sometimes disavow: That it is necessary to obey Scripture in all of our doings, whether common or sacred.

     Sometimes — in fact, many times — what it means to obey Scripture may not be fully clear. That’s a function of living this side of the eschaton. But the lack of clarity does not relieve me from the responsibility.

     Take this as an analogy: I must love my daughters. What that means is not always clear, not by a long shot. But still and all: I must love my daughters.

     The same is true here. Loyalty to Christ means that I must always obey Christ, even if what that means is murky.

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124. From Horton’s essay in the book Always Reformed: “Erasmus wanted reformation, but it went no deeper than a recovery of apostolic simplicity, purity and fervent piety….Luther went after the corrupt doctrine at the heart of the medieval Church. Rome responded with its own reformation, but the result was the council of Trent, which for the first time committed that body to a denial of the gospel. Ignatius of Loyola, Calvin’s contemporary, wanted to reform the church, but it meant for him greater moral vigor, education and ascetic discipline. The Anabaptists wanted more radical reformation than any group, separating entirely from the centuries of Christian faith and practice……..If there is nothing sacred about reforming , there is also nothing sacred about conserving. It is possible to hold on to poisonous doctrines and unscriptural traditions. Christian faithfulness calls the church to place itself at the disposal of its Savior and King, hearing and obeying his sovereign Word in the power of the Spirit. This is not a one time decision, but a continual conversion to the speech of the Shepherd. It is not as a historical preservation society that the church holds fast to the ecumenical creeds and Reformed confessions, but as a steward of God’s mysteries. This treasure is carried in the living stream of truth from one generation to the next, across all times and places.”

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125. Zrim: General revelation may be insufficient for how a believer lives …

     Thank you. This has been the burden of my song.

     Zrim: How about this: when I run for office I mayn’t lie about my voting record or yours. I also mayn’t steal from the campaign coffers, or give interviews on Sunday, all because the Bible tells me so. But if I want to raise minimum wage, increase funding for after-school programs, keep another big box enterprise from coming into our fair city or even start a pre-emptive war, the Bible is utterly silent.

     Maybe not utterly silent, but relatively quiet. I can agree with the jist of this.

     Zrim: On your view, the Bible speaks to ALL of that, there ARE Christian answers to EVERYTHING, it’s just a matter of doing the hard math (and by hard I mean impossible, like finding the whole number between four and five) and figuring out the quotients.

     No, a thousand times no. When I say that “Scripture does not speak exhaustively to all issues”, I mean exactly that: That Scripture does not give us all answers to every question.

     (I’m really baffled here — I’ve said this like a bazillion times!)

     When I say that Scripture speaks to all things, I mean that Scripture has some things to say about every endeavor of the Christian. For example: that those endeavors must glorify God.

     But I do not mean that Scripture has all things to say about every endeavor of the Christian.

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126. John Yeazel says: November 21, 2010 at 1:20 pm

     Can anyone steer me in gathering more information about the Finnish interpretation of Luther.

     John:
     If I recall correctly,
     Always reforming : explorations in systematic theology / edited by A.T.B. McGowan ;
     Leicester, England : Apollos, 2006.

     Has this essay: “Justification : the ecumenical, biblical and theological dimensions of current debates” by Cornelis P. Venema

     I think Venema opens with the Finnish lutherans. Something tickles back of my mind that Carl Trueman mentions this too, maybe in the Wayne Spears festschrift, The Faith Once Delivered. Next time I take a Saturday run with Dr. Trueman I’ll ask him.

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127. Your my hero Cris- your name droppings impressive too. Wish I could take a Saturday run with Mike Horton or have a few beers with my other contemporary heroes of the faith (I will not mention names). I thought you lived on the West Coast. How did you make it to the Philadelphia area?

     I will definitely look into your suggestions and I have also found a lot on the internet simply by googling The Finnish interpretation of Luther. There is gads of information about it. The internet never ceases to amaze me. I have found it is helpful though to try to get some guidance from those whose views you respect.

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128. Thank you. This has been the burden of my song [General revelation may be insufficient for how a believer lives…].

     You’re welcome. But, for one thing, I believe the point has been made before, and for another, how about relieving me of my burden and conceding that general revelation is sufficient for the ordering of civil society? By not doing so I fail to see how you can feasibly explain perfect pagans constructing good society.

     When I say that “Scripture does not speak exhaustively to all issues”, I mean exactly that: That Scripture does not give us all answers to every question. (I’m really baffled here — I’ve said this like a bazillion times!) When I say that Scripture speaks to all things, I mean that Scripture has some things to say about every endeavor of the Christian. For example: that those endeavors must glorify God. But I do not mean that Scripture has all things to say about every endeavor of the Christian.

     Jeff, one reason you might be baffled is that while you may explicitly admit to the point about silence you then turn around and say the Bible speaks to everything. Then you protest the points about silence. That’s as baffling as simultaneously gesturing for me to “come hither” and “go away.” That’s a dualism that doesn’t make sense, because it’s a contradiction.

     And when you maintain that general revelation is insufficient to do exactly what it was ordained to do (the flipside of sola scriptura for ecclesiastical tasks) you frankly guarantee my suspicion of whatever else you say. If GR isn’t sufficient for civil tasks (thus needs SR to supplement it) then I don’t see what keeps you from saying that SR is sufficient for ecclesiastical tasks (thus needs GR to supplement it). And this may well be what John’s point is about certainty: the desire for SR to supplement civil tasks and it’s mirror error for GR to supplement ecclesial tasks is actually a desire for certainty instead of simply letting each book do its limited work for its respective domain.

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129. Correction: “If GR isn’t sufficient for civil tasks (thus needs SR to supplement it) then I don’t see what keeps you from saying that SR is INsufficient for ecclesiastical tasks (thus needs GR to supplement it).”

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130. Darryl, chapter 21 of the WCF doesn’t exegete that verse (are you being serious?). So, where’s the exegesis of your verse?

     I don’t think math fell from the sky, but I note again your confusion over numbers and numerals. Also, why is it that 2kers think that pointing to disagreement proves anything? That’s what the cultural releativists do. Just because people disagree doesn’t mean there isn’t a truth about the matter, or that we can know it.

     Why are you bringing up language? What does that have to do with anything?

     You’re not grasping the objection. On your argument it seems you’re required to say that people are at liberty to believe that 2+2 = 5 and that 2+2=4 is not a necessary, certain, indubitable truth. You’re the one undermining math and common grace, not me. How’s that for irony?

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131. John: I can only drop names because I’m becoming an old-timer (and guilty of hubris) It’s just been slow accumulation over the years. i LEARNED OF Dr. Trueman’s interest in running because he has a son who competes at state-finals level. Athletically, running is about all I can do. I’m the comic-relief of OPC softball. As for locale, I was born in California, but never went back after my M.Div, at WTS-East.

     -=Cris=-

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132. Zrim, I’ve never admitted to the point about silence. Or let’s be more precise: I have never agreed that “Scripture is silent about our activities.”

     Why would I, given that I hold that 1 Cor 10.31 applies to all activities?

     Now, what I *have* agreed to is that Scripture does not tell us which pipe cutter to use. That doesn’t mean that Scripture is silent about plumbing; it just means that Scripture does not specify every detail about plumbing.

     So I have to say, there doesn’t seem to be just cause for your confusion here.

     Zrim: If GR isn’t sufficient for civil tasks (thus needs SR to supplement it) then I don’t see what keeps you from saying that SR is INsufficient for ecclesiastical tasks (thus needs GR to supplement it).

     Well, what do you make of this:

     Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed. — WCoF 1.6

     Sounds like the agency of the Spirit is necessary for the saving understanding of the Word; and that GR is necessary for some circumstances concerning worship and church government.

     So you’re right. In the sense of WCoF 1.6 (and only in that sense), I would say that SR is insufficient for (all) ecclesial tasks. Just a matter of logic, really.

     Is there a problem with that?

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133. John Y: “You have a funny way of twisting comments around and reading into them things which fit your bias and point of view.”

     Oh, oh, oh the irony! A deep belly-laugh has been had by all. Thanks John, I knew your liberty must afford you a sense of humor at some point.

     DGH: “Craig, if the Bible is the norm for everything, how about baseball”

     I ask again: Where does the bible say where it is silent, there is liberty? It seems you’re hanging your hat on me saying Christians must picket abortion clinics (which I haven’t, btw). Clearly, the bible doesn’t give us how-to instructions with pithy quotes to put on picket signs…so I must be a Judaizer. But where does the bible say “where it is silent, there is liberty”?

     DGH: “This is why 2kers have been among the most vigorous defenders of justification by faith. Without that truth, Christians must keep the works of the law in order to remain in a blessed state at least in this life.”

     Apparently your “Christian” liberty allows you to continually mis-state, and misrepresent your detractors. If you’d like to be a man, please answer my question: Where does the Bible say “Where it is silent, there is liberty”?

     Apparently James was confused about the law when he confused obedience to it with liberty:
     James 1:22-25
     22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

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134. Craig, just so I can understand: Do you affirm the Confessional teaching on Christian liberty? (Chap 20)

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135. Yes I do. If DGH engages the question, and assuming I’m not an idiot, all should make sense 🙂

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136. Now, what I *have* agreed to is that Scripture does not tell us which pipe cutter to use. That doesn’t mean that Scripture is silent about plumbing; it just means that Scripture does not specify every detail about plumbing.

     No, that’s exactly what “Scripture does not tell us which pipe cutter to use” means, namely that “Scripture is silent about plumbing.” The difference is between a plain reading of an assertion and a creative reading. The plain reading of “Scripture does not tell us which pipe cutter to use” is that “the Bible is silent about plumbing.” A creative reading says, “When I say the Bible doesn’t tell us which pipe cutter to use what I mean is that the Bible tells us something about plumbing.” Huh?

     Re the point about WCoF 1.6, my point isn’t that GR mayn’t be referenced or is otherwise irrelevant to ecclesiastical tasks. Contrariwise, it isn’t that SR mayn’t be referenced or is otherwise irrelevant when doing civil tasks. The point isn’t about hermetical sealing. The point is about sufficiency.

     Sola scriptura isn’t solo scriptura, sola entails tradition (solo dismisses it in exchange for private, individual judgment) but makes the inspired text the final and sufficient word. Similarly, the Bible may be referenced in civil tasks, but in the end it is GR that has the final word.

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137. John Yeazel, the book you want on the Finnish interpretation of Luther is Christ Present in Faith by Tuomo Mannermaa. By my reading of it, this book doesn’t challenge the magisterial reformation, but it does put Luther on the Westminster Philadelphia side of the debate over justification and union.

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138. Zrim: No, that’s exactly what “Scripture does not tell us which pipe cutter to use” means, namely that “Scripture is silent about plumbing.” The difference is between a plain reading of an assertion and a creative reading. The plain reading of “Scripture does not tell us which pipe cutter to use” is that “the Bible is silent about plumbing.”

     Zrim, I’m sorry to be really stubborn about this, but you’re simply wrong on the meaning of words here. It helps me to understand that this is the reason for our loggerheads, rather than some other reason. I was wondering whether you were being obtuse on purpose, but now I suspect not.

     Look: If you ask me how to plant a garden to attract butterflies, and I tell you, “Plant host plants and nectar plants”, then

     (a) I have not been silent, and
     (b) I have not exhaustively told you every detail.

     I haven’t told you what fertilizer to use (if any!), which host plants to plant, whether to mulch, how much to water, whether to plant seeds or bare-root plants. I’ve just given you two broad directives. That’s neither silence nor complete specification.

     Silence means not saying anything. At all.

     Meanwhile, complete specification means saying everything that needs to be said.

     Scripture is not silent about plumbing because it says some things about plumbing (and every other common activity).

     Scripture does not completely specify plumbing. It does not tell us which pipe cutter to use.

     So Scripture is not silent about plumbing; but it does not completely specify plumbing, either. Both statements are true.

     This is clear, unambiguous language. It is not in any way a “creative reading.” Quite the contrary: It is linguistically “creative” to say silent when you actually mean has a couple of things to say.

     As in: “Scripture is silent about baseball. It also tells the baseball player that he mayn’t play on Sundays.” That, my friend, is linguistically creative.

     Zrim: Re the point about WCoF 1.6, my point isn’t that GR mayn’t be referenced or is otherwise irrelevant to ecclesiastical tasks. Contrariwise, it isn’t that SR mayn’t be referenced or is otherwise irrelevant when doing civil tasks. The point isn’t about hermetical sealing.

     And you missed the strength of the language in WCoF 1.6. It’s not merely that GR may be referenced for ecclesiastical tasks. It’s that it must be referenced (“are to be ordered…”). And if GR must be referenced, it is necessary; and if it is necessary, then SR is incomplete and therefore insufficient for ecclesiastical tasks.

     I promise I’m not just trying to be nerd-philosopher-man here. There is a real issue at stake.

     I’ve said it before, and I need to press the point because it’s true: When you say that Scripture is silent about common affairs, you have your fingers crossed. I don’t mean that as a slight on your character, but as a reflection of the fact that you have to backtrack on the “silence” every time it comes down to the details.

     And the easiest way to see this is to ask, Can the plumber cheat his customer? No. Why not? Because Scripture forbids it.

     All of this fancy-footing around by saying that cheating is personal behavior, not plumbing, is simply a dodge of the real issue: Scripture tells plumbers not to cheat, while they are plumbing or at any other time.

     That’s not silence.

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139. Jeff and Zrim:

     May I invite a digression from your debate? I notice both of you use the word “mayn’t.” That got my attention as I haven’t seen it except in old English. I did some research and found this explanation in a dictionary and English lexicon: “Modals. The negative forms are irregular in their deletion of the final consonant (and in RP its vowel has shifted from [æ] to [??]). The forms mayn’t and shan’t are now rare in world English (particularly so with mayn’t) and are absent in standard varieties of American English. Accordingly, their usage today is not regarded as proper American English.”

     Since I enjoy words and writing, and being able to communicate in modern idiom, I was curious whether you are intentionally employing the word “mayn’t” as an allusion to some literary work or as an artifact of popular culture of which I’m woefully ignorant. I am often behind the times on pop culture, so it wouldn’t be the first time I miss an allusion to pop culture.

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140. Jeff, this is how things appear from this corner. The 2ker says that the Bible says not to commit adultery. Jeff C. says, well, what if I’m playing baseball? The 2ker, confused, says that you still can’t commit adultery. Jeff C. concludes that you then need special revelation to play baseball. The 2ker is torn between reiterating that “thou shalt not commit adultery” is sufficiently clear for that as is, or pointing to the remarkable chastity displayed heretofore by players with otherwise spurious professions.

     The same situation occurs with pagan manufacturers who keep choosing aluminum over uranium as their bat material … for decades now … and most every other offered example. (The spy who had to have an affair to keep Russia from nuking the world or something was admittedly an interesting case; I hope his session would take his circumstances into account when considering discipline.) Usually, the explanation for this consistency is that everyone else is borrowing the Christian worldview unknowingly via common grace, but if the primary reason that Christians eat food instead of glass is because the 6th commandment has implications, we became the retarded ones somewhere.

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141. Mike K,
     I can’t speak for Jeff, but that was nonsense. I suggest you wear a cup and a helmet to protect you from your own analogies.

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142. Jeff, if you tell me, as you do continuously, that the Bible says something about plumbing then I expect to be able to open it up and find something about plumbing. But when I open the Bible, I don’t find one blessed thing about plumbing. So I conclude that the Bible says nothing about plumbing. And it doesn’t help anything to distinguish between specificity and vagueness. I see nothing specific or vague about plumbing in the Bible. True, in my more ungodly moments, I murmur that it would’ve been a better idea in the drawing boards of my particular creation to have added considerable more intelligence, but I do consider myself just left of stupid. And when someone says the Bible says something, one way or another, about plumbing, I expect to find it. Where, pray tell, is it?

     I regret that you find my points about Scripture speaking clearly and personally to us as we inhabit various human vocations but being silent about how to go about the specifics of those vocations to be “fancy footwork and dodgery.” I simply do not know what else to offer you. I do, however, quite agree with you that a real issue is at stake, but you keep missing it because you want Scripture to do more than it does, and because you miss the personal nature of New Covenant Christianity (at least you do in the context of this discussion). The upshot of your Framian-biblicism, the sort that animates whatever stripe of neo-Calvinism, is to assign the term “Christian” to things for which Jesus simply did not live and die. The only thing that can be “Christian” is a human being (individual or collective). Your insistence that the Bible speaks to plumbing necessarily implies that there is such a thing as Christian plumbing. But there is no such thing as Christian plumbing, only Christian people who do plumbing. The difference is seminal.

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143. CVD, I’m an old double English Language-American Literature major. But that doesn’t really explain why I use the term “mayn’t.” I use it because my second grade teacher, Ms. Phillips, a former nun, drilled it into my head that there is a difference between “can” and “may.” The former has to do with ability, the latter permission. The practical lesson that follows the principled one goes like this. Me: “Can I go to the bathroom?” Her: “I don’t know, can you?”

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144. CVD, I use “mayn’t” because Zrim does and I find it amusing and clear at the same time. Same reason I use the word “splinched” when speaking of two ideas that get half-mangled together.

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145. Mike,

     Thanks for the mirror (though you did lose me on the eating food instead of glass bit). Here would be my version of the same:

     The pc-2ker says, “Scripture is silent about playing baseball.” I say, “Well, can I play baseball on Sunday?” The pc-2ker says, “No, because the Scripture says you can’t.” And I say, “So Scripture isn’t silent about baseball, then.” And the pc-2ker says, “Yes, it is, and you’re a biblicist!”

     But anyways, the one place I would differ from your mirror is here: Jeff C. concludes that you then need special revelation to play baseball.

     I don’t think that we need some extra revelation to play baseball, nor that we should mine the revelation that we have for secret baseball code. Rather, I think (as you say) that the command not commit adultery is clear enough, and the command to obey authority is clear enough, and that those commands (well, at least the latter) have implications for baseball. Not amazingly profound ones, as in aluminum or uranium, but the basic plain nose-on-your face ones.

     Such as: when negotiating one’s contract, guard yourself against greed.

     So we don’t need special revelation to play baseball in the sense that you seem to mean: there cannot be baseball without special baseball passages. No, that’s silly.

     Rather, (1) we need to obey special revelation while playing baseball — which fact might well have implications for our baseball playing.

     And the thing is, I think we can all agree to (1). Can’t we?

     But having agreed to (1), haven’t we just agreed that Scripture is not silent (meaning: saying nothing) about baseball?!

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146. Zrim, as a mathematician, I consider you right of stupid. That’s a compliment.

     Zrim: And when someone says the Bible says something, one way or another, about plumbing, I expect to find it. Where, pray tell, is it?

     1 Cor 10.31: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

     This says, quite clearly, that we are to plumb to the glory of God. And that’s not my private judgment merely, but is affirmed by Calvin.

     There are more places in Scripture, but just go there for a minute: plumbing is a thing we do; whatever we do, Scripture says to do to the glory of God; by good and necessary inference, Scripture says to plumb to the glory of God.

     Maybe you aren’t impressed; perhaps you were hoping I would produce hydrodynamics equations by adding up every third letter in the Greek text.

     But I’m impressed. This passage sets a context for the way in which I plumb; it is at the heart of the doctrine of vocation.

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147. Jeff,

     The point about food vs. glass is that insisting on the necessity of special revelation while considering anything with a potentially moral dimension … iow, anything … trivializes the Law, to my mind. The Bible wasn’t written to tell people to not walk into walls, eat glass, or commit adultery in the middle of brain surgery. Natural law and the created order governs those circumstances sufficiently, as the world and its outliers (by nature of their being outliers) attests. They just don’t reveal the mind of God with any certainty, which is a pressing matter for those who wish to please Him in addition to living considerately.

     re: your point above, all we’ve agreed to when we agree to (1) is that the Law doesn’t go away when you’re playing baseball. But no one arguing that Scripture is silent about baseball is arguing for antinomianism.

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148. Paul, this is why language matters. You’re not keeping up.

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149. Craig, the flipside of the sufficiency of Scripture is Christian liberty. Believers have freedom where Scripture is silent. It’s a good and necessary consequence. If the Bible does not specify how long the base paths should be, I have liberty to set them at 90 feet.

     As far as my liberty to mis-state objections, does your view of the law give you freedom to be spiteful?

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150. Craig, it does not make the slightest bit of sense. You think that I am deficient and somehow vicious for not being as concerned about abortion or infanticide (apparently) as you are. You make your self into a doctrine and are binding me to your level of zeal on this sin. The Bible does not say that infanticide is the greatest of all evils that must motivate Christians to political action. In fact, if the Bible teaches anything, it is that false worship gets God’s people in trouble.

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151. Jeff, here’s the problem with your view and I’ve tried to say this before. Because you see the Bible speaking to everything, you miss the particulars of everything. Most of baseball is not moral. Whether to hit and run, whether to throw a fast ball or curve, whether to play the infielders in to cut off a run. The Bible does not speak to this.

     I get it, baseball players have contracts, at least some, the professionals. But when they are negotiating a contract, they are not playing baseball. So you keep failing to look at the specifics of particular activities – plumbing or baseball, and you keep throwing them in some kind of worship or ethical dimension.

     And the point of these activities is that they are done in their details in common between believers and unbelievers. But you want to turn them into believing activities. In the meantime, I’m not sure you’ve turned out very good ball players or plumbers.

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152. Darryl, your repeated dodging is noted. Must be nice to be able to make naked assertions and, when questioned, refuse to support or argue for them.

     Again, how does your view not allow Christian liberty when it comes to an answer to 2+2 =4. Sure, we could say ** ^ ** // ****, but it’s the same thing. Similarly, I could say “water” or “agua,” same thing.

     Regarding your link, I didn’t see the connection between that post and my question about math vis-a-vis your view of liberty and the verse you cited. Presumably you think it is obvious. Well, perhaps you could lay out out for me seeing as I am too slow to get it.

     Anyway, your post is false as there are Christian books on language, see Poythress’s book on the matter; also, see the works of most hermeneuts, e.g., Vanhoozer, Thiselton, &c. Moreover, language is partly dependent upon culture, and partly not (cf. Noam Chomsky’s works).

     Anyways, you’re not very consistent as I notice that you rail against Wittgenstein and language game, alledging that there is some impropriety to viewing language in those ways. Where’s your room for Christian liberty? The bottom line here is that, clearly, there are some false views of language, and the Christian is not at liberty to hold them, or, for that matter, is anyone. For an easy example, take the early logical positivists. For a sentence to have meaning it must either be analytic or synthetic. The problem here is that this criteria is neither analytic or synthetic (not to mention the theological problems with this view!). And so you’ve not helped yourself but only caused more enigmas about your view. So Darryl are Christians at liberty to hold to early logical positivist views of language?

     In the meantime:

     http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Religious-Language-Symbol-Story/dp/1557865825/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290490619&sr=1-1

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153. Paul, thanks once again for correcting me so thoroughly. You really should be a nouthetic counselor. You’ve missed your calling.

     The point of the text I appealed to is that Christians have liberty from the doctrines and commandments of men, not from the Word of God.

     I actually don’t think I’ve ever mentioned Wittgenstein at this blog (or anywhere). You must be confusing me with some other worldview denier.

     I know Christian have written books on language. But Christians don’t read books on language they way they read books on culture. People are more concerned about culture than language. But language is basic to culture. So I asked a question. Please don’t hit me.

     I am not a mathematician but I know enough to think that 2+2=4 is not necessarily true if you are not using the right system. Is the base 10 system necessarily true? It’s one way of computing. There may be others. I know, Paul, it’s not a profound point for you. Please don’t hit me.

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154. DGH,
     I did not state you are “deficient” or “vicious” for not being “as concerned” as me re: abortion. That is one (important) issue.

     “Believers have freedom where Scripture is silent. It’s a good and necessary consequence.”

     So you agree: The Bible doesn’t say “where it is silent, there is liberty”. So when I say something that’s not explicitly stated to a “T”…it’s a doctrine of man…but when you say a Christian’s non-opinion on abortion (for example)is a matter of liberty (a principle not found explicitly found in Scripture) then it is a “good and necessary consequence”.

     As I see it, you fail in one (or more) way(s) by:
     A) Holding me to a different standard
     B) Begging the question
     C) Both A. and B.

     DGH: “In fact, if the Bible teaches anything, it is that false worship gets God’s people in trouble.”

     Right, like the RPW that says where the Bible is silent, there isn’t liberty?

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155. Brian K.,

     From my reading of blogs and books of those opposed to the ideas and theology coming out of Westminster West (who in my simple mind are just trying to stay faithful to scripture, the historical Christian faith as expressed in the best creeds and catechism of the faith and to what the main magisterial reformers taught) they are trying to use some theologians of the Italian reformation and the works by these Finnish theologians on Luther as a means of trying to broaden the boundaries to include groups of believers excluded by the narrow definitions of the faith that Westminster West is trying to make clear. In my limited understanding those who oppose Westminster West see them in the narrow stream of the Princeton biblical and systematic theology in the tradition of Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield and Machen. It is this which they seem to be the most worked up about.

     So, I think there is more to it than just the idea that Luther’s ideas of union line up more with Westminster East than Westminster West. I would like to hear how the theologians at Westminster West are defending their positions against these opposing ideas. What significance it has I am not that sure yet. It is building into a position similar to the new perspective on Paul which would questions the main motivation of the magisterial reformation. Namely, the emphasis and understanding of the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone on the account of Christ alone and the understanding of the distinction between the Law and the Gospel.

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156. Craig,

     Huh? I don’t get your response. I was just trying to defend myself against your accusation of me holding delusions about the common man and you couching it in terms of making me look like I was a Commie Revolutionary. We do all hold positions which we interpret with. I am still trying to figure out the position and theology you are thinking with. It seems a bit skewed to me and does not line up with the magisterial reformation of the Lutheran and Calvinistic type.

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157. Jeff, I know you want to hang all the law and prophets of “all of life” on 1 Cor. 10.31, but have you considered that the whole text within which it is couched is about the liberty and binding of conscience? To walk away from the chapter saying it’s about plumbing because “all things includes plumbing” seems to be straining at gnats and to miss the larger point, to say nothing of just plain confusing language.

     Yes, you are right, “all things” does include plumbing, and the plumbing believer is to glorify God in doing it (which he does the same way God justifies us, BTW: through faith alone, not through the work of plumbing). But it seems to me that if we parallel the points Paul is making about liberty and binding of conscience by way of meat eating and Christian worship for this conversation, then the point of the whole context would be something more like this: Yes, you may plumb in whatever way your conscience is persuaded, but if somehow plumbing is construed as no longer a common activity but an act of worship that God no where has commanded then flee from it. That may sound odd, but if Framinan-biblicism can give us juggling in worship then maybe plumbing is next.

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158. John,
     I was only re-iterating, contrary to your saying otherwise, you do have a Utopian view of the unbeliever in the world. I say this because you clearly have a thing against authority…references to the “magisterial reformers” notwithstanding. Submission to dead guys is way easier than submission to a word spoken by a living man that might peeve one off.

     John: “I am still trying to figure out the position and theology you are thinking with.”

     I appreciate that. I’m not sure who I line up with. I do fall well within WCF. I’m also 2-K (not R2k). Some here might refer to me as a “Theonomist”, “Reconstructionist”, or a “Framinian-Biblicist”…I’m not the first two, and I have no idea what the third one is. And just for good measure: I’m not FV…not even a little bit.

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159. Craig,

     I appreciate the tone of your response. I think we might have had some similar struggles with sin in our lives and you were expressing a desire to help me see something that might have helped you. And perhaps you too had a problem with authority that you are projecting on me. I have had some deep disappointments with authority figures in my life so I do have authority issues. However, I do realize that submission to authority is a big part of our overcoming our sin. The difference between you and me is that I think it is best overcome by being constantly reminded and told of the good news of the Gospel where you think the emphasis should be on our submission to the Law. I think it is as simple as that. I think the Gospel emphasis is what started the reformation and it is the driving force that gives us any hope for obeying the Law at all.

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160. Brian K.,

     I try to read Luther’s commentary of Galatians at least once a year and I find it hard to believe that Luther would line up with Westminster East on the union issue. Maybe in the earlier years of his developing theology but not in his mature thought. Luther did not write systematically so you can probably glean almost anything from his prodigious writings (from what I understand more than half of which have not even been translated from the original German he wrote in). So, like I said, I would like to hear what other scholars from Westminster West are saying about it this Finnish interpretation.

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161. John: “I appreciate the tone of your response. I think we might have had some similar struggles with sin in our lives and you were expressing a desire to help me see something that might have helped you.”

     I have no doubt we share similar struggles with sin. I’m not sure what yours are specifically, but mine had less to do with authority and more to do with reconciling an R2k view of “liberty” and seeking Christian piety. If this is at all similar to your own struggles, then some of what I’ve said should give you pause.

     John: “perhaps you too had a problem with authority that you are projecting on me.”

     That wasn’t it at all. Consider how you asserted that those “opposed” to Reformation are the religious and those in religious authority…that those most open to it were neither.

     John: “The difference between you and me is that I think it is best overcome by being constantly reminded and told of the good news of the Gospel where you think the emphasis should be on our submission to the Law.”

     I think you’re about 180 degrees wrong here. Not just about me, but about your notion of the good news helping you overcome sin. Please explain to me: how does your notion of the good news causes you to overcome sin?

     Before anyone thinks I’m saying the Gospel doesn’t help us overcome sin…that is NOT what I’m saying in the LEAST. I’m asking John to explain how *his* notion of the Gospel causes him to overcome sin.

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162. Craig, the good and necessary consequence is the doctrine of Christian liberty. The application of liberty is one’s level of or participation in opposition to abortion. Christians have liberty not to follow what you believe your conscience requires. Why is that so complicated?

     And why are my views deficient, vicious, and destructive to the church? We’re all eyes.

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163. Darryl,

     I’m not a big fan of nouthetic counseling, the help I give you is from a more common grace stance. I’m surprised you missed this.

     “The point of the text I appealed to is that Christians have liberty from the doctrines and commandments of men, not from the Word of God.”

     Good. So then, technically, your statement that “If the Bible doesn’t mention it, then Christians have liberty,” is false. Of course, statement is true theoretically, but the tough part comes in showing that God has or has not said something (and this saying can be either explicit or implicit, so there’s tough work to do if you want to engage your interlocutors).

     So, Christians are not at liberty to be logical positivists. How now, worldviewer! 😉

     “I am not a mathematician but I know enough to think that 2+2=4 is not necessarily true if you are not using the right system. Is the base 10 system necessarily true? It’s one way of computing. There may be others. I know, Paul, it’s not a profound point for you. Please don’t hit me.”

     You’re confusing numbers and numerals again, Darryl. At this point I’m wondering of you appreciate the conceptual distinction. For all your hammering on what sorts of things “worldviewism” requires its adherents to believe (e.g., Christian plumbing), it looks like your anti-worldviewism is what leads you to believe that 2+2=4 is not necessarily true but may yield all manner of different values depending on what base your in. I suppose on your view it isn’t necessarily true that 7 is a prime number either.

     Have fun, Darryl.

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164. Darryl,
     you’re a master of all things subject-shifting. To date, I have NOT set out a standard of how “involved” a Christian must be in opposing abortion.

     Darryl: “the good and necessary consequence is the doctrine of Christian liberty”

     I just showed you how you have failed to even make a case for Christian liberty. You gut yourself in the process. If Christian liberty is a good and necessary consequence…ie it is inferred necessarily from the Word, then in order to make my case the Bible need not have directions for assembling each line of Ikea furniture past, present, and future. You were applying a double-standard.

     We disagree as to what may be inferred from Scripture. Rather than make your case, you simply assert your view. You mis-state mine…re-assert yours. Mis-state mine, apply different standards for measuring my claims than for your own…re-assert your view, and voila! Case-closed.

     In the end, you and I have different worldviews…ironically, you would call me a “worldviewist” (or some other vaccuous term), but that’s exactly what you are:

     I say, “A Christian view of the world is X”.
     DGH says, “That’s not how to look at the world, it’s Y”.

     It isn’t that you “lack” a worldview when moving about in the “common realm”…it’s that you have a different one than my own. You are a worldviewist.

     How are your R2k views destructive? Well, you strip the Word of application to the “neutral realm”. You strip Christians of a defense of their souls and you remove from the world the law by which it will be judged by. Your views also strip the Holy Spirit of any active role besides what goes on at Church on Sunday leaving professing believers orphaned 6 days out of the week (if not longer). R2k believers go from worrying about losing their salvation on a daily to basis to worrying an enthusiastic faith renders them legalists…so they nuance, parse, and equivocate away anything pertaining to public piety and reliance on the Holy Spirit.

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165. “R2k believers go from worrying about losing their salvation on a daily to basis to worrying an enthusiastic faith renders them legalists…so they nuance, parse, and equivocate away anything pertaining to public piety and reliance on the Holy Spirit.”

     But you’re not a legalist, though!

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166. Craig,

     Now you are going back to warrior mode. You obviously think what I believe and have expressed in my posts is error. There is always a danger when you preach the Gospel accurately that people will use it and interpret it as liberty and license to sin. There is a difference between liberty and license just as there is a difference between gratitude wrought by the Gospel and coercion wrought by the Law. The Gospel is the driving force that makes me want to overcome my sin. The deeper we understand the Gospel and all it entailed and required of Christ the more gratitude we should display which works itself out in our obedience to our Lord and Savior.

     An emphasis on the Law as a corrective to our sin does not provide the power to overcome it. The Gospel is the power source. Luther had these remarks in his larger catechism commenting on the third article of the Apostles Creed: “We further believe that in this Christian Church we have forgiveness of sin, which is wrought through the holy Sacraments and Absolution (Math. 26:28, Mark 1:4; John 20:23) and through all kinds of comforting promises from the entire Gospel. Therefore, whatever ought to be preached about the Sacraments belongs here. In short, the whole Gospel and all the offices of Christianity belongs here, which also must be preached and taught without ceasing. God’s grace is secured through Christ (John 1:17) and sanctification is wrought by the Holy Spirit through God’s Word in the unity of the Christian Church. Yet because of our flesh, which we bear about with us, we are never without sin (Rom. 7:23-24).”

     “Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered toward this goal: we shall daily receive in the Church nothing but the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live here. So even though we have sins, the grace of the Holy Spirit does not allow them to harm us. For we are in the Christian Church, where there is nothing but continuous, uninterrupted forgiveness of sin. This is because God forgives us and because we forgive, bear with, and help one another (Gal. 6:1-2).”

     “But outside of this Christian Church where the Gospel is not found, there is no forgiveness, as also there can be no holiness. Therefore, all who seek and wish to earn holiness not through the Gospel and forgiveness of sin, but by their works, have expelled and severed themselves from this Church (Gal 5:4).”

     However, while sanctification has begun and is growing daily (2Thes. 1:3), we expect that our flesh will be destroyed and buried with all its uncleanness (Rom. 6: 4-11). Then we will come forth gloriously and arise in a new, eternal life of entire and perfect holiness. For now we are only half pure and holy. So the Holy Spirit always has some reason to continue His work in us through the Word. He must daily administer forgiveness until we reach the life to come. At that time there will be no more forgiveness, but only perfectly pure and holy people (1Cor. 13:10). We will be full of godliness and righteousness, removed and free from sin, death, and all evil, in a new, immortal, and glorified body (1Cor 15:43, 53).

     That seems pretty clear to me that it is through the Gospel (good news) that we overcome our sin.
     Your righteous indignation does the opposite of its intended effect. And you are in danger of the Galatian heresy if you think you can overcome your sin in any other way but through the good news of the Gospel. Paul would put you under discipline and kick you out of the Church. We do not discipline those who are functioning under the Galatian heresy. We do discipline those who struggle with sin and are honest about it. That has never made much sense to me. It is why the Church is full of those who are looking for signs of disobedience in others.

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167. John: “An emphasis on the Law as a corrective to our sin does not provide the power to overcome it.”

     For at least the second time (toward you, more toward others): I have NOT asserted the power of the law to overcome sin. I do NOT believe that. I went so far as to say this:
     “Before anyone thinks I’m saying the Gospel doesn’t help us overcome sin…that is NOT what I’m saying in the LEAST. I’m asking John to explain how *his* notion of the Gospel causes him to overcome sin.”

     John, ask yourself: If I made that comment anticipating what you would say…have you actually comprehended my question? After I was unequivocal in my position that the gospel does give us power to overcome sin, you go on to state I’m in danger of the Galatian heresy.

     John, please show me where…anywhere…I said the law can make us holy or give us power to overcome sin. It is with Judaistic fervor R2k sniffs out a Judaizer.

     I asked you to show me how *your* notion of the Gospel spurs men on to holiness. You said:
     “However, while sanctification has begun and is growing daily (2Thes. 1:3), we expect that our flesh will be destroyed and buried with all its uncleanness (Rom. 6: 4-11). Then we will come forth gloriously and arise in a new, eternal life of entire and perfect holiness. For now we are only half pure and holy. So the Holy Spirit always has some reason to continue His work in us through the Word. He must daily administer forgiveness until we reach the life to come. At that time there will be no more forgiveness, but only perfectly pure and holy people (1Cor. 13:10). We will be full of godliness and righteousness, removed and free from sin, death, and all evil, in a new, immortal, and glorified body (1Cor 15:43, 53).”

     John, this does not spur men on to holiness. This is just claiming God’s forgiveness until we are glorified and are totally free from sin. The closest you came was mentioning the Spirit’s work in the Word, but outside of that…nadda. While I share the same hope for a glorified body where sin is no more, I have a present hope that sin will not have dominion over me. Now John, how does *your* gospel spur you on to holiness? It sounds like it only alleviates your conscience.

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168. Craig says: ” How are your R2k views destructive? Well, you strip the Word of application to the “neutral realm”. You strip Christians of a defense of their souls and you remove from the world the law by which it will be judged by. Your views also strip the Holy Spirit of any active role besides what goes on at Church on Sunday leaving professing believers orphaned 6 days out of the week (if not longer). R2k believers go from worrying about losing their salvation on a daily to basis to worrying an enthusiastic faith renders them legalists…so they nuance, parse, and equivocate away anything pertaining to public piety and reliance on the Holy Spirit.”

     That is pure BS. I have not taken any of that from R2K- I think you do have problems with authority Craig. And you couch it under a doctrine of the Holy Spirit which you think orphans the poor souls under the influence of Westminster West. On top of that we are all Pharisees. That makes me laugh.

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169. And a good belly laugh at that.

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170. That is what I get for trying to be a nice and understanding guy- no more Mr. nice guy

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171. Craig,

     It spurs me on to holiness out of gratitude for what Christ has done for me. I thought I made that clear. It is your doctrine of the Holy Spirit which is the problem here. Why don’t you just tell us all that you have problems with how the confessions and the reformers formulated their doctrine of the Holy Spirit or lack thereof. Maybe you should join an Anabaptist Church and get out of the Presbyterian Church you attend.

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172. John,
     With all due respect – you weren’t understanding me. If you did, you wouldn’t have mis-stated my position (again) and then concluded by calling me a Judaizer (so I guess you weren’t nice, either).

     While what I’ve said doesn’t follow Dale Carnegie’s program on How to Win Friends and Influence People, I haven’t exactly attacked you personally. If you choose to get in a huff, that’s up to you.

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173. Guys, I’m going to be bowing out for at least a week and perhaps longer. Thanks for the interactions, and I pray that God bless your ministries and/or earthly callings.

     Final thoughts from this end:

     (1) I do believe y’all are making way too much out of the word “necessary.”

     To say that “Scripture is necessary for the believer in all his activities” means nothing more nor less than “It is necessary for the believer to obey Scripture in his common activities.”

     The odd thing is that y’all agree to the latter but deny the former.

     Not sure why. I think you may have a vision of “necessary” that’s more like the necessity of oxygen — as if, without Scripture, baseball players would just sit flopping around, unable to even swing a bat or field a ball. I got that sense from Mike K, for example.

     But that’s not what “necessary” means. It means “indispensible” — as in “the Christian mayn’t dispense with the Law, even in his common activities.”

     If you agree that the Christian mayn’t dispense with the Law, then you agree to the concept that the Law is necessary, even if you don’t like the word.

     So from my end, at least, there appears to be a need for re-thinking according to the meaning of words. Do you really want to kick against the word “necessary”?

     (2) Darryl, you did not do yourself a favor with this one:

     DGH: I get it, baseball players have contracts, at least some, the professionals. But when they are negotiating a contract, they are not playing baseball.

     It doesn’t help your cause to move contract-writing out of baseball — you’ve just transferred it from one common activity to another. Scripture still speaks to it.

     (And anyways, Steinbrenner won all those games by signing the right contracts. Don’t tell him that contracts aren’t a part of baseball!)

     (3) Big picture

     The thesis under discussion is “Scripture is silent about common activities.”

     Which literally means, “For each common activity, Scripture has nothing to say about it.”

     You guys have picked absurd examples (plumbing, baseball playing) to try to prove your thesis. It’s a risky move, for those absurd examples are poor tests of the thesis. All I have to do is produce one example of Scripture speaking to one common activity, and your thesis is toast.

     As it turns out, there are a whole lot of examples: Scripture speaks to family, money, contracts, marriage, more. If the Confession counts for anything, Scripture even speaks to over-eating. Any one of these would falsify your thesis; taken together, they bury it.

     What I’m getting at is that you can’t possibly mean what your words say.

     Your words say that Scripture is silent about common activities. What you really mean (and what I could agree to) is that Scripture is relatively reticent about common activities.

     You would have to give up your nice clean dualism to admit this, but at least you would have a true thesis instead of a patently false one.

     (4) Zrim: That may sound odd, but if Framinan-biblicism can give us juggling in worship then maybe plumbing is next.

     You’ve identified me as a Framean-biblicist; but you also claim that Framean-biblicism gives us juggling in worship.

     Trouble is, I oppose juggling in worship. Strongly.

     So one leg of your analysis or the other must go.

     —

     Well, all that said, I continue to appreciate your vigorous patience in these dialogs. Happy Thanksgiving (and Sunday)!

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174. And also, if you feel bad for misconstruing my position, you can always fall back on grace. You’ll do it again, very likely, but just tell yourself the good news.

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175. My comment above was directed toward John ^

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176. Paul,

     Actually, the tough work is yours. As I have pointed out here over and over, the confessions of the Reformed churches do not mention plumbing, epistemology, or baseball. That would suggest that their authors did not believe the Bible speaks to culture and sports. Why no chapter on aesthetics? So if you want to argue that the Bible speaks to math, have at it.

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177. Craig, you are full of malice and talk about mis-stating my views. In case you missed it, I believe the 8th commandment behooves me to shop locally and not at Walmart. What you fail to see because of your malice for me is that I do not require you to avoid Walmart. I apply Scripture it’s just that I don’t apply it the way you or the Baylys do. And that leads you to the loving comment that I strip the word of application or the Holy Spirit of any active role.

     You sir, are filled with malice and I don’t know what the Holy Spirit is doing in your life.

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178. Jeff, contract signing is not baseball playing. For some of us who played baseball, a contract was never on the table.

     Have you not noticed how to prove your points — and this is characteristic of Frame — you can’t really say that the Bible speaks to baseball, so you have to find an activity that is somewhere nearby and then say that the Bible speaks to that and so to baseball. Frame does the same for drama in worship, since preaching can be dramatic. Sorry to be so unfestive Jeff at the holiday season, but this is a mental tic that is not careful or fair since you can keep pointing to the related stuff to make a a point about the related matter.

     I agree that the Bible speaks to some common activities. Speaks to and mentioning are different. But the absurd examples are absurd for you because of your use of the word “everything” or “all” to go with “necessary.”

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179. So Craig, what do you have to fall back on for your animus to others who are Christians and your blatant misconstruction of their views?

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180. Darryl,

     Apart from your strange view that we only believe in a trinity depending on whether we’re in the right number base, I never said the Bible “speaks to math” (though your Confessional colleague, R.S. Clark, thinks the Bible speaks to football games). I asked you if, since the Bible doesn’t mention 2+2=4, are Christians “at liberty” to believe that it equals 5? If so, you’re view is false. If not, your view is false or in need of serious qualification. In any case, there are thousands of important religious truths and doctrines that the Confession did not touch on. Moreover, the Confession provides several relevant propositions that entail views on metaphysics, epistemology, math, &c. You are aware, are you not, that any given proposition entails other propositions. Since there are thousands of Confessional propositions, imagine all the thousands and thousands of propositions that the Confession entails. Now, are you saying that you’ve done the derivations and you know that the Confession entails no propositions about math, aesthetics, and epistemology? Quite a feat, Darryl!

     Now, apart from the position of your colleague—who wrote The Book on what it means to be “Confessional”—that the Bible speaks to football games, on of your former Confessional students doing a dissertation on theological aesthetics, your refusal to offer exegesis for the verses you use, your idiosyncratic and odd views on math and the necessity of mathematical truths, I saw your name mentioned in one of my new favorite theologian’s book, Retrieving Doctrine, by Oliver Crisp, and so I must give you props and give you a break for the time being. In fact, since I grew up a Mike Schmidt fan, and seeing that you’re a huge Phillies fan, I just know there’s something cool about you, even though you wear a bow tie.

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181. “Have you not noticed how to prove your points — and this is characteristic of Frame — you can’t really say that the Bible speaks to baseball”

     Give Jeff and Frame a break, they’re not saying anything that R.S. Clark hasn’t said 😉

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182. Jeff, I prefer calling them “trivial” instead of “absurd” examples. Part of the point in using them is to emphasize the absurdity of saying the Bible speaks to things it doesn’t speak to. It doesn’t speak to anything that runs along the temporal spectrum, from the trivial (baseball and salad making) to the enduring (marriage and politics). It only speaks to the eternal. Sure, along the line temporal things are mentioned, but within the larger context of and pursuant to making eternal points.

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183. I asked you if, since the Bible doesn’t mention 2+2=4, are Christians “at liberty” to believe that it equals 5? If so, you’re view is false.

     Paul, Christians are at liberty to think the earth is flat. In fact, many of us did for a long time. They are not at liberty to think there are nine godheads, something some who claim the faith do. Are you suggesting that the former and the latter are tantamount? If so, you’ve just made Christian faith as much a matter of intellectual sophistication as it is about religious confession. Confessing that two and two are five or that the earth is flat will get one bounced from the halls of learning, but neither has any bearing whatever on true faith. If you don’t think Christians are at liberty to be unlearned then maybe missionaries should bring professors with them to the outermost regions?

     But, yes, Christians are at liberty to flunk math and science, even royally flunk. They mayn’t flunk their confession. How does this make 2k false?

     And re this whole “the Bible speaks to but not about football” jazz, you seem to think that all 2kers are little replications of each other, and just because one formulates matters one way all the rest have to as well. Sorry, but for my own part, I’ve never been wild about the formulation, no matter who has said it. The Bible actually speaks to and about people, not their activities, etc. (as in people who play football, etc.).

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184. Here as in other dialogues there is a repeating pattern, and I wonder if the heat is due more to a lack of terminology than to substantial disagreement. In broad terms, one side says the Bible is relevant to plumbing, and the other side says it isn’t. But isn’t the former saying the Bible applies to *moral* / spiritual actions (or deliberations) of the plumber, while the latter is saying the Bible does not apply to the *technique* of plumbing? I don’t see how anyone can deny that the Bible speaks to the *moral* activities of the plumber, and any argument that the Bible controls the *technique* of soldering seems extraordinarily attenuated from any biblical data.

     The Bible is relevant to the plumber/mathemetician/football player but not to his technique. Right?

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185. Michael, right. And the problem with using Scripture for a biblical view of plumbing is that too many Christians substitute a moral/spiritual competency (as if our filthy rags are competent) for actual performance skills.

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186. Zrim, I’d like to respond to you, but that would mean I would use reason and give an argument, and I know how you feel about me doing that. All my work would be shrugged off and you’d say something like, “Yeah, well that’s what logic may say, but that’s just a a way to sneak Greek thought into Jewish thought”

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187. Craig,

     I do not think I am mis-stating or misconstruing your position. I may be wrong of accusing you of the Galatian heresy and for that I apologize if I am misconstruing, but I think you are confusing the power source of overcoming sin and this puts you close into the Galatian position. And from some of the other things you have said I think you are closer to the attitudes the Galatians had then you think.

     I said: “An emphasis on the Law as a corrective to our sin does not provide the power to overcome it.” I should have said an emphasis on the Law or the Holy Spirit or anything other than Christ and his work for us (the Gospel or good news) as a corrective to our sin does not provide the power to overcome it. The Holy Spirit always works under the Law and the Gospel. The Law convicts us of our sin and the Gospel provides the forgiveness and clear conscience we need in order to even begin fighting it. The Gospel provides the power and the Holy Spirit always points us to the Gospel as our source of strength and power. As Paul says,”for I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, The righteous shall live by faith.”

     The Holy Spirit always hides Himself and points us to the Law and the Gospel. You said: “John, this does not spur men on to holiness. This is just claiming God’s forgiveness until we are glorified and are totally free from sin. The closest you came was mentioning the Spirit’s work in the Word, but outside of that…nadda.” What you said here is contrary to what the confessions and the Reformers taught us. The Spirit does not work outside of the Word of Law and Gospel. This was the Reformers (both Luther and Calvin) main argument against the Anabaptists. So, if you are not looking towards the Law and the Gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit through these means then you are looking towards something else which puts you in the realm of the Galatian heresy. Even if you call it the Holy Spirit.

     So, explain to me how the Holy Spirit works outside these ordinary means of grace? And why does this give you more power than you think I have in fighting my sin? You are misconstruing the position I have and what I think the reformers had. What spurs you on to holiness besides the Gospel?

     When I was involved in Charismatic Churches where the emphasis was on the Holy Spirit and the Gospel was not really taught as the only power source for our fight against our sin a lot of weird stuff went on. The Holy Spirit was taught to go beyond the bounds of Word and Sacrament and disastrous and weird things occurred in the services and peoples personal lives. Scott Clark’s writing about Jonathan Edwards in his Recovering the Reformed Confession and Darryl Hart’s book Seeking A Better Country go into this problem in vivid detail. You seem to be advocating the same thing. This is not a Reformed position.

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188. Paul says: “I saw your name mentioned in one of my new favorite theologian’s book, Retrieving Doctrine, by Oliver Crisp, and so I must give you props and give you a break for the time being. In fact, since I grew up a Mike Schmidt fan, and seeing that you’re a huge Phillies fan, I just know there’s something cool about you, even though you wear a bow tie.”

     Hmm, I wonder what this has reference to. Perhaps Paul is cynically, sarcastically and arrogantly saying that he is above the confessional and R2K unthinking and unable to argue correctly clones that Westminster West is breeding. Your wisdom is astounding Paul. I may be misconstruing and misrepresenting here but that is the impression I get from this comment. And I bet Darryl is relieved by you giving him a break for the time being.

     I do not think the arguments you are making a big deal about are critical issues in regards to our salvation. There is room for disagreement in how we go about applying our 2K beliefs. You think there is more scriptural application to the common realm and those with R2K beliefs do not. I do not see this as critical to our salvation but it does have implications for how we relate to others in our vocations.

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189. John, it was a compliment. I thought it was pretty cool that he was in the book. There was no malice or cut down intended. It’s too bad you took it the way you did.

     The arguments I am making have nothing to do with 2K (and I do not use the term R2K), or salvation, but are simply questioning and unfortunate entailment of somehting Darryl said. Sheesh, guess I cannot even question people about the claims they make.

     Anyway, take care, and maybe drink a beer or something

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190. Paul,

     Will do and sorry I misconstrued again. That’s why I said that. I wouldn’t even mind having a beer with you one day.

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191. But I still think there was a bit of sarcasm and cynicism implied. And a bit of arrogance too but as Craig says all we have do is confess the good news and its all good. Thank God for that.

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192. And the Gospel can deal with malice too.

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193. “But I still think there was a bit of sarcasm and cynicism implied. And a bit of arrogance too”

     Well, there wasn’t. I genuinely and honestly thought it was cool to find Hart’s name in there. It would be like if I read a book by Hart and found Bas van Fraassen’s name in there. Although, when I later looked to see what chapter it was in I shouldn’t have been surprised since it was on Nevin.

     Anyways, I appreciate you apologizing with the one hand and then taking it back with the other, and I also appreciate your ability to discern what’s in my mind and to ferrit out my subtle and nefarious implications.

     That’ll be my last response on the matter because this is an unfruitful, unhelpful, and unproductive digression.

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194. DGH: “Craig, you are full of malice and talk about mis-stating my views. In case you missed it, I believe the 8th commandment behooves me to shop locally and not at Walmart.”

     On the first count, I’m guilty as charged.

     On the second count, shopping locally doesn’t make your case any better than measuring out a tithe of cummin. Weighty vs not-so-weighty…proportion is what is lacking.

     DGH: “I apply Scripture it’s just that I don’t apply it the way you or the Baylys do.”

     As I’ve pointed out, you also don’t apply the same weights and measures when discussing my views. I’m willing to admit that while my comments stated the truth, it wasn’t in faith, and therefore sin, but that doesn’t somehow paint over your constantly misconstruing views of your detractors. My sin doesn’t cancel yours out, it takes real righteousness to cover sin, so I am thankful for double-imputation.

     DGH: “So Craig, what do you have to fall back on for your animus to others who are Christians and your blatant misconstruction of their views?”

     In regard to my animus, I have the righteousness of Jesus Christ and the hope that the Spirit will sanctify me and actually make me loving. As far as my blatant misconstruction of your views…that, sir, I haven’t done. I stand by the truth of what I said, though I wish I had done it in faith. Please forgive me for harming you in the way I spoke.

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195. John,
     I’m far from the Galatian heresy (though I am beset with other sins, to be sure). It is the gospel which saves *and* sanctifies us…Paul says that the gospel has “power”. We agree that our justification is a legal, forensic justification where our works in no way add to Christ’s…our faith is the product of God’s grace and is not a product of our own achievements.

     I shared with you, I think on a different post, Scripture which backed up this notion. You essentially shrugged it off and Darryl joked about Moo offering a similar interpretation and the unsavory fact that Moo is an egalitarian. I haven’t read Moo on this passage, this is simply my reading, and I believe it is interpreted rightly:

     Romans 6:1-15
     1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
     5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!

     The notion of false grace and real grace is not new. After Paul demonstrated that grace causes us to overcome sin (after all, the same God Who raised Jesus from the dead is the same one which brings us to life) cannot be a license to sin…it has power…yet by using the word “grace”, he understood his listeners would *still* think of grace wrongly: “So sin that grace may abound?” No! “Oh, then sin because we’re under grace and not law?” No! Weren’t you listening? The Roman Christians, at this point, would hopefully go backwards and ask: “what is grace then?”

     I’d wager the Christians Paul knew would miss the point of the power of grace were the most orthodox in that church because they got the forensic nature of it down pat. Even still, that was incomplete. So I’m not saying we are sanctified apart from the Word, or apart from the Gospel, or only by the Holy Spirit: All of these things together sanctify us…and what unites them all, what gives us hope for real advance against sin, is the fact the gospel has power…it’s the Holy Spirit.

     So just telling yourself the good news, understanding the forensic nature of justification (all good things!) is not necessarily the complete understanding of grace. An alleviated conscience is nice, in fact…we need this. God’s grace is power, though.

     John: “The Law convicts us of our sin and the Gospel provides the forgiveness and clear conscience we need in order to even begin fighting it. The Gospel provides the power and the Holy Spirit always points us to the Gospel as our source of strength and power.”

     Here’s where I’m pretty sure I’ll get a guffaw or two. You have, on the surface, a God-centered view of justification (that’s good). Here’s where it is inconsistent: the absolute Law/Gospel divide.

     If ALL law does is condemn (and it does condemn…this is the primary means the Spirit convicts men), and if the Gospel ONLY provides the forgiveness of sins and a clear conscience we need in order to fight sin…and the Spirit points back to that Gospel…what is animating us in holiness? If the Spirit “hides” (and in a sense He does) and points to the gospel…then I’m directed back to your understanding of the Gospel…which is that it gives us forgiveness and a clear conscience so that we can fight sin. So what animates us to be sanctified in this equation? It is us.

     On the one hand, God alone is glorified in justification…on the other hand, He provides us a clear conscience whereby we may then “fight” sin. You said the gospel is our source of strength and power…exellent! I agree. But you defined the power as being forgiveness and a clear conscience. A limited definition like this stems from the absolute Law/Gospel divide inherent to R2k.

     I’m advocating the same forensic justification as you along with the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. God did not pour out the Law/Gospel divide at Pentecost, but He did pour out His Holy Spirit.

     Romans 8:10-15
     10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”

     John, I apologize to you as well for my animus. Would you forgive me? The last thing I want to do is to associate such hope we have in the Gospel with my own stubborn pride. I am sorry.

     The Gospel offers us forensic, double-imputational justification. It also unites us to God as our Father by way of His Holy Spirit. We are sons.

     1 John 3:1-3
     1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

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196. Craig, shopping locally may not qualify as something important. But you say that I deny the application of Scripture to ordinary life. If I try to follow the 8th commandment in my consumption of goods, then I do apply Scripture in some part of my life. In that case, your characterization of my views is wrong.

     What you don’t seem to understand — but this afflicts a lot of people — is that the implication you see in my view is not the same as my view. And then when I deny the implication and try to explain why it’s not true, and then you repeat that your characterization is correct, you continue to misrepresent. Worse, you think that you understand my view better than I. And given your animus, I don’t see how your characterization can be fair, much less charitable.

     So while I’m grateful for your admission, I continue to regard your bias as harmful and your characterizations as false.

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197. Paul and Craig,

     Apologies accepted and I will try to work at my misconstruing and thinking I can discern what’s on peoples minds and ferret out subtle and nefarious implications before inquiring further into the matters that are being argued about.;

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198. Paul, passive-aggressive pouting now? But it isn’t logic that’s the problem, it’s logicism. You use logic the way pietists use experience. Nothing wrong with experience, but when experientialism is thrown up to divert a common sense confession it’s just the flipside of intellectualism. But there’s a difference between being philosophical and being ecclesiastical.

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199. Darryl,
     If I’m correct, and your view entails what I laid out, then that is what your view entails. It’s the same principle where we extrapolate from the Word things it doesn’t say, but is necessarily inferred. Positively, the Word entails certain things which we must describe as biblical, therefore, binding. Negatively, our error works the same way.

     DGH: “But you say that I deny the application of Scripture to ordinary life. If I try to follow the 8th commandment in my consumption of goods, then I do apply Scripture in some part of my life. In that case, your characterization of my views is wrong.”

     I actually said this: “you strip the Word of application to the ‘neutral realm’.”

     I used “neutral realm”, and have not used the term “ordinary life” in my criticisms. This was a purposeful choice on my end, and is considerably different than “ordinary life”. I have also used “common ground”, but that is the same as “neutral realm”. Ordinary life is the everyday life of the believer, “neutral realm” refers to that ground the Christian shares with unbeliever.

     So let’s use the 6th commandment as example. I know you agree and would apply this to ordinary life. Well, ordinary life brings us into contact with the “neutral realm” at times, in the case of abortion: the common ground of politics. If we must love our neighbor (as Jesus says, and not simply refrain from murdering), and if we are to also prevent harm from befalling our fellow man (and the Larger Catechism lays this out), then it follows that we must oppose abortion. I have never stated how a Christian must oppose, only that it must be done. This isn’t a neutral area. When I’ve said the Christian must be opposed, in the past you have said “Well what about the Sabbath?” or “What about worshipping false gods?” or “Prohibition?”

     None of us is free to disregard the 6th commandment (I’m not saying you do), and as Christians who are citizens of a country where abortion is sanctioned, we are obligated to oppose abortion (especially when the law of the land gives us a voice). Shopping locally is cummin while opposing abortion is weightier. Part of my criticism has been, and continues to be, your lack of proportion and leveling of abortion to, say, Prohibition.

     There are laws for dealing with actions resulting from intoxication. Banning the sale of alcohol is not at all like seeking the ban of abortion. One may become a little intoxicated and fall asleep, wear a lamp shade, or crash his car into oncoming traffic with differing degrees of injury ranging from a hangover to broken bones, to death. With abortion, the degree of harm is always the same: death. One aborted infant is no less dead than another.

     DGH: “And given your animus, I don’t see how your characterization can be fair, much less charitable.

     So while I’m grateful for your admission, I continue to regard your bias as harmful and your characterizations as false.”

     I think I’ll leave it at that.

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200. John,

     I didn’t apologize.

     Zrim,

     No passive aggressive pouting. I find that you do not argue in good faith since rational public discourse presupposes both parties subject themselves to the desiderata of rationality and the rules and laws of logic. You’re a nice guy and I’m not saying any of this as a personal attack, I just refuse to engage in rational discourse with someone who doesn’t submit to its strictures. That, in fact, makes rational discourse impossible, and it violates the tacit agreement both parties have. You can spin this whatever way you want if it helps you sleep at night. That’s your liberty. 🙂

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201. Paul,

     I know, I meant it in the singular (Craig) and then the next remark was intended for you and Craig and anyone else whose views I have mis-stated or misconstrued.

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202. Paul, might I suggest something ecumenical and perhaps more charitable? Maybe we could add another category to the different tributaries that course through the Reformed camp: the pietist, the culturalist, the doctrinalist, the liturgical and now the philosophical. So it may be less a matter of “being irrational (and refusing to argue in good faith)” and more a matter of what happens when you put a doctrinal-liturgical and a cultural-philosophical in the same combox together.

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203. Craig, I have repeatedly said I oppose abortion. Scott Clark also says so. But you know the way the conversations went on over at the Baylys where frankly you were a lot less civil than even the vitriol you display here. The point of those posts by Tim and David, and which you piled on against me in my efforts to defend 2k, was that if 2kers aren’t using the pulpits or protesting at the clinics, they are not opposed to abortion.

     So Craig, do you believe me when I say I oppose abortion, believe that women or physicians in my congregation should be urged to repent and disciplined if they don’t, and that I believe the taking of innocent life is more serious than drunkenness.

     As for your powers of interpretation, why is it you think you can infer from my remarks that I oppose abortion. And why is it that I cannot infer from “neutral realm” “ordinary life”?

     You still have lots of ‘splaining to do.

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204. Craig, btw, I do not deny the application of the word to the “neutral realm” or to “ordinary life.” It is a different question whether all Christians will have the same application. That’s at the heart of Christian liberty and what distinguishes the Judaizers from the non-Judaizers.

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205. Darryl,
     I have no explaining to do. I showed how you used unfair balances (something God hates, btw), and use other unsavory methods for discourse, such as misstating my own views…something which you did in the above comment. I have never stated all Christians must have the “same application” of the Word. In fact, I’ve stated this twice (possibly more) in the comments section of this very blog entry. From this misstatement (after explicit denials on my part already), you then imply I’m a Judaizer. Hilariously, you accuse me of the very same thing (which I haven’t done, I’ve at least offered arguments).

     DGH: “The point of those posts by Tim and David, and which you piled on against me in my efforts to defend 2k, was that if 2kers aren’t using the pulpits or protesting at the clinics, they are not opposed to abortion.”

     You have an interesting ability at recollection. You weren’t trying to show your anti-abortion R2k street-cred. You were divorcing the office of pastor from voicing opposition to abortion. That’s exactly what Scott Clark did as well which led to your virtual “pile-on”. Neither Tim or David gave any “thou shalts”, though it is clear a pastor (in the office of pastor) shall not be silent. You disagree that this extends beyond the oversight of God’s people, I say the prophetic voice ought also to echo further than the congregation.

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206. Hmmm, sounds like Zrim (11/24 @8:12 a.m.) is onto something. Add an “ism” to something good and now it’s bad. I stand in awe at that kind of transformation-ism.

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207. Eliza, right. Here is one of my favorites: Experience is a good thing, but experientialism is a bad thing. I have a history, not a personal testimony. Don’t you think there is a difference? If so, what’s wrong with a little shorthand?

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208. Zrim: “Experience is a good thing, but experientialism is a bad thing. I have a history, not a personal testimony.”

     I can’t speak for Eliza…but:

     A) It is a virtue to be concise when communicating, however, it is a vice to resort to shorthand-ism.

     B) Following from A, shorthand-ism lead to “slogan-ese”…communication officially breaks down at this point as whoever is whole-heartedly committed to shorthandism cannot escape their own linguistic constructural reality.

     C) Not everyone has the benefit of possessing their own 3rd-person authorities to compile scholarly, peer-reviewed biographies, so people like me are forced to relay personal testimony whenever asked about our personal history.

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209. Craig, I wouldn’t say that shorthand leads to sloganeering as if there is something categorically wrong with either. I would say that just like there are good and bad kinds of both otherworldliness and this-worldiness, there’s also good shorthand/sloganeering (sola fide) and bad shorthand/sloganeering (eternal security). Sermons that depend on a lot of popular slogans and sentiments are also examples of the bad kind; also bumper-sticker theology, which also has the problem of esteeming self-expression over self-comportment, something I know you think is a silly dichotomy.

     I don’t have the benefit of possessing my own third person authority to compile scholarly, peer-reviewed biography about me either. But my lack of importance doesn’t mean I don’t have a history just like you or King George. Next time you’re asked try giving a history instead of a testimony, unless you don’t know the difference, in which case you may not know the difference between revivalism and Presbyterianism, which would explain a lot.

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210. Evidence of Zrim’s sloganese…he insisted on coining a variation of it. Only he can know what he means.

     Zrim: “in which case you may not know the difference between revivalism and Presbyterianism, which would explain a lot.”

     I don’t know what you mean by either term since I’m not privy to your individual sloganeered construct…I need to be careful here. I just used a variation of your own variation, very nearly crossing the bridge into a shared construct where there is no escape. Of course, if I did cross that bridge, and I don’t know what you mean by either term, then neither do you…and that explains a lot.

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211. Craig, revivalism is about the inward experience of the believer, Presbyterianism is about the outward history of Christ. That’s a thumbnail sketch, of course, which I am sure is just as incredulous to you.

     But I think Bill Clinton was helpful when asked how to generally distinguish between a Republican and a Democrat: if you think the 60s were mostly a good thing, you’re probably a Democrat; if you think mostly a bad thing, probably a Republican. In the same way, if you think the phenomenon of Billy Graham is a mostly a good thing, you’re probably a revivalist; if you think mostly a bad thing, probably a confessionalist. I understand your’re suspicious of broad strokes, shorthand, slogans and categories, but maybe working harder instead of smarter is also a revivalist trait?

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212. Zrim: “I understand your’re suspicious of broad strokes, shorthand, slogans and categories…”

     Craig said earlier: “It is a virtue to be concise when communicating…”

     Zrim: “..but maybe working harder instead of smarter is also a revivalist trait?”

     *putting on his thinking cap* I don’t know. Is muddled thinking used in conjunction with loaded shorthand a “smarter” way of communicating? Just answer the question: “Yes”, or “No”. “Yes” means you’re a revivalist…also, “No” means the same thing. I’d like to hear your opinion so I can conclude that you’re a revivalist.

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213. Craig, are those reasoning skills the same ones the Bayly’s employ to say that those who don’t protest abortion clinics are unfaithful?

     P.S. no. Can I get an Ay-men?

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214. Zrim: “are those reasoning skills the same ones the Bayly’s employ to say that those who don’t protest abortion clinics are unfaithful?”

     I was simply trying to avoid logicism.

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215. Craig, for what it’s worth, an implication (Judaizer) is not an accusation. This is the key to the Baylys and your problem.

     And for what it’s worth, my memory is fine. What’s questionable is the way you read. Here’s just one excerpt from the Bayly’s denunciation and twisted logic against 2k:

     “It’s self-evident on any terms a civilized man accepts for the foundation of common law that ripping unborn babies apart in their mothers’ wombs is an evil as great as the world has ever known, but check out whether the two-kingdom men you know write about it on their blogs, speak against it in the public square, preach against it in their pulpits, or show up at the killing place to lift a finger to stop it. And that, dear brothers, is the error. Thus, proving one has not fallen into this error is the easiest of matters. It only requires a two-kingdom man to give a regular witness against injustice and bloodshed in his public ministry. But if an officer of Christ’s Church today is not known, as all the Christians were known in the ancient Roman Empire, for taking up the cause of the children being slaughtered and loving the little ones as their Master does, he merits no reading, no listening, no following as a teacher of the church or shepherd of souls.”

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216. And just in case you miss it, Craig:

     “There are many church officers today who are collaborators employing doctrine to justify their silence. Let me be clear: I am not saying these men are unconverted, but rather that they are unfaithful.”

     And in case you still miss it, that’s an old revivalist trick: when someone doesn’t fall in line with your views call into question his faith. That’s an impossible position to argue from, and that’s the point of the strategy. But another mark of being more revivalist than confessionalist is not only the tendency toward very particular social activism and political causes but also the inability to grasp how another might not be as convinced as you or in the same way for just as principled reasons as you might have. And out pops something like this.

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217. Zrim: Maybe we could add another category to the different tributaries that course through the Reformed camp: the pietist, the culturalist, the doctrinalist, the liturgical and now the philosophical.

     Amen. And we can then talk about hybrids: van Til was what I would want to be — a philosophical-doctrinalist.

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218. Zrim: I understand your’re suspicious of broad strokes, shorthand, slogans and categories…

     For the record, I am too. Well, let me qualify. I teach math for a living, and slogans abound in mathematics. The trick is to find slogans that really, really work without misleading. Slogans that sort of mostly work, if you overlook the exceptions, tend to lead students into sloppy behavior, or worse, into outright wrong thinking.

     So for example: I’ve had to root out from my current crop of calculus students the notion that parentheses ( ) mean multiplication. Somewhere, they got that slogan in their heads — which worked well for algebra 1, but is disastrous when dealing with functions. (I believe I know the culprit.)

     But on the other hand, we sloganize principles that always work. Thus the product rule for derivatives: “first times the derivative of the second plus second times the derivative of the first.”

     Hence the distinction: good slogans always work; bad slogans work most of the time.

     If you can agree with this, you can grasp why I’ve been pushing so hard about the particular 2k distinctions you draw at times. It’s not that I can’t understand them in broad strokes; it’s just that they don’t always work.

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219. Jeff: “If you can agree with this, you can grasp why I’ve been pushing so hard about the particular 2k distinctions you draw at times. It’s not that I can’t understand them in broad strokes; it’s just that they don’t always work.”

     Precisely…I couldn’t have said it better (which is probably why I didn’t).

     DGH: “And for what it’s worth, my memory is fine. What’s questionable is the way you read. Here’s just one excerpt from the Bayly’s denunciation and twisted logic against 2k…”

     DGH said a few comments previously: “The point of those posts by Tim and David, and which you piled on against me in my efforts to defend 2k, was that if 2kers aren’t using the pulpits or protesting at the clinics, they are not opposed to abortion.”

     Craig: I think you missed most of Tim’s point on that comment. His indictment went deeper. So I’d like to ask you 2 questions, and I’d prefer you to answer right off rather than me having to ask several times (and the question is related to the quote):

     Do you believe a right use of the pulpit can include addressing the sin of abortion? Do you believe a legitimate activity of a pastor in his official capacity of shepherd can include attempts at rescuing infants from being aborted?

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220. Craig, if you think your questions are the deeper level of those posts’ points, then you must have gone to the same Christian school that Mark Van Der Molen promotes — where worldview is taught instead of reading comprehension. How you could possibly miss the accusation of sin within those posts against 2k proponents is beyond my comprehension.

     But your questions are not that hard or that deep. I do believe that a minister should proclaim all of Scripture. The sixth commandment fits within all of Scripture. Abortion involves the taking of innocent life. So I could see a pastor legitimately mentioning abortion in a sermon on the 6th commandment. I could also see such a pastor taking Christ’s expansion of the law in the NT to include some strong words against those who harbor malicious thoughts about 2k proponents.

     On the second question, a pastor may legitimately try to rescue the lives of anyone, including those in the womb. But I regard this as irregular work to be done in extraordinary circumstances. But it is not illegitimate.

     BTW, this is not what the Baylys’ advocate. They say I must be flying the banner against abortion the way they do.

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221. Amen. And we can then talk about hybrids: van Til was what I would want to be — a philosophical-doctrinalist.

     No outbursting, Jeff, that’s what revivalists do. For my part, I think the Hodge-Nevin antagonism was unfortunate for various reasons, not least is that it seemed to not do much for the hybrid I favor, doctrinal(Hodge)-liturgical(Nevin).

     Hence the distinction: good slogans always work; bad slogans work most of the time. If you can agree with this, you can grasp why I’ve been pushing so hard about the particular 2k distinctions you draw at times. It’s not that I can’t understand them in broad strokes; it’s just that they don’t always work.

     Jeff, it depends. “We are justified by faith alone, but not a faith that is alone.” When we want to emphasize how faith is the sole instrument of justification then we employ the former slogan, and it always works; if we want to emphasize the inevitability of works flowing from faith then we employ the latter, and it always works. I know you understand those broad strokes. Are you saying they don’t always work? If so, I wonder if that’s a function of thinking too much or working harder instead of smarter.

     But I’d be curious to know what broad-stroke 2k distinctions I draw that don’t always work. I’m guessing one is that general revelation is sufficient for general tasks (the flipside of sola scriptura, that special revelation is sufficient for ecclesiastical tasks).

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222. Craig, do you think pastors should be cautious about mixing faith and politics from the pulpit? Unless one has been living under a rock the last 35+ years, the term “abortion” in 2010 America is nothing if not highly politically charged. It would be nice if those who have been very much a part of the politicization of all things including reproductive issues would own up to that fact and show at least an iota of care for how addressing certain things, while certainly not out of the question, can be a minefield, at least to those who care about the spirituality of the church.

     But I’ve also wondered why some think a behavior that most pious Presbyterians would never dream of doing must be directly addressed in pulpits. This is not a way to say that the pious are vulnerable to sin; rather it’s a way to suggest that pastors who do this seem an awful lot like dads who raise their daughters in virtue and then, after seeing the neighbors give their daughter’s permission to indulge in ignoble behavior, post instructions on their bedroom doors not to do the same. Whatever else it is, seems pretty condescending to one’s child and a way to show a lack of faith in one’s efforts to nurture her in virtue. It’s also like raising one’s voice when speaking to a friend at a party in order to make a point to the guy across the room.

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223. Darryl,
     I didn’t say you were completely wrong. I did say: “I think you missed most of Tim’s point on that comment. His indictment went deeper.” One may catch a portion of a remark and miss the principle. This isn’t necessarily a “worldviewism”, this is logic. I guess they don’t teach that at Wheaton.

     DGH: “BTW, this is not what the Baylys’ advocate. They say I must be flying the banner against abortion the way they do.”

     You have been told on numerous occasions this is wrong…not just by me.

     You said to Tim:
     >”I’d have thought you’d be wary about imposing your own litmus test on picketing abortion clinics.”

     To which Tim responded:
     >”No litmus test at all. Just a particularly good example of mercy shown to the least of these.”

     Taken from here: http://www.baylyblog.com/2010/02/tim-darryl-hart-is-a-writer-and-director-of-partnered-projects-at-the—intercollegiate-studies-institute-he-first-made-hi.html?cid=6a00d83451d09d69e20120a88dfa77970b

     Tim said in the same comment section:
     >”Concerning your sniffing at Christians doing something, anything, to help the babies escape the slaughter: as I’ve said, there are many ways to obey the command of God to stand against cruelty and oppression and the shedding of the blood of innocents. What we must not do is come up with a Pharisaical explanation for why this command no longer applies to God’s Covenant People.

     And to many of us, that’s what two-covenant doctrine does. Sometimes, I even wonder if that’s not its main purpose?”

     Further, Tim has acknowledged exactly what you said he doesn’t…Lane Keister said at greenbaggins:
     >”Tim, the things I’m concerned about haven’t really been addressed. For instance, the very two items you mentioned are things that Darryl acknowledged as important, and that we can speak of them on the basis of the Ten Commandments.”

     Tim responded:
     >”You’re quite right, Lane: the things we’re concerned about haven’t really been addressed. But I don’t want to engage in this more, here, dear brother. Let each man examine his own conscience.”

     Clearly the Baylys weren’t voicing mere concern over how to oppose abortion…yet you continue to say the contrary…but Tim said the things he and David were concerned about weren’t being addressed. As noted before: this isn’t about your anti-abortion street cred. Yet you still didn’t get it as in that same comment section you said:

     >”The 2k position allows for liberty — not on the sins of murder or being subject to ordained authorities — but on the way that Christians oppose such sins in the public realm. The Baylys cannot make that distinction.”

     (previous quotes taken from here: http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/two-kingdoms-discussion/)

     You didn’t get it then, and you still don’t get it now. This has never been about “doing it the Bayly way or the highway” when it comes to opposing abortion.

     Further, David Bayly wrote a post underscoring his criticism of R2k. Here’s a quote:
     >”Dr. Hart clears Washington of Christian influence, segregates Christian teaching and practice to the Church, and Washington D.C. becomes a religion-free zone? Nonsense. What Dr. Hart’s proclaiming is eradication of Christ from state. Remove the Church, remove the Word, remove Christian influence and teaching from worldly authority and the vacuum will not go unfilled.”

     taken from here: http://www.baylyblog.com/2010/02/surrender-of-state-to-.html

     BTW, the word “abortion”, “picket”, nor “protest” ever appears in that blog entry…yet Darryl continues to falsely state his disagreement with the Baylys is over how one may oppose abortion.

     Moving along…

     I’d like to thank you for answering my questions as in times past this hasn’t been the case:

     >DGH: “I do believe that a minister should proclaim all of Scripture. The sixth commandment fits within all of Scripture. Abortion involves the taking of innocent life. So I could see a pastor legitimately mentioning abortion in a sermon on the 6th commandment.”

     So you agree with Tim and David…so where would you disagree? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems you believe preaching on abortion is “optional”. In one instance you said (in a comment on the Bayly Blog) that preaching specifically comes from a desire to be “relevant”. I am glad you believe a pastor may preach against abortion, I am confused by the assertion that being specific is some quest for relevance (I assume this is a reference to some form of seeker sensitivity), and I am troubled if you think preaching on such a “specific” would fall within “liberty”. The god of our age is one of self-determination at the expense of anything else (include little babies). To preach against abortion isn’t merely a matter of “relevance” in a seeker-sensitive sort of a way…but it is relevant in order to be salt and light…exposing the darkness of unbelief, rescuing the weak, pleading the cause of those wronged, preventing harm, and more. This is the sort of relevance that makes a Christian irrelevant to an unbeliever committed to his hatred of procreation…and is a powerful point of contact showing how birth points to promise. As unbelievers cut off their heritage, they can expect to be cut off from God’s own kindness at some point as it is appointed once for man to die.

     One man may silently find ways of financing mothers pregnancy, or offer to adopt the child, offer to take the mother in, protest, preach, vote anti-abortion…and many, many more ways (you know, liberty). It is not optional to be opposed, however. And you have at least acknowledged that you’re opposed to abortion…well, great. It is not optional for Christians to be neutral on this issue?

     >DGH: “On the second question, a pastor may legitimately try to rescue the lives of anyone, including those in the womb. But I regard this as irregular work to be done in extraordinary circumstances. But it is not illegitimate.

     This doesn’t quite answer my question. On the one hand, what you’ve said is obviously true. Any man ought to try to rescue anyone’s life as given opportunity…and generally, this is very uncommon (unless the Christian works in an ER). On the other hand, the murder of children is so common place that there are designated working hours where nurses and doctors clock-in. I can’t avoid an impromptu murder, but I can avoid a clinic which predictably murders infants week in and week out. Also, my question was even more specific: May a pastor (under auspices of his office) attempt to rescue little ones? And I don’t necessarily mean running into an abortion clinic and doing “whatever it takes” to prevent a murder. He might simply offer help in any number of ways leading to a child being spared.

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224. Zrim: “Unless one has been living under a rock the last 35+ years, the term “abortion” in 2010 America is nothing if not highly politically charged.”

     If a country passed laws which prohibited the preaching of the gospel, would the gospel then become a politically charged issue?

     Zrim: “But I’ve also wondered why some think a behavior that most pious Presbyterians would never dream of doing must be directly addressed in pulpits.”

     Does that mean preaching on the 6th commandment is optional? I haven’t met a pious Presbyterian (or otherwise) that would ever consider murder as a legitimate option. You also give Christians too much credit…anectdotally, I found myself in a discussion about abortion with co-workers some years ago. I had learned recently one man was a part of an evangelical church (charismatic to boot)…and he was livid that I would call abortion murder and challenged me to tell him that he was a murderer because he and his wife decided to have an abortion because of their finances.

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225. Craig, you didn’t answer my question: do you think pastors should be cautious about mixing faith and politics from the pulpit?

     But as to yours, what makes the conversation almost impossible is your insistence on making it about “those who think murder is optional” and “those who think murder is wrong.” No, preaching on the sixth is not optional, and I agree with you that those who have been personally involved in the act need to deal honestly with it (though my guess is that tactics like yours make that also fairly impossible because you likely make it about a cause to champion instead of people to care for).

     But that really isn’t my point here. My point is to also take into consideration the unavoidably political nature of abortion in our context. What your side of the table has managed to do is, first, foist the question of abortion almost exclusively into political terms because you perceive that to politicize something is to gain power and exact control; second, you have managed to also deny that you have done this in order to circumvent the obvious problems associated with politicization, turning the conversation into a purely moral matter where the immoral are over there and the moral over here. Anybody who dares to raise his hand to anything you say is cast into the immoral camp (what happens when politics are moralized), or in this case, the unfaithful camp (when religion is politicized).

     But in case you’ve already forgotten again: do you think pastors should be cautious about mixing faith and politics from the pulpit?

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226. Zrim: “Craig, you didn’t answer my question: do you think pastors should be cautious about mixing faith and politics from the pulpit?”

     I did respond to your question (with a question). Unfortunately, I couldn’t answer your question as it was framed…you know, sloganeering just destroys communication. So I still won’t answer your question until you answer mine.

     Zrim: “But as to yours, what makes the conversation almost impossible is your insistence on making it about “those who think murder is optional” and “those who think murder is wrong.”

     Well, that was a response to my second question…and misread the intent of the question completely. I asked if preaching on the 6th commandment was optional. This is relevant given that you found it odd that Presbyterians would think it necessary to preach on abortion when most pious Presbies wouldn’t countenance such an option. So if a sermon on the 6th commandment is part and parcel to preaching the whole counsel of God, so is preaching about abortion. My point is that abortion is not a political issue…though there are currently political implications since the magistrate has overstepped its bounds by sanctioning murder by citizens of persons having committed no criminal conduct.

     Zrim: “(though my guess is that tactics like yours make that also fairly impossible because you likely make it about a cause to champion instead of people to care for).”

     A display of omniscience. You must be a pietist.

     Zrim: “What your side of the table has managed to do is, first, foist the question of abortion almost exclusively into political terms because you perceive that to politicize something is to gain power and exact control…”

     A completely unfounded assertion…unless this is another pietistic claim to omniscience.

     Zrim: “second, you have managed to also deny that you have done this in order to circumvent the obvious problems associated with politicization, turning the conversation into a purely moral matter where the immoral are over there and the moral over here.”

     What? I like a good Allman Bros song as much as the next guy, but not this kind of ramblin’.

     Zrim: “Anybody who dares to raise his hand to anything you say is cast into the immoral camp”

     I haven’t done that, but I do know of some who any time you don’t agree with their loaded sloganeering you are any (probably all) of the following:
     Revivalist, pietist, pharisee, or any number epithets.

     Zrim: “But in case you’ve already forgotten again: do you think pastors should be cautious about mixing faith and politics from the pulpit?”

     You didn’t answer my first question which was a response to your loaded sloganeered question…let me reproduce it for you:

     “If a country passed laws which prohibited the preaching of the gospel, would the gospel then become a politically charged issue?”

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227. Craig, I try to engage what I think I understand. I don’t understand the point of the question. I make a point about how abortion is politcally charged (is this really controversial?) and you ask something about outlawing the gospel. But if a country outlawed the preaching of the gospel I suppose it might become politically charged, but only by those who have politicized faith in the first place (the same ones usually who have moralized politics). My response would be to disobey and keep preaching the gospel, not picket courthouses to make sure preaching the gospel didn’t cost me anything. It might give you some comfort to know fellow 2kers think me a neo-Anabaptist-pacifist for suggesting that. But I’ve read Hunter’s To Change the World, and while I see some overlap with the neo-Anabaptists, as he describes it, and 2k I don’t see myself in the neo-Anabaptist camp at all.

     I asked if preaching on the 6th commandment was optional. This is relevant given that you found it odd that Presbyterians would think it necessary to preach on abortion when most pious Presbies wouldn’t countenance such an option. So if a sermon on the 6th commandment is part and parcel to preaching the whole counsel of God, so is preaching about abortion. My point is that abortion is not a political issue…though there are currently political implications since the magistrate has overstepped its bounds by sanctioning murder by citizens of persons having committed no criminal conduct.

     And I responded by saying that preaching the sixth is not optional. And I also indicated that addressing abortion is “certainly not out of the question.” So if you want abortion mentioned in the pulpit I haven’t said anything that would preclude that at all, since it is a behavior that has moral significance. My point is that many anymore don’t seem to consider very carefully that, despite your predictable assertion that it isn’t, abortion is most certainly also a political issue; it’s one of the most political issues of our day. It is utterly quizzical how anybody can say something so incredibly naive and disingenuous as to say that abortion isn’t political. But, again, this is what I mean when I say it’s to your advantage to magically make your particular political issue not political, because then you get to give the full force of heaven’s sanction to it and claim you’ve not brought the traditions of men and the cares of the world into the church. Bravo. But you’re as transparent as a revivalist’s plexi-glass lecturn.

     It’s funny how you deny that it is political and then in the very next breath talk about “magistrates and bounds and sanctioning and citizens and criminal conduct”: hey, Craig, those are political and legislative terms, pal.

     So, how about it then: do you think pastors should be cautious about mixing faith and politics from the pulpit?

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228. Zrim: “you ask something about outlawing the gospel. But if a country outlawed the preaching of the gospel I suppose it might become politically charged, but only by those who have politicized faith in the first place (the same ones usually who have moralized politics)”

     I have to keep you on track…in the attempt at having a discussion with you, I have attempted to preserve some notion of continuity rather than bounce all over the place. I asked you about the outlawing of the gospel to point out that just because a government politicizes something doesn’t mean the church must tip-toe around the issue in faux attempts at preserving its spirituality…when the world says “don’t be salty salt”, and we cater to that, that’s the epitome of an unspiritual Church.

     Further, you say “It’s funny how you deny that it is political and then in the very next breath talk about “magistrates and bounds and sanctioning and citizens and criminal conduct”: hey, Craig, those are political and legislative terms, pal.”

     Well, “pal”, you got your gotcha! moment, huh? This is sophistry…not even good sophistry…it’s just drivel. I said: “My point is that abortion is not a political issue…though there are currently political implications since the magistrate has overstepped its bounds by sanctioning murder by citizens of persons having committed no criminal conduct.”

     On the one hand…is is not a political issue…but because abortion is now sanctioned, what Christians say about it has political implications…just like there were political implications to preaching the gospel which led to state-sanctioned execution (we call it “martyrdom”) of the apostles and other saints in the 1st Century. By your logic, the apostle Paul was a Kuyperian Jerry Fallwell.

     Zrim: “My response would be to disobey and keep preaching the gospel, not picket courthouses to make sure preaching the gospel didn’t cost me anything.”

     So are you suggesting that Christians break down doors to abortion clinics rather than avoid the cost? I’d venture to say “likely not”. Your gospel has no political risk because you’re willing to render unto Caesar what is not his domain. Oh, abortion is your domain, Caesar? I’m sorry, I won’t say boo!

     Zrim: “It is utterly quizzical how anybody can say something so incredibly naive and disingenuous as to say that abortion isn’t political. But, again, this is what I mean when I say it’s to your advantage to magically make your particular political issue not political, because then you get to give the full force of heaven’s sanction to it and claim you’ve not brought the traditions of men and the cares of the world into the church. Bravo. But you’re as transparent as a revivalist’s plexi-glass lecturn.”

     This is why communicating with you is a constant frustration. Abortion is not political in *nature*…is marriage a political issue? No. But most of us go to the courthouse to get our marriage license and our pastors proclaim that by the power vested in them by the state of ____ I now pronounce you man and wife. Marriage is not a political construction…but there’s all kinds of implications since the state has stepped in…issues ranging from taxes, testate vs intestate wills, per stirpes distribution of assets upon death for intestate wills…heck, death is a result of the Fall, yet the legal implications of death are fantastically complex. Do you suppose death is political? Perhaps the abolition of all legislation pertaining to deaths/wills/estates/etc will render man immortal! Just because there are implications resulting from legislation doesn’t suddenly render that issue political in nature.

     Or consider a theoretical possibility:
     Jesus said render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s…one day, Caesar says “all is Caesars”. That Sunday you drop your tithe in the plate as it was passed around the Church…in that act you will have denied what Caesar said was his and politicized the faith…I mean, that’s following your logic.

     Zrim: “do you think pastors should be cautious about mixing faith and politics from the pulpit?”

     I don’t think I ever said faith and politics ought to be mixed from the pulpit (I say this because I don’t think they should be). If I answered you “yes”, I’m saying the two may be mixed (though cautiously, of course)…if I say “no”, I’m still saying they should be mixed.

     Do you think you should be cautious about giving to Caesar what is belongs to God and His Church? That’s a rhetorical question to help you think a bit more clearly. I am done discussing with you. It’s an utter waste of time when the other person insists on using loaded language, misconstrues my position, fails to understand basic rules of discourse, not to mention failure to comprehend the most basic rules of logic thus making any progress impossible.

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229. Craig, sorry but you only dig the whole deeper the more you quote the Baylys. I guess sitting under their preaching has eroded your brain cells. For instance, Tim Bayly telling Lane Kiester he is going to drop the exchange hardly changes the words that he wrote. Nor does it change what David Bayly writes about me and my influence on Washington. It is really bad theology to think that I have power to remove Christ from Washington — hello — what kind of God does David worship. Remember, I believe that Christ is Lord no matter who is in power — Saddam or George Bush. So how could 2k possibly remove Christ from Washington.

     And while we’re at brain cells, an important point of 2k made here repeatedly but also in VanDRunen’s book is that Christ rules his people and the unsaved differently. How could that not be the case. Was God only lord of Israel in the OT? Or did he rule his covenant people differently than the Babylonians?

     I’ve answered your questions. You don’t like the answer. Pound.

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230. Craig, I understand this is very frustrating for you. But I think it’s because you have insisted on making it a fairly two-dimensional conversation which, by definition, has a hard time allowing for various complexities. And I can sympathize with frustration, because this is very similar to speaking with a choicer who insists the question of abortion is about those who want to oppress women and those who don’t. It’s very Baylyish, as in those who are faithful and those who are unfaithful. Sigh.

     I’m not sure I understand your thought experiment. But “they were amazed” in Mark 12 for good reason. And it wasn’t for telling people to pay their taxes honestly and on time (who could be amazed at such an unprofound word?). It was because Caesar as they understood him, who had delusions of deity no less, demanded what they thought was too much. They expected some wiggle room, just enough to justify some rebellion, just enough maybe to be able to preach a sermon to the President. Instead they were told to submit to a magistrate who not too long ago had decreed every male two years and younger killed, trampled their rights and thought he was a god, enough to make the modern believer think he has grounds to disobey, or at the very least chastize for his policies.

     But yes, I do think we should be cautious about giving to Caesar what belongs to God. Caesar is owed our obedience only, not our worship which is for God alone. My guess is that this is yet another distinction that escapes you, namely obedience and worship. I think the larger balance of American Protestantism has this problem as well. It is hard to conceive of the typical American Protestant of the evangelical variety ascendng to ranks such as Joseph which demanded a civil obedience, love and loyalty not readily discerned in things like “Sermons to the President.”

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231. JRC: Hence the distinction: good slogans always work; bad slogans work most of the time.

     Zrim: Jeff, it depends. “We are justified by faith alone, but not a faith that is alone.” When we want to emphasize how faith is the sole instrument of justification then we employ the former slogan, and it always works; if we want to emphasize the inevitability of works flowing from faith then we employ the latter, and it always works. I know you understand those broad strokes. Are you saying they don’t always work? If so, I wonder if that’s a function of thinking too much or working harder instead of smarter.

     I think that’s an excellent example of a good slogan. I would also put the slogan “The indicative precedes the imperative” in that bin. Both have the potential to confuse; but once properly understood, they actually work correctly.

     Zrim: But I’d be curious to know what broad-stroke 2k distinctions I draw that don’t always work. I’m guessing one is that general revelation is sufficient for general tasks (the flipside of sola scriptura, that special revelation is sufficient for ecclesiastical tasks).

     Yes, I would say that slogan doesn’t work.

     Suppose one were to ask you, “Since business dealings are general tasks, can we assume that general revelation is sufficient for business dealings, and can we therefore assume that Scripture has nothing to say about our business dealings?”

     How would you respond?

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232. Jeff, I would say that the Bible tells us nothing about how to construct a business plan, so if we want to learn how to do that we should instead consult something like the Ernst & Young Business Plan Guide. That is not a way of saying that “the Bible has nothing to say about how we conduct ourselves,” because the Bible clearly speaks to us in everything we do. I know I sound like a broken record, but the Bible speaks to us–not to business, politics, education, music, law, medicine, etc.

     So, I’d assume you’d say that special revelation is sufficient for ecclesiastical tasks, right, and that slogan always works? But not this stuff about general revelation? What I don’t understand is what you think general revelation is for if not general tasks. Isn’t that why it’s called general revelation?

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233. Darryl,
     Tim didn’t merely say he was dropping the conversation. He said: “You’re quite right, Lane:the things we’re concerned about haven’t really been addressed”.

     That is, you (for example) failed to even understand the charge. Abortion was an *example*, not the litmust test. Tim said as much. David’s post, which I quoted from, also laid out that the criticism underscored an underlying error, not what makes for anti-abortion street-cred.

     DGH: “…Christ rules his people and the unsaved differently.”

     Far too often you rest your case on what is, in a sense: obvious (the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the application of the Word, Church authority, and the sacraments)…so “Yes”, Christ rules His people and the unsaved differently. But in another sense, “No”, Christ rules his people and the unsaved in the same way. He will not judge a man according to a standard different than what He has set out. He also rules by way of Providence, which no man can sway. Each of these ways of “ruling” are different. This is so fundamentally obvious I can’t help but think you are aware of this, being Wheaton educated and all (I went to a Christian college, but Wheaton it ain’t).

     DGH: “It is really bad theology to think that I have power to remove Christ from Washington — hello — what kind of God does David worship. Remember, I believe that Christ is Lord no matter who is in power…”

     This is disingenuous at best. Anyone who read the quote from David would realize this. You misconstrued what he said, which was this:”Dr. Hart clears Washington of Christian influence, segregates Christian teaching and practice to the Church, and Washington D.C. becomes a religion-free zone? Nonsense. What Dr. Hart’s proclaiming is eradication of Christ from state. Remove the Church, remove the Word, remove Christian influence and teaching from worldly authority and the vacuum will not go unfilled.”

     Just another example of your belligerent insistence on equivocation. Jesus said “where two or three are gathered together in My Name, I am in their midst”: Perhaps Jesus’ presence is limited…of course that’s a ham-fisted way of reading that passage, but it is also ham-fisted to read that quote from David as you have especially the way it was nuanced. Of course, I think you know this.

     DGH: “I’ve answered your questions. You don’t like the answer. Pound.”

     I won’t pound. You actually only answered one. Your last comment was a continuuation of your propensity as minsconstrual, equivocation, and embarrassing attempts at one-up-manship.

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234. Zrim: That is not a way of saying that “the Bible has nothing to say about how we conduct ourselves,” because the Bible clearly speaks to us in everything we do. I know I sound like a broken record, but the Bible speaks to us–not to business, politics, education, music, law, medicine, etc.

     I’m OK with the broken record bit, because I know I’m in the same boat.

     This is a new phrase from you: “the Bible clearly speaks to us in everything we do.” I’m encouraged to see this.

     And perhaps it provides a new avenue for shining light on the slogan. Our businessman above took the slogan “general revelation is sufficient for common tasks”, and reasoned from the slogan that general revelation is all that is needed for him to carry out his common tasks. This is a reasonable interpretation, no?

     But we agree that the Bible speaks to us in everything we do. Which means that it is needful for us (Christians) to obey Scripture *in addition to* utilizing general revelation, while engaged in common tasks. With me?

     And to be clear: the obeying Scripture does not refer merely to incidentals (“I’m playing baseball, and a pretty woman distracts me; Scripture tells me to ignore her” — that’s a situation that is incidental to the task at hand). No, the obeying Scripture also includes any matter that is directly germane — such as using honest weights and measures.

     Still with me?

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235. Zrim: So, I’d assume you’d say that special revelation is sufficient for ecclesiastical tasks, right, and that slogan always works?

     No, actually, I wouldn’t say that either. Again with the Confession:

     The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

     SR is sufficient for us to be able to glorify God; but it is not sufficient for all ecclesial tasks — including (here) worship and church government.

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236. Craig, if abortion is not a litmus test, then please explain this.

     BTW, equivocation is part and parcel of 2k, plus it’s right there in Paul’s letters. The wisdom of the Greeks is folly, and the gospel to the Greeks is folly. The Greeks were wise, but not wise enough to figure their way to God. The gospel does not produce the wisdom of the Greeks. I know you like consistency, but it is the hobgobblin of anti-2k.

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237. DGH: “Craig, if abortion is not a litmus test, then please explain this.”

     Well, first lets couch this accurately (this is getting old, Darryl). The issue of abortion *is* a litmus test. As I’ve said before, I’ll say again: No Christian has liberty of conscience when it comes to the slaughter of the unborn. You and I agree here, I believe.

     There is NOT a litmus test as to picketing, etc. I’ve said this before, and Tim B. has as well. In fact, here’s what I quoted to you on November 30, 2010 at 10:52 am:

     You said to Tim:
     >”I’d have thought you’d be wary about imposing your own litmus test on picketing abortion clinics.”

     To which Tim responded:
     >”No litmus test at all. Just a particularly good example of mercy shown to the least of these.”

     You said: “BTW, equivocation is part and parcel of 2k, plus it’s right there in Paul’s letters. The wisdom of the Greeks is folly, and the gospel to the Greeks is folly. The Greeks were wise, but not wise enough to figure their way to God.”

     Now you’re equivocating on equivocating. Brilliant. I’m speaking of fallacious reasoning, and you want to discuss a play on words…a different form of equivocation.

     DGH: “The gospel does not produce the wisdom of the Greeks. I know you like consistency, but it is the hobgobblin of anti-2k.”

     I didn’t realize I thought the gospel produced the wisdom of the Greeks. Are you finished with your empty sophistry? In our email exchanges you noted that this blog is directed at making people think…well, you’re doing that in a similar way that lazy students make their professors think. My wife grades papers for University students. A well-reasoned paper makes her think in one way…a muddled paper makes her work much harder, reason longer, and write more comments. I think you may be confused as to what productive thinking is. It is not like a constipated man’s visit to the bathroom.

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238. Jeff, I think what’s implicit in your thinking is that we have to account for participants as well as tasks, which I think is a fair point and worth attention. The difference may lie in that between how and why. I wonder if more shorthand is in order. Along with unbelievers, we believers need only general revelation to know how to do a general task, but unlike unbelievers we need special revelation to know why. You tend to have a concern for ethics, but I would contend that even here general revelation is sufficient for both un/believers, but when it comes to why we both don’t lie we believers have additional reasons beyond the obvious (it’s wrong) or even practical. Ours are principled: We don’t lie because we belong to the one Triune God of Israel who has created and redeemed us in Christ alone, because we are his slaves and it is part of keeping his covenant, etc. Indicative-imperative is what I’m saying. Pagans don’t have that.

     SR is sufficient for us to be able to glorify God; but it is not sufficient for all ecclesial tasks — including (here) worship and church government.

     I think we need to be careful here. It sounds almost like you’re denying sola scriptura and plenteous other confessional statements about the Bible being our only rule in faith and practice, which I don’t think you really mean to say. It seems to me that the thrust of the confessional statement is that the Bible is our only rule in faith and practice, but that doesn’t mean we mayn’t employ the light of nature to help guide. The point about employing the light of nature is sandwiched between statements that make it clear that the Bible is the final rule. I’d suggest more caution here about denying the sufficiency of special revelation for ecclesial tasks just to dismantle the converse idea that general revelation is sufficient for general tasks. I get you don’t like the latter formulation, but do you really want to say that the Bible is insufficient to govern the church? But at the very least, your odd argument here seems to help make my point that “general revelation is sufficient for general tasks” is the mirror-flipside of “special revelation is sufficient for ecclesial tasks” or sola scriptura.

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239. Craig,

     How would your wife grade you?

     Craig wrote: “Abortion was an *example*, not the litmust test. ”

     Then Craig wrote: “Well, first lets couch this accurately (this is getting old, Darryl). The issue of abortion *is* a litmus test.”

     So what is your point? What are you trying to accomplish by interjecting here? Is it simply because you can shout at me? If it is, I will start to delete your comments again.

     It might do you good if you thought a little bit about your position. You think the Bible needs to inform the magistrate. I think the magistrate can go a long way with Aristotle. I think the Greeks were wise. You seem to think they are sufficiently foolish in order not to recommend them to the magistrate. I think Paul is wise as a theologian of the gospel. You think Paul is wise as both theologian and political theorist. This isn’t empty sophistry. It’s a description of the difference between my use of both books of revelation and your biblicism.

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240. Jeff, FOUL!

     You’ve missed the Reformed tradition (probably at the leading of Frame). The Bible is sufficient for all ecclesial tasks. And if the church cannot find its tasks in Scripture then it can’t do it.

     Again, this is at the heart of the sufficiency of Scripture, the regulative principle, and Christian liberty. Sorry, but I fear your theological education is showing.

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241. Ump, I’m calling for an instant replay on this one.

     DGH: The Bible is sufficient for all ecclesial tasks. And if the church cannot find its tasks in Scripture then it can’t do it.

     Agreed. But now: does the Bible tell us everything we need to know about *how* to carry out all of those ecclesial tasks?

     Because that’s what Zrim is arguing for with the “sufficiency of general revelation” — GR tells us everything we need to know about *how* to do things.

     The Confession says, No, the Bible does not tell us everything we need to know about *how* to order our church government or worship. Some things are to be ordered by the light of nature, it says. That’s traditionally expressed as the distinction between “elements”, “modes”, and “circumstances.”

     You’ve pulled a bait-and-switch with the word “sufficiency”: When speaking of GR, you want “sufficient” to mean “all that we need to know.” When speaking of SR, you want “sufficient” to mean something like the regulative principle — which does *not* say that Scripture tells us “all that we need to know.”

     Bad ref! Boo! *vegetables on the field*

     And importantly: This has very little to do with Frame. It would be nice if you could hold back from going there so frequently, if you don’t mind. No, this has to do with trying to get things straight. And equivocating on “sufficient” is not straight.

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242. DGH: “So what is your point?”

     There is a difference between “the” and “a”. “The” would designate exclusivity to abortion as measurement of a man’s faith. Orthodox Christians would accept that the virgin birth is a litmus test…but it shouldn’t be the exclusive measurement, right? Affirming the virgin birth is not a one way ticket to orthodoxville, but denying it is a one way ticket to heresyville. Same way with abortion.

     Also, there is a big difference between one’s position on abortion being “a” litmus test and saying picketing abortion clinics is a litmus test. The former is a litmus test, the latter is NOT. I’m not merely giving you a lesson on grammar, I’m doing what I can to ensure my position is put forth accurately, and ideally, that you would understand me. That is my goal, not shouting you down.

     DGH: “It might do you good if you thought a little bit about your position. You think the Bible needs to inform the magistrate. I think the magistrate can go a long way with Aristotle. I think the Greeks were wise. You seem to think they are sufficiently foolish in order not to recommend them to the magistrate.”

     I’m certain it would do me good to consider my position more, as to the rest: unfounded assertions, each of them.

     DGH: “You think Paul is wise as both theologian and political theorist. This isn’t empty sophistry.”

     I haven’t said Paul was a wise political theorist. So you’re correct, that isn’t a case of empty sophistry on your part. It’s another example of misstating my position. If you’d like to have a conversation, the ball is in your court. I can’t keep spending my time on this. Either this will go somewhere, or nowhere. So far, we’ve gone nowhere.

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243. Jeff, wait, what? The Bible does tell us how to order our church government and worship. We are to have pastors, elders and deacons, not popes. And we are to have Word, sacrament, prayer and singing, not juggling, skits, concerts and political speeches. It doesn’t tell us how to raise high the roof beams, but it does tell us how to order our government and worship. What are you talking about?

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244. I’ve already told you what I’m talking about! Once more, with feeling and four-part harmony:

     Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

     Scripture does not tell us some “circumstances.” It doesn’t tell how how many elders we are to have, or whether they should be rotated or re-elected, or whether they ought to know Greek and Hebrew, or whether they ought to have memorized the WSC, or whether they ought to prepare the church budget or else allow the deacons to do it.

     Can you acknowledge this? DGH, O caller of FOUL!s, can you admit that Scripture does not tell us absolutely everything that needs to be known about church government?

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245. Zrim: Jeff, I think what’s implicit in your thinking is that we have to account for participants as well as tasks, which I think is a fair point and worth attention. The difference may lie in that between how and why. I wonder if more shorthand is in order. Along with unbelievers, we believers need only general revelation to know how to do a general task, but unlike unbelievers we need special revelation to know why. You tend to have a concern for ethics, but I would contend that even here general revelation is sufficient for both un/believers, but when it comes to why we both don’t lie we believers have additional reasons beyond the obvious (it’s wrong) or even practical. Ours are principled: We don’t lie because we belong to the one Triune God of Israel who has created and redeemed us in Christ alone, because we are his slaves and it is part of keeping his covenant, etc. Indicative-imperative is what I’m saying. Pagans don’t have that.

     I think there’s a lot of merit to this, and I would consider this to be a possible point of common ground.

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246. Zrim: It sounds almost like you’re denying sola scriptura and plenteous other confessional statements about the Bible being our only rule in faith and practice, which I don’t think you really mean to say. It seems to me that the thrust of the confessional statement is that the Bible is our only rule in faith and practice, but that doesn’t mean we mayn’t employ the light of nature to help guide. The point about employing the light of nature is sandwiched between statements that make it clear that the Bible is the final rule. I’d suggest more caution here about denying the sufficiency of special revelation for ecclesial tasks just to dismantle the converse idea that general revelation is sufficient for general tasks.

     Thank you for the charitable assessment. You’re right that I don’t mean to deny sola scriptura. But nor am I denying the sufficiency of special revelation just to attack the dual concept of “sufficiency of GR for general tasks.”

     Rather, I’m trying to draw attention to the word sufficient and ask whether that word really captures what you are trying to say.

     “Sufficient”, of course, means “enough” or “nothing else is needed.”

     And when you say that “the thrust of the confessional statement is that we may employ the light of nature to help guide us”, you’re saying nothing more nor less than what I’ve been saying — except that you don’t notice that you’re also saying “Scripture is not enough.”

     In fact, the Confessional statement is slightly but importantly stronger. It does not merely say that the light of nature may be used, but that it is to be used.

     So we have this situation where we all agree that

     (1) Scripture is the final rule.
     (2) That the regulative principle holds.
     (3) That nevertheless, there are some circumstances of worship and church government which are to be ordered by the light of nature (in accordance with the Word, which is always to be obeyed).

     We all agree to those, right?

     Well, if so, then we cannot say of this state of affairs “Scripture is sufficient for worship and church government.” Item (3) makes that simply false.

     UNLESS

     We want to stipulate some other meaning for the word “sufficient.” Is that what’s really going on here?

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247. Jeff, you seem to be working with a presupposition of “how” that is absolutist. Clearly, the Bible doesn’t plot out all the minutae, but who said that’s what “the Bible is sufficient to govern ecclesial tasks” means? The Ernst & Young Business Plan Guide doesn’t plot out every jot and tittle circumstance of business either. My understanding and use of “sufficient” is that each text is “enough” for their respectively ordained tasks, not “the absolutely exhaustive text that tells us every single little thing.” I can see how if you’re working with the latter definition then what I am saying doesn’t work.

     But then you say “’Sufficient,’ of course, means ‘enough’ or ‘nothing else is needed.’” And then claim we’re saying the same thing. Well, if we’re saying the same thing then I am puzzled as to why you’d cry foul on “special revelation is sufficient to govern ecclesial tasks.” That’s just sola scriptura 101. Again, though, it’s shorthand. It is said with the implicit understanding that the light of nature may be used for certain things concerning church order. It’s just like saying that we are justifed by faith alone, then someone blows the antinomian whistle, when the implicit understanding is that it is a faith that is not alone. I think this may be a function of an allergy to shorthand, a reading comprehension skill.

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248. Jeff, are you noticing the double-standard when it comes to “sufficient”?

     Neutral Realm:
     Sufficient = exhaustive

     If the Word doesn’t speak exhaustively, how can it be sufficient?

     Ecclesiastically:
     Sufficient ≠ exhaustive

     Proverbs 20:10

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249. Craig, the long slow arc is arriving at that point. But I don’t think it’s intentional.

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250. Craig, no:

     Civil realm: GR is sufficient (i.e. enough, not absolutely exhaustive).

     Ecclesial realm: SR is sufficient (i.e. enough, not absolutely exhaustive).

     How do you get that “sufficient = exhaustive in the civil real” from “The Ernst & Young Business Plan Guide doesn’t plot out every jot and tittle circumstance of business”? The point was that Ernst & Young is sufficient to teach a business plan, but when the book is closed they don’t hold your hand through every detail of setting up your business.

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251. Zrim: My understanding and use of “sufficient” is that each text is “enough” for their respectively ordained tasks, not “the absolutely exhaustive text that tells us every single little thing.” I can see how if you’re working with the latter definition then what I am saying doesn’t work.

     OK, let’s go with the former definition and not the latter. I prefer to use “how” in the general and not exhaustive sense.

     Let’s agree then that

     (1) Scripture is sufficient for ecclesial affairs in the non-exhaustive sense.
     (2) And that this means that GR may (in fact, is to, where relevant) be used to supply some of the details.

     OK now: over to common affairs.

     Can we agree that “general revelation is sufficient for temporal affairs” should allow that Scripture may (in fact, is to, where relevant) be used to inform temporal affairs?

     What I’m getting at is that in the common realm, you have resisted the use of Scripture on the grounds that “general revelation is sufficient.” In those kinds of arguments, you have been using the word “sufficient” in the absolutist sense. Hence the accusations of “dualism” and “antinomianism” that have been raised in some quarters — while not entirely fair, the accusers have correctly perceived that your sense of the term “sufficient” was absolutist.

     But over in the ecclesial realm, you admit the use of general revelation (subject, of course, to the Word) on the grounds that the sufficiency of Scripture *does not* preclude the use of general revelation. It is a different sense of the word “sufficient” that is being employed here.

     So my plea is to use the word “sufficient” in the same sense in both instances. Either “sufficient” is absolutist in both; or it is not absolutist in both.

     And if not (which seems reasonable to me), then the “sufficiency of general revelation” is no argument against the use of Scripture in the common realm.

     Contrapositively, if the “sufficiency of general revelation” is an argument against the use of Scripture in the common realm, then the “sufficiency of special revelation” is also an argument against the use of general revelation in the ecclesial realm — and we’ve contradicted the Confession.

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252. Zrim, your take on Ernst and Young is entirely reasonable. Now work it to its conclusion: how reasonable is it for pc-2kers to demand that either (a) Scripture must tell us what kind of pipes to use, or (b) Scripture doesn’t tell us how to do plumbing?

     The absolutist version of “how” didn’t originate with me. 🙂

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253. Jeff, it has all the signs of Frame’s argument, frankly. Sorry. He didn’t understand the RPW and still doesn’t.

     The Bible does tell us how to worship and how to govern the church. It tells us what the elements of worship are, and it tells us that elders rule. We can’t make anything up.

     What I find interesting, borderline amazing, is that you think the Bible is “silent” about something, like parts of worship and government. I thought you were a Bible speaks to everything kind of guy.

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254. Well stated!

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255. Craig, right, we’ve gone nowhere. So why do you bother? Are you trying to shame me?

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256. My comment above directed toward Jeff’s last two comments.

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257. Jeff, I can acknowledge this and this is what is on the order of church power and the binding nature of Scripture (as opposed to its silence). The Bible does require Presbyterian government and Reformed worship. Some of the specifics need to be deliberated. But none of those specifics are conscience binding for anyone. That’s the point of silence. The church can’t bind the conscience that Roberts Rules are biblical or normative.

     And yet, you think the Bible speaks to everything. I cry Foul! Huh!

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258. DGH: “Craig, right, we’ve gone nowhere. So why do you bother? Are you trying to shame me?”

     Huh? I gave it one last try in my previous comment toward you…I wrapped up by saying the ball is in your court if you would like to have a productive conversation. I’m open to continuing if that’s the case. If it’s going to just be more of the same, I’m bowing out.

     I’m genuinely confused as to why you wondered if I’m trying to shame you.

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259. Craig, have you noticed that the Bible speaks to everything — oh, strike that — not to everything that the church does? So everything is exhaustive in the common realm, but restricted in the spiritual realm.

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260. Can we agree that “general revelation is sufficient for temporal affairs” should allow that Scripture may (in fact, is to, where relevant) be used to inform temporal affairs?…So my plea is to use the word “sufficient” in the same sense in both instances. Either “sufficient” is absolutist in both; or it is not absolutist in both.

     Jeff, I’m pretty confident that I have conceded this in the past. You might recall my points about the difference between the legal secularist and the Christian secularist. The LS wants to hermetically seal off religious influence in the common realm, whereas the CS doesn’t but instead wants to carefully demarcate things to the chagrin of both the LS and the 1ker. The CS wants there to be a rigid but permeable wall between the sacred and the secular, the LS wants there to a rigid but impermeable wall, the 1ker wants the wall torn down.

     But I think that when some have mistaken the CS with the LS it betrays an underlying 1kness. Conversely, when some mistake the CS for a 1ker it betrays an underlying LSness. There really is an alternative to the 1k/LS divide.

     …your take on Ernst and Young is entirely reasonable. Now work it to its conclusion: how reasonable is it for pc-2kers to demand that either (a) Scripture must tell us what kind of pipes to use, or (b) Scripture doesn’t tell us how to do plumbing?

     In light of my points above, Jeff, that really isn’t the Christian secularist point, I don’t think. The point is that 1kers use language in a sloppy and confusing way. They still haven’t figured out the skill of shorthand. Again, you guys say things like, “The Bible speaks to business plans.” We interpret a plain meaning to the simple assertion, open the Bible and not one explicit or implicit word about business plans. So then you say, “Well, we don’t mean it speaks to business plans the way Ernst & Young do, which is to say that there is anything in the Bible about business planning.” Oh. Well, then why did you employ language in a plain meaning sort of way? Then flows all the creative reasoning, which begins to sound like a way to simply sound pious about all of life. But we get it, and we agree that Jesus is Lord over every square inch. What we don’t get is why you have to speak so loosely and confusingly to make that point.

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261. Jeff, one more point. I think that when the CS wants to make his points about the rigid/permeable wall it comes off as LSish because he’s up against a 1k Constantinian church that wants the wall demolished, so he gets interpreted as saying something exhaustive when he says that GR is sufficient for general tasks. Again, I think that actually says more about the hearer’s underlying 1kness.

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262. DGH: “Craig, have you noticed that the Bible speaks to everything — oh, strike that — not to everything that the church does? So everything is exhaustive in the common realm, but restricted in the spiritual realm.”

     Now I’m really confused.

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263. DGH: The Bible does tell us how to worship and how to govern the church. It tells us what the elements of worship are, and it tells us that elders rule. We can’t make anything up.

     The Bible does require Presbyterian government and Reformed worship. Some of the specifics need to be deliberated. But none of those specifics are conscience binding for anyone. That’s the point of silence. The church can’t bind the conscience that Roberts Rules are biblical or normative.

     Bingo. Exactly how I would say it.

     DGH: What I find interesting, borderline amazing, is that you think the Bible is “silent” about something, like parts of worship and government. I thought you were a Bible speaks to everything kind of guy.

     So put it together. Clearly, I think that Scripture speaks to worship and church government; yet I also don’t think that Scripture specifies every detail about those things.

     So what does it mean to say that “the Bible speaks to everything”?

     Obviously not that the Bible gives exhaustive specifics about everything. For lo! Even the areas that we agree that the Bible speaks to (worship, government), we also agree that the Bible does not speak exhaustively about.

     And we also agree that where there is silence, there is liberty — whether in the ecclesial realm or the common.

     Your amazement can vanish once you stop equating “speaking to” with “saying everything about.” And once that’s cleared up, we can stop having discussions about pipes and infield flies.

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264. Zrim: Jeff, one more point. I think that when the CS wants to make his points about the rigid/permeable wall it comes off as LSish because he’s up against a 1k Constantinian church that wants the wall demolished, so he gets interpreted as saying something exhaustive when he says that GR is sufficient for general tasks.

     I think you’re right — the CS pushes back against something, and he pushes too hard.

     Zrim: Again, I think that actually says more about the hearer’s underlying 1kness.

     I’m pretty uncomfortable with saying that someone else is to blame for how you come across. I mean, sometimes my students are lazy listeners; but sometimes, I’ve just bolluxed up the lesson.

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265. Jeff, our amazement might vanish if we used the word “reveal.” What does the Bible reveal? It reveals how God saves man. 2kers insist that the Bible does not reveal everything else about life. That’s not its aim. We have the book of nature to figure out plumbing and the best time for a congregation to meet on the Lord’s Day. Nature does not reveal how we are to be saved.

     And I would argue that the Bible does not reveal baking, plumbing, or banking. To say so is to trivialize both books of revelation.

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266. Craig, oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s because you write things like:

     Just another example of your belligerent insistence on equivocation.

     Your last comment was a continuuation of your propensity as minsconstrual, equivocation, and embarrassing attempts at one-up-manship.

     I continue to regard your bias as harmful and your characterizations as false.

     In one sense yes (see above), in another sense, no we don’t say this. R2k give theoretical authority to the Bible just like it gives theoretical Lordship to Christ. You may think I’m putting words into your mouth, but these are arguments based on good and necessary inference. Not unlike an argument you and I may share, namely that the use of images of Christ is an implicit form of Nestorianism…some would hem and haw at such a notion, but when it comes down to it, the assumption rests on the notion that portraying Christ’s humanity doesn’t communicate His deity, thus the Nestorianism comes to light. Deny what I’ve said all you like, but your blog is replete with evidence to the contrary.

     You strip Christians of a defense of their souls and you remove from the world the law by which it will be judged by. Your views also strip the Holy Spirit of any active role besides what goes on at Church on Sunday leaving professing believers orphaned 6 days out of the week (if not longer).

     I would use you as evidence of R2K’s avoidance of the Holy Spirit. Remember our email exchanges regarding the way you discouraged the memorization of Scripture? This isn’t news to you Darryl. What I’ve written here is what I’ve already shared with you.

     You are a coward. You have no idea what I’m talking about and you have yet to be the man John A is by trying to engage is a real discussion. Your view is wicked because it removes the usefulness of the law, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the *newness* regeneration brings from any practical use. You claim you want to talk about particulars, but you have yet to present a positive argument. I have simply stated that there are implications stemming from the Resurrection…yes, that includes policy (as my pastor has mentioned already, which made you squeamish). When men speak of sanctification, you get squeamish. Why are you squeamish about God’s call but not about blasphemy, homosexualiy, and infanticide?

     And here were some of our early encounters at Baylyblog:

     I’m not going to engage your nonsense as you wriggle around the meaning of God’s Word.

     This over-simplified duality is destructive…not merely intellectually, but practically. It’s also short-sighted because Darryl Hart fails to appreciate that the gospel speaks to “political issues” such as abortion…the very fact he would concede something like abortion as belonging to the realm of Caesar demonstrates he’s conceded part of the Kingdom of our Christ to the realm of man…something that is supposed to be the epitome of true religion (according to the NT, no less). Far from avoiding the co-mingling of kingdoms, it strips God’s “No!” away from His Gospel to the world and places supremacy upon the shoulders of the “kingdom of man”

     Congratulations, you guys are guarding the church from un-named enemies while letting worldliness, her thinking, and idols in through the back…but no, you’re not mingling the two…you’re keeping them distinct, right? Shrines to Molech dot the landscape and his faith thrives…but you’re silent…except when you’re telling us to be silent.

     I was thinking about this last night, and strangely enough, 2K theology seems to be strongest with Dutch cultural roots (which includes the OPC, even though they’re Presbyterian). The very first Q and A to the Heidelberg ought to baffle 2Kers: Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death? Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ…. Sorry, your body belongs to Caesar. Maybe even your death since things like abortion are merely a political issue…and I guess life as well since not being aborted is simply political. Sorry Jesus…I guess you can be my Lord later. Here am I lord, Caesar…I will keep your world pure from the Church.

     I don’t know, Craig. I just don’t feel affirmed and empowered by your remarks. In fact, you and the Baylys have engaged in ad hominem attacks from the outset. Given your admission of malice toward me earlier, I don’t know why you’d be confused about my taking your comments as hostile and an effort to humiliate my position.

     For that matter, I have written more about these subjects in non-dialogical contexts than you have. I’d be glad to see what you write about various matters and see how you respond to criticisms. Right now, whenever your respond I feel like a target. You certainly do not show a willingness to try to use a charitable reading of 2k. You’ve made up your mind and now it’s “get ’em.”

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267. DGH: What does the Bible reveal? It reveals how God saves man. 2kers insist that the Bible does not reveal everything else about life. That’s not its aim. We have the book of nature to figure out plumbing and the best time for a congregation to meet on the Lord’s Day. Nature does not reveal how we are to be saved.

     And I would argue that the Bible does not reveal baking, plumbing, or banking. To say so is to trivialize both books of revelation.

     I’m more comfortable with this, especially since you use the word “everything.” And I would surely grant that the Bible does not reveal everything else about life.

     In fact, I would agree even further that the Bible’s aim is our salvation, and that its overwhelming focus is on our salvation.

     At the same time, I would say that, as a component or consequence of our salvation, the Bible has some imperatives for Christians that are realized or actualized in the common realm; and for that reason, Scripture has some things to say to Christians about their activities in the common realm.

     Is that agreeable?

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268. DGH quoted me saying:
     “Just another example of your belligerent insistence on equivocation.

     Your last comment was a continuuation of your propensity as minsconstrual, equivocation, and embarrassing attempts at one-up-manship.”

     Sure. That comment is absolutely right on. I didn’t just assert this, I showed you exactly how this was obvious. I’m sorry you “feel like a target”, but letting misconstruals go unchecked isn’t gracious…neither is misconstruing another man’s viewpoint time and time again.

     Darryl quoted someone as saying:
     “I continue to regard your bias as harmful and your characterizations as false.”

     I don’t remember saying this (I believe it was Jeff; it doesn’t matter, though), but the comment is also true. Again, this isn’t ungracious language, nor is it malicious. Miscontruing another man’s position and playing the victim is.

     You then go on to quote things I have written in the past (much of it from months ago) which are not material to the conversation at hand. When you are wrong it does not make you less so to bring up the past. At worst, this is cruelty on your part given that this was couched with a reminder of my apology for a second time (still with no extension of forgiveness); at best it is shifting the discussion away from the actual points.

     I can’t apologize for the way you feel, Darryl. My conscience is clear regarding my discussion since my apology. You say you’d like to see me interact with criticisms: I have. If my view isn’t being represented, I can’t do much else other than try to correct the way you express my view. If you feel shame, it’s not because I’ve shamed you, it should be because it’s clear you have been unfair to me. You expect charity while extending none yourself. If you are a father in the Church, lead by example. I say this imploringly, not trying to shame you.

     You are in sin against God, and you have wronged me. If you will simply own up, we can leave what’s in the past in the past and move forward. I would really like that. Would you? If you won’t be reconciled, I can’t make you…but I would like it.

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269. I’m pretty uncomfortable with saying that someone else is to blame for how you come across. I mean, sometimes my students are lazy listeners; but sometimes, I’ve just bolluxed up the lesson.

     Jeff, it’s true that human communication is a two-way street, but I’m actually just trying to explain more than blame. Still, the point was that some abiding 1kness might be why you hear this 2ker to be saying something LSish when I say that general revelation is sufficient for general tasks. I’m not trying to blame, but I’m hard-pressed to think of another explanation as to why you’d deny such a basic implication of sola scriptura.

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270. Zrim, the way that I hear you is heavily colored by the arguments you employ. I do indeed recall that you spoke of a “permeable wall” back in the day, and at the time, I thought that meant progress.

     Since then, when I’ve pointed out that the Bible speaks to all of life (while qualifying it with “but not in the same ways, and not exhaustively”), I’ve continued to be bombarded with silly questions about plumbing schools and pipe joints.

     The only way those questions make sense is *if* the wall between the kingdoms is impermeable.

     And I consider statements like “The Bible does not speak to temporal matters, but only to eternal matters” to be confirmation of the impermeable wall.

     So while I can appreciate that no man knows his own heart, and — who knows? — maybe I have some “latent 1kness” going on somewhere; still and all, I have good reason OTHER THAN my supposed latent 1kness to be pushing you in this way.

     Namely, that your statements and rhetorical practice are not fully consistent with the “permeable wall” model.

     But in some ways, that’s water under the bridge. If in fact you grant that SR is to be used, at times, in temporal matters; and GR is to be used, at times, in ecclesial matters, then the important question is HOW?

     For if we are not careful to answer this question, then either (a) the distinction between the kingdoms will collapse (which we do not want); or (b) the wall will become impermeable, and we’re back to square one.

     Further, I would say that the Confession answers the second part of that question nicely: GR is to be used, at times, in ecclesial manners, with regard to circumstances of government and worship, in accordance with the Scripture which is to be obeyed at all times.

     So: What is the corresponding criterion for the use of SR in the commons?

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271. Since then, when I’ve pointed out that the Bible speaks to all of life (while qualifying it with “but not in the same ways, and not exhaustively”), I’ve continued to be bombarded with silly questions about plumbing schools and pipe joints.

     Well, those questions have been but one way to respond to “the Bible speaks to all of life.” I fail to see how they are silly since plumbing and education are particulars encompassed in all of life. Another way has been to make points about the less-than-precise use of language.

     But in some ways, that’s water under the bridge. If in fact you grant that SR is to be used, at times, in temporal matters; and GR is to be used, at times, in ecclesial matters, then the important question is HOW?… What is the corresponding criterion for the use of SR in the commons?

     Fair enough. Maybe I could begin to answer with an example. Disclaimer: I am loathe to use this example for various reasons, not least because it is the go-to fav of 2k detractors. But since they love to use it I will as well. When engaging those who want abortion outlawed in every nook and cranny of the Union (what they mistakenly think “the reversal of RvW” means), one often hears talk of the innocence of the unborn. I’d rather talk of their defenselessness and weakness, because the Bible knows nothing of innocent sinners. (Another tangential problem with employing the innocence/guilt categories is that it misconstrues our opponent’s view. They are not saying that the unborn are somehow guilty and deserve to be punished, even if the upshot looks that way.)

     From my read of an Augustinian-Calvinist view of human nature, the unborn are not special creatures who, because of their alleged innocence, deserve to be protected from the same pains and injuries of life as the rest of us, and so it seems a philosophically and theologically bad way for Calvinists to argue. Rather, they are weak and defenseless persons. And I wouldn’t cast their plight as a “right to life,” because, while I see it in the American canon, I see no such concept the Bible. In fact, I see temporal life being put into perspective with eternal life, such that we are actually called to lay down our temporal lives and not hold onto them as if they were ultimate instead of penultimate. The “right to life” language tends to the idolizing of temporal life, something I think Calvinists should be much more wary of. Calvinists can recognize the idolizing of the highest temporal institutional good, the family, in all the “family values” stuff, but seem to go Methodist when it comes to idolizing the highest temporal good, life itself. What I also see in the Bible is the prohibition of one person from taking the life of another at will or whim. So instead of saying the unborn have a “right to life,” something that seems to buttress this idea that they are special creatures and arguably serves the idolizing of temporal life, I’d rather say that others have no right to take it.

     So, there. I doubt a legal secularist would argue this way. But I happen to think the Bible has some philosophical bearing on how we might go about out temporal affairs. I’d have no problem saying all this in the public square.

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272. Jeff, yes.

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273. Craig, you could apologize for a lack of charity and an unwillingness to uphold my good name. Ever since I have interacted with you, you have communicated explicitly and implicitly that my name is not good but mud. So if you want to act like a Christian or even a polite person, you might actually debate ideas rather than reach for works that assail my character and my intelligence.

     I don’t feel bad for what you’ve said Craig. I just can’t square your characterizations of me with anything that resembles a person who takes God’s law seriously. The implication is this: in your zeal to honor the 6th commandment, you trample over the 9th. The 6th is likely a worse offense than the 9th — and I presume you think this way. But since you repeated charge me with antinomianism, where do you get the license to disregard the 9th (not to mention the very simple rules of decent and mannerly human interaction)? Looks to me like you fail on both the grounds of gen. and spec. revelation. That puts you in 2k jail with no card to get out free.

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274. Zrim: I appreciate very much your example of use of Scripture in this matter. I especially like this:

     So instead of saying the unborn have a “right to life,” something that seems to buttress this idea that they are special creatures and arguably serves the idolizing of temporal life, I’d rather say that others have no right to take it.

     In my ethics class, I tried to help my students distinguish between “rights” and “obligations”, pushing them towards seeing that we have obligations towards others, rather than rights to be claimed.

     Wow. We seem to have found some common ground.

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275. Jeff, like I keep trying to tell our friend Paul, I am happy to share common ground in the common sphere with any Mormon, atheist, Hindi, Catholic and neo-Calvinist who would talk more about obligations than rights. I’d be glad to add a paleo-Calvinist to the list, but if he’s more inclined to talk about rights then I’ll settle for sitting around the Table.

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276. Fair enough. Maybe I could begin to answer with an example. Disclaimer: I am loathe to use this example for various reasons, not least because it is the go-to fav of 2k detractors. But since they love to use it I will as well. When engaging those who want abortion outlawed in every nook and cranny of the Union (what they mistakenly think “the reversal of RvW” means), one often hears talk of the innocence of the unborn. I’d rather talk of their defenselessness and weakness, because the Bible knows nothing of innocent sinners.

     1) The Bible has plenty to speak of the innocent. Those who talk “of the innocence of the unborn” are using the word “innocent” Scripturally. You have pre-defined here, for anyone who wants abortion outlawed, what innocent means, you just defined it as sinless. The Scriptures also use “innocent” in a different way. This is a form of bait and switch on your part.

     2) Scripturally, the word innocent can mean “guiltless” of any crime deserving of death. I’ll begin with Ps 106:38. The words “innocent blood” are used next to each other many other times in Scripture meaning “those who not guilty of being put to death” but sometimes these also are or a warning not to put those “innocent” ones to death. Let me know if you want the references.

     3) You wrote, “the Bible knows nothing of innocent sinners.”
     You just manufactured a point and refuted that point that was never made by your opponents.

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277. James, I see your points, but I think you may have mis-read Zrim here. He’s not arguing that we have no obligation to the unborn; but rather, that the unborn do not have a “right to life.”

     That may sound like double-speak, so let me explain.

     In ethics, a large question is whether people inherently have rights, or whether they have obligations. That is: Does Alice have a right to her property, or does everyone else have an obligation not to steal from Alice? Clearly, there’s a lot of overlap there, but the two questions are not always the same.

     And in fact, Scripture in general seems to point in the latter direction. We have obligations to one another. But God alone seems to have rights.

     But in the United States Constitution, borrowing from Locke, people are said to have rights. So the US Constitution takes the opposite tack.

     Many in the debate over abortion have hybridized the two, postulating a Christian “right to life.” Zrim is saying, No, the Christian way to think about this is that there is a Christian “obligation not to kill.” And specifically not to kill those who are defenseless.

     So Zrim’s point is not to say, “Ah, no, the unborn are just as guilty and really do deserve death” but rather to say, “Let’s focus on our obligations instead of their rights.”

     And I agree.

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278. Thanks, Jeff.

     James, you make a fair point, and Jeff captures my thought well. But remember, the original point was the difference between a Christian secularist and legal secularist way of understanding the relation between religious belief and the public square. The LS doesn’t want to hear Scripture referenced, the CS allows for it. The example of the abortion question was used in service to that larger point.

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279. James, in your defense, the language of WLC 135, “Defending and protecting the innocent”, is on your side.

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280. Jeff, Zrim,

     Thank you for your responses

     First, I’m standing against the point that all rights belong to God

     I agree with that

     If you would please let me delve further into what Zrim wrote, it might help you understand my response.

     Zrim went on to write:

     From my read of an Augustinian-Calvinist view of human nature, the unborn are not special creatures who, because of their alleged innocence, deserve to be protected from the same pains and injuries of life as the rest of us, and so it seems a philosophically and theologically bad way for Calvinists to argue.

     There are two different types of innocence that we are discussing here overall. Our standing before God and our standing before the civil government. Now, what alleged innocence is being discussed here? When Zrim’s opponents speak of the “innocent” they are speaking about a pre-born infant’s standing before the civil authorities. This isn’t an “alleged innocence”. An unborn can’t be guilty of a crime deserving of death. It would be an “alleged innocence” if those same people (Zrim’s opponents) were claiming that those in the womb were sinless, which couldn’t be true.

     But, Zrim wrote this preceding the words “alleged innocence,”, “From my read of an Augustinian-Calvinist view of human nature, the unborn are not special creatures who, because of their….. alleged innocence,”. From a face value reading of what Zrim wrote I would take to mean that we all have original sin (an Augustinian-Calvinist view of human nature). From this point of his argument Zrim attributes “alleged innocence (relative to their sin nature)” as the view of his opponents of the pre-born infants in the womb. That just isn’t true and is a misrepresentation of his opponents.

     As I wrote earlier, you (Zrim) just manufactured a point and refuted that point that was never made by your opponents.

     I hope this helps to understand my point

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281. Sorry,

     I’m not standing against the point that all rights belong to God

     that was scary as I read it

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282. James, there are two ways to understand the legal term “innocence,” temporal and eternal. In the eternal sense there is no one innocent, something with which I think everyone here would agree. It’s this aspect of legal innocence that I think pro-lifery doesn’t take into account very well and seems to tend uncritically toward an idolization if life, etc. Temporal innocence is the other category. But as I mentioned above, even here it would seem problematic to employ the language of innocence, because a choice outlook isn’t saying that the unborn are guilty in a legal sense and deserving of punishment. They are arguing from a stand point of individual rights of women.

     And this is part of the problem of framing things in terms of individual rights. One side wants to argue the individual right to life, the other the individual right to liberty. The upshot is to pit two American virtues against each other. The alternative, as I see it, is to frame things in terms of the second greatest commandment, or, as Jeff suggests, obligations people have to one another. If WLC 135 has in mind those who are legally innocent in the temporal sense then I would think that would mean those who are falsely charged in a court of law, etc., not the unborn in contemporary debates because nobody is actually arguing that the unborn are legally guilty.

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283. Zrim: …not the unborn in contemporary debates because nobody is actually arguing that the unborn are legally guilty.

     In the popular debate, perhaps not; but at the legal-ethical level, there are many who take the tack that the unborn are aggressive invaders of the mother’s body and can be legitimately killed in self-defense.

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284. But, Jeff, it’s a radical, bizarre and negligible tack. Similar to the eugenics wing, such elements typify the broader choice camp about as well as the mysogynist wing typifies the life camp. I think it bad form and uncharitable to engage the worst parts of both camps. I’d rather engage the best parts and still suggest an alternative posture, namely obligations to others over individual rights.

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