[words]

Two quotes from two great thinkers. The first is from philosopher of science Karl Popper, from his intellectual autobiography Unended Quest:

Never let yourself be goaded into taking seriously problems about words and their meanings. What must be taken seriously are questions of fact, and assertions about facts: theories and hypotheses; the problems they solve; and the problems they raise.

The second is from man of letters G.K. Chesterton, from his hilarious novel The Ball and the Cross:

“Well, we won’t quarrel about a word,” said the other, pleasantly.

“Why on earth not?” said MacIan, with a sudden asperity. “Why shouldn’t we quarrel about a word? What is the good of words if they aren’t important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn’t any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn’t there be a quarrel about a word? If you’re not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are only things worth fighting about.”

What say you? Chesterton or Popper? I think I tend to side with Chesterton…

[a perpetual forge: anti-idolatry resources]

“The human mind is a perpetual forge of idols.” -John Calvin

The theme of idolatry has figured greatly in my meditations of late. Here are some resources I have found helpful in seeing how the Gospel smashes the false gods of our hearts so that we may worship the true God.

Tim Keller:

Gospel Realization

Gospel Communication

Gospel Incarnation

These three sermons on Jonah come from The Evangelists’ Conference 2007: Smashing False Idols.

The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry

This sermon comes from The Gospel Coalition Conference 2009.

C.J. Mahaney:

Discern Your Heart

This sermon comes from the New Attitude (now known as Next) Conference 2007.

David Clarkson:

Soul Idolatry Excludes Men Out of Heaven

Clarkson was a Puritan pastor who lived from 1621-1686.

Martin Luther:

The First Commandment

This study comes from the Reformer’s Large Catechism.

[Christ-centered apologetics]

(Part two of a two-part series on Christ, the cross, and apologetics.)

Yesterday morning in my philosophy of religion class, we were studying a famous exchange between logical positivist A.J. Ayer and Jesuit philosopher Frederick Copleston. These two intellectual giants were tangling over the question of whether it was possible to have empirical knowledge of God. Copleston argued that one could, but the difficulty, Ayer maintained, was that intuitions or feelings of God’s presence were not quantifiable in terms of the five senses, and therefore not properly empirical.

“Because on Copleston’s view God doesn’t have a body, you can’t experience Him through the senses, although you may have a direct perception of Him with your mind,” my professor said. “Of course, you could experience Jesus empirically…”

I admit I kind of tuned out after this point in the lecture, because it set me off on a tangent resonating with my meditations on apologetics and the theology of the cross from this weekend. Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between god and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Might it be the case that many of the “problems” in Christian apologetics and philosophy of religion come from trying to come to knowledge of God apart from His appointed Mediator? This was one of the prideful errors with which Luther indicted the theologians of glory. The thought stayed with me throughout the day.

How might this kind of Christ-centered approach to apologetics work in practice? Let’s consider the above problem of coming to knowledge of God’s existence and character. One might think, following Kant, that it is problematic or even impossible to know what God is like in Himself from our limited human perspective. It is not problematic, however, to believe that mere humans can come to the knowledge of an utterly transcendent God if that God Himself became a man. In fact it is utterly crucial that we have a God-Man Mediator in order to come to knowledge of God, as the context of 1 Timothy 2:5 is about coming to know the truth. Let us consider, too, the present tense of that verse: “There is one mediator.” Christ’s Incarnation is ongoing. As He sits at the right of His Father in Heaven right now, He is fully God and fully man. Is it strange to think, then, that He may reveal Himself to human beings? Christ’s Incarnation, Atonement, and ongoing Mediation mean that the epistemological and moral (because of the effects of sin on our minds) problems of coming to know God are not problems at all. Whenever God chooses to reveal Himself, He does. Scripture goes on to indicate that the way He does so is through His spoken word of the Gospel and His inscripturated word of the Bible, which includes the apostles’ testimony to their empirical experience of Jesus (Rom. 10:17, 1 Cor. 15:1-8, 2 Tim. 3:16, 2 Peter 1:16-21, 1 John 1:1-3).

Or take the problem of evil. A Christ-centered approach to evil would include some of the following points:

1. Jesus suffered for sin. If God Himself suffers evil in Christ, then our suffering is not meaningless.
2. The cross of Christ shows that God undermines the greatest evil for His good end.
3. The cross shows God defeating and destroying evil and bringing justice, inviting us into His Kingdom.

I believe these three points have been argued by Tim Keller, Carl Trueman, and N.T. Wright, respectively. None of them argue in an abstract and, what is in at least one sense of the term, sub-Christian way. Neither do they offer a clean syllogism for an answer. I think that is a good thing.

Well, this is just a thought, a starting point for further discussion. What do you think? Might a Christ-centered approach alleviate some of the perennial problems of Christian apologetics?

[an apologetic of the cross]

(Part one of a two-part series on Christ, the cross, and apologetics.)

The week of Easter is always a sweet time. With all of Christendom, we focus our hearts with rapt attention on those things that Paul said are of first importance, the heart of the Gospel: Christ’s death for our sins, His burial, and His resurrection, all according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:1-4).

In my meditations this weekend, I came across this sentence from Martin Luther: Crux probat omnia. “The cross is the test of everything.”  That set me thinking on what an apologetic tested by the cross–a defense of the Christian faith that is true to the mysterious, humiliating, glorious first principle of that faith–would look like.

These thoughts led me to the first chapter of 1 Corinthians. Paul writes,

For the word of the cross is folly those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (vv.18-25)

The cross is a scandal, an offense to every human mind whether Jew or Gentile. What does this mean for the apologist? Do we then abandon the project of making a reasonable case for the Christian faith?

I don’t think so. In 2 Corinthians 10:3-6, Paul makes clear that God uses us as means in His destruction of worldly wisdom. I think the import of this text for those who would defend and commend the Gospel of the offensive cross is this: It is a critique of the motives of our own hearts. Do we study arguments and evidences for Christianity in order to make ourselves more respectable to the world? Are seeking to carve out a niche of comfort for ourselves in the face of skepticism? Are we capitulating to the City of Man instead of contending for the City of God? If this is what we expect from the apologetic project, we will be disappointed. Rather, as we soundly reason in support of the Gospel, we will only make clear that Christ claims the whole man–that the cross is indeed the test of everything, the mind as well as the heart. And though many will surrender to the claims of our King as we do so, the general opposition of the world will increase. Our folly and humiliation and weakness will increase. And so will the power of Christ upon us (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

In his Heidelberg Disputation, Luther famously contrasted the “theologian of the cross” with the “theologian of glory.”

19. That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened [Rom. 1:20].
20. He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.
21. A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.
22. That wisdom which sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by man is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened.

Would we use apologetics to avoid suffering the shame and ignominy of the way of the cross? Then we are apologists of glory. Would we proclaim the Lordship of Christ over every area of thought and life, and so draw the ire of the City of Man? Then we are propounding an apologetic of the cross.

[i got a mirror for christmas]

Ok, not really. That would be weird. But I did get The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, a nice French press and travel coffee mug, and a navy turtleneck sweater. Francis Schaeffer, coffee, and sweaters. That’s me.

[musing on government]

John Mark Reynolds has written this pleasant, thoughtful, and wise little musing on government. Enjoy it.

[reformational politics redux]

As election night draws to a close, I’ve got politics of a less practical, more philosophical/theological sort on the brain. I thought I’d repost this from last year: the conclusion of a research paper I wrote last year, “Toward an Evangelical Politics: Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer, and Beyond.”

A Five-Point Proposal, Being a Starting Point for a Reformational/Evangelical Politics:

Theonomy: An Evangelical politics must embrace theonomy in its understanding of law. Abraham Kuyper calls for a subjective theonomy in the Lectures: “God’s Word must rule, but in the sphere of the state only through the conscience of the persons invested with authority.” (“Politics” 104) However, in our post-Christian culture there is very little of God’s Word in anyone’s conscience, let alone the politicians’. The “hard theonomy” of the Christian Reconstructionists, wherein the Old Testament law is adopted as the law of the land with its prescribed punishments, except where specifically superceded by the New Testament, seems to stray too far in the other direction. It smacks of theocracy. (Rogers) Francis Schaeffer’s “soft theonomy” has the constitutional law of the land resting consciously on Scripture as an unchanging standard of justice and right. This position maintains the Evangelical tension between the absolute authority of Scripture and the separation of church and state. It is also in line with the teaching of John Calvin himself. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin calls the idea of rule by the totality of the Mosaic Law “perilous and seditious,” but he affirms that the law of the land must rest on the “moral law,” which he boils down to the principles of charity and equity. The eternal standard of the moral law prevents destructive sociological law:
“But if it is true that each nation has been left at liberty to enact the laws which it judges to be beneficial, still these are always to be tested by the rule of charity, so that while they vary in form, they must proceed on the same principle. Those barbarous and savage laws, for instance, which conferred honour on thieves, allowed the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, and other things even fouler and more absurd, I do not think entitled to be considered as laws, since they are not only altogether abhorrent to justice, but to humanity and civilised life.” (Institutes 910)
Under this conception, justice, ethics, morality, and religious conviction are inseparable. Evangelicals have the right and duty to continue to push for legislation on ‘moral’ issues like abortion and gay rights as the highest priority, because they undermine the very foundation of state authority, which rests in just law.

Uncompromised principles: An Evangelical politics must be principled, not pragmatic. This is a direct result of embracing a theonomic concept of law. A denial of Scriptural authority is concomitant to denying legislative goals that are directly based on God’s moral law. According to J. Budziszewski, the confession of biblical authority is the theological distinctive of Evangelicals. (“Evangelicals” 20) So a move like Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani effectively forfeits one’s status as an Evangelical.

Limited Sovereignty: An Evangelical politics must limit the sovereignty of the state by proclaiming the ultimate sovereignty of God and recognizing sovereignty within individual spheres. Proclaiming the ultimate sovereignty of God ensures that Evangelicals know the basic presupposition on which their politics is founded and creates a bottom line past which subjection to the state is no longer good or right. (Schaeffer, Manifesto 126-127) It seems from the Genesis account that Scripture recognizes at least four spheres, with separate sovereignties implied by the separate institutions of society (Gen. 1:26-28), family (Gen. 2:23-24), church (Gen. 4:26), and state (Gen. 9:5-6). Applying this principle would require the government to retract its authoritative position in areas like education, as in the Department of Education and the No Child Left Behind Act. Schaeffer writes, “[I]f the United States is to move back toward the original Reformation basis, this would mean severely limiting the scope of Federal State authority.” (Manifesto 114) In fact, it would mean a very nearly libertarian conception of federal authority. Evangelicals should seek constitutional amendments specifically delineating societal spheres and denying the state sovereignty therein. Evangelicals must also determine how the sphere sovereignty doctrine would apply on an international level. It precludes ceding state sovereignty to international organizations like the U.N. and prohibits an interventionist foreign policy, both as violations of the sovereignty of individual nations.

Identification with Christian heritage: An Evangelical politics must make explicit the historically demonstrable connection between Reformation Christianity and liberty. Both Kuyper and Schaeffer go to great lengths to show the direct correlation between the degree of ‘reformation’ and the degree of freedom in Northern Europe and the United States. Kuyper locates the democratizing effects of Calvinism in its Presbyterian polity (“Religion” 63) and doctrine of unconditional election. (“Art” 166) Evangelicals should point unbelievers to the oppressive public squares of France and Turkey as ample proof that secular humanism does not lead to freedom, but tyranny. Even those who do not share the Christian worldview should welcome, rather than abhor, a Christian state because a Christian state alone provides a stable guarantee of freedom. An Evangelical politics must not compel belief or establish a state church, but it must of necessity preserve freedom of expression in the public square to maintain evangelistic efforts. (Schaeffer, Manifesto 136-137).

Plan for action: An Evangelical politics must provide a comprehensive strategy for achieving its goals on all fronts. Recognizing that Evangelicals are in a battle of opposing total worldviews, the fight must be taken to every sphere of life. Ethical personal living, raising strong families, theologically-informed art and science, petition, litigation, civil disobedience, running for political office, proposing legislation, production in every academic field—all of these must be practiced if Evangelicals take Kuyper and Schaeffer’s worldview theory seriously. Unfortunately, this is where neither Kuyper, nor Schaeffer, nor this paper can take us any further. Delineating strict action in these spheres would rise above a foundation and begin to define a total Evangelical politics, even a comprehensive Christian philosophy—a monumental work that waits for another scholar and another day.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” John 16:13

Sources:

Budziszewski, J. “Evangelicals in the Public Square,” in Evangelicals in the Public Square, Budziszewski, et al. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Henry Beveridge. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 2002. <http://www.ccel.org/download.html?
url=/ccel/calvin/institutes.pdf>
Kuyper, Abraham. Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1943.

Rogers, Jay. “Van Tillian Presuppositional Theonomic Ethics.” The Forerunner. Accessed December 5, 2007. <http://forerunner.com/forerunner/X0518_vantil.html>

Schaeffer, Francis. A Christian Manifesto. Westchester: Crossway. 1981.

[edward knippers, artist of incarnation]

Check out this awesome artwork and commentary by Edward Knippers over at the Theology Forum blog.

(HT: Scriptorium Daily)

[the yct carnival and the limits of civility]

My school, Texas A&M, has been in the news lately for a demonstration held by the Young Conservatives of Texas. Our student newspaper, The Battalion, covers the event in this article, and CNN Online even hosted a video. As you can see, the event has caused quite a stir.

The first time, the “Anti-Obama Carnival” invited students to “throw away their nest egg” of retirement savings at a poster of Obama’s face. YCT indicated this was intended as a satirical attack on Obama’s “socialistic, liberal [economic] policies.” (CNN video) The policies, however, were not clearly displayed, and the carnival had the distinct appearance of an ad hominem attack. Lots of people were furious.

YCT responded to some constructive criticism, and a few days later re-worked the carnival. Students now threw their eggs “at a board with Obama’s policies listed on it, and underneath the policies were photos of Obama and other prominent figures of the Democratic Party.” (Battalion article) Despite this re-tooling, the crowd response was just as negative. Based on the Batt article and my own observations, the negative responses seem to fall into two main types:

The first response says, “Well, if all these guys can do is throw eggs at Obama, they must not have much of a counterargument to his economic policies.” This fundamentally misunderstands the obvious purpose of the carnival. It was a stunt, a marketing ploy, an attempt to engage people in conversation, not the conversation itself. Having spoken with YCT chairman Tony Listi at length about political matters before (we’re both University Scholars), I know that he can give a cogent apologia for a freer market than Obama proposes off the top of his head. You may not agree with their arguments, but they have them. These guys are not ignorant.

The second response cries “Foul!” and claims hate, pleads civility and champions respect. Check out the picture in the Batt article. I am all for a civil public discourse, but civility has its limits. It can quickly become opinion suppression if we’re not careful. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean the freedom to only say nice things. Shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater and abrasive political satire are emphatically not correlative.

Certainly, this means that means that people had the right to virulently protest the Anti-Obama Carnival, too. But even then the only protests mounted were against the style of the carnival, not its substance. Plenty of people were there pleading for a softer rhetoric, but no-one was there vindicating Obama’s fiscal policies. YCT was there saying, “This doesn’t work,” and they were the only ones even attempting to engage the issues and arguments.

This was not the case, however, with YCT’s first iteration of the carnival. Without the policies being the immediate subject of the attack, and Obama himself only by virtue of espousing such policies, the egg-throwing was distasteful. And this, I believe, lost them their audience and doomed the carnival’s second (and clever and cutting and legitimate) iteration.

But the greater issue revealed here is this: Obama has become something of a sacred cow, and that should worry you. Just imagine how different the reaction would be if this was the Young Liberals of Texas chunking eggs at a President Bush poster. Whenever satire is automatically off the table against someone, you should be concerned. If it is politically incorrect to criticize Obama, simply because he is Obama, civility may become a fast track to tyranny.

[barstool economics]

Check out this parable:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers, he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20′, declared the sixth man.

He pointed to the tenth man,’ but he got $10!’

‘Yeah, that’s right’, exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’

‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’

‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible

HT: Doug Wilson, by way of Justin Taylor

[vote as though not voting]

Make much of Jesus by voting as if not voting. Piper here.

[chuck baldwin... sigh]

Hmmm. I’m thinking about voting for Chuck Baldwin in the presidential election. I don’t agree with him on everything (like tarriff policy), and I don’t think he has a chance of winning. But I feel like the Constitution Party may be the only way I can aim my vote in good conscience. What say you?

[reasonable faith]

Dr. William Lane Craig, a brilliant Christian philosopher and apologist, has some great resources at reasonablefaith.org. I don’t agree with him on all points, particularly the way he conceptualizes divine sovereignty, but these Q&A’s on the witness of the Holy Spirit I find extremely helpful.

The Witness of the Holy Spirit

Counterfeit Claims of the Spirit’s Witness

[the power of words and the wonder of God]

Video from the Desiring God national conference this weekend is up here:

Conference Video :: Desiring God

I watched Sinclair Ferguson’s message on James this afternoon, and it was good stuff.

[sanity, sin, and the gospel]

These articles by Dr. David Powlison at Boundless have been very pastoral for me. What do you think of Biblical counseling? And what do you think of this quote in particular, from part 3:

It’s crucial, by the way, to understand sin accurately. Most people think that to identify something as “sin” means saying that the person consciously chose to do some bad action. The person also has the power to Just Say No.

But the Bible comes at sin from the opposite direction. We do many wrong, unloving things without even knowing what we’re doing or why. Most sin is not a matter of conscious choice. The “high-handed” sins are conscious. But much of what we do, think and feel expresses that we are blind, self-deceived, metaphorically drunk or sleepwalking, calloused, acting like brute beasts, walking in the dark. So we do not have the power to Just Say No.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

[obama, mccain, and evangelical voters]

Check out this great discussion between John Mark Reynolds and a friend over at The Scriptorium. The first letter, by Reynolds’ friend, is the most thoughtful Evangelical case for Obama I’ve read. But Reynolds’ refutation I believe is even more cogent, thoughtful, and realistic. Plus, the spirit of the conversation makes it a real blessing to read.

Part 1

Part 2

[making men with chests]

The following is an excerpt from my final paper in Art, Emotion, and Morality entitled “Fiction and Moral Education: Making Men With Chests”. The title is a reference to C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, a book I heartily recommend!

“When Socrates kicked poetry out of the Republic, he did it on the grounds that art, being a representation of the physical world which is itself a representation of the formal world, is two removes from the truth. Small wonder, then, that Homer is replete with errors about the gods and the afterlife. For anyone seeking to raise up a generation of ethically trained truth-seekers, education by fiction is, according to Socrates, counter-productive: These errors lead to the inculcation of false moral values like fear of death and doubt of the gods.

For those of us who reject Plato’s idealism, we may admit the possibility of stories that convey moral truth. But can such a story give us moral knowledge? Given that knowledge is justified true belief, it is not clear that fiction can provide epistemic justification except in special cases. As a Christian who accepts the divine inspiration of the Bible, I believe that Jesus’ parables can give moral knowledge. Their origin in God is justification for believing whatever ethical truth-claims are put forth or implied in the stories. But what about a novel like A Clockwork Orange, a short story like “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor, or a movie like There Will Be Blood? Apart from divine inspiration, I am unsure that fictions can provide justification for believing the ethical content or accepting the ethical point of view represented therein.

But perhaps there is more to moral education than just the acquisition of moral knowledge. Perhaps the faculties we use to make moral choices based on such knowledge need development to be implemented effectively. After all, learning usually requires a transitional phase of training between the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and actual practice. For example, if you are teaching a student how to write critical essays for a standardized test, you will begin by teaching her the basic theory of literary criticism and essay writing. Then, you will have her hone her skills through writing practice essays. This practice will probably include reading and critiquing poor essays as well, so your student will know just what makes a bad essay bad. Only after this practice is she ready to put her theoretical knowledge, quite literally, to the test. Or one might think more readily of sport as an example. Coaches give their players theoretical knowledge of the skills required for their game. This knowledge is ingrained through drills, the repetition of correct actions until they become habit or ‘muscle memory’. The players supplement their drills with strength training, building up the muscle groups relevant to their sport through resistance. Thus trained, the players are ready to play an actual game where their actions count.

Just like writing a critical essay or making a rugby tackle, moral virtue must be learned through training if it is to be practiced in real life. This training includes both repetition, as in the practice essays and drills, and opposition, as in the bad essay critiques and strength training. Stories in the main may not provide knowledge to the head, but neither do they simply titillate the emotions of the gut. They work on what Plato called the ‘spirited element’, or what C.S. Lewis called, “The Chest—Magnanimity—Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man.” They can provide us with ethical training both through repetition and opposition. This position I call Virtue Training Theory.

“Repetition” in Virtue Training Theory means the process of positively rehearsing the patterns of right thought and emotion, or sentiments, necessary for good moral choice. This occurs when one reads (or watches, etc.) a work of fiction that manifests a true ethical attitude toward its content. It is important that it concerns the morality of the manifest attitude and not the content itself; reading a story that contains immoral content is still an exercise in repetition if the story calls a spade a spade. For example, reading A Clockwork Orange, though its anti-hero Alex perpetrates such immoral acts as rape and murder, is repetition because the immorality of his actions is implicitly acknowledged and even crucial to the novel’s exploration of the ethical dilemma of psychological conditioning and human free will.

“Opposition” in Virtue Training Theory means the process of negatively rehearsing right sentiments through engaging with a work of fiction that manifests a false ethical attitude towards its contents. The film There Will Be Blood manifests an attitude of moral nihilism, through twists and turns of plot getting the audience to feel sympathy for its reprehensible main character and, in the final scene, take pleasure in a brutal murder. In the end we are left feeling that statements about morality do not really say anything because they certainly cannot make sense of the situation presented in the film. Opposition to this film entails understanding its ethical viewpoint, considering its discrepancy with the truth that some attitudes and actions are actually wrong, and internally repudiating it. Both processes, repetition and opposition, contribute to moral education by inculcating just sentiments. [I believe the ideal fictional component of an ethical education would progress from total repetition in grammar school, exposing students only to works with true ethical viewpoints, to an even balance of repetition and opposition by the end of high school.]

I believe Virtue Training Theory finds a place for fiction in ethical education without wrestling with the tricky epistemological problem of grounding our moral knowledge in fiction…”

Throughout the rest of the paper I contrast Virtue Training Theory with another contemporary theory and answer possible objections. If anyone’s interested in reading it, e-mail me and I’ll send you a copy!

[notes toward a theory of art]

Metaphysics Chart:
(in other words, a chart representing what is)

Creation // God
||
The World // Man
||
Nature // Culture

[wolf // dog]

[forest // park]

[landscape // landscaping, landscape painting]

Where “// ” represents an antithesis,  “||” represents a subdivision, and what is in brackets “[]” is a concrete example. In sentence form:
Whatever is not God is Creation; whatever in Creation is not Man is The World; whatever in The World is not Culture is Nature. God is distinguished from Creation by His aseity and its contingency; Man is distinguished from The World by the imago Dei; Culture is distinguished from Nature by Man’s creative action upon the stuff of Nature.

I believe this consideration of what exists undermines “Art” as an ontological category. To divide artifacts of Culture into “Art” and “Non-art” is a spurious distinction. The artist and the engineer are both culture-makers, and airplanes may have beauty just as sculptures may have function. The Aesthetic is rather a hermeneutical-ethical aspect, a set of lenses through which we perceive an object to determine a specific meaning and value. Every piece of culture, from a rubbish bin to the Mona Lisa, has an aesthetic meaning and value, but some objects have more aesthetic value than others. Aesthetic meaning and value are based on the criteria of harmony (relation of parts to whole and form to content) and surprise (or nuance). For these criteria I am indebted to Herman Dooyeweerd’s Theory of Modal Aspects in his New Critique of Theoretical Thought, and I am generally indebted to Henry Van Til for his Calvinistic Concept of Culture.

[total war]

So often I confute the Spirit/flesh conflict that Paul talks about with a Greek idea of spirit versus body. That was the error of the Gnostics in the first century church! (Think about this: If Spirit versus flesh means spirit versus body, then Paul is talking nonsense when he speaks of “spiritual bodies” in 1 Cor. 15.) I make sanctification into a process of my mind’s high reason mastering my body’s low passion… which is a deadly simplification. The reality is that the corruption of sin extends much deeper than just bodily desires. My reason, will, and affections are, apart from Christ, just as corrupt as my bodily senses. There are sanctified, “spiritual” bodily desires, like that of a husband for his wife, and there are fleshly desires, like lust for a woman not your wife. There are spiritual affections, like the “joy inexpressible and full of glory” that Peter talks about (see Jonathan Edwards for more on that), and there are fleshly ones like the anxiety against which Paul warns in Philippians 4. And there is godly reasoning that recognizes the fear of the Lord as the beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7), and there are “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5).

And all of these reside in me. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24-25)

Jesus paid the penalty for all my sins–sins of reason, emotion, and cupidity. And he broke the power of sin, even though it still abides in me in this life, so that my outer man, the fleshly man, is wasting away, and my inner man, quickened by the Holy Spirit, is being renewed day by day. So I can be confident to go after my sin in total war, on every front fighting in the power of the Spirit.

So with reference to this truth, I’m going to post a couple of things from my Art, Emotion, and Morality class on the blog–because Christian scholarship is spiritual warfare.

[a little groothuis action]

Check out this cultural commentary by Dr. Doug Groothuis:

1. On the proliferation of the word “like” in our conversation.

2. On how to keep your mind alive.

3. On the contemporary trend of self-absorption in writing.

[beware rob bell]

Read this at The Resurgence.

[what is education?]

Mohler here.

[what good is theology?]

Immanuel Kant once famously declared that, “Absolutely nothing worthwhile for the practical life can be made out of the doctrine of the Trinity taken literally.”

I think a lot of times we have a similar attitude toward any of those scary, distant concepts that fall under the heading of “theology”. We’re glad our pastors have to study it in seminary, but we’d prefer that they keep it out of the pulpit and “just preach the Gospel” or something like that. We definitely don’t want to study theology for ourselves…what possible benefit could it be? If anything, maybe we should learn about the practices of ministry or evangelism or discipleship or spiritual disciplines. But learning about God Himself is something reserved for pastors and uber-Christians.

Or maybe we acknowledge that it would be good to pick up some theological knowledge…knowing about God couldn’t be a bad thing, could it? But it feels impious of us to expect personal benefit from the study of God. We feel we ought to know more about God; theological study is a duty we know we should perform, though we expect nothing out of it personally.

Well, consider this: For the Christian, the study of God is not a purely theoretical, abstract practice. That’s because God, by His free grace, has brought us into relationship with Himself. We enjoy a ‘mystical union’ with Jesus Christ! So everything we learn about God has direct and blessed bearing on our own lives. There is indeed both practical value and personal benefit in doctrine, and God is glorified when we learn of Him, rejoice in Who He is, and thank Him for His activity in our lives. Let me give you a personal example.

This morning I was reading in chapter two of Wayne Grudem’s Christian Beliefs, “What is God Like?”, when I came across this:

Jesus affirmed that God is in no way limited to a spatial location when he said, “God is spirit” (John 4:24)…He is unable to be perceived by our bodily senses. To think of his being in terms of anything else in the created universe would be a misrepresentation, for he is more excellent than any other kind of existence.

This may seem banal at first glance. But this exposition of God’s spiritual nature revealed what was nothing less than idolatory in me. Maybe you can relate. The “butterflies in the stomach” feeling perceived with my bodily senses that often accompanies the presence of God I frequently confute with the presence of God as such. But if God is really spirit, whether I feel emotion or not has no bearing on the fact of His presence. He has promised to never leave me or forsake me, and because He is unbound by spatial limitations He can deliver on that promise. His Spirit indwells every believer on every continent at the same time. To confuse the (infrequent, because of sin in me) bodily emotional response to the presence of God with His presence as a reality (constant, because of His character, promises, and nature) is idolatory, because it thinks of God in terms of a lower kind of existence. Not only that, but because His nature is spiritual, I have good reason to always hope in Him because He is always with me!

So in the study of God’s attributes, I was shown my sin and given a good reason to thank Him and have confidence in Him. Now that’s good theology!

I encourage you to pick up a copy of Grudem’s Christian Beliefs, or if you’re more ambitious, a copy of his Bible Doctrine or Systematic Theology. Read, worship, and be blessed.

[feminism, patriarchy, and society]

Check out this fascinating post from Dr. Mohler concerning a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine. Here’s an excerpt:

The effects within the society are psychological as well as demographic, political, and financial. As Longman understands, declining birthrates can also affect what he calls “national temperament.” He attributes the fact that the American voting population has become more conservative in recent years to anxiety over falling birthrates. Beyond this, we must now add the fact that millions of voters, who would have been raised by more liberal parents, were simply never born.

(Emphasis mine.)

[every man a soldier, every life an epic]

I don’t normally watch a movie more than once in theaters. But today I saw Prince Caspian for the second time. I think it’s a fantastic flick, and what really gets me is the size of it. It’s a BIG movie: the armies, the battles, the minotaurs, the stakes… everything about it is huge. Musing on the film over the past few days, I found myself wishing I was part of some epic struggle, to be an honorable soldier in a noble cause. Then I realized how foolish this was… because every day, if seen rightly, we go to war:

1. Against indwelling sin that abides in our flesh.

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. Romans 8:13

John Owen writes,

The saints, whose souls breathe after deliverance from its [i.e., sin's] perplexing rebellion, know there is no safety against it but in a constant warfare.

2. Against philosophies, ideologies, worldviews, and heresies that are contrary to true knowledge of God.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

This is the task of apologetics, and it begins in our own hearts, taking every thought captive.

3. Against spiritual forces of evil.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:10-12

Paul identifies two great ends of the struggle which the forces of evil endeavor unceasingly to short-circuit: the believer’s endurance (6:13), and the bold proclamation of the Gospel (6:18-20).

4. Against complacency, to remain faithful to Christ in daily life.

Paul uses warfare language extensively in his two letters of encouragement and exhortation to the young preacher Timothy.

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:11-12

C.S. Lewis has written that the Chronicles of Narnia are not intended as allegory in the same way as, say, Pilgrim’s Progress. But for the Christian reader, or viewer, the resonance of the stories’ characters and themes for the life of faith is undeniable. What I love about the Chronicles is not that they provide escape to a fantastic world so much as they remind us what is important in the actual world.

We live life every second coram Deo, ‘before the face of God’. Our every action, word, thought is endued with eternal consequences. Our lives matter; they are significant! When you read your Bible, or pray, or share the Gospel with a friend; when you write a poem, or critically analyze the worldview presented in a movie; when you relate differently to a parent or friend or boyfriend/girlfriend because of the principles of Scripture- you go to war, noble, broken Christian, with the power of the Holy Spirit, in the greatest cause of all: the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said,

From the days of John the Baptist, the kingdom of heaven has been coming violently, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 11:12

Who are these, the “violent”? John Gill comments,

[Those] being powerfully wrought upon under the ministry of the Gospel; who were under violent apprehensions of wrath and vengeance, of their lost and undone state and condition by nature; were violently in love with Christ, and eagerly desirous of salvation by him, and communion with him; and had their affections set upon the things of another world: these having the Gospel preached to them, which is a declaration of God’s love to sinners, a proclamation of peace and pardon, and a publication of righteousness and life by Christ, they greedily catched at it, and embraced it.

O that we would be violently in love with Christ, and wage the good warfare because of it!

[mohler on manhood]

Examine yourself.

[sound doctrine pt. 2]

How can we know anything at all?

How can we know Who God is or who we are or anything about the purpose and progress of history? How do we know the answers we pose to these questions are correct?

We don’t have to guess and hope at these matters because God has revealed Himself. In the order and beauty of creation, the laws of physics that govern motion, the moral truths that we recognize intuitively about the value of human life and private property, God shows His character. But more than this, from the very beginning God has revlealed Himself in language that humans can understand. In the Garden of Eden, He spoke and gave Adam instructions. He gave the Ten Commandments at Sinai. He delivered prophecies throughout the ages.

And He gave His final revelation in His Son, Jesus Christ.

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Hebrews 1:1-3a.

We can know God because He has revealed Himself to us in creation, His Word, and the Word made flesh- Jesus Christ.

As the Westminster Shorter Catechism tells us, “The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.” There can be no other source for our knowledge about His purpose in history. The Bible is the only foundation for everything in [sound doctrine].

Psalm 19 is one of the most potent statements of the doctrine of God’s self-revelation in Scripture. Let us apply ourselves to the study of the Word. As a pastor of mine once said, “How can you know the God of the Word without the Word of the God?”

For your joy in the God Who reveals Himself,

Jonathan

http://www.mediafire.com/?eydxxectoct

Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God;
The sky proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech;
Night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, there are no words
Whose voice is not heard.

Their measuring line goes out through the earth;
Their words go to the end of the world.
In them He set the sun a tent.
It comes out radiant, like a bridegroom,
And runs its course with strength and joy;
From its heat nothing is hidden.

The law of the Lord is perfect,
Reviving the soul.
His testimony is true,
Making wise the simple.
His precepts are right,
Rejoicing the heart.
His commandment is pure,
Enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean,
Enduring forever.
The rules of the Lord are right
And righteous altogether.

Your rules are more precious than gold,
Sweeter than drippings from the honeycomb.
Even more, by them I’m warned.
In keeping them is great reward.
Who can know his errors, Lord?
Declare me innocent, declare me innocent.
Keep me back from willful sin;
Let it not reign over me.
Then I shall be blameless
And innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth
And my heart’s meditations
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

[based on the ESV text]

[sound doctrine pt. 1]

“We must never forget that the first part of the gospel is not ‘Accept Christ as Savior,’ but ‘God is there.’” Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There

This post is the first in a series entitled [sound doctrine]. [sound doctrine] is a sequence of musical reflections on ‘redemptive history,’ the story of why God created the universe and what He has done to accomplish that purpose throughout time. It grows out of the conviction that the Bible is not just a collection of isolated books, but that it is driven by a unified plot of a God who speaks and acts in history for His Name’s sake.

The story begins with God’s existence. He is there; He has always been there and will always be there. His character doesn’t change. As long as He has been, He has been holy, just, loving, glorious, infinite and personal.

Some of these songs are old, some are new. Some are original, some will be familiar. Because God’s character and purpose in history don’t change, the reflections of godly men from the past on His mighty acts and person are just as valid today as the day they were written.

The first song is an old hymn penned by Isaac Watts. If you’ve ever been to a church with hymnals, you’ll find his name all over it.

For your joy in the God Who is there,

Jonathan

You can download the file here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?91dx1mwxxzd

‘Great God, How Infinite Art Thou!’

Great God, how infinite art Thou!
What worthless worms are we!
Let the whole race of creatures bow,
And pay their praise to Thee.

Thy throne eternal ages stood,
Ere seas or stars were made:
Thou art the ever living God,
Were all the nations dead.

Nature and time quite naked lie
To Thine immense survey,
From the formation of the sky
To the great burning day.

Eternity, with all its years,
Stands present in Thy view;
To Thee there’s nothing old appears;
Great God! There’s nothing new.

Our lives through various scenes are drawn,
And vexed with trifling cares;
While Thine eternal thought moves on
Thine undisturbed affairs.

Great God, how infinite art Thou!
What worthless worms are we!
Let the whole race of creatures bow,
And pay their praise to Thee.

[by Isaac Watts]

[common grace]

“Chaos is dull.” -Chesterton

I slept and slept in fevered dreams
Of unmoored ships and wandering travelers,
Fierce seas and tangled roads,
Nights too black and days too grey,
Blizzards overwhelmingly white,
And felt the fallenness deep in my soul
Like a crack in the foundation of Self
Life, a slumping construction, rests on.

I woke to find the World instead infuriating order,
Lying down in a dampened meadow.
I found that though it drizzled,
The sun shone through a little,
Laid my hand upon a compass and a map.
On map the roads in grid arrayed,
Like engineering paper,
Indicated bridges out and blockage of the way.

Corruption could not undo Order;
Though all the marching feet of Time
Had trampled it for unknown years,
It, scarred, held fast and true.
Against all Sin and indication
Of thermodynamic law,
A Hand unseen upholds the World,
Or else a Word unheard.

[the five points of politics]

I recently wrote a research paper for a class in religion and politics entitled “Toward an Evangelical Politics: Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer, and Beyond.” The worldview theory of Kuyper and Schaeffer really helped me toward defining my own political philosophy. What follows is the final section of my paper, the personal conclusions I drew. And as a good Calvinist, I offer it in five points, with an acronym you might recognize…

Theonomy: An Evangelical politics must embrace theonomy in its understanding of law. Abraham Kuyper calls for a subjective theonomy in the Lectures: “God’s Word must rule, but in the sphere of the state only through the conscience of the persons invested with authority.” (“Politics” 104) However, in our post-Christian culture there is very little of God’s Word in anyone’s conscience, let alone the politicians’. The “hard theonomy” of the Christian Reconstructionists, wherein the Old Testament law is adopted as the law of the land with its prescribed punishments, except where specifically superceded by the New Testament, seems to stray too far in the other direction. It smacks of theocracy. (Rogers) Francis Schaeffer’s “soft theonomy” has the constitutional law of the land resting consciously on Scripture as an unchanging standard of justice and right. This position maintains the Evangelical tension between the absolute authority of Scripture and the separation of church and state. It is also in line with the teaching of John Calvin himself. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin calls the idea of rule by the totality of the Mosaic Law “perilous and seditious,” but he affirms that the law of the land must rest on the “moral law,” which he boils down to the principles of charity and equity. The eternal standard of the moral law prevents destructive sociological law:
“But if it is true that each nation has been left at liberty to enact the laws which it judges to be beneficial, still these are always to be tested by the rule of charity, so that while they vary in form, they must proceed on the same principle. Those barbarous and savage laws, for instance, which conferred honour on thieves, allowed the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, and other things even fouler and more absurd, I do not think entitled to be considered as laws, since they are not only altogether abhorrent to justice, but to humanity and civilised life.” (Institutes 910)
Under this conception, justice, ethics, morality, and religious conviction are inseparable. Evangelicals have the right and duty to continue to push for legislation on ‘moral’ issues like abortion and gay rights as the highest priority, because they undermine the very foundation of state authority, which rests in just law.

Uncompromised principles: An Evangelical politics must be principled, not pragmatic. This is a direct result of embracing a theonomic concept of law. A denial of Scriptural authority is concomitant to denying legislative goals that are directly based on God’s moral law. According to J. Budziszewski, the confession of biblical authority is the theological distinctive of Evangelicals. (“Evangelicals” 20) So a move like Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani effectively forfeits one’s status as an Evangelical.

Limited Sovereignty: An Evangelical politics must limit the sovereignty of the state by proclaiming the ultimate sovereignty of God and recognizing sovereignty within individual spheres. Proclaiming the ultimate sovereignty of God ensures that Evangelicals know the basic presupposition on which their politics is founded and creates a bottom line past which subjection to the state is no longer good or right. (Schaeffer, Manifesto 126-127) It seems from the Genesis account that Scripture recognizes at least four spheres, with separate sovereignties implied by the separate institutions of society (Gen. 1:26-28), family (Gen. 2:23-24), church (Gen. 4:26), and state (Gen. 9:5-6). Applying this principle would require the government to retract its authoritative position in areas like education, as in the Department of Education and the No Child Left Behind Act. Schaeffer writes, “[I]f the United States is to move back toward the original Reformation basis, this would mean severely limiting the scope of Federal State authority.” (Manifesto 114) In fact, it would mean a very nearly libertarian conception of federal authority. Evangelicals should seek constitutional amendments specifically delineating societal spheres and denying the state sovereignty therein. Evangelicals must also determine how the sphere sovereignty doctrine would apply on an international level. It precludes ceding state sovereignty to international organizations like the U.N. and prohibits an interventionist foreign policy, both as violations of the sovereignty of individual nations.

Identification with Christian heritage: An Evangelical politics must make explicit the historically demonstrable connection between Reformation Christianity and liberty. Both Kuyper and Schaeffer go to great lengths to show the direct correlation between the degree of ‘reformation’ and the degree of freedom in Northern Europe and the United States. Kuyper locates the democratizing effects of Calvinism in its Presbyterian polity (“Religion” 63) and doctrine of unconditional election. (“Art” 166) Evangelicals should point unbelievers to the oppressive public squares of France and Turkey as ample proof that secular humanism does not lead to freedom, but tyranny. Even those who do not share the Christian worldview should welcome, rather than abhor, a Christian state because a Christian state alone provides a stable guarantee of freedom. An Evangelical politics must not compel belief or establish a state church, but it must of necessity preserve freedom of expression in the public square to maintain evangelistic efforts. (Schaeffer, Manifesto 136-137).

Plan for action: An Evangelical politics must provide a comprehensive strategy for achieving its goals on all fronts. Recognizing that Evangelicals are in a battle of opposing total worldviews, the fight must be taken to every sphere of life. Ethical personal living, raising strong families, theologically-informed art and science, petition, litigation, civil disobedience, running for political office, proposing legislation, production in every academic field—all of these must be practiced if Evangelicals take Kuyper and Schaeffer’s worldview theory seriously. Unfortunately, this is where neither Kuyper, nor Schaeffer, nor this paper can take us any further. Delineating strict action in these spheres would rise above a foundation and begin to define a total Evangelical politics, even a comprehensive Christian philosophy—a monumental work that waits for another scholar and another day.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” John 16:13
Sources:

Budziszewski, J. “Evangelicals in the Public Square,” in Evangelicals in the Public Square, Budziszewski, et al. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Henry Beveridge. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 2002. <http://www.ccel.org/download.html?
url=/ccel/calvin/institutes.pdf>
Kuyper, Abraham. Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1943.

Rogers, Jay. “Van Tillian Presuppositional Theonomic Ethics.” The Forerunner. Accessed December 5, 2007. <http://forerunner.com/forerunner/X0518_vantil.html>

Schaeffer, Francis. A Christian Manifesto. Westchester: Crossway. 1981.