Category Archives: Ministry

The Universe has a serious psychological disorder

19 Tuesday Jun 2018

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O18.1Potamos

The authors of an essay in Scientific American have couple constitute panpsychism and Dissociative Identity Disorder as a mechanism for explaining the existence of consciousness in the material universe. A fundamental trouble of the materialist worldview is that there is consciousness and rocks don’t have consciousness — so how things made out of powdered rocks and water (human beings) have consciousness presents problem.

One way to solve that problem is to say the consciousness is just a physical property and so my electrons have a rudimentary consciousness. As the authors explain:

Under this view, called “constitutive panpsychism,” matter already has experience from the get-go, not just when it arranges itself in the form of brains. Even subatomic particles possess some very simple form of consciousness. Our own human consciousness is then (allegedly) constituted by a combination of the subjective inner lives of the countless physical particles that make up our nervous system.

This leads to a problem: how then can human beings experience their own center of consciousness? If there is one great consciousness which underlies the entire universe (it is inherent in everything), then how to we explain our individual identities?

This is where Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) helps: One human being can be the locus of multiple centers of consciousness which is known as DID. The same mechanism which permits one human body to have multiple centers of consciousness is the mechanism which permits individual humans to have their own center of consciousness separate from the universal consciousness in all things.

Essentially, the universe has DID and we are one of those personalities.

It should be noted that this is paganism: where the universe is animate. Indeed if you scratch this hard, you end up with tree spirits and water sprites.

An Essay on Common Grace, Biblical Counseling and Psychology

25 Friday May 2018

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized

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I have attached a rough draft copy of an essay on common grace, biblical counseling and psychology  here. If anyone is interested and willing, I would appreciate the comments, critiques, et cetera.  It is 11,457 words, with 42 footnotes, so it is not a breezy read. In its final version, it will be in the Journal of Biblical Soul Care

Again, this is far from finished: any and everything in it is subject to revision.  It (probably) has typos, incomplete citations, and gaps in the argument. But fortunately I have a couple of months before publication.

That Octopus on Your Plate Came From Outer Space

16 Wednesday May 2018

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octopus-salad-with-lemon

Evidence of the role of extraterrestrial viruses in affecting terrestrial evolution has recently been plausibly implied in the gene and transcriptome sequencing of Cephalopods. The genome of the Octopus shows a staggering level of complexity with 33,000 protein-coding genes more than is present in Homo sapiens (Albertin et al., 2015). Octopus belongs to the coleoid sub-class of molluscs (Cephalopods) that have an evolutionary history that stretches back over 500 million years, although Cephalopod phylogenetics is highly inconsistent and confusing (see Carlini et al., 2000; Strugnell et al., 2005, 2006, 2007; Bergmann et al., 2006). Cephalopods are also very diverse, with the behaviourally complex coleoids, (Squid, Cuttlefish and Octopus) presumably arising under a pure terrestrial evolutionary model from the more primitive nautiloids. However the genetic divergence of Octopus from its ancestral coleoid sub-class is very great, akin to the extreme features seen across many genera and species noted in Eldridge-Gould punctuated equilibria patterns (below). Its large brain and sophisticated nervous system, camera-like eyes, flexible bodies, instantaneous camouflage via the ability to switch colour and shape are just a few of the striking features that appear suddenly on the evolutionary scene. The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral Nautilus (e.g. Nautilus pompilius) to the common Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) to Squid (Loligo vulgaris) to the common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris, Fig. 5) are not easily to be found in any pre-existing life form – it is plausible then to suggest they seem to be borrowed from a far distant “future” in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large. Such an extraterrestrial origin as an explanation of emergence of course runs counter to the prevailing dominant paradigm.

In plainer English: The Octopus is so very sophisticated that it could not have evolved: therefore, it came from space.

 

The Kind of Preaching People Want

13 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in Culture, Jonathan Edwards, Micah, Preaching, Uncategorized

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Published under the title, The Salvation of Souls, Richard A. Bailey and Gregory A. Wills, edited nine sermons of Jonathan Edwards on Christian ministry. One of the sermons entitled, “The Kind of Preaching People Want” considers the text:

Micah 2:11 (ESV)

11          If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,

saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

he would be the preacher for this people!

From this text, Edwards notes that this is the sort of preaching which will attract people (I one time heard John MacArthur say, you can gather a lot goats in one place and that doesn’t make them sheep). He posits this doctrine:

If the business of ministers was to further the gratification of men’s lusts, they would be much better received by many than they are now.

He then gives a series of examples of how such preaching would sound. And in reading this, it often seems as if Edwards was looking into the “church” of the country which was coming into being while he lived (he died prior to the Revolution):

If ministers were sent to tell people that they might gratify their lusts without danger; if they were sent to them that it was lawful for them to gratify their lusts …..

He then proceeds to set out a series of desires: drunkenness, sexual immorality, abusive business dealings, revenge. Or rather than openly claim such things were no sins — they were of little importance.

Or perhaps rather than deny that sin would merit hell; what if the minister presented:

Christ only in one of his offices and not in others; if they were to preach Christ only  in his priestly office and as a savior from the punishment of sin, and not also in his kingly office as a savior from the power and dominion of sin, and that being a King and a Lord to rule in us and over us, they would by many be much better received than they are now.

Edwards then proceeds through other potential faults in a minister — all designed to lead men to believe that Christ saved us to indulge in sin and be rewarded with a future of sinful pleasures. But these first two fault seems particularly to mark the broader so-called “evangelical” ministry in North America: preachers who lessen the severity of sin; and who, in the name of “grace” and “love” speak as if Christ would overlook — or even delight in sin.

Think of the bitter, often even slanderous speech, which marks social media. Or the envy and covetousness of our culture — not to mention intoxication and sexual immorality. Congregations are falling over themselves to accommodate the sexual revolution (as Al Mohler terms it) in the name of love. A well-known supposed evangelical writes a book which advocates a universal salvation in the name of “love”.

Edwards’ warning, which must have sounded bizarre to even the unbelievers in his congregation (remember, everyone went to church in Edwards’ day), seems to have been taken up as a how-to by the public Christian church.

What then must we do with this observation? Edwards first provides questions of self-examination. How do you receive true preaching of the Scripture? When the Word is rightly proclaimed, do you listen attentively? When your sin is reproved, do you receive and repent — or do you ignore it, or chafe?

What do you do if a preacher speaks smooth words which encourage your sins? Or if it is not a preacher, what if a friend or neighbor speaks in a way that encourages your lusts? Do you receive it eagerly? Do you find entertainment from “an impure story or a lascivious song?”

There is then reproof:

What horrid contempt you cast on God and Christ and heaven, in that you should prefer the gratification of your vile lusts before them, that you would be more pleased and entertained and give better attention to hear that by which your lusts might be gratified than that by which you may obtain an interest in Christ, in his precious blood and glorious benefits, and may have God for your portion; that to have all the glories and perfections of God and a Redeemer set before you is not so pleasing and entertaining to you as to hear of the objects of a carnal appetite; that worldly profit or sensual pleasures or the gratifications of your envy revenge is better to you than heaven.

Then as a final matter, Edwards ends with what it is to be a preacher who rightly brings the Word:

But how grievous may it be well be, when a minster does his utmost to see a congregation seeming to be regardless of what he says, and many of them sleeping a great part of the time, and other plainly manifesting a careless, regardless spirit. With what a complaint may such ministers that have been so treated rise up on the day of judgment before their Master that sent them and set them to work, declaring what pains they took and how they labored to their utmost to speak so as to influence and affect their minds and yet how regardless they were of the message they delivered.

This sermon at length and the entire book is well worth your time. The book is well edited. Each sermon is prefaced by an introduction that sets the time and place. The sermons are marked with notes which help explain the text. Very highly recommended.

 

It wasn’t billions of years

03 Thursday May 2018

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I like mysteries:

Hubble Deep Field in Infrared

“How this assembly of galaxies got so big, so fast is a mystery,” Tim Miller, a doctoral candidate at Yale University and lead author of one of the papers, said in the statement. “It wasn’t built up gradually over billions of years, as astronomers might expect. This discovery provides a great opportunity to study how massive galaxies came together to build enormous galaxy clusters.”

Soren Kierkegaard, The Mirror of the Word Part One

23 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by in Faith, Faith, James, Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard, Preaching, Uncategorized

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How to Derive True Benediction from Beholding Oneself in the Mirror of the Word

James 1:22 to the End

Fifth Sunday After Easter

 

Introduction

Kierkegaard prefaces his discourse with a note about the necessary “eloquence” of Christian preaching: it must be an eloquence of word and action:

He who is to preach ought to live in the thoughts and conceptions of Christianity; this should be his daily life — if such is the case, then (as Christianity teaches) thou shalt have eloquence enough, and just what is needed, when thou dost speak straightforwardly without special preparation. On the other hand, it is a false eloquence,  if without being concerned with these thoughts or living in them, one sits down from time to time to make a collection of such thoughts, culling them perhaps from the field of literature, and working them up together into a well-developed discourse, which then is learned perfectly  by rote and is admirably delivered, both with respect to elocution and with respect to movement of arms. No, just as in a well-appointed house one is not obligated to go downstairs to fetch water, but by pressure already has it on the upper floors merely by turning the tap, so too is with real the Christian orator, who, just because Christianity is his life, has eloquence, and precisely the right eloquence, close at ham, immediately present with him ….

For the sermon ought not to establish an invidious distinction between the talented and the untalented, it ought rather in the unity of the Holy Ghost fix attention exclusively upon the requirement that actions must correspond to words.

This idea of correspondence between actions and words is worked in the subsequent discourse on the correspondence between faith and action. There must be an integrity between what is said, and what is done.

The Sermon

Kiekegaard preaches on the following text:

James 1:22–27 (ESV)

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Kierkegaard begins his consideration of these words with the apparent contradiction of Martin Luther: we are saved by faith alone. He then notes the nature of human depravity when it comes to works:

yet every man has a disposition either to want to have merit from works when they are to be done; or, when faith and grace are to be stressed, to want to be as far as possible liberated entirely from works.

Luther sought to work around that dual tendency:

Luther wanted to take away the meritoriousness from works and apply it in a somewhat different place, namely to witnessing for truth. Worldliness, which understood Luther radically, did away entirely with meritoriousness — and with works along with it.

Luther also notes that “faith is a perturbing thing”. Well, then if faith is a perturbing thing, “To what effect has faith, which thou sayest thou hast, perturbed thee?”

That is the trouble. And what sort of disquiet should come from faith? The disquiet of faith will seek to change things to conform to the faith — whether it is the religious order or a disquiet of “inward order.”  “A true love-affair is a disquieting thing, but it does not occur to the lover to want to change the established order.”

Kierkegaard mentioning Luther’s trouble with James suggests that perhaps Luther did not realize how easily one could twist “faith alone” to mean faith apart from effect upon one. “That does not apply to the Lutheran doctrine, but it applies to me: I have reason to know that I am not an upright soul, but a crafty fellow.”

Since I am a crafty fellow, I think to think more carefully about what is meant by this “faith alone”. “So it doubtless would be well to examine a little more carefully the subordinate clauses (works, existence, witnessing and suffering for the truth, works of love, & c.), the subordinating clauses of Lutheranism.”

It is that examination of what faith must do that occupies the discourse proper.

A Proposed Mechanism for Relating “Psychology” and “Biblical Counseling”

20 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Psychology, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized

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(The following is a draft of a tool for analyzing the common grace elements of psychology. It will be for the second half of an article on the usefulness and limitations of common grace for counseling in a manner which is consistent with the claims of Scripture).

As will be set forth at length below, I propose the following rubric for utilizing the results of “common grace” in social sciences, particularly psychology as an academic discipline; and a means for rejecting certain other ideas as incompatible with a consistently biblical position for soul care. This position is begins with both a scriptural understanding of common grace, and an understanding of the biblical of the nature and end of human beings before God. This position recognizes both the extent to which common grace can provide insight into the natural world; and the fundamental limitations of common grace when it comes to human problems.

A fundamental problem which takes place concerns what is meant by the word “psychology”. The range of meaning assigned to this word has exacerbated the disagreements between Biblical Counselors and those who hold one of the various positions commonly labeled as “integrationist” (and yes, there are a variety of labels which are utilized here; and often there is a rejection of label by Christian counselors, but the word will work well-enough for present uses).

I propose three categories of information which move from information most accessible to common grace to information which cannot be known by common grace.

 

Common Grace Special Revelation
Category One:  Observations The physical environment; including the human body. This includes study of the nervous system, functioning of the senses, et cetera.

Information from this level is often leveraged as an attack upon the Biblical Counseling position as unscientific for “refusing” information learned here.

 

  

 

 

 

 
Common Grace is most effective here.

Common grace does permit one to see the environment, the understanding is limited by the failure to take God’s creation and providence into account. However, due to the ability of unbelievers to ‘borrow’ from Christian presuppositions, reasonably accurate observations.

 

Thus, human physiology can be observed and reported. This area of “psychology” (neuropsychology, the operation of senses, et cetera) can be utilized with the normal sort of skepticism necessary for review of any scientific work

 

 Special Revelation: Informs us of the fundamental nature and existence of the physical environment, but does not provide much detail. We know that it is the creation of God and maintained by providence, but the mechanics of the operation are not treated in detail. This is the place where Special Revelation offers the least information and common grace the most.

 

 

 

 

 
Category two:

Social science observations. With a markedly lesser degree of reliability, social scientists can make observations of patterns in human behavior and internal psychological states. Thus, we can see that people under certain circumstances, and/or with certain physiological conditions, will have a tendency to display certain behaviors and/or expressions.

 

  
Common grace makes it possible to make observations patterns.  However, there are serious limitations on the usefulness of such information.

These observations are fundamentally limited by (1) the inability to observe the internal workings of the human heart (observations of neurology and one’s self reported subjected experience are of some value, but cannot correlate to the depth of the human heart); (2) these observations are fundamentally limited that they cannot include the effects of the Godward relationship of the human being (observations which are commonly accounted as “the psychology of religion” are limited to objective observations and cannot provide information about the working of God); (3) these observations cannot take into account the effects of the “flesh” and the Spirit (this is related but not perfectly coextensive with point (2)).

 

 

 

  

Special revelation is critical at this stage, particularly in any attempt to “make sense” of social science observations. Understanding the deceitfulness of sin, for instance, may help to make an observation understandable.

The biblical counselor can use such observations as data points: for example, a study may suggest a line of inquiry; knowing that there is not a determinative relationship between one environmental circumstance and a future manner of life — even if there is a positive tendency toward a certain outcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Category 3

This category consists of what most people mean when they say “psychology”. Here we find theories which concern the matters are both (1) inaccessible to common grace and (2) are explicitly theological anthropology, teleology and methodology for change (ATM). These are the aspects of human life which are most directly affected by the breach between God and man.

While this category may make reference to elements of category 1 & 2, it goes further and assigns values. This aspect specifically concerns “spiritual” concerns:  matters of sin and sanctification, the action of God (and even evil spirits) upon human beings: these are precisely the matters which the Scripture claims as for its authority.

When biblical counselors reject “psychology”, they are referring primarily to information from this category.

 

  
Common grace is least valuable at this stage. Common grace  was not given to heal this aspect of the Fall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Special Revalation is needed for work here

First, this concerns anthropology: What constitutes a human being: this is beyond observations concerning the human body and human behavior. It is consists of the “manishness of man” to use Francis Schaeffer’s phrase. This concerns the human heart: the spiritual aspects of humanity and in particular human interaction with God.

 

Second, this category concerns teleology: what is the purpose of being human. For instance when a psychologist speaks of what is “healthy” for human sexuality, the psychologist is speaking to what is the purpose of a human being. The purpose of a human being cannot be known by observations, since, as Jay Adams notes: we are living in an abnormal environment under abnormal conditions (being on this side of the Fall).

 

Third, this concerns methodology: those things which are necessary to change the direction of the human heart.

 

 

The Savior Who Bears Shame

17 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Hosea, Preaching, Sermons, Uncategorized

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(This is the introduction to a sermon on Hosea 1-2)

The Savior Who Bears Shame

Hosea 1:2 (NASB95)

2          When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.”

The story of Hosea is a story of the unyielding, unchanging grace and love of God. It is the story of love which undergirds the course of history. The love and grace of God form the architecture of the movement of time. The rebellion of Adam and failure of Israel could not unmake the love of God. “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”. Rom. 5:20.

God’s grace brings life from death, for

1 Corinthians 1:27–29 (NASB95)

27        … God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,

            28        and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,

            29        so that no man may boast before God.

This love runs deep in the channels of time; it forms the steel frame of all the universe; it bears such strength that not even death, not even adultery can break the bond of God’s love. It is the love of a God which begins before God said, “Let there be light.”  As Paul tells Titus, God promised eternal life, “long ages ago.”  It is a love which stretch into all eternity, as Christ has promised, “Where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:3. It a transforming love which takes the one who is unlovely, and remakes him; it is love which presents the bride, “holy and blameless”.  Eph. 5:27

It is a love that will overcome all obstacles, so that not even the foulest rebellion will thwart his love:

For love is as strong as death

Jealousy is as severe as Sheol

It’s flashes are flashes of fire

The very fame of the Lord

Many waters cannot quench love

Nor will rivers overflow it

If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love

It would be utterly despised.

Song 8:6-7

But the story of God’s love in Hosea does not begin with the beauty of romance; with the hope and expectation of young love. The story begins with rank adultery, with spite, with unloved children, with war and chaos lurking at the horizon.

The book begins with this gunshot to the chest. We know nothing Hosea before — and little after — this command comes from the Lord:

Go take for yourself a wife of harlotry

Or as the King James aptly puts it

take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms

There is no preparation told us for this command. God comes and makes this command — and the personal commands of God cannot be avoided — a shocking command. Image come has come to you and says, You, marry that whore. Think of the confusion, the revulsion, the pain.

The command is almost inexplicable on its face. A variety of commentators have sought many explanations — and there are several explanations — but none of them can really get around the point of the disgust.

John Calvin, for instance, cannot believe that God would give such a command to the prophet. He draws out the trouble here: the wife to be is not “without blame in holiness before our God and Father”. She is no one’s “hope or joy or crown of exultation.” As Calvin writes, this woman

who has exposed herself to all, to gratify the wish of all, who has prostituted herself, not once or twice, nor to a few men, but to all.

This woman is not beguiling, not attractive. She is ruined with lust. Calvin cannot believe that God would bring such shame upon His prophet

for how could he expect to be received after having brought upon himself such disgrace.

Keep that question in mind, for that shame and disgrace are at the heart of the love of God. But for now just see this: God commands Hosea to marry a whore, because God himself is married to whore:

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry;

Having given the command, God gives the reason:

for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.”

The shame the Lord calls the prophet to bear is the shame which the Lord, himself, bears.

Toward and Exegetical Practical Theology, Joshua Clutterham

13 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized

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Joshua Clutterham’s article in this edition of the Journal of Biblical Soul Care develops a point which is crucial to any effective pastoral work (and by that, I limit pastoral work to work which takes Scripture seriously). The Bible is not merely a book of facts and propositions (although it does contain such). The words are there not merely be read and recognized. The information does not exist merely so we can pass some hypothetical Bible knowledge trivia test. The words of the Bible are given to do something to us; to change us.

The Bible must not be merely thought of as a basis for systematic theology. Even preaching must not terminate in what the Scripture means as a proposition, but what that proposition does.  The Bible is given to not merely inform, but also to change people. This changing people is a matter of practical theology.

This matter of application is admitted by most preachers (indeed, many very bad sermons are merely a string of applications: Cheer – up! You’ll do great if you try!). There is another group who deliver an enormous volume of information, but with no point. Great, I can answer questions about the economy of Egypt, but I’m not sure why that matters.

The point of Bible’s information is to transform human beings in conduct, knowledge and affection: to make people different than they were before they read.

This matter of using the Bible to change people is also the purpose of counseling. And thus we should merely think of counseling as private exegetical practical theology. Preaching largely differs in the number of persons present.

What Joshua further proposes is that we take care to notice the rhetorical structure of the Scripture’s application: When we apply the text, we should note how the text functions and rely upon that rhetorical structure to help deliver the application. As Joshua writes, “We [must] consider the method of delivery of Scripture along with its meaning.”

The article itself is quite detailed. He develops and explains the rhetorical structure of the Scripture’s application — giving many examples and helps.  The article contains a number of proposals for future development, and explains the relationship between preaching and counseling.  This brief bit merely provides the slightest introduction to his work.

You can get your free subscription to the journal here:

http://www.masters.edu/jbsc

Christ Transforms our Thinking

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

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Ambrose to Felix, Bishop of Comum, 380 AD:

Aaron indeed once stood in the midst,* interposing himself to prevent death passing over to the hosts of the living from the carcases of the dead. But He, as the Word, ever stands within each of us, although we see Him not, and separates the faculties of our reason from the carcase of our deadly passions and pestilential thoughts

This quote is interesting because it gets to an element of biblical counseling – or soul care: all clinical psychology is trying to change how a person thinks, desires, acts from some undesired state to what is perceived as a better state. Here Ambrose states two things: (1) Christ does change our thinking; (2) our reason has been corrupted by “deadly passions”.

What I cannot tell is whether he holds to an idea that human reason is uncorrupted and it is merely desire which corrupts. Does he hold that all desire or merely “deadly passions” are the culprit.