Denying a god no one claims exists

21 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, Job, John Frame, John Piper

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Agnosticism, Job 5:8-10, John Frame, John Piper, John Piper Rain, Presupposition, Presuppositionalism, Rain, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God

“Metaphysics and epistemology are correlative; the nature of God determines His knowability” (Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 19). Part of what may constitute “evidence” for a proposition depends upon the nature of the proposition.

Let us say we wish to determine whether X is a good baseball player. X’s preference for a flavor of ice cream does nothing to reveal his skill at baseball. If wish to look for evidence of a bird, a compass will likely provide no useful information.

When it comes to the matter of God’s existence, the nature of evidence will correlate to the nature of God. Thus, when someone accepts or denies “evidence” concerning God they have already committed to a certain concept of God.

For example, one a particular day it rains. One person denies that such rain could possibly provide any evidence of God’s existence. Fair enough. But, what should it look like if God were to make it rain? Would rain only be evidence of God if it were to occur contrary to the “normal course” of events? You see, the god or God found or denied depend upon one’s presuppositions. (Now, those presuppositions are subject to interaction with perception. However, perception does not occur in a “neutral” space. )

(John Piper has a delightful meditation on how rain shows evidence of God — and should be a profound ground for our thankfulness. http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/the-great-work-of-god-rain)

When someone denies the physical world provides any evidence of God, that person is denying God’s existence but rather denies a god who the denier presumes to existence.

Let us say you meet someone at college — a new classmate. Your classmate claims to have a girlfriend — but the girlfriend lives in his hometown. You deny the girlfriend’s existence and say, “If she were your girlfriend, she would live here. Therefore, since this woman is not here, she is not your girlfriend.”

When one denies God’s existence on the ground that the universe is regular in its operation, one has not denied the God asserted in the Bible. The God of the Bible provides order and law. The God of the Bible is Lord of all creation and thus orders and controls the physical universe “without losing His divinity” (Frame, 20).

Frame explains that the God the Bible, the Lord of creation does not merely control the universe, He also has authority over the creation. Therefore, all valuations of the universe necessarily entail God’s existence.

Moreover, God is present [the third aspect of lordship identified by Frame] in the universe (as a third aspect of being Lord). Therefore, “all reality reveals God” (Frame, 20). “God is unavoidably close to His creation. We are involved with Him all the time” (Frame, 17).

Thus, “The agnostic argument, …presupposes a non-biblical concept of God. If God is who Scripture says He is, there are no barriers to knowing Him” (Frame, 20).

We Murder to Dissect

28 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Epistemology, John Frame

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Duchess, epistemology, John Frame, poem, Poetry, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, The Tables Turned, Theory, Wallace Stevens, William Wordsworth

We Murder to Dissect

John Frame begins his volume The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God with the observation that knowledge depends upon its object: what we can know, how we can know differs with the object of knowledge. For example, today I read story of a “photograph” of a hydrogen atom. That photograph provided a kind of knowledge obtained in a specific manner. Such knowledge is true – but it is not comprehensive. Moreover such knowledge differs fundamentally from the knowledge I have of my family members.

Even the barest consider will demonstrate his point, “Our criteria, methods and goals in knowledge all depend on what we seek to know” (9).

To confuse the appropriate form of knowledge for a particular object would be to miss the object altogether. Wordsworth drew this out in his poem, “The Tables Turned”:

UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you’ll grow double:

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain’s head,

A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet, 10

How sweet his music! on my life,

There’s more of wisdom in it.

The ‘friend’ who seeks nature in his books – in scientific study, if you will – will miss the beauty and wonder of nature in his study of nature. Wordsworth contends that the friend has brought the wrong means to study the object. Thus, in “studying” the friend misses everything of importance – in fact he destroys the object in his search:

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:–

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves; 30

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

This same principle applies to theology, “Knowing God is something utterly unique, since God himself is unique” (9). Much of the argument about God hinges upon this plain proposition: God is not known the way knows the batting average of a baseball player; a wife cannot be known the way one knows a spider. God cannot be known the way one knows types of coffee. And yet, we often grow frustrated with a personal God who will only be known personally.

Now God – as all things and all persons – is not and cannot be known absent the knowledge of other objects. God is known in his relationship to his creation – just as a child is known in relationship to a parent: the relationship is a fundamental aspect of the knowledge[1].

This implies a much broader understanding of knowledge, “So we cannot know God without knowing other things at the same time”. We cannot know God as Creator without knowing (in some manner) creation. [2] Now this problem of knowledge of God becomes all the greater when we think that we are within the scope of God’s creation – there is not some unbiased place from which to observe. It is as if one seeks to know about a person, but only after the relationship is established – as a child has no potential space to know the parent except from the vantage of being a child.

[1] Wallace Stevens gets at some of this in his poem “Theory:

I am what is around me.

Women understand this.
One is not duchess
A hundred yards from a carriage.

These, then are portraits:
A black vestibule;
A high bed sheltered by curtains.

These are merely instances.

[2] Wallace Steven’s poem, “Theory” illustrates this fact of relatoin

B.B. Warfield’s “The Inspiration of the Bible”

27 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Apologetics, B.B. Warfield, Church History, John Frame

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Adolphe Monod, Apologetics, B.B. Warfield, Bible, Christ and the Bible, Church History, Inspiration, John Frame, John Wenham, rationalism, Rorty, The Inspiration of the Bible

Warfield tackles two interrelated propositions in his essay. On one hand, he notes the fact of critics of the doctrine of plenary verbal inspiration. He contrasted the critical doctrines with the consistent doctrine of the church in favor of plenary verbal inspiration:

Thus they themselves introduce us to the fact that over against the numberless discordant theories of inspiration which vex our time, there stands a well-defined church-doctrine of inspiration. This church-doctrine of inspiration differs from the theories that would fain supplant it, in that it is not the invention nor the property of an individual, but the settled faith of the universal church of God; (52)

[Page references are to the collected works of Warfield, vol. 1.]

The second proposition — which he develops in three parts– is the church’s doctrine of inspiration: 1) This doctrine goes back to the first history of the church. 2) This doctrine was held by Christ and the apostles. 3) Christianity by its very nature requires an inerrant Bible.

Skeptical Theories:

He places all theories of reduced inspiration under two heads, rational and mystic critiques.

The rationalistic theory attempts to distinguish between the inspired and uninspired sections of Scripture:

chiefly in the three forms which affirm respectively that only the mysteries of the faith are inspired, i. e. things undiscoverable by unaided reason, – that the Bible is inspired only in matters of faith and practice, – and that the Bible is inspired only in its thoughts or concepts, not in its words. (59)

The mystical theory relies completely on unaided reason. A personal intuition (“inspiration”) defines what is inspired:

to the test of which every “external revelation” is to be subjected, and according to the decision of which are the contents of the Bible to be valued. (59)

The Church Doctrine

The Church has held the Bible constitutes the words of God:

What this church-doctrine is, it is scarcely necessary minutely to describe. It will suffice to remind ourselves that it looks upon the Bible as an oracular book, – as the Word of God in such a sense that whatever it says God says, – not a book, then, in which one may, by searching, find some word of God, but a book which may be frankly appealed to at any point with the assurance that whatever it may be found to say, that is the Word of God. (52)

Having stated the doctrine, he demonstrates that the doctrine has been held by Christians from earliest days of the church and has been held by all major branches of Christianity (53-58). The doctrine

is represented rather by the Bengels, who count no labor wasted, in their efforts to distill from the very words of Holy Writ the honey which the Spirit has hidden in them for the comfort and the delight of the saints. (56)

Having established at length that the church has always held this doctrine, Warfield considers the question: Why has the church always held this doctrine?

He answers:

this is the doctrine of inspiration which was held by the writers of the New Testament and by Jesus as reported in the Gospels. (60)

He develops three lines of evidence to support this position. First,

As readers of the New Testament, we know that to the men of the New Testament “the Scriptures” were the Word of God which could not be broken, i. e. whose every word was trustworthy; and that a simple “It is written” was therefore to them the end of all strife (61).

This appears repeatedly in the NT. Jesus merely states “it is written” to respond to Satan (Matt. 4:4). The fact that something was written Scripture made such certain:

36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.”37 And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.” John 19:36-37

John Wenham in his book Christ and the Bible develops this proposition at length with respect to how Jesus understood the Old Testament. John Frame’s review of the book can be found here: http://www.frame-poythress.org/review-of-wenhams-christ-and-the-bible/

Second, Warfield demonstrates that the men alive at the time of Christ would have regarded the Scripture as divinely inspired as in its particular words:

This view, which looked upon the scriptural books as verbally inspired, he adds, was the ruling one in the time of Christ, was shared by all the New Testament men, and by Christ himself, as a pious conception, and was expressly taught by the more scholastic writers among them. It is hardly necessary to prove what is so frankly confessed. (62).

Again we can see throughout the NT. For example, Paul’s argument in Galatians 3:16 hinges upon the distintion between the singular “seed” and the plural “seeds” in Genesis 3:16. The argument of Hebrews 7:3 hinges upon the lack of a genealogy for Melchzidek in Genesis 14.

Third, Warfield notes the position of the Church cannot be avoided as the obvious, original position:

The third reason why it is not necessary to occupy our time with a formal proof that the Bible does teach this doctrine, arises from the circumstance that even those who seek to rid themselves of the pressure of this fact upon them, are observed to be unable to prosecute their argument without an implied admission of it as a fact. (62)

In short, the evidence that Scripture, the writers, and the Church hold and have held to plenary verbal inspiration is inescapable:

The effort to explain away the Bible’s witness to its plenary inspiration reminds one of a man standing safely in his laboratory and elaborately expounding – possibly by the aid of diagrams and mathematical formulæ – how every stone in an avalanche has a defined pathway and may easily be dodged by one of some presence of mind. We may fancy such an elaborate trifler’s triumph as he would analyze the avalanche into its constituent stones, and demonstrate of stone after stone that its pathway is definite, limited, and may easily be avoided. But avalanches, unfortunately, do not come upon us, stone by stone, one at a time, courteously leaving us opportunity to withdraw from the pathway of each in turn: but all at once, in a roaring mass of destruction (65-66).

Having surveyed the evidence Warfield comes to the obvious conclusion:

No, the issue is not, What does the Bible teach? but, Is what the Bible teaches true? (64)

Warfield then moves on to the third and final element of his argument: Christianity requires an inspired Bible. He grounds this argument in the proposition that Christianity in the end is a supernatural, revealed religion:

We cannot raise the question whether God has given us an absolutely trustworthy record of the supernatural facts and teachings of Christianity, before we are assured that there are supernatural facts and teachings to be recorded. The fact that Christianity is a supernatural religion and the nature of Christianity as a supernatural religion, are matters of history; and are independent of any, and of every, theory of inspiration (67).

Christianity cannot be reduced to historical (or other rational) investigation. First, who could possibly undertake such a perfect examination. Positions held by Warfield at the time of publication are no longer held by academics today. Second, much of constitutes the necessary elements of Christianity cannot be determined by historical examination. Third, why should a Christian disregard the position of Christ and his apostles?

Warfield clarifies the Christian’s relationship to the critic:

Much less can she be shaken from this instinctive conviction by the representations of individual thinkers who go yet a step further, and, refusing to pin their faith either to the Bible or to history, affirm that “the essence of Christianity” is securely intrenched in the subjective feelings of man, (69)

In short, why should a Christian give such weight to some 19th century university professor’s opinion of what is true or not? Why should one pin his faith on the opinion of a dead professor?

The Christian’s position is a position of faith and submission to the authority of Christ:

Adolphe Monod gives voice to no more than the common Christian conviction, when he declares that, “If faith has not for its basis a testimony of God to which we must submit, as to an authority exterior to our personal judgment, and independent of it, then faith is no faith” (70).

I recall a quote by Rorty wherein he rejected a human bend to a “nonhuman” authority. Indeed, those who reject the Christian think themselves safely beyond all serious trouble with belief or reality. Yet, such thinking merely reveals who has actually thought very little:

But, it may be said, there are difficulties in the way. Of course there are. There are difficulties in the way of believing anything. There are difficulties in the way of believing that God is, or that Jesus Christ is God’s Son who came into the world to save sinners. There are difficulties in the way of believing that we ourselves really exist, or that anything has real existence besides ourselves. When men give their undivided attention to these difficulties, they may become, and they have become, so perplexed in mind, that they have felt unable to believe that God is, or that they themselves exist, or that there is any external world without themselves. It would be a strange thing if it might not so fare with plenary inspiration also. Difficulties? Of course there are difficulties. It is nothing to the purpose to point out this fact. (73-74)

Moreover, it is nothing to argue that Christian reasoning is circular:

In my view, circular argument of a sort is inevitable when one is arguing on behalf of an absolute authority. This is true of Christian as well as non-Christian arguments. One cannot abandon one’s basic authority in the course of arguing for it! The problems created by this circularity can be mitigated by bringing in data from various different sources; but they cannot be totally avoided. (John Frame’s review of Wenham, cited above).

When it comes to Christianity, there can be resort to rational argument and history to support the circle. Yet such testimony is insufficient to bring faith and conviction. It is the testimony of the Scripture itself which secures faith:

Such a Word of God, each one of us knows he needs, – not a Word of God that speaks to us only through the medium of our fellow-men, men of like passions and weaknesses with ourselves, so that we have to feel our way back to God’s word through the church, through tradition, or through the apostles, standing between us and God; but a Word of God in which God speaks directly to each of our souls. Such a Word of God, Christ and his apostles offer us, when they give us the Scriptures, not as man’s report to us of what God says, but as the very Word of God itself, spoken by God himself through human lips and pens. Of such a precious possession, given to her by such hands, the church will not lightly permit herself to be deprived. Thus the church’s sense of her need of an absolutely infallible Bible, has co-operated with her reverence for the teaching of the Bible to keep her true, in all ages, to the Bible doctrine of plenary inspiration.

….not as a book in which, by searching, we may find God and perchance somewhat of God’s will: but as the very Word of God, instinct with divine life from the “In the beginning” of Genesis to the “Amen” of the Apocalypse, – breathed into by God, and breathing out God to every devout reader. (71).

Originally published in Biblotheca Sacra, 51, 1894, pp. 614-660.

Pornography as a Grounds for Divorce

24 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, John Frame

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adultery, Biblical Counseling, Deuteronomy 24:1, divorce, John Frame, marriage, Sexual Immorality

I was involved in a discussion concerning the matter of whether pornography without physical contact with another human being constitutes “sexual immorality” for purposes of divorce in Matthew 19. My thoughts are far from finalized on the topic:

John Frame in his discussion of the 7^th Commandment as it relates to divorce and remarriage (chapter 39, The Doctrine of the Christian Life) writes:

Practically, of course, it would be difficult to use “lustful thoughts” as a ground for divorce, since they are hidden in the mind. But the habitual use of masturbation and pornography are often externalizations of lust, evidence for it, especially (1) when they serve as substitutes for marital sex, and (2) when the person, during these activities, fantasies about someone other than his spouse. So I agree with the PCA [previously distributed to Think Tank] that sexual sins of this sort can break the one-flesh relationship of marriage and can therefore be grounds for divorce (p. 776).

In footnote 10 on the same page he writes:

I’m not sure what to say about the report’s contention here. It may be true that deprivation of conjugal rights is ground for divorce, but I think more argument is needed to establish that contention. My argument is simpler: masturbation and the use of pornography, accompanied by lustful thoughts about people other than one’s spouse, are adulterous, and for that reason are grounds for divorce.

The logic certainly seems to follow that if “porneia” extends to lust (“Lust is specifically the desire to engage in sexual acts that are contrary to God’s law” p. 767), then lust – without the addition of another living human being – is sufficient to meet the exception clause in Matt. 19:9.

Adultery certainly falls with the scope of “porneia.” In fact as by Frame, adultery was a given ground for divorce in the wider culture (774). Moreover, the pairing of the term with adultery in Matthew 5:31-32 & 19:8-9 seems to draw our understanding of the term to be related, in some manner, to adultery.

Frame notes that porneia is an exceptionally broad term; in fact, it is applied to Esau selling his birthright (Heb. 12:16). Thus, it would essentially apply to all sin. But, that can’t be the meaning for the exception clause (Frame, 774).

Now, in our culture, the ubiquity of what would have been consider pornographic – or nigh to it – makes this truly difficult. It seems that just about any website may be combined with provocative photography (I was recently assaulted on a newspaper website when I was looking up a story on oil drilling in the North Sea – which I thought would be a safe topic). How calculated a thought must be developed so that a viewer crosses the line, has a lustful thought, and thus is subject to divorce by his wife? And since the desire is for the marital relationship with someone other than a spouse, how many women have been beguiled by Mr. Darcy?

When we move beyond sexual conduct which involves another person (level 5 to level 6 in the Hambrick paper – a very useful tool for analysis, thank you for scale), we begin to generate more and more “permissible” divorces – which should give us pause. And, if we take the concept of lust most broadly, everything on the scale – beginning at level 1, gives grounds for divorce.

As Frame notes, every sin is potentially covered by the word –Heb. 12:16. Which is the same problem with the Dt. 24:1-4 passage:

This broader use for erwath introduces us to a major problem in the divorce and remarriage controversy. It is the same problem we face when we attempt to define the Greek term porneia in Jesus’ exception clause (Matt. 19:9). PCA Report, 209.

Now, that is interesting: Jesus condemns the broad reading of the Dt. 24 passage and yet uses an equally ambiguous (or broad) term to limit divorce.

Thus, the effect in terms of number of permissible divorces does seem to be a consideration of our understanding of the passage. The type of sin involved is plainly sexual, because porneia does center upon that concept, even if it is not limited to that concept.

I think we can safely reject the interpretation of every sin (because every sin – or almost every — is porneia or erwath). An exception which swallows up the rule (divorce is not permissible, except), is not an exception.

Perhaps rather than focus on the precise nature of the action, the investigation should be on the intensity of the action. If it were merely of a particular action, a more precise term could have been given. When we consider the narrative of the OT with God patiently waiting for the return of his adulterous bride and only with great reluctance divorcing her (Jer. 3:8), the emphasis lies with the failure to repent and return.

Note that in Matthew 19, Jesus lays the need (if you will) for divorce at the “hardness of your heart”. I think that may be a useful element in unwrapping this problem. I wonder the extent to which the discussion of desertion – particularly when it is in the context of something other than leaving the country to never return – helps elucidate this problem.

The man with the 4000 hours of viewing seems, intuitively, to fit into the scope of porneia. He seems as far gone as the man who had the one-night stand (in fact, he seems in many ways worse). But the man who looks too long at the photograph does not seem to have crossed the line. But, I am not certain on any of this yet.

Stier makes a useful comment:

On the one hand that fornication, or any infidelity, gives the right of divorce, since that has already in effect taken place; but that also on the other hand, neither the man nor the woman in the church of Christ ought, generally speaking, to exercise that right (Rudolf Stier, The Words of the Lord Jesus, trans. William B. Pope vol. 1 (New York: N. Tibblals & Son, 1864), 69).