Tag Archives: Theology

Measure for Measure, Human Nature, and Original Sin

26 Friday Feb 2021

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Claudio to Lucio

From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty.

As surfeit is the father of much fast,

So every scope by the immoderate use

Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,

Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,

A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die.

Measure for Measure, Act I, ii, 122-127.

These lines are fascinating from a few perspectives. First, they present a theme (perhaps  the theme) of the play. But I am interested in the structure of this short argument, and it works both make a logical case and an affective case. It would be hard to make such a compressed and persuasive argument in such few words. 

Background on the lines. 

Claudio is being led through the street as a prisoner. Lucio, a friend, sees him and asks what he has done. Lucio has been making sexually charged jokes about prostitutes and disease with some acquaintances and with a pimp and a madam. 

Claudio has been arrested for fornication. He got his fiancée pregnant (they were holding off on a dowery increase). The very strict and straightlaced interim ruler has enforced a law which the Duke (now “absent”) had allowed to go unheeded.

Claudio has been taken for the excess of his sexual behavior. Interestingly, Angelo, the interim ruler will face his own sexual politics and will be caught in the same vein as Claudio.

This short speech consists of three elements: First, a direct, albeit cryptic answer:

From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty.

Second: an observation of the general movement of human life. This is the pattern I followed to be destroyed:

As surfeit is the father of much fast,

So every scope by the immoderate use

Turns to restraint. 

Third: an explanation of the psychological process which gives rise to the pattern of human behavior.

                                    Our natures do pursue,

Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,

A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die.

First, the answer:

Question (Lucio):

Why, how now, Claudio? Whence comes this restraint?

Answer:

From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty.

Lucio does not know what this means and will directly ask if it was murder.

The line is well constructed:

From too much LIBerty, my LUcio, LIBerty.

I’m not sure what to do with the other syllables: The accent could fall any of the other words, thus giving a different nuance of meaning. Why is clear is the alliteration on the L (and m: much, my). The L will drop out of the rest of the speech underscoring the use here. 

The answer is ironic: he speaks of liberty and that is precisely what he does not have. The nature of the liberty is unclear.

The characters have just been speaking of the bawdy houses being torn down, so the background of liberty and immorality in play.  Liberty and constraint will be a theme which will work out. 

In the next scene, the Duke will explain himself to a friar. There were many laws which the Duke had failed to enforce. He has left his position so that Angelo can reinstate and apply those laws. He explains the effect his failure to enforce laws has had:

For terror, not to use – in time the rod

More mocked than feared – so our decrees,

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead,

And liberty plucks justice by the nose,

The baby beats the nurse, and quiet athwart 

Goes all decorum

I.3. xxvii-xxxii.

So a liberty which counters order and justice is an issue which the play will consider.

Second, the observation:

This is stated in the form of a natural law, like gravity:

As surfeit is the father of much fast,

So every scope by the immoderate use

Turns to restraint. 

Claudio notes a principle of human life: an excess ends in its opposite so as to bring balance. This principle of balance is a theme throughout Shakespeare and takes its origin from the Galen theory of humors and the need to balance humors in the body.

The physician’s task was to diagnose which humor was out of balance; treatment then focused on restoring equilibrium by diet or by reducing the offending, out-of-balance humor by evacuating it.

(For the theory in Shakespeare see here: ):

This statement of a natural principle and pattern is exactly 2.5 lines long. It will be matched by another line of 2.5 lines. 

There is a light alliteration which holds the lines together: S & F: Surfeit, Scope, Father- Fast. The R in the final word will tie these lines to the following.

The use of the word father is ironic: Claudio’s “fast”, his imprisonment is because he is a father. 

And so far we have moral principle: excessive liberty leads to restraint. A principle of medicine and psychology: when one aspect of human life (a humor) is in excess, a contrary principle must be put into place to bring balance. 

This leads to a question: If balance and order are the good which we should seek to achieve, then what would bring a human being to act beyond moderation?

Third: The psychological process:

                        Our natures do pursue,

Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,

A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die.

This is a deeply Christian observation. It has to do with the concept of original sin. Original sin is often reduced to, guilt for a wrong I did not commit. (See, Finnegans Wake). Article 9 of the 39 Articles of the Church of England reads:

Original sin is not found merely in the following of Adam’s example (as the Pelagians foolishly say). It is rather to be seen in the fault and corruption which is found in the nature of every person who is naturally descended from Adam. The consequence of this is that man is far gone from his original state of righteousness. In his own nature he is predisposed to evil, the sinful nature in man always desiring to behave in a manner contrary to the Spirit. In every person born into this world there is fund this predisposition which rightly deserves God’s anger and condemnation. This infection within man’s nature persists even within those who are regenerate. This desire of the sinful nature, which in Greek is called fronema sarkos and is variously translated the wisdom or sensuality or affection or desire of the sinful nature, is not under control of God’s law. Although there is no condemnation for those that believe and are baptized, nevertheless the apostle states that any such desire is sinful. 

Look back at Claudio’s explanation: the fault springs from our “nature”.  Now consider carefully the article:

It is rather to be seen in the fault and corruption which is found in the nature of every person who is naturallydescended from Adam. The consequence of this is that man is far gone from his original state of righteousness. In his own nature he is predisposed to evil, the sinful nature in man always desiring to behave in a manner contrary to the Spirit…. This infection within man’s nature persists even within those who are regenerate. This desire of the sinful nature,

Our “natures pursue” their own destruction by a compulsion “man is always desiring”.

Our nature is like a rat – which is a striking image – that ravin: ravin is an act of rapine, it is a greedy, thoughtless criminal desire and action – ravin down poison: a “proper bane,” that is, my own poison, the poison that is “proper” to me. It is a “thirsty evil”: it is never satisfied, never quenched. Moreover, this desire is such that fulfilling it brings its own destruction:

When we drink, we die.

Musically, the lines are held together by the use of R which picks up the R in restraint found in Lucio’s question and in the middle of Claudio’s answer:

Restraint – restraint – rats that ravin.

We have pursue-proper. And finally, drink-die.

The use of this imagery to illustrate and explain the psychological process which leads to self-destruction is very effective. It would have even more to the point for the original audience, who were faced constantly with the menace and evil of filthy rats. 

There is one final point in this observation: Shakespeare is condemning the audience along with the character’s self-condemnation. He is making a categorical statement about humanity: Our nature. When we drink, we die. 

Which means that as we read this, we are drawn into the scope of the play. It is our nature, our drinking, our death.

Developing Theological Tools for Biblical Counseling to Evaluate Psychological Propositions

09 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by in Biblical Counseling

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(The following is a draft introduction for an article for the Journal of Biblical Soul Care.)

An underlying issue when considering the application and usefulness of any proposition or theory from what is called “psychology” lies with the nature of the theological commitments which make possible or which are inherent in any such proposition of theory. By means of this essay, I hope to begin to provide some tools for the analysis of psychologies. 

To take the simplest example, one must begin with some rather remarkably non-Christian presuppositions and commitments to hold that the psychology of Freud or Jung constitute accurate views of the human being. Indeed, both Freud and Jung (to cherry-pick two examples) require explicit commitments about God to be received as accurate theological constructs. Merely read Freud’s The Future of an Illusion or anything by Jung on the collective unconscious and you will see you are in the midst of a fundamentally non-Christian worldview.

One could easily contend that I do not need to swallow whole Freud’s wish-fulfillment theories of God to find his discussion of the unconscious useful. Nor must I follow Jung into his introduction to the Tibetan Book of the Dead to find something useful in his consideration of the shadow-self and the integration into wholeness. 

But to think that I can lay hold of one proposition and not drag along other commitments is naïve. It is like picking up a twig tangled in web with a spider and her eggs hitching along for the ride. This is not to say that we can never consider an observation made by a non-Christian. But such an interaction requires substantial nuance. 

From a biblical perspective, there must be biblical justification for the use of such “foreign” doctrines.[1]

There are a couple of theories which have been advanced to support such interaction. One theory has been reliance upon the supposed scope of common grace. However, as I have demonstrated in the prior to essays, there is no basis from common grace to support a wholesale appropriate of assured results of modern academic or clinical psychology broadly stated. I proposed a three-tiered structure of various types of psychology, ranging from physiological, sociological observation, and finally clinical theories. I proposed varying degrees of use we could make of this work.

The other major justification for integration[2] is based upon the example of Solomon who unquestionably interacts with traditional wisdom form Egypt in the book of Proverbs.[3]

This interaction of Solomon with non-Israelite wisdom has been raised specifically as a point in the discussion of the “integration” of biblical counseling and secular psychologies. John Hilber, having reviewed the use of “foreign” sources of wisdom in the drafting of his proverbs, made the following conclusions: 

The implications of these examples for the question of integration in counseling are significant. First, some situations call for expertise from specialists within the covenant community, namely, professional counselors. Second, wisdom is creative and often unconventional. Methods of counseling intervention are not limited to those techniques that can be derived explicitly from Scripture. Third, the use of the Bible in counseling is not mandatory in order for the counseling to be “biblical.”[4]

The argument that Solomon’s usage justifies any usage I determine to make is problematic, because it presumes that I have the wisdom of Solomon so as to know what and how to proceed.  Here is selection from another Egyptian sage, what should a wise Christian do with this?

    Trust not a brother, know not a friend,

    Make no (5) intimates, it is worthless.

    When you lie down, guard your heart yourself,

    For no man has adherents on the day of woe.[5]

Do I accept it? Do I reject it because it contradicts the Bible elsewhere? If I reject because it contradicts the Scripture, then what do I do with propositions which are ambiguously related to Scripture. But perhaps this example from Charles Dickens will make the matter more clear. Solomon compares the diligent to the ant. What about bees? Bees certainly are a good example:

‘Thankee, sir, thankee,’ returned that gentleman. ‘And how do YOU like the law?’ ‘A–not particularly,’ returned Eugene. ‘Too dry for you, eh? Well, I suppose it wants some years of sticking to, before you master it. But there’s nothing like work. Look at the bees.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, ‘but will you excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred to the bees?’ 

‘Do you!’ said Mr Boffin. 

‘I object on principle,’ said Eugene, ‘as a biped–‘ 

‘As a what?’ asked Mr Boffin. 

‘As a two-footed creature;–I object on principle, as a two-footed creature, to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according to the proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel. I fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an excessively temperate person; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and I have only one. Besides, I am not fitted up with a convenient cool cellar to keep my drink in.’ 

‘But I said, you know,’ urged Mr Boffin, rather at a loss for an answer, ‘the bee.’

‘Exactly. And may I represent to you that it’s injudicious to say the bee? For the whole case is assumed. Conceding for a moment that there is any analogy between a bee, and a man in a shirt and pantaloons (which I deny), and that it is settled that the man is to learn from the bee (which I also deny), the question still remains, what is he to learn? To imitate? Or to avoid? When your friends the bees worry themselves to that highly fluttered extent about their sovereign, and become perfectly distracted touching the slightest monarchical movement, are we men to learn the greatness of Tuft-hunting, or the littleness of the Court Circular? I am not clear, Mr Boffin, but that the hive may be satirical.’ 

‘At all events, they work,’ said Mr Boffin. 

‘Ye-es,’ returned Eugene, disparagingly, ‘they work; but don’t you think they overdo it? They work so much more than they need–they make so much more than they can eat–they are so incessantly boring and buzzing at their one idea till Death comes upon them–that don’t you think they overdo it? And are human labourers to have no holidays, because of the bees? And am I never to have change of air, because the bees don’t? Mr Boffin, I think honey excellent at breakfast; but, regarded in the light of my conventional schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against the tyrannical humbug of your friend the bee. With the highest respect for you.’[6]

You see, it is not so simple as it may seem.  

Beginning in this essay the goal will be to take a closer look at the propositions of “psychology” broadly stated and provide tools for detailed evaluation. The criteria I proposed for reliance upon common grace as a basis for interacting with secular psychologies, while useful (I trust) is not sufficient. 

It is the thesis of this examination that our utilization or examination of any “secular” proposition begin with the nature of the theological commitments which make the proposition possible. If that is unclear, and I admit it will take some unpacking, I trust the actual work of examining theological commitments will be made plain as we work through the types of information offered to us by “psychology.”

In proceeding with this examination I will assume familiarity with the previous two essays as proceeding chapters in a long argument concerning the relationship between Biblical Soul Care and the work of other men and women having been done concerning what can broadly be stated as psychology. “Psychology” includes far more than the work of modern “scientific” psychology, and entails a great deal of work done by explicitly Christian thinkers pertaining to pastoral work and theology.

I will examine psychology under the three-tiered categorization which I posited in the previous essay (fully granting all of the limitations of a broadly stated categorization) and will examine the theological commitments in the following areas: Epistemology, Anthropology, Teleology, and Methodology.  The last three make a neat acronym, ATM. I could offer “TEAM”, but that acronym does not follow the levels of analysis which are necessary to make this work properly. The best I could do is EAT’M,  which one can use if it helps!

The Importance of Understanding the Theological Basis for Facts and Observations

Facts are not merely about to picked-up as so many pebbles on the beach. The very decision to look for facts, what facts to look for; the determination of the beginning and ending of a fact as a segregable unit of information; et cetera are all determined by some prior commitment. 

As a practical matter, we rarely consider the nature of our knowledge. We look at the world, draw conclusions, et cetera without intensive thought on the matter. Unless and until we need to communicate with someone who operates on a different basis and with a different set of presuppositions, we do not even need to consider the nature of our knowledge. 

The scope of commitments and the nature of knowledge is not perfectly identical between any two human beings. However, the difficulty in communicating in most instances amounts to slight “misunderstandings.” As we expand the number of differences between any two humans, the degree of difficulty increases. The task of “translation” needs to be further formalized.

We understand this need for translation when it comes to language, moving between Spanish and English, for instance. But we are also aware of the need to engage in the task of cultural translations. 

What I am proposing here is the work knowledge translation as move between a biblical and a non-biblical worldview. If we were to reject every instance of  information which was not expressly derived by those holding a biblical understanding of reality, it would be impossible to function in this world. Yet, if we unquestionably receive all “so-called knowledge” without critical analysis, we will find our souls poisoned by the rankest heresies. 

The Four Basic Issues of Knowledge:

In the essay, “Epistemology and the Mirror of Nature,” Michael Williams lists out four perennial issues concerning the nature of knowledge:

1. The analytical problem. What is knowledge? (Or, if we prefer, what do we, or should we, mean by “knowledge”?) For example, how is (or should) knowledge be distinguished from mere belief or opinion? What we want here, ideally, is a precise explication or analysis of the concept of knowledge.  

2. The problem of demarcation. There are two sub-problems here. The first concerns whether we can determine, in some principled way, what sorts of things we might reasonably expect to know about? Or, as is sometimes said, what are the scope and limits of human knowledge? Do some subjects lie within the province of knowledge while others are fated to remain in the province of opinion, or even faith? Since the aim here is to draw a boundary separating the province of knowledge from other cognitive domains, we call this the “external” boundary (or demarcation) problem. But there is also an internal boundary problem. We may wonder whether we should think of knowledge as all of a piece Or there importantly different kinds of knowledge: for example, a priori and a posteriori knowledge?

3. The problem of method. How is knowledge obtained or sought? Is there just one way, or are there several, depending on the sort of knowledge in question? (Here the problem of method interacts with the internal demarcation problem.) Furthermore, can we improve our ways of seeking knowledge? 

4. The problem of skepticism. Given the existence of seemingly intuitive skeptical arguments, why suppose that knowledge is even possible? 196

We cannot deal with all of these problems in these essays. But what you must understand is that even the very fact of knowledge has become an increasingly difficult problem for everyone.  

Some Examples of How Presuppositions Effect the Content of Knowledge

Let us we perform an experiment and we consider only are searching for something which we can see with our eyes. We flip a switch; a light goes on. Since we have not utilized any mechanism which can “observe” electricity, we have no fact of electricity. And thus we conclude that some magical substance which does not move through physical space causes the light to go on when we flip the switch.

The example is obvious, because we “know” what we are looking for – electricity. But that is the point; it is only when we know what to look for that we can find a thing. A thing which is not sought will not be found. 

Or what of this example involving Jesus:

14 Now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,”

Luke 11:14–15 (ESV). Much of the original audience for Jesus’ miracles had difficulty knowing what to make of this man. The fact of the exorcism was not in dispute – the understanding, the meaning of the event was profoundly disputed. In order to understand the event which everyone observed, one must begin with some other body of knowledge, presuppositions which underlay the observed event. Understanding those presuppositions is critical if we are to evaluate the meaning of a report from this exorcism.

Let’s take a look from the perspective of Michael Williams’ four question: If I have been present at the event, what “knowledge” do I actually possess. How can I go about determining what there is to know about this strange circumstance? Do my senses provide sufficient knowledge? How and should expectations or presuppositions fill out my “knowledge.” Should I consult such expectations or should use some other skill? What is the beginning and ending of the “facts” at issue?

Imagine speaking to two different observers. One person says God has visited Israel in the work of this prophet Jesus of Nazareth (his Divinity being an even more difficult matter to comprehend). Today this prophet cast out a demon. A second observer says that Satan is deceiving the people through all manner of lying miracles. If we imagine a more skeptical observer we would have this report: Today a person suffering from a psychosomatic psychological delusion immediately snapped out of his self-inflicted insanity at the suggestion of a remarkably persuasive man.

The different events were the result of three different sets of presuppositions.[7]

Consider this example draw from psychology. A study determines that Finland is the happiest country in the world, and that some aspect of Finnish society causes this happiness.

Happiness is certainly not contrary to the Scripture or orthodox Christianity. Now consider these remarkably different understandings of happiness. The Puritan Thomas Manton writes:

Christians, a man that flows in wealth and honour, till he be pardoned, is not a happy man. A man that lives afflicted, contemned, not taken notice of in the world, if he be a pardoned sinner, oh, the blessedness of that man! They are not happy that have least trouble, but they that have least cause[8].

Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount, begins with a series propositions of what makes a person “blessed” (supremely happy): poor in spirit, meekness, sorrow, hunger and thirsting after righteousness, being persecuted. Compare those prerequisites for happiness with this academic conclusion from John Reich, Emeritus Professor at the University of Arizona:

Based on clinical interviews and self-report measures I’ve initiated and studied, I believe that happiness is being aware not only of the positive events that occur in your life but also that you yourself are the cause of these events–that you can create them, that you control their occurrence, and that you play a major role in the good things that happen to you.[9]

I am not here to contend with Dr. Reich. What I merely mean to underscore is that Jesus and John Reich have fundamentally different understandings of what constitutes and causes “happiness.” Thus, when I consider the Finnish report on happiness, I need to understand the basis of what is even meant by “happiness.” 

Or consider perhaps the clearer example a dinosaur bone. In recent years, much to the surprise of the paleontologists who have found them, dinosaur bones and fossils have shown up with remarkably well-preserved soft tissue. In some cases, proteins have been retrieved from the remains. That is the fact. But the meaning of the fact is a point of some contention. Does this mean that the bones are not 65,000,000 years old; or does it mean that the mechanics of tissue preservation have been wrong and that such tissue can does resist the grinding of time? The answer to that question rests upon other foundations and presumptions.[10]

Thus, when we consider some proposition from academic psychology or therapy, we cannot start with the ultimate proposition. Rather, we must understand the theological cradle in which that fact was laid. To start with the wisdom of Amenemope does not help us understand what that wisdom means or even what sayings of the dead sage or even wise. 

We need not necessarily shy away from consideration of the Egyptians’ learning; but also need to as wary of their words as we would a serpent in our arms.

One further example may help here. 

The Arians and the Son is Like the Father: The whole history of this matter can be found any competent church history. Briefly, there were those in the early church (the heretics later known as Arians) who held the Son was like the Father. In Greek, the pertinent word was homoiousios. The church however, at the Council of Nicea, concluded this was wrong: The Son was the same substance as the Father, homoousios. 

For the average pastor busy dealing with the troubles of a congregation the difference between the two: like and the same, separated by a single letter, likely seemed insignificant. Of course the Son is like the Father, it is the nature of sons to be like fathers. But the real issue was whether the Son and the Father were of the same “ousia” (and so that I do not take a topic from which I may never return, I will leave the matter there and direct you to competent theologies). The “average” pastor would most likely not known what he was dealing with. The Arians, who supported the Son is like knew better. As Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan writes: 

In many ways Arianism was more aware of the nuances of the trinitarian problem than its critics were. It compelled them, in turn, to avoid the oversimplifications to which church theology was prone.[11]

If an average pastor accepted the language of like rather than same, he had set his theology on a disastrous trajectory. The Arians knew what they were doing; but it took work to teach the orthodox what was at stake.[12] A similar problem presents itself when dealing with non-biblical accounts of human psychology. We need to understand precisely what we have before us.

Before we can take hold any “fact,” “conclusion,” or “study,” we first need to understand precisely the nature of what we have before us.

[1] From the perspective of biblical soul care, the counseling of a fellow human being is not merely the mollification of emotions, the easing of pain, the relief of depression. We are not in the therapeutic business of helping people feel better as an end in itself. We have the overarching duty of making disciples. All other things must be subordinated to glorifying God and enjoying him forever. A psychological practice that ameliorated the troubled conscience of an adulterer and left him without repentance would be good therapy and a disaster for soul care. Thus, when we make use of some proposition beyond the bible we must be careful that we do engage in syncretism. 

[2] One could simply decide they would integrate non-Christian and biblical principles into counseling without any particular theory or justification. But, should one seek to justify that use from a biblical perspective, the two options are common grace or the example of Solomon. I have seen variants, but in the end these variants are simply restatements of either of these theories.

[3] See discussions regarding the Proverbs of Amenemope, and Prov 22:22–24:22. See, e.g., “Discovery and Debate Over the Relationship to Proverbs” Richard Halloran, “Amenemope, Instruction of,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016);” Rowland E. Murphy, Proverbs, vol. 22, Word Biblical Commentary, “Excursus on the Book of Proverbs and Amenemope” (Dallas: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 290;  John W. Hilber, “Old Testament Wisdom and the Integration Debate in Christian Counseling,” Bibliotheca Sacra 155 (1998): 411.

[4] John W. Hilber, “Old Testament Wisdom and the Integration Debate in Christian Counseling,” Bibliotheca Sacra 155 (1998): 420 (fn. omitted).

[5] Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973–), 136.

[6] Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend. 

[7] Another way in which we could think of these circumstances is under the rubric of “social imaginary,” a term coined by Charles Taylor. He defines this briefly as “the way that we collectively imagine, even pre-theoretically, our social life”. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 146. As he develops this concept it comes to mean that which could conceive to be possible.  My great grandmother, an American Indian born in Texas, taught me that if you cut your hair while the moon was waxing it would grow back better than if you cut your hair when the moon was waning. I cannot even conceive of that being potentially true, but my great grandmother could not conceive of the world operating otherwise.

[8] Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 2, “Twenty Sermons” (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1871), 188.

[9] John Reich and Ed Diener, “The Road to Happiness,” Pyschology Today, July 1, 1994, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/199407/the-road-happiness.

[10] For a discussion of such issues, begin here: David F. Coppedge, “Evolutionists Gloss Over Implications of Dinosaur Tissue Remains,” Creation Evolution Headlines, December 22, 2020, https://crev.info/2020/12/evolutionists-gloss-over-implications-of-dinosaur-tissue-remains/.

[11] Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 200.

[12] A similar sort of naivety is apparent in the relationship of contemporary Christians pastor when they interact with not merely psychology of various sorts, but the contemporary espousals of “critical theory” in its various forms. Even the supposedly well-informed make statements that are either foolish, overly simplistic, or simply cynical deceptions. 

What happens in counseling

14 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling

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When one person offers any sort of answer to another in person to a circumstance, there is an offer of counsel: you hear a problem, you make an answer, you are offering counsel: thus, whether you realize it or not, you are doing theology:

What sort of sense should would-be counselors make of the life problems they encounter and address? That is the third foundational question. What’s really happening in lives? What ought to change? What ought to be encouraged? What’s the True story? This question recognizes that all counseling is value-laden. Systems differ. Counseling is inescapably a moral and theological matter. To pretend otherwise is to be naïve, deceived, or duplicitous. Whether implicit or explicit, theologies differ. All counseling uncovers and edits stories; what is the true “metanarrative” playing in the theater of human lives? Stories differ. All counseling must and does deal with questions of true and false, good and evil, right and wrong, value and stigma, glory and shame, justification and guilt. The answers differ. All counseling explicitly or implicitly deals with questions of redemption, faith, identity, and meaning. The redemptions offered differ.

David Powlison, Why I Chose Seminary for Training in Counseling, Journal of Biblical Counseling, Vol XX, no. 1.

All counseling is a theological enterprise

18 Wednesday Jan 2017

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

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(The following are from my course notes on Theology 1 in the MABC program at Masters University [sorry but the subpoint numbering was converted when I copied this over from the word doc]):

EVERY COUNSELING SYSTEM ENTAILS A THEOLOGY: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “NEUTRAL” COUNSELING SYSTEM.

  1. Every Counseling System/Decision Derives from a Theological Commitment.

 

  1. “Engaging in counseling practice is a theological engagement. Evaluating and debating with various counseling practitioners, whether secular, Christian, or biblical, is a theological enterprise. You are simply not ready to think about counseling – let alone practice it – until you have thought long and hard about theology.”[1]

 

  1. “[C]ounseling practices, methods designed to facilitate change in beliefs, behaviors, feelings, attitudes, values, and the like. These ideas and practices inhabit an institutional and professional system where a practitioner first receives training and then delivers the goods: an undergraduate department and graduate school, a psychiatric hospital, a clinic, a private practice, a support group, a self-help book, a church.  A ‘psychology’—and there are many of them, creatures of time and place, of the aspirations of their creators, of the worldview of their sociocultural surround—is not an impersonal abstraction.  Psychologies are believed and taught by persons; psychotherapies are done by persons. A psychology proposes a system of truth and ministry, and it must be evaluated as such.  Psychologies are most like practical theology.” David Powlison; syllabus from “Theology and Secular Psychology;” 1995.

 

  1. Illustration: Consider a person presenting for a particular problem (say depression, unhappy marriage, fear) in different periods of history or different cultures.

 

  1. What would be the difference in the counseling received?

 

  1. What would be the reason for that difference?

 

  1. If this is true, then what are some of the implications for being a “counselor”? See appendix, Ethical Issues in the Psychiatric Treatment of the Religious ‘Fundamentalist’ Patient

 

 

  1. Every counseling decision is the practical application of a psychology.

 

  1. What is a “psychology”?

 

  1. Definition

 

  1. Everyone exercises psychology and everyone acts like a counselor – whether conscience of this decision or not.

 

  1. Biblical psychology.

 

  1. There is no Psychology: there are only psychologies.

 

  1. What are the bare minimums for a counseling psychology? (anthropology/telos/methodology)

 

  1. An anthropology: What is a human being?

 

  1. Is a human being a bare physical body?

 

  1. Does a human being have an immaterial spirit?

 

iii.        Do human actions have moral consequence?

 

  1. Are those moral consequences relevant to a deity?

 

  1. Are those moral consequences simply practical/sociological?

 

  1. A psychology will entail a “telos”: a goal or purpose.

 

  1. A psychology will entail some sort of methodology: the practical outworking of the what a human being is (anthropology) and what the goal of human life is (telos).

 

  1. The psychology chosen will be dependent upon a more comprehensive philosophy/theology (many systems will be reluctant to call their system a “theology”, that will be discussed below).

 

  1. A “true” anthropology is not immediately and universally apparent nor agreed.

 

  1. A human being is a complex fact.

 

  1. Even seeming simply things like the what the sun “means” have been difficult for human beings (e.g., Socrates).

 

  1. Being human beings makes the question difficult for us.

 

iii.        Human beings are relational/historical/moral/physical & spiritual beings.

 

  1. Historical/cultural: What are the different ways human life has been considered in various cultures (whether contemporary or historical)?

 

  1. Hindu/Buddhist?

 

  1. Enlightenment?

 

iii.        Stoic?

 

  1. Gnostic?

 

  1. Biblical?

 

  1. The “meaning” of human beings is based upon other considerations.

 

  1. What do human beings “mean” if the universe is self-existent and human beings are a cosmic accident?  (How do atheists avoid entailments of “accident”? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/a-cosmic-accident/)

 

  1. What if human beings are created by a tri-personal God?

 

  1. What if human beings are the result of Vishnu dreaming? http://www.hinduwisdom.info/articles_hinduism/12.htm

 

  1. Et cetera.

 

  1. What a human being depends upon what a human being is before God.

 

  1. See appendix, Elemental Religion, James Denney

 

  1. John Calvin, in the opening to the Institutes of the Christian Religion, explains:

 

Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, bwhich one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. eIn the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he “lives and moves” [Acts 17:28]. For, quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves; indeed, our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God. Then, by these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as by rivulets to the spring itself. Indeed, our very poverty better discloses the infinitude of benefits reposing in God. The miserable ruin, into which the rebellion of the first man cast us, especially compels us to look upward. Thus, not only will we, in fasting and hungering, seek thence what we lack; but, in being aroused by fear, we shall learn humility.For, as a veritable world of miseries is to be found in mankind, and we are thereby despoiled of divine raiment, our shameful nakedness exposes a teeming horde of infamies. Each of us must, then, be so stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness as to attain at least some knowledge of God. Thus, from the feeling of our own ignorance, vanity, poverty, infirmity, and—what is more—depravity and corruption, we recognize that the true light of wisdom, sound virtue, full abundance of every good, and purity of righteousness rest in the Lord alone. To this extent we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of God; and we cannot seriously aspire to him before we begin to become displeased with ourselves. For what man in all the world would not gladly remain as he is—what man does not remain as he is—so long as he does not know himself, that is, while content with his own gifts, and either ignorant or unmindful of his own misery? Accordingly, the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him.

 

  1. Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self

 

Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself. For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy—this pride is innate in all of us—unless by clear proofs we stand convinced of our own unrighteousness, foulness, folly, and impurity. Moreover, we are not thus convinced if we look merely to ourselves and not also to the Lord, who is the sole standard by which this judgment must be measured. For, because all of us are inclined by nature to hypocrisy, a kind of empty image of righteousness in place of righteousness itself abundantly satisfies us. And because nothing appears within or around us that has not been contaminated by great immorality, what is a little less vile pleases us as a thing most pure—so long as we confine our minds within the limits of human corruption. Just so, an eye to which nothing is shown but black objects judges something dirty white or even rather darkly mottled to be whiteness itself. Indeed, we can discern still more clearly from the bodily senses how much we are deluded in estimating the powers of the soul. For if in broad daylight we either look down upon the ground or survey whatever meets our view round about, we seem to ourselves endowed with the strongest and keenest sight; yet when we look up to the sun and gaze straight at it, that power of sight which was particularly strong on earth is at once blunted and confused by a great brilliance, and thus we are compelled to admit that our keenness in looking upon things earthly is sheer dullness when it comes to the sun. So it happens in estimating our spiritual goods. As long as we do not look beyond the earth, being quite content with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue, we flatter ourselves most sweetly, and fancy ourselves all but demigods. Suppose we but once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and to ponder his nature, and how completely perfect are his righteousness, wisdom, and power—the straightedge to which we must be shaped. Then, what masquerading earlier as righteousness was pleasing in us will soon grow filthy in its consummate wickedness. What wonderfully impressed us under the name of wisdom will stink in its very foolishness. What wore the face of power will prove itself the most miserable weakness. That is, what in us seems perfection itself corresponds ill to the purity of God.[2]

 

Biblical Counseling is a psychology which takes seriously our position as human beings, created in the image of God. It takes seriously our position before God, as creatures coming after the Fall but also after the Cross and in anticipation of Christ’s return.

 

We do not deny that other Christians practicing various sorts of psychologies do not know or belief these things; however, these fundamental beliefs are not necessarily at the core of what they do when they do “psychology” of whatever sort. Biblical Counselors can take into consideration work which is done by Christians and non-Christians in the areas of psycholgy, physiology, sociology, et cetera. We, however, take the theological as foundational.

 

 

  1. A telos cannot be determined/answered without knowing what a human being is or means.

 

  1. E.g., an automobile: If I do not know what driving is (the purpose for which an automobile was created), then I cannot understand an automobile when I come upon it. I may think it is a very poor shelter: thus, the steering wheel is a “mistake”.

 

  1. The telos is a goal of a system, and the telos cannot be known (or aimed at) without knowledge of the larger system.

 

  1. Accordingly, the methodology for counseling will depend upon:

 

  1. An anthropology: you cannot know how to change a human being is unless you know what a human being is.

 

  1. If a human being is a “mere” body, then change entails solely a change in the body.

 

  1. If a human being entails a spiritual element, then change in the human being entails a spiritual change.

 

iii.        If a human being is determined, then change is not possible.

 

  1. A telos: you cannot know what change is needed unless you understand what the telos of a human being is. (Brief examples)

 

  1. Epicureanism

 

  1. Stoicism

 

iii.        Gnosticism

 

  1. Christianity

 

  1. Materialism: Note that materialism does not provide a telos. When someone speaks of “science” as providing “answers” for questions of ethics (e.g., abortion) or any telos, they are talking nonsense. Materialism (what Schaeffer calls “modern-modern science”) is a methodology for examining the world a partial theology, but it cannot provide any telos.

 

  1. Since we are on this side of the Fall, no amount of observation will ever be sufficient to tell us what we need to aim at when it comes to normality. It would be like to trying to figure out how to fix a car solely by looking at a junkyard and assuming that the rusting heaps are the goal of car maintenance.

 

By means of the Scripture, we have a model for what is true humanity. As Barrs explains, “The law is a definition of true humanness” (Delighting, 97):

 

Because law is a definition of true humanness, there are many biblical texts that remind us that God’s law is good and is intended for our good, for the good life. Walking in the ways of the law will bring blessing, life, and freedom to us, for we will be living as God created us to live (101).

 

  1. “The one purpose of every sane human being is to be happy. No one can have any other motive than that. There is no such thing as unselfishness. We perform the most “generous” and “self-sacrificing” acts because we should be unhappy if we did not. We move on lines of least reluctance. Whatever tends to increase the beggarly sum of human happiness is worth having; nothing else has any value.”

Ambrose Bierce,  “A Cynic Looks at Life.”

 

Happiness is the mark and centre which every man aims at. The next thing that is sought after being, is being happy; and surely, the nearer the soul comes to God, who is the fountain of life and peace, the nearer it approacheth to happiness; and who so near to God as the believer, who is mystically one with him? he must needs’be the happy man: and if you would survey his blessed estate, cast your eyes upon this text, which points to it, as the finger to the dial: ‘ For all things are yours.” (1 Cor. 3:21-23)
Thomas Watson, “The Christian’s Charter”

 

“It is not a thing contrary to Christianity that a man should love himself, or which is the same thing, should love his own happiness. If Christianity did indeed tend to destroy a man’s love to himself, and to his own happiness, it would therein tend to destroy the very spirit of humanity; but the very announcement of the gospel, as a system of ” peace on earth and good-will toward men” (Luke ii. 14), shows that it is not only not destructive of humanity, but in the highest degree promotive of its spirit. That a man should love his own happiness, is as necessary to his nature as the faculty of the will is; and it is impossible that such a love should be destroyed in any other way than by destroying his being. The sainfcs love their own happiness. Yea, those that are perfect in happiness, the saints and angels in heaven, love their own happiness; otherwise that happiness which God hath given them, would be no happiness to them; for that which any one does not love, he cannot enjoy any happiness in.”

 

“The Spirit of Charity Opposite of a Selfish Spirit” by Jonathan Edwards in Charity and Its Fruits

 

 

 

  1. The ultimate category in which a psychology rests is theology

 

  1. This is expressly the case in a system like Biblical Counseling which wears its theology on its sleeve.

 

  1. But even the extreme of materialistic atheism is a theology:

 

  1. Hegel (ref: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/)

 

  1. The 19th Century concept of evolution whether in biology, cosmology, economics are Hegelian. (ref: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spencer/)

 

  1. “The right side of history”: ethics and sociology.

 

iii.        Admittedly there is a debate as to whether Hegel had an explicit spiritual monism. But that impulse

 

  1. The material universe possesses the attributes of God:

 

  1. The material universe is eternal.

 

  1. The material universe has generative powers.

 

iii.        The material universe can generate the personal.

 

  1. The evolution of the universe entails a telos.

 

  1. Pantheism[3].

 

  1. Panentheism[4].

 

  1. Pagan mythologies. Jeremiah 2:26-27

 

  1. Magic and science

 

  1. If the extreme of pure atheistic materialism is a theology, then is necessarily true of those systems between Biblical Counseling and atheism.

 

  1. Non-Biblical Counseling Systems

 

  1. What can be seen?

 

  1. What can be understood?

 

  1. Where is God (and does it matter)?

 

Non-biblical such systems ignore the God-ward side of the human heart, the systems cannot lead to a sufficient response to problems with appear. Psychology attempts to manipulate either the inputs (environmental) or the outputs (behavior).  While it is not impossible to change a person’s reactions to the world, or the way they react to that world it doesn’t ultimate address the problem of the human heart.

 

Consider for example a pair of prisoners wrongly accused, arrested, beaten and left in a dungeon. One would look to this circumstance as hopeless without altering the environment (gaining a release). However, a knowledge of God’s presence and God’s purpose can radically transform the prisoners’ heart and their response. Acts 16:25.

 

Our what of a person who has been grieveously abused and who has responded with depression, anger, self-destructive behavior. If we try to address the past, we need to minimize the event (it’s not really your fault – true — therefore you should not feel shame — which denies the reality of sin’s presence and damage).  Or, one may try to lessen outflow of the human heart by drugging the patient (to merely shut down the nervous system) or find “constructive responses” to the sorrow, hurt, loss.

 

Christ however, offers to bear sorrow (Matthew 11:28). To show sympathy (Hebrews 2:18-19). To give grace in weakness (Hebrews 4:14-16).  To sin against someone is to degree and shame them, to call them less than human. However, God can speak to one and declare them utterly unclean (Mark 1:40-41). God can adjudge one righteous and none-can deny it  (Romans 8:33). God makes one a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). God will also render perfect justice in response to all sin. Unless we are willing to deny all truth the Scripture, we must take these promises of God as meaningful and effacious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

God

  

History

Environment

Physiology

 

 

 

 

 
Behaviors

Affections

Thoughts

 

  
     

 

 

  1. Consequently

 

  1. Every counseling system entails a theology: a counseling decision is the practical outworking of a theological commitment.

 

  1. Not every counseling decision is the result of an explicit theological decision: One may choose a counseling practice or goal without realizing the basis (anthropology) or purpose (teleology) of that methodology.

 

  1. If we are not conscious of our counseling decisions, we will be syncretists without knowing it.

 

  1. Colossians: Do not touch.

 

  1. Examples

 

  1. Marriage

 

  1. Is the purpose of marriage personal happiness?

 

  1. Is the purpose of marriage to come to understand the metaphor so that we may better understand the original

 

  1. Suffering

 

  1. What does suffering mean?

 

  1. What does suffering do? (We will consider this at the end of the class).

 

 

 

  1. WHAT ARE THE MINIMAL ATTRIBTUES OF A SYSTEM

 

  1. The ingredients of a belief system[5]
  • “Source of authority”
  • “Sin”
  • “Salvation”(solution)
  • “Sanctification”

[1] Heath Lambert, A Theology of Biblical Counseling: The Doctrinal Foundations of Counseling Ministry (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2016), 32.

 

[2] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 35–38, fns. omitted.

[3] According to pantheism, God “is all in all.” God pervades all things, contains all things, subsumes all things, and is found within all things. Nothing exists apart from God, and all things are in some way identified with God. The world is God, and God is the world. But more precisely, in pantheism all is God, and God is all.

Pantheism has a long history in both the East and the West. From the Eastern mysticism of Hindu sages and seers to the rationalism of such Western philosophers as Parmenides, Benedict Spinoza, and G. W. F. Hegel, pantheism has always had advocates.

 

Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 580.

 

[4]

Panentheism is not to be confused with pantheism. Pantheism literally means all (“pan”) is God (“theism”), but panentheism means “all in God.” It is also called process theology (since it views God as a changing Being), bipolar theism (since it believes God has two poles), organicism (since it views all that actually is as a gigantic organism), and neoclassical theism (because it believes God is finite and temporal, in contrast to classical theism).

 

Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 576.

 

[5] This question of systems is discussed at length in the essay by Ernie Baker and Howard Eyrich in “Caution: Counseling Systems are Belief Systems” in Scripture and Counseling, ed. Bob Kelleman and Jeff Forrey (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), 159, et seq.

 

Orthodox Paradoxes, Miscellaneous Part 5

24 Wednesday Aug 2016

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More from Ralph Venning’s Orthodox Paradoxes (1650):

He is careful in nothing, yet none so careful as he.
He believes that though he lie in the grave a thousand years, yet he shall be with God as soon as he dies.
He esteems his name a precious ointment, yet cares not who reviles him.
He importunate to prevail with God, yet he think not to prevail for his importunity.
he believes that none know the heart of God, and yet he meets with many saints who can tell him his heart.
He believes ’tis life eternal to know God, and yet he accounts it his happiness to be known of God.
He finds that grace never waxes old, though it be ever growing; but that elder ’tis, the new ’tis.
He believes that a man converted is the same man that he was before; and yet he believes that he is more man and more than man.
He does not know his own wants, and yet he makes them known to God.
He is no prophet and yet his prayers are prophecies.
He is afraid to think of God, least he wrong him; and yet he believes that he should wrong God should not think of him.
He knows that idiots are not fit for counsellors, and yet one of them God takes his sages.
he finds that love of God has height and depth without ends, length without points, breadth, yet no lines, that it is circular (emblem of eternity) and yet fills every angle.
He would be anything rather than nothing, yet he would be nothing if that would exalt his God.
He believes that man’s will does freely turn to God, and yet that man has not freewill to turn to God.
He gives no price for grace, and yet he values it above all price.
He loves the consolations of God; but the God of consolation is his love.
He fears God, and yet is not afraid of God.
He knows that similitude has some loveliness in it; yet he does account hypocrisy the more odious because of its similitude to Religion.
He believes that some have grace who cannot define it; and that some can define it who have it not.
He is always in pilgrimage, and yet he is never from home.
He believes that God tempts no man; and yet believes that God tempted Abraham.
He is very jealous lest God should leave him, and yet he believes God will never do it.
he believes that having made a promise, he ought to be as good as his word, and yet he thinks he may go from his word to go to truth.
He believes that a saint has a vocation on earth, but that earth is his advocation.
God has commanded him to love his neighbor, and yet God requires all his heart for himself.
He seems much folly in the world and much confusion, and yet he sees wisdom and order therein.

Should we pray to the Holy Spirit?

09 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by in Abraham Kuyper, Charles Hodge, Charles Spurgeon, Prayer, Trinity, Uncategorized

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In Daniel Block’s “For the Glory of God”, he asks the question as to whether we should address worship specifically and personally to the Spirit.  His analysis begins with three observations:

  1.  “No one addresses the Holy Spirit in prayer, or bows to the Holy Spirit, or serves him in a liturgical gesture. Put simply, in the Bible the Spirit is never the object of worship.”
  2. “The Spirit drives the worship of believers yet does not receive worship.”
  3. “In true worship, the person of the Trinity may not be interchanged without changing the significance of the work.”

He notes two historical developments in the church. First, is the development of the Doxology,

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise him all creatures here below;

Praise him above you heavenly host;

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

He noted that it derives from Gloria Patri per Filium in Spiritu Sancto, Glory to God the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. This was changed in response to the Arians, which sought to ontologically subordinate Jesus. To avoid that movement, the connections where changed to “and” from “through” and “in”.

The second development was the Charismatic movement to single out the Spirit for particular adoration in prayer and song.

Block is reticent to make the Spirit the unique object of worship

When we read Scripture, the focus will on God the Father or Jesus Christ the Son. However, it seems that the Holy Spirit is most honored when we accept his conviction of sin, his transforming and sanctifying work within us, and his guidance in life and ministry, and when in response to his leading we prostrate ourselves before Jesus.

This emphasis on the Spirit’s work in is matched by an interesting comment from Kuyper

It appears from Scripture, more than has been emphasized, that in the holy act of prayer there is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit working both in us and with us.

Kuyper, Holy Spirit (1946), trans. de Vries, p. 618.

James Hastings has a discussion on prayer directed to the Spirit. The conclusion comes in his last paragraph:

Continue reading →

John Frame: What is the purpose of theology?

26 Saturday Mar 2016

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To apply Scripture is to use Scripture to meet a human need, to answer a human question, to make a human decision. Questions about the text of Scripture, translations, interpretation, ethics, Christian growth—all these are fair game for theology. To show (by word or deed) how Scripture resolves all these kinds of questions is to apply it. So I offer my definition of theology: theology is the application of Scripture, by persons, to every area of life. Why, then, do we need theology in addition to Scripture? The only answer, I believe, is “because we need to apply Scripture to life.”
-John Frame, Systematic Theology

Opening Session Shepherds Conference 2016

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

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Rough draft notes on opening session of Shepherds ConferenceJohn MacArthur 

Opening Session

[Pastors are discouraged, in part, because they don’t know what they are supposed to do — and are doing the wrong thing. Rather, than being theologians — extracting doctrine from the text — they are managing programs, administrating, glad handing, and then for content are repeating someone else’s undigested ideas. They know more books and blog posts than they know the Bible. Aside, that is one reason so many pastors sound the same generally in terms of their emphasis. They are all busy reading the same books and websites and twitter feeds and repeating the content of their echo chamber. If they were busy with the text, their emphasis would be derived from the particular text which was taking their current time.  Main section of the sermon, MacArthur gives an example of how one extracts theology from the text, using John 17. Doctrine of God, salvation, and ascension.]

Introduction:

He spoke with Joel Beeke recently: Beeke said that everywhere he has seen discouraged pastors. That is what MacArthur would like to address.

No profession in the world suffers from a more basic lack of clarity from their responsibility than pastoral work. There is widespread confusion about what it means to be a pastor. There is also failure of congregations to know what to expect.

There is no desire for most pastors to be theologians: this is pastoral malpractice

No longer is the pastorate an intellectual discipline. Pastors give their energy to managing and administration and give uplifting content. They do not perform intellectual information. For content they broker other people’s ideas and theology. They are not working out doctrine from the text.

The whole purpose of Bible exposition is to draw doctrine from the text and then to show its implication and application. The pastor’s  also have the duty to protect the truth. Pastors rather than being theologians have outsourced theology to the academy. 

The pastors are not doing the work of developing and creating theology. 

Pastors have abandoned their high calling and have relied upon all sorts of other things. Rarely are pastors known for their theological ability. Pastors you must become theologians … the guardians of sound theology. 

The church understands theology from pastors.

Every significant pastor in church history has been a heavy weight in theology.  
The Westminster Confession was written by the theological giants: out of 121 members there were 121 pastors. (Compares that to the Chicago statement committee – Boice and MacArthur were the only pastors, the rest were academic theologians)
We need to take back theology into the church. “The academy is a very unsafe place for the Bible.” We have been working to salvage the Bible from the academy. 
Doctrine is the foundation of absolutely everything (we do as pastors). 
2 Cor. 5: what motivated Paul. “For the love of Christ constrains us”. It is the love of Christ for me which drives me.  What is so special about that? Most people think God loves everyone the same. But Paul makes plain that God loves on their behalf. Particular redemption motivated Paul. 
Does theology matter? Does it change how you view life?
The church has doctrinal anemia.
I want you to think about theology:

Reads John 17
Christ is high priest. He is praying us into heaven. John 17 is the only sample we have of Christ’s present work. In Hebrews we know that he is busy with this work of interceding for us.
I submit that both the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ fall below the reality of John 17. This (his high priestly work) is the greatest ministry of Jesus Christ. 
Turn to Romans 5
v. 9: Much more then (v. 8 the cross) is Christ’s life: 

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. http://esv.to/Rom5.8-10
The life of Christ is much more than his death.
Heb. 9: his life is much more than his death. He ever lives to make intercession
11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)

12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh,

14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. http://esv.to/Heb9.11-14

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. http://esv.to/Heb7.25
Back to John 17
The entire prayer of John 17 is theology. 

If you do not have theology, you cannot only not preach, you can’t even pray.

John 17 is prayed theology. 
Jesus prays the theology of the Father back to the Father knowing the Father will answer this. He prays this on behalf of those who believe and will believe.

This is the most comforting chapter in Bible because the security of my salvation is the most comforting truth.
John 17 is the transition of Christ’s work — this is what he has been doing for the past 2,000 years. 
He first prays that the Father will take him through the trouble before him. His desire for glory is that he will be in the place where he can be in the place where he can be interceding for us.
Just see the theology here: 
Salvation with the doctrine of God. 

v. 11: Holy Father

v. 25 Righteous Father — attributes of God

v. 3: there is only one God
God and Allah are not the same.  Allah is a solitary being who by virtue of his singleness cannot love. The God of the Bible is a Trinity who has always been a God of love.
v. 12

The eternal Son

The glory which I had with you before the world was: The Father-Son share eternally (love, person, glory, nature) cf. John 1
This is the very foundation of salvation. By contrast, a single God without capacity to love has no interest in saving any one. But the Father needed many more sons to love.
Jesus is co-existent with the Father and is also self-existent (in him was life).
Salvation exists because of the Trinity and God is love.
v. 10

All things that are mine are yours and yours are mine.

We could all say that mine is yours, but who could say, yours are mine!

No creature could ever say that.
Soteriology begin with the doctrine of God, specifically the doctrine of the Trinity.
Doctrine of Election
The people to whom the eternal Son gives eternal life (v. 2, the Son gives life) are clearly identified. To whom does he give that eternal life? 

v. 9 I do not ask on behalf of the world.

Jesus does not pray for everyone.

v. 2 to all whom you have given me

v. 6 to the men who you given me

v. 9, v. 11 As clearly as the Father has given a name to the Son, he has given people to the Son.

v. 24 whom you have given me

Anybody confused about that? 

He gives eternal life to whom the Father gives him.
All whom the Father gives will come (irresistible grace). No one can come unless the Father draws him.
How did the Father choose?

v. 6, they were yours

v. 9 “for they are yours”

What does that mean? They belonged to God.

How did they become his? By his own uninfluenced choice. 

Eph.1 before the foundation of the world

Rev. written in the book from before the foundation of the world
The Father has identified those from before the foundation who are his. The Father gives them to the Son and the Son insures they will come to glory — and the Son uses the means of prayer.
Ascension

to do his work

He first had to make an atonement (passive obedience)

He also had to live: I glorified you on the earth.

I sanctified myself: active obedience:

His death and life are imputed to us.
Salvation is to know God, to know Christ.
John 17:3 was the biggest verse for the Puritans

Orthodox Paradoxes: Election

25 Thursday Feb 2016

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More from Ralph Venning’s 1650 work, Orthodox Paradoxes

VI. Concerning Election
59. He believes that God is no respecter of persons; and yet he believes that God elected some and left others — when he found no difference.
60. He believes that none were elected but in and by Christ, and yet he believes that Christ is not the cause of election.
61. He believes that God never made any man on purpose to reprobate him, and yet he believes that God ever purposed to reprobate some.

Orthodox Paradoxes: God’s Attributes

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by in Theology, Uncategorized

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Continuing Venning’s 1650 Book:

V. Concerning God’s Attributes

38. He believes that in God, that which is understood and that which understands is all one.
39. He believes that there can no ideas framed of God, yet he believes that God can be known.
40. He believes that no man has seen God at anytime, and yet he believes that Moses talked with God face-to-face.
41. He believes that God can will nothing but our good; and het believes that God will that some should sin in our world.
42. He believes that God’s will and power are equal; yet he believes that God can do what he never will do.
43. He believes that God’s willing of sin is rather a permission than a willing; and yet he believes it to be a willing permission.
45. He believes that God’s will is one: and yet that his will is manifold.
46. He believes that though men leave the will of God undone, yet his will is never disappointed.
47. He believes that God can do all things and yet he believes there is that done in the world which God cannot do.
48. He believes that God would that all man should be saved; and yet believes that his is not changed nor frustrated, though many are damned.
49. He believes that God will nightie but what is just, and yet he believes that justice is not rule to God’s will.
50. He believes that God is always just, and yet he knows that God punish some men when they have done what he bid them do.
51. He believes that holiness, mercy and justice are in God; and yet he believes that there are no adjuncts nor qualities in hi.
52. He believes that it repented God for making mankind; and yet he believes that God neve changed his mind.
53. He believes that God is sometimes angry and yet he believes that there is no passion in him.
54. He knows that the threatenings of God are not always fulfilled; and yet he believes that God is always faithful.
55. He believes that God does go and come; and yet he believes that God never changed places.
56. He believes that God foreknew all things; and whatever he foreknew to be, must needs be; and yet he believes that God’s foreknowledge was not the cause of their being.
57. He sees that the things which God knows are variable and changing; and yet he believes that the knowledge of God never changes.
58. He believes that God shows mercy even then when he executes justice, and that God executes Justice when he shows mercy.