Josiah Concept Ministries

A reader with the pseudonym Edge7 left a comment in regard to the brief section on the Limited Atonement in this post. This assumes that verses like 1 Timothy 2:3, 5 and 1 John 2:2 confound the Calvinist position that the Atonement saves only the elect. These verses, combined with John 3:16, seem to indicate that Christ died for all men.

I had no intent to write at length about the Limited Atonement. My friend TurretinFan already has an excellent post here, but that post only mentions verses such as those above in passing. So I will add some thoughts about the above verses and their use of “all.” Specifically, I will talk about the contextual limitations of the word “all.” An appropriate subtitle for this piece could be, “When ‘all’ doesn’t mean ‘all.’”

“All” in the case of these verses refer to “all of the elect.” Can I prove that? No. But I have already provided a logical defense of the Limited Atonement, which I will repeat. And I can provide examples from the Bible where “all” doesn’t really mean “all,” but is instead defined by a contextual limitation. Taken together, along with my friend TurretinFan’s article, I believe that will provide a convincing case for the Limited Atonement.

First, a universal atonement is logically flawed. If Christ’s sacrifice paid for all of the sins of mankind, then no one is going to Hell, ever. But we know that this is not the case. Some may say that Christ’s atonement is universal in its scope but only effectual for believers. I might be inclined to agree with that idea. The problem is that, even with this view, the atonement is still limited. It still doesn’t cover the sins of unbelievers.

Another way to look at atonement is in light of the Unforgivable Sin. This is not recognizing the very work of God when you have enough knowledge to do so. Put another way, it is rejecting God’s grace–or unbelief in Christ. Perhaps the atonement is universal except for this one sin. But, you see, even then it is still limited.  It still only covers the sins of people who believe in Christ.
Anyway you try to slice it, the atonement is limited.

What about the verses, such as those mentioned above, that seem to preach a universal atonement?  According to Got Questions Ministries:

How can we understand the paradox that occurs because the Bible teaches God intends that only the elect will be saved, yet on the other hand the Bible also unequivocally declares that God freely and sincerely offers salvation to everyone who will believe? (Ezekiel 33:11; Isaiah 45:22; 55:1; Matthew 11:28; 23:37; 2 Peter 3:9; Revelation 22:17) The solution to this paradox is simply an acknowledgment of all that the Bible teaches. 1) The call of the Gospel is universal in the sense that anybody that hears it and believes in it will be saved. 2) Because they are dead in their trespasses and sin, no one will believe the Gospel and respond in faith unless God first makes those who are dead in their trespasses and sins alive (Ephesians 2:1-5). The Bible teaches that “whosoever believes” will have eternal life and then explains why some believe and some don’t.

Many people will further argue that “all” always means “all.”  So it is necessary to look at some other uses of the word “all” in the gospels to see if “all” means “all,” always.

First, when the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he “took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory” (Mt 4:8).  So, the devil showed Jesus every kingdom in the entire world?  Not even from the world’s tallest mountain could a person see every single kingdom in the entire world.  So “all” in this case doesn’t mean “all.”  No Christian should have a problem with that interpretation.

Second, we see in Mark 13:23 Jesus tells His disciples “I told you all things beforehand.”  Is Jesus indeed referring to “all things,” such as expanding pi to the nth digit and the inner workings of a supercomputer?  Or is He narrowing the context slightly, to the signs at the end of the age, of which He was just speaking?  I think even the most hardcore biblical literalist will agree that Jesus limits “all things” to the end of the age.

In Luke 1:3, the historian notes to Theophilus that he has followed “all things closely for some time past.”  Does “all things” in this verse mean that Luke is following every event that ever happened in the first century, or is the context limited again to things that Jesus has done?  Again, even a biblical literalist can agree with my interpretation that “all things” means “all things related to Christ” in this passage.

It is my contention that the same contextual limitations have been placed on phrases like “all” and “the world” when they refer to salvation.  In those verses, like the ones above, “all” doesn’t really mean “all,” it means “all of the elect” or “all of the believers.”  The Atonement, which could have been universal if that was what God had intended, is limited only to the elect, both logically and biblically.

Only by ripping verses like John 3:16 away from the rest of the teachings of Scripture could a person arrive at a universal atonement.  When considered together with the rest of the passages that teach about the atonement, the contextual limitation of “all” becomes quite apparent.

Now I should note that there are several passages in which any theologian will tell you that “all things” means “all things, everywhere, and always.”  For example, among other verses, John 3:35 says that “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.”  This would, indeed, mean everything in the world.  However, this is made clear by other passages of Scripture, in both the Old and the New Testaments, that everything on this planet will be under the Lordship of the Son.  We are not reading passages such as those in a vacuum, so why read passages like John 3:16 apart from everything else Scripture says about salvation?

I think that an obvious objection to predestination is that the election is, by its nature, unconditional. Most people take that to mean random or arbitrary. If that were so, then it logically leads to fatalism. You then end up with the following thought process:

Why go and preach the gospel as we are charged to do if God has already picked us out? Too many scriptural contradictions my friend. GOD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF CONFUSION. How many times must I point that out?

But predestination is anything but random or arbitrary. Glenn Miller has an excellent article that addresses the same topic here from a neutral perspective. I will use one of Miller’s quotes that come from a Calvinist perspective to illustrate the point that, according to Reformed theology, this predestination is anything but arbitrary. “Particular election is thus and so far not absolute, as though it were arbitrary: it rather has its moral ground (inconceivable of course to man) in God’s essentiality,” quotes Miller. Cross referencing this:

Although no cause outside God can be given on man’s side, as we warned you earlier, why this man rather than that is elect or reprobate, as Isaac rather than Ishmael, Jacob than Esau, since in themselves they were both equals and equally unworthy of election: still we must not think that on His side God had no reasons or causes for doing- - since the divine will always conspires with His wisdom and does nothing without reason or rashly; although these reasons and causes have not been revealed to us, and accordingly they neither ought to nor can be probed by us apart from His will.-And it is this also which the chief doctors of the Reformed Church are often repelling from themselves, when they are reproached with setting up here some absolute will of God. Firstly they say it is not absolute, because it includes means by which the appointed end is achieved ; next because God also does not lack just reasons for having acted thus or thus, although these are hidden from us. Thus CALVINUS says (De occults Dei proved. P-1013 statim in initio) : ” Although for me God’s will is the supreme cause, yet I everywhere teach, that where in His counsels and works no cause is apparent, it is yet hidden with Him, so that He has decreed nothing save justly and wisely. Therefore the triflings of the Scholastics on absolute power I not only repudiate but also detest, because they separate His righteousness from His rule.”

Finally:

This will or this decree of His we never sever from righteousness and true right reason, and as always most orderly, although we believe it to be inscrutable even for the very angels ; and accordingly we admire and adore it and refuse to recognise any other absolute will in God. (Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics: Set Out and Illustrated from the Sources, Baker: 1950, p. 165)

Miller concludes:

This is very, very far from a cold, detached, arbitrary election of individuals…In the Reformed system–according to their classic documents–this decree of God in eternity past is characterized by reason, wisdom, justice, righteousness, non-rashness, and ‘gratuitous love towards us’…

What this means for our study is this: the Reformed doctrine of ‘unconditional election’ is NOT even close to being the same as ‘unCAUSED election’ or ‘ARBITRARY election’ . It affirms only that the causes/reasons are not grounded in the deeds of humans in time. There ARE reasons and causes, and these are wise, just, righteous–and unrevealed.

Ultimately, predestination is rooted in God’s love, which I stated in the previous article on this topic. Remember, we love because He first loved us (1 Jn 4:19).

This leads us to speculate on what the reasons for election might possibly be.  First, I believe that they are not grounded in what the elect person himself does or does not do.  But, that doesn’t eliminate the intriguing possibility that it may be grounded in what others do.  For example, God may choose someone on the basis of that person encountering a believer’s evangelism.  He may also choose someone on the basis of the prayers of others.

Why evangelize?  The reasons for election, as well as the elect themselves, are unrevealed to us.  God may choose someone on the basis of your act of evangelism toward that person.  I think that this is a reasonable proposition and a very good reason to continue efforts at evangelism.

When I first started studying Calvinism, I thought that the most controversial element of the TULIP was the “L”–Limited Atonement.  This is summed up in the Westminster Confession of Faith III.6:

Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power, through faith, unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. (emphasis added)

But I’ve found that everyone believes in the Limited Atonement, whether they think they do or not.  A Universal Atonement is not just logically impossible, but outright cruel.  Think about it like this: if Christ died in atonement for the sins of all of mankind, then why does God still send people to Hell?  To what point and purpose must some people pay for their sins twice, once vicariously through Christ and then again for all eternity in Hell?

It makes no sense.  Aside from that, only John 3:16 stands in support of a Universal Atonement.  In nearly all other cases where the Atonement is mentioned in Scripture, the word “many” rather than “all” refers to those effectually called and saved.  Looking back at the Old Testament, both Daniel and Isaiah confirm this idea of an elect people, or “the many” (cf. Dan 9:27 and Is 53:11-12)  Scripture teaches, therefore, that only those who die in Christ are effectually saved by the Atonement.  Even non-Calvinist writers agree on this point.

The most controversial element of Calvinism is the doctrine of predestination, which the Confession says “is to be handled with special prudence and care” (III.8).  I found out why last night as I attempted to explain this doctrine to a friend over an Instant Message.  He was aghast that I believed in this doctrine, since (in his opinion) it takes away free will.

First, before I delve into some of the finer points of the misunderstood doctrine of predestination, I must affirm that, to my surprise, Calvinism does teach that mankind has free will.  I say “to my surprise” because I resisted Calvinism for so long for the sinful allure of open theism because of the question of free will.  I made the mistake of checking what the critics said of Calvinism instead of looking at Calvinist authors like R.C. Sproul wrote on the subject.  The Westminster Confession devotes an entire chapter to the free will of man.

In summary, the Confession states that God has placed a free will that is neither good nor evil within man.  Pre-Fall, that will was good and pleasing to God, but mutable so that man could fall from his state of grace.  Post-Fall, the will of man is dead in sin and unable to will and do any spiritual good.  That means that man is unable to save himself apart from the drawing of the Father to Christ.  Upon salvation, God regenerates the sinner and endows him with complete freedom to will and do spiritual good–but not perfectly, so he is still able to will and do evil.

Knowing that Calvinism affirmed the free will of man made it a lot easier for me to call myself a Calvinist, rather than just a reluctant Calvinist.  While waiting in the long line for the most recent Harry Potter book, I had the incredible fortune to read portions of Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul, which helped me see that predestination is the ultimate expression of God’s love and grace, not the expression of tyranny that many critics of Calvinism make it out to be. Read more »

Five Roman Catholic Cardinals have written a letter to the other members of the College of Cardinals urging additional support in the form of signatures asking Pope Benedict XVI to define the fifth and final Marian dogma.  The suggested wording is thus:

Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of man, gave to humanity from the Cross his mother Mary to be the spiritual Mother of all peoples, the Co-redemptrix, who under and with her Son cooperated in the Redemption of all people; the Mediatrix of all graces, who as Mother brings us the gifts of eternal life; and the Advocate, who presents our prayers to her Son.

Let’s back up a second.  The four Marian dogmas that are already defined are the Divine Motherhood, the Perpetual Virginity, the Immaculate Conception, and the Assumption.  The Divine Motherhood means Mary is called the Mother of God, or theotokos in the Greek.  The Perpetual Virginity means that Mary remained a virgin before, during and after the birth of Christ.  The Immaculate Conception means she was born without sin.  And the Assumption means that she was taken into heaven body and soul.

Now the Cardinals wish to define Mary as Co-redemptrix, which recognizes the unique role that she plays in the salvation of man.  Many people think that this a new teaching of the Catholic Church, but in reality it isn’t.  Dave Armstrong obligingly demonstrates that for us in this article.  This, in fact, has been the teaching of the Catholic Church for a very long time.

As Mediatrix of all graces, the Church will recognize that God’s grace flows to man through Mary.  She will also be defined as Advocate, which means that she presents the prayers of the faithful to her Son.   Armstrong argues that the world isn’t ready for these titles to be dogmatically defined because of the misunderstanding that they wrought.  I agree that they shouldn’t be defined, but for far different reasons than DA has given.

These titles detract from the singular glory of Jesus Christ.  Let’s look first at Mediatrix of all graces.  Grace flows not from Mary, but from God.  Not from God then to Mary then to us, but from God to us.  The Scriptures are very clear on this point: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Cor 9: and “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8).  Grace is God’s gift to us.  Period.

Advocate also detracts from the singular glory of Christ, for it is He that mediates prayers, not Mary to Him.  “[T]here is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5).

Finally, the letter to the Hebrews makes it abundantly clear that only one person could have made the ultimate sacrifice that pleased God and made atonement for the sins of mankind.  Only one person could “save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him” (Heb 7:25)

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever. (Heb 7:26-2

Mary can’t do this for us.  Only Jesus can be this high priest, superior to the earthly priests, who is “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.”  Mary is not that high priest, nor indeed can she be.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Scientology flies directly in the face of everything I believe as a Christian, I might endorse Tom’s overall message.  He’s touching on a lot of the issues that I’ve been covering–atheist misconceptions about how Christians think that the world works.  Look at Ephesians 2:8-10:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (emphasis added)

We are saved, and truly in Christ, only by God’s grace.  That grace is a free gift, and not based on works.  If it were based on works, then grace is no longer free.  Instead, we are saved by His grace through our faith in Christ (see Rom 10:9) plus nothing.

What about the works that I’ve highlighted?  Simple: look at 1 John 5:1-3:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

We obey out of love, not out of necessity.  Obeying out of necessity is a curse to us–”Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them” (Deut 27:26).  Studying all 613 (or so) laws of the Old Testament, I think that we can agree that it is impossible to do all of them.  We’re going to mess up somewhere.  And guess what happens if you mess up only once:

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. (Jms 2:10-11)

But the point is we need to obey God.  The idea is to do this out of love, not out of some perceived need to become saved.  The Bible is quite clear that it is impossible to follow all of these 613 laws and live (see Jn 6 with the idea that bread = law).

Cruise has done a great job underscoring the necessity to help our fellow man for his Scientologist followers.  Perhaps Christians should heed his words also: let’s do more to help our fellow man.  Let’s do that, however, out of love and not out of the insane notion that it will get us in God’s good graces.  We who are Christians are already in His good graces by His gift to us; our works cannot add anything to that salvation.  But they can make the world a better place and that is the real point of doing them.  We’re going to be here for a long time, and our children are going to live here after us.  Let’s turn a better world over to them than what we started with.

Steve Ray has an interesting post about being born of water and the Spirit (Jn 3:5).  He lists nine places in the Bible where water and the Spirit represent new birth, and then concludes:

Too bad many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists refuse to see it but the Bible is pretty clear about new birth through the sacrament of baptism. Jesus is not ambiguous in this matter and he is alluding quite clearly to new beginnings in the Old Testament. The Early Church is also very clear and so is the teaching of the Catholic Church today.

We’re assuming that the seven Catholic sacraments are Biblical.  While the link provides an excellent argument against these seven sacraments, I should note that I believe very strongly in baptism, and I believe that it was commanded by our Lord Jesus that we should receive it.  I don’t believe that it is necessary for salvation–for that is by grace through faith.  Baptism is a clear command–it is one of the ways that we demonstrate our love for Him (Jn 14:15; 1 Jn 5:3), not a way He confers grace on us.

I agree with Steve Ray’s premise but cannot support his conclusion.  It would be interesting to track down the context of the Augustine quote to see if Ray is using it correctly.

Now don’t get me wrong–I’m not trying to downgrade the importance of baptism.  I just don’t agree that it is any more necessary than any other work for salvation.  Salvation is by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-10).  The works we walk in are prepared by God for us to do; they are not the linchpin that saves us.  This includes baptism.  Walking in God’s commands shows our love for Him to the world–a witness without words.  Those who are in Him should be willing to do whatever He commands, and this includes being baptized.

Sometimes, I do work that doesn’t require a lot of mental engagement.  While I’m doing that, I come up with some weird thoughts and those can occasionally turn into blog entries.  This is one of those times.

Let me back up to when I was a manager at Wendy’s.  I had purchased a lot of books that showed how to build a team by tactics mined from Scripture.  These included The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell and Teach Your Team to Fish by Laurie Beth Jones.  I used a lot of the tactics I learned, but one thing I never did was give Christ the credit.  Neither in prayer nor to the people I managed.

I think that that was a very bad move.  Scripture says that “whoever denies me [Jesus] before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 10:33).  I was a coward; I thought it was more important to not offend people by bringing religion into the issue than to give any credit to where the techniques I was using came from.

And so I met with little success.

Now, I’m using the same techniques at Burger King, but I’m acknowledging their source–God–proud and loud.  Not surprisingly, I’m meeting with much more success.

My point is the Scripture I quoted above: “whoever denies me [Jesus] before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 10:33).

As I understand Intelligent Design, it is merely a scientific expression of the creation account of Genesis without naming the entity that created.  It acknowledges a supernatural creator without defining that creator.  Sounds an awful lot like what I did with the leadership techniques.  I acknowledged that I got them from the Bible, but did not acknowledge God.

Intelligent design does the same thing: acknowledges a creator without acknowledging God.  “[W]hoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 10:33).

The problem is that God is inextricably tied to His creation.  To know His creation is to know Him: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom 1:20, emphasis added).

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has been used by atheists to shoot down intelligent design.  Or has it?  Perhaps the Noodly Master has been used by God to shoot down intelligent design because God doesn’t appreciate being taken out of the equation by otherwise well-meaning scientists.

Let’s be honest: Is intelligent design really how we want to preach God?  Do we really want to leave the possibility of other creator deities open for discussion?  It doesn’t seem as though that is how God would want it.  Did He not say to Moses:

You shall have no other gods before me. . . .  You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Ex 20:3, 5-6)

Why on earth would we think that intelligent design is God-honoring?  Leaving open the possibility of other deities invites people to worship and serve them.  But what is the Great Commission?  Is it to get people to think that the universe has a creator, and it might be the Christian God, and you can serve Him if you think that He is the creator?

No!  It is to “Go . . . and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20, emphasis added).  Note that Jesus doesn’t talk about possibilities; He gives concrete commands.  He tells us in no uncertain terms that we are baptizing these people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: the triune Christian God, the creator of the universe.  There are no maybe’s with Jesus.

There should be no maybe’s with us either.  We should be able to stand up and say what Paul said to the Ephesian elders: “Therefore^(A) I testify to you this day that^(B) I am innocent of the blood of all of you, 27for^(C) I did not shrink from declaring to you^(D) the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26-27).  We, too, should not shy away from preaching the whole counsel of God.  Like Paul, we should not be ashamed of the gospel (cf. Rom 1:16; 2 Tim 1:8-12).

Look at Ken Hamm compared to ID proponents.  I’m not saying that I agree with a 6,000 year old earth and dinosaurs living side-by-side with humans.  I’m starting to lean back toward a more scientific view, which includes evolution.  But, I admire people like Dr. Hamm much more than I admire ID proponents because Ken Hamm is preaching the whole counsel of God!  He isn’t afraid of the gospel.

ID proponents should spend more effort to put God’s name into their work.  Maybe it would become more recognized.  Maybe even accepted in scientific circles.  It doesn’t sound likely, but neither is Christianity.  Putting God’s name back into the tips and tricks I learned certainly worked for me, and I believe that it can work for ID.

Second, is the god depicted in the Old Testament books I have read so far (Genesis through Numbers) the same god that I will encounter in the New Testament, or are these two different gods? If it is the same god, then it would seem that reading the Old Testament is worthwhile because it will teach me quite a bit about the character of this god, even if the covenants change. On the other hand, if we have two different gods here, then I should probably stop reading the Old Testament, as it is really telling me nothing useful. (source)

Yes, the God from the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament.

You hit the nail on the head.  The covenants change, which is why the seeming change in character.  I assure you, however, the Father is every bit as wrathful as you see in the Old Testament (cf. Rom 9:22-24; 1 Cor 11:32b; Rev 3:19).  It is the Holy Spirit that shows the nurturing side of God’s character, and the Son who bore the Father’s wrath so that we, the elect, don’t have to.  For a good outline of the Father’s continuing wrath, see this recent post.

Because God is a Trinity–three Persons of one essence–anything spoken of one can also be spoken of the others.  So Jesus Christ–God–is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8), and so is the Father.  His character has not changed, His wrath is merely sated in a different fashion.

By all means, read the Old Testament.  It will give you insight into God’s character.  He does punish, He does destroy.  He is vengeful and full of wrath when His children sin.  He smites the disobedient.  But He is more complex than righteous anger.  He loves the world so much, that He offered us the means of salvation (Jn 3:16) if we only confess faith in Christ (Rom 10:9-10).  A single confession that will change your life forever for the better.

Religious scholars are meeting this weekend to discuss the pseudo-deity known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster. According to Wikipedia, FSM was created in 2005 by physics major Bobby Henderson in order to protest the teaching of intelligent design in Kansas classrooms. Since its wide media exposure, the FSM is used by atheists and agnostics alike to discredit the existence of God.

The American Academy of Religion has a few talks on its plate (no pun intended) about the Noodly Master. The graduate students giving the talks, Samuel Snyder, Alyssa Beall, and Gavin Van Horn, insist that this carbohydrate creator raises serious questions about the origin and practice of religion.

In other words, are religions based on theology or on practices? Most atheists would argue that religion is only a method to control behavior. They point to made-up religions like pastafarianism as a way to make this point. Richard Dawkins refers to it in The God Delusion, and frequently in debates.

So what are the grad students’ conclusions? I guess we’ll have to wait for the papers to be published. I just think that this lends far too much credence to a phenomenon that already has too much attention.

Dr. William Lane Craig agrees with that:

I think you can see that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is vastly overrated, both as a parody and as a being. As a parody, he fails to show that an inference to an intelligent designer of the universe is either illegitimate or unwarranted. What the parody shows is that we are not justified in attributing to our explanatory postulates arbitrary properties that are not justified by the evidence. Natural theologians have always known this. That’s why, for example, Thomas Aquinas, after his five brief paragraphs in his Summa theologiae proving the existence of a being “to which everyone gives the name ‘God’,” goes on to discuss in the next nine questions God’s simplicity, perfection, goodness, limitlessness, omnipresence, immutability, eternity, and unity.

As a being, the Flying Spaghetti Monster comes up drastically deficient as an explanation of those phenomena, some of which you list, which lie at the basis of the arguments for God’s existence. Those arguments, if all sound, as I think they are, require cumulatively a being which is the metaphysically necessary, self-existent, beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal, omnipotent, omniscient Creator and Designer of the universe, who is perfectly good, whose nature is the standard of goodness, and whose commands constitute our moral duties.

The real lesson to be learned from the case of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that it shows how completely out of touch our popular culture is with the great tradition of natural theology.  (source)

First, please help me locate the part of the New Testament that will make it clear to me that Leviticus, Numbers, and whatever other books to which this claim applies were invalidated by Jesus. I’m not saying you are wrong - I’m nowhere close to even starting the New Testament yet - I’d just like to know where I’ll find this part so I can be more careful about how I’m reading the Old Testament now. (source)

The Old Testament law is essentially divided into two basic categories.  Jewish Ceremonial Laws (which includes dietary laws) and General Moral Principles.  I would think that reading the law books, this division would be obvious to a reasonable person such as VJack.  In Romans and Galatians, Paul makes the purpose of the law clear: to teach us what sin is (Rom 3:19-31; Gal 3:10-14).  We are enslaved to sin (Eph 2:1-3).  But thanks to the grace of God that we enjoy through Christ, sin no longer has any dominion over us because Christ’s sacrifice freed us from the law (Rom 6:14).

Why do we still have the Bible?  My brother-in-law shared this in an e-mail to me, and I think it perfectly expresses what I’m trying to say:

It [the Bible] was written long ago, but it very much is valid in modern times. It is a timeless book of truths that is 100% correct. It should be our source for faith and understanding, but not the ONLY source. That is what prayer and thinking of Christ does for us. We are able to look past what the scripture says to the WHY. But without the initial scripture, we could never have anything to hold it accountable to. The Bible is the final authority. Period.

And if we are free of the letter of the law as my brother-in-law says (and Paul says in 2 Cor 3:6), then why not just live a life of sin?  We’re saved anyway, right?  We can find ways to argue that our sin is the “spirit” of the law, can’t we?  Well, the apostle Paul said it better than I could in Romans 6:1-14.  If we profess a life of righteousness by faith, we ought to live that life out rather than just talk about or think about.