Category Archives: Theology
Clearest Example of the Unforgivable Sin
On this very blog, we have a clear example of the Unforgivable Sin. In fact, the clearest ever offered here. Alex said this:
It needs to be mentioned that the definition of nature is what science can measure and the reason we call your god’s being and doings supernatural is that when we measure, there is no god there, only natural explanations such as physics and chemistry. (source)
The Unforgivable Sin, from Mark 3:22-30 or Matthew 12:22-32, is the denial of the Spirit moving in our world. It is through the movement of the Spirit that we can see evidence of God acting in our world.
So, a little context. I deny the categories of natural and supernatural. Alex is saying that when we measure the doings of God, we find no God, just natural movements.
The first problem is that our instruments aren’t going to measure or detect God, who exists outside of the time and space we know how to measure. Instead, what we’re going to see are the effects that God creates, which are accomplished by the Holy Spirit. This is the evidence of God.
Denying that what we have seen is the movement of the Spirit is the Unforgivable Sin.
For example, Alex looks at biochemistry. The amazing complexity and well-oiled interactions of the various systems of our bodies, the ability of our bodies to obtain the raw ingredients our cells need to produce energy in the foods we eat and the drinks we consume all bear evident marks of design. The well-defined stages of growth humans go through, the inherent curiosity to learn and flourish, shared ability to define morality, to know what is is not what ought to be; these are the hallmarks of a being who can impart these things to us.
Alex, however, looks a this design and says, “Nah, random mutation acted on by natural selection — not a personal, intelligent force — created this.”
And that, my friends, is the Unforgivable Sin in a nutshell. The Pharisees saw the work of the Spirit in Christ as he drove out demons and cured disease, and they attributed it to Satan. Alex sees the work of God in chemistry and biology and attributes it to chance and natural laws. Both deny the Spirit’s efficacy, and both have severe eternal consequences.
Follow Up #1: What is Faith?
The series on why I’m not a Roman Catholic despite the temptation to return to the Church was extremely brief. I oversimplified many issues, and I wanted to take a quick moment to hash out the ones that deserve further examination. Let’s start with what my wise brother-in-law pointed out in a comment to part #1, which is that a lot of what I said hinges on defining faith.
Authentic biblical faith has two prongs to it. The first is right belief, or “orthodoxy.” [1] Generally speaking, to call yourself a Christian you would have to adhere to the following minimalist set of beliefs:
- Existence of God as a Trinity
- Preeminence of Christ over his creation
- Mankind fell into sin, and is now utterly enslaved to it
- Death of Jesus making atonement for the sins of mankind
- Resurrection of Jesus on the third day
- Future return of Christ to judge the living and the dead
And the rest varies quite wildly, even the mechanics of the above vary somewhat (even if the generic belief is still the same).
You need more, because the devil believes that stuff too. The second prong is right practice, or “orthopraxy.” [2] Pure religion is to help others and stay separate from the rest of the world.
Again, it’s great if you save the world, either by donating money to causes, championing nonprofits, or rolling up your sleeves and building an orphanage. The rich young ruler told Jesus he kept all the commands from childhood, and he wanted to know what else he lacked. Jesus also told his disciples during the Sermon on the Mount that people who did a lot of great things will cry out for Jesus and he will tell them to depart into hell. Doing good isn’t enough, either.
You need to bring the two prongs together. Faith is neither one nor the other, but both together. Salvation occurs solely by grace, but we respond to that grace in faith. It’s not just believing. It’s not just acting on a belief. Mere belief and mere action are both condemned in Scripture. Both belief and action are required; one separate from the other isn’t going to cut it.
Saving faith always and necessarily produces works, but the works alone will never create a saving faith. Works apart from faith are merely some rote ceremony, performed without thought for the one whom the works are supposed to glorify. Faith apart from the works is similarly dead. What good is a belief until you act on it, after all?
J.P. Holding explains this in more detail here.
Therefore, a true saving faith is going to manifest itself in the life of the believer in a conspicuous way, through that believer’s works. We see this in the changed lives of those who surrender to Christ. [3] Read the rest of this entry
Renewed Denial of the Roman Catholic Church, part 3: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary
Recently, in a conversation on Facebook, I confessed that much of Protestantism annoyed me. Longtime readers will know that I believe in consistency — hermeneutics should be consistent, interpretations of passages should incorporate what has gone before, and your bar of acceptable proof should be even across all areas of your life.
Protestantism just isn’t consistent. The first post in this series laid the groundwork for why I don’t think Protestantism is very consistent with regard to Sacred Tradition. The previous post discussed the concept of high church, how Protestantism lacks it, and why it is biblical. However, submission doesn’t mean surrendering one’s mental faculties. For an application of that idea, we turn to the main issue I’ve always had with Catholicism, and a true biblical contradiction in its teaching: the Perpetual Virginity of Mary.
To believe this doctrine, you have to totally subvert the meaning of Mark 6:3, when the crowd in Jesus’ hometown asks, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?”
The Catholic argument is that the word translated “brother” (αδελπηοσ) can be used for any close family member, since there wasn’t a Greek word for “cousins.” Therefore, James, Joses, Judas, and Simon are actually Jesus’ cousins. In fact, according to Strong’s, αδελπηοσ means “brother,” “sister” or “fellow believer.” However, we know from other New Testament passages that these folks are not fellow believers.
In fact, there is a Greek word meaning “cousin.” It is ανεπσιοσ, and is used in Colossians 4:10 to describe Mark, cousin of Barnabas. (The word actually refers to a niece or a nephew, and I’m at a loss to find out why it is universally translated “cousin.”) Which means the Catholic argument normally presented for Jesus’ brothers being cousins holds no water whatsoever.
The January 1990 issue of This Rock magazine has an article by Father Mateo specifically stating that:
Kilmon obscures the state of the question by alleging a “premise that ‘brother’ in the New Testament, like its counterpart in the Old Testament really means ‘cousin’ or ‘kinsman.'” No one holds such a premise. Both Hebrew and Greek dictionaries report that there are words in both languages whose primary meaning conveys uterine brother/sisterhood, but that these words are also used in both languages with much wider meanings: half brother/half sister, wife, kinsman, fellow tribe member, and so on, but not, as a matter of fact, cousin. (emphasis added)
But Father Mateo has spoke too soon. The Catholicism Answer Book (Sourcebooks, Inc: Naperville, IL, 2007), written by Catholic priests John Trigilio, Jr. and Kenneth Brighenti, does hold the very position that Father Mateo repudiates:
Scripture scholars have also delved into the question of brothers and sisters of Jesus. It all centers around the Greek word adelphoi. This word can be translated to mean brothers, cousins, or relatives, such as nephews and uncles. Therefore, when we read in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 13:55 concerning the brothers of Jesus, it is ambiguous whether the word adelphos is refering to brothers, cousins, nephews, or uncles. (57, emphasis added)
Just a few pages prior, Trigilio and Brighenti make a similar point. Ancient Hebrew (yes, they said Hebrew–remember that point) didn’t discern between close family (brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews), and thus the “brothers and sisters” of Jesus could have referred to other family members that didn’t have precise names (49).
The problem is that the New Testament was written in Greek, not Hebrew. Greek is exceedingly more complex, and does have those distinctions. The passages in question, read plainly, indicate family related by blood is under consideration. One hardly mentions the mother of a person and then a few cousins without some sort of context key. Nope, these are biological brothers and sisters, not close family or fellow Christians that are being discussed. It is difficult to argue otherwise.
Renewed Denial of the Roman Catholic Church, part 2: The Centrality of the Church
Recently, in a conversation on Facebook, I confessed that much of Protestantism annoyed me. Longtime readers will know that I believe in consistency — hermeneutics should be consistent, interpretations of passages should incorporate what has gone before, and your bar of acceptable proof should be even across all areas of your life.
Protestantism just isn’t consistent. And my previous post laid the groundwork for why I don’t think Protestantism is very consistent with regard to Sacred Tradition. In this post, I’m going to discuss the concept of high church, how Protestantism lacks it, and why it is biblical.
The Bible is clear, as any Catholic will tell you, that we should hold to a high church concept. That means the church should be visible, evident, and hold the power of discipline over its members. If my church excommunicates someone because he is an unrepentant adulterer, then the church down the street should not welcome him with open arms.
Also, the church should be there to interpret Scripture’s teachings for us. Peter tells us that no teaching comes in a vacuum (2 Pet 1:20). In Acts, Phillip is shown to interpret Scripture for a man; indeed, the man recognizes that he needs someone to interpret Scriptures for him (8:29-30)!
It is the visible and powerful church, therefore, that should help us understand the teachings.
Combining the lack of centralized teaching and the invisibility of the church, you can easily see the problem of Protestantism. If Susie doesn’t like what the United Methodist Church is saying, then she can go to my Grace Brethren church. If she doesn’t like Pastor Steve’s next sermon (she will love Nate’s music — I mean, who wouldn’t?), then she can move on to the local Episcopal church down the block. Ultimately, if Susie doesn’t like any of the Protestant denominations, then she’s free to start her own denomination. There are thousands; what’s one more?
Bottom line: this isn’t the church that Christ promised us in Scripture. This isn’t the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim 3:15).
Here, it was extremely tempting to rejoin the Catholic Church. That would require some humility; after all, I would have to submit to some dogma that I don’t like. But, that is what the high church concept is all about. I expect my beliefs to be challenged, and I expect God to change me in order to conform to the image of his Son (Rom 8:29-30).
But, at the end of the day, I just can’t do it. I really tried. But I can’t believe submission means that I have to leave my mental faculties at the door, and believe things that I know simply cannot be true. There’s a difference between submission and cultic mind control. After all, the Bible tells us to test everything and hold on to what is good (1 The 5:21) — a passage written to the individual.
For example, the Bible says that my wife is to submit to me as spiritual head of household, as if to Christ. Now, if I tell her the sky is green, does she then have to submit to me as her husband, even though she can evidently see that is not the case? According to Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians (5:21), no. Testing my statement, it isn’t good and she therefore isn’t under an obligation to submit. In marriage, Jesus gave us the out of a spouse creating serious disunity (Mt 19:1-9; note that “sexual immorality” isn’t the best translation of v. 9 — the Greek word doesn’t imply adultery, but rather putting asunder or dividing).
So, if the teacher isn’t “rightly dividing the word of truth,” I should think we aren’t under any obligation to submit (2 Tim 2:15). This is the standstill of Catholic vs. Protestant.
On one hand, the Catholic says that the Protestant is still the final arbiter of what Scripture says (private judgment or interpretation), even if he’s holding a high church concept. To some degree, this is correct. But, these same Catholics don’t realize that they themselves have engaged in private judgment as well. They have made the private judgment to submit to the teachings of the Magisterium.
On the other hand, Protestants have made the private judgment not to follow the teachings of the Magisterium. Some of us have investigated some troubling claims and found that they are not as well-supported as the Magisterium would have us believe.
In the next post, I will disseminate one such unsupported doctrine, the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. I will show that it is unbiblical and illogical, and this is why I simply can’t submit to it. Ultimately, it was my investigation of this doctrine that affirms me as a Protestant.
Renewed Denial of the Roman Catholic Church, part 1: The Temptation to Become Catholic Again
Back in June, I confessed in a conversation on Facebook that much of Protestantism annoyed me. Longtime readers will know that I believe in consistency — hermeneutics should be consistent, interpretations of passages should incorporate what has gone before, and your bar of acceptable proof should be even across all areas of your life.
Protestantism just isn’t consistent. Protestants throw out whole swaths of Christian tradition and invent new things. They claim they follow the Bible closer than Catholics, but do they?
No, as it turns out. Most Protestants tell you that faith alone saves you. Yet the Bible, held to be the word of God, forcefully argues that this isn’t the case. The sentence “You see that a person is saved by works and not by faith alone” actually appears in the Bible (Jms 2:24)!
Another example is that most Protestants reject Catholic Tradition on the grounds that it developed later than apostolic times. Interesting. So, Marian dogmas originated in the mid to late second century, while the papacy developed over a few hundred years to solidify in the sixth century, and clerical vestments were developed in the tenth century. All of those are rejected for the alleged late development.
Now, if Protestants were consistent, then there a few of our own cherished doctrines that should go. Some came over 800 years later than the latest dogma of the Church rejected as a “late development.” The 6,000 year old earth concept was developed in the sixteenth century. The Rapture wasn’t mentioned until around 1850 in any literature that I’ve ever seen. Altar calls are from the late 1800s, too.
The early Reformers came up with the idea of the seven Catholic Sacraments as symbolic of Christ rather than literal dispensers of grace over and against Tradition. The Eucharist was no longer a true sacrifice in the sense of being the literal body and blood of Christ and one with the first sacrifice on Calvary, but now becomes a symbol of the death of Christ (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, p1365-1367; cf. the Westminster Confession XXIX.2). Again, this is over and against not only Tradition, but the Bible (see 1 Cor 11:23-32).
The universal church was founded by Jesus Christ, not by Martin Luther or John Calvin. So it is wholly inconsistent to throw out vast quantities of Sacred Tradition just because you feel like it, or because you lack the historical understanding of the evolution of the Christian faith. The teaching functions of the Church have been eliminated or minimized in Protestantism–to its detriment, I believe. What we end up with a range of possibilities, from no central teaching arm to a carbon copy (but less effective) of the Catholic hierarchy.
My own Grace Brethren denomination has no higher authority other than the individual pastors of individual churches. Presbyterian have a constitution that can change through a majority vote from the individual presbyteries; but members must abide by the Westminster Confession of Faith, which cannot change. The Anglican/Episcopal church has monarchical bishops, but no central Pope figure (though the Archbishop of Canterbury has certain “primacy” over the larger church, but not nearly what the Pope has over the Catholic Church).
The lack of a centralized teaching authority in Protestantism sorely tempted me to rejoin the Catholic Church. In the next post, I want to discuss high church. It is both biblical and necessary for the body of believers to remain in union with one another. But that alone cannot bring me to be Catholic, as it turns out, and we will see why in part 3.
Did God Cause 9/11?
In honor of the victims who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and the brave heroes who rescued many survivors, I wanted to take on a common objection to the Christian model of God.
Objectors typically point out that God is omnipotent and omniscient according to the Bible, and either of these is grounds to believe that God is behind every evil action, either directly (by omnipotence) or indirectly (by inaction despite knowing the event in advance through omniscience).
Which leads to two questions:
- By virtue of his omnipotence, did God cause the terrorist attacks of 9/11?
- By virtue of his omniscience, does not halting the attacks make God as guilty as the planners?
No and no. Let’s find out why.
The first is fairly easy to dispense with. The capacity to do something isn’t the same as actually doing it. I can throw in a load of laundry and do the dishes, but I don’t do either very often. If the dishes or the laundry are done at my house, I’m not necessarily the cause (even though I’m more than capable of doing a load of laundry). Odds are, if either of those tasks are done, it was my wife who accomplished both.
So it is with God. Though God is capable of bringing about terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11, that doesn’t mean he did. In fact, as we’re about to discover, it is quite doubtful that he had anything to do with them.
From a Reformed perspective, isn’t God is the ultimate cause of everything? Not exactly — that’s actually a strawman that Arminans throw at Calvinists. Properly, God has foreordained that which will come to pass, and most think that Calvinists teach that God’s decree is one dimensional.
In the model that most non-Reformed folks attack, if life were Red Riding Hood, God is David Leslie Johnson. If life were Spider Man or Mission: Impossible (how cool would that be?), then God is David Koepp. If life were a 007 movie (best scenario yet!), then God is Neal Purvis. If life were Inception or Memento, then God is Christopher Nolan.
Get it? Those guys are screenwriters. Life, however, is most certainly not a screenplay, and God is not a screenwriter. The decree of God for this earth is not so one-dimensional that it can be reduced to a pile of 112 white, 8.5 x 11″, typed in Courier New, 1″-margin pieces of paper.
God’s decree has more flexibility than a shot list and George Lucas-style unrealistic dialogue.
Part of God’s eternal decree is the free will to choose our paths apart from him. Our liberty is not forfeit, neither is the responsibility we bear for our choices (despite their contingency). And, moreover, God is not the author of sin. Mankind is wicked enough — we don’t need help creating sin!
The Calvinist affirmation: God is sovereign, yet we are responsible.
Which means that the 9/11 terrorists chose, apart from God, their paths. And those paths are to destruction, as are all paths chosen apart from God. Unfortunately, their destruction led to the forfeiture of many more lives than just their own.
Freedom to do horrendous evil sometimes, unfortunately, means that we do horrendous evil.
Is God, then, responsible because — knowing 9/11 would happen — he did nothing to halt it?
Nope. As I’ve argued above, God’s gift of free will means that curse of moral responsibility. God is not obligated to clean up our messes.
Which actually raises another interesting question. If God did stop sin, how would we ever know? We wouldn’t. So, then, is God the restraint on sin that Paul speaks of in these verses?
Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessnessis revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. (2 The 2:3-8)
And there is at least one biblical example of God staying someone from sinning, despite that person having a prime opportunity. In Genesis 20:1-18, Abraham lied to Abimelech and told him that Sarah was his sister rather than his wife. So Abimelech, smitten with Sarah, tries to take her as a wife. I think we all know what that means (wink wink, nudge nudge!).
Yet, Abimelech never had the ceremony, nor consummated the relationship.
When the truth came out, and Abimelech pointed out that he was innocent, duped, and didn’t do Sarah, did God congratulate him for keeping it in his pants? Uh, nope. God said, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her” (20:6, emphasis added).
Interesting. God stopped Abimelech. There is precedent, both in the apostle Paul’s passage and in this earlier example, of God restraining mankind’s sin so that it isn’t as bad as it could be.
The bottom line is that we notice the ones that God lets by, like 9/11. But we can’t fathom how many he might hold back, essentially saving us from ourselves. The ones he stops might be worse than 9/11.
But why let any through? Two main reasons, I think.
First, perfection of the saints’ faith:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (Jms 1:2-4)
Second, revealing pretenders:
A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear. (Mt 13:3-9, explanation at 13:18-23)
A third reason, not in the Bible, is the display of compassion. Look at what happened post-9/11. Every country rallied to the U.S. Everyone sent relief to the victims. Volunteers to clean the rubble weren’t in short supply. Blood donations soared. When President Bush announced the War on Terror, the armed forces suddenly had more recruits than they knew what to do with. Chain stores were out of American flags.
Patriotism was no longer out of style.
Truly, a person is refined in fire and tribulation. If you have it too comfortable, then you will never know what you’re truly made of.
So, Augustine summed it up the best when he wrote, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” If God has a great reason to let the evil through, then we can hardly hold him responsible for the results since the results are the good things intended for us, and the suffering perfects our faith and our humanity.
Other Posts in the Coordinated Blogging Event:
- Atheism, Evil and Ultimate Justice
- Resources on the Problem of Evil
- Do all roads (and flights) lead to God? (Pluralism)
- Evil’s Three Faces and a Christian Response
- Where Was God on 9-11? A response to Rabbi Kushner
- Where Was God on 9/11?
- Did God Allow the Attacks on 9/11 for a “Greater Good”?
- The Need for Moral Choices and Consequences
- Ground Zero
- America After 9/11: Is Religion Evil?
- 9/11: “Full Cognitive Meltdown” and Its Fallout
- My 9/11 Memorial: Christianity Gives Authentic Hope In The Face Of Suffering
- If God, Why Evil?
- On September 11th, 2001 harmless things became fearful
- The Problem of Evil: Who’s problem is it? Is it a problem? (see Tilled Soil)
- 9/11: Where Is God During A Catastrophe?
- Christianity and 9/11: Guilt by Association?
- Suffering and the Cross of Christ
Fascinating Phone Call on EWTN Radio
I was listening to EWTN radio this morning and I heard a fascinating phone call. The caller asked the DJ (maybe the guest, I tuned in and only heard this call) why he needed to receive a sacrament of Penance before receiving the sacrament of Confirmation.
I was floored, to say the least.
Catholic theology teaches that the sacraments are containers of God’s grace. When you receive a sacrament, you are essentially taking an outpouring of God’s grace. The sacrament of Confirmation, however, is more than that.
In Confirmation, the Holy Spirit descends upon you, and bestows his gifts chosen for you to be a faithful worker in God’s kingdom. Though it isn’t strictly necessary, biblically speaking, I think it is an excellent idea to invite the Spirit to take residence in a clean temple.
I stole that from the DJ or guest, because I liked it.
Now, why didn’t the caller already know that? You think he would. I knew the answer right away. True, I was raised Catholic, but it wasn’t on my Catholic upbringing that I drew for the answer. Consider the words of Paul regarding the receiving of the Supper:
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1 Cor 11:27-32)
I should think that anytime we receive a measure of grace from God, we ought to do such a self-examination. Just because grace is an unmerited favor that God shares with us, we still ought to accept it reverently and with as clean a heart as we are capable of. Never should we just take it lightly, or we are taking judgment on ourselves.
For the Catholic, that means confession to a priest, and completing a penance for absolution. That is so small considering the gift of the Holy Spirit that is about to fill you; greater peace and grace isn’t possible here on earth.
But, is this only a Catholic problem? Nope. The whole church, Catholic and Protestant, has done an awful job of educating people of the first step of the gospel of our Lord–that we are sinners in need of a Savior. The world teaches us that we are basically good; we are evolving toward something greater. Our evolution is merely incomplete, so it’s not our fault when we behave like roughians.
I blame the world for teaching that. I blame the caller for buying into it, and not submitting to the teaching of the Church and the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is one example among many of how far we as Christians have to go to get the gospel message out to a world that needs it now more than ever.
Betrayed by Presupposition
Presuppositions can work against our understanding in ways that aren’t usually apparent. Let’s look at one such case.
The presupposition: Uniformitarianism. This is the thought that everything as we observe it now is exactly how it worked in the past. The sedimentary layers in rock are read this way, assuming they were uniformly laid down at regular intervals. So upper layers are new, lower layers are old (sometimes much older). All due to processes that have never changed since eons past, operating in the same way in the same amounts of time.
This is a contention of naturalism, and is not strictly held by theists. There are a few exceptions. Anything existing by necessity, such as God himself or mathematical constructs, won’t change (even after the Fall). The quantity of “two” is always “two” no matter what numbering system you use to designate it on paper, and equations will always retain certain patterns and properties. Though a hexadecimal system will differ slightly from a decimal system, and a binary system from the other two, evident patterns will still emerge in all of them (following from the base number of the system). The Lord doesn’t change, either; he isn’t blown about by the wind.
The second exception would be universal laws. These are built into the fabric of reality and thus remain unchanged through time. This includes moral laws–if it’s wrong to sacrifice a child now, it’s always been wrong to sacrifice a child. Since some cultures practiced that, it means that moral epistemology sometimes must catch up to moral ontology.
According to the Bible, there are differences between things at the outset of creation verses and things as they stand now, due in a large part to the Fall of Man. After the Fall, some rules changed (as punishment) and creation took on new ways of functioning. Read the rest of this entry
Atheist: Faith is NOT “Belief Without Evidence”
Finally, an atheist is as irritated as I am over the consistent use of faith to mean, as Dawkins uses it, “belief in the absence of (or in the teeth of) evidence.” Or, as Mark Twain famously put it, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t true.”
Dr. Simon Kolstoe wrote to the editors of Philosophy Now accusing them of using the pejorative definition of faith forwarded by Dawkins et. al. to make fun of religious believers. Dr. Kolstoe points out that even the wildest conspiracy theory rests at least on bad evidence. We may not always agree to where the evidence points, he reasons, but let’s agree at least that there is some.
[Faith] is taking the leap from tentatively believing a theory, to using that theory as a working principle. It is not belief in the absence of logic or evidence; it is a belief based upon ‘good enough’ evidence. Such a definition seems far more useful than the impossible definition of ‘ a belief without evidence’, or the rhetorical use as ‘a belief I do not agree with’.
What is biblical faith? Loyalty and trust based on past performance.
Back Rome Again 
Protestant Doctrines I Have Officially Abandoned
Sep 13
Posted by Cory Tucholski
I seek truth, and everyone who seeks truth must (if they intend to remain intellectually honest) reject beliefs if they find that those beliefs are untrue. Though I have previously defended these three distinctly Protestant doctrines, I can no longer do so. After much reflection, I believe they are false.
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Apologetics, Religion, Theology
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Tags: bible commentaries, bible dictionaries, denominations, handbook of biblical social values, interpreting the bible, perspicuity of Scripture, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, sola scriptura, sound theology