John Wesley on Justifying Faith and Doctrinal Summaries (Part III)

Q. 7. What are the immediate fruits of justifying faith?
A. Peace, joy, love, power over all outward sin and power to keep down all inward sin. 

Q. 8. Does any one believe who has not the witness in himself or any longer than he sees, loves and obeys God?
A. We apprehend not: "seeing God" being the very essence of faith, love and obedience, the inseparable properties of it. 

Q. 9. What sins are consistent with justifying faith?
A. No wilful sin. If a believer wilfully sins, he hereby forfeits his pardon. Neither is it possible he should have justifying faith again without previously repenting. 

Q. 10. Must every believer come into a state of doubt or fear or darkness? Will he do so unless by ignorance or unfaithfulness? Does God otherwise withdraw himself?
A. It is certain a believer need never again come into condemnation. It seems he need not come into a state of doubt or fear or darkness, and that (ordinarily at least) he will not, unless by ignorance and unfaithfulness. Yet it is true that the first joy does seldom last long, that it is commonly followed by doubts and fears, and that God usually permits very great heaviness before any large manifestation of himself. 

--Nick

This is adapted and copied from John Wesley: A Library of Protestant Thought (pg138).

(Maybe) My Favorite Sentence Summary of Scripture

The one true god of an obscure and cantankerous Middle Eastern people eventually, after numerous set backs and no small amount of suffering on the part of that people, overcomes the pagan empires that conspired against him for so long --

-- and the rest is history(1).

--Andrew Perriman

Thoughts?

--Nick

Footnote:

Hell and Heaven in Narrative Perspective, Loc56 (kindle)

Adam's Federal "Headship" in Romans 5

I more or less stole this from Allison.

According to Sarah Grimke, if Adam is the only one responsible for the fall, or sinned willingly (whereas Eve as deceived), why on earth should these be construed to give him (man) leadership over women? Dr. Payne writes on Egalitarianism and federal headship on his website. I found the following helpful (emphasis mine):

Don’t Stretch the Analogy Beyond Its Purpose

To read more into the analogy than Paul makes explicit is to risk substituting a private inference for the direct teaching of God’s Word…On p. 281 Cranfield highlights the point of the analogy: “Adam is only mentioned in order to bring out more clearly the nature of the work of Christ. The purpose of the comparison is to make clear the universal range of what Christ has done.”

Other Passages Focus on Eve’s Responsibility for the Fall

Paul writes in 2 Cor 11:3, “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” In 1 Tim 2:14-15 he writes, “the woman being thoroughly deceived and fell into transgression [lit: ‘has become in transgression’], but she will be saved through the Childbirth if they remain in faith and love and holiness with propriety [to counteract socially unacceptable behavior here just as in 1 Tim 2:9 (cf. Cor 11:3–16)].” The association of Eve with her descendents, as the equation of “she” with “they” requires, shows that her transgression affects them, and that her seed (Gen 3:15) crushes the serpent, Satan, and brings salvation to them through “the Childbirth.”

Genesis Holds Both Responsible

Since in Hebrew “Adam” identifies both the man in isolation and the man and the woman together in Gen 1:26-27, “let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule…,” and since it was the sin of both the woman and the man that led to the fall in Gen 3, and since God addresses both woman and man (in that order) stating the consequences of the fall, and since there is a corresponding plural contrasting God as “us” and man as “them,” it seems inescapable that Eve did participate in the fall and in its ultimate reversal through her seed.

“Mankind” not “Male”

One possibility is that Paul intended “one man” to refer to the Adam (singular) identified as “them” in Gen 1:26-27, as possibly indicated by Paul’s use of ἄνθρωπος rather than ἀνήρ. Paul may have chosen to use the word “Adam” because it is a singular name, even when used to designate the original couple, and so makes a more direct counterpart for the singular name, the one man (ἄνθρωπος, focusing on his humanity, not his being male), Jesus Christ in 5:15, who brings the opposite, salvation from that fall…It is not Adam or Christ as male that is highlighted here, but Christ as human, hence the use of ἄνθρωπος in “though one human being” rather than ἀνήρ, which Paul could have used if he had intended to specify man as male.

Payne also cautions that neither the terms “federal” or “headship” are used in this portion of Scripture concerning Adam. These are terms some of us are using to describe what we think the text means, not what the text says exactly. I would put the argument on par with universalism claiming their interpretation of the text.

--Nick

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rob Bell

I think the title may be my favorite part of this post.

Moving on.

I'm excited for this little book for three reasons. My first is that the hype will likely be less hyper and so maybe the book woill be more likely to be read without any sort of premature lens. Doubtful, but maybe. You have Peter Enns breaking down the video in his own way, with a brief critique of others here. For me, I think things are far less controversial this time, but with higher stakes.

My second reason is Rob is going deeper here than he did in Love Wins, in dealing with the doctrine of God. So higher stakes, but surprisingly, the controversy has been more along the lines of "don't worry about it, he's irrelevant." Which isn't necessarily a good or bad thing this time. I think many folks who were vocally upset with Bell this time are realizing that being vocal isn't a good thing.

Finally, I like the book cover. Love Wins didn't pop, but this one did.

As a brief appendix, I am inclined to think of the following: we ought to judge the trailer by it's own merits, and thus, Bell's book in the same way. If the trailer interests you, read the book in the same way you would see the movie. If the trailer doesn't interest you, read something else.

:)

--Nick

A Lovely George MacDonald Quote

"Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it."
--George MacDonald

Open Theism and Divine Foreknowledge, a musing

I was reading through Greg Boyd's superb essay in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views and again was impressed by the biblical case put forth. I've covered multiple verses and themes before here, so I won't dive back into that.

However, what bothered me were the other essays by Dave Hunt, William Lane Craig and Paul Helm. I am not opposed to philosophy and find the entire realm fascinating, like a kid watching a magician perform card tricks. However, this is where I find the open view of God far more compelling.

Frankly, it starts in Scripture. The text itself seems to speak in ways that suggest God being not only flexible but also willing to change His mind. The charge of anthropomorphisms is a side charge, even though the same folks that would make this charge would happily prescribe attributes and actions of God said in anthropomorphic terms ie God is mad, God punished etc.

I end this with a response Boyd made to R.C. Sproul, who famously claimed that "if there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose...then we have no gurantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled" (1).

Boyd said: "there is, I submit, no conceivably weaker view of divine sovereignty than one that is threatened by a single maverick molecule" (2).

--Nick

1. Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, pg43 n.23.

2. ibid.

Jeff Cook, "Beer Proves the Existence of God"

I'm still laughing.

Cook:

We know God exists because of great beer.

Don’t discount the Ontological argument just because you think you can imagine the perfect island. The ontological argument has real bite when you marry it with fine ales. Open your mind for a moment, and you may reply as Bertrand Russell once did, “Great God in boots!—the ontological argument is sound!”

Behold…

1. Beers that exist are greater than beers that do not exist, and as such existence is a great-making property.
2. If God exists, God is the greatest conceivable being.
3. Let’s assume the greatest conceivable being does not exist.
4. If (3) than there is something greater than the greatest conceivable being.
5. (4) is a contradiction, so (3) is false.

God exists and we know this because of great beers.

Contrary to Kant, every philosopher I know believes that beers that exist are greater than beers that do not exist. It would be offensive to humanity, the Rolling Stones, and your grandmother to deny Premise 1.

Because no philosopher actually believes a non-existent beer is equal in standing to one’s real beer of choice, “existence” is a great making property.

 For the original kephale.

--Nick

God and the Atheists that Love Him

Star Trek?

I've followed Alain for a while, and I confess I love the guy. I've read his works and listened to his talks, and I've found him most agreeable. I put him right up there with Austin Dacey and Bart Ehrman as my favorite skeptics. In essence, Alain's project is God without God.

Obviously as a Christian, I'm inclined to snicker a bit. Then I stop and think. A place where atheists can search for and through religion and maintain their view of God. Some may be annoyed at this, others angry at the idea of compromise.

And, sure.

But, I guess my gut tells me that to search in any direction towards truth is always something that intrigues me. I kinda love it.

What should the Christian response be to this?

For the original site, HERE.

--Nick

Micah Murray, "In the Beginning God"

 I'm glad Micah and I are friends.

Micah:

In the beginning, God.

Really, this is the perfect way to start. It’s easy to get caught up in all the details of the Bible and forget how it begins. Not as a theological dissertation. Not as a scientific revelation. Not as a book of rules. No, it’s a story. And it starts with God.

I love the idea that God is the beginning. That He was there before all of this, and that whatever we have now has somehow flowed out from Him. I think this applies to everything, really. The Bible, for sure. Human history also. Even my own life.

In the beginning, God.

I can’t imagine my story starting any other way. (It would be so terribly cold and lonely.) But this… this is hope. That before the opening credits, there He was.

It’s interesting how God chooses to describe Himself. Somehow even His own words don’t do Him justice. I suppose that makes sense; a Being that was there before the beginning probably couldn’t be contained by language. But we have glimpses, wrapped in mystery.

I am.

I have no idea what it means, other than that He was there at the beginning, and in the middle, and at the end. Somehow, all at once. There are more words too: Just. Holy. Merciful. Wise. (How could a force so powerful be so personal?) All these words circling around the mystery of God, like planets around a star. Just a glimpse.

And I have a feeling that while these words attempt to define God, really God is defining those words. After all, isn’t He the purest source and form of justice, holiness, mercy, wisdom? Isn’t He the beginning?

For the rest, please journey HERE.

--Nick

Jeff Cook, "Could Believing in God Harm Your Soul?

Cook:

Could Believing in God Harm Your Soul?

Throughout Christian history it has been common to judge those who do not believe in God as not simply unwise, but morally suspect. That if a person did not believe in God, this was not simply a cognitive conclusion; it was a mark against that person’s character. Yet I know many men and women who want God to exist, know far more about the philosophical arguments for God-belief than I do, yet fail to embrace theism. Such folks are by all accounts honest and often doing the best with what they have—and this is a puzzle.

Perhaps those of us who wrestle with God belief are actually in the precise place God desires us to be. Perhaps times of non-belief and the experience of God’s absence can have real value. That was my experience (which I chronicle here), it’s the experience of many I care about, and it is common experience in the Bible.

Do you think “believing in God” can be detrimental to faith, God-belief, the soul — as Jeff Cook explains this in the post? Can God-belief diminish desire for God?
 
God’s hiddenness points to the fact that God values our desires more than our beliefs. I have argued over the past month that wanting God to exist is more important than believing in God (here and here), because I hold that pursuits of the heart are more important than rational deductions and one’s ontology. Both are important of course, but I think there are good reasons for seeing reason as secondary. In my own experience, the material that moved me most in reconsidering God belief was all about desire and it came form a French mathematician named Blaise Pascal.

I can hear it now, “What, the wager guy?” If all you know of Pascal is the Wager Argument prepare to have your heart explode. I have placed some of the Pensees below in an order that I find compelling, and because Pascal’s quotes are so good I couldn’t help adding my reflections in brackets to push the argument. I would love to hear your thoughts, particularly from those of you who have trouble believing in God.

I love Jeff's writings and have followed him for the past few months. It is his honesty and passionate search for truth that I value most. I'm looking forward to reviewing his new book. You can finish the rest of this post HERE.

--Nick

"The Earth is Full of His Glory?"

Allison Quient:

Dr. Beitzel strikes again with some amazing insight into the Biblical text. Usually our Bibles translate Isa 6:3b as “All the earth is full of His glory,” but Beitzel speculates that this history of interpretation could have come from the later Greek translation of the Old Testament. However, is this the best translation? It all depends on how you take the word for fullness (mala). Usually we take it as a noun, but it can actually be translated as: “that which fills all the earth is His glory” (Inf Con).

What does this difference mean for the rest of the passage and theology? Some might immediately protest that this translation makes God’s glory dependant on man. However, I don’t see how this would be necessitated. God is personal and God is holy and He desires the holiness of His people. He desired the earth to be filled and Israel to be the light to the nations and entered into a covenant relationship with His people. This is His holy desire being fulfilled.

This translation makes more sense in the context of the rest of Isaiah. For instance, consider the grim description of death in v.12 and 13 and ch.7. Many people die and this is a sign of the covenant having been broken and God’s judgment in the land. God’s glory can be found when His people fill the land and His covenant is kept.

What does this understanding of Israel’s land and its people mean for the final restoration of all of the earth?

For the post, click HERE.

--Nick

The God Particle

This is completely fascinating.

Yahoo:

This is as big as the, well, big bang theory: Scientists working at the world's largest atom smasher say they have enough evidence of the long-sought-after Higgs boson.

To the layman, the Higgs boson is the "God particle" and a key puzzle piece in the scientific explanation of the origin of the universe. Physicists around the globe—and perhaps elsewhere, given the size of the universe—have invested billions of dollars in research and have been hunting for the Higgs boson for decades.

Researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN) are expected to announce Wednesday that they have proof of its existence, reports The Associated Press.

The Higgs boson appeared 13.7 billion years ago in the chaos of the Big Bang and turned the flying debris into galaxies, stars and planets.

Its formal discovery, according to a broad scientific consensus, would be the greatest advance in knowledge of the universe in decades and a key to confirming the standard model of physics that explains what gives mass to matter and, by extension, how the universe was formed, according to the AP.

Rutgers University physicist Matt Strassler told Reuters that without the particle, "nothing like human beings, or the earth we live on, could exist."

For the entire article, click HERE.

--Nick

Greg Boyd's "Godless Sermon"

Greg Boyd:

We’re not called to be big. We’re not called to be mass-marketing Jesus. We’re not called to have fancy churches. We’re not called to have high steeples. We’re not called to have soft pews. We’re not called to have great programs…

What we’re called to do is love.

Love is by definition, sacrificial.

It’s got to grieve the Lord to the core of his being when he sees… the American church… that is so up in other things. We’re to be followers of the Lord who said “If you don’t give up all your possessions, you can’t be my disciples”…

[Christians say they can't help because they have their own problems.] But what are the problems that so many American Christians think they have? Well, you look at what they do with their resources, that’s how you tell what their problems are. It’s the problems of upgrading your curtains! It’s the problem of upgrading your car! It’s the problem of finding bigger closet space because you’ve got too many clothes! It’s the problem of “I gotta get a job promotion; I want the best for my kids, and I gotta have this and I gotta have that and I’ve got my own problems. I gotta make house payments!”

…I think the Lord would say, “You’ve got the wrong set of problems! You’ve got the wrong set of problems.”

…But you say, “Greg, you can’t solve the world’s problems!”…

That’s true. You can’t.

But the Good Samaritan wasn’t trying to curb the crime rate in Jericho. There’s this one guy here in need, and he met that need.

You can’t solve the world’s problems, but maybe this person over here could use your friendship, and this person over here could be helped out by you…

Have you seen the movie Schindler’s List? Schindler was a man who bought about 6,000 Jews out of destruction by putting together a phony business… At the end of the war, when the Jews were freed, they came and thanked him and said, “Thank you, you’ve done so much.”

And Schindler began to cry. He says, “It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough!”

They said, “But you did so much!”

And he says, “But I could have done more! This watch – I could have bought three lives with this watch! … And this tie clasp – this would have been a life! And these shoes, how many lives are these shoes worth? And this car! How many lives was this car worth? Why didn’t I sell the car? I could have bought more lives! It wasn’t enough!”
And the question that the gospel… would put right in my face is this: “Who is paying a price for my curtains?”

This cuts right to the heart of the American dream. What else could I be doing with what I’ve got?

To listen to the entire sermon (17 minutes is roughly where the quote is), click HERE. 

It is well worth your time. 

--Nick

Countries According to Dis/Belief in God

I thought this was quite interesting.

Percent of residents who said they were certain of God's existence:

• Japan: 4.3 percent
• East Germany: 7.8 percent
• Sweden: 10.2
• Czech Republic: 11.1
• Denmark: 13.0
• Norway: 14.8
• France: 15.5
• Great Britain: 16.8
• The Netherlands: 21.2
• Austria: 21.4
• Latvia: 21.7
• Hungary: 23.5
• Slovenia: 23.6
• Australia: 24.9
• Switzerland: 25.0
• New Zealand: 26.4
• West Germany: 26.7
• Russia: 30.5
• Spain: 38.4
• Slovakia: 39.2
• Italy: 41.0
• Ireland: 43.2
• Northern Ireland: 45.6
• Portugal: 50.9
• Cyprus: 59.0
• United States: 60.6
• Poland: 62.0
• Israel: 65.5
• Chile: 79.4
• The Philippines: 83.6

Percent indicating atheism:

• East Germany: 52.1
• Czech Republic: 39.9
• France: 23.3
• The Netherlands: 19.7
• Sweden: 19.3
• Latvia: 18.3
• Great Britain: 18.0
• Denmark: 17.9
• Norway: 17.4
• Australia: 15.9
• Hungary: 15.2
• Slovenia: 13.2
• New Zealand: 12.6
• Slovakia: 11.7
• West Germany: 10.3
• Spain: 9.7
• Switzerland: 9.3
• Austria: 9.2
• Japan: 8.7
• Russia: 6.8
• Northern Ireland: 6.6
• Israel: 6.0
• Italy: 5.9
• Portugal: 5.1
• Ireland: 5.0
• Poland: 3.3
• United States: 3.0
• Chile: 1.9
• Cyprus: 1.9
• The Philippines: 0.7

For the rest, LIVE SCIENCE

--Nick

A Conversation with An Agnostic Dressed as a Beer Can

Most conversations about God happen in the dead of night, most often amidst points of inner apathy and impatience. I was hanging out with a close friend, ended up at his friend's house and decided to hang out by the car. His friend, whose name I cannot for the destiny of me remember, was dressed for halloween as a beer can. I kid you not.

It was around 1 in the morning. I was shivering outside, listening to Eminem. I don't know why I was, but it seemed important at the time. He came out and began to talk to me. As all conversations go, the topic switched from sex to God.

I don't remember much from the conversation, though it was both frank and without malice. He brought up reasons for doubting God's existence, I tried to answer, and it kept on going. I remember expressing doubts on some things as well, and that seemed to help him, though I can't give any specifics. 

A non-specific conversation about God. How often does that happen?

Anyway. Most of his friends were Christians and he asked if he could tell me something. I said sure. What he said next almost broke my heart. 

He was at a party, and he blatantly asked the Christians in the room if they had any good reasons for believing in God. They were either drunk or not interested. He then told me that if they had given him one reason to believe, he would've done so with his whole heart. He spoke as if each word were stuck in the center of his throat. I had and have no reason to doubt his conviction. 

That night, I hated Christians. 

I don't remember his name. I don't remember much about him, save for his costume. I remember that, if someone had given him an answer, he may have believed. Or he may not have. Who knows. I'm not certain that is my place to know.

What makes me sad is to know that there are honest people out there, searching for something. When we are given the chance to offer an opinion, we very easily do so with the force of a sledge hammer and forget we are dealing fragile people. 

I still think about him, and wish I had better answers. Or that I was a better listener. But I take comfort in hoping that he was heard. And I hope he and souls like him will be heard in the future. 

--Nick