I am a big fan of Richard Muller and accept his criticism of Jonathan Edwards. I now see where I might be wrong.
Did he commit the modal fallacy?
Did he commit the modal fallacy?
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Problem of Criterion as a theological key
How do you know? How do you know that you know? This is the problem of criterion, and far from being a technical point in epistemology, it is huge for theology and the life of the church. It runs like this:
How do we decide in any case whether we have knowledge in that case? What are the criteria of knowledge? (Moreland 2007, 123).
To risk a dangerous oversimplification, "How do we know that we know x?" Here is an example. If I tell someone that God gave me a word of knowledge, the cessationist will respond, "Yeah, but how do you know that was from God?"
If I say that I have the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit bearing witness that I am a child of God and destined for heaven, the anchorite will ask, "Yeah, but how do you know that without using your own subjective demon-inspired reason?"
It boils down to this: Before I can legitimately claim knowledge in these areas I must first satisfy the condition of knowing how I know. Seems fair enough and few people challenge this.
But there is a problem. Before I can know anything (say P, representing that I have the internum spiritum sanctum), I must know two other things: Q (my criterion for knowledge, which the critic seeks) and R (the fact that P satisfies Q). But there is no reason to stop here. One can now ask how I know Q and R, to which the new answer is Q' and R'. But now I have to give a reason for Q'' and R''. Further, I must now give a reason for Q''' and R'''.
Said another way: Before I can know, I must know how I know. Before I can know how I know, I must know how I know how I know. And on the nightmare goes.
Best just to dismiss the critic's question. But before that, let's give our own solution. We can start by knowing specific, clear items of knowledge. We can solve the problem of criterion by beginning with particular cases of knowledge and generalising to formulate a criterion for true belief. For example, while I know my faculty of reason can be faulty at times, I had to use the faculty of reason to write that sentence (assuming A = ~~A and that my terms meant what they meant). Using this reason I am able to read texts (and everyone will assume the text is clear at at least one level, otherwise why would you ever appeal to an opponent to read a text like 2 Peter 1:4?). This immediately falsifies the claim that I can't understand a text unless I am already in a community of text (no one seriously believes this when push comes to shove).
Moreland, J. P. Kingdom Triangle. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2007.
How do we decide in any case whether we have knowledge in that case? What are the criteria of knowledge? (Moreland 2007, 123).
To risk a dangerous oversimplification, "How do we know that we know x?" Here is an example. If I tell someone that God gave me a word of knowledge, the cessationist will respond, "Yeah, but how do you know that was from God?"
If I say that I have the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit bearing witness that I am a child of God and destined for heaven, the anchorite will ask, "Yeah, but how do you know that without using your own subjective demon-inspired reason?"
It boils down to this: Before I can legitimately claim knowledge in these areas I must first satisfy the condition of knowing how I know. Seems fair enough and few people challenge this.
But there is a problem. Before I can know anything (say P, representing that I have the internum spiritum sanctum), I must know two other things: Q (my criterion for knowledge, which the critic seeks) and R (the fact that P satisfies Q). But there is no reason to stop here. One can now ask how I know Q and R, to which the new answer is Q' and R'. But now I have to give a reason for Q'' and R''. Further, I must now give a reason for Q''' and R'''.
Said another way: Before I can know, I must know how I know. Before I can know how I know, I must know how I know how I know. And on the nightmare goes.
Best just to dismiss the critic's question. But before that, let's give our own solution. We can start by knowing specific, clear items of knowledge. We can solve the problem of criterion by beginning with particular cases of knowledge and generalising to formulate a criterion for true belief. For example, while I know my faculty of reason can be faulty at times, I had to use the faculty of reason to write that sentence (assuming A = ~~A and that my terms meant what they meant). Using this reason I am able to read texts (and everyone will assume the text is clear at at least one level, otherwise why would you ever appeal to an opponent to read a text like 2 Peter 1:4?). This immediately falsifies the claim that I can't understand a text unless I am already in a community of text (no one seriously believes this when push comes to shove).
Moreland, J. P. Kingdom Triangle. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2007.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Theological Pensee, no. 2
"Speech--God of Word, Act, and Promise and not the god of the ontologians."
We do not ascend a ladder to meet God. His Word descended and spoke to us (Romans 10). The above is not a criticism of metaphysics. Logical and metaphysical tools help us refine what we believe about God. We can even make a case for ontotheism if we were so inclined.
Rather, we are attacking chain of being.
We do not ascend a ladder to meet God. His Word descended and spoke to us (Romans 10). The above is not a criticism of metaphysics. Logical and metaphysical tools help us refine what we believe about God. We can even make a case for ontotheism if we were so inclined.
Rather, we are attacking chain of being.
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Where do angels and demons exist?
Angels and demons do not exist in the Bible. They exist in real life. We read about them in the Bible. We encounter them in real life.
Similarly, spiritual warfare happens in real life, not in a text. (Funny how conservative Christians become Derrideans at this point!) 2 Corinthians 10 isn't just saying we need to think Christianly (which we do). It is a spiritual warfare text.
Similarly, spiritual warfare happens in real life, not in a text. (Funny how conservative Christians become Derrideans at this point!) 2 Corinthians 10 isn't just saying we need to think Christianly (which we do). It is a spiritual warfare text.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh
weapons of our warfare not of the flesh
but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses
We are destroying speculations
AND every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God
AND we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ
AND we are ready to punish all disobedience
Whenever your obedience is complete
Pulling down of fortresses
One commentator writes, “The stronghold (or fortress) is the place where the devil and his forces are entrenched”. This isn’t too farfetched, I don’t think. Exactly what are we fighting? The New Testament is very clear that we are at war against dark forces. There is no way to demythologize it and still take the New Testament seriously.
Assuming we are at war, then we need to take the NT’s language seriously. It says part of our life as disciples is to attack strongholds. And this raises the question: “What’s the point of a fortress or stronghold?”
The Method of our Attack
If we are indeed called to pull down strongholds and fortresses, and we know that Paul doesn’t mean that against literal flesh-and-blood enemies, then we have to ask, “What will this attack look like?”
- Truth encounter (every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God)
- The Greek word for lofty thing is “hypsoma.” It means something like astrological ideas, cosmic powers, and power directed against God.
- Victory encounter (taking every thought captive)
How do you get a promise?
[1]
You can only get promises by means of words. Not pictures. Not adiaphora.
[2]
God also gives promises in bread and wine.
[3]
But you would only know that through Words.
[4]
We pray to the One who attaches promises to prayers.
[5]
How many times to the saints attach promises to prayers to them? Mary? Angels?
[6]
How many times does Jesus attach a promise?
You can only get promises by means of words. Not pictures. Not adiaphora.
[2]
God also gives promises in bread and wine.
[3]
But you would only know that through Words.
[4]
We pray to the One who attaches promises to prayers.
[5]
How many times to the saints attach promises to prayers to them? Mary? Angels?
[6]
How many times does Jesus attach a promise?
John of Damascus: Prolegomena
I read through Damascene's On the Orthodox Faith in 2009. At the time I had hyper-Palamite lenses on and really didn't let Damascene speak for himself. I am rereading him now, years and paradigms later. He's really quite interesting. Contrary to the neo-Palamite Orthodox today, he isn't afraid of "rationality" or using proofs for God's existence. In fact, he sounds VERY Aristotelian. To be fair, he does anticipate later Orthodox mysticism by calling God "hyper-ousia" (I.4).
Existence and Nature of God
He does use Scripture and does allude to the Fathers, but the main thrust of his argument is natural theology. His argument for God's existence is as follows:
(1) All things that exist are either created or uncreated.
(2) If created, then mutable and subject to change and perishing
(3) But things that are created must be the work of some Maker
Damascene anticipates the infinite regress rebuttal and handles it in an amusing (if not entirely convincing manner)
(4) "For if he had been created, he must have been created by someone, and so on until we arrive at something uncreated."
Perhaps not the most persuasive argument, but historically it is very telling. The holy fathers were not averse to using "logic," even logic apart from Scriptural and Patristic considerations, to prove points about God.
Damascene follows standard Patristic and classical usage in that the nature of God is incomprehensible.
(5) His essence is unknowable
How then can we speak about God? In what sounds like a later Palamite move, John says, "God does not show forth his nature, but the qualities of his nature" (1.4). Is this the same thing as saying "We can't know God's nature but only his energies"? Not quite. John does not use any of the cognates of energein.
A note on apophaticism
If we say, as John does, that God is not "darkness," but above darkness. Not light, but above light--why can't we carry it through and say "God is not love, but above love." God is not a, b...z. If God is above every reference point, then how can we truly predicate anything of him? We are no longer using analogous language but equivocal language.
Pre-Notes on the Word
He doesn't deal with Christology until Book 3 but he gives short comments here.
(6) God always possesses his Word, proceeding from and existing within Himself (I.6).
John reasons analogously from our words proceeding from our minds, and is not identical with mind but not separate from it, so the Word has its subsistence from God. Probably not the best analogy in the world.
(7) If a Word, then the force of the Word, which is the Spirit (1.7).
God and Being
(8) God is outside of being, yet the fountain of all being (I.8).
Along with this John gives the classic summary that God is one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, and one energy.
John then gives a classic summary of the Trinity, but I want to highlight one point:
(9) "Whenever we say God is the origin of and greater than the Son, we mean in respect of causation."
Here is the problem: Isn't a cause different in substance to an effect?
Back to Divine Attributes
(5*) Goodness et al belong to the nature but do not explain it.
What does that even mean?
(5') We do not apprehend the essence itself, but only the attributes of the essence.
Will this hold water?
Angelic Personalities
(10) Angels are not spatial entities, but a mental presence and energy.
This is quite interesting and is backed up by numerous accounts of spiritual warfare. An angel cannot be in more than one place at one time ("cannot energize two different places at the same time").
Existence and Nature of God
He does use Scripture and does allude to the Fathers, but the main thrust of his argument is natural theology. His argument for God's existence is as follows:
(1) All things that exist are either created or uncreated.
(2) If created, then mutable and subject to change and perishing
(3) But things that are created must be the work of some Maker
Damascene anticipates the infinite regress rebuttal and handles it in an amusing (if not entirely convincing manner)
(4) "For if he had been created, he must have been created by someone, and so on until we arrive at something uncreated."
Perhaps not the most persuasive argument, but historically it is very telling. The holy fathers were not averse to using "logic," even logic apart from Scriptural and Patristic considerations, to prove points about God.
Damascene follows standard Patristic and classical usage in that the nature of God is incomprehensible.
(5) His essence is unknowable
How then can we speak about God? In what sounds like a later Palamite move, John says, "God does not show forth his nature, but the qualities of his nature" (1.4). Is this the same thing as saying "We can't know God's nature but only his energies"? Not quite. John does not use any of the cognates of energein.
A note on apophaticism
If we say, as John does, that God is not "darkness," but above darkness. Not light, but above light--why can't we carry it through and say "God is not love, but above love." God is not a, b...z. If God is above every reference point, then how can we truly predicate anything of him? We are no longer using analogous language but equivocal language.
Pre-Notes on the Word
He doesn't deal with Christology until Book 3 but he gives short comments here.
(6) God always possesses his Word, proceeding from and existing within Himself (I.6).
John reasons analogously from our words proceeding from our minds, and is not identical with mind but not separate from it, so the Word has its subsistence from God. Probably not the best analogy in the world.
(7) If a Word, then the force of the Word, which is the Spirit (1.7).
God and Being
(8) God is outside of being, yet the fountain of all being (I.8).
Along with this John gives the classic summary that God is one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, and one energy.
John then gives a classic summary of the Trinity, but I want to highlight one point:
(9) "Whenever we say God is the origin of and greater than the Son, we mean in respect of causation."
Here is the problem: Isn't a cause different in substance to an effect?
Back to Divine Attributes
(5*) Goodness et al belong to the nature but do not explain it.
What does that even mean?
(5') We do not apprehend the essence itself, but only the attributes of the essence.
Will this hold water?
Angelic Personalities
(10) Angels are not spatial entities, but a mental presence and energy.
This is quite interesting and is backed up by numerous accounts of spiritual warfare. An angel cannot be in more than one place at one time ("cannot energize two different places at the same time").
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Read Between the Comments
Orthodox Bridge only approves about half of my comments, and the ones they do approve are always approved later and I rarely find the comments to them and it’s just so unwieldy. So I put them here. The paragraphs preceded by asterisks are those responding to me. My comments are in normal formatting.
***I’m interested to know what you are persuaded is the judge of truth?***
Better phrased: what is the *final* judge of truth? Before I answer that we need to get clear on the question. There can be numerous, subordinate, yet legitimate judges of truth (such as history, logic, the church–gasp!) which are not the final judge, which would be God’s Speech.
***I think this is what Robert is getting at when he points out the relative “novelty” of the Reformed tradition. Is this not your “judge of truth?” If it is not, are you the judge of truth? How many hard sciences and proofs need to converge for you to have faith in Christ’s work in the Church?***
I am not Reformed, but to continue with the question: yes, there is a subjective aspect to all of truth-judgments (not to truth itself). Everyone does it. You did it when you subjectively evaluated EO.
***You are right, antiquity IS NOT the only judge. But it seems that you are willing to be the ultimate judge of ANY evidence and .***
I am a subordinate judge of truth, as are we all. Otherwise, why bother?
***pick and choose what you’d like to acknowledge and dismiss based on it’ consistency with your worldview***
You would need to provide evidence.
***Nearly all of us here have been in your shoes. I certainly have. I understand where you are coming from. I used to walk into Orthodox Churches in Bulgaria and mutter under my breath, “pagans.” Then I’d go pick up Institutes and placate my own predilections.***
Please don’t patronize me. trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve spent years looking into this. I’ve lost friends forever because they thought I was leaving Protestantism. Even now, they refuse to talk to me.
***but my point is that many of us (Karen, Robert, me) have wrestled with the same cognitive dissonance you are and have had to challenge our own self will and our own limits to faith***
That is fideism.
***There comes a point when you must realize that the obstacle is not the evidence, but who it is you think is the proper judge of truth. If you reserve that right for yourself…so be it. But do so with full understanding of who and what it is you trust in.***
The mormon apologists I debated told me the same thing. Anyway, you made a decision based on your understanding of the relevant factors to enter EO. That is no different than what I am doing. You just don’t like my conclusions.
---------------
Hi John Doe
***Antiquity per se is not a particularly cogent epistemology. ***
Agreed. Otherwise the truth would belong to Hinduism.
***However, the Vincentian Canon is: that which was believed “everywhere, always, by everyone”.*
Vincent also thought the imputation and continuation of Adam’s Guilt was believed by everyone.
***We know that prayers to Mary were widely employed by Christians from India to Iberia in later centuries. That such an early prayer can be found lends credence to the belief that prayers to saints were part of the Apostolic deposit.***
Thank you. This is the classic example of affirming the consequent:
If this, then that.
That.
Therefore, this.
(THIS IS ORTHODOX APOLOGETICS’ FATAL MOMENT. HERE FALLS THEIR ENTIRE ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY. I HONESTLY FEEL LIKE I CAN CLAIM VICTORY)
***It also shows that the Church that determined the New Testament Canon also believed in petitioning the saints in prayer.***
What exactly are you trying to prove? If you mean that the “church” proximately determined the table of contents page in my Bible and *some* of these same guys also petitioned saints, then I don’t disagree.
If you take that proximate recognition as on the same level as God’s speech-act, and that those later witnesses (valuable fathers that they are) are on the same level as the Scriptural writers who warned not to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, then I demur.
-------------
Hi Erik,
My moniker is that I believe in posting under my name. I’ve seen too many people “go crazy” under the protection of an anonymous avatar. See the Mark Driscoll fiasco.
***Does he who formulates a canon need to be infallible?***
No.
***In such case, how can you accept the Athanasian Canon of the New Testament? Athenasius believed in prayers to the saints, so by your reasoning, these are either licit, or his NT canon is not.***
One of my comments will surprise you. First of all, canonical discussions are far wider than Athanasius. Secondly, I believe the NT *canon*–formulated as canon–is fallible. The table of contents page in my bible is fallible and open to falsification. That has always been the Protestant position (though most Protestants have forgotten it).
------------------------
David and Erik,
My point RE Adam’s guilt is that Vincent is a two-edged sword. The very guy you guys go to for doctrinal unity taught something you do not believe and he said that was always taught by the church.
Vincent writes,
“Who ever before his monstrous disciple Cœlestius denied that the whole human race is involved in the guilt of Adam’s sin?”
24.62
***Do you seriously believe Robert is arguing that Antiquity is the SOLE judge of Truth?**
No, but it seems like antiquity is being asked to carry a lot of weight.
*** course, there is specific Scriptural verification for Holy Tradition, as I sketched quickly above, also referencing Robert’s excellent blog article above “The Biblical Case for Holy Tradition”.***
I’ve seen it. I believe it commits the affirming the consequent fallacy, but that’s probably not the most germane point at the moment.
**But the Reformed often ask for some confirmation from history for Orthodox practices & Holy Tradition. That’s what you have here. Historic confirma-tion of Holy Tradition. **
Sure, but historic confirmation (like all forms of belief) comes in degrees, and this is not the same thing as a quote from Paul saying burn incense to the Queen of Heaven.
***There are also Ecc. Councils confirming Holy Tradition by hundreds if not thousands of Bishops convocating in counsel with each other to specifically discern what the Holy Spirit has taught the Church in past centuries.***
Sure, but even those decisions do not begin to cover the gamut of doctrine and practice today, as any Old Believer or Old Calendarist will tell you.
***But this is not the case with Prayers to the Saints and Mary for intercession to her Son. You have just the opposite…a consistent pattern, practice and believe throughout the Church which is confirmed by Church Councils.***
Notice I am not disagreeing with you, per se. I am simply examining the belief. Earlier I said that belief comes in degrees (or is strong or weak in varying degrees). The earlier you get the less specific the belief is.
Karen says:
I’m convinced there is nothing humans do that is completely passive. None of us (even from birth) are a tabula rasa on which our experiences just imprint themselves. God installs some hardwiring there first that makes us active processors and decision-makers from the get-go.
J. B. Aitken says:Your comment is awaiting moderation.
May 7, 2015 at 12:22 pm
If I said stuff like that about you, my post wouldn’t be approved.
Yes, I understand how the brain works (interesting that you collapsed mind into brain), but I use “passive” in the sense of how 100.00% of studies on the brain use it.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
*** you are implicitly honoring and “praying to Mary” (and all the Saints) as Orthodox understand this as well.***
that’s begging the question, but otherwise kind of you to say so.
***I’m not convinced if you were to pray to *God* in the sense you understand prayer to Mary, you wouldn’t also be sinning (at least potentially) to be quite honest***
I wouldn’t be, because God attaches a promise to prayers to him, so I can approach him by faith. Since there is no promise attached to prayers to Mary, I cannot approach that with faith–“anything not of faith is sin” and all.
***God is not a divine vending machine, nor a genie to grant our wishes. ***
While that is a straw man, almost all of the prayers in Scripture are petitionary.
***God knows what we need before we ask, so the real purpose of prayer must be to come to know God more fully and in the process come to also more genuinely know ourselves.***
That’s a nice sentiment but not germane to the discussion.
***You cannot worship God rightly in the sense of including everything which goes to make up a fully orthodox Christian corporate liturgy without including prayers to Mary and the Saints.***
Thank you. That finally answered my question.
Monday, May 4, 2015
But how did you *know* know he was a saint?
Rome has their own view of "knowing" whether a departed person is truly a saint. Whether that holds water or not, it's not my concern here.
The East will advance the following claims:
(1) We cannot know someone's final salvation.
(2) We know that the saints are saved (otherwise, how could they hear our prayers)
How do we alleviate the above contradiction? How does the church make/recognize a saint?
Given premise (1), how does the church *know* the man is now a saint? Presumably before he was recognized as a saint, the church couldn't be sure of his final salvation, but now they are? How did that happen?
(3) The saint just "happened."
This begs the question. I suppose they could answer by saying
(4) Saints appear within the life and practice of the church. Through the church's doxastic practices we recognize that this individual was indeed a saint.
That's a better response and it almost works. What it boils down to is this:
(4*) He is a saint because we recognize him as such through our worship practices.
While the position is clearer now than it was at the beginning of the post, I am not sure how this really advances the argument. We will have the problem of (1). What changed in the situation between (1) and (4*)? I don't see how we aren't left with the conclusion:
(5) He becomes a saint by our wishing it were so.
This is absurd, but I suppose one could bolster it with Jesus's promise that
(5*) the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth. AND
(5**) That means we can be sure that our practice is right.
But this sentence divorced from any external, verifiable standard can prove anything and worse, it's ad hoc.
Therefore, I challenge premise (1)
(~1) The Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God.
The East will advance the following claims:
(1) We cannot know someone's final salvation.
(2) We know that the saints are saved (otherwise, how could they hear our prayers)
How do we alleviate the above contradiction? How does the church make/recognize a saint?
Canonization does not make anybody a saint. Canonization recognizes that someone already was, in his own lifetime, a saint....Rather, it establishes the fact, publically and for all to see, that the man is already a saint -- that is, that the holy man and God have so cooperated together at every level of the man's existence that the man has become, by grace, a god, just as God Himself is God by nature.
Given premise (1), how does the church *know* the man is now a saint? Presumably before he was recognized as a saint, the church couldn't be sure of his final salvation, but now they are? How did that happen?
(3) The saint just "happened."
This begs the question. I suppose they could answer by saying
(4) Saints appear within the life and practice of the church. Through the church's doxastic practices we recognize that this individual was indeed a saint.
That's a better response and it almost works. What it boils down to is this:
(4*) He is a saint because we recognize him as such through our worship practices.
While the position is clearer now than it was at the beginning of the post, I am not sure how this really advances the argument. We will have the problem of (1). What changed in the situation between (1) and (4*)? I don't see how we aren't left with the conclusion:
(5) He becomes a saint by our wishing it were so.
This is absurd, but I suppose one could bolster it with Jesus's promise that
(5*) the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth. AND
(5**) That means we can be sure that our practice is right.
But this sentence divorced from any external, verifiable standard can prove anything and worse, it's ad hoc.
Therefore, I challenge premise (1)
(~1) The Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God.
Sunday, May 3, 2015
On prayers to Mary
Orthodox Bridge usually doesn't approve my posts, so I copied/pasted it here.
Not outright disagreeing, but several observations and/or questions:
1) Reformed do not say the church was corrupted to that extent. We've gone over this several times.
2) We presume that Mary has a human body and human nature in heaven. We are just wondering how she can have nigh-omniscience and nigh-omnipotence with several hundred million people praying to her at once.
3) I assume you accept the Dormition of Mary. If you don't, then my objections in (2) don't apply. In that case Mary, being a disembodied soul, probably could be in two places at once since she isn' t limited by the body.
4) But in that case, the final resurrection would limit her bodily, which seems to be a throwback to chain of being ontology.
4) We do not have a promise from God attached to prayers to Mary; therefore, we would be praying without being sure she hears us. Therefore, we would be praying without faith.
Not outright disagreeing, but several observations and/or questions:
1) Reformed do not say the church was corrupted to that extent. We've gone over this several times.
2) We presume that Mary has a human body and human nature in heaven. We are just wondering how she can have nigh-omniscience and nigh-omnipotence with several hundred million people praying to her at once.
3) I assume you accept the Dormition of Mary. If you don't, then my objections in (2) don't apply. In that case Mary, being a disembodied soul, probably could be in two places at once since she isn' t limited by the body.
4) But in that case, the final resurrection would limit her bodily, which seems to be a throwback to chain of being ontology.
4) We do not have a promise from God attached to prayers to Mary; therefore, we would be praying without being sure she hears us. Therefore, we would be praying without faith.
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Does theonomy really cause Federal Vision?
The answer is "kind of." True, there is no explicit connection between theonomy and federal vision theology. However, in both you see a marginalization of Reformed theological sources. If you see theonomists quote older theologians like Warfield or whomever, it is mainly for Warfield's postmillennialism or some comment on civil ethics. Rarely is it on the gospel.
But if you push a theonomist in the corner, they will affirm (usually) justification by free grace. But why did it take so long to get there?
It comes down to this: both are suspicious of post-Calvin sources of Reformed theology. Both see the period from Beza until Kuyper as one of philosophical compromise. Ironically, this is Karl Barth's thesis. Both accidentally erode the foundations of Reformed thought.
But if you push a theonomist in the corner, they will affirm (usually) justification by free grace. But why did it take so long to get there?
It comes down to this: both are suspicious of post-Calvin sources of Reformed theology. Both see the period from Beza until Kuyper as one of philosophical compromise. Ironically, this is Karl Barth's thesis. Both accidentally erode the foundations of Reformed thought.
Monday, April 27, 2015
The one thing that scared me about the desert fathers
They offer many good insights on prayer and the soul, but if you take out "Jesus" you get pure and simple Buddhism.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Tongues-Speak as Rebellion: Review of James Smith's Thinking in Tongues
Thesis: Pentecostal worldview offers a distinct way of being-in-the-world (Smith 25). Embodied practices carry within them a “tacit understanding” (27).
Is a Pentecostal Philosophy Possible?
Much of the chapter deals with the relationship between theology and philosophy. The difference is one of field, not “faith basis” (Smith 4). Smith gives us Five Aspects of a Pentecostal Philosophy:
1. radical openness to God, or God’s doing something fresh.
2. An “enchanted” theology of creation and culture. Smith means that we see reality not as self-enclosed monads, but realizing that principalities and powers are often behind these. this entails spiritual warfare. I cringe at terms like “enchanted” because it’s more postmodern non-speak, but Smith (likely inadvertently) connected “enchanted” with demons, which is correct.
3. A nondualistic affirmation of embodiment and spirituality. Smith defines “dualism” as not denigrating materiality. Fewer and fewer Christians today do this, so I am not sure whom his target is. Even chain-of-being communions like Rome that officially denigrate embodiment say they really don’t mean it.
4. Affective, narrative epistemology.
5. Eschatological orientation towards mission and justice.
God’s Surprise
Some hermeneutics: Smith rightly notes that “The Last Days” (per Acts 2) is connected with “today” ( 22; we accept this model in eschatology but abandon it in pneumatology). Smith wryly notes that Acts 2:13 is the first proto-Daniel Dennett hermeneutics: offering a naturalistic explanation for inexplicable phenomena (23).
Following Martin Heidegger, Smith suggests two kinds of knowing: wissen and verstehen, justified, true belief and understanding. The latter is tacit and is at the edges of conscious action.
Per the dis-enchanted cosmos, Smith astutely points out that “There is a deep sense that multiple modes of oppression--from illness to poverty--are in some way the work of forces that are not just natural” (41). In other words, spiritual warfare assumes a specific, non-reductionist cosmology.
Promising Suggestions
“What characterizes narrative knowledge?” (65)
a connection between narrative and emotions
Narratives work in an affective manner
The emotions worked are themselves already construals of the world
There is a “fit” between narrative and emotion
There is a good section on Pauline-pneumatological accounts of knowing (68ff). Anticipating Dooyeweerd, Paul critiques the pretended autonomy of theoretical thought (Rom. 1:21-31; 1 Cor. 1:18-2:16) and that the Spirit grants access to the message as “true.”
While I found his chapter on epistemology inadequate, he does say that we know from the “heart” as embodied, rational beings (58). This isn’t new to postmodernism, but is standard Patristic epistemology.
A Pentecostal Ontology
This section could have been interesting. Smith wants to argue that pentecostalism sees an open ontology that allows the Spirit to move from within nature, rather than a miracle that is “tacked on” to nature from the outside. He makes this argument because he wants pentecostalism to line up with the insights from Radical Orthodoxy.
I have between 50-75 pentecostal relatives who “embody pentecostal spirituality.” I promise you that none of them think like this or are even capable of thinking like that. I do not disparge them, simply because I am not to sure Smith’s project at this point is really coherent. He wants to reject methodological naturalism (rightly) but argues for his own version of supernatural naturalism.
If Smith is successful, then he can show that pentecostalism lines up with quantum mechanics. Okay. Thus, nature is “en-Spirited” (103). While I have problems with his “suspended materiality” ontology, Smith makes some interesting points: miracles are not “add-ons.” They are not anti-nature, since “nature is not a discrete, autonomous entity” (104).
Tongues
We are considering “tongue-speech” as a liminal case in the philosophy of language (122). Exegetical discussions are important (and ultimately determinative), but we can’t enter them here. Smith wants to argue that tongues (T₁) resists our current categories of language and emerges as resistance to cultural norms. I think there is something to that.
T₁ as Phenomenology
There is a difference between signs as expression (Ausdruck) and those that do not mean anything (indications, Anzeigen). Ausdruck is important as it means something, whereas Anzeigen serves as a pointer (127, Smith is following E. Husserl). Husserl even notes that there can be signs that are not Ausdrucken nor Anzeigen. This turns on the question: can signs which do not express anything nor point to anything be modes of communication?
As many critics of Husserl note, his account of speech links communication with intention, so he has to answer “no” to the above question. Or maybe so. What kind of speech can there be that is not bound up with inter-subjective indication? Husserl (and Augustine!) suggest the interior mental life. Thus, signs in this case would not point to what is absent.
Tongues as Speech-Act Attack
Utterances (of any sort) are performative. While such utterance-acts do convey thoughts, sometimes their intent is far more. Let’s take tongues-speak as ecstatic, private language. What does the pray-er mean to do? We can easily point to an illocutionary act of praying in groans too deep for words. We can also see a perlocutionary act: God should act in response.
Tongues as Politics
Oh boy. Smith wants to say that tongues is a speech-act against the powers that be. I like that. I really do. I just fear that Smith is going to mislocate the powers. He begins by drawing upon neo-Marxist insights (147). However, without kowtowing fully to Marx, he does point out that Marx has yielded the historical stage to the Holy Ghost.
Tongues-speech begins as “the language of the dispossessed” (149). This, too, is a valid sociological insight. The chapter ends without Smith endorsing Marxism, which I expected him to do. While we are on a charismatic high, I will exercise my spiritual gift of Discerning the Spirits.” The reason that many 3rd World Pentecostals are “dispossessed” is because they are in countries whose leaders serve the demonic principality of Marxist-Socialism. Let’s attack that first before we get on the fashionable anti-capitalism bandwagon.
Possible Criticisms
*Smith, as is usual with most postmodernists, gets on the “narrative” bandwagon. There’s a place for that, but I think narrative is asked to carry more than it can bear. In any case, it is undeniable that Pentecostals are good storytellers. Smith wants to tie this in with epistemology, but he omits any discussion from Thomas Reid concerning testimony as basic belief, which would have strengthened his case.
Smith (rightly) applauds J. P. Moreland’s recent embrace of kingdom power, but accuses Moreland of still being a “rationalist” (6 n14, 13n26). Precisely how is Moreland wrong and what is the concrete alternative? Smith criticizes the rationalist project as “‘thinking’ on a narrow register of calculation and deduction” (54). Whom is he criticizing: Christians or non-Christians? It’s not clear, and in any case Moreland has come under fire for saying there are extra-biblical, non-empirical sources of knowledge and reality (angels, demons, etc).
Smith then argues that all rationalities are em-bodied rationalities. That’s fine. I don’t think this threatens a Reidian/Warrant view of knowledge. Perhaps it does threaten K=JTB. I don’t know, since Smith doesn’t actually make the argument. Smith makes a good argument on the “heart’s role” in knowing, yet Moreland himself has a whole chapter on knowing and healing from the heart in The Lost Virtue of Happiness (Moreland 2006).
Smith elsewhere identifies aspects of rationality as the logics of “power, scarcity, and consumption,” (84) but I can’t think of a serious philosopher who actually espouses this.
Elsewhere, Smith says Christian philosophy should be “Incarnational” and not simply theistic (11). What does that even mean? Does it simply mean “Begin with Jesus”? Does it mean undergirding ontology with the Incarnation, per Col. 1:17? That’s actually quite promising, but I don’t think Smith means that, either. So what does he mean?
Is Smith a coherentist? I think he is. He hints at good criticisms of secularism, but points out “that the practices and plausibility structures that sustain pentecostal (or Reformed or Catholic or Baptist or Moonie--JBA) have their own sort of ‘logic’,” a logic that allows Christians to play, too (35). But even if coherentism holds--and I grant that Smith’s account is likely true, it doesn’t prove coherentism is true. All coherentism can prove is doxastic relations among internal beliefs, but not whether these beliefs are true. Of course, Smith would probably say I am a rationalist.
In his desire to affirm materiality, Smith seems to say that any religious materiality is a good materiality. Smith approvingly notes of Felicite’s clinging to feasts and relics (36). It’s hard to see how any one “Materiality” could be bad on Smith’s account. But this bad account is juxtaposed with some good observations on the book of Acts (38) and tries to connect the two.
*Smith says that “postmodernism takes race, class, and gender seriously” because it takes the body seriously (60). This is 100% false. If facebook is a true incarnation (!) of postmodernity, may I ask how many “gender/sexual preference” options facebook has? I rest my case.
*Smith waxes eloquently on the Pentecostal “aesthetic” (80ff), which is basically a repeat of his other works, but one must ask, “How does faith come per Romans 10?”
*Smith doesn’t miss an opportunity to criticize “rationalism” for separating beliefs and faith/practice, yet Smith himself seems mighty critical of those who focus on “beliefs” in their philosophy of religion (111). Smith's attack seems ironically dualistic. Sure, most post-Descartes philosophy of religion is overly intellectual, but I do think the Reidian/Reformed Epistemology model, if wedded to Dabney’s Practical Philosophy, integrates belief and faith-practice.
It goes back to our doctrine of the soul. The soul includes both mind and will. You really can’t isolate them. Unmasking this was Dabney’s genius in Practical Philosophy (Sprinkle Publishing), pp. 3ff.
Is a Pentecostal Philosophy Possible?
Much of the chapter deals with the relationship between theology and philosophy. The difference is one of field, not “faith basis” (Smith 4). Smith gives us Five Aspects of a Pentecostal Philosophy:
1. radical openness to God, or God’s doing something fresh.
2. An “enchanted” theology of creation and culture. Smith means that we see reality not as self-enclosed monads, but realizing that principalities and powers are often behind these. this entails spiritual warfare. I cringe at terms like “enchanted” because it’s more postmodern non-speak, but Smith (likely inadvertently) connected “enchanted” with demons, which is correct.
3. A nondualistic affirmation of embodiment and spirituality. Smith defines “dualism” as not denigrating materiality. Fewer and fewer Christians today do this, so I am not sure whom his target is. Even chain-of-being communions like Rome that officially denigrate embodiment say they really don’t mean it.
4. Affective, narrative epistemology.
5. Eschatological orientation towards mission and justice.
God’s Surprise
Some hermeneutics: Smith rightly notes that “The Last Days” (per Acts 2) is connected with “today” ( 22; we accept this model in eschatology but abandon it in pneumatology). Smith wryly notes that Acts 2:13 is the first proto-Daniel Dennett hermeneutics: offering a naturalistic explanation for inexplicable phenomena (23).
Following Martin Heidegger, Smith suggests two kinds of knowing: wissen and verstehen, justified, true belief and understanding. The latter is tacit and is at the edges of conscious action.
Per the dis-enchanted cosmos, Smith astutely points out that “There is a deep sense that multiple modes of oppression--from illness to poverty--are in some way the work of forces that are not just natural” (41). In other words, spiritual warfare assumes a specific, non-reductionist cosmology.
Promising Suggestions
“What characterizes narrative knowledge?” (65)
a connection between narrative and emotions
Narratives work in an affective manner
The emotions worked are themselves already construals of the world
There is a “fit” between narrative and emotion
There is a good section on Pauline-pneumatological accounts of knowing (68ff). Anticipating Dooyeweerd, Paul critiques the pretended autonomy of theoretical thought (Rom. 1:21-31; 1 Cor. 1:18-2:16) and that the Spirit grants access to the message as “true.”
While I found his chapter on epistemology inadequate, he does say that we know from the “heart” as embodied, rational beings (58). This isn’t new to postmodernism, but is standard Patristic epistemology.
A Pentecostal Ontology
This section could have been interesting. Smith wants to argue that pentecostalism sees an open ontology that allows the Spirit to move from within nature, rather than a miracle that is “tacked on” to nature from the outside. He makes this argument because he wants pentecostalism to line up with the insights from Radical Orthodoxy.
I have between 50-75 pentecostal relatives who “embody pentecostal spirituality.” I promise you that none of them think like this or are even capable of thinking like that. I do not disparge them, simply because I am not to sure Smith’s project at this point is really coherent. He wants to reject methodological naturalism (rightly) but argues for his own version of supernatural naturalism.
If Smith is successful, then he can show that pentecostalism lines up with quantum mechanics. Okay. Thus, nature is “en-Spirited” (103). While I have problems with his “suspended materiality” ontology, Smith makes some interesting points: miracles are not “add-ons.” They are not anti-nature, since “nature is not a discrete, autonomous entity” (104).
Tongues
We are considering “tongue-speech” as a liminal case in the philosophy of language (122). Exegetical discussions are important (and ultimately determinative), but we can’t enter them here. Smith wants to argue that tongues (T₁) resists our current categories of language and emerges as resistance to cultural norms. I think there is something to that.
T₁ as Phenomenology
There is a difference between signs as expression (Ausdruck) and those that do not mean anything (indications, Anzeigen). Ausdruck is important as it means something, whereas Anzeigen serves as a pointer (127, Smith is following E. Husserl). Husserl even notes that there can be signs that are not Ausdrucken nor Anzeigen. This turns on the question: can signs which do not express anything nor point to anything be modes of communication?
As many critics of Husserl note, his account of speech links communication with intention, so he has to answer “no” to the above question. Or maybe so. What kind of speech can there be that is not bound up with inter-subjective indication? Husserl (and Augustine!) suggest the interior mental life. Thus, signs in this case would not point to what is absent.
Tongues as Speech-Act Attack
Utterances (of any sort) are performative. While such utterance-acts do convey thoughts, sometimes their intent is far more. Let’s take tongues-speak as ecstatic, private language. What does the pray-er mean to do? We can easily point to an illocutionary act of praying in groans too deep for words. We can also see a perlocutionary act: God should act in response.
Tongues as Politics
Oh boy. Smith wants to say that tongues is a speech-act against the powers that be. I like that. I really do. I just fear that Smith is going to mislocate the powers. He begins by drawing upon neo-Marxist insights (147). However, without kowtowing fully to Marx, he does point out that Marx has yielded the historical stage to the Holy Ghost.
Tongues-speech begins as “the language of the dispossessed” (149). This, too, is a valid sociological insight. The chapter ends without Smith endorsing Marxism, which I expected him to do. While we are on a charismatic high, I will exercise my spiritual gift of Discerning the Spirits.” The reason that many 3rd World Pentecostals are “dispossessed” is because they are in countries whose leaders serve the demonic principality of Marxist-Socialism. Let’s attack that first before we get on the fashionable anti-capitalism bandwagon.
Possible Criticisms
*Smith, as is usual with most postmodernists, gets on the “narrative” bandwagon. There’s a place for that, but I think narrative is asked to carry more than it can bear. In any case, it is undeniable that Pentecostals are good storytellers. Smith wants to tie this in with epistemology, but he omits any discussion from Thomas Reid concerning testimony as basic belief, which would have strengthened his case.
Smith (rightly) applauds J. P. Moreland’s recent embrace of kingdom power, but accuses Moreland of still being a “rationalist” (6 n14, 13n26). Precisely how is Moreland wrong and what is the concrete alternative? Smith criticizes the rationalist project as “‘thinking’ on a narrow register of calculation and deduction” (54). Whom is he criticizing: Christians or non-Christians? It’s not clear, and in any case Moreland has come under fire for saying there are extra-biblical, non-empirical sources of knowledge and reality (angels, demons, etc).
Smith then argues that all rationalities are em-bodied rationalities. That’s fine. I don’t think this threatens a Reidian/Warrant view of knowledge. Perhaps it does threaten K=JTB. I don’t know, since Smith doesn’t actually make the argument. Smith makes a good argument on the “heart’s role” in knowing, yet Moreland himself has a whole chapter on knowing and healing from the heart in The Lost Virtue of Happiness (Moreland 2006).
Smith elsewhere identifies aspects of rationality as the logics of “power, scarcity, and consumption,” (84) but I can’t think of a serious philosopher who actually espouses this.
Elsewhere, Smith says Christian philosophy should be “Incarnational” and not simply theistic (11). What does that even mean? Does it simply mean “Begin with Jesus”? Does it mean undergirding ontology with the Incarnation, per Col. 1:17? That’s actually quite promising, but I don’t think Smith means that, either. So what does he mean?
Is Smith a coherentist? I think he is. He hints at good criticisms of secularism, but points out “that the practices and plausibility structures that sustain pentecostal (or Reformed or Catholic or Baptist or Moonie--JBA) have their own sort of ‘logic’,” a logic that allows Christians to play, too (35). But even if coherentism holds--and I grant that Smith’s account is likely true, it doesn’t prove coherentism is true. All coherentism can prove is doxastic relations among internal beliefs, but not whether these beliefs are true. Of course, Smith would probably say I am a rationalist.
In his desire to affirm materiality, Smith seems to say that any religious materiality is a good materiality. Smith approvingly notes of Felicite’s clinging to feasts and relics (36). It’s hard to see how any one “Materiality” could be bad on Smith’s account. But this bad account is juxtaposed with some good observations on the book of Acts (38) and tries to connect the two.
*Smith says that “postmodernism takes race, class, and gender seriously” because it takes the body seriously (60). This is 100% false. If facebook is a true incarnation (!) of postmodernity, may I ask how many “gender/sexual preference” options facebook has? I rest my case.
*Smith waxes eloquently on the Pentecostal “aesthetic” (80ff), which is basically a repeat of his other works, but one must ask, “How does faith come per Romans 10?”
*Smith doesn’t miss an opportunity to criticize “rationalism” for separating beliefs and faith/practice, yet Smith himself seems mighty critical of those who focus on “beliefs” in their philosophy of religion (111). Smith's attack seems ironically dualistic. Sure, most post-Descartes philosophy of religion is overly intellectual, but I do think the Reidian/Reformed Epistemology model, if wedded to Dabney’s Practical Philosophy, integrates belief and faith-practice.
It goes back to our doctrine of the soul. The soul includes both mind and will. You really can’t isolate them. Unmasking this was Dabney’s genius in Practical Philosophy (Sprinkle Publishing), pp. 3ff.
Friday, April 24, 2015
Developed and Undeveloped Federalism
Is the doctrine of the Covenant "a development?" Reformed say that we hold to the the covenant as the locus where God and man meet in Jesus Christ. Our critics charge that Federalism is a medieval innovation. What are we to make of that claim? Certainly, it was further developed in the middle ages, but when we read of God's covenantal promises to his people in Scripture, are we to reply,
"No, no, God. The covenant wasn't developed until much, much later"?
Why do Latins get a free pass when the gloss Exodus 3:14 as essence and Orthodox get to see Palamism way earlier than palamism, but when the Reformed say "covenant" we get charged with reading federalism back into the Scriptures?
"No, no, God. The covenant wasn't developed until much, much later"?
Why do Latins get a free pass when the gloss Exodus 3:14 as essence and Orthodox get to see Palamism way earlier than palamism, but when the Reformed say "covenant" we get charged with reading federalism back into the Scriptures?
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Jesus is my unity
I gladly reference my friend Steven's essay on this point. The bond of unity in John 17 is a divine Person, not a supra-spiritual organization (of course, we all believe in church governments).
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Protestant thoughts on EO spirituality
Not arguing for ultimate truth or falsity in this review. I am helping an EO guy give the fairest contrast between EO and classic Protestantism. I truly wish him in the best.
Mostly yes. However, ALL Christian traditions believe in divine simplicity. Gregory Palamas is very firm on this point. What the East rejects is the view of divine simplicity that identifies essence with attribute in a 1:1 correspondence. Interestingly enough, 19th century American Reformed theologians rejected this view of divine simplicity. The author quotes William Craig as saying God has no real relations within himself. This needs upacking. The West (rightly or wrongly) says God has no ontological distinctions within himself (meaning an essential separation between attribute A and attribute B and essence C. The West very firmly holds to logical and rational distinctions between the essence/attributes.
What about God's covenantal relations? It's a thought.
This is an excellent criticism of Roman Catholicism. I'm not sure, however, why this sentence, assuming it is a fair representation of Protestantism, necessitates God's grace as created. God's action within the soul, if that is indeed what grace is, is God himself, and so eternal. Now the effect in the soul is created, but that's not a particularly controversial statement.
What Luther and the Reformed are saying is what Romans 10 is saying, "We don't ascend to God to know God. God descends to us in his Word." This is what Luther meant by denying the theology of glory.
I like this statement. If nous means heart, then this anthropology isn't that different from Reformed sources. I understand that the EO will say that God's energies interact with the nous. I know the Reformed do not take that view. Fair enough. I have reasons for not holding to the energies, but that's not the point of the post.
We reject hesychasm, but not the experiencing of the divine light. Too many credible Western theologians and pastors have experienced the divine light for us to deny that it is real.
It hinges upon how God promised to meet man. We understand that God meets man covenantally through his Word. We also see the covenant as the bridge between the two realms (though I fully agree with Allen's critique of Roman Catholicism).
In classic Western Christian theological thought, the nature of God is generally understood as absolute, transcendent and indivisible (that is, not divided into parts). This is the doctrine called “divine simplicity” or “divine unity”
Mostly yes. However, ALL Christian traditions believe in divine simplicity. Gregory Palamas is very firm on this point. What the East rejects is the view of divine simplicity that identifies essence with attribute in a 1:1 correspondence. Interestingly enough, 19th century American Reformed theologians rejected this view of divine simplicity. The author quotes William Craig as saying God has no real relations within himself. This needs upacking. The West (rightly or wrongly) says God has no ontological distinctions within himself (meaning an essential separation between attribute A and attribute B and essence C. The West very firmly holds to logical and rational distinctions between the essence/attributes.
Following this theological premise, Western theologians in the Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed traditions have concluded that since God is radically transcendent, God’s relations with humans – in order to protect God’s transcendence and indivisibility – can (then) only be experienced through created entities or means (through intermediaries like angels, an image, or a symbol, which signifies God but are not God).
What about God's covenantal relations? It's a thought.
According to the classic Western view, therefore, even “grace” itself – God’s action within the soul – is a “created” effect of God – (and) is not God working in the soul directly.
This is an excellent criticism of Roman Catholicism. I'm not sure, however, why this sentence, assuming it is a fair representation of Protestantism, necessitates God's grace as created. God's action within the soul, if that is indeed what grace is, is God himself, and so eternal. Now the effect in the soul is created, but that's not a particularly controversial statement.
the Western Christian spiritual tradition affirms that there are (then) essentially only two ways to know God:
What Luther and the Reformed are saying is what Romans 10 is saying, "We don't ascend to God to know God. God descends to us in his Word." This is what Luther meant by denying the theology of glory.
The seat of the Image of God is not thought to be in the reasoning or intellective faculty of the human being, but rather in the “Nous”, sometimes translated incorrectly as “Mind”, but in the East understood as “heart.” This is not necessarily the physical “heart” but at the center of man’s being.
I like this statement. If nous means heart, then this anthropology isn't that different from Reformed sources. I understand that the EO will say that God's energies interact with the nous. I know the Reformed do not take that view. Fair enough. I have reasons for not holding to the energies, but that's not the point of the post.
Carrying this line of thinking forward to its logical conclusion, the West has rejected as an authentic experience of God the Uncreated Light or Vision of God (theoria) of our hesychast, contemplative tradition in Eastern Christianity.
We reject hesychasm, but not the experiencing of the divine light. Too many credible Western theologians and pastors have experienced the divine light for us to deny that it is real.
I find that in Western Christianity because of the approaches we have been discussing, there tends to be a dichotomy between the realm of God and the realm of man. It tends to set-up, as Father Stephen Freeman puts it, a “two-storey universe”: God and the spiritual realm “up there, and us down here”.
It hinges upon how God promised to meet man. We understand that God meets man covenantally through his Word. We also see the covenant as the bridge between the two realms (though I fully agree with Allen's critique of Roman Catholicism).
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