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.

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)

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.

Pouring Holy Water on Strange Fire (Review)

Viola, Frank.  Pouring Holy Water on Strange Fire.  e-book.

Key points (and rebuttals that obtain)

Opening Salvo

*True, Charismatics sometimes put the Holy Spirit on the throne, but do not Reformed have their own pet doctrines (covenant theology, amillennialism, “THE” Christian view of apologetics, etc; Viola 13).

**Viola notes Macarthur paints the entire Charismatic world with one brush.  This makes any sort of dialogue (which anticipates correction) impossible.  But no one would accept reducing the entirety of the Reformed faith to Rushdoony, North, James Jordan, and Doug Phillips.

***Macarthur does cherry pick from the church fathers. (I noticed this when I read Strange Fire. I didn’t mention it because it only entailed bad historical scholarship, not a counter-refutation).  He notes where Chrysostom seems to say the gifts ceased, but he failed to quote Martin of Tours biography NPNPF 2 volume 11).

****Macarthur advanced the bizarre claim that charismatics teach the gifts ceased at the 1st century to be rediscovered in the 20th.  Yet, as Viola points out, he never tells us which charismatics taught this.  And Jack Deere specifically contradicted this (Surprised by the Voice of God).

*****In other words, Macarthur’s book is one large fallacy of composition.

Did the Gifts Cease?

Viola begins with what is probably the continuationist’s strongest position:   there is no verse in the New Testament that suggests that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit have ceased or will pass away before Christ's second coming” (Viola 18).  He points out that the clause “when the perfect comes” means the Bible simply negates all the other gifts as well.

Concerning the post-apostolic witness, Viola backs the truck up and buries the Strange Fire narrative (23).

Viola has an excellent section on Ephesians 2:20, which I beleive is the only real proof text the cessationist has.  Quoting Storms, we see that the prophets and apostles form the foundation, yes, but vv. 21-22 note the superstructure of the church is still under construction.  Let’s not push the metaphor beyond what Paul intended.  Further, we have no evidence that all prophetic activity (say, Phillip’s daughters) is necessarily laying the foundation of the church.  

Scriptures and the Spirit

Are Charismatics weak on the Scriptures?  Well, it depends of whom you are speaking?  Given Macarthur’s pattern of selective sources, it would appear so.  But notice he never references (with a few exceptions, like to Grudem and Piper) those who are might in the Scriptures.  Viola lists some names:  

N.T. Wright, Craig Keener, Sam Storms, Gordon Fee, Jack Deere, Bernard Ramm, John Piper, Michael Green, James D.G. Dunn, Howard Snyder, Wayne Grudem, Russell P. Spittler, J. Rodman Williams” (Viola 27).  I can only add my late uncle to the list, an Assembly of God minister who read the Bible cover-to-cover at least four times every year (multiply by 30 years as a conservative estimate, and you get a 120 readings--JBA).  

Viola again:  Point: Bizarre, exaggerated, misguided claims about spiritual gifts, failed healings, and trickery under the guise of the Holy Spirit's power do not disprove the reality of spiritual gifts” (31).  But according to Macarthur’s logic, that’s exactly what happens.

Revelation Misunderstood

Prophetic utterances are equal in truth (the Same Spirit) but not equal in authority to Scripture.

Viola:  

Using MacArthur's reasoning, there is no need to use judgment or spiritual discernment in testing revelation. If the gift of prophecy has ceased, then one can simply dismiss all claims of prophetic revelation, healing, or miracles without investigation or critical analysis. Simple enough. But is it accurate? Is it biblical? Paul says we prophesy in part, but he also says we know in part (1 Cor. 13:9). So teaching, like prophecy, must be evaluated. Using MacArthur’s reasoning, we should reject all teaching, since so much modern teaching is inaccurate (40).

Third Wave:

Some good points here.  Viola notes that Wimber simply “put wheels on” George Ladd’s kingdom theology (48).  I don’t think this explosive point has yet been truly explored.  With the exception of dispensationalists, every school of eschatology holds to already/not yet.  This means the kingdom has been fulfilled (if not consummated).  Therefore, we cast out demons. Any takers?

I also appreciated his links to Deere’s response to the Briefing.  I thought Macarthur was rather hamhanded in his criticism of Deere.  

Further, the Bible must be spiritually discerned.  Yet the Bible itself is not the spiritual discernment.  So if we say the “Bible is sufficient” (which I believe it is), we need to qualify what we mean by that.

Criticisms of Viola:

~This is more of an article length critique, not a book.  It’s not worth the $5.99.  Granted, Strange Fire isn’t that good, either, but I do fear Viola met Macarthur on Macarthur’s (non)scholarly level.

~Each paragraph is one or two sentences long.  This isn’t the worst criticism in the world, but it’s worth noting.

Evaluation:

I don’t this is a full-orbed rebuttal to strange fire.  It can serve as suppressing fire until heavier resources (Grudem, Storms) are deployed.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones and a "Clean Power"

The following  is from John Piper’s talk on Martyn Lloyd-Jones, though I had read the works in question long before I had heard the talk.

Martin Lloyd-Jones’ Personal Experiences of Unusual Power

Lloyd-Jones had enough extraordinary experiences of his own to make him know that he had better be open to what the sovereign God might do.

Another illustration comes from his earlier days at Sandfields. A woman who had been a well-known spirit-medium attended his church one evening. She later testified after her conversion:

The moment I entered your chapel and sat down on a seat amongst the people, I was conscious of a supernatural power. I was conscious of the same sort of supernatural power I was accustomed to in our spiritist meetings, but there was one big difference; I had the feeling that the power in your chapel was a clean power“.

Iain H. Murray, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years (Piper’s website lists the reference as being in volume 2, The Fight of Faith, p. 221, but that is incorrect.  It is in volume 1, page 221.)

On the non-review of Strange Fire

I posted a long review of Strange Fire (Macarthur) at Goodreads.  I might post it here later.  One of the problems is that any discussion of Strange Fire will immediately focus on whether continuing prophecy violates sola scriptura.  That's frustrating because that is not relevant to Macarthur's thesis.  It sounds odd, doesn't it?  Macarthur's thesis is that it is wrong to elevate experience over doctrine (Macarthur 17).  Fair enough. That is completely independent of whether prophecy continues today.

Therefore, if the discussion of strange fire collapses into that, we've really missed the larger point of the book.  But that might not be a bad thing.  The book had interesting moments, but whenever Macarthur had the chance to advance interesting discussion, he derailed himself to attack Benny Hinn.  I don't mind that.  Hinn is a truly diabolical individual.  But attacking Hinn when you should be finishing a discussion on more substantial points is irresponsible.  And the average reader of Strange Fire is not a lay pentecostal.  It is a more or less Reformed continuationist like me.

So what did not Macarthur deal with?

Demon possession:  Does demon possession happen today?  It's hard to find any conservative evangelical (Or Catholic or Orthodox) who denies this?  If you think it happens today, then the obvious question is whether Christians have the power to cast out demons.  Again, it is counter-intuitive to deny that Christians have this power today.

So let's reverse one of Macarthur's original arguments.  In his chapter on apostles--which I mostly agreed with--he argued that if the office of apostle died away, then it is possible that other "super" gifts died away.  Okay, let's take that line of argument and return it:  if it is possible that the gift of casting out demons is still operative, then perhaps other gifts are operative.

Is this a good argument? Of course not, but it is a perfect rebuttal to Macarthur's argument.

And on a more practical note.

Old Thoughts on Strange Fire

I haven't read the entirety of Strange Fire yet.  I plan on it.  But since most of the uproar dealt not with the book but with the Conference (and with Driscoll's crashing the conference.  LOL!), I will go off conference notes.

Let it be said that I am not a card-carrying charismatic.   I simply do not identify with that group.  Truth be told, I am probably closer in sympathy with the Conference men than I am with charismatics of any stripe.

Most cessationists do not realize it, but there are multiple levels of this position.  The most common position is “I believe that was apostolic stuff and ended there, but hey, who knows what God can do today?”  They usually mean–and only mean–miraculous happenings.   With respect to miracles, it’s a fair line.  However, they cannot logically extend that position to prophecy.  The other shade of cessationism says that such happenings are impossible.

Given that there are various shades of cessationism there are also various shades of continuationism.    For sake of ease, I am leaving out the Word-of-Faith movement.  They are false prophets and rarely offer any biblical rationale for their doings. I am dealing with the serious continuationists:  Wayne Grudem, Sam Storms, John Piper, and to a much lesser degree, Mark Driscoll.

I see a problem in identification on the cessationist side.   Originally, Macarthur attacked the Word-of-Faith types (Charismatic Chaos) and we welcomed it.  This conference seems (I say seem because I feel like the goal post shifted) aimed at the recent “Young, Restless, and Reformed” Crowd.  So I need to ask the cessationists of Strange Fire, “Against whom are you arguing?”   You cannot say, “We are responding to a recent phenomena in Evangelical Calvinism” and then preach against witch-doctors.

(Tim Challies has done a fair job in summarizing the conference.  I will be relying on his posts.  I realize that cannot count for a refutation of the hard cessationist line.  Fair enough).

Macarthur begins by urging his continuationist friends that he is not being unloving.  Okay.  I can buy that.  Since I am actually dealing with specific arguments, I will by-pass much of it.  However, he writes,

There is error in this movement all the way through it. 90% of the movement believe in the prosperity gospel. 24 to 25 million of these people deny the Trinity. 100 million in the movement are Roman Catholic.

Again, against whom are we arguing?  It is manifestly unfair to lump Storms and Grudem into this group simply because they agree on a few points..  Cessationists need to do a better job on this point or many people will simply start ignoring them.   My underlying counter-thesis is this:  Refute Wayne Grudem’s The Gift of Prophecy.   Sub-thesis:  Answer this question, “Would you include your hero, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones into the above group, since he was a continuationist?  Why or why not?”

MacArthur’s 8 Statements:

1.  When theologically conservative men give credibility to this movement the whole movement gains credibility

Answer:  Papists use the same line against the Reformers.

2.  God gave special revelatory gifts, signs and miracles to validate His revelation. Hebrews 2:3 expounds on this.

Answer:  Hebrews 2:3 says nothing about whether these gifts continue or not.  Grudem and Piper specifically admit that the gifts validated the word.   That says nothing about whether they should be permanent or temporary.

3.  Point (3) is purely anecdotal and borderline bizarre.

4.  Continuationists who insist that God gives special revelation today gives way to people being led by confusion and error.

Answer:  We are using the term “revelation” in different ways. Again, I have Grudem’s thesis in mind, none other.

5.  Continuationists tacitly deny the reformed tenet of Sola Scriptura.

Answer:  Again, see above.   Further, we need to be clear on what we mean by “canon.”  The Canon, as Bruce Metzger, Sproul, and others have pointed out, is a fallible collection of infallible books.  I do not believe the church canon should receive other books, but if we admit to the “fallibilist” definition, as we must, then technically the claim to extra revelation (which is not what Grudem is claiming) doesn’t contradict the canon.   If you don’t hold to the fallibilist definition, then there really isn’t any response you can offer to the Eastern Orthodox.  In fact, they will eat you alive.  

And while we're at it, let's define sola scriptura:  Scripture is the norm that norms our norms.  This is the classical definition.  It acknowledges Scripture as the highest authority but also subordinate authorities.  So how does a "Word of wisdom" contradict this?  We are given no argument.

6.  This point deals specifically with tongue-speaking, which is not my interest. 

7.  Continuationists assert the gift of healing and in turn affirm the fraudulent ministry of healers. 

Answer:  The consequent does not follow the antecedent.   The fraud healers should receive the death penalty in a godly society, but that doesn’t mean the gift of healing expired.  Notice that MacArthur is not using a biblical argument. 

8.  Continuationists distract from the Holy Spirit’s true ministry by enticing people to buy into a false ministry

Answer: Again, it depends on whom he is speaking.

Continuationism and Presuppositions

Whenever I doubt the truth of presuppositional apologetics, I read discussions where TRs doubt that God’s power gifts continue today.  Now, I have no problem with someone coming up with a logical argument that the Spirit’s power isn’t active today.  Fair enough.  I just think a lot of the conversations are funny.

A note on prophesy:  this is one of the most debated terms in the Bible. The problem is that the NT really doesn’t give a neat usage of the term.  Older Puritan writers often equated it with Preaching, in which case the gift obviously continues today.   Most people, cessationist or otherwise, see that usage won’t stand up to five minutes of Scrutiny.  Even worse, some say it is the Spirit applying the truths (timeless, of course; not messy historical contingencies) to day-to-day situations.  In that case, everyone of God’s children should prophesy.  But that seems inadequate and ignores almost all of the NT texts.

A quick rejoinder:  But prophesy doesn’t always mean telling the future.  Sure.  But that did happen.

But God’s word meant the death penalty if your prophesy didn’t come true.   Okay, I’ll grant that for the moment (though I think you can find examples in the OT where godly men were less than 100% accurate and they didn’t die).  But even with that terrifying injunction, you really don’t see NT believers afraid to prophesy.  That’s just the plain truth of the matter.  In fact–and it’s funny that the most rabid anti-theonomists become theonomists on this point–Paul urges all to prophesy.   I doubt the conversation went like this:

Paul:  Pursue all gifts, especially that you may prophesy, but be careful because if you are less than 100% accurate I am going to kill you.

Anyway, to the conversation.

Cessationist:  Show me one example of a Reformed Christian believing continuation of gifts continue.

Continuationist:  (insert example of Richard Cameron and Donald Cargill prophesying/speaking the truth)

Cessationist:  Yeah, well that doesn’t count.

Translation:  you have your facts and I have my theory.  Too bad for your facts.

Why continue the conversation?

A rebuttal to the Macarthurites

These are observations about claims Mac and Co. make.   They are not intended as a point-by-point analysis of Strange Fire.  That will come in due time, Lord willing.  My goal here is to protect John MacArthur’s admitted hero Martyn Lloyd-Jones from John Macarthur.

In chapters 3 and 4 JM relies on Edwards’ analysis of revival, and I think it is a good–if incomplete–analysis of any “spiritual” movement.

1. Does the work exalt the true Christ?
2. Does it oppose worldliness?
3. Does it point people to the Scriptures?
4. Does it elevate the truth?
5. Does it produce love for God and others?

It is a good list.  However, I would say with the apostle Paul, “I would that you all prophesy.”  But back to the points above.  The logical danger with rhetorical questions is that if the opposition can bite the bullet and the position is logically unchanged, your entire argument, such that it is, evaporates.

Case study:  Wayne Grudem.

No one can accuse Wayne Grudem of not exalting Christ.  I don’t know him personally, though we did exchange friendly emails some months ago, but I highly doubt he is worldly.  Does he point people to the Scriptures?  Seriously?  As an inerrantist, I am certain Grudem can affirm 3 and 4.  5 is a given.

How would a Word-Faither do?  That’s a fair question, but if you lump Wayne Grudem and Sam Storms in the same camp with Copeland and Hinn, you are sinning against your brothers and violating the 9th commandment.  Only a party spirit can remain untouched by such a rebuke.

The Missing Case of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

A search engine on Strange Fire lists only seven appearances of Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

p.44 lists MLJ saying that the Spirit exalts Christ.  Presumably this is a slam against much of charismatic worship.  Fair enough.  (I do wonder if the Spirit wants us to worship like Dutch-American amillennialists).

p.261 has MLJ saying the office of prophet has ceased.  Okay, he said that.  He also said other things, and in any case I don’t think that exegesis stands up to Grudem’s scholarship.

p.117-118 say basically the same thing.

p.312 lists MLJ’s Christian Unity.

p.319 is the index.

p.281 is an endnote for Great Doctrines of the Bible.

And that’s it for MLJ.  So what’s the big deal?  Well, here is what Macarthur has to say about Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

He influenced countless preachers (myself included), and he stood steadfastly against the superficial, entertainment-oriented approach to preaching that seemed to dominate the evangelical world then as it does now. Lloyd-Jones still desperately needs to be heard today.

Again, you might ask, “What’s the big deal?  Anybody should say that about MLJ.”Macarthur elsewhere says,

There is a stream of sound teaching, sound doctrine, sound theology that runs all the way back to the apostles.  It runs through Athanasius and Augustine…and runs through the pathway of Charles Spurgeon, and David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and it keeps running.

Real quick side note: I wish quasi-Reformed people would stop referencing Augustine.  Let's be honest. You don't know what he teaches.  He isn't an easy writer and his work isn't systematic.  You have to spend about half a decade working through different treatises to get an idea of what he is saying.  And to make matters worse, he believed that miracles happen today.   Read City of God, Book 22, chapter 8.  This is embarrassing.  

Well, here is the problem.  Macarthur does not allow (de facto) the distinction between continuationism (myself) and charismaticism (insert favorite bad guy).  He notes

Number seven, by asserting the gift of healing has continued to be present, the continuationist position affirms the same basic premise that undergirds the fraudulent ministry of charismatic faith healers.  If you say the gift of healing is still around, and you say it whimsically, there’s no evidence it’s around, either experimentally or biblically, but if you say it’s still around, then you have just validated healers.

Who would want to do that?  Are they not the lowest of the low?  Are they not the worst of the worst?  They don’t go to hospitals.  They prey on the most desperate, the most severely ill, the most hopeless, the most destitute, very often the poorest, telling them lies and getting rich.  Who would want to do anything to aid and abet them?

Said another way:

Premise 1: If continuationists assert “the miraculous,” then they validate faith healers.
Premise 2: They assert the miraculous.
(3)Conclusion: They validate faith healers (Modus Ponens)

Prem. (4): Faith healers are the lowest of the low (agreed)
Prem. (5): If anyone validates them, they, too are the lowest of the low [4, 1]

(6) If person A asserts the miraculous, then he, too, validates faith healers [2, 5]

Of course, I challenge premises 1 and 3.  Someone could still say, “Yeah, so.  You are the lowest of the low because you believe in the miraculous.”  Fair enough.  I will now lower the boom.

Lloyd-Jones states,

Those people who say that [baptism with the Holy Spirit] happens to everybody at regeneration seem to me not only to be denying the New Testament but to be definitely quenching the Spirit” (Joy Unspeakable, p. 141).

“If the apostles were incapable of being true witnesses without unusual power, who are we to claim that we can be witnesses without such power?” (The Sovereign Spirit, p. 46.)

I think it is quite without scriptural warrant to say that all these gifts ended with the apostles or the Apostolic Era. I believe there have been undoubted miracles since then (Joy Unspeakable, p. 246.)

Was it only meant to be true of the early church? … The Scriptures never anywhere say that these things were only temporary—never! There is no such statement anywhere (The Sovereign Spirit, pp. 31-32.)
“To hold such a view,” he says, “is simply to quench the Spirit” (The Sovereign Spirit, p. 46)

Premise (7) Martyn Lloyd-Jones asserts the miraculous.

Now the Strange Fire Brigade faces a painful difficulty:  reject (1)–(6) or accept Premise (8)

(8) Martyn Lloyd-Jones validates faith-healers.  [6, 7 MP]

Conclusion

Someone could still respond, “Well, MLJ is not God. He isn’t right on everything.”  No he isn’t.  He is an amillennialist, for one.  But let’s go back to Macarthur’s claim: “anyone holding these views gives credence to faith healers and is the lowest of the low.”  He must apply that to MLJ.  The logic is impeccable (up to a point, anyway).

In analytic philosophy we call this a “defeater.”  It shows his position is either counter to the evidence or it cannot be held simultaneously with the evidence. Either his view of Martyn Lloyd-Jones is wrong and it has to be abandoned (as the evidence makes abundantly clear), or he must give the defeater to his claim that continuationists validate faith healers.

He will do neither.

His position collapses

Outline of Moreland's Kingdom Triangle

1. Recover the Christian Mind
1. Naturalism as intellectual stronghold
2. Thick and thin worlds
1. “possible world”  : philosophical jargon for the way things could have been.
2. Thin and thick possible worlds
1. Thin world:  world with no objective value.
1. Nothing is as important enough to rise above custom.
2. If there is no objective meaning and value, then there is no drama.
2. Thick worlds
3. Tearing down intellectual strongholds (2 Cor. 10:3-5).
4. Naturalism defined
1. view of knowledge:  whatever exists should be knowable by third-person scientific means.  Only scientific related knowledge counts
2. In the beginning was the particles
5. Problems for naturalism
1. Consciousness: if you start with matter and simply rearrange it, you will only come up with more complex arrangements of brute matter.
2. Secondary qualities” naturalism can account for primary qualities, but not secondary ones like color, taste, texture.
3. Normative properties: naturalism can only tell us what, not should or ought.
4. The human will:  the will is immaterial and responsible for actions.  Why are alcoholics not responsible for their actions but pedophiles are?  A naturalist cannot answer that.
5. Intrinsic value:  
3. Postmodernism:
1. Scientism has eroded the ability to make transcendent judgments.
2. Identifies pomo as a form of cultural relativism about reality, truth, reason (77; possibility problematic).
1. Knowledge is a social construction.
3. Postmodern tenets
1. denial of objective knowledge and reason.
1. psychological objectivity not the same as rational objectivity.
2. Denial of correspondence theory of truth
1. CTT holds to a correspondence relation between truth-bearer (propositions) and truth maker (facts).
2. Those who reject CTT hold to it in order to reject it.
3. Confusion between metaphysical and epistemic notions of truth.
1. metaphysical (correct): absolute truth is same as objective. People discover truth, not create it.  Conforms to laws of logic
2. Postmodernists think absolute truth grounded in Cartesian anxiety.   However, a claim to truth says nothing about my inner, psychological state.
4. Problems for postmodernism
4. From Drama to Deadness
1. Shift from Knowledge to Fideism
2. From human flourishing to satisfaction and desire
1. The ancient “good” life was constituted by intellectual and moral virtue.
2. presupposes the availability of real, nonempircal knowledge.
3. From Duty and Virtue to Minimalist ethics (m.e.)
1. m.e. = do whatever you want as long as you don’t harm others
2. severs the connection between rationality and moral truth.
4. From Classic Freedom to Contemporary Freedom
1. Classical freedom meant the power to do what one ought to do. Presupposes availability of relevant knowledge.
2. Contemporary freedom
5. Classic Tolerance to Contemporary Tolerance
2. Recovery of Knowledge
1. Overview of knowledge: ability to represent things as they are.
1. Knowledge by acquaintance (direct intuition)
2. propositional knowledge (Moreland calls this justified true belief)
3. Know-how (wisdom, skill)
2. Certainty, Confidence, and Simple Knowing
1. Knowledge does not require certainty (and this moves the discussion closer to Plantinga)
1. One’s degree of knowledge can grow over time
2. You can know something without knowing how you know it.
1. problem of the criterion: if we don’t know how we know things, how can we know anything at all?
1. skepticism: bites the bullet.  No knowledge
2. Methodism: starts with a criterion that does not itself count as knowledge.  But this leads to an infinite regress.
3. Particularism: we just know many things without knowing how we know them.  It can respond to skepticism by asking the skeptic for a reasonfor his skepticism.
3. Three Kinds of Knowledge
1. knowledge by acquaintance.  rational awareness.  Humans have the ability to be aware of stuff that aren’t empirically verifiable.
2. Propositional knowledge: I must believe something is true and have adequate grounds for it.
3. Know How
3. Renovation of the Soul (virtue ethics)
1. False self: the self we present to others in order to make the world safe for us (141).
1. Individualistic
2. Infantile
3. Narcissistic
4. The empty self is passive
2. Growing in Christian art of self-denial
1. Classical happiness as virtue-life “Christianized” as eternal life.
1. Less dependent on external circumstances like “pleasure-seeking.”
2. Allows one to become an increasingly unified person.
3. Fostering Spiritual Disciplines
1. Habit, Character, Body, Flesh (Romans 12:1-3)
2. Warning and Dangers.  Moreland recommends some good writers (Dallas Willard) and some dangerous ones (Richard Foster), though to be fair he does offer his own warning (157).
4. Restore the Kingdom’s Power
1. Chapter is mainly anecdotal.  
2. The gospel of the kingdom: the reign and rule of God available in Jesus Christ
1. God has power over demons, darkness, and disease.
3. Jesus’s ministry of the Holy Spirit
1. Dependant on the Spirit’s Power (Luke 4:14)
2. Moreland doesn’t mention it, but this is the Reformed doctrine of the unionis theologia.
4. Abandonment of Cessationism