Are God-Nudges Propositional?

The most common (and probably substantial) objection to continuing spiritual gifts is that if prophecy is true, it undercuts sola scriptura and the finished canon.  We will pretend that is a good argument for the moment, but it made me wonder.  Even the most ardent cessationist will pray that God give him guidance in a specific event.  Let's say the prayer is something like, "Oh God, please give me guidance."

Here is my question:  How exactly will you know that God answered that prayer?  Will he give you a gentle nudge in the right direction?  That could work, but it seems vague.  It seems the cessationist has to say that "gentle nudges" don't threaten the sufficiency of Scripture (which seems odd, since if Scripture were sufficient on the above gloss [I do hold to the sufficiency of Scripture] you wouldn't need to ask God), but if the nudges are put in propositional form by God then God is threatening the sufficiency of Scripture.

Cessationism's missing premise

This post is not arguing that cessationism is wrong.  I am simply looking at one of it's arguments. Cessationists use "revelation" in an equivocal sense.  This is a problem when we examine practices in the 1st century church.  Paul tells the church to prophesy (and one can find numerous other examples).  How does the cessationist respond?

First, let's look at the argument:

1: God's speaking is what constitutes revelation, and revelation was eventually codified in the canon.

 This seems to entail the following:

2: The canon is closed (let's leave aside messy issues like who had the authority to close the canon and how do you know).

I think Ephesians 2:20 affords the cessationist another premise:

3.  The church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.  Assuming apostles means those associated in one way or another with Jesus's ministry, I think we can safely affirm (and this would be the position of many continuationists) that apostles aren't around today.  Therefore,

3.1.  Prophets aren't around, either.

The Continuationist Responds,

Is (P1) true?  I agree with the first half if it is phrased like this:  God reveals himself and this usually happens by speech or in words (whether internal or external).  The second half of P1 is unproven.

What about P2?  Practically, we have to assume that the canon is closed, but we have no evidence from God that it is.  Honestly, how do you know the canon is closed?  I think wiser Protestants were right to say that the Canon is "a fallible collection of infallible books" and leave it at that.

As to P3, my question is:  are all acts of "prophesying" in the New Testament establishing the foundation of the church?  Are Phillip's daughters part of that foundation?  When Paul acknowledges different men are prophesying is that, too, part of the foundation?  Maybe, but we have no evidence that such is what Paul meant.

The only way the cessationist can salvage this position is to add another premise:

P4:  Paul's command to prophesy only functioned until the canon was closed.

The main problem with that statement is there isn't a single verse that says that.

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?

Cocceius, Gustavus Adolphus, and Biblical Prophecy

Hans Frei's The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative and he points out that Johannes Cocceius saw the death of that great champion of Protestantism Gustavus Adolphus, as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.


 Frei references Gottlob Schrenk's Gottesreich und Bund im alteren Protestantismus: vornehmlich bei Johannes Cocceius (Gutersloh: Bertlesmann, 1923)