In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus tells a parable about the importance of forgiveness. The message – whatever someone has done against you cannot compare to the wrong that God forgives us for. Since God is willing to forgive a debt we cannot pay, we need to forgive others. That means, whatever transgressions have been committed against you, you are no longer willing to hold that against that person. Forgiving means to release that person from the obligation.
If you are like me, you may not have to difficult a time forgiving others. Yes, I have had wrong done to me. But whatever wrong has been done, I just attribute to a product of human depravity. It is not worth holding that against a person and besides, I take serious the judgment against me if I am unwilling to forgive.
There is another aspect of forgiveness that I think is harder, and that is forgiveness of self. I have made many mistakes in my life, many misguided decisions that have left scars and wounds long after the events those decisions caused. I cling to passages such Romans 8:1-4, Colossians 1:13-14; and Hebrews 10:11-14. If this is you, seeing yourself as Christ sees you enables that forgiveness.
But there is yet an even harder aspect of forgiveness that I don’t think is expressed nearly enough or openly enough as it needs to be. You see, we can forgive human action because humans are marred and can be hurtful, selfish, or disinterested in how their actions impact others. While we may not be pleased with choices we have made, especially the ones that have had lasting negative consequences, we can also chalk mistakes up to fallibility and lessons learned. But what happens when the person you are most grieved with is God? After all, he is love, and just, and pure. He is supposed to have the kindest of intentions towards his children. He is suppose to be good.
I don’t think anyone that claims Christianity, wants to readily admit that they might be harboring resentment against God. That seems so…sacrilegious? irreverent? disrespectful? But I do believe it is possible to hold unforgiveness towards God, unforgiveness that remembers situations where we felt he was supposed to do something but didn’t or not allow something that did happen. These may be unanswered prayers, death of loved ones, personal loss, humiliation or other tragic circumstances. It may not be openly expressed, but in the deepest recesses of our souls, is remembrance that is held in abeyance to be released when certain triggers are pulled.
How do we know if we harbor unforgiveness towards God? I suspect, the same way that unforgiveness is expressed towards others. The sense of injustice, the feelings of hurt, the remembrance of supposed wrong that entangles itself in responses to certain situations. Or maybe, in the quiet stillness, when thoughts of injustice impede progress to pray, to worship, to move forward, to let go. There might be that sense of unrequited love, that sense of rejection for having put a good effort forward only to have it recoiled in return. The heart sinks, burns, saddens and cries out “God, how could you?”
But unforgiveness is a prison. The same torment that Jesus predicted for that unforgiving king in Matthew 18, is the same torment experienced when the heart harbors unforgiveness, including unforgiveness towards God. It holds you captive and wraps you up in a cacophony of pity, pain and unrelenting desire to see a reversal of supposed misfortunes. Unforgiveness towards God will disable the ability to see him for who he truly is.
Forgiveness requires a release of obligation for retribution. No, I don’t think anyone would say they wanted retribution towards God. But not allowing the heart to freely give, freely worship and freely yield probably has the same effect. The release of obligation for retribution does not impose upon God requirements for him to correct situations or move in a way that would vindicate our sense of justice. It is an acknowledgment that God in his sovereignty is working out a plan that is far greater than our finite minds can comprehend, even when holding out hands empty of satisfactory results. Forgiveness enables trust.
So if this is you and you are holding unforgiveness towards God, please consider that the only person it is hurting is yourself. He is good, though at times that goodness is misunderstood and not evidentialy seen. Forgiving God is essential for moving forward in the Christian life and release from a harsh and unrelenting prison of torment.
Have you noticed the rise in psychic “hotlines” and TV shows nowadays? Five years ago, it would have been difficult to find even a psychic commercial on TV. Now, there are several half-hour infomercials, aired almost round the clock.
Have you also noticed New Age music cropping up here and there, not to mention the infiltration of Eastern Mysticism into the West, and increased UFO sightings (not to mention TV programs about them)? How about the rise of “what’s in it for me” attitudes, a morality of convenience, and a market-driven society (i.e., making a living as an end in itself)? While we’re at it, we could add the increasing denial of absolute truth by most Americans–even though a large proportion claim to be evangelical Christians, the prioritizing of relevance over truth, of pragmatics over knowledge, of feelings over beliefs. Al Franken, of Saturday Night Live fame, some years ago epitomized what we are seeing with his self-serving commentary (he humorously suggested that this decade should be labeled the “Al Franken” decade).
A New Kind of Charismatic
Part and parcel of this phenomenon is the rising popularity of charismatic Christianity–especially among those who had never been attracted to the charismatic movement before. Specifically, the Pentecostal/charismatic movement historically has roots in Wesleyan theology and practice. In other words, it has historically been associated with Arminian theology. The reason for this is not immediately obvious, but can be seen through a variety of connections. Arminianism teaches, among other things, that a person once saved can lose his salvation. Hence, Arminians put a strong emphasis on moral duty, as well as spiritual experiences, as the continued confirmation that one is still saved. It is a natural extension from this stance that the test by which a person knows he is saved is various manifestations of the Spirit. Thus the craving for supernatural experiences is both endemic to the charismatic mindset and necessary as continued confirmation of salvation.
But this craving for confirmation is not the motivation of many who have become charismatics in the last few years. Indeed, what is unusual about the current popularity of the charismatic movement, principally the Vineyard form, is that has attracted many Calvinists as well as many well-trained scholars. Every year at the Evangelical Theological Society meetings1 I learn of a few more professors of theology who have joined the ranks of the Vineyard movement. Often, the response of colleagues when they find out about one these theologians is one of astonishment: “No! Not him! I never would have expected him to become a charismatic!”
Cognitive Christianity and the Impoverished Soul
Why are scholars suddenly becoming charismatics? What has happened in the last few years to attract the intelligentsia to this group?
We can give both a short answer and a long one. The short answer is that many Christian scholars have for a long time embraced a Christianity that is almost exclusively “from the neck up.” That is, theirs is a cognitive faith, one where reason reigns supreme. They are usually fine exegetes and theologians, able to defend the faith and articulate their views in a coherent, biblical, profound, and logical way. But (without naming names) many of these savants have lost their love for Christ. They love the Bible and know it inside and out. But their soul has become impoverished. They love God with their mind only; that is the extent of their spiritual obligation as they see it. In fact, for them, personal experience–especially of a charismatic sort–is anathema. It has no place in the Christian life. Study of the Bible so that they can control the text is what the Christian life is all about.
But when crisis comes–such as the death of a loved one, a teenage daughter’s pregnancy, or some major upheaval in their church ministries–their answers appear shallow and contrived, both to others and themselves. They have the inability to hurt with the hurting, though they know all the right verses on suffering! They begin to search for answers themselves, answers of an entirely different sort. Often, in the crucible of the crisis, they attend a charismatic meeting. And there, a “prophet” reveals something about their life. They are both amazed at the prophecy and deeply touched at the perception into their own condition. (Of course, cognitive types almost always marvel when other, more sensitive people, intuitively recognize traits and characteristics, internal workings and struggles in others.) Their souls get drenched with an emotional infusion that had been quenched for too long. It doesn’t take long before they hold hands with those whom they used to oppose, even to the point of now leading charismatic groups. They in fact become the theologians of a new breed of charismatic, giving a rather sophisticated rationale for charismata. In the process, they have gone through a paradigm shift: their final authority is no longer reasoning about the Scriptures; now it is personal experience. Continue Reading »
It’s a privilege to be the newest contributor to the Parchment and Pen blog. I’m new to Reclaiming the Mind Ministries as Creative Director and Instructor, but I’m not new to the concept of online seminary. For five years I worked as the Senior Internet Designer for Dallas Theological Seminary (http://www.dts.edu). Computer Programming genius (not an overstatement) John Dyer and I developed most of the online education environment at DTS.
Designing and implementing an online education environment was a blast. We used bleeding-edge technology at the time and developed a system which accommodated multi-language support. What does this mean? Many students were from countries other than the U.S. and took classes in languages other than English. A large number of students were in countries where they could be imprisoned for proclaiming the name of Christ.
Can you picture the scene? A student is living in a country hostile to the gospel, yet they’re earning a Th.M. from Dallas Seminary by secretly taking classes from Howard Hendricks and many other world-class professors in their own language! It was a joy to go to work each day to help develop this platform; knowing lives were being changed and church leaders were being trained.
If the only possible way for you to receive a seminary degree comes from taking all your classes online, then I say go for it. Dallas Seminary and several other prominent seminaries have developed robust accredited online education environments. It’s better to go through seminary online than not-at-all.
Michael recently wrote a lot about the pros and cons of online seminary from a student’s perspective (link). I wanted to take a different focus. Looking at this issue from the eyes of the educational institution. Here’s my bold claim: A seminary can not afford to trade in their “brick and mortar” seminary for online education. Yes, financially it makes better sense in the short-term. I believe, however, if a seminary continues to grow in their online offerings it will eventually ruin the school. Here are two reasons:
1. Character – The goal of a seminary is not to fill someone’s head with a bunch of facts so they’ll beat everyone at Bible trivia. Seminaries must be very serious about graduating people who have grown in both knowledge, maturity, integrity and character. Someone whom they can point to and say, “This person has our seal of approval, they are worth following.” If a seminary is not equally concerned with orthodoxy and orthopraxy, they will become a degree-mill full of Pharisees.
It is one of those nights where someone should take the computer away from me, shut the internet down, and relieve me of all rights to this blog. Maybe there will be a miraculous advent and this post, after I hit submit, will vanish into the netherlands of cyberspace lost forever. Then I will just say phooey, and go back to sleep. (That has happened many times before).
I remember when I was twelve years old, God peeked out of the shroud of experiential darkness. This is going to sound silly to a lot of you, but it was special to me nevertheless. I was at the Quail Creek Elementary School Carnival. All the kids went back to it after “graduating” elementary school for years (to show how cool the “post-grads” were). Each year they had a cake-walk. You know . . . where you walked around a circle of 36 numbers while music played. When the music stopped, you stopped. If you were on the number that they called, you won a cake. At that point in my life, I had never won anything that I can remember, but I wanted to win this cake so bad. So I prayed. “Dear God, if you are listening, please show me by allowing me to win this cake. Amen.” Music played. I walked. Music stopped. I stopped. They called out “32.” I looked down. I was on 32. Wow! It was something special. God made me win the cake walk. He really did care! He really was there. The next year, same time, same place, same prayer. And you know what? I won again. It was unbelievable to this now 13 year old kid. God was on my side!
I once heard someone say that God is often more evidently present in your life when you are a young Christian. I don’t have any biblical reason to believe that is true at all. However, recently it seems that God does often hide and he is hard to find.
God first seemed to be AWOL the day my sister died. Our family had yet to be touched with any significant grief. I was always the optimist, being the first to see the good in everything. I changed my life in the mid-nineties. It stuck. I was on a spiritual high through seminary. When things seemed to be going south in any way for anyone, I was the go-to guy because I knew God was present, even in evil. Everything in my life and career seemed as if God’s providential guidance was so present that if you took a picture of me and looked at the negative, you would see a clear picture of God’s hand over my head.
Immediately, after Angie died, I still took the road less traveled. When my mother had her aneurysm and stroke and lay in a nearly total incapacitated state, I became a bit confused. The miracle of her life being spared soon turned into a curse of pain, suffering, and heart-ache beyond anything her death could have hoped for.
It was very hard to see God in this. It is still hard to see God in it four years later. The change I had hoped it would bring about in dad has not been realized. In fact, I think he is worse off than anyone and it hurts to think about. So much so, I can barely stand to call him anymore. There are many other terrible details that follow here that I will not mention due to confidence. Suffice it to say that there has been a snowball effect of trouble that does not relent.
However, as I wrote at this time, I was still optimistic: it was raining in the front yard and sunny in the back. In short, while things in my family were very tough and God seemed to be hiding, things in the ministry could not be better. I took heart at what God was doing. Continue Reading »
It is obvious that so many places are relying on distance education—virtual distance education. After all, it is more convenient for all parties in many ways. People who would never have the option of going to seminary are now being trained by the best teachers the church has to offer. Institutions are able to stay afloat because of the minimal overhead that they have to sustain, all the while providing the same courses by the same teachers. Soon, seminaries may not need campuses at all. It will simply require a virtual campus. No one has to travel…not even the professors!
Not only this, but think of the students in other parts of the world who certainly would not have this opportunity. As well, what about the isolated pastors who have shepherded their flock with not much more than a Bible. They are now able to join with the church worldwide and feed from some of the most gifted members of the Body of Christ.
However, with all of these benefits, I don’t think we (the Church) should be too quick to rejoice to the detriment of the better option. I believe that traditional on-sadite training is by far the best option and I think we need to recognize this before we celebrate ourselves to the point of the demise of one of our most important and valued assets—the local seminary.
A couple of, side-notes, caveats, or whatever:
1. I know that I am going against the grain here. I also realize that I am going against the grain to, what some may believe, is my own detriment. Reclaiming the Mind Ministries, of which I am the founder and president, exists in large part due to our virtual constituency. We are facilitating the training of thousands of lay-people, ministers, and ministers-in-training all over the world. I think that we do online education just as good as anyone out there. However, we have never purported to be a seminary or a substitute for seminary. At best, we are a stepping stone for those who might go into seminary. However, in reality, we are here to make theology accessible to those who may never have a chance to get the type of education that a seminary provides. We do not encourage our students to use our ministry instead of seminary training. As well, one of our main thrusts is to get people to use our curriculum locally. We have thousands of churches who have used or are using The Theology Program in their local venue. This is part of the reason why we built the Credo House and why I still teach at local churches.
2. I am going to use somewhat of a heavy-handed conversation stopper (or at least primer). I have been to local seminary. I have experienced the rigors of being on campus at an experienced institution that knows what they are doing. I took 126 hours of courses on campus at Dallas Theological Seminary. I have also experienced online education in many different forms. Since 2001, I have been engaged in utilizing the power of the internet to educate people in theology. I will continue to do this. Therefore, I speak from experience. I know what both are like. (Here comes the heavy hand): One simply cannot compare the level of training—the type of training—that is available onsite to that which does not come readily or easily online. Onsite training from a good institution that knows what they are doing is simply much more effective. Those who have not experienced onsite and online training like this do not have the experience to make effective arguements otherwise.
Okay, now to a few particulars:
RE: Online Ed vs. Onsite Ed
“But online education is just as good as onsite education. Michael, you need to get with the times.”
One thing that you have to understand about my thinking here is that preparation for ministry involves much more than education. If education is all you seek, I agree that online venues can provide such. But preparation for ministry goes beyond education in the proper sense. Besides many intangibles, the primary thing I speak of is mentorship that includes particular encouragement, shaping, fellowship, and discipline. Is it theoretically possible that these things can happen online? Maybe. But not only are they much much more difficult, it simply is not happening. Continue Reading »
Considering full-time ministry? Considering seminary? I don’t know of any question that I am asked more often than this: “I think I am being called into ministry but how do I know?” I don’t claim to be an expert on this issue, but I can offer some words of advice. Here are some questions that I think you should ask yourself (in order of importance):
1. Do you have an unrelenting passion? This involves a burning desire in your heart to impact the lives of others. It is a giddy excitement that others may gawk at. (Have you seen this gawk?) It is the type of passion that causes you to lose all other options and directions due to a mind that wanders to the feet of the Lord. I loosely paraphrase Charles Spurgeon: “If there is anything else that you can do, anything, do it. But if ministry is the only option that will satisfy you then consider it.
One of the things about being in ministry is that were something to happen, you are not normally qualified for anything else. I have often been brought to the place where I had to start considering other “career” moves and I get very depressed. Not only can I not find a passion for anything else, I am not qualified for anything else. I just don’t know what else I would or could do. I am committed to ministry. There is an internal compass that won’t point in any other direction.
2. Do you have personal integrity? Integrity, not perfection. None of us are really “qualified” in an absolute sense. You will have continual feelings of inadequacy all the time. This is normal. But the life of a minister of the Lord should be above reproach. This means that you should not have any areas of your life that, if discovered, would bring shame upon the Gospel. People are looking to discredit God. They will use you to do so. In a way, you are the punching bag for God. Continue Reading »
If you’re like me, you have probably heard spirituality expressed in many different ways, both from Christians and non-Christians alike. Many non-Christians will make the claim that while they don’t believe in Christ, or religion for that matter, that they are spiritual. Christians will make distinctions about what is or is not spiritual.
Spirituality is sourced in the work of the Holy Spirit. Being spiritual means we are of the Spirit. The spirit of man is connected with immaterial part of us that gives us life, will, emotions, and thoughts. It is our heart, soul and mind. Apart from God, man’s spirit is dead in sin and cannot respond to God properly (Ephesians 2:1-3; 1Corinthians 2:14). This person is not of the Spirit. This is why I believe an unbeliever cannot be spiritual – existential or experiential maybe – but not spiritual.
Therefore, it necessitates understanding the work and purpose of the third person of the trinity in relation to the believer. We are unable to accept God’s gift of salvation without the work of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). He baptizes into the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:26) and resides within the believer a mark they are God’s (Romans 8:9). The Holy Spirit gives gifts to every believer to be used for his purpose (1 Corinthians 12:6-7). He brings the ministry of Christ and the presence of God into our being (John 15:26) so that we may walk out a life that increasingly represents that connection into our lives – in thought, word and deed.
With the Holy Spirit residing in the believer, being spiritual means the believer is following after the spirit instead of the flesh because the two are opposed (Galatians 5:16-17). The flesh here is not our physical bodies but it is a that nature endemic in humanity that opposes God and does not want to subject thoughts, words, or actions to him (Romans 8:7). Being spiritual is opposite of carnality, which is allowing the flesh to dominate. We are being carnal when we allow our thoughts, words and actions to mold themselves after that nature of flesh that wants to put us first instead of God, so that the ministry of Christ is not the predominating motive for us. This is why Paul told the Corinthian church they were being carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1-4).
However, I believe many have turned the idea of being spiritual into an esoteric concept that divorces thoughts towards God from the reality of living in a physical universe in a physical body. Spirituality becomes some type of mysticism that opposes the elements of reason and participation in culture. It treats the material world as evil. It becomes a way of attaining to a higher secret knowledge that others do not have. But that is not spirituality it is gnosticism, which is based on ancient Greek philosophy of dualism whose fruits led to heretical ideas about Christ in the early church. Nor is spirituality putting a God or church label on everything and dismissing what doesn’t have it as non-spiritual. Spirituality is not just doing ministry; ministry can be carnal. Spirituality is not separating from the world we live in and creating our own subculture but it is endeavoring to live in that world to bring Christ to it. That is the purpose of allowing the Holy Spirit control of our lives.
Being spiritual means we are allowing the control of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that in all we do, points others to Christ. Being spiritual means we are allowing the the gifts of the spirit to be used in a manner that glorifies God. It means we are not allowing ourselves to be dominated by a system of thought that puts us and our desires at the center of the universe. Being spiritual impacts all of our material and immaterial faculties so that Christ is represented in every area of our lives. Being spiritual means that we can use reason and intellect in a way that puts God at the center of our thoughts instead of flesh. Being spiritual is maintaining an unbroken fellowship with God in the midst of a broken and fallen world while not allow its system of thought to motive our thinking.
So if we are performing our secular jobs in a way that glorifies God, that is spiritual. When we sacrifice our time for the work of ministry, that is spiritual. When we use our intellect to learn and understand more about our faith, that is spiritual. When we make a choice towards God and away from ourselves, that is spiritual.
In his book, He That is Spiritual, Lewis Sperry Chafer says this
The spiritual life is not passive. Too often it is thus misjudged and because of the fact that one, to be spiritual, must cease from self-effort in the direction of spiritual attainments and learn to live and serve by the power God has provided. True spirituality knows little of “quietism”. It is life more active, enlarged and vital because it is energized by the limitless power of God…Living in unrealities is a source of hindrance to spirituality. Anything that savors of a “religious pose” is harmful. In a very particular sense the one who has been changed from the natural to the spiritual sometimes needs to be changed to a naturalness again, meaning of course, a naturalness of manner and life. The true spiritual life presents a latitude sufficient to allow us to live very close to all classes of people without drawing us from God. Spirituality hinders sin, but should never hinder the friendship and confidence of sinners….True spirituality is an adorning. It is most simple and natural and should be a delight and attraction to all. (Chafer, pp 140-141).
I think Dr. Chafer makes some good points about being spiritual. I highly recommend reading his book.
I often get asked this question: Which Bible translation is the best? This issue creates more polemics than you would believe. People become impassioned for or against certain Bible translations. I think we need to take a very balanced approach to this, understanding the “whats” and the “whys” of Bible translations.
All translations have their particular characteristic that makes them unique. Bible translations will distinguish themselves in two primary ways:
1. What underlying Greek text do the translation use? Is it the “Majority” or “Received” text (a group of late Greek text that primarily comes from the Byzantine area) or the Eclectic/Critical text (mixture of different types of manuscripts, primarily using the earliest text). The KJV, NKJV, and many older translations used the former, while the newer and more up-to-date Bible’s such as the NAS, NIV, ESV, NLT, NET, etc. use the latter. We should also use the latter since most believe that they represent the better manuscripts.
2. Bible’s also differ in purpose, all of which have their place. Was it written for study or reading? Was it written for the seminary or the church? When available, you should have a variety of translations for different purposes, but you must understand the differences. Here are the three translation methods:
Formal Equivalence: Translations that seek to translate word for word (although this is really impossible). Examples: NAS, KJV, ASV, ESV. Less readable, but better for study in contemporary languages. Why? Because they will usually attempt to make fewer interpretive decisions on any text that can be understood in many ways. This allows the reader to struggle through the options.
Dynamic Equivalence: Translations that seek to translate thought for thought. Examples: NIV, TNIV, NRSV, etc. Not quite as good for deep study, but usually better for reading and memorization. Dynamic equivalence translations make good pulpit or teaching Bibles.
Paraphrase: Translations that seek to use common language and idioms to get the basic point across in a very readable way. Examples: Message, Philip’s Translation, NLT, GNB, etc. While paraphrases are not good for study or memorization, they are very readable and cause you to read the text differently than you normally would. In this respect, they have great value.
Most of the translations can be found here at BibleGateway.
My suggestion is to have some of each. I recommend the NIV, ESV, NET, NAS, and the Message. The NET, in some ways, is the best of all worlds as it contains many study notes that explain when a passage should be translated differently. I guess the NET translation methodology could be called an eclectic (that is why I could not place it on the above chart–it may need its own category!). While I believe the NET is the best study Bible available on the market today, because of its unconventional translation philosophy, it is not very smooth in its reading and, therefore, does not make a good memorization or pulpit Bible.
Finally, what good would this post be without a chart? Continue Reading »
I had a gentleman come by the Credo House the other day. I think he just came to argue. He was one of “them.” You know what I am talking about. You would think that we would get more of these types, but this was actually the first one in the eight month existence of the Credo House. Here was his basic argument: “If it does not make rational sense, we should not believe it.” In his view, we are obligated to understand something before we commit our belief to it. Therefore, this guy rejected some important doctrines of classical Christianity.
Christianity is often confusing. Reality is often confusing. There are certain things that we believe that simply must be, but they don’t “add up.” A good theologian needs to have worked through this. While we should be extremely diligent and committed to a task of understanding truth, a lack of understanding does not necessarily mean that it cannot be true. In other words, coherence is not the final and infallible test of truth.
It is interesting to me to see the charges of “incoherency” that we can often bring against those who oppose our perspective. Calvinist do so with Arminians and Arminians do so with Calvinists. Egalitarians to so with Complementarians and Complementarians do so with Egalitarians. “You view simple does not account for __________ and my view does. Therefore, my view is right.” Or, “If what you say is true, here is the crazy situation you find yourself in . . .” Formally, these type of arguments are called reductio ad absurdum and they are more often than not very effective in giving logical and emotional credit to your case.
Don’t get me wrong, much of the time this can be a legitimate charge that should give pause to the proponent. So I am not saying that incoherency is a position of value by any means.
However, I think that Christians must realize that there are some things in our world view that are going to be beyond our coherence tolerance.
Let me talk about this word “incoherency” for a moment. Here are some synonyms for what I am talking about: unintelligibility; inconsistency; incomprehensibility; discontinuity.
What I am talking about are those things that we believe which lack some degree of viability due to their confused nature. This confusion may be emotional or intellectual. It may be based on how we feel things should be or how we think things should be. In some sense, these things lack a degree of credibility due to our inability to coherently understand them and relate them to other things we know.
Here are some examples:
1. Calvinistic understanding of predestination: A belief that while God loves everyone, he only chose a few.
2. Arminian belief in libertarian freedom: A belief that an act of our will can be birthed from neutrality.
3. Christian belief in creation ex-nihilo: A belief that God created all that there is from that which does not exist.
4. Christian doctrine of the Trinity: God is one in substance, three in person.
5. Christian belief in the hypostatic union: Christ is fully God and fully man; one person, two complete natures which are neither confused or divided.
6. Christian belief in human freedom and divine foreknowledge: God exhaustively knows the future, yet the future is a result of free choices, including God’s.
7. Christian belief that God is transcendent and imminent: God, in his essence, transcends time and does not experience a succession of moments yet he truly interacts in time.
8. Jesus Christ’s incarnation and fellowship in the Trinity: The Second member of the Trinity, while in eternal transcendent immutable unity in the Godhead, becomes forever incarnate in a time-bound universe in Christ.
9. The atheistic view that there is no ultimate beginning (some atheists): An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed, yet we have somehow traversed an infinite number of moments to get here.
10. Christian belief in God’s universal foreknowledge and love and in the doctrine of hell: Although God is good and loving, he chose to create people who he knew were going to reject him and go to an eternal hell.
Now this is a large and varied list. Many of these I agree with and some I don’t. Some of these represent outright contradictions and analytical absurdities, and some are legitimate mysteries that possess no formal absurdity, but are incoherent from the standpoint of a limited observer. Some are a standard part of Christian orthodoxy and some are positions about which there is legitimate disagreement and alternatives. Obviously, not all are in agreement about which fits into what category. Christians would all agree that #9 presents a logical absurdity. I will leave it to you to decide on the rest for now!
Some people distinguish between a contradiction and a paradox. A paradox is something that may be true but beyond our understanding while a contradiction cannot be true by definition.
Let me focus on #10 for a moment. All branches of historic orthodox Christianity believe that 10 is correct. Whether you Roman Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian, Baptist or Presbyterian, all believe that God created people knowing that they would end up in hell. All orthodox Christians believe that it is biblical to teach these four things:
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
Of course, there are solutions, but all of them require changing what seems to be a clear teaching of Scripture as well as sacrificing one’s standing in orthodox Christianity for the sake of coherence, emotional or logical.
Here is what the options look like:
Open Theism:
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
Universalism:
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
Pantheism (though I don’t know of any “Christian” pantheism)
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
Hyper-Calvinism
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
In the end, I think it is best that we leave all four in place and recognize the paradoxical difficulty with this issue.
If absolute coherence, emotional or logical, is your goal, then you will never find a system that is completely satisfying. Never. Even in science, room must be left for anomalies (things that don’t make sense under the current paradigm of data). More importantly, I think it is vital to recognize that while coherence is indeed something we should diligently strive for, it is not the highest priority in the Christian faith. The highest priority for the Christian is to let rightly interpreted Scripture be our ultimate source for truth. Emotion and reason are not unimportant, it is just that they must be submitted to Scripture. Anyone can twist and manipulate Scripture to make it fit their idea of coherency. I see this done every day. Anyone can come up with a more palatable solution and force the puzzle to create a new picture, but palatability is not the final test of truth. Scripture is.
However, I don’t want it to sound as if incoherency is the highest ideal. I have also seen this “I-believe-because-it-is-absurd” mentality. We should never adopt such an irresponsible stance. While a modernistic ideal of perfect harmony in understanding is not our guide, harmony is more often than not a characteristic of truth. Disharmony and true incoherency are, more often than not, a hallmark of error.
As well, it is important to realize that just because something does not seem to have coherence, this does not make it truly incoherent. Often we are too limited to find coherence, even though it is actually present. In other words, just because something may seem incoherent to us, this does not mean that it is incoherent to God. While the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery to us, it is not a mystery to God. Some things in Christianity do not seem to have coherence, but this does not mean that they are truly incoherent. (And yes, this does make the title of this article misleading.)
In this, we must realize that there are some things that God has withheld information about for his own reasons. Could God have made everything perfectly understandable and emotionally satisfying? Most certainly. The fact that he has not does not make his truth any less true, it just mean that he, for some reason, from time to time, wants us to believe something even though he does not want us to understand it.
A very particular Scripture comes to mind here:
Deut. 29:29
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
The “secret things” are those things that God has, for whatever reason, intentionally withheld. But, thankfully, the emphasis in this passage is on “the things revealed,” and they belong to us forever.
God may never clear everything up. And he might make it all clear someday. I don’t know. As a Calvinist, one of the seemingly incoherent things that I believe is that God could have elected everyone, but he did not. Why? I will ask him one day. Will he tell me? I don’t know. Either way, I know that he is righteous and he is good. These missing pieces of the puzzle gives me no right to doubt him when he has already proven himself in so many ways. I know that if I dare to judge him by manipulating the truth to make it more palatable, he will prevail (Rom. 3:7).
While there are so many things we can understand, we must recognize that there is true mystery to which we must submit. When we get the temptation to judge God by manipulating the truth, let’s pause and learn to find stability even when things are not as palatable or coherent as we would like them to be.
Calvinism is a system of theology in Christianity that primarily pertains to biblical soteriology, anthropology (doctrine of man), and theology proper (the doctrine of God). It is well established as a part of historic Protestant orthodoxy that finds its theological roots in many of the developments of St. Augustine. It is named after John Calvin, a sixteenth century Protestant reformer, due to his responsibility in systematizing its thoughts. In essence Calvinism believes that the Bible teaches that God is sovereign and man is completely depraved. If man is to be saved, God must save him unconditionally. The only thing that man contributes to his salvation is sin. God, before the beginning of time, elected some people to salvation and not others. This election is based on God’s mysterious sovereign will, not anything in man.
After this terribly brief definition, I would like to cover some misconceptions concerning Calvinism by giving you a list of what Calvinism is not:
Calvinism is not system of theology that denies God’s universal love.
While there are some Calvinists who do deny God’s universal love for all man, this is certainly not a necessary or a central tenet of Calvinism. Calvinists do, however, believe that God has a particular type of love for the elect (an “electing love”), but most also believe that God loves all people (John 3:16). It is a mystery to Calvinist as to why he does not elect everyone. (More on this here.)
Calvinism is not a belief that God creates people in order to send them to hell.
Again, this is not representative of normative Calvinists. While supralapsarians do believe that God creates people to send them to hell, the majority of Calvinists are not supralapsarians. (More on this here.)
Calvinism is not belief that God is the author of evil.
Because of Calvinism’s high view of God’s sovereignty, many mistakenly believe that Calvinists hold God responsible for sin and evil. This is not true. There are very few Calvinists who believe that God is the author of evil. Most Calvinists believe that to ascribe responsibility for evil to God is heretical.
As John Calvin put it:
“. . . the Lord had declared that “everything that he had made . . . was exceedingly good” [Gen. 1:31]. Whence, then comes this wickedness to man, that he should fall away from his God? Lest we should think it comes from creation, God had put His stamp of approval on what had come forth from himself. By his own evil intention, then, man corrupted the pure nature he had received from the Lord; and by his fall drew all his posterity with him into destruction. Accordingly, we should contemplate the evident cause of condemnation in the corrupt nature of humanity-which is closer to us-rather than seek a hidden and utterly incomprehensible cause in God’s predestination. [Institutes, 3:23:8]”
Calvinism is not a belief in fatalism.
A fatalistic worldview is one in which all things are left to fate, chance, and a series of causes and effects that has no intelligent guide or ultimate cause. Calvinism believes that God (not fate) is in control, though Calvinists differ about how meticulous this control is.
Calvinism is not a denial of freedom.
Calvinists to do not believe that people are robots or puppets on strings. Calvinists believe in freedom and, properly defined, free will. While Calvinists believe that God is ultimately in control of everything, most are compatibalists, believing that he works in and with human freedom (limited though it may be). Calvinists believe in human responsibility at the same time as holding to a high view of God’s providential sovereignty. (More on this here.) Continue Reading »
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