The Doctrines of Grace: God's Grace, Love, and Power

As Excelsior mentioned in his post earlier this week, we want to be honest in writing to you.  Part of this is admitting the biases from which we write.  Everyone has biases, but if we’re open about where we write from, it’s easier to understand the goal we have in mind.  Theological disagreements between close friends are not uncommon.  John Wesley and George Whitefield, arguably the most influential theologians/preachers of the 18th century (alongside Jonathan Edwards) were great friends and disagreed strongly.  See Whitfield's letter, here.  However, we must remember that the center of the Gospel is love!  Even within theological discussion which can become heated (and not wrongly so) we must remember Paul’s admonition to “be angry and sin not.”  Though we may not agree on these issues, Excelsior and I are the best of friends.  In parting with our normal practice, instead of waiting to post this, we decided it should go up sooner rather than later.  This debate can be both heavy and deep; my apologies if the level of intelligibility drops from our previous posts.  I pray that God's words and not mine would come through in your reading. :)

 The Doctrine(s) of Grace, Augustinianism, Calvinism, Heresy, The Gospel, Reformed Theology, Puritanism, The Great Awakening, TULIP, Christian Hedonism, The Young.Restless.Reformed Movement.  It has had many names, some with better connotations than others.  The one point these different titles have in common is a focus on God and his sovereign grace.  This is the idea that we are saved by Grace alone, as seen in Ephesians 2:1-10 (I will just be giving references throughout, because of the number and length of the passages of Scripture.)  

“Grace is not only God’s disposition to do good for us when we don’t deserve it — undeserved favor. It is also a power from God that acts in our lives and makes good things happen in us and for us.” ~John Piper

Reformed Theology (my own preferred term) holds to a few basic tenets:

We Calvinists believe that God is sovereign in salvation, just as He is in all other areas.

 1) Our Sinful Nature: Man is radically sinful in our nature. --Due to the Fall. We believe that all men are born dead spiritually in trespasses and sin, with no hope of salvation on their own. But, that Jesus died to pay for the sin of His people.  (Eph. 2:1-3, Luke 5:8, Isaiah 63:17, Jeremiah 17:9, Rom 3:23, Rom 1:32)  This means that we are completely fallen.  Jesus calls us to love him with all of our Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength because these are the parts of us that are fallen--everything!

2) God’s Unconditional Love: We are not saved on the basis of anything we do. --Simply on the basis of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. We believe that God chooses to save us not based on anything we have done, haven’t done, or will do, but rather by God’s sovereign love He predestined us to be saved. We are not saved because God saw we were smart enough to choose him.  We are completely dead and in our sin want nothing to do with God.  We are saved in spite of ourselves.  LeCrae has put it this way in one of his songs: 

But then some say "How can God exist when All this evil stuff in the world keep persistin'? Wrong question. Ask again. "How come God ain't' let you feel the wrath from sin?" What you thought last night deserved a first class flight To Hell where God doesn't dwell. You got that right. But He bought back life, on a cross that night. Christ died, you ain't know that he crossed that price. All of God's anger put on His son Then together, through all of eternity. Now He was shunned. Praise God for the life that was won for us Ain't got a beef with God because the son was crushed 

 In other words, the question we ask should not be why doesn’t God save everyone, but why does God bother to save anyone?  In short the answer is He loves us.  Romans 9 says that for sake of those He loves He has tolerated “vessals of wrath.” (2Thes 2:11, 2Cor 9:8, Romans 5, 8, 9, Eph 1:3-14, James 1:17)

3) The Exclusivity of the Gospel: Not everyone will be saved. --Rejecting the heresy of universalism.  On this point, Excelsior and I agree, although we believe it for different reasons.  When one rejects universalism, which the Scriptures require a believer to do, We have one of two problems.  Jesus' death and resurrection either completely atones for the sin of some or incompletely atones for all.  In other words, those chosen by God are entirely saved by Christ or we must work up the gumption to get to God and hope we don’t fall away from him.  I believe the former is the only Biblically based view, but I will expand upon this in my discussion of point 5.

4) God’s Saving Grace: God’s calling is effectual to save anyone. --Christ’s sheep know his voice. We believe that our nature is so broken by the Fall that even though salvation is freely offered to us that we would never repent and trust in Christ of ourselves, but since we are dead in our sin it takes the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate the heart of man, to give the gifts of repentance and faith, that the man may be born again.  If you are saved, you likely remember a moment in time when you chose to ask God to come into your heart.  This is true!  However, what you don’t remember is God working in and around you to save you so that you would be able to ask him to come into your life.  In the book of Ezekiel, God takes the prophet to a valley full of bodies that have completely decayed.  The dry bones lie scattered without a scrap of flesh, muscle, or skin upon them.  God then asks the prophet “Can these dry bones live?”  Ezekiel has seen God do enough crazy things to know the right answer, “Only you can tell, oh God.”  God then brings the bones to life and covers them with flesh and muscle and sinews and capillaries.  God says “I will take their heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.”  This is God acting upon us to save us, after which we are able to respond to his love. (Ezek 37:1-14, Ezek 11:19, John 3:27, John 6:63-65, Phi 1:29, 1 John 5:1, James 1:18, 1 Pet 1:3)

5) The Perseverance of Faith: Once you have been saved, there is nothing that can separate you from God and his love. We believe that those whom Jesus died for, chose before the world began, and regenerated will not fall away, because Jesus doesn’t lose His sheep. If we weren’t saved by something we have done, then we also cannot slip through His fingers. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, He doesn’t lose His sheep. If we have been saved by God, then he has the power to preserve us throughout this life.  Pauls writes in Romans that there is nothing which can separate us from God in Christ. The writer of Hebrews then explains that those who seem to fall away from the faith were not saved to begin with.  (Heb 3:14, Heb 7:25, Heb 10:14, Rom 11:29, John 15:16, Rom. 8:28-31, 1Cor 1:28-31)

We believe that the Gospel of our salvation glorifies God and humbles man.

These are predicated by the 5 Solae which were previously alluded to in our Sola Scriptura post.  They are the idea that we are saved By Faith Alone, through Grace Alone, in Christ Alone, To God’s Glory, and that we come to a knowledge of this through Scripture Alone.  

Before closing, I believe it is necessary to explain a historical question.  For quite some time, the Doctrines of Grace have been known popularly known as “Calvinism” after the 16th century French attorney, theologian, and pastor Jean Cauvin. (anglicized as John Calvin)  It would cause Calvin much consternation to know we are using his name for what he would have simply called the Gospel.  In fact, Calvin wrote less on the specific doctrine of predestination than any of the other Reformers.  His name has become inextricably connected to these truths though and so I do not shy away from using the term if it makes my explanation more clear.  There have been false accusations that Calvin was responsible for the burning of Miguel Serveto Conesa, but this is simply historically untrue.  If anyone has questions on anything I have covered in this post, please email or comment.  I have only begun to scratch the surface!

<== I disagree with this, in case you were wondering.

I would like to close with this from Charles Spurgeon, one of my heroes in the faith, who explained his own journey this way.

When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul – when they were as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron; and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown all of a sudden from a babe into a man – that I had made progress in scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God … I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, I ascribe my change wholly to God.  I have my own opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel if we do not preach justification by faith without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing unchangeable eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross.

                             

I hope and pray this post will draw you closer to God and give you a better understanding of his fierce love, unquenchable grace, and magnificent power.  

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/gracelist.html --this site lists most of the scriptures I used along with others so you can read through all of them more easily.

Grace and Peace to You,

Athanasius

P.S. I couldn’t resist using some of these pictures...including the ones which make fun of Calvinism. My apologies if there is an overabundance of them. :)

Molinism: Free Will and Omnipotence Unite

Hello loyal readers!  We’re going to embark on a different sort of post for awhile (and I’m unpoetic, psh).  In this post, I, Excelsior, will be laying the foundations for my view of the relationship between our Will and God, and Athanasius will do his later this week.  Athanasius and I think this is very important.  In doing so, we will present our assumptions and introduce you to an enormous (both in magnitude and importance) theological conversation.  By clarifying our positions in this way, we will be able to write about topics on which we do not completely agree.  We have already started a post on sin, for example, and anticipate posts on salvation, atonement, the relationship between time and God, etc. 

It is at this point that we wish to stress heavily the unity of the body of Christ.  Of course, we have different functions and opinions, but on topics such as this, tensions can flare.  We wish to explain our views as lovingly as possible, so that we do not offend anyone nor cause anyone to stumble (Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8, etc).  Our sole purpose to write our differences and expound accordingly is to aid each brother and sister in Christ in his or her understanding of systematic and Biblical theology.  By doing so we hope to promote loving conversation, spark interest in theological exploration, and aid each reader in understanding their personal stance for various topics.  We could never emphasize enough that all that we write about or all that we do, if without love, is completely worthless (1 Corinthians 13).

Excelsior’s take:

Molinism

Taken from 16th century Catholic theologian Luis de Molina, Molinism is in many ways the attempt at cogently unifying God’s Omnipotence with human libertarian free will.  The motivation for this philosophical construction was criticism by philosophers that the two views are incompatible, leading to either the view of complete agency (where, presumably, God is not Omnipotent - often called Open Theism) or determinism (where God controls all that happens, apart from (even the existence of) our will - often called Hyper-Calvinism, an admitted misnomer as it is in no way a good reflection of Athanasius’ Reformed Theology).

I wish to start with the Christian’s ultimate axiom - the Bible.  Using the Word to show that God is Omnipotent and further that free will is implied, I will follow with the Molinist’s take on their compatibility.

Omnipotence

In a lot of ways, this is simply apparent in scripture.  To create the universe, for example, as clarified in Genesis 1, God must be timeless, incredibly powerful, capable of creation ex nihlo (from nothing), timeless, and personal.  This is why Anselm deduced God as the “greatest conceivable Being.”  Indeed, the Ontological Argument (see Plantinga’s formulation) gives us great reason to think an All-Powerful God is metaphysically necessary.  

But further, scripture speaks more forcefully about God’s control over all that happens.  Romans 9:13-16, “As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’  What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part?  By no means!  For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’  So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

This narrative alone, I think, is sufficient to establish God’s Sovereignty over all there is.  From this we conclude that He chooses prior to birth who He saves (see Jacob and Esau, Genesis 25:23 for Paul’s reference), that we, as humans, have no power to reach salvation (for we are undeserving of any mercy in the first place - as Paul goes on to explain), and that God is just in doing so.  Indeed, throughout the rest of Romans 9, Paul continually appeals to the inability of we as fallen peoples to question God’s Sovereign will, rather than to any free will explanation of culpability.  I’m sure Athanasius will expound on this principle greatly, so for now, this I think is sufficient Biblical and philosophical reason to think God is Omnipotent.

Free Will

In D.A. Carson’s book Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension, he identifies nine separate Biblical concepts that must entail human freedom and literal contingency.  Listed, they are (1) People face a multitude of divine exhortations and commands, (2) people are said to obey, believe, and choose God, (3) people sin and rebel against God, (4) people’s sins are judged by God, (5) people are tested by God, (6) people receive divine rewards, (7) the elect are responsible to respond to God’s initiative, (8) prayers are not mere showpieces scripted by God, and (9) God literally pleads with sinners to repent and be saved.  

One of my favorite passages in Isaiah is a good example of 1, 2, 3, 7, and 9.  “‘Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.  If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’” (Isaiah 1:18-20).  It seems ridiculous to think that the Lord would reason with puppets.  Further, it seems His proposition is one of contingent consequences, one where it is dependent upon the actions of the people of Israel - namely, whether they “refuse and rebel” or are “willing and obedient.” 

How Can They Fit Together?

Molinism, as I stated, is a philosophical construction.  As such, it is extremely dense.  That is why I am more than happy to answer questions or criticisms via email or comment.  In order to try to keep this post reasonable, I will explain pretty concisely, and link more thorough explanations of this view.  My structure and interpretation is almost entirely dependent on William Lane Craig’s explanations and a close personal friend.  Craig’s articles will be cited for your reference.

We start with some axioms:
1. God has knowledge of conditional future contingent events, or Hypothetical Knowledge.  In other words, given His Omniscience, He has perfect knowledge.  So God infallibly knows the correct result of each counterfactual conditional, or statement constructed “if …., then …..”  For example, God would know what would have happened if He has spared the Canaanites.  My reading has been limited, but William Lane Craig certifies that this is something “Christian theologians have traditionally affirmed.”  

2. God as Natural Knowledge; i.e God knows all the possible worlds, or all necessary truths.   Let’s call this knowledge of what could be.

3. God has Free Knowledge; i.e. God knows the actual world.  This means that logically prior to God creating the world, God has knowledge of it: past, present, and future.  Let’s call this knowledge of what will be.

If God’s Free knowledge was logically prior to His Hypothetical Knowledge, this would entail a world determined and orchestrated exactly as He willed.  Thus His knowledge of counterfactual truths is simply the counterfactuals He decreed to be true.  There is no counterfactual knowledge prior to His decree.  It follows then that there are no conditionals, and thus no free will.

The solution Molinism provides is the logical order in which we find these various types of knowledges.  Placing God’s Free Knowledge logically posterior to His Hypothetical knowledge enables God to consider the worlds in which He can create.  In this way, Human freedom is preserved, for the conditionals on which human freedom depends is still logically prior to His decree.  Thus in this conception, God is able to take His knowledge of all the possible worlds (Natural Knowledge), consider, via his Hypothetical Knowledge, the counterfactual conditionals involved in each possible world, and subsequently decree (Free Knowledge) a world specifically tuned the way he desires, all the while preserving human freedom.

Craig puts it this way: “Not only does the Molinist view make room for human freedom, but it affords God a means of choosing which world of free creatures to create. For by knowing how people would freely choose in whatever circumstances they might be in, God can, by decreeing to place just those persons in just those circumstances, bring about His ultimate purposes through free creaturely decisions. Thus, by employing His hypothetical knowledge, God can plan a world down to the last detail and yet do so without annihilating human freedom, since what people would freely do under various circumstances is already factored into the equation by God. Since God's hypothetical knowledge lies logically in between His natural knowledge and His free knowledge, Molinists called it God's middle knowledge.”

So in short, God’s Omnipotence is present in the control and forming of the world, literally affirming Romans 9 and verses everywhere.  But in an incredible way, we’re still choosing what we do, and responsible for those actions.  

Well, that’s it!

Sorry for the long post :D
Excelsior
Further Reading:
- http://www.reasonablefaith.org/divine-sovereignty-and-quantum-indeterminism (my structure)

- http://www.reasonablefaith.org/molinism (for further understanding)

- http://www.reasonablefaith.org/molinism-vs-calvinism (for Molinism’s preservation of Free Will)

- http://www.reasonablefaith.org/middle-knowledge-and-christian-particularism (for Molinism’s account of Salvation [the Soteriological Problem of Evil])

The Confines of Fear: Living Fearlessly in a World of Fear

Caveat: Before beginning this post, we owe everyone an apology.  We should have started working on our What's a Cult Wednesday well before we did.  Because of this, it will be posted next Wednesday, and this will be our second post this week.

Fear is one of the most addressed topics in Scripture.  From famous passages like Adam fearing God after eating forbidden fruit to Paul "despairing of life."  Just as often, God replies to us "Do not fear."   There is however, another type of fear I also want to address.  This is a Godly fear like the one Isaiah shows when he falls on his face before God and cries out “I am unclean and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”  Hopefully, this post will show you what kind of fear is good and Godly, and how to avoid bad fear.

There is often a question we pose about Christianity.  Perhaps not consciously, but we ask it nevertheless.  Is it safe?  Will Jesus allow my life to continue as it has to this  point?  Will Christ simply act like an insurance agent, there when I need him but otherwise happily absent?  The simple answer is no.  The grace by which we are saved is costly.  It requires that we give up our lives and be crucified with Christ. It is human nature to be afraid.  To fear death, pain, solitude, heights, clowns, daleks, tight spaces, darkness, is our nature.  But, it is not our new nature as children of the King.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who resisted Hitler and was martyred, put it this way:

But the human being doesn’t have to be afraid; we should not be afraid! That is what makes humans different from all other creatures. In the midst of every situation where there is no way out, where nothing is clear, where it is our fault, we know that there is hope, and this hope is called: Thy will be done, yes, thy will is being done. “This world must fall, God stands above all, his thoughts unswayed, his Word unstayed, his will forever our ground and hope.” Do you ask: How do you know? Then we name the name of the One who makes the evil inside us recoil, who makes fear and anxiety themselves tremble with fear and puts them to flight. We name the One who overcame fear and led it captive in the victory proces­sion, who nailed it to the cross and committed it to oblivion; we name the One who is the shout of victory of humankind redeemed from the fear of death—Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Living One. He alone is Lord over fear; it knows him as its master; it gives way to him alone. So look to Christ when you are afraid, think of Christ, keep him before your eyes, call upon Christ and pray to him, believe that he is with you now, helping you . . . Then fear will grow pale and fade away, and you will be free, through your faith in our strong and living Savior, Jesus Christ.

We forget this quite readily though, and not we alone.  Even when the disciples had Jesus with them, they feared storms, public opinion, and a multitude of other common fears.  The only way they were borne through is Christ. The only way we conquer fear is through Christ.  To quote Bonhoeffer again, “And that’s the worst of it: we don’t even want to find a way out. That is the final triumph of Fear over us, that we are afraid to run away from it, and just let it enslave us.”  This is why Christ had to act upon us to save us.  Why He tells Peter “When you return comfort your brothers.”  Not ‘if.’ “WHEN!”  There is no question of if we shall sucumb to fear.  There is nothing, no fear, not even fear itself which can separate us from Christ and his love.  This is the very nature of the Gospel.  As we come to understand Christ’s love for us, fear begins to leave us.  John put it this way, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” (1 John 4:18)  We know we will not be perfected in love while we sojourn in this world, but perfect love is what we strive for throughout these brief, pilgrim days.

The title of this posts claims that fear confine us.  Here is what is meant by that.  When we fear, we do not ask God for big things.  We fear to ask for something to big.  Often this even comes from a God motive.  We fear God in a holy way and forget his love as we do.  His love is such that he asks us to ask him for the impossible, trusting he will deliver in his time.  He may answer no or wait, but we are commanded to ask!  If we fear, then we forget God’s love.  This is the greatest crime that can be committed.  (Hebrews 2)  Fear confines our faith, our hope, and our vision of love.  It causes us to focus on death.  Our own death, death of friends and loved ones.  Fear is death.  This is why Christ came to free us from fear and conquer death.  The moment He arose victorious, fear and death died, and we are set free to love.

Now, a brief case study in this attitude toward fear.  There are dozens of places in Scripture to which

we could turn.  From From Abel to Zechariah, from Genesis to Acts there is story after story where God uses his people to overcome fear with his faith, hope, and love. However, in this instance, we’re going to turn to the Gospels for an account like few others. In the Gospel of Matthew 14:22-33, we read of Jesus walking out in the middle of a storm to his disciples who are in a boat.  In a typical Peter moment, Peter asks Jesus if he can walk on water too.  As long as Peter’s eyes remain on the goal, that is Christ, he walks upon the waves as he would the sand.  His faith wavers though and his eyes go from Jesus to the billows around him. The turbulent seas draw his eyes from the only hope he has.  Here Jesus intervenes in his love to prevent Peter from drowning.  The world and the devil and our sinful nature are doing everything they can to distract us from the love of Christ which alone will bring us through this World.

Good Fear?  How does that even make sense?  Those of us who grew up in the church heard passages read about fearing God and just threw it into the blender with everything else we learned.  However, this is an important concept.  C.S. Lewis touches on this in the Chronicles of Narnia:  

“Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about being safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

In the book of Isaiah, the prophet is brought before God in the holy of holies in the Temple.  His reaction is astounding and terrifying.  “ And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5)  If we were to survey Christians in America today, I don’t think this would be their response when asked how they would react to seeing God.  And yet, every time anyone in scripture sees God, their reaction is a holy fear.  This holy fear is a reverence for God’s might, wisdom, and beauty.  It is the only reaction to truly understanding God and his love.  Awe that an omnipotent and omniscient God would love and even die for pitiful creatures such as we are is impossible to imagine.  This is a Godly fear which drives worldly fear far from us.  In light of God’s love and power, there is nothing else which we can fear.

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1Cor 13:13)  Once, I (Athanasius) was asked why Love is the greatest of these if we are saved by Faith Alone.  I wasn’t sure of an answer then, but in writing this post I realized something.  Faith and Hope are given to us as gifts to fight fear, but Love. Love conquered fear.

In Christ's Unconquerable Love,
Athanasius
Excelsior

Sola Scriptura

Sola Scriptura originated in the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s as one of the five Solae, a set of statements that defined the Reformation.  They have become known as the pillars of the Reformation.

 The statements are Sola Fide (faith alone), Sola Gratia (grace alone), Sola Christo (Christ alone), Sola Scriptura (scripture alone), and Soli Deo Gloria (To God alone be Glory).  These formed the basis of what we know as the Protestant Reformation.  In the future, we may have posts on the other points, but we think it is especially important to understand Sola Scriptura.

The Westminster Confession of Faith puts the doctrine this way:

 “Chapter 1, Section VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.”

Consistency

One of the great theological debates between Protestants and Roman Catholics is what the basis of interpretation and authority of our Theology should be.  Protestants believe in "Sola Scriptura," that the Bible, in and of itself, is authoritative.  (Most) Catholics have historically quickly and quite intelligently objected that this reasoning is circular, for it would seem to be the case that scripture is giving authority to itself.  

The history of this debate begins in the 16th century with the Council of Trent.  Here, Catholic theologians declared that the revelation of God was not entirely contained within scripture, for He has also been revealed through oral tradition (or the tradition of the Church), so it would follow that “Scripture alone” is not a sufficient basis.  Despite the fact that Catholic circles are still very much in debate of the impact of tradition, the question remains, is scripture sufficient?

It’s extremely important to note that the early church very much believed in the authority of scripture alone, as attested by the writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement, the Didache, Barnabas, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus..  Namely because scripture is comprised of authors personally given authority by God, so the sinfulness of man doesn’t deter its perfection.  From this it seems that the contention of tradition’s authority really comes from a perceived need rather than (ironically) tradition itself.  

The perceived need is precisely the problem raised earlier: the notion that Scripture’s authority is

circular. This is an important issue, for the conclusion of the debate guides each Christian in the proper way of interpretation of scripture.  If scripture is not authoritative in and of itself, then one must always consult tradition or the official teachings of the (Catholic) Church to be given the correct interpretation.  However, we think that this view, when examined, is nothing more than a denial of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. (side note: for questions on responding to these questions from atheists, see picture on the right. There will be a post on this in the future)

A really simple formulation of the problem:
1. Scripture is authoritative in and of itself (assumption of Protestants).

2. Scripture says that Holy Spirit guides interpretation of those reconciled in Christ (the Bible).

3. Necessarily, the Holy Spirit guides the interpretation of those reconciled in Christ (1,2).
4. Each person reconciled in Christ can read scripture (technical assumption).

5. Therefore, each person can interpret scripture through the guidance of the Holy Spirit (3,4).

Proponents of tradition will point out that without (1), not everyone can interpret Scripture.  That with (1), the circularity arises.  However, I think the above formulation can be re-written to circumvent this objection.

1. If the Holy Spirit exists, it would have the power to guide the interpretation of Scripture (assumption of Protestants).

2. Personal revelation in the hearts of followers of Christ confirm the existence of the Holy Spirit (this is an uncontested experiential truth and properly basic belief).  

3. Therefore, the Holy Spirit can guide the interpretation of Scripture.

This deduction seems really simple.  However, the fact that Scripture acknowledges the existence and effect of the Holy Spirit does not nullify any of these basis .  (2) is uncontested in Christian theology on almost all accounts, and (3) is a correct logical deduction, so the issue is (1).  The most common contention is closely phrased as “you cannot know if the Holy Spirit can guide the interpretation of Scripture without reading that in Scripture.”  However, I think that is insufficient to make (1) fall.  For example, my personal experience with the Spirit, apart from Scripture affirming the truth of this transformation, is that the Spirit truly transformed my heart and mind.  There is a conscious reality of the effects of the Spirit, and the truth value of those effects can be placed logically prior to the knowledge of Scripture’s prediction of such effects.  This experience has, in me, justified my “knowing” the power of the Spirit, and accordingly apart from Scripture’s affirmation of this fact.  Thus there is good reason to believe that this is logically valid.

 Again, these are only our views, and if you have any questions or concerns, please email us or comment!  Sorry we didn't post this past week, both of us have been extremely busy.

Grace and Peace,

Excelsior

Athanasius

Miracles and the Mercy of God

A miracle, as defined by Webster’s dictionary is

1: an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs

2: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment

Throughout both the Old and New Testament, a reader is confronted with events and phenomena which fit the above description. From the book of Genesis when God created a spring for Hagar and Ishmael to more commonly known miracles like the parting of the Red Sea.  In the New Testament, Jesus proves to all who will see that he is the promised Messiah by fulfilling a prophecy from Isaiah 29:18.  One of the oldest and most popular attacks on Christianity is that miracles simply cannot occur.  There have also been many champions of miracles, who understood the consequences of a world without such occurrences.  Below we have listed a few of our favorite.

“The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the miraculous also.” ~Fyodor Dostoevsky

“What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world.”~G.K. Chesterton

"There are only two ways to live life: as if nothing is a miracle or as as if everything is a miracle." ~Albert Einstein

"It is in the ordinariness of the events of life, and in the ordinariness of people that God unfolds His plan for you and me." -Alistair Begg

“Sometimes we get caught up in trying to glorify God by praising what He can do and we lose sight of the practical point of what He actually does do.”  ~Dallas Willard

“Jesus' miracles provide us with a sample of the meaning of redemption: a freeing of creation from the shackles of sin and evil and a reinstatement of creaturely living as intended by God.”~Randy Alcorn

This last quote will be the jumping off point for our defense of miracles.  Our goal is to show the compatibility of this intuition with God.  In doing so, we will address the two main conjectures to the reality of miracles: the impossibility of existence of miracles, and the impossibility of identification of miracles.

The existence of miracles was popularly criticized in the early 17th century by Baruch Spinoza.  He had numerous arguments for the nonexistence of miracles, the most convincing of which was the proposition that a world with miracles was imperfect, for it meant that God would not have created a perfect world, meaning He was not All-Powerful.  A flurry of responses came quickly after this claim.  
To generalize a few centuries worth of arguments, I’ll just list them:

1. Who is to say that God did not just create the world precisely so that miracles would occur. This is to say that assuming the plan for the universe was a consistent, law driven machine is to beg the question in opposition of God’s proposed intention.

2. A world with miracles is intuitively better with respect to perfection, for miracles are a certain presentation of God’s power, both proving His existence and demonstrating His glory.
3. The points in time when miracles occurred were important for a number of historical, cultural, and theological reasons, justifying logically the rare (or never before seen) nature of each particular miracle - God may have intended to “really make a splash” when it was necessary.

Each of these arguments presupposes God’s existence, for Spinoza was a deist, and contentions against miracles is by definition a critique of a theistic worldview.  It would be circular and invalid to say “There is no God, so miracles are impossible.”  This is much different from “If there is no God, then miracles are impossible.”  The first assumes what is trying to be shown to be false.  As you can see, for Christianity, those three simple contentions give good reason to think, given God, miracles are possible and likely from an Omnipotent Creator.

With regards to the identification of miracles, the champion has been, and perhaps will always be David Hume.  In his essay “Of Miracles” Hume proposes an In Principle, In Fact argument.  In other words, he aimed to show that given the Best conceivable scenario for miracles, the conclusion would still be uncertainty, but that in reality, there have been and cannot be any such circumstances, implying absolute uncertainty with regards to miracles.  

Hume claims that, In Principle, the evidence for any particular miracle is in direct clash with all of time and the experience therein.  That is to say, to confirm a miracle happened, you must deny all of the evidence you have, namely, the entire past of your life and others.  Thus, even if the instance was such that you would be certain, no wise man could believe it in confidence, for it is only equal with the supposed certainty of the reality of the past.

Hume takes it a step further claiming that, in fact, no miracle has such evidence.  Claiming :

1. Miracles are only believe by barbarous peoples.  

2. They have never been confirmed by nobles, or someone that had something to lose by believing in them.  

3. People are prone to believe the incredible.  

4.  Miracles are confirmed by all religions, so they contradict each other and must be false

My response:
To the in-principle argument, his characterization of probability is just wrong.  The advent of Bayes theorem (an important theory in statistics and set theory applicable to conditional probability) allows us to reason through broad, supposed “intuitive” claims like that of Hume.  People much smarter than Athanasius and I have proved this.  I recommend Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig (he proves the theorem and applies it to Hume’s argument).  If you have no money (like us), email us and I will write it up for you to see.  Furthermore, this doesn’t even seem intuitively right.  For example, if you saw someone die, and then later heard that that person was alive again, you would be skeptical. But of what?  Not their death for you saw it with your own eyes, but of the truth of that report.  Now if you saw someone that was alive, and later heard they had died a month ago, you would be skeptical; not of their being alive, but of the report of them being dead.  However, this has nothing to do with sense perception, but of reports.  We are perhaps inclined, therefore, to oppose miracles because the difficulty in believing the reports, not our senses.  This seems to align very much with the Dostoevsky quote above.  Identifying a miracle is no more difficult than being able to tell an alive person from one dead.  Just because something is contra-experiential doesn’t mean it is a logical contradiction.  The only way one could say a supposed miracle is impossible is if they confirmed it to be false.  

Consider this powerful illustration.  Imagine twelve men, among them a doctor, a lawyer, a laborer, a scribe, and all noble, respectable, and honest.  Further imagine them all claiming to have seen a man die, then after three day claim He had returned to life.  You have no reason to doubt they cannot tell someone’s being alive from them being dead.  Furthermore, you know for a fact they all witnessed the once-dead man at different times,and reported the incident indepently.  You finally observe them all subsequently put to death for affirming this miracle, denying the right to retract their claim to stay alive, all the while losing all they had (even while alive) and going against the state that ruled them.  No reasonable person could deny the certainty of their identification.

 Hume’s In Fact argument is more insulting than anything.  

1. False. For example, at least four philosophy professors at Oxford are Christians.
2. With respect to Christianity, this is blatantly wrong.  If you didn’t recognize the above illustration as the Biblical story of Christ’s resurrection, then now you know, and can appreciate the loss and seriousness with which the disciples of Christ treated their sightings.
3. This is the genetic fallacy.  The truth of something or some claim cannot be refuted by its origin.  For example, babies are genetically predisposed to believe that when something goes behind a wall or out of sight that that particular thing still exists, but just isn’t visible.  The fact that they did not “decide” that or even think about it has no effect on the truth of the perception.  In effect, (3) is just a surface claim.
4. In a lot of ways, this needs to be handled case by case.  If you want to read a refutation of each of Hume’s examples, email us for some suggested readings.  However, just in itself, this claim isn’t really true.  Christianity is the only religion that I am aware of that precisely claims that miracles are attestation of the Divine.

In scripture, there are two kinds of Miracles:

1) Supernatural Miracles- ie Lazarus being raised from the dead, world-wide flood, etc.

2) Natural Miracles- ie You just took a breath, gravity is working, the sun is shining, etc.

Most people don’t have a problem with the second type of miracle and simply call them scientific laws without a second thought.  These are just as much miracles and the second type however, and we ignore this to our peril.  Science can and does describe to us the how of such natural phenomena, but it cannot tell us why such events occur.  Primary causation is not a question which science can answer.  The simple miracle of existence is most complex.

In regard to the second type, it has been said that the exception proves the rule.  And he who creates laws may bend them to accomplish his will since he is above his own laws.  In the end though, Jesus' miracles were not an aberration of the created order, but the beginning of its' restoration.  Creation was meant to be perfect, untainted by death, disease, or sin.  WIn many ways, Prophecy (which we will have a post on soon) and Miracles fulfill similar purposes; they are a sign and remembrance that the world will not always remain as it is, that Hope is coming and will not put us to shame.  Miracles are brief moments when God shows us that the world will be made right.  We do not see it at present, but if we look there are hints and whispers of the world that will be.  Christ is not actually violating the laws he put in place when he does miraculous works.  Instead, he is beginning to bring the world back to the state of being it is supposed to be. (Heb. 2:6-11)

Many people’s conception of miracles can be shown by the diagram below.

Miracles => Faith  
If they are shown miracles, then they will have faith and believe.

However, this is exactly the opposite of how Jesus works.  As we are faithful and have faith, he reveals miracles to us.

Faith => Miracles

Miracles do not come to us when we want them, but rather when we need them.  Not when we think or believe we need them, but when we actually need them.

“But when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the small clerk, they had merely the effect of all miracles – they changed the universe. He discovered the fact that all romantics know – that adventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the cord of monotony is stretched most tight, it it breaks with a sound like song.” ~G.K.Chesterton

Love in Christ,
Athanasius 

Excelsior
P.S. For further reading, check out C.S. Lewis' indispensable book, "Miracles."