Free will

We are not free though. Whether you believe in God or whether you deny his existence, we are not free. Physics teaches that we are the product of an enormous chain of chemical, biological, and physical reactions reaching back to the beginning of time, and if we were diligent enough, and we were meticulous enough, we could look from the beginning of this chain and predict exactly the end of it, right here, right now, as you read this. Science teaches that you are determined.

Philosophy believes that we have free will, but what is philosophy after all? Philosophy is the reasoning of men reasoning about reason. Philosophy is a school of fish talking to each other about the world beyond the sea immediately before the fisherman catches them in a net to be eaten.

There is no fisherman.

We are not food.

Who cares what they think? They know nothing. 

The one escape, the last authority that may redeem us from the ignominious and humiliating jaws of fatalism, the Word of God, also teaches that we are determined. Impersonal forces set in motion at the beginning of time have not determined our existence and the events of our lives, however. God has and wholly without apology or qualification of any kind.

Modern "process theologians" believe that God limits or denies his sovereignty in order to allow man the dignity of free will. With free will, man can thwart the plans of God. God must then adjust his plans to allow for man's freedom. Who then is sovereign? Not God by any means. 

Nothing remotely similar to this "theology" can be verified through Scripture. 

God rules the mind of Nebuchadnezzar: 

Let his mind be changed from that of a man and let a beast's mind be given to him, and let seven periods of time pass over him. This sentence is by decree of the angelic watchers, and the decision is a command of the holy ones, in order that the living may know that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whom He wishes and sets over it the lowliest of men. 

Daniel 4.16-17 New American Standard Bible

Without explaining a single event, God assumes responsibility for the calamity of Job, rather than blame Satan:

Who is this that darkens counsel

By words without knowledge?

Now gird up your loins like a man,

And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding,

Who set its measurements? Since you know.

Or who stretched the line on it?

On what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone,

When the morning stars sang together

And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Job 38.1-2

Our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.

Psalm 115.3

God leads nations as with a cattle hook in the nose (Isaiah 37.29). He sent an evil spirit to lead men to their judgment (Judges 9.23). He hardens hearts and renders men unable to respond in faith (Exodus 4.21; 33.19; Isaiah 6.9-11; Matthew 13.10-17). He creates us for His purpose, for destruction or for mercy (Romans 9.21-23).

There is no such thing as true free will. In our pride, we grasp for it and cling to it, but if we humbly seek the truth, we will realize that we do not belong to ourselves, but to God, from birth to either eternal death or eternal life. 

Ebooks

I have a collection of public domain ebooks in kindle format available to download. Authors include

G.K. Chesterton
Jonathan Edwards
Thomas Manton
Arthur Pink
J.C. Ryle
George Swinnock
Thomas Watson

All of these are public domain and free to distribute. If you want to download them onto your kindle, you can place them in the "books" directory of your memory card, or you can use this tool. The Watson and Manton collections are mainly sermons. Pink published a series of articles under the publication entitled Studies in the Scriptures, which can be found here. I have taken some of the articles and arranged them thematically into two separate books.

All of these collections except for Chesterton, can be found in print form at amazon.com by searching "Ted Cortez Publishing" The books are printed mainly in ten point type, with the Manton collection on Hebrews at 9 point. A couple of the newest editions have larger margins for note-taking, which I personally recommend.

Thank you for your support!
Alejandro

Oh yeah, the link.

More on Pinnock

Re: "From Augustine to Arminius: A Pilgrimage" in The Grace of God and the Will of Man

The doctrine of "Calvinism" (in truth, the Gospel) is one of humility and submission. Christ commands men to repent. Scripture commands men to submit, and declares them blessed if they do. The Bible repeats this message throughout. For this reason, when we read scripture, we must ask ourselves, "How am I expected or required to submit with humility to the truth presented?" We must also ask, "How is the name of God glorified in this truth?”— for His glory, and God's zeal for it, is the other truth that scripture repeats throughout. What baffles me is the complete lack of humility that Pinnock possesses when he speak of God, and the complete absence of any sense of God's incomparable "otherness", separateness, holiness or glory.

Pinnock uses words like "autonomy" and "dialogue" in his first paragraph as he discusses how he had begun to reinterpret scripture in this pilgrimage of his. He places modern culture on equal footing with scripture, and in doing this, places men (the creators of culture) on equal footing with God (the Author of scripture). As if to further emphasize his belief that we are somehow equal with God, he refers to God as a "partner" with us, and a "co-worker." These words denote a relationship between equals. Pinnock, like Eve before him, craves equality with God. He craves independence—"autonomy", as he calls it. Equality is independence, for inferiority is submission. Adam ate the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, declaring himself independent of God’s word and will, and as we all know, independence requires rebellion.

Pinnock's new Arminian theology contained "dimensions of reciprocity and conditionality"

Growth

My pastor preaches on growth this morning.

How do we grow?

A right concept of grace
A right relationship with the world
Transparency and honesty with God
A delight in spiritual disciplines and activities

What does scripture say?

Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I keep your word

Psalm 119.67

It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.
Psalm 119.71

We grow through pain. Moses had pain. Moses murdered a man, abandoned everything he knew and lived in the desert for forty years before God called him.  David had pain. God anointed David as a teenager then Saul chased him for fifteen years before he died and David could become king. Jacob deceived his father and suffered the consequences of his deception as he worked for his deceptive uncle for fourteen years to earn the right to marry the woman he loved. Even Christ "learned obedience" from suffering. 

We grow because God calls us. We grow because God afflicts us. We grow because we surrender to his will. These things: grace, how we see the world, our relationship with God, our disciplines — these are the mechanics but the core, the why is much deeper, much more difficult to endure or to understand. 

Few among us perform these mechanics by nature. Naturally we depend on ourselves. Naturally we look to the world to meet our needs and to satisfy our desires. We look to the world because we know the world and we see the world. Only after God removes the things we depend on do we depend on him. Only after God removes these natural trappings do we see that the world does not meet our needs or satisfy our desires. Only after God removes love, sanity, strength do we understand that these things only exist through him and apart from him we are nothing. Only then do we seek him through honesty and discipline. Only then do we understand that we breathe and walk and exist only by his grace.

Faith does not easily grow. We enter the world arrogant, deceitful, filthy narcissists. Depending on our parents, we may receive training that increases or decreases this arrogance. Regardless, God will faithfully use the rest of your life to undo the nature that Adam gave us all. 

I know, O Lord, that your judgments are righteous and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Psalm 119.75

YouTube script

Atheism is the most empty and pointless of all the world religions. The Catholic says, "you're a loser but even though you're a loser you have to do what only a winner can do: earn eternal salvation." the Muslim says, "murder everyone who isn't a murderous loser like you and turn the world into murderous losers". Christianity says, you're a loser and because you're a loser only God can save you. Every other religion is just a drunk mix of bad philosophy, but atheism says literally nothing. Nothing exists but what I can see. It is the religion of not. God does not exist. You do not have a purpose. The atheist, at least the well intentioned atheist, attempts to make something of his life. He attempts to create his own purpose, and as long as life goes well, he's fine. But when life does not go well and (only for the fortunate few does life go well) when life goes badly what does he have? He has a purpose he has created for himself built on the shallow shifting foundation of his own ego but what is that built on? He has already denied the existence of ultimate reality and face it atheists, you know God exists. You know you will face the Eternal Judge. You put so much effort into denying this fact because you need it to be false because if it's true your world will collapse. Atheism destroys people.
Not only people but entire civilizations. Atheism birthed communism. The question was, now that God is dead, how do we build a functioning society? The answer was exactly what any child would say: we share! This is communism. But a person must be forced to share and that as it turns out, is not true sharing. Atheism denies the biblical truth that men are evil and instead it posits a good man at its core of a functioning society. But this is a lie so men must be forced at gunpoint to share. Men are lazy and evil apart from the grace of God and they will not work for each other and they will not share. If they are forced to share they are not sharing and it is the government who must force the collection and redistribution of resources. But isn't this what atheists wanted to avoid in the first place? Don't they want to avoid the heavy hand of some authoritarian despot? Only they've traded a loving cosmic authority for a violent human authority. The atheist is a fool, as scripture says.

YouTube script

Oy hello atheists.
I'm not going to try to convince anyone of what I believe. Only God can do that. If he wants you to believe you will believe. If not, sorry mate. None of you want a proof. You want to deny any proof. Nothing will convince you. If God came to earth and told you he was God and performed miracles and rose from the dead, you still wouldn't believe. You'd make excuses and claim connivery and charlatanishness and all manner of atheism. So...let's move on.
What I will do is tell you what is. I am going to tell you what God has done and what has happened and what will happen. Ok

My stuff

All my links yo
my book yo
Amazon
http://instagram.com/officialtedcortez
bloag
youtube

YouTube Script

Hey everyone. My name is Alejandro and I believe in ideas. Together we are going to change the world. We are going to begin with one idea and we are going to build from there. 

I begin by saying that God exists. There is a really simple proof and it goes like this: existence, therefore, God. If we trace any theory of origin, either evolution or aliens or God, we have to conclude that any origin of existence must be eternal. Nothing can come from nothing so all things must have an origin that has always existed. If anything ever came into being, it cannot have come from nothing. If we travel far enough backwards we can only stop at something that did not have an origin. That is to say, only an eternal something can be the origin of existence. That origin must be eternal and it must be powerful enough to be the origin of everything that is not eternal. Combine eternality and power and we have God. First truth: God exists. Deny it all you want, but you exist and the universe is not eternal so you and the universe must have an origin that is eternal and outside of nature, since nature cannot create itself. 

Second truth: God sovereignly rules over his universe. He created all so he rules over all: events, disasters, coincidences, tragedies, victories, and glories. He commands the worlds, the nations, armies, kings, presidents, men and women great and small rich and poor good and evil. He rules the thoughts intentions desires passions and wills of every man and woman. Nothing surprises him. Nothing dissuades, discourages or frightens him. Nothing gets in his way. Nothing stops him from doing his will. Nothing can for he rules over all and we have been created by him for his pleasure and his purposes and not for ours.

The World is Mad

The world has gone mad and the Church is to blame. The world has gone mad because we refuse to speak the truth and the first truth is that God rules over all. The second truth is that men are depraved and wicked to their core.

God rules over all of Creation.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

If God created, then God can destroy. If God created all then God owns and rules over all. He comprehends all. He rules over all events, over good and evil, over the thoughts, intentions, and desires of men. Nothing comes to pass that he is not aware of and either commands or allows. All is from His mighty hand.

None are saved apart from His will. None can be saved apart from His desire for we are hostile towards him by nature. He saves who he wills and allows to perish who he wills. If we are left to our natural desires, we will gladly choose eternal destruction. By His grace and intent alone are any delivered.

Men are wicked and unrepentant without his grace. We murder, cheat, lie and steal from each other. We destroy all we touch. Only by his grace do any survive a single day in his creation.

If we deny his sovereignty, we will necessarily deny man's depravity. If we deny man's depravity, we deny his sovereignty. These two run together. Today our works destroys itself because we have accepted the lie that men are not depraved but good. We believe that men have "evolved" and in this evolution we have reached a state of morality that does not require a Creator. We believe that men can live together without the influence or rule of an absolute moral standard Bearer, and despite the onslaught of overwhelming evidence, we cling to our lie because we prefer it to the truth that we are all beyond any redemption of it own making.

The Church builds on this lie. We prefer our righteousness to God's when we say that men are "free" to believe in God. We grasp small meaningless remnants of our dignity when we deny that God rules the heart, but we have no dignity. We are slaves to our sin. We wallow in our filth but we call it "choice" because that is how we define love. God does not define love this way. God loves and only God. Only God can love. When we claim that we chose God, we claim a false goodness that does not exist and we refuse to submit ourselves to God's sovereignty.

Our God is in the heavens; he does what he pleases.

He does not do what we please. He does not respond to us. He does not wait for us. He does not relinquish his rule and place us on the Creator's throne. That is madness. The world has gone mad because the Church believes that men are good and God is weak, but we can save the world if we submit to God and speak the truth.

Religion and Politics

My class on Dietrich Bonhoeffer assigned an essay on "worldview". The first part of the essay was to focus on what a worldview is, and the second part of the essay focused on my worldview. I don't think I need to define worldview. I didn't think so when I wrote the paper, but I did it anyway. In the paper, I stated that my worldview is that of the Westminster Confession. Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever by trusting God and obeying his word. I have not included the first two parts here. What follows is the last part of the essay: how my worldview impacts my interaction with the world.

Obedience will reveal itself as we interact with the world. We live in a country that allows its citizens to vote and participate in establishing policy together. Obedience to God’s word and Christ’s example will shine in our support and opposition to various issues and political parties. God’s word tells us what he expects, what he values, what he loves and what he hates. We have clear direction to aid us in evaluating most if not all of the controversial issues that we face. God has spoken to us about personal responsibility and morality, yet many in America openly defy God’s direction.

The freedom that we enjoy in the United States requires each individual to exercise responsibility in every area of life. Each of us depend on each other to respect the law, to work hard, to be honest, and to raise our children to do the same. If this expectation were ever to generally fail, our nation would crumble. When we drive in our vehicles, we obey the law and we trust that the vast majority of the people will also obey the law. When we shop at the mall, we trust that the vast majority of the people will respect each other’s persons. We depend on each other when we engage in business, when we go to work, when we drop our children off at school or send them on a plane to their grandparents. Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Without virtue, the nation will descend into lawlessness and chaos. The authorities will then need greater and more severe forms of force to maintain order, and then the country forfeits its freedom.

Personal responsibility manifests in public policy. When government happily provides for many basic needs, men ignore the duty they have to provide for themselves and their families and rely on government. God has commanded us to be diligent workers. Bonhoeffer writes, “It is God’s will that there shall be labour, marriage, government, and church in the world.”[1] Solomon says in Proverbs, “Poor is he who works with negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (10.4). Welfare benefits and other entitlement programs contribute to an increase in crime.[2] Welfare benefits enable fathers to abdicate their familial responsibilities and surrender them to the state. Children without fathers are twice as likely to commit crime.[3] Out-of-wedlock births are also linked to welfare. Michael Tanner writes, “By removing the economic consequences of an out-of-wedlock birth, welfare has removed a major incentive to avoid such pregnancies.”[4] Welfare discourages out-of-wedlock mothers from marrying in the future.[5] When fathers do not participate in the rearing of their children, the children lack direction, instruction, and moral guidance. Many believers contend that welfare is “compassionate” and “Christian”, while they fail to realize that Christ did not command the state to care for the poor, but the individual believer (Matthew 25.31-46; Luke 18.22). He commands us to visit the prisoner, and feed and clothe the poor. Compassion does not involve surrendering our taxes to a wasteful state to distribute without wisdom to whoever holds out their hand or refuses to work.

Compassion also requires a measure of wealth that surpasses meeting our basic needs. Christ says that we will always have the poor (Matthew 26.11), but we cannot show compassion if government assumes responsibility for meeting the needs of all its citizens. Currently, two economic systems battle for dominance between the two political parties. In socialism, the ideal of the Democrat Party, the citizen gives the majority of his wealth and income to the state, and the state redistributes this wealth as it sees fit. In capitalism, men earn according to their ability and diligence and keep the majority of their wealth. Socialism destroys both diligence and compassion by destroying incentive. We are selfish by nature, but if we keep little that we earn, we have no reason to work nor do we have anything to give. Paul says, “If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat” (2 Thessalonians 3.10), and “he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9.6).

Emotionalism substitutes for compassion in modern politics. The left side of American politics weeps and wails over the plight of citizens of other countries, and supports their illegal entry into this one. Christians who oppose illegal immigration for being an illegal and illegitimate way of solving a problem are condemned as “unchristian” and “not compassionate”, but if anyone challenges these accusers to travel to other countries and feed the poor or clothe the naked, they sit in silence. Weeping and wailing, while causing no discernible change in the world, pacifies the lazy conscience of the leftist. In the household where Bonhoeffer grew up, “Emotionalism, like sloppy communication, was thought to be self-indulgent.”[6] Indeed, emotionalism contributes nothing to the current discourse. Emotionalism complains, and complaints without solutions only serve to anger and frustrate. In our case, emotionalism drives one side to the voting booths so that others will pretend to solve the problem, when in reality the elected authorities have no interest in solving problems, but only in maintaining power. Lazy emotionalism continues.

God commands his people to love him from the heart, but also with the mind. He has given us a mind and also his spirit to discern right from wrong and know how to act. God commands all believers to love each other and to clothe and feed the poor. God does not command us to support illegal activity as a means of compassion, as some people confuse illegal immigration to be. God does not command us to murder our unborn children or our sick, in order to improve our quality of life or prevent a low quality of life.

The Democrat party supports abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, transgenderism, open borders, and government entitlement programs, among many others. Every single one of these positions openly defies God’s commands. Abortion destroys a person, when God commands to not murder (Exodus 20.13). David said, “In sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51.5). Every person has a soul from conception, and the Democrat party relishes the power that abortion gives them over life and death. They find the same power in euthanizing the sick and elderly. Doctors in Belgium euthanize children with cystic fibrosis, a treatable disease.[7] Doctors are allowed to terminate the life of any child who makes the request. God alone has the authority to give and end life. He says to Israel, “There is no God besides me; it is I who put to death and give life” (Deuteronomy 32.39). When we usurp his authority and take a life, we declare ourselves independent of his authority and we return to the Garden of Eden to eat again of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God has defined marriage as the union between one man and one woman (Genesis 2.18-24). He has defined gender as male and female (Genesis 1.27). Paul says that as believers, our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6.19) and he exhorts us to glorify God in our body (1 Corinthians 6.20). Liberals defy God by supporting gay marriage, homosexuality, and other forms of sexual perversion. I do not even oppose the legal unions of men to men and women to women, but to call that “marriage” is open defiance to God’s word. Certain groups advocate men having sexual relationships with boys.[8] Transgenderism, formerly known as gender dysphoria, has gained traction as an acceptable state of being, rather than a mental illness. Paul condemns these distortions of sexual identity (Romans 1.24-27). God created man for a purpose, and his biological sex defines his purpose as much as his relationship to God. We relate to God as men and as women. God has defined our responsibilities to each other in terms of our gender. God commands men to sacrifice (Ephesians 5.23, 25) and women to submit and trust (Ephesians 5.22; 1 Peter 3.1). When we confuse our masculinity or femininity, we confuse our duties as believers to God and each other. Elisabeth Elliot writes of the “glorious distinction” of sexuality. She says, “I dare to call it even a glorious inequality, so that we may understand how important it is and how utterly noninterchangeable men and women are. If we understand it, we will rejoice in it.”[9]

Many of our nation’s founders believed in God. Many Americans do today also. Most settlers came to America searching for the freedom to practice their religion.[10] Historians Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen write that “America … operated on an understanding that the nation would adopt an unofficial, generic Christianity that fit hand in glove with republicanism.”[11] As Benjamin Franklin said, a free nation requires virtue. True virtue requires faith in God, yet if America opens its borders indiscriminately, we weaken our national beliefs because not everyone believes as we do. Democrats support open borders as a means of maintaining power without regard to preserving a culture that largely values law and order, personal responsibility, or respect for life and property. Though illegal immigrants are not allowed to vote, many do[12], and of those who do, 54% identify with the Democrat, party, as opposed to 19% who identify with the Republican Party.[13] Europe has largely adopted a policy of allowing the entrance of thousands of immigrants who do not share the values of the permitting country. Dramatic increases in riots[14], rape[15], and various other forms of crime[16] have resulted. If America pursues the same policy of indiscriminate immigration, we will face a similar future. Illegal immigrants break the law by definition. If they have no respect for the law when they enter the country, how can we expect them to respect the law after they have entered it?

Scripture asserts the need for borders. When the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, God commanded them to “utterly destroy” all the inhabitants (Deuteronomy 7.2). The Canaanites worshipped other gods, they sacrificed their children to their idols (2 Kings 16.3), and God knew they would turn the hearts of the Israelites away from him (7.4). When King Solomon married foreign wives and took foreign concubines, he began to turn away from God and the nation followed with him (1 Kings 11). Countries have borders to preserve their values and customs. If there are no borders, there are no countries and no people. A government protects its people by protecting its values and its borders.

“The cross is laid on every Christian,” says Bonhoeffer.[17] Christ commands us to seek him in his word, yet many prefer to trust the words of anyone else, rather than, with reason, diligently pursue a Christian worldview. If we don’t know what to believe, someone else will tell us what they want us to believe. In 2006, I began working at Kern County for the Engineering and Survey Services Department. I rode in an enormous survey truck with a coworker who listened to conservative talk radio. As I listened, I realized that I agreed with everything these people had to say. Previously, I agreed with the men and women who preached “compassion” through shallow emotionalism. Conservatism takes its stand largely from Scripture, though obviously conservatism does not equal Christianity, or discipleship, or the sacrifice Christ calls us to. Those ventures across Kern County greatly influenced my political mind, but God had already began work on my spiritual mind and heart years earlier. I “grew up” spiritually reading about Elisabeth Elliot on masculinity and the sacrifice of her husband Jim Elliot, reading John Piper and Thomas Watson talk about God’s passion for his glory, and reading J.I. Packer tell of theology as the grandest study of all. Bonhoeffer writes, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”[18] I choose to vote as a conservative, but I choose to live as a disciple. Glorifying God as a disciple involves trusting Christ and obeying his word. It requires the daily death of humility in acknowledging sin, of diligence in seeking Christ, of trust in God as we surrender ourselves to love other people who may not love us in return.

---

[1] Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 204.

[2] Michael D. Tanner, “Relationship between the Welfare State and Crime.” Cato Institute (June 7, 1995). https://www.cato.org/publications/congressional-testimony/relationship-between-welfare-state-crime-0

[3] Tanner.

[4] Tanner.

[5] Tanner.

[6] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2010), page 15.

[7] Charles Lane, “Children are being euthanized in Beligum”, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/children-are-being-euthanized-in-belgium/2018/08/06/9473bac2-9988-11e8-b60b-1c897f17e185_story.html

[8] North American Man Boy Love Association, for example.

[9] Elisabeth Elliot, The Mark of a Man, (Tarrytown, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1981), page 30.

[10] Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States, (New York: Penguin Books, 2007), page 96.

[11] Ibid, 97.

[12] Rowan Scarborough, “Study supports Trump: 5.7 million noncitizens may have cast illegal votes”. The Washington Times, June 19, 2017. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/19/noncitizen-illegal-vote-number-higher-than-estimat/

[13] Eileen Patten and Mark Hugo Lopez, “Are unauthorized immigrants overwhelmingly Democrats?”, Pew Research Center, July 22, 2013. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/22/are-unauthorized-immigrants-overwhelmingly-democrats/

[14] Brett T., “WARZONE: Those ‘youths’ in Sweden seem to be rioting and torching cars again”. Twitchy, August 13, 2018. https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2018/08/13/warzone-those-youths-in-sweden-seem-to-be-rioting-and-torching-cars-again-video/

[15] Tom Wyke, et al, “Migrant rape fears spread across Europe: Women told not to go out at night alone after assaults carried out in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland amid warnings gangs are co-ordinating attacks”, DailyMail, August 15, 2018. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3390168/Migrant-rape-fears-spread-Europe-Women-told-not-night-assaults-carried-Sweden-Finland-Germany-Austria-Switzerland-amid-warnings-gangs-ordinating-attacks.html

[16] Grace Guarnieri, “MIGRANTS IN EUROPE LINKED TO SOARING VIOLENCE AND CRIME IN GERMANY, STUDY FINDS”. Newsweek, January 13, 2018, https://www.newsweek.com/migrants-europe-violence-crime-germany-study-770105

[17] Bonhoeffer, Cost, 89.

[18] Ibid.

the theologian is the enemy of theology

Currently I’m taking a class on Dietrich Bonhoeffer for my master’s degree. Bonhoeffer lived in the early 20^th century in Germany and was part of the resistance movement against Adolf Hitler. He conspired with other believers to assassinate Hitler. He also wrote a lot of books. One of them was Ethics, in which he uses the Sermon on the Mount to argue that Christ is the foundation of all Christian ethics. This seems pretty straight forward, right? Check out this sentence:

The decision between the clearly known good and the clearly known evil excludes human knowledge itself from the decision; it transposes the ethical into the struggle between the knowledge, which is already oriented towards the good, and the will, which still offers resistance, and it thereby fails to bring about that authentic decision in which the whole man, complete with his knowledge and his will, seeks and finds the good in the equivocal complexity of a historical situation solely through the venture of the deed.[1]

That is a single sentence, and I’ve read it a few times and I’m still not sure what it means. Granted, Bonhoeffer wrote in German, and this is a translation, but even if you separate it into two sentences, I doubt it would be less confusing. What is “clearly known good” or “clearly known evil”? Clearly known by conscience? If we know good and evil clearly, how is knowledge excluded? How is knowledge “oriented towards the good”? Why does the will offer resistance?

Placing the quote in context doesn’t help either:

The absolute criterion of a good which is a good in itself, assuming that a notion of this kind can be conceived in the first place without an inherent contradiction, makes good into a dead law, a Moloch to which all life and all liberty are sacrificed, and which fails to even impose a genuine obligation, simply because it is a metaphysical and self-contained construction which bears no essential relation to life itself.[2]

I have no idea. I don’t have the time to find an idea. There’s the problem. Maybe if you’re a seminary student, or a preacher, or a professional theologian who is paid to study this and make sense of it, maybe then you will invest the time and energy to find whatever golden nuggets of truth lie buried deep in the bowels of this single sentence. Maybe, but me? No way. I have a job and I have children and I have bills to pay and another job and a second course I’m taking to complete my degree and I don’t have the will or the strength to bury myself into this single, aggravating, obfuscating, abstract piece of horrible prose. I just want to learn and I don’t believe it should be this difficult. Obviously, learning takes effort, but many men have written on the same themes without this sort of profoundly infuriating and confusing word pile.

You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Apart from Me, you can do nothing.

Love one another, even as I have loved you.

It’s not hard to speak clearly and concisely. Theologian, do you want non-theologians to read what you write? Do you want anyone to learn anything or do you want your theology to stay confined in your own little echo chamber? Write better. Thanks. 

---

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949), page 212.

[2] Ibid.

anti-social media

the year was 1990 and i was graduating from foothill high school in bakersfield, california. i was going to work at my father's refinery over the summer. he didn't own the refinery; that was just where he worked. his company (again not his), Texaco, had given me a scholarship that would pay for just about all of my college education. they had also offered me a summer job.

i graduated near the top of my class and like anyone who does this, i had high expectations for myself. i was going to be a computer engineer. in 1990, that was pretty lofty. my mom was a teacher and my dad never finished college. but i got sidetracked.

first i married. then i finished school. then we had children. then i became a teacher. i loved teaching. then everything unraveled as i lost my sanity to a pornography addiction. career gone. new career. other career gone. marriage dead. i moved into my parents' extra room and shared custody with my ex-wife and watched her move on as i attempted first a master's degree in math (failed) then a master's in english (less failed but still failed).

in 2010, i was 38 years old, separated, unemployed, had cashed out three separate retirement accounts just to survive and not place undue burden on my parents, failed at two separate careers, failed at a master's degree in math (yet to fail an english master's), trying to escape the hold of the pornography, desperately alone, sitting on the floor of my new bedroom that i shared with my two boys when they visited me at my parents' house, weeping almost uncontrollably.

the good news is that i rarely feel suicidal anymore. i attend a recovery group as often as my schedule allows or my attitude will accept (increasingly more, thank God). i am still divorced and i am still single. though i want a relationship, the thought terrifies me. i have been destructive and i have been destroyed. i do not want either again. i do not trust myself and i trust others less. i have a part-time job teaching at a vocational college, sometimes i drive for lyft, and i edit classic out-of-print public domain books that i sell on amazon for a little bit of retirement cash. i am a bit lonely but less so. i am not lonely/angry like i was during the marriage. trust comes slowly.

social media doesn't help. social media is the illusion of social interaction. on social media, we only allow others to see what we want them to see. most of us put our best facade forward, and we avoid those who do not. who needs drama? but drama is what makes us human. drama is how we relate to each other. drama is how we know we are genuinely human and not obscene plastically perfect caricatures of humanity. but drama on social media is uncomfortable, embarrassing, shameful. drama should be private and excessive drama should be avoided. in real life, we resolve drama as much as possible with those we love. these resolutions strengthen our connections.

on social media we pretend. we miss the little details: the smiles, the playful sarcasm, the honesty (if honesty is there at all). i am not the person i am on social media. on social media i am a clown or a raging political/theological world changer (or i think i am). mostly just a clown.

on social media everyone pretends. the few who may not be pretending may not need to pretend that their life is perfect, because it is. who even knows? this is the other side of the madness. social media invites comparison and comparison breeds envy of the worst kind.

i should be more
i should be different
i should be rich
i should be with her
i should be famous
i should be everything i am not

at least it does for someone like me: insecure, unstable, unsure of my purpose on this planet, of why God bothered to create me at all. but He did create me, and He created me for a reason. my life is the beginning of this reason. all of the failure, all of the pain, all of the insanity--He uses these to shape my soul. who knows why? i do not, but He does. the reality is that i should be more and God will make me more. He has already begun to, but not because of what i see here or there with this person or that person, but because God has made me to be me.

Silken Self

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified,
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire,
Let me not sink to be a clod,
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.

Silken Self
Amy Carmichael

Pinnock and Scripture

Before I go any further in to this travesty of theology, I want to explore some things Pinnock has said in this book and in his pneumatological treatise, Flame of Love.

In Flame of Love, Pinnock immediately declares that he appreciates Jurgen Moltmann's attempt to "recover a more experiential basis for the doctrine of the Spirit."[1] Later in his introduction he says that in his book “we will be dipping into the testimony of Scripture and into insights from the ecumenical church”[2]. “We have to be sensitive to things that are only spiritual discerned,” he says. To complete his turn away from Scripture, Pinnock concludes his introduction by saying, “This book is not really a biblical study but moves beyond exegesis to historical and theological reflection…Exegesis alone cannot provide the full perspective required by the church. There has to be a wider sweep of investigation that takes into account other dimensions—historical, theological, philosophical, cultural, and mystical”[3].

Pinnock makes similar statements in The Grace of God and the Will of Man. “Here is a meaty debate… and in it both sides can appeal to rich scriptural, logical, and experiential data,” he opines.[4] He admits that whole chapters of his book result from “rational speculation.”[5] In the chapter that recounts his autobiographical pilgrimage he says, “I had known experientially all along in my walk with the Lord, that there is a profound mutuality in our dealings with God.”[6]

Calvinists do not rely on experiential data for good reason. We are fallible, flawed, impure. We assume too much of ourselves. We give ourselves too much credit. The God of the Universe is the God of the Universe. To presume that our base, limited capacity could ever possibly come to correct conclusions apart or distinct from divine revelation, as revealed in enduring and tested Scripture, betrays a staggering height of arrogance. Experiential data does not inform theology. Certainly it does not correct clear, unequivocal declarations of Scripture. If “insights from the ecumenical church” differ from or contradict what Scripture plainly says, they must be tossed out. The Church is flawed because we are the church. There is no consensus of historical minds within the Church that God gives authority to. In this world, He has given authority to his word, to his Son, and nothing else. We should suspect any data that is based primarily or exclusively on personal or even corporate experience. We are prone to failure, bias, and the deception of an enemy whose capacity and ability far exceeds our own.

Of Scripture Paul said, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3.16). Of men he said, “Fools” (Romans 1.14, 22; 2.20; 1 Corinthians 1.20,27; Galatians 3.1,3). Of Scripture Peter said, “No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God’ (2 Peter 1.21). Of men Peter said, “Lustful. Ignorant. Newborn babies. Disobedient” (1 Peter 1.14; 2.2; 3.1). We do not seek God apart from Scripture. We do not conclude who he is or who we want him to be apart from Scripture.

---

[1] Clark Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), page 10.

[2] Ibid, 13.

[3] Ibid, 17.

[4] Clark Pinnock, The Grace of God and the Will of Man. (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1989), x.

[5] Ibid, xiii.

[6] Ibid, 19

Jeremiah

From The Kingdom of God, John Bright, 1953, Abingdon Books

Jeremiah had confronted the awful realization that God and the plain moral right of the matter were no longer on the side of his country. God has parted company with the Kingdom of Judah and wars against that kingdom. To take this course cost Jeremiah a terrific struggle. Here we see a soul at war with itself and with God; so much so that Jeremiah did not hesitate to hurl at his God the bluntest accusations of unfairness. It is quite clear that denouncing his people gave him not the least pleasure. He reminded God that he had never wanted the job of prophet anyhow. The butt of jeers, he lashed out at God in well-nigh blasphemous language, charging that God had "seduced" him, and he had let himself be taken in; he had struggled against his destiny, but God had simply overpowered him. Was that not a great victory for so mighty a God! Ostracized and lonely, he felt like a man suffering from an incurable wound. His spiritual resources were at an end. Yet he could not quit, try as he might; the compulsion of the divine Word was upon him:

And if I say, "I will not mention him, not speak any more in his name," then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I wear myself out trying to hold it in, but I can't!

The human spirit is not made to endure such tension. The end of it is despair unparalleled, despair which outruns all words and yet for which Jeremiah found words surpassingly moving. Jeremiah did not want to live.

Within there was a boiling tempest; but without there was an impregnable "wall of bronze". Within was all manner of fear and despair; without was a man who, so far as we know, never gave back so much as an inch! Here, indeed, we learn what faith really is: not that smug faith which is untroubled by questions because it has never asked any; but that true faith which has asked all the questions and received very few answers, yet has heard the command, "Gird up your loins! Do your duty! Remember your calling! Cast yourself forward upon God!"

In this connection, Jeremiah refutes the popular modern notion that the goal of religion is a "complete person", freed of its fears, its doubts, and its frustrations. Certainly Jeremiah was no complete person. It is doubtful if to the end of his tortured existence he ever knew the meaning of the word "peace". We have no evidence that his internal struggle was ever ended. The feeling cannot be escaped that if Jeremiah had been complete, it would have been at the cost of ceasing to be Jeremiah! A man at peace simply could not be a Jeremiah. Spiritual health is good; mental assurance is good. But the summons of faith is neither to a complete person nor to the laying by of all questions, but to the dedication of personality--with all its fears and questions--to its duty and destiny under God.

Introduction to Works of Arthur Pink Volume 1

I grew up reading scripture. I had—have—this ancient New International Version New Testament, published in 1975. The subtitle is “Illustrated Children’s Edition with Memory Margin”. This New Testament measures 6 and a half, by 9 and an eighth, by 1 and a quarter inches. I estimate the font to be about 14 pt. Maybe I was partially blind when I was a child. By New Testament standards, this book is very large. Not sure where I was going with this. I also had a complete bible. This other bible was a children’s edition sprinkled throughout with pictures of various events. That thing is lost forever.

I’m guessing I learned to read about the same time as most other children. The Bible being one of the first books I possessed, that was what I read. One of the earliest stories I remember reading was “David and Goliath”.

Like many of the stories in scripture, we find in this story much that inspires us. David tended sheep. He was young, probably in his early teens. He was handsome. He was brave, even perhaps a little obnoxious. The details and the conflict between David and his older brother lend to the credulity of the story. David went to the frontlines of the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines and brought food to the soldiers. There, he heard the challenge of the Philistines’ gigantic champion, Goliath, as he defied the armies of God, and God himself. “Who does this guy think he is?”, David asked. We all know how the story ends. David executes an unconscious Goliath with his own sword. That is how the story of David and Goliath ends. The future king of Israel, the ancestor God chose through which he would send the Savior of Mankind—David the Shepherd executed an unconscious man without trial or pretense of any kind.

“But this was war,” you object. Exactly right. The gory, violent details give the story credulity. Unlike the gory, obscenely perverse details of the Grimms’ fairy tales, the details in scripture match the overarching narrative. In war, the victor executes the defeated.

Scripture contains many details that we choose to ignore, or that we forget, or that we decline to emphasize with equal weight as the “inspirational” details:

Men are depraved. Jeremiah 17.9

God controls what we think and desire. Proverbs 21.1

God hates certain groups of people. Psalm 5.5; Proverbs 6.16-19.

God hates certain individuals. Malachi 1.3; Romans 9.13

God destines some to eternal destruction. Romans 9.22; 1 Peter 2.8

Why do we expect the Creator of the Universe to be eternally benign, inoffensive, and ever-pleasant? Do we know any human beings like this? If we do, do we honestly trust that this is who they are?

Arthur Pink refused to ignore any single part of scripture that he found unpleasant. The Sovereignty of God describes a God who rules all, every detail of all of creation, every action, every event, every decision of every man, woman, and child. The sovereignty of God must be our starting point for all of scripture, for all of theology. Without it, there is no scripture. If God is not sovereign, then his word has no meaning. How can he keep his promises? How can we trust him? Why even bother to worship him, if anything we decide can thwart whatever he decides? If our measly and minuscule intentions, these things we do daily by happenstance or stupidity or ignorance, can ruin the plans of the God of the universe, what is the point of God? What meaning is there in anything we do or say or believe? But if God is sovereign, then everything has meaning. Every failure, every thought, every intention that enters our heart has a purpose, and the purpose is not our purpose, but God’s. If God is sovereign, then he can be trusted, and his word can be proclaimed without fear and without compromise.

Introduction to "Pelagius, Augustine, and the Plague of Free Will"

https://www.amazon.com/Pelagius-Augustine-Plague-Free-will-ebook/dp/B074QN4RSF

I grew up in the First Assemblies of God denomination. The Assemblies are a Pentecostal denomination. I first “experienced” God at an Assemblies church. I was about 4 years old. My parents were new believers. My mother had converted from Catholicism, and my father had no prior church experience. He was a deacon, or an usher. I’m not sure. He wore a suit every Sunday and I would watch him diligently polish his black leather shoes every Sunday morning. We lived in San Jose, California, and the church we attended was set atop a tiny hill in a suburb.

I remember watching the movie "666", which was based on a book by Salem Kirban. The movie remains the most terrifying experience of my life. The heroine in the movie wakes up one morning and finds that her significant other has vanished while shaving. The world is in chaos. Millions of people have inexplicably disappeared. Soon the events described in Revelation become reality. Plagues, destruction, world government, the Mark of the Beast, all of it. But that’s not the terrifying part. The governing authorities, now a tool of the AntiChrist, begin to hunt all the Christians who refuse to accept the Mark. The movie ends as the authorities lead the heroine to the guillotine and execute her, who then wakes up from this nightmare to find her boyfriend has vanished.

This movie scarred me, and for years, whenever I was lost, or I couldn’t find my parents, I naturally assumed God had abandoned me, Christ had returned, and I was not worthy.

There’s no time to change your mind
The Son has come
And you’ve been left behind

Those words are actual song lyrics. I believed them. What did I know? I was a toddler. I understood words well; I just didn’t understand God well.

Pentecostal and other Charismatic denominations frequently use fear to motivate Christians. They believe that if they teach Christians about the grace and love of God, then Christians will abuse God’s grace and live in sin. For them, fear keeps Christians in line. Charismatic denominations traditionally believe that a Christian can “lose” their salvation. If you sin enough times—we don’t know how many times, but God does—then you will fall away from God and burn for eternity in hell. You have abandoned God. These churches have “altar calls” and “rededication ceremonies” every week. Catholic churches have similar ceremonies, called “confession”. There are a lot of theological similarities between Catholic and Charismatic churches.

Charismatics, Catholics, and many other Protestant denominations believe that a Christian can lose his salvation by a simple choice. They believe this because they believe the Christian originally decided to choose to believe in Christ. If he can freely, through his own volition, believe in Christ, then he can freely choose to stop believing. It’s a perfectly consistent belief. It’s just not biblical.

The core of the problem is this notion of free will. Freedom is very Western, but not very biblical. God is not a westerner. He is not Socrates or Plato. He wasn’t created with the birth of Athens and he doesn’t subscribe to our beliefs. He commands us to submit to his, and the first notion that we must accept is that, because of Adam, we are dead in our sin.

I do not deny that we all make choices. Every day, every one of us makes choices. Our choices are limited by certain factors, however. Our environment limits our choices. All of us do not choose to walk to school, or to wear warm clothing throughout the year, for example. Our personality limits our choices. I will never choose to use hallucinogens or run shirtless through the mall. Our will is not absolutely free, yet we are free to make many of the choices we want to make: where we live, what we eat, who we love, etc.

The theological controversy surrounds our ability to believe in God. Do we freely choose God, or does he sovereignly (some say arbitrarily) choose us? The implications of both options present different dilemmas. If we freely choose God, then what does God do? God responds to our wishes, and we effectively become the Initiators of this Divine Covenant. We decide who God loves and doesn’t love. We hold life and death in our will, eternal salvation or eternal damnation. If God chooses us, then what about those he doesn’t choose? Why does he choose some and damn others? What about our freedom? What about his love? Does he even love everyone?

Many Christians believe that the controversy regarding free will is largely irrelevant to the whole of the Christian life. Most Christians remain completely unaware that there is a controversy at all. The truth is that what a Christian believes about free will and election relates directly to what they believe about sin, grace, and redemption. Free will places in man a spark, however small, of original righteousness. Free will says that we are not sinners at our core, but saints, for we choose to trust in God not by his Spirit, but by the strength of our moral character. With this belief, we become righteous at our core, apart from Christ. Consequently, we need neither grace nor redemption.

Free will flagrantly elevates man to a position equal with God. Theologians who believe in free will not only believe that man can thwart the plans of God, but that God is subject to the whims of man. Free will ventures beyond placing man and God on an equal plane; the doctrine of free will places man in a superior position to the God of the universe.

When a Christian believes that he is responsible for his salvation through the glorious strength and magnificence of free will, he assumes responsibilities that only God can be responsible for. This believer is now responsible for his continued justification, lest he deny God through ongoing sin and lose his salvation; for his sanctification through daily acts of prayer, Bible study, worship, etc.; for the salvation of his loved ones, and for the Gospel command of making disciples of the entire world. Only God has the power and wisdom to accomplish these and guide us through them. We are responsible to trust in God, and to act obediently through this trust, but only God can keep us in salvation, bring us through sanctification and present us holy before him, and guarantee the salvation of those he has elected.

If we believe that we choose God, rather than he choose us, we remove his sovereignty. God sits and waits for us to choose him. He becomes passive. Scripture does not describe God in this way. God sovereignty rules the universe in absolute sovereignty. He builds, he tears down, he uproots and he plants not only men but entire nations.

The Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom he wishes, and sets over it the lowliest of men. 

Daniel 4.17

If we remove his sovereignty, we set ourselves in his place. We now rule our destinies, and we decide who enters the Kingdom. Many theologians believe that God willingly removes his own sovereignty to respect our free will.[1] If God is not sovereign over the will of man, none of his promises can be trusted, for his promises involve the world, and the world is shaped and influenced by our decisions. If God is not sovereign, God is not God.

This absence of sovereignty allows entire denominations and even the entire Catholic Church to create whatever doctrine they see fit. If God is not sovereign, then his word cannot be trusted. Scripture cannot be trusted. Therefore, we can change, twist, add, subtract, or rewrite as we see fit. The Catholic Church, among many other unscriptural teachings, teaches that we are saved by faith and works. Many denominations ordain practicing homosexuals. The so-called Prosperity Gospel teaches thousands (possibly millions) that God acts as a personal wish-granting machine. If God is not sovereign, man is, and within the church that teaches free will, men have become their own god.

[1] This is the whole point of The Grace of God and the Will of Man. Clark Pinnock, editor, Bethany House Publishers, 1995.