Reformation Day: Candy Story and Good Sermon

Happy Reformation Day! To celebrate with my family I picked up Butterfinger candy bars after work. It was the first time Moses (3 years old) and Kati (1 and-a-half years old) had had a Butterfinger, so it was a real celebration. They praised God for the Reformation with their chocolatey-grins while trying to gum-and-lick-loose the candy stuck to their teeth.

Also, this past Sunday was Reformation Sunday, and one of my pastors (Tim Bushong) preached a Grand Slam of a sermon -- "Was the Reformation Really Necessary?" -- go to our church's website to stream and/or download the sermon. I highly recommend it.

First Native American Saint: Witness

You can go to USA Today to read an AP article about Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint. Kateri was beatified by Pope John Paul II and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on 10/21/2012.

The article covers in detail that her canonization has sparked both skepticism and pride. On the one hand, "Traditional Mohawks" worry that "Kateri's sainthood could be used as a way to encourage Native Americans to eschew their ancestral values for Catholic dogma," but on the other hand, the article also cites that many don't think her sainthood is a contentious issue.

It will be interesting to see how this skepticism/pride develop in the upcoming years. I'm not Roman so I don't have a clue what is coming down the sainthood pipeline, but I would imagine that other Native Americans are slated to be beatified, canonized, et cetera by Rome in the upcoming century. I don't know the vesting particulars for someone to officially be recognized as a saint, but if the matriculation process has concluded for at least one Native American saint, then my assumption is that other Native Americans can't be very far behind. Take that with a grain of salt, it being an ill-informed assumption by an outsider of Roman Catholicism.

What I do know is this. "Traditional Mohawks" should be worried. Jesus Christ is Lord, contra the traditional-religious-mythological views of the Mohawk/Iroquois League of Nations.

Traditional Mohawks should be worried, the Lord probably will use Rome's sainthooding of Kateri to draw additional Mohawks to himself. God does, after all, use means, and church history is full of conversion stories attesting that God used godly Christians as means by which sinners were exposed to and heard the Gospel, repented and were drawn unto Christ the Redeemer (e.g., God used Saint Ambrose's ministry to prepare Augustine for conversion).

Kateri is a witness to non-Christian Mohawks, other non-Christian Native Americans, and non-Christian Americans alike. Kateri is a witness that all of them need to to stop their foolish raging (Psalm 2:1), repent of their sins, and "Kiss the Son" and put their trust in Jesus Christ (Psalm 2:12).

29 Years = More Books

Yesterday was my 29th birthday. Celebrated with family during the weekend, they are such a rich blessing. My wife said this is my "Golden Birthday" since I turned 29 on October 29th.  Also, 29 is a prime number, so this birthday is a force to be reckoned with. My children spoiled me rotten and bought me a stack of books for my birthday. Top to bottom of the stack . . .

The Miami Indians of Indiana: A Persistent People, 1654 - 1994 by Stewart Rafert.

Evolution and Conversion: Dialogues on the Origins of Culture by Rene Girard with Pierpaolo Antonello and Joao Cezar de Castro Rocha.

The Liberated Imagination: Thinking Christianly About the Arts by Leland Ryken.

The Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs 

Scripture's Doctrine and Theology's Bible: How the New Testament Shapes Christian Dogmatics edited by Markus Bockmuehl and Alan J. Torrance.

Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture by Jaroslav Pelikan.

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan.

Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places by Peter Nabokov. 

Tuesdays with Blaster at Tree & The Seed: TMWAJ - Tracks 7, 8, and 9

Today's installment is over Tracks 7, 8, and 9 of Blaster the Rocket Man's 1999 release, The Monster Who Ate Jesus.

Go here for initial comments on album and the linear notes.
Go here for comments on Tracks 1, 2, and 3.
Go here for comments on Tracks 4, 5, and 6.


Track 7 - Ransom vs. the Unman

Straight forward Rat-a-Tat-Tat-Tat-Tat drumming, well placed palm-muted guitars, punk-rock guitar pick slides denoting the transition into the Chorus.  Track 7 and 8 lyrically draw from Lewis' Perelandra and That Hideous Strength. Growing up with Blaster was a blessing. I was a kid raised on a farm in mid-central Indiana, smack in the middle of corn fields, and Blaster was a musical and literary gateway to things outside the normal planetary rotation of rural Hoosier life.

Into the nightmare monster's embrace

The teeth and the claws and the jaws of the face

The ripping of skin and the reeking of breath

The real life enacting of myth

(For he loved not his life unto death) 

[Chorus]

Ransom! vs. The Unman!

Ransom! The Unman!

Ransom The Unman!

Ransom The Unman! (4x) 

He flung himself on the death that was living

"His hands taught him terrible things . . .

He felt its ribs break . . . heard its jaw-bone

crack."

As they pummeled and scraped and attacked

(But he's not of those who shrink back)

repeat Chorus

"In the sphere of Venus I learned war.

In this age Saturn will descend.

I am the Pendragon" (C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength). 

Track 8 - March of the Macrobes

As mentioned above, lyrics for this song are drawn from Lewis' That Hideous Strength.

Macrobes! Macrobes!

Here come the Heads!

The Chosen Heads of the Bodiless Men

Macrobes! Macrobes!

Here come the Heads!

Here come the Chosen Heads

of the Bodiless (Men)

From ape to man to god

by rape we plant the pod

to propagate the fraud

From ape to man to god

by rape we plant the pod

to liquidate the body

You could be a vessel for

that hideous . . . strength

You could be the gateway

The time is here

They're drawing near

Can you feel the tension

from another dimension?

Leave flesh behind.

There's only mind.

Or set the brain apart

to elevate the heart

Whatever happened to the individual? (N.I.C.E.)

Where is his soul? (R.A.P.E)

(As you walk along the brightly lit corridors

you hear a soothing, androgynous voice

overhead.)

"Welcome to the National Institute for

Coordinated Experiments where we offer

Rationalized Alternatives to Plausible

Evidence," etc.

There's no unity

in your dichotomy

Section by section

dissection

Vivid vivisection

at the point of integration

with no relation

to the whole

You've no choice left you

but to make

an irrational leap of faith

For the Macrobes are marching over you!

Marching Macrobes

Marching

Macrobes on the march (cha! cha! cha!)

Track 9 - Cop City

This is an instrumental "surf-rock" sounding song with Spanish counting thrown in for good measure, "Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro!" Conventional guitar riff opener eventually transitioning into a reverberated guitar phrasing, and "Cinco, Seis, Siete, Ocho!"

Cornelius "One Liner" Van Til

"When the enemy attacks the foundations, we must be able to protect these foundations" (24).

"The church's doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God is based upon and is the logical consequence of God's absolute self-existence" (33).

"It is really only the Christian who can speak of implication, because no one but him really takes the idea of an absolute system seriously" (35).

"The proper way to begin with facts is therefore to claim that unless they are what Christians say they are, they are unintelligible" (41).

"All men are either in covenant with Satan or in covenant with God" (68).

"Once man has sinned, his intellect is disturbed no less than are his emotions or his will" (75).

"The average philosopher and scientist today holds to a nontheistic conception of reason and therefore also to a nontheistic conception of evidence" (87).

"Surely the Christian, who believes in the doctrine of creation, cannot share the Greek depreciation of the things of the sense world" (93).

"Either man is created by God, or he is not" (97).

"The assurance of the truth of revelation is the work of the internal testimony of the Spirit" (103).

"Without the testimony of the Spirit, even Adam and Eve in Paradise would have lived in uncertainty and doubt" (104).

"Revelation is always testimony . . . . [i]t is always authoritative testimony and as such requires obedience" (114).

"The revelation of God was deposited in the whole of creation . . . . [m]an was to be God's reinterpreter, that is, God's prophet on earth" (129).

"Nature cannot be studied fruitfully except in combination with man. Man is the reinterpreter of God's universe" (134) [I know. I know. This is a two-liner.]

"The Christian can obtain his philosophy of fact from no other source than Scripture" (152).

"Man is and remains God's self-conscious creature" [cf. Romans 1:19] (160).

"The created personality is the highest manifestation of the personality of God" (160).

"No sinner can interpret reality aright" (164).

"Revelation in nature is but a limiting concept, a concept incomplete without its correlative [correlative concept is what is needed for a limiting concept to be understood] as found in supernatural communication" (171).

"The foolishness of the denial of the Creator lies precisely in the fact that this Creator confronts man in every fact so that no fact has any meaning for man except it be seen as God's creation" (174).

"Salvation means that man, the sinner, must be brought back to the knowledge of himself as the creature of God and therefore, to the knowledge of God as the Creator" (195).

"It is a common mistake of modern theology to mix the categories of the ethical and the metaphysical" (209).

"The distinction between Creator and creature has not been changed in the least by the incarnation of Christ" (212)."

"When sin came, it would have destroyed true prophecy. Then God gave the mother promise" [Genesis 3:15] (213).

"The central miracle of Christianity, as it is in the person and work of Christ, is necessary not because man is man, but because man is a sinner" (219).

"Man needs true interpretation, but he also needs to be made a new creature" (219).

"[A] healed soul in a healed body needs a healed nature in which to live" (220).

"Now God, in special revelation, actually brings the true interpretation into the possession of the souls of those whom he has chosen" (222).

"Revelation had to be historically mediated" (224).

"Jesus was the greatest religious expert that ever lived. Accordingly, we ought to attach great weight to his words" (231).

"It was necessary that the ethical alienation should be removed in order that the original metaphysical relation be able to function normally again" (232).

"Scripture needs no additional revelation" (240).

"[O]nly God himself can testify to the revelation that he has given of himself. Special revelation must, in the nature of the case, be self-testified" (243).

All quotes from An Introduction to Systematic Theology: Prolegomena and the Doctrines of Revelation, Scripture, and God (P&R, 2007).

Tuesdays with Blaster at Tree & The Seed: TMWAJ - Tracks 4, 5, and 6

Today's installment is over Tracks 4, 5, and 6 of Blaster the Rocket Man's 1999 release, The Monster Who Ate Jesus.

Go here for initial comments on album and the linear notes.
Go here for comments on Tracks 1, 2, and 3.

Track 4 – Stampede!

This is a cowboy punk-rock anthem about a stampede of intergalactic cattle/celestial beasts. Musically quite fun, a very rowdy song, and was a crowd favorite at shows. This song is the first track on Blaster's Live CD (Disc 2 of The Anatomy of a Monster), which, as far as live albums go, is a pretty rough record from a production standpoint. However, punk-rock generally hast not placed much merit in the metrics of production.

Stampede is lyrically a lot of fun. Anytime a song allows me to chant "Stampede!!!" and "Yippy ki ay!" and "Whoa hoss, easy fella!" it makes me giddy like a kid again. As enjoyable as that is, lyrically the song is a neat allegory with a twist of fantasy. 

Out on the range one night
We saw a strange sight comin' right out of the sky
It was a monster herd of the unheard of
Livestock of the Cosmos
A multifarious multitude of intergalactic cattle
Well, round here we don't take kindly
to no otherworldly
And a cowboy's gotta' do what a cowboy's gotta do
I took my rifle from the saddle and my lassoo too
Let's round us up some supper, boys!
Ride 'em fast! Ride 'em hard!
(Chasin' the Devil's herd)
Move along, move along, move along
lil' dogies!
(Drivin' the monsters from the Earth)
Yippy ki ay, Yippy ki oh
Keep that cattle movin'
Got it rollin' to the killin'
Gonna' rope up the unwillin'
Saw a rocketship wagon
driving' hideous horses
Had the whole team in its tractor beam
They gave an awful, eerie scream
that chilled my blood and spooked my steed
but I shook it off and took aim at the cockpit
Well, the boys were firin' too
and we all know we hit our target
as we watched the spacecraft
goin' down in flames
Then our eyes bugged in surprise
as the skies turned into chaos
The herd was loose
STAMPEDE!
Steady boys, there's gonna' be noise!
Ride 'em fast! Ride 'em hard!
(Chasin' the Devil's herd)
Move along, move along, move along
lil' dogies!
(Drivin' the monsters from Earth)
Yippy ki ay, Yippy ki oh
Keep that cattle movin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin' rawhide!
We'll kill 'em when we catch 'em on earthside
I'm back on the range
to keep the strange from further invasion
Protecting my family and my property
I'm back on the range
to keep the strange from further invasion
Protecting my family and my property
I'm back in the saddle again
where you don't know who's your friend
and the queer-horned cattle feed
on the lonely, bluish weed
Sometimes at night
I hear the mournful cryin'
of bestial extra-terrestrials
Whoah hoss. Easy fella'

Track 5 – Human Fly Trap (Our Hero Escapes from Venus)

The following is the introduction to track 5 in the album's linear notes.

In the seemingly limitless possibilities of science fiction there are many Venuses to be explored. Let not this one be confused with Lewis's transcendent vision of Perelandra which is referred to elsewhere on this album. In fact, it is basically an alternate reality of the  Perelandrian paradise in that it shares  her sensuous beauty but not her unfallen state.

This "evil twin" is not a New Eden, but a False Eden that entices its isolated explorers toward self-gratification which slowly transmogrifies them into a suitable food for consumption - namely, the Fly. (And how does this half-human, half-fly monster escape, you ask? by eating Jesus, of course!)"

This song begins with delayed guitars and also has some excellent keys/organ parts. Lyrically this is a song that reveals its narrative's moral by antithesis--the Hero has mutated into half-fly/half-human and in order to escape this "False Eden" he must "FLY" (as in fly away, flight, run away). He is caught in a False Eden, a world that has teeth. This Hero is caught in the trap of a False Eden/Venus Fly-Man Eater. However, this is a Salvation story. Our Hero escapes. He escapes because the Lord severs him from the "maw of death". Salvation and grace, indeed.

Report #1 to Space Station:
"How very breathable the air is here.
My head is clear. I have no fear.
Sensuous is the status
of my sensory apparatus.
My research is going quite well
and I've been getting to know my self
While chasing the planetary standard.
Embracing this land in all her grandeur
with open arms and all five senses
and to her charms I feel defenseless.
But I have dreams where it seems
my body has a fly head
and a fly has my head!
Can't anybody hear that little fly
on the wall screaming?
It's got a tiny human head
screaming, screaming for help!"
A heart to harden
in a carnivorous green garden
of sentient, bionic botany
gigantic mouth closing down on me!

Report #2 to Space Station:
"Can you see me on this communication?
I've changed. I'm a mutation.
A variation of you former friend.
But all you see can see is this
hideous head of a fly!
Don't try to rescue me.
Oh no, no this planet's all my own.
Won't you just leave me alone?
(Who knew this world had teeth?
Into it I go and down beneath.)
Can't anybody hear that little fly
on the wall screaming?
It's got a tiny human head
screaming, screaming for help!"

Linear Note -- The following fragment of a transcript was found
in a blood stained notebook lying open near the
scene of carnage. A similarly bloodied stylus was
also found, with which the message was presumably
written.

"If the shuttle is leaving
I'll not be cleaving.
Lord, sever me
from this maw of death.
The same word that describes what I have become
also defines my graciously given means of escape.
To flee. To run away"
FLY!
FLY!
FLY!

Track 6 – [Untitled]

The entirety of this track is an excerpt from Out of the Silent Planet, the first book in C.S. Lewis' sci-fi/space trilogy. The spoken word is over background noises, mechanical yet organic droning with incremental thuds (I can't decide if it is akin to a heartbeat or something sounding-like-the-noise-that-is-made-inside-of-a-car-trunk while a car commutes over a long bridge). This excerpt is the introduction to Track 7 - "Ransom vs. the Unman" (anticipation!). 

No insect-like, vermiculite or crustacean Abominable,
no twitching feelers, rasping wings, slimy coils,
curling tentacles, no monstrous union of superhuman
intelligence and insatiable cruelty seemed to him
anything but likely on an alien world. He saw in
imagination various incompatible monstrosities -
bulbous eyes, grinning jaws, horns, stings, mandibles.
Loathing of insects, loathing of snakes, loathing
of things that squashed and squelched, all played
their horrible symphonies over his nerves. But the
reality would be worse: it would be an extra-
terrestrial otherness - something one had never
thought of, never could have thought of. In that
moment Ransom made a decision . . . 

LOL: Calvin, Yoda, and the Institutes

Ever wonder what John Calvin would sound like if he was Yoda? I ran the first paragraph from the Institutes through an English-to-Yoda translator. No need to wonder now.

First paragraph per John Calvin . . .

The First Book treats of the knowledge of God the Creator. But as it is in the creation of man that the divine perfections are best displayed, so man also is made the subject of discourse. Thus the whole book divides itself into two principal heads—the former relating to the knowledge of God, and the latter to the knowledge of man. In the first chapter, these are considered jointly; and in each of the following chapters, separately: occasionally, however, intermingled with other matters which refer to one or other of the heads; e.g., the discussions concerning Scripture and images, falling under the former head, and the other three concerning the creation of the world, the holy angels and devils, falling under the latter. The last point discussed—viz. the method of the divine government, relates to both.

First paragraph per Yoda . . .

Of the knowledge of god the creator the first book treats. But in the creation of man that the divine perfections are best displayed, it as is, so made the subject of discourse, man also is.  To the knowledge of god thus the whole book divides itself into two principal heads—the former relating, and to the knowledge of man the latter.  In the first chapter, considered jointly, these are; and of the following chapters in each, separately:  Occasionally, however, with other matters intermingled which refer to one or other of the heads; e.g., the discussions concerning scripture and images, falling under the former head, and of the world the other three concerning the creation, the holy angels and devils, falling under the latter.  The last point discussed—viz.  Of the divine government the method, to both relates.

   

Reason and Evidence

"The average philosopher and scientist today holds to a nontheistic conception of reason and therefore also to a nontheistic conception of evidence" (Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 87).

PTO - October 10

Today is Moses' third birthday, and I am grateful for paid-time-off.

After breakfast Moses says, "I want to sing from church book." Of course I say, "That is fine. Go grab a book." (Moses refers to my 38 Volume/Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene Fathers as "church books".) Moses grabs Vol. 4 of Ante-Nicene Fathers off the bookshelf and runs back to the breakfast table, opening the book he points and says, "Sing this!"

So, together we sing  an excerpt from Origen Against Celsus, Book I., Chap. XXIV:

After this he continues:  “These herdsmen and shepherds concluded that there was but one God, named either the Highest, or Adonai, or the Heavenly, or Sabaoth, or called by some other of those names which they delight to give this world; and they knew nothing beyond that.”  And in a subsequent part of his work he says, that “It makes no difference whether the God who is over all things be called by the name of Zeus, which is current among the Greeks, or by that [About right here Moses says, "Done singing." And goes and puts the book away.], e.g., which is in use among the Indians or Egyptians.”  Now, in answer to this, we have to remark that this involves a deep and mysterious subject—that, viz., respecting the nature of names:  it being a question whether, as Aristotle thinks, names were bestowed by arrangement, or, as the Stoics hold, by nature; the first words being imitations of things, agreeably to which the names were formed, and in conformity with which they introduce certain principles of etymology; or whether, as Epicurus teaches (differing in this from the Stoics), names were given by nature,—the first men having uttered certain words varying with the circumstances in which they found themselves.  If, then, we shall be able to establish, in reference to the preceding statement, the nature of powerful names, some of which are used by the learned amongst the Egyptians, or by the Magi among the Persians, and by the Indian philosophers called Brahmans, or by the Samanæans, and others in different countries; and shall be able to make out that the so-called magic is not, as the followers of Epicurus and Aristotle suppose, an altogether uncertain thing, but is, as those skilled in it prove, a consistent system, having words which are known to exceedingly few; then we say that the name Sabaoth, and Adonai, and the other names treated with so much reverence among the Hebrews, are not applicable to any ordinary created things, but belong to a secret theology which refers to the Framer of all things.  These names, accordingly, when pronounced with that attendant train of circumstances which is appropriate to their nature, are possessed of great power; and other names, again, current in the Egyptian tongue, are efficacious against certain demons who can only do certain things; and other names in the Persian language have corresponding power over other spirits; and so on in every individual nation, for different purposes.  And thus it will be found that, of the various demons upon the earth, to whom different localities have been assigned, each one bears a name appropriate to the several dialects of place and country.  He, therefore, who has a nobler idea, however small, of these matters, will be careful not to apply differing names to different things; lest he should resemble those who mistakenly apply the name of God to lifeless matter, or who drag down the title of “the Good” from the First Cause, or from virtue and excellence, and apply it to blind Plutus, and to a healthy and well-proportioned mixture of flesh and blood and bones, or to what is considered to be noble birth.

Tuesdays with Blaster at Tree & The Seed: TMWAJ - Tracks 1 , 2, and 3

Go here for initial comments on album and the linear notes. 

Today's installment is over the first (1st) three (3) tracks of Blaster the Rocket Man's 1999 release, The Monster Who Ate Jesus.

Track 1 – Deploy All Monsters Now!

With hand clapping and chanting “Destroy-oi-hoy-oi-hoy!!!” this album begins. You tap your fingers; you nod your head; bloodflow quickens through your veins. (Is punk rock efficacious?) Transitioning into full band (guitar, bass, drums), the instrumentation continues to carry the tune with four/four beat and two chords, and it is masterfully catchy. Mapping the soundscape is a bit complicated because eventually music structure speeds up, chords change, and before long the song is running away like a train destined to derail . . . inevitable, eventually there is a  jangling of tonalities and broken rhythms, structure is lost and musical measure is made molten, the listener is pummeled by the feedback of electric guitar, etc., and then the song concludes with a simple bass guitar line, and over that bass line an excerpt is sung from For Science (originally performed by They Might Be Giants).

Destroy! [repeat, etc.]
.  .  .
I will date the girl from Venus
Flowers die and so will I
Yes, I will kiss the girl from Venus for science!

This is a great song. This is a great Track 1. A great way to kickstart an album. Blaster draws the listener in with familiarity but then introduces tension and offset the initial coherence with mystery (both musically and lyrically). Call me a sucker, but I am hooked!

Track 2 – It Came from Down South

This track is an instrumental. Western, chink-a-chink rhythm guitar and hand-claps (with bass and drums, obviously), which is then offset with a simple and infectious guitar lead. It will make you dance and smile.

Track 3 – Hopeful Monsters are Dying Everyday

A punk-rock (Ramones feeling, somewhat) tune with vocal vibrato. The oscillating voice really grips you, especially the repetitious "bodies, bodies!" The song is short and sweet . . . less than a minute and a half long. Overall, music is strong but it is the lyrics that are absolutely fantastic.

We're all hoping for a beneficial mutation
in our bodies, bodies
Beyond adaptation or variation
of our bodies, bodies
We wanna' take the next step
We wanna' transcend, but
Hopeful monsters are dying everyday

We wanna' breed the new breed
of bodies, bodies
Searching for a mate
who'll thwart the state
that is the fate of our bodies, bodies
They say if anyone can
The "superman" can
Still hopeful monsters are dying!

New creatures in Christ
inherit bodies glorified
yet we carry in our bodies
the Death of Jesus
which is the hope
of life eternal

The hope of glory
We hope in God

Take up and listen!

Training Pastors

My undergrad alma mater (Indiana Wesleyan University, Marion, IN) just rolled out a five-year blended B.S./M.A. program for training pastors. B.S. or B.A. course work would be completed the first 3 years and the M.A. course work the last 2 years, with the final year's course work completed while ministering in a local church under the supervision of an assigned pastor.

That is the key. The local church has to be meaningfully involved with training pastors. Kudos, IWU.

This sounds like a great program. When IWU launched their Seminary a few years ago they were very innovative--the program required students to be engaged either in part-time or full-time ministry within context of the local church. I'm glad they've found a way to compress the overall time it takes to train ministers without compromising involvement in local church.

An Introduction to Systematic Theology - Van Til - Chap. 3

Notes on Preface and Chap. 1.
Notes on Chap. 2.

Chapter 3 - Christian Epistemology

What is the function of reason in Christian theology? Non-Christians fail to account for the effects of the fall upon human reason. These are the noetic effects of sin; the effects of sin upon our thinking and our minds. Human thinking, human reasoning do not exist as an “entity apart from God.” Non-Christians error because they think human reasoning is a valid starting point.

What is the object of our knowledge? “If we hold with Paul (Rom. 11:36) that 'of him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever,' we see clearly that the existence and meaning of every fact in this universe must in the last analysis be related to the self-conscious and eternally self-subsistent God of the Scriptures” (58). So, the only way our thinking and reasoning will make any sense is if we remember that, “to have coherence in our experience, there must be a correspondence of our experience to the eternally coherent experience of God. Human knowledge ultimately rests upon the internal coherence within the Godhead; our knowledge rests upon the ontological Trinity as its presupposition” (59).

What is the subject of our knowledge? Nothing is mysterious for God, for “God as the absolute Light is back of the facts of the universe. We hold that the atom [insert any mysterious thing about reality] is mysterious for us, but not for God. . . . non-Christian thought argues that, because man cannot comprehend something in its knowledge, to that extend his knowledge is not true. Christians say that we as creatures do not need to and should not expect to comprehend anything fully. God comprehends fully, and that is enough for us. God's full comprehension gives validity to our partial comprehension.” Van Til continues by relating this to Christian worship: “When a Christian sees the atom surrounded by mystery, he worship God; when the non-Christian scientist sees the atom surrounded by mystery, he worship the void” (61).

Creator. Creature. Acknowledge you are the latter, or kick against the goads and attempt to be the former: “All men are either in covenant with Satan or in covenant with God” (68). Those who are in covenant with God have their “Adamic consciousness restored and supplemented, but restored and supplemented in principle or standing only” (69). Those who are in covenant with God “confess their ethical depravity” and can “discern spiritual good” because God has regenerated them.

 
So, what is the place of reason in theology? (And we ask this question understanding that there is a difference between the thinking and mind of a Christian and non-Christian, a difference between those in covenant with God and those in covenant with Satan, a difference between those regenerated with the Adamic consciousness restored and supplemented and those with their fallen, depraved, and non-regenerate consciousness that is not restored and is without supplement.) God is changing our minds so that “every thought is brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” and “we use our minds, our intellect, our reason, our consciousness in order to receive and reinterpret the revelation God has given of himself in Scripture. That is the proper place of reason in theology. There is no conflict between this reason and faith since faith is the impelling power that urges reason to interpret aright” (69).

An Introduction to Systematic Theology - Van Til - Chap. 2

Continuing to read through Van Til's An Introduction to Systematic Theology.

Notes on Preface and Chap. 1.

Chapter 2 

Our method of systematic theology is foundational. Van Til says that Christian theism "has a methodology quite distinct from other general interpretations of reality" (27).

Nothing is neutral. This includes our methods. Christian theism presupposes the existence of God. Our initial position, our starting posture is founded upon the God who is there.

The God who is there has always existed. He existed before the world. A world that He created ex nihilo. God is God and we are part of creation, therefore, God is incomprehensible to us (but he is not incomprehensible to himself). "Man's inability to comprehend God is founded on the very fact that God is completely self-comprehensive. God is absolute rationality." To be more specific, the Triune God is full rationality. The Trinity has exhaustive knowledge. Nothing is a novelty to the Trinity. This God, the Triune God, reveals himself to the creation. By way of special revelation the Triune God reveals himself to the image bearers.

Man does not have comprehensive knowledge. A Christian theist believes in the Trinity and knows that in order to have any knowledge it must be analogical to the knowledge of the Triune God. "The distinguishing characteristic between the very non-Christian theory of knowledge, on the one hand, and the Christian concept of knowledge, on the other hand, is therefore that in all non-Christian theories men reason univocally, while in Christianity men reason analogically" (31). By this Van Til means that non-Christians assume that space, time, man, and God are on the same plane, and that God and man are correlative, both working beneath a higher system of logic, etc. That is false. God existed before everything created; God is "self-conscious and self-consistent" and the created beings (creation) "cannot furnish a novelty element that is to stand on a par with the element of permanency furnished by the Creator" (32). To elaborate, "Christians believe in two levels of existence, the level of God's existence as self-contained and the level of man's existence as derived from the level of God's existence. For this reason, Christians must also believe in two levels of knowledge, the level of God's knowledge, which is absolutely comprehensive and self-contained, and the level of man's knowledge, which is not comprehensive but is derivative and reinterpretative. Hence we say that as Christians we believe that man's knowledge is analogical of God's knowledge" (CCS emphasis) (32).

"As man's existence is dependent upon an act of voluntary creation on the part of God, so man's knowledge depends upon an act of voluntary revelation of God to man. Even the voluntary creation of man is already a revelation of God to man" (34-35).

Van Til, therefore, calls our method for systematic theology a method of implication. "It is really only the Christian who can speak of implication, because no one but him really takes the idea of an absolute system seriously" (35). This method of implication may be referred to as transcendental, but not in the modern philosophic sense. It is a transcendental method because God is the method's point of reference. "It is only the Christian who really interprets reality in exclusively eternal categories because only he believes in God as self-sufficient and not dependent upon time reality" (36).

This analogical knowledge is theological knowledge. Analogical knowledge makes God the point of reference, and all other knowledge and methods make man himself the final point of reference. Analogical knowledge is the only true Christian position or approach to true knowledge--"When consistently expressed, it posits God's self-existence and plan, as well as self-contained self-knowledge, as the presupposition of all created existence and knowledge. In that case, all facts show forth and thus prove the existence of God and his plan. In that case, too, all human knowledge should be self-consciously subordinated to that plan. it's task in systematics is to order as far as possible the facts of God's revelation" (42-43).

Systematics does not, however, attempt to make an exact delineation point-by-point of the doctrine of the knowledge of God. That is not the point of systematics. If you collapse the sign of human knowledge into the signified (God's knowledge), you break the proper relationship between the creature and the Creator. It would no longer be derivative but one in the same, "And when this dependence is broken man's knowledge is thought as self-sufficient" (43). The method of systematic theology must be harmonious with the world-reality of the creature conducting the method, a creature (servant) who's life and knowledge is derivative.

As John Frame put it, a servant-thinker is one who “adopts God’s world as his own." Therefore, “the believer [servant-thinker] . . . is affirming creation as it really is; he is accepting creation as the world that God made, and he is accepting the responsibility to live in that world as it really is" (The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 28). That is our method of systematic theology. A method of implication, a method of transcendence, a method that accepts the creation of the world that God made.

LOL: Mustache

Dad watched the kids tonight.

First Rule of Courtship

Excerpt from Peter J. Leithart's Miniatures and Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen. I know I will circle back to this in a few years. My son is three but I already know I will frame future conversations around this "first rule of courtship."

Even without considering her strong male characters, Austen's novels are highly instructive for men. The mere fact that her novels give men an opportunity to see romance through the eyes of an uncommonly perceptive woman should be enough to recommend them. Even if we men do not want to see courtship through a woman's eyes, who can say we do not need to? She has a strong sense of a man's role in courtship and his responsibility for the course that a courtship takes. More than one male character in her novels proves himself a scoundrel by playing with the affections of a woman. Austen's first rule of courtship is one I have frequently repeated to my sons: Men are responsible not only for behaving honorably toward women but also for the woman's response; if a man does not intend to enter a serious relationship, he has no business giving a woman special attention or encouraging her to attach herself to him. Austen sees clearly that men who play with a woman's affections are fundamentally egotistical. They want the admiration and attention of women without promising anything or making any commitment. Few lessons of courtship are more needed in our own day (19).

Brian McLaren and Son

nytimes has a write up about Brian McLaren's homosexual son's marriage. Even more saddening, after the wedding ceremony, "Later in the day, the Rev. Brian D. McLaren, Mr. McLaren’s father and the former pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Md., led a commitment ceremony with traditional Christian elements before family and friends at the Woodend Sanctuary of the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase, Md."

Tuesdays with Blaster at Tree & The Seed: TMWAJ - Linear Notes

I am going to blog through the songs and lyrics of Blaster the Rocket Man’s album Blaster the Rocket Man in "The Monster Who Ate Jesus". Blaster was a punk rock band formed in the 1990s. They were from Indiana. I started listening to their records in middle school, while they still performed under their original moniker Blaster the Rocketboy. Their name changed to Blaster the Rocket Man for their 1999 release TMWAJ.

TMWAJ is my favorite Blaster record. Unarguably a punk rock record, but it has influences ranging from country/western to surf rock. Some of the songs from TMWAJ can be streamed on the band's myspace page. Finally, the following excerpt is from the album’s linear notes.

"These pages rustle with the stealthy movements of strictly orthodox, old-fashioned monsters: werewolves and horrors spawned by the great deep; quasi-humans and robots, vampires and fearsome survivors from the dark abysm of the remote past, abortions from the scientist’s laboratory. Such creatures present a wholesome, indeed a cheerful contrast to the psychological deformities of contemporary sick humor, the pretentious sadism of the latest modern Gothic tale, the revolting hokum of television.”

So said Clifton Fadiman in his foreward [sic] to the 1967 anthology, Famous Monster Tales. In the same spirit, Blaster offers these humble and horrific songs of wholesome, orthodox monsters to cheer you and, hopefully, to edify you as well. These stories are essentially creature features that eerily illustrate a simple fact: human beings are creatures designed by a Creator. “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27)

Because we are created in His image, we understand that God is Holy and Just and that we have become abominations in His sight because of our sin. “There is none righteous, no, not one . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:10, 23) “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way.” (Isaiah 53:6)

All we like monsters have shed innocent blood. “Their throats are open graves. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their feet are swift to shed blood. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:13-18)

But thankfully, He is the God who loves monsters. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:16-18)

These words were written concerning the real, historical Jesus of Nazareth, who walked the Earth in space and time. “For I delivered to you first the of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” (I Corinthians 15:3-4)

Thus, those monsters who have confessed their sin to God and believed in His Son, Jesus Christ, have become truly Orthodox Monsters. They are the New Creatures, the Unvamps, the Aliens and Strangers. Indeed, I am the monster who ate Jesus. For He said, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.” (John 6:54-57) This saying offended the people of Jesus’ day and is still doing so today. Nevertheless, we love and serve the Living Lord of the universe, Jesus Christ, because He first loved us. What are you eating? (What’s eating you?) “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

Next Tuesday I will blog through the TMWAJ's first three tracks: Deploy All Monsters Now!, It Came From Down South, and Hopeful Monsters are Dying Everyday.

An Introduction to Systematic Theology - Van Til

Beginning to read through Van Til's An Introduction to Systematic Theology. The plan is to jot down brief thoughts, quotations, etc. I do not intend for this to be a review per se, therefore, it will probably be a fragmentation of loose thoughts.

Preface

This book is a published syllabus that "has an apologetic intent running through it. A Reformed theology needs to be supplemented by a Reformed method of apologetics. This involves relating the historic Christian position to that of modern philosophy, as well as theology" (12). Author admits his indebtedness to Louis Berkhof, Herman Bavinck, and Abraham Kuyper.

Chapter 1

Systematic theology seeks to teach truth about God taught in the Bible in a unified system. Theology is about God, that is, the Trinity, therefore, it theology should be God-centered (contra Barth's Christomonism).

Exegesis takes the Scriptures and analyzes each part of it in detail. Biblical theology takes the fruits of exegesis and organizes them into various units and traces the revelation of God in Scripture in its historical development. It brings out the theology of each part of God's Word as it has been brought to us at different stages, by means of various authors. Systematic theology then uses the fruits of the labors of exegetical and biblical theology and brings them together into a concatenated system. Apologetics seeks to defend this system of biblical truth against false philosophy and false science. Practical theology seeks to show how to preach and teach this system of biblical truth, while church history traces the reception of this system of truth in the course of the centuries (17).

Van Til clearly believes in doctrinal development. However, for this to occur the exegetical and systematic work must be accomplished up front, leading to additional clarity and precision to the creeds of the church. Doctrinal development is invalid if it is "retrogressive", a stripping away creedal tenets.

Ministers need to be students of the Bible and systematics. "But systematics helps minsters to preach the whole counsel of God, and thus to make God central in their work" (22). And, "Well-rounded preaching teaches us to use the things of this world because they are the gifts of God, and it teaches us to possess them as not possessing them, inasmuch as they must be used in subordination to the one supreme purpose of man's existence, namely the glory of God" (22).

Commenting on modern antithesis, "The fight between Christianity and non-Christianity is, in modern times, no piece-meal affair. It is the life-and-death struggle between two mutually opposed life-and-world views" (22). We must know our systematics because "When the enemy attacks the foundations, we must be able to protect these foundations" (24). Therefore, ministers and theologians must "undertake [their] work in a spirit of deep dependence upon God and in a spirit of prayer that he may use [them] as his instruments for his glory" (25).

Logan & Modern Theology

My brother in law, Logan Hoffman, graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in the Spring, and last month he and my sister relocated to New Zealand to be Wesleyan church planters. You can keep tabs on them at The Well. Before leaving Logan told me about a new book co-edited by Bruce L. McCormack, the well known Barth scholar who teaches at PTS. The book is Mapping Modern Theology: A Thematic and Historical Introduction. This week I read the first four of the book's fifteen chapters. It is a slam dunk. So much information and the articles are really well written, complicated information but clearly communicated.

Steven R. Holmes' contribution maps the modern development of the doctrine of the divine attributes. At points a mind-bender, and at other points your skin crawls as he talks through some of the blasphemies of modern theology. What a brain full of information to process. And as if that wasn't enough, Daniel J. Treier's chapter on scripture and hermeneutics is easily the best summarization I have read; again, what a brain full of information to process.

The title really does describe what the book aims to accomplish . . . thus far the authors really do "map out" for the reader the past 200 years of theology. I am looking forward to the remainder of this book.

Call to Confession for September 30, 2012

Proverbs 20:22 – Do not say, "I will repay evil"; wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you.

In our passage of confession this morning we are told to not repay evil with evil but to wait on the Lord who is our deliverer. Because of our sinfulness and corruption, our natural instinct when someone has wronged us is to act in kind, to complete the circle, as it were, and to repay them the evil that they first paid us.

In the third chapter of 1 Peter, the Apostle Peter, who initially is addressing husbands and wives but then expands his exhortation to the entire body, urges them to “live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble,” and, echoing our passage of confession from Proverbs, he instructs them, “do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because of this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

This is not only Godly instruction but it is wise counsel for people who live at length and for duration within close proximity of one another. For example, if you have a family, and you repay a family member's evil with evil, then you are not only being disobedient before God but you are also setting yourself up for hard times. You do, after all, live in shared quarters with that family member. The same can be applied to our relationships with our neighbors. Unless one of you pulls up roots and leaves the community you will for all intents and purposes remain neighbors (geography being the static thing that it is), and if you repay evil with evil to your neighbors, then you are setting yourself up to be locked into the determinism of “feuding families”--and anyone who has read any of the books by Mark Twain which depict such things knows that this quickly becomes nonsensical.

See, the issue is this. When we repay evil with evil and think to ourselves, “I'm going to complete the circle, I'm going to finish this,” what we are actually doing is perpetuating the presence of evil. Christians, however, are called to break this cycle. We don't return evil but blessing. Why? Because that is what God has done towards us. We were evil, we betrayed God. God, however, gave us Christ. He gave us The Blessing. When family or neighbors, government or foreign nations, when the world gives you evil, do the right thing and be a Christian—be shaped by the activity of God—don't respond with evil, rather, give a blessing and wait on God's deliverance, wait on God's providential justice. All of us have failed to do this perfectly, and this reminds us of our need to confess our sins, so if able, please kneel as we confess our sins together.