Update
Okay. It’s been four months since I left the hallways of American Academia, and here is what I have learned: the world is harsh, and God is still so very good. Things have been so difficult the past few months I have felt despair like never before, and yet in the midst of it all, I have this crazy hope. The best I know how to describe it is a torrent of raging waters on top, yet a firm and steady foundation of solid rock underneath all of the turbulence. Maybe it’s good I’m experiencing this. I feel as if all the doctrine, all the theologizing, all the world view construction and deconstruction is finally taking on flesh. Everything I have learned about it theory I am experiencing first hand, and in the midst of all the turmoil, I know that Jesus will sustain me. He is guiding my life, teaching me, and will never leave me. Though I fail time and again, he’ll never let go. He truly is all I have.
And as for corporate America…it is a godless place filled with tiny men thinking they are untouchable. The lack of integrity is appauling, and the lack of honor that is due God will ultimately end badly for many, many people. The free gift of life is there for them, but only the broken will see the beauty in it. My prayer is that the executives who might happen upon this blog will see both the love and wrath of God- love for sinners and wrath towards sin, and that they might examine their own lives, see the frailty of there own bodies, weep at the realization of their sin, and rejoice in the love of a God who took on flesh to save them from it. Then, maybe they’ll do business the right way.
The Kingdom of God
We live in an interesting time. Interesting, but not unique. Human history is filled with the rise and fall of the kingdoms of men, it’s what gives us the stuff of history. The Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Assyrians, the Medes, the Romans, all of them at one point in human history ruled what was then the known world, and all of them have since crumbled into nothing more than artifacts and the scholarly conjecture that is based off of them.
We now stand at a time when there is not one government in control of the world, but several, several distinct governments that are all tied inseperably by economy, which acts as the scaffolding which hedges in the roles and boundaries of the world’s population. As of late, this scaffolding has become quite shaky, and on the verge of a total collapse. If it were to totally fail, there is not a human government or institution on earth that could curb the violence and bloodshed that would result from the loss of power and the rise of anarchy. I don’t know what that world looks like, but it would be unlike anything we have seen before. Such is the human kingdom. It rises and it falls, and others fight to fill the vacuum. This should be a sobering time for beleivers, as it causes us to see where it is our loyalties truly lie, and on which kingdom we are placing our hope and our trust.
Even if it doesn’t collapse, let this serve as a reminder to all the Christian’s out there that ours is a kingdom that is secure in the leadership of our great God and King. Our citizenship is with the sovereign ruler of the universe, who speaks things to being out of nothing. Everything holds together by the word of his mouth, and he is directing all things, all rulers, all principalities to their proper end, namely the glorification of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord. Only his government will stand the test of time, and it is our hope that one day we will enter into the rest that comes from abiding in a kingdom that will not fade, whose glory will illuminate our lives for eternity, and whose joy will never cease. Praise Jesus for this time of uncertainty, as it forces us to take our eyes off of the lie that we have been told for decades, the lie of retirement with ease, and to gaze once again at the beauty of the gospel and what the cross of Christ purchased for us. Justification, sanctification, and one day glorification. We might end this life in destitution, but oh these present sufferings are NOTHING to be compared to glory that will be revealed to us, and these sufferings are preparing us for an infinite weight of glory. With that, Come quickly Jesus, come. Set all things right. Vindicate your holy name, and reveal to all your infinite value.
Deuteronomy and Ephesians
Deuteronomy 11:26-28
“See, I am setting before you a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside form the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.”
Ephesians 1:3 and 6
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places…to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”
Beauty is often found in contrast. The more striking the contrast, the more arresting the beauty. The milky way is breathtaking when seen against the backdrop of the velvety, dark space that surrounds each tiny speck of light. The same is true of the old and new covenants. While both display the beauty of God, each one focuses on a different aspect of God’s beauty. The old covenant, with its commandments, displays the awesome holiness of a righteous judge, and the blessing that comes from serving and loving him, made more striking by the curse of disobediance. The new covenant, however, operates on a completely different paradigm. There is only blessing, and that to the praise of his grace. It’s not there isn’t a curse, its just that the curse has been absorbed by Christ. The commandments have been fulfilled in him, the curse has been taken care of for our disobedience, and all that is left is blessing. I am reminded of what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:7-11
“Now if the ministgry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exeed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.”
Perilous times for depth in the Christian Walk
Post modernity has ushered in an age of intense cynisism, extreme paranoia, and skepticism to a ridiculous degree. WIthout going into too much detail, I will say only this: where we are now is a result of the trajectory of the desire to grasp rationally every aspect of the Christian worldview. While it is inevitable, and totally natural, for the human mind to want to have everything nailed down in regards to intellectual and a deep, soul satisfying assent to the truths of scripture, an unhealthy emphasis has been placed on the task of creating a rational, metaphysical scaffolding to contain the mysteries of the Christian worldview.
This overemphasis on rationality has been to the detriment of faith, both being faculties of the mind whereby the mind assents to what it encounters. In the case of reason, the mind assents to what is proposed to it by laying down propositions on top of each other until there is enough there to justify assent. Thus, reason is only capable of assenting to that which is tangible to the faculties of reason, which takes in propositions on the basis of the senses. I know my hair is on fire, and I can reasonably assent to such a thing, when I can see the flames, feel the heat on my head, and smell that horrible smell of burning hair. By faith, I mean the faculty of the mind that assents to propostions not based upon first hand experience, but rather on the basis of testimony. When I go to the doctor to get a check up, I take his word for it that my good cholesterol and by bad cholesterol are in the healthiest 1% of men my age. I can’t see my cholesterol, I can’t really feel it, aside from my heart not being clogged up, so I take his word for it. My mind assents to that propostion based upon the doctors testimony.
When you apply that to the mysteries of the Christian worldview, you can see how an unhealthy emphasis on reason can be a detriment to depth and meaning. You can’t explain the Trinity reasonably. You can’t explain the hypostatic union using rational means. You just can’t. To the postmodern mind, that sounds awful, and to the postmodern Christian, almost scandalous. So let me say this very, very simply: Christianity, in all of its glorious mystery, DOES NOT MAKE SENSE TO THE MIND. It doesn’t. Tri-unity, hypostasis, persona, the union of two natures, both God and man, without any communication of the two, yet existing simultaneously in one body….man that’s just plain crazy. But it’s true. And I believe it. WIth all my heart I do, because I assent to them based on faith.
John Owen writes:
Herein consists the excellency of faith above all other powers and acts of the soul-that it receives, assents unto, and rests in, things in their own nature absolutely incomprehensible. It is elegkos ou blepomenon, (Hebrews 11:1)- “The evidence of things not seen”- that which makes evident, as by demonstration, those things which are no way objected unto sense, and which reason cannot comprehend. The more sublime and glorious- the more inaccessible unto sense and reason- the things which we are to believe, the more are we changed into the image of God, in the exercise of faith upon them.
The postmodern world hates the fact that it can’t grasp at God by reason alone, and so it either denies his existence, as the atheist does, says you can’t know him, as the agnostic, or that everyone knows just a little piece of him, as the religious relativist. But all of these views place emphasis on reason alone. The atheist outright denies him because there is no room for mysteries in their worldview. The agnostic denies the ability to know him because he exists, just beyond the boundaries of human existence. The religious relativist is perhaps the most elusive when it comes to the unhealthy emphasis on reason, because faith is such an important thing to them. However, they can’t assent to the mysteries of God through faith because they refuse to believe that the God of the Bible IS. They subsititute instead a faith that they are able to have a handle on reasonably.
But we can’t be hard on these three groups….it hasn’t been revealed to them. They don’t have the testimony of the Holy Spirit speaking through the Scriptures, and so they are left to a darkened understanding, “claiming to be wise” but becoming fools. Oh God, that you would pour out beams of your illuminating resplendence, and capture the hearts and minds of men!
Recovery
I’ve been going through my inventory, specifically the resentment and bitterness portion, and I realized just how bitter I truly am. At first, as I was writing, I was dwelling on the event that took place, justifying in my heart why I was feeling the way I was. I quickly realized, though, that as I was writing these events that hurt or threatened me, I wasn’t writing sins committed against me, though there were injustices done, but rather I cataloging my own sin. We are admonished not to let the root of bitterness take hold in our hearts, because where there is bitterness or resentment, there cannot be love. And if we are to love our enemies, bless those who persecute us, and not pray for those who seek us harm, we haven’t a chance in hell to do these things from the heart if there is any trace of bitterness towards them in our hearts.
It is terrifying how much the flesh longs to hold on to past offenses. The corrupt nature that we are all partakers of seeks any reason to hate and any occasion to stoke the fires of its wrath. That’s exaclty what I was doing. Sure I can say that I have forgiven them, but I enjoyed telling what they did to me a little too much. It brought me satisfaction sharing how they hurt me. But the new man in me, born of God and being transformed into the image of Christ, longs to be free of these resentments. There are several that seem to be the most prominent in my mind, and they are not directed at one particular person. They are directed at the American Church as a collective whole. And so, this is my letting go:
American church, I have harbored intense resentment towards you for too long, and for too long this resentment has defined me as a person. I have spoken poorly of you, I have told of your shortcomings with gladness and have been quick to criticize your foci. I have scorned your teaching, hated your singing, and passed judgement upon you with no grace. I am so sorry. You are the bride of Christ, and I have treated you like trash. Though now you are broken and tarnished in an of yourselves, you are made beautiful in Christ. You have been washed with the water of the Word, made clean by the blood of the Cross, and adorned with a white dress without spot or blemish. I have held resentment in my heart towards you, and it has bound me, keeping me from loving you, praying for you, blessing you, speaking well of you, and working with you for the sake of the glory of God. Lord, please take thise, release me from its hold by the power of the Holy Spirit, and fill me with love for your bride. I am sorry for treating her so, help me protect her, by your power and your wisdom.
From whence do my affections flow?
I have been haunted by the question posed by John Owen, namely the source of my affections for Christ and the occasions by which those affections well up within me. Owen gives an extremely thorough treatment of the topic in The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded. I am only two three chapters into his treatise on religious affections, and I can honestly say that I am not sure whether my affections for Christ are stirred up within me from a source of living water, or if they rise out of a pool of stagnate water, forced up and out by the pressure conviction brings. If the former, they flow from a spring of living water bubbling up into eternity, if the latter, they rise when the preached word impacts the wickedness of my heart, causing the spray of affections for the things preached to soar, only to fall back to the pool of sin.
I know this sounds, bleak, but it’s reality. Genesis tells us that the thoughts and imaginations of men are constantly wicked always, and from this it seems impossible for the honest and pure love for Christ to flow from such a source. Paul writes in Philippians that Christians “are the true circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ.” The means by which they worship is the Spirit of God, who is the source of living water, and the source of our love for Christ and our glory in him. It is not based upon works, as it is with the Pharisees, but it is a movement of the Holy Spirit, and the affections are not tossed up to the glory of Christ by the pressure of conviction and duty, but rather out of a natural overflow of the principle placed in us by God.
It is question of nature, whether I am indeed born of God, by His grace, or if I am still in the flesh, with my mind set on evil always. Tough stuff, and it’s ok to question. I want my love for Christ to be mine- not a result of conviction, but a part of who I am.
Dag yo
I have been terrible about posting on this thing, partly because over the past few months I have done school non-stop, and partly because I have been going through an intense season of struggle. A month ago, I started Recovery at the Village for nicotine addiction. I realized I had an addiction, and that I didn’t just really like it, after I was caught by my wife with some Snus (kind of like dip but not really). You see, whenever I would give into temptation, I would hide it, lie about it, and hope that Jen wouldn’t press me on it. The idea was to lay low and not give in for a while, and THEN confess to it. The motivation for this was due to some trust issues Jen has.
This is how insane the sin cycle truly is: I was going to confess once I, by my works, was good enough for a long enough period of time. I didn’t was to confess right away and be honest with Jen because she has trust issues, essentially making myself untrustworthy in the process. There is no gospel in that thought process, and certainly no obedience to God.
So now I am in the thick of the recovery process. Right now I have to take inventory of all my sexual misconduct (which was a HUGE problem for me in highschool/college but, by the grace of God, has been mortified substantially) explaining what I did, who it affected, and how it effected them. After that I get to deal with my anger, bitterness, and resentment towards any people, groups, or institutions that have hurt me. Yeah. It’s good stuff.
But it will be worth it once I am able to be free from the addictions and hangups that keep me from fulfilling my purpose, namely being satisfied completely with God through Christ, and relying upon Him for life and breath and everything.
Pnuematic Theology
This semester has been a frustrating, amazing, blessing filled semester. I have been taking a class on Modern and Post-Modern Theology, and in my countless hours of trying to understand one word that I have been reading, one thing has become very clear to me. It seems as if, since the Enlightenment (which is the culmination of several currents of thought ranging from the Renaissance to the Reformation), the task of theology has been dominated by a man-centered view, but in a very strange, hopeless way. I know that we all can agree that Modernity has ushered in an age of anthropocentric idolatry, placing man as the central character of history. But it seems that this turn to self is subtly influencing the way even we do theology in the sense that it is forcing us to answer questions on Enlightenment-Modernity-Post-Modernity’s terms.
The fundamental question is this: What do we start with? Theology Proper? If we start with God, what is the basis of OUR knowledge? What about Bibliology? If we start with the Bible, we give a grounding to the basis of OUR knowledge, but how can WE justify OUR belief that the Scriptures are orienting our pursuits towards the true God? These questions seem like the right questions. If we are to have a right view of God, we do need to have a rational response to these questions. But my concern is that these questions have become the central focus of the task of theology, and the problem with that is it’s fundamentally man centered in its approach to our knowing God.
I have been thinking through the consequents of this, and I have just begun to roll around in the ol’ noggin an answer to the question of the proper jumping point for theology. This is just a thought, and I covet your responses in support of or correction of, but what about starting the task of theology with Pneumatology? There are several reasons I am leaning towards this, and here are some of ‘em:
It is the Holy Spirit that wrote, protected, and illuminates the Scriptures.
1. He wrote them through divine inspiration, guiding the authors’ pens.
2. He protected them by moving through the Fathers whom He indwelled to put together a canon and closing it.
3. He illuminates them today, moving in the hearts of the elect, guiding them into all truth and sanctifying them through an encounter with God.
Like I said, this is just the beginning of my working through this, but it seems like a good way of moving theology past the chaos that results from focusing on the limitations of humanity’s perspectival knowledge and into the beautiful confidence and rest that flows from the glorious truth that we can know God because He Himself is the basis of our knowledge of Him. It seems risky, as it takes us past the foundationalism that is the byproduct of Descarte’s thought, but perhaps faith that the omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth and protect the sacred deposit of truth found in the Scriptures will elevate our theology from the mechanical connection of propositions to a sublime flow of the power and love of God as the Holy Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts. Just a thought.
P.S. I do think that the bible is made up of propositions that contain truth, and that these propositions can be known rationally. I hold to the Correspondence Theory of truth, that a thing is true if and only if it corresponds to reality, and a step further, that reality is what God says it is in Scripture- placing the Bible as the final authority of what is real. All I am saying is, it might be beneficial to begin our theology not from the starting point of the limitations of man, which is presupposed when beginning theology from the Theology Proper/Bibliology question, but from the study of the active agent in our knowing God, presupposing instead the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit in the elect for the task of knowing and proclaiming God in the world.
Planets and men, Stars and gods, Blackholes and bull s—
I had an interesting discussion with a good friend of ours who recently moved back to Texas about scientific advances and the effects they had on philosophy. When asked for an example of the phenomenon, he responded that the shift from a geocentric view of the solar system to a heliocentric view influenced the idea that the universe no longer quite literally revolved around us. This shift has placed humanity as just another part of creation, mere atoms and energy, pitifully insignificant in light of the vastness of space. I agree that the shift from geocentric to heliocentric had a huge impact on philosophy- however, I feel that the impact did not re-orient philosophy in the right direction, but rather pushed it further away from the nature of truth.
Logically, the idea that the universe no longer revolves around the earth should cause man to look outside himself to see what it is he is revolving around. But according to the thought of my friend, as well as the rest of the post-modern intelligentsia, the idea of a heliocentric universe has not shifted man’s focus from himself to something outside himself, but rather caused him to focus even more on himself and his finite, perspectival, subjective experience of the world. This is indicative of all philosophy since the Enlightenment- the focus of man is still man, albeit in a way that is infatuated with his limits and inability to gain an objective vantage point from which truth can be objectively known. The trajectory of this anthropocentrism has landed us in a deconstructivist’s playground, where the nature of words in texts do little more than point to signs that point to signs that point to signs ad infinitum, ad nauseam, with no real meaning out there, just more signs pointing to more signs. According to the pragmatic ethos of society, this anthropocentrism should have been jettisoned long ago, because it doesn’t work- no body lives like this, nor can they without creating an absence of meaning, a black hole in the experience of man that not even the light of life can escape from. It is this philosophy that has been the dialog partner of theology for years, and it has for the most part been on philosophy’s terms.
Perhaps the shift towards a heliocentric view of the solar system should have ushered in a theocentric view of existence instead. Sure, this is old hat for most of us, but perhaps we should flesh this idea out a little more. Perhaps the terms of the dialog should be from a theocentric point of view. But in order to do this, we must come up with the terms, and invite philosophy to enter into discussion with us on the basis of said terms. We need to shift our epistemology from the subject-object perspective to the Subject-communicates-object-to-subject perspective. But how to do this?! I don’t know, but we should try to figure this out. I don’t like the way philosophy is going, and we should probably do something about it
