Leithart on Van Til

From Peter Leithart:

Based on a student’s questioning, I’m wondering whether “presuppositionalism” is the best term to describe what Vantillians are after. We don’t, after all, come up with some kind of set of axioms or theological idea “prior” to receiving revelation. We can talk about making the Triune God our “starting point” as much as we want, but faith in the Triune God is not in fact the “starting point” of our thinking (in either a chronological or logical sense). I like Frame’s revisionist view that “presuppositions” are really “basic commitments,” but that still seems to individualistic to me. I’d rather think of how we can ecclesiologize Van Til: Instead of saying that “all our thinking is grounded in the presupposition of the Triune God of Scripture,” we might say “as Christians we think and act from within the Church, which is the body of Christ and the community of worshipers of the Triune God.” This moves Van Til in the direction of postliberals and postmoderns, but that’s not a bad move in this case I think.

Food for Thought!

D’Souza on “The Grounding Problem”

In a lovely moment of providence, and picking up the theme of my last post, the blog over of Stand to Reason just posted this:

Dinesh D’Souza does a good job critiquing attempts to explain morality in Darwinist terms.  Morality, along with consciousness, remains one of the stubborn features of reality that we all know intuitively, which cannot be explained in purely naturalistic terms.  The lack of explanatory power in Darwinism is called “the grounding problem.”

One key point about the catalog of evolutionary arguments D’Souza cites is that evolutionary explanations always change the definition of what we’re talking about in morality.  D’Souza notes one way this is done by pointing out that the morality we want explained is prescription; but any scientific explanation, by the very nature of science, will be descriptive.  Science can only observe and explain what occurs in nature.  It doesn’t have the capacity to explain why morality has a prescriptive incumbency on us that the laws of nature don’t have.  We have moral duties that are quite different in nature than the law of gravity, for example.  We follow the law of gravity, but we don’t have a prescriptive moral duty with the subsequent moral guilt if we don’t obey it.

Here’s another way the terms are changed in evolutionary explanations.  Note in the article that each and every attempt to give an evolutionary account for morality has to change any self-sacrificial and altruistic act a selfish explanation because that’s the only way evolution works.  Survival of the fittest produces “selfish genes,” as Richard Dawkins coined it.  But if so-called self-sacrificial and altruistic acts actually have a selfish explanation for how they evolved, then they really aren’t sacrificial or altruistic, are they?  The definition has been changed because evolution can’t explain morality.

Involuted Speculations

Here’s a site that you might find interesting. It’s written by my friend Hiram Diaz, who contributed a post here, here, and here.

Atheism and the “Grounding Problem”

From the New York Times online:

Starting next Monday, a coalition of local groups will run a monthlong advertising campaign in a dozen Manhattan subway stations with the slogan “A Million New Yorkers Are Good Without God. Are You?” The posters also advertise the Web site BigAppleCoR.org, which provides a listing of local groups affiliated with the Coalition of Reason, the umbrella organization that coordinated the campaign.

This campaign is intended to 1) heighten awareness of the atheist movement in New York City, and 2) to coincide with the release of Greg Epstein’s upcoming book, Good without God.  Though the table of contents for Epstein’s book isn’t posted just yet, I sure hope that he addresses what’s known as the “grounding problem” for atheists when it comes to morality. Before I explain this a little bit more, there are a couple of things that I think need saying.

1) I believe that the Coalition of Reason has every legal right to post these signs, and no one (especially Christians!) should rob them of our freedom of speech.

2) I do not believe that one must believe in God in order to be a morally praiseworthy person. Too often non-Christians seem to think that Christians claim that atheism automatically leads to a life of depravity and evil. Sadly, many Christians do believe this, but the best Christian thinkers have never stated the case this way. The issue of dispute is the grounding problem (more in just a second).

3) The reason I believe that atheists often lead better ethical lives that their position would seem to imply is because I believe in the doctrine of common grace.

Okay, now to the grounding problem. Naturalism and atheism deny the existence of the Triune God of the Bible.  On a Christian worldview, what is right and wrong, what is beneficial for the glory of God and the flourishing of human beings is 1) that which is consistent with the being, character, and nature of God, and 2) that which is in accordance with His verbal revelation (made known to us in the Bible). That is all to say Christians have an objective standard for what is good and bad, one not rooted in personal preference or a numbers game.

So the question isn’t if one can still perform good deed if they don’t believe in God. The question is what are the grounds for making a distinction between good and bad in an atheistic world? The Why be good? question simply will not go away no matter how long it is ignored or mocked? As a Christian, the fact that atheists are often stand-up citizens isn’t a challenge to my worldview. Despite their denial of the Triune God, He is still the Creator and the One who inscribed His moral law on their hearts (cf. Rom. 2).

It is because the world is precisely what the atheist denies (i.e. under the rulership and direction of the sovereign Lord) that they can act in ways that they deceive themeselves into thinking are independent of God.

Review: Longing to Know

Back in 2003, Brazos (an imprint of Baker Book House) released Esther Meek’s Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People. I read it a while back, took some summary notes, and then apparently forgot about them. Just recently I ran across them and thought they might be helpful to those who are curious about what’s called epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge), but turned off by dry academic tomes.

1) Preliminary Concerns:

A) According to Meek, the history of western philosophy can be described as the path from skepticism to certainty back to skepticism. As a result those who seek knowledge that does not change (and indeed cannot change) have purposed several criteria for what qualifies as ”certainty” in the field of epistemology.

One important qualification for certainty is that the object of our knowledge must be impervious to doubt beyond question (or indubitable). But there’s a crucial problem with this model of certainty, namely that it does not fulfill it’s own requirements. This proposition for certainty (”Genuine objects of knowledge must be impervious to doubt and beyond question”) is itself subject to doubt, yet, in light of this we still claim knowledge of many things as is abundantly demonstrated by our everyday experience as “knowing” agents. Thus, this foundational pillar of epistemology must be reexamined, and quite possibly redefined.

B) Another problem that nags epistemological endeavors is that if we are to formulate a true-to-life epistemology we are faced with examining an action that we perform almost every moment of our life. While tacitly we perform these actions, putting them into carefully formulated propositions is quite tricky. We’re are so “close” that stepping back and reflecting on our “epistemic activity” is often like trying to look, without the help of a mirror, at the nose on our face.

2) What is Knowing?

A) One thing that Meek stresses in the book is the body-soul unity of human beings. She doesn’t use this language in the book, yet repeatedly Meek calls us away from the modernist model of epistemology that sees the knowing enterprise as something hampered by human subjectivity in search of a sterile ”objective” mode of knowing.

B) In order to appreciate the richness of the human knowing process we must see that every instance of knowing involves 3 perspectives. Meek calls these perspectives ”the rules, the self, and the world.” John Frame refers to them in his Doctrine of the Knowledge God as the ”normative, situational, and existential perspectives.” Each of these serve as a way of viewing the whole of the knowing endeavor.

C) Meek defines knowledge in this way: ‘‘Knowing is the responsible human struggle to rely on clues to focus on a coherent pattern and submit to its reality.” The major sections of her book are organized according to this definition, unpacking it phrase by phrase.

Knowing is the process of integration, by which we focus on a pattern by and through the means of various clues, called subsidiaries, in the world, our body-sense, and in our standards for thinking.

Much of the pattern-making process is inarticulatable, and this more-than-words aspect of epistemic acts cannot be ignored, for it is crucial in our common, everyday process of knowing.

Through the integration process the clues now take on greater significance. No longer are they viewed as seemingly disconnected occurrences, but rather meaningful portions that make up a greater reality (ex: a magic eye puzzle). Yet, in a very real sense the pattern or integration, once achieved, retroactively throws light on the subsidiaries that made it up. The particulars retain their meaningfulness, but one that is enhanced; transformed.

These patterns now shape us, because, ideally, they connect us with a reality independent of ourselves. We come to see the fullness of the pattern when it’s truth is lived in, habited, thus extending ourselves out into the world by means of it.

3) What About Doubt?

A) Doubt can occur by one of two ways. Doubt creeps in when we either:

1) Stop using the clues as clues, which can lead us to believe that the clues are all they are (rather than as pieces of a puzzle), or…

2) We see only the focus and lose sight of how this conclusion or intergration was achieved by the use of subsidiaries, or clues. This can lead one to believe that simply a dogmatic answer is asserted without proper substantiation, thus the answer (i.e. the focus, the conclusion to a series of complex epistemic acts) seems pat.

B) Two things can be done to address doubt, but before we look at what these are we must realize that a huge contributing factor to doubt is the ”modern model” of epistemology which is aimed at infallible certainty. Certainty as purposed in the modern model was an impersonal, flat property sought of propositions that functioned in an all-or-nothing manner.

So, Meek contributes to developing a sound Christian apologetic for handling the existential crisis that haunts many when they realize that they have doubts. She even applies this to the story of John the Baptist when he sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one they were looking for (the Messiah) in Luke 7. She has some very rich pastoral applications.

Conclusion. I would recommend this book to any person interested in delving deeper into the area of epistemology. John Frame, in his review of the book says, “All in all, this is the best book on epistemology (let alone Christian epistemology) to come along in many, many years.  It is a must for any serious student of the discipline and, indeed, for ordinary people who are trying to get clear on how to know God.”

Piper in Germany: “Think Christ”

From Desiring God:

Right thinking about God exists for the sake of right feeling for God. This was the main point of John Piper’s Friday night message, “Think Christ,” at the Hirten Konferenz in Bonn, Germany.
Expanding upon Thursday night’s message, “Feel Christ,” Piper said that being satisfied in God will not glorify God if our satisfaction in God is not based on right thinking.

Piper gave 10 arguments for the indispensible role of right thinking and right knowing in the life of the Christian:

1. It is possible to have strong feelings and be lost if the feelings are not based on knowledge (Romans 10:1-2).
2. God has planned that thinking about the Bible is the means he uses to give understanding (2 Timothy 2:7).
3. Paul is given as an example of reasoning with the Bible (Acts 17:2-3).
4. Jesus assumes and requires that we will use logic in understanding both what is natural and what is spiritual (Luke 12:54-57).
5. Jesus refuses to deal with people who use their reason to conceal truth (Matthew 21:23-27).
6. Thirteen times in Paul’s letters, he asks the question, “Do you not know?” Paul assumes that if his readers knew something, they would see things differently, feel differently, and act differently.
7. The Bible tells us that Christ has given pastors and teachers to the church and tells us that they should be apt to teach—because God intends that the Bible be explained to ordinary folks who don’t have the time or ability to go as deep as God wants them to go. Christ would not have given teachers to the church if he thought they were not needed.
8. The Bible declares that we should proclaim the whole council of God (Acts 20:27). That implies that there is a coherent unified whole, a body of doctrine, that should be given to the church. It is not easy to find this whole council in a book with 1,500 pages! It’s mainly mental labor. Finding the unified biblical theology that the people need to know takes hard thinking.
9. The Bible is a book, which means that it must be read.
10. An example of how thinking and valuing and acting relate to each other is Matthew 7:7-12.

On the final point, John Piper said that thinking is necessary to get meaning from a text and to then present it to others. In particular he pointed to the first word in verse 12.

I read Matthew 7:12 for 25 years before I asked how it relates to the previous verse. Why does verse 12 begin with “so”? Because confidence that God will meet our needs is what frees us to take radical risks in loving other people. “Do unto others . . .” because you know God is going to answer your prayers and take care of you.

God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him. But that satisfaction in God does not glorify him unless it is based on right thinking and right knowing. God is all-satisfying because he’s a Father who gives us everything we truly need. And that kind of deep unshakeable satisfaction in our Father causes us to value things differently than the world. Therefore, we will love our neighbors. Right thinking with right feeling changes our behavior.

Wednesday Absence

This update is for my students who inquired about whether I’d be in on Wednesday (considering I just had my tonsils removed).

Nyack students: It looks like I will not be in on Wednesday. My ability to speak is come-and-go, and it is especially difficult in the morning. Please continue to keep me in your prayers for a speedily recovery. Please inform any other students, notably those in my Christian Worldview course.

Naturalism and Epistemology

Here is a part of a discussion I had with a friend a few years ago.  We’ll call the person I was writing to “Tom.” I thought this section might be profitable:

My original comment:

The [rise of modern science came about from the conviction of  the] Bible’s presentation of metaphysical realism teaches that the external world was really there, not merely a projection of our minds, and detailed study of it could lead to a true understanding of the world rather than merely biographical insights (opposed to eastern influenced worldviews that teach reality as maya, illusion.). This is grounded in the Biblical notion of a Creator/creature distinction.

Tom’s reply: “Lucretius & Democritus said this long before the Bible.”

Joe: Lucretius believed in a Creator/creature distinction? Great! Wait…no? Did he believe that the external world was really there? Great! I’m not saying that non-Christians can’t do that (well, not the creator/creature thing), but notice I spoke of the Christians REASON for such beliefs. They were grounded in their worldview, and it’s not just that Christians said, “yeah we believe that too!” but rather that they made perfectly sense within their worldview.

For instance, many epistemologists over the centuries have noted what i’ve called the problem of the knower. That is, how do we know that our measures, thoughts, etc match up to the external world? Our measures, observations, etc may  WORK (they may provide pragmatic usefulness), but how do we know that they lead to TRUTH. Personally, I can understand how on a materialistic worldview they lead to the first (pragmatic usefulness), but not how they can secure the second (truth).

You see, this is also called the subject/object problem. But, one of the reasons for the problem (and the issue here, again, is how does one justify, integrate, harmonize, provide the philosophical preconditions for, these assumptions. I’m not doubting that the assumptions are valid, I’m question the ground on which they are believed) is that people have ignored the issue of an epistemological norm or standard. Naturally, for the Christian this standard is the Bible, and lots of work has been done to unpack the philosophical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, etc from the teachings of the Bible, like John Frame’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (P&R Publishing), and Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford). This “norm” serves as a presupposition in the sense that it acts as the filter, lens (insert analogy here) through which evidence will be understood. This norm isn’t easily refuted or correct by a simply appeal to “the facts” either, because it’s the standard by which evidence is interpreted. This is why I addressed the issue of worldviews in the 1st (or 2nd?) part of the letter. This clash of worldviews was made explicit in the now infamous book review by Richard Lewontin:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, IN SPITE OF its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, IN SPITE OF  the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a A PRIORI adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.–(“Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review of Books, Jan. 4, 1997, pg. 31. Emphasis in original, though they were italicized, not caps)

This speaks volumes, and I’m convinced that this worldview clash is what dictates so many of the arguments against ID (for instance). It’s a commitment to methodological naturalism (and as Lewontin notes, and a priori commitment at that)

My original comment:

Fourth, the biblical anthropology of mankind created as the image of God coupled with a logos epistemology, which teaches that God has created the world with a rational structure and likewise has modeled our thinking to match (more or less) this rational structure, undergirds what I said above in point three. Since the same God created both me, and the world outside of me, there is a correlation between the too. In fact, in the early chapters of Genesis, mankind is told to cultivate the garden, which presupposes and assumes that he can learn about the outside world, because God made both it and him to do so.

Tom: Really… Genesis says so many things that are so absurd…I don’t want to spend the afternoon citing it? Adam and Eve(the fossil record again….)? A rib woman….? The fossil record doesn’t confirm any of this, yet you trust the scientific method which disproves all this.

Joe: “Tom,” the fact that you think the Genesis account of creation is irrelevant. I have said nothing about how I “feel” about an essentially atheistic universe. And as for Adam and Eve and the fossil record, let’s take a look at that. Let’s assume for a second that the Bible is true, and Adam and Eve were both historical, real-life, flesh and blood humans. How in the world (!) could the fossil record falsify the claim that Eve was created from the side of Adam? Considering that the BIble fully recognizes (and stays so explicitly) that ever other human comes from a woman, how would the fossil record show this? Do you expect to find (from the numberless fossils, human and non-human alike) the very Adam and Ever who walked the earth? How would you know it was them (they don’t have state ID!), etc? Your claims are again, comparing apples and oranges.

Ethics and the Application of Scripture

How should Christians apply the Bible to subjects never directly addressed in its pages? How should we think about topics like economic structures, energy policy, medical policy, stem cell research, etc?

We should note that  the Christian worldview addresses all these moral issues. Some seem to believe that Christian form ‘moral’ beliefs only on those issues directly touched upon in Scripture. But view should be reconsidered. Christians believe (whether stated explicitly in works on moral theology [ethics], or functionally in how much ‘practical’ issues are addressed) that the Bible applies to all of life, but  in nuanced ways. For some issues, the text is rather clear and straightforward (‘You shall not commit murder,’ etc), on other issues the authority of Scripture is applied by asking what are it’s implications.

Here’s an example of the latter. Jesus, Paul, or anybody else in the Bible naturally never spoke about road safety. Why? I think we both know the answer. So, how can the Bible address issues such as this?  Well, for one, the Bible says that we such obey our governments insofar as they do not demand something that God has forbidden. Setting a speed limit violates no Biblical injunction, so we should follow them. Secondly, the Bible also command that we regard human life as sacred because they are created in the image of God. This causes me to study and note the things that I could possibly do in a car that would injure or harm another person in any way (and to learn to avoid these things). If this includes getting it tuned up regularly, etc., these are things that I do in order to honor God and to honor fellow human beings created in His image. So, in a nutshell, it’s my conviction of biblical authority that causes me to study these others things, not shy away from them. The same would apply to energy policy, medical ethics, etc.

Hoekema on Hymns

Anthony Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 274:

One gets the impression from certain hymns that glorified believers will spend eternity in some ethereal heaven somewhere off in space, far away from earth. The following lines from the hymn “My Jesus I Love Thee” seem to convey that impression: “In mansions of glory and endless delight / I’ll ever adore thee in heaven so bright.” But does such a conception do justice to biblical eschatology? Are we to spend eternity somewhere off in space, wearing white robes, plucking harps, singing songs, flitting from cloud to cloud while doing so? On the contrary, the Bible assures us that God will create a new earth on which we shall live to God’s praise in glorified, resurrected bodies.

Bavinck on the New Creation

Here’s my favorite part from Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 4 :

All that is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable in the whole creation, in heaven and on earth, is gathered up in the future city of God-renewed, re-created, boosted to its highest glory.

The substance [of the city of God] is present in this creation. Just as the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, as a carbon is converted into diamond, as the grain of wheat upon dying in the ground produces other grains of wheat, as all of nature revives in the spring and dresses up in celebrative clothing, as the believing community is formed out of Adam’s falen race, as the resurrection body is raised from the body that is dead and buried in the earth, so too, by the re-creating power of Christ, the new heaven and the new earth will one day emerge from the fire-purged elements of this world, radiant in enduring glory and forever set free from the ‘bondage to decay’ (…Rom. 8:21). More glorious than this beautiful earth, more glorious than the earthly Jerusalem, more glorious even than paradise will be the glory of the new Jerusalem, whose architect and builder is God himself.

Closer to Truth

This is a website I plan to visit often. Check it out: www.closertotruth.com

The Biblical View of Truth

What does the Bible mean by the concept “truth”? When we turn to the biblical usage of the word, we find that “[t]he meaning of the Hebrew word ‘emet, which is at the root of the great majority of Hebrews words related to truth, involves the ideas of ‘support’ and ‘stability.’ From this root flows the twofold notion of truth as faithfulness and conformity to fact.”[1] J. P. Moreland and Garrett DeWeese expand upon this theme:

The Old and New Testament terms for truth are, respectively, ‘emet, and aletheia. The meaning of these terms and, more generally, a biblical conception of truth are broad and multi-faceted: fidelity, moral rectitude, being real, being genuine, faithfulness, having veracity, being complete. Two aspects of the biblical concept of truth appear to be primary:  faithfulness, and conformity to fact. Arguably, the former presupposes a correspondence theory. Thus, faithfulness may be understood as a person’s actions corresponding to the person’s assertions or promises, and a similar point could be made about genuineness, moral rectitude, and so forth.[2]

I will now provide what I believe is a biblically faithful harmonization of the information gathered above regarding the nature of truth.  The most promising of the secular theories of truth is that of correspondence theory. Nonetheless, while truth without a doubt refers to a proposition’s correspondence with the reality to which it refers, Evangelicals must not fall into the trap of modernism with its correspondence definition of truth. Modernism’s error with regard to its view of truth was the same as its views of logic and science, namely acknowledging their reality while abstracting them from the Lord who governs them. As Christians we must acknowledge this correspondence perspective of truth, but, and this is crucial, we must make sense of the Bible’s usage of truth as faithfulness.

I propose this understanding of truth, while acknowledging that it can be expanded and revised: Truth ultimately points to God’s relationships, first to Himself, and secondly to His decrees for His creation. Our statements are validated as true when they properly represent the reality to which they refer, yet the reason they can correspond to reality to any degree is because God stabilizes our world. The reason we can ever acknowledge and have any degree of insight into the working of God’s world is because He enlightens our mind. So ultimately the world acts in such a recordable fashion because of God’s faithfulness in action.

Thus I see both correspondence as well as coherence as valid definitions of truth, when properly presented within a Scriptural framework. A God-centered view of correspondence sees a belief or state of affairs as true if it corresponds to the way God structured reality. Likewise, a God-centered perspective on coherence views a belief as true when it harmoniously fits with God’s way of thinking about His world.[3] Bahnsen defines truth as that which corresponds to the Divine mind. Van Til called this “analogical reasoning,” i.e. truth is attained by “thinking God’s thought after Him” on a particular subject matter.

Unlike the various secular theories of truth, the Biblical one does not limit the number of possible forms of truth. Particularly the pragmatic view of truth is in mind here, with its limiting of truth to practicality alone. Bahnsen draws out the wide scope of truth in the following:

God’s thinking is what gives unity, meaning, coherence, and intelligibility to nature, history, reasoning, and morality. In terms of this picture of the knowing process [i.e. the search for truth, JET], man can search for casual relationships and laws (thinking God’s thoughts after Him about His providential plan). He can think in terms of shared properties, similarities, or classes (thinking God’s thoughts after Him about the patterns, classifications, or kinds of things He creates and providentially controls). He can draw logical inferences (thinking God’s thoughts after Him about conceptual and truth-functional relations). He can make meaningful normative judgments (thinking God’s thoughts after Him about the demands of His righteousness). He can account for man’s mind knowing extramental objects (thinking God’s thoughts after Him about created man’s control over the created environment in which God placed Him). He can account for the public or objective character of truth available to many finite minds (thinking God’s thoughts after Him about the community of minds created and providentially planned to reflect His thinking), etc.[4]

---

[1] Douglas Groothuis, Truth Decay, 60-61.

[2] J. P. Moreland and Garrett DeWeese, “The Premature Report of Foundationalism’s Demise,” Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 88.

[3] Douglas Groothuis echoes this thought, “In a theological sense, one could say that coherence is the meaning of truth, if one means that whatever is true coheres with the mind of God, since God know all things with perfect consistency. But, this fact does not eliminate correspondence as the meaning of truth, since all true statements correspond with facts, which are either in the mind of God or pertain to other states of affairs.” “Truth Defined and Defended,” footnote 49, 73. Unfortunately, Groothuis saves these comments for a footnote, thus showing, in practice at least, that he privileges the correspondence definition of truth over the coherence model, as opposed to what I propose, i.e. seeing both as maintaining a reciprocal relationship.

[4] Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic, 223.

The Struggle of Christian Education

One of my good friends is a High School teacher, and sent me this email. I asked for permission to post this and got the okay. It says a lot about the struggle of Christian education.

On the recent test I gave my high school students on our “kingdom of God” unit (introduction to biblical theology), some students did a great job summarizing the purpose of Israel in the OT. But here are some findings that make me bang my head against the desk:

• 70% of students said it was true that “One difference between the Old and New Testaments is that Israel had to obey in order to receive God’s grace, but Christians have grace first and then obedience.”
• 43% of students said God chose Israel because they were a holy nation. [contrast this with Deut. 9:4-5]
• 61% of students said that Gen. 3:15 (the protoevangelium) directly stated that God would come to redeem humanity in the form of a Messiah. [Gen. 3:15 actually says, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring  and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”]
• 61% thought that Israel becoming a kingdom with a human king was not God’s original purpose, that it was only because of sin. [contrast this with Deut. 17:14-20]

One student said that after creation, fall and flood, the rest of Genesis was about Israel’s exile in Egypt. This same student said that the primary message in Gen 1-2 about creation was that “God is the Messiah; he will save you if you repent. He has an amazing kingdom coming.” She said the purpose of Israel was that they “were the people who were chosen to spread Jesus’ name.”

In talking about the purpose of Israel, one student said God chose Israel because they lived where Eden originally was. Another said, “Because Jesus was a light to the world, God wanted Israel to do the same.”

Most of the students got the idea about the temple pointing back to Eden and up to God’s heavenly dwelling and how it was a place of God’s special presence. But one kid said, “God wanted a small area holy enough for His presence. That is why He wanted a temple” (missing the idea of spreading God’s special presence around the globe).

Finally, here are some of the kids’ comments about kingdom of God theology: a mix of amusing and insightful comments.

• “The idea of the Bible as a kingdom story put an interesting, new perspective on it. I found it very helpful in linking different parts together. It also gave me a new idea of Jesus as a supreme king, not just a personal Savior.”
• “I find it interesting to emphasize kingdom. It makes sense, quite a bit more than the other two extremes: saying God is super merciful and never punishes anyone, or saying if you put a toe out of line you’ll burn for all eternity. Even when not taken to these extremes, viewpoints are rarely fresh and interesting. Kingdom really is a large, overarching part of the Bible, and it combines mercy and wrath in an understandable way. It really helps put things in perspective.”
• “I personally did not like the whole kingdom thing, because it made more stuff to know and it was just really confusing, because I thought it was pointless. I think that when we learn about God’s kingdom we should just study it, not add any extra information. It gets people off track.”
• “I never really thought about the story of the Bible as that, a story. I didn’t know much about kingdom before. Now I have a better understanding of what our mission as the church is.”
• “I’ve learned some things about the Christian faith in this class that I didn’t know before. But for a lot of this, I disagree, mainly because I struggle in believing all this stuff.”
• “I had never thought of it this way before, but it was helpful to picture the kingdom being restored to a perfect land in the second coming.”

• “I think it is helpful because, yes, God did want a kingdom, but not helpful because we are getting too caught up with royalty and stuff.”

Cruel Logic

This is from writer-director Brian Godawa:

The point is clear. Materialists can talk the talk, but when the rubber meets the road, is their approach to ethics livable?