Are You Ready for the JW Quiz?

Recently, Team Pyro posted this set of questions. According to the author, Phil Johnson:

Here’s a set of talking points the Jehovah’s Witnesses hand to their door-to-door teams to instruct them on how to foment doubt about the deity of Christ. Some lazy JW saw an article I wrote on the deity of Christ and as a kind of shorthand reply, he e-mailed me a copy of the handout he was given by his church.

Here are the questions (all typos are in the original):

IF JESUS IS GOD

1. Why is he called the “firstborn” of all creation? Col. 1:15, Rev.3:14
2. Why did he say that he did not come of his “own initiative” but was sent? John 8:42, 1 John 4:9
3. Why did Jesus not know the “day and the hour” of the Great Tribulation but God did? Matt. 24:36
4. Who did Jesus speak to in prayer?
5. How did he “appear before the person of God for us”? Heb. 9.24
6. Why did Jesus say “the Father is greater than I am”? John 14:28, Php. 2:5, 6
7. Who spoke to Jesus at the time of his baptism saying “this is my son”? Matt. 3:17
8. How could he be exalted to a superior position? Php. 2:9, 10
9. How can he be the “mediator between God and man”? 1Tim. 2:5
10. Why did Paul say the “the head of Christ is God”? lCor. 11:30
11. Why did Jesus “hand over the Kingdom to his God” and “subject himself to God”? 1 Cor. 15:24, 28
12. Who does he refer to as “my God and your God”? John 20:17
13. How does he sit at God’s right hand? Ps. 110:1, Heb. 10:12, 13
14. Why does John say “no man has seen God at any time”? John 1:18
15. Why did not people die when they saw Jesus? Ex. 30:20
16. How was Jesus dead and God alive at the same time? Acts 2:24
17. Why did he need someone to save him? Heb. 5:7
18. Who is reffered to prophetically at Prov. 8:22-31?
19. Why did Jesus say “that all authority has been GIVEN to me in heaven and on earth”?Matt. 28.18, Dan. 7:13, 14 (similar)
20. Why did he have godly fear? Heb. 5:7
21. How could he learn obedience and be made perfect? Heb. 5:8-9
22. Why would an angel be able to strengthen him or angels minister to him? Luke 22:43, Matt. 4:11
23. Why would Satan try to tempt him if he KNEW that he was GOD? Matt. 4:1-11
24. Jesus when sent to the earth was made to “be Lower” than the angels. Heb. 2:7. How could any part of a God Head EVER be lower than the angels?
25. Then if Jesus was the sameas God, who was he being tempted to rebel against? could God be tempted to rebel against himself?Matt. 4:1
26. Near the end of his earthly life, Jesus cried out “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Matt. 27:46 Can God desert or forsake himself?
27. Heb. 5:8 says that Jesus learned obedience! To whom would he obey if he was GOD? And Does God need to LEARN anything?
28. God’s justice is strickly perfect. Ex. 21:23-25 for example. The ransom price was one perfect human for another. An imperfect man’s life would be too low.Ps. 49:7 If Jesus was the same as God, the ransom price paid by a God would have been too high. Adam was a perfect MAN and the ransome price was a perfect MAN, not higher nor lower.

Two things really struck me about these questions:

1. How badly Jehovah’s witnesses misunderstand the doctrine of the Trinity in general, and the role of Christ in redemption specifically. And,
2. How bad Christians misunderstand the same things.

I think I’ll plug away at answering these questions in the next few days and weeks. It should be a helpful exercise in noting how biblical interpretation is twisted by bad doctrine.

Dr. Tim Lane on Pastoral Apologetics

A Million-Dollar “Challenge”?

A friend of mine brought this Youtube clip to my attention. It’s a “challenge” to orthodox Christianity’s view of Jesus as one person with two natures (human and divine). The person who created this clip claims that one simple question is enough to debunk Christianity. What’s the question? Watch this 1:40 clip and see for yourself:

Here are my thoughts:

This is actually a ridiculous “challenge.” Contrary, to the underlying assumption of this video, deception is not essential to our human nature. Working from within a biblical Framework (as I reject a humanistic framework), before the fall Adam and Eve were fully human, and yet did not lie. Human beings, in the new Heavens and Earth, will be completely, fully, and gloriously human, and yet will never lie or be subject to the temptation to lie. Christ, as the second and final Adam, was (and is) the perfect human being who lived a life of perfect covenant obedience.

Another important, but ignored point in this video, is the slippery meaning of the word “can,” as in Can Jesus lie? They’re asking whether Jesus “had the ability” to lie in his human nature. But there are different sorts of ability. The 2 types relevant here are moral ability and physical ability. As a human being, did Jesus have the physical ability to move his lips and say something untrue? Of course. And no thinking Christian would ever say otherwise. He wasn’t like Jim Carrey in the movie Liar, Liar. The relevant question is whether Jesus had the moral ability to lie, and there the answer is no. But, unlike most people’s misunderstanding, this is perfectly consistent with being a human being that is fully, perfectly, and utterly devoted to God (see comments above). There is nothing “artificial” about a relationship in which a husband never ever lies to his wife. It’s the mark of a flourishing relationship.

So, Jesus’ physical ability to lie (the ability to move his lips and say those words) affirms his full humanity, and his moral freedom from uttering deceptive words highlights that he is perfectly, not merely, human.

Presuppositionalism and Circularity…Again?

Recently Dr. Paul Copan of Palm Beach Atlantic University was asked to contribute a short piece on his objections to presuppositionism as an apologetic methodology on the website of The Gospel Coalition. Dr. Copan is surely a leading light in an evidential approach to defending the faith, and when he writes I stand up and take notice. He helpfully summarizes his objections under 4 headings, as follows:

• First, it engages in question-begging—assuming what one wants to prove.
• Second, Christians share common ground with unbelievers, who are likewise made in God’s image, which is not erased by the fall.
• Third, some (not all) presuppostionalists seem inconsistent about natural theology.
• Fourth, it is important to distinguish between the confident ground of our knowledge of God and the highly probable public case for the Christian faith.

I’ve taken the time to respond to these objections because, as a Van Tillian presuppositionalist, I recognize that they have taken a sort of “canonical” status among non-presuppositional apologists. In fact, they are so common that many such responses already exist. I just want to provide a help, and relatively short correction to what I think Dr. Copan is missing in his concerns. I’m not going to respond to Copan’s fourth claim, as I understand his claim and largely agree with him. Their is a difference between “knowing” and “showing.” The objective evidence for Christianity is to my mind, as it was for Van Til, absolutely certain, and yet our reformulations and representations of that evidence into specific arguments is always limited to the fallibility and/or oversight of the apologist.

“First, it engages in question-begging—assuming what one wants to prove.” Regarding the first objection (circularity and question-begging), a bit of time is needed to clear the air, though ironically this is the primary objection to presuppositionalism. I’ve written a (non-published) article on this objection (along with its corollary, the charge that presuppositionalism is inherently fideistic) that replies to this at several levels (both philosophical and theological), so I’ll repeat a bit of what I’ve previously written:

Now, why is circular reasoning fallacious? Begging the question is marked by two traits. First, a viciously circular argument assumes its stance rather than providing support for it. In doing this it avoids the burden of proof. According to Douglas N. Walton, author of the only full length monograph entirely devoted to this topic[1], “The requirement here is one of evidential priority. Arguing in a circle becomes a fallacy by basing it on prior acceptance of the conclusion to be proved. So the fallacy of begging the question is a systematic tactic to evade fulfillment of a legitimate burden of proof.”[2] Second, viciously circular arguments merely restate the conclusion in one of the premises. According to S. Morris Engel, “…if the supporting premises merely repeat or rephrase what is stated in the conclusion, as in all cases of begging the question, the argument contains no premises and is therefore fallacious.”[3]

Van Til and his followers rejected fallacious question-begging and never approved of arguments such as “God exists, therefore God exists.” Even when John Frame speaks of the previous statement approvingly does so only to point out that it’s a true statement, not that it’s a good or persuasive argument. In fact, in a number of places Frame speaks of the “God exists, therefore God exists” argument as a poor one that presuppositionalists should stay away from. Richard Pratt has rejected fallacious question-begging as follows:

Van Til never suggested that anyone should commit the logical fallacy of begging the question (e.g. “A is true because A is true.”). That would be strange indeed. In reality, he frequently called attention to the failure of such arguments. It is true that Van Til spoke positively of “circular reasoning,” but he had something other than begging the question in mind. He was not talking so much about argumentation, setting down a convincing case that leads to a conclusion. In argumentation, reasoning should be linear. Instead, Van Til spoke of circularity in terms of the inescapable process by which finite minds attain knowledge to be used in arguments…This is the kind of circularity or spiraling that Van Til pointed out in all human reasoning. It has nothing to do with begging the question.[4]

Likewise, the late Greg Bahnsen, a leading voice in the presuppositional school of thought clarifies:

The “circularity” of a transcendental argument is not at all the same as the fallacious “circularity” of an argument in which the conclusion is a restatement (in one form or another) of one of the premises. Rather, it is the circularity involved in a coherent theory (where all the parts are consistent with or assume each other) and which is required when one reasons about a precondition for reasoning.[5]

I could multiply quotes from both Van Til himself and his disciples (many of which are provided by Pratt in the link below) that demonstrate that Van Tillian presuppositionalists eschew fallacious and vicious circularity just as strong as do non-presuppositionalists.

“Second, Christians share common ground with unbelievers, who are likewise made in God’s image, which is not erased by the fall.”

This is perhaps the most frustrating of Copan’s objections. Why? Because whether he intends to or not (and I think not) he has grossly misrepresented the presuppositional approach and the underlying Reformed theology out of which it grows. Van Til not only never claimed that the fall erased the imago Dei (functionally or otherwise), but he was one-hundred percent clear that the imago was the point of contact with unbelievers. On need only read his chapter on the Point of Contact in his introductory Christian Apologetics. Van Til, in his usual pedagogical style of clarifying his position by contrasting it with others, distanced himself from the Lutheran position that limited the image of God to original righteousness. Again, Van Til clarifies what he rejects:

It is commonness ‘without qualification,’ that is, the idea of neutral territory of interpretation between believers and non-believers that I reject. [6]

Third, according to Copan, “some (not all) presuppositionalists seem inconsistent about natural theology.“

Perhaps some presuppositionalist have been too negative on natural theology. But this is not the standard or even “official” position. In the words of Van Til himself:

Accordingly I do not reject ‘the theistic proofs’ but merely insist on formulating them in such a way as not to compromise the doctrines of Scripture. That is to say, if the theistic proof is constructed as it ought to be constructed, it is objectively valid, whatever the attitude of those to whom it comes may be.” (Defense of the Faith, 3rd ed. 197)

Regarding “natural theology” and its arguments, presuppositionalists are mostly concerned with formulating these arguments in a way that doesn’t compromise their (Reformed) doctrine of God, or imply epistemological neutrality.

Unfortunately, as I noted earlier, Copan’s objections are all-to-common, and have be responded to and refuted on many occasions. In the spirit of Christian charity and academic integrity, the charge of circularity should be dropped. Further responses have been provided by K. Scott Oliphint and James Anderson. Anderson has complied an uber-helpful document addressing most of these misconceptions and a few others that can be found here.

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[1] Douglas N. Walton, Begging the Question: Circular Reasoning as a Tactic of Argumentation (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991)

[2] Douglas N. Walton, “Informal Fallacies,” Blackwell Compansion to Epistemology, (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Reference, 1992), Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa, eds. Emphasis added.

[3] With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies, 5^th edition (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 147. Emphasis added. J. P. Moreland provides an example of what it means to merely repeat or rephrase what is stated in the conclusion, “Capital punishment is wrong because it is an example of something we have no business doing, namely, taking a person’s life.” Love Your God with All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1997), 123-124. “Wrong” and “something we have no business doing” are synonymous, a mere repetition of the same thought in different words.

[4] Richard L. Pratt, Common Misunderstandings of Van Til’s Apologetics, Part 2. http://www.thirdmill.org/newfiles/ric_pratt/TH.Pratt.VanTil.2.html. Emphasis added. Accessed 9/19/09.

[5] Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis, 518, n. 122. Emphasis added

[6] Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, p. 152, emphasis original)

Presuppositionalism in a Nutsell

Greg Bahnsen (September 17, 1948 – December 11, 1995) was one of Cornelius Van Til’s greatest expositors. Van Til himself wasn’t the most reader-friendly writer (I’ve provided an overview of Van Til’s key concepts here, here, and here) and Bahnsen did us all a great favor by taking the time in his ministry to explain and defend Van Til’s distinctive approach to Christian apologetics. The following is a snippet from Bahnsen’s book Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis. Here Bahnsen sums up Van Til’s approach, often called a presuppositional apologetic, in a nutshell.

In order to press this epistemologically oriented apologetic argument for the truth of Christianity successfully, the apologist was clearly grasp the principial conflict in philosophical positions, think and reason in terms of it, and constantly layout for the unbeliever this fundamental clash of perspectives as the defining and determinative context for the argument with each other. The Christian should intellectually defend his faith in terms of, and with a clear conceptualization of, the ideological and personal antithesis between believers and unbelievers.

The presuppositional apologist, or Van Tillian, is keenly aware of the radical worldview clash between Christians and all forms of unbelief (from rabid athiests to peaceful Buddhist monks). In principal, our disagreement isn’t merely over one or two points of religious dogma. Our disagreement is over how we interpret everything, the entire world around us, our place in it,  how we attain knowledge, what is true, beautiful, and good. As a Christian who in increasingly self-aware of their worldview, the defender of the faith should ask themselves what type of approach in apologetics is coherent with their deepest Christian commitments (such as the absolute Lordship of Jesus) and think, witness,and argue in light of those commitments. Lastly, Bahnsen is clear to note that we shouldn’t think that the non-Christian is religiously neutral. No, there always remains an “ideological and personal” antithesis between the way the Christian strives to think, live, and act to the glory of God, and the unbeliever who thinks, lives, and acts to the glory of God’s rivals.

From these basic starting points the presuppositional approach can get pretty complicated and philosophical. But Van Til and Bahnsen’s concerns were always simply and biblical: If you build your life on anything other than the sure-standing rock of Christ it will come down in a great crash.

For more, see:

God and the Bible Go Together…Even in Apologetics

In the following quote Cornelius Van Til makes the important (and often overlooked or downright denied) point that a truly Christian argument (and by Christian here, I mean an argument that is faithful to the entirety of Scripture) for the Christian God is likewise, at the same time, an argument for the truth of the Christian Scriptures and our concept of revelation. If you lose one, you lose the other. If you establish the one you’ve established the other:

Incidentally we remark that our acceptance of the Scriptures does not depend upon our argument for the absolute God and our argument for the absolute God does not depend upon our acceptance of the Scriptures. We say that one does not depend upon the other because they are mutually involved in one another and quite inseparable. Our concept of God as absolute is a matter of fact taught nowhere but in Scripture. That is as we should expect, since Scripture itself is necessary because of man’s departure from the knowledge of God. Scripture is nothing but God’s self – testimony to the sinner as once God’s self – testimony came to man through man’s own consciousness and through God’s thought communication in paradise. Hence too it is only by his internal testimony in our hearts, that is, through the regeneration wrought by the Holy Spirit that we believe his own external testimony as it lies before us in scripture. (Cornelius Van Til, Psychology of Religion)

Take note of Van Til ties the personal revelation of God to Adam in the garden of Eden (“God’s thought communication in paradise”) with God’s revelation in the Bible. In both cases we find God’s personal address to humanity that conveys solid content (as opposed to merely “a relationship” or “encounter”). But he goes further to note that this disclosure of a) relationship and b) information was successful. It moved from being “out there” to “man’s consciousness.” This is precisely Paul’s point in Romans 1. Every person already has a “personal relationship” with God. The question is whether that relationship consists of knowing God as enemy or knowing him as Lord and friend.

Is God a Warmonger? (Part 1)

One common objection to believing the Bible I often hear is an objection to the slaughter of the Canaanite peoples during the time of the Israelite conquest of the promised land. The story of the Israelite conquest is not one that is easy on modern ears as we have seen a horrible century in which genocide has become an altogether too common occurrence. In all honesty, there are parts of the Old Testament are sometimes difficult to accept, especially as they relate to God’s character. I really wish some passages were not included in the scripture, and if I were writing them, they would not be. But that’s more evidence that the Bible is inspired by God. Stories that humans would cut out in effort to save God’s reputation as good and loving, God inspired to be included in his Holy Word in order to fully reveal his divine character. Maybe I’ll write more on that later, how about those tough to take passages? Take his command to King Saul of Israel,

Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction[a] all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. ~1 Samuel 15:3

Camels and donkeys?  Children and infants? Really? Or how about this statement regarding Israel’s destruction of Jericho at God’s prompting:

Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword. ~Joshua 6:21

Is the God of the Old Testament a lover of war and destruction?  Is God a warmonger who arbitrarily takes out his frustration on innocent people?  Reading certain passages and not taking into account the whole testimony of the Bible one could get this impression. The conquest of Canaan strikes at our notions of justice and fairness. Why does God command his people to wipe out an entire race of people? How can God do that and still be considered just and good? Even more so, these passages often propagate the doubts of non Christians who are skeptical of God in the first place.  But perhaps the issue of God and war in the Old Testament is more complex than we realize.  Could there be other factors that we need to take into consideration?

1. First, it is a legitimate question to ask if God is a warmonger. Christians rightly condemn ethnic cleansing in other contexts and there is no warrant today for nations to destroy other nations in order to take their land. However, there are special features of God’s commands to Israel to “ethnically cleanse” the land of Canaan that make this event unique, and not to be imitated, and allow it to be seen as an act of moral obedience (or, as we will see disobedience) to God. The command of God to radically annihilate the Canaanite peoples is only seen as a “right action” when placed in context of God’s plan of salvation in general, and his particular calling of Moses to be his mouthpiece to the people of Israel (Exodus 3-4:17; Numbers 12:1-5).

Moses is identified as God’s unique choice to be the lawgiver for the people of Israel, and the commands given through Moses come directly from God’s own mind (Deut. 18:15-20). Believers accept God’s divine appointment of Moses to speak his will. Without the command from God, delivered through Moses, Israel would have no right to the promised land and their actions could only be seen as immoral and evil. A fundamental conviction of the Bible, and of Christianity, is that the God of the Bible is the creator of all there is, and therefore the owner of all lands. God has a right to distribute territories according to his good and holy will (Exodus 19:5;  Psalm 24:1).

While it is a justified question to ask if God is a warmonger, when considering God’s ownership of all the lands of earth, not to mention people, livestock, and other animals, the answer must come down: No, God is not a warmonger, he is the creator of all things who can do with these things what he pleases according to his good and holy will.

Rescuing Christianity from Spong

Shortly after becoming a believer in Jesus, I became interested Christian apologetics. Since then, I’ve made it a habit to expose myself to various forms of unbelief, whether that’s reading the works of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, atheists, or theological liberals. Liberals in particular, and John Shelby Spong in particular, are an interesting bunch. Spong has written books challenging the orthodox understanding of almost every essential Christian doctrine imaginable. But there is profit in reading some of his works. As a teaching exercise, I have always thought that it would be profitable endeavor to subject students (for apologetic purposes) to work through at least one of Spong’s books.

John Shelby Spong is, and has been for the past 30 years, a rockstar in the world of Protestant theological liberalism. As noted above he has written numerous books attacking doctrines such as the deity of Jesus, the reliability of the Bible, the virgin birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the moral acceptability of homosexuality within the Christian life, and even the personality of God (Spong advocates a “God without theism”). Spong’s works are veritable apologetic workbooks for deciphering logical fallacies, incongruous presuppositions, academic arrogance, and factual inaccuracies.

Lately I’ve been working through Spong’s Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism,  his 1994 work with the subtitle which reads “A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture,” and its accompanying study guide. Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism is indeed a provocative title. If Spong, and his publishers, were using the words in the title of the precise sense in which they should be used, I would have no problem. After all, I do believe that the Bible needs to be “rescued” from the grips of a rigid, dogmatic, and overly literalized fundamentalism. Any approach to the Bible that overlooks historical settings, literary genres, figures of speech, and other things of this nature ultimately impresses upon the Bible a grid that forces it to say what our interpretive systems demand that it says. And this of course prevents us from hearing what God is saying. But this isn’t the type of fundamentalism that Spong is ultimately against.

For Spong, in the final analysis, a fundamentalist is a person who believes the Bible, who think it’s inspired by a personal and speaking God, who longs for the fulfillment of its promises, trembles at its treats, lives by its standards of conduct, who glories in the cross of Jesus Christ, and believes in the existence of the supernatural.

Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism contains nearly all the standard objections to Christian faith floating around in the hallowed halls of secular education.

Zeitgeist: Time to Discard the Christian Story?

For the Zeitgeist film itself, see here.

For a modern defense of the historicity of the Jesus story over against the “myth theory” see,

The Next Doctrinal Battleground: The Historicity of Adam?

In recent online videos, prominent Old Testament scholars Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns commented on the whether the Adam of Gen. 1-4 was a historical figure. Below are Longman’s thoughts:

One thing that’s saddening is that Longman claims that a reading of the creation narratives of Genesis which concludes that Adam was a real historical figure are based on a “highly literalistic” reading of the text. While he doesn’t explicitly deny the historicity of Adam, it’s pretty fair to say that he doesn’t subscribe to a view based on a reading of the Bible that’s “highly literalistic.” This is unfortunate indeed because Longman is a conservative OT scholar who, as far as I am aware, affirms the inerrancy of the Bible. Of course, someone might ask why I believe that this is unfortunate. Well, first the belief that Adam was a historical figure is the majority view of Christians throughout the ages. This leads me to my second point: Both Christ and Paul affirmed that Adam was a real person and not merely a symbolic character. James Anderson, Assistant Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, argues this point very well on his blog. For most Christians, this is a slam dunk argument. If Christ and Paul believed something we should believe no less. But, according to Peter Enns, his is not necessarily the case. Here is Enns’s view on the matter of Paul and Adam:

A little background on Enns is helpful. Back in 2005 he wrote a book titled Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament which sparks a great deal of controversy. This controversy eventually led to his dismissal from his teaching post at Westminster Theological Seminary. Enns is a clear writer and more or less straightforward in his views. According to Dr. Enns, evangelicals have not critically engaged the world of the Old Testament because they have failed to accept many recent discoveries about the Ancient near East. When, according to Enns, we do come to grips with how ANE writers thought, communicated, and recorded history we should realize that we’ve imposed a fairly recent, modernist grid on the text, asking questions it was never intended to answer with criteria that the ancient writers didn’t accept. His goal was, and is, noble. When we come across what seem to be contradictions or “tensions ” in the Bible we shouldn’t lose all faith that it is divinely inspired. Rather we should acknowledge that we are 1) probably imposing a modern (and not ancient) standard of truth-telling, and 2) this is all part of the rich “diversity” that God intended for His Word in human words. So the problem is with us, not the Bible. This last point (“the problem is with us, not the Bible”) was taught by Augustine when he said, “It is not allowable to say, ‘The author of this book is mistaken; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood.” But while Augustine makes clear that we ought not to say the Bible gives untrue information, Enns claims that is does (but it doesn’t effect the overall message of Scripture which is salvation in Christ).

In the clip above Enns states that he fully expects to have Paul believe that Adam was a real historical figure (which is clear that Enns does not). Paul was, after all, a first century Jewish man and held the common views on this issue as his contemporaries. This is another plank in Enns view of Scripture: the “fact” that biblical authors affirm things (such as ANE mythological history and cosmology) that we now know aren’t true doesn’t compromise the fact that they were inspired by God to record those very words. This causes a huge theological problem: we are being encouraged to deny something that Christ Himself and his appointed spokesperson, Paul, affirmed.

Enns’ approach here also has significant methodological problems. Let’s assume for a moment that Enns and Longman are mistaken on the issue of Adam (and I think Anderson has done a fine job of showing the problems with their view. He also wrote a follow-up.), how would we demonstrate the error? Well, we appeal to the to the intention of Paul. Paul intended to teach that there is a link between the act of disobedience of one man (Adam) and the one act of obedience from another (Jesus). But, according to Enns, Paul’s intention doesn’t settle the matter because he was thoroughly embedded in, and clearly reflected, the erroneous fees of his day. So, the genealogies of Genesis don’t settle the issue, and even authorial intent doesn’t solve it. Thus Enns view is unfalsifiable, making correction seemingly impossible. If I’m mistaken I want to know how, because for either lack of creativity or exegetical know-how I can’t see it.

The difficult bit about all of this is that Enns and Longman are self-identified evangelicals who confess the inspiration of the Bible. Anderson clarifies:

I’m certainly not arguing, “If you throw out Adam you might as well throw out everything else!” or anything along those lines. It’s not a slippery-slope argument at all. Rather, my argument is that denying the historicity of Adam seems to commit you to at least some of the following: (i) very unnatural readings of several biblical passages; (ii) the conclusion that some biblical authors (and perhaps Jesus too) make claims that aren’t true or arguments that aren’t cogent; (iii) a hermeneutic that would undermine the clarity and authority of Scripture; (iv) a hermeneutic that would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to defend many other important biblical doctrines or ethical norms to which evangelicals are committed.

Fellow Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke and Enns engaged in a congenial exchange last year in the Westminster  Theological Journal. The first round of exchanges were posted online.

Revisiting Inspiration & Incarnation by Bruce Waltke (PDF)

Response to Bruce Waltke by Peter Enns (PDF)

Theologian John Frame, and exegete G. K. Beale have also weigh in on Enns view of Scripture. Enns’s replies can be found here.

Here are some resources for further study: The first is Enns’s book, and the second is John Wenham’s book Christ and the Bible, which clearly lays out Christ’s own view of Scripture (which isn’t addressed by Enns, as far as I am aware).

1 Corinthians and “Binaries”

A close reading of 1 Corinthians 1-2 will show that it’s composed of several binaries. ‘Binaries’ is a term often used in postmodern literature to speak of pairs of concepts that are often described in opposing ways. Some examples would be inside/outside, knowledge/opinion, us/them, etc. Really it’s just a fancy way of speaking of two-fold distinctions (the key term is ‘bi’ meaning two). What triggered my own observation of this were: 1) a Bible study I gave on 1 Cor.1-2 in relationship to evangelism, and 2) an article I wrote on the topic of postmodernism.

Now, when we get to 1 Cor. 1-2 we find several key distinctions, binaries, that Paul asserts are crucial for understanding the difference between Christian and non-Christian thought. They effect our discipleship and should inform our evangelism. Paul speaks of “those that are perishing,” and “us that are being saved,” and the “wisdom of God” over against the “wisdom of the world,” etc. Paul claims that the Christian vision of life, presented in weakness and trembling, and highlighted in the power of the cross, is completely at odds with its “binary” of worldly (so-called) wisdom, nobility (or as I like to call it, celebrity) and power.

Christ’s kingdom is completely counter-cultural when compared with the values of unbelief. This is why Paul says, “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For in the wisdom of God, the world would not know him by it’s wisdom…” (1:18)

In evangelism, this is a huge relief. My job isn’t merely to convey information and convince the unbeliever of the gospel. In fact this will never happen because the gospel runs against the very grain of unbelief. In order to accept the gospel they would have to renounce their view of who they are (i.e. their spiritual and moral independence from God). As Paul says in chapter 2, “The natural man does not accept the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). And it’s this last point that balances out what I’ve said before. While I may not be able to convince the unbeliever of the truth, the Spirit of God may use my words (if I’m being faithful to present the true gospel) to grant them a spiritual appetite. This is all the fuel I need to be gracious, loving, and patient with the non-believer, knowing that the Lord may be pleased to use me as a conduit of his grace.

Joe Boot on “What about the Truth and the Bible?”

Bahnsen being Bahnsen

Thoughts on Evangelism, Apologetics, and Witness

Here are some random thoughts on evangelism, apologetics, and witness:

1) There will be times when speaking to unbelievers will feel like pulling teeth. Why? Because too often, the non-Christian thinks they know what Christianity is all about, while in fact, they know next to nothing about the historic Christian faith.

2) Picking up from point 1, remember that ignorance and arrogance often go hand in hand (Yes, I did get that from a Metallica song-years ago-but I have no better way of stating it). Some people think they know it all (including Christian apologists!) and real dialogue cannot take place. Maturity must occur, often in both parties, before eyes are opened and ears are unstopped.

Stay true to the wise words of the Savior, “Do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they turn and trample you.” (click here for a helpful application of this to apologetics)

3) Do make sure that in all evangelizing and commending the faith that you clearly press the point that you’re not merely talking about feeling, or personal preferences. Too often this is exactly how non-Christians hear us. They believe that we’re pig-headed or snobbish. How dare we think that our feelings are more important than those of other religions? Of course, we’re not saying that at all. We’re making comments about the real world and real history. Christianity is the true story of the whole world for the whole world.

4) Be encouraged. When you feel like you’ve wasted all that time you’ve invested- minutes, hours, days and month- is speaking to someone about Christianity, the truth is those moments are never wasted. They always serve God’s purpose, whether in redemption or judgment (cf. 2 Cor. 2:14-16). God’s word never fails to serve it’s intended purposes (Is. 55:11). As James White is fond of saying, “Our job is to proclaim the truth, not to edit it.”

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.