During a recent business trip I had the opportunity to sit next to a real American hero on the airplane. She was one of the National Guard soldiers who were wounded at the Ft. Hood shootings in Texas a while ago. She was wearing a bracelet with the names of her fellow soldiers who died in the assault, and she herself was still recovering from being shot three times.
Our discussion eventually turned to religion. Among other things, she talked about her faith in God and about her conversion from Catholicism to a mainstream Protestant denomination, which will remain nameless at this time. She chose this denomination specifically because it did not dogmatically follow certain teachings of Scripture, but rather was “open to discussion” about those issues that were important to her. She described her denomination’s approach to doctrine with the following analogy – Faith can be pictured as the seat on a stool, which is supported by three legs – Scripture, Tradition, and Discussion. All three of these, she said, need to be weighed in deciding matters of theology. I challenged her on this, but as usual I didn’t think of the best questions to ask until after we parted. With your patience I would like to share this rebuttal with you now.
Building on her analogy of Faith as a stool, let’s visualize this analogy as being drawn on paper. One of the first things that is obvious is that the stool is not resting on anything. Rather, it is just floating in midair. Since we are not on a spaceship, this stool must be resting on something. What is it? What are the legs of Scripture, Tradition, and Discussion resting on? In other words, what is the underlying authority that judges the conflicting claims that may arise between these three?
It should be pretty clear by now that the floor on which this Faith analogy rests is Human Autonomy. In this model, each person is allowed to study the Scripture, Discuss it, and compare it with Tradition to determine theological truth. If I appeal to Scripture for a theological truth claim, then she could simply explain it away with Discussion to reach a view of God that appeals to her. I hope you can see the relativism that this model produces. There can be no definite “right” or “wrong” view of God since man is the ultimate authority in judging what is true about Him and what He has really said about Himself. Furthermore, if God has revealed something to man in Scripture, it can be trumped by Discussion and/or Tradition by the one who is autonomously judging the claim in question. You may recognize this as the original sin of man, where Adam wanted to be arbiter of good and evil instead of God.
Let’s contrast this with another analogy that represents Biblical Christianity. Faith is still represented as a stool, but its three legs are Tradition, Discussion, and Church Government (I just needed a third leg, so this sounded good!). The floor, then, is Scripture instead of Human Autonomy. In this model, all elements that constitute Faith are governed by the objective revelation of God in His Scripture. Scripture serves as the arbiter and judge in matters of dispute between the three legs, not human opinion. This is the only model that accurately reflects the God of Scripture who claims to be the objective authority in all matters relating to Himself.
I am still praying for that hero I met on the airplane. I am not questioning her faith, her relationship to God, or her sincere devotion to Him. Rather, I am questioning how she knows what she knows about Him, which is something we all must deal with. We could have debated the surface issues we disagreed about, but that would have been uproductive given her misunderstanding of Faith. Rather, we must dig deeper to find out why she believed what she believed, in hopes of showing her the problems inherent with her beliefs.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Presuppositions for All
A presupposition is an underlying assumption that influences a particular set of beliefs. Webster’s defines a presupposition as something that is supposed beforehand or that is required beforehand as a condition. Therefore, a presupposition is an assumption that is required before anything can be concluded. You’re probably asking, “what does this have to do with apologetics and Christianity?” Well, I’m glad you asked that! It has everything to do with it.
We all have presuppositions. They are starting points for everything we believe about the nature of God, the nature of reality, how we know what we know, and how we are to live our lives. You may not believe that you have such presuppositions – that you don’t “assume” anything, and that everything you believe can be carefully explained by something else. On the contrary, I challenge you to explain something you believe that does not first rely on a set of assumptions. For example, no scientific experiment can be done without a pre-existing set of conditions. Moreover, the scientific method, which governs the entire experiment, must be assumed beforehand to be true. What tests have been done to prove the scientific method? One must also assume the cause and effect nature of the universe to be true. Otherwise no experiment could be repeatable. One must also presuppose that the human senses are reliable in recording the experiment, and that the human mind is capable of using logic and reason to come to a conclusion based on the results. You see where I’m going with this…
Christians, atheists, and everyone else has fundamental presuppositions regarding the nature of God, nature of reality, how we know what we know, and how we are to live our lives. As Christians we must be aware of our presuppositions. First and foremost, we assert that God exists, and the record of His personal revelation of Himself to mankind is found in the Bible. The Bible, which is the Word of Christ, is self-validating and is the basis for knowledge, morality, and reality. We believe that knowledge begins with Jesus Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossian 2:3). Any knowledge that does not presuppose the Word of Christ will ultimately end in confusion (Proverbs 1:7). For example, only Christianity can give solid grounding for trusting our senses, and for the use of reason and logic to evaluate propositions.
In terms of morality, only Christianity can account for the presence of universal and objective moral standards that all men know to be true in their heart of hearts. Therefore, the commandments of God, both explicit and implicit, are the absolute standards for human morality. Without this objectivity, morality crumbles under the shifting sand of relativism (who says, for example, that murder is wrong?). And finally, in terms of reality, Christianity affirms both the material and immaterial, the physical and non-physical. Therefore, Christianity accounts for the human conscience and for the innate questions about life after death. Christianity also accounts for the physical nature of the universe – its fine tuning to harbor life, the uniformity of nature (which is what allows for the repeatability of experiments), and the presence of fixed physical laws.
When one’s presuppositions do not begin with Jesus Christ and His Word, however, his own set of presuppositions will eventually contradict each other and be shown to be arbitrary in their grounding (an example of this is in my blog “Bad Religion?”). Only when he repents of his rebellion and turns to Jesus Christ for forgiveness will he be able then to coherently explain such things as reality, morality, and knowledge. How about you? Have you asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord? If not, I encourage you to do so. Please, accept God’s offer of peace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Otherwise, you will have to pay the penalty for sin yourself.
We all have presuppositions. They are starting points for everything we believe about the nature of God, the nature of reality, how we know what we know, and how we are to live our lives. You may not believe that you have such presuppositions – that you don’t “assume” anything, and that everything you believe can be carefully explained by something else. On the contrary, I challenge you to explain something you believe that does not first rely on a set of assumptions. For example, no scientific experiment can be done without a pre-existing set of conditions. Moreover, the scientific method, which governs the entire experiment, must be assumed beforehand to be true. What tests have been done to prove the scientific method? One must also assume the cause and effect nature of the universe to be true. Otherwise no experiment could be repeatable. One must also presuppose that the human senses are reliable in recording the experiment, and that the human mind is capable of using logic and reason to come to a conclusion based on the results. You see where I’m going with this…
Christians, atheists, and everyone else has fundamental presuppositions regarding the nature of God, nature of reality, how we know what we know, and how we are to live our lives. As Christians we must be aware of our presuppositions. First and foremost, we assert that God exists, and the record of His personal revelation of Himself to mankind is found in the Bible. The Bible, which is the Word of Christ, is self-validating and is the basis for knowledge, morality, and reality. We believe that knowledge begins with Jesus Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossian 2:3). Any knowledge that does not presuppose the Word of Christ will ultimately end in confusion (Proverbs 1:7). For example, only Christianity can give solid grounding for trusting our senses, and for the use of reason and logic to evaluate propositions.
In terms of morality, only Christianity can account for the presence of universal and objective moral standards that all men know to be true in their heart of hearts. Therefore, the commandments of God, both explicit and implicit, are the absolute standards for human morality. Without this objectivity, morality crumbles under the shifting sand of relativism (who says, for example, that murder is wrong?). And finally, in terms of reality, Christianity affirms both the material and immaterial, the physical and non-physical. Therefore, Christianity accounts for the human conscience and for the innate questions about life after death. Christianity also accounts for the physical nature of the universe – its fine tuning to harbor life, the uniformity of nature (which is what allows for the repeatability of experiments), and the presence of fixed physical laws.
When one’s presuppositions do not begin with Jesus Christ and His Word, however, his own set of presuppositions will eventually contradict each other and be shown to be arbitrary in their grounding (an example of this is in my blog “Bad Religion?”). Only when he repents of his rebellion and turns to Jesus Christ for forgiveness will he be able then to coherently explain such things as reality, morality, and knowledge. How about you? Have you asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord? If not, I encourage you to do so. Please, accept God’s offer of peace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Otherwise, you will have to pay the penalty for sin yourself.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Bad Religion?
Recently my wife and I were enjoying lunch together at a nice sandwich shop when I saw a young man wearing a provocative T-shirt. It bore the words “Bad Religion” and had a red circle and hash over a cross. At first I was indignant at his overt slam on my Savior. After a little bit, though, I began to wonder about what he believed and why he believed it. It’s perfectly natural for people to rebel and hate Jesus Christ – I did up until He saved me and opened my eyes.
He left shortly afterwards with his friends, so I was unable to talk with him about his beliefs. If I had the opportunity, though, I would have liked to ask him a couple questions. If you would be so kind as to indulge me, I would like to share my questions with you now.
My first question would have been, “What standard of morality are you using to call Christianity ‘bad’?” For him to say that anything is “good” or “bad” implies that there are moral truths. There are things that we can all agree are evil – incest, murder, extortion, rape, etc. Christianity can call these things evil because God declares them to be. In other words, morality is grounded in the objective character of God. The atheist, however, has no such grounding. Atheists rely on subjective morals, i.e. “it’s OK for me but not for you” morality. For example, I would suspect that this young man would claim that sex outside of marriage is a subjective moral decision – it depends on what the person wants to believe. Would not his declaration of Christianity’s immorality be just as subjective? If his moral standard is true, he has no reason to be so vehement against Christianity because it is just a matter of personal taste.
So to conclude my first point, the young man explicitly believes in morality based on the wording on his shirt. If pressed, he would have to admit his moral standards are subjective and have no weight in a real world application.
Secondly, I would like to ask him, “Why is Christianity so bad?” He would probably cite such evils as the crusades, Salem witch trials, the Inquisitions, etc. (As a side note, these charges have to do with murder, which is declared as evil in Christianity. Notice how the atheist has to borrow from Christian morality to argue against it, since his moral standard would allow murder as a matter of personal taste.) This is a common charge against the validity of Christianity. If Christianity is false because of the evils that so-called Christians have committed, then atheism must also be false. Atheists such as Hitler, Stalin, Pol-Pot, and Mao Tse Tung have killed far more people than any so-called Christians have. Using this line of reasoning, then, atheism must also be false.
There is a second flaw to this argument, however, and it is a logical one. It is called the ad hominem fallacy, or an argument “against the man.” It is when someone attacks the person rather than rebutting the person’s argument. To say Christianity is false because Christians do bad things is an ad hominem fallacy. It does nothing to nullify the truth claims of Jesus Christ or the New Testament. On the contrary, Christians doing bad things is consistent with the New Testament, since much of the epistles are devoted to teaching and correcting Christians who have made choices that were inconsistent with their faith.
I wish I would have had (or made) the opportunity to visit with the young man who was so opposed to Christianity. I would have liked to question him on what he believes and why he believes it. Maybe he would not have responded the way I’ve postulated here. But, then again, maybe he would. If so, the truth claims of Christianity would stand firm against his weak arguments against it.
He left shortly afterwards with his friends, so I was unable to talk with him about his beliefs. If I had the opportunity, though, I would have liked to ask him a couple questions. If you would be so kind as to indulge me, I would like to share my questions with you now.
My first question would have been, “What standard of morality are you using to call Christianity ‘bad’?” For him to say that anything is “good” or “bad” implies that there are moral truths. There are things that we can all agree are evil – incest, murder, extortion, rape, etc. Christianity can call these things evil because God declares them to be. In other words, morality is grounded in the objective character of God. The atheist, however, has no such grounding. Atheists rely on subjective morals, i.e. “it’s OK for me but not for you” morality. For example, I would suspect that this young man would claim that sex outside of marriage is a subjective moral decision – it depends on what the person wants to believe. Would not his declaration of Christianity’s immorality be just as subjective? If his moral standard is true, he has no reason to be so vehement against Christianity because it is just a matter of personal taste.
So to conclude my first point, the young man explicitly believes in morality based on the wording on his shirt. If pressed, he would have to admit his moral standards are subjective and have no weight in a real world application.
Secondly, I would like to ask him, “Why is Christianity so bad?” He would probably cite such evils as the crusades, Salem witch trials, the Inquisitions, etc. (As a side note, these charges have to do with murder, which is declared as evil in Christianity. Notice how the atheist has to borrow from Christian morality to argue against it, since his moral standard would allow murder as a matter of personal taste.) This is a common charge against the validity of Christianity. If Christianity is false because of the evils that so-called Christians have committed, then atheism must also be false. Atheists such as Hitler, Stalin, Pol-Pot, and Mao Tse Tung have killed far more people than any so-called Christians have. Using this line of reasoning, then, atheism must also be false.
There is a second flaw to this argument, however, and it is a logical one. It is called the ad hominem fallacy, or an argument “against the man.” It is when someone attacks the person rather than rebutting the person’s argument. To say Christianity is false because Christians do bad things is an ad hominem fallacy. It does nothing to nullify the truth claims of Jesus Christ or the New Testament. On the contrary, Christians doing bad things is consistent with the New Testament, since much of the epistles are devoted to teaching and correcting Christians who have made choices that were inconsistent with their faith.
I wish I would have had (or made) the opportunity to visit with the young man who was so opposed to Christianity. I would have liked to question him on what he believes and why he believes it. Maybe he would not have responded the way I’ve postulated here. But, then again, maybe he would. If so, the truth claims of Christianity would stand firm against his weak arguments against it.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
God is Not Fair
"God, you're not fair!"
This has been a common complaint from my lips at various times in my life. We all know bad things happen to "good" people, and often times good things happen to "bad" people. Funny how we always think of ourselves as good, never deserving of the misfortune that inevitably comes upon everyone at one time or another on this earth. This is where we as Christians may feel betrayed by God. "God", we may say, "I've obeyed you, sought you with all my heart, and want to glorify you with my life. Why am I dealing with [fill in the blank] while Jeff, who doesn't care about you at all, doesn't have any problems? You're not fair!"
One day while I was thinking about this statement, it dawned on me what I meant by God not being fair. I actually was accusing God of not being just. If God was just, he would see my righteous desires and reward them with the absence of troubles, whereas unbelieving Jeff would have to pay for his willful rebellion. Through this, though, God has taught me a valuable lesson about His justice and mercy.
I should not be so quick to call for God's justice. You see, it would have been perfectly just for God to send me straight to hell for my sins. God did not have to save me from His wrath - He would have been fair to let me suffer the due penalty for my rebellion. Thankfully, though, God also excercises mercy with His justice. He decided, out of love, to send His Son Jesus to pay the penalty for my sin, thereby satisfying God's justice while at the same time extending His mercy to me as an undeserving sinner. He chose to save me out of no merit of my own, but rather because of His sovereign decision.
So when I look upon the fortune of unbelievers and compare that to my misfortune, I have no right to say "I deserve [fill in the blank]!" In actuality, the only thing I truly deserve is the fire of hell. The earthly fortunes of unbelievers are only temporary; unless they repent, their good times will quickly be forgotten in hell. I find myself actually pitying the unbeliever who has no regard for God because of his good fortune in this life.
In conclusion, we should not be so quick to say God is not fair and call for His justice. We must remember what we truly deserve for our sins. No, God is not equal in how He apportions His blessings. The Bible says that He sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous (Matthew 5:45), implying that God does not withhold His blessings based upon how "good" somebody may try to be. But I should not complain about His unfairness, because if He wanted to be truly fair (and excercise His justice), I would have my ticket for hell in hand. Our misfortune as Christians in this life is only temporary, and it will be used by God to shape us into Christ's image (Romans 8:28-29), and our perseverance through the trials will result in greater reward in heaven.
This has been a common complaint from my lips at various times in my life. We all know bad things happen to "good" people, and often times good things happen to "bad" people. Funny how we always think of ourselves as good, never deserving of the misfortune that inevitably comes upon everyone at one time or another on this earth. This is where we as Christians may feel betrayed by God. "God", we may say, "I've obeyed you, sought you with all my heart, and want to glorify you with my life. Why am I dealing with [fill in the blank] while Jeff, who doesn't care about you at all, doesn't have any problems? You're not fair!"
One day while I was thinking about this statement, it dawned on me what I meant by God not being fair. I actually was accusing God of not being just. If God was just, he would see my righteous desires and reward them with the absence of troubles, whereas unbelieving Jeff would have to pay for his willful rebellion. Through this, though, God has taught me a valuable lesson about His justice and mercy.
I should not be so quick to call for God's justice. You see, it would have been perfectly just for God to send me straight to hell for my sins. God did not have to save me from His wrath - He would have been fair to let me suffer the due penalty for my rebellion. Thankfully, though, God also excercises mercy with His justice. He decided, out of love, to send His Son Jesus to pay the penalty for my sin, thereby satisfying God's justice while at the same time extending His mercy to me as an undeserving sinner. He chose to save me out of no merit of my own, but rather because of His sovereign decision.
So when I look upon the fortune of unbelievers and compare that to my misfortune, I have no right to say "I deserve [fill in the blank]!" In actuality, the only thing I truly deserve is the fire of hell. The earthly fortunes of unbelievers are only temporary; unless they repent, their good times will quickly be forgotten in hell. I find myself actually pitying the unbeliever who has no regard for God because of his good fortune in this life.
In conclusion, we should not be so quick to say God is not fair and call for His justice. We must remember what we truly deserve for our sins. No, God is not equal in how He apportions His blessings. The Bible says that He sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous (Matthew 5:45), implying that God does not withhold His blessings based upon how "good" somebody may try to be. But I should not complain about His unfairness, because if He wanted to be truly fair (and excercise His justice), I would have my ticket for hell in hand. Our misfortune as Christians in this life is only temporary, and it will be used by God to shape us into Christ's image (Romans 8:28-29), and our perseverance through the trials will result in greater reward in heaven.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Word of Faith Overview
"Word of Faith" is the name of a brand of Christian doctrine also known as the "Prosperity Gospel" or the "Health and Wealth Gospel." As one who has sat under that teaching for a season in my life, I feel that I can accurately summarize what it teaches without misrepresenting it. I've provided a quick summary of the doctrine below.
At the outset I want to say that this is not a criticism of those who are Word of Faith Christians themselves. Many of our dear Christian friends are Word of Faith and we deeply love them. Nor am I saying that they are not Believers, and I am not calling Word of Faith a heresy. I simply wish to outline the doctrine and let you decide as to its orthodoxy.
The basic tenants of Word of Faith are as follows:
At the outset I want to say that this is not a criticism of those who are Word of Faith Christians themselves. Many of our dear Christian friends are Word of Faith and we deeply love them. Nor am I saying that they are not Believers, and I am not calling Word of Faith a heresy. I simply wish to outline the doctrine and let you decide as to its orthodoxy.
The basic tenants of Word of Faith are as follows:
- It is God's will (His desire) that mankind be free from the curses caused by sin, e.g. sickness, poverty, despair, and various ills, in this present life.
- Jesus Christ's death on the cross and His resurrection (His atonement) purchased the victory over sin and thus with it the victory over the above mentioned ills, too.
- Salvation from our sins comes by faith in Christ. Likewise, salvation from sickness, poverty, and demonic oppression in this life also results from our faith.
- God wants to give us these good things (health, prosperity, deliverance), but will not do so if we are disobedient (in sin) and/or if we don't have enough faith for them to come to pass.
- Therefore, if we have anything bad happen in our lives, it is because we either are in sin or we don't have enough faith for it to happen.
- God is powerless to do anything in our lives until those two criteria are met. In the meantime, Satan runs roughshod over Christians trying to keep them from meeting these criteria.
I hope you have picked up on some of the errors in the points above. Each point has some truth and some error in it. It is not my intention to go into great detail about them this in this blog, since entire books have been devoted to this issue. Rather, I just want to point out the logical conclusion of this theology in #5. This leaves many Word of Faith Christians disillusioned when they're doing everything they possibly can to love and obey God, and yet suffering still comes upon them. There is a great deal of condemnation associated with this teaching for anybody that doesn't "have it together."
I invite any discussion from my Word of Faith friends on the points above. Perhaps at some point I will devote blogs to each point in an effort to shine the Light of the Word on them and to bring Biblical balance to them.
Until next time,
ChadDAMonday, May 31, 2010
Begging the Question of Authority
Begging the question is a term for the logical fallacy where one assumes to be true the very point that he is making an argument for. In essence, the person uses his conclusion as a premise. A commonly used example of this fallacy is meant to discredit Christianity. It goes as follows:
"The Bible is true because God wrote it. The Bible says that God exists. Therefore, God exists."
We as Christians need to be aware of this logical fallacy when we justify God's authority by citing the Bible. When we as Christians are confronted with this, however, we must be quick to point out that the Unbeliever faces the same problem about their ultimate authority, too.
For example, the rationalist (who believes human reason is the ultimate authority) will use reason and logic to justify their claim. In effect, they open their "bible" of human reason to justify reason as their ultimate authority. Furthermore, the atheistic scientist who believes that the emperical scientific method is their ultimate authority must first assume the scientific method to be true, and then cite emperical evidences derived from the scientific method to validate the authority of the scientific method.
The point is this: all ultimate authorities must validate themselves. This is true regardless of what you claim your ultimate authority to be. Whatever you use to test something is your ultimate authority. If most people (including Christians) are honest with themselves, they would find that their own autonomous reason is their ultimate authority. They will only accept certain Biblical claims as valid so long as it doesn't infringe on their personal view of God and morality. They will only accept logical arguments that come to the same conclusions that their "common sense" affirms. They will only accept emperical evidence that doesn't challenge what they already believe about the world. This propensity for man to be his own ultimate authority is innate in all of us and goes back to our ancestor Adam.
In conclusion, Christians are not alone when they beg the question and cite the Bible to justify God as the ultimate authority. To say Christians defy logic with this reasoning is to also admit the accuser does it as well. Everyone must do the same thing in regards to their ultimate authorities!
"The Bible is true because God wrote it. The Bible says that God exists. Therefore, God exists."
We as Christians need to be aware of this logical fallacy when we justify God's authority by citing the Bible. When we as Christians are confronted with this, however, we must be quick to point out that the Unbeliever faces the same problem about their ultimate authority, too.
For example, the rationalist (who believes human reason is the ultimate authority) will use reason and logic to justify their claim. In effect, they open their "bible" of human reason to justify reason as their ultimate authority. Furthermore, the atheistic scientist who believes that the emperical scientific method is their ultimate authority must first assume the scientific method to be true, and then cite emperical evidences derived from the scientific method to validate the authority of the scientific method.
The point is this: all ultimate authorities must validate themselves. This is true regardless of what you claim your ultimate authority to be. Whatever you use to test something is your ultimate authority. If most people (including Christians) are honest with themselves, they would find that their own autonomous reason is their ultimate authority. They will only accept certain Biblical claims as valid so long as it doesn't infringe on their personal view of God and morality. They will only accept logical arguments that come to the same conclusions that their "common sense" affirms. They will only accept emperical evidence that doesn't challenge what they already believe about the world. This propensity for man to be his own ultimate authority is innate in all of us and goes back to our ancestor Adam.
In conclusion, Christians are not alone when they beg the question and cite the Bible to justify God as the ultimate authority. To say Christians defy logic with this reasoning is to also admit the accuser does it as well. Everyone must do the same thing in regards to their ultimate authorities!
Monday, May 24, 2010
Personal Statement of Faith
Greetings! Thank you for taking time out of your day to visit my site! I look forward to sharing and interacting with you in the days to come. Since this is my very first post, I believe it is necessary to be upfront with you as to the worldview and philosophy which will be guiding all my future posts. As you can tell by this blog's title, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I repented and became a servant of Jesus during my junior year at Kansas State University, thanks to the witness of some fellow FarmHouse fraternity brothers. Since that time Christ has changed a lot about me, but He also still has a lot of work to do!
Without rehashing two millenia of Christine doctrine, in short the Apostle's Creed and Nicene Creed are excellent summaries of what I believe. One could summarize my theological beliefs as "classical" Christianity. I believe the Holy Bible is God's revelation of Himself to man. As I have grown in the Lord, I have become more Reformed in my theology. I also believe that the Holy Spirit operates in the same manner today as He did after Christ's ascension; i.e. I have a "charismatic" view of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, I also hold to a postmillenial view of eschatology.
At this point I must say, however, that we "know in part and prophecy in part" (1 Cor 13:9), so I confess that my understanding may be in error on some of what is stated above. There is room for Christians to disagree in matters of Reformed theology, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and eschatology, among other things. Such intramural debates have been a part of Christianity for centuries, and I am not going to say that I have it all figured out! Aside from the fundamentals of the Faith, I am willing to admit that I may be wrong on some of these minor points of Christian doctrine; all I ask is that you also be as sober in your assesment of what you believe as well.
From all of this I have developed a Biblical Worldview, whereby both implicit and explicit Biblical standards govern my interpretation of the world around me. All of my blogs, arguments, and Biblical commentary will stem from these presuppositions. I invite you to a reasonable and cordial discourse over these matters.
Until next time!
Chad
Without rehashing two millenia of Christine doctrine, in short the Apostle's Creed and Nicene Creed are excellent summaries of what I believe. One could summarize my theological beliefs as "classical" Christianity. I believe the Holy Bible is God's revelation of Himself to man. As I have grown in the Lord, I have become more Reformed in my theology. I also believe that the Holy Spirit operates in the same manner today as He did after Christ's ascension; i.e. I have a "charismatic" view of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, I also hold to a postmillenial view of eschatology.
At this point I must say, however, that we "know in part and prophecy in part" (1 Cor 13:9), so I confess that my understanding may be in error on some of what is stated above. There is room for Christians to disagree in matters of Reformed theology, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and eschatology, among other things. Such intramural debates have been a part of Christianity for centuries, and I am not going to say that I have it all figured out! Aside from the fundamentals of the Faith, I am willing to admit that I may be wrong on some of these minor points of Christian doctrine; all I ask is that you also be as sober in your assesment of what you believe as well.
From all of this I have developed a Biblical Worldview, whereby both implicit and explicit Biblical standards govern my interpretation of the world around me. All of my blogs, arguments, and Biblical commentary will stem from these presuppositions. I invite you to a reasonable and cordial discourse over these matters.
Until next time!
Chad
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)