The Phoenix Exultant Ep. 35: Farewell to Talaimannar
10 hours ago
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
God & morality
http://reason.cck.org.uk/can-morality-exist-without-god/
a link to a short article i wrote for my church CCK on morality without God
a link to a short article i wrote for my church CCK on morality without God
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
who created God, with some help from the ontological argument
A common question skeptics pose to theists is 'if God created the world then who (or what) created God?'.
The question itself rests upon a philosophical principle we usually take for granted in everyday life, namely Leibniz's Principle of Sufficent Reason (or PSR for short). The PSR can come in several different versions but essentially states that whatever exists has some kind of explanation for its existence. Some philosophers have denied the PSR and instead have opted for what they call 'brute facts' i.e. some things just don't need any explanation for their existence and just exist without one.
My initial response to this is simply to ask why is it that anyone should think God needs an explanation for His existence? The reason most people think this is because they confuse God's type of existence as being in the same category as that of the rest of the universe's type of existence. By this I mean (to use some philosophical terminology here) most people assume that God has 'contingent' existence i.e. His existence is in need of some kind of explanation, the way the rest of physical reality requires such an explanation. Indeed, it seems obvious to us that things such as tables, chairs, people, planets etc. have satisfactory explanations as to where they came from. Even the entire universe itself seems to be subject to such a possible explanation (though it's not quite as obvious as the other entities just named what that explanation may be). This is because we intuitively recognize that such objects as tables, chairs, people and even the universe itself are merely contingent in their existence. Contingent existence simply means that such things might not have existed i.e. this chair I'm sitting on might never have come into being if the carpenter who made it had instead decided not to do so. Or even I myself might never have existed if my parents hadn't of met, got married and procreated. We also seem to intuitively recognize that even the universe itself might not have existed - we seem to be able to imagine (or at least have some kind of intuition) that nothing at all could have 'existed' instead of what we now experience. This is the definition of contingent existence - the possibility of a thing's being different or of it's not existing at all.
By contrast 'Necessary' existence is the kind of existence a thing has when it could not fail to exist or be any different from what it is. Here such mathematical propositions as '2+2=4' are considered to be 'necessarily' true, because the answer cannot be any different from the one it is i.e. '4'. There is no logically possible world in which the answer to '2+2' is '5'. This is the definition of 'necessary' – something which cannot be otherwise. Notice here that such a necessary truth has no reason for its explanation, it just is so in virtue of its nature or its definition. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato (as well as many philosophers today) thought that things such as numbers, propositions, sets and the 'forms' of concrete existence exist abstractly i.e. beyond the spatio-temporal world. Such abstract existents, if they exist at all, must exist necessarily i.e. cannot not exist.
There is some philosophical debate as to whether or not there are necessarily existent things such as numbers, sets, forms etc. but the actual formulation of necessary existence is well understood and if such things do exist they must exist necessarily. And, again, this entials that such things need no explanation for their existence – they simply exist by the very necessity of their own nature.
Now back to the question of who (or what) created God. Once again this skeptical question seems to presuppose that God, much like objects in the universe, has contingent existence and, thus, needs some kind of explanation for why He exists. But why can God not have necessary existence instead?
Indeed it actually seems obvious that if God exist then He must exist necessarily (and thus require no explanation for His existence). This can be seen from a variation of the famous ontological argument of St. Anselm. In this argument Anselm asks us to imagine the 'greatest conceivable being' (which we use the term 'God' for short) with all the attributes we would usually associate with such a being i.e. omniscience, omnipotence etc.etc. He then goes on to suggest that if such a being existed, but existed only in our imagination and not in reality, then it would not be as perfect as a being which has exactly those same qualities and yet existed in reality instead (as opposed to only in our imaginations). Now there are problems with this argument, famously made by Immanuel Kant i.e. that Anselm treats existence as a predicate or property of a thing when it is not. But, more recently, there have been forms of the ontological argument that use both necessary and contingent existence (called 'modal' ontological arguments). Essentially it seems that, upon reflection, it's obvious that the greatest conceivable being (or 'God') would have to have necessary existence as opposed to just contingent existence, because necessary existence is a 'greater' or more perfect form of existence that merely contingent existence, which is less perfect. So a being with all the properties of a perfect or greatest conceivable being (i.e. omnipotence, omniscience etc.etc.) and yet had only contingent existence is less perfect than a being with the same properties and necessary existence. Which means that if there is such a perfect being it must have necessary as opposed to contingent existence.
In effect what this means is that if God exists then He exists necessarily (i.e. He cannot not exist). This essentially entails that because of His necessary existence the question 'who created God' is just moot. If God has necessary existence then He needs no explanation for His existence - He exists necessarily in the same way abstract objects like numbers, sets etc. do or the way '2+2=4' is necessarily true and needs no explanation for why it is so. It is true by definition or true in virtue of its very nature.
This may seem like word games to many people, but its essential to realize that the reason most people ask such a question in the first place is because they assume that God has contingent existence. When we realize that to be the greatest conceivable being or most perfect being (which is basically the definition of 'God') such a being must have necessary and not contingent existence, we also realize that a question such as 'who created God' actually makes no sense.
Perhaps the skeptic can switch tracks here and claim, instead, that the universe itself exists necessarily - thus dispensing with the need for God's necessary existence. For reasons I haven't got time to go into almost no philosopher today (or perhaps ever, with the possible exception of David Hume) really believes that the universe has that type of existence - most accept that it is simply contingent (thought some have claimed it as a brute fact ala Bertrand Russell).
Note that this above argument doesn't prove that God exists, just that if He does exist then He exists necessarily (and if He doesn't exist, He likewise necessarily does not exist). And if God exists necessarily then He has no need of an explanation for His existence – it is true in virtue of His nature alone.
The question itself rests upon a philosophical principle we usually take for granted in everyday life, namely Leibniz's Principle of Sufficent Reason (or PSR for short). The PSR can come in several different versions but essentially states that whatever exists has some kind of explanation for its existence. Some philosophers have denied the PSR and instead have opted for what they call 'brute facts' i.e. some things just don't need any explanation for their existence and just exist without one.
My initial response to this is simply to ask why is it that anyone should think God needs an explanation for His existence? The reason most people think this is because they confuse God's type of existence as being in the same category as that of the rest of the universe's type of existence. By this I mean (to use some philosophical terminology here) most people assume that God has 'contingent' existence i.e. His existence is in need of some kind of explanation, the way the rest of physical reality requires such an explanation. Indeed, it seems obvious to us that things such as tables, chairs, people, planets etc. have satisfactory explanations as to where they came from. Even the entire universe itself seems to be subject to such a possible explanation (though it's not quite as obvious as the other entities just named what that explanation may be). This is because we intuitively recognize that such objects as tables, chairs, people and even the universe itself are merely contingent in their existence. Contingent existence simply means that such things might not have existed i.e. this chair I'm sitting on might never have come into being if the carpenter who made it had instead decided not to do so. Or even I myself might never have existed if my parents hadn't of met, got married and procreated. We also seem to intuitively recognize that even the universe itself might not have existed - we seem to be able to imagine (or at least have some kind of intuition) that nothing at all could have 'existed' instead of what we now experience. This is the definition of contingent existence - the possibility of a thing's being different or of it's not existing at all.
By contrast 'Necessary' existence is the kind of existence a thing has when it could not fail to exist or be any different from what it is. Here such mathematical propositions as '2+2=4' are considered to be 'necessarily' true, because the answer cannot be any different from the one it is i.e. '4'. There is no logically possible world in which the answer to '2+2' is '5'. This is the definition of 'necessary' – something which cannot be otherwise. Notice here that such a necessary truth has no reason for its explanation, it just is so in virtue of its nature or its definition. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato (as well as many philosophers today) thought that things such as numbers, propositions, sets and the 'forms' of concrete existence exist abstractly i.e. beyond the spatio-temporal world. Such abstract existents, if they exist at all, must exist necessarily i.e. cannot not exist.
There is some philosophical debate as to whether or not there are necessarily existent things such as numbers, sets, forms etc. but the actual formulation of necessary existence is well understood and if such things do exist they must exist necessarily. And, again, this entials that such things need no explanation for their existence – they simply exist by the very necessity of their own nature.
Now back to the question of who (or what) created God. Once again this skeptical question seems to presuppose that God, much like objects in the universe, has contingent existence and, thus, needs some kind of explanation for why He exists. But why can God not have necessary existence instead?
Indeed it actually seems obvious that if God exist then He must exist necessarily (and thus require no explanation for His existence). This can be seen from a variation of the famous ontological argument of St. Anselm. In this argument Anselm asks us to imagine the 'greatest conceivable being' (which we use the term 'God' for short) with all the attributes we would usually associate with such a being i.e. omniscience, omnipotence etc.etc. He then goes on to suggest that if such a being existed, but existed only in our imagination and not in reality, then it would not be as perfect as a being which has exactly those same qualities and yet existed in reality instead (as opposed to only in our imaginations). Now there are problems with this argument, famously made by Immanuel Kant i.e. that Anselm treats existence as a predicate or property of a thing when it is not. But, more recently, there have been forms of the ontological argument that use both necessary and contingent existence (called 'modal' ontological arguments). Essentially it seems that, upon reflection, it's obvious that the greatest conceivable being (or 'God') would have to have necessary existence as opposed to just contingent existence, because necessary existence is a 'greater' or more perfect form of existence that merely contingent existence, which is less perfect. So a being with all the properties of a perfect or greatest conceivable being (i.e. omnipotence, omniscience etc.etc.) and yet had only contingent existence is less perfect than a being with the same properties and necessary existence. Which means that if there is such a perfect being it must have necessary as opposed to contingent existence.
In effect what this means is that if God exists then He exists necessarily (i.e. He cannot not exist). This essentially entails that because of His necessary existence the question 'who created God' is just moot. If God has necessary existence then He needs no explanation for His existence - He exists necessarily in the same way abstract objects like numbers, sets etc. do or the way '2+2=4' is necessarily true and needs no explanation for why it is so. It is true by definition or true in virtue of its very nature.
This may seem like word games to many people, but its essential to realize that the reason most people ask such a question in the first place is because they assume that God has contingent existence. When we realize that to be the greatest conceivable being or most perfect being (which is basically the definition of 'God') such a being must have necessary and not contingent existence, we also realize that a question such as 'who created God' actually makes no sense.
Perhaps the skeptic can switch tracks here and claim, instead, that the universe itself exists necessarily - thus dispensing with the need for God's necessary existence. For reasons I haven't got time to go into almost no philosopher today (or perhaps ever, with the possible exception of David Hume) really believes that the universe has that type of existence - most accept that it is simply contingent (thought some have claimed it as a brute fact ala Bertrand Russell).
Note that this above argument doesn't prove that God exists, just that if He does exist then He exists necessarily (and if He doesn't exist, He likewise necessarily does not exist). And if God exists necessarily then He has no need of an explanation for His existence – it is true in virtue of His nature alone.
Friday, 26 June 2009
Romans 9 & predestination
here's an overview of the argument for predestination from Romans 9 (based largely on John Piper's book The Justification of God) that i wrote for a friend a while ago..
whats the backdrop of romans 9? well its romans 8 immediately and romans 1-7 obviously before, which is about what? the gospel.. and romans 8 is about eternal security - romans 8 is an amazing chapter. 8:29-30 is probably the classic - 'for those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, he also called: those He called He also justified; those He justified He also glorified' - the chain here is completely God's action: 'those He' - He does everything.. i take romans 9 as Paul asking at the beginning of that chapter look at all these amazing promises in romans 1-8 all for us through His mercy, yet what of God's promises to Israel? if they have fallen we have no reason to trust Him in His promises to us - look at the sudden break from the end of 8 (rapture) to 9 (sorrow at his kinsmen being cut off).. first question then - why does Paul wish himself in chapter 9, verse 3 to be acursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his brethren? the Greek word here for 'cut off' is 'anathema' which is associated with Hell - why would Paul appear to be so anguised if all are to be saved or if hes just talking about 'historical election' as some have suggested? why would he ask to be accursed for his brethern if nobody will end up accursed? ok, verse 6-12 i think Paul is saying that not all those within Israel are Israel, or are part of the covenant God made with Abraham because of their unbelief.. he takes the example of Jacob and Esau in verse 10-12 - read verse 11: yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad - in order that God's purpose in election (read romans 8 again) might stand: not by works but by Him who calls', verse 13: 'Jacob I loved, Esau I hated'..
the key verse i think is verse 14 - Paul states the problem: 'what then shall we say? is God unrighteous (i.e. for choosing Jacob and not Esau)? Not at all!' his answer is verse 15: 'for He says to Moses - I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and i will have compassion on whom i have compassion - it does not therefore depend on man's desire or effort but on God's mercy'..
but isn't verse 15 just restating the problem?! i.e. is God unrighteous that he chooses one and not the other i.e. jacob and not esau? 'No!' because he has mercy on who he has mercy - what?! that surely doesnt make any sense(?) paul only seems to answer the problem by restating the problem(!)..
the key is in verse 15 which is a direct quote from Exodus 33:19.. look at Exodus 33 and the surrounding context (keep in mind here the 1st century people remembered passages alot better than we can, so if Paul quotes part of a text they'll immediately recall the context of it) - in verse 18 Moses says 'show me your Glory' to which God answers 'I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my Name, the LORD (Yahweh), in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy etc.'
here the Hebrew of Exodus 33 is parallel to Exodus 3: the famous burning bush incident where God speaks to Moses and reveals His Name for the first time in covenant history - the LORD or Yahweh (YHVH) - Exodus 3 verse 14: 'I AM WHO I AM' (Yahweh), notice the parallel with 'I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHO I HAVE MERCY' - in Hebrew the grammatical structure is identical (even more so than English).. what does Yahweh the name mean? well it seems to mean something like I AM Who I AM - my nature is determined by nothing outside of me, I am fully self-determined in my nature, nothing outside of me causes me to be the way that I Am i.e. in philosopher's parlance God is a necessary being and not contingent (as is everything in the universe).. so what is being said in Exodus 33, with the same language structure of chapter 3 and all? well, basically God is saying I have mercy on who I have mercy - meaning my will and my choice to have mercy is determined by nothing outside of me (see romans 9:15 - not mans desire or effort but Gods mercy), nothing outside of me makes me act the way I do (i.e. nobody chooses God through their own willpower and then God has no choice but to have mercy on them because of their choosing Him first).. the key is exodus 33: Moses asks show me your glory and God reveals His Name - i.e. parallel in the Bible, the glory of God is revealed in new ways through His Names being revealed (at least 5 in Exodus) - the climax of which is Jesus: His Name is Yeshua or salvation - as Paul says all over the NT God's Glory has been finally and perfectly revealed in Jesus.. also read all the times in his epistles Paul says 'so that no man should boast' - we will not boast because we did not choose God, there was nothing about us i.e. intelligence, spirituality etc. that caused us to choose God and boast against someone else who wasnt intelligent or spiritual enough to do the same thing.. it is the perfect tool of humility..
first of all i need to ask what is the concept of Gods righteousness in the book? different views - parallel with His salvation/covenant faithfulness (ala NT Wright), some kind of abstract moral quality (traditional reformed view) etc. but i think the best explination (according to Piper) is in chapter 3 of Romans and it basically reads like it is God's unswerving dedication to uphold His Glory (read the chapter esp. verse 23-26 - btw it might say justice or just instead of righteous in your Bible but its the same word in Greek justice and righteousness is 'dikaiosyne' i think)..
so maybe i can put the pieces together in romans 9 if i havent lost you (not sure how clear this all is exactly).. basically i think pauls anguish is in God choosing some and not others (i.e. on the ground in this case, it's in God not choosing israel/jews but the gentiles for salvation at the present moment), and he asks is there then unrighteousness in God? and he answers this by restating the problem seemingly (i.e. God says He will have mercy on who He will have mercy).. but the key is the quote of exodus 33 which seems to be the restatement of the problem - what hes actually saying is that NO, God is not unrighteous because in Exodus 33 God's Glory (revealed in His Name) is to choose who He wants to have mercy on sovereignly, apart from anything/anyone else determining His choice but He Himself (in Exodus 33 His choice was of Israel), and in Romans 3 God's righteousness is to unswervingly uphold His Glory (a notion which goes above and beyond the two definitions of righteousness usually debated), therefore if He chooses who He wants for salvation in Romans 9 He is not unrighteous because in so doing He unswervingly upholds His Glory/Name (here revealed in Exodus 33 as His having mercy on who He wants) in so doing (i.e. in choosing freely of any outward constraints on His will) and therefore is not unrighteous because the Glory of His Name is upheld and thus His righteousness is upheld and displayed.. and Paul has answered the question, which is seemingly unanswerable otherwise..
then move back to Romans 9:16 - therefore it does not depend on man's desire or effort but on God's mercy - this sentence straight after the exodus 33 quote suddenly now becomes crystal clear (at least for me), then verse 17 - the Pharoah quote, look again, 'that I might display my power in you and that my NAME (read Glory) might be proclaimed in all the earth.' (and Pharoah in Exodus was judged by God?).. verse 18 - 'therefore God has mercy on who he wants to have mercy and he hardens, whom he wants to harden.'
verse 19 : 'why then does God still find blame? for who resists His will' - the question is if God has mercy on who He wills and yet leaves who He wills to harden or to judgement it seems like its open for us to ask how then is anyone blameworthy because nobody has a choice in what God does (here perhaps we could appeal to the fact that nobody deserves God's mercy)..
i think the whole crux of this is in verse 21: 'does not the potter have the right' - whats the problem? i think we're so caught up in human rights and individuality (which is ok on one level) and being nice and PC to everyone that man comes before God, but actually God's rights come before ours always.. the root of it all for me boils down to is your theology man centered or God centered: did God come to die because He loves us so much and He needs us etc. or did He do it for His Glory and our everlasting joy in seeing and savouring His Glory forever? i think so much theology is person or human centered it's almost like self-help/God loves me etc.
maybe im being unfair but i think its no surprise this theology has had such a big impact on the western church considering our cultural self-centered feelgood climate..
verse 22 and onwards, maybe ill leave a quote of jonathan edwards for you:
for Edwards we see more of God's Glory throughout eternity as the riches of His mercy are more & more unfolded to us (and that is set against a backdrop of His justice displayed more & more in the judgement of sinners)..
now how do i feel about that? well.. i think maybe i cant comprehend it all now but i believe God will give us the emotional capacity to understand and see the wisdom of His choices when all is revealed..
i would say read (im sure you cant listen unless you have an ipod to download on) john pipers entires series on romans 9 (linked above) - i think its killed it for me..
whats the backdrop of romans 9? well its romans 8 immediately and romans 1-7 obviously before, which is about what? the gospel.. and romans 8 is about eternal security - romans 8 is an amazing chapter. 8:29-30 is probably the classic - 'for those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, he also called: those He called He also justified; those He justified He also glorified' - the chain here is completely God's action: 'those He' - He does everything.. i take romans 9 as Paul asking at the beginning of that chapter look at all these amazing promises in romans 1-8 all for us through His mercy, yet what of God's promises to Israel? if they have fallen we have no reason to trust Him in His promises to us - look at the sudden break from the end of 8 (rapture) to 9 (sorrow at his kinsmen being cut off).. first question then - why does Paul wish himself in chapter 9, verse 3 to be acursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his brethren? the Greek word here for 'cut off' is 'anathema' which is associated with Hell - why would Paul appear to be so anguised if all are to be saved or if hes just talking about 'historical election' as some have suggested? why would he ask to be accursed for his brethern if nobody will end up accursed? ok, verse 6-12 i think Paul is saying that not all those within Israel are Israel, or are part of the covenant God made with Abraham because of their unbelief.. he takes the example of Jacob and Esau in verse 10-12 - read verse 11: yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad - in order that God's purpose in election (read romans 8 again) might stand: not by works but by Him who calls', verse 13: 'Jacob I loved, Esau I hated'..
the key verse i think is verse 14 - Paul states the problem: 'what then shall we say? is God unrighteous (i.e. for choosing Jacob and not Esau)? Not at all!' his answer is verse 15: 'for He says to Moses - I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and i will have compassion on whom i have compassion - it does not therefore depend on man's desire or effort but on God's mercy'..
but isn't verse 15 just restating the problem?! i.e. is God unrighteous that he chooses one and not the other i.e. jacob and not esau? 'No!' because he has mercy on who he has mercy - what?! that surely doesnt make any sense(?) paul only seems to answer the problem by restating the problem(!)..
the key is in verse 15 which is a direct quote from Exodus 33:19.. look at Exodus 33 and the surrounding context (keep in mind here the 1st century people remembered passages alot better than we can, so if Paul quotes part of a text they'll immediately recall the context of it) - in verse 18 Moses says 'show me your Glory' to which God answers 'I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my Name, the LORD (Yahweh), in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy etc.'
here the Hebrew of Exodus 33 is parallel to Exodus 3: the famous burning bush incident where God speaks to Moses and reveals His Name for the first time in covenant history - the LORD or Yahweh (YHVH) - Exodus 3 verse 14: 'I AM WHO I AM' (Yahweh), notice the parallel with 'I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHO I HAVE MERCY' - in Hebrew the grammatical structure is identical (even more so than English).. what does Yahweh the name mean? well it seems to mean something like I AM Who I AM - my nature is determined by nothing outside of me, I am fully self-determined in my nature, nothing outside of me causes me to be the way that I Am i.e. in philosopher's parlance God is a necessary being and not contingent (as is everything in the universe).. so what is being said in Exodus 33, with the same language structure of chapter 3 and all? well, basically God is saying I have mercy on who I have mercy - meaning my will and my choice to have mercy is determined by nothing outside of me (see romans 9:15 - not mans desire or effort but Gods mercy), nothing outside of me makes me act the way I do (i.e. nobody chooses God through their own willpower and then God has no choice but to have mercy on them because of their choosing Him first).. the key is exodus 33: Moses asks show me your glory and God reveals His Name - i.e. parallel in the Bible, the glory of God is revealed in new ways through His Names being revealed (at least 5 in Exodus) - the climax of which is Jesus: His Name is Yeshua or salvation - as Paul says all over the NT God's Glory has been finally and perfectly revealed in Jesus.. also read all the times in his epistles Paul says 'so that no man should boast' - we will not boast because we did not choose God, there was nothing about us i.e. intelligence, spirituality etc. that caused us to choose God and boast against someone else who wasnt intelligent or spiritual enough to do the same thing.. it is the perfect tool of humility..
first of all i need to ask what is the concept of Gods righteousness in the book? different views - parallel with His salvation/covenant faithfulness (ala NT Wright), some kind of abstract moral quality (traditional reformed view) etc. but i think the best explination (according to Piper) is in chapter 3 of Romans and it basically reads like it is God's unswerving dedication to uphold His Glory (read the chapter esp. verse 23-26 - btw it might say justice or just instead of righteous in your Bible but its the same word in Greek justice and righteousness is 'dikaiosyne' i think)..
so maybe i can put the pieces together in romans 9 if i havent lost you (not sure how clear this all is exactly).. basically i think pauls anguish is in God choosing some and not others (i.e. on the ground in this case, it's in God not choosing israel/jews but the gentiles for salvation at the present moment), and he asks is there then unrighteousness in God? and he answers this by restating the problem seemingly (i.e. God says He will have mercy on who He will have mercy).. but the key is the quote of exodus 33 which seems to be the restatement of the problem - what hes actually saying is that NO, God is not unrighteous because in Exodus 33 God's Glory (revealed in His Name) is to choose who He wants to have mercy on sovereignly, apart from anything/anyone else determining His choice but He Himself (in Exodus 33 His choice was of Israel), and in Romans 3 God's righteousness is to unswervingly uphold His Glory (a notion which goes above and beyond the two definitions of righteousness usually debated), therefore if He chooses who He wants for salvation in Romans 9 He is not unrighteous because in so doing He unswervingly upholds His Glory/Name (here revealed in Exodus 33 as His having mercy on who He wants) in so doing (i.e. in choosing freely of any outward constraints on His will) and therefore is not unrighteous because the Glory of His Name is upheld and thus His righteousness is upheld and displayed.. and Paul has answered the question, which is seemingly unanswerable otherwise..
then move back to Romans 9:16 - therefore it does not depend on man's desire or effort but on God's mercy - this sentence straight after the exodus 33 quote suddenly now becomes crystal clear (at least for me), then verse 17 - the Pharoah quote, look again, 'that I might display my power in you and that my NAME (read Glory) might be proclaimed in all the earth.' (and Pharoah in Exodus was judged by God?).. verse 18 - 'therefore God has mercy on who he wants to have mercy and he hardens, whom he wants to harden.'
verse 19 : 'why then does God still find blame? for who resists His will' - the question is if God has mercy on who He wills and yet leaves who He wills to harden or to judgement it seems like its open for us to ask how then is anyone blameworthy because nobody has a choice in what God does (here perhaps we could appeal to the fact that nobody deserves God's mercy)..
i think the whole crux of this is in verse 21: 'does not the potter have the right' - whats the problem? i think we're so caught up in human rights and individuality (which is ok on one level) and being nice and PC to everyone that man comes before God, but actually God's rights come before ours always.. the root of it all for me boils down to is your theology man centered or God centered: did God come to die because He loves us so much and He needs us etc. or did He do it for His Glory and our everlasting joy in seeing and savouring His Glory forever? i think so much theology is person or human centered it's almost like self-help/God loves me etc.
maybe im being unfair but i think its no surprise this theology has had such a big impact on the western church considering our cultural self-centered feelgood climate..
verse 22 and onwards, maybe ill leave a quote of jonathan edwards for you:
It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God's glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent [=radiant], that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . .http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByScripture/10/?pageSize=25&pageNumber=7
Thus it is necessary, that God's awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.
If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God's holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God's grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired, and the sense of it not so great . . .
So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect. (Jonathan Edwards, "Concerning the Divine Decrees," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), p. 528)
for Edwards we see more of God's Glory throughout eternity as the riches of His mercy are more & more unfolded to us (and that is set against a backdrop of His justice displayed more & more in the judgement of sinners)..
now how do i feel about that? well.. i think maybe i cant comprehend it all now but i believe God will give us the emotional capacity to understand and see the wisdom of His choices when all is revealed..
i would say read (im sure you cant listen unless you have an ipod to download on) john pipers entires series on romans 9 (linked above) - i think its killed it for me..
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
notes from w.l. craig's seminar on middle knowledge
MOLINISM - BILL CRAIG
God's hypothetical knowledge.. like Dickens' Christmas Carol where the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come shows him visions of both his death & Tiny Tim's death and, horrified, he asks the Spirit whether or not these are shadows of things that definately are to come or may only possibly come.. Craig says these visions are not just mere possibilities (cos anything is possible and Scrooge neednt worry about just anything) nor was the Spirit showing him what will definately happen, because at the end of the story Tiny Tim does not die.. so what the Spirit was showing Scrooge was a kind of hypothetical knowledge - what would happen if Scrooge did not repent and Scrooge does repent so these things do not happen. the question, then, is does God have this kind of hypothetical knowledge of what would be the case if something else were to be the case? Another case in popular culture is from the classic movie A Wonderful Life where the angel shows Jimmy Stewart what the world would of been like if hed never been born - you find the world would have been vastly different without him being born. Does God know that - does He have that kind of knowledge?
This is a controversial question. It would be hard to prove just from the Bible alone God has this kind of knowledge - tho a good case can be made according to Craig. Some theologians would say no He doesnt - He knows everything that could happen and everything that will happen, yet He doesnt have knowledge of what would happen if such & such was the case. therefore the question 'if God knew the world would be so messed up as it is why didnt he create it in another way?' gets these theologians off the hook. the answer for them is He didnt know it would turn out this way - that if He were to place Adam & Eve in the Garden they would fall into sin, there would be a World War II etc.
on other hand Craig thinks there are powerful theological reasons to say God has this kind of knowledge.. Gen. 15:20 is the most powerful passage for God's sovereignty over human history.. God seemed to know here that if the brothers were to sell Joseph into slavery that Joseph would then rise to power in Egypt & so be in a position to rescue his family when famine hit Israel.. they meant it for evil & God meant it for good & so brought it to pass.. this isnt also isolated incident in the OT - in OT there is a very strong sense of divine sovereignty & providence such that God is always in control - God isnt caught by surpise by the way things turn out but its a part of God's planning.. see Acts 4 - the apostles say everyone conspired against Jesus to do whatever His (God's) will & plan was to take place. so it wasnt an accident of history what happened to Jesus - it was the plan of God, to use likes of Herod & Pilate - God knew what Pilate would freely do if confronted with Jesus on trial & same with Herod etc.
What makes these examples remarkable (Joseph & Crucifixion) is that these concern sinful acts of human beings, so God couldnt have brought them about directly, unless we are willing to make God the author of sin. we cant say it was God who brought the wills of Joseph's brothers to do this heinous act & same with Pilate/Herod etc. so what this suggests is that God has this hypothetical knowledge explained above i.e. what these free agents would freely do in any circumstances He might place them in, so by placing those agents in those circumstances God knew exactly what they would do & thereby everything came about by his sovereign plan. on this view this means everything that happens in the world is known by God & is in a sense decreed by Him. but here we need to distinguish between God's DIRECT will & his PERMISSIVE will. everything in universe happens according to will of God but actions which are good are in God's direct will but evil actions are only in God's permissive will. so take Judas' betrayl - God's will is always that Judas would do the right thing (his primary will) - to make the moral choice. but knowing what Judas would freely do in those circumstances God allows/permits Judas to betray Jesus & He uses that sinful act to bring about Jesus' deliverance to the Romans.. similarly with Pilate's free decision to send Jesus to the cross & therefore bring about salvation for mankind via the crucifixion..
so through his directive will or permissive will everything that happens in universe is result of will of God, not accident.. He knew what every free creature would do under any set of circumstance He might place them in, so by placing certain persons in certain circumstances God can bring it about that his ends are ultimately achieved in human history, but through the free agency of human beings, so that you see this hypothetical knowledge provides the key to unlocking the mystery to this whole conondrum of divine sovereignty and human freedom.. many have puzzled how God can be sovereign & yet human beings be free - this hypothetical knowledge provides such a key to the puzzle..
this type of hypothetical knowledge is known as Middle Knowledge.. this is abit of a silly term for it being inbetween God's knowledge of what could be and what will be, and this inbetween is His knowledge of what would be.. to take an example He sees that if he had made Pierre to be one of the twelve disciple Pierre wouldnt of done very well - so knowing that He decided not to create him as one of the twelve.. that would illustrate God knowing what would happen if someone was put in certain circumstances & therefore deciding not to do it and, as a result, God does not know that Pierre will do these things as one of the disciples of Jesus. So there is a difference between things that could happen, would happen (under certain circumstances) & will happen..
now this kind of providence over human history is unimaginably complex.. just think what God would have to calculate in order to bring about a single event in human history i.e. the Allied victory at D-Day.. He would have to get in place an Eisenhower, a Hitler, all the various soldiers, British Empire, Third Reich etc. and since those also depend upon free decisions i.e. the exact time/place Churchill's parents would engage in secual intercourse so the right sperm-egg would produce a Winston Churchill - when you think of this its incomprehensible - ONLY an infinite mind could have this kind of providential control over history.. but God is omniscient - He knows an infinite number of truths & if He has this hypothetical knowledge, He not only has knowledge about all truths that will or could happen, He also has knowledge of an infinite number of truths of what would happen under certain circumstances.. so this knowledge, if true, redounds to the glory & majesty of God - as Craig contemplates it he finds himself awestruck & overwhelmed & expands his vision of God's perfection & majesty to think that His omniscience would be this great to encompass the providential planning of a world of free creatures to arrive at His purposes without abusing their freedom.. for that reason Craig thinks God does have this kind of knowledge.. it also illuminates Biblical texts..
question from audience about if God knew Joseph's brothers would sell him into slavery if put in certain circumstances & God then decreed to put them in such circumstances how does it then excuse God from causing such an evil act? Craig says the circumstances are freedom-permitting circumstances and they don't determine the choice - they're causally indeterminative circumstances & cos the circumstances dont determine the choice the agent is completely free to do or not do the action & therefore God is not causally determining them to do it & therefore its the agent who is responsible.. as stated earlier in any circumstances we find ourselves in God's primary will is we also do good/moral i.e. don't sell Joseph into slavery, but He knew they wouldn't.. an illustration on a human level to make the point clear - the FBI often conduct sting operations against criminals were they use this sort of hypothetical reasoning i.e. set up a circumstance where they try to sell/buy drugs from/to someone they suspect & so theyll set up a circumstance where that person is confronted with such an opportunity & when that person does so the FBI arrests them.. what these people always say is 'it was entrapment, i was trapped, they made me do it by putting me in that circumstance' - but the courts rule it was not entrapment - the person freely chose to do this is those circumstances & therefore they are culpable & can be prosecuted for the crime.. this illustrates it is not God who is author/responsible for sin of these people - they are freedom permitting circumstances, God wills they do the right thing under those circumstances & the fact they choose evil in those circumstances is entirely their free choice & they are culpable for it..
Craig thinks we all have this kind of hypothetical knowledge - Craig's wife knows if he were offered a plate of cookies or plate of liver & onions he would choose the second because he likes that and hates the first - God has this but just with absolute certainty..
how does God have this kind of knowledge? there are several models of divine foreknowledge of the future - one is that God has perceptual knowledge (i.e. looks & sees what is going to happen in future - thats a real problem), but Craig thinks its more a kind of conceptual understanding - He has the essential property of knowing only & all truths and, therefore, He just has knowledge of the future in virtue of knowing only & all truths and the idea of how He comes about it doesnt actually arise - its like asking how can God be omnipotent: how can He do everything it is logically possible to do? can't answer they're just essential attributes of God. So if there are truths about how people would freely behave under certain circumstances then, as an omniscient being, God would simply have to know these things as an essential property of His..
applied to theories of inspiration.. how could God inspire an inerrant scripture in such a way that it wouldn't reduce to mere dictation? the way would be if God knew what the authors of scripture would freely write under the circumstances in which they were placed.. that solution presupposes this doctrine - middle knowledge.. suppose God has high premium on inerrant scripture for mankind, maybe He'd have to permit all kinds of things to get Paul or John in the right circumstances where they would freely write this inerrant revelation of God - circumstances which might cause all other kinds of evils/sufferings in world, permitted in view of an inerrant scripture being produced - some evils which ripples we might be feeling today.. we have no idea what kind of things needs to achieve by permitting these kinds of evils/sufferings in the world.. perhaps its by no means obvious God can achieve the things in history He wishes to achieve without a World War II or a Holocaust.. if God wanted to get to goal A it seems fair to say He would do so in a way which minimized gratuitous suffering..
why did God then create a messed up world & not a better one? maybe cos God's options were limited - given He wanted free creatures & not puppets, it may be that they would of messed up any world that God could of created.. so that in any world that is feasible for God to create with free creatures in it, its possible that they would have sinned & messed up that world.. so its possible there isnt any world available to God that has this much good without also this much evil.. God's will may be that they do the right thing in any circumstance but nevertheless if they freely will to sin God permits them to do so but, in providence, He has selected a world which is more good than evil & results in His ends being achieved - a multitude of people in Heaven of every tribe, tongue & nation..
God's hypothetical knowledge.. like Dickens' Christmas Carol where the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come shows him visions of both his death & Tiny Tim's death and, horrified, he asks the Spirit whether or not these are shadows of things that definately are to come or may only possibly come.. Craig says these visions are not just mere possibilities (cos anything is possible and Scrooge neednt worry about just anything) nor was the Spirit showing him what will definately happen, because at the end of the story Tiny Tim does not die.. so what the Spirit was showing Scrooge was a kind of hypothetical knowledge - what would happen if Scrooge did not repent and Scrooge does repent so these things do not happen. the question, then, is does God have this kind of hypothetical knowledge of what would be the case if something else were to be the case? Another case in popular culture is from the classic movie A Wonderful Life where the angel shows Jimmy Stewart what the world would of been like if hed never been born - you find the world would have been vastly different without him being born. Does God know that - does He have that kind of knowledge?
This is a controversial question. It would be hard to prove just from the Bible alone God has this kind of knowledge - tho a good case can be made according to Craig. Some theologians would say no He doesnt - He knows everything that could happen and everything that will happen, yet He doesnt have knowledge of what would happen if such & such was the case. therefore the question 'if God knew the world would be so messed up as it is why didnt he create it in another way?' gets these theologians off the hook. the answer for them is He didnt know it would turn out this way - that if He were to place Adam & Eve in the Garden they would fall into sin, there would be a World War II etc.
on other hand Craig thinks there are powerful theological reasons to say God has this kind of knowledge.. Gen. 15:20 is the most powerful passage for God's sovereignty over human history.. God seemed to know here that if the brothers were to sell Joseph into slavery that Joseph would then rise to power in Egypt & so be in a position to rescue his family when famine hit Israel.. they meant it for evil & God meant it for good & so brought it to pass.. this isnt also isolated incident in the OT - in OT there is a very strong sense of divine sovereignty & providence such that God is always in control - God isnt caught by surpise by the way things turn out but its a part of God's planning.. see Acts 4 - the apostles say everyone conspired against Jesus to do whatever His (God's) will & plan was to take place. so it wasnt an accident of history what happened to Jesus - it was the plan of God, to use likes of Herod & Pilate - God knew what Pilate would freely do if confronted with Jesus on trial & same with Herod etc.
What makes these examples remarkable (Joseph & Crucifixion) is that these concern sinful acts of human beings, so God couldnt have brought them about directly, unless we are willing to make God the author of sin. we cant say it was God who brought the wills of Joseph's brothers to do this heinous act & same with Pilate/Herod etc. so what this suggests is that God has this hypothetical knowledge explained above i.e. what these free agents would freely do in any circumstances He might place them in, so by placing those agents in those circumstances God knew exactly what they would do & thereby everything came about by his sovereign plan. on this view this means everything that happens in the world is known by God & is in a sense decreed by Him. but here we need to distinguish between God's DIRECT will & his PERMISSIVE will. everything in universe happens according to will of God but actions which are good are in God's direct will but evil actions are only in God's permissive will. so take Judas' betrayl - God's will is always that Judas would do the right thing (his primary will) - to make the moral choice. but knowing what Judas would freely do in those circumstances God allows/permits Judas to betray Jesus & He uses that sinful act to bring about Jesus' deliverance to the Romans.. similarly with Pilate's free decision to send Jesus to the cross & therefore bring about salvation for mankind via the crucifixion..
so through his directive will or permissive will everything that happens in universe is result of will of God, not accident.. He knew what every free creature would do under any set of circumstance He might place them in, so by placing certain persons in certain circumstances God can bring it about that his ends are ultimately achieved in human history, but through the free agency of human beings, so that you see this hypothetical knowledge provides the key to unlocking the mystery to this whole conondrum of divine sovereignty and human freedom.. many have puzzled how God can be sovereign & yet human beings be free - this hypothetical knowledge provides such a key to the puzzle..
this type of hypothetical knowledge is known as Middle Knowledge.. this is abit of a silly term for it being inbetween God's knowledge of what could be and what will be, and this inbetween is His knowledge of what would be.. to take an example He sees that if he had made Pierre to be one of the twelve disciple Pierre wouldnt of done very well - so knowing that He decided not to create him as one of the twelve.. that would illustrate God knowing what would happen if someone was put in certain circumstances & therefore deciding not to do it and, as a result, God does not know that Pierre will do these things as one of the disciples of Jesus. So there is a difference between things that could happen, would happen (under certain circumstances) & will happen..
now this kind of providence over human history is unimaginably complex.. just think what God would have to calculate in order to bring about a single event in human history i.e. the Allied victory at D-Day.. He would have to get in place an Eisenhower, a Hitler, all the various soldiers, British Empire, Third Reich etc. and since those also depend upon free decisions i.e. the exact time/place Churchill's parents would engage in secual intercourse so the right sperm-egg would produce a Winston Churchill - when you think of this its incomprehensible - ONLY an infinite mind could have this kind of providential control over history.. but God is omniscient - He knows an infinite number of truths & if He has this hypothetical knowledge, He not only has knowledge about all truths that will or could happen, He also has knowledge of an infinite number of truths of what would happen under certain circumstances.. so this knowledge, if true, redounds to the glory & majesty of God - as Craig contemplates it he finds himself awestruck & overwhelmed & expands his vision of God's perfection & majesty to think that His omniscience would be this great to encompass the providential planning of a world of free creatures to arrive at His purposes without abusing their freedom.. for that reason Craig thinks God does have this kind of knowledge.. it also illuminates Biblical texts..
question from audience about if God knew Joseph's brothers would sell him into slavery if put in certain circumstances & God then decreed to put them in such circumstances how does it then excuse God from causing such an evil act? Craig says the circumstances are freedom-permitting circumstances and they don't determine the choice - they're causally indeterminative circumstances & cos the circumstances dont determine the choice the agent is completely free to do or not do the action & therefore God is not causally determining them to do it & therefore its the agent who is responsible.. as stated earlier in any circumstances we find ourselves in God's primary will is we also do good/moral i.e. don't sell Joseph into slavery, but He knew they wouldn't.. an illustration on a human level to make the point clear - the FBI often conduct sting operations against criminals were they use this sort of hypothetical reasoning i.e. set up a circumstance where they try to sell/buy drugs from/to someone they suspect & so theyll set up a circumstance where that person is confronted with such an opportunity & when that person does so the FBI arrests them.. what these people always say is 'it was entrapment, i was trapped, they made me do it by putting me in that circumstance' - but the courts rule it was not entrapment - the person freely chose to do this is those circumstances & therefore they are culpable & can be prosecuted for the crime.. this illustrates it is not God who is author/responsible for sin of these people - they are freedom permitting circumstances, God wills they do the right thing under those circumstances & the fact they choose evil in those circumstances is entirely their free choice & they are culpable for it..
Craig thinks we all have this kind of hypothetical knowledge - Craig's wife knows if he were offered a plate of cookies or plate of liver & onions he would choose the second because he likes that and hates the first - God has this but just with absolute certainty..
how does God have this kind of knowledge? there are several models of divine foreknowledge of the future - one is that God has perceptual knowledge (i.e. looks & sees what is going to happen in future - thats a real problem), but Craig thinks its more a kind of conceptual understanding - He has the essential property of knowing only & all truths and, therefore, He just has knowledge of the future in virtue of knowing only & all truths and the idea of how He comes about it doesnt actually arise - its like asking how can God be omnipotent: how can He do everything it is logically possible to do? can't answer they're just essential attributes of God. So if there are truths about how people would freely behave under certain circumstances then, as an omniscient being, God would simply have to know these things as an essential property of His..
applied to theories of inspiration.. how could God inspire an inerrant scripture in such a way that it wouldn't reduce to mere dictation? the way would be if God knew what the authors of scripture would freely write under the circumstances in which they were placed.. that solution presupposes this doctrine - middle knowledge.. suppose God has high premium on inerrant scripture for mankind, maybe He'd have to permit all kinds of things to get Paul or John in the right circumstances where they would freely write this inerrant revelation of God - circumstances which might cause all other kinds of evils/sufferings in world, permitted in view of an inerrant scripture being produced - some evils which ripples we might be feeling today.. we have no idea what kind of things needs to achieve by permitting these kinds of evils/sufferings in the world.. perhaps its by no means obvious God can achieve the things in history He wishes to achieve without a World War II or a Holocaust.. if God wanted to get to goal A it seems fair to say He would do so in a way which minimized gratuitous suffering..
why did God then create a messed up world & not a better one? maybe cos God's options were limited - given He wanted free creatures & not puppets, it may be that they would of messed up any world that God could of created.. so that in any world that is feasible for God to create with free creatures in it, its possible that they would have sinned & messed up that world.. so its possible there isnt any world available to God that has this much good without also this much evil.. God's will may be that they do the right thing in any circumstance but nevertheless if they freely will to sin God permits them to do so but, in providence, He has selected a world which is more good than evil & results in His ends being achieved - a multitude of people in Heaven of every tribe, tongue & nation..
notes from terry virgo's sermon on elijah & prayer
terry virgo - elijah/prayer notes (1 Kings 18:41-46)
elijah prayed the rain would come - church history sees prayer for rain as synonomous with revival..
when James wants to use an OT example for importance of prayer he picks out Elijah - who, in James 5, he says was a man just like us, a man who prayed for rain.. scripture's encouragment is that all these bible heroes are just like us - not special, not angels, not weird, just like us - yet they got into such a relationship with God that they could release all kinds of things and arrest nations..
some of the features of Elijah's prayer
1. Elijah removed himself from the crowd.. he went up a mountain to be alone, as opposed to the celebrations that may of been going on after God vindicated Himself against Baal's prophets etc. in that sense Elijah is very much like Jesus - Jesus wouldnt get caught up in other people's agenda, the crowd's excitment - he withdrew..similarly elijah withdrew like Jesus & wouldnt let other people dictate his program.. as did the early apostles in acts - when they saw thousands save & social needs began to arise with the poor they didnt let it form their agenda - they gave themselves to prayer, they withdrew.. they followed Jesus' model - and Jesus not only modelled it, he clearly taught it..
in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 in verse 6 he says when you pray go to your inner room, close the door & pray to your Father who is in secret. in verse 5 he compares the secret prayer in verse 6 to the Pharisees' making a show of their prayer in public for credability.. so we dont do anything for show - we do it for God.. he then says 'close the door' - its like for prayer we all need a place we go to - 'i go there to pray'.. do we have a place to pray? we need to build into our lives a place we go to pray.. closing the door physically doesnt always close the door on your mind - a big challenge of prayer.. terry takes a piece of paper and when something comes on his mind he writes it down so it doesnt distract him.. cos you want to be with your Father in secret.. do you have a place you can withdraw? find a place to get away, be with Him..
2. Elijah's prayer was based on a promise.. God has already said that He would send rain on the earth.. you may think that if God said He would do something why do I need to do anything - God's already made His will clear - so why pray? isnt prayer thus made redundant? this is the wonder of prayer - instead of God saying 'I'm going to do it', making prayer redundant, actually God's saying 'I'm going to do it' is meant to inspire us to pray & direct our praying.. so that our praying is in line with what God has said..
so prayer is built on what God has promised He will do - prayer starts in God, starts with God initiating, telling us what He's after.. its not us thinking 'well what shall i pray for?', its much more us responding to His initiatives, what He wants to do and we come and ask Him in the light of that.. so i.e. Ezekiel 36 God is saying I will do this, this & this and in verse 37 it says at the end of the list of what God has promised to do 'I will yet be inquired of the house of Israel to do these things'.. in effect its: 'these are the promises, now you ask'.. God is somehow using prayer as a magnificent means of drawing us into a living relationship with Him.. the promises inspire, motivate & keep you going & give you assurance that He will do it.. in 2 Corinthians Paul asks the church in Corinth to pray for him - despite it being the great apostle Paul.. Philip Hughes' commentary says 'prayer is stressed over & over again in the NT as a vital prerequisite for the release & experience of God's power'.. God has promised Paul, sent Paul and yet Paul says please pray for me - somehow that releaases God's power.. Andrew Murray says its as though the promises are waiting for prayer for their fulfilment - we may, and thus most confidently, expect an answer to our prayer.. the promise is there, the prayer ignites it.. take Daniel, he'd been reading Jeremiah and the prophecy of 70 years in exile, he realizes the 70 years are up, but instead of running in the streets shouting '70 years are up' it says he gave himself to prayer & fasting & history thus began to break open before him.. God found someone who would take His promises seriously & lay hold of Him..
in this context of laying hold of Him, Jesus is constantly inviting us to ask, seek, knock - which is present-continuous in the Greek - 'ask & keep on asking', 'seek & keep on seeking', 'knock & keep on knocking' - go after God.. Jesus is constantly inviting us to ask.. in John 15:16 it says 'you didn't choose me, I chose you & I appointed you to go & bring forth fruit, whatever you ask the Father in my name I will do it'..
Miss out the middle bit & it says 'I have chosen you to ask' - Terry quotes this when he prays, 'you chose me to go & bear fruit & whatever i ask'.. so we come bringing our requests because He's constantly inviting us to ask - you could say that prayer is fellowship with God.. Jesus specifically talked about prayer in the context of asking in order to get - He even said 'ask that you may recieve that your joy may be full'.. thats how he emphasized prayer - its an asking & recieving thing..
you also find Elijah prays quite specifically to God - he says 'Lord stop the rain', then 3.5 years later he says 'Lord start the rain'.. its specific, tell the Lord this is what you are asking for.. when Jesus was moving along the crowds he came to someone who was obviously ill & He asked what would you have me do for you?.. isnt it obvious from his illness? no - Jesus is looking for that kind of specific request.. in a parable He tells the man asks for 3 loaves - specific, not just 'can I have some food please'.. Yongi-Cho in his book on prayer tells the story of himself as a young man when he prays for a chair, desk & bicycle - they dont come.. he felt a small, still voice say I heard you the first day six months ago - Cho asked why hadnt he got them? God replied that there are many bicycles & which one do you want? Cho replied he'd like an American bicycle, a mahogany Phillipino desk & a chair with wheels on it like a bigshot.. within 2 weeks he was given an American bike by the son of an American missionary, a mahogany desk from the Phillipines & a chair with wheels on it.. God is saying He wants us to be specific.. when Terry was younger he was going through difficulty financially near Christmas time - He said God told him to ask the number of verses in a particular Psalm number (cant remember which one), so he asked for it & within the week he was given 3 gifts that added up to precisely that sum of money.. focus in on what you want..
Elijah knows the promise of God about rain & he prays specifically according to that promise.. Jesus said abide in me & my words will abide in you.. if we abide in Him we know what He wants & we pray along those lines..
3. Elijah prayed fervantly. James 5:17 - says there was great power in his prayer. literal greek means 'he prayed in his prayer' - a Hebraism, repeating words for effect. don carson in his book on prayer says to pray yourself into prayer. when we pray we can sometimes feel abit dull - thats not a time to back off, we begin to pray in your prayer, when we pray sometimes in your heart its like a telescope that opens up & we begin to pray for things we never knew were there.. paul says we work with all the energy he mightily inspires within us - theres a praying that grows as you do it - pray yourself into prayer.. for terry when he goes to a prayer meeting he prays early on to get into it.. when you pray yourself into prayer you suddenly find yourself praying for things you never thought of praying for - you feel an energy taking over and with it comes faith because you think this is beyond what i would of asked.. the NT calls this praying in the Spirit - praying with the Spirit is talking about tongues but in the Spirit is talking about when the Spirit of God energizes you to pray.. and with it often comes faith.. you pray fervently and with power..
Jacob wrestled with God - he said he wouldnt let the angel go unless he blessed him.. have we fought with God & prevailed? what a blessing is this? that we can lay hold of God.. Moses also did this, Exodus 32, in verse 10 God tells Moses to let Him alone - its like a man can hinder God.. what power does this man have with God? Moses answers him and says theyre your people you brought out of Egypt, what will the heathen say? Moses argues with God & God hears him & Moses prevails.. God is willing to be sought & the fervant, effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much - it accomplishes a great deal.. we can sometimes be in a sovereignty position - we can think what is the point of praying & it can undo our praying.. but then we see these Moses/Jacob examples - no: God makes promises but invites our prayer - God doesnt do anything without our praying as Philip Hughes says.. we need to be encouraged to rediscover the phenomenal power of prayer both corporately or alone.. Foresythe says: 'lose the importunity of prayer, lose the real conflict of will & will, lose the habit of wrestling & the hope of prevailing with God.. make it mere walking with God & friendly talk and precious as that is you tend to lose the reality of prayer at last.'
some of us say i just tend to talk with God as i walk down the road - i dont set aside a time, but Jesus said when you pray go to your room, shut the door & lets get down to some work.. lets release power, lets get hold of God.. we're called not just to be religious but to know God..
Carson says prayer is not like carpentry or cookery - you can read a book on these things - instead prayer is the active exercise of a personal relationship, a kind of friendship with the living God.. we can learn alot from books on marriage but in the end its an act of exercise of a personal relationship.. the books on prayer can help but prayer isnt like cookery - we need to press into that personal relationship..
4. Elijah prayed with importunity. in other words he kept on praying when he looked and the sky was still blue - he sent his servant again & again to look for clouds. he kept praying & wouldnt let go. when we dont see anything happening we take that as the final word. d.a. carson says we're like the naughty boy who rings the doorbell and runs away. we need to KEEP ON and its very challenging. Jesus told two parables about carrying on praying. one was about the unjust judge and the woman who keeps appealing to him and in the end he gives in to her. because of her importunity, cos she wont let go he says ok you win the case. the other parable is about a man who comes to a friend at night and is starving and needs something to eat, and this man has nothing to eat either so he goes to another friend and asks for three loaves. the other friend is asleep and tells him to go away but the man keeps asking, keeps knocking on his door until he is given the loaves - not just because hes a friend but because he wouldnt stop. why would Jesus tell two such parables if this principle wasn't important? its hard for us because we live in instant coffee society. andrew murray says 'what a deep heavenly mystery this is: of persevering prayer. the God who has promised, who longs, whose fixed purpose is to give blessings holds it back. he trains us in the school of answer delayed to find out how our perseverence really does prevail. what a mighty power this we can weild in heaven if we do but set ourselves to it.' yes this is a mystery but why not penetrate it? why not penetrate this mystery and and press into God? Isaiah says: 'the Lord waits to be gracious to you, He waits on high to have compassion on you, how blessed are those who wait for Him.' He's waiting to be gracious, we dont always understand why. Why is there delay - why doesnt it happen straight away? Sometimes it does ie Elijah prayed for fire to fall and it fell - it can happen immediately but it doesnt always. The Bible tells us that when it doesnt happen immediately dont give up & see it as the end. Continue to lay hold of God - it's in that continuing that our muscle grows.
elijah prayed the rain would come - church history sees prayer for rain as synonomous with revival..
when James wants to use an OT example for importance of prayer he picks out Elijah - who, in James 5, he says was a man just like us, a man who prayed for rain.. scripture's encouragment is that all these bible heroes are just like us - not special, not angels, not weird, just like us - yet they got into such a relationship with God that they could release all kinds of things and arrest nations..
some of the features of Elijah's prayer
1. Elijah removed himself from the crowd.. he went up a mountain to be alone, as opposed to the celebrations that may of been going on after God vindicated Himself against Baal's prophets etc. in that sense Elijah is very much like Jesus - Jesus wouldnt get caught up in other people's agenda, the crowd's excitment - he withdrew..similarly elijah withdrew like Jesus & wouldnt let other people dictate his program.. as did the early apostles in acts - when they saw thousands save & social needs began to arise with the poor they didnt let it form their agenda - they gave themselves to prayer, they withdrew.. they followed Jesus' model - and Jesus not only modelled it, he clearly taught it..
in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 in verse 6 he says when you pray go to your inner room, close the door & pray to your Father who is in secret. in verse 5 he compares the secret prayer in verse 6 to the Pharisees' making a show of their prayer in public for credability.. so we dont do anything for show - we do it for God.. he then says 'close the door' - its like for prayer we all need a place we go to - 'i go there to pray'.. do we have a place to pray? we need to build into our lives a place we go to pray.. closing the door physically doesnt always close the door on your mind - a big challenge of prayer.. terry takes a piece of paper and when something comes on his mind he writes it down so it doesnt distract him.. cos you want to be with your Father in secret.. do you have a place you can withdraw? find a place to get away, be with Him..
2. Elijah's prayer was based on a promise.. God has already said that He would send rain on the earth.. you may think that if God said He would do something why do I need to do anything - God's already made His will clear - so why pray? isnt prayer thus made redundant? this is the wonder of prayer - instead of God saying 'I'm going to do it', making prayer redundant, actually God's saying 'I'm going to do it' is meant to inspire us to pray & direct our praying.. so that our praying is in line with what God has said..
so prayer is built on what God has promised He will do - prayer starts in God, starts with God initiating, telling us what He's after.. its not us thinking 'well what shall i pray for?', its much more us responding to His initiatives, what He wants to do and we come and ask Him in the light of that.. so i.e. Ezekiel 36 God is saying I will do this, this & this and in verse 37 it says at the end of the list of what God has promised to do 'I will yet be inquired of the house of Israel to do these things'.. in effect its: 'these are the promises, now you ask'.. God is somehow using prayer as a magnificent means of drawing us into a living relationship with Him.. the promises inspire, motivate & keep you going & give you assurance that He will do it.. in 2 Corinthians Paul asks the church in Corinth to pray for him - despite it being the great apostle Paul.. Philip Hughes' commentary says 'prayer is stressed over & over again in the NT as a vital prerequisite for the release & experience of God's power'.. God has promised Paul, sent Paul and yet Paul says please pray for me - somehow that releaases God's power.. Andrew Murray says its as though the promises are waiting for prayer for their fulfilment - we may, and thus most confidently, expect an answer to our prayer.. the promise is there, the prayer ignites it.. take Daniel, he'd been reading Jeremiah and the prophecy of 70 years in exile, he realizes the 70 years are up, but instead of running in the streets shouting '70 years are up' it says he gave himself to prayer & fasting & history thus began to break open before him.. God found someone who would take His promises seriously & lay hold of Him..
in this context of laying hold of Him, Jesus is constantly inviting us to ask, seek, knock - which is present-continuous in the Greek - 'ask & keep on asking', 'seek & keep on seeking', 'knock & keep on knocking' - go after God.. Jesus is constantly inviting us to ask.. in John 15:16 it says 'you didn't choose me, I chose you & I appointed you to go & bring forth fruit, whatever you ask the Father in my name I will do it'..
Miss out the middle bit & it says 'I have chosen you to ask' - Terry quotes this when he prays, 'you chose me to go & bear fruit & whatever i ask'.. so we come bringing our requests because He's constantly inviting us to ask - you could say that prayer is fellowship with God.. Jesus specifically talked about prayer in the context of asking in order to get - He even said 'ask that you may recieve that your joy may be full'.. thats how he emphasized prayer - its an asking & recieving thing..
you also find Elijah prays quite specifically to God - he says 'Lord stop the rain', then 3.5 years later he says 'Lord start the rain'.. its specific, tell the Lord this is what you are asking for.. when Jesus was moving along the crowds he came to someone who was obviously ill & He asked what would you have me do for you?.. isnt it obvious from his illness? no - Jesus is looking for that kind of specific request.. in a parable He tells the man asks for 3 loaves - specific, not just 'can I have some food please'.. Yongi-Cho in his book on prayer tells the story of himself as a young man when he prays for a chair, desk & bicycle - they dont come.. he felt a small, still voice say I heard you the first day six months ago - Cho asked why hadnt he got them? God replied that there are many bicycles & which one do you want? Cho replied he'd like an American bicycle, a mahogany Phillipino desk & a chair with wheels on it like a bigshot.. within 2 weeks he was given an American bike by the son of an American missionary, a mahogany desk from the Phillipines & a chair with wheels on it.. God is saying He wants us to be specific.. when Terry was younger he was going through difficulty financially near Christmas time - He said God told him to ask the number of verses in a particular Psalm number (cant remember which one), so he asked for it & within the week he was given 3 gifts that added up to precisely that sum of money.. focus in on what you want..
Elijah knows the promise of God about rain & he prays specifically according to that promise.. Jesus said abide in me & my words will abide in you.. if we abide in Him we know what He wants & we pray along those lines..
3. Elijah prayed fervantly. James 5:17 - says there was great power in his prayer. literal greek means 'he prayed in his prayer' - a Hebraism, repeating words for effect. don carson in his book on prayer says to pray yourself into prayer. when we pray we can sometimes feel abit dull - thats not a time to back off, we begin to pray in your prayer, when we pray sometimes in your heart its like a telescope that opens up & we begin to pray for things we never knew were there.. paul says we work with all the energy he mightily inspires within us - theres a praying that grows as you do it - pray yourself into prayer.. for terry when he goes to a prayer meeting he prays early on to get into it.. when you pray yourself into prayer you suddenly find yourself praying for things you never thought of praying for - you feel an energy taking over and with it comes faith because you think this is beyond what i would of asked.. the NT calls this praying in the Spirit - praying with the Spirit is talking about tongues but in the Spirit is talking about when the Spirit of God energizes you to pray.. and with it often comes faith.. you pray fervently and with power..
Jacob wrestled with God - he said he wouldnt let the angel go unless he blessed him.. have we fought with God & prevailed? what a blessing is this? that we can lay hold of God.. Moses also did this, Exodus 32, in verse 10 God tells Moses to let Him alone - its like a man can hinder God.. what power does this man have with God? Moses answers him and says theyre your people you brought out of Egypt, what will the heathen say? Moses argues with God & God hears him & Moses prevails.. God is willing to be sought & the fervant, effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much - it accomplishes a great deal.. we can sometimes be in a sovereignty position - we can think what is the point of praying & it can undo our praying.. but then we see these Moses/Jacob examples - no: God makes promises but invites our prayer - God doesnt do anything without our praying as Philip Hughes says.. we need to be encouraged to rediscover the phenomenal power of prayer both corporately or alone.. Foresythe says: 'lose the importunity of prayer, lose the real conflict of will & will, lose the habit of wrestling & the hope of prevailing with God.. make it mere walking with God & friendly talk and precious as that is you tend to lose the reality of prayer at last.'
some of us say i just tend to talk with God as i walk down the road - i dont set aside a time, but Jesus said when you pray go to your room, shut the door & lets get down to some work.. lets release power, lets get hold of God.. we're called not just to be religious but to know God..
Carson says prayer is not like carpentry or cookery - you can read a book on these things - instead prayer is the active exercise of a personal relationship, a kind of friendship with the living God.. we can learn alot from books on marriage but in the end its an act of exercise of a personal relationship.. the books on prayer can help but prayer isnt like cookery - we need to press into that personal relationship..
4. Elijah prayed with importunity. in other words he kept on praying when he looked and the sky was still blue - he sent his servant again & again to look for clouds. he kept praying & wouldnt let go. when we dont see anything happening we take that as the final word. d.a. carson says we're like the naughty boy who rings the doorbell and runs away. we need to KEEP ON and its very challenging. Jesus told two parables about carrying on praying. one was about the unjust judge and the woman who keeps appealing to him and in the end he gives in to her. because of her importunity, cos she wont let go he says ok you win the case. the other parable is about a man who comes to a friend at night and is starving and needs something to eat, and this man has nothing to eat either so he goes to another friend and asks for three loaves. the other friend is asleep and tells him to go away but the man keeps asking, keeps knocking on his door until he is given the loaves - not just because hes a friend but because he wouldnt stop. why would Jesus tell two such parables if this principle wasn't important? its hard for us because we live in instant coffee society. andrew murray says 'what a deep heavenly mystery this is: of persevering prayer. the God who has promised, who longs, whose fixed purpose is to give blessings holds it back. he trains us in the school of answer delayed to find out how our perseverence really does prevail. what a mighty power this we can weild in heaven if we do but set ourselves to it.' yes this is a mystery but why not penetrate it? why not penetrate this mystery and and press into God? Isaiah says: 'the Lord waits to be gracious to you, He waits on high to have compassion on you, how blessed are those who wait for Him.' He's waiting to be gracious, we dont always understand why. Why is there delay - why doesnt it happen straight away? Sometimes it does ie Elijah prayed for fire to fall and it fell - it can happen immediately but it doesnt always. The Bible tells us that when it doesnt happen immediately dont give up & see it as the end. Continue to lay hold of God - it's in that continuing that our muscle grows.
Monday, 15 June 2009
steyn & eurabia
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007760
there have been quite a number of books published in the past few years regarding the subject of 'Eurabia' (or an Islamic Europe).. Bat Ye'or started the trend with her work Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis which argued that there was a set of formal/informal alliances between Europe and the Arab world as against Israel & America.. since then the likes of Claire Berlinski, Bruce Bawer and Mark Steyn have written books with different emphasizes on Europe's current cultural suicide.. the above article by Steyn focuses on demographics and is, in effect, a condensed version of his book America Alone - though the article (and the book) also refer to all the problems with politically correct secular, socialism that Europe faces.. i find him pretty funny, though obviously in a terrifying way..
an extract and some of the birth rate stats:
'What's the better bet? A globalization that exports cheeseburgers and pop songs or a globalization that exports the fiercest aspects of its culture? When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2006, it's hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026 (or 2033, or 2037, or whenever they get around to finishing their Anger Management and Queer Studies degrees). And the hard data on babies around the Western world is that they're running out a lot faster than the oil is. "Replacement" fertility rate--i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller--is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that: the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?
there have been quite a number of books published in the past few years regarding the subject of 'Eurabia' (or an Islamic Europe).. Bat Ye'or started the trend with her work Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis which argued that there was a set of formal/informal alliances between Europe and the Arab world as against Israel & America.. since then the likes of Claire Berlinski, Bruce Bawer and Mark Steyn have written books with different emphasizes on Europe's current cultural suicide.. the above article by Steyn focuses on demographics and is, in effect, a condensed version of his book America Alone - though the article (and the book) also refer to all the problems with politically correct secular, socialism that Europe faces.. i find him pretty funny, though obviously in a terrifying way..
an extract and some of the birth rate stats:
'What's the better bet? A globalization that exports cheeseburgers and pop songs or a globalization that exports the fiercest aspects of its culture? When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2006, it's hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026 (or 2033, or 2037, or whenever they get around to finishing their Anger Management and Queer Studies degrees). And the hard data on babies around the Western world is that they're running out a lot faster than the oil is. "Replacement" fertility rate--i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller--is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that: the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?
Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top breeders and you'll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada's fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That's to say, Spain's population is halving every generation. By 2050, Italy's population will have fallen by 22%, Bulgaria's by 36%, Estonia's by 52%. In America, demographic trends suggest that the blue states ought to apply for honorary membership of the EU: In the 2004 election, John Kerry won the 16 with the lowest birthrates; George W. Bush took 25 of the 26 states with the highest. By 2050, there will be 100 million fewer Europeans, 100 million more Americans--and mostly red-state Americans.'
...
'There is no "population bomb." There never was. Birthrates are declining all over the world--eventually every couple on the planet may decide to opt for the Western yuppie model of one designer baby at the age of 39. But demographics is a game of last man standing. The groups that succumb to demographic apathy last will have a huge advantage. Even in 1968 Paul Ehrlich and his ilk should have understood that their so-called population explosion was really a massive population adjustment. Of the increase in global population between 1970 and 2000, the developed world accounted for under 9% of it, while the Muslim world accounted for 26%. Between 1970 and 2000, the developed world declined from just under 30% of the world's population to just over 20%, the Muslim nations increased from about 15% to 20%.
Nineteen seventy doesn't seem that long ago. If you're the age many of the chaps running the Western world today are wont to be, your pants are narrower than they were back then and your hair's less groovy, but the landscape of your life--the look of your house, the layout of your car, the shape of your kitchen appliances, the brand names of the stuff in the fridge--isn't significantly different. Aside from the Internet and the cell phone and the CD, everything in your world seems pretty much the same but slightly modified.
And yet the world is utterly altered. Just to recap those bald statistics: In 1970, the developed world had twice as big a share of the global population as the Muslim world: 30% to 15%. By 2000, they were the same: each had about 20%.
And by 2020?
So the world's people are a lot more Islamic than they were back then and a lot less "Western." Europe is significantly more Islamic, having taken in during that period some 20 million Muslims (officially)--or the equivalents of the populations of four European Union countries (Ireland, Belgium, Denmark and Estonia). Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the West: In the U.K., more Muslims than Christians attend religious services each week.
Can these trends continue for another 30 years without having consequences? Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone. We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world'
Sunday, 14 June 2009
mcgrath lectures notes
Alister McGrath Lecture Notes on some of Dawkins' ideas
Some of Dawkins' criticisms of religion:
1. if youre a real scientist that immediately impels you towards atheism
2. religion makes assertions that are grounded in faith, the sciences, on the other hand, are all about proving things to be so - so there is a tension between religion (i.e. about believing things that cannot be proven ) and the sciences (i.e. about rigorous, evidence based belief)
3. belief in God is not actually rational - it is produced by several possible mechanisms (i.e. the meme/virus of the mind) i.e. in some way another wise healthy mind is 'infected' by this idea of God & that leads to all kinds of complications - in the late 1990's this was certainly a very common thing to say
4. religion offers an impoverished view of the world i.e. believing in God leads you to view the world in a way that is less intellectually and aesthetically satisfying than if you do not believe in God
5. religion leads to evil
mcgrath wants to answer all of these points
before that a disclaimer..
a perpetuatual historical myth in particular that Dawkins holds to:
1. science & religion are locked into mortal kombat and only one of them will survive (which will inevitably be science, beating its superstitious alternatives) [someone like historian of science Ron Numbers will question this stereotype and will say there has never been a time when science & religion have been thus pitted against each other - they occasionally have their tensions & convergences - but it is always a nuanced & complex relationship, so to describe it as a consistent battle is simply misguided]
mcgrath's answers to the above points:
1. does science lead to atheism? dawkins thinks so, and he criticizes such scientists as physicist Freeman Dyson who, at some points, are positive about religion.. but why should science lead to atheism? surveys say about 40 percent of scientists believe in God, 20 percent are agnostics and 40 percent are atheists.. so Dawkins' conclusions do not fit the actual empirical data - if it is some kind of superhighway to atheism to be a scientist then why are so many scientists religious believers? for dawkins either these people are mad, bad, deluded or being deceitful for all kinds of significant purposes..
for McGrath an obvious point is that there appears to be no obvious reason why science leads to atheism, if it leads to anything at all - McGrath thinks it leads, if anything, to agnosticism: ie the evidence is not good enough to allow us to reach a secure decision one way or the other.
a basic problem with Dawkins here really has to do with the scientific method itself. nature is open to multiple interpretations - it can be interpreted atheistically, agnostically, theistically etc. but nature itself comples/constrains you to adopt none of those - it is maleable, its consistent with all but leads to none.. Huxley in the 1880's said that science was agnostic in that it puts aside theological claims, as well as anti-theological claims.. more recently Stephen Jay Gould, an atheist biologist-popularizer, did not derive his atheism from science and was completely adamant that science did not impel anyone towards atheism at all.. in a 1992 article he said: 'to say it for all my colleagues and for the umpeenth millionth time, science simply cannot by its legitimate methods ajudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm it nor deny it, we simply cannot comment on it as scientists.' he then named every evolutionary biologist he could think of from the nineteenth century and onwards and put them both into two piles, both of which were about the same size. the conclusion he drew was that either half my colleagues are stupid or Darwinism is compatible with religious beliefs and equally compatible with atheism. so hes saying it can be interpreted both ways but in itself and of itself it does not require either.
so McGrath's question to Dawkins in why this insistence that science leads to atheism? they do for some people, yes, but that they should do for all is a rather dogmatic judgement.
2. relationship between faith & evidence. Dawkins argues that faith is the great cop out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. McGrath, however, stopped being an atheist cos he felt it simply could not be reconciled with the evidence he saw around him in the world - does that mean he had not been thinking very hard? Dawkins says faith is not allowed to justify itself by arguments, but has Dawkins read Plantinga, Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, Swinburne etc.? it seems like he could not have to make such a statement. he is right, however, that unthinking faith is an embarrasment, but he seems to be saying that if you believe in God you've never used your brain at all - but surely that is a presumptious conclusion that needs to be challenged.
can God's existence be proved? McGrath would say no, if by proof you mean shown with absolute certainty as for example i could prove Godel's theorem. but equally can God's existence be disporved? if you read the reviews for The God Delusion you can say alot of people dont think it is one of his best books. so the answer really is no, it cannot be disproved either - believing or disbelieving in God is a judgement of faith, it goes beyond the available evidence and we all do this all the time with many other things: its not a real problem. Dawkins seems to think everything needs to be absolutely proved and, as a result, ends up in some difficult situations. so whether or not God's existence can be proved is a stalemate.
are there limits to what science can prove? Dawkins argues science proves things with certainty and anything worth knowing can be proved by science and anything else i.e. belief in God is just delusion. we can find this view also in Russell: 'whatever knowledge is attainable must be attained by scientific methods and what science cannot discover, mankind can never know'. but in contrast Peter Medawar, nobel prize winner, in his book The Limits of Science says the inability of science to answer child-like questions like 'how did everything begin, what are we here for, what is the point of life?' etc. show its limits. hes not criticizing the sciences at all, just saying they are superb in their sphere of operation, the problems only begin when scientists start extrapolating to other areas, answering questions which really science cannot answer at all.
3. is God a virus or a meme?
Dawkins greatest impact upon popular culture has been through this concept of the meme - the meme is a cultural replicator paralleling the gene in genetics. he asks us to imagine here memes 'leaping from brain to brain', a powerful visual image of a process called 'immitation'. his basic argument is that people believe in God not because there is a God & not because theyve given it long & careful rational thought but because something has leapt into their minds, this meme. it has a very high survival value, is very adaptive/successful and simply takes people over. the argument goes that this 'God meme' is what sustains belief in God in an age when science has made belief in that God simply untenable. an interesting idea that has been discussed alot. but the judgement of most is that the meme is not a particuarly helpful idea at all.
Dawkins has done an enormous amount to popularize the concept. we find the idea back in The Selfish Gene and is applied immediately to a religious concept back in 1976 where he talks of the 'God meme' and he develops this in subsequent writings.
four problems for memes:
i. theres a serious question about whether cultural evolution be though of as even Darwinian at all. or does evolutionary biology have any particular value in relation to the history of ideas?
ii. there is no direct experimental evidence for the existence of memes itself.
iii. the case for the existence of the meme, from 1976 up until now, rests upon an analogy.with the gene. but the analogy proves incapable of bearing the weight dawkins wishes to put upon it.
iv. gene has to be proposed to explain what we observe, with the meme the observational data can be explained perfectly well without the need for invoking the meme at all.
each point in more depth.
i. is cultural development/evolution Darwinian? back in 1978 McGrath found Dawkins' idea of meme immensely intriguing and far more satisfactory and scientifically rigorous that any of the models in the humanities about the history of ideas. some difficulties emerged in looking at cultural history i.e. one in the Italian Reneissance. here is a classic case of cultural evolution - a reappropriation of the past, a redirection/remoulding - taking old ideas/values & giving them a new lease of life. but that reappropriation of the past was deliberate, intentional & planned - those who were concerned to advance the Renaissance were quite clear that they were doing it deliberately and the difficulty here is that this points to Lamarckian, rather than Darwinian, conception of evolution if it points to anything at all. but more likely it simply means evolutionary biology has not much relevance to cultural development at all.
ii. do means actually exist? Dawkins talks about this is his preface to Susan Blackmore's book The Meme Machine (1999), here he very honestly lays out some problems for the hypothesis i.e. what are memes made of? where do they reside? memes havent found a Watson or a Crick. genes are to be found in precise locations of chromosomes, memes presumably exist in brains & we have even less chance of seeing one than we have of seeing the gene - though there have been neurobiological conjections of what they might look like. the real point here is there is no compelling evidence to believe in these things at all.
genes can be seen, their transmission patterns can be studied under rigorous empirical conditions, what may have started off as hypothetical constructs inferred from systematic ovservation ended up by being observed themselves. the problem is memes are hypothetical constructs inferred from observation and it turns out they are unobservable and, in McGrath's view, serve little explanatory purpose.
iii. biological evolution requries a replicator we now know exists called the gene, so by analogy cultural evolution also requires a replicator which is hypothesized to be the meme. analogy is always somewhat lose in terms of its thinking. but these arguments are dangerous - think of 19th century physics, sound was known to have to move through a medium and wasnt light analogous to sound & so didnt light need a medium to travel through also? this lead to the long & abortive search for the luminous aether began and ended very quickly. an analogy may seem to exist but it does require to be verified.
Simon Conway Morris states in Life's Solution, p.324: 'memes are trivial, to be banished by simple mental exercises. in any wider context they are hopelessly if not hilariously simplistic. to conjure up memes not only reveals a strange indecision of thought but, as O'Hair has remarked, if memes really existed they would ultimately deny the reality of reflective thought.
the real difficulty as Martin Gardner is that a meme is so broadly defined by its proponents that it is a fairly useless concept - whatever can be explained by memes can be explained in other, perhaps more economical ways. this point leads to the fourth criticism:
iv. there are other models available from economics and anthropology which offer explanations of cultural evolution much more successfully than memes.
Dawkins then goes onto saying that God is a virus of the mind.
Virus used also in an analogical sense - belief in God is like a virus being spread from one individual to another. Virus here is obviously a word with highly negative connotations. BUT, again, real viruses can be seen and Dawkins' hypothetical virus of the mind has never been seen - an obvious problem. in the real world virus' are not known simply by symptoms or patterns of diffusion, but by being detectable/subjected to rigorous empirical investigation and their genetic structure being characterized. In contrast God, or anything, as a virus of the mind, again, is hypothetical - posited by a questionable analogical argument rather than direct observation.
it appears here with both that Dawkins leaves himself open to the suggestion that there is an atheism virus or an atheism meme as much as there is a God meme or God virus.
4. does religion impoversih our view of the universe? does the theist look at the world in a less exciting way than if we look at it without God?
in Unweaving the Rainbow he writes:
'the universe is genuinely mysterious, grand, beautiful, awe-inspiring but the kinds of view of the universe that religious people have embraced have been puny, pathetic & measely in comparison. the universe presented by organized religions is a poky, medieval universe & extremely limited.'
this idea also recurrs in The God Delusion.
in response Dawkins simply asserts this & doesnt argue the point. a Christian has at least a good a reading of nature as Dawkins does. first point we see something beautiful (ie a scene of natural beauty) and your heart misses a leap - before you understand what it is you know that experience - we all have it: Dawkins, McGrath & everyone - but what does believing/not believing in God have to do with it? secondly there is a sense of wonder at the theoretical representation of nature, in other words the theories/equations/mathematics that describes nature so well - but again why does believing in God stop you having this sense of wonder at theory? surely atheist & theist alike can have it. thirdly if youre a Christian you see nature not simply as nature but as God's creation that in someway reflects the beauty/glory of God (see Psalm 19) - so an added motivation to study nature is that by engaging in God's works you are learning more about God Himself and this has been a driving force for many scientists/scientific studies throughout history of science.
5. religion is a bad thing. McGrath thinks Dawkins is right to say religion has caused a huge number of problems. think of 9/11 - religious element involved in that. 9/11 for Dawkins was a catalyst for writing The God Delusion. Robert Pape (whose conclusion here we could argue with - which, as an aside, personally i probably would) has looked at suicide bombing and said that religion is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for suicide bombing - he says its oppressed people groups who feel they have to large army to fight against a greater power that may be occupying their land/territory. but there is a debate about this and McGrath thinks Dawkins takes a complex debate and simplifies it into one issue only - it is more complicated than that though.
religion has done bad things but McGrath says so has atheism in the 20th century - but in God Delusion Dawkins denies this. but how can we deny this? in 1919-1941 95% of soviet churches were dynamited or bulldozed, the same number of soviet priests were liquidated. religion on its own or atheism on its own dont cause us to do bad things but perhaps theres just something about human nature itself that causes us to do both great and dreadful things..
an example McGrath studied chemistry at Oxford, there he read a book by man & wife Feser & Feser - Feser the man did alot of work to help haemopheliacs - and his work shows that science has the capacity to transform man for the better - but its not quite that simple.. in 1942 he also invented napalm, which killed hundreds of thousands of people in World War II.. do we conclude science is evil from that? maybe, but maybe its just there is a shadow side to all of us and we need to recognize that and work to eliminate it..
one of the things that troubles McGrath about Dawkins' book The God Delusion is that, in a 400 page book, refuses to acknowledge religion has done anything positive - even one thing at all Michael Shermer, president of the American Skeptics Society, on the other hand has admitted that though he may not like religion overall it has done a huge amount of good in peoples lives. so Dawkins doesnt seem to want to confront the evidence honestly, despite his rhetoric about considering evidence.
the real issue for McGrath is extremism and the issue is how to minimize extremism in our society.
also Dawkins is clear science has no methods for deciding what is ethical - most scientists would agree.. but if it cant tell us what is right & wrong what does? an acknowledgment to the limits of science maybe.. but a question arising from this is how do we tell religion is bad empirically? this has become object of intense study in last 15 years - what objective measures can we use to show this? maybe something like general levels of wellbeings & longevity - studies which have been done.. it is an ongoing field of research still happening, but looking at the evidence - in 100 peer-reviewed researchers looking at this question, the pattern emerged that 79 of those studies reported at least one positive correlation between religious involvement & well being.. 20 showed a mixed pattern (or no pattern) and only 1 found a negative association between religion & wellbeing.. this doesnt prove God exists - but surely if Dawkins is right about religion being a bad thing these figures should be the other way around.. Dawkins is aware of this &, in The God Delusion, he has an inadequate discussion of this - he says religion may not necessarily be bad for you but that doesnt prove its right..
Dawkins argues that if religion would be eliminated then the world would be liberated from all the conflicts we have had recently.. but what about the French Revolution? 1792 a french woman is being beheaded on guillotine, she sees the statue of liberty in the distance, points to it and says 'liberty, what crimes are committed in your name'.. the point she was making was that basically the French had elevated liberty to the place of God and if you kick God out you put something else in His place - its all about transcendentalization.. we take something and make it as if it were God & sacred i.e. citizenship, race, tribe, liberty etc. can all take this role.. humanity has been very good at taking divisions and making theoretical justifications for them - that wont change even if religion were to be eradicated.
Some of Dawkins' criticisms of religion:
1. if youre a real scientist that immediately impels you towards atheism
2. religion makes assertions that are grounded in faith, the sciences, on the other hand, are all about proving things to be so - so there is a tension between religion (i.e. about believing things that cannot be proven ) and the sciences (i.e. about rigorous, evidence based belief)
3. belief in God is not actually rational - it is produced by several possible mechanisms (i.e. the meme/virus of the mind) i.e. in some way another wise healthy mind is 'infected' by this idea of God & that leads to all kinds of complications - in the late 1990's this was certainly a very common thing to say
4. religion offers an impoverished view of the world i.e. believing in God leads you to view the world in a way that is less intellectually and aesthetically satisfying than if you do not believe in God
5. religion leads to evil
mcgrath wants to answer all of these points
before that a disclaimer..
a perpetuatual historical myth in particular that Dawkins holds to:
1. science & religion are locked into mortal kombat and only one of them will survive (which will inevitably be science, beating its superstitious alternatives) [someone like historian of science Ron Numbers will question this stereotype and will say there has never been a time when science & religion have been thus pitted against each other - they occasionally have their tensions & convergences - but it is always a nuanced & complex relationship, so to describe it as a consistent battle is simply misguided]
mcgrath's answers to the above points:
1. does science lead to atheism? dawkins thinks so, and he criticizes such scientists as physicist Freeman Dyson who, at some points, are positive about religion.. but why should science lead to atheism? surveys say about 40 percent of scientists believe in God, 20 percent are agnostics and 40 percent are atheists.. so Dawkins' conclusions do not fit the actual empirical data - if it is some kind of superhighway to atheism to be a scientist then why are so many scientists religious believers? for dawkins either these people are mad, bad, deluded or being deceitful for all kinds of significant purposes..
for McGrath an obvious point is that there appears to be no obvious reason why science leads to atheism, if it leads to anything at all - McGrath thinks it leads, if anything, to agnosticism: ie the evidence is not good enough to allow us to reach a secure decision one way or the other.
a basic problem with Dawkins here really has to do with the scientific method itself. nature is open to multiple interpretations - it can be interpreted atheistically, agnostically, theistically etc. but nature itself comples/constrains you to adopt none of those - it is maleable, its consistent with all but leads to none.. Huxley in the 1880's said that science was agnostic in that it puts aside theological claims, as well as anti-theological claims.. more recently Stephen Jay Gould, an atheist biologist-popularizer, did not derive his atheism from science and was completely adamant that science did not impel anyone towards atheism at all.. in a 1992 article he said: 'to say it for all my colleagues and for the umpeenth millionth time, science simply cannot by its legitimate methods ajudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm it nor deny it, we simply cannot comment on it as scientists.' he then named every evolutionary biologist he could think of from the nineteenth century and onwards and put them both into two piles, both of which were about the same size. the conclusion he drew was that either half my colleagues are stupid or Darwinism is compatible with religious beliefs and equally compatible with atheism. so hes saying it can be interpreted both ways but in itself and of itself it does not require either.
so McGrath's question to Dawkins in why this insistence that science leads to atheism? they do for some people, yes, but that they should do for all is a rather dogmatic judgement.
2. relationship between faith & evidence. Dawkins argues that faith is the great cop out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. McGrath, however, stopped being an atheist cos he felt it simply could not be reconciled with the evidence he saw around him in the world - does that mean he had not been thinking very hard? Dawkins says faith is not allowed to justify itself by arguments, but has Dawkins read Plantinga, Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, Swinburne etc.? it seems like he could not have to make such a statement. he is right, however, that unthinking faith is an embarrasment, but he seems to be saying that if you believe in God you've never used your brain at all - but surely that is a presumptious conclusion that needs to be challenged.
can God's existence be proved? McGrath would say no, if by proof you mean shown with absolute certainty as for example i could prove Godel's theorem. but equally can God's existence be disporved? if you read the reviews for The God Delusion you can say alot of people dont think it is one of his best books. so the answer really is no, it cannot be disproved either - believing or disbelieving in God is a judgement of faith, it goes beyond the available evidence and we all do this all the time with many other things: its not a real problem. Dawkins seems to think everything needs to be absolutely proved and, as a result, ends up in some difficult situations. so whether or not God's existence can be proved is a stalemate.
are there limits to what science can prove? Dawkins argues science proves things with certainty and anything worth knowing can be proved by science and anything else i.e. belief in God is just delusion. we can find this view also in Russell: 'whatever knowledge is attainable must be attained by scientific methods and what science cannot discover, mankind can never know'. but in contrast Peter Medawar, nobel prize winner, in his book The Limits of Science says the inability of science to answer child-like questions like 'how did everything begin, what are we here for, what is the point of life?' etc. show its limits. hes not criticizing the sciences at all, just saying they are superb in their sphere of operation, the problems only begin when scientists start extrapolating to other areas, answering questions which really science cannot answer at all.
3. is God a virus or a meme?
Dawkins greatest impact upon popular culture has been through this concept of the meme - the meme is a cultural replicator paralleling the gene in genetics. he asks us to imagine here memes 'leaping from brain to brain', a powerful visual image of a process called 'immitation'. his basic argument is that people believe in God not because there is a God & not because theyve given it long & careful rational thought but because something has leapt into their minds, this meme. it has a very high survival value, is very adaptive/successful and simply takes people over. the argument goes that this 'God meme' is what sustains belief in God in an age when science has made belief in that God simply untenable. an interesting idea that has been discussed alot. but the judgement of most is that the meme is not a particuarly helpful idea at all.
Dawkins has done an enormous amount to popularize the concept. we find the idea back in The Selfish Gene and is applied immediately to a religious concept back in 1976 where he talks of the 'God meme' and he develops this in subsequent writings.
four problems for memes:
i. theres a serious question about whether cultural evolution be though of as even Darwinian at all. or does evolutionary biology have any particular value in relation to the history of ideas?
ii. there is no direct experimental evidence for the existence of memes itself.
iii. the case for the existence of the meme, from 1976 up until now, rests upon an analogy.with the gene. but the analogy proves incapable of bearing the weight dawkins wishes to put upon it.
iv. gene has to be proposed to explain what we observe, with the meme the observational data can be explained perfectly well without the need for invoking the meme at all.
each point in more depth.
i. is cultural development/evolution Darwinian? back in 1978 McGrath found Dawkins' idea of meme immensely intriguing and far more satisfactory and scientifically rigorous that any of the models in the humanities about the history of ideas. some difficulties emerged in looking at cultural history i.e. one in the Italian Reneissance. here is a classic case of cultural evolution - a reappropriation of the past, a redirection/remoulding - taking old ideas/values & giving them a new lease of life. but that reappropriation of the past was deliberate, intentional & planned - those who were concerned to advance the Renaissance were quite clear that they were doing it deliberately and the difficulty here is that this points to Lamarckian, rather than Darwinian, conception of evolution if it points to anything at all. but more likely it simply means evolutionary biology has not much relevance to cultural development at all.
ii. do means actually exist? Dawkins talks about this is his preface to Susan Blackmore's book The Meme Machine (1999), here he very honestly lays out some problems for the hypothesis i.e. what are memes made of? where do they reside? memes havent found a Watson or a Crick. genes are to be found in precise locations of chromosomes, memes presumably exist in brains & we have even less chance of seeing one than we have of seeing the gene - though there have been neurobiological conjections of what they might look like. the real point here is there is no compelling evidence to believe in these things at all.
genes can be seen, their transmission patterns can be studied under rigorous empirical conditions, what may have started off as hypothetical constructs inferred from systematic ovservation ended up by being observed themselves. the problem is memes are hypothetical constructs inferred from observation and it turns out they are unobservable and, in McGrath's view, serve little explanatory purpose.
iii. biological evolution requries a replicator we now know exists called the gene, so by analogy cultural evolution also requires a replicator which is hypothesized to be the meme. analogy is always somewhat lose in terms of its thinking. but these arguments are dangerous - think of 19th century physics, sound was known to have to move through a medium and wasnt light analogous to sound & so didnt light need a medium to travel through also? this lead to the long & abortive search for the luminous aether began and ended very quickly. an analogy may seem to exist but it does require to be verified.
Simon Conway Morris states in Life's Solution, p.324: 'memes are trivial, to be banished by simple mental exercises. in any wider context they are hopelessly if not hilariously simplistic. to conjure up memes not only reveals a strange indecision of thought but, as O'Hair has remarked, if memes really existed they would ultimately deny the reality of reflective thought.
the real difficulty as Martin Gardner is that a meme is so broadly defined by its proponents that it is a fairly useless concept - whatever can be explained by memes can be explained in other, perhaps more economical ways. this point leads to the fourth criticism:
iv. there are other models available from economics and anthropology which offer explanations of cultural evolution much more successfully than memes.
Dawkins then goes onto saying that God is a virus of the mind.
Virus used also in an analogical sense - belief in God is like a virus being spread from one individual to another. Virus here is obviously a word with highly negative connotations. BUT, again, real viruses can be seen and Dawkins' hypothetical virus of the mind has never been seen - an obvious problem. in the real world virus' are not known simply by symptoms or patterns of diffusion, but by being detectable/subjected to rigorous empirical investigation and their genetic structure being characterized. In contrast God, or anything, as a virus of the mind, again, is hypothetical - posited by a questionable analogical argument rather than direct observation.
it appears here with both that Dawkins leaves himself open to the suggestion that there is an atheism virus or an atheism meme as much as there is a God meme or God virus.
4. does religion impoversih our view of the universe? does the theist look at the world in a less exciting way than if we look at it without God?
in Unweaving the Rainbow he writes:
'the universe is genuinely mysterious, grand, beautiful, awe-inspiring but the kinds of view of the universe that religious people have embraced have been puny, pathetic & measely in comparison. the universe presented by organized religions is a poky, medieval universe & extremely limited.'
this idea also recurrs in The God Delusion.
in response Dawkins simply asserts this & doesnt argue the point. a Christian has at least a good a reading of nature as Dawkins does. first point we see something beautiful (ie a scene of natural beauty) and your heart misses a leap - before you understand what it is you know that experience - we all have it: Dawkins, McGrath & everyone - but what does believing/not believing in God have to do with it? secondly there is a sense of wonder at the theoretical representation of nature, in other words the theories/equations/mathematics that describes nature so well - but again why does believing in God stop you having this sense of wonder at theory? surely atheist & theist alike can have it. thirdly if youre a Christian you see nature not simply as nature but as God's creation that in someway reflects the beauty/glory of God (see Psalm 19) - so an added motivation to study nature is that by engaging in God's works you are learning more about God Himself and this has been a driving force for many scientists/scientific studies throughout history of science.
5. religion is a bad thing. McGrath thinks Dawkins is right to say religion has caused a huge number of problems. think of 9/11 - religious element involved in that. 9/11 for Dawkins was a catalyst for writing The God Delusion. Robert Pape (whose conclusion here we could argue with - which, as an aside, personally i probably would) has looked at suicide bombing and said that religion is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for suicide bombing - he says its oppressed people groups who feel they have to large army to fight against a greater power that may be occupying their land/territory. but there is a debate about this and McGrath thinks Dawkins takes a complex debate and simplifies it into one issue only - it is more complicated than that though.
religion has done bad things but McGrath says so has atheism in the 20th century - but in God Delusion Dawkins denies this. but how can we deny this? in 1919-1941 95% of soviet churches were dynamited or bulldozed, the same number of soviet priests were liquidated. religion on its own or atheism on its own dont cause us to do bad things but perhaps theres just something about human nature itself that causes us to do both great and dreadful things..
an example McGrath studied chemistry at Oxford, there he read a book by man & wife Feser & Feser - Feser the man did alot of work to help haemopheliacs - and his work shows that science has the capacity to transform man for the better - but its not quite that simple.. in 1942 he also invented napalm, which killed hundreds of thousands of people in World War II.. do we conclude science is evil from that? maybe, but maybe its just there is a shadow side to all of us and we need to recognize that and work to eliminate it..
one of the things that troubles McGrath about Dawkins' book The God Delusion is that, in a 400 page book, refuses to acknowledge religion has done anything positive - even one thing at all Michael Shermer, president of the American Skeptics Society, on the other hand has admitted that though he may not like religion overall it has done a huge amount of good in peoples lives. so Dawkins doesnt seem to want to confront the evidence honestly, despite his rhetoric about considering evidence.
the real issue for McGrath is extremism and the issue is how to minimize extremism in our society.
also Dawkins is clear science has no methods for deciding what is ethical - most scientists would agree.. but if it cant tell us what is right & wrong what does? an acknowledgment to the limits of science maybe.. but a question arising from this is how do we tell religion is bad empirically? this has become object of intense study in last 15 years - what objective measures can we use to show this? maybe something like general levels of wellbeings & longevity - studies which have been done.. it is an ongoing field of research still happening, but looking at the evidence - in 100 peer-reviewed researchers looking at this question, the pattern emerged that 79 of those studies reported at least one positive correlation between religious involvement & well being.. 20 showed a mixed pattern (or no pattern) and only 1 found a negative association between religion & wellbeing.. this doesnt prove God exists - but surely if Dawkins is right about religion being a bad thing these figures should be the other way around.. Dawkins is aware of this &, in The God Delusion, he has an inadequate discussion of this - he says religion may not necessarily be bad for you but that doesnt prove its right..
Dawkins argues that if religion would be eliminated then the world would be liberated from all the conflicts we have had recently.. but what about the French Revolution? 1792 a french woman is being beheaded on guillotine, she sees the statue of liberty in the distance, points to it and says 'liberty, what crimes are committed in your name'.. the point she was making was that basically the French had elevated liberty to the place of God and if you kick God out you put something else in His place - its all about transcendentalization.. we take something and make it as if it were God & sacred i.e. citizenship, race, tribe, liberty etc. can all take this role.. humanity has been very good at taking divisions and making theoretical justifications for them - that wont change even if religion were to be eradicated.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
driscoll on emerging church
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58fgkfS6E-0
a clip of mark driscoll on what he thinks are the four main streams of the emerging church
a clip of mark driscoll on what he thinks are the four main streams of the emerging church
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
