Tag: ‘Know
‘Epistemological Inversion’: God Knowing Us First So We Might Know Him
I remember when I was in Bible College, studying apologetics vis-à-vis worldview class, an axiom of sorts was presented to us in regard to a God-world relation: 1) God is prior to us ontologically, 2) humanity is prior to God epistemologically. Does the reader spy a problem with this arrangement; maybe an inherent dualism wherein there is seemingly both an abstract God from humanity, and an abstract humanity from God? When I first heard this axiom it intrigued me, but didn’t sit all that easy with me either. It took me awhile, like years, including going through seminary, and then…
Introducing the Real classical Calvinism: ‘If you’re going to debate it, at least know what you’re debating about’
As usual, in the right online environs, the Calvinist-Arminian (Provisionist) debate has carried on unabated by not actually engaging with the actual entailments of a real-life Calvinist-Arminian theology. In other words, what the reader will find, are people who are in this interminable joust, oriented by the five points of Calvinism, or not. There is a free-flow exchange between favorite prooftexts, and their ostensible exegesis, and/or an intractable debate about this or that philosophical understanding vis-à-vis God’s sovereignty and human agency in freewill. I am almost positive that everyone reading here is well aware of what I am referring to….
All You Ever Wanted to Know about Barth’s Analogy of Faith
The Deus absconditus (‘hidden God’) is the Deus revelatus (‘revealed God’) in Jesus Christ. But how do we know this? Because Jesus said so; He demonstrated so. A genuine Christian theologian isn’t given to fits of speculation about godness. A genuine Christian theologian is definitionally such simply by the confession that they are Christian. But much of this has gone by the wayside in the development of dogma in the catholic Church. In Latin theology for example, where Thomas Aquinas has been canonized, for both the Catholic and Protestant theologian alike, the method for developing a doctrine of God is…
Why are so many people opposed to Calvinism Steven Lawson? “Cuz they don’t know their Bibles”
Questioner: Why are so many people against Reformed/Calvinist theology? Steven Lawson: Because they don’t know the Bible; it’s not that they know too much of the Bible, but too little that leads them to the conclusion that Calvinism isn’t viable (my paraphrase). To view the whole exchange on the above click here. The respondents also include the late R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur. None of this is surprising, of course Lawson et al. will claim that people reject their version of Calvinism because, as he claims, people don’t know their Bibles. It is hard to fathom how folks can survive…
‘Know Thyself’ γνῶθι σεαυτόν as the Ground and Grammar of an aTheological Ethics
We are suffering the ravages of a society turned in on itself; the “Enlightened,” turn-to-the-subject. This turn knows no boundary between the sacred and secular, it is pervasive among both the elect and reprobate, as it were. Biblically, this turn is the natural condition of humanity, the sin nature is woven deeply into the very fabric of our beings as humans in this fallen world. Thus, the organic way to live life is to do so by what Luther identified as the homo incurvatus in se (humanity incurved upon itself). We are oriented by what Augustine identified as concupiscence, or…