The Unqualified Solomon?

"The choice of Solomon as one of the writers of the Bible, at first sight startles, but on deeper study instructs. We would have expected a man of more exemplary life a man of uniform holiness. It is certain that in the main, the vessels which the Spirit used were sanctified vessels. 'Holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” But as they were all corrupt at first, so there were diversities in the operation whereby they were called and qualified for their work. There were diversities in the times, and degrees of their sanctification. Some were carried so near perfection in the body, that human eyes could no longer discern spot or wrinkle; in others the principle of grace was so largely overlaid with earthliness, that observers were left in doubt whether they had been turned to the Lord’s side at all. But the diversity in all its extent is like the other ways of God; and He knows how to make either extreme fall into its place in the concert of his praise. He who made Saul an apostle, did not disdain to use Solomon as a prophet. Very diverse were the two men, and very diverse their life course; yet in one thing they are perfectly alike. Together in glory now they know themselves to have been only sinners, and agree in ascribing all their salvation to the mercy of God.

Moreover, although good men wrote the Bible, our faith in the Bible does not rest on the goodness of the men who wrote it. The fatal facility with which men glide into the worship of men may suggest another reason why some of the channels chosen for conveying the mind of God were marred by glaring deficiencies. Among many earthen vessels, in various measures purged of their filthiness, may not the Divine Administrator in wisdom select for actual use some of the least pure, in order by that grosser argument to force into grosser minds the conviction that the excellency of the power is all of God?

If all the writers of the Bible had been perfect in holiness—if no stain of sin could be traced on their character, no error noted in their life, it is certain that the Bible would not have served all the purposes which it now serves among men. It would have been God-like indeed in matter and in mould, but it would not have reached down to the low estate of man—it would not have penetrated to the sores of a human heart. For engraving the life lessons of his word, our Father uses only diamonds: but in every diamond there is a flaw, in some a greater and in some a less; and who shall dare to dictate to the Omniscient the measure of defect that blinds Him to fling the instrument as a useless thing away?

When God would leave on my mind in youth the lesson that the pleasures of sin are barbed arrows, he uses that same Solomon as the die to indent it in. I mark the wisdom of the choice. I get and keep the lesson, but the homage of my soul goes to God who gave it, and not to Solomon, the instrument through which it came. God can make man’s wrath to praise him, and their vanity too. He can make the clouds bear some benefits to the earth, which the sun cannot bestow. He can make brine serve some purposes in nature which sweet water could not fulfil. So, practical lessons on some subjects come better through the heart and lips of the weary repentant king, than through a man who had tasted fewer pleasures, and led a more even life."

- William Arnot, Studies in Proverbs (Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth)

Why Is Doc Bill E. a Presuppositionalist?

From the New Horizons (May 1995) magazine of the OPC.

Click on pic to enlarge.

Offer Good While Supplies Last: First 300 Episodes of Christ the Center

The Reformed Forum has been a tremendous blessing to me and I'm certain to a vast number of other people who have desired and continue to desire the cultivation of the historic, Reformed faith.

I have found it a privilege to be able to actually converse with some of the program's pillars, like Jared Oliphint, Jeffrey Waddington and Jim Cassidy online, asking them questions now and again (Camden Bucey is somewhat harder to accost. LOL).

Now the guys have decided to offer the first 300 episodes of the famed Christ the Center program for free as a single download. For directions, go here.

The Love of an Impassible God

If we define passions as the transition from one emotive state to another or the increase in intensity of such a particular state, then the doctrine of divine impassibility teaches us that God does not have passions as fluctuating within Himself or as influenced from anything outside Himself.

Far from espousing a cold, static, and uninvolved Deity, this doctrine actually enhances the Christian's hope and comfort in that when Scripture teaches that God is love, it does not say that God becomes more or less loving as contingent upon the creature, but that His love is as eternal as He Himself is. In fact "love" as predicated on God is God Himself! Such security and stability for the objects of His love in Christ!

Speaking on the doctrine of divine simplicity, which is foundational to the doctrine of divine impassibility, Dr. James Dolezal writes:

There is nothing in God that is not God. If there were, that is, if God were not ontologically identical with all that is in him, then something other than God himself would be needed to account for his existence, essence, and attributes. But nothing that is not God can sufficiently account for God. He exists in all his perfection entirely in and through himself. At the heart of the classical DDS [doctrine of divine simplicity] is the concern to uphold God's absolute self-sufficiency as well as his ultimate sufficiency for the existence of the created universe...By appealing to God's simplicity I aim to show that God and the world are related analogically and that the world in no sense explains or accounts for God's existence and essence. If God were yet another being in the world, even if the highest and most excellent, then the world itself would be the framework within which he must be ontologically explained. But as Creator, God is the sufficient reason for the world's existence and thus cannot be evaluated as if he stood together with it in the same order of being. It follows from this that God can neither be measured, nor his simplicity refuted, according to the modalities unique to created beings. (God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness [PICKWICK Publications, Eugene, Oregon:2011])

The ff. video is a discussion on the doctrine of divine impassibility that is as profound as it is edifying:

Kabod and the Christian Life

The glory of God denotes weight and substance.

This perfectly comports with God's aseity as being the foundation of man's every conception of God.

Ontologically, God IS. He is not derived from, or an instance of, a generic and abstract "God" being, but is Himself the self-existent Triune God and the source of all created being.

Epistemologically, man's knowledge of anything, if it is to be "of substance," must reckon with the Creator of the fact being apprehended.

Morally, one's lifestyle, and the worldview which informs and influences this, if it is to be "weighty" and truly significant, must have the glory of God as Creator and Redeemer at the forefront of its consideration.

As you can see, the glory of God is God Himself, and the pursuit of His glory is the pursuit of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for "long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs (Hebrews 1:1-4)."

And we will share in His glory:

"Furthermore, other passages in this last part of Isaiah suggest that the presence of God's glory will render the people of God glorious (see 62:2). What does it mean that the people will be glorious? After their purification by judgment, they can reflect God's glory. Their glory is not inherent to them but is reflected—as the moon reflects the light of the sun, so the people of God reflect the glory of their Lord. Thanks to the work of God, God's people are 'heavy' with significance. God's people will be a 'crown of beauty' and a 'royal diadem' (62:3). They have substance and reputation ('you shall be called by a new name,' 62:2). God's blessing will also bring them substance. Their glory primarily serves a missionary purpose, as the nations will see this glory and be attracted to it." (Tremper Longman III, 'The Glory of God in the Old Testament', The Glory of God [Theology in Community] [Illinois: Crossway, 2010], eds. Christopher W. Morgan & Robert A. Peterson, p. 69)

Man, as made in the image of God, was not made for fluffy, floaty stuff. It can then be argued that the antithesis may also be described as humanity that is defined either by hollow weightlessness or substantial heaviness.

Who is Cornelius Van Til?

Thomas Sullivan presents:




And O.T. scholar, Tremper Longman III, discusses how CVT shaped his thinking and spiritual life:

Self-Knowledge

"Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone. In the second place, those blessings which unceasingly distil to us from heaven, are like streams conducting us to the fountain. Here, again, the infinitude of good which resides in God becomes more apparent from our poverty. In particular, the miserable ruin into which the revolt of the first man has plunged us, compels us to turn our eyes upwards; not only that while hungry and famishing we may thence ask what we want, but being aroused by fear may learn humility. For as there exists in man something like a world of misery, and ever since we were stript of the divine attire our naked shame discloses an immense series of disgraceful properties every man, being stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness, in this way necessarily obtains at least some knowledge of God. Thus, our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us, that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself; that is, so long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him." (John Calvin, Institutes I.1.1)

It is interesting how Calvin opens up his magnum opus extolling the virtues of self-knowledge.

Noteworthy is the fact that this is no gnostic inward-curving but a knowledge of self borne out of a knowledge of God. If all of the Christian life is repentance, as rightly asserted by Martin Luther, then all of this life entails an increase in both the knowledge of God and self, which increase is facilitated by the perichoresis between the two, resulting in repentance that would only cease upon death or the return of Christ.

Knowing oneself through the circumstances of life is only possible if these particular events are interpreted through the grid of God's Word. To benefit from the ups and downs of life in terms of engendering the repentance that breeds sanctification, love and knowledge of God's Word is indispensable.

Write More to Read More

The bulk of my reading lately has been focused on family and marriage books. I got myself Paul Tripp's "What Did You Expect?? (Redeeming the Realities of Marriage)", Andreas J. Köstenberger's "God, Marriage, and Family (Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation)", and Richard Phillips' "The Masculine Mandate (God's Calling to Men)."

Providence seems to have deemed it fitting to rock this area in my life in order to improve it, and the Lord did not leave me wanting for wisdom by guiding me to these works penned by His servants.

With that said, I realize I need to up the ante on my reading. I still have Turretin's IET and Bavinck's RD to go through, along with a host of other books that are more of the ST and BT type. Alan Parsons Project got it right when it sang, "time, keeps flowing like a river." I need to make more time for reading. But I realized that I read more when I wrote and I have not blogged for a couple of months now. So to read more, I need to write more.

This is to tell you that I plan on blogging more (in order to read more) and hopefully to have it continue on until the Lord's appointed time of cessation.

By His grace, may this blog bless you as it has blessed me in its writing.

The Day After

Today is post-Reformation Day day, and what better way to segue than to discuss Reformed Scholasticism!

The following is Dr. J.V. Fesko's short introduction to the topic by way of a series of posts over at the WSC blog:

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: Introduction

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: Scholasticism Defined

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: Francis Turretin

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: The Benefits for the Church

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: Concluding Thoughts

And this Office Hours episode features Dr. Richard Muller, perhaps the godfather of scholarship on Reformed Scholasticism, discussing the topic with Dr. R. Scott Clark.

While I'm no Barthian, I particularly like Barth when he said this:

"The fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet. The true prophet will be ready to submit his message to this test too." (Church Dogmatics I/1, 279)

Rev. Allen Vander Pol on the Doctrine of Scripture at PCovRC

Dr. K. Scott Oliphint, in this wonderful ReformedForum broadcast entitled, Nature and Scripture, remarked that the Reformation's chief contribution, arguably, is the regrounding of epistemology on Scripture.

In line with this, Rev. Allen Vander Pol of Miami International Theological Seminary will be conducting a seminar at Pasig Covenant Reformed Church on the doctine of Scripture entitled, "That Word Above All Earthly Powers."

This is a FREE seminar on a very important topic, so you wouldn't want to miss it!

The Antithesis a New Species Doth Not Make

Man, as made in the image of God, is intrinsically (by default) "wired" as a covenantal being. He knows of himself as a covenantal being and, though after the Fall, the sinner lives and moves in suppression of this fact, still he cannot escape it in the voice of his conscience and in the testimony of creation all around him.

What this covenatalism further presupposes is that both natural and special revelation bear upon man's conception of anything. Natural revelation both reveal the grace and wrath of God in the consistency of life-support systems in creation as well as the death dynamic that is at work in it, just as special revelation reveal the grace and wrath of God in the person and work of Christ and in the final, eschatological death that is alluded to by physical, temporal death. Man, as man, needs both natural and special revelation.

This realization has given me pause about NL2K (Natural Law Two Kingdoms Theology, or sometimes R2K). Sure, the baker does not need special revelation in order to engage in his baking, but this is merely speaking at a practical level. The baker, as an ontological human being made in the image of God, has upon himself the covenantal duty to reckon with both God's natural and special revelation at every turn. Is there an occasion wherein the baker does not bake as a human being? If not, then even in his baking, special revelation is required if he is to bake as a human being. What NL2K seems to imply is that there are two species of human beings, one for whom both natural and special revelation are of import and another wherein natural revelation will do. But the Fall did not create two different ontological classes of human beings but two different covenant relations to God in which man could either be a covenant-keeper or covenant-breaker (the antithesis). So when the baker bakes unmindful of God in special revelation, he bakes as a covenant-breaker and in fact sins in his baking.

To be sure, God uses the covenant-breaking baker to provide carbohydrate energy to both sinner and saint alike, but this is merely an outworking of His patience, intending the order and consistency in the present age to facilitate the smooth unfolding of redemptive history that will culminate in the age of glory characterized by revelational integrity.

The Lord of Non-Contradiction

The beautiful aspects of creation reflect (analogize) the perfections of God. Behind our finite appreciation of the wonders of God's creation is the consistency which undergird the latter. Imagine your horror when you wake up one morning to find that the wheels on your car had morphed into the shape of a square! A square wheel. LOL.

The absence of such an absurdity in reality is by virtue of the fact that the Creator of reality is all throughout consistent in His being, and He has imparted this attribute of consistency to His handiwork.

The following paper by James N. Anderson and Greg Welty explore the relationship of God with logic and is a very profitable read:

The Underdog Scales and Plumbs

Simplicity has often been associated with humility, and this is not without viable cause. However, in the area of the Scriptures and its study, this same criterion has paved the way for much disguised pride.

There is overweening hubris in the distaste for deep, theological reflection. The proud man contents himself with the simplicity of "moralistic, therapeutic, deistic" chaff, whereas the Underdog, with profound affection for God and His revelation, seeks to scale the heights and plumb the depths of the wheat of His Word.


Francis Turretin observes:

For we unhesitatingly confess that the Scriptures have their adyta ("heights") and bathe ("depths") which we cannot enter or sound and which God so ordered on purpose to excite the study of believers and increase their diligence; to humble the pride of man and to remove from them the contempt which might arise from too great plainness. (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, I.2.7.4)

So humility, in fact, is not manifest in the resignation to ignorance but in the passionate pursuit of the knowledge of God, which gives us an antithesis: the proud stupid and the humble knowledgeable.

Westminster Wednesday: Some Big Van Tillian Words

References:
(Bahnsen = Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1998).

Frame = John M. Frame, Cornelius Van Til: an Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1995).

VT= Van Til)


Absolute Personality: VT's basic characterization of God. Unlike any non-Christian view, the biblical God is both absolute (a se, self-existent, selfsufficient, self-contained) and personal (thinking, speaking, acting, loving, judging). See Frame, 51ff.

Ad hominem: Argument that exposes deficiencies in the arguer rather than deficiencies in the proposition under discussion. Thus, a logical fallacy. But often ad hominem argument is appropriate. See Bahnsen, 116ff, 468, 492, Frame, 153.

All-conditioner: VT's characterization of God in "Why I Believe in God" (see Bahnsen, 121-143). God is the one who ultimately influences all reality, including our own thinking and reasoning about him.

Analogy, analogical reasoning: (1) (Aquinas) Thinking in language that is neither literally true (univocal), nor unrelated to the subject matter (equivocal), but which bears a genuine resemblance to that subject matter. (2) (VT) Thinking in subjection to God's revelation and therefore thinking God's thoughts after him.

Antithesis: The opposition between Christian and non-Christian thought. See Frame, 187ff.

Apologetics: That branch of theology that gives reasons for our hope. VT saw it as involving proof, defense, and offense.

A priori: Knowledge acquired prior to experience, used to interpret and evaluate experience. Contrasted with a posteriori knowledge, knowledge arising out of experience. See Bahnsen, 107n, 177.

Authority of the expert: Submission to the knowledge of someone better informed, rather than absolute submission to God as the very criterion of truth. To VT, this is the only kind of authority the unbeliever will accept.

Autonomy: The attempt to live apart from any law external to the self. To VT, this is the paradigm attitude of unbelief. See Bahnsen 109, n.

Great Minds Reject Univocity

Contra Gordon Clark, Carl Trueman, speaking of the archetypal/ectypal distinction in epistemology, indicates how the Reformed have always thought of this distinction:

"In Reformed theology, the distinction functions in such a way as to delimit human knowledge of God and to underline the fact that theology is utterly dependent upon God's act of condescending to reveal himself. This acknowledgement ensures that theological statements are only apprehensive, not comprehensive, of the truth as it is in God. Language can thus be referential, but there is no simple one-to-one correspondence between human words and divine realities as they exist in God himself. The presence and function of this distinction in, say, the Leiden Synopsis, or Francis Turretin or, later, in Herman Bavinck, denotes a theological sensitivity to the innate weakness of human language when talking of God; and it roots such God-talk not in any true rationalism but in the free, condescending, revelatory acts of God himself. Such language is still referential; and truth still has a non-negotiable objectivity; but it is not rationalism in any recognizable Enlightenment sense." (Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light, WTJ 70 [2008]: 10, 11)

I can imagine Trueman and Van Til sharing beer over this.

Was Man's Reason Unaffected by the Fall? Turretin Denies

Gordon Clark and his followers believe and proclaim the affirmative. They assert that the human intellect remained in its pristine condition even after man's descent into sin and that the sin problem is one solely of an ethical nature.

While the sin problem is indeed ethical, an immediate observation is the undue and coerced bifurcation made between reason and the will (an assumed independence). What the position seems to be saying is that the will can act independently of what the mind deems as good and fitting. Even in the case of addictions, where it seems that the will and emotions are acting in rebellion against the mind, the intellectual involvement is ever present in its estimation of the pleasure to be derived from engaging in the illicit act.

But what does one of the prime exponents of Reformed Orthodoxy have to say about the state of reason in unregenerate man? Let us reckon with Francis Turretin's words:

My Credo, by Cornelius Van Til

If you want to know what Cornelius Van Til was all about and where he was coming from, as narrated by the man himself, and be thoroughly refreshed and inspired in the process, then read on.


How can I express my appreciation adequately for the honor you have conferred on me by your contributions to this Festschrift? I shall try to do so first by setting forth in this, my "Credo," a general statement of my main beliefs as I hold them today. Then I shall deal separately with the problems and objections some of you have raised in respect to my views in separate response to the essays themselves. I hope that by doing this we may be of help to one another as together we present the name of Jesus as the only name given under heaven by which men must be saved.

Juicing and Natural Theology

I've been juicing for the past 2 weeks or so now, and I must say that it certainly feels good to be doing this little extra thing for my health.

The "rule" is that beetroot, apple, and carrot should be the staple of the concoction, upon which one can add all sorts of other fruits and vegetables. I've been juicing bell pepper, bitter gourd, cucumber, cabbage, onion, garlic, unripe mango, potato, etc.

The star of the show is beetroot. This dark purple root crop has all sorts of "magical" properties. Read about them and be enticed here.

Isaiah 40 and Divine Simplicity

Today's Lord's Day sermon on Isaiah 40 almost brought tears to my eyes (I was holding it in). Hearing the Gospel preached through a narrative of God's incomprehensible power and grace, as manifested in nature and redemption, inevitably moved me, and I noticed that my pastor's voice cracked at times (he was moved too!).

I was extremely pleased that today's sermon was, in a way, a reinforcement of this very profitable and philosophically technical (hence, profitable!) Reformed Forum presentation on the doctrine of divine simplicity that I got into yesterday (Dr. James Dolezal rocked!):

The Triumvirate

I am seething with excitement as I am now in possession of what could arguably be considered as the three most important literary works of the Reformed tradition outside of the creeds and confessions. I am referring to John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Francis Turretin's 3-volume Institutes of Elenctic Theology, and Herman Bavinck's 4-volume Reformed Dogmatics.

The former two I acquired myself through Amazon, and they have been my most expensive book purchases. What has raised my joy, even beyond belief, is that the latter was given to me—for free! That's right. Bavinck's RD would have been the most costly for me to acquire and yet I now have it sitting on my shelf, a testament to the mysterious ways that are often the hallmark of God's providence.

This is how it happened. It was a Saturday, and you could imagine my glee when my order of Turretin's Institutes finally arrived. It kickstarted one of the best Saturdays I've ever had. I was so inspired that my thoughts of yesterday, about street children and how they reminded me of my love for my kids and God's love for the undeserving elect, were effortlessly drawn out from me and down into blog writing.

After posting the blog entry entitled, "The Analogy of Poor Street Kids," it didn't take a long while before a Facebook friend of mine "liked" on the post. It was a Reformed Filipino doctor from the U.S. whom I've known to be an "appreciator" of my blog and posts. He commented on my FB post about the blog entry, stating how much he liked my choice of words. I would've been stuffed full by the compliment, but then I received a PM (private message). He was offering to buy me any book that I wished!

Let me tell you about Filipino coyness and courtesy in situations like this—the first instinct would be to politely demur. That is what I did, not in flat out refusal, but with a bit of wit and humor-laced ascertaining of whether my friend was sure. After determining that he was intent on being generous, founded on his desire to be a blessing to myself and to those in the Philippines whom he considers as his siblings in the Reformed faith, I replied and posted an Amazon link to Bavinck's RD.

I waited for his reply, expecting rejection, as the 4-volume magnum opus was worth no loose change. And then it came. He said that he was very pleased with my choice since it was the same book that he was currently reading. I was floored! Is this really happening? I immediately told my wife and she was embarrassed for me. LOL! My friend immediately made the order at Amazon, selecting expedited shipping. After a little over a week, Bavinck's RD was mine!

I would tell you who this guy is, but I don't think that that would be his wish (never met anyone who wanted to be on the Santa Claus side of a gift—LOL).


PS.
I wrote this post for the same reason I love theological books—gratitude.

Devotion to God is predicated on the gratitude that the knowledge of Him and His ways fosters. Doctrine defines doxology.

Given that the Holy Spirit checks my motives when, left to myself, I would fall headlong into fits of unfounded pride, my desire for knowledge is my desire for godliness.

Thank you, brother!

Thank You, my Covenant Lord!