Excerpt from Austin Fischer’s Book, "Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed"

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/02/excerpt-from-austin-fischers-excellent-book-young-restless-no-longer-reformed-wipf-stock/

by Roger Olson

February 9, 2014

Comments

With the publisher’s permission I am posting an excerpt from Austin Fischer’s new book Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed here. Please buy the book. In fact, buy two copies–one for yourself and one to give to a friend who isn’t sure if being a Calvinist is right for him or her.

Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed, by Austin Fischer

Introduction: Black Holes

Gravity

When a big star dies, a remarkable thing happens.^[i] Its own gravity crunches it until it becomes a small core of infinite density—matter squeezed together so tightly the known laws of physics cease to exist. The dead star now has a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. And at this point, the dead star has become a black hole, and everything within its reach is dragged towards its center. It can swallow planets, stars, and even other black holes. Get too close and you’ve bought a one-way ticket on a journey to the center of a black hole. Its gravity is irresistible.

Gravity is an integral part of human life. It doesn’t take us long to learn that what comes up must come down. And it’s not as if anyone enforces gravity—it just is; a physical force to be accepted and not conquered. Gravity is also a spiritual force in the sense that we humans find ourselves drawn to things beyond our control. We are constantly sucked in to things—a job, a person, a hobby, an addiction. But of course if you really put spiritual gravity under the microscope, you see that the thing we are being sucked in to is ourselves.

We are black holes—walking, talking pits of narcissism, self-pity, and loneliness, pillaging the world around us in a desperate attempt to fill the void inside us. Unless something is done, you will spend the rest of your existence as a human black hole, eternally collapsing in on self in a tragic effort to preserve self. It’s bad news.

But Christians believe there is good news that is better than the bad. We believe something has been done—that through the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has done what we could not do ourselves. We no longer have to live under the crushing gravity of self because where sin and selfishness abounded, grace now abounds all the more. It certainly is good news, but…

Options for the Restless

Leave it to us to take something so beautiful and other-centered and turn it into something (you guessed it) about us.

The universe-altering message of the gospel becomes a message about me: Jesus died so I could be happy and comfortable forever and ever. While this may pass for gospel in many circles, there is a growing swell of opposition to it in many others—a recognition that such thin, therapeutic, self-centered expressions of Christianity lack the gravitas to hold a human life together, much less make it thrive. A crowd of voices calls us out of consumerism, moralism, and skepticism and into sacrifice, risk, and commitment.

And for those who are restless for more, Neo-Calvinism^[ii] often appears as the strongest—and perhaps only—alternative for thinking biblical people. It offers the new center of gravity that can finally draw us away from self. Such was my conviction, and I still believe Neo-Calvinism is a strong alternative to cultural Christianity.

But I believe we best say yes to God’s glory and sovereignty by saying no to Calvinism. I believe that I—along with many others, past and present—have found an even better option. It’s not new, and it’s not novel; indeed I would argue it is simply the historic consensus of the church. But correctly understood, it offers the greatest hope for a restless church. Unlike Calvinism, it doesn’t replace the black hole of self with the black hole of deity, making both God and the Bible impossible (more on that later); however, it does offer an infinitely glorious God, a crucified Messiah, and a cross-shaped call to follow Jesus.

Egotistical Sincerity

These are my convictions, and anyone with convictions faces a dilemma: would you rather be convincing or honest? Is it more important to get people to agree with you or to honestly present the best of worthy options? While I have certainly tried to be convincing, I think the truth is best served when we are honest, and so I have also tried to be honest. And the best way I have found to be honest is to tell you my story: a journey in, and out of, Calvinism. As Chesterton once confessed, sometimes you have to be egotistical if you want to be sincere.^[iii]

In this reminiscing, something became clear: theology and biography belong together.^[iv] We try to make sense of God as we try to make sense of our own stories, our own lives. As such, theology is meant for participants, not spectators. I write as a participant and not a spectator in the hopes it will help you become a better participant in your own theological journey, wherever it takes you. These things said, let the journey begin. Only it can’t quite begin without two quick detours.

Detour #1: The Wrong Girl

I once had a friend who was convinced the wrong girl was the right girl. He thought she hung the moon while walking on water and while I thought she was nice and all, I was convinced there was someone out there better for him. Whether I was right or wrong isn’t the point—the point is that when I talked with him about it, I wasn’t trying to sabotage his current relationship so much as I was trying to encourage the prospects of a new one. I feel much the same when I talk to people about Calvinism because while I think you could put a ring on her and live happily ever after, I also think there’s someone better out there. On top of that, it’s a shame to be known for what you’re against, so for clarity’s sake I’m not trying to get anyone to not be something (a Calvinist), but to be something.

Or to make the point with different strokes, the silhouette of the crucified God of Golgotha is an image chiseled into my heart. When sin within rises, chaos without descends, confusion all around lays waste to any semblance of comprehension—when I don’t feel like I understand a damn thing—I look up there and I understand enough to say thank you. I understand enough to call it love.

So when someone messes with this picture, adding a cryptic backdrop that threatens to stain the whole thing, I’m against the backdrop only because I’m for the picture I think the backdrop ruins. I’m not against the Calvinist picture of God so much as I am grieved by what that picture does to the picture I love, turning the full-truth of Golgotha into a duplicitous half-truth. The rest of the book is a description of what happened when my Calvinism was subjected to the searing scrutiny of that image, in the hopes you might glimpse the terrifyingly beautiful God of Jesus Christ.

Detour #2: Everything

The most devastating combination of words in the English language form a statement masquerading as a question: who cares? When this “question” is asked, a statement is made. The asker is expressing his apathy and disregard for the issue under discussion. It does not appear to matter, so why waste our breath? Why kick a hornet’s nest just so we can count the hornets? And it’s a good “question” to ask because many of the issues that hoard our energies and efforts are dead ends. It’s also a “question” I’ve been asked many times when debates about Calvinism and its alternatives arise.

Does it really matter if Calvinism is true or false? Does it really matter if we have free will? Does it really matter? Not at all, and yet, more than you could imagine.

No, it doesn’t matter because God is who he is and does what he does regardless of what we think of him, in much the same sense that the solar system keeping spinning around the sun even if we’re convinced it spins around the earth. Our opinions about God will not change God; however, they can most certainly change us. And so yes, it does matter because the conversations about Calvinism and free will plunge into the heart of the question the universe asks us at every turn:

Who is God?

And this is a question that has everything to do with everything.

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Footnotes

[i] Or to be more precise, a remarkable thing can happen. For a good explanation of how black holes are formed, see Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (New York: Bantam, 1993), 103-104.

[ii] Neo-Calvinism proper is a Dutch strand of Calvinism associated with Abraham Kuyper. I am using it to refer to the high federal Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards, as popularized by people like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Al Mohler, etc. The term was used in this fashion in a Time magazine article (March 12, 2009) and seems to have stuck. As such, I am using it to delineate the New Calvinism movement chronicled in Collin Hansen’s Young, Restless, and Reformed, although I acknowledge some people prefer to call it other things (for example, Neo-Puritanism).

[iii] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Simon & Brown, 2012), 3.

[iv] This idea is explored in Biography as Theology by James McClendon.

@Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers. www.wipfandstock.com

continue to -

Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

      

* * * * * * * * * *

John Piper, Jonathan Edwards, Austin Fischer, and God

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/03/john-piper-jonathan-edwards-austin-fischer-and-god/

by Roger Olson

March 10, 2014

Comments

So, John Piper has now responded to Austin Fischer’s book “Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed” (Wipf & Stock, 2013). (For those of you who don’t know, Austin is Teaching Pastor at The Vista Community in Belton/Temple, Texas and his book is a run-away seller about his spiritual and theological journey in and out of Calvinism.)

Of course, you should read Austin’s book before making up your own mind whose right in the current debate about it–John or Austin. But see their very differing views of it at,

https://soundcloud.com/askpastorjohn/is-god-a-needy-vacuum-trying
(audio file response by John Piper)

and at,

purpletheology.com/dear-john-piper/
(or found below here)

Predictably (IMHO), John is arguing that Austin misrepresents his and [Jonathan] Edwards’ view of God. Austin is arguing that he is simply saying what that view looked like to him when he stepped back and considered it biblically, theologically and logically.

In other words, Austin is saying “If I were a Calvinist, this is how I would have to think of God….” In other words, he is using an argument Calvinists themselves have LONG used against Arminianism–namely, the “good and necessary consequences” argument. Here’s how it goes: “IF you believe A and B is a ‘good and necessary consequence’ of A, then it is valid to say you also believe in B.” HOWEVER Austin (and I) go out of our way to say we KNOW Calvinists do not actually believe the “B” we see as a good and necessary consequence of the “A” they acknowledge believing. However, we say that “B” is what WE WOULD HAVE TO BELIEVE if we believed “A” and that Calvinists have not demonstrated how that is not the case–how it is that they can be reasonable and NOT believe “B.”

So, John Piper has said in the past that Arminians “must say” that the cross of Jesus does not actually save anyone but only gives people an opportunity to save themselves. (Don’t ask me where; you can find that yourself. John and I have e-mailed back and forth about it so I know he said it!) That’s the form of argument I outlined above EXCEPT that he collapses “B” into “A” with the “must.” The “must” MEANS “if they are going to be logically consistent…” because NO Arminian has ever said what he says they “must” say.

In other words, John was there (and elsewhere) using the familiar “good and necessary consequences” argument to defeat Arminianism. (I happen to believe there is no logical connection between the “A” and the “B” in his argument, though.)

Austin was (in his book) simply using the same form of argument against Calvinism. Namely: IF you say that God “designed, foreordained, and governs” everything that happens including sin and evil, you are logically saying (as a good and necessary consequence) that God is the author of sin and evil. However, Austin is careful (as I have been careful) to say that almost no Calvinist actually believes God is the author of sin and evil. He’s saying if HE were a Calvinist HE would have to believe God is the author of sin and evil because that is the “B” that is a good and necessary consequence of the “A” that Calvinists DO actually believe.

And, of course, both Austin and I are saying that it’s only reasonable to move from “only A” to “A and B” and that reasonable people will tend to do that.

Now, someone (maybe you!) will say “Who cares about being reasonable if the Bible says ‘A’ but not ‘B?’ Simply believe “A” and deny “B” even if “B” is a “good and necessary consequence of “A.” But wait! Listen! Pay attention! John Piper and all other Calvinists have been saying for a long time that ARMINIANS are not allowed to do that! One of their main arguments against Arminianism has always been that it’s logically inconsistent. They can’t play by double standards. If they value logical consistency they must pay attention when someone points it out in their own theology. They can’t just use the “good and necessary consequences” argument against others’ theologies and then turn around and say it doesn’t matter for their own theology! (Which is what I think they often do.)

Read Austin’s response to Piper. It’s irenic without backing down one iota. It’s reasonable and invites conversation. It’s respectful of Piper. Piper needs to admit that he misrepresented Austin’s view rather than the other way around (IMHO).

* * * * * * * * * *

Dear John Piper

http://purpletheology.com/dear-john-piper/

by Austin Fischer

Mar 7, 2014

I woke up this morning to find John Piper has posted a video with some thoughts on my book. [Full disclosure: if you’ve read the book, you know Piper had a huge impact on my life and I still have immense respect for him. So hearing him talk about the book was surreal.]

Even though I was sure the book would convert him :) … go figure, it didn’t, and he had some sharp things to say. He was particularly miffed because he felt I had misrepresented Jonathan Edwards, claiming Edwards thought and taught God was a black hole that needs human worship. [So,] a few thoughts….

This is a tricky subject, but I feel the way Piper handled it misrepresented me more than I may or may not have represented Edwards. The nub of the issue is this: I don’t think Edwards or Piper think God is a black hole that needs human worship (a vacuum cleaner, as Piper says)—period, honest to God, cross my heart, scout’s honor. I worship and serve alongside many Calvinists at my church and I know they don’t think that about God.

What I said is that when I traced out Edwards’ logic and thought the things Edwards thought about God, I felt forced to believe God was a black hole that seemed to need to create in order to display all of his attributes (after all, how do you display wrath and justice without a creation?). There’s a huge difference here and throughout the book I go out of my way to make this concession: this is what I felt compelled to believe as a Calvinist and isn’t what all Calvinists believe.

So while Piper says I should be “ashamed” for misrepresenting Edwards, what I hear is that I should be ashamed for not agreeing with Edwards. And that makes me sad.

To turn the tables, most firm Calvinists I know think Arminianism (or anything that’s not Calvinism) inevitably leads to semi-pelagianism. They feel that if they were Arminians, they would feel forced to be semi-pelagian. Fair enough. I very much disagree, but I understand what they’re saying and can respect that.

I’m not going to wag the Protestant papal finger of shame at them and claim they think I think my works get me into heaven and are ignorant and have egregiously misrepresented me. They’re just saying they would feel compelled to believe that if they believed what I did. Again—fair enough. Reasonable, biblical, orthodox minds can look at the same picture and see different things. We’ve done it since Jesus walked out of the tomb. As someone who’s not a fundamentalist, that’s my conviction.

Did I say some sharp things in the book? Yes. Too sharp? I hope not, but I’m not above that criticism. But did I misrepresent Edwards? I’m under no illusion that I understand Edwards perfectly (who can!?), but I don’t think I misrepresented him. This is what I think happened and what I trace out in the book.

I sat and watched the meticulous picture of God that Edwards and Piper painted. I loved so many of the strokes and colors. They finished painting, stepped back and said, “What a masterpiece! The manifold excellencies of the glory of God, displayed in the doctrines of grace.” I stepped back and said, “I really want to see that!…but I’m afraid I see a black hole instead.”

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So Dear John,

I appreciate so much of what you do and what you did in my life in a formative time. I think you’re a theological force of nature. I think your ministry brings glory to God. I think you believe in an infinitely glorious and beautiful God who loved you enough to die for you. I don’t think you believe God is a black hole—honest to God, cross my heart, scout’s honor.

But as much as I didn’t want to and as hard as I tried, when I stepped back from the picture of God you and Edwards painted and took it all in, I didn’t see what you saw. I saw a black hole.

I’m truly sorry if you feel I implied you and Edwards believe God is a needy black hole. I know you don’t believe that, so if that’s what you feel I said, I apologize. I’m not sorry that I (along with many others) look at the picture you paint, can’t ignore the reprobate, can’t reconcile it with lots of Scripture, can’t reconcile it with a good God who looks like Jesus crucified for the whole world, and can’t help but see a black hole. I can agree to disagree. Hopefully you can too.

Grace and Peace Brother,

Austin

John Fyre's Review of "The Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed," Parts 1-2

Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed

Part 1

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/03/21/young-restless-and-no-longer-reformed-by-john-frye/

by John Frye

May 21, 2014

Young, Restless, and no longer Reformed: Black Holes, Love, and a Journey in and out of Calvinism caught my attention and I read it through in one sitting. I will do a two part review beginning with some observations and commentary. In Part 2 we will look closer at the book’s provocative content.

Monday, March 17, 2014, and many University of Michigan Wolverines’ fans are down in the dumps because the Michigan State Spartans won the Big Ten crown with the score 69 to 55 on March 16. Now imagine that a Young, Restless and Reformed neo-Calvinist is a rabid Wolverine fan and Austin Fischer, author of Young, Restless, and no longer Reformed, is a rabid Spartan fan. Believing as all evangelicals do that theology should inform and transform life, we would expect to see the YRR neo-Calvinist sitting motionless and silent as the Big Ten tournament game unfolds. His theology requires such a response. 

Meanwhile, Austin is beside himself with joy as the Michigan State Spartans continue play but gets very concerned when the Michigan Wolverines start a scoring streak. Similarly, the YRR guy knows that before God created anything, in the deeps of eternity past God willed an exhaustive, eternal decree so meticulous that all nano-particles do only what God’s decree contains. One nano-particle out of sync with God’s decree totally destroys (so he is taught) God’s sovereignty. The YRR cannot cheer for the Wolverines nor can he scream at the Spartans. Why? The final score (the end) and all the plays that lead to it (the means) are just as they are because God decreed them so. Did I write “God”?  The only proper response of the YRR guy is to say, no matter how the game turns out, “Glory to God.”

Watch out for Pelagianism! (sic, a follower of Pelaius who denied original sin and believed in freedom of the will)...

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Wikipedia - Pelagianism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagianism

Pelagianism is the belief that original sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without special Divine aid. This theological theory is named after Pelagius (354 420 or 440), although he denied, at least at some point in his life, many of the doctrines associated with his name.

The teachings of Pelagius are generally associated with the rejection of original sin and the practise of infant baptism.[1] Although the writings of Pelagius are no longer extant, the eight canons of the Council of Carthage provided corrections to the perceived errors of the early Pelagians. These corrections include:

• Death did not come to Adam from a physical necessity, but through sin.
• New-born children must be baptized on account of original sin.
• Justifying grace not only avails for the forgiveness of past sins, but also gives assistance for the avoidance of future sins.
• The grace of Christ not only discloses the knowledge of God's commandments, but also imparts strength to will and execute them.
• Without God's grace it is not merely more difficult, but absolutely impossible to perform good works.
• Not out of humility, but in truth must we confess ourselves to be sinners.
• The saints refer the petition of the Our Father, "Forgive us our trespasses", not only to others, but also to themselves.
• The saints pronounce the same supplication not from mere humility, but from truthfulness.[2]

Some codices containing a ninth canon (Denzinger, loc. cit., note 3): Children dying without baptism do not go to a "middle place" (medius locus), since the non reception of baptism excludes both from the "kingdom of heaven" and from "eternal life". Pelagianism stands in contrast to the official hamartiological system of the Catholic Church that is based on the theology of Saint Augustine of Hippo. Semi-Pelagianism is a modified form of Pelagianism that was also condemned by the Catholic Church at the Second Council of Orange in 529.

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... This is the most dreadful feature of human experience according to Calvinists. Not a nanoparticle of Pelagianism must contaminate the pure atmosphere of “sovereign grace.” A nanoparticle of Pelagianism is worse than the most massive and despicable evil. Yet, if all is decreed and the human will ultimately does not matter, Austin Fischer writes, “Are you are expected to act as though it [the will] does? You're supposed to run on the treadmill and pretend you’re running the race of faith. This forces you into the awkward position of seemingly suspending your theology in order to live faithfully—because living faithfully requires living with meaning - and living with meaning requires choice. You believe that God determines all things, and yet act as though your will is not completely determined” (97-98 emphasis his).

So the YRR cheers for the Wolverines. Does God really decree people to be happy and to love? This produces theological schizophrenia in the minds of Calvinists because the Trinity they worship is schizophrenic (Fischer, 47; a point made also by Gregory Boyd in God at War, see, e.g., 231-237).

I know this tension myself because like Scot McKnight, who wrote the Foreword, Austin Fischer, and I myself, were once glowing, convinced Calvinists. Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology was my devotional material. I was a mixed up Calvinist, however, because while theologically a Calvinist, I was a peddler of the Four Spiritual Laws (a dreadful Arminian document). I got so frustrated once with a person I was “witnessing to” on a Chicago commuter train that when he resisted my “gospel presentation,” I told him, “The reason you don’t believe is because you’re not one of the elect!” I shudder at having to give an account to Christ for that outburst.

Calvinists must contemplate the implications of their theology. I do not see how it does not drive them nuts. A wise theologian and excellent preacher once told me that “neurotic” is the only word he could find to describe the esteemed David Brainerd as he wrote his journal entries struggling to know if he was elect or not.

It seems one would have to hold Calvinism in suspension while going about daily life. That is, until you need to teach or debate it. The heart of Calvinism’s gospel is a view of God’s sovereignty that is not shaped enough by the mangled-lamb Savior, Jesus the Christ, and the love of God.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed

Part 2

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/03/28/young-restless-and-no-longer-reformed-2-john-frye/

by John Frye

May 28, 2014

We are reviewing Austin Fischer’s Young, Restless, and no longer Reformed: Black Holes, Love, and a Journey In and Out of Calvinism. I agree with Fischer’s take on the biblical and pastoral weaknesses of Calvinism. I want to focus on four of his many excellent and provocative observations.

First, no one becomes a Calvinist from just reading the Bible. To the YRRs who say, “Calvinism is on every page of the Bible,” I would like to see the concordance on that. On the other hand, the relational interplay between God (divine will) and people (human will) is almost on every page of the Bible. People have to be taught an interpretive, systematic grid based on a handful of beloved Calvinist texts that, like Kool-Aid in water, color the whole Bible. No one doubts that the Calvinist system is pristine, even intoxicating. It’s like a theological creation of Lego pieces, so intricately interlocked. I do remember as a new Calvinist being deeply humbled by the system’s definition of “sovereign grace.”

Second, when you take away the Calvinist fig leaf which is woven with terms like “mystery,” “passing over,” and “antinomy,” the naked God of the eternal, meticulous decree is not a God Who loves everyone; he  [loves] / selects only his elect.

I like the way Austin dismantles the Calvinist two kinds of love (24-25). My opinion is that the game of arranging the ordo salutis is a task of presumptive humans trying to read the mind of God in eternity past.

Many people are waking up to the “unblinking cosmic stare” (Dallas Willard) God created by any version of TULIP.

I remember riding a tour bus in Mumbai, India, and seeing literally thousands of people up and down every street. I was in a city of millions of people who in the minds of many are reprobate, eternally damned to hell; decreed so by the God I worship; predestined to hell for God’s glory. If that’s so, then glory sounds like a treacherous word.  Fischer suggests the God of Calvinism becomes One Who is so turned in on himself for his own glory that he becomes the cosmic Black Hole (14-15).

Third, many texts used to create systematic Calvinism have been shown to be misused. I think Fischer does a good job poking back at the Calvinist misuse of Romans 9 (and Gregory Boyd reclaims many misused texts in God at War). Austin’s section on the Bible made impossible is provocative (33-35). The hermeneutical and theological gymnastics that Calvinists use to diffuse “the plain reading of Scripture” is laughable, if not so seriously twisting the sacred text. Fischer suggests that these differing views of the same texts are traceable to bliks (or theologoumenon - a theological statement deriving from an individual opinion and not doctrine) - interpretive lenses through which everything is understood (81-82).

Fourth, and for me most convincingly, Fischer makes clear that the Calvinist God is not the God we see in the face of Jesus Christ. Fischer writes, “… [T]he crucified Jesus is both the foundation and criticism of all Christian theology. … And so, plainly, does the God on the cross look like the God of Calvinism” (45)? 

Fischer makes a good case for the answer “no.” When we start with Jesus on the cross and work back and forward through the Bible, we do not meet the Platonic-concept-of-perfection-God espoused by Calvinism.

Are there godly, kind Calvinists? Yes, I know many. Are there pesky Arminians and irritating open theists? I imagine there are. I like this from Fischer, “I think Calvinists are right on some things, kind of wrong on some things, and really wrong on some things” (90-91).

Some years ago the senior pastor of a large Assembly of God Church told me this story. He met with the denominational leaders of the Christian Reformed Church to discuss church growth in West Michigan. The Assembly’s pastor thanked the Reformed leaders for filling his church and many other Assemblies churches. The Reformed leaders were a little taken back, asking, “How did we do that?” The pastor said, “By preaching your view of God so faithfully. Thank you. People from your churches flock to ours to escape a wrathful, unpleasable God and they find in our churches a God who so ravishingly loves them that he chases them down with passionate desire.”

We can argue Pelagianism, Arminianism, semi-Pelagianism, Open theism, and Calvinism ad infinitum. Yet, people, ordinary people, just want to know “What kind of God is at the center of the universe?” At the center of reality is there a meticulously determined decree or a “Lamb, looking as it if had been slain”?

I appreciate Austin Fischer and his book for sparking a fair and amiable conversation on such a vital topic: what is the nature and purpose of God?

Select Comments

messytheology - Coming from a strong Calvinist background, I would and still do answer that question with the Westminster catechism's "for His glory!" However, having been beaten up by life and having wrestled with the Word, my understanding of what brings Him glory has radically changed from subservient worship to relational delight. I deeply appreciate Calvinism's emphasis on His total sovereignty and His supremacy over all, but I secretly suspect that Calvinism's image of an aloof, severe, meticulous schoolmaster is more the product of left-brained, middle-class, northern European values than one of Scripture. Try reading the Bible as an untouchable Eastern woman would. There's a reason that reformed churches are packed with white, middle class engineers and philosophers, while charismatic churches attract the socially marginalized, wounded, and spiritually sensitive.

dean - I would like to add something that I think I heard Austin say in his debate with James White, which is that "people have no reason to trust the Calvinist God. If all God cares about is his glory, and he is willing to create billions of people in his own image to suffer eternally for the express purpose of revealing his glory to a certain select few, how can you trust him to ever look out for your interests?"

This kind of God, as Calvinists like to say, thinks of human beings as fungi, we're completely dispensable and subject to his sovereign whims. This God can do anything he wants, even to cause people to do evil, is not bound by any moral duty, and in fact, we can never even understand the rules by which he might interact with us.

The Calvinist will respond that you look to the Bible for revelation of God's love, but that really applies only to the Elect, the reprobate are god-forsaken in every sense of the word, and if he can treat the reprobate like trash, how can anyone be certain that they will always be in his good graces?

In real life, no one trusts people like that, we look to how people treat others to determine their character and whether or not we think they are trustworthy. The arbitrariness and capriciousness of the Calvinist God is not trustworthy in any sense of the word, you placate this kind of God, you don't worship him.

I find it hard to understand how Calvinists can be so flippant about the fate of the reprobate, if there is one message that the Bible teaches about the heart of the Christian God it is that he consistently sides with the marginalized, the outcast, the downtrodden, the poor, basically the dregs of society. How ironic is it that there would be followers of Jesus who would embrace a theology that fundamentally rests on a caste system foreordained by God where they happen to be the ones who are "in" and everyone else is "out"?

continue to -

Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

      

Part 1 - How Modernity's Secularism Changed the World: An Introduction to Postmodern Hermeneutics

 

 

Several years ago I began writing about theology to bridge the gaps between my past generation and the newer, younger generations of today. Little did I realize to what extent my faith group had lagged behind in this effort... nor how little yielded they were in plumbing the depths of the gap that has since arisen over my brief 30-year span since leaving its traditions and regalia. Thinking back, I suppose that even in my day we were too little concentrated on maintaining relevancy to the generations to come.... Mostly, I think, we were more interested in inducting future generations into our way of thinking, rather than preparing them to think independently as future Christian exegetes.

 

However, as secular modernism has swept through the church another counter movement has arisen known as (anti-secular) postmodernism. Though slow to grasp its formative disruption, I have since reawakened to examine what this has meant for the church of the 21st Century... and have steadily been writing about it these past two years. First to deconstruct my modernistic churched past during my first six months of blogging - both theologically as well as my socio-religious group. Then I went about trying to reconstruct it based upon postmodernism's more contemporary insights which has involved these past two years of writing. Now, at the last, I have come to examining where we might go from here into a kind of post-postmodernism (but for short I'll call it postmodernism). But to do that I must continue to examine modernistic thought - but at its philosophical level and no longer on its pragmatic, church, or theological levels. Thus in today's article I chanced upon Charles Taylor (see Part 2 of this post) and came to understand Taylor's connection to this summer's past study on Radical Theology (which I have yet to explain except to say that I will in future commentaries when I begin to examine it).

I must first begin by stating my interest in moving beyond my Reformed tradition's usage of creedal formulas as a way to draw nearer to God. Though helpful as statements of faith, it is also being used by the church to protect its Reformed traditions about God, man, and the church, without allowing further examination of orthodoxy beyond its modernistic expressions. For myself, I have found the gospel of Jesus to be lost in today's societal postmodernism. And in an effort to better speak my Christian faith to the generation of the 21st Century I have steadily been working towards a re-expression of Christianity through the language of Emergent Theology and Postmodern Orthodoxy.

 

As such, I am also finding a postmodern, anthropologic hermeneutic to be helpful in discerning how our words have replaced God's words in modernism's regress of biblical truth. Belatedly, the church is beginning to wake up and recognize this error as it reacts by seeking God in its newer liturgies and songs, theologies and worship, prayers and recitations of God's faithfulness, goodness, mercy and love. Which also means that the Protestant and Catholic traditions must now decide how to relax their past doctrines and as they transition forwards.

 

What began all this was my belated realization that my Reformed tradition had spawned two separate thought streams - one of secularity (as shown in Part II of today's article), and the other as Analytic thought (using logical positivistic thought and creedal syllogisms for theologic formulation) based upon the Enlightenment's perchance for exquisite statements about God:

 

[Wikipedia] Analytic philosophy is often understood in contrast to other philosophical traditions, most notably continental philosophy, and also Indian philosophy, Thomism, and Marxism.^[14]

 

Similar to building a computer language that uses a defined syntax to structure human ideas and language, so analytic philosophy goes about its task of restructuring human language into less ambiguous syntax and more meaning-infilled dialogue. A good example of this would be our early days in geometry where we worked our lessons towards a solution based upon mathematical axioms and geometric laws. Similarly, Reformed (and perhaps, Catholic) theology has leaned into this direction, though not wholly, but in its most ideal expressions of its dogmas using pithy creedal confessions and theologically-informed syntax to create fully formed ideas of Christian expression. Expressions that have become the standard bearers of biblical truth against the fluidity or the narrative language of the Bible which we read and study. Thus compiling and composing it into its own religious language and set of instructions for worship and belief, mission and living.

 

Opposite to this endeavor is that of Continental Philosophy (begun in Germany and France and now transposed across Europe, the UK, and North America). Continental philosophy includes the following movements:

 

[Wikipedia] German idealism, phenomenology, existentialism (and its antecedents, such as the thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, French feminism, psychoanalytic theory, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and related branches of Western Marxism.^[3]

 

Here one works at deriving meaning from words and human thought forms as relative to the speaker or to the group. To understandably allow for the ambiguity and syntactical fluidity of the human language as an imprecise expression of ideas through narrative and story, experience and opinion. As such, movements like historical criticism, or redactive thought, have sought to examine why a biblical passage was written as it was; by a speaker measured within his/her's own cultural and time periods; what those time periods may have meant for that speaker, or to that society they spoke to; the meaning of the redactive placement of biblical passages and texts within-and-outside of the Bible's historical commentaries and subjective imposition; how those passages and texts carried meaning to later societies as they embraced those words in newer ways - even as we now embrace them through our own private readings and joined church experiences.

 

Out of this was born Liberal Christianity with an emphasis on the interpretive exegesis of the biblical text as against a more literalistic reading. A literal reading that assumes the bible may be read as one would read a computer code - without historic, linguistic, or cultural ambiguity - by using reasoned logic for theological interpretation. To the degree that interpretation bore well with conservative orthodoxy it was accepted... but to the degree that it diverged form cherished church traditions it was not. Thus liberal theology took a quick dive towards either neo-orthodoxy or paganism and the orthodox church assumed it was ok to disregard textual study and interpretation.

 

Asked another way, we might ask "What then is the orthodox church's philosophical tradition based upon? It must have one, doesn't it?" Well yes, it seems that it does, having been steadily built eon-after-eon primarily upon either Aristotelian thought, with its emphasis on deduction and investigation of concrete, and particular, things and situations. Or upon Platonism which affirms the existence of abstract objects. Objects that "exist" in a "third realm distinct both from the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness, and is the opposite of nominalism.

 

 

Notably then, the Christian orthodox tradition arose from Western Greek thought as opposed to its Eastern compliment that kept to its Semitic and African roots through the time of Roman imperialism (in an admixture of West meets East). The Medieval period of the church saw two traditions arise around two primary figures: that of the 4th Century Early Church Father Augustine, who favored Neo-Platonism; and that of the 13th Century Scholasticist, Thomas Aquinas, who favored Aristotle. From Aquinas flowed the philosophies of naturalism (sic, Natural Theology) and Thomism (named after the same):

 

[Wikipedia] St. Thomas Aquinas believed that truth is true wherever it is found, and thus consulted Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Muslim philosophers. Specifically, he was a realist (i.e., he, unlike the skeptics, believed that the world can be known as it is). He largely followed Aristotelian terminology and metaphysics, and wrote comprehensive commentaries on Aristotle, often affirming Aristotle's views with independent arguments. Thomas respectfully referred to Aristotle simply as "the Philosopher."^[4] He also adhered to some neoplatonic principles, for example that "it is absolutely true that there is first something which is essentially being and essentially good, which we call God, ... [and that] everything can be called good and a being, inasmuch as it participates in it by way of a certain assimilation..."^[5]

 

And so, in summary address, we might say (as respecting only the Western traditions of the church and not its Near-Eastern nor Asian influences) that classic church orthodoxy has been built around Greek thought - primarily that of either Aristotle (384-322 BC) or Plato (428-328 BC). It is from these traditions that the 15th Century Renaissance and 16th Century Reformation arose. To this tradition was an action (the Enlightenment period which gave birth to Modernism) and a reaction (the Continental philosophy of German Idealism which gave birth to Liberal Theology). From which resulted a synthesis between Analytic Philosophy on the one hand, and Continental Philosophy on the other. Each presently couched within a postmodern reflective period as they intersected and bisected with one another.

 

For myself, I am more interested in Postmodern Christianity's embrace of Continental Philosophy which is giving birth to a more progressive area of study known as Radical Theology. A developing tradition that relies on Continental Philosophy as begun under the Kantian and Hegelian traditions. But in the form that I wish to address, it will be conservative as respecting both (1) past church traditions and historic doctrine, and (2) faithful exegesis to the Bible.... Of course, exegesis will spin around one's idea of interpretation, or hermeneutic - either preferencing secularity or anti-secularity as found respectively in modern and postmodern thought. However each enterprise will be done in the hopes of not straying overmuch into the deep waters of philosophical thought unmoored from the deeper waters of biblical witness. Additionally, I also wish to utilize a neo-orthodox approach to liberal theology that emphasizes God's Word over our own words when properly separated out from church dogmas and restrictive religious folklore. Meaning that I wish to push the envelop of modernistic church interpretive tradition built on Greek/Reformed/Catholic thought to one built on an admixture of Jewish/Semitic thought (e.g., the New Perspective of Paul: see sidebar) combined with a postmodern, emergent perspective. And, as an added direction, I would like to speak to a Christian faith that is apocalyptic and accompanied by a Weak Theological perspective of God (see sidebar Index - Phase III). This last effort must necessarily include Relational-Process Theism and Open Theism (sic, see sidebars again). In conclusion, I will leave below several helpful charts of philosophy's inter-relations, along with an article related to those charts, pertaining to the importance and centrality of one's philosophy to politics, economy, and the social-community life of society.

 

R.E. Slater

August 9, 2013 

 

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Part 2 - How Modernity's Secularism Changed the World:

Charles Taylor, "A Secular Age"

 

 

 

 

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The complete history of philosophy

visualized in one graph

http://io9.com/5923583/the-complete-history-of-philosophy-visualized-in-one-graph

 

Simon Raper of Drunks&Lampposts has compiled a mesmerizing graph that charts the entire history of philosophy. By extracting information from the "influenced by" sections in Wikipedia, he was able to visually convey an overarching web of philosophical traditions. And by adding extra weight to the most influential philosophers, Raper was able to produce a compelling graph that offers some fascinating insights into the formation and development of various schools of philosophical thought.

 

The first thing you notice when looking at the graph is that there are six primary philosophers who take center stage in terms of their influence, namely Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche (the last one being a bit of a surprise — though Nietzsche's writings have certainly returned to vogue in recent years).

 

 

Conspicuous by his absence is Descartes, but Raper offers a possible explanation: The chart only measures direct influences, and it's likely that Descartes's tremendous contribution has trickled through second and third degree associations. Alternately, it could also be the fault of strictly using associations established by Wikipedia editors.

 

Other highly influential philosophers (rightly) include Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, Leibniz, Rousseau, Hume, Wittgenstein, and even Noam Chomsky.

 

The graph also shows a certain amount of "clumping" that one would expect — a logical grouping of philosophers within their respective traditions, and in close relation to their precursors and eventual offshoots. The ancient philosophers are nicely represented in green at the top-left corner. The continental tradition is shown through the initial grouping of Hegel and Nietzsche, leading into Heidegger and Sarte, and then into the "isms" of the 20th century. The graph also shows the analytic school of Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein, along with the American pragmatists.

 

 

Click to Enlarge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

For Original Charts website - Click here

 

 

What would a new Church for the 21st Century look like?

Kierkegaard Wants a New Church

Part 2 of 2

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/07/06/kierkegaard-wants-a-new-church/

 

by Tony Jones

July 6, 2013

*res = re slater 

 

 

This is the second of two excerpts from a book that I happily endorsed: Emerging Prophet: Kierkegaard and the Postmodern People of God by Kyle Roberts. Kyle is a professor at Bethel Seminary and a fellow Patheos blogger.

 

 

BOOK EXCERPT

 

Kierkegaard was a prophet who critiqued "Christendom," the perversion of authentic, New Testament Christianity into the institutionalized, materialistic, triumphalist, and flabby religion of modernism. Emergent Christianity is attempting to carve out a more authentic way of being Christian and doing church within--and beyond--the ineffectual, institutionalized church of modernity.

 

In many ways, Kierkegaard's critiques, concerns, and goals overlap with emergent Christianity and the emerging church. For the first time, this book brings Kierkegaard into a dialogue with various postmodern forms of Christianity, on topics like revelation and the Bible, the atonement and moralism, and the church as an "apologetic of witness." In conversation with postmodern philosophers, contemporary theologians, and emergent leaders, Kierkegaard is offered as a prophetic voice for those who are carving out an alternative expression of the New Testament today and attempting to follow Christ through works of love.

 

- Kyle Roberts, Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota

 

 

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The emergent movement comprises communities of Christ-followers who desire to recover a sense of authenticity, passion, vulnerability, and intimacy in their lives together. They organize their communities in an intentionally organic way, such that these ideals become (at least conceptually) more attainable that they have appeared to be in institutional forms of church.

 

The caveat here, from a Kierkegaardian point of view, is that when the alteration of the organization becomes the means whereby these aims can be attained, too much freight is given to change in “circumstance” as the hope for renewal, authenticity, and the recovery of the essentially Christian. Nonetheless, it does seem that at some point action must be taken; this is very Kierkegaardian, too.

 

Emergent Christianity’s attempt to creatively rethink the nature of the church in this changing world will serve the larger (established) church well—to the extent they take notice. Even if the transiency of emergent communities and the lack of institutional structure make propagation a serious challenge, the burst of creativity and critical reflection within emergent Christianity offers—at the very least—an important renewal resource for more empathetic traditional churches.

 

In any case, the question recurs and the refrain continues: How can we attain an existentially authentic faith, both individually and communally? In the context of our ecclesiology discussion, the answer may well lie in a theological de-construction (and subsequent attempted re-construction) of institutional forms of church life which often seem to inhibit authenticity, intimacy, vulnerability, and genuine community. Emergent Christians are working hard to find a better way for this journey. For others, the least they can do is empathize with their quest.

 

Consistent with the trajectory set forth in Practice in Christianity, albeit intensified in his final years, Kierkegaard pointed the way to the dis-establishment of the church in favor of the emergence of Christ’s kingdom. The church exists in service of in-breaking of the kingdom of God into temporality [sic, God's rule becomes present now. - res]. The confrontation with the world occasioned by the action of the historical Christ in his abased life (suffering) and crucifixion opened the way for a new mode of being in the world—one characterized by deep subjectivity and authentic community.

 

This community exists in the eschatological space between the eternal and the temporal, the infinite and the finite, the bound and the free. Kierkegaard’s Christology of paradox suggests that the church, as an institution—or establishment—must be provisional and temporary, and must give way to the priority of the redemptive presence, or Kingdom of God, brought about disruptively in the world through the reign of Christ as the paradoxical one. This means that the church cannot serve itself and ought not understand its mission to be self-preservation.

 

So Jürgen Moltmann says: “It is not the Church that ‘has’ a mission, but the reverse; Christ’s mission creates itself a Church. The mission should not be understood from the perspective of the Church, but the other way round.” The church must regularly check its own accumulated habits, its acculturations, commitments, and partnerships with the “powers” and economies of society. It cannot offer itself as an end or become preoccupied with its own self-preservation. Christianity, as an established, institutional, cultural phenomenon, is non-essential. The church defers, bends, and even disappears; like John the Baptist, it must decrease while Christ must increase.

 

When the church becomes its own self-perpetuating institution, when its mission begins to displace the pure, prophetic, and disruptive presence of Christ, it must be disestablished - deconstructed, even - while Christ and his Kingdom re-appears and re-emerges.

 

OK, who’s ready to start disestablishing churches?

 

 

 

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Proper Doubt

Part 1 of 2

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/07/05/proper-doubt/

 

by Tony Jones

July 5, 2013

 

 

Doubt is the other side of faith…This ethos may be one of the defining features of emergent Christianity—the willingness to countenance doubt. These doubts can arise from questioning the sincerity of religious faith (i.e. Freud’s “great apologetic challenge” to Christianity), the truthfulness of the Bible, the exclusivity of Christianity, or engaging in philosophical challenges to core Christian doctrines (such as those posed by the “problem of evil and suffering”). The acceptance of a positive role for doubt in the Christian life is consistent with the emergent ethos.

 

Because emergent Christianity is not terribly anxious about epistemological certainty, such questions are encouraged—or at the very least accepted and engaged. Furthermore, there is no rush to answer the questions in a final, authoritarian way. This openness to the reality of doubt in the Christian journey need not imply a glorification of doubt nor a complete disregard for objectivity (properly placed) in Christian theology….

 

An epistemologically humble approach to theology and faith allows for deeper authenticity and for the de-construction of the idols of certainty, dogmatism and closure. Experimental psychologist, Richard Beck, asks, “What would religious faith look like, experientially and theologically, if it were not engaged in existential repression or consolation?” Presumably, that kind of faith might be open about the reality of doubt and would courageously struggle with existential questions regarding the attainment of “truth.”

 

That kind of faith would not try to rely on or use religion instrumentally to assuage existential anxiety, but would attempt to be existentially authentic in the face of the lack of epistemological “objective” certainty; it would be open and honest about the pain and distress involved in the human experience and would not try to suppress the anxieties that arise from the fragmentation, brokenness, and brevity of human life.

 

Collectively, in terms of the experience of Christian community:

 

- it might have the character and courage to deal with pain, sorrow, and longing head-on, even in (or especially in) the context of church liturgy,

 

- it would engage the Bible with seriousness and honesty; neither avoiding its prophetic strangeness nor minimizing its difficulties, from the perspective of the modern world,

 

- it would utilize both celebration and lament as representations of the full nature of the human experience,

 

- ultimately, it would find both discomfort and solace in the central figure of Christian faith: the paradoxical God-man, who makes comfortable faith impossible but who alone can make authentic faith possible.