Category Archives: Apologetics

My Final Oxford Essay for My Philo Rel Course: God’s Existence in Cosmic Relief

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God’s Existence in Cosmic Relief

Is there any need to explain why there is a universe at all? Would God be an explanation? This is the question the rest of this essay will engage with. 1) This essay will reason on the moral need for an explanation of universe’s existence vis-à-vis human teleology. 2) Based on the affirmative of point one this essay will further attempt to reason from the universe’s apparent contingency concerning God’s existence as the best inference to an explanation, regarding the universe’s existence in general, and human existence embedded in the universe in particular. 3) For purposes of thoroughness T. J. Mawson’s chapter on the cosmological argument[1] will be engaged with as how we might conclude on the universe having an explanation for its existence (or not). As we engage with Mawson, it will become clear that the author of this essay affirms some relative value in thinking God’s existence from the cosmological argument. But in the end, it will be concluded that such metaphysical abstractions cannot finally lead a person to a knowledge of God in ways that satisfy the need for human purpose and value as that is evinced (or not) within the vastness of the universe. Once these matters have been duly weighed, this paper will summarize the various ideas posited and engaged with. As a parting note, the author of this paper will suggest a way forward towards thinking about what type of God might fit best with a universe that has at least one known planet (Earth) where human beings who are personal persons exist.

The universe is there. As such, an adequate explanation for its existence is required; at least, insofar that the people inhabiting it would like to live an ‘examined life.’ Being rather than not being ought to inculcate within someone’s inner being a desire to know why they have being and extension into the universe rather than not. I would argue that this is so because as self-reflecting entities, that is, as sentient beings extending into space and time, to know our whence, indeed, to know the universe’s whence, presents it with a potential context for understanding human self-determination and purpose in a universe wherein to the naked eye it might appear to be simply here for no reason at all. But human beings live with a sense of inherent purpose; humans move and breathe with sets of values—culturally ladened as they might be—which presents each and everyone of us with a ‘common sense’ of a shared being in the universe that preceded us, along with all of humanity from all time, that pressures the genuinely self-reflective agent towards a desire of knowing: “where did it all come from?” Once that desire is cultivated, even among just a percentage of people through the millennia, it is proper and even required for us to pursue the “whence” question of the universe that we inhabit. And as a first instance of that pursuit towards understanding the whence of the universe, I would argue that the most organic question to probe is to understand whether the universe has always been, or did it have a beginning.

Since the universe is a finite entity, observable simply from the fact that human life, and other life forms, have beginnings and endings, it is proper to conclude, by extrapolation, that the universe itself, ever expanding as it is, likewise had a beginning. If this is the case, then to reason about the universe’s beginning from its contingency has a certain explanatory power to it all by itself; even if that only leads to a capacity for the reasoner to infer from the negation of contingency that there is something prior to the contingent, definitionally, that in itself is non-contingent. And to reason thusly, I would suggest, ought to lead the reasoner to an openness about their being what is classically understood as a God as the non-contingent begetter of the contingent.

The previous line of reasoning leads us to what philosophers have identified as a ‘cosmological argument’ or ‘argument from contingency’ regarding the existence of a Creator God. I believe, on its own, the cosmological argument, or argument from contingency, is a powerfully intuitive argument for the reasonability of a God’s existence. Beyond that, as already alluded to, as the literature and empirical data presents[2], the universe itself, in its expansive nature, is a contingent entity which, according to the “Principle of Sufficient Reason,” as described by Mawson[3], requires a conclusion concerning its original instantiation. I think that rejecting the principle of sufficient reason is done so from a prior commitment to not want to believe that it is reasonable to believe in a God’s existence; of course, the obverse is also the case. That is, to want to believe that it is reasonable to believe in a God’s existence is done so from a prior commitment that already knows there to be or wants there to be a God who exists. In this sense, in my view, it becomes a matter of what “a priori” has the greater “intuitive” or even “revelational” explanatory power for it. That is, does an atheist’s desire, like Bertrand Russell’s, for there to only be the physical universe in a closed system determinately governed by random chance, space and time[4] fit better with this “pre” approach to something like affirming the cosmological argument? Or does the Christian theist’s desire, like mine, for there to be an “enchanted” universe, fulgent with a living and triune God’s glory to be on display, as revealed particularly in the face of Jesus Christ, fit better with a “pre” approach to something like affirming the cosmological argument of some type?

So, I might agree with Mawson that the cosmological argument left to itself isn’t a good argument for proving God’s existence.[5] But, when it is placed in a broader noetic web, it can come to have a serviceability to it that fits better with the affirmation that a living God exists rather than a No-God not existing. In other words, it is the prior and broader belief-frames that will end up determining whether or not someone seeing the cosmological argument has any value. And so, as Mawson rightly argues, it is required that we look elsewhere, and interrogate other things, to arrive at a conclusion that a God does or doesn’t exist.[6] And these other things, like “religious experience”, while related to the questions of contingency in deep ways, often, have a different criterion built into them; such as “encounter” “experience” “revelation” so on and so forth, that attempting to argue from mere physical or even metaphysical premises cannot inherently offer in and of themselves. That is to say, what is required is a personal touch, so to speak; that is, because we are persons and not just random quantum happenstances miraculously “happening” in the ether of a purely brute type of contingent universal and cosmic order. Notice, appeal to the black boxes of quantum happenstances, in the end, is just to appeal to something like a god, but a god who remains hidden, in the dark, and to whom we can ultimately remain unaccountable.

I see these matters as moral issues, which a cosmological argument, while compelling in highly intuitive ways, in and of itself, cannot ultimately address, per se. The cosmological argument cannot apprehend the moral issue, because, at best, all it can do is leave the universe open in regard to its need for a God to explain its existence. It cannot describe, per se, whether or not this God is personally present, or impersonally distant (like the God of the Deists). As a result, other means are required for determining whether or not the non-contingent being known as God is indeed personal and active in the universe’s world, or if God is simply a generic placeholder to fill in the gap in people’s minds with reference to the origination of the universe in toto.

Conclusion

This essay has considered the following things: 1) It is reasonable for sentient human beings to reflect on the universe’s existence. It was argued that this is the case because human beings, as finite beings in a finite universe, inherently desire to know their purpose whilst inhabiting the universe; which entails morality. 2) It was further argued that since life in general is finite, and thus contingent, by extrapolation, the universe in general is also a contingent entity that the ‘examined life’ seeks to understand regarding its origination. 3) Engaging with philosopher, T. J. Mawson, based on the “principle of sufficient reason,” as he explained, since the universe, as a contingent entity is, it requires an explanation.[7] Even so, it was reasoned that ultimately the cosmological argument only has relative value in regard to proving God’s existence.

In conclusion, this essay concludes that the universe does require an explanation for its existence, and that its best explanation is positing something greater than itself as its cause: this “greater than” is classically understood to be God. Even so, it has also become apparent that a simple appeal to something like a cosmological argument does not suffice towards providing human beings with enough knowledge of who or what this God might be regarding the deepest questions of the human heart. So, while an argument from contingency might serve well for pointing out the coherence of a Creator God, it remains unhelpful in presenting someone with a personal God who can make sense of the various moral quandaries human beings are presented with throughout their lifespans. For this, what is required, this essay suggests, is an engagement with revelation claims about God such as is found among the Christians.

References

Mawson, T. J. Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

NASA Hubblesite. “One of Hubble’s Key Projects Nails Down Nearly a Century of Uncertainty.” Accessed 03-28-2025.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Russellian Monism.” Accessed 03-28-2025.

[1] T. J. Mawson, Belief in God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 153–62.

[2] NASA Hubblesite, “One of Hubble’s Key Projects Nails Down Nearly a Century of Uncertainty,” accessed 03-28-2025.

[3] Mawson, Belief in God, 154–55.

[4] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Russellian Monism,” accessed 03-28-2025.

[5] Mawson, Belief I God, 161–62.

[6] Ibid., 163–78.

[7] Mawson ultimately believes that the principle of sufficient reason can function as a double-edged sword which, in the end, can be applied to both the theist’s side as well as the physicalist side of the atheists. See Mawson, Belief in God, 161–2.

On the Cosmological Argument and the Universe’s Existence

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Plato

My Philosophy of Religion class at the University of Oxford is now complete. I have just submitted my final essay (1500 words approx.) for the class, which represents the capstone project. I essentially wrote my paper on the cosmological argument for God’s existence. The question I was addressing was “does the universe require an explanation for its existence; and if so, why would it be God?” The following represents my conclusion to said paper.

This essay has considered the following things: 1) That it is reasonable for sentient human beings to reflect on the universe’s existence. It was argued that this is the case because human beings, as finite beings in a finite universe, inherently desire to know their purpose whilst inhabiting the universe; which entails morality. 2) It was further argued that since life in general is finite, and thus contingent, by extrapolation, the universe in general is also a contingent entity that the ‘examined life’ seeks to understand regarding its origination. 3) Engaging with philosopher, T. J. Mawson, based on the “principle of sufficient reason,” as he explained, since the universe is, it requires an explanation. Even so, it was reasoned that ultimately the cosmological argument only has relative value in regard to proving God’s existence.

In conclusion, this essay concludes that the universe does require an explanation for its existence, and that its best explanation is positing something greater than itself as its cause: this “greater than” is classically understood to be God. Even so, it has also become apparent that a simple appeal to something like a cosmological argument does not suffice towards providing human beings with enough knowledge of who or what this God might be regarding the deepest questions of the human heart. So, while an argument from contingency might serve well for pointing out the coherence of a Creator God, it remains unhelpful in presenting someone with a personal God who can make sense of the various moral quandaries human beings are presented with throughout their lifespans. For this, what is required, this essay suggests, is an engagement with revelation claims about God such as is found among the Christians.

The Accidental God and the God of Logical Possibility

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Questions we are engaging with for this week’s philosophy of religion class. Part of this, the last part represents its own separate forum for the class; it is supposed to be a debate forum.

Creator of the world

Does the theistic view that God created the universe imply that the universe must have had a beginning? What might the implications of the answer to this question be?

Yes, the theistic view, in particular, the Christian theistic view entails that the universe had a beginning. I’d go so far to say that it entails the creatio ex nihilo (created out of nothing) position. What this implies is that all of reality, including knowledge, is contingent on God speaking (revealing) Himself for us.

Creator of value

Is something good because God wills it or does God will it because it is good?

Euthyphro’s Dilemma can be avoided if we posit what can be called a Trinitarian actualism (versus essentialism, which is the Thomistic way out of the dilemma). A trinitarian actualism entails a notion of God wherein God’s being is in becoming. That is to say, like essentialism attempts, that God just is. But in the actualistic sense, God just is his personal relation to the world; contingent upon nothing else but who he is in his inner-personal freedom as the triune God. Something is good, therefore, because God is good in himself; but he has freely chosen for himself that his goodness becomes what it is as he graciously and dynamically becomes us that we might become him (not by nature, but grace). More to clarify, but this will have to suffice for my sentence long response 😉.

Revealer

Does the fact that there’s such disagreement between theists over what exactly it is that God has revealed provide a reason to suppose that God hasn’t revealed anything? What would follow from this conclusion?

No. It isn’t this relative. It may be this relative for the outsider looking in. But if the work is done, like through comparative religions, for example, and we engage in an abductive exercise, so to speak, it is clear that not all “revelations” are equal. So, I think the question itself is non-starting in this sense.

Offerer of eternal life

Can an intelligible and plausible account of ‘eternal life’ be given?

As we’re interested in both the truth and meaning of this question you may want to break this down into the following:

    • Could personal identity endure after bodily death? Can any of the accounts that Mawson discusses be defensible? Why/why not?
    • In what way would ‘eternal life’ be a good?

You may want to begin to answer this question by offering a definition of ‘eternal life’, and its relation to bodily death.

I must answer this is as a Christian theist (of the Trinitarian variety) first; and attendant with that, refer to the only one who has provided a concrete answer for that question.

Eternal Life

Eternal life is God’s triune life in relation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is no other eternal life available. This life, entered into humanity (‘he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him [Jesus]), and made God’s eternal life available to all of humanity by taking all of human life, as he is archetypal human life, putting it to death (the sinful, separated heart of humanity from God), rising again (on the third day)—and in turn, raising all of humanity with his—which has thus forged a way for all of humanity, if they will, through his willing for them first, to participate in his eternal and ascended life with the Father forevermore; indeed, by the Holy Spirit.

A Raw Syllogism

P1. The triune God alone is eternal life.

P2. Human beings can participate in God’s triune eternal life, if God makes a way for them to enter that type of life.

P3. God has made a way for human beings to participate in God’s triune life, through uniting humanity to his humanity in Jesus Christ.

P4. Human beings can participate in God’s triune life, in the humanity of Jesus Christ, if they choose to do so.

P5. Therefore, human beings who choose to participate in God’s triune life, in and through the humanity of Jesus Christ, can experience God’s triune and eternal life that he alone is.

It seems as if Mawson is attempting to purely think of eternal life as the perdurance of human life, albeit in the presence of God. I don’t think this quite follows. The only perduring life and eternal life, in the theistic frame, is God’s life. As such, the discussion must be oriented by how it is that a human being might come to participate in God’s eternal life. I tried to tease that out above. I think Mawson hinders himself by presupposing that all of the so-called “Abrahamic faiths” are “essentially” referring to the same God. But that is, at the very least, a very debatable premise.

The motion we will be debating is: ‘This house believes that it is logically possible that there be a God.’

There is nothing inherently illogical in believing that a god exists. It is possible, as Mawson et al. has done, to construct a notion of godness that is self-referentially coherent vis-à-vis this god’s properties; whether, essential or accidental properties. But just because this notion of godness can be constructed in a self-referentially coherentist manner, does not in itself, lead to the conclusion that this god must necessarily exist, per se. It only leads one to the conclusion that such a god could exist (which seems to be the minimum being sought by the theistic philosopher).

So, alternatively, as a Christian theist, what I present as a thesis, in regard to a god necessarily, or even tacitly existing, is that we expand our horizons, categorically. I propose that in order for us to concretely know that God exists, that we adopt an orientation that sees revelation claims as the necessary ground by which the seekers might come to know that God exists. This might entail that the God we encounter through a revelation claim is not concordant with the self-referential and coherentist account of God that Mawson presented and argued for. It might mean, that if we were to encounter such a “revelational God,” through his self-revelation, that we might be asked to go beyond what a purely philosophical accounting of a god provides us with.

So, I would argue that merely presenting the seekers with a purely self-referential coherentist account of a god, as a logical possibility, while coherent, sets the would-be knower of God up for potential failure; in the sense that false expectations have been given over against the categories and emphases that a god outside of our “immanent frames” might present us with. Logical possibility vis-à-vis God’s existence is something that human agents might attempt to construct in an a prior fashion. But there is no guarantee that the god so constructed is corollary with the God who might potentially show up through self-revelation. In other words, I would argue that simply constructing an argument for the logical possibility of a God’s existence simply sets the would-be knower of God up with a procrustean bed. In which case, the logical possibility for there being a God might in fact bring the would-be knower of God to miss encountering the real God if he discloses himself in his self-revelation in such a way that ends up transcending the would-be knowers already developed notion of godness. At best, this would-be knower, upon encountering an ostensibly self-revealed God, might attempt to shape this self-revealed God into the form they had already constructed for this God to logically fit. But then, this might result in the seekers’ ultimately rejecting the logical possibility for a God’s existence; insofar that the philosophical construct and revelation claims end up being so discordant, that the seeker simply throws their hands up in frustration and disbelief.

In the end: I think Mawson and other theistic philosophers can present and develop an argument for the logical possibility for a God to exist. But ultimately, this could be a self-defeating venture; insofar that this God’s existence, circumscribed by the philosophers’ wits as it is, might cause seekers for God to miss the real God, if in fact the real God appears differently than the philosophers had imagined him to necessarily, or even to tacitly be.

Jesus, Plato, Aristotle and the Theobros Walk into a Bar . . .

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I shared the following sketch, diatribe of sorts, on X just yesterday. A so-called Theobro (all bro no Theo) reshared it for his friend group, and they went to town. Memeing me galore. Dismissing me out of hand from their dilettantism. Not recognizing that I was leaving space for evangelizing, so to speak, even the philosophers; albeit in non-correlating ways. I.e., taking the philosophers’ respective grammars and language bags, and retexting them in a way that they are deployed in service of the King; insofar that that is possible or advisable. These guys are all bark and no theological bite. They claim to be scholastics reformed, proponents of Aristotelian Christianity, Christian Nationalists, so on and so forth. And yet they couldn’t even recognize how my off the top form vis-à-vis my post was written in a scholastic type of style. These immature souls are not worthy of engagement. They haven’t put any donkey work in, and they simply must rely on their swarming behavior; as if a hornets’ nest rattled by the Raid of God’s Word. My post, much like what I’m writing now, was just an in-the-moment venting of whatever came to mind as I wrote on a theme. It wasn’t really worded exactly the way I would have worded it if I was attempting to write with total clarity. It was simply a working out of my themes and thoughts that are seemingly always present to my mind’s-heart.

As anyone knows who has read me for any amount of time, you will notice how these themes are the themes I often opine upon as I engage the theological wormwood present in the forests of the correlationists and logic-choppers.

Objector. One has to wonder: when Aristotle and Plato were available to Jesus, why he didn’t use their respective philosophical categories to explain Himself to the world. Indeed, He was (is) Jewish; and He came first for the house of Israel, as the Jew from Nazareth. Even so, Philo was a Jew too.

Response. My conclusion: He considered the god of the philosophers as antiHim, even if some of their grammar might be commandeered and evangelized in non-correlationist ways later.

I think the response to this will be that He came for the Jews first, and was the Son of David, indeed. As the Gospel spread it had to be translated into different languages and conceptual frameworks. It had to subvert those languages and frameworks, disrupt even, for its own triune purposes (i.e., not colonial). His missio Dei, in the economy, was to mediate salvation to the Jews first, as a Jew, and then to the Gentiles. Which is why He was such a skandalon, a stumbling block, to both the Jews and the Greeks. He resisted the categories of this profane world, by irrupting within it, from the world He inhabited in the triune life; as the Bread of Heaven. He brought what the world was created to be (so a fittingness), in His incarnation and atonement; in the manger and the cross (as synecdoche). A world (from Heaven) of ostensible foolishness and weakness, particularly because He was just one man; a Jew even.

_____________

P.S. One of my respondents even condemned me to hell for writing such words contra Aristotle and Plato. Hopefully these poor souls will ultimately come to know the joy of the Lord. I fear that its absence in their lives intimates a deeper delirium, beyond what they currently perceive of themselves coram Deo.

An Apology for Reading Deep Theology, Beyond Nerdom

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This is no secret: I read lots of what would be considered “academic theology.” The thing is, I don’t read it to be an academic, per se. The thought occurs to me that there are many out there who read and do theology for purely academic reasons. But you don’t have to. You can read academic theology simply to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ; to be active in the sanctification process, as the Holy Spirit blows and kindles the fire of Christ’s love upon our new hearts of ‘flesh.’ It is true, some might mistake you for being an academic, or aspiring to be an academic theologian when you read and comment on academic theologies. But in the end that might only be a superficial reading of things. Certainly, being a voracious reader of theologies, here and there, will begin to form a particular lexicon and theological imaginary for said reader. And yet, if being a reader in this way, but one who reads constrained by the love of Christ, with a flaming heart for the living and triune God, the way the academic theology gets internalized and personalized coram Deo doesn’t have to terminate in the guild or the academy. Indeed, I would argue if that is where such movings and breathings terminate then they are like the grass that withers up and blows away; better to spend our time and energy on something else at that point.

For me it isn’t enough to cloud such theological meanderings under the guise of being “nerdy.” What point does being nerdy accomplish for the Christian? To me this only serves to segregate the doing and reading of theology for a certain demographic in the church; i.e., those obsessed with purely intellectual pursuits. But what if you are so in love with Jesus Christ and the triune God that reading the depths has nothing to do with being nerdy? Just because the masses find such theological inkling to be too deep and unnecessary, this doesn’t make it so. So, if it isn’t nerdy and it isn’t too deep and unnecessary for the so-called everyday Christian, what good does such theological reading do?

I would simply suggest that it has a stretching effect, to the point that it elevates our altitudes to the heights; the heights that Christ has already forged for us in His ascension to the Right Hand of the Father. He has already performed these ‘good works’ for us, in Himself, so that we too might participate in the deeps and wides of His Heavenly Kingdom. Deep theology isn’t just for so-called theological nerds (whatever that is supposed to entail); deep theology isn’t “not” for everyday people (double negative, I see it); indeed, it is for lovers of Jesus Christ all the way up and all the way down. To me reading deep theology, and even the Bible (of course!) voraciously, is really just a symptom of being in love with the unfathomable God of life; who was, and is, and is to come. Thinking deeply about God, in a saturated and correct way, can only lead to a life of living in a saturated and correct way coram Deo (before God).

So, what are you waiting for?: read deeply, even if it ends up confusing people into thinking you’re some type of theological academic wannabe. Just know, that when you seek God you will find Him; and this, because He first found us in Christ that we might find Him indeed.

My Exchange with an ‘Orthobro’: Addressing the spirit of Sectarianism

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I just recently had an exchange on X with a type of guy who is often referred to as an “Orthobro,” short for “Orthodox brother,” but with a “dude” edge. I am not going to use his name, which to his credit he actually uses his (real name) on X. But he is a recent convert from Anglicanism (as an ordinand for the ministry) to the Eastern Orthodox church (where he will be soon, apparently, also an ordinand). As you will notice, only by inference, I would suggest that he is still in the so-called “cage-stage.” Often this terminology is applied to guys who become “Calvinists.” It is that novelty stage where everything is new; where you’ve finally taken the plunge into a whole new world where everything is shiny and sparkly; and you think everyone else, besides you, and your newfound faith, is wrong. I would say my interlocutor easily fits within those parameters.

So, what I am going to do is simply string all of my responses to my interlocutor together, and allow you to infer what it is that I am probably responding to; with reference to his comments to me. I will share a comment from him that will serve as a nice synopsizing frame, which in spirit, typifies the gist of most of the exchange from his end. I will also note here at the outset that what sparked the whole exchange is that I reposted his original post, made on his timeline, where he was noting his conversion to the “only true and Apostolic Church on the earth.” When I reposted his post, my comment was something like: “it’s too bad when people move say from Anglicanism to Orthodoxy (in this case) that they simply can’t say that that’s what they did; without the further sectarian qualification that often attends it.”

The Orthodox interlocutor: It’s hardly surprising that as a Reformed theologian you have such a view. I pray you eventually come to see the truth and become Orthodox rather than holding to heretical Reformed doctrine that is wholly inconsistent with the Apostolic faith and the patristic consensus. . .. It’s simple, there was one undivided Church, the RCC split off at the Great Schism, then your denomination split off from them. The original Church remained unchanged and still exists today. Ask yourself which human man founded your “church”.

My responses: Jesus loves you too. Altho, I’d say I’m not quite “Reformed” in the way you are presuming. I’m Athanasian Reformed; I’m “Eastern” Reformed; it could even be said, of Thomas F. Torrance, in important ways. You presume much too much methinks. In the end, you’re a sectarian in spirit, which is not of Christ, and thus is antiChrist. . .. Sure thing. And yet the esse of the church is not possessed by a particular “body” on this earth, but grounded in the body of Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father. There is no prolongation of the incarnation in a peculiar people found in the “East” or anywhere. The church participates in the Church, so to speak, in the triune life, mediated by the Church’s reality in Jesus Christ. We thus bear witness to that reality, to the Church’s reality, through union with His life by the Spirit. . .. Yes, the Orthodox church is really Greek. There is either Greek or Latin churchiology in the history. Yes, indeed: His body, not ours. To simply assert an absolute representation of that on earth is in fact sectarian par excellence. Study of church history itself doesn’t bear out your assertions about the uniformity of things, per se. . .. Again, eh. I understand you must assert such things. It’s as if you operate with some type of physicalism in regard to the church’s lineage. The only yea or no in the church is not conciliar, but within the divine and triune life itself. Your appeals to authority aren’t convincing. . .. This will have to be my last comment. Quoting Bruce McCormack on the councils and creeds and their value. “I say all of this to indicate that even the ecumenical creeds are only provisional statements. They are only relatively binding as definitions of what constitutes “orthodoxy.” Ultimately, orthodox teaching is that which conforms perfectly to the Word of God as attested in Holy Scripture. But given that such perfection is not attainable in this world, it is understandable that Karl Barth should have regarded “Dogma” as an eschatological concept. The “dogmas” (i.e., the teachings formally adopted and promulgated by individual churches) are witnesses to the Dogma and stand in a relation of greater or lesser approximation to it. But they do not attain to it perfectly—hence, the inherent reformability of all “dogmas.” Orthodoxy is not therefore a static, fixed reality; it is a body of teachings which have arisen out of, and belong to, a history which is as yet incomplete and constantly in need of reevaluation.” -Bruce L. McCormack, Orthodox and Modern: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 16. . .. Sola scriptura isn’t solo scriptura (most likely how you’re thinking of it—many do, even those who say they hold to sola). Anyway, I’m more radical than that given my theory of revelation. We won’t make headway here, that is clear. I can understand why someone would be drawn to the aesthetics of Orthodoxy, no doubt. If I were to go that way, it wouldn’t be Latin, but Greek for sure. Other than that, socially and politically you and I seem to be simpatico, as I’ve scanned your TL a little. . .. Eh. Enjoy.

I think I might have made a few more responses to him, but the above should suffice. I let him know in one of my responses that I would look forward to hooking back up in ten years, Lord willing, and seeing how he had calmed down on the sectarianism by then; hopefully.

A Christological Reading of Holy Scripture Contra the neo-Marcionite “Bible Teachers” of the 21st Century

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Let me be forthrightly clear: to follow a Christologically conditioned reading of Holy Scripture is not to be, at the same time, an implicit Marcionite. It is also not to suggest that the Old Testament history is simply the Hebrew peoples’ progressive knowledge of God, and thusly their writing thereof, as if it isn’t in fact heilsgeschichte, or the story of God’s in-breaking activity all throughout ‘salvation history,’ providentially and actively orienting and working through the events of said history in order to eventuate the actualization of his pre-destination in Jesus Christ to be for the world and not against it, but with it for all eternity. And yet this is how some very sloppy people, supposed teachers of Scripture (including Brian Zahnd, Wm Paul Young, Brad Jersak, David Bentley Hart et al.), handwave in support of biblical authority without also endorsing the accuracy of the Old Testament’s reality in Jesus Christ. They seem to want to say that the Old Testament is really just the Hebrews’ reflection on God as they wanted Him and thought Him to be; and that it wasn’t until Jesus showed up on the scene, who in an abstract way, takes up the OT and rewrites its reality, and its God, in light of His coming. As if the whole life of Christ is simply a sensus plenior (the full reading of Scripture unknown and even potentially drastically discontinuous with the original authors’ authorial intention). They even want to claim that like the Jesus Seminar, with their color-coded marbles, that they can use Jesus as a cipher to read the OT through; with such thrift and warrant that allows them to discern what in fact is real Scripture and what isn’t (i.e., in the Old Testament-Hebrew Bible). Higher criticize much? In reality most of these jokers are simply parroting what they have read from higher critic in chief, Peter Enns.

This kind of rubbish really shouldn’t be able to stand. It is simply post-Enlightenment rationalism and higher criticism repackaged for the 21st century mind. And this is ironic because these jokers attempt to bypass said modernity by asserting that they are really just forwarding the Bible reading practices of the early church and her respective fathers. This is ironic because their impulses are not being provided for by the church fathers or the early church in general, whatsoever! These jokers have confused some sort of style and mood of retrieval they believe they are inhabiting, with an actual reading and retrieval of the past pre-critical/modern readers of Holy Scripture. And yet their actual motivation is coming from the 18th and 19th centuries, and the Teutonic higher critics of Scripture; the ones who like to positivistically and rationalistically slice and dice Scripture into petri dishes of disparate and defunct books of redaction and various forms found in the history of religions.

Rubbish I say. I have no time for such garbage. Let God be true and every man and woman a liar.

Are the Western churches even the Church Anymore?

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Confusing the various subcultures of Christianity, with the Gospel itself is fleeting. Each Christian tradition has its own idiosyncratic ways of liturgizing, and various parochialisms, and its just straight up weird stuff that they do. For my respective “tribe,” broadly speaking, as an American evangelical, what has become weird is driven by its slavish commitment to consumerism at all costs. Whether it be professional worship bands leading worship (like the folks who didn’t quite make the American Idol cut), the pastor wearing skinny jeans, sporting a mustache, with a man bun, or just the self-help sermons and programs that run amok in such environs, there is a cultural Pelagianism present behind such productions. That is to say, the belief that people, in the main, are simply neutral beings, and that given the proper external stimuli they can be persuaded, one way or the other, to affirm Christ or not; they can be “led” into a situation, through various conditionings (and programs), where, as the theory goes, they will come to feel included in the community. You know the whole “felt needs” and “real needs” combine. One big problem with this is that such seeker sensitive churches get so hyper fixated on meeting peoples’ felt needs—with the rationalization that it’s all being done in the name and claim of the Gospel—that that becomes the end. They are unable, under such inertia, to ever get to the real need; which has been the supposed justification for using the felt needs to begin with.

As an American evangelical who has grown up in this, from its more fundy iteration to where it is now, what I have come to realize, along with many, that such Pelagianistically funded churches really aren’t representative of the church writ large at all. That is not to say that there aren’t “saved” people in the pews all throughout such churches. But it is to say that these people have become used to, and thus expectant of having their ears and eyes tickled with feel good messages; for the most part. After awhile though, the discerning Christian has to start asking at what point such a group ceases to be operating as a real life, Spirit led church, and instead finds its function more in line with some sort of social club (e.g., think of Christian Smith’s adage: moralistic therapeutic deism). None of this is to suggest that the church, this side of the Eschaton, will ever be perfect. But it is to say that at a certain point the Ghost has been given up indeed, and the so-called pastors are nothing more than “hirelings” for cultural dereliction.

For those of us seeking a healthy local church to attend, in such environments, this scenario makes it exceedingly difficult. For me, the pastors involved in this type of tripe are heading for a serious and heavy judgment. In the end, the Gospel cannot be reduced to these church subcultures; and yet often, people do engage in such reductions—and so they become so-called Exvangelicals, Nones, or straight up atheists (of a certain pop type). The Gospel is Christ as attested to and encountered in Holy Scripture. The Gospel is God’s triune Life for the world, and a genuine church is to faithfully bear witness to this deep reality; through deep and stretching teachings, activities, so on and so forth. Outwith this I have a hard time seeing how the apostasies of the Western churches (and elsewhere) can be curbed.

Christian Faith versus Secular Faith: The Concrete versus the Imaginary

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Faith as understood in a biblical frame, as Calvin, for example, understood so well, isn’t an abstract secular imaginary, but instead it is a living knowledge of God grounded in the faith of Christ for us. For the secularist faith is as subjective as the center of their own in-turned navel; a wishful thing that they can only hope might be the case. This is not the Christian ground for thinking faith. Faith isn’t a magic wand waved in order to bring nothing into something of our own fantastical imaginations. Faith is what the vicarious Man, Jesus Christ, has for us towards the Father in such a way that it entwines us, with Him, in the security and hiddenness of the bosom of the Father. I don’t let secularists impose their defeated notions of a fluttering wishfulness, which they consider faith to be, to be the way I must think faith. I think the faith of Christ from the victory of Christ as the primordial basis for knowledge of all reality; which is to say: knowledge of the triune God. The secularist often thinks that the God Christians know is someone they can know apart from Christ; as if there is some sort of common nature of continuity between the God they might try to imagine as the Christian God, and the God Self-revealed in Jesus Christ. But they have no access into the throne room of Grace; that is, until they come into the presence of God through the veil torn, Christ’s body, as the mediation that brings God to humanity and humanity to God. It is a special, familial and filial knowledge of God that is unique to the Son of God and all those in participation with Him, by the Spirit, come into union with Him, through the faith of Christ and His union with us in His humanity from Nazareth. Christians have a faith, a knowledge of God, a trust of the Father, that comes through the wood, blood and water of the cross and body of Jesus Christ. It is a re-created world wherein the faith of Christ comes to have grounding, as that has always already and eternally been the reality shared between the Father and the Son in and through the bond of love provided for by the Holy Spirit. The secularist and the Christian notion of faith are worlds apart; to the point that the former’s has already been put to death, in the old world, and the latter’s based on the new creation of Christ’s resurrected, ascended, and advent-ious humanity come and coming and coming again.

On the Goal of Wokeness: To Destroy

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The goal of “wokeness” (which is really Postmodern relativism) is to destroy the idea that there are any stable realities or truth; or Truth, as the case may be. It functions like an acid, that once released, eats away at everything it comes into contact with. It has telos, or purpose, ironically. Rene Descartes, at least in an early modern sense, kicked off this type of corrosive chemical, through his methodological skepticism, most commonly understood in the anecdote cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). This turns the subject into the self as the ground from whence all of reality must be thought. No longer on the external reality of God’s triune life (a reality that is mind-independent/extramental), but upon the monadic singularity of the human subjects own, idiosyncratic thoughts about reality; whatever those might be. In the end, then, what wokeness really is, biblically construed, is idolatry; it is self-worship, and whatever we project ourselves and our desires upon “out there.” For wokeness it is as if “In the beginning I created the heavens and the earth.” Wokeness is really just a modern, or postmodern expression of the fallen heart (see Gen 3). It is the collapsing of the true and living God, with all that He is in Himself, into each of ourselves individually, and celebrating our supposedly “unique” divine identities that we have come to realize as those who have “come of age.” Sluffing off the mythos and superstitions of the past, and understanding that the past was really just too naive to recognize that who they were describing and thinking as God, was really just a self-projection. This is how we have arrived at the “secular age,” in nuce (see Charles Taylor).