<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Saturday, July 08, 2006

More on the Ontological Agnostic [OA] 

Ontological Agnosticism is afraid that nobody could think before men were taught to do so by the Greeks, specifically by Aristotle. The OA is not absolutely certain that Adam could think, because although he was in the image of God, the OA is not sure of what that image consists. He thinks that logical consistency was invented by Aristotle and the Greeks who were pagans and did not understand that sin has marred the reason and therefore reason cannot be trusted to discern anything. Certain knowledge cannot be attained even from the Bible because the Bible does not contain logical propositions, only pointers to our "relationship" with God, whoever He is. The Bible might even contain contradictions which can only be resolved in God, where white is black, good is bad, and light is darkness, or none of these, as you please. It is obedience that counts, but that gets tricky because words are tricky things and the commandments are elusive. I cannot trust my sense for nothing I see is real, only the appearance of things; and I cannot trust my reason, because it is contaminated by sin. I cannot know anything; I just follow the blind who profess to lead the blind. Just trust the church and your baptism; but how do I know what a church is, or what baptism is, or anything?

We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men. We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves.... [Isaiah 59:10, 11] Why did Israel do that?

The classical approach to the attributes of God, such as are explored with such exquisite skill in Turretin and Charnock are rejected as using categories and terms used by the Greeks, who after all were pagans. Did I say that before? For an article that explodes the idea that the Greek humanism [paganism] heavily influenced early Christian thought go to this link [which will take you to the basketoffigs website].

The result is that nothing can be said about the being [ontology] of God. A person who cannot love his neighbor is not able to love God, John said. If a person cannot discern something about the eternal God in the particular image of his fellow man is not capable of knowing anything about God, for he is blind as a bat and deaf as a post, or pretends to be. The particular reveals the infinite.

The most important things that can be said about God are what He is NOT. But what something is NOT, especially when it comes to God, is extremely important. A child needs to know what is not food, who are not friends, who are not wise. It is ontological agnosticism that has led to such nonsense as the Openness of God "movement" [They like the designation "movement" because that way they don't have to say anything definite. "We are part of a movement, and you can't catch us, ha, ha, ha. Run, Run, as fast as you can; you can't catch me, I'm a Movement Man." To say what something IS NOT is not ignorance; it might be very important knowledge.

Thus, the classical Reformed theologians spoke of the negative attributes of God, or His incommunicable attributes: Independence, Immutability; infinity; and unity. There are five denials in the last clause of the previous sentence and they are very important denials about the nature [ontology] of God, and the Reformed confess that the Bible is very clear on these denials. To this can be added another denial: God is a spirit, which means that He is not composed of anything material that can be accessed by our senses. But the attribute of "spirit" is communicable, because God is the Creator and Father of many spirits, including angels and men, which do not possess independence, immutability, infinity, or unity.

incommunicable: These first four denials belong to God alone and cannot pertain to any creature.
Independent: God has no support group: He does not need food, air, companionship; warmth. He is complete in Himself in all things
Immutable: God does not change; He is perfect in wisdom, power, and goodness.
Infinite: God has no limits in time or space, in wisdom, in power, in knowledge, in goodness. He is eternal and immense, completely filling all time and space that that he is everywhere present and all knowing.
One, or Unity: There is only One God, and He is a simple being, having no parts, but is infinitely One. His attributes are not parts, but His very essence.
Spirit: He does not have a body like a man and cannot be accessed by the physical senses. He is invisible [another negative], everywhere present in all space and time.

This means that we must not worship anything that does not have these attributes: no creature, nothing in this changing, finite, diverse, and physical world. There is one God, and He is invisible to our senses, known only by His Word and Spirit. Even Christ is not to be worshipped in the body, because He as ascended to heaven and must be sought there, for we know him no more after the flesh. His kingdom is not of this world.

When we speak of the Ontological Trinity, we are confessing that there is One God who eternally exists in Three Persons, but there is only one Being called God, so that the Persons are not divisions of god, for infinity and Unity cannot be divided.

For more information on the subject, consult the Attributes page at the Basket of Figs website. Click here.

See also any standard systematic theology: Berkhof; Hodge; Turretin; Murray; Van Til; Calvin [Institutes of the Christian Religion]etc.

Reformed Theology is not a movement; it is a systematic. If a minister is Reformed, it is possible to know it. If he doesn't want you to know what he is, then he isn't. Only God is perfect, but a three-legged cow is still a cow. A cow without a head is not a cow; it is a rotting corpse. A farmer doesn't need years of graduate school to know that. The OA is not real sure what anything IS, but this is just a pretense, in order to get you to think that somethings are different than they are.

"This is life eternal, that they might know thee, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.... I have given them the words that thou hast given me, and they have received them...." --Jesus [John 17]

The fact is, Israel was not blind and they did have eyes. But what good is the Bible if you don't read it? What good are eyes if you don't look at God's creation? What good is reason if you refuse to think, or if you get drunk on the whiskey of contradiction? "Is" can never be "is not," not in the world created by One who cannot deny Himself and Who cannot lie.

"Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." --Jesus.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Friday, July 07, 2006

Aaron's Lampstand and Ontology 

In 1997 I wrote an article on the implications of Numbers 8:1-4 to epistemology and ontology. "Epistemology" is the knowledge of knowledge and "ontology" is the knowledge of what is real. How are both of these related to language.

This is a simple article on these difficult subjects. It is one that a layperson can easily read and get some understanding.

Go to this link. [LINK] It will take you to the Basket of Figs website and the 1997 menu. You will find the article under May, 1997. Feel free to explore after you read the article. You will need Adobe Reader to read the file. If you don't have it you can get it at: Adobe Reader.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Yes! Evil Is. 

If there is a heaven and if there is a hell, then this is a most practical message.

And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. [Matt. 19:16, 17]

[For a discussion of the encounter of the Rich Young Ruler with Jesus, see my article at Basket of Figs. [Click]

Jesus refused to be called "good" by one who did not accept Him as God. In this He was consistent with His own appearance to the father and mother of Samson, refusing to receive their sacrifice: "And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the LORD. For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the LORD" [Judges 13:16]. Just as it would have been idolatry for Manoah to offer a sacrifice to a creature, so it was idolatry for the Rich Young Ruler to call Jesus "good' if he did not believe him to be God. Fawning flattery was not accepted by Jesus just as He did not accept the idea that the Rich Young Ruler knew anything about the commandments. If Moses came and gave the Law to lead us to Christ, how could this self-righteous hypocrite know anything about the Law if it did not humble Him before the Son of God?

To put it another way, the Apostle Paul said, " And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin." [Romans 14:23] Evil abides in the invisible realm, the realm of the spirit, not in the realm of the physical or the world of sense. Concerning the world of sense, the great apostle said, " I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean." [Romans 14:14]

Jeremiah 10:14 "Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them." The evil that lies in the heart of every sinner is the lie that his dead gods have validity.

Isaiah 59:13 "In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood."

The Rich Young Ruler had a lie in his heart, comforted himself in his lie, and was very sorrowful that Jesus did not confirm him in his lying heart.

In another place, Jesus put it very clearly: " And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man". [Mark 7:20-23] Men say and do rotten things because of the condition of their soul, their spirit, and not because of the material things that they eat or drink. Jesus is affirming that both good and evil are realities of the soul, not of the body.

Christianity does not deny the reality of evil. In fact the central truth of the Gospel is that Christ was crucified, shedding His blood, for our sins. These sins were real, not imaginary. In fact the Sciptures also affirm that He "gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:" [Galatians 1:4]

It is also true that God in His providence makes even the evil, which is real, work for the good of His children, so that it can never destroy us or turn aside His eternal purpose to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ and His perfection, as Paul also declares in Romans 8:28, one of the most precious promises to the child of God. This truth is confessed in the Heidelberg Catechism:

Q27: What do you understand by the providence of God?
A27: The almighty, everywhere-present power of God,[1] whereby, as it were by His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures,[2] and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink,[3] health and sickness,[4] riches and poverty,[5] indeed, all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.

1. Acts 17:25-26
2. Heb. 1:3
3. Jer. 5:24; Acts 14:17
4. John 9:3
5. Prov. 22:2; Psa. 103:19; Rom. 5:3-5a

Q28: What does it profit us to know that God created and by His providence upholds all things?
A28: That we may be patient in adversity,[1] thankful in prosperity,[2] and for what is future have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature shall separate us from His love,[3] since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.[4]

1. Rom. 5:3; James 1:3; Job 1:21
2. Deut. 8:10; I Thess. 5:18
3. Rom. 8:35, 38-39
4. Job 1:12; Acts 17:25-28; Prov. 21:1; Psa. 71:7; II Cor. 1:10


God does not turn the evil into good, but works it for good for the child of God. But He does not do this for the unbeliever. Instead, the evil consumes him, and becomes greater and greater until he finds his portion in the Lake of Fire. Even then he does not feel remorse or repentance, but "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." His hatred of God and goodness that is at the root of his soul and spirit causes him to gnash his teeth in hatred, showing that his judgment is just.

Because God is good, the very definition of good, evil cannot prevail, but will suffer the eternal wrath of God forever and ever as Jesus Himself declared: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." [Matthew 25:41]

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Its a sign, stupid! 

"After the same manner also [he took] the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink [it], in remembrance of me." (1 Corinthians 11:25 AV) For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 29 But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom [Matt. 26:27, 28].

The Lord Jesus, according to the apostles, took the cup when He inaugurated the Last Supper [Holy Communion, the Mass, etc,] calling it the fruit of the vine. Only a complete irrationality would say that it is both blood and wine. Or an ontological skeptic. An ontological agnostic confesses that he doesn't know anything about reality, but insists on talking about it anyway.

As I said in my last post, I am not an ontological agnostic. I think you can get real meaning about the world by looking at it, tasting it, smelling it, touching it, and listening to it. You cannot get real information about God through these means, but that is another subject. The only way you could get real information about God through the senses would be if God was material, which He is not, for He is a Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

This does not mean that you cannot have real information about the spirit, it just means that you cannot get information about the spiritual through the senses. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. The things which are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen are material. To get true understanding of spiritual things you must read and understand the spiritual words that reveal them [Look in 1 Cor. 2 if you are interested].

This is the reason that there can be no "scientific" knowledge of the spiritual, because science, by definition, deals only with the things that can be observed by the senses. Humanist scientists define away the spiritual at the beginning and spend their lives wallowing in the sensual and wonder why they come to no meaning.

But back to the Lord's Supper. If it tastes like bread, crumbles like bread, digests like bread, looks and smells like bread, then it is bread. Stop kidding yourself. Bread is bread is bread.

But, but, but.... the ontological agnostic objects: Jesus said "This is my body." Yep. He also said He was a door, a shepherd, a way, a vine, and many other things. Why don't you go eat a door and pretend you are eating Christ? eh? Make it a steel door, for true faith must be hard, mustn't it? Chew on a grapevine and commune with the Almighty? The Romanists, the Federal Vision people, and other sacerdotalists want you to believe that they can work a miracle by doing their "hocus pocus" [the corruption of the Latin "hoc est corpus" for "This is my body"] over some bread and wine and seduce you into thinking you are getting religion by eating dry bread. Some won't even let you drink the wine, keeping it for themselves.

Why, then did Christ say, "This is my body." It's a sign, a symbol. As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it:

Q79: Why then does Christ call the bread His body, and the cup His blood, or the new testament in His blood; and the apostle Paul, the communion of the body and blood of Christ?
A79: Christ speaks thus with great cause, namely, not only to teach us thereby, that like as the bread and wine sustain this temporal life, so also His crucified body and shed blood are the true meat and drink of our souls unto life eternal;[1] but much more, by this visible sign and pledge to assure us that we are as really partakers of His true body and blood by the working of the Holy Ghost, as we receive by the mouth of the body these holy tokens in remembrance of Him;[2] and that all His sufferings and obedience are as certainly our own, as if we ourselves had suffered and done all in our own person.

1. John 6:51-55
2. I Cor. 10:16-17

The bread is bread; the wine is wine. We eat and drink by putting them in our mouths, chewing and swallowing, and they nourish the body. Jesus said that what enters the body cannot defile the man; it can't purify him, either. Are you without understanding? [See Mark 7:18ff] I know what physical food is; and I know what spiritual food is, and they are not the same thing--any time or any place.

We feast on Christ by believing the Gospel, that "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:" (1 Peter 3:18 AV)

You are not going to be spiritual by eating or drinking anything, no matter what the mumbo jumbo is. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. [Rom. 14:7].

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

No! I am not an ontological agnostic. 

I do not have exhaustive understanding of the nature of God. Only a fool would say so. But I know what the Bible has revealed about God. It is not only expressed in the great confessions of the Faith of the church, such as the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed, the Belgic Confession, and the Westminster Confession, but in the daily confessions of millions of Christians past and present and future. He is the only Eternal, Immutable, Self-Existent, existing in perfect Unity. For more information on this subject you may access my Basket of Figs website: [basketoffigs.org] and click on "Attributes." I do not pretend to have exhaustive knowledge about any of these things, just as I do not have exhaustive knowledge about the wonderful and delightful woman I have been married to for forty-four years. She continues to delight and amaze me. But it wouldn't take me all night to discover her to be Leah. [For biblical agnostic, please read Genesis 29. Read and you will be enlightened.]

This eternal, all-powerful, all-knowling, just, pure, and holy Being exists in Three Persons, or self-consciousnesses, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who all exist in the one nature, or the one Eternity, Immutability, Independence, and Unity. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity entered into our space and time as Jesus of Nazareth. He declared, "He that has seen me, has seen the Father" and "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man comes to the Father but by me." There is only one time that a created being was united with the Uncreated God, and that is in the Person of Jesus Christ, whom John declares was "in the beginning... and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything that was made. In Him was life and the life was the life of men."

This God was invisible until made manifest in Jesus Christ. Now that Christ has returned to Heaven, He is again invisible, known only by the record that God given us of His Son, according to I John 5.

An idol is a representation of the confusion of a man who does not know the true and living God, for anyone who knows God will never get confused about the works of God and the works of men.

John the Baptist said, "I baptize you with water, but there is one coming after me who will baptize you with the Holy Ghost." Minister can baptize with water and that is the end of it. No man can do what Christ can do, and anyone who thinks that his baptism is the baptism of the Holy Ghost is a fool, a liar, or worse. Only Jesus can give the gift of the Holy Spirit with the gifts of regeneration, sanctification, perserverance, and eternal life. Baptism with water is a sign and that is all it is; a sign that points to the reality that belongs to Christ alone.

Only a ontological agnostic could confuse water with the Holy Spirit. A man could be that stupid only if deceived in his mind.

Communion at the Lord's Supper is a sign. Men can give you bread and wine to consume, and that's the end of it. Only the Lord Jesus can give you new life and nourishment and growth. Thousands upon thousands of sinners under the wrath of God have been sprinkled, dunked, doused with water and have emerged as wet sinners under the wrath of God. Just as thousands of Israel came out of Israel, were baptized in the sea and cloud and ate of that spiritual meat and drank of that spiritual drink, but fell in their carcasses in the wilderness, so there are many who bear the signs of Christ and know nothing of Him.

I know the difference between flesh and bread. I don't eat flesh at the communion table and neither does anyone else. Besides, flesh is not food for the soul for the soul does not feed on material things. Try feeding math flash cards to your kids to get them to improve their math.

Circumcision availed to the Jew if he believed the promise of Christ, otherwise his circumcision was worse than useless, for along with his circumcision he had the promises contained in the oracles of God. These would only condemn him if he did not believe. Also, those who believed, even if not circumcised, would find eternal life and the blessings of God's grace.

Nothing created is eternal, immutable, Self-Existent, and One. Only the invisible God is.

You will learn about Him only in the Scriptures which speak to the inner man, to the heart if the heart is made new by the Holy Spirit.

There is a visible church and there is an invisible church. Those who deny the invisible and try to grant divine attributes, such as infallibility, to the visible are guilty of idolatry, mistaking the temporal for the eternal.

The true definition of a man is in his spiritual qualities, holiness, righteousness, true knowledge--not in the works of the body, which fades away to await the resurrection to glory, the glory of the Lord Jesus in Heaven, and the likeness of the heavenly, and not the earthly body, according to I Cor. 15. Hence, the foolishness of the idolatry that seeks to gain the whole world and loses its soul. "The things which are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal."

To deny the invisible and to seek to find the reality in the sign, the symbol, or anything of the senses of the body, is to deny the true and the living God.

The body is not the soul; the sign is not the reality; the flesh is not the spirit; the Kingdom of God comes not with observation.

By faith Moses "forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." In this Moses followed his father Abraham who, "when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

I did not give many references to verses quoted, because I want you to look them up. If you are too spiritually lazy to do this, then you will remain an ontological agnostic. [Dictionaries are useful for big words, too.]

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?