[Vision2020] Christ Church and freedom of religion

[Michael]

Princess,

 

Thank you for keeping a civil tone; this is very helpful.  Your comment
below about Christian society and law is not true to the current concern.
The classic theonomic position, which is one that Wilson has flirted with in
a fickle manner for the last decade, is not the statement that "the laws of
the land reflect the Christian faith of a Christian people."  Rather, it is
the statement that our legal tradition is too stupid (from a Van Tilian
perspective) to give us just law, and we therefore need to go to direct,
special revelation to know what laws would be just and what laws would not
be just.  Therefore, the civil laws for theocratic Israel -the suffering,
child-servant wandering in the desert waiting for the days of maturity and
freedom - are generally the perfect reflection of God's wisdom in society.
The problems with this are many, and it has been largely despised even
within your very narrow reformed tradition.  

 

A quick note regarding your two book referrals, I've read the three
selections myself.  John Frame's DKG might be of interest to some given
Frame's clear writing style and his exhaustive, encyclopedic approach in
this work.  But I don't think it will be of much value nailing any
contemporary philosophical or apologetic issue, and in many respects is a
very "in house" sort of read for the Van Tilian, reformed Christian. What
Frame has produced since writing that book in the early 80s does not give
evidence that the philosophical work within DKG has much staying power.  As
for Ralph Smith's books: although I think it is nice that Canon Press likes
to publish family and friends, and although I like Smith as a pastor and
person, I would not recommend these books.  There are some beneficial
sections, but not the ones you reference here.  My two cents anyhow... 

 

Michael   

 

 

2. Christ Church prays, along with all other churches, "Thy will be done on
earth as it is in Heaven." Christ Church would like to see the laws of the
land reflect the Christian faith of a Christian people. But even if an
absolute majority of people in every state came to see things as Christ
Church does, there are certain sins that would never be made crimes. For
example, failure to attend congregational worship at church when one is able
to is a sin. But it can never legitimately (i.e., biblically speaking) be
made a crime, even in a thoroughly Christianized society.

 

 

I would say that apparent randomness and mechanical determinism are two
sides of the same coin. What I didn't mention last time, and which I perhaps
should have mentioned, is the fact that our minds cannot delve deeply into
any subject without being confronted by paradox. This is true for the
Christian as well as for the non-Christian, viz. the title of Ralph Smith's
excellent book published by Canon Press, "Paradox and Truth." (Although I
suspect you would profit most by reading another of Smith's books, "Trinity
and Reality," also published by Canon Press, which explains how the
Trinitarian Christian perspective alone is able to resolve the paradoxes and
epistemological problems that face us as human beings.

 

I'd like to share with you two quotes from John Frame's "The Doctrine of the
Knowledge of God" that you may find interesting and useful in this context:

 

' . . . to make human beings creators or attestors in any sense might seem
to detract from the ultimate causality and authority of God. We must not
forget, however, that not only is the Lord authoritative and in control but
He is also covenantally present. Because He perfectly controls our
interpretative work, all of our thinking is a revelation of Him and a
manifestation of His presence. Thus we do not need to feat that the work of
the human mind necessarily competes with the authority of God, because the
Lord reveals Himself in and through our thinking. Human freedom then, need
not block out God's revelation. Thus we need not fear thinking and knowing. 

And so a . . .  [correct] understanding of what the Bible teaches champions
the true freedom of human thought. If true the . . . ["autonomous thinker's]
boast that he is able to think autonomously ("freely") would imply only that
human thought is in bondage to the random forces of chance, when in reality
.. . . that is not the case . . . [to the extent that] we think in obedience
to God's Word, we know that our very thinking processes will reveal God to
us. Our minds image God, even in His sovereign attributes of control and
authority.'

 

'The Paradox of Analysis

'Another way to make the same point has been described as the "paradox of
analysis." Pretend that I try to gain knowledge of kangaroos by formulating
various equations such as "kangaroo=mammal," "kangaroo=marsupial mammal," 

"kangaroo=marsupial mammal found in Australia," and so forth. Such a process
might be called an "analysis" of the concept "kangaroo." It works fine,
until I decide that there must be an absolute identity between the two sides
of the equation, which is the desire for perfect or exhaustive knowledge of
the kangaroo. When I make that demand, I can satisfy it only by the equation
"kangaroo=kangaroo." Although that equation gives me an absolute identity,
it gives me absolutely no useful information. The moral is the same: when we
seek Godlike, exhaustive, infallible knowledge, we are likely to achieve
only total ignorance. Rationalism begets irrationalism.'

 

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