We take the necessity of logical consistency, Empirical adequacy, and Experiential relevance … what do we put that test to? To the four questions of Origin, Meaning, Destiny, and Morality. What are the subjects? The subjects are God, reality, knowledge, morality, and mankind, which is theology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and anthropology. Three tests. Four Questions. Five disciplines.
Ravi Zacharias
I heard this recently in a Ravi Zacharias sermon and it caught my attention because I was taught something very similar when I was 18, and it has remained central to my own thinking every since.
This was the form in which I learned it from Dr. Glenn Martin. Dr. Martin began every course he taught with the review you will find below. Martin taught me that the Christian, in his apologetic endeavor has to answer the larger questions with lasting answers.
The larger questions were,
“The Origin, Nature, and Destiny of the Cosmos?” &
“The Origin, Nature, Destiny and Role of Man?”
In order to do that one was required to provide answers for
Epistemology — The question of Knowledge
Options
a.) Autonomous Reason
b.) Intuition
c.) Revelation
Teleology — The question of purpose…ends
a.) The Kingdom of God
b.) The Kingdom of Man
Ontology (Metaphysics) — The question of ultimate reality
Extra-mundane Personal Sovereign God
Time plus Chance plus Circumstance
Axiology — The question of values.
God’s Law
Man’s relativism
All of this was then applied to the 7 civil-social Institutions that all social orders build.
A.) Church
B.) Family
C.) Arts
D.) Education
E.) Science
F.) Civil-social (politics)
G.) Law
Author: jetbrane
I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling.
I am postmillennial in my eschatology.
Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity
Reformed in my Soteriology
Presuppositional in my apologetics
Familialist in my family theology
Agrarian in my regional community social order belief
Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief
Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic
Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern
Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview
One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics
Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place
Some of my favorite authors,
Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc.
My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture.
Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.
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