Apologetics – Page 21

Van Til & McAtee on Linguistic Deception

“Modernists will usually betray pretty clearly that they use Christian terminology before a pagan background . . . Modernism is the use of Christian terms for the purpose of conveying pagan thought . . . All the words that we daily use and give a Christian meaning must now receive a pagan meaning

Cornelius Van Til

“What Do You Mean?” The Banner, Vol. 67

This is called linguistic deception and we are seeing it all the time now. Linguistic deception treats words like eggs which can be cracked open and emptied of their content and then filled with new content. What these people do is they empty words used by Christians that have traditional meanings and then fill them with other meaning.

We see this w/ R2K for example. All R2K fanboys will affirm that Jesus is Lord, but eventually one learns that the word “Lord” for R2K fanboys means “Lord,” except for where Jesus is only “kind of Lord in a spiritual sense.”

We see this w/ Federal Vision types. They assert “Justification by faith alone,” and then they teach that there are two justifications, initial and final, and not all who are initially justified are finally justified. What’s the difference between the those who are initially justified and also finally justified and those who are who initially justified but not also finally justified? Well, what else can the difference be but the contributory dynamic of our works to that final justification?

We see this in Gary DeMar’s full Preterism. They recite the Apostles Creed but when they get to the part about Jesus returning again for the quick and the dead, suddenly that is reinterpreted to mean “returning for the persons of the quick and the dead but not their corporeal and now glorified bodies.”

Machen complained about this linguistic deception in his “Christianity and Liberalism,” continuously. He complained that Modernists (Liberals) where cracking open the words, emptying out the meaning, and then filling the words with new meaning, while still insisting that they were “Christian,” when in point of fact they were liars, just as the R2K chaps, the FV chaps and the Full Preterist chaps are liars when they do the very same thing.

OK… let me soften that a wee bit. At least some of them are epistemologically self conscious about their lying while the rest who are doing the same may not be epistemologically self conscious about what they are doing but instead are merely useful idiots.

Four Brief Observations Regarding Natural Law

1.) The acceptance of Natural Law (NL) as a epistemology for fallen man not only touches on the issue of epistemology but it also is a demonstration of warped thinking regarding Christian anthropology and Christian hamartiology.

Anthropology and Hamartiology because NL adherents are out of step with the effects of sin on fallen man. For NL adherents man is not quite as fallen as for Reformed folks and neither has sin affected man quite as thoroughly as for Reformed folks.

2.) The great unstated premise of advocates of Natural Law is that fallen man can observe the Universe and quite apart from any beginning theological premises can read the law of nature correctly by the usage of naked reason… reason unclothed with any theological a-prioris.

Of course this is a literal impossibility. Reason is never exercised as if naked. Reason always operates upon and with a theological grist. This is why it is irrational to speak of “right reason” in the context of NL because the fallenness of man w/ its noetic effects of sin upon the mind does not allow any fallen man to have this thing called “right reason.”

3.) The mind of man is at enmity with God. (Romans 8:7)

Romans 8 teaches that the mind of man is at enmity w/ God. If the mind of man is at enmity w/ God then certainly this includes being at enmity w/ God’s revelation of NL with the implication that NL is no trustworthy epistemology for ordering society.

I have no understanding how someone can say they are Reformed while at the same time holding to NL.

4.) The basic division between the Thomistic NL types and Presuppositionalists is that the Thomists believe that man reasons from man to God via right reason and natural law, while Presuppositionalists believe that man reasons from God to God via special revelation.

There is no reconciling Thomistic NL and Presuppostionalism. Those in each camp who understand there worldview will NEVER be reconciled.

Talking About Natural Law

Fallen man remains God’s man and as Gods man fallen man remains the fingerprint of God. However, fallen man hates God and by extension hates himself as the fingerprint of God. Therefore fallen man both knows God and doesn’t know God. Ontologically fallen man cannot get away from the realities of who he is. However, fallen man uses his epistemological apparatus to deny what he can’t escape ontologically. In Romans this is called “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.” This epistemological suppressing the truth in unrighteousness is applied to all of creation and nature since all creation and nature likewise are fingerprinted with the finger of their creator and as such the real meaning and truth of them must be suppressed and denied. The further fallen man becomes consistent with his suppression the more God’s creative reality must be assaulted and denied. This explains the current perplexity where a sitting Supreme Court justice and countless others like her no longer can answer the question; “What is a woman.” Fallen man cannot answer this question because even though fallen man cannot escape ontological reality, he will, by the usage of his epistemological apparatus suppress and deny what he can’t escape from knowing.

When a whole culture is given over to this consistent denial and suppressing of Natural Law givens the result eventually will be death, because all those who hate God love death.

However, cultures strewn with the unregenerate can be stabilized by the presence of believers who are not suppressing reality and who read Natural Law aright because they are reading it through the lens of Special Revelation. In such cultures and in such cases what happens is that fallen man, being inconsistent with his self avowed God denying principles, sneaks into his Christ hating worldview capital from the Christian world and life view. This stolen capital keeps the unbeliever afloat so that, as one example, in a culture leavened with Christ (a Christian culture) they can make marriages that last and are comparatively stable.

In such a culture stabilized by a Christian ethos you would then expect there to arise a philosophy that embraced Natural Law because then the stability of the culture can be ascribed to man who reads NL aright instead of being ascribed to the Biblical beliefs of the Christians in the social order. However, all along, the epoxy of the social order is special revelation.

In such a culture, Christian thinkers themselves may well begin to talk about Natural Law as being the epoxy that allows Christians and fallen man to together create a stable social order. However, if those same Christian thinkers could live long enough lives to see the deterioration of their once stable cultures because the Christ hater began to be more and more consistent with their suppressing the truth in unrighteousness they would then realize that it was not Natural Law that was the epoxy that held the culture together but rather it was the explicit special revelation that was embraced by them and their kind that created a sturdy headwind that allowed the unregenerate to sneak that earlier spoken of stolen capital into their worldviews in order to keep stability in the culture leavened with Christ.

If the above isn’t helpful try to reverse engineer all of this. Imagine growing up in a Cannibalistic adulterous ridden culture where treachery and treason were exalted as genius and so was untouched by Biblical Christianity. Could anyone imagine that such fallen people would ever come up with a Natural law that taught the precepts found in the 10 commandments?

Of course the problem here is never with God’s natural revelation of which Natural Law is a subset. The heavens do indeed declare the handiwork of God. All of creation screams the truth of God. However, fallen man is like the chap who is constantly pushing the buttons in order to find a radio station that doesn’t play “the truth of God’s revelation.” Fallen man, becoming increasingly consistent with his enmity against God (Romans 8:7) would go as far as to rip his own eyeballs out in order to not see the truth contained in Natural Law.

Because of this Natural Law is a weak reed in order to lean on to make law for a particular social order populated by a large majority of people who are being ever more increasingly consistent with their hatred of Christ. We are seeing this daily in the West.

For Christians in the West then, the appeal is not to Natural Law. The appeal is to the politicus usus of God’s perspicuous Law in order to order social order aright. This, in combination of heralding the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way to pull back anti-Christ social orders from the edge of the abyss. Appeals to Natural Law will only hasten our nearing, ever nearing, to the final fall.

Biden’s First 2024 Campaign Ad … White People Beware

Biden’s first campaign ad for 2024 has just been released and it is clear that the man is running a racial campaign.

So much cynicism.

1.) Biden is asking everyone to vote for him to support “Democracy,” and yet this Republic was built by men who often commented on how much they hated Democracy.

2.) Biden is the one who stole election 2020 and yet in this ad he is the one who is saying he is going to protect 2024 election so that everyone can vote “fairly.” He is going to make sure every vote counts. This is a twist on Alinsky where you imply you’re going to protect the electorate from what you were guilty of doing last election cycle.

3.) This is a purely racial. Note at the beginning of the ad when it talks about protecting people’s votes that the ad shows minority faces or a single mother w/ two children voting. However at the 31 second mark when Biden says “There’s something dangerous happening in America” suddenly all we see are white faces. White people are the danger.

4.) There is a flashback to MLK “I have a dream speech.” More dog whistling communicating that Biden is running an anti-White campaign.

5.) At 50 seconds Biden tells us that our children are watching and we flash to a picture of two minority children on a bus who are front and center in the photo.

6.) There is a flash photo scene of white people marching in a Nazi parade.

Watch this video scene by scene. You will see that Biden is campaigning on the need to stop White people.

Chrissy Gordon on Moscow’s Mood … McAtee on Chrissy’s Mood

Well, about a month ago Rev. Chris Gordon wrote a piece attacking the attackers of Kevin DeYoung’s simpering piece complaining about Doug Wilson’s tone.

Gordon did us the favor of drilling down to the real nature of the controversy. Gordon and the Wimp Reformed establishment HATES postmillennialism. That is the real reason behind their loathing of Doug Wilson.

Now, having said that, I concede that Gordon has a point about Wilson’s Federal Vision pukefest theology but, let’s be honest here Chrissy, no one should be complaining about Federal Vision who doesn’t rail against R2K. But of course you won’t do that since you are sympathetic to R2K. So,
Gordon prefers his heresy over Wilson’s. Stalemate.

So, it seems the challenge is for Amills to practice Optimistic Amillennialism and so give up R2K and for Postmills to keep on practicing their edgy Postmillennialism while not allowing people like Wilson to get away with the Federal Vision crap he pushed.

Let everyone clean their own house. I tenaciously criticized Wilson and heretical FV in the day. Chrissy has not said squat about R2K heretical theology.

Who will take out the R2K garbage. I know Chrissy won’t.

Elsewhere Gordon offers,

“DeYoung expressed, “Pugnacity and jocularity are not the occasional and unfortunate by-products of the brand; they are the brand.” He’s exactly correct. As Christendom has collapsed in the West, Wilson has offered a vision that plays on the fears and emotions of those who are panicking. This is precisely why the mission of the church, all of the sudden, takes a drastic turn in its elevating of cultural transformation while ‘saving people from their sins’ becomes only a means to this greater end.”

Rev. Chrissy Gordon

R2K “Minister”

1.) Could anybody tell me what is wrong with toughness and humor (pugnacity and jocularity) being the type of Christianity one lives? Is this a case where people like DeYoung and Gordon are offended by having a sense of humor?

2.) The Reformed have always believed that “saving people from their sins” is only the means to a greater end. It is the Lutherans, historically, who believed that “saving people from their sins” was the end of the message of the Gospel. Contrary to Lutherans the Reformed always held that “saving people from their sins” was only a means to the higher end of a people determined to live for the glory of God. One of those ways people live for the glory of God is the cultural transformation that is the product of saved people seeking to live for the glory of God.

Whatever Gordon is expressing here (I think it is Lutheranism) this is not the way the Reformed have thought over the centuries.

In other words… Rev. Gordon is just flat out in error here.