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Martin & McAtee On Worldview Thinking On The Eclectic Level

Some quotes from IWU legendary Dr. Glenn Martin,

“Most College and University faculty members operate at a third level (of worldview thinking). The eclectic level of application. They make eclectic selection from the packages which have already been marketed, which they then present to their students.”

Implications

1.) The fact that the selection is being made in an eclectic fashion indicates that these faculty members are seldom, if ever, epistemologically self conscious. They are operating with borrowed capital from another person’s worldview and having acquired it much the same way a person might acquire a suit, or a pair of shoes, (they purchased it from somebody else) they have little understanding of what went into putting the worldview together. John Maynard Keynes captures something of what I am aiming at here when he said,

“Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

2.) If the students, to whom the faculty present their second-hand worldviews, do embrace the worldview the faculty is teaching, just as the faculty member received it from his professor, they are now likewise eclectic worldview thinkers to the third generation. The worldview, like the aforementioned suit, is a hand-me-down to another generation. All the faults and contradictions that were originally present in the Worldview as it was originally marketed remain unobserved.

It is important to realize in this conversation that at the end of the day the world of worldview possibilities can be reduced to two should all worldviews be boiled down to their essentials and examined on a presuppositional basis.

A Discussions On The Vacuity Of R2K

Bret wrote,

“Culture is defined as “theology externalized,” or, “the outward manifestation of a people’s inward beliefs.”

And David Rothstein responded

“As far as I know, this is not a commonly accepted definition, even among Christians, though of course you’re free to use it. I personally don’t find it helpful since most things that we associate with culture do not necessarily manifest theological systems—or at the very least cannot be fully explained in these terms.”

Bret answers,

First off, the definition isn’t mine but comes from Henry Van Til who borrowed it from Paul Tillich. You might want to interact with them and show why they are wrong on the definition of culture before you so casually dismiss it.

Here is the appropriate section from Van Til’s book, “The Calvinistic Concept of Culture.”

“It is…more correct to ask what the role of culture is in religion than to put the question the other way around, as Hutchison does, ‘What is religion’s role in culture?’ For man, in the deepest reaches of his being, is religious; he is determined by his relationship to God. Religion, to paraphrase the poet’s expressive phrase, is not of life a thing apart, it is man’s whole existence. Hutchison, indeed, comes to the same conclusion when he says, ‘For religion is not one aspect or department of life beside the others, as modern secular thought likes to believe; it consists rather in the orientation of all human life to the absolute’. Tillich has captured the idea in a trenchant line, ‘Religion is the substance of culture and culture the form of religion.’

The Westminster Shorter Catechism maintains at the outset that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. However other-worldly this may sound to some, Presbyterians have interpreted this biblically to mean that man is to serve God in his daily calling, which is the content of religion. This service cannot be expressed except through man’s cultural activity, which gives expression to his religious faith. Now faith is the function of the heart, and out of the heart are the issues of life (Prov. 4:23). This is the first principle of a biblically oriented psychology.

No man can escape this religious determination of his life, since God is the inescapable, ever-present Fact of man’s existence. God may be loved or hated, adored or debased, but he cannot be ignored. The sense of God (sensus deitatis) is still the seed of religion (semen religionis). All of primitive religion is corroboration of the cry of the Psalmist, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or wither shall I flee from thy presence?” (Ps. 139:7).”

Second, your assertion that “most things that we associate with culture do not necessarily manifest theological systems—or at the very least cannot be fully explained in these terms,” is just plain errant. History, Law, Education, Arts, Family life, Ecclesiastical, Fashion, Architecture, and all other institutional infrastructure of a culture is explained by theology.

Bret wrote,

But I would disagree w/ you that the handling of that common reality by those committed to hostility of Christ allows them to understand the dialect with which the Christian speaks.

David responded,

I never claimed that unbelievers understand the significance of “justification,” “sanctification,” or “regeneration.”

Bret responds,

And I never said that was the dialect that I was speaking of. The Christian dialect is based on the fact that objective meaning exists by virtue of God’s reality. The Christian believes and speaks with the dialect that recognizes that, all things are what they are because of who God is. The non Christian dialect locates meaning subjectively and their dialect is based on their own fiat word legislating meaning. Because this is true when I say “culture,” for example, the Christian finds meaning in God’s word that, “As a man thinketh in his heart so he is,” and then by good and necessary consequence understands that God’s definition of culture is that it is the manifestation of men thinking in their heart (theology externalized) while the non Christian or the unbiblical Christian will try to define “culture” (our working example) based upon their own self legislating subjective fiat word.

Bret had asked,

Is the clothing that the hooker wears the same as the clothing that the pastor’s wife wears?

David responds,

I live in a neighborhood inhabited by many unbelievers, but as far as I know, none of them is a hooker. My next-door neighbor happens to be Jewish and his wife dresses much like many pastor’s wives that I know of.

Bret interacts,

And what does this prove?

It merely proves that the Jewish wife is not dressing in a way that is consistent with her denial of the God of the Bible. It is common grace that your neighbor Jewish wife is not immoral as she could possibly be given her Christ hating presuppositions. I never denied common grace.

However, that your Jewish neighbor’s Jewish wife is not dressing like a trollop is not due to the fact that she has given up her work of determining meaning by her own legislative fiat word. It just happens to be the case, by God’s common grace, that her subjective legislative fiat word coincides with God’s objective fiat word when it comes to modest dress. As Christians we are always glad for this felicitous inconsistency that results from common grace.

Bret had inked,

“Are our houses furnished the same way? I can foresee a consistent Christ hater having a secret dungeon for S & M games.”

David responded,

Again, you’re having to stretch past the edges of socially acceptable behavior for all your contrasts. I am quite certain that the vast majority of my non-Christian neighbors are apparently not “consistent” Christ-haters and don’t have secret dungeons.

Honestly, it almost seems that you can’t tell the difference between “non-Christian” and “criminal.” Prostitution is illegal, gang bangers are likely to end up in prison, and while S&M may not be as frowned upon as it once was, there is a reason why they still keep those dungeons “secret.” But most of my non-Christian neighbors somehow manage to stay out of trouble with the law. There’s no denying that certain behavior that has become more socially acceptable in the society at large is not acceptable for professing Christians, but this is consistent with the thesis of a cultural realm that is common and not exclusively Christian.

Bret engages,

First, a slight correction … “Prostitution is not illegal in some places in this country.”

This is a key point of our interaction David. Note what you have done here. You have told us that your standard is “socially acceptable behavior,” but my question in response to you is, “what is the standard for socially acceptable behavior” (?).

What is the standard for what is “criminal?”

The answer to both of those questions is God’s legislating law word. To the law and to the Testimony as Isaiah says. But you don’t like that answer because you want to seemingly want to allow “socially acceptable behavior” to be the standard. But by that standard Homosexuality and Abortion are perfectly acceptable behaviors for our social order since they are now socially acceptable and now no longer criminal.

I can tell the difference between non-Christian behavior that isn’t criminal and criminal behavior but then I have a standard that allows me to make such a distinction.

And again, I am glad that God’s common grace is operative for your neighbors the way it is but the fact that God’s common grace prevents your neighbors from being consistent in their Christ hating does not mean that such a thing as a common sphere exists that is not to be normed by God’s word.

Bret had inked,

“The non Christian, as they are increasingly consistent w/ their anti-Christ presuppositions will despoil and mar all the culture they share with the Christian who is becoming likewise increasingly consistent w/ their Christ embracing presuppositions.”

David responded,

I know that Van Til spoke in terms like these, but I’m not sure what you mean by it. If you simply mean that unbelievers abuse God’s good gifts for selfish ends, then granted. Or if you mean that anti-theistic philosophical systems are opposed to Christianity, then duh. But in what sense do non-Christians “despoil and mar” culture? (Did Aristotle despoil logic? Did Itzhak Perlman despoil violin music?)

When hip hop and gangsta rap is called “music” culture is despoiled. When modern art is considered art culture is despoiled. When homosexuality is legalized culture is marred and despoiled. When the church allows women in office the culture is marred and despoiled. When education teaches humanism culture is marred and despoiled. When law becomes ordered by logical positivism culture is marred and despoiled. When families are redefined and are fractured because of the theology of foreign gods culture is marred and despoiled. When science embraces evolution culture is marred and despoiled. Enough examples David?

In terms of philosophy, according to Dr. David Noe, one of the R2K aficionados, we are told there is no such thing as Christian philosophy.

“If by “Christian philosophy” one means philosophizing (the production and evaluation of rational arguments that deal with such things as ethics and metaphysics, for example) that deals with explicitly Christian topics, then at first glance the adjective has some salience. But deeper reflection, I argue, proves that this designation is also problematic. Presumably a very bright non-Christian reasoning consistently, diligently and with complete access to the basic data of special revelation, can more often reach sound and valid conclusions than the most devout yet dim-witted believer on the topic of our Lord’s incarnation.

If that is true, what would it be about the believer’s philosophizing that makes it uniquely Christian? If we cannot tell based on the product of his or her work whether our philosopher was practicing “Christian philosophy” even on topics that deal explicitly with matters of faith, does the noun “philosophy” receive any meaningful modification when we add “Christian” to it? Could one really be said to practice Christian philosophy in that instance? Are we not rather just back at the same point with philosophy done well (producing both sound and valid arguments that tell us something meaningful about the world), but that it is Christian when done by Christians with specific goals and dispositions motivating them and non-Christian otherwise?”

So, if there is no such thing as theistic philosophy how can there be such a thing as anti-theistic philosophy. I don’t think R2K acolyte Dr. David Noe would understand you “no duh” statement. Of course Dr. Noe’s problem is that he doesn’t take account of the fact that the non Christian philosopher takes as his starting point that the God of the Bible is not and should not be His starting point. Dr. Noe allows autonomous man to be his own authority and so questions whether or not Christian philosophizing exists.

Finally in terms of logicians like Aristotle or violinists like Christian Ferras, once again we rejoice in a common grace that results in felicitous inconsistency.

Bret had written

“The things you classify as “accouterments of culture,” are indeed a consequential manifestation of ultimate theological commitments. Will we as a culture build Tepees for houses? Will we listen to hip hop or classical? Will we fund with our taxes a gulag archipelago or will we fund interstate highways.”

David responds,

If a native American becomes a Christian, is he required to move out of his tepee and into a suburban home? What is it about a teepee that make it non-Christian, and which ultimate theological commitments are manifested in suburban homes? I don’t know that these things are patently obvious. Preference for hip hop or classical is an issue of low culture vs. high culture, which of course transcends the antithetical divide. And I don’t know what is particularly Christian about interstate highways.

I never said that Teepees weren’t or couldn’t be Christian. I said that they were consequential manifestations of ultimate theological commitments.

If you can’t see that it is patently obvious that a people who build Teepees and a people who build Cathedrals have different conceptions of God, I’m sure I can’t explain it to you. If you can’t see that hip hop is anti-music as opposed to the music of a Bach I can’t explain it to you. Some of these matters ought to be self evident to someone who believes in Natural Law.

Van Til could say this about your examples,

“It is God’s longsuffering patience which would lead you (unbeliever) to repentance that enables you to do all those things which “for the matter of them” are “in themselves praiseworthy and useful.” God intends to accomplish his ultimate end, the establishment of his kingdom. That is the reason why you are now able to contribute positively to the coming of that kingdom. The harps you make, the oratorios you produce, the great poems you have written, the scientific discoveries you have made will, with your will or against your will, all find their place in the unified structure of the kingdom of God through Christ. Now, then, in God’s name repent, for otherwise the Israelites will “borrow” your treasures and you shall perish in the Red Sea like the Egyptians (91).”

Now clearly this quote from Cornelius Van Til reveals he not hold to R2K because he understands that realities from the R2K common realm all find their place in the Kingdom of God.

Bret had wrote,

“I keep telling you that in the “already,” of the “already, not yet” the world to come is already here but you keep telling me that world to come is still all not yet.”

David Rothstein responds,

But what I keep hearing you tell me is that the “not yet” of the “already/not yet” is already here—or at least that we can cause it to arrive by being more epistemologically self-conscious. Perhaps it is a matter of differing millennial positions (though even Van Til, as far as I know, was amil).

The “already” is already here. That is why the “push me, pull you” is called “already, not yet.”

And I do believe that as we grow in faith that the Spirit who leads us into faith growth does cause us, both personally and corporately, to be transformed from glory unto glory.

Van Til was indeed amil although all of Old Westminster was postmil.

In the end David, for the Christian his regeneration is a introduction to the ability to consistently find proper meaning in everything. Outside of Christ the meaning that the pagan finds is a meaning that is autonomously legislated by the pagan’s fiat word. Once regenerated he begins to move increasingly in glad submission to God’s legislated meaning, discovering that his Redemption and regeneration has awakened him for the first time to the meaning of objective meaning.

This reality explains why the Christian can not allow any project to succeed that would allow the pagan to have objective meaning in and of themselves or by their own authority in any realm (R2K). This desire to be the one who creates or, supposedly discovers meaning, is the very thing that is in rebellion to God and has to be overcome by the Spirit of Regeneration.

This is not to say that the pagan who legislates their own meaning always gets matters wrong. Clearly they don’t. Common grace exists. It is to say that when they get meaning right they can not account, epstimelogically speaking, and on the basis of their own presuppositions, why the meaning they have assigned to this or that is the proper meaning. If even a blind old sow can find a acorn once in awhile so a unregenerate pagan can stumble on proper meaning occasionally even if they do so in spite of themselves.

The Third Word — II

Scripture — Ex. 20:7
Subject — God
Theme — Not taking God’s name in vain

Proposition — The requirement to not take God’s name in vain should cause us to consider carefully all of our speech and living.

Purpose — Therefore, having considered, not taking God’s name in vain, we should rejoice that Christ is our righteousness in this matter, and so live with God’s glory before us.

Intro

The “Thou Shalt Not-ness” of the law. 8 of the 10 are cast in terms of “Thou Shalt Not,” and of the other two (Sabbath and Parents) the keeping of the Sabbath is defined largely by the “not working (Ex. 20:10, Dt. 5:14).” So of the 10 words 9 are cast in this mode of Prohibition.

We have to keep in mind that the law was given not only to inform and regulate personal individual behavior but it was also given in order to function as the law order for God’s people in their culture and social order. In light of this it is interesting that God gave the law primarily with a prohibitive character. There is sound reason for this.

First, the prohibitive (the Thou Shalt Not-ness) of the law deals with particular wicked behavior. Murder is prohibited or Adultery is prohibited. These are very concrete areas that are well defined for Magistrates to regulate. The law thus has a modest function in terms of how it operates in a social order or culture and so because the law has well defined limits so the State has well defined limits as to what it can and cannot do. The State, as God’s enforcement agency is thus limited to regulating concrete and specific evils and so is not allowed to control all men.

The second advantage of this negative character of the Law (the Thou Shalt Not-ness of it) is related to the first. As it is the case that the law is defined, for the social order, in a negative cast, liberty is encouraged. The State can control specific evil but it can not control that which man legitimately does. For example, theft is excluded but the Magistrate can not meddle in the area of honestly acquired property. As another example when the law prohibits Blasphemy and false witness, it assures that all other forms of speech are beyond control and regulation.

Law cast in terms of prohibition (as opposed to being cast in terms of “Thou shalts”) restricts the function of the Magistrate to very precise areas. God’s law cast in this prohibition mode serves not only to regulate man in very specific ways but also it serves to regulate the State. The State is only to enter in to control what God calls evil. And it is interesting that much of God’s law does not have outside enforcement mechanism. In those cases God is the one who enforces His own law.

Remember, at this point we are looking at the “Thou Shalt Not” character of the law. We are asking the question, “Why does God’s Law come to us in terms of these “Thou Shalt Nots.” And the answer is that such an approach is productive of liberty and provides sets parameters for the Controlling agency which is delegated to regulate these very specific evils.

If the law was cast in terms of “Thou Shalts,” (what might be called “positive law”) the result would be, not merely the regulating of evil, but the result would be a far more expansive regulating and control of men. For example, in our own Constitution we find people trying to create this “positive law” by invoking the “general welfare” clause. The idea of “promoting the general welfare” is used to drive through all kinds of legislation for the “good of the people.” The danger of a social order then, set up on the idea of positive law, is that it ends up deconstructing individual personal liberty in favor of a omni-competent Nanny State delegated to control men in the direction of what it believes are the best “Thou Shalts” for the people. God did not give His People, for their social order organization, positive law, but He gave them negative law that very specific evil should be outlawed and so that those functioning within the law would have personal liberty within the constraints of that negative law.

As we come to the third commandment again we might ask what is specifically forbidden.

Last week we dealt w/ the 3rd commandment in a general sense but what is specifically forbidden here?

I.) We would say that what the 3rd commandment forbids is profaneness, and what it requires is Hallowing God’s Name

Now it is interesting that the word pro-fane comes from the Latin pro (before) and fanum (temple). Profanity then is all speech, action, and living, that happens before or outside where God dwells. For the Christian, the earth is the Lord’s footstool and so all falseness in speech and action is a violating of the third commandment. To violate the 3rd commandment is to use in a unholy fashion the Holy name of God and His Holy things, especially we might say in the way of swearing false oaths in or under His name.

Oaths are serious matters that have fallen on hard times. Speaking to a judge friend recently he told me that people routinely lie under oath and are only caught at it a very small % of the time.

So … since oaths have fallen on hard times we would say that an oath is swearing with appeal to the name of God, who serves as witness that a person is speaking the truth or intends to fulfill a vow.

We can swear an oaths of assertion in court, to confirm the truthfulness of our statements (I swear to the tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth SO HELP ME GOD).

Or we can swear a promissory oath, a oath of office, obligating us to a careful exercise of our office or calling (e.g. presidents, members of parliament, judges, military oaths etc.).

As Christians, even if we don’t directly invoke the name of God in our oaths, we are not free to take God’s name in vain in our promises, if only because we carry God’s name on us as His people.

So, if we testify in court, under oath, or if we serve in some office where we have taken oaths, we are duty bound before God to honor Him in our testimony or in our oaths.

For example, I have promised to uphold the three forms of confession. When I sign the form of subscription I am taking an oath to uphold these Confessions. If I do not speak out when the confessions are violated, I am not hallowing God’s name and am taking it in vain. When someone enters into the Military they say,

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Both in Church and in the civil realm we can clearly see that Oaths are not taken seriously. If they were taken seriously our social order would not be on the brink. But … God is not mocked, if a man will sow the wind in taking God’s name in vain he will reap the whirlwind in God’s response.

This casual dismissal of profanity … of taking God’s name in vain becomes both a personal and societal barometer that measures the health of a people and a society. The more men wander from God the more they will reveal their profaneness in a thousand different ways. Not only will language become coarsened but so will lifestyle. The more that men run away from Hallowing God’s name the more they will run toward profaning God’s name with all zeal. The more we forget God the more we will integrate into the void, and the more we will embrace a least common denominator civilization.

Christ Himself noted the special nature of God’s name in relation to the 3rd command when He taught us to pray that God’s name would be Hallowed. To Hallow God’s name is the opposite of taking His name in vain … of profaning God’s name.

II.) And Christ Himself hallowed God’s name being mindful of the third commandment,

Of course we already mentioned that the first request our Lord Christ taught us in the Lord’s Prayer was that God’s name might be “hallowed.” It should be our chief desire that God would pursue the Holiness of His name and our penultimate desire should be that in light of God’s hallowing of His name we should Hallow His name.

But Christ also was mindful of the third commandment when, during Holy Week, he could say,

27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

The Gospel reminds us that Christ died for our sins of blasphemy. Not only our blasphemy while dead in our sins and trespasses but also our taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain after being resurrected w/ Christ to newness of life. How many of us can hear a sermon like this and not be convicted of their own sin and failure in this regard? Do we really believe, that as Christians, that we Hallow God’s name perfectly? Do we really believe that we don’t fudge on our oaths and our living? Do we really believe that we adorn the name of God with all the comeliness and beauty it deserves?

In Christ’s death, Christ glorified the Father perfectly with the result that God’s name was vindicated and with the result that I do not have to pay for the sin of my constant profaning of God’s name and with the result that we as God’s people take seriously the charge to “not take God’s name in vain.” Because my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus and His righteousness, I am free to be increasingly obedient to hallow the name of God.

Conclusion

Re-cap

A Simple But Perspicuous Example Of Why Christian Young People Have No Business Going Into The US Military

It’s an Obama World… Gay Flag Flies at Afghan Base But the Christian Cross Is Banned

The US Military, like the Government schools, is opposed to the Christian faith, opposed to Jesus Christ, and opposed to Christians in as much as those Christians esteem the Christian faith and stand with Jesus Christ.

The photo makes it clear that while the US Military is in league with the Sodomite agenda (witness the Rainbow flag) it will have nothing to do with Christianity (witness the requirement to take down the Cross from the worship barracks). Now, the US Military and their civilian overlords have been insisting that they have been going soft on Christian symbols because they didn’t want to offend their Muslim “hosts” in the Middle East and yet Muslims are also typically offended by public displays supporting Sodomy. Yet, despite the US Military’s Muslim “hosts” being offended by sodomy the US Military still boldly flies the symbol of sodomy in the face of the Muslim Afghans.

Romans 13 — The Way Reformed Exegeses Used To Handle It

‎”Tyranny being a work of Satan, is not from God, because sin, either habitual or actual, is not from God: the power that is, must be from God; the magistrate, as magistrate, is good in nature of office, and the intrinsic end of his office, (Rom. xiii. 4) for he is the minister of God for thy good; and, therefore, a power ethical, politic, or moral, to oppress, is not from God, and is not a power, but a licentious deviation of a power; and is no more from God, but from sinful nature and the old serpent, than a license to sin. God in Christ giveth pardons of sin, but the Pope, not God, giveth dispensations to sin.”

~Samuel Rutherford, Lex Rex, p.34