Bahnsen Picks Apart Thomism

“Disagreeing with the natural man’s interpretation of himself as the ultimate reference point, the reformed apologist must seek his point of contact with the natural man, and that which is beneath the threshold of his working consciousness, and the sense of deity which he seeks to suppress. And to do this, the reformed apologist must also seek a point of contact with the systems constructed by the natural man. But this point of contact must be in the nature of a head-on collision.”

Dr. Greg Bahnsen
Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith

1.) This succinctly explains why the Thomistic Natural Law fanboys and the Presuppositional Fanboys are never going to get along. The Thomistic chaps never challenge the natural man’s interpretation of himself as the ultimate reference point for what is and what is not true. Thomism leaves the natural man in his self relaxed repose continuing to think of himself as he who is the determiner of truth instead of realizing that the natural man must be converted so that he only sees himself as a reinterpreter of God’s interpretation of truth. This goes back to the maxim that man must be converted so that he can say with the Psalmist, “In thy light we see light.” The Thomist leaves the natural man in a place where even after a putative conversion he says instead, “In my light I see light.” Thomism leaves the natural man as an “I” that has not yet seen itself in submission in a “I-Thou” relationship to God. Conversion, must mean that the natural man is not the ultimate reference point in terms of determining the nature of reality. He must own God as His ultimate reference point. The Natural Laws chaps fail miserably in this regard and so must be challenged.

2.) The Natural Man does not want what is beneath the working threshold of his consciousness to be challenged. When the Christian apologist does this the Natural Man recoils because it necessarily means that his worldview furniture is going to be busted up. The Natural Man like his Worldview living room arrangements and he resents when the presuppositional apologists shows up to tear up the furniture of his self-centered thinking.  I suspect this accounts as a large reason why the Thomists yet today in the Reformed world are so aggravated by the presuppositionalists. We stand as a rebuke to their man-centered thinking.

3.) Van Til used to say that any God reasoned to via the means of natural theology was not the God of the Bible. In the same way, any God reasoned to by the Natural Man as not yet removed from his place of “the ultimate reference point” is not the God of the Bible. Now, I am willing to concede that a babe in Christ may indeed be converted without understanding this but someone who grows in Christ will at some point have to give themselves up as the ultimate reference point of reality and be consistent with their conversion. Many Thomists have yet to surrender this.

4.) Note Bahnsen’s reference to evangelism as worldview collision. This is in marked contrast to decades of Evangelicals being taught that Evangelism has to be a bridge building process where we approach the dead in sins sinner and say things like; “Now, see here, you believe in good and bad and I believe in good and bad and so we have this in common. Now all you need to do is to add Jesus and you will be converted.” Bahnsen, following Van Til here, says 1000 times “NO.” Evangelism is not a bridge building exercise. Evangelism is a head on collision and it is a head on collision because of the radically opposed starting points. It is a head on collision because the Natural Man starts with himself as his ultimate reference point while the Biblical Christian starts with God as his ultimate reference point. The differences cannot be anymore stark. The Natural Man proceeds from the authority of self. The Christian proceeds from the authority of not-self (God). Since that is so all that is possible is collision if each participant in the discussion is to be true to his or her starting point.

5.) This means that the discussion can only proceed along hypothetical lines. The Christ believer enters into the worldview of the Christ-hater for the sake of argument but only with the purpose of soon exposing the contradiction in their thinking. For example; “I see you say you believe in good and bad. That is very good. But tell me, what is the foundation or standard for your categories of ‘good,’ and ‘bad,’ except for your own authority if you do not believe in a transcendent ultimate reference point (God) beyond yourself? I may very well agree with you about what you label as good and bad I can account for my labeling of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ by appealing to God’s authority but your appeal to this idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is only on the basis of your own say so. So, I must ask you, what makes your say so about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories any more authoritative than the Marquis de Sade’s authority of what constituted ‘good’ and ‘bad?’ Don’t you see my friend, you need a firmer foundation than your own determination. Only God in Christ can give you that firmer foundation and only by owning your sin of, to this point, being your own God in your life (your own ultimate reference point) can you be delivered from your captivity to this sin and so be free for the first time to have a true authority of ‘good,’ and ‘bad.'”

My friend, John Leonetti recently did a brief youtube citing this quote with an arresting illustration of worldview collision. It’s only 3 minutes long. You should have yourself a giggle at John’s illustration.

Charles Hodge On Ephesians 5… McAtee Extends the Principle

22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.

More than a century ago Charles Hodge wrote some commentary on this Ephesians 5 text.

“She is to be subject in everything. That is the subjection is not limited to any one sphere or department of the social life, but extends to all. The wife is not subject as to some things and independent as to others but she is subject as to all. This of course does not mean that the authority of the husband is unlimited. It teaches its extent, not its degree. It extends over all departments but is limited in all; first by the nature of the relation, and secondly by the higher authority of God. No superior whether master, parent, husband, or magistrate can make it obligatory on us either to do what God forbids or not to do what God commands. So long as our allegiance to God is preserved an obedience to man is made a part of our obedience to Him, we retain our liberty and our integrity.”

In other words as Hodge said, all authority under God is conditional, and no authority can long exist apart from Him. It is conditional because in order for the authority to be authoritative that  authority cannot contravene or contradict God’s authority. The wife is to be subject to the husband in all things in which the husband is subject to God and His revelation. The same is true in all jurisdictional realms. The lay member is to be subject to the Elders in all things in which the Elders are subject to God and His revelation. The employee is to be subject to the employer in all things in which the Employer is in subjection to God. The children are to be subject to the parents in all things in which the parent is in subjection to God. The citizen or subject is to be subject to the Monarch in all things in which the monarch is in subjection to God. The Magistrate is to be subject to the citizen in all things in which the citizens are in subjection to God. Nobody has the authority to instruct others to disregard God’s higher authority. This is why it is errant exegesis to make Romans 13 or I Peter 2 teach that it is unbiblical to ever disobey Magistrates. When a Magistrate is reaching for a degree of authority that trumps God’s authority than obedience and duty requires us to disobey the disobedient authority. The same is true in the Church. The same is true in Marriage. The same is true in employment. The same is true in the Military. The same is true in the parent-child relationship.

Rev. Flyhart Dishing Out Alienist FlyShite

“The other thing I would say besides SSR and SPR is get rid of the adversative called ‘but,’ from your vocabulary when it comes to racism. I am so tired of talking to people about this issue and the first thing out of their mouths are, ‘but I am not a racist,’ Get rid of that. Or, ‘But have you seen the statistics.’ Ok, let’s just close our mouths white church and let’s learn, let’s listen let’s see life through a different set of eyes. I’m convinced as a white man who is 61 years old, that I have no idea what it is like to grow up as a person of color but I’m going to learn because my oldest son and his wife have adopted three biracial children. And it’s amazing. We are getting nailed by both sides. And I can’t wait (I’m sure it will involve some suffering) but to learn from these two (black) men (sitting behind me) and from all of their (black) congregations.”

PCA TE (Rev.) Bob Flayhart
Oak Mountain Presbyterian Church
Evangel Presbytery, Central Alabama
Said from the Pulpit during a church service

1.) These kinds of irrational outbursts are getting more and more common. This fact communicates that the Alienists are losing their grip. They see that the Marxist Overton window that has been in place for so long – a Marxist Overton Window that they have reinterpreted Christianity consistent with – is shifting against them and they are doing all they can to stop the Overton Window shift from moving in a historically Christian direction.

2.) All of Church history is against these clowns as the two 800 page Anthologies have demonstrated. (“Who Is My Neighbor” – 2nd edition & “A Survey Of Racialism In Christian Sacred Tradition.”)

3.) Realize what this logically vacuous 61 year old clergy is saying is that one should never, in response to his ridiculous assertions, ever respond with “but have you seen the evidence that reveals you’re saying painfully embarrassing things?” Further, you are not to respond by speaking things, in response to his dumb – really dumb colloquy, like “but according to God’s standard I am not a racist.” No, you are not to object at all when this 61 year old clergy comes to you slobbering out mindless tropes. You’re just supposed to mindlessly nod your head in agreement with this lobotomized outpatient.

4.) Christianity is a belief system of doctrines based upon the revelation of the triune God and His character as found in Holy Writ. If that belief system of doctrines is learned, owned, and constantly grown in, why do I have to know what it is like to grow up as a black person? Why would a black Christian ever have to know what it is like to grow up as a white person who has been, his whole life, had the bogus Marxist accusation of “racist” heaved at him? This whole idea that I can’t be an increasingly sanctified Biblical Christian unless I learn what it was like to grow up as a black person … or unless I appreciate what it is to struggle as an oppressed woman … or unless I know the struggles of growing up abused is just utter tripe born of the anti-Christ Marxist doctrine of intersectionality. Odds are that Rev. Bob Flyhart doesn’t even know what intersectionality is or that he is a practitioner of it.

5.) If the black men sitting behind him are Biblical Christians opposed to the flyshite coming out of Flyhart’s mouth, I can hope, along with Flyhart, that he has the capacity to learn from them also. However, I suspect that if they are at this church service sitting right in back of Flyhart as he speaks that they also are clueless as to what Biblical Christianity is.

6.) Oh, I’m sure Flyhart is going to learn. I suspect he is going to get his learning “good and hard.” I wonder if masochistic self-inflicted suffering contributes to sanctification? 

Darryl Gnostic Hart Says George Washington’s Wasn’t Successful Because He Prayed

“Washington was a general and he was successful as a soldier and a president not because he prayed.

Govt. is not Sunday school or church. and to roll back the perils you see afflicting young men in public schools, you want govt. to act. That’s why you talk about Xian govt.”

Darryl Gnostic Hart
Post on X

1.) Keep in mind that Hart is, after Doug Wilson, the king of dichotomy. We find another subtle one here. It is true that Washington was a general l and he was successful as a soldier and a president. However, before Washington was a successful soldier and president he was a man. Would Hart contend that Washington’s success as a man is not related at all because he prayed? And if we would account Washington’s success as a man, at least in part, to the fact that he prayed then it is indeed the case that on some level Washington’s success as a general and a president was because he prayed. Perhaps Hart would insist that prayer has nothing to do with a man’s success in whatever field he enters into. If Hart would insist that, I would contend that Hart is a defacto Deist. God makes men the way the are and the religious practices of a man — practices that originate in his embraced religion — have nothing to do with a man’s success in whatever field he pursues. As usual Hart hasn’t thought through what he says.

Keep in mind though it doesn’t matter what Hart says because despite many quotes from Hart that are clearly outside the boundaries of Biblical Christianity nobody holds him accountable.

2.) The fact that Government is not Sunday School doesn’t mean that Government is not moral or immoral depending on the policies it pursues. Government doesn’t have to be a Sunday School in order to operate in a manner consistent with the Christian faith. Of course Hart (the pretend historian by occupation) is just being a-historical with this outburst;

“The magistrate must root out idolatry and false worship, for God commands that His truth be upheld and blasphemies suppressed by those he has set in authority.”

Martin Luther (1525)

“It is the duty of the magistrate to suppress idolatry and superstition that the true worship of God may flourish, as commanded by the Almighty.” John Knox (1554)

“Magistrates are bound to defend the worship of God and to purge their realm of idolatry, which provokes God’s wrath against the land.” John Calvin (1559)

 “Rulers, as ministers of God, must cast down idols and false teachings, ensuring that the true faith is upheld in their governance.”

Jan Hus (1414)

3.) Since public schools are indeed government schools the government does indeed have the responsibility to roll back the perils afflicting all students while they are in or at school.

Someone recently insisted to me, that it was their conviction that Hart is a subversive, purposely subverting the Reformed faith. Anybody who has a Christian worldview can easily see that.

4.) Finally, people talk about Christian government because so many of our Reformed Fathers talked about Christian government.

The Arc Towards A New World Order

“Towards the end of the 1920s, Carnegie (Marburg) funded the American Historical Society to prepare a report detailing what the future of the US should be. The Seventh volume of this report specifies, ‘The future belongs to collectivism….’ Professor Harold J. Laski, philosopher of British socialism, made the following comment is his testimony about the commission’s report; ‘At bottom, and stripped of its carefully neutral phrases, the report is an educational program for a socialist America.”

Wm. Stuart
The Invisible College – p. 307

The aim of the elite, at least since the Congress of Vienna has been a New World Order where the globalist rule over a serf/slave hoi polloi. In order for this collectivist vision to become reality top down control is required. In order to gain top down control what is required is some kind of social credit system where a Oligarchy government has precise control over the flow of money. This will require some kind of digital money system that even now is talked about in every corner of the financial world.

Further, there will have to be control of movement. Control of money can do that somewhat but what is being aimed at, is the fifteen minute cities where movement will be unnecessary. The idea is that you will have everything at your fingertips as only fifteen minutes away, hence there is no need to travel. This was always the idea of the electric cars which could be shut off remotely if someone was traveling beyond permission.

If there is a contest right now as between nations the contest is not so much national as it is over who will have the right to sit on top of the NWO pile. In other words, I am not confident that any of the elite desire a return to Nations. I am confident that the desire of the different elite is a desire to be the ones who are the uber-elite in a New World Order they all desire to cobble together.

I highly recommend Wm. Stuart’s book as a encyclopedia that traces the theme of the attempt to build a New World Order. Stuart, starts way before the Congress of Vienna to build his case. Regardless of when in time you start it is pretty clear that the major point of contention for the Biblical Christian is as against those who would stitch together a global empire. The Biblical Christian understands that God deals with people groups as in their people groups and as such any attempt to build a New World Order is yet another attempt by fallen man to return to the Tower of Babel rebellion.

If one desires to understand the times, one must get their head around the fact that fallen man is doing all he can to return to Babel in order to “make a name for himself,” with the ultimate purpose and end of destroying the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ.