Philosopher and Evangelical Dr. J. P. Moreland goes on is his recent paper to answer the question as to ‘Why are Contemporary Evangelicals Over-committed to the Bible.’

Moreland’s answer is to briefly describe the shift in Western thinking in the 20th century by using the University illustratively. Moreland briefly traces the demise of the University in the 20th century to its abandonment of objective categories that informed all men about the nature of reality (i.e. — Natural Moral Law). Moreland insists that the Evangelical problem of over-commitment to the Bible stems from what he considers a wrong reaction to this shift in 20th century thinking. According to Moreland, Christians abandoned natural moral law theory because academia had putatively proven natural moral law theory wrong. Moreland then contends that the only place for Christians to maneuver to was a over-overcommitment to the Bible. Moreland thus makes his analysis of the over-overcommitment to the Bible to be historical and sociological, believing that Biblically and Theologically Christians had a grand legacy in natural moral law theory. In brief Moreland surmises that the shift to a over-commitment to the Bible by Christians must be accounted for by using other categories then theological or biblical opting to use historical and sociological considerations as lenses to explain the unfortunate overcommitment to the Bible that has arisen.

Before pressing on to more core concerns we must insist that Dr. Moreland’s methodology is questionable. By insisting that historical and sociological tools of analysis are superior tools to answer the question as to ‘Why Evangelicals are over-committed to the Bible’ then Theological tools Moreland is setting up the kind of over-specialization that he later bemoans in his paper. Moreland insists that the curse of the shift in University thinking in the 20th century is that because of the abandonment of the Christian God, who was the source of all truth because He is a single unified mind, the curriculum in Universities no longer had a single integration point and thus Universities became Multi-versities. This resulted in over-specialization where there was little or no relation between one discipline and another as taught at the same University. Now, what I hear Dr. Moreland saying here is that Theology is the Queen of the Sciences and we jettison sanity when we give up the Biblical God. I agree with that but if that is true then why does Dr. Moreland insist that Historical and sociological tools are better fitted to analyze the problem he is considering then Theological tools? If History and sociology are dependent upon Theology (and they are) then the best tool to analyze any sociological or historical problem is a Theological tool. Is Dr. Moreland’s appeal to Historical and Sociological tools as means of analysis over against Theological tools not indicative that he himself has fallen into the over-specialization that he so rightly abjures? Are not sociological shifts beholden to Theological shifts? Dr. Moreland should have given us the Theological reasons why Christians shifted away from a natural-moral law theory and thus became over-committed to the Bible. Dr. Moreland insists that Christians didn’t need to shift to over-commitment to the Bible since they had such a deep history of natural moral law theory to rest in and yet they became over-committed to the Bible. Dr. Moreland gave us the Historical-Sociological reasons for the shift but the question still remains, if we believe in a unified field theory of knowledge; ‘What were the Theological reasons for this shift that has been described historically and sociologically?’ If that question would have been answered then we might have been able to ascertain whether those Theological reasons were Biblical.

Another methodological problem that besets Dr. Moreland’s paper is his failure to realize that the Universities didn’t lose a unified field theory of knowledge. The shift that Dr. Moreland Chronicles in the University life is not a shift from a God who provides a coherent integration of knowledge to no god but rather it was a shift from a God who provides a coherent integration of knowledge to a god who provides a incoherent integration of knowledge. God is an inescapable category and the fleeing from the God of the Bible is not a fleeing into nothing but rather a fleeing into the arms of some other god or god concept. So whereas the God of the Bible provided coherence precisely because every academic discipline was beholden to His interpretation of reality the new god of the University system yielded incoherence precisely because it was the god of humanism where each discipline is beholden to the law word of the sovereign individual who has the most clout in any one of the Universities departments. This kind of campus god created chaos as potentially the Romanticists could own the literature department and the Marxists the economics department and the Transcendentalists the politics department and the Existentialists the philosophy department and the Augustinians the Theology department, etc. etc. etc. It may be seen as quibbling but the University retains a unified field theory of knowledge and that unified field theory is that only in chaos can we find a genuine unified field theory. This is embraced because the god the University has embraced is the author of confusion. The chief reason I make this observation is so as to insist that Theology remains the queen of the sciences at the University today — a very bad theology but theology still.

It is at this point that we should return to Natural moral law theory. Dr. Moreland contends that Natural moral law theory should have never been abandoned by Christians but this assertion doesn’t seem to take into account a Christian Natural moral law theory only makes sense inside of a Christian World view. For example, it might be argued that the logical positivists who pushed the fact vs. value distinction had a Natural moral law theory of their own. They held that it was self-evident (a key component of Natural moral law theory) that fact vs. value was true and that no religion (except their own) had cognitive features that needed to be taken seriously. What Dr. Moreland hasn’t seemed to discover is that Natural moral law theory really didn’t go away but rather what was seen as being taught by nature was that nature taught that all there is, is nature. The point is that in many respects we have not moved away from Natural moral law theory but rather have transitioned to a Natural moral law theory that is consistent with pagan beliefs and Theology. Dr. Moreland doesn’t seem to realize that Natural Moral law theory is only as good as the presuppositions with which it begins. If Natural moral Law theory begins with the presupposition that the God of the Bible is then the Natural moral Law theory that we end up with will be broadly Christian. Conversely, if the Natural moral law theory begins with the presupposition that God is a non-cognitive value then the Natural moral law theory that we end up with will be broadly pagan. At this point, even at the cost of being over-committed to the Bible, the only point of appeal is God’s Word.

Dr. Moreland ends this section by saying,

By and large, Evangelicals responded during this shift by withdrawing from the broader world of ideas, developing a view of faith that was detached from knowledge and reason, and limiting truth and belief about God, theology and morality to the inerrant Word of God, the Bible. If I am right about this, then Evangelical over-commitment to the Bible is a result of the influence of secularization on the church and not of biblical or theological reflection.

First, it would have been helpful if Dr. Moreland could have given some names of who those who withdrew from the broader world of ideas. Second, one wonders if Dr. Moreland considers any Christian who disavowed Natural moral law theory as one who developed a view of faith that was detached from knowledge and reason. Third, it seems that Dr. Moreland defines ‘knowledge and reason’ in keeping with a Thomistic model. Fourth, any theory of Natural moral law that is disconnected to the the question of presuppositions is defective and will never get off the ground. Fifth, Dr. Moreland doesn’t seem to take into account that Christians may have retreated from Natural moral law theory because they began to realize the implications of what it means for the unbeliever to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and they began to appreciate that a proper understanding of general revelation (that which Natural moral law theory is pinned to) is only as good as a right understanding of special revelation.

Criticism on Moreland’s Third and final point later.

Recently Evangelical Academic J.P. Moreland wrote and gave a paper before the Evangelical Theological Society entitled, “How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What Can Be Done about It.” Now, normally, I wouldn’t pay any attention to this since I’ve come to regard Evangelicals the way I regard Liver and Onions but as this paper was appealed to in a positive way on a Christian Theology site that is often quite good I thought I would give this the once over.

So, I hope to examine this paper in the next several entries. If you want to read the paper in its entirety you may access it here,

Click to access moreland_EvangOverCommBible.pdf

Dr. Moreland starts his paper by writing,

“… To be more specific, in the actual practices of the Evangelical community in North America, there is an over-commitment to Scripture in a way that is false, irrational, and harmful to the cause of Christ. And it has produced a mean-spiritedness among the over-committed that is a grotesque and often, ignorant distortion of discipleship unto the Lord Jesus.”

This criticism is starting to get wearisome from the academic community. First we heard this kind of thing from Dr. John Frame in his article, “Machen’s Warrior Children,” and now we get the same kind of from Dr. J. P. Moreland.

Before we go any further the reader should realize that I am probably one of those mean-spirited people whose over-commitment to Scripture in a false, and irrational way has left me a practitioner of a grotesque and often, ignorant distortion of discipleship. To the contrary it could be that Dr. Moreland, because of his under-commitment to Scripture, has become the kind of disciple that just makes up discipleship as he goes along and consequently he see’s the true disciples as ‘over-committed, and mean-spirited.’ The problem though with even suggesting that as a contrary option is that I probably just gave proof of my mean-spiritedness.

But I digress…

First, this kind of accusation demands something more then vague generalities. Just exactly who in the ‘Evangelical Community’ are exercising an over-commitment to Scripture and just exactly what does that over-commitment look like?

Second, given the where the Church is in the States today, is one of our major problems really that we have too many wrongly over-committed Christians? Just where is this problem creeping up in such a way that it is creating havoc in the Church?

Dr. Moreland writes,

1. American Evangelical Over-commitment to the Bible. The very idea that one could be over-committed to the Bible may strike one as irreligious. In a sense, this judgment is just. One could never be too committed to loving, obeying and promoting Holy Scripture. In another sense, however, such over-commitment is ubiquitous and harmful. The sense I have in mind is the idea that the Bible is the sole source of
knowledge of God, morality, and a host of related important items. Accordingly, the Bible is taken to be the sole source of authority for faith and practice. Applied to inerrancy, the notion is that the Bible is the sole source of such knowledge and authority. The Protestant principle of Sola Scriptura does not entail this claim. For example,
the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) says “The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.”3

Similarly, the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy (1978) states:

We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God. We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source. We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is subordinate to that of Scripture. We deny that Church, creeds,councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.4

Clearly, the idea that from within the Christian point of view, Scripture is the ultimate authority, the ultimate source of relevant knowledge, does not entail that it is the sole authority or source. But this fact has a severe public relations problem and, as I will
illustrate below, many in our community make this entailment, or at least accept the consequent. Right reason, experience, Creeds, tradition have all been recognized as subordinate sources of knowledge and authority within the Christian point of view subject to the supreme and final authority of Scripture. The idea that Scripture is the sole such authority is widespread among pastors, parachurch staff, and lay folk. And while Evangelical scholars may not admit to accepting the idea, far too often it informs their work. To cite one example of this egregious problem, in concluding his study of the social and political thought of Carl Henry, Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer and John Howard Yoder, J. Budziszewski observes that All four thinkers are ambivalent about the enduring structures of creation and about the reality of general revelation. Although Henry vigorously affirms general revelation, he undermines it just as vigorously. Although Kuyper unfolds his theory mainly from the order observable in creation, he insists on hiding this fact from himself, regarding his theory of creational spheres as a direct inference from Scripture. Although Schaeffer acknowledges the importance of general revelation, he makes little use of any part of it except the principle of non-contradiction. No sooner does Yoder affirm God’s good creation than he declares that we have no access to it.

Bret responds,

First, the reader should notice that Dr. Moreland really sees this problem of being wrongly over-committed to the Bible as a major issue in Evangelicalism. He even describes this problem as ubiquitous.

Second, we should notice that Dr. Moreland drives a distinction between the Scriptures being the ultimate authority and being the sole authority. Dr. Moreland willingly admits that Scripture is the ultimate authority but insists that it is not the sole authority. Dr. Moreland then appeals to other putatively lesser authorities naming them as ‘right reason, experience, Creeds, and tradition’ and insisting that these ‘have all been recognized as subordinate sources of knowledge and authority within the Christian point of view subject to the supreme and final authority of Scripture.’ This is all very good unless one suspects that what Dr. Moreland is trying to do is find a way where these lesser authorities can operate independently of the authority of Scripture. You see the problem with these lesser authorities is that as authorities they are only as good as their commitment to the Scriptures.

Let us take ‘right reason’ as an example. By what standard do we measure the ‘right’ in ‘right reason?’ Can ‘right reason’ be an authority over us if ‘right reason’ doesn’t presuppose the authority of Scripture and the God of the Bible? I quite agree that ‘right reason’ is an authority but I insist at the same time that this authority can never be right unless it is beholden first to the sole and ultimate authority of Scripture. How do we determine that ‘right reason’ is right unless we go to the Scriptures as our ultimate authority on the rightness of reason. Does such an appeal to Scripture in order to determine the rightness of ‘right reason’ constitute the sin of making Scripture the sole authority?

Similarly, with ‘Experience’ as a lesser authority we find it to be the case that ‘experience,’ in order to be a lesser authority has to be interpreted before it can be appealed to as an authority. The question that begs being asked is, ‘by whose standard will we interpret our experiences in order for them to become a valid lesser authority’? You see the ‘experience’ or the ‘right reason’ of a pagan is going to be a lesser authority that informs them in quite a different way then they inform a Biblical Christian. The same is true of the nominal or immature Christian or even a Philosopher of the Academy with the wrong presuppositions who appeals to ‘experience’ or ‘right reason’ as a lesser authority upon which to base belief or behavior. The point is that while lesser authorities do exist they are only as good as ultimate authority in which they are rooted.

What Dr. Moreland has done here is basically appealed to John Wesley’s quadrilateral hermeneutic but Moreland’s mistake is the same as Wesley’s. Lesser authorities not rooted and grounded in the ultimate authority will lead to wrong conclusions every time. ‘Right reason, experience, Creeds, and tradition’ may be lesser authorities to appeal to but these lesser authorities do not and can not operate autonomously from the ultimate authority that is God’s Holy Word. Lesser sources of authority and their validity are only as good as their ultimate authority. Again we must ask if insisting on this makes one guilty of turning Scripture into the Sole authority?

Now we turn briefly to Dr. Moreland’s observations regarding general revelation. Dr. Moreland seems to want to suggest that general revelation can be rightly understood and embraced quite apart from special revelation. Now, it is true that general revelation is understood but it is also the case for the unbeliever that He suppresses that understanding in unrighteousness. Indeed, the only way that any of us can get general revelation right is by understanding it in light of special revelation. Dr. Moreland’s problem here is one that we are going to be concentrating on more in later posts. Dr. Moreland seems to think that Christians ought to embrace some kind of Natural Law framework and this no thinking Christian can consistently do. In light of this observation it is interesting to notice that 3 of the 4 thinkers (Kuyper, Henry, Schaeffer) that Moreland uses by way of illustration were presuppositionalists of one sort or another. My spidey senses suggest that this is the root of Moreland’s real problem of to many over-committed Christians. Again, we all agree that Creation has enduring structures and that general revelation is true. What we don’t agree upon is the commitment or ability of fallen men to live in keeping with the enduring structures of a God given creation. What we don’t agree upon is the effect of men suppressing the truth of general revelation in unrighteousness and how that work of suppression severely affects the validity of the information gained from the lesser authorities of ‘Right reason, experience, Creeds, or tradition.” What we don’t agree upon is Christians appealing to lesser sources of authority that operate in a quasi-independent way from Scripture.

So we agree that Scripture is the ultimate authority. We agree that there are lesser authorities. But I wonder if we agree that Scripture is the sole authority for the lesser authorities. I wonder if we agree that the lesser authorities cannot be appealed to without considering from the presuppositions that inform the lesser authorities.

We will look more at Dr. Moreland’s paper later.

O God of Kirk and Clan
provide now in our want
Holy Worship in this land
And children for your font
Our sacraments are ashes
Our families are torn
And Christendom now crashes
In the justice of thy scorn

From all that ‘clever’ teaches,
From all the ‘truth’ so close,
Wrapped all in shallow speeches
That excite the shallow hosts,
From trust in the Molech god,
of circus, bread and sword,
who rules us with an iron rod,
Deliver us, Oh Lord

Breathe a Reformation
On Kirk, and King, and Clan
Awaken now a nation
One weapon in your hand
A single sword, all for thee
Your purpose as our end
Aglow with zeal, and free,
Your Kingdom to extend

huck·ster (hkstr) — (n.) One who uses aggressive, showy, and sometimes devious methods to promote or sell a product.

“Huckabee is on a roll, he has gotten an enormous amount of publicity and he is doing very well with conservatives, who at least for now appear to have found a candidate.”

John Zogby
Pollster

Captain Obvious here reporting that Mike Huckabee is no conservative. Huckabee is just another neo-conservative, big government, tax and spend, pro-immigration, pro-global warming, felon loving politician, who embarrassingly enough is an ex preacher who ‘loves Jesus.’

Huckabee is a piece of work who is to clever for his own good. First, he ‘innocently’ asks, ‘aren’t Mormons the ones who believe Jesus and Satan are brothers(?),’ thus sending a subtle message to all the Jesus people that they don’t want to vote for a Mormon stupid guy when they can vote for a Christian stupid guy. Following that number he runs a Television add where in 30 seconds he mentions Christ or God or Christmas four times while a cross is subtly displayed in the background, thus, once again shouting to people, “I’m the Jesus candidate, I’m the Jesus candidate.”

Would anyone mind telling me how this guy gets counted as a conservative, never mind a ‘Christian?’ Ok, Ok … I can accept that he is a really immature Christian who doesn’t yet realize that biblically speaking the State has the unique role of providing Justice and not subsidizing the poor, releasing rapists, or stopping carbon emissions.

Quite beyond the problems of Mike Huckabee would anyone care to further explain why Christians get taken in by this pablum? Some guy rolls into town, proclaims he is a former Baptist minister, and suddenly his poll numbers spike because many of the local yahoos — I mean ministers — return back to their churches telling the pew sitters they should vote for the Jesus candidate. It’s all very depressing.

Finally, to top things off you have an organization like HSLDA who is supposed to know better come out and endorse the Huckster. I still can’t figure out why this organization would do that and makes me sad that I’ve paid good money to support this organization over the years. Don’t all home-schoolers teach that Big Government is bad? Don’t all home-schoolers teach that government isn’t the solution but rather government is the problem? Can’t HSLDA connect the dots between what might be best for them short term and might not be what is best for the country long term.

Please don’t vote for Huckabee because he is the Jesus candidate. Give Jesus a break and find some other nonsense reason to vote for the Huckster.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth, all generations will call me blessed.

In Genesis it is Eve who is the main actor of the epochal event named the fall. In God’s recreation that is redemption the second Eve, Mary, is front and center. Mary, is the antithesis of Eve. Mary bows to God’s word (Lk. 1:38) where Eve questioned God’s word (Gen. 3:6). Eve bears sin into God’s garden temple, while Mary is the Christ bearer in God’s work to re-make His garden temple. Eve’s action leads to curse for all who belong to Adam while Mary’s actions leads to blessing for all who belong to the second Adam. The first Eve was taken out of the first Adam and was the source of life for all Adam’s seed. The second Adam is taken from the second Eve and is the source of life for all His people.

It is also interesting as we examine the Magnificat that Mary understands all that is happening as the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham (vs. 55). Hence we see that there is covenant continuity between Genesis 12, 15 & 17 and what is happening to and through Mary. Mary, like Zechariah, does not see discontinuity between old covenant promise and new covenant fulfillment.

Finally, a brief word regarding Mary herself. Protestants typically don’t do the saint thing and for good reason. Still, Mary should be esteemed no differently then any other saint in the Scripture. Certainly she is no co-redemptrix as some Roman Catholics believe and praying to Mary (or any other saint) would be sin but respecting and honoring Mary for her faith is perfectly fitting and proper.

** — An interesting ‘for whatever its worth’ observation.

Most scholars believe it very likely that Mary was very young (between 14-16) when all this happened. Obviously Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s Mother, was well advanced in years (Lk. 1:7). It must have been quite a study in contrast to see this young girl and this older matron both pregnant at the same time. God takes a child who has never known a man and a dried up prune who is past child bearing and takes the things that are not and makes them to bear the greatest prophet in the Old Covenant and the Messiah who gives life to the world.