David Allen, Peter Lumpkins, and their cohorts

A blog exchange has once again re-enforced my evaluation of most of the man-centered traditionalist as cowards and slanderers. The usual synergist playbook has been dragged out of course. Accuse the opponents of a heresy, redefine terms, repeat disproven arguments (as if repeating them often enough will make them true), and refuse to defend your statements in a forum where your opponents can actually confront you. Given this sort of behavior on the part of some of the most visible pastors and educators in the SBC it’s no wonder that our churches are in the mess it is. Our churches are full of the unregenerate, ignorant, and absent. The SBC is dying a slow death because of its emphasis on professions of faith and baptismal numbers while ignoring the real concern, genuine conversions. The pews are full of people who do not only know church history but are unschooled in their own Southern Baptist heritage. Well, save for the falsehood that the SBC was synergistic originally, that having been redefined as “moderate Calvinism” (This as opposed to “extreme Calvinism”, which is historical Calvinism.)
Dr. Allen, dean of a SBC seminary, recently accused James White of hyper-Calvinism during the 3:16 conference. This conference was little more than a bash Calvinist session where all the usual canards were offered. Allen based the accusation on a post by Phil Johnson. Now Phil has clearly stated that his post was misused, and that he personally knows Dr. White is not a hyper-Calvinist. Further, Dr. Allen did not use what the law would call due diligence before making the claim, that is evaluating for himself whether Dr. White was in fact a hyper-Calvinist regardless of Phil’s post. His basis for making the claim is that Dr. White does not agree with his claim that “God wills the universal salvation of all men”. This of course is not the historical definition of hyper-Calvinism. He also seems to think that Gods offer is not valid because unregenerate man will not of himself accept it. Now of course all Calvinist believe that God sincerely makes the offer, anyone who repents and believes will be saved, but he is under no obligation to enable rebel sinners to overcome their willfulness. But Dr. Allen makes the further makes the requirement that rebel sinners must of themselves desire to respond or it’s not a “real” offer. Essentially what this means is that God must enable everyone for the offer to be “real”, which is one of the basic disagreements of historic Calvinism with synergism. Based upon such ahistoric assumptions Allen then slanders Dr. White while claiming he wasn’t attacking his character.
Allen then says that even were it demonstrated that Dr. White was not a hyper-Calvinist it wouldn’t invalidate his point that Dr. Ascol and others in the SBC are linking to hyper-Calvinist; which in his mind is some great problem in the SBC these days. Of course the fact that he redefines hyper-Calvinism to mean many of the doctrines of historic Calvinism escapes him, so wed is he to his unbiblical view of man and his abilities. The real purpose of all this is not to combat rampant hyper-Calvinism in the SBC but to hide the fact that these hyper-Calvinist hunters simply have no response to the arguments of their opponents so they seek to poison the well by using pejoratives.
So what we see is that Allen objects to historical Calvinism. It has become fashionable of late for Arminians to claim they are “moderate Calvinist” or some other falsehood of the type. Let me make it clear for them, they are not Calvinist of any sort, they are Arminians. Norman Geisler tried to pull this same sort of dodge in his book “Chosen But Free”, but upon examination the claim turns out to be smoke and mirrors. One will also often hear things such as “I’m not an Arminian or a Calvinist, I’m a biblicist (which is similar to saying I’m not a bird or a reptile, I’m green; it’s a category error)” or “I may be a country preacher (false humility) but I know that all means all (assuming that the group the all refers to is all men)” from these “moderate Calvinist”.
It is telling that these folks refuse to interact with critics in any forum where their mendacity can be exposed. In fact Lumpkins recently turned Dr. Whites challenge to a moderated debate into an accusation against him. Now what sort of twisted logic Lumpkins uses to rationalize his position that moderated scholarly debates aren’t the best way to settle such disputes, as opposed to dueling blog article where the synergist can ignore correction and repeat disproven arguments, I cannot fathom.
Lumpkins also objected to my pointing out that another member of the cabal, who I did not name, was misusing John 3:16, putting emphasis on the word whosoever which is not in the Greek text, and even if it were would not demonstrate ability. I must apparently limit myself to the argument made by Allen without listing other false claims made by members of his conference that show their phony attacks on Calvinism. There’s also the ever-popular criticism among this group that Calvinism makes one “doomed from the womb”. Never mind that the argument invalidates their own position, unless they want to own the heresy of open theism. Or pointing out that Allen and his cronies take passages like 2 Peter 3:9 out of context, claiming “any” must refer to every human or you’re a hyper-Calvinist! (Never mind that the group referred to by any is defined by its usage) All this while safely ensconced in their Georgia hideaway. Do not expect these folks to put themselves in a position where they have to actually defend these arguments, why for a Calvinist to ask them to demonstrates a character flaw on his part. Just accuse them of being “debate junkies” or other pejoratives of the sort and you can avoid having to defend your argument rather than assert it. Given this behavior one is left to conclude that they are dishonest and cowardly. And notice I didn’t even have to redefine terms to demonstrate it!

Dr. James White, an exegete of no mean skill, addresses the way most modern Southern Baptist deal with the the text of john 3:16. In this video he responds to Dr. Jerry Vines exposition of an oft abused text. You can find the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N09kv--Oxr0

Specious Arguments Arminians make: All means all

This is the first of a series I will be posting on this blog examining various claims made by Arminians in support of their tradition. I will define lying as making statements you a. know to be false, b. suspect to be false while ignoring correction so you can claim to have not known better, or c. misuse historic definitions to allow you to make false claims. I don’t accept objections that try to define lying differently or off point statements used in an attempt to imply that the claims made are not lies. I have given the definition I will be using; willful ignorance doesn’t allow one to escape the fact that they are prevaricating.

“All means all”

The universalizing of passages to inflate the group being discussed one of the most frequent claims made by Arminians. Arminians try to universalize terms such as all, any, whoever, and so on when it suits their purpose while not doing so when it doesn’t. To begin with “all” means everyone or thing contained in a particular set, and that set will be defined by the context of the passage. Arminians often ignore the context in which “all” is used and assume it means far more than the passage would allow. “All men” does not necessarily mean every person in the world. Men can mean every male, every human, or people from everyplace within a geographic location. An example would be Augustus’ decree that “all the world should be taxed”. Now were we to follow the logic of the Arminians we would have to believe that the Chinese were commanded to pay taxes to Caesar. But it is quite obvious that what is meant is that “world” means the Roman Empire, and this means “all” of the group defined by the context in which it is used. Some of the scriptures which those who advocate a man-centered soteriology are 2 Peter 3:9, John 3:16, and Revelation 3:20

Peter speaks of a particular group in 2 Peter 3:9 when he says that God is “not willing that any should perish”. The context of the letter defines what group is meant by “any”. In this case the context identifies which group Peter is referring to as “us”, and “us” is his intended audience: the Church. Similarly when Peter says, “all should come to repentance” he is not referring to all humans, but the word “all” is referring to its object: “us”. Again who is the “us” he is speaking to? The church; all those who believe!

Another favorite of the Arminians is John 3:16. For God so loved the world (i.e. all people in the world) that He gave His only Son that whosoever (i.e. all men can believe) believes in Him …”. The text does not support their claims, which a fair reading of the text shows, but they insist that it implies the ability to come to Christ is possessed by all men. First Gods love for His creation does not mean every person in the world; anymore than my saying “I love school” means I love every person at my school. Further, despite their emphasis on “whosoever” (a word that is not even in the original text) the text doesn’t imply the ability for a person to believe. It is a simple statement of fact: God loves His creation and those persons in that creation who believe in Jesus will be saved. It does not address ability; it’s not even the subject of the passage. It is simply telling us why Jesus had become incarnate. God loved His creation and sent his Son to reconcile some of the people in that creation to Himself through faith in His Son. It does not address how many people will believe, or how they come to believe.

One of the passages most used by free-will advocates during their altar calls is Revelation 3:20. They will usually put greater emphasis on the word “any” to imply that every person in the world has the ability to open the door. Unfortunately this is not stated nor implied by the passage. Notice that a person opens the door also does something else. They hear Christ’s voice. Does every human on the planet hear His voice? Scripture says no. This is borne out by John 10:26,27 where he tells the Pharisees they are not his sheep while stating, “My sheep hear my voice”, plainly implying that they do not hear his voice because “you are not my sheep”. In 1 Corinthians 2:13,14 we find Paul discussing the gospel as the words that “we speak” of the things “taught by the Spirit”, but “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God”. Unregenerate man cannot even hear God’s word, i.e. he cannot accept the Lord’s message (though he may hear the sound). So we see that to open the door one must “hear Jesus’ word”, and to do so he must be one of His sheep. He must be regenerate. He cannot be a “natural man”.
These are only a few of the passages the Arminian mishandles this way, and a close examination of the other texts will reveal that the arguments on these are just as wrong as the three I reviewed here. They must surely recognize the inconsistency of their arguments. Particularly without excuse are pastors; who are trained in exegesis, hermeneutics, and languages. This is dishonest and they should know better. They selectively ignore context of passages and make facile claims such as “all means all”. To disguise their dishonesty they’ll often give an example that appeals to the emotions or jump to some other isolated passage that is not even related to subject of the passage they are butchering. If one is inconsistent in their use of language it is clear they know there is a problem with their argument. Now if one is unaware of their inconsistency they are subject to correction, but if they refuse correction repeatedly they are simply liars; willfully suppressing the truth. This sadly is the case with a large number of well-known preachers; they refuse correction and are dishonest in dealing with those who try to correct their errors. I pray that God may grant them repentance.

On Plodding

In a discussion on another blog I noted that many claims against the historical validity had been made prior to the one being asserted by the poster in question and that these had been refuted. Among those I listed was the claim, made prior to the discovery of the inscription in Caesarea, that there was no Pilate who was a Prefect of Judea during the time cited in the gospels. He correctly states that we knew of Pilate from Josephus prior to this discovery. So that for him seems to clinch the fact that Pilate was never questioned prior to 1961. This however is false, as the passage in Josephus was claimed to be a forgery added by early Christians at a later date. This is still asserted by some scholars. This is done on the basis of textual criticism. One of the skeptic’s objections is that Josephus refers to Pilate as a Procurator and not a Prefect. This is of course silly, if the Christians had modified or added the text they would have most likely have named him governor to fall in line with the new Testament description of him. Besides, all of this is pure conjecture, they have no proof of any of it.
Prior to the discovery of the inscription it was claimed that the forgery was done to cover the fact that there was no Pilate who was governor of Judea at that time, not that there was never anybody named Pilate who ever existed. The discovery of the inscription of course put to bed the argument that there was no Pilate who was governor to Judea during the period, if not the facile forgery claims. This is a fairly well known event, but our intrepid atheist ran to his atheist apologetics site no doubt, where he was informed that this claim was never made, Christian apologetics ministries made it up. Armed with this information he came back and informed me that history didn’t exist. Now of course he didn’t bother to ask himself if those who provided him his information would actually know about scholars views pre-1961, or whether such disproved claims were likely to be put on the internet for him to google, which seems to be the limits of modern scholarship. If you can’t google it then it didn’t happen. There were a couple of other defunct historical claims I listed which are commonly known, but I have no desire to reinvent the wheel repeatedly so I shall only deal with this one.
The historian Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903) expressed his belief that Pilate was a prefect, and not a procurator as identified by Josephus and Tacitus. Claudius changed the term for the governor of Judea from prefect to procurator. Based on this discrepancy, the fact that Josephus and Tacitus referred to Pilate as a procurator, scholars asserted the accounts were additions made later by Christians. This was done ostensibly to shore up the evidence for the New Testament references to Pilate, and that Pilate was not governor of Judea during the period that Jesus lived and was executed. Leaving aside the fact that there is no evidence as to what records were used for Tacitus’ account this is pure conjecture, and based not on scholarship but bias. The same goes for Josephus’ account, the fact that the term procurator as opposed to the earlier term proves exactly nothing. This is bad scholarship, it is an attempt to discredit a text by modern historians based on nothing but a bias against the narratives, particularly one that establishes the historicity of those involved in the Gospels.
Among those leading the charge were various German scholars such as KL Schmidt, Willi Marxsen, and Rudolf Bultmann who questioned most of the historical claims as to time and place made in the gospels. These attacks on the historicity of the scriptural account have abated somewhat as archeology has discovered more corroborating evidence, but one has to question why this penchant for making arguments from silence. While I do not claim innerancy for extra biblical sources the fact that the critics seem to view the ancients as superstitious liars who prevaricate and manufacture stories at every turn leaves one in the untenable position of having no history at all. It will take more than facile claims made hundreds and thousands of years after the fact solely to support the critic’s bias. Indeed, now that we have entered the post modern era I expect the situation to get worse, as now things are false simply because “there is no truth”.
But as we see there is a larger problem, namely the intellectual laziness, assumptions, and predisposition’s of our opponents, who despite their claims to the contrary are not interested in what the real story is but in seeking an escape route from history in an attempt to reinforce their denial of God. In this case has taken the form of pedantry and demanding proof of common knowledge. Given that these critics are repeatedly proven wrong it rather amazes me that he demands quotations from non-Christians to accept history, particularly given the fact that the ones he seeks citations from have repeatedly proven themselves unreliable. When one gets into a discussion with these folks there comes a time to get out, and though it may sting our pride to leave them feeling justified in their arguments better to move on to those who are truly seeking the truth.

Whither Our Gifts

Over at Hugh Ross’ site you’ll find a list of various theologians and apologist who support the so-called “Old Earth” creationist position. Now many of these men are no longer with us, while others a current leaders in the church. But I am firmly convinced that many of them do not fully understand what it is they are supporting, and realize that even within the OEC camp there is a slew of different views. But they all have one thing in common, they compromise the word of God. One can claim they are an inerrantist regarding scripture, as some of these do, yet that means little when you are promoting a view that directly undermines it.
The OEC view can only be held by the most tortured hermeneutic imaginable. It undermines the relationship of man to his fallen state and makes God the author of death and misery. But more than this it can only be accomplished by bringing outside opinions to bear on the text. The common understanding of the orthodox church from the beginning of Christianity was a literal six day creation. This is apparent by the way Genesis one is written, as a straight narrative, not figurative. That is not to say there is not figurative language used, but that the point of the passages are not figurative, but written to explain how God created the universe. It was only recently that this idea of “millions of years” entered into the church, and that from outside. Now you may think that we must change our understanding of Genesis, but as I’ve shown the “science” involved is nothing but a host of assumptions adopted solely to undermine the creation account in scripture.
I find it somewhat troubling that we will argue to the death over prophecy, which admittedly has a correct interpretation, but because of its nature is difficult and obscure. However when it comes to the direct and clear testimony of God as to how he accomplished his creation we’ll argue “well, it just not important really, as long as you believe in Jesus”. How fatuous is that? Ok, how about “Jesus wasn’t really born of a virgin, that was figurative” or “Jesus just spiritually rose from the dead, that wasn’t literal”. Now you’ll scream bloody murder. But if we are to take the same approach these people take with Genesis how can you argue against it? If science is the benchmark, then things like the virgin birth and resurrection cannot happen. You can only do so if you are totally arbitrary where you apply this magisterial use of science. What kind of testimony is that? A scoffer will rightly laugh in your face.
Now I cannot know what the spiritual state of these men are, but I can say that what they are teaching is heresy plain and simple. Man does not have dominion over Gods word, or the right to change what he likes to suit the prevailing fad. We are loathe in this modern age to use the term heresy, but that is what it is, a false teaching which directly contradicts sound doctrine. Many of these men have ministries which I admire and teachings in other areas which are sound, yet this one heresy is enough to disqualify them from our support. I suggest that you be a good steward of God goods and support those ministries which proclaim the whole of his gospel, including the unpopular areas of mans fall and Gods creative act. Withholding funds from those brazen enough to allow themselves to be listed as promoters of a heresy which denies God’s sovereignty over his word and creation seems like a good place to start. Perhaps some will repent and return to a proper view of scripture, but until they do not a dime!

History Repeats Itself

Having lost the infamous "Horse Series" as a demonstration for evolution the evolutionists now repeat the same Lamarckian just so stories in the form of a tepid National Geographic article which resurrects it's errors in the form of whales. Find a response here: A Whale Fantasy. It took years to remove the patently false "Horse series" from textbooks, a task still not entirely accomplished, and I strongly suspect that it will be replaced by this foolishness. Then we can spend some more wasted years getting it removed, all the while graduating many students who have been failed in schools by being taught obviously false information in support of a destructive religion, materialism. How ironic that in the name of keeping "religion" out of government schools we are having our tax dollars squandered to teach lies to our children in the name of "blind Faith"; namely evolutionary assumptions.

Theory and Reality

There's an interesting post at Triablogue that has some troubling admissions by those who are supposedly the guardians of dispassionate science. Once again we see that much of what passes for science, particularly in the theoretical realm, is actually dogma. You can find it here.

Happy National Astronomy Day!

Today, Saturday May 6th, is National Astronomy Day, So let me take this opportunity to encourage you to support creationist ministries across the world. If you are a young Christian looking for where you can serve the Lord I would like to suggest that you should look into science or science education as a career.
It is quite fashionable at this period in history to describe Christianity as anti-science, but this is a falsehood. What we should be is anti-scientism, which is the false religion of the materialist. This universe of ours was created by the Lord and rightfully belongs to his people. For too long we have abandon important areas of our culture to unbelievers, and theoretical science is one discipline where we have been particularly lacking. This has had terrible consequences for the churches ministry and outreach. One of the responsibilities given to man is the task of naming, and I suggest that science is part of this task. How many souls have been lost because of our slackness we can not know, but when asked why they abandon their faith a great many young people cite the claims of materialist scientific philosophy as the reason.
While it is true that every person’s ultimately responsible for their own spiritual state I firmly believe in a God who can save and who grants favor based on the intercession of His saints. By reclaiming the field of science we will aid the cause of evangelism and strengthen the faith of converts. If we glorify God in every facet of our culture God will bless our nation and its people. However this requires our obedience and diligence in all areas. Nothing can be left to the enemy, for what we surrender to the enemy will certainly be used to attack the Lords people. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of science, particularly cosmology and origins science. The time has come to reclaim these vital areas and change the philosophy of science from anti-God to a discipline that glorifies our Lord.
The world is the Lord’s and was made for His people. The questions asked by science should be how does Gods world operate, not how can we create a world without God! Because the gospel is an appeal to mankind’s intellect as well as his spirit, and not a faith spread by force we must reason with others. We must always be prepared to give an answer for our faith in every area. Some have claimed that we should only concentrate on “the spiritual things” and that we can leave the material things to the secularist. The folly of this thinking is demonstrated by the sad state of the world and our churches. Every aspect of our existence belongs to God; both spiritual and material. Who are we to surrender any part of it to the enemies of God?
So let us all take this opportunity to repent our failure in this area and glorify God by reclaiming science as an instrument for spreading the gospel. If we do this it will go a long way towards healing our nation and giving a godly inheritance to our children. If you're a young person please take up the challenge and reclaim science for the Lord. Let the rest of us support creationist ministries and support our young people in this endeavor. All is the Lords, so let us be good stewards of His creation!

Beginning at the beginning

Over at AIG they are making the book Creation: Facts of Life by Dr. Gary Parker available online. This gives some answers to some of the issues raised by the materialist. It will be posted in serial form and the link takes you to the first chapter. Enjoy!

It's about time!

Recently in a discussion a materialist pointed out that prior to the BB there was no time. Now in BB cosmology this is correct, as time is simply the rate of physical phenomenon. However this presents a problem for the BB. The story goes that a singularity underwent a quantum fluctuation, which caused the BB. Now quantum mechanics are a physical process. It is basically a measurement problem, we cannot know the position of a subatomic particle at a given moment, but we can predict its path of travel. Now if particles are moving then there are physical processes occurring and so there is time, perhaps not our time but time nonetheless. Now these physical properties must exist in something other than the universe, as it came into being with the BB. The singularity, which is matter condensed to "infinite density and infinite mass with no dimensions" according to BB cosmology, would be static. No particles would be moving, hence there is no path to predict, no quantum mechanics. They have to assume the existence of something that did not exist prior to the BB. So to account for the BB they have to admit that there was some process occurring prior to the BB. Which of course is time (physical processes). But this too supposedly came into existence with the BB.
When asked to account for the matter which supposedly existed in the singularity, they either claim it just happened or always existed. Now they offer no evidence for this, and as I pointed out could not offer any as we can know nothing prior to the existence of the universe. So they have assumed it, which of course is what they berate us for, blind faith (i.e. an unproven assumption) in God. One went so far to claim that "the universe is not an effect", which is just silly. If the BB created the universe then it would be a cause and the universe would be the effect. This should be fairly obvious, as only through the most tortured pedantry can one dispute this. But what caused the BB? "The quantum fluctuation of course." But there was no motion, so no quantum fluctuation. "No, it occurred just at the moment of the BB". Oh, so what caused the fluctuation, and how can you have a fluctuation in an event that’s not occurring? "Uh, it was always there" Then time did not begin with the BB. "Sure it did, an eighth grader can grasp that." Pretty circular if you ask me. So who has to have the greatest faith?
I’ll leave it with this, it now looks like the expansion of the universe is accelerating, if so it will not recombine but just expand forever and suffer heat death. So much for the eternal universe theory. When this was pointed out to our materialist he simply posted a reference that to a scientist who holds the oscillating universe theory, which of course doesn’t address the issue. Scientist also believed bad gasses from swamps caused canned meat to spoil. So what?