Live your theology.

I had the opportunity to read an advance copy of Jonathan Weyer’s upcoming book The Faithful.  The book itself is a fun & compelling piece of Christian horror (an emerging genre, I’m told).  It’s a ghost story written from the perspective of a young reformed Presbyterian pastor.   An interesting conversation in the book deals with a passage from Deuteronomy:

“When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.   (Deuteronomy 18:9-14 ESV)

A character in the book then suggests that these things are forbidden, because they are real.  Necromancy is something that can be pursued, wickedly mind you, but should be left alone by the command of God.  So while there’s a standing order in Scripture not to actively pursue such things, the Bible is silent about what to do if ghosts reach out to you.  It’s an interesting thought, and one that works well in the book.

I think on this topic every time I read the Biblical account of the witch of En-dor communicating with what appeared to the ghost of Samuel (1 Samuel 28:6-19).

So what’s your opinion on ghosts?  No such thing? Demonic manifestations?  If you’re a denier, is there  a biblical reason you believe this?  Is the denial of ghosts a reflection of a hyper-materialistic society?

By this point in our look at the first chapter of Benjamin B. Warfield’s The Plan of Salvation we’ve seen the biblical pattern of salvation narrowed to a Theistic, Supernatural, Evangelical course.  Warfield now sub-divides that group by identifying where a reliance of a naturalistic or man-centered approach can still be found (no matter how slight).  He begins by examining two groups who while ostensibly Supernatural and Evangelical, still give room to some form of naturalism or sacerdotalism.  First up are the Lutheran Evangelicals, adherents of a “conservative Reformation”. While this group has separated itself from Rome, there can still be found an underlying sacerdotalism, whether it be found in the form of baptismal regeneration or consubstantiation. The other group involved are those pesky Dutch Remonstrants and their semi-pelagianism: the evangelical Arminians. Sacerdotalism isn’t the problem, but a naturalistic man-centered basis for salvation can still be found. The true Reformed and biblical plan for salvation should be uncolored by any influence of of either of these things.

Warfield suggests that the principle classification would should be looking for among evangelicals is not so much the influence of sacerdotalism or naturalism but rather how God exerts his saving power on men:

“The point of division here is whether God is conceived to have planned actually himself to save men by his almighty and certainly efficacious grace, or only so to pour out his grace upon men as to enable them to be saved, without actually securing, however in any particular cases that they shall be saved.”

So the Arminian will say that God has universally made salvation possible to every man. This salvation is from God alone, but there is still a responsibility in man to get all Captain Picard and say “Make it so.”  The problem with this universalist line of thinking is evident.  If as the supernaturalist says, God alone saves the souls of men, and not man, and God alone works his saving grace directly on the soul, a evangelicals hold, then it follows that a God who universally does this to all men should see all men saved.  Unitarians would say here, Amen. Arminians would say, “uh… well, not exactly” and point out man’s responsibility.  But by doing so appeal to naturalism in a professed supernatural system.

“The precise issue which divides the universalists and the particularists is,  accordingly, just whether the saving grace of God, in which alone is salvation, actually saves. Does its presence mean salvation, or may it be present, and yet salvation fail?”

The consistent view in the Theistic supernatural evangelical course is that of the particularist, held by the apostles, Augustine, and the Reformed church at large.  God deals with men on an individual basis and saves them by his grace through an immediate regeneration.  God’s salvation is applied by God and is immediate and sure – not merely allowing for the possibility of salvation. The particularist alone is able to proclaim Soli Deo gloria and remain consistent within his course of thought.

Monday: A break from Warfield in favor of Mr. T’s continuing commentary on the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Tuesday: Back w\ the end of chapter 1 – A three-way battle royal between Supralapsarians, Infralapsarians, and Amyraldians!

The first chapter of B.B. Warfield’s The Plan of Salvation examines the competing ideas for how men are saved.  B.B. does this in the finest way possible – in a way that kept me captivated, almost as if he knew how to write to my attention despite a century or so separating us.  Warfield employs the seldom used but ever effective ‘Bloodsport’ theological method, also known as the ‘Street Fighter II’ or ‘Mortal Kombat’ styles.

Warfield pits competing ideas up against one another eliminating the weaker argument until we’re left with a final champion idea, just like Jean-Claude Van Damme defeated Chong Li at the end of the Bloodsport Kumite tournament (even though he was blinded by a cheating Chong Li).

Having differentiated between Deism and Theism, and having tossed the former into the intellectual trash heap, Warfield begins to examine the characteristics of the theistic plan of salvation. He does this by pitting the Naturalistic view against the Supernaturalistic view asking the question: “Does man save himself or does God save him?”

Warfield identifies the Naturalstic view as being in bed with that old heresy, Pelagianism.  Warfield’s money quote regarding Pelagianism and Naturalstic views of salvation:

“As the poor in earthly goods are always with us, so the poor in spiritual tings are also always with us.”

Burn.

That Warfield is solidly against a man-only plan of salvation is no surprise.  That he’s also against any view that mixes the actions of men with God is… also not surprising. So wherever a synergistic view of salvation as crept in through the Pelagian heresy (Roman Catholicism, Greek Orthodox, and many protestant circles — SBC, etc.) Warfield rightly points out that the idea of a super-naturalistic salvation by God alone is more of a lip service than a concrete reality, no matter what they might proclaim.

“These so-called intermediate views are obviously, in principle, naturalistic views, since (whatever part they permit God to play in the circumstantials of salvation) when they come to the crucial point of salvation itself they cast man back upon his native powers.

The apostle Paul proclaimed that he has nothing to boast in save God. “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Eph. 6:14.  I recall a quote from Luther pondering a salvation achieved through works (by man) as well as through God by asking how much of his salvation was his own doing, so he could know how much he could boast in himself.

The Scriptures make it clear that salvation is through God alone apart from man entirely. Warfield’s exegesis of the Bible rightly allows him to dismiss the naturalistic view from the tournament in favor of the biblical super-naturalistic understanding.

“[the supernaturalist] assert that all the power that is exerted in saving the sould is from God, that whatever part man plays in the saving process is subsidiary, is itself the effect of the divine operation and that it is God and God alone who saves the soul.”

The tournament continues tomorrow with a look at the sacerdotal principle!

5/5 stars. I love my M’s. This was a nice telling of how the M’s managed to stay in Seattle, with a nice trip down memory lane for the ’95 & ’01 seasons. I was amazed at how sad I still felt about how some of those seasons ended. The book was written right before the M’s went in the tank, so the last chapter is particularly poignant

11. The Shack by William P. Young

• It stinks. My friend Jed & I read this because we’d heard from a few people how wonderful & amazing it was. My Librarything tags for this book: fiction, heresy

Everything else involved some sort of studying in May.