The legitimacy of the concept of theological paradox has come up time and time again on this blog. In an article published by the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in 1987, David Basinger wrote that the concept was incoherent and dangerous as it would seem to render thought unintelligible. After all, if the fountain of intelligibility is the law of non contradiction, and if there is no discernible difference between an apparent contradiction and a real contradiction, how can meaningful communication still be preserved? I wrote about Basinger here in 2008.

In an article called “Van Til: Philosopher of Paradox” (which you can read about here), John Frame sought to defend the concept of apparent contradiction from the likes of theologians like Basinger. (It might be of interest to the reader to point out that David Basinger is an open theist). Earlier I wrote,

Frame raises the question of intelligibility. If from our (human) perspective an apparent contradiction is indistinguishable from an actual contradiction, how can it be intelligible to us? For Frame, all interpretation is application. With this in mind, a paradoxical doctrine in Scripture can still be intelligible if it demands a particular response from us. An example of this is the image of God. For Van Til, the doctrine of humanity bearing the image of God is paradoxical. He believed that humanity has (in one sense) and has not (in another) lost the image of God as a result of the Fall. The senses are never distinguished, so we have an apparent contradiction. Does this render the doctrine unintelligible? No, because there is a clear application.

What has made this debate so pressing to me in the past was over the question of the ordination of women. Doug and Becky Groothuis had developed an argument in favour of the egalitarian position by pointing out an (apparent) contradiction with the complementarian position. And yet, from my point of view, the complementarian position had greater exegetical warrant. So, what is one to do? At the time I concluded that faithfulness could mean that one might have to affirm the existence of apparent contradictions if the opposite meant denying the most faithful interpretation of Scripture. If Scripture is in any way a ‘norming norm’ then it ought to hold greater epistemic warrant than objections to the contrary, all other things being equal.

This issue has come up again in my studies with Jerry Walls’ and David Baggett’s Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality. In chapter 4, Walls and Baggett lay out a five part argument against Reformed theology gathered under the acronym, CERTS. Their five logical problems with Reformed theology are: C = Compatibilism; E = Euphemism; R = Radical voluntarism; T = the Terrible Tenet (unconditional election); S = a Semantic issue (equivocation on the meaning of love).

At one point, Walls says that Reformed theology should be jettisoned because its logical problems are insurmountable. In essence, Walls believes that Scripture can’t teach what Reformed theologians say that it does because that would mean that God authored a logical contradiction, which is impossible by definition. In other writings, Walls decries the use of the category of apparent contradiction as an escape hatch, citing David Basinger’s 1987 JETS article.

As I was working through this all over again, Andrew recommended a recent monograph that defends the concept of theological paradox. It’s called Paradox in Christian Theology: An Analysis of Its Presence, Character, and Epistemic Status and it’s written by Dr. James Anderson, professor of philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary. For a helpful summary of the book by Paul Manata, click here.

Anderson defines a paradox/apparent contradiction as a set of claims which taken in conjunction appear to be logically inconsistent. For Anderson, there are two key questions when it comes to theological paradox:

1) Are any essential Christian doctrines genuinely paradoxical?
2) Can a person rationally affirm a paradoxical doctrine?

Anderson answers in the affirmative to both questions. I hope to work through his monograph in a series of blog posts, while relating it Jerry Walls’ discussion of Calvinism.

For my next post we’ll look at the Trinity and why Anderson believes that an orthodox affirmation of the Trinity entails believing it to be a paradox.

Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institute, on why we need offensive speech. In short, if we protect one another from being offended, we’ll never end up knowing what is correct. Bad ideas are the soil out of which good ideas come.

I wish more liberals would listen to voices like Rauch’s, especially when it comes to matters of sexuality. It’s important to note that Rauch is a gay rights activist who has written Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America. And yet, Rauch is clear that he’d never want to see conservative voices silenced. May his tribe increase, though I doubt they will.

I used to spend a fair amount of energy defending libertarian positions on politics and economics on this blog. In the time that has passed since then, I have shifted my positions on a number of issues, but the conclusion is, I don’t regard myself as a libertarian in any sense anymore. In general, my political/economic views probably come most near to Philip Blond’s Red Toryism (or, insofar as it is another name for the same thing, Blue Labour). Since I have changed positions quite substantially, I feel I owe it to my readers to be explicit in my shift. (more…)

I am definitely coveting Doug Wilson’s library.

(HT: 22 Words)

I think I have always had a latent desire to write. Over the course of my lazy school days it would pop up once in a while, but in the last few years it has become something of an obsession. Probably the earliest memory I have of taking real pleasure in writing was when I was in the eighth grade when I submitted a piece to “Young Authors”—a project to encourage Canadian school kids to write. My contribution was Mountain Home, self-consciously modeled after Louis L’Amour, my hero. When earlier this year I had the joy of publishing my first book, “Rivers of Living Water”: Celebrating 125 Years of Hughson Street Baptist Church, Hamilton, Ontario, 1887-2012 (co-authored with Michael Haykin), I began to discern that maybe my childish project told a deeper story than a cowboy who was blinded by buckshot.

This little book may not seem all that exciting to you, but it is for me for two reasons. The first, although it isn’t published with an academic press, it is my first book and I take personal satisfaction in it. The feeling that I have is likely similar to that of a construction worker who finally completes a deck. All of the hard work has finally paid off; there is a feeling of accomplishment holding it in my hands. Also, I had a wonderful experience doing the research and writing with my mentor, and I learned a lot about doing history.

The second is that it has forced me to think about my own calling, in particular: Why do I want to write church history? The answer may seem obvious. Of course, I want to make a career out of being an historian, and would love to publish respected studies with an academic press. But, as I have learned from both the teaching and example of Dr. Haykin, church history as a discipline or profession is not an end in itself. There are bigger issues for the Christian historian than scholarly respect—the ultimate being the glory of the Triune God, the author of history.

The Use of Church History on the Ground

With “Rivers of Living Water” I came to see that the three hundred or so copies that were printed, though never destined to be a best-seller, do glorify God because they now reside in the hands of the members of Hughson Street Baptist for their encouragement. These members are given a sense of their God-originated identity as a local church, they see how God persevered with them through times of hardship, and how he has blessed them immeasurably. Because of this, I am convinced that Christian historians need to do more of this ground-level writing of church history, inglorious in the eyes of many though it may be.

There are challenges to doing this kind of work. Not only may historians overlook the stories of their own churches in favour of writing on a more mainstream subject, but churches themselves are not convinced of the need to record their past. On the day that “Rivers of Living Water” was released, a woman came to Dr. Haykin and me and told us how, some fifteen years previous, she saw that someone had thrown all of the church minute books in the garbage! When she saw that dates on the cover of these books went back to the 1880s, she rescued them from the trash. It is horrifying to think what it would mean if they had been picked up by a garbage collector! Our book certainly could not have been written.

Another more modern obstacle is that churches no longer keep minute books or other such documents in hard-copy. Everything is digitized and easily deleted. Nor do pastors keep diaries that are tremendous resources for later researchers. The stories of how churches were founded, under what conditions they flourished, how they overcame obstacles, what previous pastors were like, what kind of theology they espoused are all important for a congregation’s self-understanding. It helps them discern their identity in the context they are in currently in the twenty-first century. For instance, Hughson Street is located in Hamilton’s North End that has long been a blue-collar neighbourhood marked by poverty. As Hughson Street continues to impact their community in the twenty-first century, they can look back in their past to see how God used them in the lives of their neighbours. For churches to read stories of how God led them through a crisis, or how he blessed the preaching with growth, are all parts of what historians call a “usable past,” and can help a church navigate rough waters, or be encouraged in God’s goodness.

Encouraging Church History on the Ground

If God has called you to the task of doing church history, may I encourage you (if you have not done this already) to approach your elders to see if they would be interested in you writing your church’s history? If you are a professional historian and maybe do not have the time to do it yourself, why not mentor a budding historian in this task as Michael Haykin did with me? Mine was a tremendous learning experience, I spent hours going through old minute books, correspondence, sermons, and other old manuscripts—I had the careful guidance of a seasoned historian who helped not only with research, but taught me how to construct a narrative out of the work I had done. We are now doing another similar book for Mount Pleasant Road Baptist in Toronto. Dr. Haykin has also recently published “Declaring the Whole Counsel of God,” a history of Trinity Baptist Church in Burlington, Ontario.

I would also like to encourage denominations to commission historians to publish denominational histories at regular intervals. We have a great example of this with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, who enlists their own historian to publish various types of works at different occasions to mark OPC milestones. Denominational institutions, whether at head-office level, or even seminaries, should have archives that house not only these broader histories, but copies of individual church’s histories. Even more helpful would be for an archivist to collect and catalogue precious minute books and other old manuscripts for proper preservation and use by historians. McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton has the Canadian Baptist Archive, which was a tremendous resource that I used as I carried on research for the Hughson Street book.

Finally, might I also encourage you if you are a pastor reading this? If you don’t have the ability or the time to do it yourself, why not commission someone—either in your church, if possible, or someone you know—to publish your church’s history? You should make the resources available (don’t throw them out!), and have some monies budgeted for such a project. I would also highly suggest that you keep hard copies of relevant manuscripts in an archive somewhere in your church, or in a denominational institution, so that future researchers will have adequate sources to construct a history with.

I only see this as a win-win situation, both for the historian and the church. It can be a great source of blessing for both. And beyond that, God will receive glory for all of the work that we collectively will remember that he did in the life of his church.

I’ve been reflecting a bit on the significance of the US presidential election. Especially the voting habits of the “millennial” demographic. The following are some unorganized and totally biased suggestions I have for how churches could be discipling their members in political matters.

1. Natural law. Christian conservatives sometimes speak and act as if the order of grace totally replaced that of nature. The practical application of this principle becomes a wholly divine positive law approach to policy. A bible verse must be found for everything, and that becomes the whole (or basically the whole) of our argument. I think a recovery of natural law thinking can be a corrective here. It can help both believers and unbelievers to see that God’s commands are not arbitrary impositions of a cosmic despot who wants to spoil our fun; they are instead simply the will of God inscribed in our very nature. God tells us to act the way he made us to act, and when we act the way he designed us to, we flourish, not wither. This suggestion will imply recovering a great deal of Christian jurisprudence, antique, medieval, and modern, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant. It probably should include knowledge of the jurisprudence of other cultures, too (Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Jewish, etc.). Of course, not every individual would need to study all these things, but seminary professors probably should have some knowledge of it all, and it should filter down in vocationally appropriate ways through the ministers to the laity.

2. More specifically, in recovering natural law teaching, the conservative Protestant church should be open to rediscovering a different part of the political “spectrum” than it currently inhabits today. The tradition of the church really is socially “conservative” in most ways, but not economically libertarian. The American libertarian tradition is really the odd one out on this, and it is important to at least recognize this, even if a person or institution ultimately wants to side with it. I think, though, conservative Christians might be able to have a real effect on the political world, in the long haul, if they were to present an actual third way: a politic that strives for the common good in all areas of life, not just sex and death issues.

3. Also more particularly, the church desperately needs to get back in touch with the just war tradition, and to a lesser degree, even its pacifistic heritage. It needs to understand why it is not pacifist, if it is not going to be pacifist, and it needs to understand how its approach to war is grounded in something other than sheer brute desire for conquest and self-satisfaction. The just war tradition, ultimately, is guided by (duh) justice, which means “to each as he deserves”. It means a preferential option (not indefeasible) for the preservation of life, a respect for order, and proportionate and discriminate use of force (not terrorism and blood lust).

4. This may go without saying, but I’d like to say it anyway: part of discipleship in our age needs to be the inculcating of a critical distance from partisan politics. Though we may vote a certain way in elections, we ought not to be doing this out of loyalty to a brand. It ought to be the result of a careful moral calculus. And Christians should not have a problem criticizing even their own preferred candidate or policy if it is defective from the point of view of ideal justice. I am firmly convinced that a vigilant people is the only thing that will keep a society free and just, and the church cannot contribute to such a society if it is basically in the bag for one power-seeking party or another.

FWIW.

The doctrine of election is this – I’ll just tell you what it is – it’s that all human beings, given a hundred chances, a thousand chances, an infinite number of chances, will always – because their desires are such – will always choose to be their own lord and saviour and they’ll never choose Jesus. And what God does, is he opens the eyes of some so they’ll see the truth, but he doesn’t open the eyes of everybody.

… Firstly, the fact is that Protestant churches have been split over [this] for a long time. And therefore, we would never say to somebody, ‘You can’t join Redeemer [Presbyterian Church] unless you believe it.’

Secondly, I try to major on the majors, and my understanding of election sometimes underlines and informs the things I say, but nobody’s going to be saying, ‘You have to believe this doctrine!’ That’s not the sort of thing  that you’re going to get in these services. You can be happily non-predestinarian at Redeemer, alright?

… The best way to understand this though… On the one hand, if you wrestle with the doctrine of election a little longer, it creates a problem, which was always there and you didn’t see it. And denying the doctrine of election or disagreeing with it doesn’t actually get it to go away. And I’ll show you what I mean.

If you believe, that years and years ago, in the beginning of time, God said, ‘I see that the human race is going to sin. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to go out and save a quarter of them.’

Ah, that sounds awful!

However, you say, ‘No! What I believe is years and years and years ago, God said, ‘The human race is going to sin. Therefore, I will send my Son and I will give everybody free will…’’

But since he’s God, he immediately knows who is going to believe, and who’s not. So in other words, either way, you have an action of God, that in the depths of time, automatically consigns some people to heaven and some people to hell. So you’re in the same boat. Because here’s the issue: God looks like he can save everybody (we think), he says he wants to save everybody, but he doesn’t save everybody. Why?

And here’s the funny thing. Nobody’s got the answer for that. Nobody. And everybody has got the same problem.

When you first hear of election, you say, ‘The unfairness of God! He could save everybody, but he doesn’t.’ But, see, how do you get out of that, even if you don’t believe in predestination?

‘Well, God doesn’t want robots who follow him round, he wants people to choose him freely!’ … But you know what? The doctrine of election only says God opens our eyes to be able to choose him freely.

But why doesn’t he do it for everybody? Well, we don’t know! You say, ‘Well he wouldn’t violate free will’. But he wouldn’t violate free will in election either. We all have the same problem!

This is what I’ve found, if you keep wrestling a bit further, you find that it’s not predestination [that is the problem]. This is one of the unanswered questions of the bible.

The reason I believe in election is, I have all the same problems you do. But there is one thing I need to conserve, because the bible is so strong on it. The bible tells me that I am saved by grace, not by anything better, or good, in me.

Predestination has all kinds of other problems. But the one thing it’s true to is my own experience, that my friends and relatives who aren’t Christians – and I am – I just know it has nothing to do with me being smarter or better at all.

So I’m living with the problems that come from believing in radical grace alone for my salvation. And the implications for thatare problematic. But you know what’s funny? If you, in order to get rid of those so-called problems, decide ‘I believe that everybody has an equal chance, and there’s free will, and I don’t believe in predestination,’ I think in the end you have more problems, because it really monkeys with your understanding of salvation by faith.

All I’m trying to say is, it’s too late, you’ve lost your innocence once you study the doctrine of election. It opens these issues up and you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. It makes you think about the implications of things, and I would say, hold on to grace and let the chips fall where they may everywhere else. It will be alright.” (HT: Tim Keller Wiki)

There’s a clip of the ever-brilliant Monty Python’s Flying Circus where, at the bottom of the screen, there is a flashing sign that reads “Satire” during one of their skits. Anyone who knows Monty Python knows that this “warning” was of course redundant. Perhaps though the publishers of Rachel Held Evans’ last book might have considered provided such a disclaimer on her dust jacket – because a lot of folks seem to be taking what appears to be a satire (and not necessarily an original one) entirely at face value.

Kathy Keller appears to reprimand Evans very sincerely for not understanding such import precepts to biblical interpretation as context, culture, and authorial intent. While Doug Wilson does a very serious critique based around something that Evans said on a TV show. Now I have not read a whole lot of Kathy Keller, so I just don’t know what sort of “voice” she writes with, but Wilson’s approach of taking this all Very Seriously is a bit odd, since he appears to enjoy deploying humour as a rhetorical approach. With no small irony I can note that Wilson is fond of this joke:

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: That’s not funny.

I imagine that Wilson’s accusations that Evans is something of a fool would sting if it weren’t so transparently obvious that she was playing one for the purpose of the book she wrote.

Wilson takes the approach of claiming that Evans wrote what amounts to a Talmudic commentary to be added on to scripture – and not a very good. I suppose that that’s what happened if one takes Evans entirely literally. The dots that Wilson cannot seem to connect (but that Keller acknowledges) is that Evans is parodying any number of proponents of complementarian gender roles. Evans may make silly commands for herself about sitting on the roof, but then there’s Mark Driscoll making completely sincere commands about the importance of the wife providing oral sex for the husband, or stripteases. Driscoll’s Talmud, if perhaps somewhat uncomfortable to Wilson, still gets something of a pass from him.

I haven’t read Evans book, I have no idea if it’s good or not, I probably won’t bother with it myself, but let’s at least be honest about just how seriously she took this project.

There’s a remarkable case working its way through the US Supreme Court, Wiley v. Kirtsaeng that challenges the “first sale” doctrine – the limitation on copyright that effectively says that once something has been sold, the copyright holder no longer has any control over it being lent out or resold. Click on the link above if you want the details of the case, but the quick version is that Supap Kirtsaeng was a Thai student studying in the US who quickly realized that the Thai editions of his textbooks were much cheaper than the (effectively identical) American ones and he did a brisk business importing Thai text book editions and selling them to his fellow students.

A victory for the efficiency of free markets? Not in the eyes of publisher John Wiley & Sons who has sued Kirtsaeng for hundreds of thousands of dollars on the basis that US copyright law does not explicitly apply the first sale doctrine to foreign-made products. The ramifications of this are staggering, any foreign-made product in the US could conceivably be banned from resale, or, more likely, the copyright holders would attempt to get a percentage on any resale. This would have an obvious chilling effect on everything from Craigslist and eBay to the simple yard sale. The copyright holders in the publishing as well as film and music industries claim that they do not want a cut of your sale of used records but at some point if they are legally allowed to make a profit by demanding a cut from such sales, why wouldn’t they?

This development follows a trend that originates probably in software, where one is not sold a product as much they are sold a license to use intellectual property that remains under someone else’s ownership. There was the case where an e-reader was been erased due to vague allegations of terms-of-service violations. But withholding electronic information is one thing, in the case of our physical books and perhaps vinyl records (though not necessarily DVDs or CDs) we had things and we believed we owned them. Now though it seems there is a move afoot to say, no, you do not own this, anyone who claims the copyright for any aspect of the product you supposedly own may now want to be able to prevent you from selling it or lending it without giving them a cut.

I know that many regard property rights as an important protection against the interference of the state or of other, more powerful actors such as government, big business or banks or whoever. What happens when the concept of property can be turned into a rent-seeking tool for those with enough lawyers?