Charles Hodge on Love in 1873

I rarely do this, but I felt Hodge was worth quoting at length (I added paragraph breaks and updated the Scripture reference format):

Love in us includes complacency and delight in its object, with the desire of possession and communion. The schoolmen, and often the philosophical theologians, tell us that there is no feeling in God. This, they say, would imply passivity, or susceptibility of impression from without, which it is assumed is incompatible with the nature of God. “We must exclude,” says Bruch, “passivity from the idea of love, as it exists in God. For God cannot be the subject of passivity in any form. Besides, if God experienced complacency in intelligent beings, He would be dependent on them: which is inconsistent with his nature as an Absolute Being.”

Love, therefore, he defines as that attribute of God which secures the development of the rational universe; or, as Schleiermacher expresses it, “It is that attribute in virtue of which God communicates Himself.” According to the philosophers, the Infinite develops itself in the finite; this fact, in theological language, is due to love. The only point of analogy between love in us and love in the Absolute and Infinite, is self-communication. Love in us leads to self-revelation and communion; in point of fact the Infinite is revealed and developed in the universe, and specially in humanity.

Bruch admits that this doctrine is in real contradiction to the representations of God in the Old Testament, and in apparent contradiction to those of the New Testament. If love in God is only a name for that which accounts for the rational universe; if God is love, simply because He develops himself in thinking and conscious beings, then the word has for us no definite meaning; it reveals to us nothing concerning the real nature of God.

Here again we have to choose between a mere philosophical speculation and the clear testimony of the Bible, and of our own moral and religious nature. Love of necessity involves feeling, and if there be no feeling in God, there can be no love. That He produces happiness is no proof of love. The earth does that unconsciously and without design. Men often render others happy from vanity, from fear, or from caprice. Unless the production of happiness can be referred, not only to a conscious intention, but to a purpose dictated by kind feeling, it is no proof of benevolence. And unless the children of God are the objects of his complacency and delight, they are not the objects of his love. He may be cold, insensible, indifferent, or even unconscious; He ceases to be God in the sense of the Bible, and in the sense in which we need a God, unless He can love as well as know and act.

The philosophical objection against ascribing feeling to God, bears…with equal force against the ascription to Him of knowledge or will. If that objection be valid, He becomes to us simply an unknown cause, what men of science call force; that to which all phenomena are to be referred, but of which we know nothing.

We must adhere to the truth in its Scriptural form, or we lose it altogether. We must believe that God is love in the sense in which that word comes home to every human heart. The Scriptures do not mock us when they say, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” (Ps 103:13) He meant what He said when He proclaimed Himself as “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.” (Ex 34:6.) “Beloved,” says the Apostle, “let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” (1 John 4:7–11.) The word love has the same sense throughout this passage. God is love; and love in Him is, in all that is essential to its nature, what love is in us. Herein we do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.

Systematic Theology Vol. 1 pp. 429-430

It is surely possible that English usage could change the meaning of the lexeme love to such a degree that it was no longer an appropriate translation of ἀγάπη (agape) in the NT. But did God mean something entirely different from what we do by that word? Hodge didn’t think so in his day. I don’t think so in mine. Love is one of those things you can’t not know, Hodge says. It’s planted in us as God’s image bearers. Love in Him is what love is in us, otherwise God’s choice of that word is a mockery. Herein we do rejoice! God loves us!

The Theological Messages of the Old Testament Books—Book Signing!

If you’re in Greenville, don’t miss today’s book signing of Dr. Bell’s new book*! How many books in your library are exactly 500 pages?! You need this one!

The title of his new book tells you what it’s about: the messages (plural) Dr. Bell delivers are the theological ones found in the individual Old Testament books.

Each book gets its own chapter (except that Judges-Ruth and Obadiah-Joel-Zephaniah are placed together), and the basic approach is more or less consistent: let each book make its own contribution before attempting to put the whole Bible’s theology together. Bell uses section analyses, key words, key passages, and (especially) key themes to do this work.

Dr. Bell is in the running for funniest teacher I’ve ever had—though one other professor here is challenging him for most facial hair uncertainty. He’s smart, a legend at Bob Jones Seminary. One of the many things he taught me was that his thematic approach is probably a better way to preach a book like Jeremiah than a straight-through exposition (p. 299). His book shows why: Jeremiah isn’t organized in the sequential logic of Romans; its prophetic messages are not even in chronological order (p. 300).

Dr. Bell’s audience for this book appears to be the faithful pastor who still more or less uses his Hebrew but needs help preaching from the Old Testament. Two sample sermons are found in the appendices, one on a theological theme in a book and one offering a whole-book theology. Dr. Bell also includes a bibliography of OT book theologies and a list of OT themes.

Because he and I have argued good-naturedly in the past (over Bible software, over whether or not φιλέω’s failure to appear in the imperative mood in the NT means anything, over the best means to ensure student compliance with Turabian, and and over why he won’t let his students use their laptops to write out his famous short essays!), and because he has appeared on this blog being asked the hard questions before, I’m going to pose two-ish questions to him about his new book:

1. Do “fundamentalist presuppositions for Old Testament theology” (p.10) differ from those of conservative evangelicals?
2. You cite Dempster’s Dominion and Dynasty—why not a little more effort to distinguish your method of Biblical Theology from his, which appears to my limited eyes to be the approach du jour among conservatives right now? (I see the two methods as complementary—would that be right?)

Assuming that he is a faithful βλογάπη reader, we should hear back soon… (I failed to ask in advance, and I wanted to get this out before the book-signing!)

*I received this book for free from the Campus Store as a promotion. I was not required to write a positive review; all opinions expressed are my own. I make this disclosure to remain in accordance with FTC guidelines.

Chapter 2 Approved! Dissertation Tickers Updated!

I’ve decided to enhance my dissertation tickers rather than spending time writing my dissertation.

The first ticker now shows how many words have passed all the way through the pipeline and how many I have written (basically three-ish additional chapters in various stages of completion—I also have extensive notes).

Anyone who has prayed for me I thank; I believe the Lord has helped me turn a corner in a sometimes very difficult but almost always enjoyable process. Please do pray that I would finish by mid January.

What Is the Will? Eight Views

Vernon Bourke’s 1964 book Will in Western Thought has become a standard in its field. My roving dissertation eye brought me to it recently, and Inter-Library Loan did the rest. I just read the first chapter, and it was genuinely helpful for a section I’m writing on the nature of the affections.

Bourke says he set out to organize his discussion of the will chronologically, but that this plan created too much repetition—the same views tend to pop up throughout history. He instead focused on the basic set of important views on the will in Western philosophy regardless of time period.

Bourke sees eight different ways that Western thinkers have viewed the notion of the will. His eight views are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive, but they hit the major options. 8

(Random numbers in the text are page numbers; double slashes // indicate a page break—sorry, it’s how I take notes.)

1. Will means intellectual preference. 9 This is the intellectualist tradition: an act of volition is an act of “intelligent preference.” This view is generally that of Greek philosophy up through Aristotle; Bourke calls it “one important aspect of the Greek cult of reason.” Various modern thinkers—Bourke names in particular Spinoza, Hobbes, and Kant—adopt various shades of intellectualism.
2. Will means rational appetite. 9 Appetite in this view means “a power or tendency to incline toward objects that are apprehended as good and away from objects that are known as bad.” 9 This appetition is typically divided into sensory and intellectual varieties, and because of the latter this view can tend toward intellectualism. Thomas Aquinas, whom Bourke places in this category, others call an intellectualist because, as Bourke notes, Thomism sees choice as an interaction of intellect and will. 10
3. Freedom as the genus of volition. 11 There are some philosophers who “practically never speak of will without saying free will.” 11 Will is liberty, spontaneity, freedom from any coercion or even causation. It is even the freedom to be indifferent. These thinkers consider the first two views to be determinist. Bourke places Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Descartes, Schopenhauer, and “many recent Catholic writers” in this category. 12
4. Will means dynamic power. 12 This view has taken various historical forms. In David Hume will happens “whenever a person produces a bodily or mental movement.” 12 The faculty psychology school of the 1800s saw will as the “acting or efficient power” that executes the judgments of the understanding and the desires of the heart (understanding and heart being the two other faculties every man has). 13
5. Heart, affection, and will 13 Bourke’s first mention of Jewish and Christian theology comes in his fifth category. In this view, “the heart is taken as the seat of the highest and spiritual affections, of the most intimate knowledge and decisions.” 13 Bourke knows that Christians are equating heart, affection, and will because he sees that “many Christian writers…speak of man’s heart as exercising certain functions, or feeling certain affections, which are in other places attributed to will by the same // authors.” 13-14 Augustine is Bourke’s major example (and he certainly could have included Jonathan Edwards).
6. The will of the people. 15 Some view will ” as a group phenomenon”—the “will of the people.” 15 Bourke notes perceptively, “The very concept of a political ‘election’ suggests that a group of men is capable of making a collective choice which expresses, or is, the will of the collectivity.” 15 This is a very different view of the will from those above, because it is not individual. Rousseau is Bourke’s prime example of this view of volition, and he cites John Locke as another sometime supporter—and Edmund Burke as a major detractor. 15-16 Bourke notes with some irony, “It is still commonly accepted that a public figure bows to the will of the people when he accepts nomination or election to office, and that a political executive or legislator carries out the will of the people in his official functions. Precisely what this public will // means, and by what means it is determined, are points of some obscurity.” 16-17
7. Will as the source of law. 17 God’s will is what must be done on earth and in heaven; it is “the source of order and regulation in human life.” 17 Kant lands in this category (despite being also a kind of intellectualist), and Bourke sees him as its prototypical representative. Bourke’s powers of intellect are on full display when he notes that the American system of government cannot rely on this view and the previous one: the “voluntaristic positivism” of the will of the people would seem to hand ultimate authority to the legislative and not the judicial and executive branches of government. “It is not possible to have three distinct but sovereign wills.” 18
8. Will and reality. 18 This meaning of will is something no layperson would ever use, but some philosophers use it. They say that “to be is to will.” In other words, “a being is what it does.” 19 Some Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages, notably Avicebron, took this view. Will was substantized to become “an intermediary between the divine essence and things of this universe.” 20 Avicebron took this view because the Bible says God’s will changes but God Himself does not. A few Christian philosophers from both sides of the Tiber have taken this view (Malebranche, Geulincx), but Bourke’s star example of this view is another thinker who also appears in a previous category, Arnold Schopenhauer, showing that the eight views are somewhat porous and that various views may characterize different portions or time periods of someone’s thought. Schopenhauer developed a full metaphysics of willing, concluding that “all reality is will.” 21

Bourke is quick to point out that the thinkers about to star in his philosophical drama may not all fit perfectly well in the parts he assigns them. Each has his own worldview, and his understanding of volition should ideally be placed within that worldview. But an attempt to couch every philosopher’s view this way would lengthen the book impossibly, so instead each view gets a chapter and the stars appear as they must, without their constellations.

All Are Yours, But You Have Only One Father

My pastor preached a message last night on 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 which I thought showed great insight into how the Internet has affected Christianity—and what Paul says we should do about it. Here are my notes to that sermon.

Party Heads

Immediately after Paul’s greetings and his thanksgiving for the grace of God in the lives of the Corinthians, he tackles the issue of division. It’s such an important issue that it takes him four chapters to cover it all, and he relates it to many other matters.

The kind of division the Corinthians had was perhaps the most common and the most dangerous: differences over leadership. All three men who had become unwitting party heads—Peter, Paul, and Apollos—were orthodox and agreed together theologically, but parties formed behind them anyway.

Now not all division is bad, and not all division over leaders is wrong. In some cases division is healthy. Paul constantly draws lines in the sand between right and wrong. At Antioch he withstood Peter to the face!

But age, personality, background, even accent can give someone a following (even one he doesn’t want). These may have been some of the factors in the situation at Corinth.

But Paul in 1 Cor 3:21-22 fingers another issue, excessive loyalty. Paul says clearly that that all belongs to the Corinthian church, including all three of those men Paul names. This church was completely at liberty to profit from any of those men, in fact from any good God-given teacher.

All Are Yours

The technological revolution has given us an incredible number of teachers in Christ. There are nearly 10,000 of them at SermonAudio.com alone, and that site has over 350,000 sermons. This kind of exposure would have been physically impossible not long ago. And all of these teachers are ours to benefit from.

But the final note Paul sounds on this issue in 4:16 is "imitate me"! Even if all the teachers God gives the church are owned by the church and free for their benefit, Paul was the Corinthians’ only father in the faith. God does give Christians spiritual fathers, men who have special influence and care over them individually. If He didn’t, passages commanding submission to spiritual authority (1 Pet 5:1ff, etc.) wouldn’t make sense. And Paul wouldn’t have the authority to make the intensely personal applications and exhortations that he makes in the rest of the book of 1 Corinthians.

The incredible number of teachers we have access to has sometimes weakened the God-given position of our spiritual fathers. We have been tempted to exalt well-known names and pressure our pastors to be like them.

The Corinthian church was undoubtedly reflecting the values of it’s culture. These people were viewing Paul and the others through the lens of their own cultural ambitions. That’s why Paul focuses on worldly wisdom: Greek culture exalted its philosophers and even its sophists.

Eloquence and wisdom are not wrong, and Paul never casts any aspersions on Apollos’ skills (Acts 18:24). But in 2:1-2 and elsewhere he warns against glorifying individuals simply for those skills. He walks a careful tightrope: eloquence is to be neither condemned nor trusted.

Our culture has its own influential people: politicians, military men, educators, inventors, entertainers, but the last of those is the most celebrated. (Pastor includes athletic entertainers in that group.)

Is it possible that that cultural fact is affecting the way even the church is evaluating the effectiveness of it’s teachers? Is our culture warping what we are supposed to value about our teachers? Do we then have a parallel in contemporary Christianity to what was going on in the first century, a division over leaders arising in part from cultural conditioning?

Correctives

How is this to be corrected? Each section in the first four chapters has something to contribute. Evidently Paul felt he needed to reason through why this is wrong rather than merely telling people not to do it.

• So Paul’s discussion in chapter 1 of who baptized whom tells us that our loyalty to Christ is more important than our loyalty to men.
• Paul’s last paragraphs in chapter 1 show that the word of the cross cuts cross-grain to cultural values. God has called very few of the world’s beautiful people. He calls the lowly and base to exalt the cross.
• In 1 Cor 2:1-5 Paul tells of his decision (which anyone who communicates truth, including music, must reckon with) not to do anything that cause people to exalt himself rather than Christ.
• Paul then reminds people in 1 Cor 3:5-14 that any true “increase” comes from God Himself. Paul and Apollos and Peter are only ministers, seed planters and waterers.

Conclusion

What a delicate balance has to be struck: honoring all God’s ministers but reserving a special place for the fathers in the faith God has given us—and then reserving ultimate loyalty only for God.

Addendum from This Blogger

My pastor is an avid listener of others’ sermons and lectures, and he has been since before MP3s. He’s an avid reader of others’ books, and he has been since some time before Amazon. His eagerness to take in these influences reflects what Paul said: “All are yours in Christ.” But he is rightly concerned that the ready availability on the Internet of so many sermons and articles and books can undermine the authority he and the other elders are supposed to wield for our benefit. I felt that his sermon was a significant help to me: I am free to benefit from Christ’s gifts to His church (Eph 4:10–16), but I must also give special respect and attention (even obedience, 1 Pet 5:5) to my own spiritual fathers, the various elders and shepherds at my home church.

Recommended Books

Not too long ago my pastor decided to recommend to his congregation one book per week for ten weeks. This was the list that resulted:

1. Knowledge of the Holy—A.W. Tozer
2. The Glory of Christ—John Owen
3. The Everlasting Righteousness—Horatius Bonar
4. The Shadow of the Cross—Walter Chantry
5. Not By Chance—Layton Talbert 
6. God’s Passion for His Glory—Jonathan Edwards & John Piper
7. Spiritual Depression—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
8. Puritan Golden Treasury—I.D.E. Thomas
9. Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life—John Calvin 
10. The Practice of Prayer—G. Campbell Morgan

Reading good books like these and many others has been God’s means of forming and changing my pastor over many years. He took seriously Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 4 that sound teachers, despite their faults, are gifts to Christ’s church.

Seminary Project Lab Workshops and Live Webcast

The following is a promo for Duncan Johnson’s sure-to-be-valuable lectures. I strongly urge guys training for the ministry to go to or watch at least the first two. I use a different system than Zotero, but if you have no system, go to the third one as well!

Saturday, October 9, 9:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. ML 3 Technology Classroom

Turning in quality seminary projects is hard work, and technological challenges don’t make it any easier. The Mack Library is offering three workshop labs for undergrad Religion majors, Seminary students, and faculty. Learn about the latest technology for using Greek and Hebrew in your documents, the easy way to set up a Turabian paper, and the most efficient way to organize and cite your research sources. All sessions will occur in the ML 3 Technology Classroom on Saturday, October 9 and are free of charge.

• 9 a.m. Greek/Hebrew fonts – Compares & contrasts the BibleWorks fonts and Unicode.

• 10 a.m. Turabian – Demonstrates setting up a Turabian document with the Turabian Wizard used at the BJU Seminary.

• 11 a.m. Zotero – Demonstrates using Zotero to organize research and insert footnotes into papers (ends at 12:30 p.m.).

Each session will be broadcasted live on the web. A video recording will be available shortly after the end of each session.

Sign up at the LibGuide where you’ll find more information including broadcast links and how-to videos.

American Evangelical Protestants are Blissful People

I guess my BJU Bible education and my stints as religious newsletter editor, religion researcher, Bible textbook author, and blogger have all been worthwhile, because I’m not ashamed to say that I aced the Pew Research Center’s 15-question Religious Knowledge Quiz.

I’m ashamed to say,  however, that white evangelical Protestants as a whole did worse than Jews, Atheists/Agnostics, and Mormons, and if evangelicals beat the overall population I’m guessing their victory may only just squeak past the survey’s margin of error.

(You may want to take the quiz now before you read further, because I’m about to reveal some answers.)

70% of Jewish respondents knew that Martin Luther and not John Wesley or Thomas Aquinas started the Protestant Reformation. Only half (52%) of white evangelical Protestants knew that.

A lot of evangelicals were fooled by the question about the legality of Bible reading in public schools. Jews beat them soundly on that one, too.

Hardly anybody knew that Jonathan Edwards—and not Billy Graham or Charles Finney—participated in the First Great Awakening.

Overall evangelicals are most notable for their ignorance of world religions, though their ignorance of their own religion, its doctrines, and its history is the most sobering result of the survey.

Another Verse in the KJV You Probably Don’t Understand Either

What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols? (Hab 2:18 KJV)

Is “the graven image” a direct object of “profiteth” or the subject of “profiteth”?

In contemporary English syntax it reads most naturally as a direct object. “What profits the graven image?” Or we might say, “What brings benefit to the graven image?”

But Habakkuk didn’t mean that. He meant, as all the modern versions render this, “What profit is an idol?” or “Of what value is an idol?”

If “graven image” is a direct object, the rest of the first part of the verse is nonsensical. “What brings benefit to the graven image that its maker has graven it?”

I’ve heard a lot of people say, “I know others have trouble understanding the KJV, but I grew up on it so I have no trouble.” I used to say that, too, and there’s certainly some truth to it. I can read the KJV much better than the low-income teenagers in my neighborhood can. But I still challenge what I’ve heard a lot of people say. I’m convinced that KJV readers are missing more than they’re aware.

Billy Graham: His Life and Influence

Billy Graham is an important 20th century man, and David Aikman tells the story of His Life and Influence exceptionally well. The standard stories are all included, the bases are all covered. Aikman is certainly appreciative of Graham, but he is willing to be critical. I recommend this book, especially if you want to read just one Graham biography.

Many others have reviewed this work—because they got it for free like I did* in exchange for reviewing it!—so I want to focus on just one chapter.

Graham’s Platform

Aikman spends significant space on Graham’s fight against racism. One of the most notable early decisions Graham made in that battle was to ask the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to pray from his crusade platform during the 1957 New York meetings. Aikman rightly praises Graham for his efforts against segregation—and he rightly encourages his readers not to judge Graham too harshly for waffling on the issue before 1957. It’s too easy to be critical from our safe historical distance.

Graham was emphatically right to fight racism. Except for the fact that King was a theological liberal, King’s prayer was a good thing for which Graham deserves praise.

But I want to make what I think is a key point: if King’s presence on the platform is significant enough to warrant praise for Graham, then the presence of liberal and Roman Catholic clergy is significant enough to warrant censure. If King’s presence implies Graham’s endorsement for the righteous cause of civil rights—as well it should—then the presence of what the NT calls “false teachers” does imply Graham’s support for at least something in their unrighteous cause. The Bible doesn’t give us the option of qualified support for false teachers. Even a greeting makes you guilty of “taking part in his wicked works” (2Jo 1:9-11).

Graham insisted long ago, “I intend to go anywhere, sponsored by anybody, to preach the gospel of Christ if there are no strings attached to my message” (p.152). But when you put preachers of another gospel on your platform, you’ve just tied on a string. Admittedly, it’s difficult to say exactly what strings you’re tying. Few would doubt, I think, that Graham is personally opposed to Marian devotion, for example. And  “the-Bible-says” is a mantra meaning only one thing for Graham—what I’m about to say is truth straight from God—whatever it means for the United Methodist clergywoman sitting on his platform.

But to have preachers of another gospel sitting behind you supporting your preaching of the biblical gospel says, at the very least, “These people represent a valid expression of Christian faith, even if we disagree on a few particulars.” When the simple fact is that they are not true Christians, you are, at best, creating confusion. At worst, you’re inviting people to consider the differences between the true gospel and false ones as insignificant.

Aikman deals with this issue fairly evenhandedly; I only wish he could have found a better exemplar of continued criticism for Graham’s inclusion of liberals than an extremist such as David Cloud.

But as they said on Reading Rainbow: don’t take my word for it! Read it for yourself!

*I received this book for free from Thomas Nelson as part of their BookSneeze program. I was not required to write a positive review; all opinions expressed are my own. I make this disclosure to remain in accordance with FTC guidelines.

Our Father Which Art in a Lab Coat

I was driving to church Sunday and passing through downtown Greenville, hoping to avoid traffic created by a poorly placed bike race, when I glanced over at the car next to me. I saw a decal on its bumper that I hadn’t seen before. It’s a fish (reminiscent of a rocket) with an all-caps message inside: “SCIENCE.”

A customer review of the decal at Amazon describes its purpose succinctly:

Great way to express your love for science and disgust for religion.

But there’s a problem with this comment, and I’m not yet tired of pointing it out: when you start advertising science on your bumper like this, science is your religion.

Let’s think of some parallels:

• Science has a canon, books and journals which are generally accepted as accurate and authoritative.
• Science has a priesthood which mediates sacred truths to the populous—namely credentialed scientists who explain to the rest of us what matter and energy are telling us.
• Science has various denominations, because not all the priesthood agrees on every point.
• Science, as Neil Postman has pointed out, creates miracles—iPads, GPS, etc. etc. ad infinitum.
• Science has a liturgy, the scientific method.
• Science has an origin story, the Big Bang.
• Science offers an eschatological hope, the eternal upward progress of humankind.
• I suppose science does lack a recognizable musical tradition, but at least there are approved vestments—the white lab coat. (If that coat didn’t carry the authority of the priesthood, people on infomercials wouldn’t be wearing it.)

I’m not anti-science if I get to define science. I use science every day. But that’s just it: I use science to get to Christian ends. Christianity is still my criterion. People who make science their criterion for truth have turned it into an end in itself, as if scientific or evolutionary progress is our purpose in this world.

Now, to be fair, not everyone who slaps a snarky decal on their Subaru takes their scientism to this extreme. Some would call themselves Christians (and some might even be [confused but genuine] Christians!). But if you use this decal you are placing an exaggerated faith in the power of a limited human discipline. You are placing faith—faith! Most of these decal users do not have the credentials to question their priests’ conclusions. And even the priests rely on faith-based assumptions to do their work. (For more on that, read ch. 6 in this book.)

Even if a SCIENCE-fish-rocket-decal sporter finds my parallels hokey (ok, the liturgy one’s a stretch), he ought to be willing to recognize that he has not arrived at all of his knowledge/belief through the unbiased scientific method.

And Christians shouldn’t be afraid of fish with legs, even if some people believe in them.

Faith vs. Reason; Religion vs. Science

Religious thought may be vulnerable on any number of fronts, but it is not vulnerable to the criticism that in contrast to scientific or empirical thought, it rests on mere faith…. The epistemological critique of religion—it is an inferior way of knowing—is the flip side of a naïve and untenable positivism.

—Stanley Fish, New York Times

Balancing Edwards

It is appropriate and necessary for preachers to judge the needs of their congregation when they teach Scripture. I do it every time I preach, because my goal is to help the people use the Bible. As someone has pointed out, people don’t really understand a portion of the Bible if they can’t use it to meet their needs. Their true needs may be different than their perceived needs (Scripture can tell them); they may not.

In a previous post, Jonathan Edwards judged that his congregation and fellow New England Christians and their pastors needed more emotion to match the solid truths they were reading in Scripture. I believe he was right.

But it’s important to point out as that same someone has that "regeneration does not necessarily make us more or less emotional, any more than it makes us more or less intellectual or more or less decisive" (Frame, DCL, 371).

So a different Jonathan Edwards in a different Christian group might emphasize that emotion needs to be toned down overall because it isn’t really matching the truths being presented. People are getting carried away.

For example, Randall Balmer in his famous travels through American evangelicalism interviewed a young Pentecostal woman who had gotten incredibly worked up over a sermon which contained very little truth. Afterwards she could give no account of her intense emotion.

God gives us pastors—shepherds—in part because we need situation-specific guidance from people who know God’s Word. There are times when the sheep need prodding to move forward and times when the shepherd’s staff needs to gently tug them backwards.

I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Pet. 5:1-5)