Seminary

Simplistic Atheism {3}: The Bible, Miracles, & History

/ Paul Burkhart / 28 Comments

schrott-bibles-paul-coffee

(Note: These exchanges are now complete. There is a Table of Contents to the discussion now available.)

We continue our response to Daniel Bastian’s blistering critique of religious belief. Part 1 tried to respond to what seems to be Daniel’s basic understanding of the world, reason, and spirituality. Part 2 focused entirely on his use of scientific claims and findings to discredit (at least the need for) religiosity. Yesterday, Daniel responded to Part 2 (here was my response). Today, we narrow in on his views of the Bible, miracles, and history.

A Simplistic Bible

(Disclosure: a lot of this is cut-and-paste from various comments here and on Facebook. Also, I’ve taught a few classes that have a more detailed discussion of a theology of Scripture. Those can be found here, here, and here.)

The points about the Bible in Daniel’s post were especially difficult to read. In fact, they were my inspiration for my post last week talking about how Christianity can shape the types of Atheistic beliefs people come to. My frustration came from the fact that, since Daniel originally wrote this (a while ago), I’ve watched him engage with and express respect for others that offer substantive critiques to what he ended up re-posting last week.

In his points, he expresses a view of the Bible that is mechanical, wooden, systematic, simplistic, and puts expectations on the text that it doesn’t even place on itself. It seems like he is only responding to the modernist, fundamentalist view of the Bible (what I called a “Straw Bible”), and I know his thinking is far more nuanced than that–I couldn’t understand why he still perpetuated this. But nevertheless, he did, so I’ll address it as it’s posted.
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Simplistic Christianity leads to Simplistic Atheism: it’s our fault

/ Paul Burkhart / 20 Comments

Atheist-monster-poster(Note: These exchanges are now complete. There is a Table of Contents to the discussion now available.)

“I walk outside my house, I look around, and it doesn’t seem apparent to me that there is a God. I just don’t feel it. It doesn’t seem to be the natural conclusion of reality when I live life and look around. I see the world, and the existence of God doesn’t feel like a natural conclusion one could draw.”

I stare down into my coffee, catching the corner of my pastor’s glasses in the dark reflection.

“Well”, he says, “I know it doesn’t fix how you feel, but in the grand scope of human history, and even the global humanity living today, that opinion you just expressed is in the extreme, extreme minority. Most people living in the past and now have found looked at the world and have not been able to come to any conclusion other than their being a God.”

Crap. He was right. What I thought was such an objective engagement with the world around me, was (of course) still the product of the cultural forces from which I drink deeply. History and developmental psychology have shown us that religiousness is the default mode of the human heart.

We are by nature religious. It takes other, external forces to push back against that and move us away from it. And this fact is no apologetic for religion. It’s neither a point “for” or “against” religion. We are also by nature selfish and willing to do whatever it takes to be the fittest and survive. We try not to give into this natural drive and through education and conditioning try to move away from it.

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When easy & simplistic proof-texting trumps the nuance & complexity of wrestling pastorally with the text

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

On Tumblr, a very, very dear friend posted this earlier, in support of the Doctrine of Double Predestination, which says that in eternity past, God predestined not only who would be saved (apart from their own works), but also those who would not be saved (apart from their own works):

“They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” 1 Peter 2:8

Double predestination

#it’s biblical

In one of the most widely used Bible commentaries in existence, I found these words written about this verse, starting with commenting on the word “also” (which isn’t found in my friend’s translation of the verse). I’ve changed some formatting and some grammar to make it easier to understand. Enjoy:

“also” [as in “as they were also destined to do”;  this is in the Greek, though Revelation 19’s translation doesn’t have this]—[this is] an additional thought; God’s ordination; not that God ordains or appoints them to sin, but they are given up to “the fruit of their own ways” according to the eternal counsel of God. The moral ordering of the world is altogether of God. God appoints the ungodly to be given up unto sin, and a reprobate mind, and its necessary penalty.

The phrase “Were appointed,” (Greek, “set,”) is an answer to the “I lay,” (Greek, “set,”) found in 1Pe 2:6.

God, in the active, is said to appoint Christ and the elect (directly). Unbelievers, in the passive, are said to be appointed (God acting less directly in the appointment of the sinner’s awful course) [Bengel]. God ordains the wicked to punishment, not to crime [J. Cappel].

“Appointed” or “set” (not here “FORE-ordained”) refers, not to the eternal counsel so directly, as to the penal justice of God. Through the same Christ whom sinners rejected, they shall be rejected; unlike believers, they are by God appointed unto wrath as fitted for it.

***The lost shall lay all the blame of their ruin on their own sinful perversity, not on God’s decree; the saved shall ascribe all the merit of their salvation to God’s electing love and grace.***

(from the “Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible“)

What are your thoughts on this issue? How important do you think it is in the grand scheme of the Gospel?

a brief Prodigal Paul doctrinal statement

/ Paul Burkhart / 7 Comments

paul-phoenix-1

As I am currently registering for my seminary classes, I thought I’d post this “theological statement” I had to write as part of my application materials. Some friends of mine had thought it would be interesting to read what I wrote, so here it is.

Seeing as I was writing to a seminary staff audience, there might be some references that aren’t commonly understood. I’ll link to times I’ve written about some items, but otherwise, any terminology or ideas that aren’t explained are a simple Wikipedia (or Theopedia–yes, it’s a real thing) search away. Continue reading →

Well, it seems I’m going to back to seminary.

/ Paul Burkhart / 13 Comments

western-newbigin

Yesterday, I received my acceptance letter into the Newbigin House of Studies, a distance Masters of Divinity program in partnership with Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan.

The seminary belongs to the RCA family of churches (including my own) and is in the Dutch Reformed tradition (here’s a good article on some of the differences between Dutch Reformed thought and other “flavors” of Reformed thinking).

In a couple of months, I will be having my five-year anniversary of living in Philadelphia. What brought me here from college in Richmond, Virginia was my decision to attend Westminster Theological Seminary. Eventually, for several reasons, I left the seminary (reasons that a lot of people didn’t like).
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Trusting in our theology vs. Trusting in Jesus {guest post}

/ Whit Wilson / 2 Comments

bosch-christ-carrying-the-crossToday’s post is by one of my oldest and best friends, Whit Wilson. He is currently in his first year in a master’s in counseling program at Biblical Seminary, just outside Philadelphia. I hope you get to hear more from him as he continues his education.

In the first year of my current program, three classes are required relating to the use of the Scriptures in counseling. Class 1 focuses on an overall interpretational approach to Scripture, class 2 is on the Old Testament, and class 3 is on the New Testament.

This semester my cohort and I are in the New Testament class with an eccentric and somewhat unorthodox professor who enjoys challenging various long-held theological assumptions and beliefs with the goal of helping us freshly think through these issues (everything from gender roles to homosexuality to the afterlife). I can’t say that I agree with him on everything (or most things for that matter), but I have enjoyed his fresh approach and the way he encourages us to think critically about how we use and interpret the Bible.
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Women & Church History: The Bad Reformation & the Good News {pt.3}

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

Silencing-Women-duct-tapeThis is a post in an on-going series on Women in the Church.

The past couple of days, we’ve been talking about the historical development of this whole “Women in Church Leadership” idea. in the first post, we talked about why this is so important, and in the second post, we discussed where this change in ideas concerning ordained female leadership happened. Today, let’s talk Reformation and concluding thoughts.

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Women & Church History: the century we’re still recovering from {pt.2}

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

Dubay-lizglass-eyeThis is a post in an on-going series on Women in the Church.

Yesterday, I began talking about the history of Women in the early Church. Up front, I gave my primary source for information, this issue of Christian History Institute Magazine on “Women in the Early Church”, which I will quote from in this post. If you need more information, you can go there.

I also gave a brief sketch of my view: women were quite active in leadership in the first two-centuries of the Church, but come the 200s, some radical things began to change in the Church–things that still effect us today, especially as it pertains to women in ministry.

(Most of this material is comes from the excellent article “The Early Controversies Over Female Leadership” by Dr. Karen J. Torjesen.)
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Let the Female Pastor Reformation begin!

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

luther-95theses-humor-memeOn this blog, I currently have two running series I’m doing: “Reflections on Repentance” and “Women & the Church“. For these series, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research on those topics.

For the Women in Ministry series, I’ve been researching what, for me, is the biggest thing that gives me pause in my own egalitarian view in support of female pastors: the complete dearth of women leaders throughout the history of the whole Christian church. With a couple thousand years now of godly men (and women) looking at the same Scriptures I am, why have the vast majority of them come to the same view limiting women’s role?

Well, that’s another post for another time, but rest assured, as I’ve been researching this, I feel I’ve satisfied my concerns in this area. But that’s not what this (mostly tongue-in-cheek) post is about.

For my research for the repentance series, I keep ending up at the Reformation and its leaders. This got me thinking, and doing some math…

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Male-Only Church Leadership: Blessing or Curse?

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments

michaelangelo-adam-eve-eden-fall

In these discussions on women’s roles in church leadership, a favorite little one-off argument by Egalitarians (and a pretty darn good sound bite) is that the very idea of exclusive male headship is part of the curse laid upon humans in the Genesis Eden story. In Genesis 3, this is what God speaks over the woman as a curse in response to her sin:

“I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

I’ll be honest with you. I haven’t done the research on the Hebrew or scholarship on those lines to know exactly what these lines really might mean.

Honestly, both sides could use them. Conservatives could say that the curse is that women will desire the authority that God rightfully gave men. Egalitarians would say that man’s “rule” over women is the curse.
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Women & the Church: What’s Adam & Eve got to do with it? [2]

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

blake-creation-eveYesterday, in our on-going series on women in leadership roles in the church, we began looking at an argument often given by conservative complementarians when presented with the cultural context behind 1 Timothy, some of the most seemingly clear verses in scripture that limit a woman’s role in the church. Oftentimes, egalitarians offer the cultural context to show that these woman-limiting verses are in fact speaking to specific things going on at the time (as I did), rather than some eternal prohibition for all churches at all times.

The conservative response that we began looking at is when they say that the cultural context is all well and fine, but Paul’s foundation for what he says does not appear to be the immediate context at the time, but rather the very structure of creation itself. We looked at those verses to try and argue that this is not at all what Paul is doing in the text.
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On Women Leaders in the Church: Timothy’s cultural context

/ Paul Burkhart / 12 Comments

artemis-greek-urnFor many of the Christians that believe women are not to be ordained, authoritatively teach in churches, nor hold formal church leadership offices, 1 Timothy 2:8-14 is the first (and oftentimes the only) Bible text they throw out as a conversation-ending, slam dunk against people they feel are “re-writing” the Bible for their own ends.

When last we left our on-going series on women in the church, we talked about the text and translation of this passage. We talked about its history of mistranslation and how the seemingly best and most consistent translation offers us a different picture than the traditional one. Today, we’re going to pull back from the text itself to look at the culture and context behind the letter.

my thesis

I’ll give my view up front, so you can leave it, take it, or read on for why I land there. This post is a long one.
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Epiphany: a great time to talk Magi & biblical errancy

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

advent-nativity-icon This Church season of Epiphany primarily celebrates the coming of the wise men to see the young Jesus. Now think of the popular conceptions of the “wise men”. I imagine the picture that comes to mind is much like the one above: a quaint manger, farm animals, some shepherds, and the three wise men, presenting their gifts to the newborn Jesus.

I’m not sure how many of us know how wrong this is.

The wise men did not visit Jesus in the manger, their paths did not cross at all with the shepherds (that we know of), and, contrary to some of the most well-engrained church and musical traditions, their number is not given–“three” is just a guess. This guess is probably based on the fact that three gifts were offered (though the 6th-century Armenian Infancy Gospel, the source of the Western tradition of the wise men’s names and ethnicities, lists far more than just three gifts). The Eastern Church tradition even says it was twelve.

And yet, for over a thousand years, on into the present day, these traditions concerning the Wise Men have persisted. We know the sources of these traditions, we know when they became popularized, and we know how they’ve been used in Christian preaching and church life through the centuries. Every Advent season, even the most cursory drive in the suburbs will offer nativity scenes peppered with three wise men adoring the manger-laden Christ.

This reminded me of Jannes and Jambres.
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2 amazing hours on the Christian end of the world

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

A few people have asked about my blogging absence (I have felt honored that they have noticed!) Anyway, I’ve been sick, first with a stomach flu, and now with an upper-respiratory thing. I lost my voice last week and am only now recovering it. It’s weird; I hardly ever get sick.

Anyway, this has kept me from blogging, but it’s given me the chance to watch and read some amazing things (about which I’m sure I’ll write more in the weeks to come). One of the highlights of my time was this video, An Evening of Eschatology, hosted by Bethlehem Baptist Church and moderated by John Piper (here’s some background to this talk):

This is an amazing discussion, and very insightful for those of us Christians that either have passionate views on the end of the world or don’t think about it much (as a friend used to say, “I’m a ‘pan-millennialist’: I believe in the end it’ll all just pan out.”).
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PSA: BibleGateway.com now has the NRSV Bible for free

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

For those that care, the website BibleGateway.com now offers the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) [Wikipedia] as one of their many English translation options.

If you’re looking for a Bible verse or passage, or if you do lots of web writing about the Bible and need a good online Bible with lots of options, I’ve found BibleGatweay.com to be the best, especially for copying-and-pasting elsewhere.

This is also the most widely-used Bible site that now has access to this translation of the Bible. Before this, I couldn’t find it anywhere free online except at a weird, obscure site or two.

So why have I been eager for this translation (and why should you be)? The NRSV is the most ecumenically-used translation in the English-speaking world. It’s the standard translation used by Catholics, Anglicans, many Eastern Orthodox, and my own church. It’s also the standard translation used in academic Bible study.

And so, even though I still have a soft spot for the ESV, I like feeling like I’m swimming in the same stream as my church leadership (and academia, but that’s not as big a deal). And so, I prefer the ESV or the NRSV for in-depth Bible study, while I’m a lot more flexible in my more casual Bible reading.

So compare some versions and see if you like the NRSV yourself. Hopefully this new availability of this resource makes your continued engagement with the Bible all the more fruitful and exciting.

And so