“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matt. 6:24)
It is an absolute truth that you either love God or you hate God. There is no middle ground.
A --> B
A
/ B
A = if you love God. B = you do not hate God.
A --> B
~A
/ ~B
If A loves God, A does not hate God. A does not love God. Therefore, A does not not hate God. A hates God.
A in the second syllogism = a God loving person will be is a person not hating God. In other words, A and B describe the very same person.
Now for a hypothetical syllogism that expresses Jesus' own teaching:
Now for a hypothetical syllogism that expresses Jesus' own teaching:
If I love God, then I am devoted to God.
If I am devoted to God, I believe and keep His Word.
Therefore, If I love God, I believe and keep His Word.
This hypothetical syllogism is a very basic component of the rules of inference in logic. The argument is not only valid, it is sound. This means the argument is true. We know that the argument is valid because the conclusion follows from the two premises. We know that the argument is true because it reflects what Jesus taught in Matthew 6 and elsewhere. Those who love God are identified as those who believe God's Word and keep God's Word.
Now, if this argument is sound, what are the implications for those who do not believe God's Word or keep it. Keeping God's Word is another way for saying "commandment-keeping." That is to say, those that love God know, believe, and keep God's law. You see, sin is actually lawlessness. Sin is living apart from divine law. It is conducting oneself in contradiction to the commandment. It is living without law. I realize that some antinomian heretic will read this and shudder, thinking that all we are focused on is rule-keeping. But what we are interested in is what God says about how we can know and love Him. And that actually makes a difference in how you think about God's law and how you live in relation to that law. Jesus said it Himself.
Now, given that the above argument is sound, what are we to say about those who do not believe God's Word or keep it? We can say that they are not devoted to God. If they were devoted to God, they would believe and keep God's Word. Jesus Himself said this, Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Matt. 7:21.
Today, we have all types running all around the internet, pastoring churches, teaching Sunday school, working in our seminaries, claiming that reformed, evangelical Christianity, orthodox Christianity, has had it wrong for 2,000 years basically. And they are determined to peddle their brand of Christianity for all to see, mostly leveraging wolves and unethical pastors to fuel their message. One such person is FBC Watchdog. I did not know who this person was until J.D. Hall over at The Pulpit and Pen mentioned him. Since it had to do with tithing (an issue I am intimate with), I thought I would check out his post. On the one hand, I agreed with FBC's description of the practice of tithing in the context of his review. It was an abusive case as are many teachings on the subject of tithing. Most of the rest are just based off plain ignorance I suppose. Christians don't tithe. It really is that simple. Money was never the object of the tithe in Scripture. NEVER! However, as I read FBC's post, I grew troubled by what he had to say. This post and my next one will share some comments and interactions I had with FBC Watchdog. It is my strong conviction that the greatest threat to Christianity is men like this parading around in Christian garb all the while denying the authority of the very source that brings us Christianity to begin with: Christian Scripture.
FBC Watchdog made this remark on the subject of being thankful, Do we ignore reality and then sincerely be thankful for our shoes and roof over our head? This is really sick, shallow Christianity.
Now, I realize you may be reading this and thinking that no one could be this ignorant of Scripture's teaching on Christian thankfulness and having a thankful attitude. But you would be wrong. FBC attempts to build a case for why we should not thank God for things while others suffer. Now, this is only the tip of the iceberg. FBC has some other, not very friendly things to say about orthodoxy, all the while claiming to love Jesus. But let's look at this particular claim and apply logic and Scripture to it.
Now, if I follow this logic, it seems like I should never be thankful to God for anything. In fact, I should not be thankful to God at all because, after all, some people have never even heard the gospel story and since they have never heard the gospel story, it seems wrong for me, someone who has heard and believed the gospel story, to be thankful to God even for the gospel story. There are people who are not saved. Therefore, I suppose that since they are in the miserable condition of being lost that I should not thank God that I am not lost. If we extrapolate Watchdog's views and take them to their logical end, we destroy all thankfulness to God whatever. Would such a state of overall unthankfulness please God or would it displease God? As we look at Jesus' world, we ask the question, was Jesus thankful? Was their suffering in Jesus' world? Do we think that Jesus was shallow? Jesus once prayed this prayer, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants." (Matt. 11:25) Jesus praised the Father that some were privileged while others were not. In fact, Jesus was thankful that some were blessed while others were not. Jesus was glad that God had hid the truth from the wise and intelligent. That is a sobering and overlooked aspect of Jesus' attitude. And it does not only show up here. It shows up in several other places in the NT gospels.
Watchdog's extreme swing to an unthankful attitude is not plausible nor is it biblical. But that is not his only problem. He has other problems.
FBC Watchdog then made this ridiculous and outrageous statement in a personal exchange in the comments section of his blog, Ed says "You can hate God's Word and love Jesus? Impossible!" No one has said they hate God's word. They just said they don't have to believe it ALL to place their faith in Christ Jesus. The atheist and fundamentalist seem to agree on this view. Their position is that no one should trust Christ or believe in God unless they believe in the sun standing still and talking donkeys, which NONE of us do. Fundies might want to rethink their position.
He had also already made this remark, Can I believe that I'm a sinner and trust Jesus for my salvation without also believing in talking donkeys and stoning disobedient children? You tell me. Read my previous posts. Why can't I believe that I'm a sinner in need of a savior without also believing that the sun stood still? Why can't a Muslim believe parts of the Quran without believing he must kill the infidel. Because fanatical "holy men of Gawd" manipulate him into believing all or none. But I've already written a few posts on this. Go back and read them. I believe the gospel. Not in talking donkeys. The atheist says then I must also reject God and Christ. The fundy agrees with the atheist on that point. And the church continues to decline in numbers and depth.
Now, I am only going to say that you will need to read my next post to find out how I respond to these claims. Watchdog finally stopped the conversation once he realized that he had no defense for his claims. You cannot destroy the integrity of the source of your epistemic authority then rationally defend a belief that relies on the credibility of that source. Nor can you have two separate final authorities for epistemic claims. We call such thinking irrational, absurd, even in some cases, insane.
Stay tuned!
It
No comments:
Post a Comment