DECLARATIONS OF PRESENT REALITY AND FUTURE DESTINY

 

                                                                  (Redeemer Monroe)

DECLARATIONS OF PRESENT REALITY AND FUTURE DESTINY

 ü I have been made right, with God, by grace, through faith in Christ.

ü I am in God’s Forever Family.

ü I am a child of God.

ü The Holy Spirit lives in me.

ü By the Spirit, I cry out, “Abba! Father!"

ü I know God.

ü I am known by God.

ü One day, I shall be like Christ.

ü I bear the image of the Heavenly Man.

ü This day, Christ, the hope of glory, lives in me. This is the key to life.

ü This is my great hope!

ü I live in the light of a future certainty.

ü My true citizenship is in heaven.

ü Because I am destined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son, I prepare for this today.

ü Every day I am being formed into Christlikeness.

ü I have the mind of Christ.

ü I think as Christ thinks.

ü I view people as Christ Jesus views people.

ü I present myself as a living sacrifice to God.

ü My heart is not conformed to the shape of this world.

ü I am constantly being transformed by the renewing of my mind.

The Real Strength of a Church

(Pear tree, in my neighbor's back yard.)

Americans measure success metrically. Churches that have conformed to American culture do the same. The American success questions are:

How big is your building?

How many attend on Sunday mornings?

How large is your budget?

Many pastors evaluate their ministry metrically. At times, I've succumbed to that too.

The problem with this is: metrics do not indicate the real strength of a church. Remember the early church. No buildings. Small group meetings in homes. Virtually no budget. Little infrastructure to maintain. Non-programmatic. Costs no money to be a disciple. A band of praying people who have learned to abide in Christ. Think of the church, today, in China.

In John 14-16 Jesus tells his disciples that the key to his ministry is that he is in the Father, and the Father is in him. He instructs them to live in him. To abide, to dwell, to "remain" (Greek meno) in him. To be like a branch that is constantly attached to Jesus, the Vine. Then, and only then, will they "bear much fruit."

The indicator of church strength is its fruit-bearing capacity.

Disconnected branches bear no fruit. (Jesus says this.)

The real strength of a church is its connected branches. 

My task, as a pastor, is to equip God's people for the works of ministry. The beginning of this is helping people get connected. Without that, bad things happen (no real fruit). Jesus says, "Toss those branches into the bonfire."

Pastors - would you rather have a small group of connected branches, or a pile of disconnected people? Maybe just twelve? Twelve connected branches could change the world, right? They could change your community.

If God Knows What We Will Choose in the Future, Does this Mean We Don't Have Free Will?

(I am re-posting this for a friend.)

Invariably, in my logic and philosophy of religion classes, a student would ask this question: If God knows what I am going to do, then it seems I have no choice but to do it? But that does not follow, logically. God's foreknowledge is not incompatible with libertarian free will. To think so is to have made a mistake in modal logic. 

In answering them I would take a marker and begin to explain, using the dry erase board.

Here G = God knows John will eat an orange tonight.

O = John will eat an orange tonight.

~ = 'not.'

 ◊ = 'possible'

⊃ = 'If..., then'

• = 'and'

The following statement is True:  ~◊(G • ~O) [It is not possible that God knows John will eat an orange tonight and John not eat an orange tonight.]

The following statement is False (this is a modal fallacy):  G⊃ ~◊~O [If God knows John will eat an orange tonight than it is not possible that John not eat an orange tonight. Or: If God knows John will eat an orange tonight than it is logically necessary that John eat an orange tonight. There is nothing logically necessary about John eats an orange tonight.]


Here's some explanation.

THE COMPATIBILITY OF DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN FREEDOM

1. Some say, “If God knows what choices people are going to make, then we do not have free will in making those choices.”

2. Plantinga (and others) show that this reasoning is not logical. It commits a fallacy in modal logic.

3. Modal logic concerns the different “modes” of the verb “to be.”
a. The 3 modes of “to be” are:
i. Possibility
ii. Probability
iii. Necessity

b. Consider the statement: The coffee in this cup is hot. On modal logic, is this statement true?
i. Possibly? Yes.
ii. Probably? Yes (more or less).
iii. Necessarily? No.

c. If the statement The coffee in this cup is hot were necessarily true, then the coffee in the cup could not not be hot. But that is impossible.
d. No contingent statement can be necessarily true. To claim that is commit a modal fallacy.

4. Consider the statement John will eat an orange tonight. (Call this J)
a. Is this possible? Yes.
b. Is this probable? Yes (more or less).
c. Is this necessarily true? No. Because if it were, then John could not not eat an orange tonight.
d. What if the statement is false. Is it then necessarily false? No.

5. Let G mean: God knows John will eat an orange tonight.

6. Call this Statement 1:
a. It is not possible that (G and not-J).
b. Statement 1 is true. It claims that it is not possible for event G and event not-J to obtain.
c. It’s equivalent to saying, e.g.: It is not possible for both John to be a bachelor and for John to be married.

7. Consider Statement 2, which commits the modal fallacy:
a. If G, then it is not possible that not-J.
b. This reads: If God knows that John will eat an orange tonight, then it is not possible that John will not eat an orange tonight.
c. But that ascribes logical necessity to a contingent event. It thus commits the modal fallacy.
d. (Using our “bachelor” analogy, the following is false: If John is a bachelor, then it is not possible for John not to be a bachelor. Wrong. Because it is possible for John to not be a bachelor. There is no logical necessity involved in John’s being a bachelor.

To see this argument, complete with modal symbols, go to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on “Foreknowledge and Free Will,” Section 6.

See also Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 517 ff..  

How Do We Discern the Voice of God?

 

                                                   (River Raisin, Monroe County, MI)

How do we discern the voice of God? Dallas Willard says discernment comes when "three lights" line up. These three lights are:

1) impressions of the Spirit

2) passages from the Bible

3) circumstances

Willard says, "when these three things point in the same direction, it is suggested, we may be sure the direction in which they point is the one God intends for us." (Willard, Hearing God Through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional, p. 255)

Willard quotes F. B. Meyer. "God’s impressions within and his word without are always corroborated by his providence around, and we should quietly wait until those three focus into one point." (Ib.)

Nietzche's Parable of the Madman

See also "Nietzsche's "Parable of the Madman."

Decline of Religion in Israel

 

                                                                  (Israeli soldier, in the Western Wall area, Jerusalem)

See "The Nones: Israel."

And, I woke up this morning to Israel at war.

Reading Feminism Against Progress

 

                                                     (Inverted sunset over Lake Michigan)

I'm taking time today to catch up on some reading projects. One of them is Feminism Against Progress, by Mary Harrington. She's quite a writer, creative and brilliant. Having been a theological progressive herself, she thoroughly debunks what she calls "Progress Theology," with its strange unbiblical myth that humanity is making moral and spiritual progress. Especially, how Progress Theology has shackled women.

Here's a little quote that serves as a window into the house Harrington is restoring.

"What travels under the term 'progress' is revolutionary destruction of previously immutable-seeming limits. This is usually framed as moral advancement, but in practice follows a two-step ratchet. This first is a shining picture of the utopia that will follow when all the old norms are dissolved and new, improved ones are free to form in the space thus cleared. Then, whatever has been smashed in pursuit of progress ends up reordered to the atomized laws of the market."

Children of Divorce Exhibit More Self-destructive Behavior

(Monroe)

Divorce shatters the hearts of the children. They may blame themselves for the disaster. The foundation has been ripped out from beneath them. They will need help. Now they are forced to deal with complex issues they should never have had to face.

And yet...  I've heard a person considering divorce say, "The kids will be OK." What foolishness.

I've written about this before -

For Children, There's No Such Thing as a "Good Divorce"

Divorce Creates Ontological Insecurity for Children

Divorce - The Kids Will NOT Be OK

Divorce Has Ruinous Consequences That Remarriage Cannot Heal

And, from CNN: 

"Divorced, Deceased Parents linked to Kids' Smoking and Drinking."

"We know from previous research that people may take up risky health behaviors as a coping strategy or as a form of self-medication, to help them cope with stressful situations," noted Rebecca Lacey, an author of the study and a senior research associate at University College London.

"Children who experience the loss of a father or mother early in life are more likely to smoke and drink before they hit their teens, a new study of English families found. This association between parental absence and risky behavior in childhood occurred no matter whether the cause was death, separation or divorce."

Parents - do everything you can to save your marriage, for your kids' sake.

IDENTITY (Know Who You Are, and Who You Are Meant to Be)

                                                           (Mears State Park, Michigan)

 

Do you know who you really are, and who you are meant to be?

Here are links to some of my posts on IDENTITY.

IDENTITY #1 - I Find My Identity in Giving Myself to My Maker

Identity (#2) - Don't Let Your Sufferings Define You

Identity (#3) - Masks & Authenticity

IDENTITY #4: From Persona to Personhood

Identity (#5) - Our Masks Are Not Our Reality

Identity (#6) - In Solitude God Peels Off the Mask

Identity (#7) - Followers of Jesus Have Been Given an Identity

Identity (#8) - Who You Are, and Who You Are Not

Identity #9 - A Way to Authentic Self-Knowledge

Identity #10 - Don't Doubt Who You Really Are

Identity #11 - The Myth of Ontological Uniqueness

Identity #12 - The Identity That Makes You Free

iDENTITY #13 - You Are Significant to God

Identity #14 - Do Not Let This World Interpret You

Identity # 15 - Love Is the Measure of Our Identity

Identity # 16 - The Identity That Makes You Free

Identity #17 - C.S. Lewis On the Real Self

Identity #18 - Authenticity vs. Hypocrisy

The Constant Blamer Is the Perpetual Victim

 

Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan

(Linda and I strongly recommend John Townsend's book The Entitlement Cure: Finding Success in Doing Hard Things the Right Way.)

One of the bitter fruits of entitlement is externalization. Townsend writes: "People with an attitude of entitlement often project the responsibility of their choices on the outside, not the inside. The fault lies with other people, circumstances, or events. They blame others for every problem." (p. 61)

The worship songs of externalization are...

"It's Them, It's Them, It's Them O Lord, Standin' in the Need of Prayer," and...

"Change Their Hearts, O God." 

Externalization-people fail to look at their part in their problems. "Instead, they default to answers outside their skin. The result? They tend to be powerless and unhappy. They tend to see life through the eyes of a victim. And their suffering is unproductive — it doesn’t get them anywhere." (Ib.)

The classic victim mentality is:

"Yes, I did what was wrong. But you forced me to do it." This is a testimony to human character weakness. The characterless "victim" persists in recruiting other characterless people for the self-justification of evil. They engage in perpetual destruction of others, not to mention their own soul.

"Blame," writes Townsend, "is a first cousin to entitlement." 

The constant blamer is the perpetual victim. The antidote to this bondage is to reject forces outside yourself and take responsibility for your own choices and attitudes. Be open to seeing yourself as the problem. Reject a global victimization that views yourself as someone who is always being "done to," and own your own part in your problems. 

Forgive those who have trespassed on your heart. Take responsibility for your own trespassing.

***

My books are:

Deconstructing Progressive Christianity

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Encounters with the Holy Spirit (co-edited with Janice Trigg)

Deconstructing Progressive Christianity

31 Letters to the Church on Praying (Coming December 2022)