Why believe the Bible?, and Why I think the Circle of Authority is Nonsense...

Ever had one of those incredibly frustrating arguments with a Mormon where, regardless of the obvious content of the Bible, and the lack of supporting content in the history books, they stick to their guns because "The Holy Spirit has revealed to me the truth, and I know it to be true".

This is nonsense.

Not to go around bagging other religions, (actually... that is what I'm doing and intending to do), Jehovah's witnesses believe the reading (of the Bible) of a few (6?) guys despite the world's best scholars' translations from the greek, Islam believes Mohammed and is encouraged (a euphemism at times) to believe blindly and not question "the Prophet", Buddhism is based entirely on one guys experience with no supporting evidence aside from apparently clever arguments, Hinduism is impressively ancient, but is based on mythological stories that should have declined in parallel with Greek mythology, and don't even get me started on how ridiculous catholicism is...

So why be a Christian? Is it any better?

John Dickson has written a nice little book on this: If I were God I'd make myself clearer. Something from this book that stuck with me is that every major religion in the world except two fails to make historically verifiable claims. That means that every major religion in the world except two must be believed based on the personality of its prophets/gurus/scribes/brainchilds/inventors alone. The two exceptions: Mormonism and Christianity. Regarding the former he goes on to say that there is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus visited the U.S., that the tablets and magic glasses exist, or anything else that Mormonism claims. Regarding Christianity there is ample historical evidence regarding many historical claims, I need not go into it.

But at many times people have said the following to me about this: "historical evidence is all well and good, but it's not really relevant to me, I believe because the Holy Spirit has convicted me".

What I say to that is, with respect, I think that's rubbish. There are supporting passages to be sure, but taking the entire biblical corpus into account I simply cannot agree. I mean, what if you thought the HS convicted you of mormonism, or ritual suicide, or terrorism? I wouldn't agree with that. At the end of the day I think it's probably just a lucky coincidence that you are a Christian, and that Christianity is true.

Enter the Circle of Authority:

I'm a Sydney Anglican in almost every way. One way that I am not, is that I cannot agree with the widely taught circle of authority.

The argument goes like this: You should believe the Bible because the Bible says it is true. If you say that you believe the Bible for some other reason, then that thing is your ultimate authority, not the Bible. So if you believe the Bible for historical reasons, then history is your ultimate authority, not the Bible. So in order to get yourself onto this circle of authority, you need an insertion point. BUT the insertion point is not a higher authority, it's merely a tangent.

Here's the thing about the pictorial analogy: It's rubbish. An isertion point is a higher authority. It's a reason to believe the Bible in the first place. I don't care how much geometric analogies you come up with, if you have some initial reason for believing the Bible then that is the authority that had you believe the Bible - a truism if ever I've heard one.

Secondly, I hate to use the word Bibliolatry, because I don't want to be associated with 99% of the people that use that word, but I frankly I do not worship the Bible, I worship God. So I believe the Bible, because God has revealed to me that the Bible is the true way to know God. I don't believe other sources about God as authoritative, just the Bible, because my insertion point to the Bible is God, and God doesn't give me any other authoritative sources, but in fact several other fallible ones (my feelings, my view of creation etc, they're all tainted, and sit in subjection to the Bible).

So how does God reveal to me that the Bible is true? Sinai, Jesus' miracles, the Resurrection. At Sinai (Ex 19 in particular) God says something like : You shall know for all time that this law I'm giving you is authoritative BECAUSE I'm here speaking to you in person today. It's God's personal appearance that's authoritative. How is that authoritative for me? History! The history books. The mixed Biblical and historical and archaelogical accounts have lasted 4000 odd years because they're reliable (along with various other reasons). Jesus' miracles are well attested to, and he says to ... Thomas? A pharisee? I can't remember. Somewhere in John: If you don't believe the words I'm saying then believe on account of the miracles. The resurrection is ridiculously well attested to historically. And so on.

So why do I believe the Bible? Because I have good reasons to believe that God really did say : Believe the Bible. That's it. Being convinced of that, I'm free to believe the Bible absolutely, but not because it says so, but because God says so.

A quick word on the Holy Spirit: I believe that the world is irrationally anti-Christian because they don't have the BIble. The HS is an antidote to sin. We cannot believe the truth without the HSs conviction. Nevertheless, a HS argument alone I believe is a dangerous thing, and is ultimately not in line with the Biblical account. God really did appear in person on several occassions and claimed it was for, in part, verification-al purposes. So why reject those offerings, calling them irrelevant, and claim only the HSs conviction as your ultimate source of authority? The HS comes along side us to attest to the truth of the rest of the Biblical account. We must give him a secondary role to God and Jesus, that's what he wants.

This was much too long for a blog. Sorry about that.

Any thoughts?

Basic Comprehension II

In my first post I made a bit of a deal about basic comprehension: Just reading a sentence and understanding the necessary logic of the sentence. Well I was having a read of John 8 and came across this very strange little chunk:


Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 


Now I'm not too sure that my strict rules of logic and cogency can apply here, or else these verses betray a deep theological principle which is... I don't think correct. So here we go:

1.  If you sin, you are a slave to sin.
2. So sin is your master
3. So sin is the head of the family to which you do not belong
4. A son, however, does belong to the family
5. But the son is, of course, sins son... McSin, or Sin-san... or whatever
6. And if Sin's Son sets you free, then you will definitely be free

You don't have to be particularly churched to read son = Jesus. It's a no-brainer. And... unless you are extremely convincing I don't think I will change my mind on this. It's Jesus right? So why is sin the head of the family? And why is Jesus sin's son?

There are a few possible explanations I guess. One is that John is intentionally playing with his words in some way. Another is that John isn't thinking about it this much. The most likely, I think, is that sin is the shackals, not the master/head of the house. This has a nice Galatians-y feel to it with the whole guardian business (ch 3? something like that). But then... if Jesus is the Son, then God is the father, and he is keeping us locked up by sin. Now this is also pretty Galatians-y actually, especially if you read sin as law. But the way that reads, most naturally, doesn't sit so well with me. Not to mention, I think that whole reading is a little... forced.

It's a weird passage. Perhaps there's a very simple explanation I'm missing. But in any case, Basic Comprehension is not always, immediately straight forward. Not always...   

Preaching II (and a clarification)

I was looking through my posts so far, and noticed one very unclear little sentence.

I said:
When I still lived in Australia I had a bit of a beef with the preaching

This implies one. But preachers are many. I wasn't having a go at preaching at my home church per se, but with the state of preaching everywhere that I had access to: Uni, my home church, churches in my town, churches I have visited, and sermons I download.

I'd say Tim Keller is my favourite preacher pastor who I don't know personally (Don Carson is my favourite speaker and writer but he's no longer a pastor). I don't agree with all his theology, but he has a lot to teach me. Nevertheless, I find his weekly sermons get pretty old pretty fast.

So what's going on? I am still happy to admit that my sinfulness is a problem here. But maybe it's not just sinfulness. Maybe there's a problem with my expectations... What is it that I should expect from a sermon? If the preacher gets something out of the passage that I couldn't get for myself then there's something worrying about my ability to read or his ability to read (know what I mean). Isn't there?

So I know that what I would love is to have my eyes opened (about something) every time I hear a sermon. But that's unrealistic, and frankly a bit unfair on the poor old preachers. So then what is the point of the weekly sermon? Here's a rough list off the top of my head:

1. It's good to spend an extended time reflecting on one chunk of the Bible. It aids rumination
2. A preacher can spend the week figuring out the wider biblical context of the passage, which is something that takes time and it's nice having someone do it for me at times and teach me to do it through his example.
3. A preacher can draw the threads through our Christology - another thing that can be hard and learnt from example.
4. We easily forget and need constant reminding (a very Islamic concept - but I suppose Islam got it from the Israelites too?)

There must be more, and significant ones I've missed. But when I think about it all these things are done in a good sermon by Tim Keller or back home. But these things can be a bit mundane. The breadth of Christian theology is in some ways vast and in some ways quite narrow. Drawing everything through our Christology is so extremely important that if it's not done it's not a good sermon, but then again, doing that same thing every single time can get a bit old. The wider biblical context is also not really that wide. The Bible is 1000 pages. There are only about 7 major epochs (or whatever you call them). Genesis 1-3 seems to explain most of the whole world and the Biblical trajectory of most things pretty well.

So I think the problems are: I'm sinful and tend to gripe, my expectations are unrealistic, biblical Christianity can be quite narrow which is both a wonderful thing and (see point 1: I'm sinful) at times a bit dull.

Full Time Ministry

Something I've been wondering about on and off for years now is the role of full time ministry.

Recently I was talking to my mate who has recently become a teacher. He is one of the most godly people I know, and someone whose opinion I trust more than almost anyone. I cannot speak his praises highly enough. Anyway, we were talking about going to college and becoming a minister or missionary vs. working full time in some sort of secular job like teaching.

All serious Christians have had to think this through. And if my experience of undergraduate conferences is anything to go by, I believe we are led to believe at those who choose to do full time secular work have copped out of full time ministry.

But the more exposure I have to what can only be described as the real world (a lengthy disclaimer could be made at this point. I hate the phrase the real world - one of my ministers once suggested I "go swing a pick in Western Australia for 6 months" to learn what the real world is like. I was married at the time and frankly I think the idea was ridiculous and I'm suprised the suggestion was ever made. Moreover my job at Max Planck amongst Physicists and Chemists is not what most people would call the real world. Today I stayed home to help my wife pack and get on a train to Paris. I didn't take a personal day, I didn't tell anyone I won't be in, Tomorrow I'll be back and nobody will care. There is no element of hard labour or ... labour at all really. My job is extremely easy on the old muscles. But then again this is my real world, and someone who does swing a pick and see his wife every few weeks lives in a world that is not mine. I don't know why the pick-guy should have a monopoly on the concept of a real world...).

Anyway the more exposure I get to the real world, the more i think that the ministry job is just another option out of many good options. I'm even tempted to say that for a thinking, convicted, solid Christian, ministry can be a bit of a cop-out.

You see, what is really hard, is what my bro is doing. He is a teacher and is trying to start a robotics club at the local public school. His wife is raising their daughter and teaching scripture each week (along with many other things). My mum regularly meets up with all sorts of people who could use her company in various contexts and has an extremely difficult workplace to deal with as she goes along (sorry that was so vague - but it's tough for her). These are people who I admire and who are doing extraordinary things for the name of Christ in 'the real world'.

And I have decided to do the same thing. The first year of my PhD was spent learning Koine Greek because I was off to Bible College. But then I got convinced that someone in my position could be well used staying in academia and working out how to bear the name of Christ in that capacity.

It's a much less well defined route than Bible College, but it's so important!

Really, Bible College is a bit of a contrived thing. We need pastors, that's for sure. But being a pastor isn't a real world thing, it's like... in ethics language, a retrieval ethic. It's like we shouldn't need pastors, but we do, so we have them. I have nothing against this, please don't get me wrong. But the job of a pastor is pretty well defined. The job of a truly godly person in the workplace, or in a mum's group, or a sports club, or whatever - now that is a job that's really hard to do, and should have the most godly, well equipped, thoughtful, and convicted Christians taking it on.

No?

Repetition

I often wonder about repetition in prayer and songs. On the one hand the bible has many many examples of repetition to God (Holy, Holy, Holy always springs to mind first). But on the other hand God only needs to hear any particular thing once (well nonce actually...). Another thing that often springs to mind for me is Paul praying for his affliction to go away three times. I tend to think his affliction was pretty bad, or pretty obstructive, and on three occasions he made a concerted effort to pray for its removal. This seems to me like the latter idea: He wasn't repetitive, but he prayed for it as it was on his heart, no more and no less. But really he doesn't tell us enough about it to make any strong statements.

How do I approach this question? I can think of a lot of relevant passages, OT, Jesus, Epistles... Maybe I should read Don Carson's excellent A Call to Spiritual Reformation again. I don't know...