Justin Taylor's Blog, page 281

Beauty Testifies to Truth

From an interview with N.D. Wilson:

Trevin Wax: Why is it important that we seek to communicate truth in persuasive and artistically powerful ways?

Nate Wilson: It is important that we communicate well (in ways that resonate artistically as well as theologically) because it adds a great deal of persuasive force—a sort of aesthetic affirmation and enticement to believe what is being said.

As a simple example, imagine being taken over to some family's home and being told in advance that this family had really tapped into a deeper and truer and more beautiful way of relating to each other. But then, when the front door opens, all you smell are stale socks and a little pyramid of cat poo that's lurking in the corner. The smell itself is already an argument against everything you've been told about these people, and anything they might have to say to you. But imagine if that door opens and you get hit with the smell of baking bread—you are now prepared to react differently. This is not to say that the wonderful smell establishes truth all on its own, but it is a testifying witness.

And this issue goes a lot further than mere pragmatic examples of efficacy in persuasion. If we Christians have the truth, and that truth is beautiful—more beautiful than any other message or religion out there—and then we present it in stammering, clumsy, irreverent, or ugly ways, well, we're hypocrites. We're living unfaithfully to the Truth. But if we live in a state of celebration and joy and gratitude, and if our words and our art and our presentations of that truth hit people like the smell of baking bread, then we're getting somewhere.

Three Rules for Polemics

Tim Keller writes, "These rules, I believe, will help us neither avoid polemics nor engage in them in a spiritually destructive way":

1. Carson's Rule: You don't have to follow Matthew 18 before publishing polemics.

2. Murray's Rule: You must take full responsibility for even unwitting misrepresentation of someone's views.

3. Alexander's Rule: Never attribute an opinion to your opponent that he himself does not own.

You can read the piece here for an explanation of each point.

Advancing Entrepreneurial Solutions to Poverty

Here is an new initiative from the Acton Institute that may be worth exploring: povertycure.org.

Ten Foundational Verses for Eternal Punishment in Hell

In his contribution to the book in Two Views of Hell, Robert Peterson sets forth ten passages that as part of the "overwhelming evidence" to support the historical interpretation of hell as everlasting punishment. I agree with Peterson's citation of Augustine, "who cautions us against following the example of those who, 'while not slighting the authority of the sacred Scriptures, . . . nevertheless interpret them wrongly and suppose that what is to happen will not be what the Scriptures speak of, but what they themselves would like to happen" (City of God 21.27). I find myself facing the same temptation, so it is helpful to keep God's Word front and center when constructing our theology.

1. Undying Worm and Unquenchable Fire (OT)

Isaiah 66:22-24

For as the new heavens and the new earth

that I make

shall remain before me, says the LORD,

so shall your offspring and your name remain.

From new moon to new moon,

and from Sabbath to Sabbath,

all flesh shall come to worship before me,

declares the LORD.

And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

2. Everlasting Life/Everlasting Contempt

Daniel 12:1-2

At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

3. Eternal Fire/The Fire of Hell

Matthew 18:6-9

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

4. Eternal Punishment/Eternal Life

Matthew 25:31-46

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." . . . Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . .  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

5. Undying Worm and Unquenchable Fire (NT)

Mark 9:42-48

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, "where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched."

6. Everlasting Destruction

2 Thessalonians 1:5-10

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

7. The Punishment of Eternal Fire

Jude 7

Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

8. Blackest Darkness Reserved Forever

Jude 13

[These people are] wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

9. The Smoke of Their Torment Rises for Ever and Ever

Revelation 14:9-11

If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.

10. The Lake of Fire

Revelation 20:10, 14-15

And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. . . . Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Interviews with Tony Reinke on Reading Christianly

John Starke is a fun interviewer, who asks questions like: Who would win in a literary cage match: Fyodor Dostoevsky or Charles Dickens? Dorothy Day or Flannery O'Connor? Mortimer Adler or Alan Jacobs? Jane Austen or P. G. Wodehouse? C. S. Lewis or G. K. Chesterton?

I am a boring interviewer.

You can read John's interview with Tony Reinke on his excellent new book, Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books.

Or you can watch me asking Tony some questions below:

0:14 – Tony's desire for the book

1:22 – What kind of books should I be reading? (6 Priorities for determining what to read)

3:17 – Creating time to read

5:10 – Tips for growing as a reader

7:21 – The value of fiction

9:08 – The theological importance of reading

Spectrums of Theological Truth and Error

In the past I've pointed to some helpful ways to think about theological truth and error, including how significant the errors might be to our doctrine and life.

For example, Albert Mohler proposes distinguishing between first-order doctrines (a denial of which represents the eventual denial of Christianity itself), second-order doctrines (upon which Bible-believing Christians may disagree, but they create significant boundaries between believers, whether as distinct congregations or denominations), and third-order doctrines (upon which Christians may disagree, but yet remain in close fellowship, even within local congregations.

Erik Thoennes, in Life's Biggest Questions: What the Bible Says about the Things That Matter Most, writes:

The ability to discern the relative importance of theological beliefs is vital for effective Christian life and ministry. Both the purity and unity of the church are at stake in this matter. The relative importance of theological issues can fall within four categories:

absolutes define the core beliefs of the Christian faith;
convictions, while not core beliefs, may have significant impact on the health and effectiveness of the church;
opinions are less-clear issues that generally are not worth dividing over; and
questions are currently unsettled issues.

These categories can be best visualized as concentric circles, similar to those on a dart board, with the absolutes as the "bull's-eye":

Where an issue falls within these categories should be determined by weighing the cumulative force of at least seven considerations:

biblical clarity;
relevance to the character of God;
relevance to the essence of the gospel;
biblical frequency and significance (how often in Scripture it is taught, and what weight Scripture places upon it);
effect on other doctrines;
consensus among Christians (past and present); and
effect on personal and church life.

These criteria for determining the importance of particular beliefs must be considered in light of their cumulative weight regarding the doctrine being considered. For instance, just the fact that a doctrine may go against the general consensus among believers (see item 6) does not necessarily mean it is wrong, although that might add some weight to the argument against it. All the categories should be considered collectively in determining how important an issue is to the Christian faith. The ability to rightly discern the difference between core doctrines and legitimately disputable matters will keep the church from either compromising important truth or needlessly dividing over peripheral issues.

Michael Wittmer's Don't Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough classifies Christian beliefs into three categories: (1) what you must believe, (2) what you must not reject, and (3) what you should believe. He illustrates this as follows:

In a 2008 interview with Dr. Wittmer, I asked him to explain these categories:

These categories are my attempt to describe the relative importance of Christian beliefs, distinguishing between those beliefs essential for salvation and those essential for a healthy Christian worldview.

In the book of Acts, the bare minimum that a person must know and believe to be saved was that he was a sinner and that Jesus saved him from his sin. As Paul told the Philippian jailer, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved" (Acts 16:29-31; cf. 10:43). This is enough to counter the postmodern innovator argument that we can be saved without knowing and believing in Jesus.

But any thinking convert will inquire further about this Jesus. While he may not know much more at the point of conversion than Jesus is the Lord who has saved him, he will quickly learn about Jesus' life, death, resurrection, deity and humanity, and relation to the other two members of the Trinity. Anyone who rejects these core doctrines should fear for their soul.

According to the Athanasian Creed, whoever does not believe in the Trinity and the two natures of Jesus is damned. However, since it seems possible for a child to come to faith without knowing much about the Trinity or the hypostatic union (this is likely not the place where most parents begin), I take the Creed's warning in a more benign way—that we do not need to know and believe in the Trinity and two natures of Christ to be saved, but that anyone who knowingly rejects them cannot be saved.

The final category is important doctrines which genuine Christians may unfortunately misconstrue. I think that every Christian should believe that Scripture is God's Word, know its story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, and know something about the nature of God, what it means to be human, and what Jesus is doing through his church. However, many people have been genuine Christians without knowing or believing these things (though their ignorance or disbelief in these facts significantly diminished their Christian faith).

Thus, I believe that every doctrine in this diagram is crucially important for sound Christian faith. And some are so important that we cannot even be saved without them.

Here's another device along the lines of the above: Robert Peterson, borrowing from David Clyde Jones, offers the following chart in Two Views of Hell: A Biblical and Theological Dialogue:

A
B
C
D
E


truth
mistaken opinion
isolated error
systemic error
heresy

Peterson writes:

The chart illustrates that not all theological mistakes are of the same severity.

All Christians hold some mistaken opinions. I would put into this category quibbles about minor details pertaining to church government and eschatology.

At the other end of the spectrum is heresy—error so serious that holding it leads on to damnation. Heresy is denial of the cardinal doctrines of the faith, such as the deity of Christ.

Between mistaken opinions and heresies are errors. They can be subdivided into a whole range from less to more serious errors.

Peterson suggests an interesting test case in distinguishing between the annihilationism of John Stott and that of Edward Fudge.

An isolated error is a theological mistake that does not affect other matters of faith. John Stott's tentative defense of annihilationism is a case in point. To the best of my knowledge, Dr. Stott does not combine belief in annihilationism with a denial of the intermediate state of human beings or with the view that Jesus was annihilated when he died. Unfortunately, Edward Fudge does. So Fudge, unlike Stott, is involved in systemic error. His annihilationism affects his stand on other points of Christian doctrine.

Driscoll and Wilson on Spiritual Gifts and Intepreting Strange Happenings

The main value here, I think, is to hear two brothers talk through how to evaluate and think through various phenomena. Driscoll adds some nuance here that wasn't included the first time.

I still think people would benefit from reading Vern Poythress's essay "Modern Spiritual Gifts as Analagous to Apostolic Gifts: Affirming Extraordinary Works of the Spirit within Cessationist Theology."

Is The Scarlet Letter a Christian Classic?

In his excellent essay "Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter: What Is a Christian Classic?" (in Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspective [Wipf & Stock, 2003], pp. 133-154) Leland Ryken rightly says that The Scarlet Letter "is probably the most widely misinterpreted of all the classics. It is commonly mistaught in literature course. The misrepresentation comes from naive equation of the Puritans portrayed in the story with Christianity, accompanied by a suppression of the Christian elements late in the story. It is a particular pity that most people's ideas of what the Puritans were like come from Hawthorne's story." (For a helpful corrective see Ryken's own Worldly Saints: The Purtians as They Really Were.)

Ryken uses Hawthorne's masterpiece as test case for the question of "What makes a Christian classic?"

Five Fallacies

He begins by identifying five fallacies at play in answering this question:

1. The Scarlet Letter is Christian if most readers and critics say it is.

"Majority opinion," he writes, 'is no guarantee of correct interpretation." "The text itself must reveal the Christian allegiance of Hawthorne's masterpiece.

2. The Scarlet Letter is Christian because it is well written.

"Superior artistry does not make it Christian." Ryken distinguishes between form and content, and says "the religious element in literature is found primarily in the attitude that a work takes toward the man experiences that it portrays."

3. To know whether The Scarlet Letter is Christian we need to know whether its author was Christian.

On the one hand, "that an author is a believing Christian does not guarantee that what he or she writes embodies a genuinely Christian viewpoint." On the other hand, "it is possible for an unbeliever to embody a Christian viewpoint in his or her writing." (And regarding Hawthorne: "what we know about [his life] is decidedly inconclusive on how he stood toward Christianity.")

4. The Scarlet Letter is Christian because it contains Christian situations, terms, and allusions.

"The Christian element in a story is ultimately measured by the work's implicit and philosophic patterns. Christian situations and allusions are often a signpost to, or a vehicle for, a Christian world view, but they are not the final test of Christianity in literature."

5. The Scarlet Letter is Christian because it deals with profound issues.

"The fact that The Scarlet Letter is concerned with such issues as sin, guilt, prejudice, moral responsibility, and forgiveness does not make it Christian. It only means that the story deals with issues to which the Christian faith speaks. Whether Hawthorne's story is Christian in orientation depends on how the work deals with these issues."

Four Reasons The Scarlet Letter Is a Christian Classic

1. Artistry

"Although superior artistry does not make The Scarlet Letter a Christian classic, one thing that needs to be asserted strongly is that a Christian classic is first of all a classic." In other words, "Before a work can be a Christian classic, it must be a classic. As such, it must display superior artistry that moves us to admiration and amazement. Hawthorne's story is . . . one of the best-old stories the world has known."

2. Truthfulness to human experience

"I want to insist that a Christian classic meets the criterion of truthfulness to reality and experience, even though that does not constitute the distinctively Christian aspect of a Christian classic." "A Christian classic achieves that identity partly by doing what any classic does at that level of content: it touches upon life powerfully at many points. . . . One level of truthfulness in The Scarlet Letter is truthfulness to human experience in the social, moral, and psychological realms."

3. Interpretation of life

"The Christian interpretation of experience in The Scarlet Letter consists partly of how the story get us to share the writer's negative assessment of the Puritan and Romantic world views. Using the affective strategies of the storyteller, Hawthorne influences us to disapprove of the Puritan community's behavior throughout the story and Hester's Romantic values in the late stages of the story."

4. The triumph of grace

"To merit the title of Christian classic, a work must do more than portray a Christian viewpoint on a chosen aspect of experience. It must also give a convincing presentation of what is most important in Christian experience—the triumph of God's saving grace in the forgiveness of a sinner. Stated another way a Christian classic portrays a protagonist who attains belief in salvation and eternal life." [This happens in The Scarlet Letter.] Ryken quotes a critic who observes that The Scarlet Letter "is a complete vision of salvation."

My Favorite Cornelius Van Til Illustration

"Suppose we think of a man made of water in an infinitely extended and bottomless ocean of water. Desiring to get out of water, he makes a ladder of water. He sets this ladder upon the water and against the water and then attempts to climb out of the water. So hopeless and senseless a picture must be drawn of the natural man's methodology based as it is upon the assumption that time or chance is ultimate. On his assumption his own rationality is a product of chance. On his assumption even the laws of logic which he employs are products of chance. The rationality and purpose that he may be searching for are still bound to be products of chance."

—Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith (P&R, 1972), p. 102. (The link is to the newer edition edited by K. Scott Oliphint, but the page number is from the original edition.)

For a similar argument from C.S. Lewis, see Victor Reppert's C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason (IVP, 2003).

The Trinity and the Gospel

In his new book Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism: An Augustinian Assessment (IVP, 2011), Keith Johnson writes: "Because the Trinity represents a presupposition of the gospel, distortions of this doctrine inevitably lead to a distorted gospel."

Fred Sanders, in his theologically insightful and winsomely practical book The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (Crossway, 2010), argues that "the gospel is Trinitarian, and the Trinity is the gospel."

(I'm not sure how long the sale lasts, but Amazon has the Kindle eBook version of Sanders's book on sale for $2.99, which is 83% off.)