So Many Technical Terms for What I Thought Was Simple Belief

A lot of views I hold now were nascent before 2010 or assumed based on what I may have read or been taught but don’t remember learning. What amazes me is that within the essential core doctrines of Christianity, there is immense variety of views on all sorts of concepts one might initially consider mundane, or at least, certainly not a source of conflict. You’d be wrong, at least on the level that people don’t hold different opinions on them. And what impresses me is that every independent view has a technical name for it! This post is meant both as a reflection on nuances of Biblical Christianity that I believe, and to educate readers as to the existence of the diverse views out there. Listed is not an exhaustive explanation of everything that can be believed, but the alternatives that I find most reasonable, to the extent that I do, and short descriptions.

Dispensationalism – the belief that there are distinct periods of time ("dispensations") in human history where God has interacted with humanity in different contexts than at other times.

Pre-millennialism – the belief that Jesus Christ will physically return to earth to reign from Jerusalem for a long period of time, most likely a literal 1000 years, before finally ushering in the beginning of eternity

Zionism – the belief that God intends to one day rule the world from Jerusalem in person, as He once did from a distance, with the inhabitants of and agents of rulership of His kingdom being ethnically Jewish believers. Party to this fulfillment is the likelihood, but not necessity, of Jews to be regathered to Israel. The present state of modern Israel should not be seen as a perfect fulfillment of zionist prophecies, but as representing a partial fulfillment, or as setting the stage for a future fulfillment. 

Dispensational pre-millennialism – the belief that there will be a distinction between the Church, Tribulation saints, and Israel in the Millennium, that the Church and Tribulation saints constitute glorified (sinless) believers from before and during the Great Tribulation, and that Israel constitutes Jewish (and, not yet glorified, therefore sinful) believers in Christ at that time.

Dispensationalism and dispensational premillennialism contrasts in particular with “Replacement Theology,” which holds that the promises given to Israel in the OT are now active for the Church and Christians, in the NT after Christ’s crucifixion. This does not make sense, Biblically, but there is a valid point that in soteriological terms (having to do with salvation), there has never been a distinction between Israel and the Church. Paul writes in Romans 9-11 that “all Israel is not Israel,” to indicate that it was not Jewishness that saved anyone, but faith in God, and this is true both for saved OT Jews and saved NT Christians. This is emphasized in

Covenant Theology, which I also agree with to the extent that it emphasizes that there is no discontinuity in God’s plan of salvation over time. It has always been Law and Grace. Believing Jews and Christians are in the same spiritual class. This is certainly true. Where it’s possible to go wrong in dispensationalism is to get the notion that God changes His mind or treats different people differently, and where it’s possible to go wrong in covenant theology is to get the notion that there’s no difference between Israel’s role in God’s plan and the Church’s role in God’s plan. Hence why I seem to find these two beliefs characterized as being in conflict, but I find aspects of each, as I have read and understood them, that are theologically sound.

Pre-tribulation rapture – the belief that all living (and dead) Church Age believers will be removed from planet earth prior to the final 7-year period of premillennial history during which God has determined to set aside to “judge the nations,” and both chastise those who will come to faith in that time, and to pour out His wrath on those who will not. It is identified as “the time of Jacob’s Trouble,” indicating that the emphasis is on God’s relationship with Israel, and further there is a promise to the Church that “we are not appointed to wrath,” and the Tribulation is referred to in Revelation as “the great day of God’s wrath,” – consequently, there is a theological basis for believing that the Church is not present, beyond the common prooftexts about the rapture itself.

Baptism by immersion – the belief that John the Baptist’s baptism of submerging the whole person under water is the best model to use. The alternative is “sprinkling,” where water is poured or splashed on someone’s forehead. Each refers to different things. I did some research to understand why conservative Presbyterians and Lutherans prefer the sprinkling method, and it turns out they view it as symbolic of the Holy Spirit’s anointing (pouring oil over someone’s forehead was a common OT symbol used to indicate that God had chosen someone to be a prophet or king), so that mode of baptism is meant to symbolize the fact that the Holy Spirit comes to indwell new believers. Baptists generally prefer immersion, because they view it as symbolic of dying to self/sin and ‘being buried with Him, and raised to walk in newness of life.’ The Biblical phrase is “what is buried is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.” It is meant to symbolize the spiritual truth of salvation and glorification (two separate events) simultaneously, (with emphasis on the first), as being a spiritual death to the old way, and new life in Jesus Christ. I believe that the symbolism of death and resurrection, of putting to death the old man and putting on the new Man (JC), is more Biblically consistent and symbolically appropriate.

Believer’s baptism – since baptism symbolizes a conscious choice to surrender in faith to God, it is most appropriate for adults who have been counseled in depth as to the significance of the ceremony. It simply doesn’t make sense to baptize babies, for two reasons: 1) they aren’t mentally capable of belief, and 2) the act of baptizing them does not impart a special measure of God’s grace to them, and with that understanding, that it is merely symbolic and an act of obedience, and not a mystical transfer of power, there is no motivation for baptizing anyone who’s not mature enough to comprehend what it means.

Open communion – the alternative to this is that church leaders are put in a position of pointing out individuals that they believe are disqualified and not permitted to participate. This puts them in a position of judging the content of a person’s heart, which is not in their power nor prerogative. What is better is that communion is available to anybody (save openly professing nonbelievers, one could imagine), and that it is emphasized that one should willingly choose not to participate if they have unreconciled conflict with another person, or unconfessed sin, etc, because of the seriousness and the real danger of incurring God’s judgment on you, in some way, because of faithlessness or irreverence. But from a human perspective, communion should be offered to anyone who’ll take it.

 That communion is symbolic. It isn’t mystical. Like baptism, it is a public demonstration of faith and a way to encourage and edify the Church by your obedience. It does nothing beyond that to increase your standing with God, or improve your spiritual growth, or give you victory over sin, etc. Other views are that “God is present” in the sacrament in some way that is more significant than His normal everyday presence at all other times in a believer’s life or in Church activities. I forget which of the two, Luther and Zwingli, who held this, but all I remember is that they held two differing views on it. Other names for communion are “the Lord’s supper” and “the eucharist.” I avoid the latter term because of its association with heretical wings of the Episcopalian church and the Greek orthodox and Roman catholic churches. In the RCC, the view of the eucharist is the antibiblical belief called “transubstantiation,” which supposes that the bread and wine literally become Jesus’ physical body, so that participants commit cannibalism in the belief that this is spiritually, mysteriously holy. The Bible says that Christ was “crucified once for all,” but Catholic doctrine says that the eucharist perpetuates Jesus’ sacrifice every time it is performed, and so it is in direct violation with the Scriptures.

Calvinism – this is the one view that I did not think I held, and it took me a long time to reason to an acceptance of it, after the misleading introduction to it that I had in 9^th grade world history. As it turns out, the common characterization of Calvinism given by anybody who’s not a Calvinist tends to describe what Charles Spurgeon termed “Antinomianism” (‘against the Law’), which is the belief that it doesn’t matter how poorly you behave, because if you’re predestined you’re good to go, you’ve got a carte blanche to sin because you’re already going to heaven. Turns out, that’s not Calvinism.

Under the category of Calvinism falls all of that which is called Reformed doctrine. “The doctrines of Grace.”

The five solas – sola scriptura, solo Christos, sola fide, sola gratia, soli deo Gloria

TULIP – total depravity of man, unconditional election of believers, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints

Fundamental to Calvinism is the doctrine that separates Protestantism (the healthy parts, churches which have not slid into heresy) from all other beliefs, both pseudochristian and pagan: the doctrine that salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith in Christ alone, and not by the works of the believer. In other words, no one can earn their way into heaven. No one can be a good person. No one can be righteous. No one can save themselves, nor does Jesus need their participation in order to save them. Anything contrary to this is not only contrary to Calvinism, but contrary to the Scriptures and contrary to the very core of the Gospel message. In other words, anything in disagreement with this is damning doctrine. And because it’s so solidly Biblical, that is why I eventually found myself in agreement with what I had been educated to think was stupid for a half a decade.

 Cessationism – the belief that the supernatural gifts of healing and predictive prophecy, as well as speaking in and interpreting different languages without having conscious comprehension thereof, have a) totally and utterly ceased because their purpose was specifically for the early Church and there is no point to them now – “we have a more sure word of prophecy (the Bible)”, or b) cessationism lite – that the gifts are in operation in rare cases where new people groups are being evangelized by missionaries where the Gospel has never been heard in their language, and no one knows their language so as to preach it to them.

In both of these cases, however, it is held that whatever the Holy Spirit does in the world today that is supernatural, the sign gifts, as they are called, are not given to people today as they were in Acts, where they were essentially superpowers that could be exercised at the believers’ discretion in the same way as you would flex a muscle, but instead are very specifically ordained for a limited purpose and then do not remain.

In most cases, cessationists still agree that “spiritual gifts” exist and should be pursued, but they are more appropriately comprehended as God-given wisdom or personality qualities that can be developed like any other skill (encouragement, teaching, preaching, discernment, charity), and not as flip-of-a-switch occurrences where a person suddenly begins speaking incomprehensibly in a congregation where everybody knows English. Much more could be said, but this is the basic framework.

Complementarianism – in contrast to egalitarianism. The former holds that husbands and wives have different, but complementary roles, and the latter holds that they perform exactly the same roles as each other with no differences. Complementarianism further holds that the church leaders identified as biskopae in the Greek (called pastors, elders, bishops, ministers, etc) are roles that are to  be held by married men, only. The church leaders identified as diakonae (pardon any misspellings, I don’t know Greek endings), or deacons, can be both men and women, since there are examples of them in the NT. The two classes of Church servants perform markedly different roles. Much has been said on the subject of why women should not be allowed to hold positions of spiritual authority over men, but the one thing that is undeniable is that the Bible clearly teaches this, and that there is no room for confusion over the fact that complementarianism is the Biblical view.

Sublapsarianism – I hadn’t realized that there were different views on the order of events of God’s decision making process in planning history from eternity past, but there are. To my best knowledge, infralapsarianism says that God determined to allow the Fall, then determined to save some of the fallen, then provided Jesus Christ as the substitute. Sublapsarianism says the God determined to allow the Fall, then provided Jesus Christ as the substitute for sinners, then chose which of the fallen to save through this atonement. (I could have these two switched by accident—check GotQuestions to be sure). And Supralapsarianism says that God determined who should be saved, then determined to accomplish salvation through Jesus Christ, and lastly created humans and allowed the Fall. I can think of at least one other order of events, namely that God determined first of all to demonstrate His love for sinners by dying in their place, then determined to create humanity, and then chose those He wished to save. I personally prefer putting Christ at the very beginning, because even though God is eternal, it’s logically coherent to note that the Son was self-existent prior to any consideration of the creation of humanity. So the desire to demonstrate unmerited favor must have been there “before” the decision to create beings who would fail to merit this favor, so that they could be loved unconditionally, to God’s glory. What to call this? Archae-lapsarianism?

At any rate, this is included to show just how much nitty-gritty-ness exists in Christian theology, not because which of the three (or four, if you like my alternative) you choose is of severe doctrinal significance. Lapsarianism has yet to become an issue that divides denominations or leads to religious persecution, to my knowledge. And every one of them is a Biblically supportable view, and hence, it is the epitome of a non-essential doctrine.

Monergism – the belief that God saves sinners. He alone gets the credit. He needs no help. Synergism is the belief that God and sinners work together to achieve the salvation of the sinner. In other words, this makes salvation impossible without the participation of the sinner. This makes salvation dependent on the sinner, and in other words, makes God dependent on man’s choices. God hardly gets the credit for whom He saves, this way. The truth is that “I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion,” and it has nothing to do with how they respond. God will never save someone who responds by refusing to be saved. It’s a logically impossible state of affairs. So God will always succeed in saving whom He will, and He alone gets the credit for it.

Young-earth creationism – the belief that based on the Bible’s genealogies and lack of evidence of gaps in the storyline, that the age of the earth from Adam to Christ must be roughly 4,000 years, and consequently, the state of the natural world and universe must be explainable from a framework that deals faithfully with the Biblical account of how God created the world, and, key to much of it, the Noachian Deluge. The evidence that confirms a recent creation is pretty astounding, but the most solid proofs thereof are Biblical, and it is these that are and ought to be the most convincing supports for this view, to anyone who has a high view of Scripture.

Fundamentalist – believer in the inerrancy of Scripture, and the authority of Scripture (sola scriptura). A doctrinal conservative. The belief that Christianity cannot be put on the back burner in favor of politics or other secular concerns, but must be the central thing that guides a person’s behavior.

“Literalist” – there’s no theological term I know of that describes how one should read scripture, but the scholarly method is called “the historical-grammatical method,” which is a multisyllabic way of saying that you read Scripture plainly, and interpret it in the way that it is intended to be interpreted. There is a term called “exegesis” which means to read out from the text, in contrast to ‘eisegesis,’ which means to take outside ideas and ‘read into’ the text. Literalism is a misleading worldly term that is often used condescendingly. The simple truth is that good Biblical interpretation takes literal passages literally, poetic passages poetically, parabolic passages parabolically, prescriptive passages prescriptively, historical passages historically, and prophetic passages prophetically. Every part of the Bible isn’t literal. But you read it the way it was intended to be read by the writer (the “historical-grammatical” angle), and you will be “rightly dividing the word of truth.”

That's it, for a compilation of epithets and descriptive titles that fly around inside and outside of soundly theological circles, that can help you gain a better understanding of how reasonably, or else wonky, someone's beliefs about the Bible happen to be. 

~ Rak Chazak

Teaser: Excerpts from Upcoming AWPATT, "A to Z"

From where the last AWPATT left off to January 16 will be 26 days, so expect an upload then of a themed series of thoughts that I've been working on off-line. Inspired by the acrostic portion of Proverbs 31, which my study Bible's footnotes cleverly point out could in English be entitled "The Perfect Wife from A to Z," I decided to use alphabetical organization to stimulate creativity on the subject of what sort of qualities I hope for in a future wife.

I can probably try to repeat this exercise once or twice, and even use it in different contexts: what sort of a husband I would hope to be for my wife, or what exciting things we can do together to show our love for each other. Gotta get to 1000 somehow, and there's lots of subject matter to sift through yet!

Here's a teaser, portions of what I've already written and transcribed, that may make the anticipation of the finished product pique the curious interest of the reader.

"Consider further that your beloved deserves love because God says that’s how they ought to be treated, not because they have an innate character quality or deed to their name that empowers them to require such treatment from others. For if there is good in them, where does it come from but God, after all? So you treat them well based not on them but on God, who never changes."

"Refusing to lay aside personal pursuits for marriage’s sake indicates one of two things:

1) you don’t trust your husband’s ability or willingness to provide for your family – the sin of faithlessness. And not, mind you, in your husband, but in God: can God provide for you no matter the circumstance, or can He not?

2) your career, education, and/or income is a higher priority for you than your husband and children – the sin of pride."

"Do we distrust God because He’s omniscient? Do we ignore what He says because He knows more, as if He’s being a ‘know-it-all?’ " 

"Her feelings must be influenced by her view of herself and her situation, they cannot be what controls how she perceives herself, God, her husband or the situation she’s in."

"Many people in this world see relationships as a tit-for-tat, and I’ll never marry into that willingly."

"all of my personal emphases are of crucial importance to me for the simple fact that it’s my marriage, and I need someone who’s perfect for me. Only one woman needs to pass that test,"

"her willingness to be led by me is VERY conditional, and should come at a very high cost" 

"Exercising her intelligence, discernment, and faithful knowledge of Scripture, she evaluates everything her husband asks of her with these questions: 1) is it in accordance with God’s will? 2) does it reflect the loving leadership of my husband, i.e. is it for my good? 3) will following his lead honor and do good for my husband? 4) is there a colossally compelling reason NOT to do it?"

Look for it next month! 

~ Rak Chazak

The Dekadius Workout

Using the metric system's prefix for 10 and the Latin word for 'day,' that's the name for a new plan I figured out for "total body transformation." Its strengths are that it starts off very slowly and lazily, intentionally, to make it easier to create the routine and not fall off the rails immediately and forget about it, and also that it requires minimal use of equipment. The only stuff I'll be using are my bed, the floor, the ground, a pullup-bar contraption that hangs in a doorframe (also used for pushups) and two ten-pound dumbbells. 

I increment the intensity of every muscle group and movement that I've added, every 10 days, as well as adding a new one. Initially it's just 20 situps, then 10 pushups, and so forth, but by the end of June I'll be doing 3 sets of 100 situps (which I know to be possible only because I've done this before, back when I was 17), and 5 sets of 40 pushups, and so on.

It's going to yield massive results, if I only keep to the one central thing that will make the whole plan work: consistency. Skipping days will make it incredibly difficult to catch back up, but as long as I'm determined, the exercises are incremented so gradually that there's really no risk of soreness or stress injuries from the exercise, even when it gets really intense.

Feel free to follow along (or just compare yourself for fun). After the jump, I've posted my plan. 

"Christ-Mass" Thoughts from Spurgeon

Emphasis in the original for the first paragraph. Other emphases added to show my points of greatest agreement.

"We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas. First, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be sung in Latin or in English; and secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority. Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our Savior's birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred. ... It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of the church celebrated the nativity of our Lord; and it was not till very long after the Western church had set the example, that the Eastern adopted it. ... Probably the fact is that the "holy" days were arranged to fit in with the heathen festivals. We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Savior was born, it is the twenty-fifth of December.

Nevertheless since, the current of men's thoughts is led this way just now, and I see no evil in the current itself, I shall launch the bark of our discourse upon that stream, and make use of the fact, which I shall neither justify nor condemn, by endeavoring to lead your thoughts in the same direction. Since it is lawful, and even laudable, to meditate upon the incarnation of the Lord upon any day in the year, it cannot be in the power of other men's superstitions to render such a meditation improper for to-day. Regarding not the day, let us, nevertheless, give God thanks for the gift of His dear Son."

"Joy Born at Bethlehem," December 24, 1871

THIS is the season of the year when, whether we wish it or not, we are compelled to think of the birth of Christ. I hold it to be one of the greatest absurdities under heaven to think that there is any religion in keeping Christmas-day. There are no probabilities whatever that our Savior Jesus Christ was born on that day and the observance of it is purely of Popish origin; doubtless those who are Catholics have a right to hallow it, but I do not see how consistent Protestants can account it in the least sacred. However, I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year; for there is work enough in the world, and a little more rest would not hurt laboring people. Christmas-day is really a boon to us, particularly as it enables us to assemble round the family hearth and meet our friends once more. Still, although we do not fall exactly in the track of other people, I see no harm in thinking of the incarnation and birth of the Lord Jesus. 

"The Incarnation and Birth of Christ," December 1855

So what's the final point? That there's no reason I see to participate in a cultural mandate, except to capitalize on the fact that other people are more (superstitiously, as Spurgeon put it) receptive to hearing messages about Christ on this day and in this season than in others throughout the year,

...and do what? Preach the Gospel, of course. There's no greater way to spend any day no matter what time of year it is, this side of eternity. There is no purpose in marking this one day as an auspicious holiday for my family, since to me EVERY day is a celebration of Christ's redeeming work on the Cross, His human birth being an incidental necessity to that end, and EVERY day is a day worthy of spending meditating on His goodness and how to serve Him better. The purpose of Christmas, then, as with Pearl Harbor Day, 9-11, 4th of July, Halloween, Valentine's Day, and any other day of celebration or tragedy, is in its utility in reaching people through the avenue of a subject that their minds will by custom and tradition be conditioned to thinking about, more then than at any other time.

The idea that Christ should be celebrated on only ONE day of the year is an abominable absurdity. In a theological sense, I abhor the whole concept of the "present economic arrangement called Christmas." But that doesn't mean I don't find some redeeming value in the fact of its existence. The great expository preaching I've heard on the radio this week is a testament to Spurgeon's insight in the second and third paragraph quoted.

~ Rak Chazak

I'm no artist, but take a look...

I rummaged through my picture folder and threw together some that I'd saved off my facebook news feed over the past year. For something a little different, and to give casual readers both a) something to share if they wish and b) a way to know more about the sort of quotes that stand out to me, and which I affirm and which messages I promote.

~ Rak Chazak

Texting Treatise: Different Responses to Temptation

Texting Treatise: Different Responses to Temptation

The first section contains the types of responses or non-responses to sin, where a person rejects the idea that they should be repentant about it.

Blindness

Lack of Awareness: unaware of what you are doing

Qualified Unawareness: aware of what you are doing, but think it is good. Unaware that it is sin

Incorrigibility

Apathy: aware it’s wrong but don’t care to change it

Minimization: aware it’s wrong but deny the severity of it

Defiance: aware of the wrongness and severity and willingly indulge it anyway without contrition

In this next section are different types of responses to sin that contain a measure of contrition (feeling sorry) or repentance (genuinely desiring to flee from or overcome the temptation). For the sake of making it seem more interesting, psychologically, I’ve arranged them in a potential ‘maturity scale’ that the hypothetical average sinner might progress through while dealing with recognized temptations to sin in their life.

Contrition

                Sub-set: Vain Heroics

Halfhearted Abstinence: an attempt to break from it, but not strong enough in conviction to persist. Likely followed by binging on the particular temptation (shopping, drinking, sexual activity, surfing channels/websites, abandoning healthy eating or exercise, etc) upon crashing

All or Nothing: can lead to longer sustained abstinence, but more often leads to more time in between attempts, because of the fear of failure. Successive failure leads to disillusionment with pure abstinence and leads to a variety of different attempts to deal with the issue:

                Sub-set: Allowances

Hesitation: failing with abstinence doesn’t immediately lead to abandoning that method, but can cause a person to rationalize not trying right now, while they’re waiting for the perfect moment to start. They tolerate giving in to the temptation because they tell themselves that they’re planning to try to abstain from it soon

Banking: sinning more in the short term to satisfy an imagined quota that your flesh desires, so that you can hope to have better success in your abstinence effort. This leads to an expectation of high indulgence, which produces a cycle of periodic abstinence followed by binging, which is worse than the initial ‘halfhearted abstinence’ program.

Putting it Out of Mind: not thinking about it, in the hopes that it was one’s focus on trying to deal with the temptation so strongly that led to the catastrophic failures in the past. When this inevitably fails, it is modified to

Tolerance: not keeping track, and letting yourself get away with indulgence in the hope that by not “banking” it, you’ll end up indulging in it less, and that by not trying to abstain all-or-nothing-wise, you won’t have a “crash.”

                Sub-set: Searching for Loopholes

Rhythm/Scheduling: when tolerance doesn’t end up diminishing your gratification of your sinful desires, and you catch yourself, you may try to “out-think” yourself, by intentionally planning to give in to the temptation at certain points, but insert periods of focused abstinence in between. It’s basically a modified “banking/all-or-nothing” approach with shorter periods of abstinence that make success more likely. When the periods are extended in the effort of “weaning” yourself off of a dependence on the indulgence, you reach the level of

Gradual Improvement: this can be reached with or without the “scheduling” stage; it’s basically an attempt to “play a long game” and start comfortably with a high tolerance for your indulgence, gradually decreasing how much of an allowance you’ll give yourself. This is basically a more intentional version of

Fatalism: aiming for less than perfection because you can’t get it. Whereas the “gradual improvement,” “scheduling” and “banking” approaches tolerate sin for the sake of trying to build some sort of spiritual immunity to it (doesn’t work, by the way), fatalism is the final resting place of many people (note that this scale does not have to be limited to Christians). They decide that they’ll accept a certain amount of giving in to temptation over a certain length of time, indefinitely, because they’ve decided that they’ll never have victory over it. Such thinking can lead a person from being contrite  to becoming incorrigible. However, some people may make a few further desperate steps to dealing with the issue of their temptation

AWPATT XIII: December 18-21 (Thoughts 201-204)

A Woman Provokes A Thousand Thoughts: Hub

201 Based in part on past experience and in part on theology, I’m now rigidly conservative with regard to who should pursue whom at the onset of a romantic relationship (if you ask me for my number out of the blue, you’re immediately disqualified). God chose us, we did not choose Him, and based on the Ephesians 5 symbolism comparing husband and wife to Christ and the Church, it is obvious that for a woman to pursue a man, and for the man to accept it, is to demonstrate an ignorance of the mechanism of salvation (esp. as being monergistic), or rebelliousness against God’s loving direction for how to live. It won’t go well for such a couple.

202 But what does pursuit mean? It doesn’t seem to mean showing interest, as indicated in Ruth. It probably doesn’t mean a girl can’t give a guy compliments. But it means she shouldn’t attempt to initiate a relationship {note in the link above that it was Boaz who first showed inordinate kindness to her, and in his speech to her, subtly recognizes the facts that Ruth's mother later points out, that he was in a position to marry her according to the Mosaic Law's institution of Levirate marriage. In other words, you could say that he did in fact initiate this romantic engagement. She responded, and he concluded it}. Unbelievers can desire to be in heaven, and experience awe over what they see in the creation – so you have interest and praise, without the pursuit. Likewise, it is certain that the unbeliever, and unmarried woman, do not, in their attraction, have a desire for the object itself but only their perception of it. They do not have a fully comprehended idea of what they’re getting into when they say they want God, or want a man. If the pursuit is theirs, then unbelievers will try to create God in their image, and young women will try to create a husband in their image. You can’t have a relationship with someone who denies the core essence of your identity. Therefore, God must pursue. And because man is made in the image of God and given the symbolic role of Christ in his relationship with woman, therefore it must be man who pursues the woman.

203 So to the woman who wants to give guys her number, or get theirs, without waiting for them to suggest it; for the woman who tries to corral a man into proposing – if you don’t believe that man should pursue you, how can you believe that Christ pursued us? You have faithlessness to repent of.

204 A lot of the statements I’ve made with respect to veils, jewelry, dating, giving compliments etc throughout the course of this series may seem to be unduly harsh. Not so. This is deadly serious stuff. A person’s approach to relationships can tell you a great deal about their theological understanding, and often merely a cursory evaluation reveals deep and severe problems in it, which only need time to manifest, justifying the concern. Theology affects every aspect of our lives—sanctification does not fail to show evidence everywhere. Consequently, even those who don’t care one iota about Christianity can’t escape the fact that they can be identified on the basis of wrong theology, which shows itself in their life choices and what they may consider innocuous opinions. A woman who chases men is horridly immature, in a spiritual sense at the very least.

It probably would upset a worldly woman that I could spot her and reject her on the basis of how she talks, or the fact that her midriff is exposed, or that she has a tattoo, or a tongue piercing, or that she smokes, or that she drinks, or that she’s obsessed with her phone, indicating addiction or attachment issues, or that she eats far too little in front of others to explain her body weight, indicating a hidden self-control issue, or that she wears tube tops, indicating a lack of self-awareness or care about how she affects others (refer to Thought 145), or that she makes no eye contact at all, indicating lack of confidence and a sense of security in her own identity, or that she stares, indicating rank arrogance and lust, or that she’s obnoxiously loud, indicating once again a lack of self-awareness, confidence, security, or empathy for or interest in others—what’s that but pride, and where is pride in a Christian woman? Getting rejected for what seems like a small thing may be offensive and they may think Christian men shallow, but the fact is that they are the ones who are so shallow that they don’t even know themselves!—or comprehend how bad the “little things” they casually accept about themselves actually are.  They are symptoms of a reality that is bad enough that it renders the intense sort of relationship that comes from Christian commitment utterly impossible, and hence why you don’t see these sort of women sustaining lasting relationships except for emotionally manipulative ones. Should I feel bad for not wanting this? I reject the notion out of hand!

~ Rak Chazak

PS Next AWPATT: Desirable qualities in a woman, from A to Z (and no, it's not "attractive," "beautiful," "cute," "delightful," "fun," "gorgeous," "lovely," "nice," "pretty," etc)

The Sufficiency of Minimalism

Would you  be satisfied with a nearly deistic God? That's not saying He is, but considering how you'd react to a very minimally involved deity is an important thought exercise that can help you evaluate and strengthen your faith.

The Sufficiency of Minimalism

                What if God doesn’t intervene in earthly affairs? What if, after the conclusion of Acts, God neither acts through human nor supernatural agents of change, instead letting everything proceed according to physical laws and human decisions alone? What if every change in a person’s mind, from contrition to conversion to sanctification, is not the result of an active alteration of their mental substrate by the Holy Spirit, but merely a deterministic inevitability resulting from contemplating the truths of the Scriptures? What if God’s irresistible grace, as well as His sanctification, was accomplished not by an act of His in the present, but an act of His in the deep past, which continually effects salvation throughout all time, so that He is still the author of it all, despite no supernatural behavior on the individual or subatomic level?

                Would you still attribute every good thing to God? Would you still give Him the credit? Give Him the glory? Or would it cheapen your understanding of His goodness? Is your faith dependent on a belief in God supernaturally intervening to manipulate world events, subliminally, all of the time and everywhere? As if, perhaps, this is the only way that you can conceptualize Him being in control of everything, or deserving credit for the outcome? If your idea that God plays ‘cellular train conductor’ in people’s brains, or ‘atomic pool shark’ in the particles of earth and sky and sea, were challenged or undermined, would your faith fall apart? This is worth seriously considering.

                I’ll confess: my conception of God’s involvement does include the idea that He bumps this atom here, increasesthat action potential there, annihilates this positron here, raises the thermal energy of that molecule, breaks that peptide bond, induces magnetism in some metal somewhere, alters the velocity of some photon, pulls, shifts, breaks, combines, removes, replaces, diverts, and orchestrates an endless undetectable masterpiece of butterfly effects all over the world to minutely influence world events and accomplish personal and national histories without transgressing the boundary of personal autonomy that He intentionally limits Himself not to.

                But suppose this notion is incorrect? What if He doesn’t make a billion tiny interventions every second? What if He makes none? Or one every year, utilizing much more extended butterfly effects? Does my belief in God’s sovereignty and intimate care for human lives and world events rise and fall with this romantic view of Him as a maestro? No, it does not, and should not. It is my own idea, based on what I know about God’s power and wisdom, but my own idea, nonetheless. Him sovereignly ordaining everything that occurs does not need to mean that he flips a switch every time something happens. He could have planned it out a thousand years earlier, and being infinitely intelligent, perfectly predicted everything that would happen over that time period that led up to that moment. Or, He could have intervened the Planck-second immediately preceding. Whichever is the case, it changes nothing about the fact that it is entirely within His power to do either.

                In the interest of developing a satisfied faith in God, I’ve contemplated ideas like this from time to time, and considered that though God is probably very active—and must, on some level, be, because of His promise of the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit to believers—I should be able to find contentment with the possibility that He’s minimally involved in human affairs, and much more is due to chance and human agency than even I believe.

                When it comes to the bedrock of my faith, I know from the witness of history that He really did come in our likeness to die for our sins in our stead, so that justice could be served and I can be free from His wrath and reconciled to Him as a forgiven, redeemed and beloved son. That is ALL that is necessary to come to an unshakable faith in Him. Everything else is a splendid, wonderful continuation of His grace toward us, sanctifying us from now until the day of His return. But even without this, I have everything I need in order to be accountable to Him, to believe in Him, and to trustingly persevere to be obedient from this point on until the future consummation, even if, hypothetically, my faith received no further encouragement whatsoever, and life was one big struggle to resist despair from constant flaming arrows and assorted spiritual anguish.

                This is being content with as little as possible. When you are content with the least, you will be ever more grateful, the more you receive. The sufficiency of minimalism is not something that should characterize your faith—as resisting more than the essential doctrines of Christianity—but is something that should support your faith, being something in the back of your mind that tells you that no matter how your faith might be shaken as you go along, no matter how much it may be attacked, and how strong the temptation to despair, you know with full confidence that the core of your belief is stronger still, and no matter how wrong everything else you believe may be, no matter how effective the attempts to destroy your faith, nothing will ever be able to change the root facts of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Death Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and on this hinges everything else, so hold on to it no matter what!

                The most minimal truth is the most sufficient. Contentedness with this leads to a lifetime of confidence and overflowing gratefulness at whatever more you receive from God than this knowledge, to strengthen your faith. And when we’re in eternity, and God reveals to us just what the extent of His interaction with physical reality was, we’ll have an endless number of reasons to be awed, thankful and filled with an attitude of worship toward Him for everything He did that we never knew while we walked in the valley.

~ Rak Chazak 

Further reading (very interesting): The Expansion of Space--A Dark Science. Keeping in mind the link above to electron-positron (anti-electron) annihilation, these two excerpts stood out: 

Vacuum energy comes from the spontaneous emission of virtual particle/anti-particle pairs that appear momentarily from small quanta of energy from the vacuum, sort of a quantum foamy stuff, and then these particle pairs self-annihilate releasing the same quanta of energy back into the vacuum. Its energy density is non-zero, in fact, if you estimate it from electron/anti-electron pairs filling a volume on the scale of their Compton wavelength you get an energy density about 48 magnitudes higher than the estimated average mass density of the universe. From this it follows that the matter content of the universe is only a tiny fraction of the total energy, when compared to the vacuum energy. The particular choice of the wavelength one uses for the cut-off energy in the calculation of its energy density has led to a figure as high as 10,120 times the average mass density of the universe.

....

The quantum vacuum impedes the progress of photons through space to the speed, c, and hence it introduces the first “clock” and the forward arrow of time. Empty space would have meant unimpeded photons with infinite speed.

This last sentence is intriguing because of its relevance to Dr. Jason Lisle's Anisotropic Synchrony Convention, a model he lays out where the one-way speed of light is postulated to be infinite, in order to explain why we can observe distant starlight in a young universe. This might be worth devoting a whole article to, itself, some time. 

Pulp Fiction III

Pulp Fiction III

 This is the intellectual property of the author. Permission to reproduce in any format is granted, on the condition that you attribute it to the author and that you do not publish it for personal monetary gain.

‘Swedish people suck! Swedish people suck! Swedish people suck!’ The other boys at the table mobbed the Swedish boy with a chant joined by three or four pairs of fists banging on the table in rhythm. Thinking back to that day, the Polemicist realized that it had never occurred to him that the other 7^th graders were expressing racist sentiment. It seemed more accurate that he was being singled out as an individual, and merely insulted in the same way that people insult one’s mother—attempting to hurt someone’s feelings by verbally abusing people they care about.

            No, rather than the limited concept of racism, which is institutionalized hatred based on ethnic pride on the part of the abusers, this was xenophobia. Fear of that which is strange or unusual, foreign to the experience. Xenophobia isn’t a thing that you can put your finger on, thought the Polemicist. It’s spontaneous and rather than a predetermined organized resistance against a perceived enemy, it’s more of a knee-jerk response. It is the ostracism of someone who does not conform to your expectations. Xenophobia underlies all racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and all other prejudicial ‘isms.’ But it is technically the instinct within the individual that is what is seen manifesting in the second-and-third-order tiers of human activity as more obvious hatreds: bullying, then brawling, then rioting, then war. Racism is limited to distinctly different cultures and people groups, and sexism is limited to gender, but xenophobia covers white, American, middle-class males bullying other white, American, middle-class males. The fact of the Polemicist being Swedish was not something you could see, and it wasn’t, after all, what was seen that was rejected by the other boys. It was his personal uniqueness, his nonconformity.

            He didn’t chase tail, he didn’t care about ingesting substances, he didn’t care about sports, he didn’t dress the same, he didn’t talk the same, and he was ambivalent about gaining peer approval. For that, he was distrusted, because people naturally feel unable or unwilling to trust someone whose behavior they don’t understand. A lot of interpersonal prejudice in modern culture stems more from this instinctual, low-level xenophobic tendency than from an organized, intellectually comprehended, intentional and institutionalized bigotry against whole classes of people by other whole classes. Defining what is really xenophobia as racism does not resolve racism; instead, it conditions people with xenophobia to much more frequently make the leap from petty dislike of some individual to the justifying of vandalism or murder in the service of an imagined class war. And imagined wars, if too many people participate in the imagining of them, become real wars.

            The Polemicist had been the victim of xenophobia in his life, but he was not omniscient, so he could not know if racist or sexist prejudice against him had ever caused him harm. But he was content not knowing. He did not have to know if people treated him despitefully because of his white skin or his genital anatomy. He did not have to hate those people back, so he was content to let it go and think the best of people until it was proved that he should do otherwise. And he slept restfully at night, knowing that God had said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ Keeping no list of wrongs gave him nothing to remind himself to be angry with, and he was consequently much happier than most people he ever spoke to. How he wished that they knew what he knew!

~ Rak Chazak

AWPATT XII: September 17-December 17 (Thoughts 109-200)

A Woman Provokes A Thousand Thoughts: Hub Page

Will mention sexual subjects in connection to marriage.

109 Okay, recap: I’ve criticized veils, expensive dresses, wedding cakes, floral arrangements and hiring a band. Now, is it fine to play music? Certainly. I like music. Note, I didn’t say I like noise. Not all sound constitutes music, and then not all music constitutes pleasant music, or music that would be fitting for a wedding celebration. I would definitely stock a playlist of songs that would preach the Gospel and talk about marriage from a Christian theological perspective. Dave Barnes’ God Gave Me You, Andrew Peterson’s Dancing in the Minefields and World Traveler, Sanctus Real’s Lead Me, and other songs like Love is Not a Fight, Children of God, You Belong to Me, Beloved, and many more, and those are just a sampling of songs remarking on marriage. The wedding is first and foremost an opportunity to preach the Gospel to people who may never willingly sit still and pay attention or visit a church of their own accord. What more powerful way to display the truth of God’s love and grace in salvation than via the single most powerful representation of His nature that there is in this world?

110 One way that the wedding will be a witness to unbelieving family members or friends is by the absence of worldly or otherwise religious traditionally included aspects of the celebration. I’ve already mentioned veils. But the music played and the ritual parts, like traditional words spoken by the officiant and spouses, when not included, will tend to jar those who expect a catholic wedding, or a jewish wedding, or a secular wedding. And that will get their attention. Then the alternative will be presented, and everyone left with a choice.

111 Secular folks (here including those who consider themselves members of churches, and who are probably nominal believers) will probably expect a dance. No dancing at a wedding would be a shock to this culture, which has come to take sensuality for granted to such an extreme that people go to weddings trying to hook up with someone of the opposite sex, or to have fun – really? The wedding of someone else is for the purpose of you having fun?? Not allowing people the chance to exercise this narcissism will be a witness enough to some.

112 Many people are so blind these days that they think priests officiate every wedding. The only major American religion that has “priests” is the Roman Catholic Church, which, since before the 1500s, has been an apostate, anti-Christ religion. The term “priest” is a term that means someone who speaks to God directly. Prior to Jesus’ incarnation, the Israelites had a high priest who would sacrifice for the sins of the people once a year, but when Jesus came, He, functioning as our High Priest, sacrificed once and for all for the sins of those who would believe. Now, the book of Hebrews says, we His followers are a royal priesthood—every one of us. There is no priestly class within Christendom, and the idea that someone else has greater access to God than my bride and I is an offensive and anti-Biblical notion!

113 I struggle with the symbolism of the ringbearer. I don’t see where it’s useful, but it also isn’t clear what it’s supposed to represent in its present use, so it’s unlikely that I’ll be in favor of utilizing such a fixture at my wedding. The rings themselves represent continuity and wholeness and union, more on that below. But if this comes from somewhere, then it is fitting that the union of marriage be symbolized as coming down as a gift from God, so it would make more sense for the pastor to give it to the spouses, or for the rings to be sitting prominently at the front of the church for the whole time until they are put on the bride and groom’s fingers.

114 What would the father giving his daughter to her husband to symbolize? If it is ownership of another person a la slavery, then that's not Biblical, and it must be dispensed with. But actually having an understanding of female submission in the Bible, it's clear as day to me: until marriage, a woman is under the spiritual authority of her father. And when she marries, she comes under the spiritual authority of her husband. She submits to the one, and at a certain point, ceases, and begins to submit to the other as her first and foremost "prophet, priest and king" in the earthly realm, with each of them submitting in turn to God, our true Prophet Priest and King. This could be included in a wedding without having anything to do with ownership, but spiritual authority, and it shows that the bride is a godly woman willing to submit to her father before marriage and her husband in marriage, out of obedience to God.

115 Did you know that wedding rings worn on the finger are a custom popularized by Rome? Rings have been used for a long time to represent engagement, and as far back as Jacob’s marriages to Leah and Rachel, you can see that he gave his wife a nose ring. So rings are Biblical symbolism, and having it on the finger isn’t likely something strange, since nothing is implied to be evil about signet rings of kings, for example. So I have no beef with a ring being the symbol to represent that I am married to my wife.

116 But need it be gold? I think that’s fine, because it represents purity, but for me, personally, I prefer Tungsten. For maximum irony, it’s named after the Swedish words for “heavy rock” by its Swedish discoverer. But it’s one of the densest and strongest non-poisonous metals in the periodic table, and any metal can be pure so long as it’s not alloyed with another element, so the purity element still stands there. But what matters more to me is the symbolism of strength. Our union won’t be tainted by adultery, so it’ll be pure in that respect, but both my wife and I are sinners coming together, and so there is an inherent impurity in our souls, one that Christ has forgiven and is continually healing us from, while promising to remove it completely in the end—it is by His strength that we, two sinners, can come together as one and not be separated. So I like the idea of Tungsten because it will represent that it is God who keeps our marriage together, that He’s at the center of it.

117 Because I really don’t care, I’m not even sure which hand the wedding ring is “supposed to” sit, but I think it’s the right. There is equally valid symbolism for the right and left hand, the right being used in the Bible (‘the wise man’sheart is at his right hand’) to represent control, because most people are right handed, although the left hand is closer to the heart, and I know from Boy Scouts that it was used by Lenape Indians in handshakes to symbolize friendship for this reason. For me, I have spontaneous, occasional, yet persistent flare-ups of skin irritation (apparently a form of Eczema), which my right ring finger tends to bear the brunt of, so I might put it on my left hand for this proximate cause, and justify it with the reasons given.

118 On the other hand (hur hur), there’s a surprise benefit to having the wedding ring on the left hand, if it’s usually on the right—people might be more likely to respect your relationship if it has the appearance to them of being “new,” so that they wouldn’t doubt your passion for each other. Discouraging home-wreckers would be a practical benefit of having the ring on the left hand, without being openly deceitful about it.

119 White wedding dresses were popularized in Victorian England, but white is not the only color that can represent purity. Blue represents water, which hearkens both to water baptism and the Noachian Deluge as further symbols of the washing clean that God accomplishes for us through salvation. More to the point would be the color red, which represents the shed blood of Christ, which itself represents His death, that satisfied the price to be paid for our sins, and made us ‘white as snow’ in the sight of God the Father. I could see my wife perhaps wearing a white dress with a red sash and blue …shawl? Whatever something just covering her shoulders would be called. Or any of the colors by itself; explaining which symbolism is intended would be part of the ceremony and I’ll be curious what her personal choice would be.

120 Of course, there wouldn’t be any alcohol served at the wedding. No open bar, nothing of that sort. That would probably be a shock to some people. Mark this, I’m not among the fundamentalist-baptist sort who make it an article of faith that alcohol is evil. Hardly so, but it’s certainly not necessary nor is it always good for everyone. Besides, I have a preexisting concern for having full control over your mental faculties. Anything that interferes with my ability to think would be bad in my view, sin or not, because nothing good can come from handicapping my ability to make the best decisions with all the information available to me. Alcohol present at my wedding would provide some with an excuse to avoid hearing the Gospel by drinking enough to make them black out or otherwise lose awareness of whatever is being told to them. In this way, the presence of alcohol certainly would be a temptation to sin for some, and that’s why I would not include it.

121 I have no intention to ‘date,’ if dating is seen as a casual relationship with someone without the intention of marriage. If you have this sort of relationship, you’ve already decided that you’re not going to be with them forever (here meaning for the duration of your earthly life), and so you’ve already decided that you’re going to break up with them when you begin dating. What would be the point of such a relationship? “Practice?” Make sure you tell that to him or her when you go out the first time, that you “just want to practice what it’s like to have a real relationship, using this one for make-pretend.” I bet they’ll be thrilled. And if they go along with it, there’re two reasons: 1) they don’t believe you. In other words, they are accusing you of lying, so you already have a lack of trust, which is going to result in disaster 2) they do believe you, but are emotionally damaged and would rather be with someone who will hurt them in the long run rather than take rejection up-front. NEITHER of these situations are positive, and so no matter how you slice it, “dating” without any plan for commitment is futile, self-destructive, insensitive, sadistic, immature, emotionally calamitous and a stupid waste of time. So don’t date.

122 A relationship can culminate in 4 basic ways: stagnation, where it neither grows nor dissolves; break-up; death; or marriage. Seeing as none of the former three are appealing, what would be the point of entering a relationship you were expecting to be doomed from the get-go? Only marriage has any sustaining value to it.

123 So my approach to women is, initially, no different from my approach to men. Talk, see if they enjoy talking back. Get to know them. If you connect well, you can become friends because you build up history and trust (one way to define friendship). This can take place long-distance

124 After that point, the question becomes: do I know enough about this person that I can see them as 1) a desirable marriage partner in general and 2) as compatible with me, in particular? If those are true, courtship can be initiated, which is simply the expressed intent to get to know a person better with the motivation of pursuing marriage. Clear goals. And so it isn't outwardly much different to the world than a friendship. But where it leads is so different from where anything the world offers leads to.

Pulp Fiction II

Pulp Fiction II

 

 This is the intellectual property of the author. Permission to reproduce in any format is granted, on the condition that you attribute it to the author and that you do not publish it for personal monetary gain.

 

            ‘Uber-God is more powerful than God,’ said the Confused Boy. ‘If I can imagine a being that is greater than God in all His attributes, then that being is greater than God and God is not omnipotent, omniscient, et cetera.’

            The Polemicist sat stone-faced. Was this really the best that deductive philosophy had to offer?

            ‘See here.’ The Confused Boy constructed an elaborate line-by-line proof on a notebook paper, using logical operators that the Polemicist did not recognize, because he had not taken Deductive Systems. ‘I define Uber-God as having greater knowledge than God, greater power than God, and of course he is more benevolent than God…now try to defend your God within the context of this proof.’

            ‘Uber-God doesn’t exist.’

            ‘No no no, you’re not doing it right, you illogical fundamentalist. You have to use the proof I gave you to try to argue against your God’s nonexistence.’

            The Polemicist wondered what website Confused Boy had come across late at night and been so impressed with that he was trying to replicate the effect on him by copying the argument verbatim. But had he not considered that what was persuasive to an atheist was hardly persuasive to an intellectually satisfied Christian?

            ‘Simply saying that there’s a greater being than God doesn’t make that being exist,’ replied the Polemicist. ‘It’s like saying you’ll add one to infinity. Being able to put the words “greater than God” together in a sentence doesn’t mean that such a concept is realistically possible.’

            ‘You’re not addressing the argument. And I know you can’t. According to this proof, your God is not all-powerful and thus not worthy of worship.’ The Confused Boy folded his hands in smug confidence.

            The Polemicist was perplexed as to what assumption the Confused Boy was making that led him to think he had his opponent cornered. He tried to explain that imagining an alternate universe with a more powerful all-powerful being was an exercise in futility, because there was no basis for believing that such a universe existed. It was appealing to a hypothetical deity in order to argue against another one. If God was supposedly nonexistent and belief in Him irrational, how much less rational would it be to believe in Uber-God, who was nonexistent to an even greater degree of nonexistence? If you believed God to be a hypothetical concept, and the invocation thereof irrelevant to reality, how could invoking another hypothetical concept to combat this possibly be of any use?

            ‘What would you say to someone who responded that, by definition, Uber-God would be God?’

            ‘Simple. Uber-God’s first article of faith is that the Bible is false. (Eat that, you Bible-thumping bigot).’

            ‘Well, obviously Uber-God is an inferior deity, then, if he denies obvious truths.’ The Polemicist’s smirk pricked at the Confused Boy’s confidence and drove him to take a more aggressive approach. If his opponent did not want to play fair, he would have to spell it out for him.

            ‘God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived, correct?’ The Polemicist would not have put it that way, but assented for the sake of argument, to see where the Confused Boy’s logic would lead. ‘And since I can conceive of something greater than God, then God can’t be the greatest thing that can be conceived. And if He isn’t the greatest thing that can be conceived, then He is not “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” ergo, He is not God. Ergo, since God is not God, God does not exist.’

            The Polemicist was dumbfounded. For a silver bullet, this was among the least impressive proofs against God he’d heard so far, short of the ‘why do males have nipples’ one, perhaps. It hinged on the notion that conceiving something infinite was even possible—and mark, not just conceiving the notion of an infinite, but actually comprehending the infinite as it actually is, which is a big difference! But more than that, the argument seemed to hinge on the expectant belief that the Polemicist was guaranteed to defend the definition of God as ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived.’ The Confused Boy seemed unwilling to accept that The Polemicist wasn’t forced to agree with someone else just because the Confused Boy’s philosophy professor had told him that this argument was the best that Christian philosophy could muster.

            ‘Suppose it’s possible to conceive of something greater than God,’ the Polemicist suggested, ‘for example by scaling up the quantifiable effect of one of God’s attributes.’ It isn’t the case that simply by conceiving it, that something greater can exist. God can be the greatest thing in existence, even if He weren’t the greatest thing you could imagine. Isn’t this true?’

            ‘No, you can’t do that. If God isn’t the greatest thing conceivable, then He isn’t God.’

            ‘Why not? What attribute has He lost?’

            ‘You have to believe this. You have to defend this. You don’t understand the power of this proof because of your backward ignorance.’

            ‘The proof fails because it assumes that something has to exist because you can imagine it. It doesn’t.’

            ‘But that is what you believe! That whatever the greatest thing in existence is, that has to be God!’

            ‘That’s not why I believe God is the greatest being in exis---‘

            ‘---and simply believing He exists doesn’t mean He does!’

            ‘And I fully agree. I believe He exists because He does, not the other way around.’

            ‘You believe “that than which nothing greater can exist” must be God, and now I’ve proven your God not to exist. Uber-God killed your God. You can’t deny this.’ The Confused Boy held firmly to his preexisting conviction that Anselm of Canterbury was the tool of his victory, and that the Polemicist had to agree with Anselm, because he was a Christian, and Christians had to blindly accept what their leaders told them. Every one of them was responsible for agreeing with whatever another one had said. Thinking for oneself was the greatest sin in Christendom, and any believer who did was surely a deceitful hypocrite, or not truly faithful!

            ‘If you say so.’

            The Confused Boy stalked away, sure of himself, and, too busy rehearsing how he would boast of his trouncing the arrogant, hateful gay-basher with the power of education and logic, did not take notice of the ironic satire contained in the Polemicist’s final remark.
 

~ Rak Chazak