Does Reasonable Nonbelief Exist?
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Statement of the Problem 1
Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF OPEN THEISM WITH THE DOCTRINE OF INERRANCY A Report Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Theology by Stuart M. Mattfield 29 December 2014 Copyright © 2015 by Stuart M. Mattfield All Rights Reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As with all things, the first-fruits of my praise goes to God: Father, Son and Spirit. I pray this work brings Him glory and honor. To my love and wife, Heidi Ann: You have been my calm, my sanity, my helpful critic, and my biggest support. Thank you and I love you. To my kids: Madison, Samantha, and Nick: Thank you for your patience, your humor, and your love. Thank you to Dr. Kevin King and Dr. Dan Mitchell. I greatly appreciate your mentorship and patience through this process. iii ABSTRACT The primary purpose of this thesis is to show that the doctrine of open theism denies the doctrine of inerrancy. Specifically open theism falsely interprets Scriptural references to God’s Divine omniscience and sovereignty, and conversely ignores the weighty Scriptural references to those two attributes which attribute perfection and completeness in a manner which open theism explicitly denies. While the doctrine of inerrancy has been hotly debated since the Enlightenment, and mostly so through the modern and postmodern eras, it may be argued that there has been a traditional understanding of the Bible’s inerrancy that is drawn from Scripture, and has been held since the early church fathers up to today’s conservative theologians. This view was codified in October, 1978 in the form of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. -
The Heritage of Non-Theistic Belief in China
The Heritage of Non-theistic Belief in China Joseph A. Adler Kenyon College Presented to the international conference, "Toward a Reasonable World: The Heritage of Western Humanism, Skepticism, and Freethought" (San Diego, September 2011) Naturalism and humanism have long histories in China, side-by-side with a long history of theistic belief. In this paper I will first sketch the early naturalistic and humanistic traditions in Chinese thought. I will then focus on the synthesis of these perspectives in Neo-Confucian religious thought. I will argue that these forms of non-theistic belief should be considered aspects of Chinese religion, not a separate realm of philosophy. Confucianism, in other words, is a fully religious humanism, not a "secular humanism." The religion of China has traditionally been characterized as having three major strands, the "three religions" (literally "three teachings" or san jiao) of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Buddhism, of course, originated in India in the 5th century BCE and first began to take root in China in the 1st century CE, so in terms of early Chinese thought it is something of a latecomer. Confucianism and Daoism began to take shape between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE. But these traditions developed in the context of Chinese "popular religion" (also called folk religion or local religion), which may be considered a fourth strand of Chinese religion. And until the early 20th century there was yet a fifth: state religion, or the "state cult," which had close relations very early with both Daoism and Confucianism, but after the 2nd century BCE became associated primarily (but loosely) with Confucianism. -
A Scriptural and Philosophical Evaluation of the Open Model of God As an Ontological Necessity and Its Compatibility with Evangelical Theology
Ouachita Baptist University Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita Honors Theses Carl Goodson Honors Program 2007 A Scriptural and Philosophical Evaluation of the Open Model of God as an Ontological Necessity and Its Compatibility with Evangelical Theology Richard Garrett Ham Jr. Ouachita Baptist University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/honors_theses Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Practical Theology Commons Recommended Citation Ham, Richard Garrett Jr., "A Scriptural and Philosophical Evaluation of the Open Model of God as an Ontological Necessity and Its Compatibility with Evangelical Theology" (2007). Honors Theses. 44. https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/honors_theses/44 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Carl Goodson Honors Program at Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons @ Ouachita. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CI IAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. ! Til£ EV.- \ 'I'GELICAL U'I'OEHSTAND II\"G OF SCIHPTUJn: ............................................................................................ 1 1'l1e Nature ofScriplllre ... ................................................................................................................... .................. 3 The Purpose ofScripture. ....... .... ...................... -
IS OPEN THEISM EVANGELICAL? . . . Bruce A. Ware
JETS 45/2 (June 2002) 193–212 DEFINING EVANGELICALISM’S BOUNDARIES THEOLOGICALLY: IS OPEN THEISM EVANGELICAL? bruce a. ware* i. introduction Clark Pinnock is exactly right. After noting (correctly) in his Most Moved Mover that Arminians and Augustinians have co-existed throughout much of the church’s history, and that a number of evangelical theologians today (and not just open theists) are working toward refinements in an evangeli- cal doctrine of God, he asks, “Why draw the line at foreknowledge?”1 A few pages later, he returns to this question: “In raising the issue of the divine foreknowledge, we have not transgressed some rule of theological discourse and placed ourselves outside the pale of orthodoxy. Why can an evangelical not propose a different view of this matter? What church council has de- clared it to be impossible? Since when has this become the criterion of being orthodox or unorthodox, evangelical or not evangelical?”2 What does Pinnock mean when he says that open theists have raised the issue of divine foreknowledge? Simply this: Open theism affirms God’s ex- haustive knowledge of the past and present, but it denies exhaustive divine foreknowledge, in that it denies that God knows—or can know—the future free decisions and actions of his moral creatures, even while it affirms that God knows all future possibilities and all divinely determined and logically- necessary future actualities. As William Hasker explains, “Since the future is genuinely open, since it is possible for a free agent to act in any of several different ways, it follows that it is not possible for God to have complete and exhaustive knowledge of the entire future.”3 So, the specific denial of exhaustive divine foreknowledge is embraced in open theism as central and essential to its own identity. -
Ancient Origins of Religious Universalism Peter R
Ancient Origins of Religious Universalism Peter R. Bedford, Union College (A précis, of sorts) It is commonly considered By HeBrew BiBle scholars that monotheism in Ancient Israel—and By ‘monotheism’ I mean the Belief that there is only one God and that other ‘gods’ people worship are in fact figments of human imagination, idols that do not exist— emerged around the middle of the first millennium BCE in the context of Israel’s political subjugation and exile at the hands of successive Near Eastern empires, the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-BaBylonian, and the Achaemenid Persian empires. Imperialism is key here since the political sovereignty of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah was undermined By these empires and with it the royal-state ideology that averred that Yahweh, the god of these kingdoms, was their sovereign lord who superintended their affairs and well-being. The political power of these foreign empires compromised the authority of Yahweh since it very much looked like their gods had greater authority than the god of Israel and Judah and that these imperial gods dictated what would happen to Israel and Judah, their kings and their peoples. One reaction of a suBjugated people to the demonstrated power of successive empires and their chief deities—Assur for Assyria, Marduk for Babylonia, Ahura Mazda for Persia—is simply to recognize that your own god is one among many who serves the Great God of the empire in the heavenly court, and so suBjugated peoples here on earth must serve the Great King of the empire who acts as the imperial god’s vicegerent. -
Leading a Polytheistic Faith to the Monotheistic
The Asbury JOllmaI66/2:77-91 © 2011 "\sbury Theological Seminary Leading a PolYtheistic Faith to the Monotheistic God' A S tu4J in I dentijjing Barriers to the Gospel in a Chinese Buddhist Community and W qys to Overcome those Barriers Abstract This article is written for the purpose of exploring a way to lead a polytheistic faith, prevalent in the local Chinese Buddhist community (LCBC) in Brunei, to the reality of a monotheistic God as revealed in the Bible (1 Corinthians 8:6). It serves as a guide for the local Chinese church (CC) to lead the LCBC to see that God as a Creator is sufficient to be their God. This article identifies the need of a missiological package in order to lead the LCBC to Christ. The CC needs to assist the LCBC to become receptive before the core of the gospel message is proclaimed to the community. This article thus presents a missiological package which consists of ministries of witnessing Christ with good conduct, building good relations, taking dialogic action, establishing a well-organized team, contextualizing the gospel critically, directing the community to the Father of all, and applying consensus and pluralism in mission. Keywords: Chinese Buddhism, Chinese culture, worldview, Christian mission, evangelism, critical contextualization, and consensus and pluralism. Agnes N. A. Woo received her doctorate in missiology from "\sbury Theological Seminary in Wihnore, Kentucky. 77 78 I The Asbllry JOllrnal 66/ 2 (2011) The Yellow River is a place where the Chinese can trace their origin, a place where all the Chinese ancestors lived, and a place which tile Chinese should call home .. -
Pentecostalism and Shamanism in Asia and Beyond: an Inter-Disciplinary Analysis
Pentecostalism and Shamanism in Asia and Beyond An Inter-disciplinary Analysis Alena Govorounova “To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.” Isaac Newton, Third Law of Motion, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica “The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony, and all things take place by strife.” Heraclitus of Ephesus, On Nature Erich Neumann suggests in The Origins and History of Con- sciousness that human consciousness is subjected to the constant process of centroversion and differentiation (Neumann 1973, 261). This tendency of human thought—to constantly strive toward polarities and reorganize itself again as a holistic mode—seems to pertain to all layers of human cog- nitive architecture, from archetypal pre-reflective self-awareness to highly analytical interpretative supra-consciousness. It is reflected in the evolution of cultures and civilizations and it seems to be the driving force behind his- * Alena Govorounova is a Research Associate at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture. The quotations from the Bible are from the niv (New International Version, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984). 54 alena govorounova | 55 torical changes in the intellectual climate and scientific paradigm shifts (see Kuhn 1962). As Friedrich Nietzsche (1999 [1888]; 1966 [1886]) once ironi- cally observed, we are doomed to think in opposites and controversies, we are trapped in categorical dualisms of “good and evil,” we are conditioned by contrast-based human language, where each unit of meaning is defined against what it is not. We are carried away in the endless play of différance1 in search for identity and meaning and we need the Other to define who we are. -
Proof for the Existence of God Developed by Saint Augustine
Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Master's Theses Theses and Dissertations 1948 The "Psychological" Proof For the Existence of God Developed By Saint Augustine Patrick J. Kremer Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Kremer, Patrick J., "The "Psychological" Proof For the Existence of God Developed By Saint Augustine" (1948). Master's Theses. 250. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/250 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1948 Patrick J. Kremer THE 11 PSYCHOLOGI CAL" PROOF FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD DEVELOPED BY SAINT AUGUSTINE BY PATRICK J. KREMER, S.J. • A THESIS SUmiTTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQ.UIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE 01<' MASTER OF ARTS IN LOYOLA UNIVERSITY DEC:D.1BER 1948 VITA AUCTORIS Patrick J. Kremer, S.J., was born in Detroit, Michigan, June 25, 1919. He attended Visitation Grammar School, and in June, 1935, was graduated from Visitation High School, Detroit, Michigan. In September, 1935, he entered the University of Detroit, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in June, 1939. He entered the Milford Novitiate of the Society of Jesus in September, 1939, and spent three years there. He studied at West Baden College Branch of Loyola University from 1942 to 1944, and has been enrolled in the Loyola University Graduate School since September, 1942. -
Pantheism, Its Story and Significance Religions Ancient and Modern
Pantheism, Its Story and Significance Religions Ancient And Modern J. Allanson Picton The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pantheism, Its Story and Significance by J. Allanson Picton This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Pantheism, Its Story and Significance Religions Ancient And Modern Author: J. Allanson Picton Release Date: February 10, 2004 [EBook #11015] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PANTHEISM *** Produced by Garrett Alley and PG Distributed Proofreaders PANTHEISM By J. ALLANSON PICTON RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN PANTHEISM Its Story and Significance RELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. _Foolscap 8vo. 1s. net per volume_. It is intended in this series to present to a large public the SALIENT FEATURES, first of the GREAT RELIGIONS, secondly of the GREAT Livros Grátis http://www.livrosgratis.com.br Milhares de livros grátis para download. PHILOSOPHIES, and thirdly of the GREAT LITERARY and ARTISTIC REPUTATIONS of the Human Race. PANTHEISM: ITS STORY AND SIGNIFICANCE. By J. ALLANSON PICTON, M.A. Author of _The Religion of the Universe_, etc. RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE. By Miss JANE HARRISON, Fellow of Newnham College, Author of _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, etc. ANIMISM. By EDWARD CLODD, Author of _Pioneers of Evolution_. RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA. By H.A. GILES, M.A., LL.D. (Aberd.), Professor of Chinese at Cambridge University. * * * * * _The following Volumes are in preparation_: ISLAM. -
Open Theism's Attack on the Atonement*
TMSJ 12/1 (Spring 2001) 3-13 OPEN THEISM’S ATTACK ON THE ATONEMENT* John MacArthur President and Professor of Pastoral Ministries Open theism arose in evangelicalism over a decade ago when evangelicals posited a God to whom one can easily relate and who is manageable in place of a God who punishes sinners for their sin. This they did by proposing a model of Christ’s atonement that was not substitutionary. To do so they adopted the model of the 16th-century Socinian heresy, which taught that God could forgive without the payment of a ransom. The biblical doctrine, however, is that Christ’s atonement was substitutionary, a teaching that was not immediately defined in the early church, but which Anselm stated clearly during the 16th century. Open theists on the other hand tend to vacillate between the inadequate positions of Abelard and Grotius in their views of the atonement. Because of their distorted views of the atonement, open theists do not belong in the ranks of evangelicalism. * * * * * More than a decade ago a controversial article in Christianity Today heralded the rise of open theism. The article, “Evangelical Megashift,” was written by Robert Brow, a prominent Canadian theologian. Brow described a radical change looming on the evangelical horizon—a “megashift” toward “new-model” thinking, away from classical theism (which Brow labeled “old-model” theology).1 What the article outlined was the very movement that today is known as the “open” view of God, or “open theism.” Although Brow himself is a vocal advocate of open theism, his 1990 article neither championed nor condemned the megashift. -
Which Deity Is Calling You?
Which Deity is CAlling You? How to Use Palmistry to Find Your Patron God and Goddess Summer of Magic 2018 | Rachel Erazo How to Use Palmistry to Find Your Patron Deity When I first started energy work, let alone talking to spirits… I didn’t know what the hell I was. I came from a religiously-strict background where everything was decided for me, from the clothes I wore to how I spent my Monday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. When I broke away from “the truth”, I was anti- established religion. I was happy with being spiritual – I knew there was something out there! – but I didn’t make an effort to find out. I didn't like believing I needed a name for myself I didn't want to believe in a higher power or being; they never saved me when I called for them I was afraid of creating a regular practice of anything, just in case it turned into a strict dogma At the same time, I missed having a label. It was important to me, especially with an overbearing family, to have something to call what I believe. SUMMER OF MAGIC 2018 | RACHEL ERAZO How to Use Palmistry to Find Your Patron Deity As I started working on my energy and changing my life, I realized I needed a steady foundation for what I was. I could be as eclectic as I wanted to be AND have a name. Once I sat down to figure out my personal beliefs by reading mythology, studying history, and experiencing different streams of thought through literature I realized something incredibly valuable: In order to be a successful, powerful psychic you need a basis of belief. -
Review of David Penchansky, Twilight of the Gods
BOOK REVIEWS REVIEW OF DAVID PENCHANSKY, TWILIGHT OF THE GODS Michael Carden Honorary Research Adviser, School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, University of Qld, Australia. Correspondence to Michael Carden: [email protected] Michael Carden reviews David Penchansky’s Twilight of the Gods: Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox; 2005. In this short volume, Penchansky embarks on a ‘subversive reading’ (91) of the Hebrew scriptures to argue that ‘there exist in the Bible divine forces other than Yahweh’ (51). By doing so he is challenging both the two millennia long reading tradition that assumes the Hebrew scriptures are wholly monotheistic in origin and theme and that this monotheism is fully in accord with the later readers’ monotheisms. He also challenges modern scholarly assumptions of a linear evolution of Israelite paganism/polytheism into radical or exclusive monotheism – Yahweh aloneism. Instead, through a series of readings of biblical texts, Penchansky argues that the reli- gious world encountered here is a variegated one ranging from polytheism and henotheism to varieties of inclusive monotheism and exclusive monotheism of the Yahweh alone variety. Con- sequently, the story of Israelite religion is not one of a smooth progress to one God but more a ‘struggle… an ongoing process, with back and forth movement’ (xii). Penchansky’s readings are grouped into two sections – the Gods of Ancient Israel and the Goddesses of Ancient Israel respectively. The first is the longer of the two with five chapters ad- dressing a number of narratives and biblical polemics. In the first chapter, Penchansky presents the story in 2 Kings 3 as one that clearly does not fit a monotheistic worldview.