Category Archives: Theology

How Should We Enjoy God? Part 1

The standard answer to this question, from many Christians, is that we enjoy God through prayer, worship, and Bible study. And, those things are definitely important ways to enjoy God. But there is more.

God has given mankind numerous gifts, through his creation (the physical universe and everything in it), that we are meant to enjoy. When we enjoy the gifts God has given us, when we remember that they are his gifts, and when we thank him for those gifts, we are surely enjoying God in a way that pleases him.

Having said that, we all know that there are millions of people who enjoy God’s gifts, but who fail to acknowledge that they are gifts at all. They are like a child who receives a new toy at Christmas, and then plays with the toy for months and never once thinks about who gave it to her.

So what is the proper way to think about enjoying God through his gifts? How do we keep the focus on the giver without taking Him for granted? Randy Alcorn offers some helpful insights in his book Heaven

Suppose you’re sick. Your friend brings a meal. What meets your needs— the meal or the friend? Both. Of course, without your friend, there would be no meal; but even without a meal, you would still treasure your friendship. Hence, your friend is both your higher pleasure and the source of your secondary pleasure (the meal). Likewise, God is the source of all lesser goods, so that when they satisfy us, it’s God himself who satisfies us. (In fact, it’s God who satisfies you by giving you the friend who gives you the meal.)

Some Christians frown upon the pleasures of the physical world, but Alcorn argues this is unbiblical.

Scripture says we are to put our hope not in material things but “in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (1 Timothy 6:17). If he provides everything for our enjoyment, we shouldn’t feel guilty for enjoying it, should we?

Paul says it is demons and liars who portray the physical realm as unspiritual, forbid people from the joys of marriage, including sex, and “order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:3-5).

Alcorn continues:

God isn’t displeased when we enjoy a good meal, marital sex, a football game, a cozy fire, or a good book. He’s not up in Heaven frowning at us and saying , “Stop it— you should only find joy in me.” This would be as foreign to God’s nature as our heavenly Father as it would be to mine as an earthly father if I gave my daughters a Christmas gift and started pouting because they enjoyed it too much. No, I gave the gift to bring joy to them and to me— if they didn’t take pleasure in it, I’d be disappointed. Their pleasure in my gift to them draws them closer to me. I am delighted that they enjoy the gift.

Alcorn warns us:

Because of the current darkness of our hearts, we must be careful not to make idols out of God’s provisions. . . . Of course, if children become so preoccupied with the gift that they walk away from their father and ignore him, that’s different. Though preoccupation with a God-given gift can turn into idolatry, enjoying that same gift with a grateful heart can draw us closer to God.

In part 2, we’ll continue to look at the proper ways to enjoy God through his creation.

How Do Theology and Philosophy Interact?

In my opinion, the greatest Christian thinker of all time, after the apostles died, was Thomas Aquinas. Etienne Gilson, in his work The Christian Philosophy Of St Thomas Aquinas, takes on the task of defining what distinguished theology from philosophy for Aquinas.

This issue comes up again and again when I hear cultists and even Christians claim that Christian teaching was hijacked by philosophy during the Middle Ages. We’re told that Plato and Aristotle took center stage and that biblical revelation was shoved aside.

Is it true that men like Aquinas did not take the Bible seriously, that they placed the philosophies of Plato and Arsitotle in judgment over revealed theological truths?

Gilson explains that in the case of Aquinas, nothing could be further from the truth. So how did Aquinas distinguish between theology and philosophy?

It has become customary to label “theological” any conclusion whose premises presuppose faith in a divinely revealed truth, and to label “philosophical” any conclusion whose premises are purely rational , that is, known by the light of natural reason alone. This is not the point of view stated by St. Thomas himself at the beginning of his Prologue to the Second Book of his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. According to him, the philosopher considers the nature of things as they are in themselves, whereas the theologian considers them in their relation to God conceived as being both their origin and their end.

From this point of view, every conclusion concerning God himself, or the relations of being to God, is theological in its own right. Some of these conclusions presuppose an act of faith in the divine revelation, but some of them do not. All of them are theological; those, among them, which are purely rational, belong to theology no less than the others. The only difference is that, since these do not presuppose faith , they can be extracted from their theological context and judged, from the point of view of natural reason, as purely philosophical conclusions.

To repeat, philosophy considers the “nature of things as they are in themselves” whereas theology considers the nature of things “in their relation to God conceived as being both their origin and their end.” Thus every conclusion about God or about the world in relation to God is theological first and foremost. Any theological conclusion which does not presuppose faith (is purely rational) is also a philosophical conclusion.

Gilson explains why this distinction is important:

This is an extremely important point in that it enables us to understand how strictly metaphysical knowledge can be included within a theological structure without losing its purely philosophical nature. Everything in the Summa [Theologiae, Aquinas’s most famous work,] is theological, yet, elements of genuinely philosophical nature are part and parcel of Thomistic theology precisely because, according to St. Thomas himself, the distinction between theology and philosophy does not adequately answer the distinction between faith and reason.

Now we come to Aquinas’s concerns with mixing philosophy and theology. Gilson writes that critics of Aquinas often misunderstand what Aquinas was trying to do.

According to some of his modern interpreters, St. Thomas thought of himself as a philosopher who was not anxious to compromise the purity of his philosophy by admitting into it the slightest mixture of theology. But as a matter of fact , the real St. Thomas was afraid of doing just the reverse. In the Summa Theologiae, his problem was not how to introduce philosophy into theology without corrupting the essence of philosophy; it was rather how to introduce philosophy into theology without corrupting the essence of theology (emphasis added).

Not only the hostility of the “Biblicists” of his time warned him of the problem , but he was himself quite as much aware of it as they were. And the more freely he made use of philosophy, the more was he aware of the problem. As he himself understands it, theology must be conceived as a science of Revelation. Its source is the word of God. Its basis is faith in the truth of this word. . . . For theologians who were not in the least worried about philosophy, no problem actually arose. Persuaded that they should add nothing human to the bare deposit of revelation, they could rest assured that they were respecting the integrity and the unity of the Sacred Science. They proceeded from faith to faith, by faith.

For St. Thomas Aquinas the problem was rather different. It was a question of how to integrate philosophy into sacred science, not only without allowing either the one or the other to suffer essentially thereby, but to the greater benefit of both. In order to achieve this result, he had to integrate a science of reason with a science of revelation without corrupting at the same time both the purity of reason and the purity of revelation.

Thus Aquinas was eminently aware of the dangers of mixing theology and philosophy. Rather than placing philosophy above theology, he did just the opposite.  One can argue about how successful he was, but there can be no argument that Aquinas allowed philosophical considerations to knowingly trump revealed biblical truth.

Did God Harden Pharaoh’s Heart Against His Will?

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In verse 21 of Exodus 4, God tells Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.” This raises the question: how can God blame Pharaoh for his stubbornness if God is the one making Pharaoh stubborn?

The answer lies in the rest of the Book of Exodus. Nine times the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is ascribed to God (4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8). Another nine times the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is blamed on Pharaoh himself (7:13-14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34-35). In addition, Pharaoh alone hardens his heart during the first five plagues, and it is not until the sixth plague that God confirms Pharaoh’s choice to be stubborn.

The Bible, therefore, teaches that Pharaoh is responsible for hardening his own heart and that God is confirming what Pharaoh wants to do. It is not the case that God is forcing Pharaoh to be stubborn when Pharaoh really wants to be agreeable and compliant with Moses’ demands. There is no evidence for this in the text.

Is Your Church Open-Minded?

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Recently my wife and I were in Charleston, SC on a weekend getaway. If you’ve never been to Charleston, it is famous for its horse-drawn carriage rides around the historic downtown area of the city. We took one of these carriage rides and had a great time listening to our guide as we meandered through the sights of Charleston.

One thing the guide said to us, though, provoked me. He was commenting on the various churches in the city, and he mentioned that he preferred the more open-minded churches in the city and he recommended a couple of them to us if we wanted to attend a service Sunday morning.

My wife also caught his comments and we started talking later about what he meant. Given our extended conversations with him, it became clear that he was referring to the liberal Episcopal churches in Charleston as more open-minded, and the conservative Baptist churches as, well, not.

What I found interesting is that the guide assumed that a person’s first criterion for choosing a church is that it should be open-minded. That strikes me as so odd. My first criterion for choosing a church is the following: Are they teaching the truth about God? 

G. K. Chesterton once said, “Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” I am far more concerned with knowing what a church has shut its mind on than what it has opened it to.

Churches are supposed to teach us about ultimate reality, about God himself. They are supposed to addressed the most serious questions that human beings face in this life and the next. What churches teach have a tremendous impact on our morality, wisdom, and final destinies.

So why in the world would I want to attend a church that is open-minded about all those things? I want answers. I want the truth because I want my life to conform to the way the world really is. An open-minded church is a church that is failing to serve its congregation.

Is your church open-minded about God, sin, the afterlife, morality, and justice? If so, then get out of there as quick as you can. You have chosen badly.

Who Made God? (Again)

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

If God created everything, then who created God?

The Christian answer to this question is that nobody created God because He is the one self-existent, uncaused, uncreated, eternal Being. Only things that come into existence need a cause, but God never came into existence. He has always existed and will always exist.

It is impossible for God not to exist.  While the universe and everything in it came into existence, and therefore all need a cause, God is the only Being that exists necessarily and eternally.

To ask a Christian who made God, then, is to ask who made the un-made or who created the un-created. It’s a nonsense question.

How Does Job Slam the “Prosperity Gospel?”

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

I cringe when I hear preachers or evangelists promise their followers that if they will believe in Jesus, their lives will be blessed with material wealth and prosperity. I have decided that the only way the “prosperity gospel” can flourish is if absolutely nobody in those churches where it is preached reads the Book of Job.

See, the idea behind the prosperity gospel is that if you move from a sinful life to faith in Jesus (which gives you a righteous standing before God), your material wealth will immediately increase. Faith = righteousness = wealth.

How does the Book of Job flatly contradict this theology? Well, it’s simple. Job is called the most righteous God-believing man alive and God allows Satan to take away all of Job’s material wealth, not to mention all of his children. Let’s look at the verses.

In verses 1-3, look at what kind of man Job is:

In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

To strengthen the point, God himself says of Job, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

The author of Job is trying to make it clear that Job is a paragon of righteousness. Job is the kind of man who God wishes all of us would be like. So, according to the prosperity gospel Job should continue to prosper and never suffer. As long as he is blameless and upright, God will bless him.

But look what happens to Job next. God allows Satan to take all of Job’s blessings away in Job 1:13-19. First, Job’s oxen and donkeys are carried off by Sabean marauders, and the servants watching over them are killed. Second, Job’s sheep and more servants are killed by fire from heaven. Third, another group of marauders, the Chaldeans, steal Job’s camels and kill yet more of his servants. Fourth, Job’s children are all killed when a windstorm destroys the house they are feasting in.

Where is the prosperity? Where is the good life that God owes Job for his righteousness? What is truly fascinating is that for the next 30 chapters of the book, three of Job’s friends preach the prosperity gospel to him! What is their theology? Their theology is simple: God always and immediately punishes the wicked and always and immediately blesses the righteous.

But we know their theology is false because Job is a righteous man, and yet he is suffering enormously. Job continuously argues his case to his friends, but they will not listen. At the end of the book, God finally weighs in and agrees with Job that his friends’ theology is completely wrong. God says to one of the three friends, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”

Here is the bottom line: a person’s righteous standing before God is no guarantee of continuous material blessings. Job was as righteous a man as was alive at that time, and yet God, through Satan, took away all of Job’s material blessings. So if you believe in the prosperity gospel, I have a simple question for you: Are you as righteous as Job?

How Does John Calvin Explain the Virtuous Non-Christian?

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

John Calvin and his theological offspring are famous for the doctrine of total depravity. What does this doctrine mean?

Theologian R. C. Sproul, himself a Calvinist, describes total depravity as follows in his Essential Truths of the Christian Faith:

The Bible teaches the total depravity of the human race. Total depravity means radical corruption. We must be careful to note the difference between total depravity and utter depravity. To be utterly depraved is to be as wicked as one could possibly be. Hitler was extremely depraved, but he could have been worse than he was.

I am a sinner. Yet I could sin more often and more severely than I actually do. I am not utterly depraved, but I am totally depraved. For total depravity means that I and everyone else are depraved or corrupt in the totality of our being. There is no part of us that is left untouched by sin. Our minds, our wills, and our bodies are affected by evil. We speak sinful words, do sinful deeds, have impure thoughts. Our very bodies suffer from the ravages of sin.

Sproul goes on to quote Romans 3:10-12:

There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.

This doctrine often leads to the question, “If people are totally depraved, sinful to our core, then how do we explain seemingly virtuous non-Christians, people who have never been regenerated by the Holy Spirit? Doesn’t the doctrine of total depravity tell us that these people shouldn’t exist?”

Not exactly. In order to answer this question, it is useful to look at the words of Calvin from his most famous literary work, Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin admits about the virtuous non-Christian,

Such examples, then, seem to warn us against supposing that the nature of man is utterly vicious, since, under its guidance, some have not only excelled in illustrious deeds, but conducted themselves most honourably through the whole course of their lives.

Calvin’s response is that the ability of a person to live virtuously at all is due to God’s special grace upon that individual in order to restrain his sinful nature.  Citing the many kinds of wickedness found in man, Calvin argues that

in the elect, God cures these diseases in the mode which will shortly be explained; in others, he only lays them under such restraint as may prevent them from breaking forth to a degree incompatible with the preservation of the established order of things.

Without God’s special grace, man would degenerate into complete corruption and the world would plunge into chaos. Calvin further explains natural men’s true motives for seeking good:

Some are restrained only by shame, others by a fear of the laws, from breaking out into many kinds of wickedness. Some aspire to an honest life, as deeming it most conducive to their interest, while others are raised above the vulgar lot, that, by the dignity of their station, they may keep inferiors to their duty.

The man that appears to live more virtuously owes all of this virtue to God’s special grace.  God distributes his special grace in a way that prevents the world from descending into chaos.  If we admit that these people exist, must we say that there is something good in them that earns them credit before God?  No.  Calvin argues,

But as those endued with the greatest talents were always impelled by the greatest ambitions (a stain which defiles all virtues and makes them lose all favour in the sight of God), so we cannot set any value on anything that seems praiseworthy in ungodly men.

In addition, righteousness is absent “when there is no zeal for the glory of God, and there is no such zeal in those whom he has not regenerated by his Spirit.”  He concludes, “The virtues which deceive us by an empty show may have their praise in civil society and the common intercourse of life, but before the judgment-seat of God they will be of no value to establish a claim of righteousness.”

Here is the bottom line. Calvin allows that some men live lives of relative virtue.  These men, however, owe all their excellence to God’s special grace, a grace that restrains their wicked natures like a bridle.  Calvin also argues that since men only pursue the good for their own personal ambitions, they merit no righteousness before God.

Although I do not consider myself a 5-point Calvinist, I think that Calvin’s ideas on man’s sinful nature are mostly correct. The regenerated Christian lives his life in a completely different way from the unregenerated non-Christian. I see this every day.

I am curious to know what you think about this doctrine and whether you think all men are born sinful at their core. Please leave comments!

#2 Post of 2013 – If God Cannot Change, Then Why Should We Pray?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

The Bible teaches, and theology argues, that God cannot change. This is called divine immutability. But if God cannot change, then why do we pray to him? After all, when we pray, aren’t we trying to change God’s mind?

Norm Geisler answers this question in his Systematic Theology, Volume Two: God, Creation. Listen to what he says:

God is omniscient . . . , and an all-knowing Being cannot change His mind. If He does, He is not really all-knowing. Therefore, God cannot change His mind in answer to prayer.

When we pray (or have prayed), God not only knew what we were going to pray, but He ordained our prayer as a means of accomplishing His purpose. Prayer is not a means by which we change God; it is a means by which God changes us.

Prayer is not a means of our overcoming God’s reluctance; it is a way for God to take hold of our willingness. Prayer is not a means of getting our will done in heaven, but a means of God getting His will done on earth.

If you think about it for a minute, we don’t want to change God’s mind anyway. After all, who knows what is best? Us or God? Geisler reminds us of why we should rejoice in the fact that God is immutable:

Since God is unchangeable, we can trust His Word: “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Num. 23:19).

Also, we can trust God’s promises completely: “In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end” (Ps. 102:25–27).

Further, we can be sure of our salvation, because “if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Tim. 2:13). What is more, God’s immutability provides an anchor for our souls: “Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged” (Heb. 6:17–18).

Finally, we have a stable foundation for service. Paul wrote, “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58).

God is unchanging and we can all give praise for that. I don’t know about you, but I would have a hard time worshiping a God whose mind I could change.

#3 Post of 2013 – If God Can Kill, Why Can’t We?

Critics of Christianity sometimes point to passages in the Bible where God takes human life, and they ask, “Isn’t God breaking his own commandment to not kill?” If God can ignore the sixth commandment, then isn’t it hypocritical for him to expect us to obey it?

Does this argument really work, though? No. It fails in multiple ways.

First, the sixth commandment is not a blanket command to never take human life. It is a command to not take human life without proper justification. This can be clearly seen by reading the commandment in context with the rest of the Bible. God allows human life to be taken in self-defense and he upholds the right of the state to administer capital punishment. Clearly, then, the sixth commandment does not simply mean, “Never kill for any reason whatsoever.”

Second, the ten commandments were God’s commands to mankind, so they are not to be applied to God in the same way they are applied to us. God is infinite in being; we are not. God is the first cause of everything that exists; we are not. God is the creator (efficient cause) of human life; we are not. God is all-knowing; we are not. God is all-wise; we are not.

Third, since God possesses divine attributes that we do not possess, it is a gross error to compare God’s taking human life with our taking human life. As the guarantor of life after death, philosopher Paul Copan reminds us that “any harm caused [by God] due to specific purposes in a specific context would be overshadowed by divine benefits in the afterlife.”

This is a crucial point: God promises an afterlife for everyone. Only he can do that, as no human has that power. As the all-wise, all-knowing guarantor of the afterlife, he is uniquely justified in taking human life.

Analogously, we grant judges the power to send people to prison because they are in a unique position to know the facts of the case, and they are uniquely trained to know and administer the law. We don’t allow random citizens to sentence criminals, as they lack the knowledge and experience to imprison people in a just way. Power over human life is granted depending on the knowledge and wisdom of the one who would be in power.

Why can’t we kill? Because we lack God’s knowledge, his wisdom, and his creative power. We are finite beings who see through a glass darkly. That is why we leave life and death decisions to God.

Why Is the God of the Old Testament Worthy of Worship? His Mercy

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Skeptics of Christianity love to point out all the difficult passages in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. By noting these difficult passages, skeptics explicitly or implicitly imply that Christians are foolish (or even deranged) for worshiping the God described in the Old Testament.

My problem with this implication is that the number of difficult passages are dwarfed by the number of passages that clearly describe the greatness of God. These passages come in a wide variety and they are found all over the Old Testament. The skeptic’s approach is, therefore, totally unbalanced – it does not take into consideration the totality of Scripture.

So, to the skeptics who question why I worship the God described in the Old Testament, it’s not only his wisdom, his majesty, his beauty, his holiness, his moral perfection, his truthfulness, and his love, but his mercy.

The Old Testament affirms in many places that God is merciful.  In fact, contrary to skeptics, God’s mercy is mentioned far more in the OT than most other of God’s attributes.

According to Norman Geisler in his Systematic Theology, Volume Two: God, Creation, the mercy of God is exhibited in numerous ways, as seen below.

How does the Old Testament connect God with mercy?

God’s Mercy Is Rooted in His Goodness and Love

“[He is] maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex. 34:7).

“The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.… In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now” (Num. 14:18–19).

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good” (1 Chron. 16:34).

“They raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang: ‘He is good’ ” (2 Chron. 5:13).

God’s Mercy Is Great

“Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life” (Gen. 19:19).

“In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now” (Num. 14:19).

“Solomon answered, ‘You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day’ ” (1 Kings 3:6).

“Remember me for this also, O my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love” (Neh. 13:22).

“Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember me for this also, O my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love” (Neh. 13:22).

God’s Mercy Is Everlasting

“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands” (Deut. 7:9).

“He gives his king great victories; he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever” (2 Sam. 22:51).

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever” (1 Chron. 16:34).

“They raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang, ‘He is good; his love endures forever.’ Then the temple of the LORD was filled with a cloud” (2 Chron. 5:13).

“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy” (Micah 7:18).

God’s Mercy Is Faithful

“If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers” (Deut. 7:12).

“O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below—you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way” (1 Kings 8:23).

“Then I said, ‘O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands’ ” (Neh. 1:5).

“Now therefore, O our God, the great, mighty and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes” (Neh. 9:32).