CalvinDude.com

I just watched 48 Hours program on the birth of Jesus. I want to know why John Crossan still gets air-time. It’s pathetic.

Oh well. At least they had one token Christian, although they didn’t bother trying to actually present any of the Christian arguments and apologetics surrounding the birth of Jesus. Naturally, they let the skeptics talk on and on without any direct refutation, so the summary of the arguments look a bit like this:

Skeptic: Jesus’ birth was a myth because it matches a Roman myth and because it’s obvious that there’s no such thing as the supernatural because only morons would believe it.

Narrator: These skeptics, like most scholars, agree that the Jesus story in the Gospels is a myth.

Token Christian: I believe the story is true.

And there you have it. They let the skeptics present evidence, but all they let the Token Christian do in response is go around saying, “See, this stuff could have actually happened because there were sheep in Bethlehem.” That’s nice and wonderful, but how about a meaningful response to the septic…er, skeptics? It’s not like there hasn’t ever been any meaningful interaction with these arguments before. But of course CBS wouldn’t want to actually get THAT aired, although everything John Crossan says is de facto Gospel.

Kinda ironic. And by the way, I’m not bashing the Token Christian at all (he was Ben Witherington, in case you were wondering). I haven’t heard of him before, but what he did was basically good. I’m quite sure he probably would have loved to have more of his arguments actually aired, although I suspect he didn’t expect it any more than I would expect a fair treatment in the media if I was on one of their shows (although, honestly, even if I was a “scholar” in one of their recognized fields, I doubt I’d actually go on one of those propoganda shows they call “news”).

Does this mean I’m jaded toward the media? Nope, just realistic. Everyone get back to your Winter Break With Shiny Lights For No Apparent Reason.

The court has ruled on the issue of Intelligent Design in Pennsylvania, yet again proving there are people in this world with no perspective whatsoever. The judge ruled, according to the AP (you can read the article at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179256,00.html ):

“No serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed by members of [ID], including defendants’ expert witnesses,” Jones wrote. He later noted, “Not one defense expert was able to explain how the supernatural action suggested by ID could be anything other than an inherently religious proposition.”

I can’t help but point out that this misses the whole point about whether or not Intelligent Design is true. That is, the court basically ruled that the truth of the theory doesn’t matter. If an Intelligent Designer must be supernatural (although by definition, anything that exists would have to be natural–but why let philosophical terms be defined when we can ignore them for political purposes?) then the theory cannot be taught, even if it is true. Thus, the standard for determing what is taught to our children isn’t truth, but is instead non-religion. Only that which is non-religous can be taught, and there is to be no inquiry into whether or not the non-religious is actually true.

I, for one, would like the judge to explain how it is possible for the law to determine what acts are “supernatural” and what acts are “natural” or how the law can determine what the standards of scientific inquiry are or how the law can determine what constitutes religious or irreligious belief! Until someone can show me where in the world the legal system got the right to determine what is or is not science, religion, philosophy, truth, or reason then this court’s ruling really has no jurisdiction in the first place.

But of course those who argue for the separation of the church and state never bother to consider the separation of the court and science. Science must now bend to the whim of a legal interpretation, and therefore science is no longer science but is instead jurisprudence. I would like all my Objectivist atheist friends to go ahead and explain this double-standard to me. In the meantime, let’s all kow-tow to the gods in the black robes and sacrifice free inquiry on the altar of irreligious tolerance without any bearing on truth. Truth is unimportant, and the court has just proved it.

I have discussed various things from time to time with people who deny Sola Scriptura. Those who most commonly explicitly do this in America today are Mormons and Roman Catholics, although they are by no means the only people who do this. For that matter, there are many people who practically deny Sola Scriptura even while paying lip service to the doctrine.

This morning, I read an interesting passage in First Kings. It is interesting because of the way that it relates to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, not because it explicity teaches this doctrine but because it relates to us the consequences of not believing in Sola Scriptura. See, when someone rejects Sola Scriptura, they must assert some alternate standard of authority in place of Scripture. Thus, if you do not accept the Scripture as the final authority, you must assert another authority like the First Presidency, the Papacy, or Pastor Bob’s interpretation. Some people assume that shifting the authority to a different source also shifts the responsibility to that source. In other words, if you believe something in error then when you die and get to heaven you can simply say, “It is not my fault that I believed this in error. I trusted the word of the Presidency, the Papacy, or the Pastor. Therefore, I bear no responsibility for believing error and the fault lies with my assumed authoritative standard instead of with me.”

The problem with this view is easily demonstrated by 1 Kings 13. To give an overview of the passage, “a man of God” (as the passage describes him) from Judah went to Jeroboam (the first king of Israel after the civil war that divided Israel and Judah) and prophecied against him because Jeroboam was sacrificing to idols. After he did this, Jeroboam was afraid and asked the man of God to come to his house and refresh himself, but the man of God said, “If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you. And I will not eat bread or drink water in this place, for so was it commanded me by the word of the LORD saying, ‘You shall neither eat bread nor drink water nor return by the way that you came’” (1 Kings 13:7-9).

The man of God then departed. As he left, an old prophet who lived in Bethel heard about this man of God and tracked him down. When he found the man, he said, “Come home with me and eat bread” (vs. 15). The man of God declined and stated the commandment of God for his reason. The old prophet then responded: “I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water’” (vs. 18). This, however, was a lie. The old prophet had received no such message from God.

The man of God, however, listened to the old prophet. And when he had eaten with the old prophet, the old prophet cried out to the man of God from Judah and he said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD and have not kept the command that the LORD your God commanded you, but have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water” your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers’” (vs. 21-22). After this, the man of God departed and when he was on the road to return to Judah, he was slain by a lion. The old prophet then picked up the body of the man of God and buried him in his own grave, instructing his sons to bury him by the man of God when he died too.

At first glance, this story doesn’t seem very fair. The old prophet lied to the man of God, and it is the man of God who ends up being punished for believing the lie. And that’s precisely the reason why this passage applies to the idea of Sola Scriptura and extra-biblical authority. The Bible is clear in stating that what it teaches is truth. Each of us is responsible to understand and obey those commands in Scripture. Even if someone happens to be a prophet from God–a man who actually receives revelation from God!–that does not make him authoritative over the commands of God.

In short, what this passage shows is that each of us are responsible to believe correct doctrine, and each of us will be held accountable for not believing the truth. This is irregardless of what any other man says, even if he claims to be speaking for God, and even if at some times he does speak from God, as the old prophet did. We are each responsible to know what God has actually commanded, and being deceived by a lie is no excuse for our disobedience. As such, any extra-Biblical authority that you submit to is irrelevant in determining your status before God. You either obey Him or you disobey Him, and no extra-biblical authority will be able to save you if you have disobeyed God’s commands.