This is an apologetics book to help parents discuss these ideas with their kids. I think this book began as a Sunday School class. There's a lot of foThis is an apologetics book to help parents discuss these ideas with their kids. I think this book began as a Sunday School class. There's a lot of focus on evidence, and some of the folks mentioned include Ross, Meyer, Craig, Lennox, Koukl, Plantinga, Tozer, and Carson.
Each chapter concludes with practical advice for opening, advancing, and applying the conversation....more
Fascinating interview here. Chapter 1 appeared in a different form here. See ch. 2 here and part of ch. 3 here.
Related essay here; I heard Boersma preFascinating interview here. Chapter 1 appeared in a different form here. See ch. 2 here and part of ch. 3 here.
Related essay here; I heard Boersma present this lecture at Baylor in 2018.
Ch. 1: Does Sex Have to Mean Something? If human nature connects the procreative act with actual procreation (if sex is connected to children), can the human will override human nature? In other words, if human nature says that sex has meaning, can the human will decide otherwise? [Since the sexual act literally involves the planting of a seed, you have to work hard to argue that sex doesn't mean anything. Seeds mean.] JBud outlines three problems with saying that sex doesn't have to mean anything: 1) meaning isn't arbitrary; 2) human nature is what we are, not something that we can discard; and 3) the human will is part of human nature. Freedom and happiness lie in recognizing the structures of reality and working to unfold the meanings and purposes that lie there.
Ch. 2: The Meaning of the Sexual Powers There are clear signs that the sexual revolution has brought severe consequences, both physically and relationally. Besides the proliferation of STDs, we also have testimony that hookup culture is not ultimately satisfying. "Some ways of living comport with our design. Others don't." JBud addresses three objections to talking about meaning and purpose: 1) meanings/purposes of sexual powers are subjective (but we don't say that about other powers, such as respiratory powers); 2) is doesn't imply ought (but we can tell if something such as an eye is functioning well or not, and therefore it's good to pursue the best function of that thing, given its apparent design); 3) "natural function" is a better label than "natural purpose" since objects don't have minds (but things can have purposes, which are signified by their functions). JBud sees two meanings or purposes of the sexual powers: 1) procreation, and 2) union. He says that pleasure is not a purpose, although it is a motive. [What about WSC 1: Man's primary purpose is to . . . enjoy God forever.] Our rebellion against design is apparent when we try to separate procreation from union. In terms of corners of a quadrant, some people pursue only the pleasure (A), some mistake the physical action for the union (B), some pursue union without procreation (C), and some use technology to pursue procreation without union (D). JBud summarizes the natural laws of sex: design points to purpose, and the purposes of the sexual powers are procreation and union. In a nutshell, ch. 2 is about the meaning of the activity of sex (what it's for). Ch. 3 will be about the differences between the two human sexes: male and female.
Ch. 3: The Meaning of Sexual Differences Many folks claim that men and women aren't different—arguing that apparent differences are due only to upbringing (which raises a serious question of why basically all cultures for thousands of years have persisted in raising children this way). They may concede that men and women are different biologically, but they want to insist that their brains are the same. JBud takes some time to enumerate many of the documented differences between male and female brains. JBud mentions "four large truths" that, when missed, contribute to difficulties in thinking about the differences between the sexes: 1) the duality of nature (different facets, but equally valuable); 2) duality of path (developmental trajectories); 3) body and soul unity; and 4) polaric complementarity. We shouldn't reduce humanity to exclusive body (materialists) or exclusive mind (angelists). Psychological tests don't always explain results well; for example, Myers-Briggs says that men prefer thinking, and women prefer feeling—but we are all thinking and feeling all the time. Sexual differences are not culturally conditioned; rather, those differences are more pronounced in poor countries and less pronounced in wealthy countries. JBud lists results of survey scores, showing specific differences between men and women (e.g., re: agreeableness or assertiveness, or the fact that women tend to care more about a partner's ambition or socioeconomic status [which Aaron Renn points to here]); but these differences explain surface details and not the fundamental differences. The danger of reducing sexual difference to individual qualities is that we risk being unable to make distinctions between other categories, such as human and nonhuman. JBud defines "woman" as "a human being of that sex whose members are potentially mothers." Potentiality is not just physical possibility, but rather refers to something like an inbuilt meaning or purpose (56). Alice von Hildebrand: Every woman is called to be a biological, psychological, or spiritual mother. Men tend to specialize on single tasks and be prone to abstraction and outward-directedness, while women tend to generalize, multitask, and be prone to the concrete and inward-directedness. Men desire to fight and conquer—these impulses are not wrong but need to be directed in appropriate ways. We need to recover a delight in differences.
Ch. 4: The Meaning of Sexual Love JBud distinguished between different kinds of love (see diagram on p. 75). Charity is an act of the will and encompasses erotic charity (sexual love) and romantic love. None of this is enchantment, or infatuation. JBud points out eight "moments" of romantic love: four Dantean (from La Vita Nuova) and four Shulammitic (from the Song of Solomon).
Ch. 5: The Meaning of Sexual Beauty JBud distinguishes sexual beauty from "sexiness" (96). When it comes to sexual beauty, JBud is referring to femininity or womanliness, which entails the potentiality of motherhood (meaning things like "warmth, tendermindedness, and sensitivity to the emotions of others"). When it comes to "sexiness," JBud distinguishes dehumanized sexiness from humanized sexiness. "[H]umanized sexiness is the outward sign of the underlying reality that I have called sexual beauty" (99). It is possible to appreciate sexual beauty without believing that it's all about sex—it's possible not to be a greedy person "who cannot admire anything without wanting to have it as [his] own" (99). JBud spends a little time discussing types of signs, including natural, adventitious, and communicative. [He seems to say that sexual beauty necessarily leads to sexiness, but I'm not convinced that Mother Theresa was sexy, even in the fully humanized sense.]
Ch. 6: The Meaning of Sexual Purity Purity applies to both married and unmarried folks, and it's not inherently negative but rather a pursuit of beauty and integrity. Avoiding marriage because one doesn't feel ready for it does not mean that the same person is ready for living a pure single life. Purity is best understood from the inside—one needs to experience it to understand and appreciate its benefits. JBud paints two pictures of a pure soul: 1) as a garden in a castle (more closely aligned with female intuition of guarding), and 2) as a rider, horse, and lion (more closely aligned with male sense of mastering). (JBud connects the rider/horse/lion to the Platonic divisions of the soul, which have bodily connections: head/stomach/heart.) Purity comprises many virtues, but JBud focuses on decorum (fitting conduct), modesty (respect for how easily appetites can be provoked), and temperance (balance). JBud discusses the "sweet disciplines" of single life, then gets into the unique struggles of men and women in a fallen world.
Ch. 7: Transcendence After summarizing the first six chapters, JBud discusses perfect or unknown happiness before stating explicitly what he has been only hinting at throughout the book: nature points beyond itself. More specifically, human sexual love (even or perhaps especially in its imperfection and insufficiency) points to divine love....more
Joe discusses the book here, suggesting that our technological culture gives rise to the idea that truly real things are material and manipulable; he Joe discusses the book here, suggesting that our technological culture gives rise to the idea that truly real things are material and manipulable; he also tries to deflate the idea that atheism is the most natural default position; toward the end of the book, he asks how it would help if God were more "obvious" (neither his dwelling in a cloud with Israel nor the the Holy Spirit's ministry to the NT church seemed to make those cultures super devout); a big goal of the book is to push back against a tendency to valorize doubt (while recognizing that doubt is understandable). More info here.
Positive review here (compares it to A Secular Age and says it's better than The Benedict Option). Horton calls it a "must-read."
Chapter 1: Introductory Reflections Joe explores the psychological pull of atheism, which happens even for Christians at times. With Taylor, Joe distinguishes the "Where are you, God?" of the psalmist (for whom the question of God's existence was not serious), from today's Christians, who feel a real defensiveness in the face of secular society, where belief in God is not assumed but merely one option among many (p. 4). As William James might put it, atheism is a "live option" these days in a way that belief in Superman is not (p. 5).
Chapter 2: Modernity and Divine Absence Belief in God actually is a unique problem in modern times, requiring effort instead of being obvious or a default position. One proof is the number of anxious-seeming apologetics works that feel the need to defend the belief in God because His presence is no longer taken for granted. Such works sometimes also speak of recovering what has been lost, as if so much ground has been given away that we barely are allowed even to speak of our subjective, personal experience of belief. There is a sense of defensiveness and fragility to the Christian faith. Joe mentions several films in which the universe seems indifferent to humanity (pp. 12–14).
Some people say that the belief-in-God-is-difficult phenomenon is plausible because atheism is true. [Why is it plausible to think that the sky is blue? Because it is.] This explanation omits the reality that many initially plausible explanations are not ultimately true (pp. 19–21).
Two other ways of dealing with the belief-in-God-is-difficult phenomenon are to say that atheists have intellectual problems (bad ideas) or will problems (rebellion, having reasons to want atheism to be true). While this may be true, we cannot say that Christian belief is merely a matter of the mind or will, because the faith of many Christians includes thoughts and desires that are not strictly connected to clear thinking and desiring; for example, the belief of some Christians (who are true Christians) may be based on using God as a crutch [an intellectual problem?], or being afraid of the alternative [a will problem?]. Additionally, these two explanations (intellectual problems and will problems) don't account for the facts that 1) people who intellectually assent to theism still struggle with the suspicion that atheism might be true, and 2) being in ethical tension with God (being a rebel) doesn't necessarily correspond to disbelieving in Him (demons—James 2:19) (pp. 21–22).
Joe is nervous about those who insist that Christian belief depends on conversion, because he feels that this reduces the truth claims of Christianity to subjective experience (a "retreat to commitment," to use Bartley's book title), making persuasion depend on reality glasses that are not publicly accessible (pp. 22–23). [This sounds like a rejection of presuppositional apologetics.] Joe is similarly nervous about those who insist that we need an objective basis for morality, as if moral experience is subjective without such a ground (pp. 23–24). [I don't understand this concern.]
Chapter 3: The Silencing of God The point of this chapter is to show the intellectual plausibility of atheism, even if one ultimately rejects it. The first part discusses the issue of causality, showing that throughout history, there's at least a plausible narrative of materialist/naturalist explanations overtaking religious explanations (e.g., geocentric vs. heliocentric theories). On pp. 33–34, he seems to agree that ID commits the "god of the gaps" fallacy [although Meyer disagrees]. The second part of the chapter discusses philosophical and historical retorts to modern materialism, and Joe later provides problems with those retorts.
The philosophical retort to materialism uses Aristotle's four causes and ultimately argues that nothing in our universe can be reduced to purely material causes. Anything that exists is contingent and must rely on something else (which is itself the ground of existence) for existence. To say otherwise is incoherent. The historical retort is basically that there has never been (historically) a truly critical evaluation of Aristotle. These retorts, while helpful, are inadequate and unpersuasive to many. The philosophical retort has a hard time standing up to Enlightenment criticism (ignore philosophical speculation and believe only what you can observe), and the historical retort doesn't account for why people eventually abandoned Aristotelian philosophy (if there was no critique, then what happened?). Joe briefly gets into medieval enchantment (the universe as a chorus), in contrast to a modern mechanistic view (p. 51).
Shifts in how we perceived reality occurred when we became more able to control nature as we control tools. Disease and threats of nature (e.g., droughts) became more distant because of medicine and infrastructures, rendering "agentic" aspects of the cosmos more invisible. Correlations between technological advances and the plausibility of materialism include the parallel increase in the use of the scientific method and what appeared to be its payoff (technological control over nature); for example, the Enlightenment occurred roughly around the same time as the Industrial Revolution (18c/19c), and a comfortable lifestyle is often synonymous with materialist assumptions. Of course, correlation does not imply causation. But Joe argues that viewing nature as a tool to manipulate for personal gain is a cause with an effect: it renders the cosmos into something passive which humanity shapes. Technology mediates our sense of reality and our imagination (placing us in a kind of bubble)—it becomes easier to view ourselves as the ones in control (see Ellul, Postman, etc.). The need for God seems less imminent. Dystopian fiction messes with the bubble somewhat, introducing a natural crisis that destroys humanity's sense of technological control.
Chapter 4: Seeking, Finding, and Being Found Joe warns against romanticizing the allegedly enchanted past, which was often filled with superstition. After all, neither New Testament folks nor medieval folks were less prone to error, despite being "closer" to the enchanted time when the god-man walked among us. Any attempt to recover the past, which could be fine [think of adults recovering a childlike wonder at our world], should be done with maturity and with thanksgiving for legitimate advances we've made. He uses "second naiveté" (p. 64) positively.
Joe recommends three spheres of activity as we move forward: remembering why we believe what we do, participating in the life of the local church, and practicing spiritual disciplines that reorient our desires.
In particular, three things to remember are that God is pure act, he is for us in Christ, and we are guilty before him. In discussing the first point, Joe gets into the problem of evil. It's not punting to recognize that finite creatures will experience mystery in a world created by an infinite Creator. In discussing the second point, Joe uses Keller to show that we know a bad argument for the existence of evil: God doesn't care. Christ's death shows us this. We are guilty, but many of the world's sages cannot acknowledge this fundamental problem, as they nevertheless offer solutions. No world literature acknowledges human guilt and shows a God willing to take the punishment himself. Honestly, such a story is almost too implausible to believe. The last few pages of this chapter are powerful.
Chapter 5: Concluding Reflections The Bible shows God to be a God who comes and goes. But his absence is a way for us to develop trust. God made us to be contingent, developing, maturing creatures who grow in endurance. Presence can't be a given, taken for granted. We seek, ultimately realizing that we are being sought (middle voice).
-- On a personal level, one of the benefits of thinking about why atheism seems more plausible these days is that it can reframe one's evangelistic attitude. Westboro Baptists (or whoever) may be right in using Romans 1 to think of atheists as rebels, but is that attitude going to be persuasive? An attitude that looks at the situation and acknowledges that "it may be more difficult to be a Christian in an age filled with technologies that make us feel self-sufficient" could come across to an unbeliever as a genuine attempt to be understanding and sympathetic, and it could have a softening effect. This doesn't excuse the rebellion that atheism certainly is, but a change in posture could be used by the Holy Spirit to persuade someone who may otherwise be resistant to "you rebel" language. Perhaps an analogy could be a crime of passion. A man shouldn't murder another man, but if a husband comes home to find his wife with another man, the murder is—to some narrow extent—understandable, if only in the sense that the husband had unique factors working hard against him. Similarly, it's possible that living in an age filled with technology contributes to factors that make belief in God more of an effort, and conceding this fact could lead to a more compassionate evangelism.
Another benefit of thinking about the plausibility of atheism is that it's helpful even as a Christian to consider how reality is mediated, for example, through technology. I don't wake up every morning and fervently thank God for keeping me safe during the night, providing my food and water for the day, etc. This is largely because I often don't feel my need for God. I intellectually assent to the reality that God protects and provides, but I often take that protection and provision for granted, because in a wealthy and technologically advanced culture, it's easy to do so; technology makes them feel like givens. Surely the magic box that is the iPhone has some effect in orienting us to our world, and it's probably more often than not a device that contributes to a condition of being incurvatus in se. Being aware of this tendency is perhaps half the battle, and the solution need not be to abandon technological tools....more
Listen to a brief discussion of Two Kingdom theology here. Here's more on the consequences when the church is the church.
2.5 stars, mostly because of Listen to a brief discussion of Two Kingdom theology here. Here's more on the consequences when the church is the church.
2.5 stars, mostly because of 2K stuff.
Introduction Many Xns consider "secular" things necessary evils or useless distractions from true Xnity, and the hymns "This World Is Not My Home" & "This Is My Father's World" appear (& are) contradictory, if they take the time to think about it (9). This book is not a work of deep scholarship [I do wish there were more citations], but rather intended for a general audience. Horton wants to guard against too much integration of faith & life & too much effort in making things distinctively Xn (12). When Horton says "church," he refers to the institution, not individual Xns.
Chapter 1: How to Be a Worldly Christian The first chapter is very good most of the way through, as he argues that God is sovereign (Satan not the god of this world), & that Xns (especially since the Reformation) have pursued excellence in the family, art, music, literature, science, education, & other areas. There's also an interesting section on Kuyper. But this is where he undoes the good of the early parts of the chapter. Horton hamstrings Kuyper's concept of sphere sovereignty by relegating it to the individual lives of believers (32). Horton prefers rigid boundaries between Christ's lordship in redemption & His lordship in creation. Pluralism is so prevalent (33) that, for Horton, Christendom is an empty dream & not worth anyone's efforts, including Christ's. The bad guys are the Xns caught up in the Christian Right (19).
Chapter 2: Sphere Sovereignty: Minding Our Own Business Olasky's endorsement on the back is telling: watch here (23:40–29:16) to see Olasky & Wilson go back & forth about how much Xns should expect to change culture (go back to 12:07 for a fuller context). The subtitle of this chapter is telling as well, but Horton is adamant that "minding our own business" is not escapism (38). Horton is right to urge against an over-dependence on politics (36–37), but when he argues that the institutional church should certainly not be involved in politics*, he often seems to imply that individual Xns who work for the common good in politics are not really doing God's work. Horton seems to assume that nations are neutral/good enough to be fine without being distinctively Xn, & that civil duties have no morality attached to them (39–40, 47). I once heard Leithart say that Luther said something like this: a magistrate doesn't need Jesus to be a good magistrate.
Horton summarizes Niebuhr's 1951 classic, Christ and Culture (see my review here), although Horton's summary of the "Christ above culture" position is a little fuzzy, & he makes no allowance for postmil folks, even in the "Christ the transformer of culture" position (47–49). Horton ultimately advocates a mixture of "Christ and culture in paradox" (2K) & "Christ the transformer of culture" (51). See pp. 49–50 for Horton's defense of a perpetual position of exile.
See here (1:30–1:46) for a video where Horton tells Keller that the institutional church has a limited calling—you know, like the Great Commission. Chandler & Keller push back & say that, while the institution church must be careful about statements that it makes (e.g., on climate change)—so as to guard against a loss of confidence if/when the church is proven wrong—pastors nevertheless have a responsibility to equip/disciple people to go out into the world & be transformational in their spheres.
*I wonder if Horton would approve of a hypothetical well-known pastor (obviously a leader in the institutional church) who made an appearance at a pro-life rally. Trueman says that Xns who do pro-life work shouldn't do so as Xns, but merely as civilians. Is it possible for a well-known pastor to do anything "merely" as a civilian? In the above video with Horton, Keller, & Chandler, Keller says that it's practically impossible for a pastor to do something as a mere citizen (not because the pastor doesn't want to, but because people are just always going to see him as a spokesperson for the church).
Chapter 3: "Vain Philosophy": A Cop-Out for Anti-Intellectualism? Horton says some good things (based on Augustine) in response to Turtullian's separatism. But Horton makes a little too much of the point that the Bible's scope is limited (e.g., the Bible doesn't tell us how to treat diabetes). He uses an example of dying to make his case (p. 62), but he assumes that an unsaved doctor in a country that for centuries has been shaped by biblical principles would act the same way as an unsaved doctor in a country without that cultural history. For example, a Scandinavian country that has abandoned biblical principles may allow doctors to urge euthanasia as a way to conserve resources & prematurely end the lives of suffering patients. These two doctors—both unsaved—make different particular choices based on different general principles. My point is that while the Bible may not speak to every particular, its general principles have particular consequences for societies that obey or ignore them. (Horton uses the language of ultimate & proximate [p. 63]. For more on that issue, see here.)
In this chapter, Horton also makes some standard 2K claims, asserting the neutrality of areas (such as philosophy, music, poetry, & fiction) & arguing that there is no need to "redeem" those disciplines (pp. 70–71). However, by mocking the idea of "Christian philosophy," Horton ignores the fact that someone's Xnity will (or ought to) influence how he does philosophy. It's a fluke if an unbeliever reaches similar conclusions, because plenty of unbelievers don't reach similar conclusions. Unbelieving philosophers who reach similar conclusions have likely been influenced by Xn cultures. Examples of God's common grace toward unbelievers exist, but it's inaccurate to claim that one's Xnity makes no difference in secular areas. I understand the desire to avoid slapping "Christian" on everything, but it's a mistake to swing to the other extreme & say that there is no need for Xns to reach into disciplines affected by the fall & adjust their fundamental principles. They are not fine the way they are (& the extent to which they get close to being fine is most likely a tribute to the influence that Xnity has had on cultures throughout the centuries).
I'd argue that being a Xn composition professor is not only possible, but is also a good thing. The fact that unbelieving composition professors get some/many things right doesn't mean that they always will, or that other unbelieving composition professors will get nearly as many things right. A blind man at a gun range might hit the bullseye, but it's an accident, & there's no reason to expect it to happen consistently. Furthermore, if a culture is such that unbelieving composition professors teach their students to be generally charitable to opposing viewpoints, that's not necessarily a sign that the discipline of composition will never need a thorough transformation. It simply means that at that point in time, the culture is such (likely because of the influence of Xnity for centuries) that even unbelieving liberal professors see the value of tolerance in academic writing. However, it's entirely possible for a culture to change in such a way that tolerance is no longer a civic virtue. In fact, it's common these days for conservatives to observe that political liberals aren't as liberal as they used to be, in the classical sense that they value a variety of viewpoints. It's not a stretch to say that some unbelieving composition professors may militate against tolerance for conservative or Xn viewpoints, in which case a distinctly Xn way of teaching English would become more apparent. (This matter is far easier to prove when it comes to literature.)
Chapter 4: Christianity and the Arts A problem that Horton seems to be addressing is people who feel the burden to make their art (or interpret art) in a very churchy way—a way that kind of ruins it. (For example, a dad who is always making his kids tell him the worldview of whatever movie they've just watched could quickly become very tiresome. This is related to the Jesus Juke.) While I want to affirm that this is a real problem, I cannot go so far as to say that Xn who are artists have no responsibilities (Makoto Fujimura is excellent on this point). I don't think appreciating art for art's sake is very Xn. The best literature, for example, fortifies us to continuing working in this world. Some stories don't tell the truth about the world: for example, those that urge readers to trust their hearts or look inside themselves for answers. The same thing goes for food. A Xn chef doesn't need to bring out a steak in the shape of a cross, but at the same time, a thinking Xn is going to think about how portion size, food sources, healthy options, etc. are affecting customers. (In a real sense, culinary artists are literally shaping others.) We are always being shaped, & we need to recognize that as we participate in culture and as we create culture.
Horton argues that Bach was recognized as a talented musician outside the church (74). But does that have anything to do with the religious state of the culture? Horton is willing to admit that writers' worldviews come through in their secular (not explicitly religious) writing—e.g., Stephen Crane & George MacDonald are clearly different (78)—yet he still wants to maintain that distinctively Xn fiction is necessarily problematic. He's thinking of kitschy art (e.g., CCM), & I don't disagree with him there. (The Lewis quote [84] is tricky, because while he says that consciously edifying art is bad art, elsewhere he admits to intentionally smuggling theology through his fiction.) But I would still argue that there are ways for Xns to be Xn in their secular artistry (music, fiction, etc.), & still be respected artists (N. D. Wilson comes to mind). Horton says that Milton, Bunyan, Handel, & Rembrandt are examples of Xns who didn't make "Christian art," but rather were "simply Christians who created good art" (82), as if "good art" were this neutral category that anyone can achieve, regardless of worldview. While I acknowledge that because of common grace, unbelievers can create art that is worthy of enjoyment & reflection, it's not clear to me that there is nothing explicitly Xn about the work of the four artists that Horton mentions. They were Xns who created Xn works of art, which became classics in large part because the culture was so heavily influenced by Xnity (see my comments in Ch. 3). It's common these days to disdain products of Western civilization precisely because of their Xn nature (see 91), so it's nonsense to say that unbelievers are always going to appreciate art that is objectively good because they're just naturally fair-minded people. That's assigning far too much neutrality to unbelievers.
Horton stresses the distinction between art for church & art for culture—we judge them by very different criteria (94). Art for culture should not have any religious motives behind it, apparently (83). Horton is right to say that Xns are not bound to creating art that is explicitly Xn (91), but his implication that a Xn worldview will have no affect on someone's artistic endeavors is flawed. His concession that I mentioned above (78) does not go far enough, because he keeps repeating this category of "simply good art," as if it's a neutral category that anyone can achieve & that stands alone as "good," without that goodness being determined by Xnity. In other words, I'd argue that any work of art as an unbeliever is good only to the extent that it conforms to (general) Xn principles. Explain why a secular work of art is "good," & I'll show you how it points to Xn truth. Some may argue that it's creational truth, not Xn truth, but my response is that because of the fall, creational truth is apprehended best by Xns. The extent to which unbelievers apprehend creational truth is the extent to which God allows them to think like Xns.
It may help to distinguish between good & Good. Goodness is one of the Transcendentals, along with Truth & Beauty. I'm arguing that whereas Good art is always good, you cannot call something Good if it is merely good. No one can argue that in some technical ways (photography, etc.), pornography can be Good. It's not neutral. Similarly, as Jamie Smith has argued in You Are What You Love (185–86), we need Christian philosophers, & thank God for the ones we have.
On the plus side, Horton quotes from Lewis's Taliessen Through Logres & English Literature in the Sixteenth Century.
Chapter 5: Art in the Believer's Life Random comments: Introductory analysis of Hawthorne's "The Artist of the Beautiful," which embodies the Romantic privileging of the spiritual over the material. Hawthorne thought that it was a shame that artists couldn't pursue beauty without being forced into explaining how it's useful/practical. Both extremes are harmful: thinking that art is essentially spiritual & only for the elite, or thinking that art always must be reduced to moral propositions. Reformation education allowed people to participate in literature, art, music, etc. Benefits of reading include entertainment, education, & empathy. Beyond general comments, the Bible provides little guidance for evaluating art. Some un-Xn works of art are nevertheless worth of appreciation for the way they capture the human experience. Storytellers ought to cultivate the habit of telling the whole story, like Scripture does: the good, bad, & ugly. References to Donne, Herbert, Milton, Bunyan, & Spenser (111–12).
Chapter 6: Christianity and Modern Science: Can't We Be Friends? Random comments: Horton, like many others (Kuyper, Jaki, Polkinghorne, Kaiser, Merton, Spitz), attributes the flourishing of modern science to the Reformation (cf. pp. 201–4). Book of nature & book of Scripture. Reference to Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions & paradigm shifts. Enlightenment thinkers assumed that science could answer ultimate questions. Naturalism ironically assumes order but posits chaos (117). Kaiser's "four theological foundations upon which science flowered": "the comprehensibility of the world, the unity of heaven & earth, the relative autonomy of nature, and the ministry of healing and restoration" (119). Horton elaborates on these points for half the chapter. Horton uses his 2K system to guard against the church's making scientific declarations that it has no business making (see 135). Horton describes Reid's Scottish Common Sense Realism (SCSR) as a response to Kant's noumenal/phenomenal split. Kant's rationalism, Hegel's idealism, & Derrida's deconstruction are all pitted against SCSR, which leads to Horton's support for Old Princeton's (Warfield/Hodges) evidentialist apologetics (129–34). Mitchell: It's question-begging to assume that theism isn't true if it can't be proven by materialist principles (131). Horton makes some helpful points here (e.g., faith is not irrational), but he's very optimistic about the neutral ground on which believers & unbelievers can participate, as if all you have to do is present enough evidence, & then voilà, agreement! He acknowledges that there are other apologetic approaches (presuppositional, classical), but he prefers the evidence as a way to show the common person the compatibility of science & faith. Ch. 6 in Keller's The Reason for God might have some good connections to this chapter.
Chapter 7: Working for the Weekend Random comments: Reference to Max Weber's work (& some problems with it) as well as Leland Ryken's. "It is theology that gives meaning to every activity of human existence." Horton is very opposed to the idea of a Xn empire in America. When Horton wants the institutional church to "be the church," he means this: preaching the Word faithfully, administering the sacraments, & practicing church discipline (142). Horton is happy to talk about Xn individuals being shaped by the institutional church & going out into the world, but as he's written in previous chapters, he's against being distinctively Xn in "common" areas, like, basically everything (plumbing, art, etc.). (Horton even says that believers & unbelievers parent on the same common basis [188]. Yikes.) Avoid apathy & triumphalism (147). Take rest seriously (148–54). Horton rightly focuses on the family & discusses activities: Lord's Day, evening meal (catechesis is primarily the parents' job, not the church's), family night, & reading aloud. Don't let even church activities crowd out family time. Marriage is good (158).
Chapter 8: A World Gone Crazy The rejection of God coincides with the horrors of the 20c [causation, not simply correlation]. Horton locates modernity at the Renaissance/Enlightenment & says it continues to today; he defines it as a belief in progress & universal reason. Horton's admittedly reductionistic history (167) moves from Joachim of Fiore to the Anabaptists to Hegel's & Marx's dialectic, & briefly mentions Adam Smith (industrial capitalism), Dewey (modern education), Freud (psychology), Schleiermacher (theological liberalism), & Darwin (evolution). Horton moves to Hume's empiricism & Kant's rationalism. Horton discusses some of the results of modernity, then looks at the place of evangelicals in the midst of modernity.
Conclusion Horton uses Spener's pietism to discuss one of the dangers of being in the world: being completely separated from the world (think of Tertullian). The other danger is worldliness (think of Justin Martyr's heavy reliance on Greek philosophy). The rest of the chapter is a primer on a Xn worldview (how to be in the world as a Xn), with a Creation-Fall-Redemption structure. Horton is much more careful than typical Contemporary Grace Movement people when he talks about sanctification, but he gets back into the anti-kingdom building (184, 187, 189–96) in this chapter. Permanent exile is a big thing for 2K folks; it's consistent with their amillennialism. The book ends with lots of 2K stuff; I've never understood why amillennialists/2K folks urge transformative activities or think it's possible (203).
As in Ch. 7, Horton mentions the common ground on which believers & unbelievers function (189–96), including parenting (188). We don't need the Bible to tell us how to do "common" things, apparently (194–95). But I'm not sure why Creational categories are thought of as neutral. They're good (Gen. 1). Unbelievers act according to the Fall, while Xns act according to Redemption, which is a movement back to the goodness of Creation. The reason to call Creational things Redemptive (or Xn) now is that Christ gets us back to Creation....more
Introduction 1: cf. the 1755 Lisbon earthquake 2: Macbeth quote 3: take life seriously, but don't despair bc of suffering—we need spiritual help 4–5: people reject God bc of suffering, but they also find Him thru it; CSL: pain is God shouting 5–6: suffering in OT/NT 6: Kellers' personal suffering (cf. the beginning of Prayer); joy thru suffering 6–7: S. Weil says suffering makes God seem absent—Ps. 34 says that even when God seems absent, He isn't 7: it's difficult but necessary to be philosophical about this topic 7–9: Keller doesn't want to be one-dimensional, so the book has 3 parts: "problem of evil" (more abstract), Bible/personal, practical 10: Jesus suffered for us & suffers with us
Part 1: Understanding the Furnace Ch. 1: The Cultures of Suffering 13: suffering of Keller's father 14: Western culture is terrible at dealing w/ suffering; Berger: other cultures found meaning in suffering (see n15) [some find this observation to be insensitive toward a modern audience, but Keller is not advocating a response to suffering that says "just get over it"; it's simply a historical fact that other cultures have better understood suffering to be an expected part of life; see p. 114 for nuance]; ressentiment & suffering (Nietzsche) 15–16: Tom Shippey: older cultures were less afraid of suffering than we are 17–20: 4 ways that society has responded to suffering: moralistic (you bring suffering on yourself; karma), self-transcendent (reduce desire, the source of your disappointment; Buddhism; Stoicism), fatalistic (can't fight impersonal fate; Islam; Norse cultures; n25: Berger puts Calvinism here), & dualistic (good & evil are locked in eternal struggle; Persian Zoarastrianism); differences & similarities; chart on p. 20 20–21: Western culture is more secular/naturalistic (Dawkins's "pitiless indifference"; Housman's poetry) 23–27: suffering as an interruption; cure seems to be to treat the symptoms & avoid/lessen suffering as much as possible 25–26: Lewis's Abolition of Man; Taylor's A Secular Age ("the anthropocentric turn") 28: revised chart (with secularism added) 28–31: superiority of Xnity 29: Solzhenitsyn's quote about the line dividing good & evil 31-34: forgiveness guards against bitterness; fairy tales include tragedies that make protagonists stronger
Ch. 2: The Victory of Christianity 35–36: philosophy teaches us to be our own physicians & face death (Cicero) 37: science can tell us what is, but not what ought to be; we'll look at ancient, medieval, & modern views 37–39: Greek Stoics & the Logos (impersonal divine rational structure); the mind perceives the order of the universe; face death by accepting fate, privilege reason over emotion, & think of death as transformation (joining the universe) 39–41: Cicero & Seneca were Romans who were influenced by the Stoics; Hinduism & Buddhism—differences are an illusion (see n71 for Buddhism as pantheism); overcome suffering by detaching your heart; for Stoics & Buddhists, hope is a killer 41–47 (early church fathers): Xn apologists argued that Xnity provided better answers for suffering, & that the lives of Xns proved it; Ignatius, Polycarp, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine: Xs suffer & die better than pagans; Xnity allowed room for sorrow, & provided a basis for hope; John co-opts the Logos & calls it a person; don't necessarily love things less, but love God more; Boethius & Wheel of Fortune/chance (see n88); bodily resurrection; Gregory the Great on Job 48–53 (Luther): medieval (Catholic) view of meriting Heaven by suffering well (Paltz); suffering empties us of pride & makes us rely on God; "theology of glory" vs. "theology of the cross"; Anfectungen 53–56 (modernity): Charles Taylor & the "Immanent Frame" (secularity, porous/buffered, new sense of self, religious options, controlling our destinies); Deism (God exists to fulfill me); 1755 Lisbon earthquake & Voltaire; "problem of evil" was new (now we question God's goodness & existence); we prize our own reason so much that we assume we can understand suffering (but people used to assume that they just couldn't understand God's ways) 57–60: Delbanco & the death of Satan; Christian Smith & "moralistic, therapeutic deism"; Xn beliefs that help with suffering: personal & omnipotent God, Jesus' suffering, assurance of salvation through Jesus, & bodily resurrection; as we grow in importance in our own eyes, suffering becomes more intolerable 61–63: doctor loses a son, & the community gathered around
Ch. 3: The Challenge of the Secular 64–66: religious nature of Newtown memorial services (2012); religion offers more community; "humanism suffers...from the valorization of the individual" (Freedman) 68–69: social justice movements have tended to have religious bases (history); secularism has no objective morality (philosophy) 70: living for happiness or living for meaning 72–73: families that are grateful (after the fact) for children with disabilities 73–74: the secular account of suffering reduces the cause to victimization; secular attempt to eliminate suffering is naively optimistic 75–77: Delbanco's book about cultural narratives that provide hope & cohesion (the US narrative has shifted from God, to country, to self); de Tocqueville & American individualism; suicide becomes more of an option when someone (whose meaning derives from personal happiness) is denied that happiness [some find this to be offensive, but 1) Keller is not saying that everyone who commits suicide is selfish, & 2) Keller is not shying away from the obvious fact that sin can lead to suicide] 77: suffering is at the heart of Xnity 80: suffering is how we understand God better & develop virtues
Ch. 4: The Problem of Evil 85: historically, this "problem" goes back through Hume to Epicurus (God's willingness/goodness & ability/power) 86: Keller didn't start with this chapter bc it would've given the impression that only Xnity has a problem bc of evil (but secularism does too, & the problem is far greater) 87: evil is a problem for people who think highly of their rational capabilities; cultural biases help to form our opinions 88–89: logical argument (certainty) vs. evidential argument (probability); Plantinga showed that since God could have a morally justified reason to allow evil, it is logically false to say that God's goodness & power are not incompatible with evil 89–90: distinction between theodicy & defense (see more on p. 95); Leibniz coined theodicy; "soul-making" theodicy (Irenaeus in 2c: trials make us stronger [cf. Areopagitica]); problems with this theodicy is that suffering isn't evenly distributed (so people don't have the same opportunities for maturity), & children & animals suffer greatly 90–93: free will theodicy (robots can't obey out of love); freedom to choose good means freedom to choose evil; Augustine/Aquinas: evil is a privation of good; evil from free will is worth it; problems: 1) free will addresses moral evil but not natural evil [see n166 for a discussion on a literal Adam & Eve], 2) only the extreme libertarian free will position claims that God can't lead us to do the right thing bc it violate our free will (but God cannot do certain things & yet remains free & loving, & what about glorified humans [who love God, yet cannot sin] in eternity?; plus, sin comes from our slavery, not our freedom), 3) the Bible speaks of God's sovereignty in human actions (e.g. Acts 2:23; compatibilism), 4) violating someone else free will may save his/her life (so it's morally good) 94: CSL & the natural law theodicy, the complicated plenitude theory (multiverses), & the simplistic punishment theodicy (fall > suffering) 95: no Xn denomination has ever endorsed a particular theodicy; more on theodicy (explaining the purpose of evil—burden of proof is on the Xn) vs. defense (showing that argument against God from evil is flawed—burden of proof is on the skeptic) 96–99: noseeums argument: there may be reasons (for God to allow suffering) that we can't see/understand (we have no right to assume that if we can't see a good reason for the suffering, there must not be one); in fact, many of us allow/inflict pain for a greater purpose (medical procedures, child discipline) 100: chaos theory, butterfly's fluttering, & a time-traveler stepping on a mouse 101–03 (visceral arguments): Elie Wiesel's Night is only one perspective (others saw the same things, & their faith wasn't destroyed) 103–07 (boomerang effect): Pascal & heart's reasons; strong, personal moral outrage doesn't constitute obligation; moral instincts must be grounded on something objective, or else they are not binding; Lewis realized that we cannot morally condemn anything unless we appeal to something universally moral; missionary kid who saw suffering drifted from God, but then argued with a relativist & recognized that one couldn't condemn Hitler (or anything else unjust) without a moral standard (both MLK & Nietzsche understood this)
Part 2: Facing the Furnace Ch. 5: The Challenge to Faith 113: "reasons of the heart" (intuitions) change affections/attitudes more than propositions do; 3 powerful themes of Xn teaching... 113–15: 1. creation/fall: evil is not supposed to be here, & it's natural for us to resist death (even though it's a part of life); suffering/death do come from sin (so we can never claim that we deserve better), but particular sufferings are not always directly related to particular sins; practical Deism (Christian Smith) makes us think that God's job is to make us comfortable, & a rejection of this spiritual entitlement (presumption, self-pity) brings the relief of humility; bc of the fall, the real question is why does God allow so much happiness to rebels? 116–18: 2. final judgment & renewal of world: if there's no Judgment Day, we lose hope for justice (& maybe live immorally), or take vengeance ourselves; if there is a Judgment Day, we hope for final & temporal justice, & we don't have to take matters into our own hands (we can forgive)—Judgment Day keeps us from being too passive & too aggressive; felix culpa stuff (Plantinga on Edwards & Kuyper; see n203)—God's plan for suffering leads to a greater good; CSL & JRRT 118–22: 3. incarnation/atonement: Berger notes that while we shouldn't question God (His ways are higher), we're still not satisfied with a "don't question God" answer—& the Bible gives us another help: God suffers (worse than we have—Jesus agonizingly lost an infinite love relationship); the Muslim charge that the Xn God became weak is accurate; so we don't always know the reason why we suffer (just as children don't always understand their parents' decisions), but we know what one of the reasons isn't—that God doesn't care; Voskamp 123: Luther [Augustine?] & incurvatus in se (leads to everything from genocide to marital tension); Jesus came to bear justice 125–29: mother falsely accused of child abuse (children taken away for 9 months, but judge finally dismissed the case); eventually, this mother forgave (& even hugged) the accusing doctor
Ch. 6: The Sovereignty of God 130: "Suffering is both just and unjust" & "God is both a sovereign & a suffering God" 131–32 (just): see n215 for Keller's view that Adam & Eve were real, historical people; it's clear that justice is often retributive (see Proverbs) 132–35 (unjust): there isn't always a clear one-to-one correspondence between particular suffering & someone's actions (see 114–15); sometimes suffering is obviously just (Proverbs—the world is ordered), & sometimes it's not so obvious (Job, Ecclesiastes—God's ways are hidden, & we are often confused); Gerhard von Rad on the uniqueness of the Bible—an unrivaled God creates as an artist, not a warrior; it's natural to want to make sense of things (karma), but we don't control the world; "The Bible's assessment [of humans] is less flattering to non-sufferers and kinder to those who are hurting" 136–38 (suffering as God's enemy): Hart on the tsunami (see n222: Keller thinks Hart over-emphasizes God's distance; God is sovereign over suffering); Jesus was angry about Lazarus's death (see Warfield/Calvin), although He obv. knew that death is just (Bible's view of suffering is nuanced) 138–39: forgetting that suffering is just (since we deserve death) can lead to "I hate thee," & forgetting the suffering is unjust (since we are not always directly to blame) can lead to "I hate me" [in CE I used a parenting example: Xn parents suffering bc of rebellious children can be devastated in 2 ways—Xn parents who have not trained their children well can be devastated if they forget that sometimes suffering is just (they could have trained their children better), & Xn parents who have trained their children well can be devastated if they forget that sometimes suffering is unjust (there really is nothing else they could have done)] 140–44: compatibilism & related verses (Isaiah 10:5–7; Eph. 1:11; Prov. 16:33; Ps. 60:3; Acts 4:27–28); "we always do what we most want to do" [Edwards]; more verses (Prov. 16:9; Gen. 50:20; Rom. 8:28; Acts 2:23; Luke 22:22; the hardening of Pharaoh's heart in Ex. 7–14); God has no "plan B"; Don Carson says that God works good & evil asymmetrically [cf. double predestination]
Ch. 7: The Suffering of God 148: the OT God is tender toward His people 149: God does not need anything, but "impassibility" goes too far 152: McCartney: "Christ learned humanhood from his suffering . . . ; we learn Christhood from our suffering" 153: God's suffering is "voluntary—and therefore . . . fully motivated by love"; we don't obey bc we understand (that would be agreement, not obedience) 153–54: we can trust God bc He suffered for us 155: Judgment Day doesn't just punish evil—it undoes it (see p. 159); scroll in Rev. 5 is God's sovereign plan 156–57: the cross was the worst that evil could do, & it backfired; evil is privation (Boethius) & external force (Manes)—see n254 & Shippey/JRRT reference; Calvin quote on death's being turned on itself; judo 158: Xnity doesn't explain suffering, but it does answer it (X's suffering); Dostoevsky (see n259)
Ch. 8: The Reason for Suffering 163: epigraph (Herbert's "Sin") 164–65: opera arias often turn "sorrow into something beautiful" 165: "post-traumatic growth"; suffering can make people more resilient (suffering produces endurance, character, & hope [Rom. 5:3–4]), strengthen relationships, & change priorities/philosophies 165–66: people who focus on personal achievement/happiness tend not to respond well to suffering; various life stories (some are naive) lead people to respond differently to suffering; "The Bible is filled with cries of lament and shouts of 'Why?' that God does not denounce" 167: suffering & glory are linked in many biblical passages; Xns who are not taught well are offended at the suggestion that suffering can glorify God 167–68: CSL (Reflections on the Psalms) shows that God is not greedy for demanding praise—praise is the proper response for something/someone glorious/beautiful, & we benefit from giving the praise 168–69: glory/kabod/weight/matter/importance/doxa 169: LOTR & imbuing significance to a small object (something other than God)—common in mythology (see JRRT's Letter 121) 170–74: Elizabeth Elliot & letting God be God (not our own creation)—we often want God to act in ways that we can understand (we want God as an accomplice, & reject the freedom that comes from relinquishing control); we cannot trust God only when we understand Him 175: we glorify God to others when we trust God through our suffering 176–77: story of the 2006 shooting in an Amish community [sounds similar to Charleston 2015]; Christians reflect on Christ's suffering for His enemies, & "self-renunciation" (giving up revenge) 178–80: Joni Eareckson Tada & Denise Walters; Taylor's "immanent frame"; we are always "on camera," in a sense; "No suffering is for nothing" 180–81: Jesus was cast out for us 181–85: story of racial tensions, betrayal, illness, death; "It seems that some fruit comes only from suffering"
Ch. 9: Learning to Walk 186: Proust: we usually discover wisdom rather than receive it; suffering is connected to God's glory, but also our glory (2 Cor. 4:17) 187–88: although suffering can lead to our growth, we should never seek it out (masochism) 188–89: suffering can show us legitimate weaknesses in ourselves (e.g., cowardice, selfishness, etc.); depressed people who recover gain wisdom (perhaps more than those who have never suffered with depression, bc depression reveals limitations; those who are never depressed may have an unrealistic view of their abilities) 190–92: suffering "transforms our attitude toward ourselves" (removes blinders, reveals our vulnerability & weaknesses), "change[s] our relationship to the good things in our lives" (reshapes priorities), "strengthen[s] our relationship to God" (CSL quote about God's shouting in our pain), & a "prerequisite if we are going to be of much use to other people" (makes us more compassionate; gives us wisdom; 2 Cor. 1:3–7) 193–96: metaphor of suffering as a gymnasium; word means "naked," bc clothes hide flaws, & if you want to improve, you need to see/know where to improve; too much exercise & too little are both unhelpful [cf. Aristotle's doctrine of the mean in NE, which Luther hated]; suffering has both a limit & a purpose 196–98: we must prepare for suffering [cf. Piper's "ballast" in Spectacular Sins]; hard to learn "on the job"; theological reflection helps us avoid naive views—such as thinking that "good" people don't deserve suffering (shock from this naivety makes suffering worse; there was a purpose to X's suffering)—& helps us know that we shouldn't expect to understand everything (bc we're finite); if God were completely just, we would be dead now 198–202: importance of both head & heart; gap between head knowledge & heart ability to persevere can be large; we need pastoral care, not just facts (which can make us impatient with those who struggle with suffering, despite knowing facts); facts can't just be stored in a warehouse—we have to know how to use them (Carson), & suffering forces the facts to become real; "it is cruel to show a person currently in pain with theological arguments about how God is not responsible for evil and why his wisdom is beyond searching out"
Ch. 10: The Varieties of Suffering 205: epigraph from The Princess Bride; fire can consume or refine 206: there's no one answer for suffering bc sufferings & sufferers are different 207–13: 4 kinds of suffering: our own fault (Jonah, David), doing what's right (Paul, Jeremiah), "universal" (Mary/Martha), "senseless" (Job); Augustine & re-ordering loves 208: we're not punished for our sins (bc of X)? 210: it's okay to pursue justice without vengeance 213: Weil's "The Love of God and Affliction" 213–16: kinds of affliction (based on temperament): isolation, implosion, condemnation, anger, temptation 216: clichés can "grate rather than comfort" (Carson) 217: people want to know that you care 217–18: God gives daily grace 217/219: importance of giving truth in the right order; Newton
Mentioned positively here: We cannot treat our unbelieving neighbors as people with clear-cut "worldviews" that require prefabricated answers from a wMentioned positively here: We cannot treat our unbelieving neighbors as people with clear-cut "worldviews" that require prefabricated answers from a worldview camp or textbook....more
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