57. Rediscovering Catechism - Donald van Dyken
58. Heretics of Dune - Frank Herbert
59. De Dialectica - Augustine
60. John Calvin: Humanist and Theologian - Basil Hall
61. First John - Gordon H. Clark
62. Chapterhouse Dune - Frank Herbert

For as he thinks within himself, so he is.
He says to you, "Eat and drink!"
But his heart is not with you.

But he who doubts is condemned if he eats,
because his eating is not from faith;
and whatever is not from faith is sin.

There are many different definitions of sin, and of these many, only a few represent accurately the teaching of Scripture on the subject. But fundamental to all the various Scriptural meanings attached to the term "sin" is the idea of believing that which is false, or untrue.

The sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden has most often been associated with his overt act of eating the fruit forbidden by God. But underlying this action was a prior (temporally prior and logically prior) belief that what God had said about the fruit was false. Believing that God was false, Adam falsely believed he would not surely die.

Two of my favorite apologists for the faith, Gordon Clark and Greg Bahnsen, have both expressed the idea that faulty thinking is sin. When we beg the question, assert the consequent, or assent to an unreliable authority, we are sinning against God who has given us minds intended to pursue the truth without error.

Although I suspect that many people, Christian or not, will object to this definition of sin because it casts the net so wide that hardly a day passes when we are not guilty of reasoning fallaciously. Indeed, for most of us, it may be hardly an hour that we avoid drawing a hasty conclusion! If those errors are sin, who then can be holy?!

But the Christian, not simply more than any other, but the Christian alone should find comfort in the definition of sin as an error in thinking. The glory of God is most evidently revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that humanity has been plunged into spiritual death through the sin of Adam and cannot redeem itself from its rebellious condition. But, by the grace of God, the only righteous one, Jesus the Christ, propitiated God's wrath against the sin of those whom the Father had promised to Christ from eternity. There is now no condemnation for sin, for all of our errors have been placed upon Christ, who became the curse in order that we might be free to live in obedience to God's commandments. If we could be justified by our own autonomous obedience, then Christ died for nothing. But if we cannot by our efforts avoid sin, then our only hope is the justification provided on our behalf. And since God is not satisfied simply to remove the guilt of sin, but also its pollution, we have confidence that our sanctification (the removal of false thinking that leads to overt disobedience) will result in glorification in the Day of the Lord.

Why then should any Christian shy away from the all-pervasive reality of sin? I submit that it is only the Christian who clings to a form of self-righteousness which can place any confidence in their own thinking, apart from the imposition of truth to their minds by the very source of truth, the Wisdom of God, Christ the Teacher. It is the height of arrogance to despise the grace of God in being drawn to think that avoiding sin is simply a matter of personal effort, diligent attention to doctrine, or careful reflection upon one's conduct. Read very carefully at this point, please. Not one of these three items is unnecessary to our sanctification. Indeed, every one of them is profitable and good, even indispensable. Yet not a one of them is an effectual means of righteousness. Not a one of them is an effectual means of right thinking. Only God grants knowledge of the truth. Only God regenerates the mind that is hostile toward Him. Only God supplies the true premises from which our reasoning may proceed with proper warrant or justification.

Without God, sin is all that we can muster. For without God, truth is impossible. Such is the reason why faith is necessary for right reason. There is no antithesis between faith and reason, properly defined. The world wishes to define reason as an activity of the individual mind, or the autonomous result of a (finite) collective consensus of individuals. Faith is taken to be the assent to something without reason, that is, without autonomous determination. It is upon these two assumptions that the world fails to recognize its own faith (it believes, without prior reason, that reason is an autonomous activity of the human individual or collective mind), and fails to apply reason as it was intended: as the means by which to think God's thought after Him.

Whatever is not of faith, is therefore sin. Faith is an understanding of, and assent to the truth. God is Truth. The unbeliever suppresses the knowledge of the truth in order that he might avoid the wrath of God that rests upon him. But the Christian must affirm AND defend to the unbeliever the true definition of sin, the true remedy for sin, and the true source of our righteousness before God. Too many Christians err by failing to recognize the gravity and extent of sin; the gravity and extent of their dependency upon Christ for their righteousness before God; the true result of sanctification, which is freedom from error that leads to overt acts of disobedience. Right thinking leads to right living. Wrong living reveals that our thoughts are polluted.

Sin begins and ends in belief, and so too does righteousness. We believe that Christ is sufficient in every respect, and in believing so, we find that there is nothing good, nothing true, nothing righteous that we possess that is not first, foremost, and only granted to us in Him, by God's grace.

It is always the object of any given belief that determines the value of that belief. There is no power to save within believing as such. For it is by believing error--by false belief--that we sin. Indeed, some of the most potent belief as such remains the chief property of the unregenerate who suppresses the truth by their great faith in a grand lie. Let us not be distracted by the grand lie, which still vies for our assent, but rather let us pursue the thoughts of God, communicated to us most graciously in His Word and by His Spirit.

Today in my rhetorical criticism class we covered Kenneth Burke's "cluster analysis" method. I've always found Burke's dramatic pentad a helpful way for students to think about the arguments of a speech in terms of narrative. Some students have trouble following the abstract analysis of arguments, but most are able to conceptualize the different parts of a drama and how they fit together to tell "one side of the story."

I was puzzled though as I began reading about cluster-agon analysis. While there is a beneficial element to counting and accounting for the key terms and their interrelationships, it is far less clear how an analyst is to justify the conclusions at which he arrives in evaluating the speaker's use of these terms.

Burke was supposedly influenced by Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. His justification for drawing out conclusions from the relationship between terms, it seems to me, rests upon his synthesis of Marxist materialist-dialectic, Nietzschean self-referencing theory of language, and Freudian self-deceiving subconscious. For example, in analyzing Hitler's "Battle", Burke points out how Hitler ignores economic problems by attributing them non-economic causes. That in itself isn't a Marxist claim, but I think Burke also takes Marx's observations on structures/superstructures and applies it to language: the structure set forth by the speaker/writer reveals an underlying logic/superstructure. But for some reason, and maybe Burke doesn't do this all the time, but Foss and Berthold emphasize it, there has to be a conflict between the author's structure and underlying logic: here is the Freudian conflict between the subconscious Id and the conscious Ego. Finally, Nietzsche's theory of language provides only relative position for judging any given meaning or perspective or argument, which leads to Burke's approach to Hitler's "Battle" in the first place: we need to see how Hitler is grievously mistaken rather than simply write him off as monstrously evil. If all language is but ongoing emplotment, we would do well to examine Hitler's particular terministic screen lest it be transposed upon us in some other fashion and in some other context.

I can see how Burke gets to where he gets to in his analysis given these ideological/philosophical commitments, but I'm not sure whether the method works apart from these commitments. If one is not a following the Marx-Nietzsche-Freud line of presuppositions, can one still get the same sort of reading from a cluster-agon analysis? Can a cluster-agon analysis even exist apart from these presuppositions?

I remain doubtful that the method works very well, if at all, apart from the guiding lights of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Or, if it does work, it works out quite differently from what Burke himself practiced. And if that is the case, to what extent is the method really Burke's at all?

Read this story.

There is a painfully obvious principle here, which I find that many Christians--even otherwise wise and faithful Christians--fail to recognize. The unbelieving judges recognize it. The unbelieving educators recognize it. Ever secularist advocate recognizes it. Apologetic Christianity is hostile to all other forms of thought, precisely because it proclaims the complete Sovereignty of God in every sphere of life. Christianity is not a religion that can be relegated to one's personal sphere. Christianity is not a religion that can coexist intellectually with other faiths or ideologies. Christianity claims supremacy and singular Truth. The more fully developed the Christian message, the more hostility and rejection greets it from competing ideologies.

What every Christian who reads the article must recognize is that these judges and educators are not mindless. There decisions are based upon very definite considerations. Why is it that a judge would wish to demand that a 10-year-old who is otherwise excelling in her present environment be placed in an environment which is intended--indeed designed--to challenge the validity of her presuppositions and axiomatic beliefs? It is obvious, is it not? The educational system is not designed to protect Christian belief, but to destroy it. Why? Because the ideological foundation of contemporary public education is pluralism--and pluralism is antithetical to Christianity. Note carefully that I did not say pluralism is antithetical to dogmatism. Pluralism is every bit as dogmatic as Christianity. The difference is not the commitment to dogmatic belief, but rather what dogmatic belief each is committed to.

I hear many Christian parents argue that placing their children in public school is a great opportunity for them to be witnesses for Christ in a realm where the proclamation of Christ is needed most. But if this were an effective means of evangelism, do you think that unbelieving judges and educators would be advocating for the same thing? Do you suppose they are so foolish as to invite children into their midst whose Christianity will change the face of public education environments? Either these well meaning Christians are playing the fool, or the unbelieving judges and educators are playing the fool. If we look at the numbers, the evidence reveals that it is the unbelieving judges and educators whose strategy is succeeding. More children are abandoning their religious beliefs by their sophomore year of college than are remaining committed to those beliefs. Not a simple majority either, but an overwhelming majority. If the Barna polling numbers are correct, more than 70% of young Christians are abandoning the faith by their sophomore year of college.

At what point has a child's understanding of Christianity become embedded to the point of unalterable commitment? Can one send his or her 8-year-old into public school and expect them to defend their faith against teachers and peers whose views are so utterly contradictory to their own? Let's consider the high-schooler too. How many teenagers in our world today have been so steeped in their religious tradition to be able to give a reason for the hope that is in them to every skeptic and dissenter? There are a few, to be sure, but how many? And what sort of impact are we aiming at as parents with such missionary endeavors? Are we seeking to change the public school environment, or simply rescue a few unbelievers here and there? What missionary plan which operates on such haphazard and ill-thought out impetus can succeed for long?

What is more unnerving is my baptist brethren who profess to believe that their children are unbelievers until they have made a profession of faith. Does the normal baptist keep their child out of public school until that child has professed faith? If not, how exactly can their unbelieving child evangelize what that have not yet believed? Or, supposing the baptist parent waits until their child has professed before sending them into the mission field of public school. At what point is this new convert ready to present a sound defense of the faith, or even a sound demonstration of the faith? Do baptist missionary societies send new converts into pagan cultures without assessing their abilities? Yet how many baptist parents thoughtlessly send their children to "evangelize" in public school on the simple assumption that they will be capable and willing to do so?

I admit that I do not have concrete numbers for many of my directed questions. Yet I have immediate and secondary experience, and the general numbers demonstrate that, whatever motives and practices involved, Christian youth and not succeeding in converting public school children to Christianity as much as public schools are converting Christian youth to secular pluralism. But that isn't too far off from what the German philosopher Hegel saw as a principle outcome of Christianity--to be succeeded by philosophy and left in the halls of history as a testimony to the unfolding of The Geist behind all things. Kant wanted Christianity to be applicable in the moral realm, but not the intellectual or social realm, because he considered ideas about God to be indemonstrable, and therefore inapplicable to the pure intellectual realm. Secular pluralism has a place for Christianity, no doubt about it. But it isn't the place that Christianity affirms for itself. Many Christian parents have bought into the secular view of Christianity, that it can be understood in personal terms alone, while they simultaneously try to fulfill the Great Commission to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, two incompatible principles do not make for efficient obedience to the Christian faith, although they remain compatible (though annoying) to secular pluralism. It is no challenge to pluralism to promote an intensely personal faith that supposedly changes everything about the individual. It is only challenging to pluralism when an individual's personal beliefs imply and result in changes in every sphere of that individual's life--personal, familial, vocational, social, political, economic, ecclesiastical, and so on.

Christianity accepts all kinds of people, but it does not accept all kinds of propositions--all kinds of beliefs and ideologies. It is a unitary and complete system of thought, beholden to no others, compromising with no others, set in antithesis to all others--just like every other system of thought must be. The secular pluralist accepts all kinds of pluralist thought, because such thought remains consistent with its fundamental premise. But it cannot, and must not, accept unitary thought for unitary thought undermines its fundamental principle. A Christianity that comports with secular pluralism is not Christianity, but syncretism. God suffers His Church to bear incorruption for only so long before He graciously cleanses it by discipline and reformation. May His grace manifest itself in our midst in this present age of syncretistic inconsistency.

Welcome! welcome! friend and foe,
Come right in whilst I go,
Off to make another call,
To the others, one and all!
You may stay, or you may leave,
Cast asunder, or together cleave,
Only let me wander softly,
Thinking thoughts never lofty.

Do you see me over here?
Oh, if you would; your ship steer,
Closer to this place of mine,
Hurry, hurry, there's not much time,
Can't you spy me waiting now?
Wishing for you, and oh how!
Why won't you join my side,
Flesh of my flesh, hide of my hide?

Into fire, flame, or fury,
I would run, I would hury,
If I could your praise win,
I would enter the raging din,
But you see I can't be sure,
If my love for you is pure,
So I'll wait and ponder yet,
But I'll see through it, don't you fret.

Where have all my arguments gone?
Perhaps it is better to get along.
Why should we fight over milk,
Spilled by one or another's ilk?
I think it best to unwind the mind,
In pastimes more genteel and kind,
Like croquet or a masquerade,
Finished off with a cool lemonade.

I would end this silly rhyme,
If I could but find the time,
To discover what to say,
To end it off just the right way,
But what if words somehow fail?
What if they, like ship, take sail?
What if I no longer see,
The best expression they can be?

What if people forget my meaning,
Think I'm standing when I'm leaning,
Think I'm angry when I'm not,
Think I'm scheming a rotten plot?
I don't think I could bear such shame,
To be attached to my good name,
Perhaps it is best to hide away,
All the words I've written today.

Let your words be but few:
Words penned by a wise Jew.
If only like him I also knew,
What with words I should sew,
What with deeds I should do,
What with thoughts I should brew,
With what valor stick like glue,
If I could but get a clue.

So ends my lisp and your laughter,
I know what you all are after,
Jester's jauntings ever please,
A court who likes to grab their knees,
Bending with their loud guffahs,
Giving me their round applause,
Soon I slink back to lonely house,
For a milquetoast meal in my mealy mouth.