pelleas5's Xanga

My favorite books of 2009

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:45:15 GMT

I've posted one list of favorite books over at Brian's blog. Here's a categorical list:

The best fiction book I read this year: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas.

The best history book I read this year: The Reformation of Rights by John Witte.

The best theology book I read this year: Absolute Predestination by Jerome Zanchius.

The best economics book I read this year: Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.

The best commentary on Scripture that I read this year: Joshua: No Falling Words by Dale Ralph Davis.

The worst book I read this year: The Shack by William Paul Young.

The most difficult book I read this year: Theodicy by Gottfried Liebnitz

The easiest/most fun book I read this year: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Book Log November 2009

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:16:35 GMT

63. The Atonement - Gordon Clark
64. Quintilian 1 (Loeb Classical Library)
65. Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended - Greg Bahnsen
66. The Holy Spirit - Gordon Clark
67. Paradise Restored- David Chilton

Quoting Calvin

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:24:09 GMT

"It is precisely this which Satan is attempting in assailing infant baptism with such an army: that, once this testimony of God's grace is taken away from us, the promise which, through it, is put before our eyes may eventually vanish little by little. From this would grow up not only an impious ungratefulness toward God's mercy but a certain negligence about instructing our children in piety. For when we consider that immediately from birth God takes and acknowledges them as his children, we feel a strong stimulus to instruct them in an earnest fear of God and observance of the law. Accordingly, unless we wish spitefully to obscure God's goodness, let us offer our infants to him, for he gives them a place among those of his family and household, that is, the members of the church."

Institutes Book 4, chap. XVII, sec. 32

Not as silent as it may seem

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:45:23 GMT

I haven't been posting much here, but I have had a recent string of posts at my other blog, where I do book reviews. I'm currently reviewing a chapter of a book by Greg Bahnsen (published posthumously this year), entitled Presuppositionalism: Stated and Defended. The chapter is a critique of Gordon Clark, and I'm doing a series of refutations of Bahnsen's main criticisms.

Check it out if you are interested: Another Reader's Review

Book Log October 2009

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:18:39 GMT

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

Happy Birthday Knox

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:05:15 GMT

I know what it is to have children of my own, but I still cannot fathom what it must be like to have one taken away in their earliest years. There are times when words don't offer comfort, or though they might, the timing is not yet right. As time passes, our memories are changed by new circumstances, by the ongoing sanctifying work of God's Spirit, and by the passage of time toward our reunion with those who have gone before us into eternity. I still wonder what they think of us as we remain apart from the Lord.

I still wonder what Knox is thinking about his own family. How he must be glorying in God's love for them, even while he knows that they still miss his presence. It is impossible to imagine his experience being difficult, but I can imagine that he shares in their grief--not because he feels discontented at not being with them--for how could he be discontent in the presence of God?!--but because he knows the full measure of joy that they can only glimpse.

Maybe it is a silly thing for me to think, but as a father I know my greatest hope and joy for my sons is that they would know God in fuller measure with each passing day. There will inevitably be setbacks in this life, resulting from our remaining corruption, but Knox knows God in fuller measure with each passing day; without hindrance; without setbacks; without distraction, carelessness, or incapacity. I wonder if there is such a thing as holy envy? I cannot think of a better existence, at least.

Knox would be four years old today. In the nearly three years that he has been with the Lord, what must he know that eclipses what we know of our Savior? Could a father be less thankful for that, though he knew he could have no present part in it? I think I would have an unholy envy, for though I know God is able to do much more for my sons than I, I covet the terrible joy of being God's instrument for their instruction in godliness. I grieve for your father Knox, for I know his desire to instruct you and see your growth far eclipses my own.

I usually write a poem for Knox and his family on his birthday, and today will not be different:

Without your presence daily,
We still recall your ways,
We still remember moments,
We still have sadder days,
We still believe that God is good,
We still know that He is true,
And truth will guide us home,
Where we will meet with you.

Within His holy presence,
We know that you abide,
Still we miss the joy,
Of being by your side,
We still miss your love,
We still miss your smile,
We know our wait for heaven,
Will be done in just awhile.

We are thankful for your life,
Though short upon the earth,
Will endure for ever after,
Because of your second birth,
Which God we know has promised,
The God we know is true,
And truth will guide us home,
Where we will meet with you.

Sin begins and ends in belief

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:28:20 GMT

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.

Book Log September 2009

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:48:57 GMT

52. Children of Dune - Frank Herbert
53. God Emperor of Dune - Frank Herbert
54. The Art of Prophesying - William Perkins
55. Figures of Speech - Arthur Quinn
56. Against the Academicians and The Teacher - Aurelius Augustine

Rhetoric corner: Kenneth Burke

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:43:54 GMT

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?

August Book Log 2009

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:26:15 GMT

45. Dune - Frank Herbert
46. De jure magistratuum
(On the Rights of Magistrates) - Theodore Beza
47. Sanctification - Gordon Clark
48. The Reformation of Rights - John Witte
49. The Legend of Sigurd and Gurdrún - JRR Tolkien
50. Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert
51. Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt