Michael I the Diminutive

So, a question to New Yorkers: why do you tolerate this jackass?

With all the problems that must beleaguer the Mayor of the largest city in the country--terror threats, a 9% unemployment rate, continued fallout from Hurricane Sandy, and yes, cannibal cops, Michael Bloomberg has  chosen to die upon a mound of  > 16 oz soft drinks.

This is the guy who took the baton from Rudy? This the guy who holds the office once held by Ed Koch? By striking down this pathetic ban, Justice Tingling handed the Mayor a gift; Bloomberg now has a chance to be remembered as something other than a nanny state wet nurse who followed 8.2 million people around with a blood glucose meter and a bottle of Lipitor. Instead he's going to fight on, because it's just that darned important to him to control your Nehi intake.  Seriously, New Yorkers, aren't you just a little bit embarrassed to be represented by this dope?

This is not the New York I remember.

I have only been to New York City once in my life--back in the mid-'90s--and the experience was so jarring I vowed I would never go back. You people used to be so badass.

I remember being offered crack literally at every entrance to every park in the city.

I remember going into a record store, seeing the item I wanted, and leaving without buying it because the store owner couldn't interrupt his prolonged, profanity-saturated polemic to the hapless soul on the other end of the phone line long enough to ring up my purchase. Seriously, this guy didn't stop to breathe for 10 minutes. It was a thing of beauty.

I remember being in Times Square on New Year's Eve, wishing one and all a Happy New Year, and receiving in reply from one and all, a hearty "f*** you."

I remember my buddy and I nearly getting the guano beaten out of us by some goons on the subway Flushing line because they mistook us for a gay couple (I think it was our matching Yves Saint Laurent duffles). Luckily some cops, divinely appointed to be at the station when the train stopped, saved our lives.

I can't believe this is how you're going to let yourselves be treated, Gotham. You have got to throw this bum out. Look, it's a given that you're always going to elect someone to the left of Abbie Hoffman as your mayor. That just goes without saying. You're New York. Rudy was a guilty pleasure for which you must forever atone. I get it. But for goodness sake, next time elect a liberal who still suffers your self respect.

So Claire...

You're not a fan of the Love Touch either, eh?

Maybe you wanna, I dunno, have a talk with the leader of your party? The guy who presently resides at 1600 Penn? Maybe some of you and your fellow Democratic Senators could ask him to get Auntie Bad Touch to lay off a little?

Just a thought.

WIAAC Part II: Free Will

In my previous post, I stated my belief that God controls and in fact causes everything, including the outcome that some and not others come to saving faith in Christ.

There are a more than a few objections to this position and I'll try to devote some posts to some of the more common ones. This post is devoted to the concept of free will.

Before I go any further, allow me to state what a debt of gratitude I owe to Wayne Grudem for helping me make sense of this topic (and of Reformed theology in general). His chapters on God's Providence and Election and Reprobation in Systematic Theology have been extremely helpful to me in attempting to understand this and a great many other theological concepts. My friend Greg gave me Dr. Grudem's book as a present for standing in his wedding (Greg's, not Dr. Grudem's) and it's one of the best presents I've ever received. I heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to go deeper in their knowledge of Christian Theology.

Prior to embracing my faith, and for many years thereafter, my understanding of free will was something like: "complete autonomy as a sentient, moral being to make any decision I chose, without being compelled in any way." Maybe not the best definition, but I think it gets at the general idea: I, and I alone, was the ultimate causal agent for every choice I ever made. Obviously, things like circumstance, mood, fatigue, misunderstanding of the present situation in which I found myself, etc, could influence my decisions. But ultimately, there was no other force, be it God or fate, pulling the trigger on "my choices." I had ultimate self-determination.

I have since come to understand that this is a crock of haggis.

To properly explain my present understanding of the relationship between God's will and our own, I have to start by saying that there is in fact no way to explain it--at least not completely; it is a mystery which human understanding can only begin to approach: namely, that God controls everything, including us, and yet we willingly make real decisions that have real consequences. Dr Grudem describes the paradox this way:

God causes all things that happen, but...does so in such a way that he somehow upholds our ability to make willing, responsible choices, choices that have real and eternal results, and for which we are held accountable. Exactly how God combines his providential control with our willing and significant choices, Scripture does not explain to us. But rather than deny one aspect or the other (simply because we cannot explain how both can be true), we should accept both in an attempt to be faithful to the teaching of all of Scripture.

Consider the following verses:

Proverbs 16:1: "The plans of the heart belong to man, But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord."

Proverbs 16:9: "The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps."

Proverbs 19:21: "Many plans are in a man's heart, But the counsel [sometimes translated: purpose] of the Lord will stand."

Proverbs 20:24: "Man's steps are ordained by the Lord, How then can man understand his way?"

Proverbs 21:1: "The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever He wishes."

Jeremiah 10:23: "I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct himself."

While some of these verses acknowledge that humans play a role as intentional, willing beings, all indicate that it is not people who are the ultimate causal agents of their decisions and actions: The answer that your mouth speaks is from the Lord. The Lord directs your steps. Your every step has been ordained by God from eternity. God turns your heart whichever way He wishes. It is not for your to direct your way. And yet, the Bible is stuffed with examples of people who make decisions and engage in patterns of behavior which  in every case are recognized as having been done willingly, and for which the individuals in question are held accountable. In every case where someone sins, God regards the individual in question as a moral being who has acted willingly, and God holds the individual morally responsible for their sin.

As a brief aside: If the implications of the previous paragraph don't make you tremble, consider the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. God ordained/willed/directed that these two to feign that a financial gift to the church was the entire proceeds from the sale of their property, when in fact they had pocketed some of the cash (making themselves look good and making some money at the same time). God wills that this happen, and they willingly comply. The result is that God is angered and kills them both. God wills that they do something that outrages Him, so that He can punish them. Reading an event like this causes me to praise God for His mercy that He has not seen fit to deal with me in like manner.

How does the Bible describe God's sovereign direction of human will when it comes to the salvation of Christians? Here are a few verses for your consideration.

Ephesians 2: 8-9: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Romans 9: 16: "So then, it does not depend on the man who wills, or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy."

Philippians 2:12c-13: "...work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."

These verses seem to rule out human beings as the ultimate determining agent for their salvation, or in the case of Philippians 2:12-13, continuing on in their faith. Ephesians 2: 8-9 and Romans 9:16 seem to disqualify human will from as playing any role whatsoever in the believer being saved. Salvation is "not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not as a result of works." "It does not depend" on man's will or man's striving. It's like Paul is writing out in capital letters, underscored, "YOUR OPINION DOESN'T MATTER" in salvation. Yes, as with all other decisions we make, we who are believers willingly responded to God's call. But these verses make clear that (as with all other decisions we make) the necessary cause for this outcome was not our will, but God's. If you are saved, you are saved because God willed for you to be saved, not because you willed it.

Furthermore, and without straying too far into the doctrine of Total Depravity (to which I hope to devote another post in the future), you couldn't have decided to accept Christ on your own.

Romans 3:10-12:

as it is written:
"THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,
THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;
ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;
THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."

In this passage, Paul is quoting certain passages in the Psalms to underscore the fact that we're all born into this world so thoroughly sinful that we never choose to do good, and we never choose God. We are all bent in our fallen state to the degree that, given a choice between running to God or running away from Him, we will run away from Him every time. That is the natural state of anyone who has not been saved.

This brings me to my next point about free will, namely that it's a problematic term because we are not completely free to do good, only evil. Quoting from John Calvin, as excerpted by Grudem in his chapter on God's Providence:

Man will then be spoken of as having this sort of free decision, not because he has free choice equally of good and evil, but because he acts wickedly by will, not by compulsion. Well put, indeed, but what purpose is served by labelling with a proud name such a slight thing? ... But how few men are there, I ask, who when they hear free will attributed to man do not immediately conceive him to be master of both his own mind and will, able of his own power to turn himself toward either good or evil...If anyone, then, can use this word without understanding it in a bad sense, I shall not trouble him on this account...I'd prefer not to use it myself, and I should like others, if they seek my advice, to avoid it.

So "free" will isn't an accurate description of what we exercise when we make decisions. God is the ultimate causal agent behind everything we do, and, at least in our flesh, the range of possibilities available to us as "deciders" and "actors", are all sinful. For years, this was so hard to get my head around, and even harder to accept. The thought that I wasn't free to make my own decisions and determine my own future was almost as outrageous to me as the notion that some people were born into the world with no chance of ever being saved. Sure, I would pray and ask God for wisdom and advice as I made my decisions, but I, and no one else, was the ultimate causal agent of every decision I made. I, and no one else, had ultimate self determination over my life. And yet, here were verses like Proverbs 16:9 and Romans 9:16. I could only deny reality for so long.

Understand, the position I have come to embrace is one that involved a lot of frustration and confusion. Interpret nothing that I write as flippant. For someone spiritually raised as an Arminian Christian, accepting this understanding of the role of human will vs. Divine will, as well as other elements of Calvinist doctrine, has been a difficult process.

One last thought. As I intimated above, the single greatest objection to Calivinism raised by non-Calvinists is of course the idea that some people are born into this world with absolutely no opportunity to repent and be saved. This was appalling to me as an Arminian (I'll devote a longer post to the doctrine of Election and Reprobation). I drew comfort from the hope that any of my unsaved friends and family had the opportunity to accept Christ, and might do so in the future. The thought that some of them would never have this opportunity was just too unbearable to contemplate.

But I now have come to believe that not even Arminian theology allows the possibility that all could come to salvation. The hope that all can be saved, even in the Arminian framework, is an illusion.

Romans 8:29-30 says the following:

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren, and these whom He predestined, He also called, and these whom He called, He also justifed, and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

Generally, Armenians interpret this verse this way: God, from eternity past, looked forward into the future and saw the faith that would exist in the hearts of His followers, and "predestined" them for salvation as a preemptive response to the decision that they would one day make.

I would ask the Arminian to consider: regardless of whether you were saved on the basis of God choosing you or you choosing God, if in fact the salvation of all believers has been predestined by God from eternity, and cannot be changed (in other words, it's not possible for you not to be saved--furthermore, it was never possible for you not to be saved, for your salvation has been predestined since before the dawn of time. Regardless of whether you would ever want to, you cannot decide to renounce your faith. So not even the Arminian position offers total "free will." But I digress), conversely, it necessarily follows that everyone outside of that camp has not been predestined for salvation from eternity, and thus will not be saved. So how does the Arminian position really offer salvation as a possibility for everyone?

By now I'm sure you're almost as exhausted from reading this as I was from writing it, so I'll call it a day. Again, my coming to the position I now hold on this subject involved a lot of forehead pounding against various furniture, walls and assorted inanimate objects (mostly blunt objects, gratefully). The millions upon millions of Arminian Christians in the world today are a testimony to how difficult this concept is to swallow. But I'm just trying to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, and trying to follow where I believe the Bible is leading me, and this is where I've ended up (I think). If you can't let go of the idea of total free will, then God bless you. The mystery of how God's will relates to our own will be revealed, eventually.

Why I Am a Calvinist, Part One

So I'll just state right off the bat that I don't have any specific plan for a series on this topic, or an outline of which topics I'll cover in which order, or a time frame in which I'll complete them. I just may return to this topic periodically, and I figured this title was as good as any since it's the first time I'm writing about it.

Also, I'm going to try to keep these posts as bite-sized as possible, which is always a challenge as I am rather susceptible to diarrhea of the blog (it's as unsightly as it sounds).

To me, the best place to start an inquiry into Reformed theology is on the topic of the Sovereignty of God, and how my understanding of it informs my belief that the Calvinist, or Reformed, position is the correct one (note, some people assign different meanings to "Sovereignty" and "Providence," with the former referring to the characteristic of God's supreme position as Lord of all, and the latter referring  to God's action in the execution of His will (including the sustaining of all things). I'm kind of blurring the two concepts in this post, so forgive me if this offends your theological sensibilities).

For the first several years of my life as a Christian, I had a vague understanding of God's sovereignty, which I accepted without much thought. I happily, wholeheartedly believed, declared, and/or sang such proclamations as "He is in control," "this is part of His plan," "He is Lord of all," "Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven," or even "God is sovereign" without thinking about the larger implications of any of these statements. It was only later, after reading various commentaries and being challenged to think a little harder, that I began to probe the concept of sovereignty and started asking questions like:

 What does "God is in control" mean? Is He actually controlling everything, or just kind of keeping watch over everything and making sure that stuff doesn't get too out of hand, intervening periodically? And what about the "will" of God? Some passages, like Romans 9:19 and Psalm 33:11, seem to suggest that God's will can't be resisted--but then what is sin? Surely, you're resisting God's will when you sin, right? Because otherwise, that would be like saying that God wills evil to happen--and that can't be right. Because God hates evil, and therefore wouldn't will it to happen. He just allows it to happen...right? Because He gives people free will,  and if they have free will, they can choose to do evil. But if they have free will, then is God really in control of anything related to human behavior? I've been taught that God has this plan that involves making a bride for His Son in the church, and that He's going to come back and destroy evil and punish the wicked and take His bride to Heaven, where He will be worshipped and glorified forever. But what if, just hypothetically, everyone on earth turned away from God? Logically, it could happen, right? Everyone has free will. How would God's purposes be accomplished then, if He was completely dependent upon the decisions of people to bring them about--and they all turned Him down? I mean, God knows that's not going to happen, because He has total foreknowledge of everything. God has known from before time began who would choose Him and who wouldn't and He knows how this is all going to end, but if that outcome--the end of God's great plan--is based on the decisions of people, can we really say that it happens according to the will of God? It may be congruent to the will of God, but because of it? Alternately, maybe God's will can't be resisted. Again, this is what Romans 9:19 and Psalm 33:11 seem to be saying. So could it be that He does will for people to refuse him, and for people to sin, and for evil to happen as part of some larger purpose He has to bring glory to Himself...

And so it went.

Like I said, I'm going to try to keep these posts from getting too verbose (too late). Rather than wade too deep into the tall grass now, I'll try to devote future posts to topics like free will (as a preview, I think it's far more complicated than I used to think it was) or whether or not God wills evil (hint: it's more complicated than yes or no).

Here, let me just say that I have come to accept that God controls everything.

For me, one of the clearest passages on the topic of God's sovereignty is Ephesians 1, just before verse  11 and through verse 12 (NASV):

 In Him ¹¹ also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, ¹² to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.
 

Now, ignore the part about predestination just for a minute and concentrate on the second half of verse 11: "who works all things after the counsel of His will." Works all things. All things. After the counsel of His will. God fashions everything so that it happens in accordance with His will.

The NIV, in my opinion, puts it even more bluntly:

having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will...

I believe an accurate paraphrase of this portion of verse 11 could be "...who makes everything happen the way He wants it to happen." In my mind, this is the definition of total sovereignty.

And God's sovereignty, by definition, must extend to everything--including who gets saved and who doesn't. If this is not the case, specifically in the case of election, then God is dependent upon human beings to make a decision in order for His will to be accomplished. And if that is the case, then God is not sovereign.

But He is sovereign over this, as over all things, which is where the first part of verse 11 comes in-- we have "been predestined according to His purpose." God decided that you would or would not be saved, as He decides all things, according to His purpose--regardless of what yours might be. Why? Because, verse 12: for the "praise of His glory." God makes everything happen according to His will, with the ultimate aim that He will be glorified. Amen.

I said I wasn't going to get into free will in this post, but there is one objection that one might raise which presently occurs to me (I'm sure there are others): one could ask if God couldn't will that people have free will, and still work through their free will to accomplish His ultimate will. Far be it from me to say what God can't do. However, I interpret Ephesians 1:11 as not leaving a lot of wiggle room on the question of whether or not God is completely sovereign over everything, including human will. Romans 9: 14-18 seems to be an even stronger declaration of God's unmitigated sovereignty especially as pertains to election, free from deference or constraint to, or the need to work around, the will of mankind. There are other rebuttals that I can think of to this objection, but I think I'll save them for future posts.

So, allowing that I might be misunderstanding the verses I've cited, or otherwise wrong, my understanding of the Sovereignty of God is the primary principle that leads me to embrace the Calvinist view.

The Depths of Human Depravity

There are few people in this world who piss me off quite like Holocaust deniers, or mitigaters. Just felt like expressing that.

New data revealed on the Holocaust makes it quite clear that it was even more horrific than previously thought.

Researchers at the US Holocaust Museum have spent the last 13 years attempting to chronicle all of the death camps, ghettos, POW camps and other sites of torture, murder and dehumanization established by the Nazis from 1933 until the fall of the Third Reich.

When the research began in 2000, Dr. Megargee said he expected to find perhaps 7,000 Nazi camps and ghettos, based on postwar estimates. But the numbers kept climbing — first to 11,500, then 20,000, then 30,000, and now 42,500.
      

The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers.

      

In Berlin alone, researchers have documented some 3,000 camps and so-called Jew houses, while Hamburg held 1,300 sites.

And as for the revised estimated death toll:

The lead editors on the project, Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean, estimate that 15 million to 20 million people died or were imprisoned in the sites that they have identified as part of a multivolume encyclopedia. (The Holocaust museum has published the first two, with five more planned by 2025.)

The depravity revealed in something like the Holocaust is in part why I am a Christian. I laugh when I hear people say things like "people are basically good." People are basically repugnant. People are basically depraved. People in their hearts basically enshrine evil. As the Apostle Paul put it:

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. --Romans 1:28-32

People basically deserve to go to hell forever, and are in need of a savior.

While you won't find many today who (openly) laud the Hitler, anti-Semitism or the Holocaust, my but weren't there countless masses who got swept up in the fervor of the moment. And though mindless zealotry may have given way to shame and regret with the passage of time, look at what evil can be accomplished in the heady passion of a season.

All of this, and ten times worse, could happen again. We're human beings, just as the Nazis were. Just as our descendants will be. Jesus help us.

What the heck is George doing?

Besides lookin' all buff and HAWT, I mean.

With ropes and leather. Heh.

There are certain artists, such as John McLaughlin and Allan Holdsworth, who play on a level at which my brain does not compute. I would throw the odd George Lynch solo into that category as well.

And I have always more or less presumed that these artists would forever be only semi accessible to me, but researchers at the University of Melbourne have just published a paper that sheds new light on how we learn to appreciate music.

“Our study shows that musical harmony can be learnt and it is a matter of training the brain to hear the sounds,” Associate Professor McLachlan said.
 “So if you thought that the music of some exotic culture (or Jazz) sounded like the wailing of cats, it’s simply because you haven’t learnt to listen by their rules...
What we found was that people needed to be familiar with sounds created by combinations of notes before they could hear the individual notes. If they couldn’t find the notes they found the sound dissonant or unpleasant,” he said.


So apparently, the longer you listen (ie, train your brain), the more it will make sense and the more you'll like it. Maybe. I'm not sure any force on earth could make me like Reggae. I've tried, people. I've tried.

Update: it just occurred to me that I should point out that I love what George is playing here, even if I can't exactly wrap my head around it. Lack of understanding does not necessarily imply dislike.

Secretary Mehgel

So, this happened. 

A lot of conservatives are worked up over it. I just can’t muster the interest. So, an anti-Semite simpleton who’s sweet on Iran is now the Secretary of Defense.

A quick review of some of the other lovable scamps to grace the President's cabinet makes me wonder exactly how Chucky’s appointment is a jaw-dropper.

The former Treasury Secretary is a tax cheat.

 

The Attorney General has allowed racial prejudice to determine which cases his office will prosecute, and presided over the fantastically catastrophic Fast and Furious gun running scheme, which, you'll recall,  allowed Mexican drug lords to waltz off with 1800 firearms —some of which were used in the murder of an American Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, as well as at least 150 Mexicans—and which was done without the cooperation or even the knowledge of the Mexican government.

The current Secretary of State possibly committed treason in his younger days by negotiating directly with North Vietnam, which he had absolutely no authority to do, while the US was still at war with them. 

And the previous Secretary of State, resplendently adorned with baggage before she took the gig, bears more responsibility for the slaughter of Americans at Benghazi than anyone but the President himself.

Look, like Allahpundit says in the top link, the grown up decisions about defending the country are going to be left up to the C-in-C and whomever he’s assigned to hold Hagel’s hand at the Pentagon. Yes it’s pathetic. Yes, if the President were a Republican, the media would be portraying this as Hitler appointing Himmler. But look, in the last 4 years, I’ve had a tyrannical health care law for which nobody asked imposed upon me; watched my President seriously consider extending American jurisprudence to the architect of 9/11; been outraged by Fast and Furious, and again by Benghazi. I’m kind of running low on outrage at the moment. It will take a bigger insult than Chuck Hagel to get my blood boiling.