Advanced Hermeneutics: Alternative Interpretations That Make Biblical Sense 1

This article discusses advanced hermeneutics. I say "advanced" because I have yet to hear seminaries or read commentaries that demonstrate that they can think boldly outside-the-box, stop making excuses for the Word of God being difficult or seemingly contradictory, and make theology truly a study of WHAT GOD SAYS instead of developing their personal opinions about God and making Scripture adjust to it. This is not for the faint of heart, but any true Wesleyan with some flavor of Openness will easily grasp the concepts.

Isaiah 37: Did God know the future when he said what would happen to Rabshekah?

Right after King Hezekiah's prayer for deliverance, God sent Isaiah to relay to the king what would happen to the forces of the Assyrians. Was this a demonstration of God's foreknowledge? or, was it something else.

The hyper-Grace or hyper-Sovereignty people would immediately assume that foreknowledge or predestination come into play here. Despite their good intentions to maintain the doctrine of the Sovereignty of God, they are actually falsely elevating it to a level that is both unrealistic, unreasonable and primarily unbiblical.

1. If foreknowledge or predestination was in play here, then why are God's declarations a RESPONSE by God instead of an INITIATION of the event, i.e., God making the exact same declaration as soon as Rabshekah entered the territory of Israel so that the hyper-Sovereignty people would be more impressed?
2. If God truly had foreknowledge or would predestine these events, why didn't he do it even before Rabshekah's threats? Why would he even permit Rabshekah to invade the area in the first place, why not send him to China instead so Jerusalem would have peace and Rabshekah would not even be in their consciousness? Where is the wisdom there?

For us who are hyper-Love and hyper-Free-will, if I were to coin such contrary terminology, we can clearly see an alternative interpretation which is actually more logical, more reasonable and more biblically consistent with the character of YHWH.

1. The declaration is simply God's INTENTION of what He would do IN RESPONSE (v.21 "Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria") to Rabshekah's threats. "I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David" (v.35). Note the phrase, "I will"!!!
2. God fulfills his promise that if those who fear Him call upon His Name, He will deliver them from their troubles.(Psalm 34:17 and many other related verses).
3. God proves both his steadfast love (for the sheep of His pasture) and faithfulness (to his word or promises).
4. God exercises biblical Omni-competence, that he can handle anything even any surprising thing that arises even if he is blind-folded and with his hands tied behind his back and still come out victorious!
5. Just based on those three points above, we get revelation and blessing in a way which the hyper-Sovereignty interpretation does NOT give in a clear logical way.

True (honest) hermeneutics begins with listening to God speak WITHOUT EDITING WHAT GOD IS SAYING and not trying to find consistency with our cherished doctrines BY EDITING WHAT WE ARE HEARING OR RE-INTERPRETING ACCORDING TO OUR BELIEF. Many times, even the best scholarship loses the blessing just because of the wrong mindset.


Luke 10:20-23. Did Jesus know that Judas would betray him when he said these words?

Jesus clearly addressed his disciples, which included Judas Iscariot in verse 20, "...do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”" Then again in verse 23, Jesus told his disciples (which included Judas Iscariot), "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!"

It is quite easy to see that Jesus could not have waited for Judas to be absent to speak these words. Obviously, Judas was present in this remarkable events. So how can someone who would eventually betray Jesus be blessed by Jesus with these words.  Note especially, "rejoice that your names (including Judas Iscariot who was part of those being addressed by Jesus) are written in heaven".

Wow, what an affront to the "once saved, always saved" believers.

The hyper-Grace/hyper-Sovereignty perspective would have no logical interpretation for this as it obviously points to the Son of God making a clear mistake based on their theology of Sovereignty, predestination and God-in-total-control. Yes, they can make excuses and work around the actual truth of the event but whatever it is, it will not sound logical, reasonable nor biblical.

From our perspective, however, there is logic and consistency with our established doctrines of God's love and man's free will. Judas Iscariot clearly desired to be a disciple of Christ under the belief (as ALL the other disciples) that Christ was indeed the Messiah and Son of God. So he was indeed initially blessed. Do not forget that JUDAS WAS CHOSEN by Christ Himself! He joined primarily for political power. He wanted to rule with the Messiah when he delivers Israel from Roman rule! Unfortunately, however, Judas later found out that Christ was not a political messiah and this greatly disappointed him. We later find out that he also had minimal intention for life transformation as evidenced by his stealing from their moneybag (John 12:6).  Only after he witnessed the suffering of the Christ he betrayed that he seemed to have gotten the point of Christ's incarnation and clearly got convicted of sending an innocent man to his death. Disgusted with himself and the repercussions of what he had done, he committed suicide. Quite common sense and logical, right? ....and nothing in the written word to contradict this interpretation!

None of Christ's disciples did get the point of his incarnation until after the resurrection and Christ's re-opening of the Scriptures to them. Unfortunately, Judas was already gone and never got a hold of the divine perspective on Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection.


Was Judas' betrayal of the Christ purely his accountability, or did God have a part by ordaining this to happen and choosing Judas for the role (poor Judas?).

The hyper-Sovereignty perspective would predictably choose the predestination angle of a "God who controls everything". They may seem logical for a "sovereign God" to do but it remains inconsistent with the unfailing Love of God which King David praises over and over again in his Psalms, "The steadfast love of God endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations". RARELY, if ever, did David praise God for his so-called "absolute sovereignty" or aspects of it.  And even the aspects of sovereignty that David praised was mostly in the context of God's KHECED and EMETH.

These qualities or attributes of God of love and faithfulness cannot be logically and soundly defended under the premise of hyper-sovereignty if we erroneously stick to the claim that God pre-ordained Judas to betray the Christ. It just does not make sense in any language, in any world, in any context other than a direct contradiction of the main attribute of God which is love.

Now, re-read our alternative interpretation in the previous section and you find consistency, logic, reason and even SIMPLICITY of doctrine of the level that can be revealed to "little children". Luke 10:21, "In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will".

The only biblical hints that Christ knew in advance that Judas would betray him are in John 6:70-71. However, this could alternatively be timed close to the end of His ministry in which case the Christ's knowledge of human nature and months of history observing the behavior of Judas made him aware that this was the bad apple.  Then Jesus knowledge of prophecy would make even a wise human guess that Judas was going to fulfill it. We are not discounting the work of the Holy Spirit or the closeness of the Son to the Father. However, this could be alternatively interpreted to say that Jesus' certainty was caused by the confirmation of the either the Holy Spirit, the Father or both.

The other reference is in the book of Acts 1:16 where Peter mentions that Judas was the fulfillment of David's prophecy. Again, this is not necessarily predestination. Even foreknowledge is not involved as Peter was stating these AFTER THE FACT and based on his "new" incite on prophecy, but I would boldly ascertain that there was no specific human in mind when these prophecies were uttered or written.

It simply means that "in the fullness of time", Judas came into the picture and developed into the traitor.  We are not ignoring divine intervention here. In fact we believe that there is always divine intervention when timing of fulfillment is perfect. However, NOT in the way that classical theology or the hyper-Sovereignty perspective proposes. This is because we believe in God who does not manipulate hearts directly because of his creation of true free will.  Instead, we see a God who may be creating circumstances that would coax or even exploit what was already developing in Judas to the point of betrayal. But pre-ordaining or manipulating hearts directly is inconsistent with the nature of YHWH. In fact, even the devil cannot manipulate hearts, so he works in the mind, distorting truths and tempting man towards anything that would displease God and even make him pull away voluntarily from the Kingdom of God.


The Hardening of Pharoah's heart

This has been another biblical statement that the hyper-Sovereignty people believe confirms specific predestination.  May I remind them that such falsehood undermines the true nature of God and the KHECED of God.  If such falsehood is to be accepted as truth, then the whole Word of God collapses. It is no longer revelation as it confuses as about the nature and love of God. This is one obvious logical point that I am completely surprised that many classical scholars CANNOT or REFUSE to see. How can God say that he loves us when he defines it as KHECED or AGAPE in 1 Corinthians 13 but demonstrates it in an OBVIOUSLY CONTRADICTORY MANNER even if it is just one case (in fact MORE THAN TWO cases, Pharoah, the Egyptiians, Judas, etc.).  THERE SHOULD BE ABSOLUTELY NO EXCEPTION IN SCRIPTURE TO THE DEFINITION AND DEMONSTRATION OF LOVE BY GOD!!!

If there is any exception then God loses his EMETH or FAITHFULNESS TO HIS WORD. God says he is Love but that statement can no longer be trusted if there is even one exception, because who knows if one of us could be the next exception???

Praise be to God! There is an alternative logical, reasonable and biblical interpretation that is simple enough for "little children".

The word of God is written in Hebrew in the Torah and Koine Greek in Romans 11 where Paul mentions the hardening of Pharoah's heart again in Romans 9:17.

First we analyze the Hebrew part where in Exodus chapters 4 to 14 where we have 19 occurrences of the word or phrase that declares that God hardened pharoah's heart. There is another reference to God hardening Sihon's heart in Deuteronomy and there may be more.

Now we have to note that the ancient language of Hebrew was like Chinese characters. They were more like pictures than words unlike the Greek which is closer to English.  When speaking in pictures, the only way you can really communicate is by knowing the context of what is being written or spoken.  This was the best, shortest way to describe in the simple Hebrew language that God worked it out so that the Egyptians and Pharoah would harden their hearts. God may well have arranged the circumstances to challenge Pharoah's very proud ego, provoking Pharoah to harden is heart more.  This is a more logical explanation that is consistent with the nature of God as declared and demonstrated in the rest of the Bible record.

However, the last judge and prophet of Israel, Samuel,  explicitly declares the CORRECT interpretation of these events when he questioned Israel's faithfulness in 1 Samuel 6:6, "Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?"

So why do we listen to those loquacious and long-winded expositors who say otherwise? The hardening of heart was entirely Pharoah's accountability. This is our AHA moment. Samuel was comparing what the people of Israel both individually and as a group to that of the Egyptians and Pharoah's hardening of the heart. Clearly, Pharoah was entirely responsible for the hardening of his heart!  No buts, ifs nor any other faulty assumptions.  Need I explain more?

Let us focus on the hermeneutic lesson here:

The context is ALWAYS the basis of the individual words or phrases of Scripture. 
There is always the bigger picture. The view of the forest should explain the individual trees and each tree must confirm our view of the forest. Which brings us to the next hermeneutic point...

The big picture enables a better understanding of the smaller pictures.
The correct theological framework enables a better understanding of the chapters and passages of Scripture AND the smaller verses should not contradict the small contexts and the small contexts should not contradict the bigger contexts, etc.

Here is why we see that the hyper-Sovereignty perspective has a faulty theological framework as it breeds contradictions in the individual passages of Scripture or passages that cannot be logically interpreted.

Our theological framework so far seems solid:

"God's purpose/project in history is to create a people of faith he would call his "kingdom" comprised of people who would love him back out of their own free will in the same way that God loves them out of His own free will. Since Love and Relationship is God's primary concern, he has to RISK creating GENUINELY autonomous and unrestricted free-will. Since free will has to be genuine and autonomous, God gives up control over the heart of man. Otherwise, common sense tells us that love or relationship is a FAKE. Because Love and Relationship is God's primary concern, he looks on the heart of man and the condition of man's heart is the only basis for determining his eternity, whether he goes to heaven (kingdom extension) or hell. Salvation starts with surrendering our free will back to God by acknowledge Him as our Lord. Only then may we accept Him as Savior. This renders utterly useless any lip service or insincere ceremonial activities to the all-knowing and highly intelligent YHWH."

This alone is the reason WHY the Chief End of Man (non-Calvinist) is none other than the Greatest commandment (Loving God truly and loving others truly the way God loves) mentioned 4 times in Scripture and explained 3 times by the Son of God Himself!  That seems more authoritative than the Westminster Confession or the Heidelberg Cathecism. Now, try to use this framework to analyze why God does what he does in any Scripture passage.


How will God derive his 144,000 in Revelations 7 and 14

This question was asked in one of our inductive Bible study lessons. The expected answer, of course, was that the Sovereign God had already chosen the individuals comprising the 144,000 even before they were born.  The surprising response I gave was more logical and closer to the nature of God and here it is.

"God has determined that there will be 144,000 from the twelve tribes who will be like Billy Graham in the last days. No contest there. However, he has not chosen who they are. He has only planned that they will be Jews from the twelve tribes. Since a thousand years is like one day to God, this means that God will patiently wait for the 144,000 Jewish hearts to mature to the level he desires. Only at that point will he inspire these thousands to deliver his gospel message to the rest of the world.  Of course we do not deny that there will be some divine intervention since the timing has to be perfect BUT NOT NECESSARILY TO THE POINT THAT GOD HAS PRE-SELECTED AND WILL MANIPULATE LIKE MAGIC THE HEARTS OF 144,000 specific JEWS with their names already known TO DO HIS WILL. Such a view will make us doubt if God's revelation of his nature through the Bible is reliable or not!"

CONCLUSION:

When we attempt to read or study Scripture, we should recognize the following:

1. God is present right in front of you immediately after you read the first word of Scripture or utter the first word of prayer. You are standing on holy ground in the presence of God.
2. We have to be open to what God wants to say regardless of our cherished doctrines. Bible ALWAYS trumps doctrine. That is true wisdom and obedience.
3. Doctrine should be revised to be consistent with the revealed Word, in the same way that the New Testament should be interpreted in such a way that it DOES NOT and SHOULD NEVER contradict the Old Testament which is the Word of God authenticated by the Lord Jesus Christ himself in Matthew 5:17-20
4. When we meet contradictions or difficulties based on our doctrine, it may be time to revise it. Why? Because God's word is God's revelation. When we read it and are still confused, then either God has failed to reveal or we have failed to hear what God is saying. Take your pick which one is more logical!

God does need our participation in protecting his sovereignty. Man experiences God's sovereignty whether man agrees or not.

What God wants is our participation in protecting his integrity by insisting that God's faithfulness to his Word endures to all generations. When Satan wins at either distortion of God's word or distortion of God's  nature and attributes, then man is led astray from the narrow way that leads to priceless eternal life. The narrow way is already hard to find. Let us not complicate it farther by confusing those who desire to enter when they have found it.

Any man or even Christian, for that matter, who is confused by God's word or character cannot have true faith. For how can anyone have any solid faith on a confusing "truth"? Like the foolish man at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, his house is built on sand.

Hermeneutics by John Wesley

Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect". - Matthew 5:48

Wesley claims that God would not require of us something that is impossible. This premise has been the subject of ridicule especially from the Classical Hyper-Calvinist camp. A close look at this proposition, however, yields for sound hermeneutics.

To comment on the counter-view, if one disagrees on the Wesleyan premise, he begins to subject Scriptural commands to meaningless rhetorical statements....something like God thinking aloud but not really telling us anything for our benefit, which is quite ridiculous. This makes Scripture interpretation arbitrary and ultimately meaningless and of no value to everyday life or personal sanctification. But then, under the hyper-classical view, a good two-thirds of Scripture have no meaningful interpretation nor value to them.

This violates the whole intent of divine revelation if 2/3 of what is revealed (or even a small portion of it) does not qualify for 2 Timothy 3:16.17. On the other hand, and emphatically, ALL of God's word has value. In fact, I would safely surmise that ALL of God's Word has PRACTICAL VALUE simply because it is uttered and/or "inspired" by an Omniscient and all-wise God!.

The hermeneutical pursuit should then be, "What could the inspired Word of God mean by this?" This is where Wesley is correct in deriving that this could mean simply a perfect motive (which is synonymous to a perfect heart in Wesleyan thought). It is in this sense, that Scriptural passages like this come to have practical value. Hence, imperfect man will always have imperfect behavior or actions or attitudes. However, redeemed man, is highly capable of having a perfect motive and acting it out in his daily life (even if the manifestations are imperfect!).

For example, a friend may do something to another out of love (yes, self-less, sacrificial, and redeeming love). However, because we are imperfect and live in a cursed world, the expression of that love may be imperfect yielding hurtful words or misunderstood actions. Nevertheless, it does not at all degrade the imperfect person's perfect motive of love.

It is in this sense, that the command, "Be perfect" makes sense, because it can be obeyed and is doable.

Hermeneutics by Martin Luther

In the biographies of Martin Luther, we find that he had a debate with John Calvin on whether or not the Lord's Supper was consubstantiation or transubstantiation.

Here is a the great Greek scholar's hermeneutical retort to Calvin.
"If Christ said the bread is his body, who are we to say that it is not!"

The Key to Understanding Paul's Epistles

Hermeneutics is supposed to be a static concept of there being one true way of understanding any document. It becomes dynamic, however, when interpreters advance their own bias or fail to derive the correct context by which the document was written. Liberal theology is an example of advancing one's bias while classical ecclesiastical theology has many examples of failure to derive the correct context.

This principle applies to the writings of the apostle Paul. Classical theologians misunderstand concepts of predestination, foreknowledge, sanctification, gifts of the Spirit, healing, etc mainly because of one particular erroneous assumption about Paul.

Whereas it is true that Paul does a great exposition on the concepts of salvation including justification and sanctification, election and other concepts, one must remember that when Paul wrote his epistles he NEVER in his right mind would nor could assume that his writings would eventually be cannonized and considered part of God's progressive revelation. In his mind, Scripture was none other than the Jewish Scriptures which is the Christian's Old Testament.

Paul was also aware of the contents and teachings of the Jesus even if the gospels were not fully written at that time. Paul had the unique capacity of being educated in a Hellenized world but still retaining the Jewish frame of mind since he was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin as well as being educated under the Rabbi Gamaliel. Hence, in Paul's mind, he was simply advancing perspectives on particular aspects of the Way that could be comprehended by a Hellenistic frame of mind and vocabulary.

In other words, Paul knew and was conscious that he was simply explaining the Jewish Scriptures and Jewish concepts of redemption and deliverance in the light of the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ.

For example, when we discuss Pauline concepts of justification, we should realize that his explanations are another angle to man possessing the "righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees" that Christ taught on the Sermon on the Mount. We then can connect that the "righteousness of God" imputed to man in the book of Romans is simply another way of restating Christ's statement or another perspective on Christ's teaching.

When Paul discusses Sanctification in the book of Romans, one must realize that he was simply explaining Christ's concept of SHOWING, displaying or demonstrating the "righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees". Recall that Christ did say on the sermon to "let your light shine before men..." or that "You are the salt of the earth..." or "you are the light of the world". These are all similar concepts restated through the perspective of different angles on the same concept. Paul actually echoes Christ's teaching that God is not concerned at what we do or say as much as He is concerned about what we are. That we are supposed to be transformed Kingdom citizens (born-again, remember?) and our new self in terms of behavior, values and character should NATURALLY manifest itself .

There are many other concepts which are Pauline perspectives on the same issues that Christ and the God of Israel have explicitly discussed previously. So to truly understand and interpret Pauline writings is to realize this context, that Paul was conscious that his writings were not inspired Scripture but another way of looking at old Jewish concepts in the light of further revelations and clarifications based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Of course, modern scholarship has determined that Paul's writings were in fact inspired but this was NOT in the consciousness of Paul during his writing periods. Compare this to the Jewish prophets who were very clear that their words were spoken in behalf of God.

Why Christians Miss the Main Thrust of God's Word

It is sad that in this day and age, too much emphasis is given to new Christians on the New Testament. Most modern day evangelicals (the average church attender) are New Testament Christians only and not Biblical (whole Bible) Christians. As a result we have produced a race of Christians who are formal, "keep-your-nose-clean", unexcited and unexciting, ultra-right-wing conservatives and very often, quite legalistic Christians.

One must have a big picture view of the Word of God in order to approach it the right way and to get not only maximum value from God's infinite wisdom but to bathe and immerse in loving communion with the God of the universe who is now OUR Father and OUR personal Shepherd.

Assume that there were no New Testament and we lived before Christ and the only source of God's revelation is the Jewish Scripture (which is the Christian's Old Testament). One would find the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who promised a covenant relationship with an elect group of His creation. Reading further one would discover the God of Joseph who can put down and raise up, the God of Moses whom we can communicate personally and directly with and sometimes argue with and yet although He is a God of mercy and will constantly forgive, many times He WILL NOT remove the consequences of our sin (Moses never entered the promised land he worked so hard to bring God's people to).

And so on and so forth, the God of Joshua and Gideon who can fight for His people, the God of David who can reward to the highest degree (David's line will be eternal) and punish to the lowest degree (humiliated David forever for his sin with Uriah and Bathsheba and killed the son that resulted from that sin despite David's efforts to beg for his life!). Read the major and minor prophets and discover a relationship with God that is beyond personal relationship.

So, to put the New Testament in perspective: It was meant to do just a few things

1. Demonstrate the extent of God's unconditional love. God also had to show that He exceeds Abraham's sacrificial gesture of sacrificing Isaac.
2. Clarify that salvation is by grace through faith resulting in inheriting the righteousness of God, or being reckoned righteous before God.
3. John 15 and the Sermon on the Mount clarifies that God is a relational God, that his objective for creating man in His image is to have a loving covenant-relationship with autonomous creatures out of their own free will, for them to surrender back to Him that free will willingly and completely.
4. To clarify that justification or salvation is just a step (albeit definitely necessary) in the big picture of relationship with God.
5. To explain the unique culture that a child of God and citizens of heaven must possess to be DIFFERENT from the world and normal men.
6. 
   

Christians should not approach the New Testament with a "what must I do to keep my nose clean" attitude, in much the same way as not approaching it with a "what should I do to get what I want" attitude (much like the health-and-wealth or name-it-and-claim-it aberrations of theology).

Christians should approach the New Testament as a culmination of the principles and demonstrations of God's relational objectives with those whom He "created in His image". To derive maximum value from the New Testament, one must view it as an addendum to the Old Testament and the completion of God's revelation to man. It must NEVER be viewed as God's NEW dispensation because the old covenant as written in the Jewish Scriptures have been changed.

This last point is quite important. The first century church which started as a mustard seed has grown to be the biggest tree in the garden consistent with the parable of Christ. It is God's Kingdom among us, as Dallas Willard puts it in The Divine Conspiracy. One can only appreciate the Spirit behind transformed lives in the first century when one realizes that their ONLY Scripture was the Jewish Scriptures or what we now know as the Old Testament. The church grew inspired by a risen Savior and a new enlightenment of what the Jewish Scriptures were all about. What we now know as the Gospels, Paul's letters and the other epistles were essentially just incidental letters of instruction that further explained what the Jewish Scriptures were all about. The main point I wish to draw from this important historical background is that it is necessary to read the Bible THROUGH JEWISH EYES in order to fully grasp and appreciate the the Author and the Spirit behind those Words.

Sadly, much of the influence of the later church fathers as well as some early church fathers looked at Scripture from the intelligencia Hellenistic perspective and the clouding of the relational aspects of Scripture gradually faded in favor of the classical Greek concepts of a more impersonal God ( the unmoved mover, lower case to me as it IN NO WAY describes the God of Israel!), an impassive God (pure Bible contradiction of God's personality), Absolute (and unbridled) Sovereignty (another Greek concept so devoid of love and relationship at its heart because it believes that God cannot and will not risk anything [a clearly empirical and experiential contradiction]), and other theological "garbage" (read that in French!).

[This is work in process....more soon]

Election: The Calvinist View vs. The Biblical View

The Calvinist concept of Divine Election which funnels toward Unconditional Election as propagated by their TULIP teaching is a deviant philosophical slant from that of many of the Biblical propositions and/or examples or precedents.

The Jews were certainly elected as God's chosen people, yet many of them are condemned to an eternity without God. King Saul and several of the kings of Judah and Israel were definitely chosen or elected by God. However, they were subsequently rejected based on behavior and obedience to God's prescribed paths.

To emphasize, read 1 Samuel 10:24, ..."Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen, that there is no one like him among all the people?" Samuel declared this statement when the omniscience [see related blog which clarifies that omniscience does not cover the future but only the past and present] of God was supposed to already know David the shepherd who would eventually become king to replace Saul.

In many Biblical cases, God's election is just that... just a choice with no extraneous implications nor guarantees of eternal bliss or unconditional salvation.

Unconditional Election is therefore at best a logical Greek concept. Unfortunately, there is very little Biblical basis for its Calvinistic slant.

Classicists and Calvanists almost always revert to Ephesians chapter 1 to prove specific predestination. However, note that foreknowledge was not even used in this chapter. Foreknowledge implies that God has seen the future and therefore what He has seen CANNOT be changed. "Predestined", however, has been and can be read under the context of God's will, not the will that is etched on stone but the will that means intent or intention.

This divine will is similar to the will of God in the Lord's prayer. "thy will be done on earth..." clearly implies that God's will is NOT done! At least, NOT YET! But clearly, this is a will that can be temporarily thwarted. Hence, substitute the word "intention" to replace "predestination", "intended or designed" to replace "predestined" in Ephesians 1 and one would get a revelation that is far from the Classical Calvinist version but rich in theology and application.

[Added 2017-10-29]
Note that whenever predestination is mentioned in Scripture, the subject is ALWAYS PLURAL. Hence predestined events or actions refer the what God planned for the church or the "elect" and not for any specific individual. Note also that all mention of THE ELECT is always in the plural form with the ONLY EXCEPTION that of the "elect lady" in 2 John, but even then lady is only elect because of the group that she belongs to.

Hence, it is NOT the individual Christian who is elect but it is the church that is elect.  Nor is the individual Christian predestined to anything other than what God had predestined for the elect or the church.

This is the same flavor as the "chosen people" of the Old Testament. God does not refer to individual chosen persons but to the chosen people as a nation or group.

This VERY IMPORTANT distinction is what the Calvinists either have missed or ignored, hopefully, not intentionally.

The concept of Faith from a Relational/Biblical Perspective

True Biblical Faith Defined

Faith is one of the most corrupted English word of the 20th/21st centuries. It is ironic that Bible translations are "forced" to do a word-for-word correspondence between the original language(s) into say, English. This is also one of the biggest reasons why it behoves a Christian who truly loves God and His Word to have several translations and sometimes paraphrases of the Bible as well as diligent study and analysis either individually or in a group situation in order to minimized the miscommunication of revelation from God to man.

The Greek word pisteuo for the English belief or faith is no longer what it used to mean. Unfortunately, attempts by classical expositions further confuse listeners and readers and they normally leave a sermon message without anything tangible that they could change in their mindset and/or behavior.

While the Greek word means exercising a believing trust based on reliable logical foundation, the 20th century meaning of faith if translated back 2,000 years to the Hellenistic culture would find that the closes Greek word for it borders on "sheer stupidity". The very phrase "blind faith" which is common to most, if not all, religions comes to mind.

To illustrate to simple extremes, a person who is about to jump off a 30 storey building to the ground exercises faith when he knows that based on the laws of gravity, he is going to fall and most probably die in the process. Note that he has NOT done it yet, but he already KNOWS! That is really what the Biblical pisteuo means.

On the other hand, a person who thinks he can defy the law of gravity without any assistance from technology (or demons), and believes all he can truly exercises STUPIDITY and NOT FAITH at all. This current generation with new age beliefs et all has it the other way around!

To take this a step further, if I book and subsequently ride a plane from Los Angeles to New York for arrival on March the 5th, I am exercising faith that I will be in New York on March the 5th. Note that faith is exercised BEFORE I even reach New York, I ALREADY believe that I will be there on March the 5th.

True faith or pisteuo is based on trusting some reason, logic, scientific or historical foundation. It is never faith on having much faith which is not blind faith but truly stupidity.

That is the reason we know we will be in heaven in the presence of God when we physically leave this life. We exercise faith on the One who promised that we will be there if we follow certain conditions and parameter that He has set.

When we book that plane to New York, there is always the possibility of failure. We may miss the flight, the plane could crash or re-route to somewhere else or just be cancelled. Nothing in this world is perfect, so we did exercise faith but on something that is not 100% reliable.

However, God is 100% reliable because He is God. The Lord Jesus Christ is 100% reliable because He is perfect. So we are actually more certain to be in heaven when we die than to be in New York on March 5th!!! And THAT... is what faith in an infallible God implies.

In the same way that wisdom is the application of knowledge, faith is also the application of knowledge. Note that knowledge has to be true and correct, otherwise both wisdom and faith utterly fail.

How is True Faith Developed or Increased?

Knowing the true Biblical definition of faith, the next question is "How then is faith developed and/or increased?" Why did Christ exclaim to his disciples, "Oh, ye of little faith"?

The Wrong Concept

The simple none-theological but very Biblical answer: The development of faith (or believing trust) has nothing at all to do with nurturing faith. On the contrary, it has almost everything to do with nurturing its OBJECT. What this means is that faith is an "automatic" or "natural" result of really knowing the OBJECT of faith. It could be a scientific fact, a historical fact, a natural law like gravity, or a proven concept. Note that it CANNOT be just a theory like the Theory of Evolution. So many people, including scientists exercise this blind faith, trusting something that is no more than just a guess, perhaps it is an intelligent guess but it is still a guess nonetheless and not a completely proven scientific fact (the missing links in the evolutionary path ARE STILL MISSING TODAY after all the research and technology behind it).

The same is true with the homosexual rights concept. It is already quite scientific that there is either a penis or a vagina for each person. People who do not fall under this category like the hermaphrodites are considered SCIENTIFICALLY ABNORMAL. Since when can it be mandated that a person with a correct sexual organ but the wrong brain orientation be considered "normal"? These last centuries have corrupted definitions with relativistic thought applied to extreme, that is relativism applied where IT SHOULD NOT EVEN BE APPLIED. Clean distilled water is scientifically CLEAN DISTILLED WATER even if I try to believe with all my might that it is VINEGAR or a form of vinegar!!!

Common sense has just gone out the door and the main stupid proponents call themselves scientists, teachers, philosophers or even theologians. The loudness of a lobby does not make it right. They consider themselves intelligent where universally, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to agree with them.

I have not really digressed because these cases are examples of blind faith - putting your trust and belief system on a belief and not on simple universal and logical FACT. Again, if you gave these example to the Hellenists 2,000 years ago, they would simply call this STUPID, and stupid is as stupid gets.

So either the object of faith is fact or faith is just plain stupidity. I hope we have clearly laid that out. This is the day and age where one can redefine things and I simply refuse to get into that kind of non-sensical relativistic bent.

The Correct Concept

So to increase or develop faith, one has to not only get familiar with its object but study and analyze it to the point that everything about the object that is relevant to the exercise of specific faith (YES, all exercise of faith is specific and not general) becomes established FACT in the person's mind. Note that in order for the exercise of faith to be genuine, the object has to be an established fact in reality and an established fact in the mind of the person exercising specific faith.

After it becomes an established fact in a person's mind, he then has to truly and sincerely believe that fact for true Biblical kind of faith to start being exercised. Let us apply this to a real example. In a normal world, trust is built between people as they get to know each other better. The more they know the other person's character, behavior and responses to given circumstances, the more they can sort of "predict" what they would do under certain situations or stimuli. The TRUST that such and such is what a person would do if a certain action or stimulus is applied to him. This would be entirely based on one's knowledge of a person as well as experience dealing with him in various situations.

The same is true with God and Jesus Christ. The more I know them, the more experience I have with them as to how they respond to events, people's behavior, etc., the more I can sort of "predict" what they would do when certain events occur. The unique and peculiar reinforcement to the exercise of faith is that God's character never changes and the Lord Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. So there is a sense in making them not exactly more predictable but to state it in general, the basis of the exercise of our faith when it is founded on the Lord Jesus Christ or The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is more reliable. Call that predictability if you will but that definitely helps your faith in them.

For example, if I need healing from God for a specific ailment or disease, it has to be an established fact both in reality and in my mind that God can heal and that God will heal and if He gives conditions for me to be healed, I make sure that I abide by those conditions. Knowing that God fulfills ALL HIS promises within the Kingdom context (you must be a Kingdom child with a real and meaningful relationship with the King) and/or if you abide in Him as He abides in you, He promised to "ask anything in my name and it will be done to you" (John 15:7) or "whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you" (John 15:16). The Lord Jesus even encourages ask to ask in John 16:23,24.

For those who still doubt, what kind of God will make so many promises and either not be able to fulfill them nor would not act to fulfill them??? May that never be so. Fortunately, the Bible does declare over and over that if a Kingdom child continues to live within the Kingdom context, the fulfillment of ALL 100% of His promises will be experienced in reality.

The problem is not with the Promise-Giver for He truly is a Promise-Keeper. The problem is with the Kindom child who so often has one foot on the Kingdom and the other in the world. This is one reason why Christ said, "you cannot serve God and mammon". Christ meant that anytime one is a fence-sitter, he is in reality NOT living in the Kingdom context and that is why God's promises do not find fulfillment and that is why most Christians do not have the right faith to believe and make things happen.

Let us look at passages in Scripture

Now that we have established the true meaning of pisteuo and its implications...

...to be discussed...

What did Christ mean "faith as big as a mustard seed"?

How did Christ respond to "help thou mine unbelief"

What did James mean by "prayer of faith"?

The Trinity and the 2nd Failure of Classical Theology

I have heard this before said to a classicist, " For someone who claims to love logic and sound reasoning, you surely don't make sense!" Whoever quoted this is a genius. He stumbled on the defining character of classical thought.

An earlier blog noted that one failure of Classical thought is that of definition. They cannot accept a "definition" like the Trinity without sacrificing their intelligence. So you commonly see them raise their hands in surrender and declare, "It is a mystery". What they really mean is that they do not understand the concept based on their foundational thinking. So Biblical "common sense" does not make sense to them. They have to re-interpret things according to their world ( which is many times out-of-this-world) and they end up being ridiculous to the simple thinker who has a lot of common sense.

The second failure of classical theology is the unrestrained generalization of a theological principle that may have only a limited application in Scripture the way God really intended it.

Predestination for example, is very specific in scripture and only applies to that which was explicitly declared as predestined. Classicists would readily grab that concept (which is good) but use it to apply to everything (which is a hermeneutical failure) almost unconditionally. Furthermore, a context analysis of the words predestined and fore-ordained in Scripture means a current state of being and really very simply means that God has made something (whatever is the subject) a "natural law". This immediately excludes a lot of things including how many spoons of sugar I will put in my coffee three days from now. It becomes ridiculous if you include that in God's natural law OR God's fore-ordination or God's predestination.

Prayer "according to God's will" is mentioned ONLY ONCE in scripture but the classicist tends to interpret its meaning quite incorrectly and then apply it to all his prayers and pretty soon discovers prayers that do not have answers. The hermeneutic meaning has been discussed elsewhere in this blog but suffice it to say that "according to God's will" simply meant by John was prayer that does not violate the character of God. This means that we can pray for our wishes and desires and not just our needs. In fact, Jesus himself says not to pray for our needs in Matthew 6. Hence, we should only pray for our aspirations, wishes and desires. Now these may not be in line with the perfect will of God but if it does not violate the character of God, God COULD definitely answer such prayer positively! A biblical example is when Israel asked Samuel for a king in the book of 1 Samuel. This was NOT in line with God's will at all since God himself said it, BUT HE GRANTED THEIR WISH ANYWAY!!! Classical theologians have a difficult time interpreting these events because this is quite an exception to their theology.

God does not relent, God has no shadow of turning does NOT imply that God does not change His mind about specific events. God's character and attributes never change, but He definitely changes his mind time and again depending on the prayers of his people. There are three great examples in Scripture at least: Moses convincing God to change his mind in destroying his people in Exodus 32 ending in verse 14; Hezekiah convincing God to extend his life which God did 15 more years even after God declared his will to Hezekiah that he should die that night; and, to make things even controversial, the Assyrians in Nineveh convincing God to change his mind on destroying their city in the book of Jonah! Many classical preachers are able to exegete these passages with satisfaction but they are quite helpless in trying to relate their theology to the evidences against it... very paradoxical and ironic, and they claim to be logical and intelligent? I believe they are, but they have the wrong foundation on Scripture.

...above is a draft which we will expand, expound and develop further....

God NEVER changes, BUT...He can change His mind!

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). But so is God the Father since they are co-equal. God's character and attributes NEVER change. Only the exercise of His rights change as in the Baby Jesus not having omnipotence, omnipresence nor omniscience while He was lying in the manger or when Herod was after His life.

But since His character never changes, this means that the Loving God will deal with His people today (the church) in almost exactly the same way as He dealt with His people (the Jews).

[work in progress...I have a very important point to share here....more soon]

Complementarianism vs. Charismatic Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Ephesians 4:11-16 says, "11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

Those of you who have been following my blogs may derive that I am an egalitarian in almost all things except when it is about marriage and divorce. Hence, I am strictly egalitarian when it comes to the charismatic gifts of the Spirit, especially as listed down in verse 11.

Complementarians are quick to say that the Greek for "pastor" and "teacher" are both masculine. My quick response is for them to note the words I highlighted in red in the above passage. ALL of these are in the masculine gender. Hence all the gifts in verse 11 are MASCULINE. Well and good for the complementarians who consider it anathema to see women preaching or teaching from the pulpit much less pastoring their own churches.

My response is simple as you can see. Note that the Greek words for "saints", "we", and "children" are masculine if you check your Greek Bibles. So should one be therefore strict and say that women are not part of the edification process in verse 12, since the word "hagios" for saints is masculine???? Does the phrase, "that WE may no longer be CHILDREN" only apply to men since they too are of masculine gender??? Or when verse 13 talks about "mature manhood" or "perfect man", does this ONLY apply to men and NOT women???

So you see, here is one argument where the gender of the words have no relevance to whether or not women should be pastors and teachers. The defining line is how the Jews practiced genderism in their religious and social affairs and what the coming and outpouring of the Holy Spirit has changed.

The Jews of course did not allow women to be priests. This was as much the implied commandment of God when He assigned priests and Levites to serve in the temple as it was a socio-religious differentiation of their time and age. Women priests during that time were associated with women gods of sexual fertility and the abominations of Ashtoreth and Baal. They were more of temple prostitutes but they were called priestesses.

The people of God had to be different, and God wisely chose a way to show the rest of the world that He was and is a different God. This direction, however, seems to be applicable only as far as differentiation was necessary between the people of God and the people of other gods.

Complementarians, however, stretch their beliefs to women in leadership or women pastors and teachers without the authority of some male leadership. This is such a faulty application of the design of God. Had this been true, there would never have been a Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel, who led the nation during the time of nation building. And Christians would then never have a Margaret Thatcher, or an Indira Gandhi.

Even the Jews had their Deborah during the time of the judges to whom Barak submitted to redounding to victory for the Hebrews. And the Jews had women prophets like the prophetess Anna in Luke 2:36. Since there has never been a clear declaration of when women could become prophets, though there was a preponderance of men prophets in the Old Testament, it seems quite clear that the office of prophet by God's choice and by Israel's acceptance have NEVER BEEN LIMITED to MEN. But remember that the Greek word for "prophet" is masculine!

To the credit of the Holy Spirit alone, (no thanks to the complementarians) do we have great Christian women leaders in the Church of Christ. I believe, complementarianism in this situation is an offspring of Roman Catholic practice which is an offspring of the Roman Empire Senate (simply changed external clothing by Emperor Constantine) which is dominated by male (oftentimes homosexual) rule. Most if not all cultures of the pagan world during this time (except perhaps for the Amazons, but who really knows?) were dominated and led by men.

It is clear that the coming of the Holy Spirit which happened during the era of the great Roman Empire, had to now differentiate between the Christian church and the rest of the world. In this case, it was the giving of charismatic gifts to the church WITHOUT RESTRICTION AS TO GENDER. It was time to show that women had as much value to God as men, that women had the same rights and privileges under the Holy Spirit as men do and that there are times that women had the better brains than men did - - - especially in the ekklesia of the Lord Jesus Christ!!!

The spiritual and practical implications of one's understanding and practical application of this passage and concept are bigger than normally thought. Point to me a complementarian denomination or church, and I will show that MOST PROBABLY this group does not believe in the healing gifts of the Holy Spirit nor in tongues. It is also most probable that there is very little excitement in these churches and the excitement they have is limited to church growth (they may rejoice in evangelism mostly because it grows their church, and not necessarily because it make God and heaven rejoice). I will guess that in these churches, only a few are really givers and perhaps not because of the teachings of the church but just out of their own personal walk with God! I will will show a church that may be busy with evangelism and activities but motivated by an intellectual belief instead of being pushed and prodded by the joy and excitement of the Holy Spirit in their midst.

On the other hand, show me the egalitarian churches and denominations and I can show you people who rejoice and marvel at people being healed, people praying and praising in tongues, people serving sacrificially with joy, and people giving beyond their means. And a majority of members "admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs".

Why do I make such sweeping conclusions and judgments you say. Well, it is not really my own but the Bible tells us NOT to quench the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19-20). If one quenches the Spirit in any ONE of His gifts, he opens the door to quenching the rest of what the Holy Spirit can dispense. Worse, if a whole church or denomination does just that - - - quench the Spirit in ANY ONE of His gifts, the church suffers the consequence of the Holy Spirit aborting His ministry in the church. This is why Holy Spirit revivals where men fall on their knees in surrender to their Savior and people are healed physically or freed from the shackle of their many "prisons" of addiction and fetishes, are few and far between.

It would be good practice NOT to limit our studies to just simple word studies in Scripture but to expand it to include the works and acts of the Holy Spirit in the history of the Israel, the church and the world. Then perhaps, we can interpret parts of Scripture like this correctly.

The First Century Meaning and Implications of Baptism

Baptism is one of only two "sacraments" which the Protestant Orthodox tradition recognizes as biblically mandated. We agree. This two are not just ceremonial activities. They are sourced in the very commands of Christ and the apostles and they are symbolic of relational reality in which everyone who claims to be a child of God should be doing.

The Holy Communion or the re-enactment and commemoration of the Lord's Last Supper as Incarnate Christ is commanded both by Christ and reiterated by St. Paul. They depict a close bonding between Christian and Christ which is very deeply relational.

Water baptism is another very relational sacrament. The act signifies a willful identification and intimate union of the believer with Christ to follow Him in obedience and newness of life in the power of the Holy Spirit characterized by personal holiness.

It is quite unfortunate that many baptisms or baptismal ceremonies fail to emphasize what the sacrament declares. What even makes it worse is the failure to realize the context wherein the first century Christians underwent water baptism. The following would be a list of their particular circumstance:

1. The Christian faith was classified as an illegal and anti-government sect
2. As such, Christians were not only persecuted but hauled away to jail, fed to the lions or burned at the stake. Their children were killed in front of their eyes and their property confiscated.
3. The Jewish converts knew that undergoing water baptism would permanently ostracize them from their Jewish relatives and friends.

In contrast to today, Roman Catholic baptism for one is a status symbol. Being baptized in that Church entails the very opposite environment that the first century Christian would face. It is small wonder that the religion is taken very much for granted by its converts. The pope bans abortion, but Roman Catholics are notoriously undergoing abortion in droves.

The same is true of so many other churches whether Eastern Orthodox or Protestant in all its flavors. Contemporary Christianity has lost sight of its origins. Church history is not even taught in any pulpit or Catechism or Confirmation class or Sunday School. Contemporary Christianity has deteriorated into a symbolic religion instead of a dynamic faith and relationship with the Living God through the Resurrected Christ.

Another relational meaning of baptism is analogous to a loved-filled relationship where the couple passionately desires to fulfill their wedding vows and display their wedding ring proudly. Baptism is our "wedding cermony" and "wedding ring" with God. We should desire to have it and display it proudly and passionately.

....more later...

Implications of Biblical Theomorphism

If you have been reading my blogs, you will discern that I am adamantly disdainful of theologians who rely on anthropomorphic explanations to make excuses for many of God's attributes or behavior. Just look at the commentaries and how they explain the fact that God RELENTS, i.e., repents (changes His heart or attitude) about what He said or did, repents from it and reverses from His initial intent or action. See the examples of Hezekiah in Isaiah 38 and His forgiveness of Ninevah in the account of Jonah.

Look at those theologians who condescendingly declare that the God that they "know" is so sovereign that He controls everything! Everything? Well, I know where they're coming from but there are many things where God has, by definition alone, relinquished absolute control. That is the biblical repercussion of God creating man in His Own image (Genesis 1:26, 27). For maximum effect, let us quote that part of Scripture here;

"26Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. ..."
27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them."

So, what may I ask, is being created in the image of God like, exactly? well, approximately, what does it mean or imply or redound to?

What then are the essential attributes of God by which we were molded or created after? For one, God is wholly-other, so to speak. God is an independent thinker, equipped with an entirely Free Will or volition, the ability to make His own decisions or courses of action, the ability (and Self-given privelege to change His mind), with the capacity for tangible intangibles like Love, Jealousy, hate, emotions, etc. among others, of course. However, why did I explicitly mention those qualities or attributes, if I may speak so?

Love is an expression that CANNOT be controlled by someone external to the lover. Jealousy is a feeling, or attitude that CANNOT be controlled by someone external to the one expressing jealousy. Faith or faithfulness, is a quality that CANNOT be controlled by anything or anyone outside of the person expressing faith.

I think you can surmise where I am going with this. So God, created man, out of His infinite and absolute wisdom, in HIS OWN IMAGE! Why did the writer of Genesis actually state this three times with emphasis? I will tell you why.

First, God took a risk not in creating man but in creating such a creature IN HIS OWN IMAGE. Why? Because, God was going to endow this creature with something beyond instinct like the animals have. God was going to bestow free will, the capacity to decide for himself, the capacity to love, the capacity to express faith, the capacity to express jealousy and other emotions which God Himself CANNOT control once they are created!

Swallow that thought for a moment. This is where classical thought and philosophy collapse because this concept is outside of their box. It is beyond the parameters of their closed-minded think process.

Love, once controlled by anything or anyone other than the lover, is by definition, no longer LOVE! A man who forces a woman to love him is just fooling himself. We all know that. It is common sense (but not for some, yeah, not for some even intelligent theologians!). God, being all-wise will not fool Himself either, and so He Himself CANNOT force LOVE from man. Otherwise, that which has been forced by Him, is NO LONGER LOVE, by DEFINITION!

One can argue that God can control and manipulate a person's love so that this person will really think he loves. But who is God fooling? The creature or Himself? Such a thought process insults the sovereignty of The Creator and God of the Universe! Genuine Love is genuine, unadulterated, uncontrolled, unmanipulated love, nothing more, nothing less!

So is faith and hope. That is why Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13:13 declares that "Now abides faith, hope, and love....and the greatest of these is love". These indeed are qualities that God cannot control in man. Man is a theomorphic creature endowed with independent thought and the privilege to independently express faith, hope and love the way he desires.

God can only encourage or court the responses of faith, hope and love. That is where He took the risk in creating man in His own image. To understand otherwise is to miss THE WHOLE POINT of Genesis 1:26-27.

Now let me tie this in with the Great Commandment declared in the Synoptic gospels but let us just stick with St. Peter's version through the writings of his protege, St. Mark 12:29-31. I declared in another blog that the Westminster Confession has it COMPLETELY wrong about the chief end of man. The chief end of man is NOT to glorify God (But do read the blog, 003-The Chief End of Man is not necessarily to Glorify God!, for its logical impact)! God requires LOVE precisely because He now CANNOT get it any other way, and instead of forcing man to LOVE Him, God courts man to LOVE Him! That is the great theme of the Bible!

Yes, there is judgment for those who refuse to love Him back, but the WHOLE POINT is that GOD still CANNOT FORCE LOVE (Note that WILL NOT refers to volitional control, while CANNOT refers to ability or capacity to do something. If God forces love, then He destroys His Own definition of Love.) Creating man in God's image WAS a RISK that God took, out of LOVE! "Amazing Love, how can it be......!" Now, we appreciate that hymn all the MORE!

Note: God is a God of order, of logic, of true meaning and substance. So the age old classical question of "Can God make a circle square?" is absolutely ridiculous, EVEN TO GOD! So, can God force or control Love? is likewise and oxymoron. God will not change meaning, God will not change definitions. God will not change substance. All this to demonstrate His perfection and order in the universe.

Is It Wrong to Lie?

The Biblical record shows the occasions when Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David lied, but they were never condemned by God! In fact, the record shows that God was even on Abraham's side when he lied to Pharoah AND when he lied to Abimelech.

If God unequivocally banned man from lying, He could have made the 9th commandment, "Thou shalt not LIE", but He didn't. What He disliked was bearing false witness. Although bearing false witness is lying, not all lies are meant to bear false witness.

....under development. Come back soon and be less dis-oriented toward the concept of lying....

Axiomatic Foundations for a Faithfully Biblical Systematic Theology - Draft 2

Guiding Bible Text: 2 Corinthians 4:1-6

Introduction

When it comes to the art and science revolving around the study of Scripture and God, my first passion is hermeneutics, i.e., conservative hermeneutics. It is ironic that today one has to specify "conservative" to connote a system of orthodox rules to the understanding of the meaning and application of any given document, especially historical documents. "Liberal" hermeneutics, if there is such a thing, is a system of rules of convenience. It derives its life, not from original intent or context of the document author, but from the biases and philosophies of the reader. Since this system of pseudo-thought depends highly on the context that the reader wishes to put into the document and not on the author's original intent and context, over time any document becomes meaningless. Were it possible to have several generations of critics alive at the same time to debate the issues on the same historical document,under liberal hermeneutics, one would simply hear a cacophony of arguments where everyone is lost as to a foundational basis for debate or discussion. There is no common ground to start with and such discussions would ultimately have no meaning nor practical value.

Ridiculous as it seems, this is the system of interpretation that liberal "activist" courts and judges use to evaluate constitutionality of laws adopted by legislative bodies and challenged by opposition parties.

Quite unfortunately, liberal hermeneutics has crept into the study of Scripture, which is the main reason that cults and cultic teachings sprout everywhere. It is even more unfortunate that such aberrant approaches have crept into the study of theology. Unless a set of common ground rules are established as a prerequisite to debate or discussion, one would witness the same confusing market of ideas previously described.

This is NOT a treatise or book on theology. If it were, then it would be as good as involving myself in endless polemics about the advantage or disadvantage of one view over the other, or the errors of one thought vs. the other. These discussions are both endless and aimless unless, the opponents agree to be guided by some solid foundational assumptions in their debate. If they agree on a common ground, as I hope they should, then a healthy, productive and edifying discussion is the expected result even if the final outcome does not mean complete agreement. It is my expectation however, that at least one of the contending parties will feel quite uncomfortable with even treasured positions which they may have held forever. But that is the goal of education, of theology, of apologetics, that of either making the mind more convinced of one’s position or that of shaking the minds of those holding untenable beliefs, or beliefs that were built on sandy soil.

If debating parties do not agree to these basic foundations for discussion, then there is really nothing to debate on or talk about unless both desire a complete waste of their time, and it would be more productive to move on and proceed with the rest of the Lord's work.

This treatise has been written with the view of setting a set of axioms or foundational propositions that proponents and opponents in theological discussions should best agree to before proceeding with any meaningful discussion on the subject. It is my hope that these axiomatic foundations be found logical and reasonable and to be agreed upon in order to generate edifying results.

It is my firm belief that disagreement with the axioms proposed makes one's theological framework and the subsequent theology irrational in its essence. The axioms put forward HAVE TO BE (and I state this without any apology whatsoever) so universal that any disagreement puts a pretending theologian on shaky ground, Biblically speaking. The biggest risk of nonconformity to these axioms is losing out on REAL salvation, of course. Why? I would propose that throughout the ages, if one's faith is in the wrong God, then such faith is based on an idol (a god of man's own creation, since it is a god that does not manifest from revelation). Consider the Mormons, for example. They claim to believe in Jesus Christ. But a critical examination of the Jesus Christ they believe in based on their writings and theology is someone else apart from the Jesus Christ of the New Testament and the Bible. Now, isn't this why we condemn the Mormon as heretic and deviant and unsaved?

Now what if some theologian, whether Arminian, Calvinist, Lutheran, Wesleyan, etc would start creating a theology that paints a picture of God that is not exactly the same as what most serious students of Scripture find in the pages of Scripture? Wouldn't this also classify as idolatry or border on it? Think about it! If a classical theologian paints God as timeless and impassable, but we don't see this in Scripture, shouldn't this be the description of a god that is different from the God of the bible? Are they not technically talking about, and most probably, worshipping a different god?

If the classicist now claims that he finds God as timeless, impassable, and immutable in Scripture only after he goes through seminary and several units of philosophy, shouldn't his concept of God still be suspect? What ever happened to God revealing to babes what the wise of this world missed out completely on? Is Christianity only for philosophers and intellectuals, then? Is the bible insufficient for one's edification and some extra-biblical references from some renowned theologian become necessary in order to understand the "simple gospel"?

Although I would think that for the most part, most concepts of God may not exactly be idolatrous but may simply be warped due to an overemphasis on some aspect of deity instead of a denial thereof, a wrong concept of God logically leads to a misguided faith. Misguided faith is faith that is weak but on the right God, or faith that may be strong but on the wrong God. This result into a Christian life that may be far from what we see in scripture, yielding a breed of Christians whose way of life is one that is defeated or ineffective in reaching out to a lost world, primarily because it is focused on the wrong god or a wrong concept of the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob". As a result, it is either unattractive to the observing world or it has little or no difference compared to secularism (or paganism) in both lifestyle and results, precisely because it is modeled after a wrong god!

It is not uncommon to find people who "sound" like Christians because they can articulate their faith and beliefs which seem to be for the most part biblical, but who nonetheless live a life that is no different from the nominal Christian who goes to church, prays regularly (albeit ceremoniously, or under the guise of obedience or submission to God), or knows the Bible very well (Satan is just as conversant as was seen during the temptation of Christ in the wilderness). Such folks may declare that God comes first in their lives, but their lifestyle and goals show more worldly concern. It is my hope that this discussion will somehow lead us into a (if not, the) correct concept or image of God and, as a result of having the correct theology, set us on the right track as far as our priorities and value system in this life. As correct theology lived out yields genuinely transformed lives, it is my further hope that the watching world will perceive the remarkable difference and be drawn to it and to its Source.

With so many variations of theology from the time of Christ to the present, it does not come as a surprise that although every individual practices his own theology, most folks refuse to study this discipline seriously or are simply incapable of doing so for whatever reason. It is also not surprising that there are well-meaning sincere Christians who desire to follow Christ as closely as they could by understanding the philosophical foundations of Scripture and end up not only dropping out of seminary but even renouncing their faith (which used to be "solid") in Christ.

The methods by which one derives correct theology should be no different from the methods yielding correct exegesis of the Word of God. It must start from a correct source and must follow the same rules of solid conservative hermeneutics. To achieve correct theology is to correctly explain by a logical synthesis of the whole of Scripture based on what a normal Koine Greek and/or a normal Hebrew would understand from a plain reading of Scripture as they normally understand it in their language, in the given time (historical) context, as well as cultural and sociological framework it was written (assuming these kinds of folks and languages survive today). This would be easy to see if we all speak and understand both Koine Greek and Old Testament Hebrew. Nevertheless, to arrive at correct theology, one should explain what we read from Scripture and NOT to re-explain Scripture based on some "special knowledge" or special revelation (as in the case of Joseph Smith or Mary Baker Eddy). A theologian cannot propose an impassable and immutable God when there are tons of scriptural references that contradict such a proposition. Declaring such contradictions as anthropomorphisms makes their arguments worse since, they now make a completely arbitrary declaration of which parts of scripture are anthropomorphic and which parts are not!

The rationale of correct theology underscores the hope that as a result of getting to know God better, the believer would not only gain a greater appreciation and faith in the God of the Bible, but that such knowledge will help him live a vibrant, exciting and victorious Christian life. One cannot overemphasize this. If lengthy but intelligent discussion of theology does not help transform lives, they are a waste of time, and most probably based on the wrong "model" or concept of God.

It is therefore imperative in any discussion on theology to lay down the foundations or rules by which we derive our propositions. As in mathematics, I will call these axioms or postulates. These are statements that normally need not be proven but would generally be accepted based on common sense and generic rules of communication and understanding. We will go one step ahead by proposing when necessary, some Biblical foundation for the axiom.

We subscribe to the following definition of axiom from mathworld.wolfram.com:

Definition: Axiom - "A proposition regarded as self-evidently true without proof. The word "axiom" is a slightly archaic synonym for postulate. Compare conjecture or hypothesis, both of which connote apparently true but not self-evident statements."

Definitional clarifications are in order here. We have heard of "theories". How about "axioms". What is the difference? Theories, once proven, turn into "laws", like the law of gravity. Laws are as good as truths. Truths are propositional statements which have no logical "disproofs" against them. Laws, in this context, follow the same line. Theories are intelligent guesses of observed phenomena which do not become law or truth for as long as logical or reasonable contradictions exist against them, e.g., the "theory" of evolution. Axioms, however, are logical truths. They are accepted without proof primarily because there is no logical basis to disprove them otherwise.

Before we discuss these axioms, we need to be explicit that in order to be coherent and intelligible in our theological discussions, we presume that:

• We have a high view of Scripture, and
• We agree that the Apostles' Creed and perhaps, the Nicene Creed (although coming at a later time in history), although these are extra-biblical sources, they summarize accurately traditional first-century Christian belief.

A high view of Scripture implies almost complete dependency on the written Word for study, discussion and polemics. The Apostles' Creed, on the other hand, would put in concrete terms our Christian traditional foundations. Note that we do not necessarily honor equally other creeds like the Westminster Confession, Heidelberg Catechism or others that tend to be tainted with flavors or biases conforming to a specific theological thought.

Axiom 1: We can know God only through revelation.

^"1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, ² has in these last days spoken to us by His Son..."(Hebrews 1:1,2a).

^"18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, ¹⁹ because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:18-20)

It is but logical to propose that man's limited mind can never have an accurate concept of God when left to its own ability, capability, resources, or creativity. In fact, this is precisely why there are so many religions in the world and none of them exactly the same. Ironically, even the Christian world has variations of the image, character and attributes of God. It therefore logically follows that the only way to have an accurate concept of God is for God to perform the revelation deliberately for He alone has the wisdom and mind to do so in the best possible way. It is also necessary for man not only to receive and understand this revelation but to adhere to strict and conservative rules of hermeneutics and communication as well as the divine quickening of the mind through the Holy Spirit to discern right from wrong as well as gray from white and black. Strict and sincere adherence to these rules effectively abrogates any attempt to read personal biases into the text being analyzed.

The difference between Christianity and other religions highlights the error of idolatry in both a philosophical and practical sense. While other religions propose a concept of a god or gods which turn out to be nothing more than idols according to Scripture (since they create their own god or version thereof), the Judeo-Christian knowledge of God comes through whatever He has chosen to reveal in His Word, the Bible. In this sense, we accept the "Protestant Cannon of Scripture" that has determined the 66 books that compose the post-reformation Bible as the primary, if not sole, basis for the revelation of God to man. The qualification of "primary" means that there may be other forms of revelation (like creation itself according to Romans 1:18-20) but the corresponding interpretation of these alternative sources should never contradict the propositional truth of the primary source.

Karl Barth is quite correct in his latter writings when he proposed that we cannot know who God is until he reveals Himself. He insisted that all knowledge of God is a posteriori. Note that many of classical theistic propositions are a priori. Concepts of God being impassible or timeless have no basis in Biblical literature and are based on misguided a priori concepts of perfection and immutability. I say misguided mainly because, despite the good intentions of many Christian philosophers like Augustine and Calvin, the underlying basis of these philosophical concepts come from Greek philosophy and not solid Biblical induction or exegesis.

Let me explain this further. The Greeks and Hellenists, long before they read even the first word of Christian Scripture, had already philosophically defined or conceptualized attributes of God - perfect, wholly other, the unmoved mover, non-dependent on His creation, immutable, impassable, simple, etc, etc, ad nauseam. If one were to research the history of these concepts, they will sooner than later realize that these concepts have already matured in Greek thought and philosophy long before they made their way into Christian theological concepts. Though most of the Greeks were polytheistic, the school of Plato did not conform to such practice but actually developed their concepts of a monotheistic entity or force and perfection which is not too remote from the theological classicist versions of Christianity.

If that is indeed so, then such concept is not really dependent on divine revelation and this is its major pitfall. What we are trying to state here is really profound. If the Greek concepts of God, (Greek theology or Platonic theology) were formulated sans revelation, are we willing to gamble that they were indeed correct in their concepts? I think not. I insist, like Barth, that all knowledge of God is a posteriori, AFTER He has revealed Himself, AND NOT BEFORE!. Otherwise, we should begin to erroneously admit that there are in fact a group of "special" people (the Greeks) who have no need of God's revelation in order to determine or know WHO God is! God forbid! We claim that the Jews are God's chosen people and vehicle for revelation, yet we contradict the declared concepts of God in Jewish Scripture and downgrade such concepts as primarily anthropomorphisms. We claim that the Hellenistic Greeks were originally and primarily pagans and yet we accept their concept of God!!!

Such theology is obviously arrogant but subtly idolatrous!

Note at this point that although we agree with the concept of immutability as qualified when it refers ONLY to "love-centered" divine attributes, the Biblical record shows that immutability does not apply to God changing His mind on courses of action as a response to the actions of His creatures, especially His children. Hence, we oppose the concept of immutability as unbiblical only as far as classical theism defines it, i.e., as applied to ALL aspects of deity (perhaps, the logical downfall of the classic definition of immutability is due to the lack of differentiation or contradistinction between its application to the divine nature vs. its application to divine behavior or actions, or the lack of distinction between Divine Attributes vs. Divine Rights).

Axiom 1a: God is NOT only the Greatest Communicator, He is a Perfect (in the sense of complete) communicator.

Every exegete accepts this statement but classical exegetes immediately turn around in difficult or contradictory passages and attempt to speak for God by either rewording what God said plainly or excusing the words God used! They do not see the sheer arrogance of that interpretive position. For example, when God says in Jeremiah 9:23, 24 that He has completely revealed everything we need to know about His lovingkindness, justice and righteousness, He means that He has discussed this comprehensively in Scripture and there is no need to surmise that there may be something more that we will never know.

It is important to apply common sense communication rules when interpreting Scripture. An honest and objective exegete has to ask both questions, "What does it say" and "What does it NOT say" in order to prevent cultic or heretical interpretations.

Corollary 1a: No one can claim to know concepts of God nor divine attributes other than what has been revealed in Scripture.

^"20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. ²² For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks^[b] foolishness, ²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (I Corinthians 1:20-25)

^"27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; ²⁸ and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, ²⁹ that no flesh should glory in His presence." (I Corinthians 1:27-29)

No one can claim some "special revelation" now that the cannon is closed. Recall how the first century church and the apostles took great pains in properly addressing and rightfully denouncing the Gnostic heresy, for example. It is quite unfortunate that Neoplatonic philosophy has been formally and institutionally allowed even by highly-educated theologians from the time of Augustine, and staunch evangelicals to creep into our attempts to know the God whom we worship. Intelligent as Augustine was, remember that he defended the concept of purgatory. Well-meaning as Thomas Aquinas was, recall that he defended the practice of indulgences.

Any Christian who accepts neoplatonic classical theology implicitly accepts the opposite of this axiom. They have to erroneously admit that Plato himself can claim to know concepts of God apart from divine revelation.

The lesson we should learn from the history of theology is that even the most intelligent theologians fall by the "biblico-logical" wayside when they defend their views some other way apart from the clear and/or explicit teachings of Scripture or if they are using a wrong cannon of scripture.

As a literal example of "explicit teaching", note that the Bible declares over and over that "God is Love" (this is most evident in the both the gospel and epistles of John). Now, nowhere in Scripture is it explicitly declared that "God is Sovereign". In fact there is not even a close synonym of such declaration. Better yet, compare this to God's self-declared attribute, "I am a JEALOUS God!" This is at best a derivation of what one reads from Scripture, since there are a mutitude of scriptural passages that indirectly propose this. Such an extrapolation is by no means erroneous. In fact, it is by the same method that Christians developed the concept of the Trinity. However, theologians should always be careful not to divorce a particular theological truth from the context of the whole picture of God as declared progressively but completely by Scripture.

Nonetheless, the point of the discussion at this juncture is to address the difference of perception between staunch Calvinists (or more accurately, hyper-Calvinists) and open theists (especially the particular flavor of the Creative Love or Relational Theists). Since "God is Love" is a declared Scriptural truth and "God is Sovereign" is simply derived or a logical deduction, it is imperative for sincere and serious systematic theologians to ensure that God's love always controls the way He exercises His sovereignty and not the other way around. The downfall of hyper-Calvinist thought is the overdevelopment of the concept of the Sovereignty of God at the expense of His Love. [Read, for example p.36 on the chapter on "Attributes of God", from the book, "Summary of Christian Doctrine" by Louis Berkhof of Calvin Seminary, copyright 1938 by Eerdmans Publishing Co: "d. The love of God. This is often called the most central attribute of God, but it is doubtful whether it should be regarded as more central than the other perfections of God. (emphasis mine)"]

In the very first page of the first chapter of the 2nd edition of "Chosen But Free" by Norman Geisler, a moderate Calvinist, he starts early with this particular statement, "When anyone who is thoroughly acquainted with the Bible thinks about God, one of the first things that comes into the mind ought to be God's sovereignty."

Such statement is seriously misleading both Biblically and by experience. When I first got attracted to the God of the Bible, sovereignty was one of the lesser things in my consciousness. It was God's amazing LOVE that FIRST came to my mind! It was only when I started reading about Calvinism that I bothered about sovereignty. Sovereignty was always assumed, but Love stands out and is scripturally declared! ! Note that the gospel of Christ and much of the New Testament came into being because God Almighty wanted to show the world that He loved, He loves, and He is Love. I would venture to propose that if God’s purpose for the gospel was to show or demonstrate His sovereignty, He was wasting the effort to develop His word and He was also wasting our time. The monotheistic world already knew and even accepted that God is sovereign! What was not clear to the world was how He loved! How his plan of redemption extended beyond the Jewish nation and to the ends of the world. Moreover, it was not clear to the world that His great love determined how He exercised and would exercise His sovereignty. If one’s theological model does not give the same emphasis, it is most probably wrong, unless the proponent wishes to declare that his ideas are better than God’s own revelation.

Here are, otherwise, two great theologians who actually miss the point of it all, and I am almost sure it came about less from their plain reading of scripture but more from their readings of classical and Calvinist philosophies.

This is worsened by the influence of Neoplatonic thought which introduces concepts of timelessness, impassability and even immutability that completely demolishes the image of a loving God.

I do not doubt the sincerity of the hyper-Calvinists in their claim that they practice correct biblical exegesis in arriving at their conclusions but that is not all that counts. Adolf Hitler, the Lenninists, the Maoists and the white supremacists exercised both sincerity and commitment to their infamous objectives and the obvious reason I use this analogy is to point out that sincerity does not make up for the error of having a wrong foundation of thought.

The negative repercussions of such an over-extended nth-level-derived philosophy (as compared to original, first-generation Scripture) redounds to a senseless robotical experience as the proponents relate to God. If this is not true, their practice does not match their preaching. At best, they are thoroughly confused as can be seen from some of their book titles (e.g., Read Norman Geisler, “Chosen But Free” which clearly shows how Arminian his rationalizations are despite his insistence that his doctrine is Calvinist.). If God has exercised specific predetermination and does not change His mind, then prayer is meaningless even as an act of obedience. If Calvary was only done to please God, then it was not necessary either since according to their philosophy, God is immutable and perfect and already pleased with everything He created. If God has elected those who are to be saved, then God is a purely ceremonial God who cannot relate genuinely with His creation. If God is entirely and completely timeless and immutable, then He becomes a Thing and not a Person, and a piece of hardware has more personality and hope in itself than this so called "thing".

And if God is all of the above, we might as well throw the Bible down the sewer since it becomes a meaningless assembly of translated anthropomorphic words, lots of "bark" and no "bite". Even worship becomes meaningless, since it boils down to ceremonial symbolism performed by predetermined robots.

Corollary 1b: Anthropomorphisms are the last resort to deriving divine attributes and behavior and should never be resorted to when there are other plausible explanations which do not violate any of the axioms.

^"22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man" (Romans 1:22,23a)

Note that if we accepted anthropomorphism as an excuse for some of the human-like behavior of God, then majority, if not ALL, of Scripture would be anthropomorphisms and Biblical interpretation of the attributes of God become vague or meaningless.

Note also that declaring parts of scripture as anthropomorphic is quite arbitrary. Who is to decide which part is anthropomorphic and which part is not. If one dissects this idea completely, the concept of anthropomorphism really adds to the confusion of correct biblical exegesis since the concept itself is isogetic!

Furthermore, God created man in His Own image. It is reasonable to derive that man, even in his fallen state, and much more so in his redeemed state, may exhibit qualities that are derived from the divine. I am fully aware at this point that this corrollary directly attacks the first point of Calvinism which relates to the total depravity of man, but, as we shall see in this discussion, The pseudo-principle of the "total depravity of man" directly violates a declared truth in Scripture, that God created man in his own image. Now, did God create man as totally depraved, or did he become totally depraved after the fall?

If God created man as totally depraved, then that violates immediately the clear declaration of Scripture (unless God has an element of depravity Himself, which is a ridiculous concept). On the other hand, if man became totally depraved after the fall, why is there still good in the non-Christian world? Why does unredeemed man still have concepts of morality and ethics which are mostly correct even if their theological foundations do not necessarily result in these concepts or behavior? Why is the Dalai Lama still so influential. How about Mahatma Gandhi. These are folks who are known to be even more selfless than most Christians or even Christian leaders.

Theologians like Augustine seem to know or claim to know what is fitting for God to be (dignum Deo) and uses this "special knowledge" to filter the biblical message. Thus they tend to resort to declaring as anthropomorphisms those particular metaphors in scripture which do not fit their preconceived (a priori) model of God.
It is amazing to me that no one has taken Augustine to task on this. He has technically erected an idol whose attributes blur the attributes declared (or even assumed) by Scripture.

Axiom 2: God's revelation of Himself through Scripture is "complete" for His purposes and for human consumption. "Complete" means the revelation cannot be any more clearer for a logical conclusion.

This is a clear Biblical declaration from 2 Timothy 3:16,17, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."

Note philosophically that if the Bible were not complete, then the Christian should be a most insecure and confused individual.

Contrary to what the classicists claim, God is NOT a simple being. Such a teaching is not only unbiblical, it stunts man’s ability to see and appreciate various aspects of God dealing with man in a meaningful and cooperative relationship. I am aware that "simple" means indivisible. However, the implications of such a concept limit God's character and limit man's push to explore the Person and personality of God.

How can God be simple and man be complex? Does not that make man superior to God in character, characteristics, experience and abilities? The bible is replete with counterexamples against this concept which the classicist, because of his own limitation, has condemned to the catch basin of anthropomorphisms. Note that if God is indeed simple, how can God be LOVE as declared by scripture? LOVE is simple as scripturally defined but its manifestations are varied and complex and can only be meaningfully exercised by a being with complex emotional and intellectual aspects of personality and character. Simplicity is simply beyond (or way below) what scripture has revealed about God.

Axiom 2a: A good bible interpreter must look at the whole of Scripture first and determine which topics God emphasizes and which ones God just slides over.

This is important in order not to be side-tracked on God's purpose for scripture which is that Scripture is God's written design/plan for relationship between God and man. The whole of Scripture is not about salvation or redemption nor is it keeping one's nose clean so that he can be holy before God although these are elements within the whole context and purpose of Scripture. Let us reiterate - The Bible is God's design for relationship!

Having said that we see volumes of work and so-called analysis on many different Biblical topics which God simply slides over in Scripture. For example, pre-destination and foreknowledge. We have so many presumptuous experts in these subjects and reading their voluminous and wordy discussions leads most Christians nowhere in their relationship with God. Some have even left seminary, yes, and even renounced Christianity because of these non-significant topics which are interpreted erroneously especially by classical theology. A simple, straightforward, logical and easily understood interpretation is presented elsewhere in this site.

Another example of emphatic contrasts to underscore what is important to the heart of God is the creation story. Only one small chapter is devoted to the seven days of creation. However, there is a lot of emphasis on man being "created in God's image" and the circumstances around the fall of man from and despite a "perfect paradise" and the consequences (actually corresponding curse) thereof.

Despite this scenario, it seems that even Christian writers unfortunately gravitate to writing volumes on the possibilities of how creation could be the big bang and whether or not theistic evolution is a possibility, when God simply wants us to realize that man is a special theomorphic creation and endowed with attributes including Free Will that God no longer has total control over, a risk God took because He wanted a world with real genuine love from His creatures.

Axiom 3: When there are many verses that directly contradict one's model of theology, the first recourse/impulse of the honest theologian is to determine if his theological model needs change or modification, but he loses intellectual honesty and hermeneutical integrity when he attempts to re-interpret scripture to fit his model.

Most deviations from the Biblical God is a result of attempts, albeit heroic or fancy, to force one's theological model into their interpretation of scripture or to relegate the scripture to one of mystery. This is a direct violation of 2 Timothy 3:16,17. God's Word seeks to edify and clarify principles to the common man, not confuse or elevate discussions to the realm only of the educated or those who claim special revelations like the proponents of a God behind God. This is elitist and definitely non-Biblical.

Furthermore, technically speaking, this approach has a very low view of Scripture regardless of how they window-dress their claims to a high view of Scripture.

Corollary 3a: When a paradox or contradiction exists between the simple clear meanings of two or more passages of Scripture, it may be the first sign of a wrong theological framework.

The honest theologian has to revisit his model and take a more critical look at that model and examine other models which could be able to reconcile or synthesize the obvious contradiction. One has to revert to the simplicity of language axiom before he attempts any other step.

There is not much need to emphasize this axiom other than to explain that a theologian is first a student and rarely an authority. Most cultic teaching comes from pretenders who believe the opposite and, most unfortunately, most have led their followers to a Christless eternity. Recall Jim Jones at Guyana, David Koresh at Waco, Texas, and many of the popes.

Norman Geiesler himself has this to say about R.C. Sproul in a discussion of the meaning of contending desires in Romans 7, “It is painful to watch extreme Calvinists go through these exegetical contortions in order to make a text say what their preconceived theology mandates that it must say”, (“Chosen But Free”, p.28 footnote #15). After citing this, Geisler, himself, goes through more difficult gyrations to fit biblical record into his Calvinism as he tries to address his disagreements with irresistible grace and other portions of TULIP.

It is at this point that if Geisler were really honest, he has to change his model of theology. He is already convinced that the facts do not fit extreme Calvinism. However, he continues to defend aspects of the same philosophy he is trying to attack like the simplicity of God and specific predetermination, just because he empirically observes a misfit.

Geisler cannot win the argument without intellectual contortions himself, because extreme Calvinism is, in fact, quite a logical and consistent logical system BUT ONLY WITHIN ITS SELF-DECLARED BOUNDARIES OF THINKING. Moderate Calvinism is itself quite contradictory.

Unfortunately, extreme Calvinism errs in most of its presumptions about God's loving nature vs. His sovereignty. It commits the same major error as the story of "The Blind Men and the Elephant". It has grasped the trunk and declared the elephant as a tree without feeling and examining the rest of the elephant. Doing so would lead extreme Calvinism to discover the elephant as an entirely new creature quite different from the their previous conceptions, notions and experience. The Calvinists have discovered sovereignty and by their logical system (which is inherently classical logic) proceeded to declare sovereignty as God Himself (God is simple, right?), thereby limiting Him in terms of Love.

Traditional Arminianism also commits logical gyrations to reconcile foreknowledge and free-will, so this philosophy is not entirely free of inconsistencies. Even traditional Arminianism has to change its model.

Note that a change of model is not necessarily a change based on a new revelation or discovery. It is simply a reasonable synthesis of biblical revelation to accurately describe who God is, what aspects of God are immutable and what aspects are not. To simply declare God as immutable unconditionally as the classicists and hyper-Calvinists do displays a limited knowledge of scripture due to an overemphasis on one revealed truth at the expense of other (perhaps, even more significant) revealed truth.

In the case of the theological disputes between R.C Sproul and Norman Geisler, it seems clear to me why Sproul believes his viewpoint as correct and this is pointed out by Geisler. Sproul sees logical consistency within his premises and presumptions. Unfortunately, it is his very presumptions that contradict much of scripture especially on the relational aspects of God’s dealings with man. More unfortunately for Sproul, he begins to refuse to see scriptural experience and evidence that would shake his philosophy. I think he has reached a point in his theology where philosophy of God begins to be more important than the revelation of God. This leads to a particular kind of blindness. Consequently, the wisdom to explain scripture properly gets significantly eroded.

Geisler, on the other hand, can see the biblical record very clearly, that it goes strongly and preponderantly against the walls and posts of classicism and Calvinism, but he is shackled and limited by his philosophical foundation to explain the relationship of Bible vs. theology. In Geisler’s book, “Chosen But Free”, the fox is guarding the henhouse. Geisler makes an attempt to revise the TULIP doctrines of the extreme Calvinist. Unwittingly, he fails to realize that TULIP is a package (just like the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22). It has to be taken in whole or rejected in its entirety to be logical. Such set of doctrines was formulated by learned and intelligent Calvinists so as to be monolithic and make a denial of one point a denial of all. This makes Geisler look totally confused and playing with words to skirt around the issues. I would dare to say that if Geisler freed himself from his Calvinistic anchor, he may find a firmer anchor with a change of theological model. In his case, I see his sentimental attachment to Calvinist and classical thought simply because it was endorsed by recognized classical theologians, he blindly accepts these theological viewpoints as infallible truth.

Now, I do believe that truth is infallible. However, it is an arrogant presumption to believe that all interpretation of revealed truth has been completed and correctly interpreted and that there is nothing else to dispute or discuss, and that any further data from scripture that show inconsistency with prevailing interpretations may be explained at the very least by logical gymnastics.

Corollary 3b: "No translation (i.e, interpretation) of scripture can be correct that contradicts basic principles of bilbical teaching as a whole". - Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p.165.

Corollary 3c: Hermeneutics should use the rules of Preponderance of Evidence to determine rules vs. exceptions instead of concluding that there is a contradiction that will just be reconciled in eternity.

Unconditional Election of Israel in Romans 9-11 falls under this category. So does predestination in Romans 8 and Ephesians 1. All of these are exceptions to the norm based on preponderance and should be regarded as such.

Axiom 4: Man need not speculate on what God has not revealed nor taken the time to reveal.

This is a Biblical axiom found in Deuteronomy 29:29. "29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law."

Speculating on what or who God might be outside of Scripture or the clear meaning therof and declaring this as part of doctrine runs the risk of possible violation of the 2nd Commandment. We create an idol since we are erecting our own version of God as did the Israelites when they likened Him in all sincerity to a golden calf.

We do not deny the right of any person to speculate on biblically unfounded or dubiously supported fantasies about God. We are simply against formalizing such as part of any sound theology.

Axiom 4a: God, who is wise and just, will not fault man for interpreting Scripture within what He has revealed. He should in fact, fault man, for interpreting Scripture based on extra-Biblical knowledge which do not have clear Biblical foundations.

It is inconceivable to believe that God would judge man for throwing away some immutability theories due to a correct exegesis of 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 38 and conclude that God can and does indeed change His mind on some things, at least. The same conclusion arises with a simple "local context" reading of Moses discussion with God when God in anger desired to annihilate Israel and create a new chosen people with the seed of Moses in Numbers 14:11ff; and God changing His mind about the fate of Ninevah in the book of Jonah.

Note that I highlighted the term "local context". Although we do not deny that there may be broader and eschatological meanings and contexts to much of verses especially in the Old Testament, we have to admit that God (again in His infinite wisdom and fairness) would not always expect the normal Jewish mind to go beyond the local context.

That being so, why would God fault any reader, including the Christian, from interpretations and applications drawn from a proper exegesis of the OT passages mentioned above if they are a based on correct exegesis based on the local Jewish context? It is absurd even to suggest that Christians and Jews have different accountabilities when it comes to exegesis in these matters.
Otherwise, one should come to a conclusion that almost the entire OT Hebrew population was bound for hell from the very start because they had almost no knowledge of New Testament meanings or clarifications. Such a conclusion is completely ridiculous.

Why do the impassability theories of classical theology overrule the clear reading of God being angry or surprised at specific turns of events? What else does "anger" or "angry" mean whether it be a Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic or even English text for that matter? What does "relent" mean according to Jeremiah 18:5-10 in any language? Why do classical theologians and exegetes feel at liberty to RE-define such terms or downgrade these to anthropomorphisms, and condemn other cults for scripture-twisting with in the same breath? This is sheer arrogance and elitist.

Axiom 5: To know Jesus Christ is to know God.

To restate this axiom: Correct Christology yields correct Theology.

The book of Hebrews starts out with this very clear and direct principle: "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son..." - Hebrews 1:1,2a, and continues, "³ who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person..." Hebrews 1:3a

Martin Luther, according to his theology of the cross, proposed that there is no God beyond the God revealed in Jesus. Luther turned out not to be exactly faithful to this axiom which created a dichotomy between what he declared vs what he practiced. After Augustine, it was John Wesley, who first came up with a system of beliefs, short of a formal theology, which first showed a great degree of consistency between dogma and practice.

Corollary 5a: To understand the Kenosis is to understand the INCARNATION, a major issue in understanding who Jesus Christ is.

Herein is the stumbling block of Classical Theism. What really occured at the Kenosis (Philippians 2:5-11)? Did our Lord Jesus Christ actually lose or forfeit some of His divine attributes and/or powers? or was He simply playing a role and Paul in Philippians was just playing with words?

The answer to these should not violate the axioms that have been proposed. Hence, without much discussion, we can derive the following truths from the passage.

1. Christ is fully God and remained fully God even in His incarnation thereby supporting His continued deity.
2. Christ emptied Himself by His own choice or volition, thereby safeguarding His sovereignty.
3. Christ took the form of a man (Why else would it be called Incarnation?).
4. By taking the form of man He limited Himself in space and time. (Pretty obvious.)
5. He further limited Himself of much of His powers to demonstrate that He did not need these to remain God. (This is not obvious but read on.)
6. It is a reasonable conclusion that the Kenosis can be defined and qualified as Christ limiting, in fact forfeiting (both words even weaker than emptying or divesting to the point of nothing), much of His powers to assume mortality and place Himself in a REAL position of RISK, in order to model REAL LOVE, to demonstrate REAL SACRIFICE in redeeming man out of eternal death (verses like Romans 5:8 are impossible to appreciate in their fullest sense if the interpretation of Kenosis is any different.)
7. A logical repercussion of the acceptance of the Kenosis as qualified is the destruction of dignum Deo assumptions of classical theology. Classical theists have theorized divine attributes based mostly, if not entirely (in the sense that everything else in Scripture is beholden to it and is re-interpreted accordingly), on Neoplatonic concepts of perfection and immutability, timelessness, etc. It may come as a troubling surprise to them that Jesus gave these up and still our creeds maintain that He REMAINED DIVINE, even in His incarnation. Conclusion: The traditional dignum Deo (what God is supposed to be) has been wrong, albeit sincere. Divine attributes mainly have to deal with relational concepts and not independent wholly-other concepts, i.e., not impassibility, timelessness, even immutability and perfection as traditionally defined BUT instead Love, Faithfulness, Wisdom, Almightiness (including Omnicompetence), etc.

The following is an extract from a discourse on who Jesus Christ is from my "basic doctrine" blog site at solid-rock.blogspot.com. I have pasted it here with a few edits so as not to reinvent the wheel too much.

"Read Philippians 2:5-11. This passage was written by St. Paul and he was trying to explain the circumstances by which GOD could and would become man.

Paul says that Christ "emptied" Himself. How can God empty Himself? What do you think Christ emptied Himself of (In other words, what part of His being God did he give up to become a man and still be God)?

When Christ came in human form, was He OMNIPOTENT? Was He OMNISCIENT? Was he OMNIPRESENT? Did He become LESS than GOD???
OK, for a clarification of terms, by "OMNI" we should mean 100% or it's not OMNI at all. In that case, Christ was not OMNIPOTENT when He came down as man. If Christ were omnipotent when He was a baby, there would have been no need for God the Father to urge Joseph to escape to Egypt. If Christ were omnipotent at birth, He would already have recited from "memory", the whole book of the Psalms, especially when the magi visited. At the garden of Gethsemane, after some time of prayer He uttered, saying, (Luke 22:42). "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." If Christ were OMNIPOTENT at that point, it would have been OK to follow His Own will, since it would have been the will of GOD!!
Christ was not OMNISCIENT either since he said in Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father". If Christ were omniscient at birth, He would have been the One to exercise omnipotence and declare to his "father" Joseph and Mary that Herod was coming to get slay them.
Finally, since Christ came in human form, He most definitely was not OMNIPRESENT. He was not and could not be in China and Jerusalem at the same time. Note, however, that according to the doctrine of Kenosis (i.e., Christ emptying Himself of the divine powers BUT NOT DIVINE ATTRIBUTES AS WE WILL LEARN LATER), the emptying was Christ's own volition and He was simply living up to it.
Note at this point that although we have been quite harsh with the stand of classical theology, we nevertheless do not subscribe fully to some flavors of open theism. For example, the direction I pick up from the writings of Clark Pinnock seem to suggest that God has inherent limited capabilities. When Pinnock suggests that God cannot know what has not yet transpired, there seems to be little or no clarification on his part to declare that this "incapability" is a divine choice. He seems to suggest that God does not have the power to predetermine anything. Further, I sense that his logical support for such concept is close to that of splitting hairs, at which level there is not much spiritual or practical value in the discussion. This is where the value of Axiom 4 comes in, there is no spiritual value in trying to extract what God has chosen not to clearly reveal or discuss in Scripture.

To Pinnock’s credit, at least he admits that God has some limitation. Hyper-Calvinists on the other hand do not admit that they limit God, but their dignum deo requirement actually limits God, in fact, shackles God to a certain mold with no flexibility. Imagine man’s philosophy enslaving God! That is what classical theism and hyper-Calvinism accomplishes. It is not obvious to them that requiring God to behave only one way as a result of their otherwise erroneous declaration that He is simple IS ACTUALLY THEIR OWN VERSION OF LIMITING GOD!!!
Since it becomes clear at this point that any theology has its own version of limiting God (i.e., that there are things that God cannot be or actions that He cannot do), then we might as well limit God biblically. Yes, God has biblically limited Himself as we shall see. We add no more, we add no less. God’s limitations are confined only to those that Scripture explicitly demonstrate.
Now, the logical question in one's mind is therefore, if Christ emptied Himself of many of these powers, DID CHRIST CEASE TO BE GOD???? The answer is, NO WAY, Christ remained GOD, yes, God in the flesh. But one would ask, this seems to be a contradiction. How can Christ remain God and lose many, if not all, His divine powers? Don't despair, Christian, for the answer is actually Biblically simple and logical.

God is LOVE! Yes, God is PERFECT, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. (John 3:16) This includes God being merciful, God being full of lovingkindness. If God loses the attribute of love, He ceases to be God, and this is an attribute that Christ did not lose at all nor could He give it up. God may willingly lose or suspend all His powers but He cannot lose the attribute of Love. Losing such attribute is what makes Him cease to be God.

This is quite profound. All over the gospels, even to the point of death on the cross, Christ is love as God is love. "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." is a clear expression of love and forgiveness to those who have thoroughly treated Him quite unfairly. It is this attribute of love which makes possible the PERFECT God subsequently forgiving AND accepting sinful man into His loving arms and granting Him undeservedly, ETERNAL LIFE!!! (Romans 5:8)

God is SINLESS, perfectly SINLESS. God would not be God if He had or committed sin. Christ would not be God, if He were not sinless Hebrews 4:15, 1 John 3:3,5

God is constantly Faithful. If Christ lost this attibute, He ceases to be God and Christ did not lose this nor did He empty Himself of this attribute. "If we are faithless, He remains faithful..." (2 Timothy 2:13)

God is perfect and pure Truth.If Christ lost this attibute, He ceases to be God and Christ did not empty Himself of this attribute.John 5:33, John 8:32, John 14:6 are very solid verses that attest to this. God is full of grace. John 1:14 declared that Christ was "full of grace and truth"

Note that Scripture demonstrates, contrary to what most theologians believe, that power does not necessarily define divinity. According to the Bible, since God was in Christ and in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, what Christ gave up and empty Himself of were not the essentials of divinity.

Now, let's discuss the Ascension. What is Jesus' position in heaven after His ascension? Matthew 28:18; Ephesians 1:20-22
This passages describe the opposite EVENTS of what happened at the Kenosis (Christ emptying Himself before or at the Incarnation) which we discussed in the earlier topic on Jesus Christ. Christ has taken back ALL of his powers! Note that He actually forfeited and LOST some of His powers. These passages show how He got them back: "ALL authority WAS GIVEN (back) to Him by the Father; God the Father RAISED Christ up from the dead, God the Father SEATED Christ at His right hand, God the Father PUT ALL THINGS under Christ's feet, God the Father GAVE Christ to be Head of the church.
Paul was NOT playing with words here, he cannot. Otherwise, the Bible becomes quite vague in many of its wordings. Paul meant exactly what He said and what was revealed to him by the Spirit of Truth.

One more verse at this point which anti-Kenosis theologians would propose to attack our definition of Kenosis is found in John 10:17,18. Specifically, "No one takes it (My life) from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again". Note the follow up statement,"This command I have received from My Father". To be logically honest, one must ask the question, "Which sentence is the qualifying or clarifying statement?" True, a declaration of fact was stated by Jesus, but it seems that the Biblical record added a clear qualifying statement.

So the plain rendition of the text would be something like, "You know what? I have the power to determine my own life. But My Father told me to tell you this." It CANNOT be restated ANY OTHER way without being guilty of manipulating or putting words in Christ's mouth.

Note also that the passage states a clear reason for the Father's love - BECAUSE Christ willingly and voluntarily lays down His life to complete the salvation plan for mankind with the expectation that He is to take it back after His mission. But that was the essence of Ephesians 1:20-22!

Now we have a complete definition and picture of the Kenosis.

Corollary 5b: To understand that Jesus Christ can limit Himself is to understand that God can also limit Himself.
This is completely logical and Biblical. Since Jesus Christ is God's ultimate revelation of God to man, and since Jesus Christ Himself is God and was Incarnate, then we learn the deeper attributes of God and the Godhead if we know more of the attributes as well as the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The anti-classical implication of this is quite profound. If Christ has the ability to empty Himself when He wills to, so can the Father. To deny this is to declare that the Father is LESS powerful than the Son since the Son is now able to do something that the Father cannot!

The leading question at hand would now be, has the Father ever emptied Himself of some of His powers? The Bible declares all over its pages a resounding YES! YES! YES! The Father indeed has demonstrated His own "kenosis" and has chosen to "genuinely" limit Himself in the exercise of some areas of His divinity. In and by His infinite wisdom, at least from the time He conceived of the creation, He must have decided to make most of the future open and unpredetermined. Surely, after the fall of man, He predetermined a plan for man's redemption, but even some of the details, He had not fully laid out.

However, He has shown that He chose not to exercise specific predetermination in most, if not all, the affairs of mankind. He has demonstrated that He can be surprised. He can be angered (a response to an undesirable situation or behavior of man, implying that He did not exactly expect such behavior or situation, otherwise, why would He be angered if He expected such a situation from eternity past). He can change His mind! Look at the particulars of the life of Hezekiah, how the pages of Scripture clearly declares a change of mind (or even heart?). Most of God's will on earth can be thwarted! Otherwise, it is ridiculous to pray, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven"! God is not willing that any should perish, according to Peter, but behold multitudes have perished and gone to hell!

Axiom 6: We have to approach Scripture from the assumption that it says what it means and it means what it says in the most common manner of communication and use of language.

This is a problematic statement since it is still at best subjective. However, there has to be a rule which looks critically on deductive reasoning which cannot be derived directly from the clear statements of scripture. We have to be wary of interpretations that need special education apart from common use of language. The special education needed to understand Hebrew, Aramaic or Koine Greek is not included since this is the language God chose to communicate His message to us. However, once we have derived the common use of the native language and what it means, the attempt to interpret it other the the obvious meaning should be avoided when attempting to extract theological principles."

Corollary 6a: After the close of the cannon, God rarely, if ever, plays with words from the perspective of the redeemed mind.

I Corinthians 1:20-2:16 states our case.

• "We have the mind of Christ."
• "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
• "And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God"
• "And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power"
• "However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."
• "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
• "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
• And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."
• "For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God"

Paul has wisely and CLEARLY spoken. I credit him for this axiom. I would call this the simplicity of language axiom.

Corollary 6b: No interpretation of Scripture or derivation of principle should be allowed that paints God as a hypocrite, saying one thing but doing another.

Another reasonable axiom. When God declared He loved Jacob but hated Esau, our derivation of who God is should not result in even hinting that God is a hypocrite when He told us in numerous passages that God is Love.

Note that such scriptural statements fly in the face of the concept of the simplicity of God. If this were the only passage accomplishing that it would still be problematic for such teaching. Unfortunately for this doctrine, there are numerous passages in scripture that demonstrate that God is not all that simple. Compare, for example, how many statements in the Bible declare EXPLICITLY that "God is sovereign"? Check your concordance, better yet check including the synonyms of sovereignty and start counting. Now, how about the self-declared attribute of God, "I am a JEALOUS God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers to the third and fourth generation..." How about rechecking your concordance and counting its occurrences. Where is the preponderance of scriptural evidence? Is God still, SIMPLE? Or Mr. Classicist, will we start on a path of philosophical jargon and intellectual calisthenics to force a resolution to our (now, obviously erroneous) premise or presumption? Or shall we launch on a path to intellectual honesty despite the risk of finding out that our otherwise treasured systematic theology just collapsed? Or, perhaps, should we start to redefine what "simple" really means (at this juncture, it is meaningless, or at least, useless for one's edification). It is precisely the complexity of God that requires revelation. Otherwise, man would never be able to comprehend who He is and how He has acted in scripture and history and that his actions are not anthropomorphisms but result from the true nature of God, and man has no right to conclude otherwise.

There is a remote possibility that God is indeed simple. However, it is the definition of "simple" that is not that simple. If simplicity is inidivisibility, what is indivisibility? How does one define this and apply it to God without contradicting the preponderance of Scripture that show otherwise?

Making God simple would make God a simple hypocrite in many passages of scripture.

God says in John 3:16 that "God so loved the world" and in 1 John 2:2, "And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world." The Calvinist interpretation that God only loved the elect or that God loved the world but never intended to elect some should be thrown out as plain and outright ridiculous, illogical and even irrational. Such teaching violates the simplicity of the word, introduces "special revelation" or special understanding of the text, makes God a hypocrite and plays with words.

Axiom 7: The New Testament was inspired not necessarily to prove God's sovereignty, but to demonstrate the Love of God.

Although on the surface, this axiom seems derived and should be considered some kind of corrollary to a higher axiom, it really is a logical summary of the New Testament based on direct revelation (an unbiased reading of the Bible). God did not and does not need to demonstrate or prove His sovereignty to the NT audience. He already accomplished this in the Old Testament. His sovereignty is already clear and assumed. It is the aspect of His Love and what it means to man that is not clear from just reading the Old Testament, and because revelation is progressive, one must dissect the essence of the New Testament. In the process of dissecting its essence, one must ask why the New Testament was a necessary add-on to inspired scripture.

Is it to further prove sovereignty? Far from it, compare the preponderance of verses that talk about the substitutionary death of the spotless Lamb and why? John 3:16 says it is because of God's great love. Romans 5:8 declares that it was a demonstration of God's immense love. Christ Himself talks about "greater love hath no man than this" in John 15:13.

This is where I believe that most Calvinists actually live an Arminian lifestyle.

Corollary 7a: The divine objective for delivering the New Testament is not necessarily directly for the glory of God, but to show man that though he is worthless, God has placed value upon him.

This corrollary addresses those of such theology that dogmatically believes that God does everything for the sake of personal self-centered glory (which we do not deny He deserves). If that is one's derivation of what the New Testament is about, one has missed at least half of it message.

It is quite expected that such faulty theology would proceed to miss out on the other half of the New Testament message, none other than the Christian being identified unmistakably as someone who walks in the power and joy of the Holy Spirit, otherwise the impostor is none of His! Such theology banks on undefined and arbitrary election for salvation and though it recognizes the seal of the Spirit, nevertheless completely negates the life in the Spirit according to Romans 8:9.

Such faulty theology manifests its hermeneutic errors in relying on "implied" parts of scripture which they claim declare that those who are saints automatically persevere but they completely ignore "very very explicit" scripture which declare that only those who persevere to the end will be saved.

Axiom 8: God is a Jealous God. This is a biblically indisputable attribute of God since it is self-declared and declared more than once in scripture.

This is a teaser axiom that puts a troublesome monkey wrench into the comfort zone of classical theology.

Indeed, it is the stumbling block of classical systematic theology: "I am a jealous God!" - Jealous - a self-declared attribute of God flies against the face of "God is simple", "God is impassable", "God is timeless", etc. because all of these quite obviously contradict God's OWN declaration.

Is such statement anthropomorphic? If it does, then one has to submit that every piece of scripture is anthropomorphic since the determination of such becomes obviously arbitrary.

Does this confirm that God is simple? Go figure!

Does this confirm that God is impassable? If so, the classicist now becomes the much dreaded "revisionist" since he starts redefining even universally obvious concepts. Jealousy is one of the most intense passions known. On a human level, it is know to be the alibi for many acts of murder.

Does this confirm that God is timeless? Perhaps He is but not from such perspective. Timelessness would only portray a confused God who cannot come to grips with His own emotions.

Does this confirm that God is immutable? Then He becomes immutably jealous!!!

The classicist can only be at a complete loss for words and definitions, for now he has to revisit his hermeneutics and intellectual honesty. Does the classicist's opinion still count or should we bow down to God's very words and accept this as timeless and universal truth?

Such quandary happens only when one has a faulty model for theology. Interestingly, all of the above seem to be completely explainable under the "Creative Love" relational theology model. Sad to say, due to their faulty model, this is classical "doctorate" material but relational "basic" doctrine.

Let me interject a potential classicist response to this Axiom, "How about God is Spirit? Jesus Christ incarnate was not spirit, right"? This again is an hermeneutic twist. Jesus Christ incarnate was essentially Spirit and definitely had a spirit! Hence, the example of Jesus Christ Incarnate and the Kenosis as proposed here does not contradict such a divine statement.

In contrast, let's talk about omni-presence. Jesus Christ incarnate was definitely, positively NOT omni-present!!!. As far as omniscience and omnipotence, it is true that Jesus incarnate did demonstrate samples of this like the calming of the storm at sea, and knowing Nathanael praying alone before He met the man. But omni implies 100%! Otherwise, omni becomes significantly FALSE by definition. Christ incarnate DID empty Himself of ALL the omni's. The fact that orthodox theology maintains that as Jesus Christ incarnate, He NEVER LOST His divine attributes clearly demonstrates that there are more significant attributes than the OMNI's which really define God.

Axiom 9: What God has foreknowledge of, He has actually predetermined.

A logical stumbling block for the moderate Calvinist or classicist. Foreknowledge means one knows exactly what is going to occur. If it does not occur, foreknowledge has NOT actually taken place. Hence, if it has to be sure that such event should occur, then it is no less than predetermined.

Axiom 9a: God has limited His omniscience NOT to cover ALL of the future. In fact, the Biblical record proves time and again that divine omniscience, as a rule, does not have the future in its scope.

Axiom 9 shows that if God simply "peeped" through the future, it is automatically predetermined. It has to happen, or else, God did NOT see the future at all. A great biblical passage which demonstrates this axiom is 1 Samuel 23.11, 12 as discussed in another blog.

At the expense of hair-splitting from a classical viewpoint, we should treat foreknowledge as different from omniscience. Otherwise, our interpretation on the repercussions of omniscience will be quite confusing and perhaps, utterly misleading. So omniscience should cover only past and present, whereas foreknowledge covers only the future.

Axiom 10: God does predetermine some events. However, His predetermined events should be confined largely to those predetermined in Scripture and should not be extrapolated to conclude that He predetermines everything else.

Our proposed model of theology does in no way at all discount predetermination by a sovereign God. There are, however, countless (perhaps even more examples) of God NOT predetermining every event nor God having foreknowledge of every event.

Axiom 11: God's sovereignty should be subject to God's love and not the other way around. God's love dictates how He opts to exercise His sovereignty.

The bible clearly declares that God is Love. That is the central attribute of God from which all other attributes are subservient. If we start on this solid footing, we immediately resolve debatable issues like "free-will vs. predetermination". God is sovereign but God’s love dictates how God exercises His sovereignty. The bible demonstrates time and again that God’s love necessitates God taking a risk that He would not be loved in return. Such risk would only be true risk if the outcome is not predetermined. Hence, God because of His great love for man has chosen to exercise His sovereignty in such a way that He has kept most of the future open. He has chosen to lock Himself out of much of the future especially as it concerns our personal affairs. He is still omniscient in that He knows everything that can be known. Whatever He has chosen to know about the future, He automatically has predetermined. This is logical and reasonable. If the future turns out to be otherwise other than what God has foreknown, then God did not foreknow this in the first place. Otherwise, His foreknowledge has failed.

The debate on free-will vs. predetermination is never resolved because they both focus on peripheral areas of the divine economy. If God is so "helpless" about how He exercises sovereignty and, like the classical theologians imply, He has no choice about how He exercises sovereignty or He just cannot help but exercise it one way and no other way such that He HAS TO CONTROL everything and thus PREDETERMINE everything, including ELECTING who should and who should not be saved; If this dignum deo concept is not at all flexible and is dictated ONLY by man-made deductions as to how God should "act properly" (perish the thought!), then one has to admit that everything is predetermined but then also admit that God is responsible for everything including evil (so as not to be logically contradictory, c'mon guys, stop playing with words and redefining concepts and illustrations just to preserve an already faulty theological model).

On the other hand, if God is truly and essentially LOVE as the bible declares, then Love is inherently flexible and sacrificial. Flexible in that there is no predetermined way to express it; and sacrificial, so that in the expression of true love, risk is part of the total equation and hence, there should be elements beyond conscious control (Note that God releases total control by His own personal volition. He is in no way forced to do so, in the same way that Christ was not forced to become Incarnate to save man).

Axiom 12: In order to understand who God is in a logical sense without compromise to the truths of Scripture, one has to differentiate between the Attributes of God vs. the Rights of God.

Examples of the Attributes of God are Love, Mercy, Truth, Faithfulness, Perfect, Light, Life, Omnicompetence. These are attributes because God cannot relinquish them and remain God.

Examples of the Rights of God are Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence. Jesus Christ TRULY, GENUINELY, HONEST-TO-GOODNESSLY (if there is such a term) emptied Himself of these rights to the point that even Paul wrote several times in Scripture that God (had to) raised Him from the dead.

Axiom 13: Any interpretation of divine attributes, rights or behavior should never be construed to be a rule in the Divine behavior if there are exceptions to it in the Biblical record. Instead it should be treated as an exception to the rule.

This is the biggest mistake of the classicists, particularly the Hyper-Calvinists. They wallow in footnotes being blown up into major doctrines. See my blog on why TULIP is NOT Biblical.

A good case is Psalm 139:16. Note that the whole Psalm deals with God's Omnipresence as well as Omniscience. Except for this verse, all the other omniscience descriptions have NOTHING to do with the future. Verse 16 seems to describe how God sees the future but based on hindsight. How should such a verse then be interpreted?

To say that this is the rule for divine behavior would immediately put the rest of the Bible record into chaos. Look at 1 Samuel 23, for example. The only correct inductive conclusion is to say that God is indeed capable of knowing ALL of the future but He, in His infinite wisdom and sovereignty made the decision NOT to.

Axiom 14: It is NOT necessarily true that explicit statements in Scripture ALWAYS supersede implied truths.

I cite two cases in point.

First, there are many passages of Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, whose application only is relevant to the Jewish nation. Although there may be universal principles that can be derived and personally applied in these statements, they continue to be obvious that their application is limited. This is especially true of the many condemnations and curses that God prophesied and applied to the nation like "dashing their babies against the rock".

Second, we take the example of David in Psalm 139:16 which seem to declare that predestination or foreordination. In this case, we do not deny that predestination is a possibility with the Sovereign God. However, we should question whether or not this passage applied only to David or does it apply to all men or all creatures. The same is true in the case of Jeremiah 1:5. However, this is definitely one obvious passage where the foreordination is applicable only to Jeremiah for not everyone turns out to be a prophet like he did.

Axiom (in process): When applying OT Theocratic principles in a New Testament context, the overriding tenet for interpretation is that the God of the OT is the SAME God of the NT. It is a distant secondary principle to apply "calling" unless the text makes it obvious.Jeremiah, Isaiah, David, etc had indeed unique calling explicitly specified in scripture. We cannot become kings of Israel like David was. However, the way God dealt with them should be no less different from the way He deals with us today including both blessings and curses.

Axiom (in process): A parable from Christ is a real life analogy of a spiritual concept. It is not an allegory. Contrary to classical hermeneutics which contends that a parable has only one point, a parable is truly and analogy and even minor points should have a consistent meaningful interpretation related to the main theme.

Axiom (in process): The book of Acts CAN be a good source of doctrine.

Axiom (in process): King David is among others, a great theologian. Hence, we must understand and digest his concept(s) of God.

Axiom (in process): If a difficult passage has a simple but rational explanation, it is completely pointless to complicate it's interpretation

Examples:

1.  Genesis 6: The Sons of God and the daughters of man. Are the Sons of God angels (a fantastic but ridiculous view, since angels, according to Christ Himself, do not have sex nor perform sex)? or just semantics about where man came from?
2. Matthew 16:17-19: Is Peter the rock? or is it someone or something else?

Axiom (in process): The spiritual concept illustrated through a parable would not be any clearer with other teaching methods.
God uses real physical analogies to illustrate clearly beyond doubt or question what is spiritual and apparently abstract.

Axiom (in process): The New Testament, especially the Pauline epistles SHOULD HERMENEUTICALLY BE TREATED AS more of a Church "book of discipline" analogous to a denominational manual, than equal to the Law and the Prophets. This simply means, lest I be misunderstood as a heretic, that the New Testament explains and completes the Old Testament BUT SHOULD NEVER CONTRADICT its principles.

Any interpretation of the New Testament that contradicts Old Testament principles should be rejected or ignored as trivial and misleading. Any new principle not even hinted in the Old Testament should be critically interpreted and initially assumed as a personal bias of the "inspired" author until the principle is proven to be timeless.

1. Jesus Christ authenticated the Old Testament as the Word of God (Matthew 5:17-20). The New Testament did not exist during this authentication.
2. Jesus Christ authenticated his own words (Matthew 24:35) which authenticates the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.
3. The Apostles doctrine in Acts 2:42 HAD TO BE based on the Scriptures of that time (Old Testament) since it did not exist, AND IMPORTANTLY could not contradict any concept of the Old Testament.
4. The cannonization of New Testament books were performed by Gentiles, who were mostly anti-Semitic as proven by history. As a consequence, most cultic doctrines spring forth from New Testament teaching especially the Pauline epistles mostly due to a blatant disregard of the Old Testament and its principles.
5. Even the Councils that cannonized the New Testament books violated church structure in re-creating the priestly class, exclusion of women in leadership (primarily because they were not given formal education at that time and that was because they were considered inferior to men, in fact the wife was the property of the husband, etc.), cathedrals vs. small Book of Acts small churches, etc. and many other practices that pre-empted the principles of even what they cannonized.
6. e.g. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 that women ought to wear a headress in worship, he supported it by a theological principle. So does that mean that women with short hair and those who do not cover their heads in worship are in sin??? What is to separate spritual principles from cultural principles, so as not to be arbitrary or selective and biased?
7. e.g. When Paul says in Romans 13:8 to owe no one except the debt of love, does that mean that because we are paying a mortgage or have credit cards, we are LIVING IN SIN????
8. e.g. When Paul says that women should be silent in the church....(you know where I'm going with this?), he also invoked a theological principle. So we practice MALE CHAUVINISM in the Church of Christ?????? Doesn't that justify Islam's Sharia practice?
9. IT IS QUITE OBVIOUS that when the Church Fathers who were 100% Gentile cannonized the books of the New Testament, they basically declared as inspired all the doctrines about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Sin, Redemption, Soteriological principles mainly. I do not think that they assumed that the (scripturally speaking) newly introduced Pauline principles of Christian conduct were "as inspired" in the same sense as the doctrines. In fact, most of them were already violating them. 
10. The Apostle's Creed which is the main determinant of Cardinal doctrine (vs. Peripheral doctrine) did not even mention the inspiration of Scripture, much less specify what was inspired AFTER the "Law and the Prophets".
11. When Paul declared in 2 Timothy 3:16 that ALL Scripture was God-Breathed, we have to FULLY and CONSCIOUSLY realize that he referred only to the Jewish Scriptures AND had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA THAT HIS WRITINGS WOULD BE CANNONIZED. At best, it is safe to assume that Paul intended his writings to be merely an articulation of the New Covenant introduced by Christ at the Last Supper and as an explanation of Old Testament principles. As far as the Kingdom of God was concerned he explained the paradigm shift from a physical Kingdom exclusive only to the chosen people (Jews) to a spiritual kingdom where the whole world, which includes the Gentiles, is invited to enter.

Axiom (in process): The New Testament does NOT REPLACE the Old Testament but explains and enhances the substance of its true eternal and universal meaning.

While the Old Testament was illustrative and ceremonial, the New Testament was substantial and focused on the essence of the Old Testament principles. It also emphasized righteousness that exeeded that of the Pharisees.

Axiom (in process): Side-issues may be addressed by parables especially if they relate to the main theme.

Many interpreters deny this and maintain that the parable is limited to only one simple spiritual concept. This directly conflicts with God being THE Greatest Communicator, similar to the use of anthropomorhism as an excuse for how God communicates truths.

The following are to be addressed in the future

1. Inerrancy of scripture relates only to the inerrancy of communicating the redemption plan or model that God designed.
2. Conservative hermeneutics is solid, consistent in its results compared to liberal hermeneutics. Conservative hermeneutics has been loosely (and perhaps, erroneously) called "literal" hermeneutics. Nevertheless, in a practical sense, conservative hermeneutics seeks for original intent or original meaning of the author to his audience in a specific context or environment of place, time, language, culture, idioms. 3C's (composer, congregation, context) or a.a.e. (author, audience, environment)