The requirement of independent confirmation is not waived simply because a person confesses to something. That independent confirmation may certainly be circumstantial, but authorities in any realm ought to be wary of simply accepting someone’s accusation against himself. Say that a man, wracked with guilt, confesses to a murder. He goes to the police and …
A Really Troublesome Cartoon
Here’s a good one. HT: David Field
Credenda is no Deadenda
February 2006 Dear Friends of Credenda, We really are grateful for the financial support that you offer to our magazine. We are now entering our eighteenth year of publication, which helps to explain quite a number of things. This accounts for the adolescent sense of humor, as well as the fact that we don’t appear …
Sweeping or Sleeping
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 76 “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute” (Prov. 12:24). Generalizations are just that, generalizations. But there is a God-given reason for advancing them nonetheless. Generalizations are still true. And, as a …
Maturity and Discernment
In this next chapter of Hebrews we begin a short introduction to the nature of Christ’s priesthood and intercession for us. The writer of Hebrews is then diverted into a discussion of immaturity and apostasy before he returns to this theme in the middle chapters of his book. “For every high priest taken from among …
Blogs and Accusations
It has come to my attention that an announcement was made to the Warfield list concerning a web site that has been set up by a member of our church, a site that has been recycling a number of old accusations against us. I am confident that many of the readers of the Warfield list …
The Lewis and Clark of the Soul
“Lewis and Clark didn’t return from their trip and say, ‘Well, we didn’t find the Northwest Passage, but we did find ourselves.’ But that is the spirit of Bobo travel. Our travel dollars are investments in our own human capital. We don’t just want to see famous sights; we want to pierce into other cultures. …
Play Skillfully
“This may seem like a commonsense observation, but relativism in aesthetics is constantly trying to undermine the obvious. When the Bible tells us we are to ‘sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a shout of joy’ (Ps. 33:3), this means there is such a thing as musical skill. The Lord has not …
Nameless Others
Chesteron had a famous comment where he spoke of tradition as the democracy of the dead. He thought we ought not to exclude someone’s voice from a discussion on the technical grounds that they were not still alive. The point was well-taken, but there are some discussions and arguments where voices ought to be excluded. …
A Situated Idahoan
In his fifth chapter, Grenz introduces us to the forerunner of postmodernism, to the voice crying in the wilderness — Fredrich Nietzsche. The philosophers of modernity (who bookended that age when rationalistic charismata were still being given to men) were Descartes and Kant (p. 84), and this gives us the approximate dates of 1650 to …