This was originally published in Antithesis, Vol. II, No. 4, July/Aug 1991 Free will. Who could be against it? But there is a better question than this to ask. Free will. What is it? Many of the staunchest advocates of “free will” encounter immediate difficulties when they are asked to explain what they defend — …
The Central Square of Reformedville
Earlier today I tweeted this: “God comes to us in three books — nature, law, and gospel. Read plainly, we read God above us, God against us, and God with us.” I have been asked for additional explanation, and so here it is. The responses ranged from huh? what? to “you sound like Michael Horton.” …
C.S. Lewis and Moose Tracks Ice Cream
Over the last few weeks, we have been discussing natural law — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Jim Jordan kicked things off by attacking The Calvinist International at the Auburn Avenue conference, and I wrote a few posts on the subject, including an outline of my own debt to C.S. Lewis, and my …
Me and Van Til
So let us begin with the ungrammatical title. Why would I put it like that? It is not really proper, unless worked into a sentence like “‘Me and Van Til’ is not really a proper title for a blog post.” So maybe I am being grammatical accidentially, like the boy who was dozing in the …
Five Thousand Dollars in Your Pocket
As our discussion of natural law proceeds apace, one of things we have to do is distinguish between the unacceptable forms of natural law and the acceptable forms of it. I mean, to accept the unacceptable forms of natural law would be . . . unnatural. Creepy almost. So what’s the difference? At the end …
The Nature of Natural Law
Yesterday I came home from the Auburn Avenue conference for pastors, which is always a grand time. One thing that happened there was this. During his talk, Jim Jordan spent some time castigating the idea of natural law, and during the Q&A I was asked about it, because I have been making friendly noises about …
Spring Loaded
One of the things we should have realized by now is that the world around us is far crazier than we could ever have dreamed. Just when we have finally accommodated ourselves to taking yesterday’s staggering discoveries for granted, along comes another one. Our sinful hearts have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for …
Prophecy and the Fear of God
A few weeks ago, I was on a radio broadcast in the UK with Adrian Warnock, which I believe I told you about at the time. At that time, I told a story about a “word of knowledge” experience I once had, which caused Adrian to call me a continuationist in denial. I said that …
That’ll Preach
In the comments below this post, Jeremy Sexton explains an objective, outside-the-individual way of understanding the qualitative difference between a persevering covenant member and a non-persevering covenant member. I appreciate Jeremy’s contribution. In line with my previous comments, I don’t have any difficulty seeing this as a position that an orthodox Christian could take. The …
Messing With the Verb
I recently wrote about how catholicity begins at home, which you can read here if you missed it. Jim Jordan was kind enough to comment in the thread below that, but because the conveyor belt of time won’t slow down, his comments were kind of buried. I wanted to bump them up to the top …