Friday, September 07, 2012

"Catholic Answers" - Its Genesis

Patrick Madrid recently directed me to a story by Karl Keating describing how "Catholic Answers" was born.

According to Mr. Keating, it was born when he decided to print tracts and put them on the windshields of cars of a local Christian church that had similarly pamphleted the windshields of cars at his own, Roman, church.

Mr. Keating admits that he decided to publish the tracts under the name "Catholic Answers," because - well - let me quote his own words:
Not wanting to reveal my identity or my home address, and wanting to leave the Fundamentalists with the impression that what I wrote was more than just one man’s opinion, I made up the name "Catholic Answers" (it sounded authoritative), and I rented a post office box on the off chance that someone might actually reply to me.
Such a frank confession of his motives is surprising - but what was even more surprising is Keating's admission regarding how he responded to the people who wrote to the P.O. Box, asking for the catalog for "Catholic Answers." He says he replied in this way:
I was surprised to find it full—and doubly surprised to find some letters were from Catholics, who said, "This is great stuff! Send us your catalogue!" I wrote back, saying, "I’m sorry, but everything is out of print at the moment."
-TurretinFan

... now and at the hour of our death.

Thanks to Steve Hays for pointing me to a recent report of man who, while trying to rescue his idol from her peril found himself her victim, as she collapsed on top of him.

It is a sad story, but illustrative of the foolishness of idolatry. The idol could not pray for the man either now or at the hour of his death. The only way she could be with him at the hour of his death was as the cause of that death. Those who venerate idols become like them (Psalm 115:8 and 135:18).

-TurretinFan

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Horton's Comments on Islam or E2K?

"... it's a good thing that we no longer live in an era where Christianity is a culture."

I saw that Michael Horton had posted a series of three videos (about 15 minutes total) purportedly on Islam, in association with the "White Horse Inn." (part 1, part 2, part 3)

I offer the following by way of corrective and commentary.

In part 1, Horton states:

"Islam is all law."
"Salvation - deliverance - is not an Islamic idea, because this is all up to you."
"If you end up in paradise, it's because you pulled it off, not because you were saved."

These are not a completely accurate picture of Islam. First of all, in the Koran (and elsewhere) Allah is described as "Merciful" and "Forgiving" over and over, starting from the first Surah. In fact, traditionally one finds the following at the beginning of each Surah: "In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful," which is known as the Bismillah. If you listen to Muslim speakers, you will frequently hear them say this phrase, "bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm."

We could provide a variety of examples, but suffice that in Islam Allah's sovereignty is not strictly lawful but rather lawless. He forgives capriciously and condemns almost as capriciously. He is made in the image of Mohammed, for whom certain things were generally pleasing (such as monotheism and obeying Mohammed), but for whom other things (like murder) could be simply forgiven.

A fundamental problem with Islam is not that it is all law, but that it is not enough law. In Islam, there is no law of satisfaction. Allah can disregard the law, and so there is no need for a perfect sacrifice to satisfy justice and reconcile mankind with him.

Also in part 1 he states: "What the Koran reveals, according to Islam, are timeless eternal principles and truths, whereas Christianity has a very historical concern."

He then goes on to give the following example: "Think about, for example, the creed of Islam: Allah is one and Mohammed is his prophet. There are these timeless eternal principles and truths."

He later says: "Nothing in Islam hangs on historical events."

I have to wonder about this kind of description of Islam. The Koran does describe creation and does point people toward a future judgment. Moreover, the Koran makes Mohammed the pivot point of history.

It is true that the Koran does not place much emphasis on history, and is not arranged chronologically, but to say that Islam doesn't hang on historical events seems, strange.

It's particularly strange when the so-called creed of Islam mentions that pivotal man, Mohammed.

Unfortunately, Horton also makes the mistake of identifying "surahs" with verses, rather than chapters, both in the first part and in the second part.

In the second part, after some e2k material about "regime change," Horton alleges that Islam is not a religion of peace, based on identifying a number of ayat that are violent. Horton then continues on contrasting e2k with his perception of Islam as a primarily violent religion.

Finally, in the third segment, Horton describes the fact that he lives next door to Muslims and lets his kids play with them "all the time." Indeed, he indicates that he takes care to help the Muslim kids observe Ramadan (!).

He then goes on with more discussion of his e2k worldview, in which there cannot be Christian nations that do what the Westminster Confession says they should.

Horton points out that Islam is not consistent with freedom of religion. I'm sure many Muslims would dispute this point, but if he simply qualified his statement by saying that Islam dose not teach religious freedom "to the extent that U.S. law provides when Islam is in control," I think they would have to concede the point.

I may address Horton's various e2k statements (which seemed to be the pervasive message in his commentary) in a separate post. I will, however, point out his most disturbing remark, which is the last thing he says: "... its a good thing that we no longer live in an era where Christianity is a culture."

Obviously, I don't agree with his point. Christianity still invades contemporary US culture. It does so less than it did in previous generations, and that is sad, yet it still does so. The American culture is less Christian than it was, but it has not become what pluralists hope it will be. As I said above, however, I'll my postpone my detailed responses to his e2k teachings for another post or not at all.

-TurretinFan

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Rebuttal to Hubner's Response to DeYoung

Jamin Hubner has posted a response to Kevin DeYoung on the topic Baptism and the covenant.

Jamin quote KDY as stating: “If circumcision was for Abraham a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, then we cannot say the cutting away of the flesh was simply an ethnic identity marker or a sign of mere physical import.”

Then Jamin responds:
Not true. Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness that Abraham had by faith because he had faith. Obviously, if he didn’t have faith, circumcision wasn’t and isn’t a sign of his faith! I honestly don’t know how Kevin misses that one since it’s explicit in the text.
It's really unclear what Jamin is trying to object to. His comment doesn't really seem to address what KDY said, and later on in his comments he seems to agree with KDY that the sign was not merely of physical import. Perhaps Jamin just misread something.

Jamin quotes KDY thus:
And if this spiritual sign—a seal of the righteousness that comes by faith—was administered to Abraham and his infant sons, then we cannot say that the thing signified must always be present before the sign is administered. Isaac was circumcised, and so was Ishmael—both being given the seal of justification by faith before the exercise of faith. Just like infant baptism.
Then Jamin responds:
Kevin again misses that circumcision is “a seal of the righteousness that comes by faith” – that is, Abraham’s faith and righteousness, not somebody’s else’s!
Again, it's not completely clear if Jamin follows KDY's argument. Assuming that he does, Jamin seems to be trying to argue that all circumcisions were a sign of Abraham's faith (not of each recipient's faith). If so, it is not clear how Jamin derives this from the text. Of course, Abraham's circumcision was a sign of the faith he himself had, but by extension the same is true of each circumcised person - his circumcision signed/sealed his (the individual's) faith.

Jamin quotes KDY thus:
So whether infant baptism makes sense to you or not—and I deeply respect my non-paedo friends in my church and in the broader church—shouldn’t we at least agree that the basic spiritual import of circumcision and baptism is the same and that there is biblical precedence [sic for precedent] for administering a spiritual sign without the immediate presence of the thing signified?
Then Jamin responds:
The answer is no, because the basic spiritual import of circumcision and baptism is not the same, precisely because the covenant’s [sic for covenants] are not the same (Heb 8).
The question then is, "what was the basic spiritual import of circumcision," if it was not faith? Acts 15 confirms for us that the Jews were saved by faith, just like the Gentiles. So, on what point is the basic spiritual import different? We don't get an answer from Jamin.

Jamin continues:
As Wellum has thoroughly argued in Believer’s Baptism a number of years ago, and more recently in Kingdom Through Covenant, circumcision and baptism signify different realities (which is why they are radically different signs!).
They are radically different signs because Christ has come. The bloody has been replaced with the bloodless, because Christ's blood has been shed. But the question is what Jamin thinks the different spiritual realities are.

Jamin then quotes himself as previously stating:
Circumcision marked out a male line of descent from Abraham to David to Christ, served as a physical sign to mark out a nation and to distinguish them as people who would prepare the way for the Messiah, and was part and parcel of Mosaic law.[1] None of this is true for baptism.

But, didn’t circumcision point to new life like baptism does?[2]Yes, but there’s a difference between looking forward to something and looking back to something after Christ has accomplished his work. As Sam Waldron puts it, “Baptism, therefore, professes what circumcision demanded. Circumcision did demand a new heart, indeed, but it did not profess a new heart. Baptism professes a new heart.”
a) So, wait - Jamin does agree that circumcision points to new life like baptism does. So, then why did he answer "no" instead of "yes" to KDY?

b) The attempt to limit circumcision to the Mosaic administration fails as well. Ishmael was circumcised - not just Isaac. Abraham's slaves were circumcised too. While many of the male ancestors of Jesus in the male Abrahamic line to Joseph and Mary were circumcised, we are not told that all were, and the hill of foreskins at the entering in of Canaan suggests that some were not. Indeed, Abraham comes before Moses.

c) More to the point, while circumcision was associated with the Mosaic administration, the "basic spiritual significance" does not lie the nation being marked out - the marked out nation was itself a shadow (and likewise with the promised land etc.).

d) There is a difference between pointing forward and pointing backward, no doubt, but that difference is not one that is at the level of the "basic spiritual significance."

e) Waldron's way of putting it may be catchy, but it is not consistent with Paul's discussion of Abraham's circumcision. Paul claims Abraham already had faith and treats circumcision (in his case) as a profession of the faith that he already had. The same would the case with any proselytes.

f) Moreover, while it is easy to treat circumcision as law and demand (by simply lumping it in with "the law"), circumcision was a profession of the thing demanded. The way of salvation was always by faith, for all people, for all time. It was not uniquely demanded of the Jews in the Old Testament. Even if you will say that the gospel preached to the Jews (in shadow) and was not preached to the nations, surely it was preached to the female Jews. Thus, while circumcision was uniquely received by male Jews, faith was not demanded only of the males.

g) Further to (f), the idea of circumcision "demanding" what baptism professes is a confused idea, if one is trying to apply Paul's teaching that a person who is circumcised is a debtor to the whole law.

h) Also further to (f), leaving aside the Pauline comments mentioned at (g), the idea that circumcision "demanded" anything is not a teaching of Scripture. It seems instead to be an inference from the fact that it was applied to infants who were later to learn about their responsibilities. What is missing, though, is any notion that the circumcision was a demand, rather than a profession.

Jamin concludes:
Thus, in the Old Covenant, you have the command given to God’s people to “circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your heart” (Jer 4:4) to those who already bore the physical sign, hoping that maybe in the future this would happen. But in the New Covenant, the Apostle speaks to God’s covenant people in the aorist, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands…you have been buried in baptism” (Col 2).
Jamin seems to treat Jeremiah 4:4 as though it were part of an OT AWANA curriculum. What distinguishes the two cases is that one is addressed to merely outward members of the covenant, and the other is address to members of the covenant both outwardly and inwardly. Abraham's inward circumcision preceded his outward circumcision, just as the Colossian proselytes' outward baptism followed their inward circumcision.

The unbelieving Jews professed faith, but they did not have it:

Isaiah 29:13
Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

So, in fact the Jews professed a faith they did not possess, whereas the Colossians possessed faith. But that's not a difference between baptism and circumcision, but between hypocrites and faithful.

-TurretinFan

Monday, August 20, 2012

Ratzinger the Scotian Pantheist?

In the comment box of the Greenbaggins blog, John Bugay has provided some material from Ratzinger/Benedict XVI that seems rather pantheistic. Naturally, some of the CtC crowd have taken offense at this, and have responded. While there is something amusing about watching the defense of Ratzinger by those who serve him, the matter is not quite as cut and dried as they may like to believe.

On the one hand, Ratzinger has (on a variety of occasions) identified pantheism as an error. He used the word "pantheism" to do so (an example is present in my comments below). So far so good. But what does he consider to be heretical pantheism? One can engage in the word-concept fallacy on either side of the orthodox-heretical divide.

So, it would be helpful to see whether he has embraced any teachings that have already been condemned as pantheistic. Thankfully, we don't have to a detailed comparison of his teachings to see if they line up with someone like John Scotus,

After all, Ratzinger/Benedict XVI characterized John Scotus thus: "In fact, John Scotus represents a radical Platonism that sometimes seems to approach a pantheistic vision, even though his personal subjective intentions were always orthodox."

He goes on to state: "John Scotus, here too using terminology dear to the Christian tradition of the Greek language, called this experience for which we strive "theosis", or divinization, with such daring affirmations that he might be suspected of heterodox pantheism."

And not only was Scotus (whom Ratzinger defends) suspected of heterodox pantheism, after his death his work was condemned for this heresy by a regional council and Honorius III in 1225 ordered all copies of the offending book (the very one that Ratzinger goes on to quote with approval from) to be burnt. He even described it as “swarming with worms of heretical perversity” (see here).

So, perhaps papal defenders can explain to us why we should accept the teaching of Benedict XVI as orthodox, given that it seems to endorse the teaching of John Scotus, condemned by Honorius III. (The quotations above are from Benedict XVI's general audience June 10, 2009.)

And then, and perhaps this is key, the advocate of the papacy can explain why we are able to judge the orthodoxy of Scotus based on his writings (praised by one pope, condemned by another), but we lack the authority to judge what doctrines the Bible teaches.

- TurretinFan

P.S. If Honorius III can be forgiven for seeing pantheism in Scotus (assuming he was wrong to do so), perhaps Bugay can be forgiven (same assumption) for seeing pantheism in Benedict XVI (since at least he would seem at least to have Honorius III on his side).

UPDATE: Bryan Cross responded to the comment above. His response and my reply are inter-mixed:
The aspects of Scotus which Pope Benedicts commends are not the errors for which his work was later condemned. So in no way does his general audience on Scotus call his [i.e. Pope Benedict's] orthodoxy into question.
a) Yes, they were ("... daring affirmations that he might be suspected of heterodox pantheism ... ").
b) If my above demonstration was insufficient, note that he goes on to state, in so many words: "In fact, the entire theological thought of John Scotus is the most evident demonstration of the attempt to express the expressible of the inexpressible God, based solely upon the mystery of the Word made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth."
c) Praising a work that was condemned by his predecessor would be enough to call his orthodoxy into question, even in the absence of specific praise of his apparently pantheistic teachings and of his "entire theological thought."
I don’t assume that you are able to judge rightly concerning the orthodoxy of Scotus. I don’t assume that apart from the Church I could rightly judge such a thing.
Your church provides contradictory guidance. Honorius III condemns and insults the book, Benedict XVI praises and quotes the book. Which pope will you pick?

-TurretinFan

Properly Loving One's Neighbor

Douglas Wilson (there, I've now lost half my reading audience) has posted some shots at Horton's piece on "gay marriage." (link to Wilson) Wilson was struck by something Horton said, something that also struck me: "The challenge there is that two Christians who hold the same beliefs about marriage as Christians may appeal to neighbor-love to support or to oppose legalization of same-sex marriage."

There are a number of problems with what Horton says. Here are a few:

1) The second table of the law best describes our duty to love our neighbor. If we disregard the law of God, we are simply having friendship with the world, not Biblical love of neighbor. None of that entails that we cannot be kind, friendly, and loving toward our neighbors who sin. On the contrary, we must be those things. However, we must do so without compromising the second table.

2) The law given to Israel did accord with love of neighbor, and particularly with the second table. In other words, the harsh punishments of that law for the sin of Sodom were not unloving, nor were they in any way a violation of the second table or the duty to love our neighbors as ourselves. Whether or not those precise punishments should be imposed, if those precise punishments were imposed, there would be no injustice.

3) The appropriate neighbor-loving reaction to Sodom's sin (by the civil magistrate) is not affirmation or tolerance of that sin, but judicial correction of that sin. In other words, the general equity of the civil law of Israel applies. That general equity is at least that such sexual behavior deserves punishment by the civil magistrate (whether or not that general equity extends to the degree of punishment or the mode of punishment, we can leave to another discussion).

In short, Horton is wrong if he means that Christians can legitimately appeal to the principle of neighbor love to support or oppose such legislation.

Horton writes: "Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm domestic partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security."

The problem, though, is that Horton is affirming something that he (as civil magistrate) ought to condemn. Legitimate concern for the person's economic security cannot trump the civil magistrate's duty to oppose evil.

One wonders if Horton would say the following:

Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm mafia partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security.

Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm pimping/prostitution partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security.

Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm contract hit partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security.

Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm false witness for hire partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security.
I hope the answer would be an emphatic, "well, of course not." Horton wouldn't want the shield of the state to be used to protect organized crime, pimps, hitmen, or sons of Belial in the course of their evil. So, Horton is being inconsistent (the hallmark of E2k) in supporting "domestic partnerships."

I'm glad that Horton ends well (I quote his conclusion below), but I fear that he gets to the right conclusion without a solid framework:
At the end of the day, what tips the scales toward the second view is that I can’t see how neighbor-love can be severed from love of God, which is after all the most basic command of all. Even if they do not acknowledge “nature and nature’s God”—or anything above their own sovereign freedom to choose—reality nevertheless stands unmovable. Like the law of gravity, the law of marriage (of one man and one woman) remains to the end of time—not just for Christians, but for all people everywhere.
That's where the rubber meets the road. If your interpretation of "love of neighbor" leads you to compromise your duty to God, it is not true love of neighbor. Love of God is the first and great commandment, and together with love of neighbor, it is the hermeneutic for understanding the entire Old Testament.

-TurretinFan

Thursday, August 16, 2012

"So You Still Think Homosexuality is Sinful?"

Another graphic that is floating around the social media sites is one titled "So You Still Think Homosexuality is Sinful?" and subtitled "And therefore gays shouldn't be allowed to marry?" (Example)

That's not actually the reason that "gay marriage" shouldn't be allowed. The reason is that such a thing is an oxymoron. Marriage is a permanent union between a man and a woman. Homosexuals have always been "allowed" to get married, they just don't want to because they don't want that kind of permanent union with a member of the opposite sex. More precisely, many have been married (for immigration reasons, because of family pressures, or the like), but that is not what they are demanding now.

The graphic itself is a flow chart. If you answer the title question, "no," it rewards you by telling you "congratulations on begin part of civilized society!" Apparently, the graphic's author thinks that having a faulty understanding of morality is part of being in a "civilized" society. It used to be that "civilized" referred to societies who live by rules (especially those rules associated with the Bible), not those that abandon rules.

For those that answer "Yes," the graphic asks, "Why?" and offers six alternatives. The first alternative is, "Because Jesus said so," which the graphic answers by saying, "Not true. Jesus never uttered a word about same-sex relationships." There are several responses to this.

First, Jesus repeatedly referred to Sodom as an example of hardhearted wickedness deserving severe divine punishment:
Matthew 10:15
Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Matthew 11:23
And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

Matthew 11:24
But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

Mark 6:11
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Luke 10:12
But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city.
He doesn't explicitly mention the term "homosexuality," but he doesn't have to. Everyone knows what kind of people the men of Sodom were.

Second, Jesus endorsed the old testament law.

Matthew 5:17
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

Third, Jesus sent Paul as his apostle:
Romans 1:1
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,

1 Corinthians 1:1
Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,

2 Corinthians 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia:

Galatians 1:1
Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)

Ephesians 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

Colossians 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother,

1 Timothy 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope;

2 Timothy 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

Titus 1:1
Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;
... and Paul clearly taught that homosexuality is sinful.

The chart assumes that we will accept the claim that Jesus had nothing to say about the matter, and returns to the question "why." The next option provided in the chart is "Because the Old Testament said so."

The chart responds by asserting, "The O.T. also says it's sinful to eat shellfish, to wear clothes woven with different fabrics, and to eat port." The chart then asks, "should we still live by O.T. laws?"

The O.T. also says it's wrong to kill people, commit adultery, and steal their things. Should we still live by O.T. laws? It's safe to say that the chart's author thinks we should, when it comes to those, and that we shouldn't when it comes to eating kosher and avoiding mixed fiber clothing. In fact, aside from Jews and some Judaizers, we all generally agree on the points.

The question (which is begged by the graphic) is whether the prohibition on homosexual relations is one that falls in the former category or the latter category. The chart doesn't offer any argument as to why we should consider it to be similar to the requirement to eat kosher, and not consider it similar to the prohibition on adultery. But homosexual sex is much more like adultery than it is like eating shrimp. Moreover, we have New Testament guidance which helps us distinguish between the ceremonial laws (like the dietary laws) and the moral laws (like the laws regarding sexual behavior).

The chart assumes that the answer to the question posed will simply be "yes" or "no," rather than actually addressing the premises provided. Since there is another way to the "yes" outcome, we'll address that in a minute. The "no" outcome loops us back to the "why" question.

The next option the chart provides is, "Because the New Testament says so." The chart responds:
The original language of the N.T. actually refers to male prostitution, molestation, or promiscuity, not committed same-sex relationships. Paul may have spoken against homosexuality, but he also said that women should be silent and never assume authority over a man.
The chart then asks, "Shall modern-day churches live by all of Paul's values?"

Actually, the original language of the NT does not distinguish between "committed" and other kinds of homosexual activity. In other words, it's not as though the NT exclusively refers to male prostitutes (although it does refer to them, using the euphemism "dogs"). It uses terms that cover the range of homosexual activity, including both "active" and "passive" homosexuality. For example:

1 Corinthians 6:9
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

And the New Testament broadly addresses both male and female homosexuality:

Romans 1:26-27
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Regarding what Paul said about women, he said that they were to be silent in the church not always. But yes, there are many things that Paul teaches about women that modern feminists (of both sexes) don't care for.

Regarding the question of whether we should adopt "all" of Paul's values, even if the answer were "no," that would still leave open the question of whether we should adopt this very clearly stated moral value. One might argue that there are some of Paul's values that were culturally conditioned (the typical feminist argument for egalitarianism). But even if we grant that argument's force (I certainly don't grant it, just to be clear), that still does not lead us to a conclusion that we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

In other words, raising an objection that we shouldn't accept everything Paul taught does not automatically lead to a conclusion that we should reject everything Paul taught - or even that we should reject any particular thing that Paul taught.

If you think we should follow everything that Paul taught (or everything that the Old Testament taught - and it is clear that Paul is following Jesus and the OT), then graphic provides the following outcome:
Have fun living your sexist, chauvinistic, judgemental [sic], xenophobic lifestyle choice. The rest of culture will advance forward without you.
Of course, that's not really an argument, it's just a stream of epithets and an unsupported assertion regarding the direction of "culture." But were we really expecting a rational argument? A return to a time where homosexuality was widely accepted is not a step forward - it's a step backward. After all, it's such activity that was widespread in Greek culture that Paul was condemning. To try to overthrow Biblical morals is not to move forward along a moral uprightness trajectory, but to revert to the lower pre-Christian state.

The chart is not through, though. It offers another option: "Because God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." The chart responds:
That was when the Earth wasn't populated. There are now 6.79 billion people. Breeding clearly isn't an issue any more.
That might make sense as an argument in favor of the use of contraception, but it is pretty much irrelevant to the issue of marriage. Notwithstanding what homosexual males may think, women are help meet for men in more ways than just breeding.

The argument from the large number of human beings is a red herring. At the time when Adam and Eve were created, it was just them. But by the time Jesus introduced the "Adam and Eve" argument, there were at least millions upon millions of people on the earth. Granted that billions is more than millions, but trillions is more than billions, and millions is still a large number. Jesus' argument that marriage was ordained to be one man and one woman by the creation of one Eve for Adam was made when the Earth was already largely populated, and was not tied to the question of reproduction - it was addressing the issue of divorce.

The chart assumes that the large number of people negates Jesus' argument, and so returns to the question "why." The next option is "because the Bible clearly defines marriage as one-man-one-woman" to which the chart responds:
Wrong. The Bible also defines marriage as one-man-many-women, one man many wives and many concubines, a rapist and his victim, and conquering soldier and female prisoner of war.
This argument is itself wrong, which has already been thoroughly addressed in my previous post (link to post regarding Biblical definition of marriage). In very brief, the rapist/victim and soldier/prisoner examples are also one-man-one-woman examples. Moreover, the examples of polygamy are examples of a man being married multiple times, not of a multi-party marriage. Furthermore, polygamy is described but not condoned by the Bible. Finally, for the purposes of this particular argument, we should add that expanding the definition of marriage to include polygamy and concubinage still excludes "gay marriage."

The chart seems to think that this argument is helpful, however, and so it proceeds to a final option, from which the chart provides no "out." The chart's final option is: "Because it just disgusts me." The chart responds:
Props for being honest. However, a whole population of people shouldn't have their families discriminated against just because you think gay sex is icky. Grow up!
What "whole population" does the author have in mind? The whole population of Sodom? What the chart's author really means is, "the homosexuals" - and not really all of them, because most of them prefer promiscuity - but let's assume that it is all or most of them.

Their families aren't "discriminated against." What defines a family is the presence of parents and offspring. They are parts of families (they are offspring of parents), but they do not form their own families. But even if their social units were "families," they are not "discriminated against," simply because we don't mislabel their relationship "marriage," just as we are not discriminating against divorcees by failing to call them "widows" and "widowers."

Whether or not homosexual sex is "icky," is not really the point. We may think that toilets are icky, but we don't discriminate against plumbers who fix them.

But we can flip it on its head. Just because a small fraction of males think that women are "icky," and wish to abandon the natural use of women in favor of men, doesn't mean we have to make such perversion legal, much less pretend that a "committed relationship" that is based on such perversion is "marriage."

-TurretinFan

How the Bible Defines Marriage

There is a graphic that has made its way around various social media sites (example) that purports to describe "How the Bible Defines Marriage."

The graphic manages to oversimplify things, get things wrong, and needlessly complicate things. Let's address the needless complications first.

The Bible is pretty clear on the definition of marriage. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman. There are many passages that illustrate this point - perhaps the easiest is "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son." (Deuteronomy 7:3)

The situation in which a woman is given to a man is a marriage. There is more to it than that, of course. After all, there are such things as fornication, broadly encompassing adultery, rape, and prostitution, none of which are marriages.

The graphic needlessly complicates things by describing eight scenarios: one in which a man and a woman are shown, and then seven more. All that is needed is that first box of the graphic.

There are, remarkably, three more boxes that likewise show one man and one woman in this graphic. The only difference is that in these three, the people have different clothing/accessories. These are all actually examples of a man/woman marriage, so they aren't really alternatives to the "traditional" case at all.

Three of the remaining four boxes show one man plus more than one woman. There will be more discussion of these below, but these boxes are not really alternatives to the first box, either. Instead, they are instances in which one man is either married to one woman and has some kind of sexual relationship with other women or a man is married more than once. It is not as though there is a three-way knot tied, in which the women are bound to one another and their husband. Instead, the man is married twice (or more times).

The last remaining box is perhaps the creepiest looking, as it illustrates a skeleton plus a man plus a woman. It is a reference to the levirate law. The levirate law did not vary the "man plus woman" model. Instead, it provided for certain widows to be provided automatically with a husband. The very existence of the law presumes and emphasizes that marriages are between a man and a woman.

In short, all that was really needed was one box showing a man and a woman. That's how marriage is defined in the Bible. There is no other definition. There are lots of examples of marriages and other sexual behavior in the Bible, and there are quite a few laws about marriages in the Bible, but there is only one definition.

Now that we've seen that the graphic is needlessly complex, lets address some of its inaccuracies, by examining each block in turn.

First, within the "Man + Woman" block, the graphic states:
- wives subordinate to their husbands
-interfaith marriages forbidden
-marriages generally arranged, not based on romantic love
-bride who could not prove her virginity was stoned to death
The statement regarding subordination is certainly true. The Bible does teach that the man is head.

The only "interfaith marriages forbidden" are those between believers and unbelievers. Thus, for example, there is nothing in the Bible that forbids a Hindu and a Muslim from marrying one another, only one that forbids a Christian marrying a non-Christian.

Saying that marriages were "generally arranged," is probably a misstatement. Generally, marriages involved the father of the bride giving the woman to a man to be his wife. To induce him to give her to be the man's wife, the father was ordinarily given a dowry - a payment. Typically, young men would not have the financial means to give such a payment, and thus their fathers would be involved in making the payment to the fathers of the brides-to-be, to obtain them for their sons.

In such a process, romantic love may or may not play a part. Romantic love is something that would obviously incentivize a young man to work hard to obtain a dowry, or to beg his father to obtain one particular young lady rather than another.

Likewise, romantic love (or lack thereof) is something that would lead a young lady to try to influence her father's decision regarding potential suitors and suitable dowries. In other words, the marriage market was not the supermarket. Except in the case of heartless fathers, their daughters were not simply for sale to the highest bidder.

That said, it was not up to the young woman, and so the young woman's romantic love had only an indirect role. The young man's romantic love might have a greater role, although since sons were supposed to honor their parents, there was certainly a possibility that romantic love would be entirely overlooked.

The final point is the least accurate. The situation referenced is that described in Deuteronomy 22:14-21. In that passage, a man marries a woman and discovers that she was not a virgin. He then goes around telling people about this, to his wife's shame.

In this case, if the parents object they are to produce the evidence of her virginity. Once this is produced, the man is fined heavily and the man is prohibited from ever divorcing the woman (normally the law allowed for divorce).

On the other hand, if the it turns out that the man was right, and the woman was sexually experienced before marriage, then she was to be executed by stoning at the door of her father's house.

So, this was not simply a case that the woman was not a virgin, but that her husband discovered this after marriage and objected to it publicly, and it turned out to be true. There was no requirement that men deal with their disappointment about their wives' lack of virginity in this way. You may recall that when Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant, he thought about divorcing her quietly - which would not have invoked this provision of the law (he understandably assumed that she was not a virgin from the fact of pregnancy).

Moving on to the second box, the graphic lists "man + wives + concubines." The practice of concubinage is described in the Bible, but never endorsed. For example, while concubinage is mentioned in Genesis, in the law it is never described or regulated.

The next box is "man + woman + woman's property." The graphic cites Genesis 16 for the idea that "man could acquire his wife's property including her slaves." This is a strange claim, given

Genesis 16:3
And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

and

Genesis 16:6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thine hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.

That doesn't seem very close to the graphic's description, at all. Moreover, note that this is an example of Abram entering into a second marriage. This, as with other polygamous marriages, is described but not endorsed.

The next box is "man + woman + woman + woman ... ." The Bible does describe many instances of polygamy (and specifically polygany). These, however, are examples of one man being married multiple times - not of a 700-1000 way marriage (in the case of Solomon). While the law does regulate polygamous men, it does not endorse polygamy. Indeed, "husband of one wife" is a requirement for elders and deacons in the New Testament, making it clear that monogamy is the moral requirement.

Continuing counter-clockwise, the next box is "male slave + female slave." It is true that the law provided for slaves to marry one another, and provided that the arrangement of this marriage was at the will of the slaves' master.

The next box is "male soldier + prisoner of war." Actually this is misleading, because "prisoner of war" is not an accurate description of a non-combatant woman captured during war. There was a specific provision whereby in certain cases women of conquered countries could be taken as wives, rather than being killed off or sold into slavery with the rest of the people of their nation. There were specific regulations of this practice, some of which are actually quite interesting.

The next box is "rapist + his victim." The passage cited for this Deuteronomy 22:28-29, which states:

Deuteronomy 22:28-29
If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.

Standing by itself, one might think that this referred to a situation of rape. There is, however, a parallel provision of the law in Exodus:

Exodus 22:16-17
And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.

This parallel passages suggests that Deuteronomy passage is referring to a seducer, not a rapist per se. Moreover, the Exodus passage makes it clear that the father still has the right to refuse his daughter to the seducer. If the father has the right to refuse in the case of seduction, much more in rape as well. Thus, while a father is given a right to insist on the marriage (and the dowry being paid), the father is not forced to give his daughter up.

It should be noted that while "lay hold on her" does sound like physical violence, it can just mean what it literally says. When, a few verses earlier, the law refers to the case of the rape of a betrothed woman, a different word (translated "force") is used. It's certainly broad enough to include rape, though. Whether it is intended to refer to rape, or not, the other parallel passage makes it clear that the marriage to the man is not automatic, but depends on the consent of the girl's father (as with all marriages where the daughter is still under her father's authority). In any case, the man must pay the dowry. The point of the law is, of course, about protecting a now unmarriageable woman (given that there was generally an expectation that a woman would be a virgin at marriage).

Incidentally, that's the same reason for the dowry - namely so that in case the man fails to continue to care for the girl (by divorcing her, for example), the patriarch of her family will have at least some means to maintain her. The point of the dowry is not to quantize the value of the woman, but to protect her against the case of divorce, both as a bond and as an insurance policy.

The final box of the graphic illustrates (somewhat eerily) a levirate marriage. The levirate law was designed to protect widows who had no son to provide for them. These women were entitled to have one of their husband's kinsmen marry and provide for them. The graphic is wrong to call the man her "brother-in-law." There is no brother-in-law after the death of a spouse. Moreover, the nearest male kinsman might be a cousin, rather than a brother. The point of this marriage was to provide for the welfare of the otherwise helpless widow.

The graphic says, "must submit sexually to her new husband," but both husbands and wives have that mutual obligation. In fact, the law regulates polygamy in certain cases by specifically requiring the husband to continue to feed, clothe, and fulfill his first wife's "duty of marriage" as he had done before. The New Testament explains more clearly:

1 Corinthians 7:4
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

More could be said on this topic, but won't for now.

Finally, as noted above, the chart is incomplete. For example, there is no example of "man + female slave," which is a situation provided for in the law. Likewise, there is no discussion on the marriage limitations imposed on inheriting girls (girls in families that have no sons must marry within their own tribe). Furthermore, there is no discussion of the extensive rules prohibiting various types of incest, or of many of the rules related divorce, including the prohibition on leap-frog marriages (re-marriage to a woman you previously divorced unless she has remained single).

In other words, the Bible says a lot more about marriage than what appears on the graphic, what appears on the graphic is not completely accurate, and the graphic needlessly complicates the issue of how the Bible defines marriage, in that the Bible defines it - at a fundamental level - as the permanent union of a man and a woman.

-TurretinFan

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Are Nations Supposed to be Concerned About Righteousness?

Some people seem to think that nations have no business in promoting morality in general or sexual morality in particular. There's not always a cogent reason for this objection, but often the presupposition behind the objection is that there is supposed to be separation of church and state, and that this separation should entail the state being concerned with "secular" things and the church being concerned with "religious" things. Morality is then identified as a "religious" thing, and so the objection concludes that the state has no business addressing issues of morality.

The Bible provides a counter-point. While there is separation of church and state in the Bible's example of the monarchy of Israel (the king was not the high priest, and the high priest was not the king), there is also significant areas of overlapping concern. The king (not the high priest) was supposed to enforce a lot of laws that clearly were designed to regulate morality, while the high priest was supposed to provide for sacrifices for sins.

Some have imagined that the example of Israel is not set forward to be an example for the nations. On one level, that's true. There are certain aspects of Israel's system that have passed out of existence. The old administration of the worship of God has passed away, particularly in view of the coming of the last and greatest priest, Jesus.

Nevertheless, church and state remain. Thus, the question remains - whether the state, as such, should be concerned about righteousness.

The Bible has the answer:

Proverbs 14:34
Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.

My point is not to emphasize the word "any," which is added by the translators, but rather to emphasize that this is presented as a gnomic truth (the point the translators conveyed with "any"). Sin and righteousness are something that leads God to treat nations as nations in a particular way. Thus, nations as nations have an interest in promoting righteousness and suppressing sin.

-TurretinFan

Monday, August 06, 2012

Authority Granted to Judge what Paul Wrote ...

We are sometimes asked who gave us the authority to "interpret" Scripture.  This is phrased in various ways - sometimes like that, sometimes in the following way:
But since God wrote the Bible for the Church, I believe that we lose our ability to rightly interpret the Bible in its own authentic sense when we interpret it outside communion with and against the unity of the Bride of Christ.
There are a variety of ways we can answer this, but one simple one is as follows:

1 Corinthians 10:15
I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.

-TurretinFan

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Patrick's Pejoratives vs. Rhology's Writing

Patrick Madrid tweets: "Yet another example of the misguided, myopic #Protestant bluster about #SolaScriptura & #sects. Wow. http://t.co/tkoX1PMw #blind #clueless "

His link takes you to this comment by the redoubtable Rhology. Responding to this:
The fact that there are thousands is enough to show sola Scriptura’s fruits: the individual as ultimate interpretive authority of the Scriptures was not God’s intention and has utterly failed to fulfill Christ’s prayer for unity in John 17.
Rhology writes:
Hmmm. Well, RCC’s “real” rule of faith is Apostolic Tradition, which includes written and unwritten tradition from the apostles, both in Scripture and in other places such as the lived-out faith of the church, the liturgies, the writings of church fathers down through the years, etc.
Notice that, like the Scripture, this too forms a corpus with limits. The Da Vinci Code is not part of Apostolic Tradition. Neither is the Qur’an, nor is The Audacity of Hope (though, depending on which Roman priest you ask, that last one might be close). We and others have contended many times, rightly, that the limits to the Roman Canons of Scripture are not only poorly defined but actually non-existent. It is also indisputable that one’s presupposition of an infallible interpreter (whether she be Rome or EOC) will govern which little-t traditions are actually accepted, promoted if you will, to Big-T Sacred Apostolic Tradition, thus forming the basis for Roman or Orthodox dogma, leaving the little-t traditions to rot by the wayside, relegated to “Well, he was just speaking as a private theologian” or “That was just his opinion” status.

But let’s leave all of that aside and grant that there is one big and awe-inspiring God-given Verbum Dei corpus of Scripture and Tradition that is the proper rule of faith for the church of Jesus Christ.

The problem is obvious – Rome, sedevacantists, traditionalist Catholics, Pope Michael-ists, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and various other churches with incompatible teachings all appeal to this set and limited corpus of Scripture and Tradition. It would appear that the criticism against Sola Scriptura of multiple denominations applies to the Roman and EO rule of faith as well.

The Romanist or Orthodox might object: “But we’re not in communion with those schismatics/heterodox/heretics!” Now, what if I were to reply, as a member of a Southern Baptist church, that, have no fear my non-Sola Scripturist friends, my church holds that everyone who’s not a member of a Southern Baptist church is a schismatic/heterodox/heretic too? Would that make our Romanist or Orthodox friends feel better?
Or would that make them criticise us even more strongly: “See? You Sola Scripturists can’t even hold communion with each other!”? Yep, my money’s on that one, too. We’re darned if we do and darned if we don’t, but somehow if the Romanists or Orthodox don’t hold communion with these other churches, that’s just fine. Such special pleading is just…special.

So let me break this down as clearly as I can. “The Protestant Church” does not exist. Self-named “Protestant churches” vary so widely in doctrine and authority as to make points of comparison impossible to ascertain. If you want to compare unity and disunity, compare the adherences to the competing rules of faith. Or compare churches, like the Roman Church to the Southern Baptist Convention or the Pope Michael Catholic Church to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. What do we find, if we do this? How different from each other are the churches that hold to Scripture alone as rule of faith, and how different from each other are the churches that hold to “Sacred Apostolic Tradition” as rule of faith? Answer that and you’ll know one reason why we consider all this talk about how Tradition and Magisterium make for superior church unity to be just that – talk.
As James Swan recently pointed out:
For those of you who want to see how it's done when playing at Tiber Lanes, visit this discussion, and watch Uncle Rho bowl a perfect game, knocking down all the Romanist pins each time it's his turn. Take notes on his technique because this sort of ability doesn't just "happen." It's the result of years of careful analysis and apologetic encounters.
Now, Mr. Madrid may disagree with Rhology ... but aren't his pejoratives a little farfetched. Rhology seems well-informed, not blind or clueless - even if you disagree with him.

And Rhology goes on to provide more defense of the faith at the link Mr. Madrid provided.

Meanwhile, I'll just point out - Rhology has fairly recently done a debate with a Muslim imam. What debates has Mr. Madrid done lately? It's easy to badmouth people over twitter, but it's another thing to actually enter into debate. Dr. White has debated Patrick Madrid at least twice (Veneration of Saints and Images and Does the Bible Teach Sola Scriptura)

-TurretinFan

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

"The" Catholic Position on The Rule of Faith

An advocate for the papacy, over in the Greenbaggins comment box wrote:
And, again, whether or not the Papacy is a divine institution – the Burden of Proof is always on him who asserts. In this case, Reformed Christians and Catholic Christians both have something to prove.

The Reformed assertion: Scripture is the Rule of Faith.
The Catholic Assertion: The Church is the Rule of Faith.
I answer:

First, I thought that Mr. Anders had already agreed that Scriptures are “A” rule of faith. If so, then the only question is whether there is another rule of faith in addition. In that case, while the Reformed side may have had something to prove, that time has passed.

After all, if one concedes that the Scriptures are a rule of faith, then one has – in effect – conceded that we have met our burden. The only other assertion required to move from “Scripture is a rule of faith” to “Scripture is THE rule of faith” is the negative proposition “and we don’t have any other rule of faith.”

The burden is on the proponent of that other proposed rule of faith.

Moreover, Mr. Anders specifically asserted: “The Catholic Assertion: The Church is the Rule of Faith.”

Interestingly, Benedict XVI (Yes, I know he’s German like Kung, Rahner, and Luther, but hear me out) is reported as saying:
The word of Scripture is not “an inert deposit within the Church” but the “supreme rule of faith and power of life”. Benedict XVI wrote this in a message to participants in the annual Plenary Session of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, held from Monday, 16, to Friday, 20 April, at the Vatican’s Domus Sanctae Marthae.
L’Osservatore Romano, 21 April 2012

So, will our Roman communion friends concede what that German prelate who claims to be the successor of Peter and Paul concedes? Or do will they deny that Scripture is the supreme rule of faith?

I mean one might think that “the Catholic position” is better expressed by the pope who says: “The Church has always considered and continues to consider Sacred Scripture, together with sacred Tradition, “as the supreme rule of her faith” (DV 21) and as such she offers it to the faithful for their daily life.” (19 June 1985, General Audience)

And yes, he’s quoting from Vatican II, but I hear that they are planning on making even SSPX finally assent to those teachings.

So, what will it be? Will our Roman communion friends be on the pope’s (I suppose that should be popes’, as the 1985 audience would be the Polish prelate, not the German one) side? Do they agree that he has conceded that the Scriptures are a rule of faith and has further alleged that “Tradition” is as well?

If so, we’ve met our burden on this point – but Rome's apologists still have to meet theirs by somehow deomnstrating that their "Tradition” is to be received as the rule of faith.

-TurretinFan

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Response to Jason Stellman

Jason Stellman has officially announced his intention to join the Roman communion at the "Called to Communion" blog.

Jason writes:
Part of me has wished for a while now that I was born early enough to have been a fan of The Clash back in the Seventies. The first song I ever heard by them (several years after its release) was their cover of Sonny Curtis’s hit, the chorus of which goes, “I fought the law, and the law won.” Despite being a fairly law-abiding guy, I can relate to being on the losing side of a battle, only mine was not against the law, but against the Church.
I do agree that Jason has lost a battle. Abandoning a church of the Lord for Rome is always a loss. But the war is not over for Jason. He has the opportunity to repent of this error and return to Christ.

Jason continues:
As many of you know, I recently resigned from my pastoral ministry in the Presbyterian Church in America (you can read my resignation letter here, as well as some clarifying posts here and here). My stated reasons for stepping down were that I could no longer in good conscience uphold my ordination vow that as a PCA minister I sincerely accept the Westminster Confession and Catechisms as containing the system of doctrine taught in Holy Scripture. More specifically, I no longer see the Reformed doctrines of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide as faithfully reflecting what the Bible teaches, which is why I will, Lord willing, be received into full communion with the Catholic Church sometime in the next several months.
a) Stellman's ordination vows (assuming his were typical) also included a vow of subjection to his brethren in the Lord. It is unclear whether Stellman intends to fulfill this vow by submitting to the discipline of his presbytery, or not. While it is commendable that he eventually fulfilled his vow to alert presbytery to his changed views, such obedience is only partial fulfillment of his vows.

b) It is interesting that Jason seems to premise his change of position on his private judgment regarding what Scripture teaches. However, if Jason actually joins the Roman communion, he will be required to give up his private judgment of Scripture.

c) It's an obvious non sequitur to deny Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide and consequently say, "Rome!" Even if Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide were wrong (which they certainly aren't), it wouldn't follow that Rome is right. Rome is defined by a lot more than just rejection of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. Moreover, there are plenty of religions beside that of Rome that reject those doctrines. Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Islam, and many others could be listed.

Jason again:
The purpose of this piece is not to unpack those claims in detail (there will be plenty of time for that in the future), but rather to provide a little more insight into the process that led up to my resignation, as well as to respond briefly to those who have sought to analyze me and the supposed internal psychological factors that must have led to my making such a drastic decision.
I don't plan to comment on Stellman's own testimony regarding what psychological factors did or did not contribute to his current move.

Jason once more:
One of the things I found especially curious (slash bemusing, slash maddening) while reading the diagnoses of my volunteer analysts was the fact that my being drawn to, or lured by, Rome was simply assumed, and that the only real question was what, exactly, was it that ultimately did it. Was it some positive aspect of Catholicism that appealed to me, or was it a nagging drawback of Protestantism that finally proved to be the deal-breaker?
Motive, Stellman - that's what people were curious about.

Jason again:
Now, I realize that I went into a period of radio silence during the weeks following my resignation (one that was not exactly self-imposed, but that has turned out to be a blessing), and that this created something of a vacuum that invited speculation on the part of some. But now that I am no longer “off the grid,” I would like to clear something up once and for all:
There's not much to comment on here.

Jason once more:
Catholicism never held any allure for me, nor do I find it particularly alluring now.
Who knows what Stellman means by this. Perhaps he means that his conscience reminds him that it is wrong to worship God by images, that is idolatry to worship consecrated bread as though it were God incarnate, that is wrong to offer religious devotion to Mary, angels, and the saints, and that it is wrong and foolish to attempt to communicate with the dead through prayers. I hope that is it, and that he will listen to the voice of his conscience and the testimony of Scripture. But perhaps he means something else - it is certainly strange that he seems to want to join a communion that he does not like.

Jason yet again:
Now to be honest there has always been an attraction of a “Wouldn’t-it-be-nice” or “stained-glass-windows-are-rad” variety, but when it came to an actual positive drawing to Rome or a negative driving away from Geneva, there has never been any such thing. In fact, since much of my theological output has been part of the public domain for so long (especially in the form of my preaching, teaching, and writing), this claim of mine can actually be proven. If anyone cares to go back and listen to or read what I was talking about right up until the day I was confronted with the claims of the Catholic Church as they relate to those of Protestantism, the inquirer will easily discover that I was about as staunchly confessional an Old School Presbyterian as anyone would want to meet. There was not even the slightest hint of discontent with my ecclesiastical identity, not a trace of longing for greater certitude, nor a smidgen of regret that my soteriology didn’t have enough works in it.
Is Stellman saying that he wants greater certitude and a soteriology with more works in it? It seems clear enough that Stellman wants a different ecclesiastical identity.

But Scripture is quite clear that justification is not of works, lest any man should boast - moreover Scripture assures us that it can provide certainty:

Luke Says So

Solomon Says So

Jason once more:
I will raise the pot even more: I wrote a book whose entire purpose was to demonstrate, in the highest and most attractive terms possible, how ironically boastworthy all the supposed disadvantages of amillennial Protestantism are. Messiness? Lack of infallible certitude? The need for faith over sight? Check, check, and check.
Frame has already provided a review of Stellman's book. Suffice for our present purpose that Stellman's book does not show depth in the Scriptures, even by Stellman's own description.

Jason again:
Further still, so far from longing for a type of kinder, gentler Catholicism that I could disguise in Reformed garb, I was the prosecutor in a doctrinal trial against a fellow minister in my presbytery for espousing views that I, and many others, considered dangerously close to being Catholic. No, there was never any desire to place human works anywhere but where the Reformed confessions say they belong: in the category of sanctification and never justification.
But again - where was Stellman's Biblical criticism of Leithart's position? I'm not a supporter of Leithart's views, but the answer to those views is from Scripture.

Jason once more:
In a word, I was as happy and comfortable in my confessional Presbyterian skin as anyone, and the trust I had earned from many well-known and respected Reformed theologians, as well as having graduated with honors from one of the most confessionally staunch and academically rigorous Reformed seminaries in the nation, should be sufficient to dispel any notions that I never really understood Reformed theology in the first place or that I was always a Catholic in Protestant clothing.
I suppose that this event should serve as an exhortation to the seminary to consider grounding its young men better in the study of the Word.

Jason continues:
One of the things that made fighting against the claims of the Catholic Church so frustrating was that there was no single, knock-down-drag-out argument to refute; neither was there an isolated passage of Scripture or silver-bullet issue of theology to deal with. If it had been simply a matter of answering one specific challenge that came from a single direction, the battle would have been much easier to win. But as it happened, there were two distinct issues that were coming under attack (Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide), and the attacks were coming from multiple directions: the biblical, the historical, and, in the case of Sola Scriptura, the philosophical as well.
There may have been multiple attacks coming, directed at multiple doctrines, but Stellman ought to have been prepared to deal with them. After all, the kinds of challenges provided from folks like the "Called to Communion" crowd with whom Stellman was communicating are relatively easily answered.

Jason again:
In the case of Sola Scriptura, I, as a self-described Reformed non-evangelical, considered the distinction between Solo- and Sola Scriptura as absolutely essential to my own spiritual identity. It was the evangelicals who were the heirs of Anabaptism, not the Reformed; it was the evangelicals who espoused “no creed but Christ,” not the Reformed; it was the evangelicals who interpreted the Bible in isolation from history and tradition, not the Reformed. Therefore as one can imagine, when I was confronted with Catholic claims that called this crucial distinction into question, it was a sucker-punch of epic proportions. Needless to say, my confessional brethren and I did not appreciate our ancestral city of Geneva being confused with Saddleback.
Actually, the claims were handily addressed. It's true that, in some respects, the two views are similar - and neither is Rome's view. Nevertheless, there are important distinctions between the two views. (see the responses starting at item 4 in this index post)

Jason once more:
But the more I read and wrestled, the more I began to see that Geneva was not being “confused with” Saddleback at all; the two were just different sides of the same coin (or to be more precise with the metaphor, they were sister-cities in the same Protestant county). Readers of this site have no need for the arguments to be rehearsed here, so suffice it to say that, philosophically speaking, it became clear to me that Sola Scriptura could not provide a way to speak meaningfully about the necessary distinction between orthodoxy and heresy (or even between essentials and non-essentials); neither could it justify the 27-book New Testament canon, create the unity that that canon demands, or provide the means of avoiding the schism that that canon condemns.
It's a little hard to tangle with philosophical arguments that remain unargued. What Stellman appears to be saying is that he adopted the radical skepticism/postmodernism that CTC crowd were offering - the idea that we can't figure out what God is saying in the Bible so as to distinguish between orthodoxy and heresy, etc. But such an argument is fatally flawed, since Scripture affirms its value for such purposes.

Jason again:
Historically speaking, the idea that the written Word of God is formally sufficient for all things related to faith and practice, such that anyone of normal intelligence and reasonably good intentions could read it and deduce from it what is necessary for orthodoxy and orthopraxy, is not a position that I see reflected in the writings of the early Church fathers. While there are plenty of statements in their writings that speak in glowing terms about the qualitative uniqueness of Scripture, those statements, for them, do not do away with the need for Scripture to be interpreted by the Church in a binding and authoritative way when necessary.
I have no idea how much of the fathers Jason has read.

He can find some clear statements here from:

Early Christian Writers
Third Century Fathers
Fourth Century Fathers
Fifth Century Fathers

Jason once more:
This discovery in the church fathers is unsurprising if the same position can be found in the New Testament itself, which I now believe it can. To cite but one example, the Church in her earliest days was confronted with a question that Jesus had not addressed with any specificity or directness, namely, the question of Gentile inclusion in the family of God. In order to answer this question, the apostles and elders of the Church gathered together in council to hear all sides and reach a verdict. What is especially interesting about Luke’s account of the Jerusalem Council is the role that Scripture played, as well as the nature of the verdict rendered. Concerning the former, James’s citation of Amos is curious in that the passage in the prophet seems to have little to do with the matter at hand, and yet James cites Amos’s words about the tent of David being rebuilt to demonstrate that full Gentile membership in the Church fulfills that prophecy. Moreover, Scripture functioned for the Bishop of Jerusalem not as the judge that settled the dispute, but rather as a witness that testified to what settled it, namely, the judgment of the apostles and elders. Rather than saying, “We agree with Scripture,” he says in effect, “Scripture agrees with us” (v. 15, 19). And finally, when the decision is ultimately reached, it is understood by the apostles and elders not as an optional and fallible position with which the faithful may safely disagree if they remain biblically unconvinced, but rather as an authoritative and binding pronouncement that was bound in heaven even as it was on earth (v. 28). Despite some superficial similarities, no existing Protestant denomination with an operating norm of Sola Scriptura can replicate the dynamic, or claim the authority of the Jerusalem Council (or of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon for that matter). The fact that the Bible’s own example of how Church courts operate was hamstrung by Protestantism’s view of biblical authority was something I began to find disturbingly ironic.
We already rebutted Stellman's argument as presented by another former presbyterian minister who left his charge for Rome.

Jason once more:
Moving on to Sola Fide, I found myself wrestling with this issue from both a historical and biblical perspective as well, and this is what ultimately proved to be the coup de grâce for me as a Protestant. As long as I believed that Catholicism mucked up the gospel so severely, its arguments about authority remained merely annoying, like a stone in my shoe that I would eventually get used to (after all, better to be unauthoritatively right about justification than authoritatively wrong about it). But when I began to dig into the issue more deeply and seek to understand Rome on its own terms, I began to experience what some have referred to as a “paradigm crisis.” A severe one.
Stellman, however, does not provide any historical or biblical arguments here on the issue of Sola Fide.

What is remarkable, though, is that some of the more obvious and easily seen problems of Rome - the worship of bread as though it were God, the hyper-dulia of Mary, and religious dulia of innumerable other people, as well as attempted communication with the dead, and the use of images -- none of these things seem to have given Stellman a second's pause.

Jason again:
As a Protestant minister, I had always operated under the assumption that the fullest treatment of the gospel, and of justification in particular, came from the apostle Paul, and that the rest of what the New Testament had to say on these issues should be filtered through him. But as I began to investigate again things that I had thought were long-settled for me, I began to discover just how problematic that hermeneutical approach really was. If justification by faith alone was indeed “the article on which the church stands or falls,” as Reformed theology claimed, then wouldn’t we expect it to have been taught by Jesus himself, somewhere? Moreover, wouldn’t John have taught it, too? And Peter, and James? Shoot, wouldn’t Paul himself have taught the imputation of alien righteousness somewhere outside of just two of his thirteen epistles?
Poor Jason - listening too much to Luther, but not hearing him correctly. The article on which the Reformation stands or falls is not quite the same thing as the article on which the church stands or falls.

Moreover, while understanding the issue of justification by faith alone is important to understanding why it is necessary to excommunicate the bishop of his Rome and his adherents, having a complete understanding of the doctrine of justification by faith alone is not what saves. What saves is repentance from sin and trust in Christ.

That said, our hermeneutic regarding how we understand justification should be that we go to the places where the apostolic teaching on the matter is most clear and explicit, and then interpret less clear passages in view of the more clear passages.

When Paul states plainly that man is not justified by works, Rome's system of justification is necessarily excluded. That's true whether it was something that Jesus taught Paul in the 2nd person, or whether it is merely something the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write.

The fact that a particular doctrine is useful in distinguishing Rome from true Christianity should not lead us to suppose that the doctrine is necessarily going to be found as the major, central theme of the Bible repeated often and by all authors.

To put it from another angle - why isn't Paul stating something in two of his epistles enough for Stellman?

Jason once more:
Having realized that I was using a few select (and hermeneutically debatable) passages from Romans and Galatians as the filter through which I understood everything else the New Testament had to say about salvation, I began to conclude that such an approach was as arbitrary as it was irresponsible. I then sought to identify a paradigm, or simple statement of the gospel, that provided more explanatory value than Sola Fide did. As I hope to unpack in more detail eventually, I have come to understand the gospel in terms of the New Covenant gift of the Spirit, procured through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ, who causes fruit to be borne in our lives by reproducing the image of the Son in the adopted children of the Father. If love of God and neighbor fulfills the law, and if the fruit of the Spirit is love, having been shed abroad by the Spirit in our hearts, then it seems to follow that the promise of the gospel is equivalent with the promise of the New Covenant that God’s law will no longer be external to the believer, but will be written upon his mind and heart, such that its righteous demands are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And again unsurprisingly, when I turned to the early Church fathers, and especially Augustine, it was this very understanding of the gospel that I encountered over and over again.
There are a lot of people who read and do not understand Augustine. But I will leave that particular issue for another time. Suffice that if Stellman seeks to be justified by the law, he is fallen from grace, as Paul teaches.

Jason again:
While the case for the Catholic Church may not be immediately obvious or easily winnable, the fact remains that Rome’s claims are philosophically compelling, historically plausible, and biblically persuasive. Yet despite the claims of most Reformed believers who, when wrestling with the issue of people like me leaving Geneva for the supposedly-greener pastures of Rome, insist that such a move betrays a “quest for illegitimate religious certainty,” the fact is that if it is a sense of personal and psychological certitude that one is searching for, Catholicism will more than likely disappoint. Ironically enough, Protestantism provides more certitude for the seeker than Catholicism does, since the ultimate basis for the truthfulness of its claims is one’s agreement with one’s self and one’s own interpretation of Scripture. But if what you are searching for is not subjective certitude but the Church that Jesus founded, the Catholic Church’s case for being that Church, when harkened to with charity, humility, and faith seeking understanding, is as compelling as it is disruptive.
But Rome's claims aren't historically plausible. The historical evidence is that the apostles did not believe what Rome does today. There was not one person - even as late as the council of Nicaea - who held to all of the dogmas that Rome demands people accept today.

The historical evidence is that there was no papacy in the early church. Rome's claims that there was are not just historically implausible, they are contrary to the best available evidence. Indeed, the historical evidence is that it wasn't until the middle of the second century or later that there was a single monarchical bishop in Rome, which gradually gained regional power, particularly as imperial and ecclesiastical powers combined forces.

It's not clear what "biblically persuasive" argument Jason thinks exists, but we stand ready to open the Scriptures and examine his arguments with him.

As for Rome's claims being "philosophically compelling," this appears to be totally empty. I'll let Stellman try to back this up, if he can.

Jason once again:
And make no mistake, the Catholic Church is disruptive. It is audacious and confrontational, sucker-punching and line-in-the-sand drawing. Like the Lion Aslan from C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, it is not a tame Church, and will make no promise not to devour and discomfit its subjects as they partake of its life-giving water, causing them to constantly bend the knee and cede their worldly wisdom to the foolishness of the cross. In the words of Aslan to Jill, who expressed fear about letting down her guard to drink from the water by which he stood, “There are no other streams.” Or the words of Peter to Jesus when asked if the Twelve would forsake Him because of His difficult and demanding message, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
It is interesting to see how Jason has already begun to participate in the deification of "the Church" that we often see only implicitly in Roman apologetics. The words of eternal life were transmitted from Jesus to the apostles and others and by the apostles and others to us in inspired Scripture. There is no other reliable source - because there is no other inspired source. Jesus is ascended and his apostles await the resurrection of the body. The Holy Spirit is the guardian that preserves the Word - it was the Spirit, not a Roman monarchy, that was promised by Jesus.

Indeed, the entire papacy is foreign to Scripture. But let me cut this rebuttal short.

Jason yet more:
The Catholic Church, wistfully alluring? Hardly. Tidy and tame? Not by a long shot, for once discovered it demands that the seeker relinquish the one thing above all others that offers him confidence, namely, his own autonomy. In fact, submitting oneself to the authority of the Catholic Church is the most harrowing experience a person will ever endure, which is why the suggestion that converts from Geneva to Rome are simply opting for a feel-good, fairy-tale romance betraying an “over-realized eschatology” and desire to skip blissfully down the yellow-brick road to heaven, utterly trivializes the entire ordeal.
What exactly Stellman's motives are in his quest are really primarily a matter for him to be concerned about.

Jason yet another time:
In a word, I fought the Church, and the Church won. And what it did was beat me, but it didn’t draw me, entice me, or lure me by playing upon some deep, latent psychosis or desire on my part for something Protestantism just couldn’t provide. Catholicism went from being so obviously ridiculous that it wasn’t even worth bothering to oppose, to being something whose claims were so audacious that I couldn’t help opposing them. But what it never was, was attractive, and in many ways it still isn’t.
Of course, Catholicism's claims are roughly the same as those of Islam and Mormonism - claims that the Scripture is not enough and you need some other authority instead.

Jason concludes:
But what Catholicism is, I have come to discover, is true.
And how did Jason determine that "Catholicism" is true? Can Jason really explain how Rome's justification by works can be reconciled with Paul's explicit condemnation of the idea of justification by works?

-TurretinFan

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Luke the Evangelist vs. Postmodernism and their Roman Allies

Luke 1:1-4
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.
Notice that the purpose of the Scripture, particularly of the gospel of Luke, was to provide certainty that could not be obtained simply based on the prior oral tradition that Theophilus had received.

You can have the same certainty Theophilus did, by reading the same Scriptures that were given for that very purpose to him. Scriptures that are superior to the instruction he received before receiving the Scriptures, because they are based on the perfect understanding that comes, though not stated explicitly here, from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

-TurretinFan

Secular Anti-Islamic Materials - A Few Thoughts

There are a number of secular anti-Islamic materials that circulate. These materials, in my exposure, include only a small number of legitimate criticisms of Islam. They tend to focus on aspects of Islam that they believe will shock their fellow secularists and liberal Christians, especially Shariah.

Perhaps these materials may serve a useful purpose in terms of helping secularists realize that Biblical Christianity is not the thing they should most fear. There is less shocking to them in our demands on modesty and our prohibitions of illicit sexual relations. They may not like what we have to say, but Islam's offense to them is - on many points - more severe.

Whether they serve that useful purpose, or not, I do not know. That purpose, however, is not enough of an incentive for me to promote them.

In principle, such materials should be similarly opposed to Christian views (I mean, Biblical Christianity, as distinct from modern Rome, liberal Protestantism, or any other of a myriad of groups that call themselves Christian). The Bible prescribed circumcision for the Jews - a practice that some liberals today view as shocking and barbaric.

The Bible, moreover, teaches that the world was formed by God in six days (days having a length of an evening and a morning), and that man was formed from the dust of the earth, with woman being formed from the man's rib. The Bible promotes male headship and glorifies patriarchy, even in the very prologue itself.

God did not pick a gender-neutral language in which to communicate truth about himself, and explicitly refers to himself using male descriptions, as the dominant form of description of God. He is our Husband, we are his bride. There is God the Father and God the Son, but there is no "God the Mother" or "God the Daughter."

The Bible provides strict penalties for a variety of sexual crimes, including things like adultery. The Bible likewise does not teach that the kind of "religious liberty" that is en vogue in modern Western society.

The Bible describes God as authorizing the genocide of the Canaanites, as well as the elimination of the royal families of several of Israel's kings.

There are numerous things that shock and offend modern Western secularists in the Bible. I've named only a few.

So, if I appeal to modern Western secular sensibilities for the rejection of Islam, what have I done? I've appealed to a rule that also rejects Christianity. As far as I'm concerned, that's an inconsistency that I cannot live with.

There are, of course, other secular criticisms of Islam - such as scholarly criticisms of Islam's historical and textual claims. Those criticisms of Islam appeal to things like the historical evidence. Those criticisms, therefore, appeal to a standard that I can adopt as a useful tool. After all, the historical evidence is not contrary to the truth - even if the historical evidence is not always complete.

Primarily, though, my rule of faith is not even the historical evidence, but the Word of God. My rule of Faith is the Scriptures themselves. They teach me what I should believe about God and how I should act on the basis of that belief. They inform my sensibilities.

They are the reason I reject Islam, and the primary reason anyone should. If you reject Islam for the wrong reasons, you are simply changing your affiliations. Instead of the section of hell that includes Muslims, you will be in another section (not that hell really has sections).

Playing musical chairs in hell, though, is a trivial accomplishment. It is a far, far better thing to embrace the one and only means of salvation: Christ Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God, the Word made Flesh, the Rock of our Salvation and Creator of the world.

If you repent of your sins and trust in him alone for salvation, you have good reason to be confident that he will hear your prayer, have mercy on you, and rescue you from the judgment you otherwise deserve.

-TurretinFan

Monday, July 23, 2012

Solomon vs. Postmodernism and Her Roman Companions

Proverbs 22:17-21
Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge. For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips. That thy trust may be in the Lord, I have made known to thee this day, even to thee. Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee?
Does the written word communicate the words of truth with certainty to the individual (thee = you singular) reader?

-TurretinFan

Monday, July 16, 2012

James on the Divinity of The Lord Jesus

During the Dividing Line of July 13, 2012, Dr. White mentioned an Islamic argument alleging that James (the author of the book of James) did not believe that Jesus is God and that the church of Jerusalem (which he seemingly associates with James) was somehow in opposition to the church of Paul.

But James does make it clear that he holds to Jesus' divinity.

James 1:1-7
(1) James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. (2) My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; (3) knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. (4) But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (5) If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (6) But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. (7) For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
In verse 1, James identifies Jesus as both God and the Lord. But if you will dispute this point, note that James clearly identifies Jesus as the Lord. Moreover, after suggesting that people can ask things from God, he immediately switches to the designation "Lord" in verse 7.  James' interchangeable use of God and Lord demonstrates that he held Jesus to be divine.

James 2:1
My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
Here James explicitly calls Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, which is a divine title. It's the same title that Paul uses for Jesus:

1 Corinthians 2:8
Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Moreover, James is explicitly teaching people to place their faith in Jesus, which would be very strange if James thought that Jesus was merely a man.

It would be especially strange given that just a little later in the chapter, describing faith, James states (James 2:18-19):
(18) Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. (19) Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
Notice that James views faith as faith in God, and holds that there is only one God, yet it is the "faith of our Lord Jesus Christ," as we saw above.  Thus, for James, Jesus is God.

And again, this is the same as the teaching of Paul.

1 Corinthians 8:6
But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
We see James equating Jesus and God again in the fourth chapter.

James 4:8-10
(8) Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. (9) Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. (10) Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
This is yet another example of James using "God" and "Lord" interchangeably.

Perhaps the most obvious example for a Muslim will come when James provides the Christian precursor to Islam's "Insha'Allah":

James 4:13-15
(13) Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: (14) whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (15) For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
What Muslim would say, "If Mohamed will"? Surely the determination of what the future holds is something that is firmly the will of God - not the will of mere prophet or messenger, yet James assigns the future to the will that to the Lord, whom he has explicitly identified as Jesus Christ.  Thus, James held Jesus to be divine.

But James doesn't stop there. He describes the future return of Jesus to the world (James 5:7-11)
(7) Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. (8) Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. (9) Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. (10) Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. (11) Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
Notice that here James identifies this same coming Lord, namely Jesus Christ, with the Lord in whose names the prophets spoke, and particularly the Lord referenced in the book of Job, which is undoubtedly God.  You will recall that after all Job's sufferings, the Lord gave him better than he had before.

Another example is found in James 5:14-15
(14) Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: (15) And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
Notice here that prayer in the name of Jesus is commended, and it is alleged that Jesus will raise up the person. While this may be less explicit than the other cases, the very fact that the prayer is in Jesus' name indicates Jesus' divinity.

Thus, not only does James fail to deny the divinity of Christ (James affirmation of monotheism is no contradiction to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity), but James repeatedly treats Jesus as divine from the very first verse of the epistle.

-TurretinFan