th - The 67 th -Book Book- -Of Of- -The The- -Bible Bible The 67 Syndrome Syndrome An examination of a hermeneutical- exegetical plague that has become all too prevalent among New Testament Christians
Definition Definition By the 67th-book-of-the-Bible syndrome, I mean anything that is elevated to equal status with the 66 books (i.e., the canon) of the Bible. By calling it a “syndrome,” I mean “a set of concurrent things that…form an identifiable pattern.” As it relates to the task before us, I believe that by the time everything is said and…
Definition Definition done this week, enough evidence will be presented to demonstrate that the “New Perspective on Paul” (hereafter NPP) is nothing more than just another 67th-book- of-the-Bible syndrome. But before dealing specifically with NPP, I want to look at several other 67th-book-of-the-Bible syndromes, as I believe this will help us…
Definition Definition better focus on the task at hand. My intention in this presentation is to demonstrate how philosophical and theological interpretations can be added to the Bible as if they were a 67th book—a 67 th book that is then used as an exegetical grid through which the other 66 books are interpreted.
The Foreknowledge- -Freewill Freewill The Foreknowledge Issue Issue “Exhibit A” is the book on the left. In it, its author, a Seventh-Day Adventist, set forth the idea that God’s knowledge is “constantly increasing.” God, he contended, does not have actual foreknowledge of the future, contingent, freewill choices of men and…
The Foreknowledge- -Freewill Freewill The Foreknowledge Issue Issue women. Thus, God’s prophetic utterances were nothing more than predictions based upon His perfect knowledge of the past and infinite knowledge of the present, or His omnipotence, which He then uses to make things happen, or a combination…
The Foreknowledge- -Freewill Freewill The Foreknowledge Issue Issue of all three of these. It was this book that was being recommended by a contingent of preachers back in the mid-1980s as the definitive answer to the questions associated with the alleged “incompatibility of God’s foreknowledge and man’s freewill.”
Open Theism Open Theism Back in 1979, Rice’s book was first published under the title The Openness of God: The Relationship of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will . Except for the first chapter, which dealt with what Rice called “The Conventional View of God” (read “classical theism”), every chapter had either “The Open…
Open Theism Open Theism View” or the “Openness of God” in its title. It should not come as a surprise, then, that Rice is given credit for founding what is today called “Open Theism.” It was Rice’s little book (it contains only 106 pages) that was being recommended and passed around by a coterie of preachers back in the 1980s. This led ultimately to…
Open Theism Open Theism the Green-Turner Debate that took place in Gospel Anchor magazine from November 1989 to February 1990 under the heading, “A Discussion On The Foreknowledge Of God.” It carried a sub-heading, which was the very proposition that Green affirmed— namely, “The omniscience of God, partic- ularly His foreknowledge, does not…
Open Theism Open Theism include the contingent free will choices of human beings.” After defining his terms in his first affirmative, Green wasted no time in making his point: “My contention is that where there is absolute foreknowledge of future choices and actions, those who perform said choices and actions are not truly free.”
The Green- -Turner Debate Turner Debate The Green It was my contention during the debate that although God’s foreknowledge is chrono- logically prior to one’s action, one’s action is logically prior to God’s foreknowledge. What this means is that the future, contin- gent, freewill choices of men and women are not settled , determined , or caused by God’s foreknowledge. Instead, God’s…
The Green- -Turner Debate Turner Debate The Green foreknowledge is settled, determined, or caused by the reality of the future actions and events themselves. God, in eternity, seeing/knowing them “ahead of time” does not mean these events will happen because He sees them. Rather, they are going to happen because of the genuine free moral agency of those involved. Thus, God…
The Green- -Turner Debate Turner Debate The Green “seeing” the choices before they happen does not make them happen in any causative sense. But even when all this was pointed out to bro. Green, he continued to ignore it throughout the debate, claiming: “I maintain that the premise: ‘Where there is absolute foreknowledge of future choices and…
The Green- -Turner Debate Turner Debate The Green actions, those who perform said choices and actions are not truly free,’ is a valid and axiomatic statement. Whatever God abso- lutely knows will take place has already been determined. To affirm that God knows the future in all its details is to affirm that there is a future already there to be known. If God knows the future as definitely as…
The Green- -Turner Debate Turner Debate The Green He knows the past, then the future is just as definite as the past.” Not only did Green continue to believe his reasoning was valid, but he continued to insist it was axiomatic as well. To this day, he still does not recognize the fallacy of his argument. Presently, he advocates the “dynamic omniscience” of John E. Sanders,
The Green- -Turner Debate Turner Debate The Green the latest darling of open theism. In Sanders’ highly acclaimed 2007 book, The God Who Risks: A Theology Of Divine Providence , he, along with Rice before him, and even the venerable T.W. Brents of the “Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement,” embrace a temporal God whose magnificent scheme of redemption might have failed,…
The Green- -Turner Debate Turner Debate The Green and if it had, it would be because Jesus had failed to do His Father’s will. This would have entailed Jesus sinning. According to this view, the Father, in sending Jesus to do His bidding, did not know whether He would succeed or not (i.e., the whole plan of salvation was genuinely “at risk”), which is precisely the position advocated by…
The Green- -Turner Debate Turner Debate The Green Green et al. that had brought about the Green-Turner Debate in the first place. It is clear, then, that the philosophical/ theological argument that claims the foreknowledge of God and freewill of man are incompatible (whether one opts for God’s foreknowledge at the expense of man’s freewill, or man’s freewill at the…
The Green- -Turner Debate Turner Debate The Green expense of God’s foreknowledge) is thought by some to be a valid interpretive grid by which they may then interpret any and all Scriptures, particularly those passages which speak of, or in any way relate to, God’s foreknowledge and man’s freewill. It is just this sort of thing I am calling the “67th-book-of-the-Bible syndrome.”
The Humanity- -Deity Of Jesus Deity Of Jesus The Humanity Issue Issue In the 1990s, there arose a brouhaha over the humanity-deity of Jesus. Evidence of this appeared in 1989-90 in the sermons and writings of John C. Welch, a well-known gospel preacher and editor of Faith and Facts magazine. It was his assertion that Jesus of Nazareth was, while on earth, “just a man,” “just an ordinary man like…
The Humanity- -Deity Of Jesus Deity Of Jesus The Humanity Issue Issue you and me.” In a sermon he preached in Louisville, KY on March 13, 1990, which was my first exposure to his doctrine, Welch called “silly” the idea that Jesus was “100% deity and 100% human.” If this were true, he scoffed, it would make Jesus some sort of 200% monstrosity, and there simply is “no such creature.” Although Welch…
The Humanity- -Deity Of Jesus Deity Of Jesus The Humanity Issue Issue arrived at his starting point for a much different reason than most Processians, there is little doubt that it was from Processianism that he got his idea. This is evidenced by Bruce A. Demarest’s critique of Process theology: “A fundamental tenet of process theology is that the classical two- nature doctrine of Christ presupposes…
The Humanity- -Deity Of Jesus Deity Of Jesus The Humanity Issue Issue concepts that are out-dated, absurd, and irrelevant to modern minds.” This is seen again in the much acclaimed book Jesus: Divine Messiah , by Robert L. Reymond, who said, “Today, one can find evidence virtually everywhere—on every continent, in both Protestant and Roman Catholic circles—that the theologically ‘in thing’…
The Humanity- -Deity Of Jesus Deity Of Jesus The Humanity Issue Issue is to contend for a Jesus who was only man by nature and for a Bible that is virtually silent regarding the classical incarnational Christology of a two-natured Christ—true God and true man in [the] one person of Jesus [of Nazareth].” Thus, it seems evident that Welch and his partisans had drunk a bit too deeply…
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