Them's Fightin' Words

Gottschalk of Orbais (c. 808 – October 30, 867) got himself thrown in prison, where he languished for more than 20 years, for holding the doctrine presented in the short confession of faith, which he wrote, known as the Confessio Brevior:

I believe and confess that God, omnipotently and unchangeably, has graciously foreknown and predestined holy angels and elect men to eternal life, but that He in like manner has, by His most just judgment, predestined the devil, who is head of all the demons, with all his apostate angels and also with reprobate men, who are his members, on account of their foreknown particular future evil deeds, to merited eternal death: this the Lord Himself affirms in His Gospel: "The prince of this world is already judged" (John 14:11). Augustine, beautifully explaining these words to the people (Augustine on John, tract. 95), has spoken as follows: "That is, he has been irrevocably destined to the judgment of eternal fire." Likewise concerning the reprobate, the same is true: "Who then believeth not is already judged" (John 3:18), that is (as the aforesaid author explains), (tract. xii), already is damned: "Not that judgment now is manifest, but that judgment is already wrought." Likewise explaining these words of John the Baptist: "His testimony no man has received" (John 3:32), he speaks in this wise (tract. xiv): "'No man', is a certain people prepared to wrath by God, damned with the Devil." Also concerning the Jews: "Those dead scorners, predestinated to eternal death." Again (tract. Xlviii): "Why did the Lord say to the Jews: 'Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep' (John 10:26), unless because he saw that they were predestinated to everlasting destruction, and not to life eternal by the price of his blood," Also, explaining these words of the Lord (Ibid.): "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand: my Father who gave them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand" (John 10:27-29), he says this: "What can the wolf do? What can the thief and robber do? They destroy none, except those predestined to destruction." Speaking in like manner concerning the two worlds (tract. lxxxvii) he says: "The whole world is the church, and the whole world hates the church; the world, therefore, hates the world, the hostile that which is reconciled, the damned that which is saved, the polluted that which is cleansed." Likewise (tract. cx): "There is a world concerning which the Apostle says: 'that we should be condemned with this world (I Cor. 11:32). For that world the Lord does not pray, for He certainly cannot ignore that for which it is predestinated." Likewise (tract. cvii): "Judas the betrayer of Christ is called the son of perdition as the one predestinated to be the betrayer."  Likewise in Enchiridion (cap. 100): "To their damnation whom He has justly predestinated to punishment." Likewise in the book On Man's Perfection in Righteousness he says (cap. 13): "This good, which is required, there is not anyone who does it, not even one; but this refers to that class of men who have been predestinated to destruction: indeed, upon those the foreknowledge of God looks down and pronounces sentence." Likewise in the books de Civitate Dei (lib. xxii, c. 24): "Which is given to those who have been predestinated to death." Likewise blessed Gregory the Pope (Moral. lib. xxxiv, c. 2): "Leviathan with all his members has been cut off for eternal torment." Likewise holy Fulgentius in the third book Concerning the Truth of Predestination and Grace (lib. iii, c. 5) says: "God has prepared punishment for those sinners (at least) who have been justly predestinated to the suffering of punishment." And blessed Fulgentius has composed one whole book for his friend Monimus concerning this tantamount question, that is: Concerning the Predestination of the Reprobate to Destruction, (lib. i). Whence also holy Isodore says (Sentent. II, cap. 6): "Predestination is double (gemina) whether of election to peace, or of reprobation to death." The same thing, therefore, (with others) I believe and confess, through whatever may happen, with those who are the elect of God and true Catholics, according as I am helped by divine inspiration, encouragement, and provision. Amen.

False, indeed, is the witness, who in speaking of any aspect of those things, corrupts them either superficially or with respect to their essential sense.

The Myth that the Church in the Middles Ages Repressed Science

The Claim: “The dark ages were a time of ignorance and superstition, thanks to religion’s negative influence on scientific progress.”

The Truth: Atheist writer Tim O’Neill responds to this claim in his review of “God’s Philosophers”: 

“It’s not hard to kick this nonsense to pieces, especially since the people presenting it know next to nothing about history and have simply picked up these strange ideas from websites and popular books. The assertions collapse as soon as you hit them with hard evidence. I love to totally stump these propagators by asking them to present me with the name of one – just one - scientist burned, persecuted, or oppressed for their science in the Middle Ages. They always fail to come up with any. They usually try to crowbar Galileo back into the Middle Ages, which is amusing considering he was a contemporary of Descartes. When asked why they have failed to produce any such scientists given the Church was apparently so busily oppressing them, they often resort to claiming that the Evil Old Church did such a good job of oppression that everyone was too scared to practice science. By the time I produce a laundry list of Medieval scientists – like Albertus Magnus, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Peckham, Duns Scotus, Thomas Bradwardine, Walter Burley, William Heytesbury, Richard Swineshead, John Dumbleton, Richard of Wallingford, Nicholas Oresme, Jean Buridan and Nicholas of Cusa – and ask why these men were happily pursuing science in the Middle Ages without molestation from the Church, my opponents usually scratch their heads in puzzlement at what just went wrong.”

Review of Michael John Beasley's "Fallible Prophets of the New Calvinism."

While this book is aimed at the general Continuationist faction within the movement broadly termed “New Calvinism,” the brunt of the attack is the bizarre notion of “New Testament fallible prophecy,” primarily proposed, advanced and defended in the works of Wayne Grudem. Since several other authors have responded to Grudem’s work in this field, Michael John Beasley responds to the features of Grudem’s position which have not generally be responded to. These would be the lexical, exegetical and historical concerns, but primarily the lexical defense of the position advanced by Grudem.

Beasley begins by noting that the position advanced by Grudem commits several gross errors, such as reversing the very definition of the word “Prophecy.” This is no small concern. Secondly, there is the mind-bending assertion that the gift of prophecy advocated by Grudem is simultaneously fallible and legitimate. Yes, you read that correctly. Imagine claiming that you are speaking an admixture of truth and error, with no way to gag the error, and this fact notwithstanding, your work as a untrustworthy communicator is still completely legitimate. Try that at work, I double-dog dare you, and see how long you keep your job.

But the strength of this small book is its handling of the feeble lexical argument used by Grudem. In order to defend a ‘gift’ of prophecy in the church which is not authoritatively binding (like OT prophecy), that doesn’t end the false prophet’s life (like OT prophecy), is not 100% accurate (like OT prophecy), Grudem is forced to redefine the word “Prophet.” But more than that, he must also affirm that his redefined, or rather reversed, term is how the New Testament writers understood the word “Prophet.” No small order, to be sure. Beasley then demonstrates how Grudem does this, not by going to the text of the NT, but rather by going to most bizarre fringes of secular usage and drags the word “prophet” into his Procrustean bed. Since pagans had ‘prophets,’ so-called, ergo, the Apostles used the term ‘prophet’ with the non-authoritative pagan connotations in mind, NOT what the whole flow of the OT teaches regarding prophets. It boggles the imagination. So much for the analogy of faith. So much for Sola Scriptura. So much for “Scripture interprets Scripture.”

In the lengthy exegetical section of the book, Beasley handles the lone spoof-text for fallible prophecy, which is Agabus’ prophecy. Make no mistake, what Grudem intends to do here is to prove that a legitimate, yet fallible gift of prophecy is to function in the church, based upon the notion that Agabus blew it. The assertion made by Grudem and other Continuationist Calvinists (including D.A. Carson), is that Agabus’ prophecy was an example of fallible prophecy. Agabus’ prophecy was full of factual errors. These are not my words. Carson, for example says, “I can think of no reported Old Testament prophet whose prophecies are so wrong on the details.” (This quote is cited favorably by Grudem.) Grudem himself goes so far as to say that Agabus’ introduction to his prophecy, “This is what the Holy Spirit says,” is roughly equivalent to, “This is what I feel God may want me to tell you.”

The reason behind these startling and amazing statements is that, in order to defend his belief in a gift of fallible prophecy in the New Testament church, Grudem and his fellow Continuists charge that Agabus’ prophecy was fraught with factual errors. Beasley goes to great lengths exegeting the Agabus’ prophecy and analyzing both the prophecy and the historical details chronicled by Luke in order to demonstrate that Agabus’ prophecy was factually correct in every detail. Those, who affirm the opposite do not do so on solid exegetical grounds, but sacrifice the facts (and the historic Protestant view of Inspiration) on the altar of their preconceived notions. Why not rather assume that Agabus was correct? Why not rather assume that Scripture does not blur the lines between true and false prophet? These are big questions which Grudem’s position creates and never attempts to solve.

If there is anything I would criticize the book for, it is this: before launching into an excellent survey of the notion of fallible prophecy, and before detailing the horrific dangers to which such a position makes us susceptible, the author prefaces his work by stating that he is not convinced that “fallible prophecy” constitutes an immediate assault on the gospel. I am at a loss with what to do with that statement. I cannot imagine a more ineffectual way to preface a critique and analysis of a movement which injects error into the mouth of God in Scripture, destroys the possibility of labeling anyone a “false prophet,” and removes any barrier to anyone claiming to speak authoritatively in the name of God, while simultaneously speaking a message full of error.

J.W. Dale on the Baptist Rejection of the Family from the Kingdom of God.

The doctrine that the kingdom of God = the Church, is made up solely of individuals on the basis of a personal repentance and faith, without recognition or provision for the relation of parent and child in family unity, any more than for the relation of a lawyer to his clients, of a physician to his patients, or a merchant to his customers, is a doctrine, which the Lord of that kingdom rejects on the ground of that folly and ruin which must be the portion of "a kingdom divided against itself."

That the constitution of this world is divine, will be admitted by all who believe that there is a God. That the constitution of the human race has its fundamental element in the Family Institution and not in the individual man will be admitted by every rational being. That the strongest, the tenderest, and the most influential ties bind parent and offspring together under divine constitution, the brute creation would testify, if men should deny. That moral duties and responsibilities inhere in the relation of parent and child, making the parent responsible (who shall fix the limits?) for the moral wellbeing of the child, none can rationally deny, who admit the moral nature of the new-born babe and the claim of God—" all souls are mine."

Now, from this kingdom, under a Family constitution, God has by sin been rejected. And he has declared his purpose to overthrow his enemies and to re-establish his kingdom—"Every knee shall bow to me;" "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained praise." The doctrine under consideration declares, that God will not re-establish this kingdom; but will set up another kingdom under a radically diverse constitution, from which family life shall be rejected and a solitary individualism be substituted. There would, thus, be two kingdoms of God in the world; the one having the Family Institution as its controlling feature, and the other refusing to give the Family institution any admission. "If Satan cast out Satan, Satan's kingdom cannot stand." If God's Family be cast out of God's kingdom the result remains to be developed. There has been no trial of such evisceration. The church for five thousand years has accepted this as the divine Constitution of the human race, nor has she ever supposed that God has set up another kingdom radically antagonistic to his own original kingdom. It does not, however, remain to be shown, that no nation or community organized on a basis rejecting or subverting the divine Institution of the Family can stand. This has abundantly been proved. Throughout heathenism generally the family is in ruins; and the moral ruin is as abounding. China has a singular history both as to permanence and as to regard for the family. Mohammedanism has substituted the harem for the family. France, at her influential centres, is largely destitute of family life; history declares the result. Romanism receives individual men and women into her monasteries, and nunneries, and priesthood, and rejects the family; the result is on record. Communism, Fourierism, Shakerism, Mormonism, reject or subvert the family; and the balance-wheel of permanence, and the germ of development and moral blessing is gone.

They who are attempting to build up a kingdom in God's name of individual men and women, rejecting from it the Family Institution, have been engaged in the task too short a time and their piety is too much better than their logic, to show the natural and fully developed fruit.

Should a father and mother, with their newly born babe, appear before the custodians of such an organization, and ask admission into the Church, the visible kingdom of God, the answer must be: 
"You can be received because you can repent and, believe; but there is no provision for the impenitent and the unbelieving." 
"But our babe has not performed one act of impenitence or originated one act of unbelief." 
"That is true; but he must personally repent and believe or he cannot come into the kingdom of the gospel; 'Repent and be baptized every one of you;' 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned.' Your child is a child of the Devil." 
"Is our babe under the curse of the Law without any personal act of his but solely by the act of his parents and his birth from them, and yet incapable of being received into the kingdom of the gospel by their act, acknowledging the sovereign right of God in him, the commands of God laid upon us for him, confessing his need of cleansing by the blood of Christ the Redeemer, and accepting with adoring faith the promises 'made unto parents and their children,' and holding him forth by the prayer of faith to be received into a Saviour's arms?"
"Your child is under the covenant of DEATH as your child; but he is not under the covenant of life as your child. No provision is made in the gospel for the salvation of children with their parents.''
"Will you, then, receive us as PARENTS?" 
“No, we cannot. When we reject your child as your child received from God to be nurtured, trained, taught in his kingdom for his glory, we reject the family in all its elements and therefore cannot receive you into the kingdom of God as Parents, Father and Mother. We have no fathers and mothers, or sons and daughters, in our kingdom. And if your child (now unprovided for and left out in the kingdom of Satan because he cannot repent and believe) should live long enough to repent and believe, he could not come into the kingdom as your child; and when in it, he could not he related to you as your child under the laws of the kingdom, but only as any other individual believer." 
"Well, then, we will enter the kingdom of God as husband and wife. In God's name, and by God's ordinance, we twain have been made one. Marriage, no doubt, is a part of the law of God's kingdom." 
"No, it is not. The only elements which can be considered in receiving into the kingdom of God is individualism, not twain-unity any more than family unity. We cannot recognize you in your relation as husband and wife, any more than we can recognize Richard Roe and John Doe as partners in business, when they come together to be received into the kingdom. Besides, if we were to recognize Marriage as an element in the kingdom of God, and you entering that kingdom as husband and wife should have a child born to you, what could we do with it? We would be placed in the dilemma of recognizing Marriage, and Husband and Wife, as belonging to the kingdom of God, and casting the fruit of the womb which is His reward out of his kingdom as unholy." 
"When your members intermarry do they marry in the kingdom?" 
"No; Marriage is God's institution, it is celebrated by God's minister, it is performed in God's house, it is sanctified by prayer in God's name, but it is all out of His kingdom, and in the world (Satan's kingdom?) to which marriage and the FAMILY BELONG (!). In the kingdom of God there is nothing but naked individualism (man, woman), repenting and believing."

Does not the Bible address Husbands and Wives as in the kingdom and as having duties to perform toward each other? "That is an accident not entering into the constitution of the kingdom any more than when it addresses rich men and poor men, and enjoins just weights and equal balances. Marriage no more enters into the kingdom of God than does a commercial partnership; nor the Family with its parents and children, any more than an Orphan Asylum with its Steward and Matron and orphan waifs."

Thus rejected. Father and Mother bear away their babe, saying, "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united."

And let all who fear God and keep his commandments say Amen.

from pages 227-230 of Christic and Patristic Baptism, Wm Rutter & Co., 1874

If TBN Had Existed in the Time of Irenaeus

1. But there is another among these heretics, Marcus by name, who boasts himself as having improved upon his master. He is a perfect adept in magical impostures, and by this means drawing away a great number of men, and not a few women, he has induced them to join themselves to him, as to one who is possessed of the greatest knowledge and perfection, and who has received the highest power from the invisible and ineffable regions above. Thus it appears as if he really were the precursor of Antichrist. For, joining the buffooneries of Anaxilaus to the craftiness of the magi, as they are called, he is regarded by his senseless and cracked-brain followers as working miracles by these means.

2. Pretending to consecrate cups mixed with wine, and protracting to great length the word of invocation, he contrives to give them a purple and reddish colour, so that Charis, who is one of those that are superior to all things, should be thought to drop her own blood into that cup through means of his invocation, and that thus those who are present should be led to rejoice to taste of that cup, in order that, by so doing, the Charis, who is set forth by this magician, may also flow into them. Again, handing mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate these in his presence. When this has been done, he himself produces another cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated, and pouring from the smaller one consecrated by the woman into that which has been brought forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces these words: “May that Charis who is before all things, and who transcends all knowledge and speech, fill thine inner man, and multiply in thee her own knowledge, by sowing the grain of mustard seed in thee as in good soil.” Repeating certain other like words, and thus goading on the wretched woman [to madness], he then appears a worker of wonders when the large cup is seen to have been filled out of the small one, so as even to overflow by what has been obtained from it. By accomplishing several other similar things, he has completely deceived many, and drawn them away after him.

3. It appears probable enough that this man possesses a demon as his familiar spirit, by means of whom he seems able to prophesy, and also enables as many as he counts worthy to be partakers of his Charis themselves to prophesy. He devotes himself especially to women, and those such as are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great wealth, whom he frequently seeks to draw after him, by addressing them in such seductive words as these: “I am eager to make thee a partaker of my Charis, since the Father of all doth continually behold thy angel before His face. Now the place of thy angel is among us: it behoves us to become one. Receive first from me and by me [the gift of] Charis. Adorn thyself as a bride who is expecting her bridegroom, that thou mayest be what I am, and I what thou art. Establish the germ of light in thy nuptial chamber. Receive from me a spouse, and become receptive of him, while thou art received by him. Behold Charis has descended upon thee; open thy mouth and prophesy.” On the woman replying, “I have never at any time prophesied, nor do I know how to prophesy;” then engaging, for the second time, in certain invocations, so as to astound his deluded victim, he says to her, “Open thy mouth, speak whatsoever occurs to thee, and thou shalt prophesy.” She then, vainly puffed up and elated by these words, and greatly excited in soul by the expectation that it is herself who is to prophesy, her heart beating violently [from emotion], reaches the requisite pitch of audacity, and idly as well as impudently utters some nonsense as it happens to occur to her, such as might be expected from one heated by an empty spirit. (Referring to this, one superior to me has observed, that the soul is both audacious and impudent when heated with empty air.) Henceforth she reckons herself a prophetess, and expresses her thanks to Marcus for having imparted to her of his own Charis. She then makes the effort to reward him, not only by the gift of her possessions (in which way he has collected a very large fortune), but also by yielding up to him her person, desiring in every way to be united to him, that she may become altogether one with him.

4. But already some of the most faithful women, possessed of the fear of God, and not being deceived (whom, nevertheless, he did his best to seduce like the rest by bidding them prophesy), abhorring and execrating him, have withdrawn from such a vile company of revellers. This they have done, as being well aware that the gift of prophecy is not conferred on men by Marcus, the magician, but that only those to whom God sends His grace from above possess the divinely-bestowed power of prophesying; and then they speak where and when God pleases, and not when Marcus orders them to do so. For that which commands is greater and of higher authority than that which is commanded, inasmuch as the former rules, while the latter is in a state of subjection. If, then, Marcus, or anyone else, does command,— as these are accustomed continually at their feasts to play at drawing lots, and [in accordance with the lot] to command one another to prophesy, giving forth as oracles what is in harmony with their own desires,—it will follow that he who commands is greater and of higher authority than the prophetic spirit, though he is but a man, which is impossible. But such spirits as are commanded by these men, and speak when they desire it, are earthly and weak, audacious and impudent, sent forth by Satan for the seduction and perdition of those who do not hold fast that well-compacted faith which they received at first through the Church.

5. Moreover, that this Marcus compounds philters and love-potions, in order to insult the persons of some of these women, if not of all, those of them who have returned to the Church of God— a thing which frequently occurs—have acknowledged, confessing, too, that they have been defiled by him, and that they were filled with a burning passion towards him. A sad example of this occurred in the case of a certain Asiatic, one of our deacons, who had received him (Marcus) into his house. His wife, a woman of remarkable beauty, fell a victim both in mind and body to this magician, and, for a long time, travelled about with him. At last, when, with no small difficulty, the brethren had converted her, she spent her whole time in the exercise of public confession, weeping over and lamenting the defilement which she had received from this magician.

6. Some of his disciples, too, addicting themselves to the same practices, have deceived many silly women, and defiled them. They proclaim themselves as being “perfect,” so that no one can be compared to them with respect to the immensity of their knowledge, nor even were you to mention Paul or Peter, or any other of the apostles. They assert that they themselves know more than all others, and that they alone have imbibed the greatness of the knowledge of that power which is unspeakable. They also maintain that they have attained to a height above all power, and that therefore they are free in every respect to act as they please, having no one to fear in anything. For they affirm, that because of the “Redemption” it has come to pass that they can neither be apprehended, nor even seen by the judge. But even if he should happen to lay hold upon them, then they might simply repeat these words, while standing in his presence along with the “Redemption:” “O thou, who sittest beside God, and the mystical, eternal Sige, thou through whom the angels (mightiness), who continually behold the face of the Father, having thee as their guide and introducer, do derive their forms from above, which she in the greatness of her daring inspiring with mind on account of the goodness of the Propator, produced us as their images, having her mind then intent upon the things above, as in a dream,— behold, the judge is at hand, and the crier orders me to make my defence. But do thou, as being acquainted with the affairs of both, present the cause of both of us to the judge, inasmuch as it is in reality but one cause.” Now, as soon as the Mother hears these words, she puts the Homeric helmet of Pluto upon them, so that they may invisibly escape the judge. And then she immediately catches them up, conducts them into the bridal chamber, and hands them over to their consorts.

7. Such are the words and deeds by which, in our own district of the Rhone, they have deluded many women, who have their consciences seared as with a hot iron. Some of them, indeed, make a public confession of their sins; but others of them are ashamed to do this, and in a tacit kind of way, despairing of [attaining to] the life of God, have, some of them, apostatized altogether; while others hesitate between the two courses, and incur that which is implied in the proverb, “neither without nor within;” possessing this as the fruit from the seed of the children of knowledge. 

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 1, Chapter 13