What is tolerance? When I was a great deal younger, it meant putting up with what you yourself did not actually agree with. For example, you tolerated the neighbour's dog barking at all hours. Or you tolerated the Monkey-Puzzle tree in the neighbours' front garden. That was tolerance. In theological circles it means that we put up with opinions with which we do not agree, in wider circles it means that we believe in religious freedom for the Unitarians, Swedenborgians and so forth.
The post-modern idea of tolerance is different. It means that you are expected to hold that all truth-claims are equally valid. So long as you hold to this, you are yourself 'tolerated'. In other words, postmodern tolerance is conditional on yourself being postmodern. Otherwise you are intolerant, and therefore not to be tolerated.
This is in fact a word-game on the level of those of Orwell's 1984. Instead of being expressly about those with whom we disagree, tolerance now refers to those with whom we in fact agree. But Hitler himself 'tolerated' those who agreed with him. Every totalitarian who is not completely insane grants freedom to those with whom he agrees. So we have gained nothing and lost much by the redefinition of tolerance.
What we plead for is the right to be wrong. THAT is tolerance, everything else is an imitation, Satan masquerading as an angel of light. Otherwise we have committed intellectual suicide and destroyed our very reason for existence.
Brothers, let us reclaim the true meaning of tolerance, before its new definition is usd to wipe us out!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
On Tolerance
Monday, February 25, 2008
The Government Check Challenge!
Very soon the Federal Government is going to be sending you a check as a part of it's so-called "economic stimulus package."
Are you trying to figure out what to do with it?
How about taking some of the money from that check (or your tax refund) and buy at least one case (36 copies) of these books and start giving them to every teenager you know? -especially those in public schools!
Think of what might happen if several of us all over the nation do this!
Please pray about commiting to this challenge and spreading the word to other Christian bloggers. It's time some government money is used to support the truth about evolution!
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms
I recently began featuring historic Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms on Rhett's Rants each Sunday. This video explains the reasons why they are still important to the church today:
(H.T.:Old Truth)
This related article at Old Truth is also worth checking out.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Post-Modernism and the Emergent Church
This footage comes from a Q&A session at the 2007 Ligonier National Conference that was held in Orlando, FL. Being interviewed is R.C. Sproul, Al Mohler, and Ravi Zacharias.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Boyce on the Truth of God
Considering the recent discussion the Mafia has engaged in on the topic of truth, I thought it would be fitting, and perhaps helpful, to allow the pen of Dr. J. P. Boyce to weigh in on the matter. Below is another excerpt from his Abstract of Systematic Theology. (Chapter X. pp. 98 & 99.)
The expression, "truth of God," is ambiguous, and must be considered under the specific terms which set forth its various meanings.
I. His Verity. He is True God. By this is meant, the exact correspondence of the nature of God with the ideal of absolute perfection. The foundation of that ideal may be indeterminable. But, whether it is in the nature of God himself, or in his will proceeding from his nature, or in eternal principles of the fit and the necessary and the right, which exactly coincide with that nature, God and that ideal must be perfect counterparts. That ideal can only be partially comprehended by any of his creatures, because of their imperfections; but it is known by God in all its supreme excellence, and his nature must fully correspond to it as thus known. Otherwise he would not be God.
It is in this aspect of God's truth, that the Scriptures call him the true God. See 2 Chron. 15:3; Jer. 10:10; John 17:3; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 John 5:20; Rev. 3:7.
II. His Veracity. By this is meant, God's truthfulness or incapacity to deceive. It is an attribute of his nature, which, like his power, exists, and makes him what he is, even though there be no outward relation to it. By virtue of it, he is the source of all truth, not moral only, but even mathematical.
In its relation to God's creatures, it is the foundation of their confidence in the knowledge obtained through the use of their own faculties, whether by intuition, observation or reason. Whatever imperfection there is in such knowledge, is perceived to be due to the creature, and not to God the creator. Upon it is also based belief in the revelations God makes to man of facts beyond the attainment of merely human power.
The Scriptures affirm the veracity of God in the strongest terms. In addition to its assertion in numerous passages, we are told, Ps. 108:4, that his "truth reacheth unto the skies." In Titus 1:2, he is called "God, who cannot lie."
III. His faithfulness. This consists in the truth of God viewed in its relation to his purposes whether secret, or revealed. When revealed, these become either promises, or threats. But as promises, the ground upon which these purposes must be fulfilled is, not any obligation to the creature, for God can come under none, but simply because of his own faithfulness to his purposes. Hence his faithfulness demands equally the performance of his threatenings, as of his promises.
This faithfulness is based upon the veracity of his nature considered above. It is by virtue of that veracity, that God must be faithful; yet the faithfulness is a new aspect, in which God's truthfulness appears.
This faithfulness is the ground both of hope and of fear. In the Scriptures it is more frequently presented as a reason for hope and trust. But it is also the foundation of belief in future judgement and punishment. The faithful God has been true to his threatenings, as well as his promises. His faithfulness assures us that he will so continue.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
A Place for Truth
In an age where uncertainty is disguised as "epistemological humility" and any claim to certainty and objective truth is considered absurd and arrogant, can today's Christian's make any claim to know the truth?
Many people, callling themselves Christian would say no but I answer with an emphatic YES! and this is why.
Knowing the Truth for Certain is a result of Salvation
"If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31-32
This verse follows the logical form of the if, then statement.
If you abide in my word....If you study it, live by it, love it, obey it, conform to it, submit to it...continually.
- You are truly my disciples...True believers are discerned from false believers in their relationship to the word of Christ, indeed, the word of God.
- You will know the truth...surprisingly, those who have an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ, Jesus, the Son of God who is truth incarnate (John 14:6), who cannot lie, says they will know the truth. This very fact flies in the face of post modernism. Certainty of truth is a result of salvation by the Spirit of God through the Word of God.
- The truth will set you free...Free from all lies, free from sinful living, free from worldly philosophies and false ideologies.
Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. John 17:17
Truth is the means by which we are sanctified. If truth is ambiguous, uncertain, and unclear, then sanctification seems impossible. Yet Jesus prays for the sanctification for those that the Father had given him, and goes on to say, "your word is truth." God's Word does not just contain truth, but it IS truth. Everything against it is against truth. The Scriptures are clear, the Scriptures are truth, the Scriptures are the means by which we are sanctified.
Rejection of Truth is a strong indicator of Unbelief
The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved." 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10
Notice the last portion of this text. These people mentioned, those who are perishing will not be saved why? Because the refused to love the truth. Rejection of the truth prevented them from being saved. Notice the first part. The lawless one performs false signs..signs that are not authentic or true. A rejection of truth leads to being deceived by that which is opposed to the truth. If you despise truth, if you do not "know the truth" then the warning light should be flashing, for that is an indicator that you have not been born again of the Spirit of truth (John 13:17, John 16:13). If you have been born again of the Spirit, and are abiding in the Word of God, then the Spirit of truth will guide you in the truth as Jesus has infallibly promised. Can we know the truth for certain? Yes we can, because the Spirit of truth WILL guide us into all the truth.
Those who try to blend postmodern ideas of uncertainty and ambiguity with Christianity are attempting to blend to things that are antithetical. Uncertainty is antithetical to the certainty of the Scriptures. Subjectivity is antithetical to the objectivity of the Word of God. Rejecting certainty is not "epistemological humility," it is rebellion against the truth, rebellion against the Scriptures, and ultimately rebellion against the one TRUE God.
As John MacArthur states in The Truth War,
Speaking Plainly: If you are one of those who questions whether truth is really important, please don't call your belief system Christianity," because that is not what it is."
The Truth War
Yesterday I began reading John MacArthur's new book entitled The Truth War. If you don't have a copy, buy one today and start reading it!
What I've read so far reads as if -prior to writing the book- MacArthur performed a Vulcan Mind-Meld to get inside the heads of these "epistemologically humble" Postmodern/Emergent folks that are cropping up all over.
MacArthur is cutting through the Postmodern epistemological fog with his typical commitment to truth as revealed in the Scriptures. (A much needed breathe of fresh air considering some of the blather I have seen posted in the Mafia "Speak-Easy" as of late!)
So far, this is probably one of the best MacArthur books I've laid my hands on in a while...
Soli Deo Gloria!
(The copyright the Star Trek image above belongs to Paramount Pictures or CBS Paramount Television)
Posts
