2011 January «Anglo Judaizer Anglo Judaizer

That Christian Knowledge Comes Not by Created Natural Means Friday, Jan 21 2011

I think these verses clearly teach that knowledge does not come by natural created means:

Jhn 6:45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. Jhn 6:46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.

Psalm 119: 99 I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. 100 I understand more than the aged, Because I have observed Your precepts.

Mat 11: 25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.

1 Cor 1:21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

1 Cor 1: 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, 29 so that no man may boast before God.

Ecc 8: 17 and I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, “I know,” he cannot discover.

1 Cor 2: 9 but just as it is written,“THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”

Not to mention that infant salvation is impossible without immediate saving knowledge

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The Failure of the Van Tillians with Regards to Man’s Fallen State Sunday, Jan 9 2011

Scripturalism olivianus 10:44 pm

My first argument in my Top Ten list is:

1. The Van Tillian Philosophy Posits a Loss of Humanity in the Fall

A good quote from Charles Hodge on this issue,

1. “While, therefore, the Scriptures make the original moral perfection of man the most prominent element of that likeness to God in which he was created, it is no less true that they recognize man as a child of God in virtue of his rational nature. He is the image of God, and bears and reflects the divine likeness among the inhabitants of the earth, because he is a spirit, an intelligent, voluntary agent; and as such he is rightfully invested with universal dominion. This is what the Reformed theologians were accustomed to call the essential image of God, as distinguished from the accidental. The one consisting in the very nature of the soul, the other in its accidental endowments, that is, such as might be lost without the loss of humanity itself.” Systematic Theology Vol 2 pg. 99

Steve over at Triablogue attempts to defend the Van Tilian system in his article What does the unbeliever know? http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-does-unbeliever-know.html

Steve dealt with none of the issues I present though I wrote them much later than his article. Yet i was struck by this statement by Steve, “As such, common ground is person-variable. We can’t generalize about the degree of common ground between believers and unbelievers.”

Hodge made things very clear that the general commonality between all men is our rational faculty. If we cannot ganeralize then Steve is implying what I have been suspicious of all along, namely, The Van Tillian Philosophy Posits a Loss of Humanity in the Fall.