Keep me, O LORD,
from the hands
of the wicked;
preserve me from
the violent men,
who have purposed
to make my steps stumble.
the proud have hidden a
snare for me, and cords;
they have spread a net
by the wayside;
they have set traps for me.
Psalm 140:4-5
This battle for the minds of men is nothing knew as Satan himself took his battle against God to man and by cleverly designed words he enticed Eve to sin against her creator and her God. Adam has no excuse for he sinned due to his fear of losing his wife by not doing what she asked, he reasoned to himself that it would be better to do what Eve asked than to remain loyal and devoted to God. Eve using her reasoning and rationale saw that the fruit was something desirable and listening to misused words from Satan she ate the fruit and gave it to her husband and he did eat and sin enter into the lives of all their progeny and from that time forward posterity has been under the condemnation of sin, the justice of God demanded death, but due to predestination before the creation of the world God had elected some to inherit eternal life with Him and this He accomplished by drawing, and enabling His chosen ones, and paying the debt they owed by the death of His Son, His Wisdom clothed in human flesh, on the cross, the debt is paid, but until then, as the song goes, we shall go on singing and with joy in our heart we wait until the day comes and Jesus returns for the Church, you and I; but until that time there are those who like Satan misuse the word of God and mislead into sin those who will not listen to the voice of God, that voice is His word, the Bible. Yes, we are to use reason, and be rational in our decision, but the question that needs to be answered is: What is the foundation for our reasoning, for our rational decisions? If it is not God's word, then it is of Satan, for men who do not use God's word as their base and expound their own views apart from His word have done nothing more than attempt in some manner to hide the truth, this is Satanic and we must search out the truth, we are men and women with brains, and God expects us to use what He has given us and has provided us with the truth. Continuing in our search for truth we find:
Men and women at this period time or era searched for
answers but not from the Bible’s teaching on the rights of man and the need for
man to act in accordance with what God taught from His word; these men of
Enlightenment, or Idealism, or Emotionalism, all thought to find the answers
they sought by looking and examining man, and forming new thought in regards to
man’s relationship with the world, and with God. Immanuel Kant (17124–1804
A.D.), was a skeptic and was aroused by such extremes of materialism due to the
Enlightenment and sought to bring some form of reason to the table and to shift
philosophy back to a more sensible position; yet not to remove rationalism as a
basis. His book; Critique of Pure Reason (1781) ushered in a new age of
philosophic idealism. Under the Kantian philosophy intuition was that human
endeavor was of the highest forms and was close to sensory experience. In other
words, Kant proposed that pure reason proceeded from certain subjective senses
that were built into human nature. According to Kant the idea of God was a
derivation of the mind logically pursuing harmony. Therefore, the human
conscience had the ability to be developed or crippled by experience, but it
originated by means of a person’s nature to think. By reason then, abstract
reason, apart from science and it s laws, was a valid source of moral judgment
and religious interpretation. Reason then, according to Kantian philosophy,
gave mysticism to religion.
Rationalism
having found a home in religious circles and appealed to intellectuals provoked
a reaction among the religious men who though differently. Men such as Bishop
Joseph Butler (1692–1752 A.D.) and William Paley (1743–1805 A.D.) who defended
Christianity gave challenge to Deism that sprung from the ideas formed by the
Enlightenment and by some theologians that taught that man by his rational
thinking could find faith to believe in God. Due partly to the events, wars,
plagues, inquisitions, persecutions, etc., Deism as a religious belief grew rapidly
in the early 1700’s, and within the ranks of those who claimed to be Deist
there were disagreements. What can be said is that for the Deists they believed
in God and believed that God revealed to man Himself in two manners: 1. The
starry heavens, that is, nature: 2. Also, the moral law within man: that is man
has enough goodness (The base of this is Pelagianism, and Arminianism) to be able to know God. Kantian philosophy would not
disagree with these Deists about man having the ability to know that God exists
for an examination of the physical world made clear that the world had been
designed by some great intelligence. This teaching can be found in the attempt to assign creation to an Intelligent Designer in our world. The consciences of man having moral
faculty would then be able to comprehend that certain actions were wrong and
that by means of them being wrong God would punish the wrongdoer, now in this
life and in the life to come. Therefore, the Deists did believe in God as
creator and judge, in the moral law and in immortality, that there is to be
rewards and punishments to come. Deists had certain things in which they
caviled and objected to that God had revealed Himself through certain men,
prophets, visions, angels, miracles, inspired writings, etc.; this then causes
a Deist to not be a Christian, or a Jew, or a Moslem, for to the Deist it is
clear that it did not matter that he was not a Christian. How then was a Deist
to conjoin their theology with that of those who denied their religious fervor
and beliefs? They used conciliatory language, saying that the essence of
Christianity was Christ’s ethical teaching, a teaching that spoke and taught of
man’s moral faculty, so be speaking in this manner they hoped to remove any
real disagreement. Some in defense of the Christian faith that had been handed
down in history through God’s word, and those men devoted to God was that great
harm had been done by such a religion as Deism. It was Thomas Paine in his “The
Age of Reason” where he complained that the Old Testament represented God as
approving, even commanding, harsh, cruel, unjust, or murderous actions against
some men. And that the New Testament made claim that salvation comes only
through Jesus Christ that Paine taught was inconsistent with the idea of a just
God. There would be injustice according to Paine that justice means to reward
good deeds and punish wicked ones. This type of thinking was taught by Jacobus
Arminius and added upon by men and women who adopted his theology. Further,
Paine thought that he had found many contradictions in the bible, and
historical inaccuracies, and morally unacceptable teachings. Butler stated that
a Deist would say: “The Bible says that God visits the iniquities of the
fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. In view of that
teaching, can any decent man be a Christian?”
Butler's reply would be:
According to Deists, we have a sufficient revelation of
God in Nature, which he created. But in Nature, we find that a sexually
promiscuous father may give syphilis to his children and grandchildren. If a
pregnant woman abuses her body in various ways, her child is likely to have a
low birth weight, lowered intelligence, and other problems. If we consult the
Book of Nature to learn about God, we conclude that he visits the iniquities of
the fathers on the children. In view of that teaching, can any decent man be a
Deist?
This teaching
of the Bible that depicts God as wicked so that it would be better to refute
Christianity and Deism and to adopt atheism as the only moral position, has not
considered Scripture and God in light of the teaching of these revelations
about God. The teaching is simple; God made the world and our actions affect
others as well as ourselves and to desire a world that could not hurt anyone
would be a world by which no one could help another person. If there is to be
no injustice and man lived all to himself, then the world would be a world
without the possibility of gratitude between man and man. It is not clear from
the Deistic position that the world under their theology would be a better
world than the one we live in.
The dark cloud of supposed knowledge that hides the truth is not brightened by the Enlightenment movement, nor the Modernistic or Post-Modernistic movement of our day. The Enlightenment that has produced such men that have devised schemes to replace the truth of God with their own ideologies, with theologies that are not consistent with God's word. We must pray for God to help us for we cannot stand strong against such onslaught alone: "Do not grant, O LORD, the desires of the wicked; Do not further his wicked scheme, lest they be exalted" (Psalm 140:8).
They are exalted for
a little while,
then they are gone.
They are brought low;
they are taken out of the way
like all others; they dry out
like the heads of grain.
Job 25:24
Praise God For He Is Good
Richard L. Crumb
No comments:
Post a Comment