Theology and Happiness

John Piper with some good words on how our theology affects our happiness in God:

Can an Arminian be a Christian Hedonist?

Sovereign Grace

From John Piper’s sermon The Free Will of the Wind

Look to the Crucified Christ

When, in your helplessness and deadness, you say, “What shall I do?” Jesus says, “Look away from yourself to the Son of Man, lifted up on a cross to die for your sins.” The work of the Spirit in the new birth is to make us alive so that we see the glory of Christ crucified and risen. So look to him. Look to the Son of Man.

And when you hear Jesus say, “The Spirit blows where it wills,” don’t hear him taking from you the will that you treasure, but hear him giving to you eyes to see Christ as your treasure.  [Emphasis Mine]

Update on Theology Moratorium

Wow!  I’ve been able to hold out over a whole month without writing anything theological in nature.  It’s been tough and its getting tougher: so I need to vent.

I’ve stopped “sampling” and now I’m reading through and praying for light.  For a definition of sampling read the initial post on the moratorium.

Books finished and in the process are Finally Alive by John Piper, God’s Greater Glory by Bruce Ware, Chosen but Free by Norman Geisler, God and Foreknowledge: Four Views, God and Time: Four Views, and Predestination Calmly Considered by John Wesley.

I’m highly intrigued by the molinist, or middle knowledge view, espoused by William Lane Craig.  Craig wrote an essay about an possible rapprochement between Arminians and Calvinists by using this model of God’s omniscience in The Will of Man and the Grace of God edited by Clark Pinnock.  Then I was shocked to learn that Bruce Ware also holds to the middle knowledge view.  It varies from Craig’s view by postulating compatibilism as the only grounds for counter-factual knowledge.

Very recently I’ve been fascinated by the way the Old Testament quotes used by Paul in Romans 9 shape his argument.  When you see what verses Paul is quoting and why he’s using them it gives you a whole new perspective on that very controversial chapter.

I’m comparing and contrasting the synergistic and monergistic models of regeneration by looking at the scriptural support for both doctrines.

The metaphysical questions are still at the heart of this conflict.  There is a HUGE difference between divine voluntarism and divine essentialism.  Are things “right” because God wills it or does God’s will depend on (and flow from) His nature?

Just laying out the many intricate and interrelated theological issues I’ve been thinking about just this month…

Waiting in the Hall

Excerpt from the Preface of Mere Christianity:

My Guide

I hope no reader will suppose that “mere” Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions – as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else.  It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms.  If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted.  But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals.

The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in.  For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable.  It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at which door they must knock at.  I do not know why there is this difference, but Iam sure God keeps no one waiting unles He sees that it is good for him to wait.  When you get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise.  But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping.  You must keep on praying for light: and, of course, even in the hall you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house.  And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and panelling.  In plain language, the question should never be: “Do I like that kind of service?” but “Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here?  Does my conscience move me towards this?  Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door keeper?”

When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall.  If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them.  That is one of the rules common to the whole house [emphasis mine]. – C.S. Lewis

Lord, I’m in the hall.  Show me the right door.