The previous post on free will established why it is difficult for many to conceive of how there could be a radically free will. The first paragraph below is a reminder of that point. The rest of this post is about how the fact that free will can be abused and can lead to some bad opinions motivates some people errantly to assume it does not actually exist. Both posts are intended only to clarify why it will take so many posts, paragraphs, and arguments to demonstrate the reality and inherent value of a radical free will.
1.2 A Bad Reputation Makes Free Will Seem Undesirable So there is a metaphysical argument against free will. That is, there is no room for a free will in the reality of this presumed causally closed universe. In fact there is no room beyond the universe for that kind of freedom either—an admission which ought to be disturbing for a theist. But there is also a moral objection to admitting the reality of free will.
In this culture, autonomy takes first place in the race to be the highest value. As with any value, there are good and bad consequences associated with its maintenance. For instance Read the rest of this entry »
This message is the second on the way through the Sermon on the Mount. The text is Matthew 5:13-16. It was recorded while I served as interim pastor at Glen Meadows Baptist Church in San Angelo, TX.
(Yes. The final messages from James are still forthcoming!) Audio sermons posted to date, including this one, are also freely available on the sermons page, which is also linked on the sidebar, including as an RSS feed (for subscriptions, like with iTunes).
As with every audio link on this blog, you can click the text just left of the playable arrow and the audio will open in a new page, or you can right-click that text and select “save linked file” (or something similar) and download the file to your hard drive, or you can click the little arrow next to an audio file and it will play the sound on this page.
The video below is about the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church shooting Sunday. Such shootings are much more common in America than anywhere else in the world. What seems like a few times a year, someone gathers weapons and ammunition then approaches a public school, college campus, church, mall, or workplace in order to kill as many people as possible, and most often then to kill himself.
There is a sense that some feature of American culture is to blame for this behavior. There are some similar incidents elsewhere–Scotland and Japan have had an episode or two over time, for instance–but not many. So explanations range from the American fascination with and access to weapons to the extreme form American individualism takes. Other explanations are more psychological. Perhaps social pressure to succeed is too great or the attitude that those at the bottom of the economic pile are expendable is too prevalent.
But neither those issues nor any of the other supposedly Read the rest of this entry »
this opinion is not Luddite. It’s neither anti-science nor anti-technology. Indeed, both science and technology are amazing results of the scientific-empirical or hypothetico-inductive method. The power and practicality of engineers and the acumen and creativity of scientists have changed the world and continue to provide societies which respect individualism with a functional advantage over the rest of the world.
The issue in this post is the one touting science’s strengths and benefits for culture. Once it is acceptable to use reason and nature rather than simply revelation in order to arrive at the “truth” about any particular issue, all bets are off on where the culture will go. In the West that transition took place over a period of about four hundred years, beginning somewhere around Averroes and Aquinas in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, maturing through Occam, and culminating in men like Bacon, Galileo, Newton, and Descartes in the Seventeenth Century.
People do not like change. To change even one significant element of Read the rest of this entry »
The reality of free will. In modern culture either psychology or physics explains everything. So there is no room for real freedom. In many forms of orthodox, contemporary religion there is the belief that God chooses evil in order that good may come and that sin happens to be one form of that evil. So there is no room left for real freedom. Having real freedom is having the actual power to make self-denying choices. The issue is important because God has made that kind of real freedom both necessary and essential to real discipleship.
Then why do so many faithful and intelligent Christians Read the rest of this entry »
A new leader means a new home. This message is about Matthew 8:18-34. There are those who say they will follow Jesus but are told what it will cost about their home. Then there are those who leave Jesus and tell Him to leave their home alone. I delivered the message going through the book of Matthew as interim pastor of Glen Meadows Baptist Church in San Angelo, TX.
(The final messages from James are still forthcoming!) Audio sermons posted to date, including this one, are also freely available on the sermons page, which is also linked on the sidebar, including as an RSS feed (for subscriptions, like with iTunes).
As with every audio link on this blog, you can click the text just left of the playable arrow and the audio will open in a new page, or you can right-click that text and select “save linked file” (or something similar) and download the file to your hard drive, or you can click the little arrow next to an audio file and it will play the sound on this page.
Being in Kerrville at the SBTC’s SLT/SWU camps this week, I don’t have much time to post. However, AP just published a story worth recommending. The most ancient manuscript of the New Testament in the world, the Codex Sinaiticus, will be available on the internet beginning about this time next year.
Even those who hold it in disfavor for its truncated ending to Mark and its extra-canonical material are surely giddy over the prospect of seeing it first hand. I am–despite a lingering suspicion there may be a substantial fee for full access. I also suspect, by the way, that many readers will be shocked at the extra challenges involved in reading hand-written Greek. But first hand access to information is always a good thing.
The New York Times has reported recently about an ethically and emotionally challenging problem for pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, and families seeking help for terminally ill loved ones. (The story is available by clicking here.)
Experimental drugs can only be administered under the rules of experimentation. There are not only international codes (such as the Nuremberg and Geneva codes) to govern human experimentation of any kind, but federal laws and myriad FDA rules and regulations governing pharmaceutical testing. Without those rules it would be impossible to keep drug companies—even the good ones—from facing pressure Read the rest of this entry »
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Verses 3 and 4 parallel verses 1 and 2 in that each presents God’s creative activity followed by His continued involvement in (or maintenance of) the world. Throughout the Old Testament, for God to “see” is for God to care and to be willing to get involved. Genesis 31:42 and Exodus 3:7 make that point. But so does one of the favorite names of God. Jehovah Jireh, given in Genesis 22:14, means “God will see” or “God will provide.” The English words “provision” and “vision” reveal the same relationship. What He sees He cares about, and what He cares about He provides for.
Expanded Paraphrase:
After He had created the light, He paid attention to it–saw it.
A Jerry Johnson Live broadcast from July 16, 2008: A discussion with callers about what Emergent Churches are doing and what traditional churches should do better. Doug Padgitt’s interview fell through so callers discussed their views on what churches, ministries, and individual believers ought to do differently in order better to represent Christ in the world.
So there is a metaphysical argument against free will. That is, there is no room for a free will in the reality of this presumed causally closed universe. In fact there is no room beyond the universe for that kind of freedom either—an admission which ought to be disturbing for a theist. But there is also a moral objection to admitting the reality of free will.
Being in Kerrville at the 
The New York Times has reported recently about an ethically and emotionally challenging problem for pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, and families seeking help for terminally ill loved ones. (
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