Where I stand

I get a lot of hits on my About page, probably from people trying to understand where this nut’s coming from.  So I thought I’d compile a page to give visitors some idea of where I stand.  Here’s a snapshot take on a few of the topics that I discuss the most.

God’s nature

I believe God is the sovereign creator and sustainer of the universe.  As author of all the natural laws governing the physical universe, He is no less responsible for the universe than if He manually directed each subatomic particle. However, as this was not necessary nor His chosen method of management, and because He meant the universe to testify to Himself as the author of nature, the universe is orderly and able to be understood by deciphering the laws of nature; we may make analysis of nature without wondering if the data is intentionally misleading.  In the same way, while He is responsible for creating and sustaining man and endowing him with a will capable of and bent toward disregarding His place as sovereign, He does not govern our every thought nor the paths we choose in life.  As an omniscient sovereign, He has made all necessary provision such that the universe He has created does not take Him by surprise or force Him to function as a simple reactionary to nature or the will of man.

The Bible (bibliology)

God didn’t personally write the Bible; nor did He dictate it.  In fact, although Scripture contains revelation from God, it is not as a whole composed of successive revelations strung together and compiled by the authors, all with a flourish of personal authorial style and manner but retaining the authority of the Source.  Rather, God’s role in the Bible as it was eventually canonized was consistent with His manner in creating the universe: in revealing Himself to the people of Israel, He purposefully set into motion the writing of the Scriptures, which He knew would serve as a timeless testimony to Him and His ways.  This fore-ordination was far less “hands-on” than Protestants typically believe.  Many Christians would agree that God doesn’t personally inflict individuals with a genetic disorder inherited from their ancestral lines, although it’s undeniable that He is responsible for creating a universe in which genetic disorders arise and are passed on. Similarly, in choosing not to exercise editorial micromanagement over the content of Scripture, He is not guilty of deception simply because He did not purge it from all misconceptions on the parts of the authors. Those misconceptions, coming through to us as “errors”, are found throughout Scripture.  All this is to say that I am not an inerrantist.

Because in general, we have no reason to believe each passage of Scripture was intended by its author to be read some two or three millennia later within the context of the Biblical canon or that it was intended to be unlocked by special esoteric interpretive keys, the only valid way to interpret the Scripture is the same way we should endeavor to interpret any passage of literature: in the way it was originally intended by the author.  As with all literature, among the factors that must chiefly inform our interpretation (hermeneutics) are the recovery of the author’s intent and a recognition of the culture and audience of each author’s contemporaries (audience relevance).  If we believe that God approved the authors of Scripture because of their unique competencies, then we have no reason to believe that the very context in which those men lived and which they sought to address in their writings are in any way excisable from, or in fact anything less than central to, the meaning of any given passage.

Protology (the doctrine of first things/origins)

Because the authors of the Bible were not privy to the scientific or historical particulars of the world’s origins, we should not try to use their theological accounts to determine the scientific and historical particulars of the world’s origins in contempt of the Bible’s cultural context.  From “My position on the origins question“:

If we don’t use Genesis as a science book or to determine the origin of humanity, where do we look? My choice has been to look to those who dedicate their life’s work to observing, analyzing, and hypothesizing about the natural world: scientists.

Eschatology (the doctrine of last things)

I recognize that this is not way up on a lot of people’s lists of important doctrines; in fact, I tend to write people off as obsessed if they are preoccupied with an imminent eschatology.  However, I think it’s important to recognize that all biblical eschatology (including the Second Coming and the Resurrection of the Dead) was predicted by Jesus and the Apostles to occur in the first century and that their predictions were indeed fulfilled.  Biblical eschatology looks no further than the events associated with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.  The “last days” were the final years in which the Old Covenant was allowed to stand beside the New Covenant instituted by Jesus.

The dramatic “end of the world” language usually misinterpreted as literal and future was actually hyperbolic in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets.  The Day of the Lord judgment prophesied in the Olivet Discourse and Revelation culminating in the truly monumental desecration of the Temple and the dissolution of the Old Covenant apparatus (i.e., the priesthood, animal sacrifice, etc.) was described using the same apocalyptic imagery employed in the prophecies of the Old Testament.

This view of prophecy, called preterism, entails a couple things most evangelicals aren’t comfortable with: defining the Second Coming and the Resurrection of the Dead as past (already fulfilled), spiritual events are probably the two leading differences in terms of historical theology, although the rejection of a physical rapture and a future end to all sin and pain on earth are right up there.