LEGATO...

What, exactly, did Socrates teach? Well, among other things, he fervently believed that everyone should be serious about the question as to what sort of life a person should live. Plato recorded the teachings of Socrates in his DIALOGUES. At the very end of GORGIAS, one of these dialogues, Socrates said, "You may let anyone despise you as a fool and do you outrage, if he wishes, yes, and you may cheerfully let him strike you with that humiliating blow, for you will suffer no harm thereby if you really are a good man and an honorable, and pursue virtue. . . . This is the best way of life--to live and die in the pursuit of righteousness and all other virtues. Let us follow this, I say, inviting others to join us." Socrates lived these truths and he did so even unto death, thereby causing the truths which he taught to make an indelible impression upon his society, and upon all future societies that would be influenced by Hellenistic culture. The story of th...

*Perhaps you already know that the surname of one of America’s premier twentieth-century Reformed-Presbyterian theologians is the Dutch word for “fox.” “Vos” was his name. Geerhardus Vos. A friend supplied me this “foxy” quote as an encouragement in clarifying the issues surrounding NL2K (a modern construal of N atural L aw + 2 K ingdoms): [87] From this, however, it does not necessarily follow, that the visible church is the only outward expression of the invisible kingdom.  Undoubtedly the kingship of God, as his recognized and applied supremacy, is intended to pervade and control the whole of human life in all its forms of existence. This the parable of the leaven plainly teaches. These various forms of human life have each their own sphere in which they work and embody themselves. There is a sphere of science, a sphere of art, a sphere of the family and of the state, a sphere of commerce and industry. Whenever one of these spheres comes [88] under the controlling influe...

Central to Reformed theology is its proper commitment to the authority of Scripture. The role of Scripture is not tangential, but is a prima presupposition upon which Reformed theology is predicated. The predominant concern given to the importance of Scripture is set forth in the first chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith, titled, “Of Holy Scripture.” Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the sam...

In 1 Cor. 8 Paul discusses meat sacrificed to idols. Here we find that some immature believers were concerned that to eat such meat engaged them in idolatry. Paul’s main point is that there is no such thing as an idol; they are only wood and stone. Thus our consciences are at liberty to eat the meat. However, should there be present a “weaker brother” who has not yet grown beyond the point of superstition (v. 9-13), one should defer to him or her and not eat.    A theological term that arises in connection with Paul’s discussion in 1 Cor. 8 is adiaphora . It comes from the Greek, ἀδιάφορα— “indifferent things.” Adiaphora in Christianity refer to matters not regarded as essential to the faith, but nevertheless as permissible for Christians or allowed in church. What is specifically considered adiaphora tends to depend on the specific theology of a Church in view. In our day much is said about foods, especially in America, where a growing movement is a foot and that tea...

In a comment on Facebook (1/14/11), I made this observation: “Most of us have misunderstood Romans 1:18-21. The unbeliever not only knows THAT God exists but WHO God is; his covenant head. Suppression of the truth therefore takes on a far deeper meaning." The passage in view teaches that fallen men know THAT God is. But their knowledge is also knowledge of his “invisible attributes” and “divine nature” (v. 20). And it should be added that they also have a personal knowledge of God—i.e., they know HIM, not just information about him (v. 21). And of course this includes knowledge of God’s ethical standards (see the rest of chapter, esp. v. 32). Like Van Til, I think it is silly to say that someone knows THAT God is but is completely ignorant about WHO he is. How can you know the existence of something without knowing anything at all about its nature? On that premise, you can’t even specify what it is that you know the existence of. If I say I believe in the existence of mountains...

As a matter of first principles in apologetics, we can ask, “What does the unbeliever know about God?” However, the biblical apologetic is shaped not only by what Scripture says the unbeliever knows, but also by what it reveals he can know; is capable of knowing, as a believer. So we might also ask, “Is it our hope that the unbeliever can know God as God knows himself or that he can know God reflectively, in a creaturely way?” This is the univocal/analogical problem in Christian epistemology.  The question arises in the context of the structure of human thought. It bears its own unique dilemma. If we stress too excessively that knowledge of God is univocal we run the risk of lowering the incomprehensible God to the level of the finite and make God as one of us. But if we stress too emphatically knowledge of God per analogiam we may very well deprive God of all likeness to the humanity he has created with the result that all we are left with is a barren, abstraction. To a cons...

Long before Arendt, we have Jean-Jacques Rousseau attempting freedom without authority in society. Once Rousseau experienced the conversion of his soul from academies and culture to the freedom and warm sentiment of nature, in 1750, he wrote his Discourse (First Discourse), in which he tried to show that the arts and sciences were the result of human vice, not virtue, and the cause of the slippery slope in Europe toward moral decline. He developed this thought further in his second Discourse on the Origins of Inequality , where he set over and against the genuine misery of the social conditions of his day the ideal of the “nature state.”  Here the potential for people living together with the charm of nature as the central defining emblem of life compelled them to live as a free, sane, and good; in peace and solidarity, not in warlike aggression.   In his Social Contract , he envisions the state emerging from a hypothetical contract in which the citizens do not surrend...