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Notes on "The Mating Game" by Pamela C. Regan

One of the more interesting books that I read last year was The Mating Game: A Primer on Love, Sex and Marriage by Pamela C. Regan. The author is a professor of psychology and this book claims to be a “comprehensive, multidisciplinary, introductory text about human mating relationships aimed specifically at a university audience.” The book is a “comprehensive review of theory and empirical research … on the fundamental human experiences of love, sex, and the formation of romantic relationships.” The next paragraph contains a very brief summary of the topics covered in the book, while the rest of this post contains the notes that I took when I read the book. These notes certainly don’t cover everything contained in the book, and there are many very interesting things not included here. These notes (and therefore the page numbers) are for the second edition of the book.

The Bible's claims about itself and circular arguments

I was at the PYV Summer Camp last week, and one of the interesting parts was the question time at the end (as it always is). One of the questions that was asked – and not, in my judgement, especially well answered – was whether or not the Bible’s claim to be the Word of God is a circular argument, and if it is, isn’t this a problem. The short answer is: yes, it is a circular argument, but no, it isn’t a problem.

Wayne Grudem, in his Systematic Theology, devotes a bit of space to this issue, and I mentioned this in my summary of what Grudem says about the doctrine of Scripture. Here’s what I wrote then:

It is impossible to prove that Scripture is true by appealing to a higher authority (such as historical accuracy or logical consistency) as Scripture, as God’s Word, is already the highest authority one can appeal to. Although it is a circular argument to say that Scripture is the highest authority because it claims to be the highest authority, this does not make it invalid, as any appeal to ultimate authority will base its claim on that authority.

Imagine you lived a few hundred years ago in a little village in a big country. You know you have a king, but you have never seen him and have no idea what he looks like. Then, one day, a powerful looking man dressed in regal attire arrives at your village, with a host of well dressed companions, servants, and soldiers with gleaming swords. This man then claims to be the king. If you were to argue that his claim to be the king was not legitimate because it was a circular argument, your head probably wouldn’t be attached to your body for much longer. You may be right that it is a circular argument, but that doesn’t take away from his kingship.

To continue with the analogy, what else can the king appeal to to claim his kingship? His companions can attest to his kingship, and his soldiers can put on a show of force so that few would want to deny his kingship (deny and die!), but it is the king’s word has the ultimate authority. Any claim to ultimate authority must be based on that ultimate authority. In the case of the Bible, we believe that it is God’s authoritative Word because God claims that it is his authoritative Word. The section in Grudem’s Systematic Theology on this issue says a lot more than I have, and although I can’t remember what it says, I can recommend it to anybody who wants to know more.

Now that that is cleared up (hopefully), I will briefly segue onto the topic of the reliability of the Bible. You could argue that the Bible is just a book and that you could easily write a book that claims to be revelation from God. However, there are good reasons to treat the Bible as more than just a human invention. At the centre of the Bible is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Serious scholars (both Christian and non-Christian) treat the gospel accounts of Jesus as real historical accounts of Jesus’ life and death (even when they don’t believe the resurrection and miracles actually took place). The apostles preached that Jesus rose from the dead (this was at the very heart of their message) on the basis that they had seen the risen Jesus. And many of them were willing to die for this belief. People may make up things for all sorts of reasons, but nobody would willingly die a horrible death for a belief they know is wrong. There are some good books on this topic that I haven’t read but would like to: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable by F. F. Bruce and On the Reliability of the Old Testament by K. A. Kitchen appear to be well worth reading.

Notes on “The Lost World of Genesis One”, by John Walton

I’ve just finished reading The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, by John H. Walton. Walton is a professor of Old Testament and, judging by one of his other books that I have, is an expert on Ancient Near East thought.

In The Lost World of Genesis One, Walton presents and cogently argues for a novel interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis: Genesis 1 talks about functional origins, not material origins. Walton appears to make a very strong case for his view, so I look forward to seeing the scholarly reaction to this work. The arguments in this book go beyond everything I can remember reading – it appears that nobody has ever thought that Genesis 1 was talking about anything other than material creation. I’m also looking forward to some solid critical reviews of this work, especially from a young earth creationist perspective (which, in a way, appears to have “the most to lose” if this proposed reading of Genesis 1 is correct). There are quite a few reviews for this book online, with the vast majority being very positive, and I’m yet to read anything resembling a good negative review (I want something more than “this book supports evolution; therefore, this book is wrong”). While this book is written for a popular audience, a more scholarly version of this book is coming out soon, called Genesis One as Ancient Cosmology.

Anyway, here are my summary notes on the book. Each chapter argues for a single proposition, with the first eleven arguing for the interpretation, while the remaining chapters discuss related issues. There is a brief FAQ at the end. This definitely isn’t a substitute for the actual book, but hopefully this gives a reasonable summary of what it says.

The doctrine of Scripture in Wayne Grudem's “Systematic Theology”

To continue the theme of my last post, here’s a summary of what Wayne Grudem has to say about the doctrine of Scripture in his Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. I’m focussing on what Grudem says about the authority, inspiration (although Grudem doesn’t use that word) and inerrancy of Scripture. I’m doing this so that I understand and remember more of what I read (so my primary intention isn’t that somebody can come along and know what Grudem says – although I certainly hope that that can happen if anybody reads this).

Grudem’s Systematic Theology is divided into seven parts that systematically explain the doctrines of Scripture, God, man, Christ and the Holy Spirit, the application of redemption, the church, and the future. Each of these parts is divided into a number of chapters, and in this, I am obviously going to be looking at the first part on the doctrine of Scripture.

The inspiration and interpretation of God’s Word, with special reference to Peter Enns

I found out that I have access to The Westminster Theological Journal because my university library has an institutional subscription to it. I’ve just finished reading through a two-part article titled The Inspiration and Interpretation of God’s Word, With Special Reference to Peter Enns, by James W. Scott. The first, in the Spring 2009 edition, is Part I: Inspiration and its Implications which explains the doctrine of inspiration, and the second, in the Fall 2009 edition, is Part II: The Interpretation of Representative Passages which looks at how a number of difficult passages a dealt with in light of the doctrine of Scripture. What follows in this post is a summary of the two papers. My goal is to fairly and accurately summarise the content of the papers, without commenting on the validity of the views expressed or the correctness of the characterisation of other views that are interacted with.

Spurgeon on evolution and the age of the earth

Here’s something that I suspect most people don’t know: Charles Spurgeon had no issues with the earth being very old and countless generations of beasts living and dying before mankind appeared. From a sermon on unconditional election, preached on September 2, 1855:

Can any man tell me when the beginning was? Years ago we thought the beginning of this world was when Adam came upon it. But we have discovered that thousands of years before that God was preparing chaotic matter to make it a fit abode for man, putting races of creatures upon it who might die and leave behind the marks of His handiwork and marvelous skill before He tried His hand on man.

Now Spurgeon was no friend of biological evolution. From a sermon preached on August 31, 1890:

If any of you shall live fifty years, you will see that the philosophy to today will be a football of contempt for the philosophy of that period. They will speak, amidst roars of laughter, of evolution; and the day will come, when there will not be a child but will look upon it as being the most foolish notion that ever crossed the human mind. I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet; but I know what has befallen many of the grand discoveries of the great philosophers of the past; and I expect that the same thing will happen again.

(See also this or this or this or this.) Even though he strongly opposed evolution, he evidently did not think that “death before the fall” is a problem for a correct understanding of the Bible and redemptive history.

Evolution, chance, and the sovereignty of God

I was reading this book review of Science & Christianity: Four Views, and amongst other things, I noticed that, especially in the discussion of evolution, there is a very definite distinction made between God’s interaction with the world and natural processes. That is, God does some things, but other things naturally happen.

I have seen the idea of biological evolution criticised a number of times based on this way of thinking – evolution is a natural process that is guided by chance and is therefore opposed to the belief that God created the world. Louis Berkhof says this in his Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem also says this in his Systematic Theology, the author of the aforementioned book review assumes it, and I have seen this argument expressed in many other places.

However, to me, this argument does not seem valid if one accepts the doctrine of the sovereignty of God as it is commonly understood in Reformed theology. If God is sovereign, then chance events – like the rolling of a dice (Proverbs 16:33), or the random errors that occur in DNA replication – are not really random from God’s perspective. In fact, God is in complete control of it all, and everything is happening according to his sovereign will. Natural processes are one of the things that God does.

Consider the weather. The Bible is quite clear that God is in control of the weather (Psalm 42:7; Psalm 135:6-7; Psalm 148:8; Jeramiah 10:13). But we also know that the weather is a natural process. We know about the hydrological cycle and meteorologists are able to predict the weather with some success (the atmosphere is a chaotic system which makes it very hard to predict, but that is beside the point).

First post

So here it is. This site is only partially complete so far. Image galleries coming soon (I have them working — I just need to get some images together to put in them), and I have plenty more ideas of things I can do with this site.

As for this blog, I plan on writing about stuff that is on my mind, and the content will probably vary a bit (in all important metrics: topic, quality, interest etc.), but that’s okay. I think it’s likely that I’ll write about what I’m reading at the time (after all, I should be thinking about it), so here are a few books that I am reading now or have read recently:

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