Michael Horton and his new greatest systematic theology ever

Michael Horton's first chapter of his new systematic theology is epically silly. That's not to say it is wrong for what it is, but for a new systematic theology that is supposed to transplant Berkhof it is just epically silly.

To understand Horton, he grew up in a fundamentalist environment and his main mode is: "Look at me, all my former fundamentalist people, I am what's called a scholar. And look what I'm doing! I've written books and stuff. I went to Oxford. That's in England. I'm no longer a part of you, but don't feel bad because everything I write now I am really writing to you. You can tell because I write in that annoying Kindergarten teacher tone as I'm talking down to you! But I'm noticing you! Hello there! Do you see how I'm making my points very deliberately and slow for you? That's for you! And you're having fun! While at the same time I have put a lot of scholarly stuff in it. You won't understand all that, but don't worry! You have your nap rugs!"

Yeah, on one page you see references to 12 philosophers, 6 rather weak, surfacy concepts meant to control the 'whole', run-throughs of common knowledge spoken as if it's just the most exotic stuff for you to be hearing for the first time...and, er, stuff. All of it shallow, surfacy, scattered knowledge, mostly empty (vain) for an opening chapter of a Reformed systematic theology.

A trinity of correlations from Bavinck

In Christianity you have theophany, prophecy, and miracles.

The adulterated forms of these things in the world are: obsession, mantic, and magic.

A theophany is, of course, the appearance to humans of God (any appearance of God made to man is the Second Person of the Trinity, i.e. the Son; in the Old Testament times He appeared as an angel - Angel of the Lord - or a pillar of fire or smoke, etc.; then of course in the New Testament times He incarnated as a human being).

So 'obsession' correlates to theophany in this way: obsessions are formed for celebrity or famous people. Think rock stars and actors. In other times think famous romantic poets or composers. Also, political leaders. Also religious leaders too. The obsession given them is similar to the worship due to God.

Prophecy is obvious. The worldly correlation to prophecy - mantic - is a word that basically correlates to modern day psychics and subjects like astrology. Contacting spirits or the dead and so forth. All that. [It should be added, and this just came to me, that since theophany, prophecy, and miracles are all in the category of special revelation there should also be listed a worldly, adulterated form of the Word of God, special revelation par excellence. That correlation is any kind of writing that is taken as holy and authoritative. The Book of Urantia, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Mein Kampf (for some people at one time), Mao's Little Red Book, the writings of Marx, etc. Even purported conversations with angels put in written form. All that is the adulterated, worldly version of the real thing which is the Living Word of God, the Old and New Testaments.]

Miracles are obvious. Miracles were performed at various times of the history of redemption, not just by God. They are recorded in the Bible. Magic pretends to accomplish the same.

So there you have it, a trinity of correlations between the Truth and the adulteration of the Truth in the world. Or, how a fake version of the Truth plays out in the Kingdom of Satan.

The Devil needs a standard

A point that never gets made, other than by me, is worth repeating: without the English translation of the Word of God that culminated in the Authorized - King James - Version all these 'modern' versions would literally read like babble. This is something the shallow scholars don't have the knowledge or imagination to see, and it's something that the defenders of the Traditional Text have not pointed out for whatever reason. Without the *standard* of *not only* the Traditional Text - Hebrew and Greek - but the English translation *that culminated* in the Authorized 1611 King James Version modern 'bible' versions today would read like pure babble. In other words (read carefully): the devil himself *needs* the STANDARD to *have something to DEVIATE from.* Without the Standard ALL modern versions would be pure individual babble. Modern scholars *couldn't* even if they so desired produce a bible version that wasn't babble. Without the Holy Spirit shepherding the traditional text into English translation that culminated in the crown version that is the King James Version all versions would be babble. The devil couldn't *if he tried* produce a version that wasn't *obvious* babble. And that is the point: the modern versions would be *obvious* babble without a Standard for them to deviate from, and that standard is the Authorized King James Version and the underlying manuscripts of the AV, the traditional text.

You just learned something, scholars. Those of you who think you are believers but can't see your wet vanity and worldly pride and rebellious self-will in everything you do and say. Inane scholars acting from an intense *fear and reverence of man* who wouldn't know what it means to fear God alone if God Himself taught you what that means (which God does do).

Enough. The King will return and all this crap will be blown into hell where it belongs.

No, Reformed clerics, *you* and all the rest of you clerics are the problem

[Luther] wondered, why is it that people are still spending their money on indulgences and on what Luther called the Pope’s second-hand junk? He said, the Pope is like a decoy duck, sitting on a pond with a great bag of tricks, seducing people with this nonsense. He wondered why it is that people ignore the Word of God and exchange it for Joseph’s pants…

What relevance does that have for us today? We don’t see the evangelical church of our day rushing to depositories of sacred relics. Nobody’s looking for Joseph’s pants. Rather we have invested our time, our energy, and our money in more contemporary ways to improve the gospel. We look to programs, to Madison Avenue methodologies, to entertainment, to pop psychology, even to the establishment of Starbucks in the church to improve the gospel. Why do we do this? I think people in the church today are looking for exactly what they were looking for in sixteenth-century Germany. They went to Trier, they went to Aachen, they went to these relics because they believed that the relics had power. Every pastor wants to have a powerful ministry. And so we look to the latest program, to the latest method to give us a powerful ministry, forgetting where the Lord God omnipotent has put the power in the first place.” Always Reformed, p. 190, a festschrift for Dr. W. Robert Godfrey

Look how the clerics smell their own shit and project it outward to what they inanely call the 'lay' people. The clerics created the modern day churches. The clerics create and police these modern day synagogues of satan. Christians are being called by the living Word of God into God's Kingdom despite these clerics and their asinine 'churches.' Whether they are mega church evangelical or mainline perverse or Reformed-seminary-educated shallow, they are the ones creating these asinine churches and policing and maintaining what goes on inside them.

A sense of guilt

1. A sense of guilt is part of religion. I think the hardest to see or feel. Ironically the main thing the world does to you once you are quickened and regenerated is to drive home to you your guilt in their presence. The projecting is strong towards the quickened and born again.

2. So, what I mean by this is it is obviously difficult to see and feel our guilt. Our foundational guilt as fallen beings in rebellion to our Creator. Original sin and active sin; the pollution and guilt of it. We block it out. The world blocks it out. When we were part of the world we engaged in the same collective thing: we blocked it out. Yet we can see that guilt clearly once we are regenerated and separated out from the world and the world turns on us, and the first thing it does is to accuse, accuse, and accuse some more and *act towards us from a foundational notion that we are guilty in their sight.* Now, the guilt in question is never articulated. It's just guilt. A real sense of guilt. In this they are *projecting*, and giving themselves away without realizing it. This is the very guilt they, as still unregenerate beings in and of the world, so thoroughly block out; and is the very guilt that *we* blocked out when we were one of them. So we now can actually see this real, existing monster that is real guilt in this *indirect way.* There it is. It exists. It's real.

3. This is something only a spiritual warrior, actively on the battlefield that is the straight and narrow Way which leadeth unto life, can see.

Ten things you didn't know about Christopher Hitchens

[This post was in bad taste, my conscience tells me. #6 is relevant. Perhaps some others. Still, I should have added some Scripture. Like Romans 13:11: "Now it is high time to awake out of sleep..." That is not head-on-pillow sleep, Mr. Hitchens.]


1. He's never really thought through the "anything metaphysical doesn't exist" atheist boilerplate thing.

2. He vaguely resembles Deborah Kerr at a certain point of her life, and one suspects he knows it. And likes it.

3. He's self-admittedly attracted to the fictional character Dorothea Brooke because she is impossibly angelic, and he knows angels are not possible.

4. He's unaware that when he allows his apartment to be photographed showing he stacks his books in piles it gives evidence that he doesn't read them. People who arrange their books like that don't read them, they just look at them. It's too inconvenient to pull one out of the middle of a stack on the spur of the moment. It also messes up the stack.

5. He has to fight, and then be reconciled to the feeling that he's wearing the same dress as everyone else in the room when he entertains Dennett, Dawkins, and Harris. He wonders if the other three are self-aware enough to have to fight and be silently reconciled to the same thing.

6. He unknowingly hates Christianity because at the serious biblical level it precludes being a self-righteous moralist.

7. He thinks resentment is a noble emotion. He's picked this up from movies.

8. He can't even remember any books that he's written.

9. He worries that the main thing he's absorbed from 20th century socialism is the self-promoting propaganda stuff; and then he doesn't worry about it anymore.

10. He suspects the amount of time he has with any audience before they realize he's really a bit of a silly, not-very-bright little man grows shorter and shorter by the hour...