Good indexed overview interview of Michael Heiser on his book Unseen Realm
This interview is helpful to get an overview of Michael Heiser's Unseen Realm. Click 'show more' under the video to see a very helpful contents list by time mark.
3.30.2016
About Me
- Name: c.t.
Five solas, doctrines of grace, covenant of redemption (Covenant Theology is not the servant of infant baptism), Traditional Text, King James Version only; doing the two great commandments of Christ at the practical level (i.e. actually doing them); and recovering by degree the full image of God. This is the foundation I stand on and build upon.
Index:
ESSENTIAL I ~ II ~ III ~ IV ~ V ~ VI ~ VII ~ VIII ~ IX ~ X ~ XI ~ XII ~ XIII ~ XIV ~ XV ~ XVI ~ XVII ~ XVIII ~ XIX ~ XX ~ XXI ~ XXII ~ XXIII ~ XXIV ~ XXV ~ XXVI ~ XXVII ~ XXVIII ~ XXIX ~ XXX ~ XXXI ~ XXXII ~ XXXIII ~ XXXIV ~ XXXV ~ XXXVI ~ XXXVII ~ XXXVIII ~ XXXIX ~ XL ~ XLI ~ XLII ~ XLIII ~ XLIV ~ XLV ~ XLVI ~ XLVII ~ XLVIII ~ XLIX ~ L ~ LI ~ LII ~ LIII ~ LIV ~ LV ~ LVI ~ LVII ~ LVIII ~ LIX ~ LX ~ LXI ~ LXII ~ LXIII ~ LXIV ~ LXV ~ LXVI ~ LXVII ~ LXVIII ~ LXIX ~ LXX ~ LXXI ~ LXXII
STICK DRAWINGS & DIAGRAMS 1 (Note on 1) ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4 ~ 5
--Fuse the Word of God into Memory, Will, and Understanding Prayer and Fasting -- (of --) Acute Warring of the Holy Spirit with the carnal spirit -- (storms struggled through; extending limits to glorify God by doing it when it's most difficult) |
SOME BOOKS READ COMPLETE
SINCE STARTING THIS BLOG:
(Short Essay On My Reading History)
The practical, experimental level of the faith (the Puritans called it experimental Calvinism) is for those ready to leave off laying the foundation over and over and begin building the house (see Calvin's commentary on Hebrews 6:1).
Psalms 27:11 Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path...
"God examineth with trials, the devil examineth with temptations, the world examineth with persecutions."
- Henry Smith
"The word of God . . . is the light to our paths, the key of the kingdom of heaven, our comfort in affliction, our shield and sword against Satan, the school of all wisdom, the glass wherein we behold God's face, the testimony of his favour, and the only food and nourishment of our souls."
- Geneva translators, 10 April 1560
"When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth - when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us - when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the thing abides in our hearts - when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for - then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men."
- John Owen
"Where the Puritans excelled was at bringing this high view of God
down to the level of ordinary life. One Puritan woman - the wife of a
soldier in Cromwell's army - defined Christianity as
'that universal habit of grace which is wrought in a soul by the
regenerating Spirit of God, whereby the whole creature is designed up
into the Divine will and love, and all its actions designed to the
obedience and glory of its Maker.'
By defining the Christian faith in this way, she was making a
connection between the doctrines of grace and daily experience."
- the Doctrines of Grace,
Boice/Ryken
"Previously, men had looked to the Church for all the trustworthy knowledge of God obtainable, and as well for all the communications of grace accessible. Calvin taught them that neither function has been committed to the Church, but God the Holy Spirit has retained both in His own hands and confers both knowledge of God and communion with God on whom He will."
- B. B. Warfield (from his essay Calvin as a Theologian)
A plain path puritan. That means the faith that is pure, bold, and practical. Five solas. Doctrines of Grace. Covenant of Redemption. Experimental Calvinism. No clericalism, ritualism, formalism, or moralism. The devil's nightmare.
CHOOSE YOUR BOOKS, CONQUER THEM, POSSESS THEM IN ESSENCE:
Holy Bible, AV1611
Iliad & Odyssey - Homer
On War - von Clausewitz
Wealth of Nations - Smith
Fourth Way - Ouspensky
Lives - Plutarch
History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
"The fearful are in the forlorn of those that march for hell; the violent and valiant are they which take heaven by force: cowards never won heaven. Say not that thou hast royal blood running in thy veins, and art begotten of God, except thou canst prove thy pedigree by this heroic spirit, to dare to be holy despite men and devils."
- William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour
"As among all the doctrines of the gospel, there is none opposed with more violence and subtlety than that concerning our regeneration by the immediate, powerful, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit of grace; so there is not scarce anything more despised or scorned by many in the world than that any should profess that there hath been such a work of God upon themselves, or on any occasion declare aught of the way and manner whereby it was wrought... yea, the enmity of Cain against Abel was but a branch of this proud and perverse inclination."
- John Owen, A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit
The antithesis of vanity is: faith. The antithesis of worldly pride is: repentance. The antithesis of self-will is: descent-of-the-dove God's will.
4 Comments:
I now have The Unseen Realm and am about 40 pages in, but already Heiser's liberal presuppositions are troubling me. I am not sure that I can articulate what I'm thinking exactly, but the main problem seems to be that while Heiser recognises that the Bible describes supernatural forces, he can't quite bring himself to accept that the supernatural played a part in the actual writing of the book. So, for example, on page 39 he fails to see the Trinity in Genesis 1:26-28 because reading the New Testament back into the Old Testament "isn't a sound interpretive method for discovering what the Old Testament writer was thinking". He doesn't seem to grasp that scripture contains seeds and shadows that only reveal themselves clearly with the passing of time, that there are areas where the Biblical writers had more knowledge than we, but that there are also areas where we have more knowledge than them (because Christ has come). I find Heiser's ideas compelling, but I worry that ultimately his analysis won't stand up to scrutiny. I will shut up now and get back to his book lol.
PS I appreciate your recent posts on this subject. Fascinating.
Gary
Having just watched this interview, I am also troubled by Heiser's sniffy attitude to the KJV. Was this much of a problem for you? It certainly makes his much-touted "Deuteronomy 32 worldview" less clear. Do you think that matters?
I read that passage, Deut. 32, in the KJV and immediately could see he was reading the passage wrong. In context I agree with commentators like Gill. It's a good point whether that nukes his main thesis. I think for myself that whole Divine Council thing is what I read most loosely in all he says. You can read it loosely and still see how territorial fallen angels (seen as gods) control peoples and geographies, all ultimately a front for Satan himself.
I guess I should state more that I consider this book wheat and chaff, with maybe more chaff than a Reformed type Christian is used to bothering with, but having said that when the overall subject is the supernatural and spiritual warfare it is worthwhile to go outside the orthodox bounds because the spiritual warfare material kind of can be legitimate even when couched in heterdox doctrine otherwise.
One thing Heiser picks up on and is something I got from Meredith Kline is the deep and overriding symbolism contained in the mountain imagery of the Bible. Isa. 2:2,3. The way mountains also represent scale, as they are ascended. But Sinai representing law; Zion representing grace; and Mt Hermon generally representing idol worship in general and all that it involves including the forces of darkness. Three representative mountains.
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