He Taught Them As One Who Had Authority

Before Steve Hays (of Triablogue) crossed over & moved Upstairs, I heard used to drop by Triablogue just to take a look around & see what was happening, & at times, as I skimmed his material, I was struck (& continue to be) by how very alike he & I are/were when dealing with our foils. 

Both of us are / were given to dissecting our opponents’ words as means of deconstructing & analyzing our opponents’ argumentation as part of our response(s).  We are/were targets of our opponents’ psychoanalytical techniques, probably because we both speak/spoke with rock solid certainty when comes to particular topics, particularly the Doctrines of Grace; the existence & attributes of God; & the rules of sound reasoning & biblical hermeneutics.  

Neither one of us appreciate(d) our opponents psychological analysis when it veered into the realm of psychobabble - particularly when it emanate(s/d) from individuals (particularly nullifidians &/or others) whose worldview(s) logically do/did not (or otherwise cannot/could not) contain the metaphysical machinery to support the same sort of certainty our own worldview does.  We are/were also prone to sounding a bit like Martin Luther, insofar as we are/were not above occasionally insulting our opponents as a means to strip off the veneer to expose the organ grinder just the monkey.

Personally, I find psychobabble a hopelessly jejune exercise, especially when deployed in lieu of reasoned argument.  In my experience psychobabble is, more often than not, a frank admission that an opponent has no substantive response & is now, for reasons sufficient to themselves, resorting to assholery for its own sake -  particularly if it’s obvious that they’ve been soundly defeated. 

Some opponents, when they run into a biblically sound, immovable fixed object in addition to self exposure, will treat the argument like the Sword in the Stone,   They just can’t seem to stop pressing the issue - their egos just plain won’t let them do otherwise.  

Other opponents think far too highly of themselves & their abilities.  Village Atheists are sometimes prone to this.  They are completely tone deaf to their self-reinforcing ignorance, so all you have to do is sit back and watch them unravel.  A few years ago, I took the Numbers Argument out for a spin in the hallowed halls of John R. Loftus’ domain (Deconstructing Christianity).  A handful of his sycophants replied, at first declaring that they believed no such thing about the atheological conception of numbers. Within less than a week, every one of them admitted otherwise as they tried to refute the argument. 

When the radical skeptic psychobabbler & the contender for Excalibur merge & reach their final form as the Lunatic Fringe, it’s both funny & ironic to watch as they commit medical malpractice.   Maybe one of these days one or more of my rhetorical sparring partners will realize that I have a health locus of control of a 10 +, so it’s impossible to successfully infantilize me. 

About 30 years ago, when I was a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, NC, I heard C. Mark Corts speak these words from his pulpit: You young people, don’t ever be afraid of someone with a Ph. D.  Someone with a Ph.D is really someone who has written a highly specialized dissertation & defended it, & that dissertation is (supposed to) make a unique or nearly unique (& accurate) contribution to a greater body of knowledge. 

In other words, just because an opponent has a Ph.D & you don’t, that doesn’t make them more intelligent than you, an expert in their own or any other field of endeavor,  I’ll also add that when the Bible is on your side because you really are correct with respect to your understanding of it - especially when your opponent is wrong & they think they are your overlord - never forget that you are operating with, from, & upon a non-arbitrary epistemic warrant.

Matthew 7:28–29 (ESV): And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. 

Case in point - Awhile back I became privy to a conversation between secular psychologists & psychiatrists, in which they had been asked to deliver their theory of everything in answer to the question “What are dreams?”  They replied by pointing to any number of theories within the bounds of their professional orthodoxy. They also expounded upon their answers & made it obvious that they were offering naturalistic answers & excluding others.  Some of them spoke as if neuroscience (properly done neuroscience) has determined that the mind & brain are functionally identical.  

A number of us Supernaturalists reminded them that if the mind & brain are identical & if memories —which are ideas - for example words & numbers - which have no substance, nor any essence, nor anything else that is not wholly  abstract with respect to their ontology - then they would necessarily be physical objects like data points on a hard drive.  If true, then physicalism is true, & if physicalism obtains there can be no abstractions.

We were treated to a range of responses that ran across a continuum that ranged from blank stares to scoffs in disbelief, & a number of condescending replies that since we ourselves aren’t neuroscientists it’s understandable that we aren’t as enlightened as they are, so it’s best to let them handle the science & metascience. 

When asked what our theory of everything about dreams is, we replied that OBEs would make better sense of the available data.   I myself replied that I have, from time to time, laid my head down to repose only to find myself elsewhere, even feeling my soul leave my body.   I have had dreams in which I have felt the ground underneath my feet, met people, both living & deceased, who I know on Earth & others from the Church Triumphant, & my dreams at times look as if I have stepped from my house in Kansas into the Land of Oz itself.  Another friend of mine replied that he too had had prophetic dreams that, like mine, when put together, form a coherent narrative that helped him minister in the  local church in which he was, at one time, an elder. 

Paul testified in the New Testament that he knew a man caught up, from the way the text reads, into the heavens above.  Either he was dreaming or he underwent some sort of pneumatic exchange.   

Our Free Thinker friends, believers in scientism they were at the time, just rolled their eyes - until we decided to critique their underlying presuppositions. It just goes to show you that some people are just like the 2nd Doctor’s foils, the Logicians in Tomb of the Cybermen, need to keep their eyes upon & their mouths shut lest their logic makes them wrong with a veneer of authority. 

Thank you all for reading today’s entry.  God bless us all, every last one, & “Go & sin no more.”