God’s Existence, Attributes, Authority & The Ontology of Numbers

GOD is a triune personal spirit who, as to essence, is infinite, eternal, & unchangeable, & whose attributes are being (GOD is autotheos; God is a se), wisdom, power, justice, holiness, goodness, & truth.

• Numbers exist independently of the human mind. 
• Every integer is unique (aseity) 
• Each number exists both independently & perichoretically
• No two integers (numbers) express the exact same numerical value at the same time in the same way. 
• Every number is infinitely compossible by an infinite set of previous integer (by addition) & via substraction of all subsequent numbers one from the other before it (ie 5 - 2 ‎ = 3 & 1 + 2 also = 3)
• The intervening set of integers between 1, 2, 3 are required in order for those 3 numbers to exist.  
• This intervening set of integers between 1, 2, & 3 make these 3 integers inescapably perichoretic.  Each & every number “contains” the integers preceding it, so the properties of any two neighboring integers overlap. 
• Numbers & math constitute an infinite, immutable system. 
• Numerical units, equations, formulae, etc. can be arranged in orderly fashion & expressed in words.   They can communicate via deployment as ciphers for whole ideas, like musical notes.   They also require a mind in which to inhere. Consequently, they exemplify the personal nature of God. 

As to Attributes: 

• We use numbers to count, manage, & make wise (or stupid) decisions. 
• We look at numbers as authoritative & binding to the conscience.   2 + 2 always = 4.    This is an authoritative truth that reminds us of God’s power & authority. 
• As to justice, we use numbers as a means to balance weights & measures & calculate value in cases of injury, assault, theft, wrongful death, resource allocation, & much more. 

• As to holiness, numbers are pure & absolute.

• As to goodness, we use them to measure reward as well as reparation, which serves us in the process of reconciliation. 
• As to truth , the value of a number follows the law of intentity. 

Thank you, may God bless us all each & everyone.  Go & sin no more. 

My Kingdom Is Not Of This World

This is what happens when the Bible is used as prooftext material & not exposited.   Let Luke 17 speak & let John 18 speak separately & then harmonize them. 

Luke 17: The Pharisees ask about when the kingdom of God would come.  This bundles together 2 propositions:  The belief of some like the Zealots perhaps that God would end Rome’s oppression via worldly means like He had done 150 years earlier, & the Resurrection itself, a Pharisaic belief that all things would be made new at the end of the age.

Yeshua gives a 2fold answer that strikes a via media between these 2 propositions.  

On the one hand, a time is coming when the nation & the world will long for the Son of Man to appear.  They will look here & there & point to any number of possible deliverers.  Do not run off after them.  

On the other hand, For the Son of Man in his day[d] will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

This statement teaches that in order for all things to be made eschatologically new, Yeshua (the Son of Man) must accomplish redemption for its application.  The spiritual is necessary to underwrite the physical in every covenant administration including those preceding the Johannine Covenant & all subsequent administrations for all eternity. 

In John 18, Yeshua is answering a specific charge.  He doesn’t deny being King of the Jews, nor does He deny being the LORD’s answer to Caesar.   His statement that His kingdom is not of this world is a statement that His kingdom is not a worldly kingdom, ie it doesn’t operate via worldly principles like Zealots installing Yeshua or anyone else as their ruler in an effort to expel Rome, nor does it operate like the Roman occupation.  Rather it grows up beside the occupation & is designed to overthrow it gradually from the inside out.   

To do that, certain things had to happen. In Acts, the Greco-Roman, Parthian, & Egyptian (& other) pantheons had to be conquered & the land exorcised & “occupied.”   Over time, the history of the world took on the shape of Mono vs Poly theism.  The kingdom is more visible now than then. 

Dialogue With Skeptic (Part 5) Slavery

Objection:  Jesus never condemned slavery!  Why does God need slavery? 

Reply: God needing slavery & allowing it because He refuses to infantize us aren’t convertible propositions.  

What does the Sermon On the Mount teach?   Via the 3 Uses (Individual, Ecclesiastical, Governmental)… 

It teaches we are not to murder, & we are not even “Raca” them with denigrating language like we find in the Antebellum South all the way to the present day.  (Matt. 5:21 - 22)

It teaches that we are to replicate & restore to communities we have historically failed.  If the jackbooted Roman soldier (the person you regard as property or long ago would have) demands or otherwise requests that you release him from bondage, we are to release him from bondage (replicate) & make reparations to them (restore). (Matt. 5:41 - 48)

It teaches we are to make provision for food, clean water, & clothing (shelter). the necessities of life, individually & communally without oppressing those for whom we make provision, especially the least of these.  (Matt. 6:25 - 34).  

Slavery robs people of dignity, economy, & liberty.  Which principles in the Sermon On the Mount do you think rob people of those things? 

Deconstructing Faith & Practice (Government Edition)

We ought to pay close attention to what’s happening in Washington DC.   The Spirit of Antichrist at work in the churches is now at work in Government.  That is to say there are startling parallels between what individuals caught up in the destruction of their faith do & Elon Musk’s “algorithm.”

From the Christian Post: 

1. Question every requirement

“Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department ... Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me [Elon]. Then make the requirements less dumb.”

Adults who deconstruct question authority.  There’s a right way & a wrong way to do that.  You can do so using the Bible correctly exegeted, exposited, understood, & applied, or you can reject the Scriptures & run with your own intuition.    

Musk is a professed nullifidian who is notorious for his anarchic / quasi-chaotic approach to doing business.  He treats people like objects & acts as if his latest venture is another expensive toy with which to play & after which he finds himself doing whatever he can to repair the damage. That’s what you get when you introduce moral & philosophical arbitrariness into a meticulously ordered system. 

If we ought to view the Gospels as less than fully authoritative because they are anonymous, why should a federal employee read & reply to an anonymous email as if his or her life depended on it?  That scenario is playing out in DC right now.  

2. Delete any part or process you can

“You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.

…Like nuclear engineers, air traffic controllers & health inspectors?  Elon Musk, thy name is “Marcion.”

3. Simplify and optimize

“This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or process that should not exist.” 

If everything & everyone is up for grabs, how do we know what should & should not exist particularly with a VP who thinks the courts lack the legal authority to check the President’s agenda.

4. Accelerate cycle time

“Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted.”

Notice how he admits to having to fix his brand new toy?   What happens to churches that go this route?  They reject reformation in favor of reconstruction, & that’s how you wind up with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, & other Christian heresies.   They reject reformation & continuity in favor of reconstruction & discontinuity. 

5. Automate

“That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont [Tesla factories] was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs shaken out.” 

When Christianity flirts with radical Post-Modern deconstructionism, this stage is your new paradigm, and it’s heretical or even atheological. 

O LORD, Hear our prayer…

Iilicit Totality Transfer & Romans 1:26 - 27

 Objection:  Genesis 1:27 : 

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

God created Adam male & Eve female.  This is the created ontology of all people, insofar as Adam & Eve represent us all.  Since God created them male & female, this text serves as a prooftext for heteronormativity. 

The disputant then imports this into the text of Romans 1:26 - 27 on the premise that what Genesis 1:27 says about the created anatomical/physiological &/or psychological state of Adam & Eve, the natural (meaning physical &/or psychological) state is what Romans 1:26 - 27 is referencing.  

The same disputant reads my own statement about the meaning of “natural” & “unnatural” as a reference to the **moral** not the **physiological/anatomical/psychological order & accuses me of committing an illicit totality transfer. 

By way of reply:  

I haven’t claimed that the term “natural” means the same thing in each & every text regardless of its context.    I fear he doesn’t understand the fallacy. 

The Illicit Totality Transfer is defined as taking the meaning — the sense or concept — from one part of Scripture and lifting that idea and wrongly applying it to another Scripture that may deploy the same words or is about the same concept or a very similar concept, when  in truth the 2 texts deploy totally different usage.

Think of it as Conceptual Incest in which a disputant maps one author’s usage onto another author’s usage & proceeds to argue accordingly.  It’s analogous to reading James use of the term “justify” in James 2 then mapping James’ usage back onto Paul’s usage.  The proper procedure is to exegete/exposit them separately then harmonize them not use one to interpret the other as if “justify” & the concept of justification in Romans & the manner in which James uses “justify” in James are one & the same.   That process is what Rome does when explaining James & Romans & winds up with justification by faith & works — th antithesis of Paul’s (& James’) understanding of forensic justification. 

The disputant describing your own interpretation in which you are using “natural” as a cipher for “heterosexual” from Genesis 1:27 then insisting that because Romans 1:26 - 27 discusses sexual behavior, the term “natural” in Genesis (as to the state of the created order) is what “natural” means here.   Genesis is referring to human bodily ontology (sex/gender).  Romans is referring to the **moral** order, the result of using the human image as a moral warrant.  

The Sufficiency Of Scripture & The Rules Of Sound Reasoning (Part 5)

Does the Bible teach us the principles of sound reasoning?   Yes, it most certainly does. 

Here are some examples…

5 - Category Mistake/Error - A category mistake involves the conflation of the properties of two separate domains.  When defenders of the tradition-bound view depart from Romans 1:18 - 32 in order to import Genesis into the text, they inevitably conflate God’s decretal will (a descriptive domain) & God’s moral will (a prescriptive domain). 

By way of reply to that maneuver…

 

First, Paul is writing an inerrant & infallible commentary on Leviticus 18.  Leviticus 18 & Romans 1:18 - 32.   They even follow the same outline both generally & particularly.  Why would you run to Genesis to interpret Romans if Romans is commenting on Leviticus? 

It isn’t enough to read “sakab” in Leviticus as “to lie down & have sex,” at issue is the thought & purpose of the behavior in 18:22.  Words can be overspecified, & since Romans 1:26 - 27 explain Leviticus 18:22, and since the traditional view commits the fallacy of overspecification & results in a number of other logical, epistemic, & therefore exegetical/expositional fallacies the text of Leviticus 18:22 cannot refer to all homosexual thoughts, words, & deeds indiscriminately.  It can (and does) refer to culturally derived & purposed thoughts, words, & deeds.

Hemmed in by the text, what is the disputant to do?  How about running to Genesis 1 & 2 & Matthew 19?

That won’t do, insofar as in Matthew 19, Yeshua is answering a question about divorce, not heteronormativity.   In addition, according to the text, Yeshua doesn’t stop with the citation of Genesis.  Rather, having appealed to God’s decretal order, He then appeals to God’s moral order by way of alluding to texts like Deuteronomy 28, Jeremiah 3,  & Malachi 2.  In so doing, the text demonstrates sound reasoning processes for us.   Yeshua refrains from drawing an abstract moral principle solely from the state of God’s created order (God’s decretal will that determines what “Is”) by coupling it with God’s moral will (which prescribes what we should do, ie that which “Ought (to be)).  

Matthew 19 therefore teaches us not to conflate the properties of two separate (yet intersecting) domains.    The definition of a Category Mistake (Error when we factor in Hebrews 5 & moral problems that lead us to commit the mistake) is thusly vindicated. 

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3). 

The Sufficiency of Scripture & The Principles Of Sound Reasoning (Part 4)

Does the Bible teach us the principles of sound reasoning?   Yes, it most certainly does. 

Here are some examples…

4 - Special Pleading - At its heart, Special Pleading is just plain hypocrisy.   If a disputant doesn’t play by his/her/their own rules, then that’s hypocrisy.

If a gay man appeals to his biology then Greg Koukl says (correctly), “Is-Ought fallacy!” When Greg Koukl does the same thing in the same article, it’s baptized.

The Sanhedrin’s attitude toward giving serves as a stellar example. 

 

21 Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, 2 and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. 3 And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. 4 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

The Sanhedrin’s members were notorious for trumpeting their gifts in public.   Yeshua sees this widow & laments that she has been taught to give up even her day’s meal.  Meanwhile the Sanhedrin was doing this:  

15 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” 6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

8  “ ‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

9  in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

What happens when we moralize to homosexuals about their Is-Oughting to their sexual ethics while we do so to our own?   We wind up agreeing with God that His image & authority is a sufficient warrant for our worship ethics then run to our own image & authority to underwrite our sexual ethics.   We accuse the homosexual of doing the very thing we are doing. 

We answer the world with the world just like the Pharisees & Sadducees who understood the Romans to be a bigoted occupying force yet put their hypocrisy on display when the Pharisees answered Yeshua’s lawsuit with a bigoted question about Roman taxation.   We also sound like the Sadducees who taught that we ought to love our neighbors (Lev. 19) while asking a question about the Resurrection & marriage that demonstrated their misogyny (Matt. 22)

The definition of Special Pleading is vindicated by Scripture correctly understood.  God plays by His own rules. 

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3). 

The Sufficiency of Scripture & The Principles Of Sound Reasoning (Part 3)

Does the Bible teach us the principles of sound reasoning?   Yes, it most certainly does. 

Here are some examples…

3 - Overspecification 

The disputant will place a more specific construction on a verse of Scripture than the Scripture will bear. For example, a Roman Catholic will treat any favorable reference to the NT church as a direct reference to the Roman Catholic Church.

A Protestant can be guilty of this too, as when he treats any reference to the Antichrist as a direct prophecy of the papacy.

Contextually, the range of meaning for “natural” is abstract & moral not physical & ontological. It cannot bear the meaning the tradition-bound view employs.  Moreover, the tradition-bound view ultimately agrees with the thinking processes of the pagans described in 1:22 - 23 not God’s testimony in 1:20.  

How so?  The pagans in Romans 1:22 - 24 suppressed God’s existence, attributes, & authority in favor of their own existence, attributes; & authority - which is the very definition of the Is - Ought Fallacy.  

In this test case from Romans 1, the use of Natural Theology that finds its epistemic basis in the human image (human anatomy & physiology) results in a fundamental misreading of the text, insofar a God presents Himself as the only  generally & particularly authoritative epistemic foundation from which we are to  reason with respect to faith & practice.  

The interpretation of the word “natural” to mean “heteronormative / heterosexual” serves as a classic case of freighting a word with more than it can bear, resulting in the collapse of the tradition bound view as a whole — because if “natural” doesn’t mean “heteronormative / heterosexual,” then “unnatural” does not refer to homosexuality in general.   In context, it refers to same-sex sexual thoughts, words, & deeds that occur in the worship & service of pseudodeities instead of God Himself.   

The end result is works righteousness, because if what makes homosexual thoughts, words, & deeds sinful is deviation from a teleological norm grounded in human anatomy & physiology, then God commends & condemns based on characteristics like sex & gender - not what’s going on with respect to our internal volitional mechanism (Vox Kardia & Vox Kephale).  

Doing this also tends to ignore the fact that worship & sexual ethics are bound together.   The Judeo-Christian tradition teaches that God has no body, no sex/gender, & no sexuality, & centuries of Ecclesiastical Tradition that includes theologians of great stature like Thomas Aquinas (How could he be so wrong?!) have encouraged us to divorce worship & sexual ethics when examining this text.  Looking to our moral problems (Hebrews 5) we have felt free as a people to moralize to homosexuals & fail them a community while the entire time most of us have been reverse engineering our sexual ethics from the human image & overlooking what happens if you reverse engineer Theology Proper & worship ethics from the human image.  

By examining & understanding the results of importing human anatomy & physiology into the text, thus turning the text into a statement about what is allegedly anatomically & physiologically &/or psychologically natural instead of what is exclusively morally natural, we see the definition of Overspecification vindicated. 

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.  (2 Timothy 3)

The Sufficiency Of Scripture & The Principles of Sound Reasoning (Part 2).

Does the Bible teach us the principles of sound reasoning?   Yes, it most certainly does. 

Here are some examples…

 2 - Vicious Circularity  - Human anatomy & physiology are raised to the status due a non-arbitrary epistemic warrant.  A non-arbitrary epistemic warrant must be necessary, reasoned, & principled. 

In truth, the body is unnecessary to deduce sexual ethics. By way of contrast, God’s nature is definitionally necessary, insofar as God is a necessary being, &, since God is infinite, eternal, & unchangeable in being, wisdom, authority & power, goodness, justice, holiness,& truth, sexual ethics inhere in the mind of God.   There are no other necessary minds in which ethical principles inhere. 

The Bible teaches that the role of the Created Order is to testify to God’s existence, attributes, & authority (Romans 1:20).  When we use the word “natural,” in Romans 1:27 - 28 to refer to human anatomy & physiology (which is, according to Mr. Rodriguez, Michael Brown, & others, obviously heterosexual), then we are using the word “natural” in naturalistic fashion, thereby suppressing God’s existence, attributes, & authority in favor of using our image, our attributes, & our authority as the epistemic basis for sexual ethics. 

The Scriptures appeal to God’s existence, attributes, & authority in Romans 1.  Robert Gagnon, Greg Koukl, James White, Jared Moore, & others inevitably appeal to the human body, saying that God directs us there in Romans 1. If true, then there wasn’t anything wrong with the thought processes of the pagans described in Romans 1 when it came to their overall sexual ethics as long as their ethics conduced to heteronormativity.  They got the idolatry & witchcraft wrong, but they otherwise reasoned properly.  

That can’t be true.  Why? Because Romans 1:20 clearly states that the natural teleology of the Created Order is to testify to God’s existence, attributes, & authority, & only God’s existence, attributes, & authority provide the required truth conditions to do sexual ethics.  Human & animalian characteristics do not rise to that level. Thus, the tradition-bound perspective is viciously circular; the correct perspective must be virtuously circular.

Viciously circular reasoning rests on a philosophically arbitrary foundation insofar as the foundation used as a warrant might be reasoned & principled, but they are not necessary insofar as the human image is not required for the principles of reasoning & ethical principles to exist.  

The Roman Catholic rule of faith is also philosophically arbitrary & viciously circular.  How so? 

There was a time when human minds, and thus the Church, did not exist, but God had always existed, and God is the eternal, infinite, & immutable living exemplar of His attributes, which include the principles of sound reasoning & righteous morality.  

Romans 1:18 - 32 thus points us to the definition of non-arbitrary virtuous circularity.   God’s existence, attributes, & authority are both necessary & sufficient as the epistemic basis for faith & practice.  An appeal to God Himself & His self-revelation is therefore an appeal to an epistemic foundation that had the metaphysical machinery to supply the necessary global truth conditions to understand & interpret reality.  

By way of contrast an epistemic foundation like the Quran & its theology of the oneness of God & denial of God’s trinitarian nature fails to account for the problem of the one & many.   Consequently, it does not supply the necessary truth conditions to interpret reality correctly.  

In addition, its treatment of the homosexual question centers on Sodom & Gomorrah & doesn’t contain information analogous to Romans 1:18 - 32, thus leaving us free to reason from the human image & attributes to our sexual ethics, which is arbitrary & viciously circular.   It also trends toward works righteousness & Situational Ethics through its draconian regulations that make the bare act of having sex with someone of the same sex a sin regardless of motive, which the Bible correctly understood condemns.   

The Bible correctly understood verifies the definitions & applicatioba of vicious & virtuous circularity.    

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3)