march-april 2016 issue of faith for all of life

8/18/2019 March-April 2016 Issue of Faith for All of Life

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Publisher & Chalcedon PresidentRev. Mark R. Rushdoony

Chalcedon Vice-PresidentMartin Selbrede

Editor

Martin SelbredeManaging Editor

Susan Burns

Contributing EditorLee Duigon

Chalcedon FounderRev. R. J. Rushdoony

(1916-2001)was the founder of Chalcedon

and a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of

numerous works on the applica-tion of Biblical Law to society.

Receiving Faith for All of Life: Thismagazine will be sent to those whorequest it. At least once a year we askthat you return a response card if youwish to remain on the mailing list.Subscriptions are $20 per year ($35for Canada; $45 for International).Checks should be made out toChalcedon and mailed to P.O. Box 158,Vallecito, CA 95251 USA.

Chalcedon may want to contact itsreaders quickly by means of e-mail.If you have an e-mail address, pleasesend an e-mail message includingyour full postal address to our office:[email protected].

For circulation and datamanagement contact RebeccaRouse at (209) 736-4365 ext. 10or [email protected]

Faith for All of LifeMarch/April 2016

Faith for All of Life, published bi-monthly by Chalcedon, a tax-exempt Christian foundation, is sent to all whorequest it. All editorial correspondence should be sent to the managing editor, P.O. Box 569, Cedar Bluff, VA24609-0569. Laser-print hard copy and electronic disk submissions firmly encouraged. All submissions subject toeditorial revision. Email: [email protected]. The editors are not responsible for the return of unsolicited manu-scripts which become the property of Chalcedon unless other arrangements are made. Opinions expressed in thismagazine do not necessarily reflect the views of Chalcedon. It provides a forum for views in accord with a relevant,active, historic Christianity, though those views may on occasion differ somewhat from Chalcedon’s and from eachother. Chalcedon depends on the contributions of its readers, and all gifts to Chalcedon are tax-deductible. ©2016Chalcedon. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint granted on written request only. Editorial Board: Rev. MarkR. Rushdoony, President/Editor-in-Chief; Martin Selbrede, Editor; Susan Burns, Managing Editor and ExecutiveAssistant. Chalcedon, P.O. Box 158, Vallecito, CA 95251, Telephone Circulation (9:00a.m. - 5:00p.m., Pacific): (209)736-4365 or Fax (209) 736-0536; email: [email protected]; www.chalcedon.edu; Circulation: Rebecca Rouse.

Editorials

2 From the President Rousas John Rushdoony: A Brief History, Part II “You Are Going to Be a

20 From the Founder Sovereignty, Power, and DominionFeatures

6 Physician Rising: What It Takes to Get Up AgainAfter Being Smashed Underfoot

Martin G. Selbrede

10 Creation and the Timeless God Ian Hodge, Ph.D.16 Sharing Your Life: The Christian Way to Kingdom Service Andrea Schwartz Columns

19 Anchored: A Grandfather’s Legacy Movie Reviewed by Lee Duigon22 A Blemished Offering: Chronicles of Nephilim by Brian Godawa Reviewed by Lee Duigon

27 Product Catalog (Save 15% on orders of $50 or more)


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2 Faith for All of Life |March/April 2016 www.chalcedon.edu

There is a photo-graph of my grand-mother that I rememberstaring at when I wasvery small. It was a pic-ture of Grandma Rose

Rushdoony in a rocking chair in frontof their California farm. She is holdingmy father in her lap. I never liked the

picture when I was a child because ofsomething about it that seemed silly tome at the time, which was incongruous with the grandmother I knew.

That photograph was of Grandmaholding a large bunch of grapes in herright hand, up high so they could not bemissed in the frame, and my father onher left. She had a smile that conveyed areal sense of joy. I could understand hermotherly delight at holding her baby,but I never understood the reason whyshe held up the grapes. They seemed avery strange element to include in a por-trait, a pointless prop. It was only muchlater I came to understand that picture.

An Armenian UpbringingMy father had a very Armenian

upbringing. My grandparents arrivedin New York City in late 1915 and myfather was born there on April 25, 1916,a year and a day after the massacres

had begun. His father Y.K. Rushdoony worked at an Armenian language New York periodical1 there, when he receiveda call to pastor in California. Earlier, while still in Turkey, he had received acall to pastor an Armenian Presbyterianchurch in Fresno in the heart of Cali-fornia’s most fertile farm region, the San

Rousas John Rushdoony: A Brief History, Part II“You Are Going to Be a Writer”

By Mark R. Rushdoony

F r o m t h e P r e s i d e n t

Joaquin Valley. He had refused that rstcall because he felt the situation in Van was too problematic, and his family’s tieto the area for two and a half millenniagave him a sense that his responsibili-ties lay there. This time the call was tostart a new church plant in Kingsburg,about twenty miles south of Fresno.My grandfather accepted, but on theprovision that he could wait until hisnewborn was a little older before com-mencing the trip west. When my father was about six weeks old, they left forKingsburg, then accessible only by train.

The church was named ArmenianMartyrs Presbyterian Church,2 in honorof those who had died in “the massa-cres” as they were universally referred to.

A number of earlier Armenian immi-grants had become well-established andnot only encouraged others to come butloaned them money to buy farmland.This, and the remaining gold frommy grandmother’s dowry, enabled mygrandparents to buy a farm less than amile from town.

Other Armenians followed, someof them extended family and fellowsurvivors from Van. Armenian was theprincipal language at home, church, andat family gatherings. It was a commu-nity of faith and common experience.My grandfather made it a point to knowevery Armenian, Protestant or otherwise, wherever he went. If new arrivals

were expected, he greeted them at thetrain station. The farm became a stop-ping point for new arrivals and visitors.

My father often recounted thatthese gatherings of Armenians usuallyincluded a recurring topic of conversa-tion. People would ask if anyone hadany knowledge of family and friendslost in the massacres. Sometimes theanswers were quite graphic. He grew upknowing his elders were all survivors ofa systematic program to eliminate bothChristianity and Christians from a place where both had ourished for centuries.In his study was a picture of the Arme-nian Martyrs Presbyterian Church. Onthe back of it he had written, “My homechurch.”

My grandparents had arrived in theU.S. well before most refugees from themassacres because a British ofcer3 heardthem speaking English shortly after theyarrived to safety in Russia. He asked how

they came to speak English, but whenmy grandfather told him he had graduat-ed from the University of Edinburgh he was not believed. One of their few pos-sessions they carried with them, though, was his diploma. The ofcer said that was as good as a British citizenship asfar as he was concerned and urged the


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www.chalcedon.edu March/April 2016 |Faith for All of Life 3

Faith for All of Life Early Education

My father spoke very little Englishbefore he began school in the publicschools of Kingsburg. He recalled it asbeing very old-fashioned and very strict. At home, his mother taught him to read

and write Armenian.He very early became a voraciousreader. In those days it was believed you would damage your eyes if you readin dim light, such as that provided bykerosene lamps, so he was constantly being told to put his books away. He lateradmitted this was one area in whichhe disobeyed. At night when he wassupposed to have gone to bed, he wouldcrack his door just enough to let in asliver of light by which he could read.

He read the Bible through severaltimes in his youth. Once, his fathermentioned this proudly to a Congre-gational minister, a man my fatherrespected very much. The ministerasked my father if he really read “all” ofit. The minister expressed some concernand suggested that there were parts ayoung boy should not be reading. It wasthe rst time my father was confronted with such an attitude about the Bible,

and the incident dismayed him so muchhe never forgot it and recounted it manytimes later in life.

Detroit When my father was nine years

old, his father accepted a pastorate ata Congregational church in Detroit,Michigan. There, the urban schools were noticeably more secularized than inKingsburg. Once, a teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.

My father recalled that he was homesickfor the farm, so he replied, “I am goingto be a farmer.” The teacher laughed,and then replied emphatically: “No,you’re not. You are going to be a writer!”

Life in the city had its advantages,though, and one of his fond memoriesduring his adolescent years in Detroit

Russian ofcials to let this small grouphave passage to their desired destination.They were then allowed to travel on thelong train to Archangel, a port in the farnorth on the White Sea with access tothe Barents Sea and from there to the

Northern Atlantic. As such, this rail line was a crucial and controlled wartimesupply line. Even with the help of thatbold British ofcer, their travel was onlypossible because of the gold coins fromher dowry that my grandmother carried.No other currency was accepted.

My grandparents’ early arrival to theU.S. was in contrast to many other refu-gees. The modern nation of Armenia was the Russian part of Armenia thatlater became one of the Soviet repub-lics. Many extended family members who had walked the same route livedthrough the Russian Revolution andsubsequent famine in the early 1920s.One of my grandmother’s sisters lost allof her children save one in those years.My father recounted the family regularlyobserving fasts for those whose suffer-ings continued for years.

Father and SonTemperamentally, my father took

after my grandmother, but he was always particularly close to his father, whohe always called “Papa.” There were somany bitter memories of violence andinjustice that Grandma had no desireto ever go back to Turkey. She had beenraised in the city of Van, a daughter ofa well-to-do merchant in the Armenianold city. Her clothes were store-boughtand they lived in a large home. Americaoffered all that and more. The burden of

being perhaps the only surviving Rush-doony 4 long caused Grandpa to hopefor a just resolution to the injustices thathad taken place. Had these been ad-dressed, he would have been willing toreturn to his family’s homeland.

Grandma never wanted to talkabout the massacres, whereas my father

was well-schooled on Armenian andfamily history by Grandpa. Part of hisupbringing, my father said, was accom-panying his father to church meetingsand visits with my grandfather’s contem-poraries. In addition, my grandfather

took frequent long walks. My fatheroften accompanied him and Grandpa would often use these opportunities todiscuss things too upsetting to Grandmato be discussed at home.

My father’s upbringing was animmersion in the remote and recenthistory of the Armenian people. Thecommunity of survivors with whom hegrew up was all survivors of the Turkishmassacres that began in WWI. He wascertainly far more aware of this historythan I was at a comparable age. It wasonly much later when I associated thatpicture of Grandma with the grapes andher son with her immediate past that Irealized what it represented.

In the fall of 1915 she had ed forher life while pregnant with my father,having just lost her rst-born. She hadmade do with foul water from puddlesstrained through a handkerchief. Bodiesof the dead lined their route into Russia. At one river crossing they scrambled tosafety on the north bank as those onthe south were being killed. When theymade it to Russia, the only food thatcould be found to purchase in wartimeRussia was a small package of cookies.Because she was pregnant, they weregiven to her. Because of her morningsickness she could not keep them down.

Just two years later she lived on afarm in a small, peaceful community of

family and friends, with a healthy childand no fear of persecution. The grapes were not a silly prop; they representedthe good life of God’s providential bless-ing. They were the rstfruits of God’sprovision for the future. It wasn’t thecomposition of the picture I had to un-derstand; it was my grandmother’s life.


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Faith for All of Life was taking public transit (alone) to seethe Detroit Tiger games, all for pocketchange. Such entertainment was wel-come in a city hit hard by the Depres-sion. In 1931, after my father’s freshmanyear of high school, Grandpa was in

poor health so the family returned tothe farm in Kingsburg.

High SchoolMy father was glad to return to the

farm, though my father recalled begginghis mother for permission to changefrom knickers to overalls before the trainarrived so as not to be made fun of asa “city slicker.” He attended KingsburgHigh School.

In 1933, after my father’s junior

year, my grandfather took another pas-torate, this time at another Presbyterianchurch in San Francisco. It was decidedthat my father would stay in Kingsburgfor his senior year. The new pastor of Armenian Martyrs lived with his wifein the farmhouse with my father, who was class president that year and editorof the yearbook. My father’s most vividrecollection of that arrangement wasthe Scottish wife’s rm belief that a boycould not be healthy unless he began hisday with a very large bowl of porridge with goat’s milk.

The Kingsburg High School Viking Yearbook of 1934 was a unique one.The yearbook funds had been depositedin a local bank which failed with the worsening depression. The yearbookstaff was undeterred, and the pages wereprinted and bound locally with a roughcloth over the hardboard covers. Eachpicture was glued by hand in every copy.

On graduation he joined his parentsin San Francisco, where he got a job inthe massive Crystal Palace Market, the71,000-square-foot shopping mall ofits era. He was paid $14 for a 59-hour week, which in the Depression he laterrecounted was a “highly coveted job.”Men regularly asked to work for free just

so they could claim work experience. Vi-olence accompanied unionizing effortsand that job ended when Harry Bridges,the Marxist leader of the Longshore-men’s Union, called for a general strikethat led to several violent confrontations

with police.College Years

My father was accepted by the Uni-versity of California at Berkeley, but feltfour years there was nancially impos-sible. For his freshman year, my father went to Los Angeles and lived with aformer high school teacher while attend-ing Santa Monica Junior College beforerejoining his parents in and transferringto the newly opened San Francisco Ju-

nior College5 the following year. It wasnicknamed the “Trolley Car College”because it had no central campus at thetime and students had to travel to vari-ous city locations to attend classes.

In his junior year he transferredacross the Bay to Berkeley. It was aliberal school even then. Marxism wasopenly avowed and argued, thoughcivilly, my father noted.

Several things stood out to myfather as he later recalled his days at theuniversity. One was that his thinkingshifted permanently from Armenian toEnglish.

My father went to the university tostudy and learn, but one such effort wasso unpleasant he recalled it with disgustyears later. He was already very well-readin modern literature, but was told thatan educated man must study the ancientclassics. He began a systematic attemptto digest classical literature. “I would say

it was the ugliest experience of my life,because I was still too young and naïveto assess them and say that a lot of this was humanistic garbage.”

Modern literature he said he couldput into a context, but he thought hehad to nd great wisdom in what he wasnow reading. “It took me a while,” he

later recalled, “to say, ‘I don’t care whateverybody says. These may be classics,but they are classics of depravity, classicof degenerate cultures. What they offerat their best is evil.’ To me this came tobe epitomized in a book I had to spend

an entire semester studying, Plato’sRepublic . So I wound up with a verythorough distrust of the university, avery real hatred of it.”6

Two professors left a lasting impres-sion on him and helped crystalize ele-ments of his thinking. One was EdwinStrong, from the philosophy depart-ment. Though he did not agree withmuch Strong had to say, at one pointhe felt Strong said something profound.In a class discussion Strong warned astudent never to discuss the origin of theuniverse, but to start with the universeas a “given.” No matter how far onepushed back into the future, accountingfor the origin of matter would involvea miracle as great as the existence of acreating God. Later, Van Til gave this“given” a new term, a “presupposition.”

Also, Ernst Kantorowicz describedthe Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversyas a clash between two institutions, each

of which claimed to be the continu-ing manifestation of the incarnationof God. The church claimed this rightfor itself and its images while the stateclaimed it was the greater power andhence possessed that right. The state won that battle and has tended to havethe upper hand at many juncturesof Western history, though its divineclaims are now secularized to a purelypolitical ascendency and right. Theresult of this has been statism, of course,but its origin was a religious claim torepresent God on earth. While the argu-ment is now secularized it is no less ade facto claim to be, as Hegel said, “god walking on earth.”

Post-graduate Work It was also at the university that


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Faith for All of Life that his view was far from mainstream.Later he said he found ministers in thePresbyterian Church U.S.A. who wouldprivately sympathize or even agree withhim, but who refused to take a stand onan issue they saw as “too divisive.”

His decision was to keep quiet untilhe was ready to defend his position.Though his position was clear in some ofhis early sermons and articles, these wereon specic issues and to targeted groups.His public presentation of his theonomicposition was the 1973 publication ofThe Institutes of Biblical Law . Its publica-tion represented a heavy boot pushedinto the modern church’s door, a directchallenge to the pietism and antinomiandispensationalism that made Christianityso weak in the twentieth century. For thetime being, however, he completed hisseminary studies in the spring of 1944.By then, the world was at war.

1. Gotchnag 2. Armenian Martyrs Presbyterian Church

was a Presbyterian Church U.S.A. congrega-tion. The martyrdom was not entirely overby then, though the majority of it took placein 1915.3. The ofcer was a military advisor, ap-

parently. Czarist Russia was allied with theBritish in WWI.4. The seat of the family lay at least anotherlong day’s walk removed from the escaperoute into Russia. My grandfather was onlyaware of two distant cousins who survived.Others now have the same last name as ours(with variant spellings). My grandfatherknew of at least one family in the UnitedStates he believed took the name because ofits historic signicance, but was no actualrelation.5. Later City College of San Francisco.6. From the transcript of an oral interviewby Janet Larson conducted December 17,1979 and January 20, 1980.7. From the transcript of an oral family his-tory session.

R. J. Rushdoony reports on amind-boggling collection of absur-dities by our legislators, bureau-crats, and judges—from makingit against the law for a companyto go out of business, to assigningve full-time undercover agentsto bust a little boy who was sellingshing worms without a license.Written some thirty years ago asradio commentaries, Rushdoony’sessays seem even more timelytoday as we are witnessing a stag-gering display of state intrusioninto every area of life.

Paperback, 349 pgs, indices

Only $18 00

Is the “Land of theFree” Becomingthe Home of the

Enslaved?

my father began his lifelong library-building. He rarely ate lunch, insteadspending his lunch money at used bookstores. Additionally, before inventorytaxes, books were sometimes avail-able for years after their printing. He

recalled ordering books printed in thenineteenth century which were re-trieved from a dusty warehouse when heordered them. He continued at Berkeleyuntil he completed his B.A. in English(1938) and his M.A. in Education(1940), though he continued to takeclasses there after he entered the nearbyPacic School of Religion, a Congrega-tional and Methodist seminary.

The seminary was clearly liberal inits orientation. He had no interest in aPresbyterian seminary in San Anselmo which “was well inltrated with mod-ernism while pretending to be true tothe faith.” A Baptist seminary in Berke-ley he saw as representing “a religionof sentimental pietism. So I thoughtI might as well get my modernismstraight …”7 Moreover, about a third ofhis credits came from two other nearbyseminaries: Church Divinity School ofthe Pacic (Episcopalian) and Starr KingSchool (Unitarian).

In at least one area my father provedmore liberal than his fellow seminar-ians. When he went to take up residencein the seminary dormitory, it becameobvious that no other student wanted toshare a room with a black fellow semi-narian, so my father agreed to, and theybecame close friends. Seeing through theinconsistencies and hypocrisies of hu-manistic thought began early in his life.

At one point, the issue of Biblicallaw arose and my father said he believedthe Bible spoke to all areas of life. Helater said he “got clobbered” for such aposition. It was then he realized that thesuggestion of the Congregational minis-ter years earlier represented, in fact, the weight of modern church theology, and


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Physician Rising: What It Takes to Get Up AgainAfter Being Smashed Underfoot

by Martin G. Selbrede

F e a t u r e A r t i c l e

This is the thir-teenth in a series ofarticles about addic-tion treatment pioneerDr. Punyamurtula S.Kishore and his ongo-

ing battle with the Commonwealthof Massachusetts, which shuttered hisfty-two clinics in late 2011, dramati-

cally increasing the state’s death tollsdue to opioid addiction. Space forbidsrepeating the story developed in the rsttwelve articles. Readers new to this storyare urged to catch up before reading on(links/references are provided at the endof this article).

It was noted at the outset of thisseries that Dr. Kishore had found farmore respect and interest outside ofthe Commonwealth of Massachu-setts, despite naming his revolutionarytreatment method The MassachusettsModel. We’ll peer into the surprisingnew developments on this front at theconclusion of this article, developments which amount to powerful conrmationthat “a prophet hath no honour in hisown country” (John 4:44)—but doesreceive recognition elsewhere. So weturn now to setting the stage, providingadditional context to let the truth standout in sharper relief.

“For a Just Man FallethSeven Times”

Those who have read all twelve pre-vious articles in this series will be ableto see that the entire scope of Proverbs24:15–16 has played out in real life forDr. Kishore. It is worth understanding

this passage better before proceedingfurther. We provide Franz Delitzsch’stranslation1 for the sake of clarity:

Lie not in wait, oh wicked man,against the dwelling of therighteous; Assault not his resting-place. For seven times doth therighteous fall and rise again, Butthe wicked are overthrown whencalamity falls on them. As Delitzsch notes, the righteous

here “does injustice and wrong to noone,” being the one whom the wickedchoose to target, “driving him bycunning and violence” out of what hehas built.2 To head off misunderstand-ing of what is meant by the fall of therighteous, Plumptre makes clear that“the Hebrew word for ‘falleth’ is neverused of falling into sin” but rather “intocalamities” occasioned by such as-saults.3 In the end, the wicked that laidsiege against the just man will literally“stumble” and never again rise.4

But the meaning is deeper yet, as wesee when Matthew Henry explains theschemes of evil men against the inno-cent (described in verse 15):

The plot is laid deeply: Theylay [in]wait against the dwelling of the righteous ,thinking to charge some iniquity upon

it, or compass some design against it…The hope is raised high; they doubt notbut to spoil his dwelling-place because heis weak and cannot support it, becausehis condition is low and distressed, andhe is almost down already.5

The result is not what the plottersand schemers expected, however:

The righteous man, whose ruin wasexpected, recovers himself. He falls sevetimesinto trouble, but, by the blessingof God upon his wisdom and integrity,he rises again, sees through his troublesand sees better times after them …Thewicked man, who expected to see hisruin and to help it forward, is undone… his sins and his troubles are his utterdestruction.6

In the course of the previous twelvearticles, we’ve seen the remarkableachievements of Dr. Kishore and hispioneering work in addiction medicine,and the entirety of his life’s work beingattacked from all quarters. This was aman compassed about with enemies,each in turn taking a vicious debilitat-ing bite out of him. But now we arebeginning to see the transition from thegrim report of verse 15 to the brighter

outlook of verse 16: the man upon whom those seven incapacitating blowshad fallen has started to rise back up.

And what is that man facing as he’srising again? What has happened in thenearly ve years since the rst blowsfell upon him and his clinical practices? What has become of the political,cultural, and medical landscape in hisabsence? What’s happening in Massa-chusetts, and more importantly, what’shappening elsewhere?

A Policy of Scorching the EarthMassachusetts proper is reaping

what it has sown. The beleagueredgovernor’s policies make sense only ifthe focus is maintaining theappearance of doing something about the massivelyrising death tolls. The policy statements


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Faith for All of Life are empty because Governor Bakeris appealing to a compromised, falsesource of “help”: the federal govern-ment:

Baker recalled hearing from AaronChick, a recovering heroin addict, who

told the governor last week, “I know what to do when things are bad,” but“the piece that’s missing is what do wedo after?”

“We have not gured that out,” Bakersaid Monday.

Baker suggested the federal governmentcould play a bigger role around educa-tion and prevention with more fundingfor research of best treatment practices and training for prescribers.7 [Emphasisadded]

The governor will not tell the truthand say, “The missing piece? Our stateimprisoned the doctor who developedit and took away his medical license.” As bad as that is, his next suggestionis worse. The trust8 he reposes in thefederal government for funding more“research of best treatment practices”has already been proven to be a deadend. In the twelfth article of this series, we showed how such federally fundedresearch has been deliberately and fatallyskewed to omit important treatmentoptions from the testing matrix. Suchresearch is being manipulated to rubberstamp the status quo solutions the na-tion’s drug czar favors.

I was provided with an advancecopy of a letter being sent to JAMA(The Journal of the American Medical Association), written by a respected drugresearcher (not Dr. Kishore), that would

lead the reader to conclude that theseverity of the drug problem is beingdownplayed through a similar processof distorting the data. The letter pointsout that a new 2015 study’s results werepresented “in a manner that preventsreaders from appreciating the full extentof the risk of long-term opioid therapy.”

The author illustrates how one 2007study waswrongly included (it coveredthe wrong time duration) while twopertinent 2002 studies wereinexplicablyomitted . The DSM–IV denitions wereused instead of the newer (2013) DSM–

VM conventions, thus allowing two setsof numbers to come into play, one withan arbitrarily low range (0.6 percent to8 percent). The author shows that 18percent to 47 percent is the actual rangesupported by the studies.

This erstwhile researcher’s pendingletter further points out how cancer pa-tients and Tramadol users were improp-erly omitted from yet another key study,and that exit interviews of patients whosaid they felt addicted to their pre-scribed painkiller were simply written off ,skewing the results and further cuttingthe nal numbers in half.

What we’re seeing is a scorchedearth policy being implemented byfaulty deployment of politically directed(and thus fatally muddled) science.How does one overcome the hard datasupporting Dr. Kishore’s work? Bydeploying smokescreens in support ofinferior treatment programs. Increasedfederal involvementwill worsen the crisis because federal orthodoxy favors the re-placement opioid therapies that are fail-ing. Dr. Kishore has openly wondered why states with the highest treatmentrates also have the highest death rates: which is the cause and which is the ef-fect? Now that more people die annuallyof drug overdoses than rearms,9 that’s afair question to ask.

The earth is scorched in another

respect: you cannot wage war againstrising drug deaths without counselorsto bridge recovering addicts back tonormalcy. Job turnover for addictioncounselors in Pennsylvania are throughthe roof, reaching an “alarming 33% an-nual turnover rate.”10 Not surprisingly,the “addictions counselor shortage is felt

more because of the increasing numberof people dying from drugs.”11 How thenation’s drug czar, Michael Botticelli,proposes to wage a war with dwindlingtroops continues to mystify Dr. Kishore.

Transitioning from ScorchedFoundations to Open Attacks When scientic research has been

hijacked to support political and/orbusiness agendas, it’s the foundationsof our culture’s safety net that are beingscorched. Respecting the addictioncounselor shortage, the loss of boots onthe ground is indicative that the humancapital (what there is of it) in the currentght is also being scorched, despite suchcounseling being foundational to resolv-ing the crisis.

The foundations of medical practiceitself have been scorched, and mostreaders will easily recognize how ithappened by following Dr. Kishore’sdescription: originally, medicine recog-nized four vital signs (respiration, bodytemperature, blood pressure, and pulse).But an important addition has recentlyappeared: the one-to-ten pain scale, painscales extending from smiley face to ex-

treme misery, etc.12

Politicians and drugcompanies had essentially collaboratedto create something new and dangerous,as Dr. Kishore explains the situation:

Chronic moderate pain—this is acategory that should not actually exist.Pain is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Itdoesn’t exist in itself: there’s an underly-ing condition that should be diagnosedand treated. For example,acute pain is

what we encounter as post-operativepain (there’s a gunshot wound: we nd

the bullet and take it out; there’s aninfected appendix: we remove it; etc.).

But when OxyContin was approvedby the FDA in 1995, a new markethad to be created for this product. Thisgave birth tochronic moderate pain andthe happy face scale. A proclamationconcerning coal workers, etc., by the


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Faith for All of Life drug czar, Michael Botticelli, insists onpouring more gasoline on the re.17 Ifyou’re selling such gasoline (replacementopioids), you have a good friend in Mr.Botticelli. In fact, your program will win White House awards18 to support cur-

rent mythologies by diverting attentionfrom the rising death toll.

This brings us back to home detoxand why it takes a full twelve months toimprint sobriety back onto an addictedperson’s life, as Dr. Kishore explains it:

All of us need endorphins—naturalopiates. But if you’re supplying opi-ates from outside, what’s the point ofmaking natural opiates (endorphins)?Those factories shut down in thebody. It takes ninety days to retool thephysiological systems to restore naturalopiate production. In other words, theaddict needs ninety days of a drug-freestate.19 This resets the physiology, BUTit doesn’t deal with the psychologicalfactors in the so-called seasonal cues(memories that rekindle throughout theyear). All cues throughout the entireyear must be extinguished and onlyhome detox, properly administered,covers this ground.

In effect (and likely by design), theattack on the innocent described inProverbs 24:15 with which we openedthis article is inadequate to tell the whole story. Beyond the takedown ofDr. Kishore’s clinics and subsequentdisappearance of his treatment modeldetailed in the earlier articles, the steps we’ve just outlined go further. Such ac-tions nd a stunning historic parallel inRome’s rst century assault on Jerusa-lem, in which the Romans reportedlyplowed the land under with salt to pre-vent crops from growing on it. Scorchedearth policies entail salt-poisoned soil.

Physician RisingBut Proverbs 24:15 doesn’t stand

alone. It is complemented by verse 16:the innocent man, though knocked

then-governor of Kentucky stated that pain should be treated , repudiating previ-ous medical standards. OxyContin thencame on-line in the Kentucky and WestVirginia coal mines, andchronic moder-ate pain and its distortion of founda-tional medicine became entrenched.13

But open attacks on key componentsof Dr. Kishore’s method have also arisen.None are more dangerous than theattacks on home detox, because there isno more effective method than homedetox for reasons its detractors refuse toaccept. As Dr. Kishore explains,

The detox method has to have a sci-entic basis. All the addicted person’striggers and cues are manifested in thehome detox scenario: they’re not beingmasked, nor should they be. We needto help the patient through the processof cue extinction. You overcome byconfronting the cue at home, whichgives the patient a sense of power overthe drug. No masking of cues: youmust extinguish the cues. This can onlybe done at home, where the cues arepresent, not in a top-of-the-mountaindetox experience elsewhere. The familyconnects with the patient because theaddict doesn’t run off to get his drug of

choice: he’s staying home because he’snot entering withdrawal symptoms.14

But where does one go once one haspublicly rejected Dr. Kishore’s SobrietyMaintenance and Sobriety Enhance-ment approaches and heaped mindlessabuse upon home detox (notwithstand-ing its huge success rate under Dr.Kishore’s oversight)? In response,TheNew York Times essentially scorches theremaining earth with its March 23,

2016, headline, “Ithaca’s Anti-HeroinPlan: Open a Site to Shoot Heroin.”15Small wonder that the day before

that headline appeared,The Blaze ranits opioid abuse story with an equallytelling headline, “Slaughter Out OfControl.”16 As noted repeatedly inearlier articles in this series, the national

down seven times, still rises again.Those familiar with the Academy

Award-winning movieChariots of Fire will recall a scene (based on an actualevent) where Eric Liddell is knockeddown near the beginning of a foot race.

Having now been dealt a huge setback,Liddell gets back up to pursue thepack of runners racing away from him.Remarkably, he overtakes the eld andis rst to break the tape, confoundingthe received wisdom that he had beenknocked out of the race.

We seem to be witnessing some-thing very similar to the above scenario.

Sadly, there are more parallels thanthose between Liddell and Dr. Kishore.In the lm, just moments before thatstunning race began, Ian Holm’s SamMussabini is given a choice line to mut-ter concerning the event: “I’ve seen bet-ter organized riots.” And the state andnational responses to drug addiction(the latter under Michael Botticelli’s be-nighted watch) continue to richly earnthat epithet.

But once Dr. Kishore was permit-ted to travel20 outside of Massachusetts(thanks to the dedicated efforts of Hal

Shurtleff on the doctor’s behalf), theprocess of recovering from the blowsleveled against him, his model, his trackrecord, his medical license itself, beganin earnest. Doors are opening in otherNew England states (and beyond). Dr.Kishore traveled to Maine in mid-March with Mr. Shurtleff and tells thestory in his own words:

I spent four days in Maine and evenattended a homeschooling conventionthere. There’s a groundswell of interest.

Addiction rates are very high there. Ispent an hour and a half with the gov-ernor’s key aide. They like the sobriety-based model. The governor himself willmeet with me the rst week of April.Maine has a strong homeschoolingmovement and her pastors are seriouspeople. Maine’s governor is willing to


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Faith for All of Life 2. ibid., p. 136.3. Rev. Professor E. H. Plumptre, in F. C.Cook, editor, The Bible Commentary (GrandRapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1981[1871–1881]), Vol. 5, pp. 594–596. SaysPlumptre, “The latter of these two verses isso often carelessly but wrongly quoted as ahalf-apology for sin, ‘The righteous fallethi.e. sinneth, seven times a day,’ that it is nec-essary to put its true meaning in the clearestlight possible … ‘Though the just man fall(not into sin, but into calamities), yet he ris-eth up.’” J. W. Nutt makes this same point:the just man “falls into trouble (notsin, as isoften supposed).” Cf. Charles John Ellicott,Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan PublishingCompany, n.d.), vol. 4, p. 343.4. John Peter Lange,Commentary on the

Holy Scriptures: Proverbs (Grand Rapids, MI:Zondervan Publishing Company, n.d), p.208.5. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Com-mentary on the Whole Bible(Mclean, VA:MacDonald Publishing Company, n.d.),vol. 3, p. 932.6. ibid.7. http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_29666933/baker-appeals-stronger-feder-al-role-opioid-addiction-ght8. Many politicians are getting on the fed-

eral bandwagon, including mayors of majorcities such as Orlando, Florida. Cf. http://

www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/political-pulse/os-mayor-jacobs-calls-for-federal-help-against-heroin-20160322-story.html9. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/21/joe-pitts/rep-joe-pitts-says-120-americans-die-daily-overdos/10. http://triblive.com/mo-bile/10064667-96/counselors-addiction-drug

11. ibid.12. https://www.painedu.org/Downloads/NIPC/Pain_Assessment_Scales.pdf 13. During the discussion in which Dr.Kishore explained this, one listener quippedthat such nonsense would eventually reduceto an absurdity on the order of “Hey, girls,

do what’s necessary to get things done.

I ask Dr. Kishore if Maine couldlicense him to practice medicine. He isunderstandably guarded in his words:

Yes, but I’m building this up slowly. Ican’t rush it. I need to study the systemthat’s set up there. But if nothing else, itappears that the Massachusetts Model

will not die.

There are other states and groupskeenly interested in Dr. Kishore’s workand in ways to apply it, extend it, and/or rekindle it. Perhaps most remarkableof all is the following news Dr. Kishoreshared with me:

I received an invitation to submit an ab-stract to the CDC (Centers for DiseaseControl) concerning the National Li-brary of Addictions [see the third articlein this series]. I’ve done presentationsfor the CDC before. God willing, I’ll bepresenting in August of this year.

As heartening as these reports are,you’d be mistaken to think that Dr.Kishore is fully up and running again. While runner Eric Liddell took a tum-ble off the track, Dr. Kishore was delib-erately kicked off the track, with brutal

steps being taken to keep him out of therace and impoverished and destitute. Weare now witnessing the process of hispicking himself back up off the ground, with his eyes on the mark set beforehim. In Matthew Henry’s words citedearlier, “by the blessing of God uponhis wisdom and integrity, herises again,sees through his troubles and sees bettertimes after them.” Or as Dr. Kishore putit, “The land has been tilled. The time isright for new models of care.”

This man has no time for self-pity.He has a race to run and countless liveshanging in the balance.

First 12 Articles in This Series: Article One: “Massachusetts Protects Med-ical-Industrial Complex, Derails Pioneering

Revolution in Addiction Medicine.”Read itonline at http://bit.ly/Kishore1

Article Two: “Massachusetts Derails Revo-lution In Addiction Medicine While Drug

Abuse Soars.”Read it online at http://bit.ly/Kishore2

Article Three: “The Pioneer Who Cut NewPaths in Addiction Medicine Before BeingCut Down.” Read it online at http://bit.ly/Kishore3

Article Four: “ The Addiction Crisis Wors-ens after Massachusetts Pulls Plug on Dr.Kishore’s Sobriety-Based Solution.”Read itonline at http://bit.ly/Kishore4

Article Five: “Why Did They Do It? Chris-tian Physician with a 37% Success Rate forRecovering Addicts Gets Shut Down bythe State.” Read it online at http://bit.ly/Kishore5

Article Six: “Martha Coakley and Her Treeof Hate” Read it online at http://bit.ly/Kishore6

Article Seven: “Keeping Big Pharma inSeventh Heaven is Keeping Addicts in Hell”Read it online at http://bit.ly/Kishore7

Article Eight: “Massachusetts CompletesIts Takedown of Addiction Pioneer Dr.Punyamurtula S. Kishore”Read it online athttp://bitly.com/Kishore8

Article Nine: “A Brief Update on Dr.Punyamurtula S. Kishore”Read it online athttp://bitly.com/Kishore9

Article Ten: “Dr. Kishore Encounters theDedication of the State”Read it online athttp://bitly.com/Kishore10

Article Eleven: “Puncturing the BoundaryBetween Medicine and Politics: How theState Condemns Addicts to Disaster.”Readit online at http://bitly.com/Kishore11

Article Twelve: “Biblical Faith, Medicine,and the State: Repairing the Breach Duringthe Spreading Epidemic.”Read it online athttp://bitly.com/Kishore12

1. Keil, C.F. and Delitzsch, F, Commentaryon the Old Testament(Grand Rapids, MI:

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,reprinted 1982), vol. 6, section 2, p. 135. Continued on page 2


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The doctrine ofcreation has manyimplications, not onlyto do with the scienticfacts of the universe, butthere are other, more

subtle, issues at stake. One of those hasto do with the idea of the eternal, ortimeless, God. This essay looks at the ar-guments for a temporal God and offers

suggestions why they are inadequate. As a result, it concludes that the idea ofthe eternal God who created time “Inthe beginning” is still the only view thatmakes sense not only of the Biblical databut what we observe in the universearound us.

When Chalcedon launched its Jour-nal of Christian Reconstruction in 1974,the rst edition was on creation. Socentral is creation to the Biblical narra-tive, that without it, the Bible’s messageis drastically altered. Dr. Rushdoonysaw this, which is why he was inuentialin getting Whitcomb and Morris’sTheGenesis Flood in print.

My purpose in this essay is toexplore one aspect of the idea of cre-ation—time. Dr. Rushdoony has a dis-cussion on time in his second volume ofSystematic Theology . There he identiestime as a moral issue, not a metaphysicalone.1 In this essay, however, I’ll explore

the idea of a temporal God as proposedby Open Theists. It raises some ques-tions.

Is God getting older? This appearsto be a legitimate question if God is intime, as some people claim, and we shallsoon identify who these “some people”are. That may seem a strange notion

Creation and the Timeless Godby Ian Hodge, Ph.D.


to many Christians who believe Godis outside of time. For most Christians who hold the traditional view aboutGod and time, according to the Bible(1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 9:14), God is an“eternal” Being and the traditional viewaccepts this as indicating God is outsideof time—eternal. Yet, so prolic has thenotion of a temporal God become that John Frame can write, “So at present

one may speak of a consensus amongtheistic philosophers that God is intime.”2

Since the time of the early church,there has been discussion on the natureof time and God. Augustine, Aquinasand Boethius all contributed to thediscussion in some form or another. Inrecent years, the discussion gained newimpetus with the views of proponentsof Open Theism. They ask whethertime is something created? If so, does itentail that God is a timeless God, or istime “eternal,” thereby implying God istemporal?

When it comes to things eternal, itis helpful to remember what the Biblehas to say on the matter:

He has made everything suited toits time; also, he has given humanbeings an awareness of eternity;but in such a way that they can’tfully comprehend, from begin-ning to end, the things God does.(Eccles. 3:11)Concepts such as past, present, or

future are everyday concepts. At leastit was for me yesterday , is still sotoday ,and I expect it to be the same tomorrow. And it is the same for most humans. But

in the traditional view of theology, Godis beyond time, being “eternal.” Somepeople think of time as if it were a river,God is upstream, downstream, and rightin front of you all at the same time. Nomatter how we think of time, the keypoint is this: God transcends time ashumans know and experience it. Buthow does He transcend time, or in what ways does He transcend time? And if

God transcends time, how can it be saidthat He is “in time”—a temporal God?

The Problem Dened You begin to get an inkling of the

problem when you think of “In thebeginning … “ (Gen. 1:1). Traditionally,this has been thought of as the begin-ning not only of the existence of theuniverse but of time itself. When youthink like this, you soon begin to thinkof God as existingbefore the creation of

time. But what meaning can it have tothink of before time began, if indeed ithad a beginning? For words such as “be-fore” or “after” are time-related words.Is it even possible to conceive of Godas “before” time? And what would that“before” look like? God is usually saidto be transcendent, somehow over andabove His creation. R.C. Sproul explainstranscendence this way:

When the term transcendent is appliedto God, however, it does not refer toGod’s location or physical stature. Itdoes not mean that God is bigger, fat-ter, or taller than creatures. Nor doesit mean that he lives way up in the skysomewhere east of the moon and westof the sun. The term refers specicallyto the order of being God represents. Itrefers to his ontological status. When


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Faith for All of Life theologians say God is a transcendentbeing, they mean that he transcendsevery created thing ontologically. He isa higher order of being precisely at thepoint of his being. The specic pointis that he is a self-existent and eternalbeing who has the power of being inhimself. He is uncaused. He is self-existent.3

So if God is ontologically different,does that include a difference inrelationship to time? Traditionaltheology afrms that is so, but this isbeing challenged.4

William Lane Craig suggests thatGod was atemporal “prior to” thecreation of time, but now he is tem-poral—within time. He argues, “if all

events exist timelessly in God’s eternalreference frame, then none of them canexistearlier than, simultaneously with orlater than another event, for these aretemporal relations.”5 In the view of thetemporalists, if God is simultaneouslyupstream, downstream and in front ofyou, it is not possible for God to speakof upstream and downstream, past orfuture events.

What Is a Person?

Some people have raised the notionof “person” to determine the meaning ofthe being of God and time. What doesit mean to be a person? Can a personexist out of time? The following passageis often quoted as a way of getting thediscussion off the ground:

Surely it is a necessary condition ofanything’s being a person that it shouldbe capable (logically) of, among otherthings, doing at least some of the fol-lowing: remembering, anticipating,reecting, deliberating, deciding, in-tending, and acting intentionally. To seethat this is so one need but ask oneself

whether anything which necessarilylacked all of the capacities noted would,under any conceivable circumstances,count as a person. But now an eternalbeing would necessarily lack all of these

capacities in as much as their exerciseby a being clearly requires that thebeing exist in time. After all, reectionand deliberation take time, decidingtypically occurs at some time—and inany case it always makes sense to ask,‘Where did you (he, they, etc.) decide?’;remembering is impossible unless thebeing doing the remembering has apast; and so on. Hence, no eternal be-ing, it would seem, could be a person.6

This proposed “denition” of whatit means to be a person, though interest-ing, is not necessarily complete. A keyissue in the doctrine of the Trinity is thematter of relationality or interpersonalrelationships. Is it possible to be a per-son without any relationships with otherpersons? The Coburn denition (in thequote above) of “person” is inadequatebecause it mentions nothing about rela-tionships, and therefore is an incompletebasis on which to draw conclusionsabout the nature of God.7

Craig does not quote Coburn toagree with his conclusion, as does Dr.Skip Moen. Moen concludes, “Theanalysis of the logic of personal capaci-ties seems to destroy any hope of speak-

ing of an essentially timeless person.”On the other hand, Craig concludes,“Now even if Coburn were correct thata personal being must be capable ofexhibiting the forms of consciousness helists, it does not follow that a timelessGod cannot be personal. For God couldbe capable of exhibiting such forms ofconsciousness but be timeless just incase he does notin fact exhibit any ofthem.”8

At this point, it is not necessary toaccept Craig’s version of a timeless God.But what Craig has done is establish theframework for identifying a false argu-ment. Consider this:

P1: If God were in time, He would becapable of remembering, anticipating,reecting, deliberating, deciding, etc.

P2: God is capable of remembering,anticipating, reecting, deliberating,deciding, etc.

Conclusion: Therefore, God is in time.

Craig, by providing another ex-planation, exposes the argument in itscurrent form as the fallacy of afrmingthe consequent.9 This fallacy could beavoided if it can be shown that the ex-planation identied is the only possibleexplanation. Craig shows it is not theonly possible explanation, thus the fal-lacy is committed by temporalists suchas Skip Moen. But it is more than this.

Having established the idea ofperson this way, these criteria are then“read back” into God by the temporal-ists. And the conclusion is that in orderfor God to be a person, He cannot existtimelessly, since all these conditionsrequire a temporal state of being. Theirlogic works something like this (ordoesn’t work, as the case may be):

P1: A temporalperson remembers,anticipates, reects, deliberates, etc.

P2: God is a person who remembers,anticipates, reects, deliberates, etc.

Conclusion: Therefore, God istemporal.

The conclusion simply begs thequestion, however. Why can’t anatemporal being remember, anticipate,reect, deliberate, etc.? Such a possibilitis simply ruled out,a priori . Yet how it would be possible to know this about aneternal God is problematical. And whathas happened to transcendence? It seemsto have disappeared. Such a position

assumes an ontological similarity aboutthe idea of person, that God and manhave some kind ofidenticalnessin theirbeing. But it also assumes that eternityand time are somehow similar to oneanother so that time is a correlative toeternity. This assumption, however, isup for a serious challenge.


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Faith for All of Life The Proper Starting Place: God At once we are thrown into a

discussion about God and the natureand attributes of God. But the key tounderstanding the resolution to theseissues is to nd the proper beginning in

the chain of systematic thinking that isbehind the discussion of God and time.

What is the proper starting placein human thinking of any kind? Theproper starting place is with God andman created in His image. But thisalready imposes a two-level theory ofreality or being. God’s being is uncre-ated while man is created.10

Here we are back at the transcen-dence question once again. But if thestarting place is God the uncreatedbeing, what attributes must He havein place to be that starting point? Cana temporal God be self-existing andself-determinative? What would be Hisrelationship to time, one of dependen-cy? Can a temporal God qualify as thestarting place in human predication? Orit could be put this way: is true meaningfound in time or eternity?

When the question about meaningis asked this way the wordeternaliscontrasted with the wordtime . Intraditional theology, eternal meansoutside of time, beyond time, orsome such notion. But our problemas creatures is that we have no way ofknowing what “beyond time” might beor mean. We are, after all, creatures oftime, and even though we are offeredeternal life, eternal here is not the samequality that is usually attributed toGod. If man could become eternal like

God , he would begin to participate indivinity. But if God is a temporal God,does that mean mankind is alreadyparticipating in divinity?

Thus, the question of the timelessGod is ultimately a question about thenature and character of God as well asthe nature and character of time itself.

When God declares “I change not”(Mal. 3:6), this has been traditionallyunderstood that He does not change inHis essence. From that, some questionsthen follow:

If God is limited by time, is He alsolimited in His knowledge and Hispower, for example?

For man, time is a limitation. Is it also alimitation for God?

For man, time is the theater of change.Is God changing? If so, in what ways isHe changing?

For man, time is the theater of aging. IsGod getting older?

If He’s not getting older or He’s notlimited by time, then God obviouslytranscends time in some manner. In

which case it appears reasonable to ask:In what way is God temporal if, in fact,He is temporal at all?

Is God Being or Becoming?Consider the philosophy of be-

ing. When Parmenides and Heraclituslocked horns over the nature of change,the question arose whether humans arebeingor becoming ? A being that has yetto reach its full potential isbecoming .11 The existence of the universe is onlyexplained by a being that has the powerof existence within him and therefore isnot caused to exist by something else.Such a being is self-determinative, andself-determination implies no change.For if God were subject to change, it would imply something else must haveexisted besides God that inuencedchange within Him. And that wouldmean God has not yet reached His full

potential—He is becoming. You can see from the questions andthe possible answers that the differencebetween created and uncreatedbeing isat the center of the discussion. Is Godreally potentially and actually fully real-ized ? Or is there some aspect of God which has not yet reached its potential?

For example, His knowledge. Does Godknow everything, or is He still learning?Some people suggest He is still learn-ing, that the only things He can knownow are things that are timelessly true.Other things, such as what you will be

doing tomorrow, are not timelessly trueaccording to one writer, they are con-tingently true, and God does not know what you will do until you do it.12

Gregory Boyd is quite adamant when he says, “the only remaining issuefrom God’s perspective is how He mightstrategically weave the wicked characterof these ‘sons of perdition’ into Hisdivine plan.”13 In other words, Boydattributes process into the being of God.If this is a true representation of God,then the whole question of God’s self-determination is called into question. IfGod is still learning things (what people will do in the future), then ontologicallyHe is still in the category of becoming,not fully actualized. Though He mayknow all the possible actions you mighttake, He does not know which actualone until you make it. At which point,God becomes the great super-reactor tothe actions of man. “Perhaps,” suggestsPaul Helm in his defense of a timelessGod, “God is only an enlarged andmagnied human being.”14 But if God,like man, is still learning new things,how can He be totally self-sufcient? Apparently He needsthe libertarian free will decisions of His creatures in orderto nally discover what His next courseof action will be.

Boyd, however, explains himself when he writes, “God canat some point

predetermine and/or foreknowsome things about the future without eternally predetermining and/or foreknowingeverything about the future.”15 But thisis confusing. Consider this: How canGod predetermine somethings unless Hepredetermines and controlsall things? Without total control , God’s attempts


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Faith for All of Life at predetermination or foreknowledge would become merely a “best guess”by a now divine being who appearsas a lame duck in the futures game.God, apparently, is no more than aplayer in the cosmic game of chance

or probability: sometimes He wins,sometimes He loses. Somehow, however,He can overcome the adversity andeventually get what He wants. But here we see God merely as the great cosmicreactor, a Super Genie able to overcomeall adversity in a single leap—butunable to bring human future eventsinto reality with any certainty. In other words, God is subject to chance orrandom activities foreseen as potentialacts by Him but beyond His control, which makes time-bound human eventsthe ultimate dictator of God’s activities.Such a God cannot be self-sufcient orself-determinative.

For Gregory Boyd or Skip Moen, itis time that determines everything. Allthe events of the universe obtain theirmeaning from the existential and liber-tarian free-will actions of man.

The question must be asked,however, what drives the conclusions ofMoen and Boyd and the open theists?

Is Libertarian Free Willthe Only Choice?

Behind the debate over God andtime is the notion of free will and infal-libility. For open theists, man does nothave a free will if God knows infalliblytoday that you will be run over by a busat 2:37 p.m. tomorrow afternoon. If Godknows this infallibly today , then there isnothing you can do, apparently, to avoidthe catastrophe. But already you can seea good part of the problem: it assumesGod acts in a time-tensed environment,that His thoughts are sequential in somefashion. Sequence, however, presupposestime. Thus, Dr. Moen concludes

Since we have argued that timelessness

is not only inconsistent with the ideaof personhood, it is internally incoher-ent in relation to acts of cognition, itshould be obvious that the only logi-cally acceptable view of omnisciencefor a Christian God is one in whichGod logically cannot know the denitetruth-values of propositions about somefuture events.16

But there is a lingering questionraised by Moen when he suggeststhat God has somehow limited Hisknowledge. How could He who knowseverything limit His knowledge? Bypretending He does not know things?That’s not a limitation of knowledge;that’s just making a pretense about one’sknowledge of certain future events.

The idea of the absolute sovereigntyof God implies that God micromanagesthe events of the world. But such a view,contends Gregory Boyd, would demeanGod’s sovereignty.17 For Boyd, Godknows and determines some events inthe future, but not all of them. Appar-ently He has taken a deliberate policyof limiting His knowledge in order tomake room for human free will. But thequestion then is this one: Can God limitHimself? And would any such limita-tion mean that He is no longer God? You can begin to see what is at stakein the discussion, and the traditionalview has always attempted to hold onto God’s character as the bedrock ofsystematic theology.

Dr. Moen sees the discussion as onethat is to be controlled by logic. Sayingthat the discussion should be controlledby logic, however, explains very little.Human beings, made in the image of

the God who is Ultimate Rationality,are always logical to their presupposi-tions, though their premises are oftenfaulty. So when Dr. Moen asks for logic,he is really asking that all the decisionsbe made on the basis ofhis presupposi-tions. And therein lies the real matter ofdebate: who has the correct presupposi-

tions about God, free will, omniscienceand infallibility?18

The real discussion, then, is therelationship between the eternal andthe temporal. Here, Van Til provides ananswer:

Again, if we are asked, What do youthink of the relation of the eternal tothe temporal?, we reply that the eternalfor us does not exist as a principle butas a person, and that as an absoluteperson. Accordingly, we do not use theeternal as a correlative to the temporal;

we use the notion of the eternal Godas the personal creator of the temporaluniverse.

Once more, if men ask us as to whichis rst, becoming or being , we reply bysaying rst of all that the term becomingcannot be applied to God. God’s beingis not subject to becoming. He is eternalbeing. And as for created being, it is inthe process of becoming by virtue of theplan of God. God’s being is therefore“before” the becoming of the createduniverse. The eternal One-and-Manyare “prior to” in quotation marks. It

will readily be seen that if our theory ofreality is true, we cannot simply say thatGod is prior to the universe, meaning by

“prior to” temporal priority. Inasmuchas God is not subject to time, we cannotenclose him in the calendar. God is thecreator of time itself as a form of createdbeing. On the other hand, if we say thatGod is “prior to” the created universe

we do not simply mean what is usuallymeant by logical priority. God is, to besure, logically “prior to” the created uni-verse but he is logically prior by virtue othe fact that he has actually created theuniverse with its temporal form out ofor into (sic) nothing.19

So God’s nature is the unmov-able point in theology. This is why, forexample, the Cosmological Argument,in order to be carried, requires a God who is anecessary being, who haswithin Himself the power of existence. Sproulconcludes, “Something must have


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Faith for All of Life nite on the temporalist view, thealternative and traditional view remainsintact. Time was created.

The doctrine of creation and theGenesis record thus provide the im-portant backdrop for establishing the

character of God and the nature of time.It is unfortunate that so manypeople struggle with the absolute sov-ereignty of God. But that is the issue inthe discussion about the timeless God.In the Augustinian–Calvinist view, itis the absolute sovereignty of God thatestablishes the “liberty or contingencyof second causes.”28 Man’s actions onlyobtain their true meaning when viewedagainst the backdrop of the absoluteplan of God. Otherwise, man’s actionsare merely person-relative in terms oftheir meaning. Without a transcen-dental place to establish the meaningof man’s actions, man’s “free will” driftsinto the vast ocean of chance with noguarantee that free will has any mean-ing whatsoever. And thus history itselfbecomes a meaningless series of eventsrather than the theater where Godachieves his purposes without fail.

Ian Hodge, Ph.D. is a long-term supporterof Chalcedon and an occasional contributorto Faith for All of Life . He is now semi-retired, but for many years was a businessconsultant in Australia, USA, Canada,and New Zealand, and a prominent pianoteacher in Australia.

1. R. J. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology inTwo Volumes Volume II (Vallecito, CA: RossHouse Books, 1994), p. 1079ff.2. John M. Frame, No Other God: A Re-sponse to Open Theism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P& R Publishing Co., 2001), p. 146.3. R. C. Sproul, and Keith A. Mathison,Nota Chance: God, Science and the Revolt AgainstReason (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker BookHouse, [1999] 2013), Kindle Edition, loc.1950–52. This is a recent update and expan-sion of Sproul’s book, originally published in1999 with the title, Not a Chance: The Mythof Chance in Modern Science and Cosmology .

is because the proposed modicationsare neither essential nor necessary. Forif the denition of “libertarian free will”is in reality a faulty denition then noamount of modications to the tradi-tional views about God can rescue that

bad denition.The Impossibility of Innite Time

A question has to be asked aboutthe relationship of a temporal Godto time and innity—and logic. Thetemporalists are suggesting that Godhas existed innitely in time. Their viewrequires the existence of time before thecreation of the universe. But here theycome into conict with the idea of anactual innite . In the temporal view,there must be an innite series of eventsthat have taken place up to this pres-ent point in time. This, however, is alogical impossibility. You cannot have aninnite series of events and then attemptto add yet another event into the chain.For if you are still adding to the chainof events then the series is not innite.In the words of Craig, “the formation ofan actual innite by successive additionis impossible because one can always

add one more.”26

If the time-clock isstill ticking away, then you have notyet reached an innity in time, andtherefore, if the idea of a temporal God was accurate, both timeand God had abeginning.

Thus, in the temporal view, sincethe series of events is not yet completeand therefore not innite, God musthave had a beginning. And if God had abeginning, He is not God.27

Conclusion Who is God? What kind of at-tributes are necessary for the God whodoes all that is revealed in the Bible?Historically, the theologians came downon the side of a timeless God, not atemporal God.

Since both God and time become

4. Gregory E. Ganssle, ed., God & Time:Four Views (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Aca-demic, 2001). Contributors include WilliamLane Craig, Paul Helm, Allan Padgett, andNicolas Wolterstorff.5. Craig in Ganssle, ibid., p. 144.

6. Robert Coburn, “Professor Malcolm onGod,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 41(June, 1963), p. 155, quoted by WilliamLane Craig in Ganssle,ibid., p.138. Seealso Skip Moen,God, Time and the Limitsof Omniscience , (Dr. Moen’s Ph.D. thesis,Oxford University (1979), self-published in2010), p. 180. Dr. Moen obtained his M.A.degree from Trinity Evangelical DivinitySchool when Clark Pinnock was lecturingthere. Pinnock went on to become a leadingvoice in the open theism movement.7. This theme is picked up by Colin Gun-ton in his book, The One, The Three and th Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Mdernity , (Cambridge University Press, 1993).Gunton’s thesis is that a defective view ofcreation and the Trinity helped create therejection of Christianity which is the key tounderstanding modernism. See also B.A.Bosserman,The Trinity and the Vindicationof Christian Paradox: An Interpretation anRenement of the Theological ApologeticCornelius Van Til , (Pickwick Publications,an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Kindle Edition, 2014). It is a key failureof Unitarianism to address the question ofrelationships and whether the idea of inter-personal relationships has a transcendentorigin. Under the Unitarian view of God,God had no relationships with other personsat all until He created other personal beings.But in what sense, then, could it be said thata Unitarian monad is a person? Unitarian-ism ultimately takes us down the path of animpersonal God.8. Moen, ibid , p. 181; Craig in Ganssle,idem., emphasis in the original.9. The argument has the form:If P then Q,Q,therefore P.See http://creation.com/loving-god-with-all-your-mind-logic-and-creation. The fallacy is

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My resume includesthe distinctionthat I was an activehome educator for overtwenty-eight years. Ioften joke that when

I ran out of children to homeschool, Ibegan my “career” as a writer and men-tor, helping younger women maneu-ver through their journeys with theirfamilies.

During the time I was the primaryteacher for my children, I receivedmany positive and negative commentsabout our family’s educational choice.They ranged from the customary, “Icould never do that! I just don’t havethe patience,” to “How selsh it is torestrict your gifts and talents to just yourown children. You should send themto school to be missionaries to otherkids, and you should get credentialed asa teacher so that with your talents youcould help many children and just notyour own.” I always laughed at the lattercriticism based on its faulty logic. Thiscollectivist view held that by giving pri-ority to my own family I was cheatingothers. By God’s grace, a sound theologyallowed me to dismiss these “helpful”pieces of advice as the distractions they were.

Now that the season of life I enjoydoes not include day-to-day teaching,and running children to various activi-ties and lessons, I am in a position toutilize my experience as a teacher andput it to productive use. Those 28-plusyears served as my “advanced degree”studies as I took three children from be-

Sharing Your Life:The Christian Way to Kingdom Service

by Andrea Schwartz


ing uneducated to well educated, and inthe process, I acquired useful, transmit-table knowledge. Rather than pursueadditional schooling, as some suggested,I purposed to apply what I had learnedand share it with others. My personalministry became sharing my life withthose God placed in my path, and put-ting to good use all that He had allowed

me to learn.What Is Ministry?

It is a shame that the word“ministry” has been relegated tosomething that the ecclesiastical realmis responsible for. Per Webster’s 1828Dictionary , the denition offered,theofce, duties or functions of a subordinateagent of any kind , is not limited toecclesiastical matters. It is time thatthe people of God recognize that as

subordinate agents (disciples) of theLord Jesus Christ, we have a duty andobligation to recognize our ofce,duties, and functions.

Because we have ghettoized the con-cept of ministry to be something apartfrom our day-to-day lives, and oftenlimited to the clergy, we have neglectedkey components of the dominionmandate/Great Commission to disciplethe nations. What if we considered the

degree to which we are sharing our lives with others, as either individuals orfamilies, a benchmark of our gratitudeand appreciation for our eternal salva-tion and God’s grace towards us? Whatif dedicated believers determined trulyto be salt and light within the sphereof their everyday existence? The results

would be staggering.For those of us who desire to see our

culture reconstructed according to Bibli-cal guidelines and mandates, we have aduty, responsibility, and opportunity toreach out into our surrounding cultureand shine the light of Christ. This doesnot mean that we need do anythingextraordinary to nd an area of min-

istry where we can immediately beginto serve. Ministry should be a logicalextension of what we already do.

Whatever occupies our time andfocus can be extended, in compassionate ways, to others as a means to share Jesuas we share our life with them. One doesnot need to be “credentialed” by anyoneother than our Savior to go about mak-ing disciples of those whose paths crossours—by assisting in tangible ways, whether within our extended family, ourneighborhood, our church congrega-tion, or even the workplace. Moreover,it does not need to be in great numbersto be God-honoring. As Jesus stated,“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as yehave done it unto one of the least ofthese my brethren, ye have doneit untome” (Matt. 25:40). This is the subjectof compassion and it falls into the areaof charitable works. Recall that St. Paultells us in 1 Cor. 13:13: “And now abi-

deth faith, hope, charity, these three; butthe greatest of theseis charity.”R.J. Rushdoony points out,

In the Bible, compassion or pity isalways associated with grace. Havingreceived the grace of God, we mani-fest it to others. We too often hear ofpeople who show compassion to the


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Faith for All of Life poor and needy, but less often that theirmotivation is grace. When grace is ourmotivation, we know the limitations ofour efforts, and how limited is the good

we can do, and how great God’s powerand works. As we survey the evil in menboth high and low, we know that theresolution lies in God’s sovereign grace.For us then, the necessity is to recognizethat the cross means judgment on sin.If God the Son, as man’s last Adam,undergoes judgment for His people,how can men and nations expect toevade judgment for sin? We know theyshall be judged. Our duty is to obeyour Lord, be charitable where we can,and to know that, however miserablemay be the results that we see, in JesusChrist, our “labour is not in vain” but

will accomplish His purpose (1 Cor.15:58). Our work is thus one of recon-struction, knowing that the design isnot of us but the Lord.1

Immediate Areas of Ministry

And he also went on to say to theone who had invited him, “When

you give a luncheon or a dinner,do not invite your friends or yourbrothers or your relatives or richneighbors, otherwise they may also

invite you in return and that willbe your repayment. But when yougive a reception, invite the poor,the crippled, the lame, the blind,and you will be blessed, since theydo not have the means to repay

you; for you will be repaid at theresurrection of the righteous.”(Luke 14:12–14)People prioritize their time accord-

ing to what is important to them. It is

all too easy to breeze over Jesus’s wordsin the gospel with a hearty “Amen,” without real, tangible applications inour lives. We all have areas that occupyour time that, with a little effort, can beextended to help those who are not in aposition to repay us. By doing so, we aremerely adding to those things already

taking place in our own lives, with anemphasis to share our lives with others.

When my children were young, I was not in a position to volunteer asa counselor at the local communitypregnancy center. That did not hinder

me from pro-life ministry. I involved myson from a young age with me in activi-ties such as operating a pro-life boothat the county fair. In addition, he andother young pro-lifers produced a regu-lar newsletter,Kids for Life , expressingtheir plea for the unborn. To this day, heremains committed to the cause of end-ing abortion and supporting ministriesthat work to that end.

My youngest daughter volun-teered her time, when she was quiteyoung, washing donated clothes thatthe pregnancy center received in orderto have them clean before giving themto mothers in need. Additionally, ourfamily asked the local pregnancy centerto send women our way who did nothave a support structure in place tohelp them during their pregnancies. Weshared holidays with them and I hadthe privilege of being the labor coachfor two of them when they gave birth to

their children. You see, none of these went outsideof what we were already doing. Our ef-forts were an extension of our lives anda reection of our appreciation for whatthe Lord had done for us—somethingthat we could never repay. And, as in allcases of obedience to the directives ofGod’s law-word, we were the richer forit.

An Immediate Need

Almost Anyone Can FillIlliteracy remains a problem in oursociety. In many ways, it is the resultof a godless, statist, educational systemthat does not address children as peoplemade in the image and likeness of God. Along with the myriad of other prob-lems that result when students don’t

become good readers is their separationfrom the means by which Jesus Christbecomes known to them. While it istrue that as people we rst hear God’s Word, without the ability to steep one-self in the text of Scripture by being able

to read it, personal responsibility andself-government are almost impossibleto attain. This is an area where Chris-tians can have an immediate impact,and in the process transmit vital Biblicalprinciples.

The purpose of God’s law is to providegovernment under God, not undermen, not the church, nor the state.God’s law is the means to a free andgodly community. In surveying Biblicallaw, we must rst recognize its premise.Fallen man can only create a sinfulsociety and a tyrannical one. The goalof unregenerate man is a new Towerof Babel, Babylon the Great. It meansplaying God and controlling all things.The goal of regenerate man in Christ isthe kingdom of God and the New Je-rusalem, a realm wherein righteousnessor justice dwells (2 Peter 3:13). Fallenman cannot build a just social orderbecause he is in revolt against the Godof all justice or righteousness and His

law, which is justice. God’s law is “theperfect law of liberty” (James 1:25), andit is a law hated by all who are in sin,

which is slavery (John 8:31–36).2

Christian individuals and familiesare in a position to play a signicant rolein removing the bonds of slavery thatentangle so many. By helping others(both old and young) bridge the gapfrom illiteracy to literacy, we have theopportunity to help them become free

indeed (John 8:36). What’s more, thiscan be a great chance for young peoplestill living at home, and who are goodreaders themselves, to contribute tothe lives of others. The simple rule ofthumb is this: If you can read, you canteach someone else to read. Imagine what it would be like if each Christian


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Faith for All of Life family determined to let their light shinein this way.

Personal StoryHaving taught three children to

read and having helped adults whostruggle with reading, this is an area ofministry that comes naturally to me. Forexample, over twenty years ago, when Imet a woman who owned a ranch andtaught horseback riding, I was able toexchange reading instruction for her twoyoung children with riding lessons formine. Each of us was satised with thearrangement and her struggling studentsbecame better readers.

Currently, I have teamed up with apublic school teacher who refers to me

families whose children are strugglingin school, specically with reading.Once the parents make contact withme by phone, I explain that I will helptheir child become a good reader. Therequirements include their promise tosupervise their son or daughter in theirpractice in between tutoring sessions. Iarrange for us to meet at a public libraryand I spend about a half an hour toforty-ve minutes two times a week,going through the material in SamBlumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics program. Iassign homework, making it clear thatI am only interested in continuing withthis arrangement if the family (includ-ing the student) values the opportunity.I charge a minimal $5 per session, andrequire that the student be the one tohand me the money. What the familydoes not know, is that when we com-plete the program, the money that Ihave been paid will be used to purchase

a Bible and some good reading materialas an acknowledgement of the accom-plishment.

All along the way, who I am and what I believe is a part of our interac-tion. One mother thanked me forinvesting in her son. I told her that I do what I do because of Jesus Christ and

what He has done for me. She began tocry. This started discussion about herlife and faith and has encouraged herto read the Bible in her own native lan-guage. A little bit of effort on my parthas produced positive results.

Chalcedon Makes This EasierShould you wish to try your hand

at this accessible ministry for you oryour children, Chalcedon makes theprocess easy. For a small investment, youcan purchase the Alpha-Phonics Tutor’sPackage 3 and make use of our helpfultutorial as to how to get started along with one-on-one mentoring along the way should you need it. By focusing onGod’s requirement for charity, we can

do much to advance the Kingdom in a way that produces tangible results. Thisis one way to let our light shine beforeothers and point them to Christ in theprocess.

Religion is either man-centered orGod-centered, and non-Christian,non-Biblical faiths are men-centered.The concern of pagans, whether inthe church or out of it, whether in anancient mystery religion or in a modernchurch, is man-centered. In effect,

the believer is interested in what Godcan do for him or her. As against this,Biblical faith insists that justice meansrighteousness in us, set forth by ourfaithfulness to God’s law; because God’slaw is the expression of His nature andbeing, to believe in God means to obeyHis law and to manifest His commu-nicable attributes, which include grace,mercy, and charity … Moreover, tobelieve in God is to know His grace,mercy, and charity to us in and through

Jesus Christ, His atonement, and Hisprovidential care.4

Sharing Our LivesChristian charity is altogether dif-

ferent from its humanistic counterpart.Christendom resulted from the peopleof God applying the law of God to allaspects of life. Today, much of that has

been clouded by a self-centerednessthat has no root in Scripture. Withan emphasis on the Christian call tocharity, we will be in a better positionto reconstruct our society on Biblicalfoundations. Rushdoony points out,

We sometimes forget what a radicalchange in every area of life and thought

was made by Christianity. As onescholar observed, those who were theclosest to the gods in Homer were notthe poor nor the meek, but the strongand the powerful. Greek philosophyand popular thought did not considerthe potential for goodness in the poor… Giving to another person took placeonly when one knew that the otherperson would in due time reciprocate…

Our Lord reversed the prevailing moralorder. His command was, “Give, and itshall be given unto you; good measure,pressed down, and shaken together, andrunning over, shall men give into yourbosom” (Luke 6:38). Matthew 6:1 saysthat it is our Father in Heaven who willreward us by His providence. “And if yedo good to them which do good to you,

what thank have ye? for sinners also doeven the same” (Luke 6:33).

Over the centuries, one of the unex-

pected kindnesses of Christians was thatthey asked people, who were unable toreciprocate the invitation, to share theirdinner. The poor were thus welcomedto the table by richer believers.

We are now on the road back topaganism. We pay little attention toour Lord’s commandments concerningcharity and brotherly love. As a result,

we have made ourselves comfortablebut poor in grace.5

Those of us adopted into God’sfamily, and eager to see His King-dom lived out here on earth as it is inheaven, have to look no further thanour daily lives to nd ways of further-ing the Kingdom. We have much tooffer our culture by means of Christian

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Y ou know you’re infor something un-usual when the creditsroll for Anchored andthis is what you see:

Executive Pro-ducer, Roger Strackbein; Screenwriter,Shanna Strackbein; Producers, WesleyStrackbein and Shanna Strackbein;Co-producers, Jenny Strackbein and

Jenna Strackbein; Costume Designers,Emily Strackbein and Jenna Strackbein;Editors, Shanna Strackbein and JennaStrackbein; Composers, Emily Strack-bein and Elisabeth Strackbein.

So much for Hollywood. This is alm by Unbroken Faith Productions,and very much a family affair. In fact,it’s about the life of Dewey Holden,the grandfather of the men and womenmentioned in the credits above, andDorothy Smith, his wife, their grand-mother. It’s a lm about a family, by afamily.

Anchored has been nominated for anaward, and will be an Ofcial Selectionat the 2016 Christian Worldview FilmFestival at San Antonio, Texas, March14–19.

A Very Sweet MovieDo we even need the Hollywood

lm industry anymore? This is an

independently made movie, a familyproject—and we can be pretty sure itdidn’t cost $100 million to produce. And yet there’s no hint of amateurish-ness about it.

This is a very sweet movie withdeep roots in family, in place, and in adevoutly Christian faith. Maybe these

Anchored: A Grandfather’s Legacy Movie Reviewed by Lee Duigon

M o v i e R e v i e w

are things that some Americans need tobe reminded about. “Papaw” Holdenlived a quiet, stable life, punctuated byperiods of ood, drought, war and otherdisruptions, acquiring skills, doing dif-ferent jobs, building a house, and rais-ing a family—all of it within a contextof personal belief and trust in God: andnone of it outside that context.

What struck me as remarkable,

unusual—because in my part of thecountry, I see this so seldom, maybenever—is that Mr. Holden’

march-april 2016 issue of faith for all of life

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