March 2025 Musings (3/7/2025)
Riddleblog and Blessed Hope Podcast Updates:
As the current Blessed Hope Podcast series on 1 Corinthians winds down, a head’s up. I’ll be taking a bit of a break to work on a book project, before picking back up with 2 Corinthians. Then, Lord willing, it is on to Romans!
To my surprise, my recent piece on releasing the JFK files and the deep state had more traffic than any other Riddleblog post since I updated the blog five years ago. I did have several posts with higher traffic on the Old Riddleblog (such as Jack Bauer’s Man Bag and my reply to J-Mac’s 2007 Shepherd’s Conference lecture on Dispensationalism and Calvinism. But that was in the golden days of blogging . . .
Thinking Out Loud:
I gave up Lent for Lent.
This year’s Oscars awards ceremony demonstrates how far removed I am from certain elements of pop culture. I did not know the names of any of the five movies nominated, few of the actors nominated (and none of the younger ones). I didn’t watch even two minutes of what has become a series of red carpet wardrobe malfunctions (most are intentional, I am sure) and political diatribes from twits who make bad movies and have never read a book. My sons are grown and have been gone from home for years, my dear wife doesn’t care about Hollywood, so I have finally reached the point of complete and total indifference to the Oscar Awards (the Grammys, too). I don’t miss any of it.
Evidence of the decline of Western Civilization continues to mount. The New York Yankees caved on their ban on facial hair—now allowing players to sport groomed beards and mustaches. Somewhere, Johnny Damon is rejoicing. Ugh . . .
I’ve heard political commentators of late accuse their opponents of championing “false facts.” Excuse me, but something that is false cannot be a “fact.” Why not speak of your opponent as pushing “falsehoods.”
Shaq recently scored an annual contract of 14 mil to laugh at Charles Barkley. Since I can’t stand to watch current NBA games, I catch Shaq, Barkley, et al., on YouTube occasionally. Poor Ernie Johnson trying to corral them . . . they are indeed hilarious.
I’m not an RFKjr fan, but I wouldn’t mind seeing his proposed ban on TV and on-line advertising for alphabet bending medications implemented. “Ask your Doctor about `x’” for an illness you’ve never heard of, and didn’t know you possibly had, until the commercial made you wonder about it. Of course, the side effects are worse than the illness and require three more medications to remedy.
I’m also tired of YouTube/TV ads with folks rubbing potions, goos, and balms all over themselves while clothed in nothing but their skivvies. Ban them too while you are at it!
Now, get off my lawn!
Recently Read:
Keith Mathison’s recent book Toward a Reformed Apologetics, (TRA) offers what is to my mind a compelling critique of the presuppositional apologetic methodology of Cornelius Van Til (CVT). I have long been sympathetic to the concerns of team Mathison (Ligioner), going back to the days when I was asked by John Warwick Montgomery to teach a graduate course entitled “Evidentialism and Presuppositionalism in Apologetics” at the Simon Greenleaf School of Law. To sharpen the point a bit, I was always on team Warfield when it came to apologetics—an apologetic grounded in the God-given historical facts of special revelation and redemptive history (miracles, fulfilled prophecy, the resurrection).
Mathison’s volume lays out the same sort of critiques of CVT which I did in my lecture notes for that course—only Mathison does it much, much, better, and grounded in years of thoughtful interaction with Van Tilianism. I heartily agree with the quip from one of the book’s endorsers that his only complaint was that Mathison did not write this volume fifteen years earlier. Agreed! This is an important book which needed to be written.
Mathison’s book does a number of things quite well. His summary of CVT’s apologetics methodology is thorough, fair, and irenic—the best summation of CVT’s views I have seen so far (TRA 35-115). Mathison also gives us a clear and concise evaluation of CVT’s troubling framing of the doctrine of the Trinity (“God is one person and three persons”). Mathison is winsome but tough on CVT when necessary. Mathison describes CVT’s formulation as a “serious issue” and a matter of “serious theological concern.” He notes CVT’s formulation is “unbiblical, contrary to our ancient creeds, contrary to our Reformed confessions,” and “striking at the vitals of the historical Christian faith” (TRA, 182-191). Indeed, CVT left behind a Trinitarian mess which his followers have been reluctant to address (understandably so), although now are forced to do so in light of recent efforts at retrieval of the ancient doctrine of the Trinity.
Mathison capably tackles CVT’s idealist epistemology (far too indebted to Kant in my opinion), which explains many of CVT’s emphases and criticism of other apologetics approaches (TRA 143-167). Mathison also points out what is strangely missing from CVT’s theological and apologetic work—any interaction with the broader Reformed tradition throughout CVT’s published works (TRA 172-177; 193-212). CVT ignored the tradition at critical points, wandering off on his own. This was a concern brought to my attention years go by Richard Muller, who was less than impressed with CVT’s misrepresentation of a number of Aquinas’s views, as well CVT’s dismissal of the traditional Reformed embrace of natural law. Mathison addresses CVT’s curt dismissal of Aquinas’s relevance to apologetics in a number of places in TRA.
As our late Lutheran friend Rod Rosenbladt used to ask Reformed folk during White Horse Inn recording and conferences, “how did CVT’s apologetic methodology become elevated to the status of the Nicene Creed in the Reformed tradition?” That question too is answered by Mathison. CVT trained two generations of Reformed and Presbyterian pastors while at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. If you’ve heard any audio of CVT’s classroom lectures, it quickly becomes apparent that CVT was a mensch, witty, and fiercely committed to the defense of Christian faith in the face of all comers. But CVT’s wide-ranging influence was grounded in his persona and his classroom lectures, not from the multiple and hard to read syllabi covering a number of subjects, long published by P & R. He’s now in glory and his influence has begun to wane. Mathison put into print what many of us have been thinking all along.
Toward a Reformed Apologetics is highly recommended to anyone who is interested in, or has wondered about, CVT’s presuppositionalism and why it has been so dominant in the Reformed world despite its shortcomings.
Recommended Links:
Never gonna happen, but it should. Try and get this through environmental impact studies and zoning! The importance of church graveyards
Nice chart from Warfield’s Plan of Salvation on the order of the divine decrees
S. M. Baugh on Babel
Michael Kruger on The Earliest List of Canonical Books
Jonah Goldberg Interviews Francis Fukuyama. Fascinating discussion
A brief review of Herman Bavincks’s What Is Christianity?
What could/would China do to America if it launched a major cyber attack. School of War (guest Adm. Mark Montgomery) spells it out. You won’t be reading this (or anything else on the Internet) should it happen
Fun Links:
No, your legs are not sunburned. Parasites on the move
Denmark retaliates after Trump’s bullying of Denmark. We’ll buy California
Librarians don’t spy on folks like they used to—now they use body cams
“Tiger Urine . . . Get your tiger urine here . . . Only 5 pounds sterling . . .”
The Ramen Nazi: No Ramen for you!
I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. A gluttonous Opossum
“Honey, I have something important to tell you. . . I have herpes, but I caught it from a monkey . . . Really . . .”
Previous Musings:
Winter Musings 2025 (February 7, 2025)
Video:
A word of knowledge? A vision? Famed economist, Milton Friedman (1912-2006), lays out what ought to be cut from the Federal government under Reagan (in the early 1980s). (HT—Judy Yamada)