pious thinking ⁽⁹⁸⁾

This site’s old “About” was a depressing piece of business, no doubt about it. Though my convictions were strong, I was “not a happy camper.” Truth be told, I remain a melancholy individual. Except for some alleged cheerfulness during infancy, in fact, I’ve always been such. I don’t foresee this changing radically in the future. — D.M.H., 03 May 2024< Though for a time the site’s founder made an effort to cultivate…

Originally written for a course at Luther Rice University & Seminary in August 2011, under the title “Zen & The Art of Gospel-Evasion: An Interview with Commentary.” On Thursday, 4 August 2011, the writer interviewed a priest and assistant instructor at a Zen center in San Diego County, California, where the writer resides. Because the interviewee shared some information the writer deems private, he has not included the interviewee's name or the…

Originally written for a course at Luther Rice University & Seminary in August 2011, under the title “Zen: Accepting Reality As It Isn't.” This post, please note, in not yet “complete”: Some revisions, such as introduction of relevant links, remain pending. This paper will survey central metaphysical and epistemological tenets of Zen philosophy and examine two Zen practices growing out of these tenets. The philosophy, and practices based upon it, will be…

“Humble Presuppositionalism: Newbigin’s Fallibilist Coherentism, with a Dash of Plantinga,” originally written in June 2009 for a course at Bethel Seminary San Diego. Bracketed comments carrying my initials (DMH) mostly date to 2011 (when I first prepared a version of this paper for the Web), though later comments are also possible. I should note, by the way, that my conservative theological and political convictions would generally put me on the side of…

Backstory ˅ I prepared this paper for an independent study at Bethel Seminary San Diego, where I earned an MA in Theological Studies, in March 2009. A branch campus of Bethel Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Bethel Seminary San Diego closed in 2019. The Saint Paul campus now maintains all records for San Diego alumni. Most San Diego professors who have not retired or moved away are now teaching at Pacific Theological…

Some suggest that pious Christian faith includes belief that the logically contradictory is true, such as in a divine realm beyond the laws of logic and all distinctions. In By Scripture Alone (2002 Trinity Foundation edition), W. Gary Crampton rejects this as impious nonsense: As I’ve noted in brackets, what is to be rejected is belief in contradictions that are true. It is in the sense of insoluble contradictions that, I believe,…

Gordon H. Clark, in the 1963 Presbyterian & Reformed edition of his Karl Barth’s Theological Method, argues that letting Scripture-based theology reign as queen over the sciences yields the unity of knowledge that reason requires. He writes: This proposal may strike even some Christians as odd today, since many so-called apologists now look to science for evidence upon which to base their version of Christian “faith.” In this scheme, science is queen…

Philip Jacob Spener, in his 1675 book Pia Desideria (Pious Desires), addressed the origin of impious interpretive schemes at odds with the perspicuity (clarity) of Scripture. Theodore Tappert translates Spener’s remarks as follows: While it is possible Spener considered some reasonable inferences from all that Scripture says to have been “Subtleties unknown to the Scriptures,” his basic observation merits every Bible believer’s attention. Very complex and imaginative interpretations may be made to…

In To Be As God: A Study of Modern Thought Since The Marquis de Sade (Ross House, 2003) Rousas John Rushdoony reiterates how the consistent immorality of the Marquis de Sade is the course most logically consistent with unbelief. Because [the Marquis de] Sade was so consistently evil, he was more logical than most evil men and most churchmen, whose inconsistent profession of Christianity blurs their vision badly. Sade’s fundamental premise in…

Rousas John Rushdoony, in his The Mythology Of Science (Ross House edition, 2001), points out the logical superiority (given unbelieving or “neutral” premises) of the Marquis de Sade’s anti-ethics over relativistic “consenting adults” morality. To date, American society has only been inclined to adopt the demonic Marquis’s logic when it comes to the victimization of innocents unable to speak for themselves, by making surgical abortion, which ends an innocent person’s life based…

Originally prepared in March 2007 for a course at Bethel Seminary (San Diego campus, now closed). Revised to improve Web presentation in October 2024. In Search of the Soul: Four Views of The Mind-Body Problem. Edited by Joel B. Green & Stuart L. Palmer. Downers Grover: InterVarsity, 2005. Pp. 223. Paper. ISBN 0-8308-2773-0. [1], [2] Prefer to skip ahead? Here is a heading-by-heading, hyperlinked breakdown of the paper’s contents: Editor Joel B.

When essential bricks are left out, the wall cannot stand. Do better. Cornelius Van Til, in The Defense of The Faith (Presbyterian and Reformed, 3rd revised edition, 1967), describes how any unity of thought and experience that the impious (unbelievers) claim is illusory. At least, any unbelieving basis claimed for such unity is illusory, though a degree of unity at odds with unbelief, “a shadow unity,” is inevitably retained. And so it…