When two Rights make a Wrong: The arbitrary creation of rights and how it is destroying our most basic protections of law.

When Two Rights make a Wrong: The arbitrary creation of rights and how it is destroying our most basic protections of law. Click the link to hear the show

Human Rights are a Christian idea. Others might use, borrow, steal, reinterpret, or deny them but they are only possible within a worldview sufficient to give them proper grounding. Without this, they are just words that correspond to no existing object.

The Enlightenment fell in love with rights talk, especially natural rights talk, because there seemed to be a way to draw legal boundaries from mere consensus. When a society has a sufficient moral/rational foundation to compel self restraint, even when the outward form is in the runny language of the Enlightenment, individual rights and the common good can coexist, and even thrive. Christianity has provided that basic ethical form for thousands of years in the West, and more specifically, in the American experience. In this, every inch of our progress or social advancement has been a Christian inch.

With that Christian ethical environment rapidly evaporating over the last few decades and nothing to replace it, it has become increasingly plain that Enlightenment rationalism and/or empiricism, plus nothing, equals an unintelligible mess of contradictory ideas, none of which hold any persuasive force in regard to the measurement of social norms. But the language of rights continues unabated regardless of the “rights” so called lacking any identifiable justification or clear meaning. In contemporary use, “rights” have become a simple synonym for whatever I or my group of confederates want and are willing to manipulate the political system to ensure. Rights have been reduced to a combination of political power and the force of the state, and this combination is neither something new to political history nor unpredictable in its inevitable effects.

There is incredible danger in the change here described. When everything becomes a right, nothing remains a right. The existence and recognition of human rights, much less civil rights is an extraordinarily delicate thing. Rights, unless very carefully measured can easily become the mere effect of an arbitrary state; the rule of men replacing the rule of law. The unshackled will replacing moral reasoning and time tested precedent. The reason that the wholesale creation of “rights” detached from any metaphysical or ethical worldview sufficient to give them meaning is so disturbing is because there are very real dangers and powers in the world with magnificent animosity to the most basic ideas of human rights and these thinly disguised promotions of self interest cast doubt on even the most obvious moral duties. Thus when genocide and slavery are still the rule rather than the exception in much of our small world and children are trafficked for sex and labor, the claims of human rights to polygamy, or pornography, or therapeutic abortions begin to look and empty as they really are.

Before and right or a duty can be reasonably maintained one must establish the kind of a thing that we are and the conditions in which we exist. The Christian Worldview expresses inherent human value as one of its most basic presuppositions due to the creation in the image of God of every human being. Most of the recent claims to rights to this and that being rooted in naturalistic and materialistic worldviews, the claim to have an actual right of whatever kind, seems to be in direct conflict with very nature of the rights themselves.

If rights are given by God, and God made people to be a certain kind of thing, and made them to do certain kinds of things and to not do other kinds of things, one cannot then argue for a right to do the kind of thing that God did not make people to do. If rights are God given, then they are limited in their scope to the rights God gives; if rights are not God given then we have no duty to regard them. Either way, we have no duty act as if people have a right to anything immoral or unchaste or to pretend that people have a God given right to do that which is unnatural in regard to the kind of thing that God made them to be.

Thus rights to life, liberty, peace, property, worship, the maintenance of an ordered community, to raise one’s children according to one’s faith, and to protect oneself and one’s family from harm are rights and not much else is.

Neiswonger

Click link below to hear the show.
When Two Rights make a Wrong: The arbitrary creation of rights and how it is destroying our most basic protections of law.

Apologetics.com – Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation

Title: Apologetics.com – Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation

http://apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=422:martin-luther-and-the-protestant-reformation&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74

“Everyone that is a Protestant of whatever flavor has a debt to those that came before. October 31st is Reformation Day, when we take the time to remember our brave and noble dead. They brought us back the Holy Bible, and for that we hold them in high esteem. Men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, John Knox, Martin Bucer and Heinrich Bullinger did the heavy lifting in the defense of the Gospel at a time when such often resulted in persecution or death. So much of what we enjoy today is the result of their labors that it is difficult to measure. Everything from constitutional jurisprudence in the form we enjoy to the clear presentation of freedom of conscience were their produce. Scripture Alone as the sole infallible rule was their formal cause; Justification by Grace Alone through Faith Alone in Christ Alone to the Glory of God Alone their final end. Simply, God was greater to them than He is to Christians today and so they accomplished ends worthy of their high estimation. With Special guest Pastor Philip George of Calvary Presbyterian Church of Glendale California, Christopher Neiswonger and Lindsay Brooks.”

“Collision” Highlights the Great Antithesis, by David L. Bahnsen

“The about-to-be released DVD, Collision, is an important work that I heartily commend. The immensely talented and passionate Darren Doane has directed a gripping piece highlighting the debate over God’s existence between Pastor Doug Wilson of Moscow, Idaho and the well-known secular writer, Christopher Hitchens. The video is gripping, the participants are most-compelling, the editing is fantastic, and most importantly, the great divide in the debate over God’s existence is spendidly exposed.

Nearly twenty-five years ago my late father, Dr. Greg Bahnsen, debated the highly acclaimed atheist scholar, Dr. Gordon Stein, at the University of California in Irvine. The debate caused shockwaves then, and continues to stir interest today, probably selling more MP3’s, CD’s, and tapes over the years than all of my father’s work put together. And for good reason: it is a simply stunning apologetic for the Christian faith from an immensely qualified philosophical intellect. And at the risk of sounding like a biased son, I am rather certain it is the best defense of the faith I have ever heard.”

To read the entire review, click the link

www.apologetics.com

http://apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=421:collision-highlights-the-great-antithesis-a-dvd-worth-having

God is Not the Author of Sin

“God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so as neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor is liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. This third chapter, first section of the Westminster Confession asserts that God has ordained everything that comes to pass. As we know many evil things come to pass and yet while God has ordained it He is not the author of sin, He does not violate the will of the creature, nor is the liberty of second causes taken away, but rather established.

This idea that God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass has been challenged and fought heartily against by many Christians. The writers of the confession knew what the implications of this statement would be, namely that God was the author of sin and they immediately address the issue. It is one thing to make the assertion but quite another to prove it’s validity, and we will need to attend to scripture to see if what is asserted is indeed true.

Isaiah 46:9-11,
Remember the former things of old,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,’
Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
Indeed I have spoken it;
I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it;
I will also do it.
1 Samuel 2:25,
If one man sins against another, God will judge him. But if a man sins against the LORD, who will intercede for him?” Nevertheless they did not heed the voice of their father, because the LORD desired to kill them.
2 Samuel 17:14,
Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Arkite is better than that of Ahithophel.” For the LORD had determined to frustrate the good advice of Ahithophel in order to bring disaster on Absalom.
Acts 2:22,
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know– Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. For David says concerning Him:
Romans 9:17-19,
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?”

We see that Eli’s sons continued to do evil for the Lord desired to kill them, we see Absalom taking the advice of Hushai for God determined to bring disaster on Absalom, we see lawless hands committing the most heinous crime ever, putting Jesus to death by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God and we see Pharaoh being raised up by God and hardened by God for the very purpose of showing His power through the plagues. Yet God is still not the author of sin.

B. B. Warfield concerning this issue states: “That anything—good or evil—occurs in God’s universe finds it’s account…in His positive ordering and active concurrence, while the moral quality of the deed, considered in itself, is rooted in the moral character of the subordinate agent, acting in the circumstances and under the motives operative in each instance…Thus all things find their unity in His eternal plan; and not their unity merely, but their justification as well; even the evil, though retaining its quality as evil and hateful to the holy God, and certain to be dealt with as hateful, yet does not occur apart from His provision or against His will, but appears in the world which He has made only as the instrument by which He works the higher good.”

clay

You promote by action as much as by word.

You promote by action as much as by word.

Words often say things that we do not intend but deeds are disturbingly accurate measurements of character. Sins of omission are less obvious than overt acts but cumulatively, what we chose to leave undone speaks volumes. These days it’s popular to say that it doesn’t matter what you think, but what you do. Really, what you do is what you think, just out here in the air.

There’s a lot to be said about “being conscious” of something. I know the odd sounding frame can carry all kinds of loose thinking, but if we are doing something, something that we either don’t intend or at least would not do otherwise, shouldn’t we try to see these things?

I used to know a man that would say rude things to his children. One day I asked him, “Why do you do that?” He was shocked, not that I asked, but that it was something he did. He said, “My Dad always did that. I always thought I never would.” From then on he was very conscious of that and as far as I know, never did so again. I wouldn’t have asked just anyone, but in this case the actions had such a dramatically contrary character in relation to the rest of his life that the question begged asking. There was something about it that just seemed so foreign to his general life and worldview. I started to think it was impossible that he actually knew what he was doing or that he knew and did so with conscious intent. He was not trying to produce in his children the actual effect of his words. So what then? Why do it? I don’t know, and really, it doesn’t matter as much as that he observed himself enough to guard his tongue. We can figure out why we do the things we do at a more appropriate opportunity but that we change our behaviour is an immediate need.

This is not to be confused into a runny psychologism but just to guard ourselves from being something that we would not like. We need to be careful to look for causes of our actions, because the cause is the meaning of the effect.

God’s usual method for our sanctification is not to fix us all at once. We are Justified all at once; we are Sanctified through a lifetime. He seems to do so through eras of tempering through experience, trial, ordeal, reward, and learning. Thus we do not expect a perfect Christian any more than we advance a perfect church. But the things that we can do we must do and looking at who we are is never easy.

Becoming a Christian is in some ways like coming out of the dark into a well lit room. We see all kinds of things that were heretofore hidden. Many of these things are delightful but some are disturbing. The worst, I think, are those things within ourselves that should not be so. There are things that we’ve done in the natural life that when the spiritual life begins, go from being badges of honour to hallmarks of shame. The very things in which the world finds glory, we find either morose or empty. The events themselves haven’t changed but we have changed in relation to them. The things that we once held up as the evidence of our greatness become symbols of our guilt. Our loves become embarrassments and our embarrassments joys.

All of this we need to go through in order to reach Christ more fully and in reaching Him more fully, to grow in grace and faith and the good works that flow from them.

Neiswonger