Saturn’s rings display a subtle color. NASA
“They knew how to combine science and religion so the two worked side by side, neither denying the other, each enriching the other.” Ray Bradbury
Update: My mom is now able to walk with her walker. She has come a long way from the night she fell and fractured her wrist and pelvis. At the age of 93, she is with the program and becoming quite feisty like her daughter. She is to return to Assisted Living in one week. My husband gave her a professional diagnosis on her outcome: “Looks like she has another rodeo in her.” Thank you for your prayers. Her recovery was remarkable.
When last we left Sovereign Grace, they had changed their name to Sovereign Grace Churches, claimed they would not allow any sort of independent investigation, and found that Al Mohler and Danny Akin said they were wrong about CJ Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Churches. Although CJ Mahaney is not the head of SGC, his DNA, friends, and church are all over of it. It appears to be a “man behind the curtain” thing. For those of you who do not know about CJ Mahaney and the sexual abuse scandal of SGM, here is quick catchup. The Sex-Abuse Scandal That Devastated a Suburban Megachurch.
Sovereign Grace has long been known for the 9 month Pastors College which takes anyone, regardless of educational background, and turns them into pastors, tout suite. In its heyday, there was information that SBTS would take some folks from this school directly into the Masters of Divinity program. I am assuming that this no longer exists, given Al Mohler’s repudiation of CJ Mahaney.
SGC’s Trinity College of Louisville begins this year.
Here is a link to Trinity College of Louisville’s website. The following video is helpful in understanding the college.
Some things learned from the video.
- He gives thanks to CJ Mahaney, just in case you thought he was put out to pasture. He’s still revered.
- This first year will be mostly virtual learning. However…local students will be able to attend Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville (CJ is the head pastor) for classes and gatherings.
- The school will provide a classical education.
SGC of Louisville will be particularly used at the beginning of this church.
The church currently meets at The University of Louisville Shelbyhurst Campus It appears they do not own a building at this time. Here is a close-up view of the building. Both SGC Louisville and Sovereign Grace Churches’s headquarter are in a business park here.
What do they teach?
It appears that they will combine courses such as Biblical Anthropology and Theology along with the standard Western Civilization courses. Is it really just a classical education or is it an indoctrination into the hard complementarian viewpoints of SGC and Mahaney? Case in point, look at this picture from the website. Note the beautiful study hall which is not how the school will look whatsoever.
There is menu making
Since when has menu making been part of classical education? Why do I get the feeling that there will be courses on home decorating as well which will be for women only? I could be wrong.
From the Trinity College of Louisville website.
Who are the professors?
It looks like that part of things is “up in the air.” I’m sure they could get CJ to discuss his famous book on Humility. Maybe they will import professors who will teach online for a decent fee. That worked at the Pastors College. CJ’s good buddy, Wayne Grudem, did this sort of thing.
It appears that SGC is now calling itself a denomination instead of a “family of churches” (the happiest place on earth.) This school is firmly tied to that denomination.
Here is a link to Trinity’s frequently asked questions.
Trinity College was birthed from within Sovereign Grace Churches and is partnering with the denomination to establish the College. Participation in the college, however, is not limited to members of Sovereign Grace Churches and potential students from other denominational backgrounds are warmly invited to apply. While some of our denominational distinctives will naturally be expressed through our curriculum, most of the content of our classes will be heartily affirmed by evangelicals who hold to historic, confessional expressions of the Christian faith. To learn more about the doctrinal commitments to which Trinity College adheres, see the Sovereign Grace Churches Statement of Faith.
The school will accept those without a classical education.
They just want students who will work hard. It is not about the “prerequisites.” I bet it will be easy to be accepted.
Trinity College of Louisville, Young Earth Creationism, and TRACS (Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools)
Now let’s switch gears with this next question. Is Trinity College of Louisville accredited?
Not yet. Accreditation is important for those students who intend to go beyond a bachelors degree and pursue graduate-level education elsewhere. Trinity College is pursuing accreditation through the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. Students who receive degrees from Trinity College prior to accreditation can expect their degrees to be retroactively recognized as accredited degrees.
How does TRACS define itself?
Here is their website.
TRACS is authorized to pre-accredit and accredit institutions offering certificates, diplomas, and associate, baccalaureate, and graduate degrees; including institutions that offer distance education.
Wikipedia has a far more interesting description. It’s all about Young Earth Creationism!
The TRACS website all sounds rather normal but I was a bit suspicious. Wikipedia cleared it up!
Despite the transnational in its name, almost all of the schools the organization reviews are located in the United States.
Through 2018, YEC has to be part of an accredited school’s statement.TRACS is a product of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).
The organization was founded in 1979. According to the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), TRACS is a “product of the ICR”. TRACS required, through at least 2018, all accredited schools to have a statement of faith that affirms “the inerrancy and historicity of the Bible” and “the divine work of non-evolutionary creation including persons in God’s image”.[6]
After 2018?
I called TRACS and the pleasant assistant said she didn’t know but would ask the President and get back to me. I will post an update if I hear from them.
TRACS was approved under the Bush administration under much criticism.
TRACS’s first application for federal recognition in 1987 was denied, but in 1991 under President George H. W. Bush, U.S. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander “approved TRACS, despite his advisory panel’s repeatedly recommending against recognition.”[7] Approval came following TRACS’ third rejection by the board in which Secretary Alexander “arranged for an appeal hearing,” and critics of the approval said the move was about politics.[7] TRACS’ approval “worried” accrediting officials who concluded that TRACS was not a qualified accreditor and the move was criticized by education officials.[8][9][10]
TRACS approved the institute for Creation Research under much criticism.
Another source of criticism was the 1991 granting of accreditation to the Institute for Creation Research. One of TRACS’ board members was Henry M. Morris, founder of ICR. Attorney Timothy Sandefur called Morris’s position on the board “highly questionable”.[11] In 2007 John D. Morris, Henry Morris’ son, asked TRACS to terminate the ICR’s accreditation.[12] The reason was, in part, that the ICR moved to Texas[13] and the state did not recognize TRACS.[14]
Liberty University was accredited by this group but Liberty eventually resigned from this group. Questions arose over a TRACS’ category called “associated schools.”
In 1993, Steve Levicoff published a book-length critical discussion of TRACS, When the TRACS Stop Short: An Evaluation and Critique of the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools.[15][16] Levicoff criticized TRACS’s expedited accreditation of Liberty University and its creation of a category for schools which it called associate schools. While this category “was not considered an official accreditation,” Levicoff argued that TRACS lent its name to a number of “blatantly fraudulent institutions.”[17] Liberty gained TRACS accreditation in September 1984, but resigned its accreditation on November 6, 2008.[18][19]
In 1995, TRACS was put on probation.
One reason for the probation was TRACS starting the accrediting process for schools that could not meet basic requirements, such as Nashville Bible College, which was granted “accreditation candidate status” when it had twelve full-time students, seven part-time students, and two part-time faculty members.[16] Improvements were made, including eliminating the “associate schools” category and changing chairmen.[17]
As of now,
It has authority for the “accreditation and preaccreditation (“Candidate” status) of postsecondary institutions in the United States that offer certificates, diplomas, and associate, baccalaureate, and graduate degrees, including institutions that offer distance education
TRACS helps schools that may lose their accreditation.
According to Small, Private HBCUs Find Lifeline with TRACS Amid Accreditation Struggles:
The Forest, Virginia-based accreditor’s name popped up in the news again recently when Bennett College officials announced in February that the all-women’s HBCU would seek national accreditation with TRACS after a final decision by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to revoke the North Carolina college’s regional accreditation.
The issue – lingering doubts about the college’s long-term financial sustainability – is the same one that compelled Paine College in Georgia and Paul Quinn College (PQC) in Texas to apply for accreditation with TRACS when their respective accreditors decided to terminate their accreditation. Paul Quinn was granted full accreditation in 2011 and Paine is in candidacy 2 status, or pre-full accreditation.
All three schools were wise to file with TRACS in time to prevent a lapse in accreditation, which could deal a death blow to a school. Without accreditation, a school cannot receive federal student aid funds, which virtually guarantees financial insolvency and ultimately closure.
What do I think of SGC’s Trinty College of Louisville?
- Given the track record of the Pastors College and its views on what constitutes a rigorous education, I am not hopeful that it will provide a rigorous education.
- I will be interested in seeing the new crop of unnamed professors. My guess is that they will be warmed over SGM pals of CJ Mahaney. Keep an eye on who will teach in the virtual school. These will most likely be the well-known pastors who have stuck by the side of SGC and Mahaney as well as the financial benefits.
- I question the safety of the students attending this school given the accusations surrounding the sex scandal of Sovereign Grace Churches (Ministries.)
- I would be concerned that the reputation of SGC/SGM will negatively affect students when applying for jobs.
- I’m not sure what they are teaching if they claim they are teaching menu planning. Will women be relegated to women’s classes? This will be a hard complementarian college. Women, beware.
This new venture will be “fun” to watch. I wonder what controversies will arise. I wonder if Mahaney will teach. I wonder if his family members will teach.
I started writing about this crowd in 2009 and they will not go away 13 years later.
“I started writing about this crowd in 2009 and they will not go away 13 years later.” (Dee)
As the old saying goes “A bad penny always turns up.”
Speaking of bad pennies, do you really think Al Mohler doesn’t have anything to do with his old bud C.J.? They surely bump into each other at the Louisville Walmart or at Louisville Cardinals’ basketball games. I figure C.J. is still a part of Al’s little playgroup, and that Al’s rejection of C.J. was just a hoax.
Now they can award Trinity College Honorary Doctorates to each other.
Sigh….
Holding to YEC as an institution is the LEAST of their problems. There are a fair number of people in life science that hold to one form of creationism or another. Where will they get the PhDs they need to staff their science departments if they have no facilities or labs? Where will they get the $$$$$$ to pay them? This will last as long as TRACs or their “candidate” status will last, in other words, not long. What do they bring to the table that will make students, and their parents pony up with the 30-40 K a year it will take to run this thing?
I have seen this all before. The demise of once revered Washington Bible College, the problem, money.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Well done!!!!
I am an evolutionary creationist which is the term some theistic evolutionists use. When you use the term “creationism in one form of another, are you referring to this? If you are referring to YEC, the vast majority of people in the life sciences are not YEC unless someone is using Ken Ham “statistics.”
As. for the PhD’s I think one of Mahaney’s son in laws is working on his PhD so maybe he will be the token PhD to carry the school.
These guys are not equipped to do even high school science. Perhaps they will pay a local Christian school to let them use their labs on weekends.
Also, in the FAQ section, they claim they will charge about what it costs at a community college.
Jeffrey Chalmers,
I thought of you when I wrote this. I look forward to your input. (LOLOLOL)
Max,
I have become a cynic. It is possible that there are still back door, back slaps going on. But, it will be kept on the down-low since it would be embarrassing. CJ is a pariah-‘he whose name must not be spoken’ sort of thing. If it is happening, we eventually will find out.
That’s good news about your Mom dee, all of us rejoice with you…
On a financial note, students would be well-advised to get a guarantee of tuition refund should the start-up school close before they are able to complete their studies. I wonder if this Pastors College will be finding a way to connect students with loan companies (or if it will be receiving Federal or State dollars). If so, the college will get its money no matter what, and students will be left with loan indebtedness no matter what.
Dee, that is good news about your mother!
The “Dream Team” Board of Sovereign Grace’s “college” includes alleged pedophile, John Loftness! That should speed their path towards accreditation!
Nate Morales might be paroled this Fall. Perhaps the perv could get a job teaching music.
https://twitter.com/ThouArtTheMan/status/1511909121884401665?s=20&t=kYMp0oVw4d41hb9gWs3pog
From their website: “One-year Bridge Year program to equip students with conviction and courage.”
Not possible for them to equip students with courage when they don’t have the courage to deal with SGM’s history of CSA cover-ups. Cowards don’t equip anyone with courage.
Church as business.
Higher Ed as business.
Those who have figured out how to fake church can certainly figure out how to fake higher ed. The Moscow guy did. Then there’s Piperville. MacArthur?
Nothing here is surprising.
They all seem to find each other, don’t they?
When I went to UT-Austin back in 198X, the Home Economics program was tough…because the various subdisciplines were taught as sciences (and now are part of the College of Natural Sciences, I just checked), not as “menu planning.” The students had to buy a package of Pantone colored paper ($48 way back in ’80s) for one class, and for textiles, they had to buy a package of tiny fabric samples and a special magnifying glass because they had to do thread counts on these samples. It got more complicated from there. So no, you weren’t just going to go in and get a cursory education in dietetics or fashion design, they were going to educate you from food chemistry or fabric composition all the way up.
*sigh* Given my interest in ancient spinning, weaving and fabric construction, I sometimes wonder if I missed out on getting educated in that discipline.
Oh, and even though UT-Austin is expensive, at least it’s accredited!
Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,
Agreed—my Univ Of CA BS in Foods & Nutrition required Chem 1A, Organic Chem, Physiology, Bio for Science Majors with Lab, 4 Upper division Nutrition classes & a very tough Food Science/Experimental Foods w/Lab….but only one Foods class…..and no cooking classes.
Here in Australia, our post-school education system is almost entirely secular. While we have Christian schools providing high school education in a Christian light, anyone who wishes to go to university has to go to a government accredited institution. This excludes theological colleges and seminaries. We do have a Catholic university, but their courses are very limited.
So what happens when 18-19 year old Christians suddenly enter 1st year at university? Well, all of the things we expect. Their belief system is challenged, and the culture of university students in terms of sex and drinking (our drinking age is 18) assaults them head on.
Fortunately there is help at hand. Many Christian university groups exist. These groups provide solid Bible teaching, Bible study groups and environments where Christian student can discuss the issues they are learning with Christians who have also been challenged and their faith has survived.
I’ve heard it said that strong trees are only strong because they need wind to try to blow them over – that which attacks them makes them stronger. In the same way, young Christians need to have their faith tested to make them stronger as well.
Australia is not a Christian country, and has not been for some time. Despite all the news about Hillsong, Australia is actually very secular. One country town where I occasionally preach in has a population of 400 people but only one functioning church of less than 10 members.
Good news about your mom, Dee.
I loved the Bradbury quote from his ‘Martian Chronicles’, published almost eighty years ago . . . prophetic?
I wonder if Bradbury saw himself as ‘a prophet of future events’ or as ‘a would-be sage from time immemorial’. . .
or maybe if he saw the connection between the two (?) 🙂
dee,
I feel REALLY bad for the “students”……whether they are forced, or really want, to attend….
Just another example of abuse….
Close observers of the antics of New Calvinist elites have come to learn that these folks are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons. Better to be a cynic than an ostrich when it comes to this corner of the American church. NeoCals wait until the last minute to distance themselves from a fallen dudebro … when the potato becomes too hot to handle, they go into “C.J. who?” mode to protect their reputations … only to help restore their bad-boys to ministry behind the curtain. After the heat blows over, all these guys launch unrepentant comebacks … some even start Christian colleges!
“Dr.” Mahaney has a good ring to it. He would be right up there with Mohler’s big stack of books!
I would be best pegged as a “not so young earth creationist.” There are flavors all the way from AIG to Francis Collins, but all have their strong and weak points. Just because an institution is YEC does not mean it cannot do a creditable job of teaching Life Science. I would use Bob Jones as an example, although I disagree with many of their views, their people understand the building blocks of life science.
I have seen one institution that I attended for grad. school go to pieces because of the cost of keeping a creditable program together. I have seen another one founded in Boston fairly recently that has farmed out all of their labs and most of their life science, had they not had a billionaire behind them they would never have gotten off of the ground. In my opinion, they will never do a creditable job of doing a pre nursing or a premed program. You just need the labs, and you need to run them yourself. You need more than one or two profs.
Now if you just want to do a Theology or Philosophy degree, than it is possible, but who is going to want that. And doing this at a community college tuition rate….you will get what you pay for. In a real community college, you get far more. Actually I like the model of Conrad Grebel College for the education of our young, although I would want a far more conservative model.
https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/
My first thought re menu making was something in computer science or food services.. Curious to see what it turns out to really be.
Glad your mom is better, Dee!
As to creation, I am very old earth, day age theory or gap, doesn’t matter, maybe a smidge of both stirred up. And I tend to think mankind has been here much longer than the current science says, and that much of that primeval pre tower of Babel stuff happened before pangaea broke up. I take Genesis more literally than the YEC and use a better translation than King Jimmy. So when is says all the land was covered, not all the globe, I believe it. Same with when the earth or land was divided post tower of Babel.
I would imagine at this point that finding candidates to attend their Pastor’s College and plant new churches is challenging. Most SGC churches, I’d assume, have been reduced to blind loyalists or well intentioned persons oblivious of SGC history. In sales, people are taught to “build their funnel.” I.E. line up lots of new selling opportunities. This new venture feels like an attempt to capitalize on the current classical homeschool education movement. Parents might want kids to continue their “classical education” into college. This new venture is a way to try and refill the “funnel.” Not many folks would attend or fund an SGC church anymore (accept the aforementioned)- but if they could come into the SGC orbit via Trinity College… SGC could try to fill the hemorrhaging coffers and rebuild headcount.
Ava wrote:
“Then there’s Piperville. MacArthur?”
Wasted away in Piperitaville…
Searchin’ for my lost ESV quote…
How Hillsong built its property empire by taking financial control of other churches:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64kWajqSx8A
What if he actually changes his first name to “Doctor”?
“Just Like Corporate Raiding, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”?
With Long Prayers to justify the pillage?
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Exactly…. Preacher boys are really good at “Christianizing” almost anything…
formersgcguy,
Best assessment yet, thank you!!
Awwww … sort of a Christian money laundering scheme … I wonder if other megas with multiple campuses do this?
“As. for the PhD’s I think one of Mahaney’s son in laws is working on his PhD so maybe he will be the token PhD to carry the school.” Dee
I’m sure he’ll collect a nice salary if that happens.
I explored the Trinity College website. Either these people have no clue what they are doing, or they are assuming that none of their potential students have a clue.
First of all, they plan to offer a “Four-year bachelor of arts degree in liberal arts”, but their curriculum does not include most of the standard core classes required for a bachelors degree in any subject. How does one get an accredited bachelors degree with transferable credits in anything without meeting the basic core requirements???
Second, have they even thought about how many professors it will take to cover the subjects for a real bachelor’s degree, even if the only major offered is “liberal arts”???
Just to remind everyone that the big guy in Evangelical style “classical education” is one Douglas Wilson. He’s got a *huge* influence. So if they’re going after “classical education” students, that’s who they’re going to sooner or later meet up with the wannabe Pope of the Palouse (Moscow, Idaho). Yay. (Detect my sarcasm.)
Judas Maccabeus on Thu Apr 07, 2022 at 10:21 AM said:
Just because an institution is YEC does not mean it cannot do a creditable job of teaching Life Science. I would use Bob Jones as an example, although I disagree with many of their views, their people understand the building blocks of life science.
I agree, there is a marked difference between YEC which is primarily concerned with origins, and the hugely complex mechanics of biological life as we know it.
Two different realms altogether.
Muff Potter,
I normally agree with you Muff, but not this time…. Attempting to mix YEC with modern biology, or Physics, will create a MASSIVE “cognitive dissonance” for a student that tries to sincerely understand both……
I’ve wondered if any serious thought was EVER given to the man-made limitations of using a strict ‘literal’ interpretation of sacred Scripture;
and how, at times, ‘the clear meaning of the Bible’ as practiced among those who limit it to only a strictly literal interpretation might have seemed, even among these ‘fundamentalists’ to be missing something far more meaningful in those Scriptures, something that comes through the ‘spirit’ to the very soul of a reader, something that is NOT bound by humanly-defined limitations on how God ‘speaks to us’ through the written Word in a spiritual sense. (?)
I can imagine much is ‘set aside’ and ignored by the hubris of ‘knowing without doubt the clear meaning of Scripture’;
and I find that to be a very sad reflection because people ‘mean well’ and want to do the right thing,
but our human limitations need to be recognized;
and the ‘sacredness’ of the written Word still needs to be honored in allowing for the ways in which a passage of Scripture can impact a human heart in need of God’s mercy in ways that spiritually transcend the limitations of human speech. (?)
You mean the Demon Locusts of Revelation clearly meaning helicopter gunships with chemical-weapon “stingers” flown by long-haired bearded Hippies?
YEC Uber Alles has long been a Litmus Test of your Salvation.
That.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
I have seen YEC used as a litmus test on my faith…. A number of times…
some thoughts on the limitations of ‘literal’ translation of sacred Scripture:
God has ‘spoken’. When Christ came, Christ the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God; He was able to ‘translate’ the Word of God to us humans in a way that helps carry us into His Kingdom in the way that we are able to comprehend what it is that the ‘world’ cannot conquer within our humanity.
When God ‘speaks’ through Christ, the Word of God comes closest to us, as a Presence among us, but this world has no power to ‘overcome’ His Presence.
When men ‘assume’ they can speak in human words and in human logic all that the written Word means; they forget their limitations as human persons,
as ‘the Word of God’ is more than human voices and reasoning, and contains within it an insight and a wisdom that only Christ can reveal to us as He opens the Kingdom of Heaven to us Himself.
I think we’ve too long relied on ‘translations’ and ‘explanations’ that were human-based. And we have found ourselves divided in our understandings of the Holy into so many denominations. Maybe that is why ‘politics’ has hurt the witness of the Church in our land.
For a few moments in each of our lives, we are given a ‘glympse’ of the Kingdom of Our Lord, maybe when we were children, before the ‘world’ and our sin of pride blinded us.
But having glympsed the Kingdom of Our Lord, we carry something irrevocable as an eternal witness within us that cannot, will not, forget that there is ‘Light’ in the Word of God that this world cannot begin to ‘explain’ in human terms. God’s thoughts are high above our thoughts. If we are to understand what is ‘sacred’ about the Holy Scriptures, we must look to Christ Himself the ‘Word’ and Himself, the Revealer of God, the One Who opens our minds to the Scriptures.
Without the Word of God, there is only the darkness.
Jeffrey Chalmers,
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, points out how uniformitarianism and evolution don’t mix with the Bible:
The entire intellectual enterprise of evolution is based on naturalistic assumptions, and I do not share those presuppositions. Indeed, the entire enterprise of Christianity is based on supernaturalistic, rather than merely naturalistic, assumptions. There is absolutely no reason that a Christian theologian should accept the uniformitarian assumptions of evolution. In fact, given a plain reading of Scripture, there is every reason that Christians should reject a uniformitarian presupposition.1
Jeffrey Chalmers,
As Pastor John MacArthur said, “The conflict is not between science and Scripture, but between the biblicist’s confident faith and the naturalist’s willful skepticism.” 2 Trusting God’s Word leads to a position of young-earth creationism. The young-earth position is clearly presented throughout the Bible, even in the words of Jesus.
1. You can self homeschool (at any age) in classic / liberal arts, just try these:
The concept of irony by Soren Kierkegaard
Ancient Philosophical Poetics by Malcolm Heath
Then dive into what texts you come across second hand and fancy, using contrasting commentaries if you can.
2. Gen 1 recounts the reappearance of habitable land after a disaster, and the Babel episode briefly given involves religious overreach, immigration, emigration and disaster, and language “pidgination” (major phases of which have occurred several times during human history).
Stephen Oppenheimer wrote Eden In The East (I think of his central subject as more like one of the earlier Babels). As a paediatric epidemiologist he comes up with an illuminating commentary on much of Frazer’s Golden Bough.
3. I don’t expect literalists to get much out of liberal arts which are multi-religious, secular, etc and based on language as allusions to meanings.
4. Then try picking what you fancy out of this reading list:
https://www.propheticwitness.com/p/recommended-books.html
(Incidentally I think the site author, Farsaci, regards Barth, who is on the site menu, as a philosopher to be argued with rather than a theologian to be obeyed.)
The Sunken Kingdom by Peter James (1995/6) gives a comprehensive explanation of the Atlantis stories in terms of fragments chosen from many historical episodes and combined, and given an ironic slant by reversing the roles of Athens and other countries.
Likewise “Republic” contains Plato’s disrecommendations for civic rule, not his recommendations.
Fundamentalists won’t cope with irony.
I wonder if they’ll be using Doug Wilson’s textbooks? He claims to be big on a classical education. Too me he looks like a poseur.
Alfred Whitehead (and I’m reading essays compiled by Henning and Petek last year) pointed out that supposed struggle for existence doesn’t explain the disappearance of species, which probably disappeared for unrelated reasons. He flagged up that the importance of purpose, value and reason, which are implied in nature, were being ignored in conventional accounts of “evolution”. He also observed that time expands (note how that calls for free wills).
AW noticed (as I did before I discovered him) that there are stabilising factors in nature which interweave with causes of change. Final causations are needed in order to cause efficient causations. The existence of patterns implies that we should also enquire for additional knowledge further than those patterns.
Reality for AW comprises fields and not disjointedness. (Popper came to believe in propensity fields which I call happening places.) Spurious thinking about the potential of “nothing” and misplacing of concreteness around “being” has led many astray. Gribbin points out that vacuums seethe with activity.
According to me the Bible relies on interplay between the sort of “creation” debated by the Hawkings or the Hoyles, and the world’s re-establishing which is the earliest that was being remembered. (I have my own parallel concerning frugal mothers that “whip up dinner from nothing”.) The latter represents the former. (There isn’t even a gap because v 1 of Gen ch 1 is already part of the eyewitness account.)
I’m sure agnostics believed all the above in my young day. None of this means we should push a superficial package of alleged implications of “theism” (no substitute for evangelising). Methodical realism however is anathema to the logic-averse “restless reformed” and their pretend watered-down hugger-mugger imitators, their thin religious veneer to a zero sum culture.
A lake of fire isn’t something that malicious beings keep going; it will be something that just is.
Jeffrey J Chalmers,
Without “willful skepticism”, mankind would not advance medical care, for which good old Johny Mac and Pope Al “willfully recieve”
christiane,
My two quotes from Johnny Mac and Pop Al were partically motivated by Christiane comment above. The two quotes from these “two” are classic demagogrory and straw man arguements..
In addition to “questioning/skepticism” of current models of reality drives medical/biological advances, the development of modern physics/quantum mechanics comes to mind. In the late 1800’s many physicists thought the main concepts of “classical physics” were figured out… then, data from new types experiments starting coming out that contradicted the “classical model”. Out of this came all of the “nuclear” stuff. Now we can debate the “morality” of human use of our “nuclear understandings”, but it is REALLY dumb to say that the fundamental physics of how our sun, and the stars “function” is not true!! And that is NOT “Classical Physics”….
If I take Johnny Mac, and Pope Al to as speaking TRUTH, is any scientific “skepticism” not of G%D??
Been there.
Classes will be “based on Socratic seminars: highly participatory and deeply integrated dialogues…” Wait, what? Since when have SGC leaders ever welcomed “highly participatory” dialogue that didn’t involve either back-slapping mutual admiration or excommunication?
And under “What will I learn,” we are told “From the doctrine of the Trinity to race & ethnicity; from culture-building to menu making.” Yes, this is definitely about world-view indoctrination. Since when have “race and ethnicity” and “culture-building” been subjects used to draw students to a college? Sounds Hitler-esque.
Thanks Dee for the warning.
From the same people who insist all does not mean all. We need to know what highly participatory means to them. Perhaps it means, “I talk, you listen. You disagree, I expel you.”
That is because if you don’t believe in a young earth you believe in animal death before the fall, which means you deny the reality of sin, which means you deny blood sacrifice, which means you deny the atonement of Christ, which means you are a blasphemer and heretic, which means you should be burned at the stake with green wood to maximize the pain. Or something like that…
Ken F (aka Tweed),
That pretty well sums it up….
I think we both got the same t-shirt
Ken F (aka Tweed),
Cute… definitely better than John Calvin is my homo
Ken F (aka Tweed),
Cute… definitely better than John Calvin is my homeboy…
On the bright side, we did not pay money for out t-shirts – we got them from those who bought the home boy t-shirts.
See how easy it is to take text out of context! The New Calvinists do that all the time to Scripture and have a huge following.
“They did not welcome the love of the truth of the Gospel … Because of this God will send upon them a misleading influence, an activity of error and deception, so they will believe the lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11 AMP)
Jeffrey Chalmers,
This was a typo…. Do not want to start a “issue”….
Re the Socratic method, in my time at a very top ranked law school, and at Duke University prior to that, I found that relatively few people learn effectively with the Socratic method. I adapted to it well, but I had an intense D1 athletic background where the repetitive why so intensity required was a fit. Having managed a large group of people, again, I find the method a very poor fit for many, and learned not to confer any kind of special intellectual ability on those who could adopt it. The best course is to get the best out of people with their varying learning styles. So Sovereign Grace’s appeal to the Socratic method is mere marketing hooey. It is also a school without any academic expertise. I mean, in the annals of business case studies, I would not put money on a start up educational enterprise run by a one semester Fairmount State dropout.