Matthew 12:28: if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. In many historic baptismal rites, there is a moment of exorcism. The candidate for baptism is asked if he renounces the devil and all his works, and all his ways, and all his pomp. In some baptismal liturgies, baptism in water is accompanied by other rites that signify an exorcism. (more…) Read more
We don’t quite know what to do with all the talk of demons and devils in the New Testament, and we often adopt an implicitly secular understanding of the world. We don’t take much account of demonic influence on human life. We think psychologists and sociologists can explain most anything, and we don’t have to take the influence of spiritual beings into account at all. We’re at home talking about addictions and psychoses, but we fear we’ll be locked away... Read more
“Whatsoever comes to pass, comes to pass by the will and eternal decree of God.” The Westminster Confession? Nope; Spinoza. Yet, the argument where this appears is incoherent. (more…) Read more
Spinoza summarizes the common opinion of his day: “They suppose, forsooth, that God is inactive so long as nature works in her accustomed order, and vice versa , that the power of nature and natural causes are idle so long as God is acting: thus they imagine two powers distinct from one another, the power of God and the power of nature, though the latter is in a sense determined by God, or (as most people believe now) created by... Read more
Spinoza writes in his Theologico-Political Treatise that “the sign of circumcision is, as I think, so important, that I could persuade myself that it would preserve the nation forever. Nay, I would go so far as to believe that if the foundations of their religion have not emasculated their minds they may even, if occasion offers, so changeable are human affairs, raise up their empire afresh, and that God may a second time elect them.” He appeals to a Chinese... Read more
Calvin described Scripture as an accommodation to human capacities – God babbles to us like a parent to a baby. Spinoza and Galileo appealed to the same principle. For Galileo, it was a way of retaining the truth of Scripture, at least as regards matters of faith, while also maintaining his new scientific discoveries that seemed to violate the sense of Scripture: “these propositions dictated by the Holy Spirit were expressed by the sacred writers in such a way as... Read more
Frampton’s book makes it clear that the appeal of Cartesian method was its promise to cut through the fog of skepticism and debate and get to demonstrable certainty. Lodeqijk Meyer’s preface to Spinoza’s Principia philosophiae Cartesianae (1663) makes this explicit: “You will find that with the exception of mathematics hardly any branch of learning is treated by this method . . . . For almost all who have applied themselves to establishing and setting out the sciences have believed, and... Read more
When the Arminian pastor at Warmond was dismissed from his post after Dordt, the congregation refused the Gomarist pastor sent to fill the vacancy. Instead, led by Gijsbert van der Kodde, the church organized itself into a “college,” a democratically organized Bible study group, devoted, as they thought, to the Reformation principles of sola scriptura , the right to private interpretation, and the primacy of individual conscience. According to Andrew Fix, “because of its opposition to the official Reformed church,... Read more
Grotius “proved” the truth of the Bible by saying that “in their stories as well as in the rules they give, nothing is taught that is unworthy of God, nothing that is not conducive to the best conduct of life, whereas poets, philosophers and all those who claim to instruct others teach many things that are unworthy of God, absurd, and at variance with good morals.” Two comments: One, Grotius’s argument runs against the thrust of much patristic interpretation of... Read more
An English visitor to the Netherlands in the 1650s, Owen Felltham, remarked that the Dutch were “in some sort Gods, for they set bounds to teh Sea; and when they list let it pass them. Even their dwellings is a miracle. They live lower than the fishes. In the very lap of floods, and incircled in their watry arms.” It put Felltham in mind of Israel at the Exodus: “They are the Israelites passing through the Red Sea . .... Read more
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