In this post, I’ll be discussing a comment under Catacomb Resident’s “Hellenism Is From Hell.” All emphasis has been added.
The Western emphasis on and worship of ‘education’ exacerbates this issue because the vast majority of Churchian ministers are required to obtain at a least a college degree where they are taught mainly by teachers who have PhD’s.
There is a legitimate concern here: the barrier to entry. Getting a Masters or PhD requires a significant investment. For example, the Masters of Divinity has one of the highest credit hour requirements of any degree.
Were it not for the very high requirements for a Masters of Divinity, there is a very high chance that I would have followed in my father’s footsteps and become, at the very least, an assistant pastor.
The entry requirements are why pastors are mostly those who have the best opportunities rather than those who are most spiritually fit. Pastors are often hired rather than selected from amongst the faithful, as per the New Testament example.
Providence calls education “worship,” which seems like irrational nonsense and this irrelevant ad hominem hurts his case. Having the experienced train the inexperienced is precisely what scripture describes. Jesus was a rabbi—teacher—who “schooled” many disciples—students. Training is important, but it isn’t worship.
The primary problem with “Christian” education—and PhDs—is that it is not part of the church. It is not accountable. It’s a bureaucracy. Why would largely secular entities be able to train Christians (like, for example, Michael Heiser)? It’s absurd. I would like to know why Providence doesn’t reject Heiser’s work, given that Heiser was part of the very thing that Providence is criticizing.
This system alone stacks the deck in favor of intellectuals who then tend to approach faith and its content primarily from an abstract point of view.
This makes the error of assuming that correlation equals causation.
People who are intelligent are more capable of abstract tthought. Below certain loose thresholds, abstract thinking and complex reasoning become very difficult or impossible. Intelligent people think abstractly, regardless of their faith (or lack thereof).
As long as there are men of faith, there will be intelligent men who can think abstractly. However, this in no way implies that their faith is an abstraction.
The biggest problem here is that Providence has vilified abstract thinking, but he clearly doesn’t know what that is. Abstract thinking is not a point-of-view. It’s not an alternative worldview. This is the same error that Boman and Hurst made (see: “HTCG, Chapter 2, Section C: The Impression of Things“). Abstraction is the cognitive ability to separate a thought or idea from a physical or concrete reality.
For example, the idea that the Word of God is not actual words of scripture but the ideas (or will) of God behind the words and authors is an abstraction.
A summary is an abstraction. The Hebrews were very good at summarizing to get to the essence of a story. The Old Testament pages are full of examples. Their ability to boil down everything into its moral reality, for example, reflects a high level of abstraction.
So too do the Hebrew linguistic forms reflect a high level of abstraction, from Hebrew parallelism to the use of chiasmus. It is loaded with plays-on-words, idioms, and many different types of figures-of-speech. It is significantly more abstract than the Greek in the New Testament.
The Hebrew language itself had to develop specifically to handle its non-discrete abstract way of thinking.
Abstraction is a function of intelligence, not language. Even to suggest that abstraction was a function of a specific language (or culture) would be a self-refuting abstraction (take a moment to see why that is true).
To the point, it is more often the case that people with low intelligence view faith as “blind,” that is, separate from a concrete reality. Indeed, Hebrew thought is, in many ways, significantly more abstract and less concrete than Greek.
Calling something “Western” education is an abstraction! The Hebrew scriptures are packed full of men and women processing abstraction. And Providence’s critique and portrayal of faith relies heavily on abstraction.
A call to the Hebrew mode of thinking is an implicit call to abstraction and higher intelligence. Thinking like a Hebrew requires a relatively high IQ, which is why so few can do it.
Fundamentally, the East vs West distinction is an abstraction. If one were to reject the “Western” way of thinking, one would have to reject that there even is a “Western” (or “Eastern”) way of thinking!
Really, this is nothing new, as the early church was quickly seduced by Greek philosophy.
This just begs-the-question: he sees what he wants to see, not what is actually there.
The pages of scripture do not describe the Greek Christians succumbing to Greek philosophy. Quite the contrary, it describes the Greeks using what was revealed to them in ways that are explicitly contrasted with the Hebrew worldview, as we discussed in Part 1.
One of the consequences is and has been the demotion of the Holy Spirit, who was clearly in charge of the church in Acts, to an ethereal and practically powerless idea who locked himself behind a text that can only be properly understood by those who, conveniently, are educated enough to ‘understand’ the Bible in its original languages without regard to the Hebraic worldview behind both testaments.
This is a common criticism that atheists make. It’s not a very good one when they make it, and it’s not very good here either. I’ve addressed this concern in “The Living Voice” and “Changing Language.” Pay special attention to this comment thread.
Ironically, Providence is engaging in the very thing he criticizes by asserting that only those who are in the know can understand what the Bible means because only they properly regard the Hebraic worldview behind both testaments. He’s just replaced one set of elites with another.
The same Holy Spirit that was in charge of the church in Acts is the one that gave us the scriptures through the Apostles that the Holy Spirit spoke through. Now, how can there remain room for the Holy Spirit in the modern church when the very Word of God that the Holy Spirit has revealed is scorned?
But, as I’ve pointed out on many occasions, the Holy Spirit shows its power in that the common man does understand it. Even when he is uneducated. Even when he is of low intelligence. Even when he gets things wrong. The least among us are our leaders.
Providence doesn’t recognize the power of the Holy Spirit.
Is it that the modern church does not speak in tongues? Doesn’t it? What is the speaking in tongues, but to speak the Word of God in the other languages of man. This is a gift of the Spirit. And how is this done today? In Bible translations, when the word of God is spoken in other tongues. See here.
Is this not flashy enough? Must we demand more signs, like that of Pentecost?
Providence doesn’t recognize the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not constrained to human boxes. The whole world has received the Word of God in its own language, despite the failings of the men with those same PhDs. Somehow God has managed to get His Word into the hands of everyone, by the power of the Spirit.
But, Providence doesn’t recognize this as the power of the Holy Spirit. To the folk at Radix Fidem, the work of the Spirit is bibliolatry.
You seem to be talking about what it means to ‘walk in the Spirit,’ as the New Testament would call it, from an epistemological perspective. I could not go beyond the limits of my mind in the Spirit until I was brought to a crisis where I had to deny that mind in order to move forward with the Lord. I would have intellectually assented to everything you are saying here before that, but I was unable to actually live this way, which is the only way to actually know what you are talking about in a subjective sense.
What can one say to such subjective, experiential arguments?
I read this and I think of the Eastern mystics of other religions who talk of emptying their mind so they can have spiritual experiences. They had to bypass their physical reality in order to move forward. Providence sounds like a Contemplative. It reminds me of the comment by Jack where he found “enlightened discernment” in Yoga in the Dakshinamurti Moola Mantra.
If one denies their mind, they cannot do as Paul instructed them to do, and thus cannot know the Will of God. It’s that simple. The path of enlightenment is a Satanic deception.
Fortunately, I had many teachers from several different traditions throughout church history who said the same things you do, often in different ways, but when my particular crisis reached its climax, their wisdom was in my mind (along with the Word, obviously, which is where my teachers got their wisdom, it is just sometimes easier to hear it from people a bit closer to us in time and culture) when I chose to die to my human understanding in relationship with the Lord.
Among these teachers are Roman Catholic mystics, which Providence speaks positively of elsewhere. These are the very same mystics who are behind the Eastern occult practices that have infected the church in the West.
I hope and pray that your teaching will be in the ears of some of your readers when the time comes for them to take that leap and die that death. It is just the beginning of a new way of life with the Lord in the Spirit, an adventure unlike any we could ever know before because we could not know him that way as long as our mind was on throne dressed up in the things of God and ruling in the name of Christ while not actually being submitted to him.
As with William Wildblood (“Meeting the Masters“), all the demons offer a “new way of life with the Lord in the Spirit.” It’s just never the same as scripture describes.
Johanna Michaelsen spent a long time in the occult worshiping her “Jesus.” She had been like John Providence, convinced of her superior way of life in the Spirit. She often recounts how she scoffed at some of leaders of the church to their face, those who had shared the word of God with her. Then one day the demons that she worshiped revealed themselves and tried to kill her. She realized that those she had scoffed at were lovingly trying to guide her to the truth, but she had been too blinded by her experiences to see it. But the words of truth came to her and she cried out to the real Jesus.
A number of these men have looked down at me as if I’m missing out on the great power that they have achieved. They have scoffed at my “bibliolatry” and mocked my blather.
But, here’s the thing. My walk with Christ has been a wonderful new way of life with the Lord in the Spirit, an adventure unlike anything I could imagine. That I can love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength fills me with joy. In Christ, I die to self. The heart, soul, mind, and strength do not die, but are renewed and glorified.
A number of these men have looked down at me as if I’m missing out on the great power that they have achieved. They have scoffed at my “bibliolatry” and mocked my blather.
YES, but it seems the tide is turning now as seen here yesterday.
Lying t@rdcon Spirits Still at Work
Posted on 20 September 2024 by CatRez/Tomb Refugee(who along with ED and the F@ol got Brian Forbes AKA Jack Wayne to drop ”Lord/Lady”Sparkly like a bad habit and I ain’t even talking Catholic here but modern ANE!)
Do you recall the story if 1 Kings 22:19-28? The prophet spoke of how the elohim council considered how to seduce Ahab into a war God would not allow him to win(like the longstanding trad/t@rdcons against God’s will/power war that has raged for some time in the Roissyosphere also!). One of the elohim proposed to deceive all Ahab’s pagan prophets so they would uniformly council him to attack Ramoth-gilead. Ahab, though disguised, died in battle from a random arrow.
I assume you that God is working today in much the way He always has with His divine council. We have a host of lying tradcon prophets supporting the American ruling regime by saying ”WE ought to obey Man rather than God bros”(AKA Brian Forbes AKA Jack Wayne
version-” RP”” Patriarchy”Acts 5:29). These idiots honestly believe they will prosper in their t@rdcon war plans of enslaving Men AKA ”blackpillers”(the TRUE TRUTHseekers that so-called ”redpillers” deceptively and erroneously claim to be)through their lusts and desires for a better tomorrow and a working Patrichaical Mutual Submission Marriage Structure.
Hurst talks often about how the Hebrews used active symbols for everything, but when it comes to the supposed Divine Council, where is the idea that this language is dynamic and symbolic rather than static and literal?
The same Holy Spirit that was in charge of the church in Acts is the one that gave us the scriptures through the Apostles that the Holy Spirit spoke through. Now, how can there remain room for the Holy Spirit in the modern church when the very Word of God that the Holy Spirit has revealed is scorned?
But, as I’ve pointed out on many occasions, the Holy Spirit shows its power in that the common man does understand it. Even when he is uneducated. Even when he is of low intelligence. Even when he gets things wrong. The least among us are our leaders.
Providence doesn’t recognize the power of the Holy Spirit.
Is it that the modern church does not speak in tongues? Doesn’t it? What is the speaking in tongues, but to speak the Word of God in the other languages of man. This is a gift of the Spirit. And how is this done today? In Bible translations, when the word of God is spoken in other tongues.
Is this not flashy enough? Must we demand more signs, like that of Pentecost?
He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. — Matthew 12:39
Providence doesn’t recognize the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is not constrained to human boxes. The whole world has received the Word of God in its own language, despite the failings of the men with those same PhDs. Somehow God has managed to get His Word into the hands of everyone, by the power of the Spirit.
But, Providence doesn’t recognize this as the power of the Holy Spirit. To the folk at Radix Fidem, the work of the Spirit is bibliolatry.
comment by John Providence
This system alone stacks the deck in favor of intellectuals who then tend to approach faith and its content primarily from an abstract point of view.
This makes the error of assuming that correlation equals causation.
People who are intelligent e.g. non-t@rdcon are more capable of abstract tthought. Below certain loose thresholds, abstract thinking and complex reasoning become very difficult or impossible. Intelligent people e.g. non-t@rdcon think abstractly, regardless of their faith (or lack thereof).
As long as there are men of faith, there will be intelligent men who can think abstractly. However, this in no way implies that their faith is an abstraction.
The biggest problem here is that Providence has vilified abstract thinking, but he clearly doesn’t know what that is. Abstract thinking is not a point-of-view. It’s not an alternative worldview. This is the same error that Boman and Hurst made (see: “HTCG, Chapter 2, Section C: The Impression of Things“). Abstraction is the cognitive ability to separate a thought or idea from a physical or concrete reality.
For example, the idea that the Word of God is not actual words of scripture but the ideas (or will) of God behind the words and authors is an abstraction.
A summary is an abstraction. The Hebrews were very good at summarizing to get to the essence of a story. The Old Testament pages are full of examples. Their ability to boil down everything into its moral reality, for example, reflects a high level of abstraction.
So too do the Hebrew linguistic forms reflect a high level of abstraction, from Hebrew parallelism to the use of chiasmus. It is loaded with plays-on-words, idioms, and many different types of figures-of-speech. It is significantly more abstract than the Greek in the New Testament.
When did I first know Brian Forbes AKA Jack Wayne was very effeminate and a mind hater? When he kept inserting the feminine-sounding & ear-tickling ”Heart-trust”(which clearly went over a certain self-proclaimed supposed ”genius’s” head) term into posts circa April-May 2021 at SF.Notice that was right before NOVASeeker left too?
i wonder if it’s connected?
As seen here CatRez/Tomb Refugee /Catacomb Resident’s has a growing anti-t@rdconism ‘tude
The intellect is flesh. The human brain remains fallen and mortal , like I always say is
similar to a t@rdcon in that it is entirely unreliable in its native pride against humility before the Lord and His revelation. It can be somewhat redeemed when it bows the knee to the heart. As with the rest of the fleshly nature, it will rebel constantly, and requires keeping the hammer and nails close at hand. You cannot trust your intellect to give you a good answer on anything, until it is clearly on the Cross.
You cannot know the truth of divine revelation in your head. It is known only in the heart, and the heart in turn depends on a reborn spirit in communion with the Holy Spirit. He does not speak to the intellect or the t@rdcon; intellect (or t@rdcon)cannot be trusted. He speaks to the heart, the only part of our human nature that belongs to the spirit and our eternal nature.
Now see why i & more than likely NOVA saw Brian Forbes AKA Jack Wayne’s growing t@rdcon femininity in April/May ’21?
This is a Western scientific claim. CatRez’s position is self-refuting.
Did you know that to the Hebrew the spiritual is not non-material?
When Jesus was resurrected, he had spiritual flesh. You could physically interact with it: touch it, see it, etc.
The angels appear before men and interact with them on physical terms.
The angels—what CR calls the Divine Council—are affected by physical geography and distance. They must travel. You generally can’t exorcise a demon from miles away, you must be physically present.
CR’s view is non-biblical.