Jeff Chavez > Recent Status Updates

"We conquer the world by laying down our lives in testimony for and defense of the gospel, not in making claims of cultural conquest or epistemological superiority. As a pride of ferocious lambs, Christians testify to and defend the truth of the gospel with the books of nature and Scripture always in hand."

In our use of the book of nature, we must never set aside the book of Scriptures. Scripture must always regulate our understanding of the book of nature, lest we abandon the truth and imbibe the world's erroneous and sinful interpretations of the book of nature.

A soul possessed of love will suffer long, i.e. not be too quick and touchy with brethren that offend or displease us. The charitable man will with-hold and refrain his wrath, not be rash in expressions of it, and hasty in revenge.

…with no little Joy we declare unto you how good and gracious the Lord hath been to us, in uniting our Hearts together in the Spirit of Love, and sweet Concord, in our Debates, Consultations, and Resolves, which are sent unto you...

Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) do not actually say what neo-Calvinists attribute to them.11 And as common as the charge of scholasticism is, neo-Calvinist theologians fail to recognize that scholasticism is not a belief system but a methodology that does not predetermine theological conclusions.

...but instead recognized that there are multiple loci within theology, such as prolegomena, Scripture, the Triune God, Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. Such a method acknowledges multiple doctrines and guards against allowing any one point to swallow the rest of the system."

"Unlike central dogma-dominated systems, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century theological systems are superior because they employ the locus method. Theologians did not look for one singular point from which to construct an entire system..."

"Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas do not actually say what neo-Calvinists attribute to them. And as common as the charge of scholasticism is, neo-Calvinist theologians fail to recognize that scholasticism is not a belief system but a methodology that does not predetermine theological conclusions."

when men say that we know God only as He is revealed in Jesus, they are denying all real knowledge of God whatever. For unless there be some idea of God independent of Jesus, the ascription of deity to Jesus has no meaning. To say, Jesus is God, is meaningless unless the word God has an antecedent meaning attached to it.

Aquinas believed that truth was ultimately related to God. Given that God created all things, to understand reality through truth-claims means aligning one’s mind with God’s mind. Aquinas writes: Truth, therefore, is properly and primarily in the divine intellect. In the human intellect, it exists properly but secondarily.

Broadly considered, Van Til and Aquinas employed a similar apologetic methodology. Both spoke to the philosophical trends of their day from the platform of the authority of Scripture: Aquinas spoke in an Aristotelian dialect and Van Til in an idealist one. Aquinas argued for the existence of God in terms of Aristotelian categories of causality, and Van Til in terms of Kantian transcendental argumentation. (73)

Historically, the great theologians and apologists of church history have agreed that all truth is one and that all truth meets at the top. What God reveals in Scripture will not contradict what he reveals to us outside of Scripture in the realm of nature. Conversely, if God reveals some truth in nature, that truth will not contradict what is found in the Bible. (96)

The Bible has survived every assault that scholars have launched against it, and there is no reason to think that it will not continue to survive. No book ever written has been subjected to such comprehensive critical scrutiny as has the Bible.

"Once that is established, we can judge his claims of prophecy to be reliable because his character is reliable, as attested by the historically reliable biblical accounts. If, then, the accuracy of his teaching is established, we can easily accept his teaching on Scripture—that it is the very Word of God."

"To state the argument in a nutshell: first, we must show that the biblical record is historically reliable, then we must move to the biblical writers’ description of Jesus’ flawless character."

At no time in church history has the historical reliability of the Old and New Testaments been as well-documented as it is today. Indeed, it seems that every time a lump of dirt turns over in Palestine, a new detail of biblical history receives verification.

"The question of historical reliability is so important to the defense of the Bible and its truth claims that it must be taken up first. If the Scriptures are basically unreliable, then there would be no reason to attach any significance to Jesus of Nazareth. The initial burden is quite obviously to prove not divine inspiration but simply historical reliability."

"The Scriptures themselves assert that they carry an irrefutable and absolute authority; an authority whose source is omniscient, infallible, and completely incorruptible and holy, incapable of lying or erring, is devoid of defects."

God’s anger boils over when those he has created in his image intentionally stifle the clear revelation of God in nature. The apostle’s radical declaration is that every human being who has ever lived knows that God exists because God has shown himself in the created order. His wrath is kindled against those who hold that clear manifestation down.

That our knowledge of God is partial, however, does not indicate that it is either invaluable or untrue. If we were required to have a comprehensive or total understanding of the nature of God before we could be assured that we had a true knowledge of him, we would have to reject Christian theism altogether.

the mere existence of chance is enough to rip God from his cosmic throne. Chance leaves God out of a job. My basic thesis in the book was that there is no such thing as chance. The greatest myth in modern mythology is the myth of chance.

...self-existence is a rational possibility because it violates no law of reason. It violates no law of logic to speak of something’s being self-existent. To speak of its being self-created, on the other hand, does violate rationality and the laws of logic because it violates the law of noncontradiction. Nothing can be self-created, not even God.

Augustine’s approach to arguing for the existence of God was to try to establish a sufficient reason to explain reality as we encounter it. A sufficient reason for the existence of God would be one that establishes his existence in such a way that logically demands that he exist, and that will rationally explain the existence of the universe and why it is the way it is.

The inspired author goes on to say that, given God’s general revelation of himself, he not only can be known, but is known through the created order, and that the knowledge of God is so clearly manifest in the world that the entire race of humanity is left with no excuse whatsoever for rejecting him.

"General revelation is God’s self-disclosure in his created universe. This revelation is an objective act of God that does not rely on our perception of it in order to be true... Natural theology is a human act, a way for us to understand God’s revelation of himself in creation. General revelation is what God does; natural theology is what we do with that revelation."

When we affirm the doctrine of the Trinity, even though we can define what it is not (i.e., it is not a contradiction), we are nonetheless unable to penetrate the depths of what it actually is.

We speak because God has spoken.God is not the author of confusion, irrationality, or the absurd.Furthermore, his words are meant to be understood by his creatures, and a necessary condition for his creature’s understanding of those words is that they are intelligible and not irrational.