Verses of Interest from M'Cheyne Readings
Jeremiah 8:8-9
Matthew 22:1-14
Joshua 24:13-15
Joshua 24:19-28
Jeremiah 13:10-11
Jeremiah 13:23
Acts 4:27-31
Acts 5:41-42
Matthew 22:1-14
Joshua 24:13-15
Joshua 24:19-28
Jeremiah 13:10-11
Jeremiah 13:23
Acts 4:27-31
Acts 5:41-42
Puzzle Piece Cosmology
I've been reading a book by J. V. Fesko, Death in Adam, Life in Christ, on the doctrine of imputation. Impu-what? Why read a book on doctrine of any sort, much less a doctrine that the normal person in the pew has probably never heard of? I was explaining to a high school Sunday school student that understanding our faith - the perplexities, the mechanics, the structure - is a little like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. You might have a piece that doesn't seem to fit, you set it aside and work on another area of the puzzle for a while. Sometimes, once you get a small section done, it fits as a unit into the bigger picture and makes a whole section more clear. Soon you see a place for those obscure pieces.
As I read the book it became clear to me that the puzzle analogy might be useful in another way. For best results, one usually does not mix puzzle pieces from one box with those of another. Fesko delves into many aspects of the doctrine - it's history, exegesis (i.e., Bible passages that support the doctrine) and dogmatic construction (how exegesis and other doctrines support the doctrine). One important constructional element raised by Fesko is the the historicity of Adam, key to our salvation as presented in Paul's discussion of the "two Adams" (e.g., Romans 5:12-21).
Such historicity is challenged by modern science, therefore I was interested to see how Reformed theologians dealt with these difficult to fit pieces. After a couple of Google searches I found Cornelius Van Til's Common Grace and the Gospel. From this blog post, it will be clear that my reading of Van Til would barely have scratched the surface, though it was clear to me from what I read that he was saying that to understand our world, one must approach it as a creature acknowledging a transcendent Creator. Any other way will result in incorrect assumptions. Using a less philosophical approach, one might note that while the natural world displays the unmistakable work of a Creator, the Creator's special revelation of his purpose and plan is necessary to make any sense of the bigger picture.
Humbly acknowledging our limitations as creatures is the first step in rightly understanding our place in the world even if we have not completed our puzzle, much less understand how the puzzle in one box - for example, theology - might correspond with that in another - such as science.