Modernist Christians in a Man-Centered Universe

Scientific Neutrality and Biblical Deconstruction

Linda Kimball, 2015
https://www.CatholicAmericanThinker.com/

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14:6 "...in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Colossians 2:9

John 1:10 tells us that everything seen and unseen was created ex nihilo by the spoken Word of the Son of God, which means that Jesus Christ was active and present long before His incarnation, therefore eternally co-existent with the Father. (1) Jesus Christ is therefore God just as the Father and Holy Spirit are God, thus the Word of the Old Testament's creation account is Jesus Christ of the New Testament. Jesus Christ is the Word. His Word is Truth even as He Himself is Truth, the same today as yesterday and for always. Thus Jesus Christ does not change and as He is the starting point for the reasoning of the faithful, then Christians must reject the neutrality principle and doubt, its' ugly twin, the long unchallenged principles in evolutionary modernism's longstanding war against the Word of God – the Book of Genesis in particular – in all its parts... historical, prophetical, geographical, linguistic, and doctrinal. (2)

When Paul affirms in the Lord that his Gentile readers should no longer live as Gentile pagans do in the futility of their darkened minds (Ephesians 4: 17-24), he speaks to all pagans from antiquity to our own age (i.e., neo-pagan modernists) who reject the pure knowledge of the Holy Trinity and vainly think of themselves as "enlightened" when in reality they are "en-darkened." Their ignorance is not a lack of education, and some of them are brilliant in their own way, but such brilliance is wasted on vain imaginings and wisdom of this world which will not get them to heaven, thus utterly foolish and futile, especially when combined with hardness of heart toward the truth of the gospel in Christ (Matt. 13:14-15; John 12:40; Acts 28: 26; Rom. 11:8)

En-darkened  modernists claim scientific neutrality as a general operating assumption. Two applications of modernist thought evidence this: evolution (anti-creation account/relentless change/relativism), an inverted exegesis that deconstructs and reduces man in the spiritual image of the Trinity to evolved ape, and deconstructionism (destructive criticism/critical theory). Along with evolution, deconstructionism is a form of relativism or nihilism that for more than eighty years has been spilling into and contaminating our moral and culture sustaining institutions from seminaries and Biblical scholarship to academia, law, media, arts, and politics, thence our minds, individually and collectively. (2)

The origin of the neutrality principle is the Garden of Eden. Its' father is the Evil One who tempted Eve to approach the question of eating from the forbidden tree in a neutral, unbiased fashion. He slyly suggested that she adopt a neutral position in order to decide who was right, God or the snake. Like modernists of our own age Eve doubted and therefore rejected God's Word as authoritative and conclusive. As a true neutralist she determined for herself which choice to take. (Gen. 3:4-6)

Todays' Christian Church and Western culture have for so long been saturated with evolutionary modernist claims of scientific neutrality paired with intellectual and moral autonomy that the ungodly neutrality principle which forbids the existence of immutable Truth and moral absolutes has been thoroughly ingrained in us. It is so constant and we are so accustomed to it that even within the church we fail to discern it.

Neutrality Principle, Deconstructionism & the Historical-Critical Method

For evolutionary modernists of both pagan and pantheist persuasion to choose to not believe the Word of God on an individual level is one thing. But in the past few hundred years the world has been witnessing a strange yet consistent phenomenon: institutionalized Biblical deconstructionism issuing in a concerted drive,

The first Biblical deconstructionists – the ancient "fathers" of today's Biblical deconstructionists – were various Gnostic pagans in the first centuries of the Christian era.

The methodology employed by the early Gnostic pagan Marcion for example, was to masquerade as a scholar concerned only for truth while really getting rid of everything he was offended by, especially the entire Old Testament which he deconstructed by reducing in its entirety to an unhistorical myth. In a nutshell, this is the same method employed by modern Biblical deconstructionists.

Fourth-century Fathers such as John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Ephraim the Syrian, all of whom wrote commentaries on Genesis, specifically warned against treating Genesis as an unhistorical myth or allegory. John Chrysostom strongly warned against paying heed to Gnostic heretics,

As St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote, higher theological, spiritual meaning is founded upon humble, simple faith in the literal and historic elements of Genesis as Revealed by God and one cannot apprehend rightly the Scriptures without believing in the historical reality of the events and people they describe. (ibid, Seraphim Rose, p. 40)

Today it is commonplace for resuscitated Gnostic deconstructionism, otherwise known as the historical-critical method of Biblical scholarship, to be regarded as scientific, thus enlightened, neutral and objective. Recent decades however, have witnessed a much needed rising awareness that the historical-critical method serves particular ends thus always arrives at certain conclusions. In the meticulously researched work of intellectual history, "Politicizing the Bible," Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker greatly add to this awareness by bringing to light the appropriation, deconstruction and paganization of scripture by politically motivated interpreters.

Shining a powerful light of truth on the techniques taken for granted at divinity schools worldwide, Hahn and Wiker trace the origins of the modern historical-critical method deep into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance "showing the deliberate Erastian project of subjecting the Bible and with it the Christian faith to the power of the State." (4)

Through painstaking research Hahn and Wiker clearly demonstrate that the historical-critical method is grounded in the philosophy of Averroes, the writings of Machiavelli and Marsilio of Padua among others, together with the political projects of Henry VIII, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, and the quest for an empire of science on the part of Descartes and Spinoza.

The authors argue that nothing can be rightly understood about the historical-critical method and the politicization of Scripture if close attention is not paid to the great cosmological shift that occurred in the seventeenth century. What the shift yielded was both a secular (anti-supernatural and wholly naturalistic or pagan) understanding of the universe, philosophy and scientific method and a secular-pagan understanding of man and politics:

With respect to the work of modern scriptural scholars, the great shift means that in order to comprehend the assumptions and methods of their own craft they have to understand the history of the philosophy and science grounded in the cosmological shift.

As a synopsis of the monumental philosophical and scientific shift and its' abominable effects on modern biblical scholarship and Christianity, Hahn and Wiker offer the following example from the highly influential nineteenth century scriptural scholar David Friedrich Strauss. Strauss is almost invariably the first of the modern critiques studied in the typical survey course taken by students of Scripture in graduate school. The key introductory chapter of Strauss's "Life of Jesus Christ Critically Examined" is entitled "Development of the Mythical Point of View." In it Strauss declares,

In other words, miracles (i.e., creation ex nihilo, Christ's Resurrection) cannot happen. For Strauss, the exegetical assumption that miracles are fictions is based on naturalistic philosophical-scientific assumptions.

Underlying Strauss's assumptions is an entirely naturalistic (secular-pagan), self-generating machine-like cosmos, a mathematical-mechanical view of the evolving universe, an idol of defiant, rebellious mans' mind in continual antagonism to the supernatural Judeo-Christian cosmology.

It was Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza who redefined nature so that it was ontologically mathematical and mechanical, thereby paving the way for the universe to be entirely law-governed, self-contained (closed to the supernatural), self-sustaining, mechanical and evolutionary. This view necessitated that the active, living, creating, and redeeming Holy God of Old and New Testament be redefined as a deistic god that created matter, mechanical mechanisms and formative evolutionary processes that over time allows things to make themselves, or a divine evolutionary force (pantheism) within nature, or be simply rejected by the more radical of the radical Enlightenment. (pp. 272-273 &544)

In the "new pagan" god-man centered cosmology, the gap between the Mind of God and the mind of man, and the supernatural and natural were closed. Thereafter, the exalted mind of the god-man and the content of the mathematical-mechanical universe defined what method was appropriate to its illumination:

In the god- man centered universe, the redefined God's wisdom does not exceed man's wisdom. This being so, Unitarianism, liberal Protestant theology, Roman Catholic Teilhardism, evolutionary theism, Hugh Ross's vastly popular progressive creationism, and all other forms of evolutionary Christianity as well as New Age pantheism are the products of the exalted wisdom of god-men who adopted a man-centered universe entirely in accord with their own capacities.

The approach to the Word of God followed suit, meaning that an evolutionary modernist understanding completely defines the 'new' approach to the interpretative deconstruction of the Bible:

All that is left is a desacralized book of moral messages for evolutionary modernist Christian theologians and intellectuals such as columnist Ross Douthat, leading Richard Dawkins to ridicule him for bracketing "Biblical fundamentalists" with atheists and accusing both of making the same mistake,

Douthat criticizes New Atheism said Dawkins, for thinking that we go after only the fundamentalist version of religion while "ignoring the sophisticated versions propounded by sophisticated theologians like John Haught and sophisticated intellectuals like himself" who see much of the Bible, particularly the Genesis account as metaphor. Douthat makes this clear in a New York Times article:

Dawkins zeros in on the contradictions in Douthats' argument, pointing out that if Ken Ham, Dr. Albert Mohler, and other faithful believers, or 'fundamentalists' as Douthat labels them did not take the,

Exposing Douthats' double-mindedness, Dawkins argues that while much of the Bible is dismissively relegated to the category of fanciful metaphor by Douthat,

Dawkins then asks,

Douthats' embarrassing peccadillo exemplifies that of increasing numbers of modernist theologians, intellectuals and Christians throughout the whole body of the church who waver between serving the Lord and serving Baal:

In 1 Thess. 2:13 the Apostle Paul summarizes and clarifies the issue at hand, which is whether the Revealed Word of God is received by the Christian Church as the word of "enlightened" men or "for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe."

"Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?....Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand." Job 38: 2-4

Dear reader, who do you place your faith in? Is it in pride-inflated foolish modernists who with their scissors have cut apart the Bible and with their words without knowledge and vain pretensions set themselves up against the knowledge of our Lord? They are the blind leading the blind into hell. Or is it in the Lord Whose Word is Truth, even as He Himself is Truth, our Lord and Savior Who,

2015 @Linda Kimball

1. The Wonder-Working God, Jared C. Wilson, p. 38

2. Pushing the Antithesis: The Apologetic Methodology of Greg L. Bahnsen

3. The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis: A Study in Three Parts, Dr. Bill Cooper

4. quote from review by Prof. David Jeffrey, Baylor University, editor, The King James Bible and the World It Made; Politicizing the Bible, p. vi

© Linda Kimball

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EENS:  Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus
(Outside the Church there is no salvation)

With fear and trembling, work out your salvation--Phil 2:12

Seek the Truth; Find the Way; Live the Life.
Please God, and Live Forever.

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Sarcastic Acronym Hover-Link Footnotes: For the convenience of those readers using devices that lack a mouse, these footnotes are provided for all webpages, in case any webpage contains any hover-links. (If you don't have a mouse, you can't "hover" it over a link without clicking just to see the simple acronym interpretation. Click any footnote link to see the acronym and a detailed explanation; "Hover" the mouse over it just to see the simple interpretation.)

SLIMC¹ Secularist Liberal Intellectual Media Complex
GESGOEAEOT² Gradually, Ever So Gradually, Over Eons And Eons Of Time
PEWAG³ Punctuated Equilibrium's Wild-Assed Guess
TTRSTF⁴ Them There Real Scientifical-Type Fellers
TTRSPTF⁵ Them There Real Smart Perfesser-Type Fellers
TTRSJTF⁶ Them There Real Smart Journalistical-Type Fellers
SNRTACBT⁷ Surely No Right Thinking Adult Could Believe Today
STNSEACPB⁸ Surely Today No Serious Educated Adult Could Possibly Believe
WDN⁹ We Don't Know
BMDFP¹⁰ Baboons, Mongrel Dogs, Filthy Pigs and ...
HBAACOTE¹¹ Human Beings Are A Cancer On The Earth
ACLU¹² Anti-Christian Litigation Union
FLORMPORIF¹³ Flagrant Liar, Or, Mindless Parrot, Or, Innocent Fool
MEJTML¹⁴ Marxist Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
IEJTML¹⁵ Islamic Ends-Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
MPAV¹⁶ Marxist Principles And Values
WBESSWG¹⁷ Wise, Benign, Elite, Super-Scientific World Governance
TRMITM¹⁸ The Reason Man's In This Mess
IYI¹⁹ Intellectual Yet Idiotic
TTRSCBTF²⁰ Them There Real Smart Catholic Bishop Type Fellers
IACMPVND²¹ Illegal-Alien-Criminal Marxocrat-Party-Voting Nation-Destroyers
PEJTML²² Palestinian Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
PSYOP²³ "Psychological Operation" Mind Trick
CDC²⁴ Covid Developmentally Challenged
LGBTQ+ Every Letter Represents A Serious Psychotic sexual Identity Disorder
HEJTML²⁶ Hedonist Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar
SEJTML²⁷ Scientistic Ends-Justify-The-Means Liar

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Date:  Thu Apr 29 2021
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

Linda:

Well done, and how appropriate for what's going on today, where we see Modernist 'Christians' active in both politics and theology, to the point of being in charge of our secular government, and in charge of ecclesial government. What a pleasant surprise to find this superb submitted article waiting for me when I got home from work today. 

This AM I had read the transcript of the "Biden and Bergoglio" Vortex episode, and I was thinking of it on and off all day as I did my rounds. The Modernist thinking has grown into the Globalism of both men, to the (they may think) the destruction of both America and the Church. They may prefer the term 'transformation', but you cannot transform reality. 

You hit the nail on the head: truth does not and cannot ever change. 

One of the commenters after the Vortex summed it up nicely in an old axiom:

Here's the Vortex:

Regards,

Vic

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Date:  Fri Apr 30 05:39:20 2021
From:  Linda Kimball
Email:   lindykimball@msn.com
Location:  Prince George, VA
Comment: 

Thank Vic, and for the Vortex as well.

For many years I've been tracking the movement of 'modernism' through the RCC, Orthodox, Protestant, and Reformed PCA.   It's everywhere!  

Modernism's backstory goes something like this:

1. First men politicized the Word of God
2. Then they began to abominate His Word, beginning with the Genesis account, the Book of Beginnings
3. Then they declared His death

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Date:  Fri Aper 30 2021
From:  Vic Biorseth
Comment:  

Linda:

It is such a pleasure to read such thorough, scholarly and documented writing on the subject. 

Do you have a bigger (more pixels) .jpg picture of yourself? 

The web log (blog) software grabs the first 'big' picture in any article it is updating and puts it in the BLOG list for that webpage. The picture I have of you is 'small', by web log standards, and my web log software just bypasses and ignores it as if it were not even there. 

Your picture should be on all your articles as they appear in the Blog list, since it is the first one on all your webpages. 

Regards,

Vic

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Date:  Fri Apr 30 16:35:31 2021
From:  Pidlubniak
Email:   slavapidlubniak@yahoo.com.ua
Location:  Ukraine
Comment: 

I always get a laugh out of when the puffed-up "scientists" bluster up and openly declare that miracles are impossible. Two things wrong with their assumption - first, just because it's specifically impossible for man, doesn't mean it's impossible at all (there are other beings out there, who obey different rules and physical laws - a loose analogy of that is, for example, just because man is not capable of flying by himself does not discredit or imply the impossibility of flight itself, much less of flying creatures). And, second, from where comes this confidence in declaring miracles impossible? Contrary to the "physicists"/quantum magic peddlers, we are closer to a unified theory of nothing then we are to a "theory of everything". How can we dismiss the possibility of miracles if we don't even know about the full spectrum of natural laws? As such, "there are no miracles" is pure statement of belief. A non-scientific, unprovable and rather hubristic belief.

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Date:  Sat May 01 13:43:13 2021
From:  Linda Kimball
Email:   lindykimball@msn.com
Location:  Prince George, VA
Comment: 

"Do you have a bigger (more pixels) .jpg picture of yourself?"

That one picture is all there is and it exists only because Renew America, a website that has published my work for 14 years, requested one.  Left to myself there wouldn't be a picture of me out on the internet because privacy suits me, especially in evil days such as these..  

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