Posted on 07/26/2013 2:04:17 PM PDT by NYer
Sunday, June 21, marked the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial decision. The questions surrounding evolution—meaning, in particular, the origins of humans—still raise large and important questions for how we understand human nature and the doctrine of original sin. But Jason Stellman thinks that the obsession with our physical origins, though understandable, is perhaps theologically off-kilter. Where we've come from biologically is not as important as where we're heading. It's not the beginning of the journey, man—it's the destination. Stellman's The Destiny of the Species (Wipf and Stock, 2013) is a brief, rollicking, and readable apologetic, notable not just for turning the question of origins on its head, but also for pioneering a slightly different route from the path taken by many Catholic converts in their first books.
From Prosecutor to Papist Stellman's own personal story is compelling. Born and raised in Orange County, California, Stellman came to serious faith in the context of the Evangelicalism of the California preacher Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel ministries. He served as a Protestant missionary in both Hungary and Uganda before turning to a more theologically rigorous form of Protestantism: Calvinism. Stellman attended Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California and began ministering in the Presbyterian Church in America, the largest conservative Presbyterian denomination in the U.S., planting Exile Presbyterian Church in Woodinville, WA in 2004. Stellman's name came into the limelight when he was chosen to serve as the chief prosecutor in the 2011 heresy trial of fellow Presbyterian minister Peter Leithart, a Calvinist writer and scholar known to readers of journals including First Things and Touchstone. Leithart's views were accused of being in line with a school of Presbyterian thought known as the “Federal Vision,” and he was tried for, among other charges, allegedly failing to distinguish justification and sanctification, divine law and divine grace, and teaching that baptism confers grace and divine adoption. In short, Leithart was on trial for being too Catholic.
Although Stellman's work as prosecutor was acknowledged as solid at the time, Leithart was acquitted by the Northwest Presbytery. In the time after this trial, however, Stellman himself began to question certain historic Protestant beliefs like sola scriptura and sola fide. Through a number of contacts, including the group of formerly Calvinist Catholic apologists centered around the “Called to Communion” (calledtocommunion.com) website, which was founded to foster dialogue with and provide apologetics precisely for Calvinists who suspected the Catholic Church of being right or at least having something to say, Stellman began the journey that ended with his own entrance into the Church on September 23, 2012. Over the last year Stellman has been doing catechesis in a Seattle-area parish, and he now works at Logos Bible Software, developing resource material that will provide an easy way to look at the Scriptures in the light of Patristic and Medieval sources as well as the teachings of the Magisterium.
Apologetics for Everyone Much of Catholic apologetics in English-speaking countries, and increasingly in Latin America, has focused on the differences between Catholics and Protestants. This is not surprising given that large swaths of Evangelical Protestants were baptized as Catholics and left the Church due to the catechetical and spiritual failures of post-conciliar American Catholicism. Sherry Wedell of the Catherine of Siena Institute has written extensively of this phenomenon, which continues to this day—many Catholics who hunger for solid biblical teaching and help in living a life of Christian discipleship seek out elsewhere what they should find in Catholic faith. They find it in the Protestant world where large parts of the Catholic faith have been conserved, especially devotion to Scripture, a serious search for divine intimacy, and the main outlines of Christian morality. Thus Catholic apologetics has been naturally geared toward showing lapsed Catholics and the Protestants they have joined that Catholic faith actually fulfills what they are looking for in a more coherent and comprehensive way. This is an important task—and the importance of it has born great fruit over the last thirty years, not only bringing many serious Protestant pastors, academics, and laity into full communion, but changing the dynamic of Catholic-Protestant relations. During the last two papal conclaves, I have been asked a number of times by Evangelical Protestants about the candidates and what they have to offer. In 2005 one Evangelical Presbyterian friend asked me, “Are we going to get a really good Pope?” I was tempted to answer after the fashion of Tonto when the Lone Ranger asked what chance there was of the duo escaping a wrathful Indian tribe: “Who is this 'we,' white man?” But I didn't, because such a recognition shows how much anti-Catholicism has been tamed in the age of John Paul II, Catholic Answers, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, and all the other efforts of apologetics and dialogue.
Stellman certainly has done his part in explaining his own move, writing an essay titled “I Fought the Church, and the Church Won” and giving an in-depth interview on “Called to Communion” as well as engaging in various interesting questions about the real differences between Catholics and Calvinists on his personal blog, “Creed Code Cult”. But refreshingly, Stellman's Destiny of the Species is actually not geared toward Protestants interested in or annoyed by Mary, the Pope, Purgatory, and Indulgences. It is an apologetic for Christianity as a whole after the fashion of Chesterton's Orthodoxy or Lewis's Mere Christianity, geared toward those who might be “spiritual but not religious,” “nones,” lapsed Catholics who have left Christian faith behind altogether or are already practicing some other sort of faith, and Christians of all sorts, whether Catholic or not. What he has produced is an old-fashioned apologetic for everyone.
Back to the Future Stellman's book, written around the time of the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Origin of the Species, arrived not only in time for the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial, but also Pope Francis's first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, with which it bears some striking similarities. Destiny of the Species begins with the premise that while our biological origins are of interest to us, Darwin ultimately “doesn't scratch where we truly itch.” We certainly eat, drink, defecate, breathe, and move in ways that remind us we are animals. But unlike other animals, whose existence is instinctual, man “is not pushed but pulled, not driven but drawn.” Your dog may appreciate a good nap, a beef, and a burgundy, but we have desires for glory, love, and life that has no end. We are, says Stellman, “hard-wired for heaven.” All of the frantic search for someplace else and something new that Tocqueville found in so pure a form in America (and that more recent writers like David Brooks and Wendell Berry have wryly observed or excoriated) is the sign not simply of biological urge, but spiritual need. Stellman uses Chesterton's fine phrase to describe it: divine discontent. We all hunger for a future that is more than we can experience now.
Like Lumen Fidei, Stellman is proposing that human discontent and restlessness should be answered not by quelling them, but by seeking answers to them. Francis answers Nietzsche's dictum that “if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek,” noting that “autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future”. Stellman observes that for the vast bulk of people, the way to apparent peace and happiness is not belief, but “worldliness”—simply following our biological needs and various emotional passions for things, fame, revenge, and pharmacologically-induced good feelings. The way of belief, according to Stellman, is actually the path to truth and the only way to real peace and happiness. The rest of his book is dedicated to illuminating the truth that, as Pope Francis puts it, “the light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence.” It is “a light coming from the future and opening before us vast horizons which guide us beyond our isolated selves towards the breadth of communion.”
The seeker with a pure heart will not choose between belief and truth, but between competing beliefs. Again, like Pope Francis, Stellman emphasizes that our choice is really between true belief and idolatry. Stellman's middle chapters survey the various false gods that humans encounter, offering treatments of the five vanities surveyed in the book of Ecclesiastes, the temptations of a technologically advanced and affluent society, and how the universal acknowledgment of sin's reality usually issues in our identification of it in someone else's life. We all love to confess others' sins while staying silent about our own. Stellman's treatment is generally good in this section, though it must be said that his treatment of the dangers of life in a consumer society tend toward a sort of stereotyped vision of business and markets that might have been better left out or at least balanced by a recognition of the dangers of modern do-gooderism present in non-profit and government work, too. Stellman, whose views are probably left-of-center, occasionally seems as if he's making a brief against politically conservative Christians and not a brief for Christianity. Jibes at those who watch FOX News or take different views on political issues detract from what is solid and permanent in his exposition. This leads to a second difficulty in the book. Stellman uses a variety of pop-culture references to make his points. Many of them, such as his use of The Matrix to illuminate the choice we have to make between simply distracting ourselves and offering ourselves to seek the truth, hit home. Not all of them do. Rock music fans, especially U2 fans, sometimes need to be reminded that song lyrics seldom stand well on their own.
Stellman really excels when he is bringing out the great riches present in Scripture. Again, mirroring Lumen Fidei, Stellman shows how the Decalogue is meant not simply as a veto on naughty human actions, but as a liberation of humans from the passions and idolatries he's been describing and toward a life of spiritual abundance. (I would complain that he describes the Commandments using the Protestant rather than the Catholic numbering, but my own contribution to ecumenical outreach is to say let's do it the way Protestants and Jews do.) Using Job, Stellman shows how the real objection to God's existence, the problem of evil, is met by God's presence, ultimately in the form of Jesus Christ, whose Resurrection and Ascension show us, in a limited way, what we will be. Stellman's final pop-culture flourish is to use the movie Memento, which tells its story alternating between scenes starting in the beginning and moving forward and the end moving backward, as an analogy to the way in which the light of faith works. We know the destiny of the species is assured, but the light of faith, while illuminating all of life, doesn't usually show us more than we need for our own personal immediate steps ahead. “One step enough for me,” in Newman's famous words. Stellman's vision of Christianity answers exactly to the two primary aspects of Chesterton's personal philosophy in Orthodoxy. In the light of the future prepared for us, life is both familiar and unfamiliar, marvelous and unsatisfactory. It is not merely a biological process, but a high adventure. The Destiny of the Species: Man and the Future that Pulls Him
by Jason J. Stellman
Wipf & Stock, 2013
128 pages
Just a very random thought.
and come to think of it,Enoch did say he saw the Lord coming with ten thousands of His saints.
Then just WHO are the 'dead in Christ', that are actually IN their grave, to arise at the Lord's return?
They are the bodies of those who have already gone to be with the Lord, who Himself was not resting in the grave until the resurrection of His body. The "good thief" (contrite criminal) was with the Lord in paradise that day. (Lk. 23:43) And afterwards, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, (2Cor. 5:8) thus Stephan's dying words after he saw Christ, "ord Jesus, receive my spirit," (Acts 7:59) yet the body remains in the grave until the "last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." (1 Corinthians 15:52-53)
This is the "resurrection of the just," (Lk. 14:14) "the resurrection of life," (Jn. 5:29; cf. Acts 24:15) "the first resurrection," at the Lord's return, when "the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
Then (as i presently understand it) the saints go with their Lord to the battle of Armageddon, (Rv. 17:14; 19:14) and face the judgment seat of Christ and sit at the marriage supper of the Lamb, (chronology imprecise) and reign with Him a thousand years, and afterwards sit as judges in the judgment of the lost, as the resurrection of the wicked follows the 1k year reign of Christ. (Jude 1:14,15; Rv. 20:5,6ff; 1Cor. 6:2)
Sign outside church nursery. "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, " (1 Corinthians 15:51)
What are these sppsd to support?
It is true that RCs hold that the only interpretation that has sure authority is that which Rome infallibly provides, though you must rightly understand it comes from that level of the magisterium.
Yes, there is a certain humor in imputing any kind of logic to anti-Catholics.
Again, you use many keystrokes to come to the truth: I was right all along about Elijah.
YOU LEARN TO READ...I posted what is my knowledge, so you knew it wasn't my logic - since I posted it and that you replied to. You twisted it to suite your agenda and CC teachings but speaking unjustly of Jesus to do it - just shows evil knows no bounds.
At the outset I did not disagree with you that Elijah was not actually in God's abode, but found your belief that he was on the earth after entering heaven to be improbable.
Meanwhile souls such as the noble Bereans did not simply take the apostles word for what they preached, but searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so, and it was Paul's manner (among the literate) to reasoned out of the scriptures.(Acts 17:2,11)
Thus, as is my usual practice, i provided substantiation for the truth of what you held, as well as reasoned opinions on Elijah's letter and whereabouts.
All of which allowed for a civil exchange on an interesting issue.
So; they are going to come BACK, get IN the graves again, and then RISE out of them.
O...
K...
The text does NOT say this, but what Paul would RATHER have happen.
2 Corinthians 5:8 (NIV)
We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
Keep on whistling past the graveyard...
NOW we have to 'search the works of the Fathers' to find TrueMeaning...
Oh no the man with the exploding hair! LOL I asked for that!
Not quite. The Lord will raise their corruptible bodies and transform them into a glorified physical body in which they will inhabit. "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: " (2 Corinthians 5:1-2) It appears you are an advocate of soul sleep vs living spirit, which, while not a belief that is determinative of salvation, i see, as others , as contrary to what the fulness of revelation.
While the OT sometimes speaks about souls according to their physical state (know nothings), and virtually nothing much of detail about the afterlife spiritually, the NT provides more light, in which we see not only that the dead are conscious, but where and details as concerns their eternal place and experience.
One example of this is Lk. 16:19ff, which i do not see as a parable, and if it were and SS is true and it was a parable, then it would be leading, and for the first and only time the Lord would be using science fiction, as it has postmortem men conscious and communicative immediately after their death, which SS rejects as a possibility until the resurrection.
Later on in Luke you have the Lord's words to the contrite criminal, "Verily I say unto thee, Today thou shalt be with me in paradise, and while SS advocates try to move the comma to after "Today," as if the Lord needed to clarify He could have said it the next day, i see that rendering as forced. But which corresponds to the Lord first descending to Abraham's bosom to set the captive free upon His resurrection , (Eph. 4:9) as before the way into the holiest was not open, (Heb. 9:8; 10:4; 19) so that OT saints went to glory, though some, who are sppsd to be sleeping as per SS, first appeared to many on earth. (Matthew 27:52-53)
In addition is Stephan calling on the Lord to receive His Spirit (which corresponds to Eccl. 12:6,7), and Paul's word in Phil 1:23 and 2Cor. 5:6,8.
Concerning which see my next post in response to you.
The text does NOT say this, but what Paul would RATHER have happen.
"Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident , I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. " (2 Corinthians 5:6-8)
No, this is no vain desire, that of Paul wishing he could be with Christ upon his death, though it was impossible, but a statement of confidence that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord, conversely, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
The willingness of Paul and co. here was to be present with the Lord, and rather than this being a vain desire, he proceeds to state that wherefore they labored, that, whether present or absent, they might may be approved by Him. (v. 10)
Perhaps you were thinking of Philippians 1:23:
"For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: "
To suppose this is also a wish of Paul for something he knew was not a present possibility if he should die is also contrary to what the text is saying, but as the context provides, that of Paul considering two actual options; to die and be with Christ - thus "to die is gain" - or to stay and minister to the body of Christ on earth.
"According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. " (Philippians 1:20-24)
And accordingly, the Lord would have opened up the minds of the disciples in Lk. 24:45, so they could understand the oral traditions.
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