blog.john15.net

Well, the blog is back up. Sadly, I don’t have access to old blogs so I cannot post those again. Maybe the other server will come back up and I’ll be able to get them back or something.

For the first post, I’d like to highlight an interesting tidbit about Arminius. You see, sometimes Arminians and other freewill theologians are accused of being “humanists,” or having a man centered theology. It’s reasoned by some that if we aren’t Calvinists, it’s because we center our theology around the freedom of man, addressing God’s sovereignty only as a corollary to that. (more…)

…But as you can see, it’s less than pleasing to the eye (as of 7:37 today, EST). I am going to work on it tonight, so I should get all the kinks worked out, as well as get the old style sheet back so it will be a bit “prettier,” to use a friend’s term.

Yes, I did have a short romp with a different blogging software, but its bugs were about as annoying as the bugs for Wordpress… I decided to go back to what I was familiar with. Besides, I still have the CSS from the old blog… along with a few other things that I do have backed up.

Heres an entertaining site for ya: Wacky Warning Labels. So far, my favorite is “This broom does not actually fly. — Found on the label of a toy witch’s broom.”

I’m still job hunting. Unfortunately, the interviews I had (which I think I talked about before the site died) fell through. But I’m back out there. I had an impromptu interview last week, and I might have some good leads, so it’s not like I’m up a creek or anything.

I suppose this is a good learning experience. I’d still rather have a job, but as God wills….

You’ll have to pardon me for not posting regularly lately. Creative juices have dried up a bit… I think it’s the Summer heat, as I get like this every Summer.

Some good news on the job front. Had an impromptu interview for a consulting firm, and then a phone interview for a company that mobily does computer repairs for customers. The latter would not be fulltime though, but contract. (I suppose it isn’t a bad thing; if I took up that job it would only be while I’m still job hunting or if I get a job that has no relevance to computer/network support. I’m mostly concerned about experience though the extra cash might be nice.)

Nothing seems to be certain as of yet.

Scenario: You are part of the leadership of a large church. The Latter Day Saints (link) (I refuse to use the name of our Lord in their title) come to you, saying that they built a new temple in your area. They are doing a big open house, and don’t have the parking space, so they ask you if they can use your church’s parking lot. What do you do?

Apparently this is the case for a church in Greg Koukl’s area (link… note that you need to register to listen to the mp3). (more…)

Yup. It looks like Microsoft has officially named the next version of Windows, which will be arriving next year. They are calling it… Windows Vista (link). Yes, Windows Vista. :-/

I dunno. I’m just wondering if they were even trying to come up with a cool name. I mean, as mediocre as it was when they named versions based on the year (Windows 98, 2000), it at least has some semblance of coolness compared to version numbers (I used to own a computer running Windows 3.1, in fact). Then we had the two letter abbreviations: NT, ME, and XP. Now, of all the above, XP is probably my favorite. I don’t know why, it just sounds cool to say, even though it is kind of lame when you learn what it means (EXPerience? Come on! it’s not even a valid abbreviation). I think it was because around that time, it was just so freaking cool to name new computer things with an X in it. We had XML and XHTML, web markup languages, come out, as well as OS X (though i think that was more recent). And how can I forget the ubiquitous X-Box.

You will have to pardon nitpicking, but it usually ends up being the little things like this that bug me the most. But Vista? It just lacks that punch. It also sounds a bit cheesy: Windows Vista. I think that’s a redundancy, too.

I guess in the grand scheme of things, I shouldn’t let this bother me. But it is going to, because during the early stages of development the code named this version of Windows as “Longhorn.” That was such a cool name, and not they exchanged it for this? Meh.

According to this quiz (link), I’m Augustine

I was reflecting on hypocracy, and I was thinking, why do Moral Relativists make such a big deal when those the oppose (especially tradicitonal Christians) are caught in hypocracy?

If there is no objective basis for morality, why is hypocracy bad? I ask because, if in fact morals are relative, then the moral “you shouldn’t be hypocritical” is itself relative. And if that’s the case, then it would be an easy step to just say that, “the moral not to be hypocritical” is good for you, but I don’t see it as binding to me.” Thus, I could simply be as hypocritical as I want. The second a moral relativist accuses me of hypocracy, he is applying his morals on me as though there was some objective point of reference that says taht absolutely, hypocracy is morally wrong.

There was another point I was going to make on the subject, but I forgot what it was, so I’ll stop there and maybe update this in the future, if I remember.

Ok, here’s some homework for our regular readers. What is the ugliest website you have ever seen? Post it in the comments section. (You can use the <a> tags too.)

My vote goes to this web design getto: Planware.org. I mean, look at the pretty colors! My suspicion is that it was designed by a 10 year old, or at least someone with an unusual facsination with crayons. And I just love when you put your cursor over a link, it turns green with a grey background. That goes really well with the overall design.

Well, I have to apologize because I kept forgetting to post on this. I have officially found a job. Actually, I trained last week, and I’ll be on for real this week.

I’m going to do contract work fixing people’s computer problems. Basically, we serve small businesses (a lot of which don’t have on site IT staff) and some home users who are willing to cough up the dough. I’ll be troubleshooting computer and network problems, cleaning viruses and spyware, etc.

So far, it is a very enjoyable job. It pays good, but isn’t full time.

This is an unusual idea that I’ve seen put forth by Christians on a few occasions. Jesus commanded us to love others, but that doesn’t mean we have to like them (usually in reference to nonbelievers, though i’ve seen the notion applied to people in general). Indeed, I’ve seen one individual defend this position by stating that nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to like our neighbor.

If all that is meant by this that we are to love the person but dislike the sin in their life, I would have no disagreement. We are indeed called to love others, and indeed we are called to hate sin. However, I have only seen this idea once used in this manner. On the other hand, I’ve seen someone even use the notion to justify his being a jerk to someone who was asking a question on some minor doctrinal point. (more…)

It’s about time to have my first book review since the server death, and I can think of no better book to review than one on Arminianism. Tonight, we are talking about Robert E. Picirilli’s Grace, Faith, Free Will.

In Grace, Faith, Free Will, Picirilli focuses on 4 major points of disagreement between Calvinism and Arminianism. For each, he starts by presenting the Calvinist position, then the Arminian position, and then goes into a defence of the latter. And of course as an Arminian myself, I can’t help being biased, but honestly? One of the best aspects of this book is that he goes to great lengths to accurately represent Calvinism. One of my concerns in this theological debate is that both sides tend to build strawmen replicas of each other’s views, and then proceed to burn those strawmen down. Granted, burning strawmen are beautiful when viewed at night, but it doesn’t help in terms of actually addressing your theological opponents. It takes more work to do, but it makes your refutation that much more potent.

Picirilli also accurately presents and adequately defends the Classic Arminian position. He himself calls it “Reformed Arminianism,” but a rose by another name and all that.

It’s not a lengthy work. On one hand, I’d prefer if he went more indepth, but on the other hand it is good as a popular work. It is definitely good for someone who is new to the topic or doesn’t have the will to read a dusty old tome. He also did bring up some points I haven’t noticed (Note to self, update Arminianism articles ).

Overall a job very well done. He earns the coveted Kangaroo Award.

No? Well, how about a boot to the head (mp3)!

I’ve noticed that a lot of Christians who are popular Arminians, meaning they aren’t Arminians in the classic sense, but they believe in freewill and such. Yet, so many of them adhere to what is called Eternal Security, or colloquially it’s labelled Once Saved Always Saved. The idea is, well, once you are saved, you cannot become “unsaved.”

Now, Once Saved Always Saved (OSAS) should not be confused with the Calvinist doctrine of Perseverence of the Saints. The Calvinist doctrine is that God will ensure His elect will not be lost, once they are saved, by making sure that the elect persevere in their faith. OSAS, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily say anything about perseverence, but simply that your eternal life cannot be revoked. Effectively though, they lead to the same conclusion. (more…)

The American Cross website has a link where you can donate directly to there disaster relief via credit card. they can definitely use some help at this time.

I recently had someone accuse me, as one who rejects the doctrine of Eternal Security, of works salvation. Specifically, the objection was that my view leads logically to works salvation, though as one who holds logical consistency in high esteem, both mean the same thing to me.

Not to forget the importance of works in relation to salvation, Biblically (link), it seems to me the exact opposite is the case. Recall to my earlier comments that persistent faith is required for persistent salvation. Again, it is utterly unbiblical to suggest that someone who is without faith may be at that point saved. Yet what is faith? It is precisely the recognition that we cannot earn our salvation and, the trust in Christ’s earning salvation for us. Some may argue that if we must “work” to persevere in faith, then it is no longer by faith. (more…)

Open Theism, as many of my readers may be aware, is a novel view that God lacks exhaustive foreknowledge. He may have some foreknowledge of future events, but He cannot foreknow, they suppose, the choices of freewill creatures. The reasoning given for this is that if He did foreknow the choices of human kind, we could not be free.

Really, the problem isn’t so much foreknowledge, as it is true or false propositions regarding the future. The Openists I’ve interacted with know better than to argue that foreknowledge of free acts would itself be determinative (either they wised up before or I beat some sense into them I’ll be charitable and assume the former). Rather, if God foreknows the future exhaustively, then there are propositional truths and falsities regarding the future which are knowable (since the definition Openists seem to give to omniscience is “knowledge of all that is knowable”). But if that’s the case, it is supposed, then the future is fixed, we cannot do otherwise, and therefore we are not free. (more…)

I managed to obtain a backup from the old webserver. That means, I will be able to restore all my old blog entries that were lost during the transition. It’s not going to be a perfect transition, but what I’ll try to do is set it up as an archive section, or something like that.

I’m still here. I haven’t abandoned the site or anything. It’s just that lately I’ve been sporadically busy that I haven’t had a chance to get a good post off; or when I did I didn’t think of anything interesting to write about.

This weekend I had some spare time, so I got to work on a series for the site I’ve been working on the last few months. A major update is on the way… I may even have it up tonight. If not, I will have it up tomorrow.