God talk

 Last Week we looked at God being the author of the law.  This Week we are going to tackle the question of the content of the law from Reformed Ethics; Herman Bavinck ; Edited by John Bolt;page 223.    We cannot always see everything; The legal people of Jesus time completely missed the point; We also need to humble ourselves   When we look at the content of the law Bavinck mentions the three branches: 1.        Ceremonial 2.        Judicial 3.        Moral He hits the nail on the head when he says that the law has not been abolished but fulfilled.   Bavinck ebbs the Bible when he says:   “The shadows vanish when the body is present. What was merely a type in the Old Testament is now exactly what is completely spiritualized and realized. The form has changed; the essence is the same. All sacrifices and priests culminate and find their full realization ...

  24 07 2021 So then before we dive back into Bavinck and law, I have a question: On what basis or foundation does any law work as its final authority?   In the UK for example in some courts one is supposed to take an oath on some authority that everything you say is the truth.   In a court of law if you are caught lying one can go to prison.   So even in a law court conscience and telling the truth ought to go hand in hand but ultimately there is a higher law than the Judge.   This gray area in law is an area that philosophers, theologians, lawyers search for its foundation.   For a religious mind this is not such a difficult question.   For secularists however, they have various theories and possibly rest it on ‘nature’ or something equivalent.   So, then Bavinck goes into depth here so let us now listen to his voice. For a bookcase to work everything has to be in place, in the same way don't take God out of law as one has to find another ...

  Our starting point will define our conclusion.   This is my opinion.    What I have learned from Bavinck and Karl Barth is that it is so easy to mythologize religious and theological content by forcing a so-called scientific view on the material without considering religious and theological content.   In the Dogmatics of both theologians God has spoken.   From that perspective as scientists, we cannot observe the object (God) on the contrary we are the object and God is the subject.   When we do real science, we use appropriate tools to do the appropriate job.   There is nothing unlawful to start from the presuppositions of what Scripture has to say and use our reason in an appropriate believing, submissive spirit.   After all God has given us an intellect.  At the end of page 216 the Master Theologian explains to us that our rational nature has remained, but it is in a state of sin.    What Bavinck wants to do in the firs...