God talk

    Is God part of our consciousness? So then after Schleiermacher and into the modern era a whole new set of questions arose.   The epistemic foundations of the West have had a cataclysmic shift in which much of modern life God has been marginalized.   We see this in education through Religious Education and the changing of the laws.   If an RE teacher teaches in a confessional way, it is quite possible that he will lose his job.   In science Darwin and the movement of evolution has placed on the biological and social developments of society.   In the public spheres God and the state to all intents have been separated.   How we interpret the world has changed.   All of a sudden religious people have had a new set of secular glasses imposed on them.   This opens up a world of even more diverse voices in the political sphere.   Yet under the surface religion bubbles away.   God cannot be pushed out for too long.   Especially when you see politicians acting as gods and fleecing peoples

 I chose the following picture because being separated from God is like having a tree without a water source.  In the same way for me rationalism has the same type of effect.  Anyhow putting these ideas to one side what can Herman Bavinck the Master theologian teach us today? Photo by icon0.com from Pexels So then we come to the modern era with the so-called scientific way of looking at the human person.   Darwinism being on the ascendancy and evolutionary progressive ideas coming to the forefront leaving behind and detaching reality from law and scripture.   An oversimplification by me but something serious happened to throw us into the modern world.   This is why it is so important to read Hermann Bavinck's reformed ethics.     In the world of ideas, the human being takes the place of God, and he is in the driving seat.   Are we any better for it? From this rationalism and the separation of religion and the state our world has indeed changed.   Sometimes I think that peopl

  So let us start to think about the mechanisms that make conscience work.   The early church fathers and the scholastics have helped us a long way through syllogisms.   Syllogisms were also used by theologians from the reformed traditions.   Bavinck here is telling us about Peter Martyr Vermigli, an Italian reformed theologian: “ Peter Martyr Vermigli was an Italian-born Reformed theologian. His early work as a reformer in Catholic Italy and his decision to flee for Protestant northern Europe influenced many other Italians to convert and flee as well. Wikipedia Born: September 8, 1499, Florence, Italy Died: November 12, 1562, Zürich, Switzerland Education: University of Padua “(Taken from Google search) from Public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Martyr_Vermigli So, Bavinck wrote: Vermigli put it this way: first comes syntérésis, the natural knowledge of things concerning our conduct , which provides the major premise (such as, fornication is sin) . Conscience supp