15. Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was the founder of psychoanalysis. In volume 9 of The Great Ideas Program Adler and Cain look at two of his works of psychoanalysis. Here they consider his interpretation of religion. I plan to survey Freud’s life and work when considering the two works on psychoanalysis. Here I’ll consider just his interpretation of religion.

Adler and Cain consider two readings, the first two sections of Civilization and Its Discontents and the final lecture in The New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Despite the title of this article’s referring to just one of the two readings, I’ll consider both readings. In the first section of Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud reflects on a claim by a friends that the ultimate cause of religious sentiments is “a feeling which he would like to call a sensation of eternity, a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded, something ‘oceanic.’” In the second section of Civilization and Its Discontents, he discusses the relation of religion to art and science and, after identifying the purpose of life as happiness, considers them and other activities as methods of achieving it. In the lecture from The New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, Freud argues against religion as the foundation of a philosophy of life (he calls it a Weltanschauung) while considering the relation of psychoanalysis to the question of a philosophy of life. On the latter he argues that psychoanalysis doesn’t have to create a philosophy of life of its own because it is a branch of science and thus can subscribe to the scientific philosophy of life. Personally I don’t view psychoanalysis as a science.

Adler and Cain’s guide is divided into five parts. Part I focuses on Freud’s hypothesis of a prehistoric event in which the tribal father was killed by his sons and of the growth of social order, moral restrictions, and religious ritual from the ensuing feeling of guilt. Part II glances at Freud’s religious and antireligious background. Part III explains how Freud explains religion in terms of its psychological function, which he finds to be the relief of the feeling of helplessness felt by the human individual when confronting the external world. In Part IV, the longest part, Freud tries to demonstrate the superiority of science to religion in furnishing a true picture of the real world. Personally I think that both science (in which I don’t include psychoanalysis) and religion should play a role in forming a philosophy of life.

Part V asks and comments on these questions:

• Are religious beliefs necessarily illusions if they satisfy human wishes and emotional needs?
• Is it possible that wishes and needs may point toward an objective reality beyond the human mind?
• Does the “childishness” of a belief detract from its value, meaning, and truth?
• How does Freud handle the notion of religious experience?
• How does Freud’s analysis apply to the famous religious figures we have examined?
• What is the basis of Freud’s rejection of religion as an illusion?
• What virtues does Freud extol as against the religious virtues?

Chapter 9. Is Hell a Real Place?

Six members were present at our Life group meeting of January 23–Leonora, Robert, and me; Dennis and Audrey Froude; and Beverley Little. As usual Leonora led the worship part of the meeting, I guided the study, Audrey prayed for the prayer requests, and we had a lunch at the end of the meeting.

We continued studying Brian C. Stiller’s What Happens When I Die? A Promise of the Afterlife (Colorado Springs, CO: Pinon, 2001), considering Chapter Nine: Is Hell a Real Place?. In the chapter Stiller comments on a quotation from C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain about hell; defines the words (Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna) that the Bible uses about hell; considers what Jesus, Paul, and John (in Revelation) say about hell; and discusses four questions which people ask about hell.

I had assigned the answering of those four questions and the question asked in the chapter’s title. These are Stiller’s and our answers to them:

• Is hell a real place? Yes, hell is a real place. This is clear from the references of Jesus in the Gospels and of John in Revelation to it.
• How long will it last? According to the traditional view, hell is eternal, just as heaven is. However some theologians believe that after entering hell a person ceases to exist. Stiller lists four reasons that the latter give for this belief.
• How could a God of love allow hell? God’s holiness requires judgment for immorality. Stiller quotes God’s words to Job in Job 38:4, 12, 17, 21 in his answer.
• Is there a purgatory? Although Roman Catholics believe in purgatory, a place between earth and heaven of punishment and purification for believers, the Bible doesn’t support it except in 2 Maccabees 12:43-45, a book not accepted by Protestants. Stiller refers to Philippians 1:21-24 and 2 Corinthians 5:8, which affirm that at death we go into God’s presence, and to Ephesians 2:8-9, which affirm that we are saved by faith, not by works.
• How is one exempt from hell? One becomes exempt from hell by accepting God’s gift of salvation by having faith in Jesus Christ. Stiller considers the fate of members of other religions and of infants (and we also considered the fate of the mentally handicapped), concluding that “I can’t imagine God doing anything other than that which is fair and just.”

Supplement Five (for Lessons Nine and Ten)

In our after-breakfast study of Finis Jennings Dake’s God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949) this morning, my family and I finished considering Supplement Five, which follows Lessons Nine and Ten. Lesson Nine had been on the dispensation of innocence (Genesis 2:15-3:21), and Lesson Ten had been on providence, God’s plan for the needs of man. In Lesson Nine Dake identified six steps in the fall of man—doubt concerning God’s Word, addition to and misquoting God’s Word, contradiction of God’s Word, misinterpretation of God’s Word, temptation to transgress God’s Word, and transgression of God’s Word (see https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2019/07/25/the-dispensation-of-innocence-the-fall/). Here he claims that man must take steps that are just the opposite of them to be redeemed. He also discusses ten miscellaneous Bible questions.
This report consists of brief summaries of what Dake says about the six steps that he claims man must take to be redeemed. Most of what he says about them explains how they relate to Christians having their prayers about their needs answered and thus provides a good followup to his presentation on providence in Lesson Ten. The comments in square brackets are ones made in our family discussion or by me personally. Biblical quotations are from the KJV unless otherwise noted.

1. Doubt Concerning God’s Word
   God made very plain that the absolute condition of answered prayer is: “Let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:5-8).
   If this is God’s condition of answered prayer, children of God should make up their mind before they pray that they are going to stick to what they ask of God until they get an answer. Then their prayers will be answered. But many times when the answer doesn’t come immediately, they decide that it is not the will of God or that it might not have been best for them to receive an answer. A few failures like this will soon make them form a habit that causes failure in almost every prayer that is prayed.
   Since it was Satan (through the serpent) who raised the first doubt in man (Genesis 3:1), we should recognize that all doubts are of the devil. To out an end to doubting, we should resist the devil and he will flee from us (James 4:7). “The way to answered prayer then becomes clear, and it is the duty of each individual to see that he masters all doubt and demons and cooperates with God’s Word with all his heart” (Dake, page 181).
2. Addition to and Misquoting God’s Word
   Until all doubt is cleansed from the believer’s life, there will be some addition to and misquoting of God’s Word. However if immediate answers to all prayers are his gaol, he must never add one thing to God’s Word or take one thing from it. He must learn to take every statement of God as it is written and practice it to the letter.
3. Contradiction of God’s Word
   Not only must one never doubt, add to, or take away from God’s Word, but if he wants God to honour him enough to answer prayer he must never try to make God a liar by contradicting His Word. One can afford to contradict theories of men concerning God’s Word, but he cannot afford to contradict what is plainly written. “Our motto should be, ‘The Bible States It; I Believe It; That Settles It’ (Dake, page 182).
4. Misinterpretation of God’s Word
   The next step in retracing our steps from the Fall is to stop misinterpreting God’s Word. It is impossible to misinterpret what is written if one will take at face value what is plainly written. If God’s Word is taken just as it is, a solid unshakeable faith will be created.
5. Temptation to Transgress God’s Word
   If one transgresses the Word of God concerning open sin, he becomes an open sinner and incurs the death penalty. Likewise if one doubts the Word of God regarding His promises, he cannot get the things for which he prays. [Dake quotes several Bible passages that express the law of faith and several that describe Jesus’ rebuking the disciples when they doubted.]
   There are only two times when Christ marvelled at men. The first time he marvelled at the faith of a centurion (Matthew 8:5-13), and the second time he marvelled at the unbelief of his hometown people (Mark 6:1-6). “Evidently, the greatest mystery to Him is that men do not believe Him after having more than His Word, as the centurion did” (Dake, page 184).
6. Transgression of God’s Word
   [Dake repeats the idea of the first two sentences of 5 above.] “(Faith) is the all-inclusive condition of answered prayer.… All one has to do is to get into Christ and meditate on the Word of God until his heart becomes full of His promises, and then ask in faith nothing wavering, and it shall be done” (Dake, page 184).

(This article was originally posted on August 9, 1019.)

God’s Promises for the Needs of Man

This morning my family and I finished our study of “God’s free and abundant promises for the needs of man,” the third of the six parts in Lesson 10: Providence: God’s Plan for the Needs of Man of Finis Jennings Dake’s God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949), which we’re studying in our after breakfast Bible reading time.

Dake opens by stating that his purpose is “to disprove the false and nonsensical theories of many modern churches that it is God’s will for His children to suffer disease, sickness, poverty, and lack every good thing in life so as to keep them humble and continue saved to the end.” He claims that instead “God created man that he might be prosperous, healthy, successful, happy, wise, and blessed with all the good things that he could wish for in this life” (Dake, page 167-68).
Conceding that some people backslide when they prosper (because of their putting their prosperity ahead of God?), Dake observes that they would backslide anyway and cautions, “So if a few do backslide when God blesses them with prosperity, let us not lose faith in the abundant love and providence of God” and “Stay saved and use prosperity wisely to help others and God will bless you in greater abundance” (Dake, page 168).
Next Dake gives almost four pages of Bible passages in support of his claim that it is God’s will for man to be blessed. Below I’ll give a few of those texts. (I’ll give them from the KJV, which Dake quotes from, and italicise the phrases which Dake italicises.) He closes by asserting, “The only thing that will hinder you from getting what you want is your unbelief” (Dake, page 172), and appealing to believers to cooperate with God to receive blessings from Him.

1. PROSPERITY
   “Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law…turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.…thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” (Josh. 1:7-8). [Dake also quotes 1 Sam. 2:7-8; 1 Ki. 2:3-4; 1 Chron. 29:12; Ezra 8:22; Job 36:11; Ps. 1:1-3.]
   Those who teach that the Christians should be poor, sickly, and suffering all their days would naturally argue that these passages are in the Old Testament and refer to those under the Law of Moses, but we reply, we are under a better covenant and have greater and better promises in the New Testament; so is these things were promised under the Old Covenant, they are for us in a greater way under the New Covenant.
   Apart from this argument there are plain promises in the New Testament concerning prosperity: “Ask, and it shall be given you…For every one that asketh receiveth…If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Mt. 7:7-11). [Dake also quotes Mt. 6:31-33; Mk. 11:22-14; Jn. 15:7, 16; 2 Cor. 9:6-8; Phil. 4:19; 3 Jn. 2.]
2. HEALING AND HEALTH
   “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). [Dake also quotes parts of Ps. 91; Ps. 103:3-5; Isa. 53:4-5; Isa. 58:8.]
   The same truth of healing and health is found in the New Testament. “He cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Mt. 8:16-17). [Dake also quotes Jas. 5:14-16; 1 Pet. 2:24; 3 Jn. 2.]
   Christ came “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn. 3:9) and to deliver “all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38). He came to do this not only for his three years of ministry here but forever. He commissioned the disciples to carry on His work (Mt. 28:19-20; etc.), and they did so until they lost faith (Acts 5:16; etc.).
3. WANTS AND NEEDS
   The common theory is that only the bare necessities will be met by God and that they are hard to get, but the Bible teaches that all man’s wants are abundantly provided for and that such supplies are easy to get by faith: “Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mk. 11:22-24). [Dake also quotes Mk. 9:23; Jn. 14:12-14; 1 Jn. 5:14-15.]
   The doctrine of no want on the part of God’s people was also taught in the Old Testament. David said, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Ps. 23:1). [Dake also quotes Ps. 34:9-10; 37:4; 84:11.]
4. OTHER BENEFITS
   Besides prosperity, healing, healing and health, and anything that one wants in general, God has specified many scores of benefits that men in can in this life and the life to come. [Dake lists 35 benefits, starting with salvation and the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and gives references to Bible passages affirming them. I read the list and suggested that the rest of our family read it, but we didn’t discuss it.]

THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL
Recognizing that what Dake advocates is what is commonly called “the prosperity gospel” or “the health and wealth gospel,” I read what I could find about the prosperity gospel on the Internet and shared in our family Bible reading time one of the articles that I found. The article, “What Is the Prosperity Gospel?” by Andrew Spencer, appears at https://tifwe.org/what-is-the-prosperity-gospel/. It was intended to be the first in a three-part series, but I couldn’t locate the other parts of the series.
Spencer opens the article by identifying two errors that Christians make about money, one disparaging wealth as inherently evil and contrary to God’s plan and the other claiming that faithfulness to God necessarily results in material prosperity (the prosperity gospel). He classes the former as an error because wealth creation and proper stewardship are actually consistent with human flourishing and the latter as one because it doesn’t provide an adequate basis for understanding why faithful Christians sometimes suffer or why the unrighteous sometimes prosper.
Next Spencer gives a brief history of the prosperity gospel, attributing its initial rise to the New Thought movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its revival after World War II to the apparent successes of some evangelists who sought miraculous healings and supernatural financial blessings.
Next Spencer identifies three basic characteristics of the prosperity gospel: faith, wealth, and health. He defines the faith of prosperity gospel adherents as “positive thinking and expectation of God’s material blessings” and observes that according to them material wealth and good health are guaranteed results of faith.
Spencer closes by pointing out these implications of the prosperity gospel:

• It implies that the poor are poor because they are spiritually deficient. However their poverty may be caused by the sin of others and structural evils. [We observed that it also implies that the sick are sick because they are spiritually deficient. However Paul told the Corinthians that he had been given a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him humble (2 Corinthians 12:7) and the Philippians, “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake” (Philippians 1:29).]
• It overemphasizes the importance of temporal wealth. While the Bible records examples of faithful rich men like Abraham, it also records examples of people who were faithful and poor or sick like Paul. [See Matthew 6:24, Matthew 19:21-24, Luke 12:15-21, and 1 Timothy 6:6-12.]
• It distracts individuals from understanding the natural laws that govern economic reality. “Expecting a future supernatural blessing to make a balloon payment on a mortgage may tempt someone to ignore the financial realities of an excessively large loan-to-value-ratio on a house. This could result in real, naturally caused financial ruin.”

(This article was originally posted on August 6, 2019.)

Definition of Providence and Sphere of Divine Providence

This morning my family and I considered the first two of the six parts in Lesson 10: Providence: God’s Plan for the Needs of Man of Finis Jennings Dake’s God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949), which we’re studying in our after breakfast Bible reading time. After defining providence the lesson considers the sphere of divine providence, the numerous promises made in it for the needs of man, its proof, its ultimate purpose and final end, and how we should interpret it. This post considers the definition of providence and the fivefold sphere of divine providence.

I. The Definition of Providence
Webster’s New College Dictionary defines “providence” as “1. a looking to, or preparation for, the future; 2. skill or wisdom in management; 3. the care or benevolent guidance of God or nature” (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, fifth edition – 2014). This post concerns the third of those definitions, which Dake defines as “the care and government [God] exercises over all things that He has created, in order that they may accomplish the ends for which they were created” (Dake, page 166). He observes that it may be considered universal in reference to all things, special in reference to moral beings, and particular in reference to converted beings. With regard to converted beings, he describes providence as “that agency of God through Christ by the Holy Spirit, by which through holy angels, redeemed men, and even demons and unsaved men, He makes all things work together for good to them that love the Lord” (Ibid.).

II. The Fivefold Sphere of Divine Providence

1. The Material Universe.
2. The Vegetable and Plant World.
3. The Animal World.
4. The Rational World of Spirit-beings.
5. The Rational World of Flesh-beings, Man.
   Except for 4, Dake gives references to numerous Bible passage to illustrate these. If you like me to give some of them, ask and I’ll do so.

(This article was originally posted on July 30, 2019.)

The Judgment

This morning my family and I considered the final two of the nine points identified by Finis Jennings Dake on the dispensation of innocence in Lesson 9: The Dispensation of Innocence (Genesis 2:15-3:21) of his God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949), which we’re studying in our after breakfast Bible reading time. In it Dake considers the curse on the serpent, Satan, the woman, the man, and the earth and God’s provision of redemption.

14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. 21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. (Genesis 3:14-21, KJV; all Biblical quotations are from the KJV unless otherwise specified)

VIII. The Judgment on God upon Fallen Man

1. The Curse upon the Serpent (Gen. 3:14-15)
   The serpent was cursed because he was first to yield to Satan to cause the fall of man. He was to go upon his belly and eat dust all of his days (Isa. 65:25). [Dake argues that the serpent was not the devil but merely a creature of the field which the devil used as a tool.]
2. The Curse upon Satan (Gen. 3:15)
   Although the serpent is the one addressed, Satan is also addressed. Thus “thy seed” refers not only to natural snakes but also to ungodly men who are children of the devil. There is a natural enmity both between men and natural serpents and between the godly and the ungodly.
   “Her seed” refers both to all the natural descendants of Eve and to one in particular—Christ. This is the first prophecy of the coming of Christ who would defeat Satan, the invisible person addressed. Christ bruised his head on Calvary and will put him into the Lake of Fire in the future.
3. The Curse upon the Woman (Gen. 3:16)
   Before the Fall the woman was equal with the man and childbirth was to be a pleasure without pain, but now she must be ruled over by man and have multiplied sorrow and conception.
4. The Curse upon the Man (Gen. 3:17-19)
   Before the Fall Adam had worked in a beautiful and fruitful garden, but now he be driven from the garden (Gen. 3:23) and have to till undeveloped land and struggle with thorns and thistles.
5. The Curse upon the Earth (Gen. 3:17-19)
   The ground would produce thorns, thistles, weeds, briars, and be more or less a wilderness. It will remain cursed until the Millenium, when the desert will again blossom like a rose (Isa. 35).

Dake also demonstrates under the heading “Man’s Penalty Discussed” that the penalty was not spiritual or physical death, but eternal death.
(1) God told Adam, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The Hebrew word for “day” is yom, meaning a literal day when not qualified by such words as “of vengeance” (Prov. 6:36). The phrase “in the day” appears 84 times and never means 1000 years as some teach. Thus Adam died the very day he ate of the tree. Since he did not die physically that day (he was 930 years old when he died), the death penalty could not have been physical death and so had to be either spiritual or eternal death.
(2) If physical death would have been the only penalty, then the penalty for sin would be paid at physical death and all who died physically would be free from sin and go immediately to Heaven. This would not be a penalty, but a reward. That the penalty goes beyond physical death is clear from the fact that some who die physically go to Heaven and some go to Hell at death.
(3) The penalty could not be spiritual death only because spiritual death is the state into which all sinners go when they become sinful. This would free man from the guilt of sin after he has committed many sins to pay the penalty for committing the one sin. They would then go to Heaven and no one would go to Hell. The penalty must be something beyond physical and spiritual death, for some go to Heaven and some go to Hell after going through these deaths. [I don’t follow Dake’s reasoning here and thus think that the penalty could be spiritual death. However I also think that if a person remains spiritually dead he or she will suffer eternal death.]
(4) The penalty, therefore, must be eternal (or endless) death or separation from God. Some object to eternal death and torment on the grounds that it is too long in proportion to the time spent committing sin in this life. However since God has made a way for all men to escape Hell and it is left up to each individual whether he accepts it or not, there is no room for any accusation against God.
(5) Such statements as Ezek. 18:4; Mt. 7:13-14; Rom. 6:23; Gal. 6:7-8 [Dake quotes the passages] and many others prove that the future death that is to be experienced is eternal death. All men outside of Christ are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1-9), yet they are physically alive. All men are now eternally dead should they continue this way. Redemption alone will cancel the death penalty. Should a man die physically without redemption he remains forever separated from God, and this is the future death referred to

IX. God’s Provision of Redemption

Immediately after the fall of man God promised a Redeemer and revealed that He would be born of a woman without natural generation and that He would defeat Satan and restore man’s dominion. This was taught man by the prophecy of Gen. 3:15 and demonstrated in type by the shedding of the blood of animals and the clothing of man with the skins of the animals (Gen. 3:21). From then to the first coming of Christ, man shed blood as a token of his faith in the coming Redeemer, who was to shed His own blood to atone for sin and restore man’s dominion (Rev. 5:8-10; Dake gives several more references).

The Fall

This morning my family and I considered the seventh of the nine points identified by Finis Jennings Dake on the dispensation of innocence in Lesson 9: The Dispensation of Innocence (Genesis 2:15-3:21) of his God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949), which we’re studying in our after breakfast Bible reading time. In it Dake expounds on the main facts of the account of the fall of man.

1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. 9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. 11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? 12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
(Genesis 3:1-13, KJV; all Biblical quotations are from the KJV unless specified otherwise)

The above is a simple record of the fall of man, including what made him fall. Without a clear faith in the fall of man, we cannot have a clear faith in the redemption of man. One must believe in the Fall, or he cannot be saved. Jesus Christ did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Mt. 9:13). If man never had a fall he could never be redeemed. Likewise, if a man does not believe he is a sinner he cannot be saved. He must repent to be saved (Mk. 1:4).
The whole temptation centred around this tree and its fruit. Why Adam and Eve happened to go near the forbidden fruit is not stated, and so we have to believe that they were curious as to why God would not permit them to eat of this tree. At any rate, they were at this tree together, as is clear from “she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (italicized by Dake). It is true that the serpent talked with the woman, but that does not prove that the man was not present. There is no statement that Adam was not present, so we naturally conclude that he was. [On the contrary, I’d conclude that the record’s not stating that Adam was present indicates that he wasn’t present. However he may have been.]

1. DOUBT CONCERNING GOD’S WORD (Gen. 3:1). Satan raised a doubt whether God would permit man to eat of every tree of the Garden. His opposition to God’s word accounts for our having so many false theories of the Bible. Any theory that teaches that God does not mean what He says and that changes what it plainly says is satanic. All theories that teach that the Bible is hard to understand or that one man’s interpretation is as good as another is satanic.
2. ADDITION TO AND MISQUOTING GOD’S WORD (Gen, 3:2-3), The woman answered the doubt raised by the serpent by adding to God’s Word the statement “neither shall ye touch it” (see Genesis 2:16-17).
3. CONTRADICTION OF GOD’S WORD (Gen. 3:4). Next the serpent directly contradicts what God said in Genesis 2:17, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Both statements cannot be true. One must choose to believe one or another. God still says that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23; Dake also refers to Romans 8:13; 1 Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 5:19-21; Galatians 6:8; and 2 Timothy 2:12). This (and the other passages Dake refers to) was spoken to Christians and thus applies to all men as did Genesis 2:17.
4. MISINTERPRETATION OF GOD’S WORD (Gen. 3:5). Satan’s second statement to to woman is the basis of many false doctrines saying that all we need to do is to look to the God in us and use the divine power of which we are a part. [In talking about 5, Dake observes that the desire to be like God is in itself not sin, but that it should be in the divine way demonstrated by Christ, not in the selfish way demonstrated by Lucifer and by Adam and Eve.]
5. TEMPTATION TO TRANSGRESS GOD’S WORD (Gen. 3:6). When Eve “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,” she was tempted to sin. The appeal consists of three main lines of temptation, the only three with which man has to deal, “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). These are the three lines of temptation Christ went through in the wilderness and overcame, as recorded in Matthew 4:1-11 [Dake explains how they are in Dake, pages 156-57]. If man overcomes these three lines of temptation, he is an overcomer of Satan, the flesh, and the world.
6. TRANSGRESSION OF GOD’S WORD (Gen. 3:6). Adam and Eve went through the same routine of temptation until actual sin was committed as many do today. James says, “Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:14-15).
7. THE RESULTS OF TRANSGRESSION OF GOD’S WORD (Gen. 3:7-19). In the Fall man lost spiritual, physical, and eternal life and gained instead the opposite—spiritual, physical, and eternal death or separation from God, and was cut off from the purpose for which he was created. [Dake lists 16 things that man lost in the Fall and what he received instead.]

(This article was originally posted on July 25, 2019.)

The Test

The last two mornings my family and I considered the first six of the nine points identified by Finis Jennings Dake on the dispensation of innocence in Lesson 9: The Dispensation of Innocence (Genesis 2:15-3:21) of his God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949), which we’re studying in our after breakfast Bible reading time. Dake opens the lesson by listing the nine main points that should be identified in connection with each dispensation in order to gain a general knowledge of the period. Then he discusses each of the points for the dispensation of innocence.

I. Definition of Innocence
The word “innocence” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil; blamelessness.” As applied to a dispensation it means that the period “was an age of sinlessness, innocence, harmlessness, and freedom from guilt or sin on the part of the man who was responsible to rule for God in [the] period” (Dake, page 150).

II. The Length of the Dispensation of Innocence
The length of the Dispensation of Innocence is unknown, but it unlikely to be longer than six days. [Dake gives eight reasons for claiming this, the first two being that Satan doesn’t let man alone for very long today and that the records of the creation and fall of man continue without a break between them indicating that they were in close succession.]
The forbidden fruit was not intercourse between the man and his wife, as many teach, because that was necessary if they were going to multiply and replenish the earth as they were commanded to do (Genesis 1:26-28).

III. The Favorable Beginning of Man in Innocence (Gen. 1:26-30; 2:8-24)
“Man and woman fresh from the hand of the Creator had physical, spiritual, and eternal life; communion and fellowship with God and all creatures in the new creation; dominion over that creation; the revealed will of God and His law and the knowledge of penalties and rewards.… These and other favorable conditions made it entirely and easily possible for man to have been true to his trust and rule the Earth for God forever.” (Dake, pages 152-53)

IV. The Test—Man on Probation (Gen. 2:16-17)
Man, being created a free moral agent, needed to be tested to see whether he would remain true to God before being placed in the eternal responsibility that God had in mind for him. The test was that he should not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If he had proved true, he could have lived forever physically and spiritually. Even after the Fall man could have lived forever physically if he had eaten of the Tree of Life. The reason God drove him out of the Garden was so that he wouldn’t (Gen. 2:22-24).

(This article was originally posted on July 24, 2019.)

Supplement Four (for Lessons Seven and Eight)

In our after-breakfast study of Finis Jennings Dake’s God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949) this morning, my family and I finished considering Supplement Four, which follows Lessons Seven and Eight. Lesson Seven had been on the rebellion and overthrow of the first social system (the one ruled over by the angel Lucifer), and Lesson Eight had been on the re-creation of the Earth. Supplement Four considers three ways in which saints add to the glory of Lucifer, whom we call Satan) and ten miscellaneous Bible questions.
This report consists of brief summaries of what Dake says about the three ways, supplemented in square brackets by comments from our discussion or by me personally. Biblical quotations are from the KJV unless otherwise noted.

I. Saints Add to Satan’s Glory by Giving in to Him

1. Saints glorify Satan through unbelief. Most believers discourage others from expecting too much from God, telling them to be satisfied what the Heavenly Father sees fit to give. Some even argue that miracles, healings, gifts, and supernatural and inspirational powers were for the apostles only and not for us today. We must believe the Gospel’s promises of such benefits if we are going to attain them. [We agreed with Dake.]
2. Saints glorify Satan through fear of sickness, pain, trouble, and death. Satan gets people to think about sickness, failure, etc.; their thinking about such conditions leads them to talk about them; and soon the conditions materialize. [We agreed only partly with Dake, our agreeing that thinking about sin produces sin but not agreeing that thinking about sickness produces sickness.] Think right thoughts and you will have no acts that you will regret. [We agreed with Dake on this.]
3. Saints glorify Satan by giving in to him in times of temptation. No sin is committed until lust hath conceived and sin is finished (James 1:13-15). People under attack from demons should resist the devil (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8-9). [We agreed with Dake.]
4. Saints glorify Satan by permitting him to keep them sick. No child of God has to be sick or stay sick (Psalms 91; Matthew 8:16-17; Matthew 21:21-22; John 15:7; Romans 8:11.). Christ came to destroy the works of the devil and give life more abundantly, and those who do not permit Him to complete this work in them are causing the work of Christ to be a failure in them (John 10:10; 1 John 3:8; Acts 10:38) and thus glorify Satan more than they glorify God. [Although we agreed with Dake that Christ came to destroy the works of the devil, we didn’t agree with him that the passages which he cited show that those who don’t ask for and receive healing are causing the work of Christ to be a failure in them.]
5. Saints glorify Satan by permitting him to rob them of the wonderful material benefits promised them by God. If God has promised and provided material blessings for all men, particularly His own children, then all believers can have these blessings. If they do not receive them, it is not God’s fault but their fault for permitting themselves to be defeated by Satan. The following passages prove that natural blessings are promised every child of God: Psalms 1:3; Proverbs 3:9-10; Malachi 3:10-11; Luke 6:38; 2 Corinthians 9:6; 3 John 2. [Although we agreed with Dake that God promises and provides material blessings for believers, we felt that Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane suggests that we should qualify our requests to God with the provision that He provide just what is in accordance with His will.]

II. Saints Add to Satan’s Glory by Advertising His Works and Magnifying His Power

1. Saints add to Satan’s glory by being living testimonies of the power of Satan. If sickness, sin, defeat, poverty, and failure in life are the works of the devil, then when these things are manifest in the life in the lives of people who claim to be Christians, they glorify Satan more than God. [See my comment on I, 4, above.]
2. Saints add to the glory of Satan by being his tools at times. In Matthew 16:21-23 Christ rebuked Peter for allowing Satan to influence him to try and stop Jesus from going to the cross. Every time a believer takes part in any division, strife, malice, hatred, or wrongdoing, he is being used by satanic powers.
3. Saints add to Satan’s glory when they propagate false doctrines. Any doctrine that is in the least out of harmony with revealed truth should not be tolerated in the life of a child of God. [Although we agreed with Dake on this, we observed that genuine Christians may disagree on what the Bible reveals, noting that Dake himself held some unorthodox beliefs.]

III. Saints Add to Satan’s Glory by Failing God in Life and Work

1. Every excuse for unbelief and every argument that throws any reflection on God’s will for the best good of all creation is helping Satan keep men in unbelief and bondage to sin, sickness, poverty, and failure in life.
2. All failure in trusting God in times of temptation, sickness, trial, and suffering and all insinuations that God is responsible for these things rob God of man’s respect and add to Satan’s glory.
3. Unconcern for lost souls, failure to live and walk in the Spirit and thus live victorious over sin, disease, and failure in life, and disobedience to God in not coveting the best gifts and the endowment of power for service, all help build up the kingdom of Satan.

Hindrances to Answered Prayer and How to Overcome Them
The hindrances to answered prayer are Satan, demons, fallen angels, doubt, unbelief, and false doctrines among Christians concerning God and answered prayer.
https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2019/06/08/gods-plan-for-man-the-doctrine-of-satan/, 11, tells how to overcome Satan. Review it and doggedly carry out the instructions given in Scripture on this point. Above all, be careful that you have Scripture to prove every part of your faith and every detail of doctrine, and then it will be truth that will set free.

(This article was originally posted on July 19, 2019.)

Supplement Three — Creation Theories

“Do you know that there was a universal flood on earth that destroyed all life long before the flood of Noah?” asks Finis Jennings Dake in Supplement Three of his God’s Plan for Man (Lawrence, Georgia: Dake Publishing, 1949), which my family is studying in our after breakfast Bible reading time. He continues:
This is clear from Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:5-9; 2 Pet. 3:4-6; where we read of the Earth being flooded which caused “the world [social system] that then was” before Adam to perish. Genesis 1:2 reveals that this flood was on the Earth before the first day of the six-days’ work of Gen. 1:3-2:25 during which Adam was created, so it had to be before Adam. Such passages as Isa. 14:12-14; Jer. 4:23-26; and Ezek. 28:11-17 prove that Lucifer had a kingdom on Earth before the days of Adam. He was already a fallen creature when Adam was created, and if these passages prove he ruled before this and that he was perfect in his ways until he sinned, then it had to be before Adam. (This will be proven fully in the next two lessons.) (page 112)
Rather than the first three passages referring to the earth’s being flooded between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, my family and I understood them to refer to water’s covering the land in the creation of Genesis 1:1 until they were separated in Genesis 1:9-10 (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:5-9) and to the flood in Noah’s time (2 Pet. 3:4-6). And although we realized that the passages in Isaiah and Ezekiel could possibly refer to a fall of Lucifer although being spoken to the kings of Babylon and Tyre, we didn’t think that they proved that he had a kingdom on Earth before the time of Adam. Thus we decided to read what Wayne Grudem says in his Systematic Theology about the theory of a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 before going on to the next lesson in God’s Plan for Man, which considers in depth some of the Bible passages referred to in the above quotation.

The Gap Theory
Our choosing to consult Grudem’s Systematic Theology was prompted by our being impressed by it when we studied it in our after breakfast family Bible reading a few years ago. Here is how I summarized at that time what Grudem said about the gap theory on pages 287-289 of Systematic Theology:
Some evangelical Christians propose that there is a gap of millions of years between Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” and Genesis 1:2, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep” (ESV; all Bible passages are quoted from the ESV). According to the theory, Genesis 1:1 describes an earlier creation; between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 some sort of catastrophe occurred, perhaps in connection with Satan’s rebellion and fall (Isaiah 14:12-14 and Ezekiel 28:11-15); and Genesis 1:2 describes how the earth appeared after the catastrophe. The theory holds that “was” in Genesis 1:2 would be better translated “became” and that the picture of formlessness, emptiness, and darkness given in Genesis 1:2 better describes the earth after a catastrophe (compare Jeremiah 4:23) than how it appeared when God created it. Thus the rest of Genesis 1 describes a second creation. The apparent age of the earth and the fossil records showing development over long periods of time can be attributed to the first creation.
Grudem views the theory as inconsistent with the Bible for these reasons:
1. The description in Genesis 1:2 is suitable for a work in progress.
2. No place in the Bible refers explicitly to an earlier creation.
3. It is hard to believe that God could look at an earth showing signs of rebellion and judgment and say that His work of creation was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). [However what God viewed as “very good” could be the work of creation described in Genesis 1:3-31.]
4. Exodus 20:11 says, “In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them,” attributing all of creation (including”the heavens and the earth” of Genesis 1:1) to six days.
5. God’s destroying His first creation of plants and animals suggests that it was a failure. [On the other hand God’s making in His second creation plants and animals similar to those of His first creation suggests that He didn’t view them as a failure.]
(https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/creation-and-modern-science-part-1/)

The two most popular theories of creation held by contemporary evangelical Christians besides the gap theory are the day-age old earth theory and the flood geology young earth theory. Thus my family and I decided to reread what Grudem says about them besides what he says about the gap theory. Below is how I summarized in my family’s earlier study of Systematic Theology what he says about them.

The Day-age Old Earth Theory
The day-age theory arose to provide consistency between the Bible’s account of creation and the scientific evidence that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. In favour of it is the fact that the Hebrew word yom, “day,” is sometimes used to refer to a longer period of time instead of to a twenty-four hour day. An additional argument for it is that so many things happened on the sixth day of creation–God’s creation of the animals, His creation of Adam and Eve, and between His creation of Adam and His creation of Eve the events of Genesis 2:15-20–that it must have been longer than twenty-four hours, and if it was then likely the other days were too.
Grudem lists several arguments given by Davis A. Young in his Christianity and the Age of the Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982) for an old earth: radiometric dating of various materials on the earth, the time required for liquid magma to cool, the time and pressure required for the formation of many metamorphoc rocks that contain small fossils, continental drift, and coral reefs (Grudem, Systematic Theology, pages 298-99; taken from Young, Christianity and the Age of the Earth, pages 13-67).
A difficulty for the day-age theory is that the sequence of events in Genesis 1 doesn’t correspond exactly to the scientific development of the development of life. The greatest difficulty is that it puts the creation of the sun, moon, and stars (Day 4) millions of years after the creation of plants and trees (Day 3). In response those who hold the day-age theory say that the sun, moon, and stars were created before or on Day 1 and were just made visible on Day 4. However elsewhere in the creation account the Hebrew word asah, “made,” refers to things being created. A possible response is that the verbs in Genesis 1:16 can be taken as perfect, indicating something that God had done before.
(https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/creation-and-modern-science-part-2/; based on Grudem, pages 298-300)

The Flood Geology Young Earth Theory
According to this theory, during the flood in the time of Noah (Genesis 8-9) the high pressure exerted by water on the earth changed the face of the earth and the flood deposited fossils in layers of sediment all over the earth. Although thinking that the flood was worldwide and that it had a significant effect of the face of the earth, Grudem confesses that he’s not persuaded that all of the earth’s geological formations were caused by the flood instead of by millions of years of sedimentation, etc. Although I agree with him that if the present geological formations could be explained as the result of a universal flood this should be evident to non-Christian geologists as well as to Christian geologists, which according to him it isn’t, I’m not familiar enough with the writings of either to express an opinion.
(https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/creation-and-modern-science-part-3/; based on Grudem, page 306)

Conclusion
Above I noted that Grudem dismisses the gap theory as being based on highly unlikely interpretations of the Biblical text (page 287, footnote 45). After considering the arguments for and against the theory, he concludes, “So the gap theory does not seem an acceptable alternative for evangelical Christians today” (page 289). However he thinks that both the day-age and flood geology theories are acceptable, saying:
Observing that the scientific evidence favours the “old earth” position but that its interpretations of Genesis 1 don’t seem as natural to the text as the “young earth” position, Grudem concludes that both views are possible and that neither is certain. He suggests that God may not allow us to find a clear solution to the problem before the return of Jesus Christ and thus that proponents of both positions should try to work together “with much less arrogance, much more humility, and a much greater sense of cooperation in a common purpose” (Grudem, page 308). I haven’t read enough by proponents of either position to comment on Grudem’s suggestion, but I certainly agree with him that we should recognize that both views are possible and that neither is certain.
(https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/creation-and-modern-science-part-3/)
Personally I think that all three views are possible but not certain, thus disagreeing both with Dake who looks upon the gap theory as being certain and with Grudem who looks upon it as not possible.

(This article was originally posted on June 15, 2019.)