BIBLES * Bulldogs * & Beards

Disagree, agree, or have a question: Contact us through the contact page on our website; http://www.biblebulldog.com PART ONE - The Cultural Case against Creeds and Confessions by Dr. Carl Trueman with Pastor William Shifflett “There are powerful forces at work within our modern world that militate against adherence to historic statements of the Christian faith.” “There are 3 basics presuppositions to which I hold that must be true for the case for confessions to be a sound one.” Three Assumptions: 1.The past is important and has things of positive relevance to teach us. “Any cultural force that weakens the belief that the past can be a source of knowledge is a force that serves to undermine the relevance of creeds and confessions.” 2.Language must be an appropriate vehicle for the stable transmission of truth across time and geographical space. “Any force that undermines general confidence in language as a medium capable of conveying information or of constituting relationships is also a force that strikes at the validity of creeds and confessions.” 3.There must be a body or an institution that can authoritatively compose and enforce creeds and confessions. “Any cultural force that undermines notions of external or institutional authority effectively removes the mechanisms by with creeds and confessions can function.” Devaluing the Past: Devaluing the Past: In Science. “Science, by its very nature, assumes that the present is better that the past and the future will be better than the present.” Follow the science. “The problems is that science also comes loaded with a certain philosophical bias, that the past is inferior to the present. It has a built-in narrative of progress … built on the assumed inferiority of the past.” Science changes direction, improves, and builds upon itself. But the Word of God remains unchanged and unmovable. Our hope is not to be found in science. There’s no blessing in the book of science. Friend, the blessing and our hope is in Jesus Christ. Dr. Trueman gives us his response to a student in one of his classes on the ancient church when she questioned the value of her attendance. After all, “’some documents written in the seventh century seem to have very little to do with’ her ministry.” But Trueman’s response is perfect…”I suggested with every ounce of gentleness and tact I could muster that she might perhaps better ask herself not so much what relevance they have to her ministry but what relevance her ministry had to the church” Devaluing the Past: In Technology. “No longer is the younger dependent on the older; rather, the older is dependent upon the younger.” God cannot be explained by technology.