Coherent Christianity

Christ Covenant Church

Coherent (def.): clear, consistent, logical and reasonable (equitable/just). Coherent things are intelligible, they make sense.

Christ Covenant Church seeks to a place that possesses coherent Christianity. The reason for this endeavor is the following:

1. Coherency is essential to the confirmation of something as truth especially as it relates to what you believe.

1.1. In Philosophy this is known as the Coherence Theory of Truth: an individual proposition (or belief) is only true if it is coherent with existing propositions or a system of propositions (or beliefs) already determined to be true (e.g.,) I [Scott Jarrett] am 54 going on 55. For that belief to be true, then it must cohere with other beliefs or truths such as: 1. My birth date is 11/1/69, 2. I am still alive. My statement/proposition (54 going on 55) sb considered true b/c it is logically coherent.

1.2. That coherency is essential to truth (or what we believe to be true) can be seen by considering Satan’s first attack against humanity. It was an attack on the coherency of God’s words (Gen 3:1-5) = Satan’s contribution to humanity’s first act of rebellion was his ability to get our original parents to believe that what He had said was incoherent. This then is the power of incoherency (and once more, why coherency is so essential): incoherency leads to distrust and ultimately open rebellion against God.

1.3. As humans, we have been hard-wired to trust only those things that are coherent: that make sense because they are clear, consistent, logical and reasonable (Pro 29:18 “vision” [Heb., hazon = Prophetic vision that makes clear or coherent what God’s people are to do]) = Without such coherency, God’s people will be “unrestrained” in their moral behavior. IOW: they will become distrustful and disobedient to God’s Law. This is confirmed also by the author’s response to the first couplet (“But happy is he who keeps the law [Heb., torah = God’s special revelation or message – most especially His Law). When God’s Word -or what we believe about it is coherent (clear, consistent, logical and reasonable), it is much easier to trust it and obey His laws.

2. If the Bible is truth, then what it teaches (and Christianity believes) must be coherent[1].

2.1. Jesus testifies to the Bible (or God’s Word) as truth (Joh 17:17).

2.2. Jesus also testifies to the Bible’s coherency (Deu 30:11-14; Joh 1:1 “Word” [Grk., logos = Logic, the coherent word; in re: to the mind it refers to the function of reason/logic and calculation]) = Jesus’ identity as the divine Logos (“Word”) communicates to us not only the nature of God (as logical or coherent) but also the nature of Scripture (God’s divine written words – OT, NT): they are likewise logical (or coherent) giving us (humans made in the image of our logical/coherent God) the ability to know Him w/certainty (v18 “explained” [Grk., exegeomai = Exegesis; coherent explanation). [2]

2.3. Jesus uses logic – or the Law of Noncontradiction [A ≠ non-A][3] to prove the existence of life after death/resurrection and His deity – Mat 22:31-32 [Jesus also confirms plenary inspiration]; Mat 22:41-46)[4].

2.4. Paul likewise uses a logical syllogism to prove the necessity of the resurrection to salvation/Christianity (1Co 15:12-20).

2.5. Other passages related to the Bible’s teaching as coherent (Psa 19:7b-9, 119:105; 2Ti 3:15-16 = None of these texts are truthful unless what the Bible teaches is indeed coherent; 1Pe 3:15 “defense” [Grk., apologia = Out of logic]).

2.6. To say that the Bible’s teaching is coherent is not the same as saying that it is not (at times) difficult to understand (e.g., 2Pe 3:15-17) = According to Peter, the reason Paul could be difficult was not due to incoherency (i.e., what he wrote was unclear, inconsistent, illogical or unreasonable) but rather the moral instability (“unstable”) and intellectual deficiency (“untaught”) of others (“unprincipled men”).

2.7. Oftentimes the incoherent (and therefore false) doctrines believed by many Christians today are labeled as incomprehensible. Incomprehensibility however is not the same as incoherency. The difference between the two from the standpoint of cognitive understanding is experience versus intellect. Though what is incomprehensible can be intelligible (it can be understood intellectually), it is beyond that person’s ability to understand experientially (e.g., hell). By contrast, what is incoherent fails to be something that can be understood both by experience and intellect (e.g., 2 + 2 = 3).[5]

2.8. Finally, coherency is necessary not only to our knowledge of God, but to distinguishing between the divine and the demonic.

“If a transcendent God really does have a logic all His own, no criteria can exist in the realm of the transcendent to distinguish between Yahweh and Satan.” – Nash (ibid)

“If the law of non-contradiction is irrelevant in the sphere of transcendent ontology, the God and not-God, the divine and the demonic, cannot be differentiated.” – Clark (ibid)

2.9. Point (then) Not To Miss: never should we accept as biblical truth any belief or doctrine that fails the test of coherency.

3. A great place to start when determining whether the version of Christianity you are following is true or false is the test of coherency (it fails to be clear, consistent, logical or reasonable).

3.1. As it re: to consistency consider: Is our doctrine of God or salvation consistent w/what was what was established in the OT? IOW: is their coherency between the NT and OT based on what you believe? Or do you possess a “canon within a canon”? (Luk 5:36-39) = NT (“new wine”) orthodoxy/orthopraxy is determined by its coherency or consistency w/what has already been established (“is good enough”) from the OT (“the old wine”) .

3.2. As it re: to clarity and logic consider: Jesus appeals to the Pharisees’ clarity and ability to use logic (or logical inferences) to indict them for their rejection of Him as Messiah (Mat 16:1-4 = Their problem was moral not intellectual. IOW: it was not an issue of coherency).

3.4. As it re: to reasonableness (it is equitable and just) consider: Jesus appeals to reasonableness (bib. jurisprudence) in His claims to deity when condemned by the Jewish leaders (Joh 5:31 w/31-47; also Joh 7:24).

4. Our God-given mission is to fight to re-establish the coherency to Christianity.

4.1. (Jud 1:3; 1Ti 6:20-21 “opposing arguments” [Grk., antithesis = Incoherent beliefs]).

4.2. Why would we need to re-establish the coherency of Christianity? Because what was taught at the church’s inception by Jesus, the apostles and early church fathers (Ante-Nicene) regarding the Bible’s three main pillars: God, the gospel and man have been lost to incoherency (Jud 1:3 w/4).

“The Christian experience requires not simply a surrender of the will but a rational [coherent] assent to the truth.” – Nash

5. Modern Christianity – or Christianity after the Ante-Nicene period (325 A.D. to the present) has been incoherent in its view of the Bible’s three main pillars of truth: God, the gospel and man.

5.1. None of this should come as a surprise given: 1) this is Satan’s first – and frequent play (hence 2Co 10:5; 1Ti 6:20-21), 2) the consequences of incoherency (distrust and disobedience to God).

5.2. Incoherency in re: to the doctrine of Man (e.g., Calvinism) = Not only incoherent because it violates the law of noncontradiction (man has a free will yet God has already decreed what man will do before he was created), but bc it is also unreasonable (unjust) – God judges or condemns men who had no free will to choose Him (Unconditional Election) or ability (ability establishes culpability) to live up to His standards (Total Depravity) (Deu 30:9-14).

5.3. Incoherency in re: to the doctrine of the Gospel (e.g., the Faith Alone Gospel [WCF]:faith is the only necessary instrument of salvation) = Incoherent in its attempts to reconcile: 1) the NT’s teaching on faith and works,[6] 2) the framework of salvation presented in the OT w/what is presented in the NT.[7]

5.4. Incoherency in re: to the doctrine of God (TBD – next week!)

“A Christian might say that the Trinity is an utter mystery and cannot be logically explained yet insist that if a defining doctrine of another worldview is ‘an utter mystery logically,’ then that worldview must be rejected. But this will not do. If we allow opaque mysteries in our own worldview, we have to allow them everywhere. Or if we demand logical consistency in other worldviews, we must demand it of our own. That is, the criteria for rational evaluation must be objective. Special pleading should be apologetically out of bounds…If Christians desire to demonstrate the truth and rationality of Christianity to those who hold other worldviews, they must apply objective criteria to the contending worldviews. If none are given, there is no apologetic, but only preaching.” – Douglas Groothuis (Christian Apologetics)

[1] See Jack Symes, “When God Is Too Ineffable.” = Symes makes the comment that America’s rejection of Christianity (due to incoherency) is trending behind the U.K.

[2] “Christians believe the rational [logical or coherent] world is the projection of a rational [logical or coherent] God who objectifies His eternal thoughts in the creation [and through Scripture] and who endows the human creature, the apex of creation, with the image of God which includes a structure of reason similar to God’s own reason [i.e., with a logical mind]…The laws of reason (reason means logic) are the same for both God and humans…The Logos teaching of the New Testament and the early church fathers entailed a similarity between the rational structure of the human mind and the rational structure of the divine mind” – Dr. Ronald Nash (The Word of God And the Mind of Man)

[3] “The same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect.” – Aristotle; Examples: 1) 2+2 = 4 and 2+2 ≠ 4 cannot both be correct. 2) my dog Tevi is alive and my dog Tevi is not alive cannot both be true at the same time and in the same place.

[4] “The denial of the law of noncontradiction leads to absurdity…If the law of noncontradiction is denied, nothing has meaning…significant human action also becomes impossible…If God is to communicate his thoughts to human beings, that communication must accord with the law of noncontradiction.” – Nash (ibid)

[5] Some have attempted to posit that what God knows to be true might indeed mean that 2+2 = 3. Though there is no doubt that what God knows to be true is far more than us, it cannot contradict what has been revealed (2+2 = 4). If so, then what has been revealed – or is shared as truth by both God and man would no longer be true – at least from the perspective demonstrated in Scripture -i.e., what is true is coherent and therefore logical. In response to those who appeal to Isa 55:8-9 (“For my thoughts are not your thoughts…As the heavens are higher than the earth…so my thoughts than your thoughts”) Gordon Clark’s words are fitting, “Of course the Scripture says God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. But is it good exegesis to say that this means his logic, his arithmetic, his truth are not ours? If this were so, what would the consequences be? It would mean not only that our additions and subtractions are all wrong, but also that all our thoughts, in history as well as in arithmetic are all wrong…To avoid such nonsense…we must insist that truth is the same for God and man.” (“Apologetics”, Contemporary Evangelical Thought)

[6] As it relates to the James consider the following syllogism: 1) Are the producing of works necessary to salvation or for my faith to be effective until salvation? Yes (Jam 2:14-26), 2) Who is responsible for producing those works? WE are (Jam 2:14-26), 3) Is the context of James’ salvation (justification before God or men)? God (Jam 2:14)

CONCLUSION: works are another necessary instrument/condition of our salvation (Jam 2:24, faith is the root and works are the fruit is false).

[7] (Evangelical soteriology): Under the OT it was salvation by works then under the NT it became salvation by faith (or somebody doing the works for us) (e.g., the Covenant of Works) versus (the Biblical and coherent view): salvation has always been (OT/NT) a marriage covenant between Jesus and His people operating according to the marital mechanics of gain by grace through faith (Rom 3:28) and maintain through faithful obedience (Jam 2:24; Deu 28:1-2).