CHRISTIAN THOUGHT


TO THE CHURCHES


Can the Church today "face the world" with Christian Thought and by so doing establish Truth? The early Church did so. The early Church did "take on the world" and all of its arguments and become victorious. How did it happen? Was there a Method involved? If so, what was it? What did they know? Is this knowledge, for the most part, absent from todays' "christian" educational system, and essentially "lost" today? Can it be restored to the Church once more?


WHAT WAS CHRISTIAN THOUGHT IN EARLIER GENERATIONS?


Defending The Faith, Christian Thought or Apologetics in the early Church was, of course, based on the New Testament revelation of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah of Israel. The chief Apologist of the New Testament was the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Peter gave stern warning to those who thought they could resist Paul:


As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. II Peter 3:16


PAULS' ARGUMENTS


There is no question that the arguments of the Apostle Paul "took on the world" and had a tremendous impact in his own day and upon every generation that has followed including todays'. Peter said that those who are "unlearned and unstable" "wrest" Pauls' arguments. What had Paul learned? Was there a System that Paul used to present the Gospel?

If we carefully examine Pauls' arguments and compare them to the arguments of ancient history we can find the System that he used. This System is known as The 5 Canons of Classical Discourse, or Classical Rhetoric.

We present to you that since the Apostle Paul used this System, it can also be used with success by the Church today as in earlier generations. Some would say that it is just "Greek thinking" or "Hellenizing" and must be altogether thrown out as "paganizing" and "corrupt". But is that a true and accurate statement? Philo of Alexandria proved that everything "good" that the Greeks had developed in their thinking was based upon the Old Testament Scriptures themselves!

Was the whole Church itself through the 18th-Century that did use the same System that Paul used "deceived"? We think not! The early Church and those that followed saw the Classical System used to tremendous advantage for the Church and they followed suit.

It can be found in the Old Testament, such as Isaiah 1:18-31.

The whole of Western Civilization was founded upon a Biblical base that used the Classical System.

Kingdoms and Governments were founded upon this System.

Anglo-Saxon Law and Jurisprudence uses this same System for its very foundations. Indeed, the whole of Western Civilization was founded upon it.

The True Church Councils and Synods used the Classical System.

The Didache uses it.

Augustine used it.

Martin Luther used it in Bondage of the Will.

John Calvin used it.

Lex Rex used the Classical System.

The Synod of Dort used it.

Jonathan Edwards used it in his Classic work Veritas Redux.

Early American schools taught the Classical System even to High School students.

George Whitefield used it to Rebuke John Wesley in Whitefields' Letter to Wesley.

The Classical System has been around a long time and was used successfully by the earlier generations of Christians and was victorious. The Classical System is founded on Absolutes.

Therefore, those who wished to overthrow the Classical System as the established Method for Determining Truth had to have another System to put in its place. The Humanists decided to adopt was The Hegelian Dialectic.


HUMANISM REARS ITS UGLY HEAD TO ATTEMPT THE OVERTHROW OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT:

THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC


If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psalms 11:3


TO BE SUCCESSFUL, THE FIRST THING THOSE THAT USE THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC MUST DO IS DENY, OR MAKE IRRELEVANT, ALL ABSOLUTES


"There are no Absolutes!"

In unleashing the Hegekian Dialectic, this led to the "logical conclusion", since there are "no Absolutes",

which led to the conclusion of Nietzsche:

"God is dead"

After all, if "there are no Absolutes", and "the only thing we can count on is change" why not eliminate or at least question the existence of G-d Himself? The Hegelian Dialectic is what is taught in major colleges and universities today, though it be false. Students who object are many times ridiculed as "living in the past".

Everything becomes "relative". The Universe is Amoral and becomes silent concerning right and wrong.


THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC IS ONLY STATING THAT HUMANISTIC PHILOSOPHY HAS FAILED TO FIND THE ABSOLUTE


The Hegelian Dialectic is an accrurate description of the Humanistic attempt to find an Absolute. That is all that it really is, and in that, it is accurate. Their choices take on the "shade of grey Synthesis" to which more future choices are added ad infinitum without ever reaching an Absolute. So in that, they do describe their system truly. Theirs has become a "closed system" however, which only includes itself as an example recording the past history of the Humanistic endeavour.

Today, it has crept into the Churches as Christian Humanism.

Humanism always fails. It sought, beginning with the Rennaisance in the south of France, to find the Humanistic Absolute. It failed. It kept on failing. Man cannot be the Absolute, simply because man is finite.


REFUTING THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC


The Hegelian Dialectic always assumes that a "Synthesis" can be created from every "a" and the "-a". This is its hallmark. There can be no "Synthesis" however between True Absolutes that oppose each other. For instance, Light and darkness.

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? II Corinthians 6:14

The answer is, there is no Fellowship, no Synthesis. Accepting the Hegelian Dialectic in any form constitutes being "unequally yoked together with unbelievers".


RETURN TO AND USE THE CLASSICAL SYSTEM


The Classical System provides the opportunity for one man (the Apostle Paul as our example in Acts 17), citing authoritative sources, to stand before the whole world and present Truth. Use this System. It works.

The Hegelian Dialectic? Feel free to ignore it. It is invalid.


MORE FOLLOWING SOON!


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FOOTNOTES


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BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CREDITS


Philo of Alexandria. Complete Works.

Rutherford, Reverend Samuel. Lex Rex. 1641.



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