Occam’s Razor: The Fool-Proof Test Of True Christianity

    Readers of this blog will probably already know that I pay little or no attention to speculative theology.  The issues that seem so important to philosophical punditry are reckoned by myself as mere “impedimenta” which prevent Christians from attaining dogmatic positivism in matters of religion.  Since I have learned in my studies that the pathway to truth is usually the easiest and most well-traversed road, I naturally wax suspicious of any person who seeks to make Christian doctrine uncessarily complex or tortuous.  In many sectors of the professing church, speculative theorizing has become so ingrained that self-styled “gatekeepers” (the scribes and Pharisees of today) deem discipleship incomplete until one has taken a course in philosophy.  For they well know that philosophy is necessary in order to explain away the plain meaning of God’s word.  But we prefer to heed Paul’s warnings to beware of such spoilation (Colossians 2: 8).  And we are not alone in our concern.  Real Christians (and there are lots of them) generally resent any tampering with the meaning of Scripture; insomuch that they’ll clap their ears to anyone who systematically denies what Christ and His inspired apostles set down as an authoritative and uncompromising rule of faith.  Call it bull-headed bigotry if you will.  I thank God for it every day I live..

  As I look back on my past three years of combating Hyper-Preterism on the web, I realize that what I’ve really been arguing against is not a group of duped and deluded fanatics (which H.P.’s actually are), nor a system of theology which draws conclusions before it takes in all the data, and then rigs the data to justify the conclusions (which H.P. really is), but a mindset which weds revelation to philosophy, making the word of God of “none effect,” and obscuring  to outright denying the saving truths of the Gospel.  In presenting the doctrines of Christianity the best way I know how, I’ve essentially argued that in order for the Gospel to do any good in the world, the key of knowledge MUST be taken away from theorizers and obscurantists, and restored to the tentmakers, fishermen, and simple-minded folk who represented Christ in the early centuries, and were accounted worthy enough to die for their faith.  

   Despite what any critics may say, conservatism has been the basis of my ministry from day one.  It is not a matter of “me” against a Sam Frost or a Larry Siegle or even a Gary DeMar.  It is nothing less than a reaction against the liberalism and relativism which corrodes the Gospel to the point where Christ’s mission becomes an irrelevant farce without any absolute or objective meaning.  It is not the people that pose a threat so much as the unwanted baggage they are toting into the church.  The tendency is not confined to the Hyper-Preterists, but is prevalent in all the factions of liberals and skeptics which now go under the name of “Christian.”  It must be resisted at all costs by such an aggressive wave of evangelism as the world has never yet seen.  The fact of Christ having died on the cross under the weight of our sins.  The fact of His having risen from the dead as proof that our sins are put away.  The blessed fact of His ascension and entrance into His priestly duties, wherein He maketh reconciliation for the sins of those who believe in His name.  The fact of His soon coming the second time to raise His dead saints, bind the devil in the bottomless pit, and reign upon earth over the nations of the world!  These truths have been all but obscured by philosophy and vain deceit.  But throw philosophy and its adherents out the door, and they stand in their splendor once more.

   As Bible scholar and conservative theologian C.I. Scofield (1843-1921) once wrote:

  “Jesus Christ had no answer for academic questions.  When the disciples asked Him, ‘Are there few that be saved?’ He answered, ‘Strive to enter in at the strait gate’ (Luke 13: 23-24).  A great many men are interested in purely curious or speculative questions in the sphere of religion who have scant interest in the ‘strait gate.’  Christ is interested in the gate, and in persuading men to enter it.  It is this insistence of Christ on the actual, the ascertainable, the essential, which has always attracted strong, virile, authentic souls.  He is no philosopher with a theory, no attitudinizer with a pretty ceremonial, but the Truth and the Light” (In Many Pulpits, Oxford University Press, 1922, pg. 152).

  “Strong, virile, authentic souls.”  It seems we need more of such in this effeminate, relativistic, namby-pamby age in which we live.  Not long ago, while walking my dog through one of Dallas’s public parks, I saw a public bus pass by with a grim message emblazoned across its flank: “Got questions?  Islam has answers.”  Yes, Islam is now claiming to have the answers that wishy-washy Christendom is no longer able or willing to provide.  Friends, it isn’t the Gospel message that has gotten stale, but the prevalence of relativism and speculative theorizing among men who are supposed to be preaching the Gospel.  It does no good at this hour to point fingers at whom we think to be the biggest culprit.  We each have a responsibility, and no man can shoulder it for us.  The world has its mission to “eat and drink and be merry.”  The liberal church has a mission to convict the natural man of Christ’s authenticity through purely intellectual machinery.  The sincere Bible-believing Christian has a mission to go forth into all the world preaching the Gospel of grace, teaching all nations to observe what Christ Himself taught, and baptizing them in the name of the triune God (Matthew 28: 18-20).  Let’s get busy with it.