LordTemplar

@logcollegepress @GPTSeminary I want to buy a copy of "The Case for Full Subscription to the Westminster Standards in the Presbyterian Church in America" and/or "The Presbyterian Debate: Studies in Presbyterian Polity" Where are they sold?

I think the main problem involves a conflation between truth, and truth reasoned to rightly. "murder is bad" vs "God has said murder is bad". It seems that for Van Til, if the former is proven only by empirical or rational methods, and not biblical ones, it is false knowledge.

Or: nature is sufficient to know God such that men stand condemned of refusing to obey Him. But: nature is insufficient to know God such that no true statement could be made about Him without reference to Scripture.

I'm beginning to think Van Til trapped himself in hopeless contradiction via some variant of Idealism, and his disciples, attempting to unwind such things, spiraled off into various unorthodox directions. I'm getting whiplash from his takes on Natural theology.

@_kruptos @WPVereker Politicians, to a degree, depend on popularity for re-election. They hitch themselves to winning trains. So if the train looks like its winning, elites will try and spearhead it out of selfish ambition. Its about as close as you get to a winning strategy in mass democracy.

@WPVereker You are exactly the person he is speaking to and your response is exactly what the red meat propaganda is supposed to evoke. Thanks for stepping up and being the object of today’s lesson.

Translation: Trust the plan. Go with the vibes. Believe the red meat propaganda we keep feeding you.

@james_d_baird NO IT NEEDS A SUBSCRIPTION.

Me: Man, I really wish there was someone who could help me understand the similarities and differences between Reformed, Aquinas, and Van Til views of Natural Theology. The humble @james_d_baird:

@NoWarChristian Help, I took 1 pill each from the Bahnsen, Van Til, Aquinas, and Junius bottles and now my stomach hurts.

You are supposed to take one Aquinas pill, not the whole bottle.

@TylerLeeConway Based.

Good grief lol.

@AmandaMilius @RealTheoWold The Northeast is now largely Catholic, so no not really.

@RealTheoWold Did we really succeed at assimilating the Irish tho?

If we want to keep a coherent country, America needs an immigration moratorium.

@johnandrewwords @james_d_baird Amen.

Disagree. Christianity should be recognized by all spheres of life as good and true. @james_d_baird also made a good point in the comments. It was a funny moment to realize that he has me blocked. Hadn’t said a word to him in a bit. Anyway. What can you do? 🤷‍♂️

@greilsarriskirk @johnandrewwords @james_d_baird I'd be interested to know if Presbycast supports the government stripping churches of their non-profit status and needing to pay property and income taxes. That certainly counts as "special support".

@johnandrewwords @james_d_baird It’s such vague phrasing too! What does “special support” mean? Does it involve speeches, prayers, chaplains, symbols, etc or just direct monetary support or what? It’s substituting a secular legal standard for theology.

@EidolonOracle @presbycast They really didn't though- they established a Protestant consensus and expected the magistrate to uphold Christianity, including Sabbath laws, marriage laws, etc. I think its a mistake for either CNs or R2K to claim the early Presbyterians were for a secular state.

@presbycast And then established a secular liberal cathedral that conceded their descendants to the world. Now some look at that experience their forefathers had “enjoyed” for the last two centuries and say “we’ve had enough of that.”

It's pretty clear: Most presbyterians in 18th-century North America looked at the experience of establishment their forefathers had "enjoyed" for the last two centuries and said, "We've had enough of that."

@JonPatt944 @ClownWorld This is America. We don't eat goldfish here, and we don't have to explain ourselves to foreigners.

@ClownWorld She’s right, goldfish are high in ammonia and not good for humans to eat. But that argument aside if it was safe what’s it matter if he eats it or buys them as feeder fish for pets? 🤷‍♂️

“Go back to your country” 😭🤣🤣🤣

@JeffTaylorLR And I like some of the things Van Til wrote, but lets not pretend the man had "clarity" in anything- he's one of the most inscrutable Reformed thinkers in centuries.

@JeffTaylorLR If Kline actually was giving the system Scripture laid out, he wouldn't have needed to fracture the Natural Law into multiple parts, deny the abiding validity of the Sabbath, fracture the Noahic Covenant in half, and deny the OT as canonical for the Church.

The Thomas debate isn’t about “simplicity” or “metaphysics.” It’s about architecture. And once you see the architecture, the drift stops being mysterious. Thomas’s categories are not modular. They are not neutral. They are not detachable. They only exist as what they are inside Thomas’s own metaphysical system. Act/potency → essence/existence → participation → analogy → nature/grace → sacramental causality → ecclesial mediation. It’s one structure. If you take the structure as a structure, Rome is the terminus. This is why recent conversions aren’t surprising. They’re architectural. If you accept Thomas’s definitions as he defines them, you accept his system. If you accept his system, you accept Rome. And here’s the line retrieval never admits: If you use Thomas inside a different architecture, it is no longer Thomas. If you use Thomas as Thomas, you end up in Rome. There is no third option. This is where Van Til’s clarity matters. Van Til’s point wasn’t “avoid Thomas.” His point was: no metaphysical category is religiously neutral. Every definition lives inside a worldview architecture. Every system has a covenantal center of gravity. Thomas’s center of gravity is not Protestant. It cannot be Protestant. It was never meant to be Protestant. This is why Kline is essential right now. Kline gives the canonical‑federal architecture Scripture itself supplies: creation → covenant → kingdom Adam → Israel → Christ → Church promise → fulfillment federal headship → new creation. Once that architecture is set, metaphysics becomes grammar, not governance. But that means the categories are no longer Thomistic in the strict sense. They have been relocated, subordinated, and stripped of their Roman teleology. This is exactly what the Reformers did. They did not “retrieve Thomas.” They replaced his architecture with a covenantal one and used only the vocabulary that could survive the relocation. The retrieval movement keeps trying to import Thomas’s categories without importing his system. But Thomas’s categories are his system. That’s why the drift is not a surprise — it’s a structure. The way forward isn’t to use Thomas as a resource. It’s to recognize that his categories are architecturally inseparable from Rome, and to stand instead inside the canonical‑federal frame Scripture actually gives. That’s the Protestant clarity retrieval never delivered. And it’s the clarity the next generation needs. #Thomas #VanTil #MeredithGKline

@presbycast That isn't true. @irishpresby proved this in his chapter on American Presbyterianism in Reformed Christian Politic.

You may not like it, but the vast majority of presbyterian officers, ministers, and denominations in the USA confess this and have done so for a long time.

No religious group or system should get special support from the government—only the basic protection and security that everyone else gets.

@AmericanPresby The Westminster Standards poasting will continue until morale improves!

WSC Q86: What is faith in Jesus Christ? A: Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.

@HistorylandHQ Never trust the piss filter!

@LordTemplar1 Same photo, different colorizations

Admiral Byrd’s snow cruiser (designed to explore Antarctica) drives through traffic. Massachusetts, 1939