A POYTHRESS PROGRESS REPORT: A Review of His Redeeming Philosophy and Redeeming Mathematics

A  POYTHRESS  PROGRESS  REPORT

A review of:

Vern Poythress Redeeming Philosophy (Crossway, 2014)

                           $25.00   303 pp   ISBN: 978-1-4335-3946

Vern Poythress Redeeming Mathematics (Crossway, 2015)

                           $21.99   200 pp   ISBN: 978-1-4335-4110-0

Reviewer:  Forrest W. Schultz

     Many moons ago at Westminster Theological Seminary while Vern Poythress was matriculating there, and knowing that he had recently received a Ph.D. in math from Harvard, I asked him what the Biblical view of math was.  When he said he did not know, I told him that after he studied some Van Til he would figure it out!  Well, he did study Van Til there, and, as a result, he did figure it out, and the result was his paper "A Biblical View of Mathematics" in Foundations of Christian Scholarship:  Essays in the Van Til Perspective [ed. by Gary North and pub. by Ross House Books in 1976] on pp. 158 - 188.  YES!!!

     I believe that Poythress's greatest achievement since that time has been his development of his highly personal writing style which he has been using in his recently published books on many different subjects.  This personal writing style not only makes his books easier to read but is itself a theological accomplishment showing as it does how personal God is!  Since God is a Person, in fact the Supreme Person, He should be treated as such in our theological discourse both in thought content and in writing style.  Poythress therefore has become a good example for us to follow.

     I think that what Poythress needs to do now is to arrange the results of his studies into a system.  This, of course, will not only be a lot of work but will also be a project which his mentor John Frame has shied away from due to his reaction to failures at system building in the past, such as the botched attempt by Herman Dooyeweerd in his cosmonomic idea philosophy.  In addition to overcoming this systemophobia, another prerequisite for Frame and Poythress is to complete their journey to a full acceptance of Biblical Law and Biblical Creation toward which they have been moving.  Then they will be ready and full equipped to develop this systematic theology/philosophy.  Bon Voyage !!

Christian Curriculum in Moscow State Schools

Christian Curriculum Introduced in 30 Moscow State Schools

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After a year of studying the Foundations of Orthodox Culture in the fourth grade, fifth graders of thirty Moscow schools will continue to explore the subject within the framework of a pilot project in the new school year, reported Hieromonk Onisim, the chairman of the Department of Religious Education and Catechesis of the Moscow Diocese, in an interview with RIA Novosti on August 6.
Foundations of Orthodox Culture is included in the fourth grade school curriculum. Following an analysis of this year’s pilot program a decision will be made about the advisability of further expansion of the course.
“The Church hierarchy has established the task of considering the expansion of the course, because after an initial introduction to Orthodox culture many families want a continuation. It is difficult to examine such a profound subject in one year,” the source noted.
He added that besides the study of Orthodoxy within the framework of the academic curriculum, school children will participate in various creative competitions: “Hegumen of the Russian Land,” devoted to St. Sergius of Radonezh; “Journey in Ancient Rus,” devoted to a more profound study of history; and also creative events in the unit “St. Vladimir—Baptizer of Rus.”

Read more at http://zionica.com/2015/08/18/christian-curriculum-introduced-in-30-moscow-state-schools/#Rfz0miM8W2xVEHGt.99


Far out, huhh???

Anybody know anything about this??
Forrest

GOD AND THE DEVIL: WHO IS INTERESTING AND WHO IS BORING ??

GOD  AND   THE  DEVIL:

    WHO  IS  INTERESTING  AND  WHO  IS  BORING ???

By  Forrest  Wayne  Schultz

It has been said that the Devil's greatest triumph is to convince people he does not exist.  This is indeed a triumph BUT a much greater triumph is to convince people that the Devil is interesting and that God is boring.  Speaking of interestingness, it is interesting to note that none of the major systematic theologies teach that God is interesting -- you will not find it mentioned in Gill or Hodge or Strong or Shedd or Berkhof, for example.  Lots more could be said about this, for instance, the old saying that the way most plays are written that the Devil has the best lines!!  And the claim often made that even Milton -- the great Milton -- in his Paradise Lost made it look like the Devil was more interesting than God.  Whether that is really the case or not, I do not know and will leave the solution to that to the literary scholars.  But the very fact that there could even be a question about this illustrates the problem here.

Lest anyone have any doubt about this, here is the answer:

GOD   IS   INTERESTING   !!!

THE   DEVIL   IS   BORING   !!!

Some people think I am pretty smart but I did not realize this great truth until the year of our Lord 2002, which, by the way is a palindrome.  Palindromes are one of the many, many, many, many, many, many, many interesting things about reality.  I have long been an interesting things connoiseur and after a lifetime of collecting interesting things from my life, from history, and from science, etc etc, I finally was so overpowered by it all that I asked why all this interesting stuff!!???  The answer -- GOD  IS  INTERESTING!!  Our national holiday is but one of numerous examples, as I showed in my article titled "The Fourth of July and Interesting Things" (published in the Fourth of July 2002 issue of  The Chalcedon Report) which ends with this dramatic conclusion:  GOD  IS  INTERESTING !!!.