Psalm 36:2 "For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin."
Was that the case with Wierwille? Had he flattered himself in his own eyes so much that he couldn't tell when something he was doing or saying was wrong?
For me (it could be other things for other people), the most blatant lie in PFAL is the statement Wierwille made on page 217, "To whom is it addressed? Verse 4 says to the Israelites, the Judeans."
Verse 4 contains the word "to" but it doesn't say Romans 9 is addressed to Israel. It says the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises pertain to Israel. It does NOT say Romans 9 is addressed to Israel.
For the longest time, the existence of this error in PFAL led me to believe that Wierwille was a conscious, deliberate con man. How could he NOT have seen the error, in a section of PFAL dedicated to eliminating THAT VERY KIND OF ERROR!?!
However, since I started examining the results of a lack of the fear of God, I am beginning to see that Wierwille COULD have been that blind.
I think Wierwille flattered himself in his own eyes too much to be able to recognize when he was wrong. And there was NO critic big enough to get through to him.
This post is a side-bar to explore an issue of terminology.
"What do you call a person who has a lack of the fear of God?"
It sounds like the set up for a bad punch line, but this question has become very real to me. I'm getting tired of repeating the phrase "a lack of the fear of God". It's just too cumbersome.
It's no wonder that I don't have any terminology from my stint in TWI to fall back on. The only way we payed attention back then to the phrase "fear of God", was to say, "It doesn't really mean 'fear', it means 'respect'." Beyond that, we didn't say ANYTHING. We didn't need to develop any language for a job that didn't exist.
So... "the lack of the fear of God"... hmmmm.
To "lack fear" is to be "fearless"... "the fearlessness of God"? Somehow, that seems to mean something quite different.
Let's look at the tail end of Romans 11:20, "Be not high-minded, but fear".
"To be high-minded" is "hupselophroneo" in this verse. "Phroneo" means to think or to be minded. "Hupselo" means "high". Notice that the word here isn't "huperphroneo". That would mean "over-" or "above-" or "super-minded". "Hupselophroneo" is more like "lofty-minded".
So Romans 11:20 sets "high-mindedness" in contrast with "fear". I believe this is so because a person who doesn't fear God isn't willing to submit the thoughts and intents of his heart to the critique of the living Word of God. Surely, his thinking is far too lofty to be wrong!
So, from now on, I may use the term "high-mindedness" to replace the phrase "lack of the fear of God".
Psalm 36:3a, "The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful".
Not only are a high-minded person's words wrong, they are stated in such a way as to disguise their error.
There are any number of examples from PFAL where Wierwille hid his lack of substance in great billowing clouds of words.
For instance: in the very first paragraph on the very first page of the very first chapter (p 5) of PFAL Wierwille wrote, "But to be logical and consistent, either the entire Bible is the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation or it is not the Word of God anywhere."
To say "the entire Bible is the Word of God... or it is not the Word of God anywhere" is neither logical nor consistent. Wierwille is presenting one of the presuppositions of his logic, and then claiming it is a conclusion of logic. It can't be both.
Wierwille liked to present his arguments as if they were logical. He set a great deal of store by the appearance of logic, but instead of using the language of logic to cut to the heart of a matter, he dressed his arguments in pseudo-logical camoflage, to slip them past the sentries of reason.
Another technique: Wierwille would use a word in a certain way a number of times to establish a definition by context, then give a formal definition that agreed with the contextual definition he had already set up. He wouldn't give ANY objective support for his formal definition, but it still seemed right, because he had already trained us to understand the word the way he wanted it understood.
The best example of this is on pages 218 through 224 of PFAL, where Wierwille discussed "administrations".
After introducing the topic and quoting I Corinthians 9:17, Wierwille stated "The word 'dispensation' is entirely misleading, for an administration is accurately the administering of an entire era as in one of our government administrations."
First, Wierwille claims not to be defining "administration", but to be correcting a mis-definition of "dispensation". Then he wrote "an administration is accurately the administering of..." This is what's known in logic as a circular definition, or defining a word in terms of itself. Circular definitions are wrong because they fail to define (set limits to what a word can mean). A circular definition can be used to make a word mean ANYTHING.
"...the administering of an entire era..." Here Wierwille introduces the idea that an "administration" is a period of time.
"...we must understand that these Biblical administrations have to remain within the confines in which God has placed them in his Word."
Where in the Bible does God place any of these "administrations" within any sort of confines? Where?
In any of the uses of the word "oikonomia"?
Nope. The word "oikonomia" is never used with any qualifiers such as "first", "second", "new", "better", "old", etc. In fact, the word "oikonomia" is never even plural in the Bible.
Wierwille went on to write, "As far as I have been able to study the integrity of the Word of God, there are...", and continued for about three-and-a-half pages describing the "confines" in which he thinks God places the "administrations".
Is there any substance to those three-and-a-half pages? None dealing with the word "oikonomia" or "administrations".
By the time Wierwille got to page 223 he could write, "This has been a brief analysis of the administrations which are encompassed in the Word of God. We must understand that the rules of life change in the various time periods so that we must see each administration within its distinct context."
Finally, AFTER having completed his "analysis", Wierwille set forth his definition of "administrations" as "various time periods" distinguished by changes in "the rules of life".
He quoted a lot of verses along the way. Did any of them have anything to do with deriving a biblical definition for the word "oikonomia"? No, not one.
His words were wrong, and he did his best to obscure how wrong they were. He tried to make his circular definitions seem credible by spreading them out over several pages. If he interlarded them with enough excessive, high-sounding verbiage, maybe no one would notice his definitions and arguments were circular.
If you think I am being "anal-retentive" in analysing Wierwille's take on "administrations", I challenge you to figure out how Wierwille derived his teachings on "the new birth" from what's actually written in Scripture.
On PFAL page 229 Wierwille wrote, "Before we move into the depth of the new birth, we must realize some fundamental terms. When I speak of the "natural man" I speak of the man of body and soul, the man who is not born again of God's Spirit."
What did Wierwille mean by "move into the depth" of the new birth? What did it mean to him to "realize" some fundamental terms? We know what "natual man" meant to him, but what did he mean by "body" and "soul"? What did he mean by being "born again of God's Spirit"? He used those terms in a definition, without defining THEM.
As you will see, he used his definition of "natural man" to derive his definitions for "body" and "soul" and "born again of God's Spirit".
Wierwille built his whole erroneous theory of who man is, and his whole erroneous theory of what salvation is, on this one great big, compound, circular definition.
Not only were the words of Wierwille's mouth wrong, they were decietfully wrong.
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Steve Lortz
Psalm 36:2 "For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin."
Was that the case with Wierwille? Had he flattered himself in his own eyes so much that he couldn't tell when something he was doing or saying was wrong?
For me (it could be other things for other people), the most blatant lie in PFAL is the statement Wierwille made on page 217, "To whom is it addressed? Verse 4 says to the Israelites, the Judeans."
Verse 4 contains the word "to" but it doesn't say Romans 9 is addressed to Israel. It says the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises pertain to Israel. It does NOT say Romans 9 is addressed to Israel.
For the longest time, the existence of this error in PFAL led me to believe that Wierwille was a conscious, deliberate con man. How could he NOT have seen the error, in a section of PFAL dedicated to eliminating THAT VERY KIND OF ERROR!?!
However, since I started examining the results of a lack of the fear of God, I am beginning to see that Wierwille COULD have been that blind.
I think Wierwille flattered himself in his own eyes too much to be able to recognize when he was wrong. And there was NO critic big enough to get through to him.
Yet more to come...
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
This post is a side-bar to explore an issue of terminology.
"What do you call a person who has a lack of the fear of God?"
It sounds like the set up for a bad punch line, but this question has become very real to me. I'm getting tired of repeating the phrase "a lack of the fear of God". It's just too cumbersome.
It's no wonder that I don't have any terminology from my stint in TWI to fall back on. The only way we payed attention back then to the phrase "fear of God", was to say, "It doesn't really mean 'fear', it means 'respect'." Beyond that, we didn't say ANYTHING. We didn't need to develop any language for a job that didn't exist.
So... "the lack of the fear of God"... hmmmm.
To "lack fear" is to be "fearless"... "the fearlessness of God"? Somehow, that seems to mean something quite different.
Let's look at the tail end of Romans 11:20, "Be not high-minded, but fear".
"To be high-minded" is "hupselophroneo" in this verse. "Phroneo" means to think or to be minded. "Hupselo" means "high". Notice that the word here isn't "huperphroneo". That would mean "over-" or "above-" or "super-minded". "Hupselophroneo" is more like "lofty-minded".
So Romans 11:20 sets "high-mindedness" in contrast with "fear". I believe this is so because a person who doesn't fear God isn't willing to submit the thoughts and intents of his heart to the critique of the living Word of God. Surely, his thinking is far too lofty to be wrong!
So, from now on, I may use the term "high-mindedness" to replace the phrase "lack of the fear of God".
Love,
Steve
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Steve Lortz
Psalm 36:3a, "The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful".
Not only are a high-minded person's words wrong, they are stated in such a way as to disguise their error.
There are any number of examples from PFAL where Wierwille hid his lack of substance in great billowing clouds of words.
For instance: in the very first paragraph on the very first page of the very first chapter (p 5) of PFAL Wierwille wrote, "But to be logical and consistent, either the entire Bible is the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation or it is not the Word of God anywhere."
To say "the entire Bible is the Word of God... or it is not the Word of God anywhere" is neither logical nor consistent. Wierwille is presenting one of the presuppositions of his logic, and then claiming it is a conclusion of logic. It can't be both.
Wierwille liked to present his arguments as if they were logical. He set a great deal of store by the appearance of logic, but instead of using the language of logic to cut to the heart of a matter, he dressed his arguments in pseudo-logical camoflage, to slip them past the sentries of reason.
Another technique: Wierwille would use a word in a certain way a number of times to establish a definition by context, then give a formal definition that agreed with the contextual definition he had already set up. He wouldn't give ANY objective support for his formal definition, but it still seemed right, because he had already trained us to understand the word the way he wanted it understood.
The best example of this is on pages 218 through 224 of PFAL, where Wierwille discussed "administrations".
After introducing the topic and quoting I Corinthians 9:17, Wierwille stated "The word 'dispensation' is entirely misleading, for an administration is accurately the administering of an entire era as in one of our government administrations."
First, Wierwille claims not to be defining "administration", but to be correcting a mis-definition of "dispensation". Then he wrote "an administration is accurately the administering of..." This is what's known in logic as a circular definition, or defining a word in terms of itself. Circular definitions are wrong because they fail to define (set limits to what a word can mean). A circular definition can be used to make a word mean ANYTHING.
"...the administering of an entire era..." Here Wierwille introduces the idea that an "administration" is a period of time.
"...we must understand that these Biblical administrations have to remain within the confines in which God has placed them in his Word."
Where in the Bible does God place any of these "administrations" within any sort of confines? Where?
In any of the uses of the word "oikonomia"?
Nope. The word "oikonomia" is never used with any qualifiers such as "first", "second", "new", "better", "old", etc. In fact, the word "oikonomia" is never even plural in the Bible.
Wierwille went on to write, "As far as I have been able to study the integrity of the Word of God, there are...", and continued for about three-and-a-half pages describing the "confines" in which he thinks God places the "administrations".
Is there any substance to those three-and-a-half pages? None dealing with the word "oikonomia" or "administrations".
By the time Wierwille got to page 223 he could write, "This has been a brief analysis of the administrations which are encompassed in the Word of God. We must understand that the rules of life change in the various time periods so that we must see each administration within its distinct context."
Finally, AFTER having completed his "analysis", Wierwille set forth his definition of "administrations" as "various time periods" distinguished by changes in "the rules of life".
He quoted a lot of verses along the way. Did any of them have anything to do with deriving a biblical definition for the word "oikonomia"? No, not one.
His words were wrong, and he did his best to obscure how wrong they were. He tried to make his circular definitions seem credible by spreading them out over several pages. If he interlarded them with enough excessive, high-sounding verbiage, maybe no one would notice his definitions and arguments were circular.
If you think I am being "anal-retentive" in analysing Wierwille's take on "administrations", I challenge you to figure out how Wierwille derived his teachings on "the new birth" from what's actually written in Scripture.
On PFAL page 229 Wierwille wrote, "Before we move into the depth of the new birth, we must realize some fundamental terms. When I speak of the "natural man" I speak of the man of body and soul, the man who is not born again of God's Spirit."
What did Wierwille mean by "move into the depth" of the new birth? What did it mean to him to "realize" some fundamental terms? We know what "natual man" meant to him, but what did he mean by "body" and "soul"? What did he mean by being "born again of God's Spirit"? He used those terms in a definition, without defining THEM.
As you will see, he used his definition of "natural man" to derive his definitions for "body" and "soul" and "born again of God's Spirit".
Wierwille built his whole erroneous theory of who man is, and his whole erroneous theory of what salvation is, on this one great big, compound, circular definition.
Not only were the words of Wierwille's mouth wrong, they were decietfully wrong.
Love,
Steve
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