Symbolic or Literal, ctd.

2. Now, concerning the reference to the six days of creation. You will notice that the theistic evolution idea asks, "How do we understand Genesis One in light of science's revelations of a billion-year-old earth?" As I said in my post, it does not ask, "How do we understand science's theory of a billion-year-old earth in light of Genesis One?"

My return question would be: Which one cannot be wrong? Can science be wrong? Of course it can be wrong, and no scientist will deny it. For scientists are ready and willing to submit to peer review because it is so easy even for a scientist to draw wrong conclusions or fall into error. Also, they will change a prevailing theory as soon as some new theory seems to make more sense in covering a wider spectrum of conclusions. If you need proof of this you only need to read Dr. Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time. You will find that scientists have changed their minds on several theories.

On the other hand, can God's Word be wrong? Well, no one asks that except those who do not believe it. The only thing the Christian evolutionists wish to change is men's conclusion that a literal translation is the right one when, as they claim, there are other equal and equally valid views which are more consistent with general revelation. They do not intend to indicate that they think the Bible could be wrong, for their stated intention is to show that the Bible would be interpreted rightly if it was interpreted differently, therefore assuming the Bible is always right.

The problem is two-fold, at the very least. First, the different interpretations are not equal. And second, evolution is assumed to be the same as general revelation, since they are interchanged here as if they are the same thing. For the second problem let us notice that it is one thing to say that general revelation is completely harmonious with special revelation, and it is another to say that the Bible is to be completely harmonious with evolution and therefore we are compelled to re-interpret the Word of God. They do not even speak of letting the Word speak for itself, but want to re-interpret the Word, including changing some articles of faith that have been there from the beginning. They demand an imported interpretation on the Word of God. And those who are dedicated to Sola Scriptura object to this.

For the first problem, we are faced with a question of whether a symbolic or a literal meaning is original to the Bible's own meaning because they are claimed to be equal. The Christian groups which believe in evolution would like you to think that all the symbolic interpretations are equal to the literal one, and therefore equally valid. So, let’s assume for a moment that they are.

According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, if there is a question of interpretation the one to be preferred is the plainest one until one is revealed to us that is right: if we don’t know which one is right then we should prefer the plainer one. Now, if it is true that they are all equal and equally valid, then it follows that they equally share the status of “unknown”, and we are to give way to the plainer meaning until such a time as we can be sure of a meaning. We dare not make up our own answers, so we take the one that does so the least. So even if they are all equal then the literal interpretation still stands above the rest simply on the grounds that they are also equally unknown to be the true interpretation, and that we are therefore obliged to prefer the plainer one, the literal one, over the others. But, as I said, they are not equal.

You will notice that all the evolutionistic interpretations involve introductions to the text which do not come from the Bible itself. But neither do they come from science. They come from superimposed theories which try to unite a multitude of individual scientific conclusions. Science itself gives us a partial list of evidences, but not the whole theory which includes a number of filled-in "facts" as well. It is these theories that are imposed on Genesis One. But the literal translation not only imports no such ideas (contrary to what you hear from evolutionists) but is suggested to us by God Himself as seen in the Exodus version of the Ten Commandments.

Does God make a direct correlation here? It doesn’t matter, because the point is that God does make a literal correlation, a view on Genesis One that comes from the Bible itself. We see here, then, that it is not a question of whether a symbolic or a literal meaning is to be understood. It is a question of alien ideas or thoughts imposed upon the Word of God so as to alleviate doubts imposed by questions evolutionists themselves have. They are not our doubts, but are doubts planted in us so that their solutions might find a place in our beliefs. It is their doubts that make their symbolic interpretations necessary, not science or the Bible. The literal interpretation, however, is not alien or imported from outside the Word of God.

3. As to the Jehovah's Witnesses' assertion, he said that 'firstborn of God' refers literally to “a product” of God which is not divine in the same sense, but that the idea of Jesus as equally divine is a contrived idea symbolically imposed on the Word of God by Christians. He was referring to Col. 1:15, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; which refers to Jesus’ nature as the Son of God while He is also the son of man. They deny that the image of God refers to a nature of equal divinity, and that we should therefore interpret firstborn of all creation literally. We should call to mind the many references to Jesus' person and character which attributes to Him what is only to be attributed to God. He is worshiped, and He does not forbid it as both the Apostles and the angels do. He is called good, and also identifies that with God alone, and yet He does not forbid it. The people of God are greeted in the Father's name and in Jesus' name equally, and the Spirit witnesses to it by speaking to us through those very letters begun in this way, the blessing of it showing the approving of it. He is identified with God in the book of Revelation as the same Alpha (first) and the Omega (last) as in the Old Testament prophecy in Isaiah 41:4, which refers to God Himself. And there are many more, which are too numerous to list. All we need is one proof, but even many proofs are not enough to those who find fault with the Word itself so that they may "interpret" their own meanings.

But let us suppose he is right. Again, let us look at the theology, since you and I are not able to dispute authoritatively on the question of symbolic or literal meaning. What he is actually suggesting is two kinds of divine beings, a lesser and a greater, because to them Jesus is also not just a man: Jesus is divine, but in a lesser, more creaturely sense. But how can two beings be divine and yet distinct and unequal? A divine being is one who is perfect in everything, in eternity, in love, in truth, in righteousness, in justice, and in mercy. He is eternally unchangeable. But if there are two such beings, a lesser and a greater, then they are completely identical and yet not identically the same, which is a contradiction.

There is only one way that there can be two distinct persons which are both God and that is if they are one God in two persons, and not two types of Gods. If the JW would carry his so-called "literal" interpretation to its conclusion he would eventually come around to the Christian confession of the Trinity: the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God; three distinct persons in one God. He should willingly confess it the same as we do in Belgic Confession article 10. But he prefers his own inconsistent and incomplete interpretation, which cannot be taken either literally or figuratively.

The underlying points of your question have been explained. Israel had introduced many ideas into worship, so that they no longer worshiped the one true God, as do the Jehovah's Witnesses, and also as the evolutionists are attempting to do. It begins with: What exactly did God mean by this or that? In trying to answer such a question the people constructed their own answers, importing meanings and thoughts into the text of God's revelation which seem to give answers for them. They find a licence to do it when they confuse the literal and symbolic meanings, or by disregarding the rules for determining which one to understand. They feel the need because the Word of God in and of itself is not adequate to them.

Our consciences are freed by Christ. Now freedom of conscience is not a freedom to invent our own foundations, but rather a freedom to build upon the one true foundation. We are free to discover truth, and to embrace truth as we discover it. Now truth would sooner deny that 1+1=2 than to deny that God exists, because addition is true within the bounds of change, while God is unchangeably true. And we know this because truth itself is unchangeable. A thing that is true might change to becoming untrue, but truth itself remains unchangeable.

What do we mean when we say that something is temporarily true? Do we not mean that it is true now but not at another time? We speak, then, of the thing or circumstance changing, not of the truth changing. But if truth itself changed then we could never know whether a thing is true in the first place, not even temporarily. Think of colours. If at one time a certain colour is called 'blue' and at another time it is called 'red', and we cannot know when to change what we call it, what will we call it when we see it the next time? 'Blue' or 'Red', or perhaps a different colour again? And how did we come up with a name in the first place if this was the case? We will say that the 'blue' thing might be called 'red' or some other colour, because we still have a fixed and common notion of colours in our minds. So it is with truth: for us to say something is true we have to have some fixed and common notion of truth in our minds otherwise we will not know whether something is true or not. We cannot think in such terms as an unfixed notion of truth.

It is this fixed truth that we are freed to pursue. That means that we have been freed so that we are neither captured by worldly ideas which lead us astray, nor even by our own fallible ideas. This is the freedom which underlies our Western notion of liberties, and not the notion that everyone is free to pursue his own truths: we are free to pursue THE truth. And this coincides exactly with what our Lord has purchased for us with His blood, that we may be set free and be free indeed.

So the general rule is that the literal meanings interpret the symbolic ones. Since Biblical theology comes from the literal meanings, you can study the theology to understand whether a meaning is literal or symbolic. The Confessions are the statements of faith confessed by the Church, not made up by the Church: they are historically traceable; and they come out of the literal meaning of the Bible. So they too are of great help.

I have tried to answer the question of why a symbolic meaning or a literal meaning is chosen when reading God's Word by indicating a simple rule of thumb: consistency of truth. And then I have tried to show how firm a foundation the Christian has upon which to decide between the two. I hope that you will find these answers for yourself when you study the Bible. Some things are harder than others, because wisdom is prized all the more because it takes work to achieve it. The order of priority is this: turn first to the Word itself; and then seek the Spirit’s witness through the Church’s historic confessions; and then look to men that God has gifted to search out some of the more difficult meanings. A teacher should never pre-empt or nullify a confession, and a confession should never pre-empt or nullify the Bible.

Symbolic or Literal?

Why do we sometimes take the words of the Bible literally, and other times consider its words symbolic language which needs interpretation?

JN:

To answer this question my post will be rather long. I hope that it will not be too tedious because it is long.  To make it easier to read I have divided it into two parts.

Sometimes the Bible teaches us in plain language, and sometimes it teaches us in figures or symbols. An example of symbolic teaching would be Jesus' parables in the gospels. These stories are easy to teach to young people and to those who are new to the faith. They underline a moral or a principle which could be summarized in a sentence or two, but the story helps to put it in picture form so that it can stay with a person his whole life through. They and their teachings are also easily known even by those who are not Christians. Why it is that a picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand pictures in a parable (think of the story put into a moving picture, containing a thousand individual still pictures) can be put into a sentence or two is something that is a wonder to us. But it seems clear that the meaning of it is that pictures seem to stay in the memory more than words do, but that words can also paint a picture worth more than the words themselves. And the Bible uses these also in communicating to us the eternal truths we need to know, truths of that a full salvation is being prepared for those who love God.

The general rule for understanding the symbolic language is that the plainer meanings interpret the less plain ones. In other words, the literal parts interpret the symbolic parts. The fact that the Bible uses more ways to communicate to us than just literal words, by using words to paint pictures and to create moods, shows us that the Bible is meant to be more than just verbal communication: it is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to us also with His presence through the Holy Spirit. It is my plan to speak to this in more detail in a future post, after I have shown how a Christian knows truth despite the world's censure that Christians do not have the truth alone, or that we depend upon myths for our particular version of truth. I hope to show the utter contradiction in such sentiments. I hope for now that through three examples I can show a general rule for symbolic interpretations.

In your communication with me it seems clear that this question comes from three influences within recent memory. 1, in a recent sermon on Judges 6 the minister of the Word asserted that the term 'angel of the Lord' in the one text was the same as the term in a following verse which referred to 'the LORD'. 2, a recent visit by a Jehovah's Witnesses representative challenged the Christian understanding of 'firstborn of God', asserting that we should prefer the plainer meaning of the text rather than the imposed symbolic meaning which deifies Jesus. And 3, there is in this last post of mine a reference to a dispute about how the Bible is to be understood concerning Genesis One, whether we are to understand the six days literally or symbolically. #1 is answered in this post, and #’s 2 & 3 in the next one.

The gist of your question can be put in this way: People turn the meanings of words to suit their theologies, so how are we to know when we are right in understanding the Bible's own meanings? How are we to discern the difference between contrived meanings and original meanings? I will take the method of supposing that the challenger is right: the "angel of the LORD" refers literally to an angel and not  to God Himself; the 'first born' is to be taken literally; and Genesis One is to be understood symbolically. I do so to see if there is any weight to each of these interpretations; not side with them but to show why each would be an error.

Allow me first, though, to allay any question you might have concerning the minister's integrity in the conclusion he draws. As I understand it, a minister may have several reasons for being too brief in an assertion he could make, so that it might appear to some that it is a stretch of reasoning or a hasty conclusion. He might not wish to dwell on a minor point too long; for it might be necessary to mention it in his sermon but it would take too much time away from the main point if he explained it more fully. He wishes you to rely on the soundness of the theology itself, though it might seem to you that he asks you to rely on his judgments alone. But it could also be that a reasonable explanation might go deeper into the theology than is meaningful to his various hearers, and make the sermon too difficult for some or too simple for others if he said nothing about the minor point. At any rate, what may appear to be a hasty conclusion can be resolved by a careful study of the theology itself, and I'm sure the minister of the Word would promote that sort of thing.

1. Such a study would include a study of the good angels, one of whom might be indicated in the text upon which the minster preached, the angels who always stand in the presence of God and are blessed forever, always enjoying His benefits. The good angel in the text, if he is an angel sent by God, would be a faithful messenger in that he gives no glory to himself, and seeks nothing but God's will. In speaking to him we would know that we are speaking to God Himself, not because the angel is the LORD but because our answer to him would be an answer to God Himself, God's own message to us through the angel. We would be addressing the LORD Himself in speaking to the angel.

Whether there were two beings involved or just the One is not a question that Gideon would have had. Rather the question was, "How do I know it is You, and not one of the spirits of a false god which my town worships, or some other god?" Gideon's three questions show this: Why did you forsake us? Why do you choose me? and, By what sign do I know that you are God who commands me? His question would never have been, "Are you a good angel or God Himself?" To speak to God's ambassador would be to speak to God Himself, for the ambassador is only the vehicle by which the message was sent. He wanted, rather, to know where the message came from; he wanted an assurance that it was from God.

It is not strange at all that the angel of the LORD be identified with God Himself. This also occurs in Genesis when Abraham greets the three strangers. In chapter18 we read that the LORD met Abraham when he saw and entertained the three men, so close was the identification. In Hebrews 1 we have an answer to the question, What are angels? "Are they not ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" (vs.14) It is as if the angel himself disappears in the service which he performs, doing with pleasure the will of God, so that the angel is identified as God Himself even though he is an angel. Not that they are the same being, though it might be as in Genesis 18, but that even though they might be two separate beings yet only the one is in view, as is represented in the interchange. When you do the bidding of the messenger then you actually do the bidding of the one who sent him as if the messenger were the sender himself.

So the theology is right, whether they are two beings or one. I only supposed for the sake of argument that they were two beings. But now we know that it makes no difference to the text itself whether we speak of two beings or one, it was only the LORD that was in view in the story of Gideon's calling to service to save Israel from the Midianites. The minister asserted that they were the same being, and this comes from his greater knowledge of the subject than I have. He obviously refers to Gideon’s fear of death for having seen the face of God. He intends no disservice to God in the assertion, for he cannot be wrong unless he meant to indicate a different meaning to the angel than as a faithful messenger of God in service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.

The minister did not, however, turn the text to his own will, or draw a hasty conclusion to suit his own teaching. Your question concerned the use of symbolic and literal interpretations. And I have shown why the minister's assertion was not an abuse of Scripture. Whether he was right that the angel was God Himself and not a literal angel is a different question, and one that an even closer look at theology can answer. It is enough to know for now, though, that the minister was not teaching wrongly in saying so. Theology will show us that he was justified: we also see in 1 Cor. 10:4 the rock in the wilderness being identified as Jesus Himself (i.e., For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ), so it is not a strange use of symbolism at all.

There is Only One God

The next few entries will be more for some than for others. I have my own children and grandchildren in mind as readers of this blog. But I also have in mind the ordinary person in the pews (or not in the pew), who has much better things to do because of work and family than to jump in up to their necks on debates in the Church. I want to be of some help for them, so that it is easier to understand some things.



The little paragraph behind the title page of this blog is taken from the Belgic Confession. It is the very first article, and its heading is There is Only One God. This is the best place to start.



The approach I would take in defending the assertion that there is only one God is to follow Anselm’s arguments. Some say that his argument is, God is He than whom none greater can be conceived. But this is only the premise from which he begins his argument, the starting point. It is a premise which both sides can agree to as a starting point. The one who says there is no God would like nothing better than to deny such a God, a greater than whom cannot be conceived. He knows as well as anyone that a being who is less than that is not God, and therefore not worth denying. But, the one who says that there is a God also means that being than whom none greater can be conceived or he will not be affirming God’s existence.



The argument itself grows from this premise. Anselm’s aim was to show that denying God’s existence was the same as saying that someone can conceive of a greater than he whom none greater can be conceived, which is a contradiction.



In his response to objections raised, Anselm was keen to point out that he was not talking about a conception but about a being. This being had to have certain attributes which were not necessarily attributable to other things, but had to be attributable to God. You could think, for example, of a perfect island without necessarily implying that it existed. This would not be the case when thinking about God: if existence was not part and parcel of the being you were thinking of, then, by definition, it would not be God you were thinking of. This would be so whether you conceived of it or not. So if existence was not a necessary attribute of God, then, first, it would not be God that is being thought about but some other being; and second, you’d be thinking about the conception of it, not about God.



The intent of the argument was not so much to prove that God exists, but rather to show that the person who says in his heart, “There is no God” is indeed a fool in his thinking. My intent here is not to argue out or to defend Anselm’s thesis, just as Anselm was not interested in doing so either. My main concern is the continuity of the argument into the issues of the day.



At present, and indeed for a long time already, one of the main issues has been that of the claims of evolutionary theory which are directly contrary to the Word of God. I don’t think there can be any question about the opposition of these two. Even those who have found common ground between the two have found it on the basis of siding with evolution and departing from the Bible.



They ask, Could the creation have taken many millions of years instead of six days? They do not ask, Could evolution have taken six days instead of billions of years? Or they ask, Does the Bible really say six literal days? The question is never, Does evolution really mean a literal billions of years?



When they go this way then a denial of Adam as the first human is always close behind. And this too is accomplished not by waffling on what evolution says but on what the Bible says. In the end the so-called common ground has cut away anything that can be called ‘ground’ from under the Bible, so that it can say anything at all, so that it agrees with evolution. But we all know that a document which can say anything at all really says nothing at all. And this is where any agreement between the two ends up. So I think we’re pretty safe in saying that the two are opposed to each other.



(An interesting note: Calvin was trained as a lawyer before he became a reformer. Now a document that can say anything at all is, to a lawyer, a very shallow document; and it won’t hold up in court. Yet you never get any hint from Calvin that the Bible is that kind of document. In fact, it’s the opposite to him. The Bible is a document whose depths of knowledge cannot be reached by mere humans. Rather than claim to know anything better than the Word he would rather claim to know nothing at all.)



That is not to say, however, that evolution cannot be made to agree with the Bible. Maybe it can. It’s just that nobody’s thought of that, or at least tried it. Well, that’s not exactly true the way I said it. But what is true is that if evolution is changed in order to make it agree with the Bible then it is no longer seen as evolution. So the idea of conforming evolution to the Bible ends up being a conforming of something other than evolution to the Bible. If it’s conformed to the Bible, then it’s no longer evolution.



Do you see the similarities here with Anselm’s idea? Some of you might say, “Yes, I do. Any form of evolution which is not full-blown evolution is not evolution.” But my response would be that this is not it. In a way I can see where you’d be coming from. If we can defeat in argument any part of full-blown evolution then we’ve defeated all of it. But there are parts of it that are true. There is indeed some evolution. If you grow in body, in experience, or in intellect, then you have evolved. A bird goes from egg to hatchling, to growing feathers, to trying flight for the first time, to gathering its own food, to having its own young; that is an evolving that is taking place. There is not a thing in creation that is not subject to an evolving influence simply on the ground that it is subject to time, and therefore to change. We have to be careful that we’re not denying subjection to time and change when we try to argue against evolutionary theory.



Defeating evolutionary theory is not the point, though. What is at stake is that the Bible is seen as relatively true, not masterfully and eternally true. Evolution, on the other hand, is openly relative, because it is a theory that is universally open to being changed as soon as new ideas are discovered. The idea of relativity involves overriding contingencies, which everyone acknowledges as being the case for evolution: This would be true if that is true first…. This is how we understand things if these are our bases of logic…. We have found a new idea in how to explain something…. Etc. The thing with these is that what has to be true first, or what has to be in place first, are no better established in fact than the thing they try to establish because to evolution all truth is relative by definition.



The truisms or foundation blocks that you have in place before you start determines the way you know things, and how you know that you know them. Everything that you know, therefore, begins with the premise: if such and such is true…, if what I believe to be true is true…, etc. Well, how do we know these preceding ideas and ideals are true? We don’t! They work, that’s all.



That’s about the way relativism works. There is nothing that we know for certain except that something works for now. I asked before if you could see a similarity with Anselm’s idea of contradicting thoughts, and here is where we can see it. Even in relativism there is something that is more basic yet, and it is a contradiction to say that the most basic foundation of knowledge is relative. It can’t be, if we know this to be true. If it’s true, then we are not saying that it is true, but only that it is relatively useful. So it is actually only relatively useful that all knowledge is relative.



They use the word ‘truth’ but they actually mean something else. It’s just the same as when a person says that he than whom none greater can be conceived does not exist. When all knowledge is relative, not true but relative (but we use the word ‘true’ anyways), then isn’t the knowers’ assurance of 'truth’ also relative, not true but relative? Just like the denier of God is talking about something else when he talks about God not being there, so also the evolutionist is talking about something else when he talks about truth not being there.



But have you noticed something else? The denier of God's existence is not just denying God, he’s also denying a worm, because each greatest thing that can be conceived would have to be denied, leaving the next greatest as the greatest, until we get to the worm being the greatest being, which also would have to be denied. One peculiar problem with this is that the one who is denying he than whom none (is) greater has by this time also ceased to exist. It's not different when that which is most useful is the truth. The more you define truth the less is actually true, and so on until the very question becomes meaningless.



Do Christians have a sure knowledge, a solid foundation for saying something is true? I think the first thing to notice is not so much that we can prove anything by some foundation that we claim to have, but that we can say anything at all without contradicting statements. We aren’t talking about relative truth when we talk about truth. Whether or not we can prove that our truth is true is not the point right now. Since it is not a self-contradicting thing to speak about God as being there, it also is not a contradiction to speak of trusting in His words as a sure foundation.



But we do have a sure knowledge, so more about this next time.

Letter to MPP, Toby Barrett

Today's Hamilton Spectator again included a letter to the editor which addressed the problem of the Roman Catholic School Board's decision not to allow Gay-Straight Alliance clubs in their schools. The Catholic Board has made it clear that they are against bullying, but they also oppose any movement which might justify homosexuality as a practice within the Catholic community. The main idea of the letter was that we should all get used to it: homosexuality is a right and liberty which is here to stay. But at the same time, people who hold such sentiments ought to know that this is just what our concern is: it is here, and will not be revoked without a fight; but that means that we as Christians have to ask these people if we are welcome in this society anymore.

Some time ago I sent a letter to my MPP, Mr. Toby Barrett, concerning an article in the Spectator about Bill 13, the anti-bullying bill aimed specifically at protecting homosexuals in the publicly funded schools. This piece of legislation, if adopted and enacted, will effectively make any opposition to homosexuality illegal. The legislation will force upon the Roman Catholic school system an adoption of the recognition of homosexuality, and therefore be a precedent for any group that would step on the rights of Canadians. My question to Mr. Barrett asks, What about the rest of us who are Christian but not Roman Catholic? And what about what we as Christians teach by example to our children at home?

This is the letter I sent him:


Dear Mr. Barrett:

As a Canadian citizen living within the Haldimand Norfolk electoral riding I am somewhat concerned about a report in the Hamilton Spectator concerning a bill now being discussed at Provincial government levels.

The report is headed Board says no to so-calloed 'gay-straight alliances'. This article in the Jan. 17, 2012 edition is about how the Catholic School Boards are handling the pending legislation, called Bill 13 in the article, concerning bullying of homosexuals and such in the schools. The Minister of Education, the article says, insists that the gay-straight clubs in the schools be "issue specific." "That means boards won't be able to lump them into broader 'equity' groups, as some Catholic schools have done."
In short, what I get out of this is that the Province of Ontario is going to enforce upon every parent of every child going to a publicly-funded school to conform to this new set of morals, which now includes homosexuals, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered, and queers.

My concern in the article is that the Province of Ontario is imposing upon authority that is not its own. The Catholic believer's loyalty is being divided between what the Pope or the Church says is right and what the Province says is right. The government is stepping in to claim a higher authority in matters of religion. The Catholic Church says that homosexuality and such is immoral, while the Province is stepping in to outlaw such notions in the schools, even the Catholic schools.

The point I wish to raise with you, sir, is to ask, What about the rest of us? By "the rest of us" I am referring to Christians who are not Catholic.

People like myself believe that those included under the acronym of LGBTQ are immoral, having given themselves over to the lusts of the flesh. They define themselves by the sexual desires they claim to have. I do not doubt that they have these desires, but it is clear that they allow their sexual desires to guide their spirits and souls, instead of having their spirits rule over their bodies. The difference between morality and immorality is often just that, the difference of whether the "lusts of the flesh" rule over the spirit or the spirit rules over the flesh. Gluttony and drunkenness and habitual smoking are also caused by desires, but we have no difficulty in seeing that these come from such desires having too much control of a man's faculties, faculties which are governed by his spirit and soul.

Whether I am right or wrong should not really matter to the government of Ontario. They are my religious beliefs which the Province has no right to infringe upon. The fact that I would contend that my beliefs are based upon Bible teaching, rather than being Bible teaching dependent upon my beliefs, is not really the question here. The Bible has authority over me, but the government has promised not to impose upon my personal beliefs even if the Bible's teachings were somehow dependent upon my beliefs. After all, it has legislated that all religions are equal and equally to be respected.

My question is where would I fit in if Bill 13 was passed? If I had children in the public system, and I was teaching my child to live the doctrines of the faith each hour of the day, would that mean that I may not send my children to the public schools anymore unless I changed my beliefs?

Are Christians such a minority now that the interests of those given to their sexual passions are a greater concern, and should be less alienated than the Christians? Are we, then, the new minority group subject to bullying, bullying by the government of Ontario?

It is already the case, and has been for some time, that we are not welcome in the public school system unless we conform our beliefs to the status quo. Keeping religion out of the publicly-funded schools means keeping our beliefs as just that, our beliefs, and respecting other beliefs as equal and equally valid. The problem with this is that our beliefs are not like that at all. We do not claim any validity for our beliefs because we believe them; we claim validity in that they are incumbent on everyone, the believer and unbeliever the same. The school boards may be able to enforce keeping our beliefs out, but I do not understand at all the notion of keeping Jesus or God out. One would be better off trying to keep atmosphere out. He's there; He's not welcome but He's there: He can't not be there. Putting God out has had the result that Christians are actually put out, not God. That is why we have to have separate schools for Christians: the government has made it so.

Now this bill would make it even more so. My children and grandchildren will be taught at home that giving in to the lusts of the flesh is immoral, but at school they will be forced to submit to the doctrine that even traditional marriage is nothing more than a giving in to the lusts of the flesh, no different than the LGBTQ people. Real traditional marriage will no longer be recognized, and will be despised. Children will not be recognized as blessings from the Lord in holy matrimony, but merely as chattel to sexual desires. Homosexual unions will not be made holy; holy matirmony has already been made unholy, and homosexual marriage equal to it. This is already the case in Ontario. It is now law. Now the government wants to impose upon my religion and my responsibility to my children and grandchildren.

This is my concern regarding the article in the Spectator, about Bill 13. It is my responsibility as a citizen to bring this concern to your attention, since any such bill being passed will bear upon me as a citizen. I hope you will give these concerns some thought.

I wish you all the best in your responsibilities representing Haldimand Norfolk at Queens Park. I also wish you God's blessings for courage and strength of faith in fulfilling your calling.

faithfully yours,
John Vandervliet,
Dunnville, Ont.

Mr. Barrett's office sent me the following reply:

Mr. Vandervliet:

PC member Elizabeth Witmer had a private member’s bill dealing with bullying. It was quite different and was pushed aside with the introduction of Bill 13.

I will forward your questions on the minister’s office for response.

There is no reason for bullying in our schools and we need to ensure all students are protected. Hopefully all parties can get together and move forward.

Thank you

Jeff Helsdon

Office of Toby Barrett