Has Anyone Read ‘ A New Heaven and a New Earth’ by J. Richard Middleton?
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RamistThomist
Puritanboard Assessor
I've read his essay in Four Views on Heaven. Michael Allen does a good job responding to him.
D
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So his position is unbiblical? Is there anything good in it?
Probably.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Assessor
It's problematic. His comments on the New Creation, insofar as what they affirm, are okay. I like his observation that the New Jerusalem's dimensions are a perfect cube, recalling the Holy of Holies.
The problem is that he completely jettisons the idea of the soul and the intermediate state. He says there is no textual support for it. When people challenge him, say on the parable of Lazarus, he says that doesn't count. Convenient.
He could then respond that he isn't doing philosophy. I don't believe him because he has written at least two books on philosophy.
D
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Thank you very much. Is it worth the read then?
83r17h
Puritan Board Freshman
A better read might be Grounded in Heaven by Michael Allen (as Jacob alluded to). It is the only exposure I've had to Middleton, but from the citations within where Allen responds to Middleton, I'd rather put my time elsewhere. As he notes, there is a tendency in some modern Kuyperian thought to displace the heavenly with the earthly. There is a connection I saw when reading it between that form of Kuyperianism and the infiltration of progressive (political and ethical) thought into Reformed circles, but it's not something I could pin down with precision at the moment.
D
Deleted member 12919 by request
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Thank you!
I've noticed the same thing. It's a curious pitfall of insisting that Christ is Lord of everything and then getting your categories for everything from a non-Christian source, or assuming that lordship is undifferentiated, or both.
For instance, if Christ is lord of the mind in an undifferentiated way, then Christ is Lord of any academic field. And then we've subtly snuck the most absurdly illegitimate of pseudo-intellectual disciplines under the aegis of Christ's name. It's important to understand that Christ is Lord of some things in order to destroy them (such as lies).
83r17h
Puritan Board Freshman
That's a good way of saying it. We need to remember that "the Lord has established his throne in heaven," and it is from there that "his kingdom rules over all" (Ps. 103:19). The problem with the progressive Kuyperian is that he assumes Christ's redemption means that everything becomes transformed to become good in itself. Evil is often overruled towards good ends by God, but that does not make the evil thing itself take on a good nature. It is not the redemption of evil, but redemption from evil. I think there's a connection to the Side B issues in the PCA to be drawn here (the concept among progressives that Side B gay Christians are somehow admirable in an extraordinary way, or the more broadly evangelical version of Side B which claims to turn homosexual desires towards friendships for spiritual profit - thus calling the root desire good).
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