The thought fixers of this
low order challenge Proverbs 16.1: The preparation of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue
is from Yahweh. This must be cut down to size. The KJV heart
that produces the speech, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,
must reduce to the NIV --To humans belong the plans of the heart, but from the
LORD comes the proper answer of the tongue. With the explanation that “the one sentence of this verse, without any contrast or antithesis is plainly
wrong, there being intended a contrast between the thought of the heart and the
well ordered speech.” Pulpit Commentary, the argument being that “the thoughts of
the heart, which are so generally irregular and confused” that the thoughts of
men's hearts are evil, and that continually, and nothing but evil thoughts
naturally proceed from thence... prevent us to think a good thought of ourselves,”
Gill’s Exposition.
That however is the point of the one sentence, that both the preparations of the heart and the answer of the tongue are from Yahweh. The continual inner speech of His love and the deep sense of abiding conscience and consciousness is affirmed over and over, as in Psalm 19, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. The Reformed theologians cannot allow their doctrine of depravity to be compromised, but they always enforce their own. We may want to distinguish thoughts of the bowels, the gut brain from the heart imagination from the head, the brain proper on the way to speech, writing, but preparations of the heart allude to prethought, precognitive elements that form thought, not imagination either, but pre-imagination not cognitive, which smacks of faith, for who can know the mind of Yahweh or how events order in the world? To acknowledge that the preparations of the heart that lead to the speech are ordered of Grace is to listen as one being taught. Isaiah 50.4.
There are two hearts, the one that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it and the heart of the man who is after God's own heart. Having heard so much preaching from the Calvinists about the wicked heart, and seen the actions to match, whether in Hawthorne or up the street where both the Erikson foundation of wicked hearts and the Reformed hail, we go south, or west or east, or north to circumcise, open the eyes of the heart.
That however is the point of the one sentence, that both the preparations of the heart and the answer of the tongue are from Yahweh. The continual inner speech of His love and the deep sense of abiding conscience and consciousness is affirmed over and over, as in Psalm 19, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. The Reformed theologians cannot allow their doctrine of depravity to be compromised, but they always enforce their own. We may want to distinguish thoughts of the bowels, the gut brain from the heart imagination from the head, the brain proper on the way to speech, writing, but preparations of the heart allude to prethought, precognitive elements that form thought, not imagination either, but pre-imagination not cognitive, which smacks of faith, for who can know the mind of Yahweh or how events order in the world? To acknowledge that the preparations of the heart that lead to the speech are ordered of Grace is to listen as one being taught. Isaiah 50.4.
There are two hearts, the one that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it and the heart of the man who is after God's own heart. Having heard so much preaching from the Calvinists about the wicked heart, and seen the actions to match, whether in Hawthorne or up the street where both the Erikson foundation of wicked hearts and the Reformed hail, we go south, or west or east, or north to circumcise, open the eyes of the heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment