Not the Mark of a Christian Mind

The vagueness and slipperiness and elusiveness of some today in their theological discourse is not new, even if you slap a new-sounding label on it (postmodernism, post-postmodernism, etc). Warfield and then Machen were dealing with it a century ago (replace 'assertions' below with 'facts' and you'll think you're reading Christianity and Liberalism), and I'm just now discovering, as I begin Luther's Bondage of the Will for the first time in my life, that this was what drove Luther so crazy about Erasmus.

Early on the irascible German writes:

It is not the mark of a Christian mind to take no delight in assertions; on the contrary, a man must delight in assertions or he will be no Christian. And by assertion--in order that we may not be misled by words--I mean a constant adhering, affirming, confessing, maintaining, and an invincible persevering.

--Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, in LW 33:19-20

It is one thing to be duly cautious in the name of appropriate intellectual humility. It is another to be cowardly under the guise of intellectual humility.

One day God will bring all things out into the open (1 Cor 4:5).
Dane Ortlund