February 2015

Christians today can discuss whether the Crusades were in fact warranted. But any such discussion must be made under a clear understanding of what historically transpired and why.

There is a great deal of historical revisionism and hatchet jobs regarding these events which need to be utterly debunked. During the time of the Enlightenment up to recent time critics often claim that the Crusaders were Western imperialists, those who set out after land with a desire to loot. But there is a background that so many of the modern critics of the Crusades, for some reason, ignore: The history begins in the seventh century when conquering Muslim armies swept over the Middle East, North Africa, and southern Europe. One Christian land after another was mercilessly attacked and conquered by advancing Muslim armies. Vast stretches of once Christian lands were now in Muslim hands. The entire of North Africa, once solidly Christian now were under complete Islamic rule. It is important to remember that Muhammad told his followers, "I was ordered to fight all men until they say `There is no god but Allah.'" Just to show that his followers understood his words literally, it was a century after his death in which vast swathes of territory hung under the bloody sword of Islam.  Under their rule there were gruesome tortures of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land and vile desecrations of churches, altars, and baptismal fonts. It is in this light of centuries of Islamic conquest, bloodshed and tyranny that the Crusades should be viewed.

It seemed to me that the only way I could know I was saved was by knowing the status of my eternal election. Was I chosen by God for salvation or was I eternally damned before I had done anything good or bad? To be sure, the Calvinist theologian in me had responses to this question, yet none of them sufficed…my Calvinistic theology presented my needs for assurance with an epistemological problem: in order to have assurance I needed to know the status of my election, something that by definition is secret and cannot be known. 

https://ochuk.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/why-i-am-not-a-calvinist/

This objection was articulated in an article by William Lane Craig entitled “Lest Anyone Should Fall”: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on Perseverance and Apostolic Warnings where he essentially argues that the “means of salvation view” is actually more coherent in a “middle knowledge” perspective. Middle knowledge is the view of God’s knowledge that contains what his creatures would freely do in any given circumstances (or “possible world”) before he creates the world.