Category Archives: Confessionalism

On Christian Dogmatics versus evangelical-Reformed Apologetical Theology

Posted on by

… dogmatics offers a means of producing a portrait of the economy of grace, and of humankind and its activities in that economy, free from anxieties about foundations and therefore at liberty to devote itself to the descriptive task with Christian alertness, charity and joy.[1]

Christian DogmaticsĀ ā€” the churchā€™s orderly understanding of scripture and articulation of doctrine in the light of Christ and their coherence in him.[2]

If the Church is going to do Church theology, what both Webster and Torrance, respectively, are signaling above, is of the upmost importance to grasp. When Christians do theology, by definition, we arenā€™t first doing apologetics. That is to say, the Christian, as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, is already assured of their Masterā€™s reality; they arenā€™t trying to prove His existence and reality prior to speaking about Him. Indeed, the Christian, as Torrance rightly presses, is doing their theological work in ā€˜light of Christ.ā€™

Too often in evangelical theology (inclusive of Post Reformed orthodox theology) apologetics becomes normative for the rest of the theological task. Following someone like Thomas Aquinas in the Prima Pars of his Summa Theologiae, evangelicals/Reformed get caught in the snare of reassuring their readers that Godā€™s existence is a reality, and that His reality is given credence by the philosophical prolix they offer up through their respective wits and machinations. But as Webster rightly underscores this creates an anxiety, indeed it starts with an anxiety, that ostensibly can only be laid to rest after the respective theologian assuages it with their virtuoso capacity to essentially ā€œspeak Godā€ for God; that is before Deus dixit, ā€˜God has spokenā€™ for Himself in His living Logos for the world, Jesus Christ.

We are to come boldly to the throne of Godā€™s grace in time of need; this is the genuine Christian way of doing theology. One of moment-by-moment dependence on the Word of God. Waiting expectantly for God to speak, afresh anew, through the vibrant and glorified vocal cords of the risen Christ; the Fatherā€™s Son seated next to Him at His Right Hand by the Holy Spirit. The Christian theologian is in a constant dialogue with the living and triune God. They are praying without ceasing, as they encounter the risen and ascended Christ throughout the pages of canonical Scripture. The Christianā€™s existence, in this way, is one where they are ā€œat liberty to devote itself to the descriptive task with Christian alertness, charity and joy.ā€ Most evangelical theology, whether it be of the scholastic or analytic sort is not done within this type of organic frame of con-versation between God and her people in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. As such there is a failure to make genuine contact with the center of Godā€™s life for the world; and thus, it becomes impossible to have a genuine knowledge of the living God as we donā€™t go directly to His exegesis for us in the bosom of the Father (cf. Jn 1.18).

Letā€™s be lively Christians rather than pedantic ones caught up in the web of our own abstract wits. Letā€™s be concrete theologians who do theology from the wood of the crucified and risen and ascended and coming, Jesus Christ. There is wisdom in this way; that is the way of the cross. There is Godā€™s wisdom in this way, even if others consider this way foolish and weak. Be a theologian of the cross where we are nourished by the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, rather than by empty platitudes by those genuflecting on Mt. Olympus to a god of actus purus (ā€˜pure beingā€™).

[1] John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2003).

[2] Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ.

The scholastics Reformed and the Socinians in Current Disputation: Trueman, Carter, and Fesko V the Doctor, James White

Posted on by

The brouhaha never ceases! This time though it is internecine. I have been attempting to alert Macites (followers of John MacArthur), Reformed Baptists, even many Presbyterians, both online and via our coedited books, that their theological framework is broadly (and even pointedly) funded by an antecedent development of what Richard Muller calls Christian Aristotelianism. Whenever I would bring this up to the Macites over at Phil Johnsonā€™s group blog, the Pyromaniacs, and this years and years ago (circa 2005), they would balk and scream hysterically at me. Now the scholastics Reformed, that is, those who are self-consciously confessional, covenantal (federal) theological, of the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively, Post Reformed orthodox development, are informing their so-called Baptists Reformed, like James White, the Macites, Founders Ministry (of a dwindling branch in the SBC) that they donā€™t have their beloved ā€œ5 Points of Calvinismā€ without the categories produced by appropriation of Aristotelian categories (largely as those were synthesized by Thomas Aquinas for Christian usage). And yet, now, these same types, the ā€œBaptist types,ā€ are hurling abuse and noise back at people like Carl Truman, Craig Carter, John Fesko et al.; and especially towards Baptists like Matthew Barrett, Lucas Stamps, and other SBC Baptists who are acknowledging and accepting the role that some form of Thomist reception has played in their respective adherence to the type of Reformed theology that they breathe in and out every day of their live long days. If you are interested to listen in on the skirmish you can do so here (The Mortification of Spin podcast with: Carl Trueman, Todd Pruitt, Craig Carter, and John Fesko), and here (The Dividing Line vlogcast with: James White).

In a way, it feels a bit like sweet justice on my end. The scholastics Reformed (whether Presbyterian, Baptist etc.) are informing the others, who claim to also be Reformed, that they arenā€™t Reformed without the categories of Aristotle funding their respective adherence to the theology of Dordt and its 5 Points (as those were so named in the 20th century). Like I said, I spent cartridges and cartridges of e-ink letting the 5 Point Baptists know that they were implicitly committed to an Aristotelian Gospel, and not just a scriptura nuda (naked Scripture) like they like to think. At the moment I am simply sitting back and watching the drama unfold. The scholastics Reformed are alerting the 5 Pointers to what I was alerting them to for decades; viz. that they are Thomists (or some version thereof). The problem for the 5 Pointers is that they cannot imagine that they have been committed to an interpretive tradition all their lives. They cannot admit that they have so conflated an interpretive tradition with their exegesis of Scripture that they no longer can see the difference. And since they are unwilling to see the difference, they will continue to push back against anyone who claims that they are indeed reading Holy Scripture from a certain theological background; namely, Christian Aristotelianism. The scholastics Reformed have owned this realityā€”that they are Christian Aristoteliansā€”for decades, mostly stemming from the work of Richard Muller. But the 5 Pointers have never been self-critical and self-aware enough to recognize or admit this.

Trueman, in the linked podcast, calls such 5 Pointers, Socianians. In the urban dictionary for theological cusswords, this is right at the top of the list (right next to Pelagian). White, takes serious issue with this, and responds vociferously in the linked aforementioned vlogcast. If you donā€™t know, in short, the Socinians were a 16th century people, following an Italian theologian named, Faustus Socinus, who was, some would argue, an original rationalist. His basic premise was that Scripture should be read without reference to any confessional or churchly tradition and be read on its own [naked] terms. Thus, for him, and his followers, this resulted in the abandonment of belief in the Trinity and the deity of Jesus Christ, among other orthodox doctrines. So, when Trueman says that people like White (although he doesnā€™t name him) are Socinian it ought to become apparent as to why White gets so triggered. But, in reality, what Trueman is saying, I think, is that the hermeneutic, the prolegomenon, the theological methodology, the interpretive tradition most proximate to the one that the 5 Pointers adhere to vis-Ć -vis a doctrine of Scripture, and all its consequents, is most closely related to the one we find the Socinians deploying; I donā€™t disagree.

There is a better way, I have spent decades outlining that here at the blog, and along with Myk Habets, with our coedited books on Evangelical Calvinism (what I like, these days, calling it: Athanasian Reformed). To some this whole squabble seems idiosyncratic, and potentially silly. The reason it isnā€™t is because doctrine has consequences, good or bad consequences in proportion to whether or not it is good or bad doctrine. The evangelical churches in North America, not to mention the West in general, are involved in a sea change in almost apocalyptic-like ways, at the moment. There is this seeming binary of either being mainstream, progressive evangelical, or conservative evangelical (and Reformed). On the latter side of this split, as we have been detailing in this post, there is a rift occurring. I take that rift to be somewhat superficial, in reality. The 5 Pointers simply are unwilling to admit what the scholastics Reformed have known and accepted for their whole theological existence. Either way, this seems to be what Christians in the main are being presented with, as if the above sketch is all there is available to them theologically. I am here to tell you that that is not true! Reformed theology (not to mention Lutheran) is not as monolithic or Deus ex machina as the above would have you believe. There is nuance and doctrinal lines of development within the Reformed trad that the above simply bulldozes over, whether that be in order to caricature, and thus demonize, or to accept and live by. Evangelical Calvinism is one example of how it is possible to operate as an evangelical Christian, but from within different ambits of theological development as that has obtained in the history. Another, and yet related, is one my former historical theology prof and [current] mentor calls Affective Theology. The point is, there is no reason for the Christian to dig in on either side of the binary as that is being presented to you in the evangelical churches. There are ways to think orthodoxly, historically, and church catholically without becoming engrossed in the above binary (i.e., between mainstream evanjellybellism and/or scholastics Reformed / -5 Pointism). Be encouraged!

What is Real Reformed Theology?: My Constructive Confessionalism

Posted on by

Abstract, Introduction

My personal journey into what we came to call Evangelical Calvinism, after TF Torranceā€™s usage of that language in his book Scottish Theology, didnā€™t start with Karl Barth or TF Torrance. My entrĆ©e into this Reformed iteration started in seminary under the tutelage of my historical theology and ethics professor, who would later become a mentor and supervisor of mine, Dr. Ron Frost. He introduced me to the wonderful world of historical theology with particular reference to patristic, late mediaeval, magisterial reformation, and Puritan aspects of this varied world of the Christian history of ideas. It was through Frostā€™s doctoral work on Richard Sibbes, and the history leading up to and following Sibbes, that alerted me to the fact that the Reformed house is in fact, and always has been a ā€˜divided house.ā€™ That is to say, I first came to realize, through Frost, that the Reformed development, in the history, has various eddies and streams of development that cannot be easily fitted into a singular narrative framework, as it is often presented to us. Frost shows, along with Janice Knight and others, that Puritan theology, as an iteration of English and American Post Reformed theology, was woven together with concerns others than those we so often receive as the pure milk of Reformed theology as that is expressed in something like the Westminster Confession of Faith. Frost showed me, historically, that the Reformed development cannot be fitted into the Christian Aristotelianism of Richard Mullerā€™s Post Reformed orthodoxy that so many contemporary retrievers of Reformed theology would have us believe.

The Affective-Turn and Variances

Conversely, Frost showed me that theologians like Sibbes, Cotton, Preston et al. were concerned with presenting a theology proper that properly focused on Godā€™s Trinitarian and relational nature; a God who is theistically personal, winsome, and who desires relationship through marriage, with us, His creaturely creatures recreated in the humanity of Jesus Christ. Frost identified this stream of development within the Reformed house as Affective theology, Janice Knight identifies the same thing as The Spiritual Brethren (in contrast to the Westminster types who she calls The Intellectual Fathers). These designations ought to alert the careful reader to something indicative of the distinctions being drawn: Frost, Knight et al. have identified, what is at base, a theological anthropological difference between our respective houses in the Reformed development. That is to say, as was true to the day and development, a tripartite faculty anthropology (i.e. affections, intellect, will), and the way that was disparately developed, respectively, by the competing factions, finally gave way to the sort of various eddies within the Reformed house I have been alluding to heretofore. The Affective theologians, as Frost so eloquently argues, were those who saw the affections as the defining component of what it means to be human before God (coram Deo); whereas the ā€˜Intellectual Fathersā€™ (the Westminster Calvinists), following their reception of Thomasā€™ synthesis of Aristotelian categories into Christian theology, necessarily saw the intellect/will as definitive of what it means to be human before God. Indeed, the Intellectual Fathers, believed that at the Fall, the affections (i.e. heart) was the weak ā€œemotionalā€ part that drug the pristine elevated part of what made humanity human down into the dregs of rupture between God and humanity. As such for the Intellectual Fathers, in a grace/nature – disease/remedy symmetry salvation comes when a created grace is ā€˜shed abroadā€™ in the electā€™s life such that they can cooperate with God, within a Federal or Covenantal schemata of course, meeting the legal requirements of Godā€™s law, thus being restored or re-conciled with God through the restoration of their broken (but not completely dead) intellect/will; insofar as the weakness of the affections polluted what it truly means to be human. It is this superadditum of grace, in the ā€˜intellectualistā€™ frame, that gives the elect the salvific energy to habituate [habitus] (or persevere) in a life of godliness, which finally obtains in an eternal justification and thus glorification (think of the Tridentine distinction between iustitia Dei and iustitia Christi and the attendant viator theology).

Contrariwise, as Frost describes what was originally called Free Grace theology, as articulated by people like Richard Sibbes, William Erbery et al. focused on the affections as the point of contact wherein God disclosed Himself to the waning heart of a fallen humanity and invites them into an intimate relationship of triune love that heretofore could never have been imagined. Frost writes, in descriptions of Sibbesā€™ ā€˜affective theologyā€™:

While Sibbes acknowledged some biblical support in calling Christians to obedience as a duty (Erberyā€™s category of ā€˜low and legalā€™ preaching) Sibbes clearly understood that duty can only be sustained if it is supported by the motivation of desire. Thus, Sibbes featured Godā€™s winsome love more than his power: the Spirit accomplishes both conversion and sanctification by a single means: through the revelation of Godā€™s attractiveness by an immediate, personal disclosure. This unmediated initiative was seen to be the means by which God draws a response of heartfelt devotion from the elect.ā€1

Notice the anthropological variance from what we have described as the intellectualist version of Reformed theology, as defined and articulated by the Westminster divines, among others. The focus for the Spiritual Brethren or Affective theologians is on the affections, on a renewed heart, of the sort that we find in the New Covenant language of both the Old and New Testaments in Holy Scripture (cf. Jer. 31; Ez. 36; II Cor. 3; Heb. 8 etc.). For the Sibbesā€™ school, and thus a whole traditional development within historic Reformed theology, the point of contact between God and humanity was through an immediate disclosure of Godā€™s overflowing love for them as demonstrated and actualized in His incarnation in Jesus Christ. For this tradition it was a matter of wooing, invitation and response to God, to enter into the halls of Holy Matrimony with God, such that the elect might experience what it truly means to be human before God, as that is realized in participatio Christi (participation with Christ). Frost goes on to differentiate between these two houses of Reformed development, respectively:

In this framework some additional theological assumptions were revised. For instance, Sibbes understood grace to be Godā€™s love offered immediately (rather than mediately) by the Spirit to the elect. By identifying grace primarily as a relational characteristic of Godā€”the expression of his goodnessā€”instead of a created quality or an empowerment of the will, Sibbes insisted that God transforms human desires by the Spiritā€™s immediate love and communion. Faith, for Sibbes, was not a human act-of-the-will but a response to Godā€™s divine wooing. Godā€™s laws, Sibbes argued, must be ā€™sweetened by the gospelā€™ and offered within a framework of ā€˜free grace.ā€™ He also held a moderately developed form of affective anthropology. . . .2

This ought to suffice in alerting the reader to the antecedents of my type of Evangelical Calvinism. It is representative of a historic iteration and development within 16th and 17th century Calvinism that emphasized Godā€™s triune life of relational and personal love as that took shape within the inner and singular life of the Monarxia. Indeed, as both Frost and Knight have persuasively argued, this iteration and development of Reformed theology was in fact the ā€˜orthodoxā€™ version over-and-against what has become the dominant and received form today, that being the intellectualist or Christian Aristotelian type of Calvinism as codified in something like the Westminster Confession of Faith, attended by a decretal and metaphysically Law-shaped God of monadic origination.

The Barthian-Torrancean-Turn

With the aforementioned understood, and there is more to that development, but time and space constraints keep me from commenting further, I came to Thomas F. Torrance and Karl Barth (circa 2006 in earnest). Thomas Torrance, a Scottish theologian primarily of the 20th century, could be known as the theologian of Trinitarian theology par excellence. As I began to read Torrance, his books A Christian Doctrine of God and Scottish Theology, I came to realize that Frost wasnā€™t the only person seeing the variegated tapestry of Reformed development in the history. Torrance made many similar critiques of Westminster Calvinism, as Frost et al. were making, albeit from a different entrĆ©e point, and he did so by emphasizing the winsome, relational triune nature of God with a soteriological focus on unio cum Christo (union with Christ). I came to realize that TFT could serve, at least, as a complement, a constructive theological complement to what I had already come to understand through Frostā€™s tutelage (and Frost is neither a Torrancean or Barthian, to be clear). One of the primary points of contact between Frostā€™s insights and TFTā€™s, respectively, was their focus on John Calvinā€™s theology of union with Christ, and duplex gratia (double grace) soteriology. As I kept reading Torrance, I also started to read Barth in depth. Both Barth and Torrance fit well with Frost, in both their critiques of Christian Aristotelian styled Reformed theology, the God of the decretum absolutum, and their respective focuses on a theistically personalist God who desires a love grounded fellowship or koinonia with us. There of course is some pretty substantial variance between Frost and Barth/Torrance, particularly as that comes to a head in Barthā€™s reformulation of election, but there is enough overlap, at least in the way that I have constructively received them, such that when properly cross-pollinated much fruit can be produced and made ready for harvest for whosoever will. The piece that was missing in Frost, and was present in Barth/Torrance, was a focus on a robust doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. Frostā€™s offering works from purely Augustinian themes, whereas Barth/Torrance work from largely Athanasian themes; at least when it comes to a focus on a God-world relation in the analogy of the incarnation.

Concluding Remarks

The aforementioned represents the antecedents and constructive foci of my type of Evangelical Calvinismā€”what I am now calling Athanasian Reformed theology. The broad framework is historically derived; it originally comes from an Augustinian development but ends up with an Athanasian hue; there is a Christological concentration that starts in both Luther and Calvin, threads through some of the Puritans Frost focuses on, and on some Scots that TFT identifies, and eventuates in the work of Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance, respectively. The primary foci doctrinally are on Godā€™s Triune nature as the ground and grammar of everything; on a doctrine of union with Christ through a personalist understanding of God-world relation; all grounded in a radical Christ concentration as the warp and woof of all theological development. These various themes and developments, as noted, are not foreign, but intimate to the broader Reformational developments proper. No matter how much the 21st century Reformed machine asserts that the so-called ā€˜Intellectual Fathersā€™ version of the Reformed faith, just is the confessional and only form of Reformed theology available, under scrutiny this simply falls as the house-of-cards that it is.

Evangelical Calvinism, or Athanasian Reformed theology, while its antecedents are firmly rooted in the historical developments of Reformational theology, is a constructive iteration of Reformed theology in the 21st century. It works within the confessional making ā€˜always reformingā€™ (semper Reformanda) spirit of the best of Reformed theology. It rejects the calcification-model offered by the so-called retrievers of Reformed theology today, wherein the thesis is that the only real way to be faithfully Protestant, and thus Reformed, is to cull the history through the intellectualist-Reformed lens, and repeat (or repristinate) what is found in the variegation of the various ā€˜orthodoxā€™ theologians culled. Athanasian Reformed theology is grounded in the reality of Holy Scripture, rather than the speculations of the schoolmen, insofar that its categories and emphases are derived from a radical focus on Godā€™s Self-revelation in Jesus Christ; indeed, as that is attested to in doxological key within Holy Writ. We do not believe in imposing speculative categories for thinking God, as the Intellectual Fathers do, by borrowing from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas in order to think God in an ostensibly intelligible way. We are slavishly committed to thinking God from God, Light from Light, and allowing His Self-exegesis as that comes from the womb of the Father in Christ (cf. Jn. 1.18) to inform all that we do say and think to the glory of God coram Deo.

 

1 Ron Frost, The Devoted Life, quoting from: William Erbery, The Testimony of William Erbery (London: n.p. 1658).

2 Ibid., 82.

A Response to the Reformed Baptists: Against Naked Scripture Reading

Posted on by

What’s going on with these Reformed Baptists? I’m referring to people like James White, Rich Pierce (White’s sidekick), Owen Strachan et al. I just had a fun exchange with White’s guy, Pierce on Twitter. It’s always the same thing with these guys. I cut my teeth in the blogosphere with these types of extended engagements with the JMac crew over at the Pyromaniacs blog back in the day. White, and his whole Alpha and Omega crew, along with the Apologia guys, and then people like Strachan and Jeff Johnson, and all their followers in the so-called Reformed Baptist camp suffer from the same sort of arrogant naivete. They all operate with this notion that it’s possible for the biblical interpreter to read Scripture without a hermeneutic. In other words, they simply believe that they purely read the 5 Points of Calvinism out of the text of Scripture (or a modified/heretical understanding of the Trinity, in some cases). They don’t acknowledge any reception history from its development in the Reformed history of ideas. In fact, they are anti-Confessional (except maybe for the London Baptist Confession of Faith, the parts that resonate with them). Here’s a sampling of my recent excursion with that really nice guy, Rich Pierce:

This guy took this tone with me immediately, in a previous tweet exchange. This is how it always goes with them. The irony is that they operate out of an Enlightenment rationalist/naturalist hermeneutic, not confessionally Reformed whatsoever. They fail to recognize that all reading is interpretation, and that confessional Christian reading is simply the mode that has given the orthodox categories we use to think the Trinity and Christological loci like the hypostatic union, homoousios so on and so forth. Instead, they read from the confessionalism provided for by the naturalism inherent to the Enlightenment; being confessional is an inescapable reality of interpretation (any kind of interpretation). The only people in Reformation history who claimed to read the Bible outwith confessionalism were the Socinians (and maybe the Anabaptists before them). That’s the spirit people like White, Pierce, Strachan et al. operate from. Indeed, in Strachan’s case, and now White is defending him, he arrives at his eternal functional subordinationism (EFS) of the Son, precisely because of their anti-ecclesial confessional reading of Holy Scripture. No matter how much testosterone these guys muster up to counter critiques like mine, just as Pierce does above, the facts of the theo-logic, they are ignoring, remain.

What they don’t understand is how the order of authority works. People like White/Pierce seem to think that if you use conciliar categories (like we get from Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon etc.) that somehow you are denying the Protestant Scripture Principle (or more colloquially,Ā sola Scriptura), but that is to engage in a radical error of thought. The ecumenical confessions/creeds, for example, are subordinate to Holy Scripture insofar that they are attempting to supply a grammar for the inner-theo-logic of the text. In other words, given the occasional nature of the text, which it always is, even if the occasion turns out to be purely canonical, the authors of Scripture make theological assertions; that is, they leave many things either inchoate or unstated in their respective communications about God. What the creeds/confessions do, in principle, is come along and recognize that things are stated about God, in Scripture, that require a grammar; particularly so that the Church can know the difference between truth and error; not to mention, so that the Church can speak and think intelligibly about God. There is no inherent denial of the Protestant Scripture principle in this endeavor. The only real problem that can and has obtained, at points, is that the ‘metaphysic’ used to flesh out said biblical theo-logic could potentially be at odds with the Scriptural categories and witness vis-Ć -vis God. This has always been the basis of my critique with reference to the developments of scholasticism Reformed dogma in the 16th and 17th centuries. But this sort of thinking goes right over the heads of people like White, Pierce, Strachan et al.

In order to end this post on a positive note, let me share something I’ve shared multiple times in the past from Oliver Crisp. He offers a nice taxis, in regard to how to think the relationship of Holy Scripture to the creeds, confessions, and theologoumena. And with this we’ll close:

  1. Scripture is theĀ norma normans,Ā theĀ principium theologiae.Ā It is the final arbiter of matters theological for Christians as the particular place in which God reveals himself to his people. This is the first-order authority in all matters of Christian doctrine.
  2. Catholic creeds, as defined by and ecumenical council of the Church, constitute a first tier ofĀ norma normata,Ā which have second-order authority in matters touching Christian doctrine. Such norms derive their authority from Scripture to which they bear witness.
  3. Confessional and conciliar statements of particular ecclesial bodies are a second tier ofĀ norma normata,Ā which have third-order authority in matters touching Christian doctrine. They also derive their authority from Scripture to the extent that they faithfully reflect the teaching of Scripture.
  4. The particular doctrines espoused by theologians including those individuals accorded the title Doctor of the Church which are not reiterations of matters that areĀ de fide,Ā or entailed by somethingĀ de fide,Ā constituteĀ theologoumena,Ā or theological opinions, which are not binding upon the Church, but which may be offered up for legitimate discussion within the Church.[1]

It would be nice if the Reformed Baptists under consideration could internalize the above, but they won’t. Instead, they will continue to appeal to their egos and insecurities and respond the way Pierce did to me in the aforementioned. Unfortunately, these things have real life consequences; like denying an orthodox understanding of the Holy Trinity (as we now see in Strachan, and White’s defense of him). This is why sometimes I’ll bring this sort of discussion up for consideration. Peoples’ eternal souls are literally at stake in many cases.

 

[1] Oliver Crisp,Ā god incarnate,Ā (New York: T&T Clark International, 2009), 17.

On “The Neo-Dark Ages of Modern Theology”: Getting Beyond the Smorgasbord of 21st Century Evangelical Theology without Ditching the Modern

Posted on by

TheologyĀ isnā€™tĀ a smorgasbord, but to view my evangelical worldĀ youā€™dĀ never know it. High churchĀ confessionalists/traditionalists have greater clarity in this area than does the low-Free-church evangelical world. This is largelyĀ due to the fact thatĀ us evangelicals were formed out of the post-Enlightenment,Ā deconfessionalizedĀ mode of ecclesial identity. In other words, evangelicals, by and large, areĀ a people of theĀ Book,Ā yet abstracted from the Bibleā€™s broader historical reception as that perdured into the medieval and Post Reformed orthodox period. It is difficult to write on this just because what it means to be anĀ evangelicalĀ these daysĀ representsĀ a massive continuum. Many so-called evangelicals were raised in the sort ofĀ deconfessionalizedĀ vanilla evangelicalism I am referring to above, and it is for precisely this reason that these types areĀ attemptingĀ retrieve what they believe to be the theological foundations of evangelicalism; particularly as that is found in scholasticism Reformed.

But what I largely take evangelicalism to be is indeed a mode of modernity. That is, most of evangelicalism is a product of the 18thĀ and 19thĀ centuries, and the revivalism/conversionismĀ therein. This is a religion shorn of its historical antecedents, and one that focuses on the turn-to-the-subject, on a warm-hearted pietism that focuses more on an individualistic understanding of Christian spirituality rather than on a spirituality formed by theĀ communio sanctorum. With this ā€˜turnā€™ in place, evangelicals, modern in just this way, feel free to roam the planes and valleys in search of whatever expression of the Christian development suits their fancy;Ā howeverĀ said fancy may have developed for them. These evangelicals arenā€™t anchored to a tradition, or a confession, per se; at best, their confession is: ā€˜me-and-my-Jesus-me-and-my-Bible.ā€™ Armed with this mantra, girdled by a staunchĀ solo Scriptura,Ā such evangelicals have little time for church history; especially when church historyĀ for themĀ started the day they received Jesus into their hearts. When church history starts in a center in the self-possessed self, it is this self that gets to determine what sorts of theologies they will be formed by. And even if this type of evangelical looks to the past it will always be grounded in the touchstone of their lives, them.

As far as sketches go, I think the above, in an oversimplified way works. When attempting to fellowship with Christians who have been spiritually formed under such conditions (the ones just mentioned) it becomes quite difficult to achieve any sort of depth dimension, insofar as that dimension exists in the tradition[s] of the church. If such evangelicals have intentionally shucked the husk of the churchā€™s confessions it becomes almost completely impossible to go any deeper than 1973, or whenever said evangelical said yes to Jesus. This produces, at an essential level, a fragmented communion, and as such when communions like this attempt to stand together, say against the wiles of the devil, what ends up happening is that the spiritual vacuum their lives are funded by quickly becomes exposed. In an attempt to shore up this vacuum the evangelical will collectively project their sense of individuality onto their leader;Ā i.e.Ā their erstwhile charismatically gifted pastor. As such, a personality cult is born, and the peoplesā€™ unity becomes contingent upon the man, instead of the cosmic Christ, as He has leavened His church with His wisdom throughout the centuries in theĀ communioĀ sanctorumĀ (communion of the saints).

Maybe this helps frame the way of evangelicalism in these our days. Maybe you feel famished, bereft of any depth reality in your daily Christian spirituality. The church is part of a cosmic reaching reality just as herĀ esseĀ is grounded in Jesus Christ and the Triune God. When Christians are cut off from this deep theological (and even historical) well, it becomes seemingly bleak when attempting to move and breath as a Christian in the 21stĀ century. Is the antidote to this to do what the evangelical theologians of retrieval are attempting, to demonize modern theological developments, and jump back to the ostensible formations of ā€œgenuine evangelicalā€ theology, as that is supposedly funded and founded in the Post Reformed orthodox developments (of the 16thĀ and 17thĀ centuries)? This doesnā€™t seem, to me, to be the best way forward. While I am a proponent of being critical of the negative turns made by the ā€˜new theologyā€™ of the 18thĀ and 19thĀ c. I am not of the belief that modern theology, and even aspects of so-called turn-to-the-subject are purely evil. I believe it is possible to take what modern (and its antecedent mediating) theology has handed to us, and constructively reify that from within a genuinely Christ conditioned confessional frame regulated by what I take to be theĀ regulaĀ fideiĀ (rule of faith) of Christā€™s life who continuously is in-breaking into His church even today.

Personally, while I reject the smorgasbord self-interested spirituality and doctrinal quilting of most of 21stĀ c. Evangelical style, I think it is imprudent to simply ditch the whole modern period as if representative of a neo-dark ages that must be ignored. I think this is imprudent because in order to do so the ā€œjumperā€ (of the ditch of modernity) must posit themself in such a way (which itself is a purely modern way to think) to imagine that they arenā€™t inherently modern themselves. But they are indeed a modern people, and when they attempt to ignore modern theology,Ā in se,Ā they only assume modernityā€™s anthropological mode of positing or starting with a self-asserted self in search of the ā€˜true-theologyā€™ (the one developed, in their discursive reasonings, in the 16thĀ and 17thĀ c). In my view, it is best to simply acknowledge that we are a modern people, and to understand that God has been speaking to and in His church in and through all periods. This way we, as the people of God, are starting in a position where we are not theĀ magisterium, but theĀ ministeriumĀ of Godā€™s Holy people the church. In other words, when we acknowledge that God has been present throughout, as if a yeast, the ambit of all church history, up to and into the present moment, we are recognizing that we are simply beggars-all, waiting upon God. As we are formed from this alien starting point, in the center of Godā€™s life for us in Jesus Christ, as He ever afresh anew makes Himself known to us, itĀ is from this eagleā€™s nest, seated at the Right Hand of the Father, high above all rulers and principalities, that the Christian can genuinely operate from the confessional reality of Godā€™s life for us in Jesus Christ.

This is just the beginning of a proposal.

My Redline: A Soldier for Christ Until the Eschaton

Posted on by

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. ā€“Ephesians 6.10-13

I still wonder, at times, why the Lord didnā€™t take me home through my incurable cancer; why didnā€™t he allow the statistics to hold true in my case with regard to the type of monstrous cancer I had. I usually arrive at a singular conclusion: it is because I am a soldier for Jesus Christ on this earth. It is because He desires that I would bear witness for Him, for the risen Christ, contra this evil age and its god, the devil. It is because He has prepared me to fight the good fight of faith through the hellish crap He has walked me through in many seasons of the past (and those He walks me through in the present). It is because He wants someone as weak as me to reflect His strength so that His manifold wisdom might be made known to the world, and the principalities and powers who seek to steal, kill, and destroy. I see myself, along with the rest of the communio sanctorum, as part of a great drama; a drama that transcends the seeming mundanities of the everyday world, and charges it with the life of the risen Christ. I see myself as dead to sin, and alive to Christ. I see myself as standing against the tide of evil and deception in this world as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. Because of this I am not seeking to be your friend, but a true brother in Jesus Christ. I am not attempting to fit into the strictures that the culture[s] says are acceptable and fitting. I am simply a Christian who is here to bear witness to the fact that Jesus Christ has triumphed making a public spectacle of the devil and his minions (the losers!). I am here to remind people, along with the Apostle Paul, that we are in a great spiritual battle; a battle that shapes and implicates the political and cultural systems which we inhabit. I am here to bear witness to the fact that Godā€™s Yes in Christ has triumphed, and in so doing has said No to the destruction of the devil and this fallen system he finds sustenance within; like a cancer feeding on acid. Once these tasks of mine are completed I fully intend on entering the presence of the Lord where there is peace and joy forevermore. Until then I fight along with the rest of the church militant. I am contra mundum (against the world) insofar as this world system is the haunt of the already destroyed devil and his serpentine minions. Screw you devil. Let God be true and every man a liar!

Evangelical Hermeneutics, Christological Patterns, and Scripture-All-By-Itselfism

Posted on by

Evangelicals, for good measure, at least in sentiment, claim to be committed to Scripture alone (sola Scriptura). But in reality, the majority of evangelical Christians are really committed to Scripture all by itself (nuda Scriptura solo Scriptura). What most evangelicals think about Scripture all by itself, is just that: i.e. that they donā€™t have tradition aiding them in the way they interpret Scripture. So, they operate with this sort of naivete about what tradition is, and how its inescapable reach implicates even their ā€œinterpretationā€ of Scripture; i.e. it isnā€™t just the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox who have ā€œtradition.ā€ But my question is why, why do evangelicals operate with this sort of theological naivete? The response to that question is multiplex, let me focus on just one angle into that via a suggestion.

I think evangelicals operate with the sort of interpretive naivete that they do, vis-Ć -vis the Bible, because they have never been ā€œcatechizedā€ into the conciliar, and thus historic categories of the Christian reality. In other words, evangelicals, in the main (although per a recent poll, this is becoming less and less the case too), believe the Chalcedonian grammar that Jesus is both fully God and fully human in a singular person; and the Nicaean-Constantinopolitan grammar that God is one in three/three in one. But they only know this, if they do, tacitly. They donā€™t appreciate the serious hermeneutical gravitas that gave rise to such orthodoxizing grammars as that obtained in the patristic churches. As such, these grammars about who Christ is, and who God proper is, are, for them, accidental rather than essential realities of the Faith.

My contention is a simple, but I think a profound one: evangelicals, in the main, are not educated, in their early Christian formations with the sort of theological and christological categories that allow them to even begin thinking about scriptural interpretation in terms of a necessarily theological way. Surely, this development of Christianity has to do with the modern turn-to-the-subject/individual and the rise of individualism that engendered. Modern humans consider their personal con-sciences to be the terminus of all that is real and holy. Insofar as evangelicals are slavishly ā€œmodernā€ in this way, to think in terms of conciliar grammars or from within the communio sanctorum (communion of the saints), is rather anathema to them. As such, they only are able to think in terms of ā€œme-and-my-Bible,ā€ as their hermeneutical norm. Some might call this the rationalist way; I would.

Just some notations I thought I would make. Carry on.

Being a Conciliar Protestant Christian in the 21st Century: Referring to Barth as a Case Study

Posted on by

Being creedally orthodox is a badge of honor these days, and in days past, for what it means to be a sound Christian thinker and disciple of Jesus Christ. This becomes all that more acute when we start thinking about creedal orthodoxy within the confines of Protestantism; particularly in relation to Protestantismā€™s lack-luster exuberance for recognizing the role of tradition in the interpretive process of Holy Scripture. I just came across a quote cited by my friend Steven Nemes on another social media platform; a passage that helps illustrate what I am referring to:

The Reformers did not intend to sever themselves entirely from the Christian past. Calvinā€™s writings in particular contain numerous references to the church fathers, and he clearly attempts to align the program of the Reformation with Augustine. The significance of Calvin in this regard is noted by Jaroslav Pelikan, who states that the Geneva Reformer became the one figure who ā€˜more than any other, enabled the leaders of the Reformation to claim that they were not throwing over the Christian past after all.ā€™ Yet in spite of attempts by some of the Reformers to maintain a place, albeit a limited one, for the tradition of the church, the trajectory of Protestantism coupled with its ongoing polemic against the Catholic Church inevitably served to diminish, if not eclipse, the significance of tradition for Protestant theology.[1]

While in many sectors in the evangelical and, in particular, the Reformed churches there is a revival, particularly among her theologians, of theology of retrieval. As the early portion of the above passage notes, the intention of what became known as sola scriptura was not to elide reference to the catholic Christian faith of the ecumenical creeds and grammar; instead the move had more to do with undercutting the magisteria of the papacy of Rome, and in-placing that instead with the authority of Holy Scripture.

It is within this ā€˜Protestantā€™ spirit that someone like Karl Barth approached the orthodoxy presented in the conciliar faith of the ecumenical councils; really in the spirit of what we find in someone like John Calvin, as mentioned previously. In light of this, I thought it would be helpful to read along with some of Darren Sumnerā€™s treatment of Barthā€™s relationship to conciliar Christianity, and how he (Barth) understood the role of councils; particularly as that has to do, materially, with the grammar it has presented the churches with for the last many centuries. We pick up with Darren as he is discussing the various periodic circumstances and occasions that gave rise to the need for the so called ecumenical councils to convene in the first place. It is in this context that Sumner places Barthā€™s own sense of need to translate from that period to his, while (as the thesis goes) retaining not just the spirit, but often the very letter of the councilsā€™ permutations as those, in particular, had to do with theology proper and Christology.

Darren writes:

As a response to particular situations the creeds of Nicaea, Chalcedon, and others have a particular prehistory, and their promulgation is the form of the churchā€™s decision regarding that which made the confession necessary (and not a free and unconditioned doctrinal reflection, a ā€œtruncated summa theologiaeā€).

That a confession retains these limits, of course, does not by any means suggest that its real truth, and its authority in the church, are marginal. Barth simply means to make clear just what sort of thing a confession is, so that we who owe so much to the Fathers do not mistake it as something else. In fact, it is upon its very limitation that the authority of the confession decisively rests: this admits it humanity, and therefore shifts the burden of truth and authority off of the human speech of the church and onto the Lord of the church who guides it. That a confession is conditioned by its immediate context only goes to show that the authority it continues to bear for Christian witness is an authority not its own.

The result of all this is Barthā€™s conviction that, in each new generation, the dogmas of the church not only can be subject to scrutiny and revision but must be soā€”because ā€œin every century the Church has had to find out anew the meaning of Scripture.ā€

The task remains. We must trust that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. We have no pope in Protestantism, but we do have secondary criteria. Sound exegesis will be done within the communion of the saints. The Bible is given to the community of the Church. Tradition helps us toward sound exegesis, and tradition includes the whole history of the Church (including the nineteenth century!). Confessions also help, but none of these is an absolute criterion. In interpretation, tradition and Church Fathers and confessions are our ā€œparentsā€ whom we must respect and honour, but there are times when a breach must be made (Reformation!). [Karl Barthā€™s Table Talk, p. 97]

Confession and dogma rest upon Scripture and so continually point the church back to it. But ā€œthe confession cannot and will not deprive us of our own responsibility to Scriptureā€ā€”to hearing, understanding, and applying it. And since theology is a human work, the confession of the church and of the theologian is a task left unfinished until its own eschatological consummationā€”which itself is, Barth says, not in the churchā€™s dogma but its praise offered to God. The authority of the confession ā€œis thus an eschatological concept, to which no present actualisation corresponds, to which every reality of Church confession, everything we now know as dogma old or new, can only approximate.[2]

I have pressed this point before, about the eschatological character of the confessions, and thus their relative and organic force, but I thought Darrenā€™s articulation was prescient and worthwhile for our consideration.

In the best of Protestantism, we read our Bibleā€™s as Steven Holmes has said by, Listening to the Past. In this spirit Barth is just like so many other of the best thinkers that the Protestant church has to offer; if not, in my biased opinion, the best of the best. Hopefully though, while recognizing Barthā€™s commitment to indeed, ā€˜listen to the past,ā€™ we can also see how not only to approach the tradition, but the way we should place the tradition; particularly as that is given catholic form in the conciliar Christianity of the paleo-past. Instead of imbuing the creeds with Divine sanction, like in a causal sense, Barth rightly sees them as the wrestlings of our brothers and sisters of the departed past; to boot, faced with a variety of unique circumstances, that to lesser or greater degrees have global ingredients that make them valuable for all times till Kingdom come. But it is precisely because of their human character that Barth, according to Sumner, rightly recognizes the lassitude conciliar Christianity presents itself to us with. In other words, because Christianity is a reality that gains reality from beyond itself in its eschatological ground in the Triune Life as revealed and given as gift in Christ, we are always in via. As such, there is lassitude within this via towards greater precision and erudition in regard to the burgeoning knowledge of God the church is growing into as she is being ostensibly transformed from glory to glory. This, I think, is what Barthā€™s relationship to conciliar Christianity entails.

What Barth offers Protestants, particularly those who are grateful for their conciliar trajectory, is a way to engage with the grammar of the councils while not also being slavishly determined by them when there might be a greater (not lesser) way to press out some of the inchoate ideas pregnant within the womb of the creeds. But it is in just this regard that I would suggest, that Barth offers a way towards being a Protestant, committed to sola scriptura that is also able to partake of the great tradition of the church. Of course it is Barthā€™s resistance to natural theology that wonā€™t allow him to simply be chained to an ecclesiological discourse that seemingly just is of Godā€™s direction. He would rather allow the Lord of the church to have room to still speak as Lord of the church; particularly as the church needs to be contravened by Godā€™s voice rather than her own.

 

[1] Franke, Evangelicals & Scripture, 198 cited by Steven Nemes, accessed 01-19-2019, Facebook feed.

[2] Darren O. Sumner, Karl Barth and the Incarnation: Christology and the Humility of God (New York/London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), Loc. 4115, 4123, 4131, 4140 Kindle edition.

Reformed Pubs, Evangelical Calvinists, and the Reformed Confessions

Posted on by

Evangelical Calvinists such as myself are a confessional people, we are; seeing as weā€™re members of the Reformed faith, which is if anything else a confessional faith. Over these last couple of days I became, unfortunately, embroiled in a debate/discussion about a statement I made in the Reformed Pub. The Reformed Pub is an online forum/group within the confines of Facebook, and it boasts a membership of approximately 12,500 people (which is pretty massive for a FB group). It consists of, what I have observed, classically Reformed folk of both the Baptist as well as the
Beer-CigarsPresbyterian types; albeit there is a heavy strain of dominion theology as well as sabbatarianism that permeates this rarified online Reformed space. I became a member of the Reformed Pub a few weeks ago, and then after observing what I saw de-joined because it really was a bridge too far for my Reformed tastes. But being me, I joined back up maybe a couple of weeks ago, and sat idly by checking in on the Pub now and again. Well, last night I decided to post something on the fly, and off the top; it had to do with, you guessed it, the Reformed faith and the confessions. Unfortunately, after spending probably (and literally) four or five hours between last night and this morning debating, clarifying, and discussing my position it finally came to a head. One of my interlocutorā€™s seemed to be getting impatient with me and from what I could perceive made a snarky comment to me. So getting wild up I responded, not in kind at first (mind you I had about five hours of what I consider collegial debate with these guys previous), and provided more push back to this guy. But I let the moment get the best of me, and after I made the collegial response, I made a pretty low-blow snarky comment. This forum has moderators keeping tabs on all the discussions in the Pub, once I made my snarky comment in response to my interlocutor they both chimed in and told me I was out of line (of course they didnā€™t say anything to anyone else, except once, as I receive a barrage of comments, some not in the best of tone ā€” in passive aggressive forms). Once that happened I decided to delete the whole post and comment threads associated with it; I resigned myself once more from the Pub; and have concluded that it is not a healthy place for me to be.

All of that is the background to the rest of this post. Unfortunately because I quickly deleted my original post from the Pub I donā€™t have, verbatim, my original statement about the Reformed confessions. But it went something like this:

The Reformed confessions were originally intended to be regional statements of faith made by local confessing Reformed Christians, and thus not intended to be universally binding statements for the church catholic. This is not to say that these confessions were at odds with the ecumenical councilā€™s settlements; in fact they sought to complement the entailments provided for by the catholic and ecumenical pronouncements made about Godā€™s life as Triune, and His life in the Son as both God and man in one person.

This comes close to the gist of my original post (although my wording here is even more explicit about what the entailments of the ecumenical settlements are). This statement set off a firestorm, which I really wasnā€™t ready for. The gist of the push back towards me was that the Reformed Confessions actually were intended to have catholic and universally binding force for all Protestant Christians. Further, that the Westminster Confession of Faith should be seen to be definitive for what it means to be Reformed for all Reformed Christians even today. Of course my point was that this just is not the case, and that there are Reformed Christians, like myself even, who repudiate, say, the metaphysics that fund the doctrine of God found in the WCF, as well as other loci like how grace and salvation are conceived (i.e. through substance metaphysics with all of its implications). The response to this (from the commenter who was really pushing back at me) was that if someone rejects the metaphysics of the WCF then they arenā€™t Reformed; further he responded that if ā€œit ainā€™t broke then why fix it?ā€ in reference to the Reformed confessions in general.

But all of this really missed the point of my original post (in a way); my original point was that the Reformed confessions, catechisms, creeds, and canons should be received in an ā€˜open-structuredā€™ way rather than ā€˜closed.ā€™ At this point in my commenting I offered a quote from our thesis 15 found in our Evangelical Calvinism book. The quote comes from Jack Stotts and it is this:

The Reformed sector of the Protestant Reformation is one that holds to what can be called an ā€œopenā€ rather than a ā€œclosedā€ confessional tradition. A closed tradition holds to a particular statement of beliefs to be adequate for all times and places. An open tradition anticipates that what has been confessed in a formally adopted confession takes its place in a confessional lineup, preceded by statements from the past and expectant of more to come as times and circumstances change. Thus, the Reformed traditionā€”itself a wide river with many currentsā€”affirms that, for it, developing and adopting confessions is indeed an obligation, not an option. These contemporary confessions are recognized as extraordinarily important for a churchā€™s integrity, identity, and faithfulness. But they are also acknowledged to be relative to particular times and places. This ā€œoccasionalā€ nature of a Reformed confession is as well a reminder that statements of faith are always subordinate in authority to scripture.[1]

My respondent looked for dirt, and for his money found what he was looking for. He let everyone know that Stotts is a liberal PCUSA theologian who contributed to the current state the PCUSA is in, particularly with reference to how homosexuality is viewed and even applauded and encouraged. I responded back that it is a genetic fallacy to attempt to marginalize the substance of Stottā€™s quote by referring to his personal affiliations and views (one way or the other).

But I want to press this ā€œopenā€ rather than ā€œclosedā€ confessional tradition. Those in the Reformed pub represent quite well the sentiment of the classically Reformed tradition in general; it is a mood of Reformed theology that is more concerned with repristinating the past rather than reformulating and/or reforming it (semper reformanda) per the reality of Holy Scripture, who of course is Jesus Christ. The classically Reformed, largely, are driven by ecclesiocentric identity, as far as posture and hermeneutic, rather than christocentric identity; at least insofar as they approach their usage and deployment of the Reformed confessions as boundary markers. But as Karl Barth rightly notes it is this mood that we currently find in the classically Reformed that is at odds with the reality of confession making within the spirit of the Reformed faith. Barth writes (in one of my favorite books from him The Theology of the Reformed Confessions):

The tendency toward confessional unity of these particular Reformed churches is, on the other hand, [Barth is contrasting the Reformed tradition with the Lutheran, which he argues that the latter seeks to achieve ecclesial unity by their singular adherence to the Augsburg confession as a catholic document that stands against heresies near and far] weak in its development. We remember that the section of the Formula of Concord already cited begins with the sentence: ā€œFundamental, enduring unity (concordia) in the church requires above all else (primo ā€¦ necessarium omnino) a clear and binding summary and form (forma et quasi typus) in which a general summary of teaching is drawn together from Godā€™s Word, to which the churches that hold the true Christian religion confess their adherenceā€ (M 568). From a Reformed point of view, one can only say No; such a formula and pattern of doctrine may well be very nice and desirable, but it is certainly not that which is ā€œrequired above all elseā€ for an accord. That which is ā€œrequired above all elseā€ is that the doctrine of the church everywhere and constantly be grounded upon Holy Scripture, which defines not the confessional unity but the confessional freedom of the particular churches in their relationships to each other. That was one of the first things that Luther noticed in his opponents from the Alps: the unconcerned lack of uniformity in their formulations, which was a sign for him that their doctrine was of Satan (End. 5,294). ā€œThe Holy Ghost is a God of unity and grants one meaning, foundation, and doctrineā€ (53,362). In the sixteenth century, the Reformed were scornfully described as ā€œConfessionistsā€ [ā€œConfessionistaeā€] because of their many personal, local, and national confessions, and they were quite content to be such. How easy it would have been for Calvin to install a normative Reformed confession, possibly written by him, in the circles and countries open to his influence. But he never sought after such a thing. The fact that he imposed the Gallican Confession of 1559 on the French was not an act of the ā€œpope from Geneva,ā€ as he was called, but rather a fraternal and friendly form of help from church to church. He wrote a catechism, but we find his most loyal adherentsā€”John Knox, John Ć  Lasco, and Caspar Olevianusā€”all writing their own confessions and catechisms as a matter of course.[2]

Barth would think it is quite ironic that my interlocutors, the classically Reformed in the Reformed Pub and elsewhere, would attempt to use the Reformed confessions as a basis for ecclesial unity and identity rather than statements attempting to freely profess and confess the Gospel and its implications as disclosed in Holy Scripture. Yet, this is what I was up against in the Reformed Pub the last two days, and what so many who are Reformed in the sense that I am are faced with as well.

Surely, just as my interlocutors wiped Stotts away with one fell PCUSA swipe they would wipe Barth away with one fell arch-heretic/neo-orthodox swipe. Be that as it may to do so is not to engage with the material and substantive critiques and developments presented by either Stotts or Barth in regard to the reality and development of the Reformed confessions.

Nevertheless, as evangelical Calvinists we most certainly work from within the ā€˜open structuredā€™ conception of the confessions (per Stotts), and we see as their regulative reality, Jesus Christ (per Barth) as attested to in Holy Scripture. It is always reforming for the evangelical Calvinists, not always repristinating; it is Jesus Christ as the unitive reality of the church, He alone is her bene esse and the confessions speak after Him, and after Scripture both de jure and de facto! Semper reformanda!

 

[1] Jack Stotts in Rohls, Reformed Confessions, xi.

[2] Karl Barth, The Theology of the Reformed Confessions, translated and annotated by Darrell L. Guder and Judith J. Guder (Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 12-13 [brackets mine].

Holy ‘Pactum Salutis’ Batman and Vanhoozer! Why Love is better than Law in the frame of Salvation

Posted on by

There are many images, metaphors in the Bible to depict Godā€™s relationship to his creation, humanity. There is the law-court pactumsalutisbatmanimagery, the Shepherd-sheep picture, and so on and so forth. But what undergirds all of it is who God in Jesus Christ is, and that realityā€“who he isā€“has been most clearly revealed in Jesus Christ; we know then that he is love, and thus it is God as love that comes before everything else, every other image and relationship depicted of him and us in the Bible. If this is the case it behooves us then to drive deep into this reality (God as triune love) as the interpretive grid through which we construct our primary understandings of how he acts and who he is; it beckons us to live under this pressure as the mode through which we develop our theological frameworks. These frameworks then need to bear up under the given reality of who God has revealed himself to be; we must take our cues from there, and not elevate subsidiary imagery in the Bible over this prime reality of who God is for us in Jesus Christ. And yet this, I would suggest, is the very thing that has dogged, in particular, the Protestant Reformed tradition. A tradition that has taken the imagery of the law-court, and legal metaphors in the Bible and used that as the primary interpretive grid through which God is understood and articulated. Of note, in this vein, is what has been called Covenantal (or Federal Foedus) theology; this framework developed in the 16th century, primarily under the oversight of Heinrich Bullinger and Caspar Olevianus. The basic premise of this framework is described well by Dewey Wallace:

A second development in English Calvinist thought, also international in its scope, was the rising importance of federal theology. Federal theology built upon the covenant theology of the Reformers, especially that of Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingliā€™s successor of at Zurich, and also of Calvin. For Bullinger, God had made one covenant with humanity, the covenant of grace, known by anticipation in the times of the Old Testament and by remembrance after the coming of Christ. For Calvin too there was but one covenant, that of Grace, but he stressed its testamentary character whereas Bullinger spoke of it as more conditional, although for both the covenant was the means in a history of salvation by which God unfolded his purposes. At the end of the sixteenth century, the Heidelberg Reformed theologians Zacharias Ursinus, Caspar Olevianus, and Franciscus Junius shaped the idea of a covenant of works distinct from and preceding the covenant of grace. Important English Calvinists, beginning with Dudley Fenner and including many later Puritans, adopted this double covenant federal theology with its covenant of works made with Adam, the federal head of humanity, to be followed, after the fall of Adam, with the covenant of grace, which was anticipated in Moses and fulfilled in Christ, the federal head of redeemed humanity. This federal theology was not only a pedagogically useful and biblically warranted scheme for organizing theology but also ā€œa useful vehicle of the gospel message,ā€ closely related to the flowering of Calvinist piety.[1]

So we get this kind of bilateral covenantal understanding of the Bible and salvation history; we get this legal understanding of God as the prominent interpretive grid through which we understand Godā€™s dealings and relationship with humanity. The covenant of works essentially (as the story goes) was a covenant God originally made with Adam and Eve wherein they were to obey his Word, his Torah, his Law, by not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of course they disobeyed God, they ate of the tree, broke Godā€™s holy law, and thus incurred Godā€™s penalty which was death. Fortunately, in this accounting of things, God had already ratified another covenant, the so called covenant of grace, wherein Jesus Christ, the second Adam, would come along, pay the penalty of Adamā€™s sin, and legally purchase back (i.e. redeem) an elect group of individual humans who the Son and the Father had bargained for in eternity past; the only payment required then was the Sonā€™s active obedience for this elect people, climaxing in his passive obedience of death on the cross for these elect people. At this point, Godā€™s holy law and the penalties incurred by humanity (through Adamā€™s disobedience) have been remitted, and this elect group of people bargained for by the Son and the Father are finally purchased by the Son, and they have legally become his and thus legally rightly related to God who ultimately relates to people by his Holy Law (even if it is said to be motivated by his love).

With all of this background in place, I wanted to underscore all of it by quoting theologian Kevin Vanhoozerā€™s defense of this legal framework as the primary means through which he believes (along with the rest of the classically Reformed tradition) we should understand Godā€™s relationship to and with humanity. Remember I just quickly (above) mentioned the ā€˜bargainingā€™ that took place for these elect group of people between the Father and the Son? This has been called the pactum salutis (or the Covenant of Redemption), and it serves as the middle term between the Covenant of Works and Grace that helps forward this epic Covenantal story between the Father and the Son; it helps to keep the logic of legal Covenantal thinking moving, and fills in the blanks even further (Robert Letham in his book The Westminster Assembly gets into how the ā€˜Pactum Salutisā€™ developed among some of the later Westminster divines). Here is what Kevin Vanhoozer has to say about the significance of this ā€˜pactā€™ for contemporary understanding of how Christians in general, from his perspective, should understand Godā€™s relationship to humanity:

There are good biblical reasons to expand the idea of an eternal divine decree in a more dialogical direction. This, at least, was the conclusion of the post-Reformation Reformation theologians who discerned, through a careful reading of Scripture, a pactum salutis (i.e. the intra-Trinitarian ā€œpact of salvationā€) between the Father and the Son. Consider, for example, Paulā€™s reference to ā€œthe plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, ā€¦ in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Jesus Christ our Lordā€ (Eph. 3:9, 11). To be sure, Scripture does not wear the notion of a pactum salutis on its sleeve, but like the doctrine of the Trinity, it appears to be a necessary implication of what is said explicitly. Minimally, it says that both the Father and the Son freely formed a partnership, agreeing on a plan from before the foundation of the world that would be executed on the stage of space-time history: ā€œYou were ransomed ā€¦ with the precious blood of Christā€¦. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sakeā€ (1 Pet. 1:18-21). The historia salutis is thus the dramatic representation in space and time of the eternal pactum salutis. This is all to say that the eternal divine decree is dialogical, the work of more than one communicative agent.[2]

Remember above as I opened this little essay up how I highlighted how we, in my estimation, should think interpretively through Godā€™s life of triune love instead of elevating other subsidiary biblical imagery as the lens through which we interpret Godā€™s relationship to humanity in Christ? It appears that Kevin Vanhoozer, along with the post-Reformed Reformers, has opted to take this subsidiary imagery as the primary lens through which he believes that we should understand Godā€™s relationship with us.

A consequence of this, among many of them, is that who God is for us, for fallen humanity ends up getting distorted. A subsidiary picture of Godā€™s dealing with humanity (the legal picture) becomes the frame, when this is not the frame that God has chosen to reveal himself through in the prime. God has chosen to reveal himself to us as personal triune love in his eternal Son Jesus Christ; any idea of Law-giver, or any other picture must be framed by this reality: that God is love, and because he is and because he loved us first we can love him through the Son as the mediator.

I submit to you that this framework that Vanhoozer claims to be a necessary implication of biblical truth, as necessary (implicitly so) as the Trinitarian conclusion, ought to be rejected. The ā€˜pactum salutisā€™ (ā€˜pact of salvationā€™) is only a necessary conclusion about the Fatherā€™s relationship to humanity through the Son, if and only if we first and in an a priori way commit ourselves to this kind of classically conceived Covenantal construction of salvation. But why should we? The Apostle Paul used other imagery (and it is a canonical imagery through and through) to depict our relationship to God in Jesus Christ; the imagery of marriage. Why wouldnā€™t we follow this imagery instead? It better proximates the theological reality of who God genuinely is for us in Jesus Christ; the lover of our souls. And this imagery is in the garden before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the imagery is first appealed to in Genesis 2 (i.e. marriage), while the ā€˜treeā€™ imagery is provided for in Genesis 3. If there is a primary covenant then it is framed, even in a straightforward and linear reading of Scripture, in the imagery of marriage; and so we end up with a covenant framing our understanding and relationship with God, a singular covenant of grace, which pre-temporally fits better with Godā€™s choice to not be God without us but with us in the election of our humanity for himself in Jesus Christ (the ultimate bridegroom).

Something to think about then ā€¦

[1] Dewey D. Wallace, Jr.,Ā Shapers of English Calvinism 1660-1714: Variety, Persistence, and Transformation,(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 16-7.

[2] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding, kindle loc. 1997, 2003, 2009.