“Absolute” Immutability Examined

The classical understanding of divine immutability (DI), which I have been calling position 1 (P1) is not without its challenges. This, however, does not distinguish it from any other theological concept. God’s word always presents us with difficulties. In the first place, God’s like really, really big – infinite, unbounded, filling heaven and earth, and here we are, barely able to balance our checkbooks, trying to wrap our minds around God. In short, DI is difficult because it should be. Specifically, the unchanging God is simply not like us. We are accustomed (because that ALL we have even known) to people who change their minds and lie. God says that he’s just like that: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Num 23:19). The world and everything around us (all creation) changes and passes away, but God is just like that: see Psalm 102:26-8. In a word, God’s not like anything we know in the created order, and that specifically with regard to his immutability.

Now, when God speaks to us, he does so in order that we should understand.

Read Full Post »

The Best Yet

Get a load of this:

The theological prolegomena of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are, arguably, the most exhaustive and most finely tooled prolegomena in the history of theology. The intense polemics of the century following the Reformation forced all parties in the theological debate to examine, clarify, and defend their presuppositions more carefully than ever before. This generalization is as true of the Roman Catholic systems of the day as it is of the Protestant ones. In the case of the Protestant theologians, however, the construction of prolegomena was a twofold or even threefold endeavor involving the statement of views of the theological task grounded in the experiences of the Reformation, the appropriation and the modification of the earlier tradition of prolegomena, and the polemical and apologetic defense of Protestant theological presuppositions over against Roman Catholic attack. The resulting prolegomena manifest a mastery of the issues and debates underlying the theological enterprise that has seldom been achieved in the history of theology either before or since. Without exaggeration, the theological prolegomena of the seventeenth-century Protestant scholastics provide a model for the development of a distinctively Protestant but nonetheless universally Christian or catholic theology — a model that Protestant theology today can ignore only at great risk. (Muller, PRRD, 1:109)

Go ahead and read that again. Muller’s speaking specifically of prolegomena, not of all the theological loci (all the many topics of theology). That said, I think that Protestant theology today can ignore the great scholastic theologians (on all the loci of theology) only at great risk. Back to the point: have you ever read any theological prolegomena? Have you ever grappled with those questions? If not, I’d suggest getting yourself familiar with some of the topics and issues by taking the first course in systematic theology at a seminary like this. Short of that, read the notes for that class. As you pursue the issues raised, you’ll find that most inquiries will end up landing you smack dab in the middle of the scholastic theologians. Moral of the story? It’s well worth being familiar with our own history.

Read Full Post »

Knowledge of God?

Kris Kord‘s post got me thinking. He’s been working through some of the issues that divided conservative Presbyterians in the early 20th century. His most recent post touches on the incomprehensibility of God and the overall difficulty of language (a creation, after all) to convey divine truth. The debate ‘twixt Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Clark is not an isolated one; that discussion (in one way or another) had been going on for centuries. Below, I’ll give a thumbnail of that extended discussion from Richard Muller’s PRRD and then float a couple questions out there for our discussion… here goes.

Muller traces the development of theological prolegomena to the early twelfth century. (Get a gander over here for a brief discussion of what prolegomena are.) The discussions of the nature of theological language came into their own in what’s called the High Middle Ages, and were tied in with the recovery and reception of many of Aristotle’s philosophical works (specifically his Metaphysics and Ethics). “The latter document,” according to Dr. Muller, “is of particular importance since it is the place where Aristotle delivered his arguments for the classification of the forms of knowing: understanding (intelligentia), knowledge or science (scientia), prudence or discretion (prudentia), and art or technique (ars)” (Muller, PRRD, 1:90). Science (scientia) must, according to Aristotle, rest upon its own self-evident first principles (principia). Thus, if theology is rightly to be called scientia, it also must rest upon its own principia. This notion caused successive theologians to place the discussion of these issues prior to the discussion of theology itself. It’s in this way that theological prolegomena were developed as a separate and, eventually, a highly technical collection of considerations.

The theological tradition handed down from Augustine preferred to call theology sapientia, or widsom, as it viewed theology as knowledge of goals or ends, specifically of God, the highest good. This terminology, however, didn’t jive the best with the revived Aristotelian terminology of the High Middle Ages, which preferred scientia to sapientia, as scientia tended more toward an academic discipline. Built into this development is the discussion of the nature and certitude of theological knowledge. Alexander of Hales (d. 1245), anticipating in some degree what would become the Reformed Protestant position, argued that theology was not properly called scientia, as it didn’t rest upon first principles (principia) in the same way as other human knowledge. Theological knowledge, he argued, was rational and experiential, but drew its certainty from neither of those sources, but from the Holy Spirit. Then along comes the Dumb Ox, who maintained that theology is scientia, but more properly scientia subalterna, or subalternate science, in that its principia were not self-evident to men. These principia (upon which scientia was built, you’ll remember) were self-evident to God, but had to be revealed by him to humanity and were found in the Scripture and the great creeds of the church. So, we see that by the time of Aquinas, theological knowledge is already quite distinguished from other human knowledge. Theological language and certitude is distinct from that of other scientia.

Duns Scotus

Okay, grab your socks and hose and pull, cuz it gets stickier with the late-Medieval theologians. Take John Duns Scotus (d. 1308). Scotus, based on the very rational concept that the finite cannot comprehend the infinite, radically limited human knowledge of God. He did not like there Thomistic terminology of scientia subalterna, but preferred to call theology praxis, focusing on the practical instead of the theoretical. For Scotus, the principles apprehended by humans through divine revelation cannot approach God’s self-knowledge. Thus, for Scotus, there’s a radical disjunction between God’s theology (or theologia in se) and our theology (theologia nostra), which yields “no proportion” between the two. How, indeed, could there be “proportion” between infinite and finite knowledge? The theology following Duns Scotus was duly influenced by his thinking. William of Okham (d. 1348), for example, contributed to the discussion by reworking the definition of theology from a unified knowing of a single object (i.e., God) to a collection of knowings of various truths. Thus, our “theoretical” knowledge of the Trinity can substantially differ from our “practical” knowledge of how to love the triune God.

So, by the end of Medieval period, we have highly refined discussions of human knowledge of God and the relation of human language to the divine reality. The Reformation stands upon this Medieval foundation and the Reformed orthodox (and even some of the early Reformers) pick up these discussions again. To make full circle, these debates were revived in Presbyterian circles in the discussions between Van Til and Clark.

As to our discussion, how are we to think about the relation between God’s self-revelation in human language to God’s self-knowledge? Further, how about our knowledge of God (our understanding of his revelation) relative to his own self-knowledge? Certainly, we can agree that God’s revealed himself so that he can be known, at least insofar as sinners can be saved. We’d want to stop short of saying that we know God in himself, or as he knows himself. So, what are your thoughts?

Read Full Post »

Reformed Catholicism – 2

Scripture and Tradition... in one volume!

A while back I published a small ditty on Reformed Catholicism, in which I asserted that Reformed provincialism is dangerous, and that a correct catholicism is important. Well, I’ve been working (slowly) through Richard Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (check out the great price!), which I still think is an awesome work. I happened upon this little passage that offers an assessment of the intent and effect of the Reformation:

The Reformation, in spite of its substantial contribution to the history of doctrine and the shock it delivered to theology and the church in the sixteenth century, was not an attack upon the whole medieval theology or upon Christian tradition. The Reformation assaulted a limited spectrum of doctrinal and practical abuses with the intention of reaffirming the values of the historical church catholic. Thus, the mainstream Reformers reconstructed the doctrines of justification and the sacraments and then modified their ideas of the ordo salutis and of the church accordingly; but maintained the Augustinian tradition concerning predestination, human nature and sin. The reform of individual doctrines, like justification and the sacraments, occurred within the bounds of a traditional, orthodox, and catholic system which, on the grand scale, remained substantively unaltered. (Muller, PRRD, 1:97)

All this is very near and dear to my little heart. The Reformation was not a revolt, but it was a reformation. The Reformers were reforming the church according to the Word of God, to be sure. That, however, was no reason to throw away the great ecclesiastical conversation. The interpretations and applications of the Scripture that the church had made through the ages were (and still are) important. Sola Scriptura is not a denial of tradition and history – we believe in the ministry of the church, but we hold to the primacy of Scripture itself. The Spirit speaking in the Bible judges our traditions, but does not erase them. Tradition hangs in the balance and is judged by Scripture, but tradition is still there, and it’s still important.

Read Full Post »

Reformed Doctrine, Medieval Mold

What is theological prolegomena? Let’s face it, prolegomena is a big word. Literally, it means “to say beforehand”; it refers to the pre-questions of theological work. That is, before theological work can be done or theological statement can be made, a whole host of questions need, nay, beg to be answered. Questions about how human language relates to divine truth, how human theology (knowledge of God) relates to God’s own knowledge of himself, how reason relates to revelation, and many more.

The magisterial Reformers did not provide much in the way of explicit prolegomena. They articulated a great deal of theology, of course, but didn’t explicitly deal in a direct way with prolegomena. Thus, the Reformed orthodox, organizing Reformed theology to be taught in schools, leaned heavily upon the scholastic methods of the Middle Ages.

Thomas Aquinas - Doctor Angelicus

The famous Schoolmen of the early Medieval period were seminal in isolating and beginning to answer questions of prolegomena. The church Fathers, like the Reformers later, passed down a lot of detailed theological writing, but very little in the way of prolegomena. So, the early Schoolmen, such as Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141), Peter Lombard (d. 1160), Gilbert de la Porree (d. 1154), and Alain of Lille (d. 1202), began to isolate prolegomena and place them at the beginning of their written systems of theology. This continued into the high scholastic period of the thirteenth century. The famous Franciscans, Alexander of Hales (d.1245) and Bonaventure (d. 1274), and the famous Dominicans, Albert the Great (d.1280) and Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), further developed and refined theological prolegomena.

By way of summary: “Although the development of doctrinal formulae had been going on for centuries, surely since the age of the second-century Apologists, we now have, for the first time in the history of doctrine, a formally defined model for the construction of a body of doctrine beyond the simple discursive presentation of the results of exegesis” (PRRD, 1:92-93). It was on these highly developed theological systems that the Reformed orthodox drew in order to present the theology of the Reformation in the Reformed schools. Thus, when we examine Reformed orthodoxy, we find Reformed doctrine cast in something very similar to Medieval mold.

Read Full Post »

The Breadth and Breakdown of Orthodoxy

Muller's PRRD - 4 Vols of Glory!

I’m continuing to enjoy Richard A. Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. It is such a wealth of information. I really dig it. As mentioned in a previous post, it was the Reformed confessions that set the boundaries for what was “Reformed.” What’s impressive is that within those boundaries there was a good deal of variety. The long quote from Muller below demonstrates the vast international scope of Reformed orthodoxy and also the impressive doctrinal breadth of the same.

Whereas, therefore, some distinction can be made between various lines of development within Reformed orthodoxy, such as between the Swiss orthodoxy of the line of Turretin and Heidegger and the Academy of Saumur, between the northern German Reformed of Bremen or the Herborn Academy and the rather different approach of Franecker theologians in the tradition of Ames, between the Cocceian or federalist line and the Voetian approach, between the British Reformed theology of Owen and that of Baxter, or between the British variety of Reformed theology in general and the several types of Reformed teaching found on the continent, there is no justification for identifying any one of these strains of Reformed thought as outside of the bounds of Reformed orthodoxy…. All of these branches of the Reformed tradition stood within the boundaries established by the major national confessions and catechisms of the Reformed churches. (PRRD, 1:79-80)

By the early 18th century, orthodoxy (or, simply Christianity in general) was under attack from new philosophies. Also, the later proponents of Reformed theology were all to ready to believe what their fathers believed, but were unwilling to contend for it. When inward conviction cannot contend with outward intellectual pressure, it won’t be long until that inward faith is no more. Again, an extend quote from Muller:

The Reformed theology of the era [of late orthodoxy] occupies an intellectual spectrum running the gamut from a fairly traditional orthodoxy to a theology actively searching for roots in newer philosophies and exegetical methods and intent on loosing itself from the moorings of a strict confessionalism…. The latitudinarian theologians presumed Christian orthodoxy and held against the ancient heresies, but refused to become embroiled in the niceties of post-Reformation confessional thought.” (PRRD, 1:81-82)

Read Full Post »

The Debates of High Orthodoxy

Cardinal Bellarmine

In the days of early orthodoxy (before 1618: prior to the Synod of Dort), Reformed polemics were mostly against Rome – Cardinal Bellarmine (d. 1621) in particular.The Reformed also wrangled with Lutherans to some extent over a fairly limited set of doctrinal issues. And all three (Catholic, Reformed, and Lutheran) opposed what Muller calls the “traditional heterodoxies of Christianity.” But by the time of high orthodoxy (1618-1687: from Dort to the death of Francis Turretin), the Reformed “encountered a wider variety of antagonists.” Muller divides these debates into two categories: ad extra and ad intra.

“The ad extra debates, confrontations between the confessional Reformed and alternative confessional positions – whether Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Remonstrant, or Socinian – occupied the larger portion of the polemic of orthodoxy” (Muller, PRRD, 1:75). The arguments with Roman Catholics and Lutherans became more and more detailed and philosophically involved, but I want briefly to highlight the polemic with the Remonstrants and Socinians.

The Remonstrants were, of course, the followers of James Arminius. They were a highly rationalistic bunch, depending on Cartesian (and later Lockean) thought, and they posed a great danger to Reformation truth. One thing I hope to gain a better knowledge of is how Remonstrant thought infiltrated the Reformed through Federalism. Clearly, Reformed thought became thoroughly covenantal (or federal), but the Reformed orthodox had to root Arminianism out of it. The Socinians were rationalists that rejected (among other things) the doctrines of the Trinity and the two natures of Christ. Both Remonstrants and Socinians are examples of the growing rationalism of the age, against which the Reformed orthodox fought.

The debates ad intra were the “bitter battles among the Reformed.” These ranged from the espousal of Cartesian philosophy to the various teachings

Moses Amyraut

of theologians at the Academy of Saumur to the soteriology of Richard Baxter. Muller notes that “on none of these issues, however, did the Reformed churches rupture into separate confessional bodies or identify a particular theologically defined group as beyond the bounds of the confessions, as had been the case at the Synod of Dort” (ibid., 1:76).  Of all these Reformed variations, I have the most familiarity with the various Salmurian teachings, including Amyraldism (or hypothetical universalism) and am happy to discuss them. The most outstanding thing, however, is that “Reformed” is confessionally defined. What’s more, it’s not a narrow confessional definition (as tends to be the case in contemporary debate), but is broad enough to include the Salmurian Triumverate: Moses Amyraut, Louis Cappel and Josue de la Place, at least two of which would be almost certainly be driven out today. We think of the orthodox as unbending and narrow, but overall I think they were a good deal more open-minded than we give them credit for.

Read Full Post »

Early Reformed Systematization

The Reformation moved rapidly toward systematization. What started as a theological revolt was rapidly (that is, within the first generation) worked into a whole system of theological thought.

If you examine the works of Luther, there is very little systematic about them. His works are comprised of exegetical works, letters, sermons, and polemical tracts. Early Lutherans set to work quickly trying to systematize his ideas. Melanchthon was a central figure in the development of Lutheranism as a coherent theological system.

Huldrych Zwingi

The works of first generation Reformed not only moved rapidly toward systematic statements of theology, but confessions of faith. These confession were to communicate a full-orbed (not a detailed) statement of the Christian faith. For example, we have Zwingli’s Sixty Seven Articles (1523), the Berne Theses (1528), the Tetrapolitan Confession (1530), the First Confession of Basel (1534), the Geneva Confession (1536), and it goes on and on. The confessional impetus in the Reformed church continued all the way through the seventeenth century.

What’s more, the Reformed began codifying the foundations of theology (principia theologiae), or the basis on which any theology can be done. They asserted that Scripture was the starting point. Muller notes that “already in the Theses Bernenses (1528), in contrast to the Lutheran confessional writings, we find an initial description of Scripture as the Word of God and therefore as the ground of theology and the church, indicating early on the Reformed theology, both in concessions and in more or less systematic works, to begin with a clear enunciation of its principia” (PRRD, 1:54). This means that, from almost the beginning, Reformed thinkers were trying to establish a theological system which was faithfully built on the Bible, God’s Word.

This is something that we likely take for granted, but should take some time to give thanks to our God for the faithfulness of our fathers in the faith.

Read Full Post »

A Systematic Reformation?

One common conception about the Reformation and the succeeding generations of Protestant theologians is that the Reformation was largely an unsystematic theological revolt, while the succeeding generations of theologians were engaged in the organization of vast and detailed theological systems. Now, there’s some truth in that, but there’s also a tendency to read it all one direction or the other.

The Reformation, it is true, tended more toward a theological revolt. Luther, Zwingli, Bucer, and all the first-generation Reformers were sounding out answers to the problems they found in the Medieval Christianity in which they were reared. Calvin, Melanchthon, Bullinger and all the second-generation Reformers carried on the work of their predecessors and tried further to establish and expand the Reformation.

Luther died in 1546 and Calvin in 1564. If we date the close of the Reformation and the opening of the era of Protestant orthodoxy between these dates, we can say the period runs from ca. 1550 to ca. 1700. What distinguishes the Orthodox of this period from the theologians of the Reformation? Some say it is the systematizing impulse, which was basically absent in the Reformation and quite prominent in the Orthodox. Now, the Orthodox statements of theology were certainly more systematic than those of the Reformers, but I think we can show that the Reformation had a systematic aspect, even as the Orthodox. For example, Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (first published in 1536 and arranged into its final form in 1559) is certainly a systematic theology, but it is organized around the Apostles’ Creed. It is, in any event, an attempt to bring together all of Christian teaching into an ordered, systematic whole.

Francis Turretin

While Calvin chose the famous Creed as an organizing principle, the Orthodox tended to group theological ideas together under specific heads (singular: locus; plural: loci). This method is far more efficient, as it consolidates all discussion of a particular topic in a single area. For example, to understand Francis Turretin’s doctrine of Scripture, one need only look to a single chapter or locus, the one on Scripture. For Calvin, on the other hand, one finds three separate areas of the Institutes that deal specifically with his doctrine of Scripture.

Organization by locus, however, does not even distinguish the Reformation from the period of Orthodoxy. Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), Luther’s protégé, published his famous Loci communes theologici in 1521. Melanchton organized his systematic treatment of Christian doctrine under places, or loci, in the same way that the Orthodox were later to do. “Thus,” in Muller’s words, “as of 1521, barely four years after the Ninety-Five Theses, we find a systematizing or doctrinal impulse at the heart of the Reformation” (PRRD, 1:49).

So, we find that the common conception mentioned up in the first paragraph breaks down fairly rapidly. Analysis that emphasizes continuities and discontinuities between the Reformation and the succeeding generations is far more satisfactory than analysis based upon imposed artificial dilemmas.

Read Full Post »

Through Our Fathers

Muller brings up two things in particular that I think are important to understanding the Reformed scholastics. 1) Reformed scholasticism is “the form of theological system in and through which modern Protestantism has received most of its doctrinal principles and definitions” (Muller, PRRD, 1:37). This highly-technical, academic theology did exactly what it was intended to do. That intention was not to replace catechesis, symbols/creeds, or devotional work, nor was it to invade the pulpit (though it was to inform all of these labors), it was rather to work out (in a highly technical, meticulous manner) theological definitions and formulations and to relate them one to another. Scholasticism is school theology – that’s why the medieval ones are often referred to as the Schoolmen. As these Reformed scholastics, these mighty men of God did the grueling work of consistent defining and distinguishing, they laid down the basis for all further Protestant thought. That’s the first thing and it’s important, but it’s deeply rooted in the second, more profound issue.

2) Muller notes, almost in passing, that Protestant orthodoxy is “the historical link that binds us to the Reformation” (ibid.). Muller’s comment is really something of an overstatement. The first link that binds us to the Reformation is the generation that immediately precedes us. Our fathers in the faith, the pastors who baptized and catechized us, the parents who trained us up in the nurture an admonition of Christ our Lord, the Sunday school teachers who dealt with our sassy back talk and still managed to minister to us, all these are our first link to the Reformation. The next link is their fathers in the faith, then their fathers, then their fathers, and on we go, right back to Owen and Perkins, Turretin and Beza, all of whom were dependent upon the Magisterial Reformers. But the Reformers also learned from their fathers. Now, that goes back through the Reformation all the way to Adam. That is the way that God made things to work:

O my people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in parables,
I will utter hidden things, things from of old-

what we have heard and known,
what our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD,
his power, and the wonders he has done.

He decreed statutes for Jacob
and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our forefathers
to teach their children,

so the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.

Then they would put their trust in God
and would not forget his deeds
but would keep his commands (Ps 78:1-6).

In this view of things, the Protestant orthodox are our link to the Reformation. There is absolutely no way they couldn’t be. This conception of generational discipleship reveals that we’re dependent on all of our Christian fathers, even if they’re not terribly savory. If that’s an issue for you, please go and read the rest of Psalm 78.

Read Full Post »