Why I am Not a 5 Point Calvinist

I am not a so called Five Point Calvinist for various reasons, but one of those reasons, a primary reason, is that the theology behind the acronym TULIP was never intended to be the sum or end all of what Calvinism was to be known for, doctrinally. Myk Habets and I, in our recently released book, have commented on this reality in the introductory chapter of the book:

Numerous recent attempts at defining the Reformed or Calvinist tradition have been offered. A number of these treatments have tended to present in objective fashion what is, ultimately, only a subjective judgment. Earlier popular works at definition, still in vogue amongst seminary and university students on campuses today, look to the five points of Dort—the so-called “doctrines of grace”—as the essence of what it means to be Reformed.25 Dort, however, as with most if not all of the Reformed confessions, is a localized and contextual document. The Canons of Dort give a detailed and skilled reply to Arminianism; hence “TULIP” represents a response to the Arminian five-point Remonstrance. It was never intended as a sum of Reformed thought. The Canons of Dort are still to be consulted for a Reformed reply to Arminianism, but they should not be thought to represent the sum of our belief. As Muller has written:

In other words, it would be a major error—both historically and doctrinally—if the five points of Calvinism were understood either as the sole or even as the absolutely primary basis for identifying someone as holding the Calvinistic or Reformed faith. In fact, the Canons of Dort contain five points only because the Arminian articles, the Remonstrance of 1610, to which they responded, had five points. The number five, far from being sacrosanct, is the result of a particular historical circumstance and was determined negatively by the number of articles in the Arminian objection to confessional Calvinism. [Myk Habets and Bobby Grow, eds., Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church, (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2012), 9-10.]

So even Richard Muller, Calvin and Calvinist scholar renowned, would agree with us, that the five points should not be seen as universally binding for the faithful; instead their regional and occasional nature should be understood as their primary context of meaning. Thus, when we say that we are 'Evangelical Calvinists' we are free to eschew the five points in favor of other emphases that have also developed within the history of the Reformed faith, in general, and Calvinism in particular.

PS. Make sure to check out my other blog: The Face Of Christ

On Biblical Studies and Systematic Theology: Their Marriage

I just finished reading a really helpful essay that was jointly written by, C. Kavin Rowe and Richard B. Hays; their chapter is in the 'Biblical Studies' category for The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology. They offer a sketch of development relative to the historical and contemporary relationship (or not) between so called 'Biblical Studies & Systematic Theology'. They seek to broach how it is that these two relative disciplines indeed have come to be separate, even competitive disciplines; such that the biblical/exegetical student could be as far apart from the systematic theologian as could the analytic theologian be apart from his counterpart, the so called dialectic theologian. In other words, they seek to both descriptively and constructively engage this so called divide; and in the end, they offer a constructive proposal that seeks to place biblical studies and systematic theology in dialectical and dialogical relation (such that they are no longer in a competitive relationship) – which correlates, by the way, with our thesis 9; that Evangelical Calvinism is a form of dialectical/dialogical theology and understanding. Let me share, the summarizing and concluding thoughts of Rowe and Hays; thoughts that I concur with and find quite encouraging, personally:

[...] where the subject matter of biblical exegesis and of dogmatic theology is thought to be the same, the two disciplines are of necessity inseparable. In this respect, to refuse interdisciplinary work between biblical interpretation and constructive theology is to deny the coherence of the subject matter itself. Today, however, the complexity of the interpretive task may warrant a continued, though always provisional and cooperative, division of labour between biblical scholars and systematicians. The exegete concentrates upon the refraction of the subject matter through particular witnesses, thereby penetrating more deeply into the particular shape of the subject matter and helping to avoid banal theological  generalities (Childs 2004: xi). And the theologian concentrates more upon the whole of the subject matter as it is expressed through the understanding of scripture in the dogmatic tradition, thereby helping to avoid the tendency toward fragmentation in exegesis (the old problem of losing the forest for the individual trees).

Yet, in continuity with the ancient church, there is no final division between biblical interpretation and theological reflection, for they are united in the common task of attending to the subject matter of scripture. Their actual relationship is thus dialectical, in the sense that within their respective foci there exists a constant movement between the particulars of the biblical text and the whole of systematic reflection in an effort to do justice both to the exegetical thickness of doctrine and the theological coherence of biblical exegesis. [C. Kavin Rowe and Richard B. Hayes, Biblical Studies: Chapter 24, in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, edited by Webster, Tanner, Torrance, p. 452]

In the essay, both Rowe and Hays speak quite approvingly of both Barth and Bultmann of being thinkers who brought together (in their own ways) the task of theologizing and biblical studyizing; that in the modern period (from which they both were birthed) had been divided  – as much as the 'historical Jesus' had been from the 'Jesus of faith'. To see biblical studies and systematic theology implicating each other – as we ought – is really to engage in a 'theology of retrieval. Meaning, as Rowe and Hays suggest through their historical development, that Barth & co. engaged in the process of retrieving the doing of biblical exegesis and theology (together) from the Patristic and Reformed periods; but in a way that also did the "retrieving" from a particular situation of development itself. So that this "retrieval" of thinking biblical studies and systematic theology together has taken shape with the full realization of all of the interpretive advances made, even in the modern period itself. The result, really, is that theological exegesis should be the only way Christian thinkers and readers engage the text of scripture and their respective thinking of the God revealed in Christ that scripture finds its scope through.

Some Calvinist Hymns AGAINST the Arminians

I just finished a really interesting book, Arnoud S. Q. Visser, "Reading Augustine in the Reformation: The Flexibility of Intellectual Authority in Europe, 1500~1620," (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). The book offers an analysis of Augustine's reception in the Reformation period (both Roman Catholic and Protestant sides) by looking at the publishers and editors of Augustine's works; by looking at the development of text and reading habits in this period; by doing some case studies on Augustine's usage and application (based on the previous realities of his publishing/editing and reading habits) in the works of Vermigli, Cranmer, & Laud; and finally by looking at the consumption of Augustine in debate, in particular he looks at how this plays out both in the Catholic center of Leuven, and the Protestant center of Leiden. It is this latter center that I want to highlight by noting a popular way in which Augustine's reception played itself out in the so called Remonstrance (Arminians), and counter-Remonstrance (Calvinists) debates about predestination, free-will and God's grace---for those unaware, this is where the whole 5 Points of Calvinism find their conceptual genesis (in the 'counter-Remonstrance' movement, given voice in the Canons of Dort).

What I am drawing our attention to, is really just an interesting instance of how a counter-Remonstrant (5 Point Calvinist in our contemporary parlance) sought to undercut the teachings of the Remonstrants (or Arminians) as a song-writer. He wrote some hymns against the 'Pelagians' (a label used often---still to this day---by Calvinists of their Arminian opponents [for those unaware, Pelagius was a 4th century monk who taught that man, by his own nature, could receive God's salvation or not; i.e. that there was no such thing as God's predestination of some to eternal life and salvation]); here are those 5 Point (to speak anachronistically) hymns---the song writer (who was eventually condemned) is Pieter Martens 'from the town of Lekkerkerk in the province of Holland' (Visser, p. 127). Here we go, the tune is set to Martin Luther's hymn on the Lord's prayer, "Vater unser im Himmelreich" (Visser, p. 127); so if you know it, sing along as you put these words to that tune ;-), here we go:

O God, who is our Father,
We thank you through Jesus Christ,
That you saved us so mercifully from Pelagius's reign,
Which has now forcefully and collectively
Emerged again....

[The holy Spirit] who causes in us a stable, unshakeable faith, so that we resist through God's great power evil Pelagius and the devil, however deceptive he may be, for God comes to the rescue of his people.

The Second song, "to the tune of the second psalm," is of a more didactic nature (Visser, p. 127):

Why are these troublemakers raging frantically
Why are the Pharisees gathering
What makes them rave so much collectively
About things of which they should surely be ashamed?
All those Pelagians are united
Against Gods [sic] word and His correct doctrine;
They attempt  hurridedly to fight these,
And all His annointed.

~Pieter Martens cited by Arnoud S. Q. Visser in, Reading Augustine in the Reformation, 127

So next time you encounter a rambunctious Arminian (and we know they usually are ;-), just plug your ears and start singing these hymnodies, at them; it is sure to repel them ;-).

Seriously, it is interesting, to see how, at a popular (and even intellectual-academic) level nothing has really changed. These hymns come directly within the immediate time frame which the most acute Protestant form of this Augustinian-Pelagian inspired debate took its shape; the time frame in the early 17th century (1618 and immediately prior). The debate, of course, is the classically breathed Arminian and Calvinist debate; a debate, as I just noted that started with Augustine and Pelagius. Then given expression within Roman Catholic circles (which Visser discusses), taken up again by Calvin V. Pighius and Georgius (as my last post was noting something of), and given (for Protestants) a final form (which continues until today for many Protestants) in this Remonstrant, counter-Remonstrant movment (of Arminians V. Calvinists).

I just thought these hymns were an interesting insight into the early popular culture of this whole debate. Things, for many, unfortunately, really haven't changed much! But you could become an Evangelical Calvinist ...

What is Federal Theology? ...

... It is something that T.F. Torrance rejected, and it is something that I have written about elsewhere, here. It is also something I often critique in various ways here (in various ways, to one degree or another). So to add to my online interactions with the venerable (for some) Federal Theology of strains of classic Calvinism; let me provide another definition by Dewey D. Wallace, Jr. from his book Shapers of English Calvinism 1660-1714. He writes of Federal Theology:

Heinrich Bullinger

[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, Zwingli'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 "a useful vehicle of the gospel message," closely related to the flowering of Calvinist piety. [Dewey D. Wallace, Jr., Shapers of English Calvinism 1660-1714: Variety, Persistence, and Transformation, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 16-7]

So more of a sketch here rather than a definition.

Myk Habets and I, as Evangelical Calvinists, affirm one covenant of grace as I have posted one of our Theses from our soon to be released book, here. In light of my belief in one covenant of grace (notice Dewey underscores Calvin's belief in 'one covenant' of grace too ;-), I obviously think expanding this covenantal framework into a so called 'bi-lateral' or 'two-winged' understanding constitutes a deleterious move; but one that is natural to how classic Calvinists conceive of their doctrine of God (e.g. 'two-wills' ... see John Piper's and Matt Chandler's rather infamous endorsement of this kind of thinking [although they are not into 'Federal Theology' proper, per se]). Without getting too deep into the weeds on this, and especially the respective doctrine of God behind Federal Theology; the biggest problem I see with this double covenant schema, propounded by Federal theology, is its placement of creation over against Creator. There is a dualist wedge placed between humanity, for example, and Creator; such that the unity of Christ's person in the incarnation becomes disjointed---I digress.

One of the bigger pastoral and soteriological problems I see with Federal Theology, and its dualistic conception of salvation; is that a bridge outside of the unitary person of Christ is needed to bridge the gap between a sinful humanity and a holy Creator. It is this bridge that then shapes how Jesus must act in his saving act (or the conditions of the Covenant of Works), and thus the person of Jesus as the God-Man is decoupled; the Man part trying to meet the conditions of uniting sinful humanity to God, thus impinging on the shape of the God part in Jesus. With the consequence being that the Divine Person, Jesus Christ becomes subservient to his creation, all in the name of bridging the gap between part of humanity (the elect) and God. Matt Frost, a Barthian-Lutheran theologian and friend, provided a critique of this kind of stuff in a recent comment that I think is apropos for my own critique; Frost writes:

[...] I find classical Calvinism lacking in its doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ because it becomes an extension of the division of God from creation, up into the godhead. If the vicarious humanity of Christ is a perpetual intercessory appeasement of the Father, we have a broken doctrine of God. There is only part of God in Christ, and part of God to be appeased by him. The vicariousness becomes Jesus doing our actions for us, and correctly, in order to please God. "Our great high priest." The whole cultic mechanism of appeasement elevated into the heavens and done for us. [see the full comment here]

Federal Theology introduces a division of God from creation, as Matt puts it, so that Jesus in seeking and saving the lost actually ends up losing his identity as the eternal Logos because he is no longer the Word over creation, but the Word subservient and under creation.

Okay, so I made it to the weeds; sorry ;-)!

Practical Takeaway

Federal Theology is a historically situated scheme of thinking, but, unfortunately, there are some today who seek to repristinate or redress this schema for contemporary Christianity (I have friends who have been taken captive, to one degree or the other). I am only left to wonder why? Why do people today seek to re-present this scheme of theology when we have moved in constructive ways (and even through constructive retrieval) into constructive Trinitarian theology. Theology that emphasizes God's unity in his diversity, and theology that emphasizes God's loving and gracious way amongst us. Why would we want to go back to a theological construct that has obvious and fundamental flaws relative to how it thinks about God, and then how God must relate to his creation? I think a lot of this simply has to do with cultural forces, and lack of exposure to sound Trinitarian theology (the kind that EC tries to imbibe); more than it does with blatant disregard for thinking according to said Trinitarian theology. Which continues to provide impetus for me to write about such things online :-). amen. 

The Westminster Confession of Faith

Here is the Westminster Confession of Faith given in comic relief:

ht: Jason Goroncy

This that historic document of the classic Reformed that continues to impose its long reach on many a Presbyterian and Christian Reformed, and many others assimilated in hybrid forms.

[click on image for larger size]

Back to the Text! Amerbach's Augustine, and the Protestant Reading-Textual Ethic

I once wrote a post entitled A Brief Introduction to Christian Humanism: As the Social Impetus for the Protestant Reformation. In that same mood, this post briefly considers the textual culture that helped foster, even more directly, a fresh reading of Augustine by Martin Luther. At the end of this post I will offer a quick reflection on the impact ad fontes or to the sources continues to have on the Protestant reading and textual ethic.

If you read that other post of mine first (the one I link to above on 'Christian Humanism') you will appreciate the climate which someone like Martin Luther found himself situated. It was an atmosphere filled with the excitement and 'modern' freedom of going beyond the received ecclesio and hermeneutical tradition; going beyond the 'authority' and 'magesterial' reading and interpretation of both the scriptures and so called 'Church Fathers', of whom Augustine was prime. Luther, amongst his other contemporaries had access to the actual Augustine because of the work of a printer named Johann Amerbach. Amberbach's edition and compilation of Augustine's writings allowed people like Luther (an Augustinian monk) a door into the world of Augustine like never before; and thus a door that would only corroborate Luther's fresh reading of the New Testament (again something given impetus for Luther because of the Humanist movement of back to the sources V. back to the Roman Catholic Church as 'the' authoritative interpreter), a corroboration that made Luther believe that Christianity, even amongst one of the most revered Church Fathers---Augustine---was much different than he had been lead to believe by his Augustinian tutors. Here is how Arnoud Visser sketches the impact that Amberbach's edition of Augustine's writings had on the one who would be the lightening rod of the soon to be Protestant Reformation:

[...] Luther's reading of Augustine, for one, was transformed after he gained access to the Amerbach edition, around 1515. In 1516, for example, while still an Augustinian Hermit and Professor of Biblical Theology on behalf of his Order, Luther wrote to his humanist friend Georg Spalatin: "I defend Augustine not because I am an Augustinian; before I began to deal with his writings, he did not mean anything to me." Luther's words flatly contradict his earlier statements, dating from 1509, made in the margins of his copy of a selection of Augustine's works. Here, Luther in fact criticized Wimpfeling's claim about Augustine's lay status, defending the claims of his Order. Clearly in this period, when he was studying theology at Erfurt, Luther still read Augustine as an Augustinian. Once he could access the entire set of the church father's collected works, however, he started to see another Augustine, namely the author of the anti-Pelagian works. [Arnoud S. Q. Visser, Reading Augustine in the Reformation: The Flexibility of Intellectual Authority in Europe, 1500-1620, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 25].

[In the quote, Wimpfeling was a scholar in the Roman Catholic Church who challenged the authority of the Church by suggesting that Augustine was not a monk, but a lay theologian who finally of course became one of the great Bishops. This did not sit well with the RCC, because it challenged a fundamental conception about one of their fundamental teachers, Augustine; thus challenging a dearly held paradigm about being a 'monk' and devotee to the Church.]

It is interesting, at least to me, to see the impact that printed texts and words can have. There is an ethic illustrated by Amberbach as the printer, and Luther as the reader; I would suggest a Protestant one. One that desires to 'go to the sources'; one that seeks to get beyond the muddle of mediation (insofar as this is possible), and subordinate all of our thinking to the 'source'. For the Protestant this ends in sola scriptura, and listening to the 'Church Father's and the ecumenical councils convened under their watchful eyes (at least this is the historical 'end' of what it meant to go back to the sources). It is going back to the sources that we can engage in semper reformanda (always reforming); subordinating our creeds and confessions to the authoritative Word in Scripture, Jesus Christ. It is this Protestant move and reading-texutal ethic which finally leads us to the logical conclusion of the 'Text'; that is, the Text points beyond itself, even, and finally finding its full orientation in God's, Word, Jesus Christ. And yet without this Protestant (Christian-Humanist) turn to the text of scripture and her progeny (the Patristics, for example); the Text (Jesus) behind the text would remain clouted in the layers of tradition and popery which would leave our lives awash in the mire of textual abuse---because the text (scripture) would be cut off from her meaningful Text (Jesus) and replaced by a vicar who really is no vicar at all!

In the end, there is a Protestant reading-text ethic; one that gives rise to a mood of 'always reforming', and thus one that has given rise to what Myk Habets and I (and our authors) are trying to do in our soon to be released book: Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church. 

Introduction to 'Affective Theology'

**Repost, I wrote this probably 5 years ago now; but I like to throw it up every now and again. I still think ‘Affective Theology’ offers some very valuable framework for thinking about the role of the love of God in theological construction. Let me know what you think.

Ron Frost's Book

Here is a brief sketch to a historical system of theology (don’t let the historical part scare you away that I was first introduced to while in seminary, under the tutelage of Dr. Ron Frost. [You can now purchase Ron's book Richard Sibbes: God's Spreading Goodness by clicking on the hyper linked title, and buying it directly from LuLu Press---this is actually Ron's PhD dissertation which he completed at King's College, London University in 1996, it was originally entitled: Richard Sibbes' Theology of Grace and the
Division of English Reformed Theology] This theology is known as Affective Theology (or even Free Grace Theology–different than the popular movement being forwarded currently by Zane Hodges). I am a proponent of this form of theological engagement (qualified at a few points, I actually like to assimilate this with “Scottish Theology”, Evangelical Calvinism), and believe that it beautifully captures the intention of scripture relative to things salvific and God’s nature. This framework was communicated in Puritan England by people such as Richard Sibbes and William Erbery amongst others. This was a movement that was responding to the stringent “precianism” of Federal Theology (Calvinism) articulated by fellows such as William Perkins and William Aames. Notice a testimonial offered by a man named Humphrey Mills, someone who new what it meant to live under the unbearable burden of the moralistic proving ground spawned by the inevitable consequence of “Perseverance of the Saints” and “Limited Atonement/Election”, here he speaks in his own words about the freedom of conscience he finally felt under the teaching/preaching of Sibbes:

I was for three years together wounded for sins, and under a sense of my corruptions, which were many; and I followed sermons, pursuing the means, and was constant in duties and doing: looking for Heaven that way. And then I was so precise for outward formalities, that I censured all to be reprobates, that wore their hair anything long, and not short above the ears; or that wore great ruffs, and gorgets, or fashions, and follies. But yet I was distracted in my mind, wounded in conscience, and wept often and bitterly, and prayed earnestly, but yet had no comfort, till I heard that sweet saint . . . Doctor Sibbs, by whose means and ministry I was brought to peace and joy in my spirit. His sweet soul-melting Gospel-sermons won my heart and refreshed me much, for by him I saw and had muchof God and was confident in Christ, and could overlook the world . . . My heart held firm and resolved and my desires all heaven-ward. (Ron Frost. Kelly Kapic and Randall Gleason, eds., “The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan Classics,” Frost is quoting from: John Rogers, Ohel or Bethshemesh, A Tabernacle for the Sun (London, n.p., 1653)

Here’s a heart freed from the constant burden of looking to self for assurance of salvation; and prompted to look up to Christ for freedom and salvation.

Richard Sibbes, 'The Heavenly Doctor'

Sibbes was one of the key-note articulates against the popery he observed with the moralistic tradition provided framework through the Calvinist doctrines. Sibbes believed, along with others, that external works should never be the basis for assurance of salvation–in fact Sibbes believed that assurance of salvation should not even be a functional premise within a soteriological construct; such as Calvinism provided. Sibbes was part of a movement known as Free-Grace, this was ” . . . the party of Puritans who opposed any idea that grace is conditioned by human cooperation.” (Frost, The Devoted Life, 81). Notice this quote offered by William Erbery, a contemporary of Sibbes, as he discusses progression of Purtian thought ending with that kind of Free-Grace preaching exemplified most clearly by Sibbes, note:

I observed four great steps of God’s glorious appearance in men’s preaching. First, how low and legal were their teachings as they learned the way of preaching from Mr. Perkins, Bolton, Byfield and Dod and Dike. . . . Next the doctrine of free grace came forth, but with less success or fruit of conversion by Doctor Preston, Sibs [Sibbes], [and] Crisp. . . . Thirdly the letter of scripture, and flesh of Christ hath been highly set up by both the famous Goodwins: . . . [Thomas] excels in spiritual discourses of Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession, yet much according to the flesh, for he meddles not with the mystery of Christ in us. . . . [The fourth step] is the knowledge of Christ in the Spirit. (Frost, The Devoted Life, quoting from: William Erbery, The Testimony of William Erbery (London: n.p. 1658)

As Erbery highlights, Sibbes’, amongst the other Free-Grace teachers, was not taken as seriously as the predominate moralistic (Calvinist) teachers, i.e. Perkins, Bolton, et al. But notice where Erbery’s quote leaves off, “the knowledge of Christ in the Spirit”, to this we now turn. This is an important point of departure for the teaching of Affective Theology, as defined by Sibbes, i.e. the immediacy of the Holy Spirit in the persons life.

While Sibbes believed works were an aspect of salvation, he did not believe that these should be a barometer for determining a person’s salvation. Furthermore he believed constant obsession with such thinking was a product of an unscriptural understanding foisted on the laity of Puritan England by the Calvinist Divines. Note Ron Frost’s assessment of Sibbes’ approach here:

While Sibbes acknowledged some biblical support in calling Christians to obedience as a duty (Erbery’s category of ‘low and legal’ preaching) Sibbes clearly understood that duty can only be sustained if it is supported by the motivation of desire. Thus Sibbes featured God’s winsome love more than his power: the Spirit accomplishes both conversion and sanctification by a single means: through the revelation of God’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.” (Ron Frost. Kellp Kapic and Randall Gleason, eds., “The Devoted Life”, 82)

Notice the relational nature of the salvific event, the Holy Spirit comes to the heart of the “elect” and showers the heart of the sinner with the beautiful person of Jesus Christ. It is as the heart of the sinner is enflamed a love by the work of the Holy Spirit that the sinner responds back in love–given the overwhelming attractiveness of the sweet Savior. Another thing of note, is that the primary instrument used for disclosing sweet Jesus to the heart of the sinner is through the Holy Scriptures. Furthermore, notice the centrality that heart, motive, and desire play in the thought of Sibbes’ as articulated by Frost. This to me is very important, because it takes seriously what God takes seriously, and alone searches, the hearts and motives of men (see Jer. 17:9 and many other passages). This is God’s concern, the motives, and desires of men and women; this is contrary to the system that emphasized external moralistic duties as the basis of determining one’s election (which by the way had horrific ramifications for Christian ethics as well)– Calvinism. Sibbes’ approach, and his affective anthropology, i.e. the defining feature of man (i.e. where values and motives take shape), was directly contrary to the Calvinist anthropology that saw the intellect and will as the defining features of man, and actually saw the “affections” as that which was the weakest part of man. In Calvinist thought it is within the will via interaction with the intellect that becomes enlivened by a “created quality” or Grace. It is through this created quality of Grace that man is able to cooperate with God and thus keep the duty driven moralistic standards consequently proving one’s election and salvation (like Humphrey Mills lived under).

Conversely, Sibbes saw grace as a relational characteristic of God imbued upon the heart of man. It is through this transformative intervention that man’s heart is changed (II Cor 3), and drawn to God. Note Frost’s description here, as he contrasts the Calvinist understanding of grace and the historic Free-Grace (Affective Theology) understanding of grace (as articulated by Sibbes):

In this framework some additional theological assumptions were revised. For instance, Sibbes understood grace to be God’s love offered immediately (rather than mediately) by the Spirit to the elect. By identifying grace primarily as a relational characteristic of God—the expression of his goodness—instead of a created quality or an empowerment of the will, Sibbes insisted that God transforms human desires by the Spirit’s immediate love and communion. Faith, for Sibbes, was not a human act-of-the-will but a response to God’s divine wooing. God’s laws, Sibbes argued, must be ’sweetened by the gospel’ and offered within a framework of ‘free grace.’ He also held a moderately developed form of affective anthropology (which is as further explained by Frost: Augustine’s affective position emerged in the Pelagian debate. Augustine held sin to be concupiscence of the heart—an enslavement to a love of self rather than God. In Augustine’s anthropology the heart is held to generate values; the mind uses the heart’s values to consider its options and to offer its best judgments; the will uses those judgments to engage in action. . . .”)Ron Frost. Kelly Kapic and Randall Gleason, eds., “The Devoted Life”, 82)

This represents the touchstone, and most basic understanding of historic Free-Grace theology, or Affective Theology. Some highlights to take away: Affective Theology (AT) believes man heart is in total bondage to self-love; AT believes that man cannot cooperate whatsoever with God in salvation; AT believes that until the heart is transformed by God’s love through the Holy Spirit’s enflaming work, man will never find rest or salvation; AT believes contra historic Calvinist teaching that the emphasis of salvation is relationally based given the identification of God’s gift of grace with the work and person of the Holy Spirit; AT believes, given the relational basis, is not obsessed with proving one’s election since works are not the foundational component of AT’s framework of salvation.

I’ll leave it here for now, there is much more to be said about this perspective . . . especially about the framework that served as the touchstone for Affective Theology. That touchstone is found in Ephesians 5, and the Pauline marriage discussion. The marital framework provided in this beautiful epistle is picked up by AT and pressed into as the picture, but more than a picture (actually an ontological reality), of what union, and thus communion with Christ, is all about. I.e. this is contrary to the covenental framework provided by Calvinism, and the “contractual” implications provided by such a system (e.g. you keep your end of the contract, and God will keep His—). The marital framework, rooted in the New Covenant, is no longer obsessed with personal performance–but instead is overwhelmed with the beauty of her bride-groom [Jesus]–marriage presupposes relationship, i.e. nothing to prove, just something to grow in–ultimately finding consummation in glorification and celebrated at the marriage supper feast of the Lamb.

Knowledge of God From John Knox through Thomas Torrance

I am on a bit of a posting blitz, but here is a post I wrote quite some time ago that I really like; enjoy:

In commenting on Evangelical Calvinist, John Knox’s understanding of God; Thomas Torrance offers a profound statement of what all of this entails:

Young, Thomas Torrance

[K]nowledge of the one and only God, as far as it is true knowledge, enshrines the mystery of God, and so is confessed and acknowledged as God eternal, infinite, immeasurable, incomprehensible, omniscient, invisible. This God whom we know cannot be fitted into our knowledge. God cannot be commanded by our reasons — cannot be comprehended by our minds. It is certainly to our minds that God reveals himself but only in such a way that he remains eternal, infinite, incomprehensible, etc. Knowledge of God cannot be put into precise words. God’s majesty defies definition or description — all theological language is apocalyptic in so far as it is genuine. That is true above all of the Trinity — knowledge of this God is infinitely open. Thus in faith the human reason is opened wide to the infinite and incomprehensible being and majesty of God as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. [Thomas F. Torrance, Scottish Theology: From John Knox to John McLeod Campbell, (T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 1996), 6 -- A review copy provided graciously by T&T Clark]

You will quickly notice which direction Torrance believes knowledge of God comes from; not from our epistemological schemas, but from God to us through Christ and into the Triune life of God himself. This approach to knowing God runs against the construing God from thinking of him through his works in creation or something. Or trying to find analogies in creation, or in humanity that in latent ways allow us to think and speak about God. No! Knowledge of God for Torrance, and as he would contend, John Knox, is a gift from God in Christ for us through the Spirit. There is never one-to-one correspondence between our theological language and God’s being. Instead, theological language is something that is constantly given to us anew as God continues to break in on our world, on our conceptions; and re-orders and re-orientates our grammar in a way that puts to death anything we had conceived of prior to this encounter in Christ. He provides a ground for knowing him that is completely out of this world (but decidedly and concretely in this world); the God-Man. He presents us with concepts that breaks up and re-orders our imaginations in ways that place us upon the precipice of heaven’s throne; Ezekiel knows what I’m talking about.
Just a little reflection . . .

Evangelical Calvinism is much better situated to be 'Incarnational-Missional' than is classic Calvinism

Being an 'incarnational-missional' or Evangelistically oriented Christian fits much better with Evangelical Calvinism than it does with classical Calvinism. [Todd Billings in is book Union With Christ provides a great critique of the usual usage of the language 'incarnational-missional', I am using this terminology with that critique in mind, and thus more in a denotative way---I think, later today, I will quote Billings and get further into what it means to actually live incarnational-missional over at my other blog 'Blogic Of Grace' (I already have a post up over there on this)]. Here is what I mean about 'Evangelical Calvinism' being better equipped to be 'Evangelistic' than its cousin 'classic Calvinism' is.

Evangelical Calvinists start with God as Self-revealed in Jesus Christ, and thus we have an orientation that grounds itself in Christ as the Son of the Father with the Holy Spirit as Triune; and thus our understanding of God is personalist and relational (other-centered from within the orbit of God's life as other centered or as 'subject-in-being' through mutual indwellment one in the other). Classical Calvinists start with a philosophical conception of God that appeals to Aristotle's notion of an unmoved mover, actual infinite, monad, or substance; once this conception of godness has been developed (apart from the Self-revelation in Jesus Christ), the classic Calvinist then applies this to the God of the Bible revealed in Jesus Christ. This initial and methodological move, relative to the disparate doctrines of God; leads Evangelical Calvinists and classic Calvinists to different paths in regards to their orthopraxis (or what each would consider right practice in the Christian life).

For the Evangelical Calvinist, she believes that God came down, immediately and personally, to humanity because of who he is in himself (antecedently); that is, that God is love (I Jn. 4:8 etc.). The Evangelical Calvinist thinks (at least this one does) that this 'coming down' means that Jesus truly became a human, entered into humanities' sinful state, and began redeeming us (from the inside out) from Christmas time, through his Baptism, into 'Good Friday', climaxing at Easter and Ascension, leading into Pentecost, and finally consummating and being fully realized at his second Advent. This all presupposes that all of sinful humanity was taken care of through the mediatorial and priestly work of Jesus Christ; emphasis is on ALL! In contrast, the classical Calvinist believes that God relates to humanity through abstract, deterministic, impersonal, philosophical decrees. Within the Covenantal/Federal system of Calvinism, this kind of Calvinist believes that God originally related to Adam and Eve through a situation of 'Law-keeping' (Covenant of Works); once Adam and Eve broke God's Law, then the Son and the Father agreed on a contract ('Pactum Salutis' or Covenant of Redemption), which resulted in the Covenant of Grace. This involved the Son coming, meeting the conditions of the Law (that Adam and Eve failed at), paying the legal penalty of death that accrued from original Law Breaking; and in so doing, literally purchasing an elect parcel of humanity for whom the Father and Son had already bartered over in the past (e.g. Unconditional Election). Once Christ fulfills and meets the conditions of the Law (forensically construed), and he purchases this elect group of humanity; then God is able to love this set of humanity.

It should be clear, at this point, why Evangelical Calvinists have a capacity to be incarnational-missional; wherein, the classical Calvinist does not. Since Evangelical Calvinists believe that God 'is' love; then this is what motivates his creating, incarnating, redeeming, and coming for all of humanity. Since classic Calvinists believe that God's primary mode of relation 'is' law; then this results in a theology and practice that sees God only being able to meet the needs of a few elect folk, and not deal with all of humanities' sin problem. Given this scenario, between these two disparate approaches; it should be obvious, by now, that the Evangelical Calvinist can genuinely preach salvation to ALL of creation (Romans 8), instead of just part of it. Myk Habets turned me onto this quote from TF Torrance, years ago now; this quote captures exactly what I have been getting at, in regard to the capacity for the Evangelical Calvinist to be incarnational-missional and evangelistic in a way that is motivated by love for all:

"God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very being as God for your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualised his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself. Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him. He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour." ~T. F. Torrance, "The Mediation of Christ", 94.

PS. Truth be told, I've never liked the language of 'incarnational-missional', because I've always understood the formation and impetus to this kind of language to flow from a theologically Pelagian perspective wherein the emphasis is upon what "I" can perform or do for Christ by way of mimicking my perception of the incarnation. This rubs against a truly Christ-conditioned understanding of Christian practice wherein we live lives that participate in Christ's life for us and others. So just understand that I am not endorsing the usual mode of what it means to be 'incarnational-missional'; which is why I opened up with that word about Billings critique of this movement.

The 'Way' I Critique classic Calvinism ... So, you don't like it, why not?

Maybe you are like, Gojira, he is a guy I came across years ago as I started blogging, and he just shown up again ;-) in the comment meta of my last post---the following post represents my response to him, and his concern that he doesn't like the way that I usually frame my critiques of classic Calvinism; maybe you don't either, and so I give this response to you as well ...

Thomas Aquinas at Jesus' Feet

I think there are many heirs and expressions of the metaphysics that shape all Calvinisms (except for Evangelical Calvinism); and this is the "frame" that I always use when "critiquing" any kind of 'classic Calvinism'. I use "classic" intentionally, when I lump all these various modes of Calvinism together, sometimes; I use 'classic' because they all flow from the same substance metaphysical conception. So what is it about my "framing" in this regard that you don't like? Are you a fan of substance metaphysics? Many, many are. But I don't see how one can argue that this metaphysical construal, in its classic form, serves the grammar of the Gospel in a fiduciary way---relative to the revealed categories of the Gospel, which are revealed, of course, in God's Word, Jesus Christ. Substance metaphysics starts with a single composite substance (which is unitary, and impersonal by definition). Yet our God, revealed in Jesus Christ, the Son, is Triune, dynamic, and personal. So what is it about the way that I "frame" my critiques that you don't like? Do you support  the usage of a metaphysical framework that morphs God into an impersonal Lawgiver instead of a personal Lover (in the Triune sense)? Many, many do support this metaphysic; why do you, if you do? Many also assert that there is a different piety associated with Reformed classic Calvinism that belies the metaphysic behind it. In other words, many classic Calvinists assert that there is a disjunction between the God who is in se (ontologically), in himself in eternity (de potentia absoluta); and the God who is revealed in historic-time ad extra (epistemologically), in the economy (de potentia ordinata). But this nominalist, split, combined with its classical theistic metaphysic places a rift, a wedge, between who God is in eternity and who God is in historic time; thus causing a rupture between the Father and the Son, and destroying the unity of the Divine Monarchia, and thus destroying the Christian concept of God ... placing, as Barth and Torrance both were fond of saying, a 'God behind the back of Jesus'. So you support the classical theistic, classic Calvinist framework? I am presupposing that you do, since you don't like the 'way' I "frame" my critiques; since the way I "frame" my critiques of any kind of classic Calvinism, is always through this framework---that is, through the framework that is critiquing the substance metaphysics that stands behind and under any form of classic Calvinism. That's fine if you do support this, many, many do; but then I am still left to wonder, why?!

That was my response to, Gojira, and you, if you don't like my usual critiques of classic Calvinism. I know that many say we have moved beyond the regular substance metaphysics that underpin classic Calvinism, but in what way? Have we moved onto Barth's 'acutalistic' post-metaphysic (much much better!)? Or maybe TF Torrance's reification of substance metaphysics through what he has called the 'onto-relations' of God's life (wherein the Triune life is given its 'being' as a Subject-in-Being so mutual-indwellment of the other and perichoresis are given pride of place in this construal, which is probably more in the category of ontology V. metaphysics, simpliciter). I don't think classic Calvinistic theology has moved, or has even tried to move beyond the substance metaphysics that supports their theological grammar (just see someone like Richard Muller); in fact, by and large, much of the American Reformed movement (if not its entire Western instantiation) lives in a constant mode of  repristination, attempting to revivify the categories of their past into the present. So I don't think my critiques, "framed" as they are, are over-reaching (in general). If this is the mode that classic Calvinism is most often shaped by, then it seems correct to attempt critiques that look at what has served as the framework for Calvinism's development in its history.  

The Vicarious Humanity of Christ for us in the Theology of John Calvin

John Calvin

I just finished reading a really provocative and intriguing essay by Ho-Jin Ahn in the Scottish Journal of Theology. In it he takes Oliver Crisp to task (at least at the ground clearing level) on Crisp's argument that Christ could not have assumed a fallen sinful humanity in the incarnation; since according to Crisp (and the scholastic [speculative] tradition from which he argues), if Christ truly took on a depraved humanity, then he would have needed a Savior himself. Ahn helpfully relocates Crisp's placement of this discussion from the Augustinian "original sin," and moves it into the realm of christology (which is where this dialogue ought to take place!). Ahn, in the process of relocating this discussion, develops John Calvin's understanding on this issue; Ahn looks, in a dialectical way, at Calvin's commentaries and his Institute. In a nutshell, what Ahn concludes is that Calvin might 'appear' to hold to something like Crisp (that Christ assumed an unfallen human nature), but in the final analysis, and at an interpretive/functional level, Calvin thinks from a view that sees Christ entering into the depths of our fallen humanity and redeeming us from the inside out through his vicarious humanity for us. Here is Ahn's conclusion:

[I]t is unreasonable for some theologians to argue for Christ’s unfallen humanity in the context of the doctrine of original sin because Christ himself overcame the power of sin and death in his fallen humanity. In the case of Calvin’s understanding of Christ’s humanity, we see that there is a tension between the nature and the state of Christ’s person. Calvin believes that Christ assumed our true humanity, lived a perfect life, and was sinless according to the Chalcedonian Definition. Thus, Calvin denies the fallenness of Christ’s humanity in order to preserve the doctrine of Christ’s perfect innocence. However, unlike others who are in favour of Christ’s unfallen humanity, Calvin forcefully affirms the vicarious humanity of Christ in our corrupted state. Calvin affirms that Christ had to suffer from our existential problems according to the narratives of the Gospels. Moreover, the mortal human nature which Christ assumed shows solidarity with sinners and the vicarious humanity of Christ pro nobis. If Calvin were to accept the idea of the fallen nature of Christ, his thoughts on Christ’s humanity for us would be more persuasive. Yet it is noted that Calvin’s theological logic is ‘anti-speculative’ in that he focuses on what Christ has done for us in his true humanity.

Nevertheless, Calvin argues that the body of Christ himself is the temple of God through which we can come to the throne of God’s grace. Although Christ assumed our mortal body controlled by the power of sin and death after the Fall, Christ sanctified the body in his own person as the Mediator between God and all the fallen humanity and decaying creation. Furthermore, the reconciliation with God is not just attributed to the crucifixion of Christ in an external and forensic way but to the perfectly holy life of Christ who assumed our mortal body as a saviour in an internal and ontological perspective. Calvin’ s biblical views on the mortal body and its sanctification through the whole life fully describes the paradoxical character of Christ’s mystical incarnation in which Christ became a true human being like one of us without becoming a fallen sinner. I conclude that, according to Calvin, the vicarious humanity of Christ means that for the sake of our salvation Christ assumed a mortal body like ours and lived a perfect life in our miserable state. Therefore, Christ’s fallen humanity for us is the guarantee of reconciliation. [Ho-Jin AhnSJT 65(2): 145–158 (2012) C Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2012 doi:10.1017/S0036930612000026, Ahn's bio/contact: Korean Central Presbyterian Church of Queens, Bayside, NY 11364, USA ho-jin.ahn@alum.ptsem.edu]

I concur with Ahn, and appreciate his insightful analysis on Calvin's view of the vicarious humanity of Christ. Ahn would make a great Evangelical Calvinist; since the vicarious humanity of Christ is one of the touchstones of what it means to work within the mood of Evangelical Calvinism. It is this kind of Christ conditioned view of salvation that gets us into the trinitarian depth dimension of salvation that the classic forensic-juridical view of salvation simply cannot provide. Calvin is front and center for us, and shines brightest right here; that is when he emphasises the center of salvation in Christ.

The reality is, as Ahn develops in his essay, as Gregory of Nazianzus is oft quoted 'the unredeemed is the unhealed'; and if Christ did not vicariously (participatorily-representatively) enter our fallen human state, then we are of all men most to be pitied. Alas, we remain in our sins, and we have no real hope or answer to our sin problem; which is a depraved heart toward God (who is salvation in his very life!). If Christ does not participate with us (fully), then we cannot participate with him fully in the divine plenitude of his shared life with the Father and Holy Spirit; in other words, we are not saved. This is why understanding and meditating on the vicarious humanity of Christ is so fundamental to the Christian's life and spirituality; because it represents the very heart and deep caverns of the Gospel itself.

PS. This is the doctrine, The Vicarious Humanity of Christ, I am slowly researching towards my PhD. If you would like to help provide funding for me towards the PhD, please contact me via email (growba@gmail.com). Blessings.

The Great Hijacking: Christ the Abstraction and Not The Center

The Westminster Confession of Faith in its first article (chapter II) on a doctrine of God starts with God, simpliciter. There is a long history of this method for thinking of God in the Christian Tradition. Peter Lombard in his Sentences employed this methodology for ordering his thinking about God; indeed, John Calvin himself---in his late Medieval situation---orders his Institute in similar fashion. I have heard it argued from folk who follow this classic methodology that this really isn't a stretch at all; in fact, this (they argue) is the order that God himself has provided in his own disclosure in Scripture (starting in Genesis through Revelation). Here is the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF):

I. There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. (see full citation, here)

It is not until article III of this same chapter that the WCF speaks of God as triune. And this is my short critique of this methodology; even if it had started with God as triune---which would have been laudable---where a doctrine of God ought to start---for the Christian---is with Christ. This is not to go outside of Scripture's order, but to follow it in the way that it re-interprets everything through its fulfillment in Christ. John 1:1 is a primary example of this kind of re-interpretation (or as one of my favorites, Irenaeus of Lyons, has named it, recapitulation); the theologian, The Apostle John Writes:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1

This, as many commentators have noted throughout the history of biblical interpretation, is a Christian re-reading and direct allusion to Genesis 1:1 ('In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'). And this helps illustrate what I am after relative to articulating a proper order to constructing a genuinely Christian theology. The WCF does not start with Christ. Indeed, it doesn't even start with God as Trinity; instead it appeals to classic Greek philosophical categories for its understanding of what God must be like. But this is not Christian; it does not honor the New Testament's mode of reinterpreting the Old Testament promises in light of their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. No, the WCF, and the whole classical theistic tradition (of which it is a part) can only, logically, think of Christ as an abstraction; as an addition to its concept of Godness; only to be spoken of later, like a dangling participle. So we end up, if we follow the WCF (and classical Christianity), with, at best, a theocentric ('god-centred') religion; but not a christocentric ('Christ-centred') belief structure, that is genuinely Christian. Donald Bloesch emphasizes the importance of following a Christ-centred methodology as the starting point for beginning our theological studies (even our Theology Proper/Doctrine of God):

[C]hristology constitutes the heart of theology, since it focuses on God's work of salvation in the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth and the bearing that this has on the history of humankind. To know the nature of God we must see his face in Jesus Christ. To know the plan of God for the world we must see this plan realized in the cross of Christ and fulfilled in his resurrection and second advent. Whereas philosophy ponders the nature of God in the abstract, theology reflects on the divine-human encounter in history as we find this in Jesus Christ. The way to knowledge of God is through knowledge of Christ, and the way to knowledge of Christ is by faith in his promises as revealed in the Bible. Donald G. Bloesch, "Jesus Christ: Lord & Savior," 16-7. 

This is quite radical! Being a Christian ought to be radical. So you have a choice; are you going to be a classical or radical Christian? The former means you will be entrenched in philosophical abstraction seeking a way to integrate Christianity into that mould; the latter means that you will start with Jesus Christ as God's Self-revelation, and it will be here that knowledge of God as triune will become the touchstone upon which a Christian theology can genuinely move forward as, Christian. 

I grow weary of the great hijacking of the Christian faith, and the implications this has for regular Christian folk who sit in the pew. To be sure, most Evangelicals in America aren't even getting theology or doctrine anymore; if they are though, it is steeped in the heritage that something like the WCF hath bequeathed upon us---viz. the god of the philosophers, not the God known to us in and through, Jesus Christ! What a tragedy  . . . 

Background to the 'Reformed' Tradition

For many, especially within the ‘Reformed faith’, there is a genuine failure to recognize that what they believe to be pure Gospel, from ‘scripture alone’, is actually informed, potentially, anyway, from an intellectual context that might not be ‘pure Gospel’. I would claim to be a ‘Reformed Christian’ (even an ‘Evangelical Calvinist’), so I’m not knocking the Reformed tradition; rather I want to alert us to the fact that some catechisms, some Confessions might not be as ‘pure’ bible as many folks think they are. In other words, there is a conceptual background to these respective confessions that might serve the Gospel; but sometimes (and esp. within one dominant development in the ‘Reformed tradition’) some of the conceptual background might ‘dis-serve’ the Gospel. Denis Janz makes this point about the development of Reformed theology:

If there is one thing that can be called a genuine breakthrough in the last half-century of Reformation studies, it would be the ‘discovery’ that the Reformation had a background. The reformers, all of whom were theologians, and a good number of whom had formal academic training in the discipline, emerged out of a theological landscape that profoundly shaped their horizons. Some elements from this late medieval theological bequest they rejected; some they appropriated; and still others they sublated by taking something old and fashioning from it something new. In other words, their ideas did not spring to life ex nihilo, or descend from above, or emerge full-blown from an ‘objective’ study of the Bible alone. They worked in the intellectual context of late medieval theology, and consequently, without some grasp of this context , there can be no adequate understanding of their theology. By today, this realization has had an impact on every area of Reformation studies. (Denis J. Janz, David Bagchi and David Steinmetz, eds., “The Cambridge Companion To Reformation Theology,” 5)

The problem is, especially amongst the popular level, this “breakthrough” that Janz speaks to is unrealized. When folks conceive of God in terms of decrees, for example, they assume that this comes straight off the pages of scripture. There is little, or no recognition that in fact Reformed theology has an intellectual history (see Stephen Strehle’s: The Catholic Roots of the Protestant Gospel); and that that history is not necessarily self-same with scripture (i.e. there are competing intellectual histories).

Until this general thesis is acknowledged, what we are calling Evangelical Calvinism will never get a fair hearing. Why? Because Federal Calvinism (Classic) will continue to assume that their reading of scripture is scripture; without any critical recourse to the fact that maybe their perspective actually has background.

This is one of the burdens of this blog; to inform folks of the “background” within the “Reformed tradition.”

Evangelical Calvinism: T.F. Torrance and Union with Christ in Scottish Theology

The following is a guest post I originally posted at another instantiation of The Evangelical Calvinist back on August 24, 2009, here.
 

T.F. Torrance and Union with Christ in Scottish Theology

 Myk Habets

Without exploring the entire history of Scottish theology as read through the eyes of Torrance, we may note a few key influences on his thinking about union with Christ from this context. Torrance believes that ‘Union with Christ probably had a more important place in [Robert] Leighton’s theology than that given to it in the thought of any other Scottish theologian.’ Torrance gives Leighton (1611-1684) praise for not considering union with Christ simply as a ‘judicial union’ but as a ‘real union’ which occupies the centre of the whole redemptive activity mediated through Christ as saving grace. Utilised in this way union with Christ is fundamentally related to both election in Christ and the concept of saving exchange whereby Christ gives to humanity what is his – his righteousness and filial status – and takes to himself what is not his own – our sin and alienation. In James Fraser of Brea (1639-1698) Torrance identifies the same emphasis placed upon union with Christ, ‘It is through union and communion with [Christ], grounded in the “personal union” of his divine and human natures, that we come out of ourselves and partake of his fullness; we approach him empty to find all our salvation in the all-sufficient Lord Jesus.’ Thomas Boston (1676-1732) viewed union with Christ not merely as a legal union but a ‘real and proper union with ‘the whole Christ’ transformed through his death and resurrection, that is, a union of an ontological kind.’ Boston often spoke of this as a ‘mystical union’ in which all the benefits of the covenant of grace are given to the elect. Torrance traces these ideas back directly through Robert Bruce (c1554-1631), John Knox (1505-1572), John Calvin, and many others.

Of special interest to Torrance is H.R. Mackintosh (1870-1936). Torrance shows how Mackintosh in continuity with Calvin and the Scottish Reformed tradition, also made the concept of the unio mystica central to his soteriology. For Mackintosh, the concept of the unio mystica was merely a dogmatic restatement of the biblically rich material on the believer’s participatio Christi found throughout the New Testament, particularly in the ‘in/with Christ’ language of Paul and in the organic relationship between Christ and believers depicted in Johannine theology.

According to Mackintosh, mystical union effects a change in the believer’s identity. Through participating in Christ there is an ‘importation of another’s personality into him; the life, the will of Christ has taken over what once was in sheer antagonism to it, and replaced the power of sin by the forces of a divine life.’ There is a twofold objectivity about union with Christ: on the one hand, there is a ‘Christ-in-you’ relationship, and on the other there is a ‘you-in-Christ’ aspect. The former has to do with Christ being present within the believer as the source of new life, while the latter points to the foundation of this new life as lying outside of the believer in Christ. The union is mediated by the Holy Spirit. Torrance adopts these two aspects of participation in Christ into his own theology.

Mackintosh was attempting to postulate a union with Christ Jesus that went beyond the merely moral or ethical. Like Torrance, Mackintosh had reservations over using the term ‘mystical union’ (despite teaching its substance), but chose to define what he meant by unio mystica more willingly than discard the term altogether. By ‘mystical’ Mackintosh means, according to Redman, ‘that the believer’s relationship to Christ transcends human relationships and human experiences of solidarity and union.’ In place of a mere moral union Mackintosh presents a spiritual union that, while rational, is beyond human comprehension. By ‘union’ Mackintosh does not mean a complete identification in which Christ and the believer become indistinguishable; this would be an essential union, something found in the writings of some of the medieval mystics. Mackintosh was aware of the risk of pantheism and avoided this in his christology. Through participatio Christi, Mackintosh argues, one has communion with God as a human being because it is through union with the incarnate Christ that we come to commune with God. By defining union with Christ in such a way Mackintosh is in basic agreement with Calvin’s three senses of the term – incarnational, mystical, and spiritual. One can clearly see why Torrance is so attracted to Mackintosh’s theology.

In his critique of Mackintosh’s doctrine of the unio mystica Redman comments on his use of language. He argues that Mackintosh should have ceased using the language of mystical union and instead used concepts more akin to the essential logic of his theology, such as spiritual communion. Torrance perhaps agrees with Redman’s critique for he does not use the term ‘mystical union’ either, but retains the basic three-fold sense of union with Christ. Despite differences of terminology, Torrance considers his use of theōsis, both in terminology and in substance, conforms to a consistent theme of Reformed theology going back to Calvin and found particularly within the Scottish tradition.

Within this very specific trajectory of Reformed theology Torrance posits his own soteriology. Torrance articulates the dimensions of union with Christ in various ways but consistently he sees three realities involved. Firstly, there is union with Christ made possible objectively through the homoousion of the incarnate Son (Calvin’s ‘incarnational union’ ). Secondly, there is the hypostatic union, and its significance for the reconciling exchange wrought by Christ in his life, death, and resurrection (Calvin’s unio mystica). Finally, these two aspects of union with Christ are fulfilled or brought to completion in the communion that exists between believers and the triune God (broadly corresponding to Calvin’s ‘spiritual union’).
In a paraphrase of Torrance’s theology, Hunsinger presents three aspects which correlate approximately to our outline. Firstly, reception, a past event which involves what Christ has done for us. This is received by grace through faith alone. Secondly, participation, a present event, in which believers are clothed with Christ’s righteousness through partaking of Christ by virtue of his vicarious humanity. Thirdly, communion, the future or eschatological aspect which equates to eternal life itself in which believers enjoy communion in reciprocal love and knowledge of the triune God.

According to Torrance, union with Christ is not a ‘judicial union’ but a ‘real union’ which lies at the heart of the whole redemptive activity mediated through Christ as an act of saving grace. Torrance uses three words to elaborate what union with Christ means in his essay ‘The Mystery of the Kingdom’: divine purpose (prothesis), mystery (mystērion), and fellowship/communion (koinōnia). This triadic structure reflects the trinitarian action of the triune God: prothesis – the Father, mystērion – the Son, and koinōnia – the Holy Spirit. Prothesis refers to divine election whereby the Father purposed or ‘set forth’ the union of God and humanity in Jesus Christ. Divine election is a free, sovereign decision, a contingent act of God’s love; as such it is neither arbitrary nor necessary. Torrance thus holds to the Reformed doctrine of unconditional election, one which represents a strictly theonomous way of thinking, from a centre in God and not in ourselves. Torrance draws on certain aspects of Barth’s doctrine of election for he equates the incarnation as the counterpart to the doctrine of election so that ‘the incarnation, therefore, may be regarded as the eternal decision or election of God in his Love…’ Calling upon Calvin’s analogy, Torrance insists that ‘Christ himself is the ‘mirror of election,’ for it takes place in him in such a way that he is the Origin and the End, the Agent and the Substance of election…’

The second key expression Torrance uses is mystērion; the term is applied to Christ, and specifically to the mystery of his hypostatic union. In relation to God this means that the consubstantial union of the Trinity upholds the hypostatic union so that God does not merely come in man but as man. In this union of God and man a complete henosis between the two is effected, and they are ‘perfectly at one’.

He had come, Son of God incarnate as son of man, in order to get to grips with the powers of darkness and defeat them, but he had been sent to do that not through the manipulation of social, political or economic power-structures, but by striking beneath them all into the ontological depths of Israel’s existence where man, and Israel representing all mankind, had become estranged from God, and there within those ontological depths of human being to forge a bond of union and communion between man and God in himself which can never be undone.

Hence the hypostatic union is also a ‘reconciling union’ in which estrangement between God and humanity is bridged, conflict is eradicated, and human nature is ‘brought into perfect sanctifying union with divine nature in Jesus Christ.’

This atoning union is not merely external or juridical but actual, and points to the higher reality of communion. Hence Torrance can assert that:

it is not atonement that constitutes the goal and end of that integrated movement of reconciliation but union with God in and through Jesus Christ in whom our human nature is not only saved, healed and renewed but lifted up to participate in the very light, life and love of the Holy Trinity.

Union with Christ must be understood within Torrance’s doctrine of reconciliation to refer to the real participation of believers in the divine nature made possible by the dynamic atoning union of Christ. Torrance contends this is atonement in effect. As a result of the incarnation, humanity is united to divinity in the hypostatic union so that:

In the Church of Christ all who are redeemed through the atoning union embodied in him are made to share in his resurrection and are incorporated into Christ by the power of his Holy Spirit as living members of his Body…Thus it may be said that the ‘objective’ union which we have with Christ through his incarnational assumption of our humanity into himself is ‘subjectively’ actualised in us through his indwelling Spirit, ‘we in Christ’ and ‘Christ in us’ thus complementing and interpenetrating each other.

In addition to the hypostatic union Torrance applies the concept of mystērion to the mystery of the one-and-the-many, or Christ and his body the church. Torrance thus understands union with Christ to be largely corporate in nature but applicable to each individual member of his body who is ingrafted into Christ by Baptism and continue to live in union with him as they feed upon his body and blood in Holy Communion. Understanding the church as the body of Christ is thus another way of asserting an ontological union between the community of believers and Christ the Head.

The third term Torrance uses is koinōnia, and it too has a double reference. First, vertically, it represents our participation through the Spirit in the mystery of Christ’s union with us. Second, horizontally, it is applied to our fellowship or communion with one another in the body of Christ. At the intersection of the vertical and horizontal dimensions of koinōnia is the church, the community of believers united to Christ, who is himself united to humanity through the incarnation. Torrance asserts that ‘in and through koinonia the divine prothesis enshrining the eternal mysterion embodies itself horizontally in a community of those who are one with God through the reconciliation of Christ.’ It is this theology of union with Christ by means of fellowship or participation in God which links Torrance’s doctrines of soteriology and ecclesiology; both are aspects of his christology, as we shall see in more detail in the next chapter.

In summarising Torrance’s use of these three concepts Lee’s study helpfully concludes that ‘the cause (causa) of ‘union with Christ’ is prothesis, the election of God. Its substance (materia) is mysterion, the hypostatic union in Jesus Christ, and its fulfilment (effectus) is koinonia, the communion of the Holy Spirit.’ This outline focuses on the trinitarian foundation inherent throughout Torrance’s work which reminds readers not to see the work of reconciliation as exclusively that of the Son, or the Son and the Spirit, but as the work of the triune God.

§3. Matt Chandler’s and John Piper’s ‘two-willed god’: There is a history!

*To catch up read my first and second installments, 1) here and 2) here.
 

II

This is my second installment (well third really) on Matt Chandler’s and John Piper’s ‘two-wills in God theology’. My last post on this sought to introduce us to the way that John Piper, in particular, and Chandler otherwise, understand a concept that they both articulate as ‘The TwoWills of God’. I registered my concern in that last post about where this approach leads, because of where it comes from; and because of what it implies about God’s nature, and how he relates to his creation (us) in what has been called salvation history. This post will briefly sketch the aspect of where two wills in God theology came from; my next and last post in this mini-series will detail what the implications are of this approach (for Christology, soteriology [study of salvation], etc.), and in this detailing I will offer what I think is a corrective---which of course is what we advocate for as Evangelical Calvinists. The history of two-wills in God theology can be seen given definition through the thought processes of a medieval theologian named William of Ockham. He believed, in a nutshell, that God was one way in eternity (God’s so called ‘absolute will’), and another way in time-space salvation history (God’s so called ‘ordained will’). What this does is introduce a wedge between the God of eternity and the God of spacio-temporal time; meaning that the God we see revealed in Jesus Christ could potentially be different than the God behind Jesus back up in eternity (understand that I am speaking in oversimplified ways and rather crudely)---or, there is no necessary link between how God acts in eternity, and how God acts in time. The result of this is to place a rupture into the very being of God. Here is how Steven Ozment summarizes Ockham’s view (and he also quotes a bit of Ockham for us); we will quote this at some length:
 

Ockham’s reputation as a revolutionary theological thinker has resulted from the extremes to which he went to establish the contingent character of churches, priests, sacraments, and habits of grace. He drew on two traditional sources. The first was Augustine’s teaching that the church on earth was permixta, that is, that some who appear to be saints may not be, and some who appear not to be saints may in fact be so, for what is primary and crucial in salvation is never present grace and righteousness, but the gift of perseverance, which God gives only the elect known to him. Ockham’s second source was the distinction between the absolute and ordained powers of God, the most basic of Ockham’s theological tools. Ockham understood this critical distinction as follows:

Sometimes we mean by God’s power those things which he does according to laws he himself has ordained and instituted. These things he is said to do by ordained power [de potential ordinata]. But sometimes God’s power is taken to mean his ability to do anything that does not involve a contradiction, regardless of whether or not he has ordained that he would do it. For God can do many things that he does not choose to do. . . . The things he is said to be able to do by his absolute power [de potential absoluta]. [Quodlibeta VI, q. 1, cited by Dettloff, Die Entwicklung der Akzeptations- unde Verdienstlehre, p. 282, and Courtenay, “Nominalism and Late Medieval Religion,” p. 40.]

Ockham seemed to delight in demonstrating the contingency of God’s ordained power—what God had actually chosen to do in time—by contrasting it with his absolute power, the infinite possibilities open to him in eternity. According to his absolute power, God could have chosen to save people in ways that seem absurd and even blasphemous. For example, he could have incarnated himself in a stone or an ass rather than in a man, or could have required that he be hated rather than loved as the condition of salvation. . . .[1]

In order to keep this brief enough I will not elaborate too much, but let me give some reasons why I think this is important to know; and also for whom I am presenting this in the main:
 

1) I am introducing this for folks who have never had a Reformation Theology class in seminary, for example. So this is intended to provide exposure for all of those who have been unexposed heretofore.

2) My hope is that because of said exposure, the reader will understand that there is something more going on when they hear Piper and Chandler articulate two wills in God theology. In other words, the way that both Piper and Chandler present this, to the uninformed; the parishioner will walk away thinking that what Chandler just said about two wills in God is simply Gospel biblical truth without reservation or anyway to critically consider this. So my goal is rather minimal by reproducing Ozment’s thought for you; my goal is simply to alert the attentive reader and thinker that there is something more than ‘biblical truth’ going on in the in-formation of Piper’s and Chandler’s view on this particular topic.

3) I want the read to understand that there is a particular problem associated with thinking in these kind of Nominalist ways (which is what the philosophy is called that Ockham articulates) about the nature of God. As I noted earlier, it creates a potential schism (indeed necessary) between the God of eternity and the God of time revealed in Jesus Christ; so as my favorite theologian says (along with Barth before him), we end up ‘with a god behind the back of Jesus’ who is not necessarily the same God we see revealed in Jesus (so when Jesus says in John 14 that ‘when you see me you see the Father’, that may or may not be true according to the implications and logic associated with a two-wills in God theology).

Conclusion My next and final post in this series will expand on the problems associated with this approach; elaborating upon my parenthetical point in point three in the aforementioned. I will notice how this approach, which is purported by both Piper and Chandler to resolve some apparent tensions in scripture; instead exacerbate things in scripture by undercutting the most important point and touchstone we work from as Christians---that is what has been called a Theology Proper or Doctrine of God. If we get this point wrong---e.g. who God is---then the rest of our theological thinking and biblical interpreting will be found to be built on sandy beaches and not the rocky jetty that will stand under the most tumultuous theological storm waves one could fathom.

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[1] Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform 1250-1550: An Intellectual And Religious History Of Late Medieval And Reformation Europe, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980), 18.