The paleo/neo distinction for Reformed Protestants is not only useful for discerning different attitudes toward evangelicalism, but even for figuring out distinct understandings of Calvinism itself. After all, the Kuyperian or world-and-life-view form of Calvinism has always been known as neo-Calvinism. That reputation implies a distinction with paleo-Calvinism, and furthers the wariness that should accompany the use of the prefix “neo” — as in neo-conservative, neo-evangelical, and neo-orthodox.
Neo-Calvinists are prone to dismiss paleo-Calvinists as warmed over Lutherans because of either the two-kingdom doctrine or the spirituality of the church. This is not the place to elaborate on either of these, except to remark that when paleo-Calvinists distinguish between the sacred and the secular, the spiritual and the natural, the temporal and the eternal, neo-Calvinists go batty and think that paleo-Calvinists are following Luther and restricting Christianity to the realm of religion and ethics. (As if Luther’s view of vocation and the goodness of work in this world doesn’t suggest that neo-Calvinists are confused about Luther and Lutheranism.)Â
True enough, paleo-Calvinists do distinguish between redemption and creation and think of Christianity the way the Bible does, as a religion of redemption and not a program of cultural and social renewal (which is why so many neo-Calvinists are tempted by theonomy and a view of Israel as a program of cultural and social renewal). But paleo-Calvinists do recognize the goodness of creation. They simply don’t think that creation is the place to look for redemption.
At the same time, paleo-Calvinists understand that redemption goes beyond creation. Creation as good was not the aim of God’s plan. The idea was to go higher to a place of blessedness that was even better than goodness. Sin messed up that plan. But redemption puts glorification back into play by promising that saints will one day inherit what Adam would have had he kept the covenant of works. The Garden of Eden was not the goal, nor was Old Jerusalem, Grand Rapids, or New York City. The new heavens and new earth was.
Paleo-Calvinists object to neo-Calvinists, then, for not understanding that consummation goes beyond creational norms and structures. Neo-Calvinists seem to want to go back to the Garden. Paleo-Calvinists believe that the Garden was not and is not all there is to man’s chief end. Pale0-Calvinists also sense that ne0-Calvinists are not really comfortable with the goodness of creation as creation. That’s why they keep talking about the need to redeem the culture, or redemption as cultural or social renewal. The implicit point seems to be that if something can’t be saved, then it’s no good. The neo-Calvinist seems to have no place for an in-between state — one between holy and profane such as common or good.
Neo-Calvinists should not despair. Paleo-Calvinists have just what they need, that is a dose of paleo-Calvinism from the most paleo of Calvinists, John Calvin, who made a distinction that neo-Calvinists are loathe to make:
. . . whoever knows how to distinguish between body and soul, between this present fleeting life and that future eternal life, will without difficulty know that Christ’s spiritual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct. Since, then, it is a Jewish vanity to seek and enclose Christ’s Kingdom within the elements of this world, let us rather ponder that what Scripture clearly teaches is a spiritual fruit, which we gather from Christ’s grace; and let us remember to keep within its own limits all that freedom which is promised and offered to us in him. For why is it that the same apostle who bids us stand and no submit to the ‘yoke of bondage’ (Gal. 5:1) elsewhere forbids slaves to be anxious about their state (1 Cor. 7:21), unless it be that spiritual freedom can perfectly well exist along with civil bondage? . . . . By these statements he means that it makes no difference what your condition among men may be or under what nation’s laws you live, since the Kingdom of Christ does not at all consist of these things.
This quotation points precisely at an in-between realm that is neither wicked nor holy — it is temporal, earthly, and provisional. It recognizes that some things in life are good even if they are not holy, and that their proper place is simply to be good and not to be saved (or made holy). It is the difference between a good meal and a holy meal. And the ability to see the difference between an exceptional home-cooked meal and the Lord’s Supper is one that allows paleo-Calvinists to see the difference between the creational realm of culture and society, and the redeemed world of the church. It is, in fact, the only way to make sense of statements like this one from the Belgic Confession:
Now those who are regenerated have in them a twofold life (2 John 3:6): the one corporal and temporal, which they have from the first birth and is common to all men; the other spiritual and heavenly, which is given them in their second birth (John 3:5), which is effected by the word of the gospel (John 5:23, 25) in the communion of the body of Christ: and this life is not common, but is peculiar to God’s elect (1 John 5:12; John 10:28). In like manner God has given us, for the support of the bodily and earthly life, earthly and common bread which is subservient thereto and is common to all men, even as life itself. But for the support of the spiritual and heavenly life which believers have, he has sent a living bread which descended from heaven, namely, Jesus Christ (John 6:32-33, 51), who nourishes and strengthens the spiritual life of believers when they eat Him, that is to say, when they apply and receive him by faith and in the Spirit (John 6:63). (BC, Art. 35)
319 Comments
A reply to something back up in April 9:
That’s pretty much the only point of gay marriage laws in states that already have civil unions. And yes, being “civil” – hey! – used to count for a lot. But nowadays, civility is brushed aside for interest-group politics.
Must be nice to be able to walk away from all that med school debt so quickly. Speaking as the husband of a physician who has to wrestle with whether or not to refer young ladies for abortions, I would say that we *are* at the point where abortion-related issues are a matter of mandatory laws: the sale of Plan B is required by law to 17-and-over (e.g.. Our current president is determined to overturn conscience rules (discussion here)
And we will continue to move in that direction because the preferences of the point-of-origin are secondary to the preferences of consumers, simply by virtue of sheer numbers. One pharmacist is much less important than hundreds of women.
Why not? If you had been in practice for 25 years and someone wanted to change the law to make your practice of medicine illegal, why would you stay quiet?
OK. And I agree with you that the point is silly. Symbols do no good past the point of no return.
How do I feel, or what do I think? My feelings are pretty soft on executing heretics, penalizing homosexual behavior, penalizing blasphemy, penalizing petty theft, penalizing drug use, penalizing adultery.
I’m not sure that my feelings are a reliable guide, though. My feelings about homosexual behavior have changed over the years, tracking pretty closely with the out-of-the-closet movement through the 80′s, 90′s, 00′s. What does that say about my feelings? That they are quite culturally contextualized.
What do I *think* about executing heretics? I’m not sure what standard I would use to assess the idea. It strikes me that on the one hand, executing heretics would throw us back to the 30-Years’-War. Death to the papist idolaters!
And on the other, permitting heretics to run free has wreaked havoc within the churches, since our “feelings” about Church discipline are strongly informed by our “feelings” about religious freedom. Hence, the Briggses within the Church are mostly coddled, while the Machens are mostly ousted or marginalized. Not sure how to fix that, but having completely different rules for Church and society creates a mental disconnect, I think (as opposed to some differences, with some overlap).
What standard do you use to evaluate the execution of heretics? Or the criminalization of adultery? Obviously, the first is non-Constitutional in the U.S.A. But the second would not be.
So ASF is right for all ages (post-Christ, pre-eschaton), and Calvin was moving in that direction, but didn’t go far enough?
FWIW, I think Calvin used the State as proxy for the execution of Servetus. He did write that threatening letter, after all.
JRC
Zrim, I’m curious about what you mean by As soon as you allow that something eternal has direct bearing on something temporal you might end up trying to wriggle out of why you don’t pay homage to an idol without being just plain arbitrary about it.
What do you mean by direct bearing? And are things like church discipline and family worship temporal or eternal?
Nothing at all. See your comment about your math skills
OK, that was mega-snarky. But here’s what I mean: my wife might well be bottom of her class or something, and the Hindu might be top. But she can still pray in faith for wisdom, and trust that God will provide it. Claiming that God gives marginal improvements to believers does not say anything about the skills of non-believers.
Then you’ve got to deal with James 1.5. He’s the one who promises that God gives wisdom to all who ask in faith. That’s the eternal having direct bearing on the temporal.
Well, did you pursue it by faith? I’m not saying that God definitely would have helped you pass Calculus or whatnot, but seriously, He does promise to give wisdom. Did you seek it?
The point is not “name it, claim it”; I can’t control God and say, “by faith, I can become a neurosurgeon.”
But at the same time, you’ve so disconnected the eternal from the temporal that Jesus’ teaching about trusting God for our daily bread or James’ teaching about asking for wisdom doesn’t mean anything anymore.
JRC
Brian,
What do you mean by direct bearing? And are things like church discipline and family worship temporal or eternal?
What I mean is that true faith (eternal) doesn’t make me better at math or Jeff’s wife better at doctoring (both temporal). I am not sure what church discipline and family worship being eternal or temporal has to do with it, but I will say that both seem to have a foot in both. And the need for discipline and the institution of family will both pass away. I know we won’t need doctors in the new age, and I hope if we need math my glorification will take care of my spatial-mathematical challenges.
Jeff,
But she can still pray in faith for wisdom, and trust that God will provide it. Claiming that God gives marginal improvements to believers does not say anything about the skills of non-believers…you’ve got to deal with James 1.5. He’s the one who promises that God gives wisdom to all who ask in faith. That’s the eternal having direct bearing on the temporal…you’ve so disconnected the eternal from the temporal that Jesus’ teaching about trusting God for our daily bread or James’ teaching about asking for wisdom doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Maybe the wisdom she’d receive would be the understanding that true faith doesn’t translate into immediate skills, that rain falls on the just and unjust alike. Maybe the wisdom we directly and intuitively ask for is answered indirectly and counter-intuitively. Like the man said, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you must might find you get what you need (any Stones on that car trip to Myrtle Beach?).
And I am not clear on how marginal improvements to believers doesn’t say anything about the skills of unbelievers—isn’t the former exactly what the latter means?
Just the math point:
Take Alice and Dr. House. Alice is a faithful believer, House is not. House’s natural skill level is, say, 9.8. Alice’s is 7.5. In a particularly difficult operation, Alice prays, “God, guide my hands and give me wisdom.”
God responds to the prayer prayed in faith by giving her insight into the patient’s condition. As a result, Alice performs the operation as if her skill level were 8.5.
Dr. House is unaffected.
JRC
Jeff, this is borderline health and wealth gospel, and it runs the risk of treating Christianity as a lucky charm that helps us out in tight spots. Couldn’t it be just as likely that Alice might perform down to say 5.5 and that God is trying to teach something through her underperformance.
The train of logic I see running through your arguments is that Christianity is successful when Christians win or succeed or are moral or are better. It is a progressive narrative, but one that stumbles mightily with the way that God actually saves us, through the suffering of his Son and through our own suffering.
Succeeding at math is a good thing but ultimately it is of little value. Isn’t that the point of Ecclesiastes? I wonder if transformationalists have ever read the book. It might be their “epistle of straw.”
It does seem to me that the big difference is how to relate the temporal and the eternal. You seem to think that there is a co-relationship, when things go well in the former it is a sign of things going well in the latter. It is a view that sustains hopes for Christendom, Christian America, and even the Roman Catholic view of salvation, as if we can do something to contribute to our salvation, or as if our earthly status is a sign of divine favor.
I just see too much of the argument that we don’t contribute to our salvation running through Scripture to have time for such progressive transformationalism.
Have a nice day.
Jeff, do you see any example in the NT of the saints going to the magistrate for protection, for legal support, for reform of society? Is there anything there on the order of general equity that would be the basis for Christians today going to the magistrate to pass laws on Christianity’s behalf?
If not, if Christ and the apostles did not do so, then where do we get off?
Take Alice and Dr. House. Alice is a faithful believer, House is not. House’s natural skill level is, say, 9.8. Alice’s is 7.5. In a particularly difficult operation, Alice prays, “God, guide my hands and give me wisdom.â€
God responds to the prayer prayed in faith by giving her insight into the patient’s condition. As a result, Alice performs the operation as if her skill level were 8.5.
Dr. House is unaffected
Jeff, DGH beat me to the punch, but I’m seeing seeds of prosperity gospel again. You seem to be assuming the ability to peer into things not deemed for mere mortals in order to make your point. All we can know is if one person has skills at certain levels. We cannot know if those skills were the result of prayer or even due to just having true faith. This is not to suggest that such prayer is somehow obsolete or inappropriate, but rather to suggest there can be no way to know if it causes certain results. We can only assess what is before us. So saith Dt. 29:29: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.â€
Both of you are over-reading my comments. And the “have a nice day” dismissal was really over the top.
I’m not saying — I’ve denied — that we can “name and claim.”
I am saying that when James says, “If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God”, that he is serious about that. If you insist on labeling that “health and wealth gospel”, then I think we’re just going to have to be at an impasse.
If you want to condition James with Ecclesiastes, I’m fine with that. Just don’t gut James of all meaning in your zeal to avoid health and wealth.
JRC
Paul in Acts appeals to the magistrate for protection against the mobs. And he uses his status as Roman citizen to receive favorable treatment.
But more to the point, do we see much at all in the NT about interactions between Church and magistrate, or how Christian magistrates, or plumbers, or whatnot, ought to behave?
No.
And from that silence, you conclude that we should not ask the magistrate for relief when he passes laws making the judgments of our conscience illegal. It’s not a sound argument from silence that you make: “the Bible doesn’t specifically show any examples of appealing to the magistrate, so we should not do so.”
On that logic, Christians shouldn’t drive cars.
If you want to limit Christians’ freedom to appeal to the magistrate for redress, then the burden is on you to prove a specific prohibition in Scripture that forbids us to do so.
JRC
The train of logic that you “see” is a figment of your imagination. Without knowing me, you have no notion of my understanding or experience of suffering.
Dr. Hart, your response was really offensive. The “have a nice day” was just the small of it. The larger picture was that you took a single comment, blew air into it, and said, Behold the View.
I have tried really hard to do the opposite to you, to give your views careful consideration and to make sure that I’ve understood you clearly, to refrain from cartoons and straw men, and even to defend you at points on GB against straw man attacks. I think I deserve something better than this kind of caricature.
JRC
Jeff, I don’t do emoticons, except one, which is not something I do in mixed company. The “have a nice day” line was meant to be funny after such a seemingly dismissive reply.
Jeff, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t appeal to James’ instruction on asking for wisdom and apply it to math or medicine and then say that my argument about the NT and the magistrate is anachronistic, as if that means we shouldn’t drive cars.
I don’t think that the wisdom James is advocating is the same thing as our modern conceptions of knowledge or learning or expertise. You’d have to make a pretty big leap to do so.
But even if the NT saints didn’t have cars, modern medicine or algebra, they did have magistrates and they didn’t appeal to them.
On the wealth and health stuff, don’t take it too personally. You are the bearer of a certain torch here and while I find you quite sensible in the way you argue, I do think you also need to be aware of the way you can sound. And I do think that the effort to correlate grace and creation that comes across in your comments has a certain resonance with prosperity proponents.
Jeff, I’m sorry to offend. You yourself may suffer in a host of ways and endure it with the best of Christian graces. I’m not questioning that. What I am criticizing is a view of Christianity that comes through, not just in one comment, but in your reflections on the magistrate, on Christian piety, on ethics, that suggests “things go better with God.” If citizens, magistrates, or people are Christians, they will be more moral, have better societies, and rule with greater equity. Heck, they may even perform better surgery.
I don’t see how that is an unfair construction of things you have said. You would not be alone in thinking this way. I see it at work in various transformationalists and their theonomic cousins. If you don’t like this construction, I’d encourage you to leave more wiggle room in your comments for Christian citizens who average and uninformed, magistrates who don’t know what laws to pass when confronting difficult situations, for Christian surgeons who don’t save their patients, for stupid Christian math students.
I believe in God’s sovereignty and Christ’s Lordship. I also believe that those things are true even when folly, sin, and weakness prevail. In other words, I don’t think Christians or their faith need to be victorious, powerful, or influential for God’s rule and plan to be accomplished. I am amillennial, not postmill. And the amill position cultivates a recognition of the paradoxical as opposed to directly proportional relationship between the affairs of this world and the coming of the next.
Jeff,
I’m not saying — I’ve denied — that we can “name and claim.â€
I know, it’s a bold suggestion. But you must admit that simply waving your hand over things and saying you deny it doesn’t mean you do. I am going to make a comparison that might irritate but bear with me. Roman Catholics will tell you that Jesus finishes our salvation, there is no other way to God but through him, that grace and faith are necessarily vehicles to this end, the Bible is the book of the church, etc. And to the extent that this is all true, it is a bit uncharitable to suggest Roman Catholics “don’t believe in grace or faith or the Bible.†But, the whole system actually works against these things. Theonomists say they believe in Jesus’ fulfillment of the law. But their whole system contradicts messianic fulfillment.
The problem for you could be that you are thinking only of prosperity gospel in stereotype, as if all it is ever about is something crass and uncouth about money and stuff. It’s like thinking legalism is only about substance use (maybe worldly amusement). But if these things are just a bunch of principles they can be applied in many different ways. And I might suggest that yours could be a proto-prosperity gospel for the more subdued and staid suburbanite.
Understood. I’m glad it was not what I thought.
I forgive you. I’ll leave sufferings at what you and I share in common: as elders, we walk people through cancers, and divorces, and lost children, and apostate children, and the rest.
It’s an unfair construction because you are connecting some dots by going outside the lines.
I’ve not said that Christians will be “more moral” (which immediately raises the question, “by what standard?”). I’ve said that Christian magistrates are obligated to be faithful to YHWH and not some other god. That’s it, line drawn. I’ve never prognosticated any outcomes based on faithfulness. I think the right approach to forecasting outcomes is illustrated by Shadrach and friends: “Our God is able to save us, but even if He does not, we will not bow.”
Separately, I’ve repeated James: “If any man lacks wisdom, he should ask of God.” That’s it, line drawn.
I’ve not made any claims about Christians therefore doing better than non-Christians (you’ll notice in my example that House still outperforms Alice).
But there aren’t any dots in between the “we need to be faithful” and the “we can trust God to take care of us.” God does not take better care of us when we are faithful. This is the mistake you’ve made in your reading of me, to try to associate those things together.
I’ll go further, if you want: I think we ought to pray for our daily bread, too. And for sick people. And for our rulers, so that we can live in peace.
And I think we ought to expect persecutions and troubles. And to put our trust in God, not riches.
Don’t tag me with “prosperity gospel” until you can explain why we *shouldn’t* pray for those things in the face of God’s plain commands to do so.
I admit it: denial is not enough. Now in exchange, I ask you to admit that your hunch and a couple of similarities are not enough for an accusation, either.
Two things:
(1) When interacting with knowledgeable RCs, I refrain from broad brush strokes about grace and works. Points like that fall on deaf ears because RCs say that they believe in salvation by grace (with an alternate definition of “grace”, of course) and that they deny salvation by works (with an alternate definition of “by”, of course). So what’s the point in trying to tag them with labels that they reject? Does it promote understanding? Charity? Acceptance of the gospel?
Instead, I try to present an alternative to the grace-sin-penance cycle. In fact, I try to present the “Union with Christ” concept, and show how Galatians teaches the ongoing work of the Spirit as the real basis for sanctification, and the finished work of Christ received by faith as the real basis for justification.
And I try to undermine a “quantifiable grace” theory.
(2) Also when interacting with RCs, I gain a lot of credibility by being able to represent their own system fairly to them. It saves a whole lot of time, and covers a whole lot of ground quickly, when I can say, “so you believe that X, Y, and Z” and they can say, “Yes, exactly.”
What you’ve noticed is a single similarity. The prosperity gospel claims that God answers our prayers. I’ve claimed that God answers prayers for wisdom. On this basis, you conclude that my view is a “proto-prosperity gospel.”
But the prosperity gospel is a specific belief: God’s purpose for our lives includes “victorious living”, where “victorious living” is defined by a standard outside of Scripture.
I deny this specific belief. Therefore, I deny the prosperity gospel, regardless of any perceived similarities. That’s really the end of the matter.
I mean Zrim, we could play the “similarity game” all day long. I could, if uncharitable, look at your comments here and say, “He doesn’t believe that God answers prayers. He’s a proto-atheist.” Or, “He doesn’t believe the spiritual world has any relationship to the temporal world. He’s a crypto-Anabaptist.” Or whatever. The bottom line is that arguments in the form
“A believes X.”
B believes X.
Therefore B is a form of A.”
Are unreliable arguments. They mislead, confuse, and are generally not helpful. They are logically invalid.
If you think that I’ve got “proto-prosperity” thoughts lurking, then just ask. Get a clear, not intuitive and partial, sense of what I actually believe about things like suffering and wealth and the relationship of obedience to those things. And *then* you can be in a position to diagnose my spiritual ailments.
JRC
It’s not “anachronism” that’s the problem; it’s “arguing from no data” that is the problem. We just have no records (other than Paul) of NT interactions with magistrates.
That’s an interesting point. It’s possible that James is talking about a specific kind of wisdom that excludes … what, exactly? But I’d need to see a specific exegetical argument that decouples James’ “wisdom” from that of, say, Proverbs (which includes life skills).
…and we have no record of their appealing to them.
We are pretty sure that they baptized babies, too, but we have no (certain) record of that, either. And they probably used arithmetic and rode horses, but we have no record of that, either.
Again, you are proposing a restriction on a Christian’s liberty. You need something stronger than “No record of X” as a basis for forbidding X.
JRC
It strikes me that we might make a useful distinction here.
And somewhere above is a reference to Elder Hoss’s phrase, “grace transforming nature” (which is really an Augustinian phrase, or earlier).
There are (at least) two ways to think about sanctification. The first is to imagine that I get a new nature upon becoming a Christian, and then the Holy Spirit makes it better and better, so that I sin less and less.
The second is to recognize that I get a new nature upon becoming a Christian, and the indwelling Spirit dynamically empowers the new nature, by faith, so that I obey Christ’s commands.
The distinction is that the first is a kind of “grace transforming nature” in a very Augustinian sense: God’s grace changes me into “better Jeff”, so that I autonomously obey better and such.
In the second, I remain who I am in my flesh; the old man never improves. Instead of “getting better”, I am sanctified because of the ongoing work of the Spirit. Thus WCoF 16.3: 3. Their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ. And that they may be enabled thereunto, beside the graces they have already received, there is required an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit to work in them to will, and to do, of His good pleasure: yet are they not hereupon to grow negligent, as if they were not bound to perform any duty unless upon a special motion of the Spirit; but they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of God that is in them.
I want to be clear that in my doctoring example above, I’m talking about the second and not the first. Alice receives wisdom and performs the surgery, but her baseline abilities do not change.
So I would specifically deny, for example, that one can become a Christian and expect to get better at guitar playing. I would affirm that a Christian mechanic trying to fix a car should pray for insight as to the specific problem he’s facing. The former is a “grace transforms nature” view; the latter is simply faith as James appears to require.
JRC
Jeff,
The prosperity gospel claims that God answers our prayers. I’ve claimed that God answers prayers for wisdom. On this basis, you conclude that my view is a “proto-prosperity gospel.â€
Huh? I think God answers prayers, too. Does that mean I’m prosperity? (That’s a bad way to determine prosperity gospel.) And you’ve not merely claimed that God answers prayers for wisdom; you have claimed God answers prayers as we have designed them, e.g., want to be better at math and medicine? Ask God to make you better at math and medicine.
If you think that I’ve got “proto-prosperity†thoughts lurking, then just ask. Get a clear, not intuitive and partial, sense of what I actually believe about things like suffering and wealth and the relationship of obedience to those things. And *then* you can be in a position to diagnose my spiritual ailments.
OK, are you proto-prosperity? I get your point, I think, but, Jeff, isn’t this like asking the guilty if they are guilty? You may say a lot of good things about suffering and wealth, etc., but when you also tell me you can pray to get better at math either 1) you harbor prosperity or 2) it doesn’t jibe with other non-prosperity things you say. And if you’re demanding we know things about you we can’t possibly know from blogging, then there’s more abiding Pentecostalism. I mean, I can only go by what you write or say. I can’t diagnose your spiritual ailments (nor do I want to); all I can do is examine your statements.
That’s exactly the point. You’ve waved the “prosperity gospel” red flag after using a bad method to determine my “prosperity gospel-ness.”
You sure I said that? I think rather that I said that God provides wisdom when we ask. I’d be surprised if I said anything else.
And anyways, DGH thinks math and medicine don’t count for the kinds of wisdom James is talking about, so apparently God doesn’t answer those prayers.
Where are we, anyways? This began with an objection: Calvin’s 2K thought is different from REPT structurally and theologically, because
(a) Calvin’s 2Ks are “spiritual” and “physical”, while REPTs 2Ks are “spiritual” and “common”
(b) Calvin IDs the Natural Law closely with the Decalogue (and look, R.S. Clark agrees with me), so that Natural Law as the basis for civil law encompasses both tables, while REPT IDs the Natural Law primarily with the culture, which means that the 1st Table is excluded. And for Calvin, Natural Law is limited in ability because of depravity, so that a magistrate needs the Scripture for good governance; for REPT, this is rejected; the conscience is “good as we get.”
(c) Calvin conceives of liberty as exercised in the framework of Scripture; REPT denies that liberty need be exercised in the framework of Scripture, and that to do so is “unnecessarily complicated.”
So far, the response is that I’m mis-reading Calvin.
And then followed a discussion about my similarities to Joel Olsteen.
Is that the signal to move on?
JRC
Jeff, hey, you brought up the stuff about TV doctors. I’m just going with the flow. But for whatever it’s worth the point hasn’t been to merely smear you. It’s been to point out some interesting dimensions to things you say, that’s all.
By all means, move on if you wish. You’re the boss here.
But when my mechanic (fellow church member) tells me he prayed for a week but still cannot figure it out, I go elsewhere. But Bob’s a good, Old School Dutchman–he’d never say that.
Well, I would find another mechanic, too. Why wouldn’t I?
But now, would you tell Bob, “Don’t bother to pray about the car. God doesn’t answer those kinds of prayers”?
Which is (apparently) the basis for your criticism of me, saying that I would pray about the car.
I’ll sum up below and post Obj 5 later.
JRC
Summary:
I objected that REPT was structurally and theologically different from Calvin’s 2K system in the following ways:
(1) Calvin closely identified the Natural Law with the Decalogue. His locus for Natural Law was Rom. 1, in which the Natural Law convicts man of the knowledge of God. The Natural Law was specifically insufficient for governance, requiring the magistrate to use the revealed Word, both tables of the Law, for guidance.
REPT meanwhile identifies the Natural Law with common-grace wisdom. Its locus is Gen. 4, in which the Natural Law enables man to build the City of Man, the common-grace triadalist sphere in which believer and un-believer jointly dwell. Thus, Natural Law *is* sufficient for governance, and the Decalogue is neither required nor is it canon law for the magistrate.
(2) Calvin thought of liberty as circumscribed by the Word, and specifically by the commands to love God and neighbor. For him, liberty was the opportunity to obey God’s commands out of joyous obedience. For Calvin, the Christian exercises his vocation as a subset of his Christian life.
For REPT, liberty is circumscribed much more loosely; the Christian is entirely free except when he transgresses a specific command of God. In his vocation, unless the Scripture gives a specific command, the Christian is maximally free to order his vocation according to common-grace wisdom.
Thus, the REPT Christian magistrate, not being guided by any specific commands outside Rom 13 in the Scripture, has maximal liberty to order his work according to wisdom, and does not need to seek principles for governance from Scripture.
—
The response is that I have misunderstood Calvin, details unspecified.
As one final protest, I reply that (a) my representation of Calvin is remarkably consistent with how he ordered Geneva; (b) my representation of Calvin is remarkably consistent with how Reformed societies and creeds were ordered (pre 1789); (c) my representation of Calvin makes sense of his requirement that the magistrate enforce the two tables of the Law.
JRC
Wouldn’t it be neat and creepy at the same time if we could see ourselves through others’ eyes?
So I’ll ask: What torch am I bearing? How do I sound? (Meaning: as having a certain affinity with prosperity proponents? Or something different?)
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At some point, I have to bite the bullet and accept that certain things I say could “make the world safe for theonomy” or “sound like health-and-wealth lite.”
For one thing, stopped watches tell time correctly twice a day. So even a theonomist like Chilton will say some right things, and I can’t and don’t want to purposely sound different from him in those areas.
For another, if I live my life controlled by “not wanting to sound like X”, then I can end up in some pretty extreme postures. I would rather “sound like a Lutheran” on grace than work so hard to avoid Lutheranism that I end up teaching legalism. Right?
Or put another way, I don’t really believe that the world of ideas is controlled by certain axes (theonomy/2K, libertinism/legalism, paleo-/neo-Calvinism), and that our job is to locate the right place on the axis. I am instead a big proponent of getting off the axis entirely and finding a precise third way.
So rather than guard my phraseology carefully so as to not give off certain “vibes”, I instead work on the phraseology so that it parses literally into what I mean. That style doesn’t work for everyone, but it works for me. Sometimes.
So, yeah, the prosperity folk and I both believe that God answers prayer. We disagree about everything else — how often, why, prayers for what, you name it — but we agree on that point. If that “makes the world safe for them”, then I’ll leave it to someone else to make them afraid again.
JRC
I am instead a big proponent of getting off the axis entirely and finding a precise third way.
Exactly, Jeff. This is how I have read you since November. The problem is that soemtimes the third way works and is even noble. To my 2K mind, this posture works well in the (Klinean alert) cultural. But in the cultic, it gets really dicey. I mean, are there multiple ways to build a car, teach a student, raise a family and order a society, all as sucessful as they are diverse? Yes. Are there multiple ways to do Christology, apprehend sin and grace, the role of faith and works, define the atonement? Hmmm, not really. Trying to work out a third way between theonomy and 2K, like I have suggested at various points, is like tryin gto work out a way for Arminians and Calvinists to get along. But neither Gomarus nor Arminius would be at all sympathetic to you, because each system is inherently consistent.
And theonomists can be right, even sane (I can’t believe I just said that), about plenty of things. It’s theonomy that is whack-a-doo. I’d suggest that trying to manually avoid “sounding like thus-and-so” is a bad way to press on, agreed. But you also seem to have an allergy against labels, which seems to also drive your effort to forge the nobler way. But I perceive that there is nothing at all wrong with labels; I like to hang my hat. And I don’t even mind being labeled (2K). What I mind is being labeled wrongly (antinomian…well, since Paul got that one, too, maybe I kinda dig it).
Jeff, I tell Bob what’s wrong with my car and it is mutually understood that I am the customer, he the vendor. If he wants to pray about it, go wild. Every time I go to his shop prayer never comes up. So your question is quite moot. But, if I come back in a couple of days and he pleads prayer didn’t help him I’d be stumped because that was never a part of the original–albeit unspoken–agreement. I’d be more interested in what his studied expertise yielded. Moreover, I think this is how your dealings also go with your guy.
Are there multiple ways to define the Atonement? Ransom Theory, Christus Victor, Anselmian Satisfaction Theory, Calvinian Satisfaction Theory, Governmental, Moral Influence.
Yeah, I’d say so. Not all are correct, obviously. But the point is that they are not different locations on a single axis.
Having two inherently consistent systems, such as Arminianism and Calvinism, does not preclude thinking about something along entirely different lines. (And Arminianism isn’t even consistent, which is why Open Theism was invented).
But I perceive that there is nothing at all wrong with labels; I like to hang my hat.
I’m not sure what I could do to persuade you otherwise, but I would dearly love to do so. The problem with labels is equivocation. Two people get the same label, but it doesn’t mean the same thing for each. Then confusion results.
JRC
Jeff, I think there’s a good reason the prosperity gospel came up, and it has to do with the ways whereby you assess the vitality of the Christian faith. Just as soft and hard-core versions of theonomy exist, so soft- and hard-core versions of prosperity exist. I put you clearly in the soft camp on both counts. I actually think you are too reasonable to engage in some of the theonomic excesses over at Greenbaggins. At the same time, the way you think about morality and politics, morality and the Christian walk, prayer and performance, all suggest a way — as I said above — of correlating the progress of Christianity with some kind of well being of Christians, their societies, and their endeavors. The 2k view, in contrast, confronts the external-internal dynamic taught by Paul (and throughout the Bible) which says that “to die is gain.” The 2k view holds enough to the goodness of creation to know that masichism is not an option. We can regard this life as a good thing. But it is only proximately good. And this age is wasting away. And that’s okay because a better age is to come. The theonomic/prosperity view, which is bound up with postmillennialism, is trying to locate the glories of the world to come in the here and now.
There is of course a good reason for this, and you shouldn’t be too defensive about being charged with this vice. The Covenant of Works has us hardwired to think, do this and you shall live. If we follow God’s laws, we will earn his favor and prosper. That is the way we were created and we still carry that dynamic within us, which explains why so many immoral people can still be incredibly self-righteous.
But obviously, sin thrrew a wrench into that fundamental aspect of man’s existence and part of our plight is to still think that if we only live according to God’s ways, we inherit not only then but also now the rewards of law-keeping.
Jeff, all I meant is that you’re having to uphold your part of this discussion alone. Zrim and I are tag-team 2k wrestling.
Jeff, Again, I think you’ve put too great a difference between Calvin and REPT. First, as the recent collection of essays, The Law is not of Faith, shows, most 2k thinking regards the decalogue as a republication of the Covenant of Works, which in turn is broadly conceived the moral fabric of creation. So there’s not as much distance between NL and the Decalogue as you suggest. Second, your account of Calvin’s view of liberty is off if it excludes REPT because the very same logic that Calvin uses in the Regulative Principle of Worship (and I would argue, he uses elsewhere), is the one that 2kers apply to the rest of life. And here is where your reading in Frame may get you in trouble. Frame didn’t want the RPW to apply only to worship. He wanted it to extend to all of life. That is a biblicistic/theonomic-lite move. And it disregards the distinction between the church as institution and individual Christians, with the church only being able to do what Scripture commands, and Christians having liberty where Scripture is silent. The REPT is far more adept at handling the difference between Christian ministry and Christian vocation in Calvin than you have suggested.
Finally, in one of your other posts, you suggested a difference between Calvin and REPT on the nature of the two kingdoms, as if the role of the magistrate is in Calvin’s category of physical and in REPT’s category of common. But again, if you read Calvin, in the post on Booalism, or his introduction to the magistrate in book four, the physical is synonymous with the earthly and the realm that believers and non-believers inhabit in common.
So while you think you’re account of Calvin is closer to his because of the differences between Geneva in 1560 and Geneva today — and I will concede that Calvin was not a forerunner of political liberty in the American or French senses — I think REPT captures the Augustinian theology of Calvin better than your account does. It recognizes the paradoxical relationship between this world and its progress and the coming of the kingdom. I still have yet to see that recognition on your side.
Jeff, sorry, my fault: are there multiple ways to define cultic-Christian truth that confessional types like us would accept? No, there is one God and three persons.
What do you mean Arminianism isn’t consistent? Of course it is. What it might breed doesn’t have anything to do with its consistency. Hyper-Calvinism doesn’t mean Calvinism is inconsistent.
Re labels, come on now. Are you an American, a father, a husband? I don’t think you appreciate just how many labels you have and how many you’d like to keep. I think your quest here is a lot like the one generally in finding fault with 2K: you seem to be after some sort of exact justice instead of a proximate one.
**Golf clap.**
Oops, sorry, how do they show favor in baseball?
Right, there is exactly one true doctrine. But recall that you began by speaking of dualisms — Calvinism v. Arminianism was the example you used. Clearly, only one (at most) can be correct. Likewise, only one Trinitarian theology (at most) can be correct.
You weren’t speaking of true doctrines, but of possible ways of thinking. For you, there are only two ways of thinking about free-will and sovereignty. Those are Calvinism and Arminianism. For you, there are only two ways of thinking about Church and State: theonomy and 2K.
I just don’t accept the dualism. It may be that you’re light-years ahead of me on this and have already foreseen that in the end, I’ll be at one pole or the other. But in the meantime, I humbly request the right to continue to look for a third way.
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The reason I call Arminianism “inconsistent” is that traditional Arminianism believes that God foreordains according to His foreknowledge of our decisions. However, Clark Pinnock rightly recognized that this *still* leaves man will no possibility of controlling his destiny; perfect foreknowledge is still incompatible with the kind of freedom that Arminians believe we have.
Hence, Open Theism: God knows the future, but the future is not yet written.
This is a recognized problem with Arminianism; I’m not the first to point it out.
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Sure, labels can work; but they need clear definition based not only on similarities but also on diagnostic dissimilarities. It’s what I do in the field all the time: this is a Juniper Hairstreak because it has the right field markings, but it is NOT a White Cedar Hairstreak because it is in the wrong clime and associated with the wrong host plant.
What I’ve basically been asking you to do is to not declare a label based solely on similarities, but to go further and show that the label you want to assign is uniquely suited to me.
So e.g.: You want to label me as “proto-prosperity gospel” because of a similarity. We both believe that God answers prayer. My point is, that similarity is not enough. A whole host of different types of Christians (i.e., all of them!) believe that God answers prayer. You need to show some kind of discriminating diagnostic that shows that my view is uniquely situated in the “proto-prosperity” bin as opposed to some other bin.
This is not, as you suppose, a desire for unrealizable certainty. Rather, it’s a desire to have the words you use be useful tools for analysis as opposed to creators of confusion.
But look, it was just a suggestion, and I’ll say no more of it.
JRC
Right, there is exactly one true doctrine. But recall that you began by speaking of dualisms — Calvinism v. Arminianism was the example you used. Clearly, only one (at most) can be correct. Likewise, only one Trinitarian theology (at most) can be correct.
You weren’t speaking of true doctrines, but of possible ways of thinking. For you, there are only two ways of thinking about free-will and sovereignty. Those are Calvinism and Arminianism. For you, there are only two ways of thinking about Church and State: theonomy and 2K.
I just don’t accept the dualism. It may be that you’re light-years ahead of me on this and have already foreseen that in the end, I’ll be at one pole or the other. But in the meantime, I humbly request the right to continue to look for a third way.
Actually, my larger point was to see the Klinean juxtaposition of cult and culture. When it comes to the latter there are multiple ways of thinking; when it comes to the former it becomes a much more narrow enterprise. In this way, we can speak of a radical intolerance for things cultic, a radical tolerance for things cultural. But your more or less Framian approach reverses this arrangement and does adiaphora when we should be doing RPW and vice versa. When the RPW is applied to all of life there are limited ways to “skin a cat,†but various ways to worship God.
I wasn’t meaning to explore the doctrines of Calvinism and Arminianism, Trinitarian theology or theories of the atonement per se. Rather, the narrow lines of confessional Reformed orthodoxy in these things were assumed in order to make the point that we need the rules of a larger dualism of cult and culture (not the smaller one of Calvinism and Arminianism).
This was a helpful post, DGH.
Clearly, Dr. Clark identifies the NL with the Decalogue as well. So I’ll grant that there is some similarity in origin.
But this creates the puzzle: if the Natural Law is the basis for governance, AND the Natural Law is the Decalogue written on the conscience, then why does REPT exclude the 1st Table from the magistrate’s domain?
It’s an (apparently) arbitrary move, since the natural syllogism runs thus:
(1) The First table is within the scope of the Natural Law.
(2) The magistrate should use the Natural Law.
(3) Therefore, the magistrate should enforce the First table.
AND, Calvin makes a really big deal out of that point: that it is “foolishness” to consider only the second Table and not the First.
Now, I’m not interested (in this objection) as to whether Calvin was right or wrong. Rather, I’m curious as to how REPT could (a) claim to have the same view as Calvin on NL, but (b) deny the logical consequence that both Tables are in the purview of the magistrate.
So: why not the first Table, if indeed the NL is the Decalogue?
This is confusing to me. Leaving Frame aside — he is not the source of my reading of Calvin — it still seems to me that Calvin says exactly what I said: that liberty is given for the purpose of joyous obedience to God’s commands, and that such obedience occurs within the framework of the Word and specifically within the framework of the commands to love God and neighbor. Do you dispute this reading of Calvin?
Meanwhile, you and Zrim especially have said that liberty need only concern itself with things that the Scripture directly addresses. So in particular, the magistrate need not consider the commands to love God and neighbor in his governance.
It cannot be taken for granted that you and Calvin are univocal on this point. It appears that his version of “the exercise of liberty” is more tightly coupled to the Word than yours is.
Aside: note that you have expanded the RPW to cover not merely “worship” but also “whatever the Church can do.” This is potentially problematic and needs a defense, I think. The Church does more than worship, and the RPW is not generally understood to extend to those other things. For example, we are not bound in evangelism by the RPW.
Yes, I do suggest that there is a difference here. Granted: for Calvin, the physical is synonymous with “earthly” and “temporal.” And by extension, Calvin’s temporal realm would contain both believers and non-believers.
But the difference appears here: for Calvin, the fact of being “common” (which AFAICT he does not reference in 4.20) has no bearing on the rules the magistrate is to follow. No account is to be taken of the fact that the physical realm contains both believers and unbelievers. Instead, he says, “Thus all have confessed that no polity can be successfully established unless piety be its first care, and that those laws are absurd which disregard the rights of God, and consult only for men” (4.20.9)
Instead, for Calvin, the emphasis is entirely on the “physical” — that the magistrate is authorized to deliver physical punishments because he is a physical ruler. 4.20.10 demonstrates this clearly: the magistrate delivers physical punishments as the agent of God.
I mean, we agree that Calvin and REPT come to almost opposite conclusions about what the magistrate should be doing, esp. in the area of the First Table. Is it really plausible, therefore, that you’re adopting Calvin’s structure of thought whole-cloth, and making only minor modifications to it?
Rather, is it not more plausible that you’ve restructured Calvin’s ideas in a very different way, which leads you to very different conclusions?
And in particular, is it not the case that Calvin’s center of thought on the magistrate is “physical”, while yours is “common”?
The fact that your domains can both be described as “physical” and “common” is not enough to show essential likeness in thought, if the emphases are so different as to lead to opposite conclusions.
OK, that’s fair. I haven’t really expressed how the “now-not-yet” factors into governance. But let’s say that I do. Here’s some stuff about the relationship of this world to the the coming of the kingdom, and where that kingdom is located: Blah, blah, blah, Jeff goes on and on as usual.
Now that that’s been said, we still have the stubborn fact that REPT doesn’t show up until 1789 at earliest.
Calvin, Turretin, Beza, the Westminster Divines, the Puritans, the Covenanters — all missed the fact that what Calvin *really* meant is that the Scripture is not canon for the common realm, and the magistrate should not enforce the first Table of the Law.
Shouldn’t I view that conclusion skeptically? Hey, I’m happy to concede that you are trying to make Calvin’s thoughts more faithful to Scripture. They just aren’t “paleo-Calvinic” anymore.
That’s OK; we don’t take Calvin to be infallible. I just would like to be clear on this point: your differences are not mere incidentals.
JRC
P.S. And if we’re going to go back to Augustine’s 2Ks, then we’re going to have to account for medieval practice, the divine right of kings, Christendom — all of this was the fruit of Augustinian 2K thought. I thought REPT was specifically repudiating all of that?
OK, so you’re saying that there are two ways of thinking about cult and culture: total wall of separation (Klinean), or complete breaking down of barriers (Framean).
And I’m saying, “What if we decide not to operate with the categories of cult and culture as the primary axis?”
In other words, if I grant your analytical method (“cult and culture” as the lens), then I also have to grant your conclusion (either Kline, Frame, or compromise in between).
But the Scripture doesn’t appear to require the “cult/culture” lens. There is culture within the church. Much of modern culture is also cultic. So … I’m not under obligation to operate within your category, right?
And in fact, I wonder if you’re reading Frame correctly as the “total breakdown of the wall between cult and culture.” Just because you are using that lens doesn’t mean that he is.
I think he reads much more naturally on his own terms: there is “broad worship”, which covers all of life, and there is “narrow worship”, which covers the traditional term “worship.” For Frame, the RPW applies broadly (but without specific detail) to broad worship, while narrow worship requires more narrow justification. I wouldn’t defend this approach, but I can understand it more clearly using his own language than in terms of “cult” and “culture.”
JRC
Jeff,
But the Scripture doesn’t appear to require the “cult/culture†lens. There is culture within the church. Much of modern culture is also cultic. So … I’m not under obligation to operate within your category, right?
You’re under no obligations from me. I’m just trying to explain our differences. And, yes, cult and culture and vice versa–but that may be precisely why we need the rules of cult and culture better articulated.
And it just occured to me about your claim to forging the noble third way: so far, the leader board has 2k waaaaay over par, while theonomy seems to be chipping them in one after the other (which an occassional bogie here or there). Are you running another leader board somewhere out there, maybe one theonomy-oriented, that makes up for it? I’m taking into account this board and the one at Green Baggins.
oops…(my fingers and mind are still more “being sanctified” than transformed)…
And, yes, within cult can reside culture and vice versa–but that may be precisely why we need the rules of cult and culture better articulated.
Jeff, I do think the aims of the first table are involved in NL, in the same way that the WCF does in the first paragraph of Ch. 21 on worship, where it says that the created order in effect tells us there is a God who is to be worshiped. So I’m fine with the magistrate encouraging religion, say with tax exemptions. But where Calvin and you stumble is with a religiously diverse society. Call me paranoid, but wasn’t the inability of different Christians to live together partly the reason for religious wars? (That is one reason, btw, why it took so long for REPT to take shape institutionally. It took a while to outlive Constantinianism and to find other models for religion and the state.)
The RPW is just another form of the sufficiency of Scripture. The church may only do what Scripture commands. Silence is not a warrant for the church to do something. This is a major difference of the Reformed from other Protestants. I’m not extending the RPW to the entire church. I’m taking the doctrine of the sufficience of Scripture and showing its connection to RPW.
On the medieval world and Augustine, I am no pre-modern historian. But I don’t think you can say that whatever happened between 400 and 1500 was a footnote on Augustine. There was actually in the West far more of a rivalry between pope and emperor because the West did not have the Caesaropapist arrangement of the East. And that rivalry was abused by both the pope and emperor, which each claiming to be superior to the other. But in practice, there was far more 2k in the West than in the East.
Jeff, the cult/culture distinction is at the heart of sabbath observance (and I wonder if 2k would have more adherents if the Sabbath were more rigorously observed). There are things I do during the week that are lawful. I have liberty in them because Scripture does not govern them the way it does the things on the Lord’s Day. We can even disagree (eat offered to idols) about things we do on weekdays. But if we do those lawful things on the Lord’s day, they become profane. So the things that happen on the Sabbath are the cult. The rest of the week is culture.
I don’t see what’s so complicated about that. Nor do I think Frame’s categories are clearer or more helpful. Isn’t that the point of intellectual advance to make matters clearer rather than more confusing?
You’re referring to the “2K” v. “theonomic” content of my comments?
I wouldn’t make too much of that. Think “context” and it will all become clear. If I were to spend more time on GB, I would train my guns on the conflict between theonomy and Gal. 4.
Gotta run; a day with the family awaits.
JRC
Just a small note: I know that it’s commonly called “Constantinianism”, but it was Theodosius who made Christianity the official religion of the empire. Constantine merely legalized Christianity by the Edict of Milan (313).
JRC
For starters, I would place the work of creation at the heart of Sabbath observance. And I would place “rest” as at least a co-equal with worship as the main point of the Sabbath. And again, the functions of the Church are not limited to worship, nor are they performed only on the Sabbath: evangelism, once again.
It’s a little hard to understand Jesus’ teachings on the Sabbath if absolutely every lawful “other day” thing, like picking grain, becomes profane on the Sabbath.
So yes, the cult/culture distinction is more complicated than it seems on the surface, and it’s not obviously warranted by Scripture.
Anyways, I’m dragging this into a tangent plane.
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Is Frame clearer and more helpful? (than whom??) Well, one thing I wish he would do a little more is come to rest at some points instead of leaving all of the pieces on the cutting-room floor.
Having said that, I think the aim of his method is to be “maximally cogent” by incorporating 100% of the data where possible. In that regard, I find him quite helpful.
JRC
There’s a deep issue here that may be problematic. In my understanding, the Church is not simply an institution, but consists of its members (Eph. 2, 4; 1 Cor 14; cf. WCoF 25.1,2). If we are saying that “silence is not a warrant for the Church to do something”, then you are potentially saying that “silence is not a warrant for any Church member to do something” — and that guts liberty entirely.
There’s also a surface issue. The Confession allows that certain features of worship and church government may be ordered according to the light of nature (1.6). You seem to be precluding that by insisting that “The Church may only do what the Scripture commands.” I know it’s an aphorism, and that there are qualifications buried in there somewhere, but still and all — it’s an extreme phraseology.
And once you begin qualifying it, then we have to figure “out on what basis?”, etc. And that calls into question the simple structure presented by “cult and culture” — cult being regulated by RPW and pertaining to the Church; culture being regulated by liberty and pertaining to the common sphere. We’ve got “liberty leakage” and “light of nature leakage” moving over into the “cult” side of things.
I think the cult/culture distinction is a neatly packaged can of nightcrawlers.
JRC
Obj 5 (and final!): REPT is not a uniformly “good and necessary inference” from Scripture.
Immediately, two qualifications and an announcement need to be entered.
(1) The word “uniformly” is an important part of the objection. As will be seen below, certain features of REPT are fairly clearly Scriptural; it’s just that some others are not so clear or are in some cases in apparent tension with Scripture.
(2) This objection carries no water for theonomy.
Announcement: I’ll be closing the curtain on my involvement here on Sun Apr 19 so as to return to responsible citizenry (translation: Spring Break is over). I will of course read any final words entered afterwards; but please accept a lack of response as nothing more than my feeble attempt at self-discipline with the ‘Net.
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Let’s divide REPT up into various propositions, ranging from “fully Biblically warranted” to “speculative.”
(1) The magistrate deserves the Christians’ obedience, regardless of the quality of his magistering.
This is a no-brainer based on Rom. 13, the examples of Daniel and Joseph, and more.
In particular, I think (1) makes a good case for a limited “functional REPT.” Namely, if I were a judge in the U.S.A., I would feel obligated wrt 1st Table issues to either (a) rule according to the Constitution, or (b) resign. Before you get your hopes too high, I’m limiting this to the particular circumstance of the U.S.A. in which the Constitution is the highest magistrate and has already foreclosed on 1st Table issues. Were I to become Grand Pooh-bah of Hartistan, things might be different. Additionally, I think Christians in government ought to be guided by Scripture to the extent that the law permits.
(2) The Natural Law is the Decalogue written on the human heart.
There are some philosophical issues here, the most important of which is “sufficiency” (below). But we can agree that Romans 1 establishes that the Law of God is written on the human heart.
(3) The Church and the Magistrate are two separate domains.
This is sufficiently established, I think, by 1 Cor 5.12-13 alone.
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But now, the specifically REPT teachings are less certain.
(4) There is a “common realm” that operates by “common grace”, distinct from “the Church” that operates according to the Scripture.
There is an element of truth to this that needs more research. In the end, however, this proposition rests heavily on the work of Meredith Kline, and while his structuring of the covenants is brilliant, it doesn’t solve every problem. It is not itself a certain inference from Scripture.
Here are some problems:
(a) God judged pagan nations — not merely Canaan, as Kline would have, but also Babylon (“Mene, mene tekel upharsin”), Edom, Damascus — for failing to uphold His justice. The Law, it appears, extends beyond the boundaries of the “Theocratic Kingdom.”
(b) If the Natural Law really is the Decalogue written on the hearts of men, then it appears to be an arbitrary move to say that the Law cannot be used in the common realm.
(c) Scripture does not limit itself to churchly issues. Instead, it addresses the life of the Christian, including such “common” activities as the use of the tongue, the payment of wages, the treatment of servants, the payment of taxes: in no place whatsoever does Scripture hint that certain activities are outside its purview. Instead, it appears to teach that it is all that is needed “for life and godliness”, as the Confession would have it.
(d) It may well be that Kline’s dictum that “The Old Testament is no longer canon [law] for the Church” is flawed in some way. And if so, then REPT’s extension, that Scripture is not canon for the realm of common grace, would be equally flawed.
For example, the Confession does not treat the OT in exactly the same way, but instead upholds the abiding validity of the general equity of the Decalogue — following the wording and reasoning of Calvin, I might add.
It may be that Kline has taken WCoF 19.4 and expanded on it in such a way as to obscure or distort WCoF 19.5.
(e) Most importantly, the Christian belongs to both spheres (“Kingdom of Man” and “Kingdom of God”), but he is not equally a citizen of both. As Hebrews teaches, and Augustine following it, the Christian is a citizen of heaven but a resident alien here on Earth.
As a result, he has a primary allegiance to the Scripture. REPT obscures this fact (not denying it, exactly, but making it hard to see) by denying that the Scripture applies to the common realm, thus suggesting that something or someone else is lord in the common, or perhaps that God rules by decree in the common but not by precept.
Let me rush to say that both of you, Dr. Hart and Zrim, do not believe that Jesus ceases to be Lord in the common. But you do believe that His word does not have full jurisdiction in the common — which appears to amount to the same.
And in particular, it would be easy to see that REPT advocates could (perhaps unconsciously?) adopt a different ethic for the common than they practice in the cultic.
Let’s leave it at this: REPT needs to rearticulate itself so as to make clear how and in what ways the Word of Christ is normative for the Christian in the common sphere.
(5) There is a distinction between “cult” and “culture” that structures creation, providing different norms for each.
In particular, the cult is normed by the RPW, while the culture is normed by liberty; the Scripture is canon for the cult, but not for the culture.
The difficulty here is that Scripture does not explicitly or implicitly teach a distinction between cult and culture. Nor does it appear to limit its own jurisdiction only to the Church, but in fact sees itself as the basis for God’s judgment of all men (interestingly: Rev. 19.15. If I were a postmil guy, I would take that as my life verse or something).
And in fact, “liberty” cuts across the cult/culture divide. Paul’s discussions of Christian liberty are in the context of Church life, not common; and as previously noted, Paul gives commands to Christians about their behavior in the common — as does Jesus, as does James.
(6) The Christian magistrate has liberty in doing his job, as long as he does not contradict any definite command of God.
This proposition is equivocal. WRT judgment by the Church, I would say, “yes, certainly” — in keeping with Paul’s teachings on liberty.
But wrt the ethical guidance he is to seek, I would say that he, like all Christians, should define what is good and what is evil by the Scripture. This seems to be required by Scripture itself (Rom 2.12-15; Ps. 1; 119; passim) and also by the Confession (1.6, 19.2).
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Now, not being a “good and necessary inference” is not a crime. Certainly, theology exploration is needed, especially in areas like civic polity that are so little-addressed in the Scripture.
But the difficulty that I have is that REPT very confidently precludes other ways of thinking about civic polity. I would hope to see a broadening of the position that could clearly mark Scriptural non-negotiables from more speculative points, so that we could come to agreement on “thus saith the Lord.”
JRC
Jeff, you really are making this more complicated than it needs to be. Of course, the church is made up of members. And the church is an institution. But can the officers of the church, that is, the institutional church, deliberate on the basis of anything other than Scripture? And doesn’t someone who is an officer, when not an officer, have other ways of deciding what to do. When I sit as an elder, my only rule is Scripture. When I write as a historian, that’s not true.
So I find this objection again to stumble over the problem of multiple roles, jurisdictions, and callings. It’s as if you want one rule to operate all the time, and because of that desire, you don’t see other rules that operate.
So I don’t find this compelling.
Jeff: you wrote something important: “Let me rush to say that both of you, Dr. Hart and Zrim, do not believe that Jesus ceases to be Lord in the common. But you do believe that His word does not have full jurisdiction in the common — which appears to amount to the same.”
Why is it that you think Jesus isn’t Lord if his word is not obeyed or the norm? Do you think that Jesus wasn’t Lord when he was crucified? Talk about good and necessary consequence.
You also seem to conflate the covenant community with those who are not in covenant with God and you assume that the norms for the one apply to the other. Why would you do that? You don’t do that with the covenant of grace, do you? If you did, that would make you a universalist — everyone in the covenant. So why expect that those not in covenant with God would need to abide by the terms of the covenant.
This seems like a similar problem as the Lordship. You want Lordship and the covenant to apply equally to everyone. Why? The very premise of much OT instruction is to set Israel apart from the rest of humanity.
Your question is interesting; you’ve read me as saying, “if we don’t obey Jesus, He isn’t Lord. Therefore, we have to obey Him in order to make Him Lord.” And so you wish to affirm that Jesus is Lord, reigning over all, even if every man rejects Him. And that’s a valid point.
But now the good and necessary consequence is that *if* we do acknowledge the Kingship of Jesus, then we must necessarily accept His Word as normative for us.
So it’s not “Jesus isn’t Lord if we don’t obey Him”, but rather, “because Jesus already is Lord, we must obey Him.”
And the question then is whether (a) that extends to Christians operating in the common sphere, and (b) whether that extends to non-Christians operating in the common sphere.
I would like to get some agreement that (a) is a definite “yes.” And then (b) is the subject of your next reply:
This really gets to the nub of it. In my view, those outside of the covenant community are not, by simple virtue of that fact, entirely outside of the norms of God.
On a philosophical level, it is important on my view that God’s preceptive will defines what is right and what is wrong. So on that account, the norms are universal. I would say that this is my overlap with van Til.
On a Biblical level, I don’t find that those outside the covenant community are freed from Scriptural norms. Rather, the pagan is judged according to the Law written on his heart. Ninevah is judged “because they have sinned” — transgressed God’s Law. Ditto for Sodom.
So while I see an intensivizing of the Law in Israel, so that the Jews are “under the Law”, I don’t find the corollary, that those outside the covenant community are therefore free from God’s Law, to be true.
So your question is, Why? If the Law was given in order to set apart Israel from the rest of humanity, then how would it make sense that the Law also applies to the nations?
And I would reply, that the Law was really given in the Garden. Isn’t that what the Confession teaches?
So it’s not that all men are part of the covenant community, but rather that all men are bound to the obligations of the Law because they are in Adam. What set Israel apart was not that they were held to a different standard, but that they had an exacting knowledge and excruciating enforcement of that standard (cf. Rom. 2-3).
Now, you might reasonably counter that theonomy wants to hold the whole world to the exacting standard and enforcement given to Israel. And I think that’s a fair objection (see here). It may be that our third way makes a distinction between ethical norms and their enforcement.
But from where I sit, the norms are the same everywhere. They just aren’t known in the same way everywhere.
JRC
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