I did not agree much with John Suk when he was editing The Banner, but this post from the summer shows that a neo-Calvinist with some self-awareness can actually sense the way Kuyperianism harshes a Reformed Protestant’s buzz:
Kuyper’s words were an apt summary of what Reformed people most believed in, namely the sovereignty of God. But more than that, Kuyper’s words were inspiring because they gave us young Calvinists something to do with our lives, a program. Our mission was to boldly claim each and every sphere of human activity as one that needed to be brought into alignment with—even submission to—the sovereign rule of God. We were shock troops for raising his flag over those square inches. So we set up Christian organizations to proclaim, in each sphere of human activity, what God’s rule would look like. Kuyperian Calvinists in Canada set up Christian labor unions, Christian schools, Christian hospitals, and Christian political parties—all in the image of what their parents and grandparents had done for Conservative Christianity in the Netherlands, and what the socialists and communists and liberals and monarchists had done for their respective gods and heroes in the Netherlands.
But now I’m not so sure. I have two related reasons to doubt this program.
First, the identification of human institutions with God’s rule inevitably invites making God’s sovereignty the perfect cover for acting coercively. After all, if God is on our side, how can we be wrong? Of course, acting in this way is inevitably shortsighted, or unloving, or even evil. In justifying their actions by appealing to God’s rule, people and institutions inevitably bring God’s name into disrepute.
History is full of examples. Over and over, the identification of the church and or the Christian establishment with the ruling monarchies of Europe put the church, and thus in the eyes of the people, God on the side of the rich, the powerful, and the unjust. I think it was Felicite de Lamennais who said that the alliance of church and monarchy before the French revolution meant the loss of three generations of Christians to the faith. But there are endless other examples. Consider the barbarity of the crusades. The one instance of a country besides the Netherlands where rulers actually put Kuyper’s ideas to use was apartheid South Africa. Kuyper’s notion of sphere sovereignty and his disciple Dooyeweerd’s concept of cultural differentiation were both used to support the idea of apartheid. Back in the Netherlands, Kuyper’s Antirevolutionary Party would go on to defend the cruel Dutch colonial presence because the rape and pillage of Indonesia’s resources was good for the Dutch economy.
The bottom line is this. When those in power believe they are doing God’s sovereign will, beware if you’re not on their side. The practical good that has come from politicians trying to implement God’s sovereignty in the world has not been impressive.
Unfortunately, Suk takes this piece where he sometimes took his editorials in the Banner and seems to abandon sovereignty altogether. But if he could have stopped with the implicit idea that divine sovereignty does not mean we are sovereign to “fix” the world, he would have had two enthusiastic vigorous thumbs up from (all about) me.
Old Life 
“harshes a…buzz.”… that’s a new one on me, of ignoble origin. Grist for the Hart-hating mill.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=harsh%20my%20buzz
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Chortles, you haven’t been listening to Phil Hendrie’s Jeff Dowder.
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No doubt some of the regulars will have been familiar with this charming phrase.
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I think I have the same opinion about John Bolt (Calvin Seminary) as you do about Suk. There is now enough distance from Kuyper that Bolt can concede that Herman Hoeksema had a point.
Bolt—There is a formal similarity between the theonomist and Anabaptist point of view here: the world’s present governmental structures are evil “powers” to be repudiated by Christ’s followers who are subject to the uncommon law of God (either Old Testament theocratic law in the case of theonomists or, in the case of Anabaptism, the new law of Christ). I call attention to this similarity because on this formal level at least it was alleged by his opponents that Hoeksema’s denial
of common grace was functionally Anabaptist, an espousal of world-flight Christianity.
This particular charge was led by Van Baalen. In his brochure, The Denial of Common Grace: Reformed or Anabaptist?, he judged the common grace controversy to be “the most
important struggle faced by the [CRC]” because it is the “conflict between Calvinism and Anabaptism.” Van Baalen cites a number of Reformed authorities as evidence for the proposition that a denial of common grace leads inevitably to Anabaptist world-flight. While Van Baalen acknowledges that there is an important difference between Hoeksema’s and the Anabaptist doctrine of grace, he still insists: “Nonetheless, both have this in common, that they know of only one grace and consequently judge the world in its totality [because] they can see no good in it.”
“In their response to Van Baalen, Hoeksema and Danhof categorically deny the accusations and challenge Van Baalen to find even one place in their writing where such world-flight is advocated. Hoeksema and Danhof insist that they distinguish a positive sense of the word world
as “nature” from the negative biblical sense of “world” as that which is in enmity against God.”
http://www.prca.org/articles/bolt.html
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Bolt: Restricting the notion of grace to the soteriological realm honors Hoeksema’s concerns and would suggest that the expression “good works” also be restricted to the Heidelberg Catechism’s understanding of “only those that proceed from a true faith.” The material content of this issue could then be placed in the doctrine of providence where it is free from all confusion with soteriology. Both sides would then clearly affirm total depravity, that even the best of human deeds are polluted with sin, and that apart from saving grace no one willingly does good.
Bolt: What happens when the matter of civil righteousness is framed by the doctrine of providence? The emphasis then falls on God’s creating, governing and sustaining work and the possibility of confusion with soteriological categories is minimized. Thanks to God’s providential care even fallen man, according to the Canons of Dort, continues to possess “glimmerings of natural light” so that he is able to know “differences between good and evil, discover some regard for virtue, good order in society, and for maintaining an orderly development.” In all of this, including the mind of man, God reigns supreme. History is not out of control, God brings it to his own conclusion and end.”
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“First, the identification of human institutions with God’s rule inevitably invites making God’s sovereignty the perfect cover for acting coercively. After all, if God is on our side, how can we be wrong? Of course, acting in this way is inevitably shortsighted, or unloving, or even evil. In justifying their actions by appealing to God’s rule, people and institutions inevitably bring God’s name into disrepute.”
Exactly.
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Chortles,
I mailed a book to a Jeffrey Weakly this afternoon. Your kin, no doubt.
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Lame.
He certainly doesn’t seem to have much of a grasp on what neocalvinism is. Sure, people have confused and abused the ideas of Kuyper and Dooyeweerd. So what? If that was a legitimate reason to doubt or reject the actual ideas, then it would be reason enough to reject the church, the Bible, and Christianity altogether.
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Baus, a guy who is Dutch-American, in the CRC, and edited the Banner doesn’t know what neo-Calvinism is? That’s like the Marxist saying Stalin wasn’t a Communist.
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I can’t tell if you’re being funny, because –of course– Marxists *did* say that Stalin wasn’t a Communist. Anyway, for your readers sake, it should be made clear the the problems in the CRC are no more an argument against neocalvinism than they are an argument against the reformed faith, confessionalism, or living in Michigan.
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Seems simple to me, you promise a Utopia through theonomy or Communism and when it doesn’t work (DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) you claim those in charge didn’t uphold the true values of the movement.
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Or saying the pope isn’t Catholic. Baus, I’m not aware of any paradigmers saying that, but if you’re any measure then worldviewers sure can be tough on each other. How will you ever have dominion with that sort of back-biting?
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It seems that the responsibility for apartheid and the abuse of the Indonesian people have been unfairly attributed to sphere sovereignty by DG Hart and in turn, John Suk. Clearly, anything (including the Bible) can be abused. Yet, there seems to be nothing inherent in this concept that would lead to racism. When putting this question to Thinknet, I received several replies pointing to a larger picture than presented above:
# This article on Kuyper and apartheid is an initial step towards a larger understanding of the issues involved (but by far not the only material available): http://scdc.library.ptsem.edu/mets/mets.aspx?src=PSB2002232&div=6
To go deeper, Patrick Baskwell’s Kuyper and Apartheid: A revisiting
http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/article/view/401 could help. Kuyper was certainly a child of his time and viewed blacks as racially inferior (likely due to Darwinian ideas), yet he was for intermarriage and did not go to the extremes later seen in apartheid.
# Whatever the case was with Kuyper and what he thought right at the time, neither the concepts of sphere sovereignty (SS) nor cultural differentiation support apartheid. The term ethnicity (volk) is not a societal sphere in the sense of sovereignty-in-own-sphere, for ethnicity and culture are somehow totalitarian, or have been interpreted as such. SS differentiates aspects of life and the social institutions that embody and promote them. It has nothing to do with races. Dooyeweerd’s idea of social differentiation was a criterion for historical progress. It was the point that in tribes, various aspects of life do not have distinct institutions to express and promote them. For him, the gradual differentiation of such institutions is a sign of historical progress (i.e. not of genetic inferiority). That does not mean, however, that historical progress is always done ethically – that’s another issue not at all the same as whether a society has specialized institutions.
This reply is only meant as a balance to the above; a full exploration of this issue would likely require a dissertation or at least some more nuanced scholarly exchange than the cliché this is meant to respond to.
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Baus,
I am not sure if your counter-response actually proves much. First, Suk only seems to be providing anecdotal historical reflection – via an objection based on prima facie observations, not on the basis of in-depth analysis. This might be objectionable in another genre, but as an editorial, it is only trying to illustrate a basic point from cursory observation. It’s not as if Suk is damning the entire neo-Calvinist enterprise here, as much as he is raising valid concerns from the inside of the movement. This would be like a 2ker voicing a concern over the common perception that an undue emphasis on 2k thought might subvert, say the historic Reformed understanding of the role the Christian individual has to play in his specific calling(s). Obviously 2k doesn’t come crashing down on this concern, but it does serve as a corrective to those who might be inclined to divorce Christian ethics from vocation. However, this doesn’t make this concern, or the corollary corrective to the misunderstanding of 2k invalid, it only underscores a valid intramural concern.
I am not sure how this could be construed as anything but a corrective to nec-Calvinist excess:
First, the identification of human institutions with God’s rule inevitably invites making God’s sovereignty the perfect cover for acting coercively. After all, if God is on our side, how can we be wrong? Of course, acting in this way is inevitably shortsighted, or unloving, or even evil. In justifying their actions by appealing to God’s rule, people and institutions inevitably bring God’s name into disrepute.
Suk’s intramural critique, nonetheless, does segue into a common objection that many of us 2kers share, maybe for different reasons than Suk: Kuyper and Dooyeweerd both saw their institutional ambitions as a part of the advance of God’s rule, without making an effective distinction between God’s common, Providential rule and his special rule through his eternal Kingdom vis a vis the spiritual authority accorded to the church. Therefore any advance of what was perceived to be the advance of God’s rule in temporal spheres/institutions was perceived to be an advance of the Kingdom, whether or not the spiritual interests of the church were advanced, much less whether these advances resulted in lasting fruit that could be attributed to the success of these non-ecclesiastical institutions.
Given the fact that we likely do agree on the fact, irrespective of intermediate institutional agency, that Christ’s Kingdom will advance directly through the agency of the church, and hell will not prevail against this; I am interested to hear how you envision non-ecclesiastical institutions demonstrably advancing his Kingdom. To be precise, how does the neo-Calvinist program mount a biblical apology for how the Kingdom is advanced outside of the agency of the institutional Church. Are there institutions outside of the church that have been divinely sanctioned to accomplish this end? How do they mitigate against the claim that just saying ‘God is on our (e.g. institution X’s) side” doesn’t make it so?
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Jed, first, there’s nothing peculiar to neocalvinism in the God’s-on-our-side claim. Anyone can (and many have) claimed this. Second, Suk (and Hart) take it as a reason to consider rejecting neocalvinism (not as a mere corrective to some observed tendency toward excess).
As to your question, you ought to give this serious study. Certainly, one should have some familiarity with the answer before rejecting it. The specifics of that answer are the “program” of neocalvinism. Here, in general, is Geerhardus Vos on the question from chapters 6 & 9 of (The Teaching of Jesus Concerning) The Kingdom of God and The Church [p.49-50, 86-89]:
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The muddle and confusion in Suk’s comment is simply exacerbated in discussions that follow.
The claim that establishing an institution to give corporate expression to a Christian witness in a particular area of life thereby leads to a claim that this is will be identified with God’s rule shows nothing more than that sin is still with us. Is the answer then to do nothing in case something goes wrong? Or is it to recognise human frailty in that whatever we do the power of sin will be present? To engage in whatever calling God has given us, to seek to serve him in personal and communal ways, does not mean that we must thereby assume that “God is on our side” and any who act or think differently are thereby going against God.
Our communal discipleship certainly must acknowledge God’s sovereignty, but it must do so with humility and acknowledge that in whatever we do “we are merely unprofitable servants.” The fact that we seek to serve God and live out his calling to us does not mean that we are thereby endowed with infallibility or the right to demand that others do the same as we do. That is not proclaiming the sovereignty of God, it is the establishment of idols in human form, demanding for ourselves what is due to God alone.
Dooyeweerd did not claim infallibility for his philosophy, in fact he acknowledged that others may come along with a superior system of thought to the one he elaborated. Were that to happen, it would be a cause for rejoicing in the fresh insight God had granted. But we cannot identify his thought, or that of any other person, with the Truth. All we can do is humbly seek to understand the Truth found in Christ alone and to give expression to that in our lives as best we can. None of us have a divine imprimatur on our thoughts and actions. Suggesting that seeking to live under the sovereignty of God implies/demands/necessitates identification of our human efforts with the Kingdom of God is simply bad faith (in all senses of the phrase).
Nor can Kuyper and Dooyeweerd be blamed for the racism in South Africa which was well and truly established and institutionalised before they were born. It did not arise with the formal apartheid system in the 1940s, it was there many years before – apartheid simply institutionalised racism at the highest level. That some mis-used Kuyper and Dooyeweerd to defend this is no slur on them, as Calvinism itself was claimed to justify, nay require this racist system. is John Calvin then to blame?
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Baus, I love that quote from Vos. He admits that Jesus didn’t teach what Vos affirms. But that’s okay. We want a larger view of the kingdom so we can read it into our Lord’s teaching.
This is like the Protestant-turned-Roman Catholic insistence — it must be the case that what we affirm is true. IT MUST!
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ChrisG, while you’re advocating humility, can you also admit that Dutch neo-Calvinism is not the only way to be Reformed?
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I can willingly state that Dutch neo-Calvinism is not the only way to be Reformed. Nor is being Reformed the only way to be Christian. Nor do the Dutch have a special claim on being neo-Calvinist. I have learned much from charismatic teaching, and also hold to doctrines which some neo-Calvinists would not accept. But I have yet to encounter anything with the intellectual depth and spiritual life to match the best of neo-Calvinism. There is much that all branches of Christianity can learn from it. And conversely, much which neo-Calvinism can (and is!) learning from other Christians.
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ChrisG, so your loyalty is more to neo-Calvinism than to the churches that confess the Three Forms of Unity?
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Darryl, that’s not what Vos says.
Anyway, I know you like to play the niggardly fundamentalist in your hermeneutic and throw out good and necessary consequence and implications/applications when it serves your interest. But Vos’ work on the Kingdom handily defeats every attempt you’ve made to pooh-pooh neocalvinism.
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Yes, I have never belonged to a church holding to the three forms of unity (lack of opportunity being a principal reason – there isn’t such a church in my locality). I encountered neo-Calvinism before I knew anything mcuh about Calvinism per se.
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Baus, actually, I understand that you have drunk the neo-Cal koolaid as deeply as Stellman has Roman Catholicism. When you can’t even admit a problem and you continue to reside on planet earth, a hotbed of problems, you show that you’ve been taken over by the aliens.
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Instead of mud-slinging and alluding to purported alien presences, perhaps we can go back to discussing the issues. If not, I’ll take my leave.
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Ok, Chris. The issue is whether neo-Calvinism is confessional. I contend it is not. Nothing in the 3 Forms or WCF that requires neo-Calvinism. (Neo wouldn’t make sense if it were the old view.) So how exactly do neo-Calvinists get away with saying that 2kers aren’t Reformed? I don’t confess Vos. I don’t confess Kuyper. So what’s the beef?
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Darryl, the “problem” you refer to above in reply to Chris –this is the problem I can’t admit because my adherence to neocalvinism is akin to having consumed the poison of a damnable heresy?
Hm. Ok.
Well, I have never held that neocalvinism as such is required by the confession/s. (Although there are clearly some shared foundational commitments, and I have always argued that non-confessionalists, if they claim neocalvinism, have a distorted neocalvinism.)
I have never held that non-neocalvinists are unreformed, confessionally speaking.
So, if you can show any neocalvinist anywhere saying that neocalvinism as such is required by the confessions, or that non-neocalvinists are necessarily unconfessional, I’ll condemn such a thing along with you.
At the same time, there are important views that follow most consistently (let’s call it reformed “thickness”) from reformed confessionalism, even if they aren’t as such confessional views themselves (there are at least 5 different forms of “thickness”). Certainly, you shouldn’t pretend that you don’t hold to any extra-confessional views, or don’t embrace any kind of thickness. You don’t hold to a “mere confessionalism”.
If you think neocalvinism is contrary to the confessions, well, that is something you’ve implied and never done a good job at arguing. Having gone back&forth with you on it over the years, while it is a hobby horse of yours, it hasn’t appeared that you are interested in taking the views of neocalvinist confessionalists seriously and arguing about neocalvinism in a substantial way.
In any case, we both agree that to be per se reformed is to be confessionally reformed. And were anyone to say otherwise or to say neocalvinism is as such required by the confession, we’d both speak against it.
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It would help if you could clarify your meaning. You contend neo-Calvinism is not confessional, i.e. required by the confessions. I may well agree with you on that but that may be inconsequential. I’m sure a lot of more recent Christianity is not “required” by the confessions but legitimate nevertheless. The 16th/17th Century confessions are not the final word for us in the way that Scripture is.
But are you also saying that neo-Calvinism is contrary to or incompatible with the confessions? There have been those who argued that, but I would disagree. Consider the extensive work done by neo-Calvinists such as S G de Graaf The True Faith, and K J Popma, who expounded the confessions in a neo-Calvinist way.
Confessionalism (e.g. being bound to only what the confessions said and excluding everything else) is to my thinking a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture.
I must admit I haven’t given a lot of attention to the 2K controversy – I doubt there are many Christians in my circles who are even aware of it, as it seems to be perplexing Americans more than others. I’m sure it is an important debate – it’s just not MY debate. I have other issues to contend with. The rest of the world doesn’t see Christianity through American spectacles.
So is neo-Calvinism a legitimate (Biblically faithful, theologically sound, pastorally sensitive) expression of Christianity? I contend that it is.
Is 2K a legitimate expression of Christianity? I think it has pointed out some issues where greater finesse and practical issues need addressing. But from what little I have read of it, I don’t find it as compelling or fruitful an approach as neo-Calvinism, and it doesn’t seem to address the questions as to how Christians are to live in the world as citizens of the heavenly city – questions which neo-Calvinism has been grappling with for some time.
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Baus, non-confessional does not mean anti-confessional. I root for the Phillies. I am free to do it because it is illegitimate. So neo-Calvinism is something Reformed folk are free to espouse.
If you don’t think that neo-Calvinists accuse 2kers of not being Reformed, you haven’t been paying much attention.
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ChrisG., if you think confessionalism is contrary to sola scriptura, you are not making the best case for neo-Calvinism.
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Baus, but is anarchism confessional? I know there are only about five people in the world who really understand neo-Calvinism and none of them are here until you arrive, but if neo-Calvinism comes with your brand of rabid anti-authoritarianism then it’s hardly clear how it’s even close to confessional.
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I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion. Let me try again.
The confessions do not teach everything that is in Scripture – they cannot substitute for Scripture, they are not as comprehensive as Scripture. I know of no confession that claims that.
The confessions may teach things which are not in Scripture. They are fallible human expressions of our grasp of the teachings in Scripture. Hence the ability to bring a gravamen should we find errors or inadequacies. The change to Article 36 of the Belgic Confession is an example of this.
Confessional-ISM would be the claim that a confession teaches everything in Scripture and/or nothing that is not in Scripture. It is claiming more for a confession than is appropriate.
You may be using confessionalism in a more positive sense, namely that it is good to hold to a confession of faith as an articulation of Biblical teaching. I have no problem with that, as long as it does not slide into confessional-ISM as I tried to describe it above.
Now, back to my previous question: In what way do you see neo-Calvinism as not required by the confessions? Do you see neo-Calvinism as contrary to the confessions?
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ChrisG, no one here ever said that confessionalism means confessing everything in Scripture. You seem to know more about Dooyeweerd than about the Reformed churches and how their confessions operate.
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I was trying to clarify what you meant by your comment “The issue is whether neo-Calvinism is confessional. I contend it is not. Nothing in the 3 Forms or WCF that requires neo-Calvinism.”
I said that the confessions neither demand nor preclude neo-Calvinism. You appear to think that neo-calvinism is not compatible with the confessions, that is, someone can’t be faithful to the confessions AND hold to neo-calvinism. I’m not sure if that’s your view but I will assume that is the case as you have done nothing to explain yourself in that regard.
You don’t seem to be willing to engage in discussion so I see no point in commenting further.
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Darryl, I appreciate your clarification that we are in agreement that non-confessional is not the same as anti-confessional, and that neocalvinism isn’t (unless otherwise corrupted) anti-confessional.
I took Evans and others not to be saying that non-neocalvinists were non-Reformed because they were simply non-neocalvinists. Rather, I took them to be arguing against specific points they believed to be held by some non-neocalvinists, specifically some 2k’ers, which Evans and others thought to either anti-Reformed or otherwise inconsistent with points they take to be Reformed.
Perhaps it would be helpful to offer my criticisms of Evans somewhere. I am suspicious that he is not a professed confessionalist, so in my book, his views are already significantly problematic. However, the confession does not say that the visible church is Christ’s kingdom exclusive of anything else being His kingdom. So, it is at least non-confessional to insist the the visible church and the kingdom are exclusively identified. And this is also to say that I would partially agree with Evans on a few points, although I do so as a confessionalist. If I comment further, I’ll let you know and ask for your feedback.
Zrim, anarchism (of the variety I espouse anyway) is not anti-confessional, no. It is non-confessional in many respects. This anti-authoritarianism isn’t anti-authority, nor is it anti-civil governance.
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ChrisG, what I said was that neo-Calvinism is not required by the confessions — full stop. That means it is not confessional any more than rooting for the Maple Leafs is.
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Baus, what the Confession says about the visible church being the kingdom of Christ (something that neo-Cals dispute) makes perfect sense with the two-fold kingship of Christ, one mediatorial and one creational. But again, Kloosterman and many others believe this distinction is specious (even though Ursinus holds it, along with Calvin). And that is the rub for neo-Calvinists since they view redemption in cosmic terms, such that Christ’s special rule as mediator needs to extend to plumbing and television. I didn’t say that. You guys did.
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Baus, and an anarchism that isn’t anti-authority. Now an anarchism only five people in the world really understand.
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Darryl, again, as a matter of fact, it’s not a problem for neocalvinism that the visible church is Christ’s kingdom. We all affirm that. However, no neocalvinists, not even confessionalist ones like myself, hold that the visible church is exclusively the kingdom (‘exclusivity’ is an extra- or non-confessional view).
I’m fairly sure that the ‘mediatorial’ vs. ‘creational’ rule of Christ, though I accept a certain version of it, is also extra-/non-confessional. Do you disagree?
Zrim, there’re many of us. Here’s Gerard Casey: http://mises.org/daily/5279/ | http://youtu.be/mz92CL9ePgM?t=3m44s
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Baus, the Catechisms in the second petition give lots of ground for saying that Christ’s kingdom, the kingdom of grace, is distinct from God’s providential rule of all things. That distinction is one that neo-Cals trip over because they seem to think it is dualistic — plus it denies the Netherlands’ calling as a holy nation.
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The Netherlands are not a holy nation any more than any other – the holy nation in the NT is the church – the body of redeemed ones.
The distinction in the Catechism you refer to is one which is inferred from a dualistic perspective. It can be understood appropriately without distinguishing providence from grace, God’s rule is undivided.
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Golb, so you think God rules the U.S. the way he rules the United Reformed Churches? You actually think the U.S. is part of the kingdom the way the URC are?
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Darryl, I see nothing in SC 102 or in LC 191 (or elsewhere) that a neocal would trip over; even a non-confessionalist neocalvinist. There is a distinction made between Christ’s “kingdom of grace,” and Christ’s “kingdom of power,” and Christ’s “kingdom of glory.” But these are not at odds with any neocalvinistic view.
In fact, LC 45 says that Christ, in His mediatorial office as king “powerfully order[s] all things for his own glory.” This indicates that a construal of Christ’s rule in such a way as to say that providence is only “creational” and not also “mediatorial” is anticonfessional.
On the senses of “holy” (and in what sense a non-ecclesial, non-theocratic country or ‘government’ might be holy), you should see my reference to your own words (or perhaps they were only Muether’s): http://honest2blog.blogspot.com/2012/04/sanctifying-common-2.html
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Baus, maybe you can trip over this:
Now if want to insist that God’s kingdom is righteousness all the way through, then you are going to have to attribute to civil power what you also attribute to ecclesiastical power (or maybe you deny the distinction and join with Muslims). But if you want to say that God rules his creation one way, and his church another, in a spiritual way, then you are going to have to distinguish different kinds of Christ’s rule. If you don’t, you’ve just made the world safe for the Social Gospel and Pope Francis. Way to go.
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Darryl, so you will admit that Christ’s providential rule is mediatorial? And that to deny it is anticonfessional? I don’t see how you can now say otherwise.
I also don’t see what you suppose there is for a neocalvinist as such to trip over in the quotation. Neocalvinism affirms the humiliation/cross-bearing nature of Christian life prior to glory. And it affirms the distinctions between creation/providence & redemption, and between the church and the non-ecclesial. The question isn’t whether we distinguish these things, but in what way we do so.
The Social Gospel, the Papacy, etc may seem to follow from within your own assumptions if understanding the distinctions differently were the same as rejecting the distinctions altogether. But none of those things follow given neocalvinism’s actual concept of those distinctions.
In any case, you should continue to be clear about the fact that nothing in neocalvinism per se is anticonfessional, and that there are neocalvinists who are confessionalists.
Simply because some neocalvinist confessionalists and some non-neocalvinist confessionalists (such as I and you) disagree about implications for cultural activity, doesn’t mean we aren’t in agreement concerning the church and the basic nature of the Christian life. Right?
As you continue calling out anti-confessionalists, you should avoid faulting neocalvinism as such (unless you can specifically show the fault, which you’ve yet to do).
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I have no idea how you draw the conclusion you do. No nation is outside God’s rule. No church is outside his rule. No nation and no church can be identified as the kingdom of God.
God rules over the whole of creation. Period. People offer obedient/faithful or disobedient/faithless response to God. Those who are believing belong to the kingdom of God. Those within his creation who are disbelieving do not belong to the kingdom of God.
God rules over the whole of creation in grace. Those who despise his grace will be excluded from the eternal kingdom. There is no separate rule for the church – it is the portion of creation which responds positively to God’s rule (although often in mixed fashion – the church is still prone to get it wrong) while those outside the church are responding negatively to God’s rule.
There is one law for all – one law-giver. One seat of judgement where the lawbreakers will be held accountable and those who follow the law-giver’s ways will be declared true and faithful servants.
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Baus, I have no idea why you think Christ’s providential rule is mediatorial. It may be indirectly, in that he orders all things providentially, for the good of his people. But his rule over his people is different from his rule over his enemies. Think Shorter Catechism: “Christ executeth the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.” Christ ruled Saddam Hussein one way, me another. Why someone who affirms the antithesis doesn’t get this is beyond me.
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Golb, God rules over all things.
God’s enemies are part of all things. (You don’t think God’s enemies are autonomous from God, do you, good neo-Cal that you are?)
God rules his enemies differently from the way he rules his children.
I can’t believe you don’t understand something so elementary. (Though it does seem that integralists, Roman and Calvinists, drink a lot of kool-aid.)
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You said: God rules his enemies differently from the way he rules his children. – I said: There is one law for all – one law-giver. One seat of judgement where the lawbreakers will be held accountable and those who follow the law-giver’s ways will be declared true and faithful servants. A rather different outcome for God’s children and the others, don’t you think? God rules them the same way – the consequences for the disobedient and the obedient distinguish them. Or do you believe that there is a different law for the unbelievers to follow?
You said: I can’t believe you don’t understand something so elementary. That’s just plain rude.
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Reg, actually there are many laws. Canada’s laws are not the same as the U.S. and neither are the same as God’s laws. We are talking about 2k, you know, and integralist objections to it.
But whatever you want to make of a singular law and a singular king, you cannot say of unbelievers in America or Canada what the Shorter Catechism says of Christ’s rule of believers: “Christ executeth the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.” Is this true in this world of everyone? Kuyperian integralism implicitly undermines this affirmation.
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Darryl, who’s denying that Christ rules different things/people in different ways? Not me.
LC 45 says that Christ, in His *mediatorial office* as king “powerfully order[s] all things for his own glory.” It’s pretty basic. This means that providence is mediatorial.
You might want to make some other kind of distinction (between elect and reprobate, or regenerate and unregenerate, or redemption and condemnation), but you can’t say “mediatorial” vs. “creation/providence.” That would be anticonfessional.
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Baus, talk about selective, which is pretty much par for the course with neo-Cals. The entire WLC 45 reads:
The entire answer is about redemption of the elect, not about Christ’s ruling Saddam Hussein.
But then again, you guys always go from soteriology to cosmology in good Carl Sagan fashion.
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Darryl, yes the whole of the answer is about redemption of the elect. So what? That doesn’t change the fact that it says his providence [ie, powerfully ordering all things] is a work of his mediatorial office.
Christ’s restraining & overcoming, and judgement of [taking vengeance on] the reprobate [enemies] and his providence are all part of his being Mediator and redemption of the elect. You can’t handle the truth?
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Moreover, none of this implies a claim that Christ doesn’t rule over [govern, visibly or otherwise], the church and/or the elect differently than he rules [or orders] all things and the non-elect. Of course, he does rule over them differently. And that doesn’t require one to construe mediatorial vs. creational.
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Baus, providence is different. That’s why it receives a different chapter in the confession. Neo-Cal’s blur lines. That’s the only way to make integralism work.
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Darryl, ok. In what way/s are Christ’s ordering of all things and providence different?
Really, I’d like to know what you’re thinking here.
I don’t think you can make a case based on the fact that providence is also treated elsewhere. I mean, things are treated in more than one place in the Standards, aren’t they?
I don’t know what you think “integralism” is (I don’t particularly use the term), but in so far as neocalvinism has an ‘integral’ idea of reality and truth (or anything else), it certainly doesn’t thereby fail to make distinctions (least of all between creation and redemption).
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You said: Kuyperian integralism implicitly undermines this affirmation.
How? In no way does a Kuyperian proclamation of the Lordship of Christ over the whole of creation, and the call to integral obedience to King Jesus in every area of life undermine the merciful loving relationship that God has with his children. Note what was said earlier about the judgement seat of Christ – the outcomes for believers and unbelievers are different and in this life God can turn his face away from the froward while being gracious to the repentant.
And this is on the basis of the one King instituting one law for all, ruling all alike in that regard, and holding all accountable to the same standard. Those who show obedience will be blessed, those who persist in disobedience will receive their due deserts.
You are not clarifying your position at all, simply confusing it with remarks that appear irrelevant as they don’t address the issues raised, and making seemingly random accusations against Kuyperians which lack credibility as they are simply hanging in the air.
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Baus, this is providence:
This is providence on neo-Calvinism:
When words talk about all creatures and then other words talk about a people who are different from God’s enemies, I think we have a difference.
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Golb, “You are not clarifying your position at all, simply confusing it with remarks that appear irrelevant. . .” How rude.
So you are talking more about law than about rule. Seems to me you may be confused. And given your invocation of the Mosaic Covenant — do this and live, don’t do this and die — where in the world is your understanding of God’s gracious provision of salvation in Christ — as in, trust and live?
You’ve only given me more reasons to be concerned about neo-Calvinism if you are representative. Grace is different from law. That is something that 2k foregrounds. And it works out into Christ ruling in different ways, one way graciously with his people through the church, another way providentially in restraining evil by the state.
If you mix it all together and all are under the same order of operations, we’re all in OT Israel and doomed.
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An update on the Apartheid question – Danie Strauss wrote an article on the topic:
Dooyeweerd’s philosophy entails no support for Apartheid whatsoever. Journal for Christian Scholarship (1st quarter): 117-154.
Available at http://www.allofliferedeemed.co.uk/Strauss/DFMS-Eloff&Dooyeweerd.pdf
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