Many years ago – too many for those of his vintage – Ken Myers, the talking voice behind Mars Hill Audio, wrote a piece that should be more widely known and read, “Christianity, Culture, and Common Grace.†It is available in pdf at the Mars Hill website. Ken is one of the best students of culture, as attested by his book, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, a work in which he draws explicitly upon the arguments of Meredith Kline about cult and culture. (Kerux readers beware). Those same insights inform Ken’s essay on common grace and lead him to write the following about the sufficiency of Scripture:
We don’t hear much about the “insufficiency of Scripture.†But it is an important point to keep in mind when thinking about Christianity and culture. Scripture does not present itself as the only source of truth about all matters. It does not even present itself as a source of some truth about everything. It presents itself as the only authoritative source of truth about some things, and they are the most important things. But the Bible does not claim to teach us the fundamentals of arithmetic, of biology, of engineering, or of music. About most of the matters of culture, the Bible has little explicit to say. Many people insist on taking implicit statements from Scripture (or allegedly implicit statements) and deducing from them an entire theory. This is often done in the name of a high view of Scripture, but it is rather to treat Scripture as a magic book. It is a superstitious view of Scripture, not the view God has himself presented. The belief that all the blueprints for all of life are in Scripture is in part derived from the notion that reason and general revelation are not to be trusted.
Makes sense to me.
Old Life 
T. David Gordon has a good, brief article on this here: http://www.covopc.org/Papers/Insufficiency_of_Scripture.html.
I think it was first published in Modern Reformation in the issue in which they asked various theologians about changes in their thinking in the past ten years or something to that effect.
FWIW, Chris H., Blacksburg, VA
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This is a great (but long!) article, I highly recommend it. But if you’re not up to the length, there are many more quotes in 4 blog posts beginning with this one.
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Oh, ok, I’ll bite.
I appreciate what Meyers is saying and even agree with him to a large extent. But consider these:
Gen. 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Col. 1:16-20 – “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
Matt. 28:18 – “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Looking at these three passages you have to ask, what part of heaven or earth is left out here? How does one reconcile this with Ken’s claim here: “It does not even present itself as a source of some truth about everything.” But the Bible speaks about the origin, subjection, and purpose of everything. Of course he is bang on when he says, “But the Bible does not claim to teach us the fundamentals of arithmetic, of biology, of engineering, or of music.” I agree with that and I appreciate what he is getting at. But I think he lacks some precision and clarity.
I would rather contend that we can’t rightly know or understand anything apart from Scripture, just as I would also contend that we cannot rightly understand anything only from Scripture. I could say the same about general revelation too.
Would Ken Meyers accuse me of being a biblicist for saying this? Or accuse me of having a “superstitious” view of Scripture? If he would, we need to have a word.
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Jonah, so by your exegesis the Bible talks about baseball? If so, why have the wicked (i.e., Yankees) won so many World Series? Do you really think George Steinbrenner is so successful because he understands baseball from the perspective of Scripture?
You know, if students writing papers for me made the leaps in logic that you do, they’d get bad grades.
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So I should stop trawling through the minor prophets to find the secret of hard abs?
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My point is that the Bible speaks about everything not by mentioning everything individually but by speaking about everything at once. Look at the passages I quoted. They refer to “all things,†“in heaven and earth,†whether “visible or invisible.†So the Bible speaks about everything at once, but not by mentioning everything individually. Likewise as it pertains to baseball. The Bible does not talk about baseball specifically. But it does speak about the motive and manner by which you should play it. The Bible speaks about who created mankind’s ability to play it, as well as who created the grass and wood needed to play it.
Perhaps you’ll understand my point when it hits home for you. For example, does the Bible say that Darryl G. Hart is a sinner? Does the Bible say that Jesus Christ died and rose for Darryl G. Hart? Does the Bible say that the body of Darryl G. Hart will be made immortal when Jesus Christ returns? See what I mean? The Bible does talk about you, even though it doesn’t talk about you specifically or individually. Kapish?
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Jonah, you’re over reaching. If you were to interpret other all things passages of the Bible the way you do these, you’d wind up saying John 3:16 means that Christ died for everybody and wind up denying limited atonement. (Do you really think about where your hermeneutical positions lead?)
And then to run from baseball to Darryl Hart. Are you serious? The Bible does talk directly about men and sin and a savior. How could I deny that? But does the Bible talk about sport or about how I should play?
You’re trying too hard to defend a position that needs qualification, not going all in.
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dgh: “The Bible does talk directly about men and sin and a savior. How could I deny that?”
But the Bible doesn’t talk about you or me specifically or individually. I can’t find “Darryl” in the concordance. My point is that the Bible doesn’t have to talk about you or me specifically in order to talk about you or me. And that applies not just to people but also to things and to actions and to thoughts, etc.
dgh: “But does the Bible talk about sport or about how I should play?”
The Bible does talk about running races and the value of spiritual vs. physical training but that’s not my point. My point is that the Bible does talk about baseball even though is does not talk about baseball specifically or in particular. The Bible does not teach how to throw a curveball or hit a double. But the Bible does say that I should play baseball to the glory of God, not by mentioning baseball specifically, but because the Bible says that I should do all things to the glory of God, even whether I eat or drink. The Bible also says that I should love my neighbor as myself. Baseball would be a disaster if the players did not do that.
So if you have any more softballs for me, I’d be glad to hit them out of the park 🙂
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Jonah, I’m roughly on your team here, so let me ask this question in the hopes that you can hit it out of the park for us, or at least give the conversation some forward progress.
In the areas that Scripture does not spell out specifically, would you say that Scripture is *silent* or *implicit*?
If implicit, would you say that the Scripture implies one unique answer (to be divined through exegesis), or would you say that there might be more than one answer (dependent perhaps upon situation and motive), or “other”?
Further, would you say that creational knowledge is necessary for (a) properly exegeting Scripture, or (b) finding answers to questions that Scripture is silent or implicit on? (a,b are not exclusive of each other)
Dr. Hart, same questions, if you wouldn’t mind.
JRC
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I’ve completely torched the threading over on “The Virus is Spreading”, so I’ll post this over here (hah! Like Sampson and the foxes … just kidding). This post is more directly relevant here anyways.
On that thread, Jed Paschall said
and then he elaborated,
Jed, I think you’ve absolutely nailed several issues here, and so now the question is how to avoid the problems that you identify.
(1) There is a need for specific Creational knowledge that is not supplied directly in the Scriptures. AND, this knowledge is relatively independent of Scripture (that is, nothing in Scripture causes a “Christian modification of Stoke’s Law”).
(2) There are those who are “Christian shirkers”, whose supposed focus on piety causes them to drop the ball in the workplace.
(3) There are those who are “Christian bullies”, who play the Bible trump card as an unarguable justification for their own actions.
So how do we evaluate this? Why is (1) true? How do we know that (2) and (3) are wrong?
(1) Here, I think there’s opportunity for common ground. On all hands, it is agreed that (a) Creation was originally good, and (b) that Creational knowledge is grounded in the regularity of God’s providence. There’s an anti-Gnostic point to be made here: the physical world is real and good, and its laws are not arbitrary, but reflect the character of God (as in Ps. 8). Therefore, both Christian and non-Christian plumbers will discover the same laws in their plumbing.
Any objections?
(2) How do we know that Christian shirking is wrong? Ultimately, because Scripture says so. So the problem with the Christian shirker is not so much that he’s bringing Christ into the workplace, but that his view of what it means to be a Christian in the workplace is too small. He has an “insufficiently cogent” view of life in the world *as a resident alien.*
What is his fault? That he has improperly brought the sacred into the secular?
No, actually, his fault is that he has failed to understand the meaning of God’s commands for him *in the workplace.* A more thoroughly Christian worldview is required here, not less.
(3) This situation is very similar. Our Christian bully has failed to internalize what it means to serve instead of be served, to be meek rather than arrogant.
Finally, I want to consider this:
Do we agree that there are circumstances when piety will and should interfere with the GC’s desires: For example, if he demands non-emergency plumbing on Sundays, or if his idea of “the right price” is in fact gouging?
—
What I’m getting at is this: the problems that Jed mentions, which are in the same ballpark as the problems that Myers addresses (“The Bible as a magic book”, etc), are real. I think, however, that the solution lies not in separating the common and sacred (which seems futile, since the Bible *does* address many areas of common life), but in finding the right relationship between them.
I’ve suggested a “framework-and-details” approach, but that’s just a suggestion.
JRC
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While we’re thinking about public faith, any thoughts on this?
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/08/fox-tiger-and-christianity-a-defense-of-brit-hume/
JRC
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Jonah is on-the-mark. Organized sports are based on the rule of law. God’s Kingdom is based on the rule of law. It’s also based in inherent fair play. In tyrannies you don’t see organized sports. If they have them you see corruption. You see Moscow teams never losing. You see corruption among the referees and judges. The atheist tyrannies that sent teams to the Olympics cheated in every way. State sponsored performance enhancing drug use, corrupting the independence of judges, colluding with other tyrannies to stack panels and rule in favor of athletes from said tyrannies. As our own society declines you see similar corruption. I don’t watch the NBA anymore because it is corrupt top to bottom.
Science based on man’s demands leads into the dead ends of things like the theory of evolution.
Regarding mathematics: in a tyranny 2 plus 2 can equal 5, or 17, if the dictator so demands. And in fact in such tyrannies we’ve seen on this planet 2 plus 2 usually do equal 5 or 17.
Liberty comes from God. A mind free to pursue something like mathematics will pursue the truth of that discipline based on the liberty that only comes from God. We know of that liberty from the Word of God.
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Christian, but where does the Bible say, “don’t make the first or second out of the inning at home plate”? Or what about the infield-fly rule?
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Jonah, what possibly is at stake in saying that the Bible speaks to baseball? And why won’t you see that if you grant the Bible does speak to baseball, then Calvary OPC, which ministers the word, has authority over the Phillies manager, Charlie Manuel?
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DGH’s point that a biblical generality does not necessarily justify any or all particulars (cf. “all means all and that’s all all means”) was missed. I suppose it’s up to the biblicist, as always, to judge whether it was a ball or a strike. But we could at least agree that it’s sitting in the catcher’s mitt and not in someone’s passenger seat.
And I don’t even watch baseball.
I was confronted with transformationalism in my early 20s, and the first thing that occurred to me as problematic for doing all things Christianly was using the bathroom. (don’t blame me; I wasn’t the one yelling EVERY SQUARE INCH.) The best I could come up with was replacing video game magazines with Christian-related books. But I considered this a satisfactory redemption.
And at least that has some positive element to it, whereas Christian teeth-brushing is not done lazily and disallows spitting on your neighbor’s toothbrush, Christian flossing is still undefined (every day? how vigorous? just don’t strangle anyone with the floss), and Christian plumbing is a series of applications of the second table so imaginative that the Larger Catechism couldn’t contain it. The jury is still out the first table; you shouldn’t plumb on Sunday (unless an act of necessity or mercy), but are you obligated to flush your customer’s idols?
Eventually you wonder what’s really changing. You don’t seem to be doing much other than trying to mind God’s law, whatever else you happen to be doing. And it looks suspiciously similar in each of these applications, whether you’re following your employment contracts or not making things up when writing a math textbook. This suggests to me that maybe a portion of God’s law is more properly said to restrict lying, not plumbing or math. And Jeff has come dangerously close to saying the same thing in many of his posts. But this view doesn’t begin to justify “Christian math” and “Christian flossing.”
Which Jonah alluded to with, “I could say (we cannot rightly understand anything only from) … general revelation too.” But this is nonsense. Newton was a heretic; Leibniz didn’t believe in much supernaturally, afaik. Calculus still lives on, if without infinitesimals. Christians rarely understand it at all, and when they purport to add onto it, they do it by reading a psalm or whatever while teaching derivatives. But they have to achieve a fraction of the insight of a Turing or a Russell … both of whom were very much not Christians. What gives?
Jonah said, “The Bible also says that I should love my neighbor as myself. Baseball would be a disaster if the players did not do that.” I guess I should watch baseball. The church doesn’t even do that and it seems to get by, but with specific exhortations, use of the means of grace, and as the beneficiary of the promises of God. How’s that work in the MLB?
“If I play on the field of the LA Angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” (1 Cor. 13:1, NIV, extra-dynamic rendering)
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Darryl, are these replies really worthy of you?
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http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/heidelcast-brit-was-right-and-wrong/
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Not sure what the danger is, but I agree with you: we seem to be talking about applying the same norms across the board:
Mike: “Don’t commit adultery, in all walks of life”
v.
Jeff: “In all walks of life, don’t commit adultery.”
JRC
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Actually, I think “jurisdiction” answers the second question nicely. Calvary OPC ministers the word, but it actually has no jurisdiction over me, even in my worship.
Likewise, even if we were to say that Scripture speaks to baseball, it does not follow that Calvary is the proper court to speak to Charlie, unless he happens to be a member of Calvary *and* is engaged in obvious sin, yada-yada.
(Does he?!)
Coming back to government. Assume for a moment that the government of the state of Delaware is ethically obligated to Scripture as its source of norms. (Notice that I semi-weaseled out of the 1st Amendment thing by leaving it a state matter)
Nevertheless, if the state of Delaware refused to pass a law prohibiting adultery, it would not follow that the church would have jurisdiction over the state in this matter.
Even if the governor were a member of a PCA church in Delaware, it would not necessarily follow that the church would have jurisdiction over him in this matter.
In other words, Scripture’s mandate and the church’s mandate are not coextensive.
Regardless of whatever we might say about the role of Scripture in law, I would agree with you, Dr. Hart, that the church’s role is and should be limited.
JRC
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Were the Westminster Divines incorrect and being “transformational” in laying out in great detail the implications of the Law in the Larger Catechism?
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Since ya’ll are so good-natured, may I toss in a few Lutheran ideas?
Would it be helpful to rephrase the question and ask, “By whose authority are the rules of baseball determined?” Is it not by civil authority? If I look at this way, the two kingdoms come into clearer focus. As a Christian, am I to go to the Baseball Commission and tell them that they need to Christianize baseball? What is Christian baseball? If it is to play by the rules, be a good sportsman, or display good character/virtues… well even a good pagan can do that. If we can acknowledge that even good pagans can display good character, play by the rules, and be dynamite on the field, then what is the purpose of biblicalism (is that the right term)?
As I understand it, the purpose of the two kingdoms is to help us not confuse ecclesiastical authority with civil authority. Perhaps it might help to look at Jesus’ words to Pilate, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.” (John 19:11) Here, Jesus recognizes the civil authority given to men by God and that he lives under civil authority. This is a simplistic example and certainly not complete, but contrast what Pilate exercised authority over (governor of men) and what Christ exercised authority over (sin, death, the devil). Or consider what Jesus said when asked to settle a legal dispute, he said: “Who made me judge or an arbiter between you?” (Luke 12:14). Why did Jesus not take a stand? Is there a difference in kingdoms? Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:33,36) Perhaps pondering Christ’s words will help?
I’m not saying it’s easy to understand, but the two kingdom attempts to address different authorities and seeks to help Christians live honorable lives among men. It also helps distinguish between civil righteousness and Christ’s righteousness which robes the saints. I hope this makes sense and didn’t muddy the water.
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Lily, I think this is helpful (and not just to Lutherans). The discussion has centered around grounds of knowledge, Scripture v. creation, but it seems like the political issue of jurisdiction is a large part of the equation.
JRC
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Jeff,
Thanks for letting me know my comment made some sense. I got lost in the different arguments and reverted to my default mode when looking at the two kingdoms. As for what you mentioned, I am not a scholar and I surely may be wrong, but the way I understand it – natural law/creation belongs to all mankind [both kingdoms (like common grace)] which is where the law is applied. And salvation/special revelation belongs to God’s kingdom which is where the gospel is applied. It’s a pretty simplistic way to put it, but it helps me navigate the two kingdoms. I’ll leave the fine points and any correctives I need to ya’ll!
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Good point. They are simply worthy of me.
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If the governor of Delaware is a member of the PCA, the church has authority over him or her no matter what the state’s laws or the administration’s policies.
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If the Assembly isn’t called by the State, but is simply a meeting called by the church, no.
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I do wish there was some sort of command against the designated hitter.
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Which means that if the gov committed adultery then s/he would be subject to church discipline, even if the state says it’s legal and not grounds for civil punishment.
And the gov also has liberty conscience not to get behind legislation that seeks to civilly punish adultery simply beause his/her church forbids it. In other words, the church has jurisdiction over what s/he does in his/her own body (and mind), but not over what s/he does with respect to political policy.
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Hi Jeff,
I got to thinking more about your articulation “the political issue of jurisdiction is a large part of the equation.” I kept being uncomfortable with that phrase. I think it bothers me because I don’t think one can understand the two kingdoms apart from putting Christ (his person and work) as the primary fact. One has to begin with Christ and his words about his kingdom and then one can begin to see how things fall into the two kingdoms (eg: natural law/creation, theology of the cross vs. theology of glory, the evangel, governance, etc.). I cannot understand the two kingdoms unless Christ is made primary and everything else is made secondary. I hope this makes sense?
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Hey Darryl,
Your buddy RSC says in RCC, ““Special revelation speaks to football games, but not of them†(p.24). Hmmm. Where? What verse? The one about instant replay? Why don’t you chastise Clark for this?
And I know both of you think Frame is guilty of violating Meyers dictum. But, says Frame:
“Scripture does not, of course, tell us everything we need to know about everything. We must look outside Scripture if we want specific directions on how to fix a sink or repair a car. But Scripture tells us everything that God wants us to know “concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life†(Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.6). Scripture doesn’t tell us how to repair a car, but it tells us how to glorify God in repairing a car, namely by doing whatever we do “in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him†(Col. 3:17), and by working at it with all our hearts “as working for the Lord, not for men†(verse 23).â€
The above could have been written by Hart of RSC, yet I constantly here you guys railing against Frame for saying the opposite.
Oh and BTW, Van Til says,
“We do not mean that it speaks of football games, or atoms, etc., directly, but we do mean that it speaks of everything either directly or indirectly. It tells us not only of the Christ and his work but it also tells us who God is and whence the universe has come. It gives us a philosophy of history as well as history. Moreover, the information on these subjects is woven into an inextricable whole. It is only if you reject the Bible as the Word of God that you can separate its so-called religious and moral instruction from what it says, e.g., about the physical universe.”
So one really wonders just what you’re saying by the above. Do you or Meyers really suppose that any one worthy of response has ever said that the Binle speaks of baseball games??? Who??? The only person who might have ever said this is perhaps a toothless Appalachian mountain fundy. Really, are those the people you are training the full WSCAL arsenal on?
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Paul, you have spotted the herd of elephants in the room. Thank you.
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Paul, (M?),
Re RSC, it seems like you are suggesting that all 2Kers must speak precisely the same way all the time. That’s an odd premise. Don’t you think it’s possible for those who fundamentally agree to not speak precisely the same way all the time? (For example, when RSC says that “schools are an extension of the family,†I don’t think that’s much help to the notion of sphere sovereignty—sovereign spheres overlap, they don’t extend one from another. But that’s a quibble between 2Kers, not grounds for attack.)
And, contrariwise, re Frame, since when is someone supposed to be criticized for simply being him no matter what he says? Credit where credit is due. Frame is right to distinguish the purposes of both general and natural revelation. But his problem is that it doesn’t comport well with his Biblicism, nor his notion that all of life is worship, etc. He also seems to think that what glorifies God is a job well done instead of faith (Ro. 4:20, 5:1-2, Heb. 11:6), but that’s another topic.
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Lily, I really, really appreciate your focus on Christ and the reminder to keep our eyes on him. These discussions about the law and its use, and about Scripture and its use, can tend to become one-sided, giving the impression that we’re all about Talmudic wranglings over the best way to use the law to become righteous.
(So much so that some have mistaken me for a latent legalist or theonomist.)
I agree with you here that Christ and his work must be the center, else we get lost. Keep saying it every now and then when we seem to meander away from that center.
Let me explain the comment about jurisdiction.
Dr. Hart’s concern (among many?) is that the church in 2009 seems to be making a power play for control over the state. Or a privileged seat at the table within the state. Or to be willing to cooperate with the state in such a way as to be co-opted (by, say, the Republican party).
His line of reasoning, as I understand it, is that
(1) If the Bible speaks to civic justice, then
(2) Since the church has been uniquely given the authority to interpret Scripture (within limits, I assume, unless he wants to go all magisterial here), then
(3) The church indirectly has the right to play the “Bible says so” trump card in the civic realm, so that
(4) The church is the real authority in the civic realm.
This is truly “latent theonomy.”
His solution, if I understand, is to deny (1). My response is that we could also deny (2). That is, in cases where Scripture is strictly silent, it may be the case that the magistrate has independence from the church in his work.
—
My concern, meanwhile, is this:
(1) Christ is Lord of Christians, and
(2) Christ speaks through his Word, so that
(3) If we deny the authority of Scripture to speak to the civic realm (as far as it speaks), then
(4) We place the Christian magistrate in the uncomfortable position of simultaneously being and not being under the Lordship of Christ insofar as his job is concerned.
DGH’s response (if I understand) is to deny (2). Christ also speaks through creational norms, and in fact, the Word is only given to the church and not the world, so that the Christian magistrate can go about his job just like any other Christian in the common realm, by appealing to common sense.
I am uncomfortable with that (because it seems incoherent, because it jars severely with what I understand of ethical theory, and because it seems like Hodge run slightly amok), with the result that some have declared me to have a “high opinion but low view of Creation.” (Apparently, the dictionary errs when it declares these two words to be synonyms. <snark />)
In other words, I’m trying to find out what Christ and his work *mean* for the Christian who steps out the front door of the church and into his common calling. It has been my contention so far that the fact of sanctification illustrates that the work of Christ has implications for the common, and is therefore not restricted to the church only. That’s the core of my argument about the Westminster Larger Catechism (thanks for the support, Benjamin.)
The problem is how to qualify or circumscribe the intrusion of sanctification into the common so that we don’t say that
(1) non-Christians can or should be sanctified (without first becoming justified),
(2) Christians have the right to lord it over non-Christians, or
(3) Christians’ use of Scripture can include “magic book” thinking.
All three of these are errors to be avoided, we all agree, and so I’m seeking a sound footing for the agreement.
JRC
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Frame (whom I like and respect, but do not rigidly follow) runs into a difficulty in his discussion of the Regulative Principle of Worship in this sense: at the same time that he acknowledges that the Bible does not supply all details, he also says that every action in life either breaks or upholds a command of God.
I understand, I think, what he is saying: that there are commands of God sufficiently broad (“In everything, whether eating or drinking, do it to the glory of God”) that they simultaneously cover all actions. More formally, given any action X, it is necessary that X be performed to the glory of God, according to 1 Cor 10.31. Thus, all actions (whether common or sacred) are regulated by 1 Cor 10.31.
It is these broad commands that we always either uphold or break.
However, he has been misunderstood — and I’m not fully sure why — to be saying that the Scripture gives us enough implicit information to be able to create a specific command for every possible action. That is, some view his “something close to Biblicism” as a claim that Scripture is the Grand Unified Theory of Everything.
And so arguments like “there is no specifically Christian plumbing” are advanced in order to falsify the notion that the Bible (implicitly) dictates all of life.
Trouble is, Frame isn’t saying it … at least, that’s not a likely construal of his words … but his critics have read this out of him. I get the sense that this is the result of behind-the-scenes conversations, but I really can’t account for the disconnect.
I will say that his book on worship caused quite a stir and led to charges by many (not just WSCal) that he had abandoned or distorted the RPW, a charge that he denies. They would point to his allowance of drama in the worship service (as a “mode of preaching”) as an example of distorting the RPW beyond its intended purpose.
I’m not comfortable with the idea that drama is a “mode of preaching”, as he allows. Assuming he is in error (I do), it seems to be an error of interpretation rather than a more systemic error. But then again, I also think that the RPW is intended to prevent the binding of people’s consciences, so that it ought more conservatively to be applied (RL made this point very well before). So ding Frame on the drama point.
But for the larger issue, Frame explicitly states that his “something close to biblicism” is compatible with distinguishing general revelation (mostly found in the situational aspect of knowledge) and special revelation (mostly found in the normative aspect of knowledge).
Zrim: If we think his views “don’t comport well” with each other, then the burden of proof lies on our shoulders to demonstrate so. In particular, it’s not enough to show that his views conflict with ours, but rather with themselves.
JRC
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I’m glad to hear you say this.
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Strike “in 2009”, replace with “in 2010.” Sheesh, I don’t even know what year it is. Is that what it means to get old?
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Darryl,
I took your Ken Myers quote and used it for a blog entry myself.
http://royshaff.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/what-god-wants-and-does-not-want-us-to-do-with-scripture/
I ran a little differently with it. Great Blog Post! Thanks 🙂
Roy
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Jeff,
Thank you for your patience and explanation. I think Dr. Hart’s concerns about church/state issues are valid and I have similar concerns.
I am not familiar with the majority of Reformed theologians and the differences between them. I’m also not familiar with the different Reformed confessions. Plus Lutherans have a different view/approach towards sanctification than the Reformed, so as you can see, I don’t have much to offer. The best I can do is point you back to Hart, VanDrunen, etal.
On this blog, I’m trying to stick with the areas our traditions intersect, but I do not always succeed. I do think that if you give the subject time, things will come together. And no, I did not think you were a legalist or other such ilk. I’d run if I did. 🙂
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This discussion has reminded me of a quote from Van Til:
The Bible is thought of as authoritative on everything of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything. We do not mean that it speaks of football games, of atoms, etc., directly, but we do mean that it speaks of everything either directly or by implication. It tells us not only of the Christ and his work, but it also tells us who God is and where the universe about us has come from. It tells us about theism as well as about Christianity. It gives us a philosophy of history as well as history. Moreover, the information on these subjects is woven into an inextricable whole. It is only if you reject the Bible as the word of God that you can separate the so-called religious and moral instructions of the Bible from what it says, e.g., about the physical universe.
— Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1976), p.2.
This quote is found at http://www.christianciv.com/vtheaderquote/Van_Til_-_Bible_is_Authority_on_Everything.html.
The discussion reminds me, also, of charges laid against Scripture by Quakers and related groups in England in the 17th century. They said that Scripture did not cover everything or speak to every decision. This led them to replace the authority of Scripture with the authority of the Holy Spirit. I doubt that this is what Ken Myers and David Gordon have in mind, though.
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My goof. I just saw the quote from Van Til in an earlier post on this discussion.
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Zrim asked me to expound on a “framework” view of the Scriptures, so here goes. I’m aiming for points that we all agree to.
(1) The Scripture is infallible; the word of man, fallible.
(2) The Scripture does not exhaustively speak of every possible area of knowledge.
Here’s how this functions in the area of history. The Scripture presents a broad picture of human history, along with some specific details.
In Scripture we find that man was created for relationship with God; that he fell; that God has chosen a redeemed subset of humanity to be His people; that He was incarnate as a man in order to redeem His people; that he was crucified and rose again; and that He “shall come again to judge the quick and the dead.”
Each of these bullet points is a religious claim, but it is also a historical claim. That is to say, it overlaps the sacred and the common and is infallible in both realms.
(unless it could somehow be shown that one of these points is not derived from explicit statement or good and necessary inference from Scripture. Not holding my breath on that one…)
At the same time, Scripture *leaves out* the vast majority of details of human or natural history. In fact, what with the rise of social history and its preference for vignettes of the common man, an exhaustive history of man would be impossible to read.
How do we view this situation?
I view it like this: The facts given above, found in Scripture, form a set of hard anchor points or boundary stones within which we use reasoning from evidence, yada yada, to fill in details. These boundary stones supply the overall shape of human history, and help to falsify certain theories (such as Hegelian or Marxist views); but they do not dictate necessarily how the details will be filled in, nor do they prescribe which approach to history (social, political, postmodern, etc.) one must take.
And indeed, two Christian historians might well come to different conclusions on cause-and-effect in, say, the 2nd Great Awakening. But neither will come to conclusions that conflict with the boundary stones. If that is the case, then it reveals a bias in their method that is positively anti-Scriptural. We think here of the German theologians of the 19th century.
(To say something more: the Confession then functions to illuminate the boundary stones and make their outlines more definite. In particular, it serves a limnal function only, not adding additional non-Biblical content to the boundaries. Thus, as we hold to the Confession, we must do so by knowing and understanding the Scriptures from which it was derived. In my view, this was the intent of the framers of the Confession. This is why I prefer to call myself “biblicist” rather than “confessionalist.”)
Over in the area of ethics, the situation is similar, but with a couple of wrinkles.
First, the boundary is much more filled in than in history. That is, God is more explicit about a wider variety of actions, than He is with regard to human history.
Second, care is needed as we move over the event of the cross. The OT law moral law needs to be distinguished from civil and ceremonial law.
Third, care is needed because of the particular corruption of the sin nature, that leads us to deceive ourselves, using even the law to do so.
The moral law, however, is not limited to Christians only, as if non-Christians were exempt from it. It serves as boundary markers for all of Adam’s posterity as a “perfect rule of righteousness” (WCoF 19.1,2). (Important: REPTers agree to this point, I believe. They disagree only as to the form of delivery: Scripture v. conscience.)
If specific commands are not given for some area of life — say, plumbing — then “the light of nature” (reason) is the appropriate tool for moving forward, so long as the boundaries are respected.
In short: the moral Law, as explicated in Scripture, forms a non-negotiable set of boundary stones that our ethical reasoning must respect. That is: I can never consider an action justified if it conflicts with Scripture, regardless of whether I am working in the sacred or the common.
This is the ground-floor of a “framework view” of Scripture. As I think through our discussions, it seems to me that this ought to be agreeable all ’round.
Any objections?
A couple of notes:
(1) This is a modified Hodgean approach. Hodge went off the rails, I think, because he took a pre-critical view of creational knowledge. Thus, he subtly biased his “two books” so that Scriptural interpretation had to bend to the latest theory of the day. He did not reckon with the human layer in the scientific method.
Over against Hodge, I would say: Scripture is written in *words* and is intended as an infallible *guide*; it serves a primarily normative function. Creation meanwhile is what it is, and is intended as a demonstration of God’s providence. It serves primarily a situational function. Importantly, creation suffers from an “is/ought divide” that makes it improbable to read out ethical norms from conscience alone. And, creation is more heavily dependent upon man for interpretation, making it a less reliable *normative* guide.
Or put more simply: I am not obligated to accept *any scientific theory whatsoever* as infallible; certain Scriptural teachings, however, I would go to the stake for.
(2) There is a lot here that resembles Frame also. However, in speaking about it I have a slight bias towards what Frame would call the “normative perspective.” In practice, I tend to come to conclusions more readily than Frame, which is probably a function of my smaller mind.
—
The upper story of the “framework view” would talk about these issues: illegitimate foreclosure (confusing the word of man with the word of God, leading to “magic book” thinking); certainty in knowledge; and liberty.
But I don’t want to move on unless there’s general agreement.
JRC
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The key phrase was, “in this matter.” The church would *not* have authority to discipline him for passing or failing to pass a law regulating adultery.
Like Zrim said.
JRC
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Interesting, those minor prophets. Some of them seem awfully concerned about the sins of nations *other* than Israel.
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Zrim: If we think his views “don’t comport well†with each other, then the burden of proof lies on our shoulders to demonstrate so. In particular, it’s not enough to show that his views conflict with ours, but rather with themselves.
I’m not so sure. For one thing, traditionally, novelty has the burden of proof on it. Or does one imagine that between he who insists on Scripture reading alone in worship and he who insists on poem recitation (and Scripture reading) in worship that the burden lies on the former? For another, while going from a theory of “intelligibility†to juggling, dance and drama in practice, it just isn’t clear how one goes from affirming the RPW in theory to these practices.
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You’re confusing two issues, but I agree with you. I was referring to the burden of proof that you were referring to in the first, that “his beliefs do not comport well with each other.” For that, you have to show an internal inconsistency.
You’re referring to his proving that his view of the RPW is compatible with the traditional view; and I agree that he bears that burden. I think his reply here to various criticisms answers the question: His view of the RPW is not traditional in the covenanter sense, he says, but is more thoroughly thought-through than the convanter view.
In my view, he doesn’t address the question of the conscience of participants, which is key to the RPW. Still and all; it’s a different question from the one you raise of internal consistency.
But is this the main issue? Whether Frame gets the RPW exactly right?
JRC
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Jeff, it means that the Christian magistrate enters his common calling with a hope of the new heavens and new earth, gratitude for his salvation having been accomplished, and with firm resolve to not sleep with his subjects’ wives while sending their husbands off to certain death in battle. Of course, twenty-first century Christians are capable of achieving much beyond David, as with hymns.
I would also edit your point 4 to read:
(4) We place the Christian magistrate in the uncomfortable position of simultaneously being and not being under the Lordship of Christ insofar as his job is concerned.
But seriously (though I’m not DGH), I wouldn’t say that “Christ speaks through creational norms.” General revelation is sufficient to govern the common sphere. It works well enough to even govern the moral areas that God addresses explicitly in special revelation, to a point. Though you might be able to find someone in a cell or in Congress who sees nothing wrong with David’s actions, that’s less damaging to the 2k position than my being able to put David’s life before any Springer audience and have them shouting “JERRY! JERRY!” at the right times, without special revelation, is to yours.
“Mike: ‘Don’t commit adultery, in all walks of life’
v.
Jeff: ‘In all walks of life, don’t commit adultery.'”
One of those constructions does not lend itself toward presuming to define “The Non-Adulterous Fisherman,” while the other makes it inevitable because the fisherman can’t otherwise know what adultery-free really looks like, or something. And as problematic as that sounds, it’s nothing compared to what happens when “Non-Adulterous” is replaced by “Christian.”
There is a meaningful sense in which Christian fishing happened when some were commanded to illustrate what it meant to be fishers of men, or Christian housekeeping with, well, Mary’s. Otherwise, the label falls afoul of QIRC bounds.
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A big thanks to Paul and Richard for providing that quote from Van Til. I remember reading it a few years ago and that’s what prompted me to comment here earlier.
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Paul,
Perhaps you can explain why so many who oppose 2k read this quote by Van Til and say, yes, we must have Christian plumbing, or Christian chemistry, or especially a Christian view of politics. (Theonomy anyone?) Van Til may have written this and that’s all. But that’s not the way he is read and there are plenty of comments at this blog to suggest that people are very uncomfortable when you say the Bible doesn’t speak to baseball.
So if I’m a politician in the U.S., are you saying that I’m better off reading the Federalist Papers and not consulting Scripture? Does Van Til give me grounds for doing that? If not, then what’s the point of quoting Van Til?
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Yes, and one of them is Christian baseball.
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Like Mke K. said, why do you have to go to a full-blown theory of sanctification or something else? Why can’t it be that a Christian upon leaving his door has a duty to love God and to love neighbor, and each of us figure it out as we go? If there were one common vocation about which Christ’s work might have meaning, it would be carpentry. But there are few examples of his abilities as a carpenter in holy writ. So maybe, looking to the Bible and to Christ even for carpentry is to miss the point of the Bible.
And this is my real concern about politics and Christians. It is that they miss what is really important, not only in Scripture, but also in life, by trying to arrive at a Christian politics. It sounds like it honors God. But in point of fact, it trivializes the gospel by trying to locate in the transient and temporal the spiritual and the eternal. In other words, immanentizing the eschaton cheapens the last things.
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My favorite transformationalist quote of all time: a certain writer out of Moscow, ID wrote that a Christian society would never produce popcorn-flavored jelly beans. I wish this was parody, but it was meant in all seriousness. Transformationalists feel the obligation to have a Christian opinion about everything.
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Haven’t you all read Contested Expectations of a Second Coming: Biblical Praxis, Pete Rose, and the Path-Dependence of Liberal Angst? It’s really a seminal work on the Bible and baseball (focusing on the Infield Fly Rule).
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In short: the moral Law, as explicated in Scripture, forms a non-negotiable set of boundary stones that our ethical reasoning must respect. That is: I can never consider an action justified if it conflicts with Scripture, regardless of whether I am working in the sacred or the common.
This is the ground-floor of a “framework view†of Scripture. As I think through our discussions, it seems to me that this ought to be agreeable all ’round.
Of course, it’s clear that nothing may conflict with the revealed ethics of Scripture. But what is not so clear is why the question must be asked in the first place when in the common realm, since those those same ethics are revealed in the book of nature as well. Again, it seems that your concern is how a believer behaves in the common realm, whereas mine has more to do with how a believer and an unbeliever co-exist in the common realm. And I still get the sense that you think that when we disagree in the common realm that the tie-breaker should be the Bible. The problem here is two-fold: first, in a common realm dispute I can’t appeal to a book that another doesn’t believe in but only to one we both do; and second, even if I could, that would be to misuse the Bible. 2 Timothy 3:14-17 suggests that the Bible is not only infallible but that its sole purpose is spiritual, not common: “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
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If true, that’s a good example of agreeing but for very different reasons. Popcorn-flavored jelly beans suck because it’s a bad idea, not because the Bible suggests how to make snacks.
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Jeff,
While scripture definitely refers to the universality of scripture, I think you emphasize it to the detriment of it’s particularity. The bible seems to be particularly concerned with God’s relationship to his covenant people, as a result most of the history presented in scripture is necessarily perspectival and narrow in its particular concerns. For example, though there are certainly indictments that scripture pronounces on the idolatry of the nations, but the greatest concern is idolatry among God’s people. Nowhere does scripture give a particular political theory outside of the Israelite theocracy, it simply doesn’t meddle in the political affairs of the nations unless it directly concerns God’s people. Even in Jeremiah 29, which is a favorite of transformationalists, there is no evidence that the exiles were to seek the spiritual transformation of Babylon, rather it’s civic prosperity while they maintained vigilance in awaiting the end of the exile and restoration to the Land. I think we are better off to take the biblical-theological categories of sojourners and exiles awaiting a Land of our own as an identity than the category of cultural watch-dogs that make sure that Scripture has something to say (even broadly) to all spheres of civic life.
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Jed, I appreciate your insistence that Scripture is the story of creation and redemption, and I agree with you. I would agree that this is why there is so much focus on Near Eastern history, when the globe is obviously much larger.
But the “universality” that I’ve emphasized is limited. I’ve insisted only that the Scripture is *true*, and that the moral law reflects universal right and wrong. In doing so, I’ve deliberately stayed within Biblical and Confessional boundaries (cf. WCoF 19.1, 2, 5).
Now I grant that my thesis disrupts, somewhat, the “common / sacred” paradigm. But that raises the question: is the paradigm actually correct?
That is: when you suggest that I’ve emphasized the universality of Scripture to the detriment of its particularity, it is possible that the common /sacred paradigm has over-emphasized the particularity of Scripture to such a point that a modest Biblical and Confessional statement of universality is perceived as “out-of-bounds”? Maybe the paradigm needs modifying; perhaps it overwhelms the data so as to give a distorted picture.
Or maybe I’m wrong. This often happens. 🙂
But here’s something to think about: what is the purpose of Amos 1 and 2, if the Bible only speaks to the history of God’s people? On what basis did God judge the pagan nations, when they were following what we know to be the common practices of the time?
And importantly, if the Scripture is supposed to be bracketed to the sacred realm only, why are we instructed in multiple places in Scripture to live lives such that others will see our good works and glorify the Father? Does this not require that our common lives *look different* from the common lives of non-Christians? Not necessarily “transformed”, as if we put our pants on two legs at a time, but different somehow as we faithfully obey Christ’s commands in the common realm.
To me, this seems like an inescapable inference from Scripture. Do you disagree?
JRC
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I think the question needs to be asked because God found it necessary to reveal those ethics in the pages of the New Testament.
And anyways, if you really truly believe that the book of nature reveals the exact same ethics as the Bible, then why do you object in the first place? Are kingdom ethics truly the same as common ethics, in your view?
Yes, we do have different concerns. Isn’t your concern more specifically how the two *negotiate* in the common realm? Since we would agree that the believer co-exists with the unbeliever by loving him as a neighbor, out of obedience to Christ.
Oh, no, I think you get that sense by taking my concern and trying to mind-meld it with your concern. Since I’m not thinking primarily about negotiating, I haven’t spoken to how that negotiating process would take place. I’ve only talked so far about what you’ve called “behaving.”
I would not endorse demanding that the unbeliever accept the Bible as the unarguable tie-breaker. That makes little sense, and it becomes the “power play” that Jed fears.
JRC
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Mike K, are you saying that Christians *are, in fact* both under and not under the Lordship of Christ in their common endeavors?
And, why would you object to saying that Christ speaks through creational norms? Do you disagree with Zrim that general revelation has the same ethical content as special revelation?
Finally, I haven’t watched a whole lot of Springer, but the little that I have seen demonstrates that people have no shame at embarrassing, demeaning, and humiliating others in front of the world, all for the sake of some fun. The entire premise of the show is a violation of Biblical ethics. Maybe I should study the show more carefully, but I don’t see it as a particular problem to my position.
JRC
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Jeff,
I still think you are too broad here. The story of Israel and her God unfolds in the historical context of the Ancient Near East, but this story is so small that many historians have (incorrectly) questioned the validity of the historical claims of the OT. The great civilizations (Egypt, Babylon, Assyria) of the ANE stretch back a few thousand years before Abraham, and even in Israel’s heyday under David and Solomon there is minimal historical data outside the Bible to corroborate their existence. Israel’s place in the broader cultural, historical context ANE is shockingly small. The analogy runs true today, where in light of the vastness of the unbelieving world, the true church is shockingly small.
As to God’s judgment on the nations in Amos 1-2, this only serves as a stern warning to his own people, that if he did not restrain in judging them for their rampant sin, how much more would he not judge his own. The rest of the book deals specifically with God’s judgment on the northern and southern kingdoms. This episode of international judgment is simply a precursor to the final judgment in the storyline of Scripture. For example, Romans is clear that God’s judgment on humanity is currently expressed in consigning them to their depraved pursuits, but final eschatalogical judgment remains suspended.
I would argue that Scripture speaks to the sacred realm with great specificity and the common realm generally at best, and in some ways it remains silent. The testimony of scripture to these realms is markedly disproportionate and to re-frame it any other way seems to be without substantial warrant. So in developing a biblical theology of the secular and sacred I think that the disproportionate nature of the textual data must inform our paradigms.
As to your question about our common lives needing to “look different” than the world’s, I would say yes and no. Yes our words and actions should be colored by our relationship to Christ, but beyond this our approach as plumbers and baseball players will look substantially like our non-believing colleagues. Being a faithful Christian in the secular realm probably won’t transform the fundamental structures of most vocations, simply because the means and methods of most vocations are established regardless of what the Bible has to say about them.
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Jed,
Thanks for the thoughts. My sense is that we are trying to locate a specific location within the same ballpark.
I agree with each of these propositions. At the same time, would you agree that the general ways that Scripture speaks to the common realm are also pervasive, covering large swaths or even all common activities?
For example, 1 Cor 10.31 is quite general, but covers all actions. Ditto for Phil. 2.14 – 16, which specifically covers our interactions with unbelievers.
Also, would you grant that the discussion of the law in WLC 99ff has the effect of bringing, for the believer, the Law into many different areas of “common life”?
And again, in saying these things, I am talking about the Christian’s use of the Word in his common activities.
I can live with that. The phrase “look like” is rather subjective. What we seem to agree on is that Christians and non-Christians are laboring under the same physical laws, both with God’s law written on the heart (but tainted by sin), both subject to creaturely limitations. So the one “looks like” the other. At the same time, a faithful Christian “looks different” from the non-Christian in, say, the Phil. 2.14 sense. Fair?
JRC
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And anyways, if you really truly believe that the book of nature reveals the exact same ethics as the Bible, then why do you object in the first place? Are kingdom ethics truly the same as common ethics, in your view?
I object because you have consistently denied the sufficiency of general revelation to rule the civil sphere (and, as a corollary, denied the “very goodness†of creation). I know you have said that the insufficiency of general revelation doesn’t mean that we reach to special revelation. But I do not understand what else there is to reach for when one of only two books is deemed insufficient to do what is has been made to do. I think when pressed into this dilemma you start some fancy footwork with all this “scriptural framework†stuff that, to be honest, just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Kingdom ethics look the same as common ethics (“love neighbor†looks the same to both believe and unbeliever in various places and times), but the reasons for keeping them are vastly different. One is out of law, the other is from gospel. Believers have a foot in both spheres, but only unbelievers have a foot in law: believers don’t kill because we are grateful for Jesus’ work on our behalf, but also because we don’t want to go to jail.
I would not endorse demanding that the unbeliever accept the Bible as the unarguable tie-breaker. That makes little sense, and it becomes the “power play†that Jed fears.
When general revelation is deemed insufficient to rule the common sphere, Jeff, I am befuddled as to what keeps you from appealing to the Bible to settle matters. You won’t like this, but I am not at all persuaded that just because you don’t “demand†it be done doesn’t mean you’re out of the theonomic woods. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad for the allergy against “power plays†and all such manner of hard theonomy. It’s a step in the right direction. But this jazz about general revelation being insufficient leaves you with no other choice but special revelation, which is what I think is going on with all this “scriptural framework†stuff. You want the Bible to step in to make up for the alleged insufficiencies of general revelation. You may not have signed on the theonomic dotted line, but you’re making the world safe for it by contending for one of its basic principles, namely the insufficiency of natural law (which, I maintain, is really a misguided sense of the insufficiency of human agency; sinners are the problem and handing them the right book won’t solve it). And the only real thing keeping you from it is that you don’t much care for the shade of severity.
So, it sounds like when it comes to the common life—from pinch hitting to parenting—have you downgraded your contention that un/believers look “remarkably different.†I’m not sure what is so objectionable about saying that we are remarkably similar when it comes to creational life, remarkably different when it comes to redemptive life.
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I don’t know (yet?) how to communicate the idea of a Scriptural framework more clearly. I’m sorry that my writing skills are not up to the task. Blame it on my inner mathematician, who always got his papers back with the notation, “Interesting ideas. You need to elaborate.”
The core idea is this: whether the Christian is operating in the common or the sacred, he may not positively break a command of Scripture. The Scripture therefore forms a hard framework within which there is liberty.
(1) Because the distinction between creational life and redemptive life is *not* an explicit category in either the Scriptures or the Confession.
It does bother me, somewhat, that you hold my ideas accountable to your categories. I would much rather have you point to the Scriptures to ground your arguments. As it is, there are all of these high-level categories floating around like sacred/common, redemptive/creational, etc. that become the basis for critique.
If I were to take a cynical tack, I would say that it looks as if the Confession had been re-written to say, “The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined … can be no other but Meredith Kline.”
(I don’t really think that; just had to vent for a second. It does bother me that I make a Scriptural observation and you come back with some category I’m supposedly not seeing. “High opinion / low view of creation”?!?!)
(2) And in fact, when the Confession discusses the actions of Christians, it brings the commands of God to bear substantially on “common activities.”
(3) Because in the Scripture, we don’t find God’s commands to his people bracketed by “except in the common arena.”
(4) And specifically, as I mentioned to Jed, we are positively commanded to *look different* from non-Christians *in our everyday lives*.
So without nuancing your idea of “remarkably similar” (and you haven’t, so far), you give the appearance of ignoring Matt 5.13 – 16, and Phil. 2.14 – 16, and so on. Which can’t possibly be your intent, so why the obtusion? Is it *so* important to you to emphasize the similarity between Christians and non-Christians that you can’t admit *any* degree of difference between the two?
Settle matters for whom? This comes down to “behave” v. “negotiate.”
If my boss asks me to embezzle, I will (Lord willing) say “no.” If he asks why, I might adduce several reasons, but in the end, the non-negotiable will be “because I belong to the Lord, and He said not to.”
If on the other hand I am making company policy that will cover Christians and non-Christians alike, I will *not* make it policy that non-Christians must follow the Bible as their ethic. They don’t belong to the Lord, and it makes no sense to have them do so.
Obviously, when I do craft company policy, it will reflect somewhat of my understanding of right and wrong as shaped by the Scripture. I can’t help that; Scripture has informed my conscience, and we can’t put that genie back in the bottle. But if an employee questions my policy, I would probably respond, “because I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Call it neo-latent-implicit-whateverist, but that’s my story and I’m … stickin’ to it.
JRC
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Sorry for the snarky comment re: Kline. I was trying to vent and trying to make a point about high-level categories at the same time, and I went over the top. My apologies.
Jeff
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Jeff,
The only way we are in the same ballpark is if we are wearing different uniforms, at least with respect to this issue. No I do not agree that Scripture speaks to the common realm in a way that is pervasive or covers large swaths of even common activities. I believe that Scripture speaks to the common realm but in a massively disproportionate way than it does the sacred, with the bulk of the emphasis on the latter. With respect to the common realm I do concede that Scripture does speak to some issues generally, but these are issues that are only important within the context of salvation history. So, common issues like the human condition are in play while other common issues like a unified Christian theory on politics, vocation, art, science etc. are simply not warranted in Scripture.
If you are using WLC 99 ff. to say that the believer should live lawfully in common life I am fine with that, since we should never seek to be living contrary to the Law. But how does that diminish the 2k position? Please explain.
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Yes, that’s what I mean. See also below under “more on WLC.” Importantly, I am not saying that Scripture gives us the Grand Unified Theory on common life. Please set me apart from Rushdoony.
Rather than “diminishing” I would say “qualifying.”
Consider the common 2k statement, “The Bible does not speak to plumbing.” Taken as a naked slogan, this statement is simply false. Proof: 1 Cor 10.31 speaks to all actions; plumbing is an action; therefore, 1 Cor 10.31 speaks to plumbing, QED.
Essentially, one large theme of my objection is simply to notice this problem: that the 2k slogan, unqualified, is wrong.
The language leads to an unintended consequence, creating a picture that in the common realm each man (even Christians) should rely on general revelation in order to understand what is right. This wrong picture is enhanced contextually by the enormous energy spent arguing against “Christian plumbing”, especially against people who simply want to be *both* Christians and plumbers, and combine the necessities of each into a calling to the glory of God. The further argument that “a high view of general revelation requires us not to reach for our Bibles” heightens the impression that the 2k project wants Christians to put away their Bibles when acting as moral agents in the common realm.
This is NOT what 2k proponents want to teach. (I hope and believe). And when pressed to the wall, they will qualify (as you have) with statements like, “Of course the Christian must live lawfully in the common realm.”
That’s really the crux of the matter for me: to nudge the 2k-ers to make your concession a more obvious, upfront part of the way y’all explain the position. Zrim and DGH have both made this concession also, but then you all revert to repudiations of Christian plumbing, as if I were advocating re-making the Maryland building code according to the symbology found in the temple or something.
All I’m saying is, “Your position sounds like X; you want it to mean Y.”
So for example, Dr. Clark’s slogan, “The Bible speaks to baseball, but not of baseball”, is a much clearer (and true) statement. It’s moving in the right direction (IMHO).
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A second qualification that I would like to see more upfront, has to do with WLC 91.
At times, 2k makes it sound as if non-Christian man were not required to obey His revealed will. The conscience, sure; but not the actual written 10 Commandments.
In fact, I wonder whether you would read WLC 94 followed by WLC 98 and consider whether the Westminster divines would agree that “Scripture speaks to the sacred realm with great specificity and the common realm generally at best, and in some ways it remains silent.”
They might well, but they seem to give the 10 Commandments, as *revealed* (one must only assume this means special revelation, no?), the authority over all men.
Again: I’m not arguing for transformationalism or that the Church should have cultural watchdog status; I’m simply asking 2k arguments to qualify themselves, upfront, so that their slogans are not so problematic.
—
More on the WLC:
The reason that I used the word “pervasively” in describing the reach of the Law into common life is that I’m struck in reading the WLC that the Westminster divines found a large number of *implications* of the Law, that they obviously considered “good and necessary consequences” of Scripture, that they specifically applied to a large number of common activities.
For example:
I could quote more, but Q 136, 138, 139, 142, 145, 147, 148 all show the same feature: Many of these applications of the law rely on implications rather than direct statements.
In other words, the method of the Westminster divines was not to minimize the Law in the common realm, but rather to seek out its legitimate implications in the common.
One way I would want 2k-ers to qualify their language is to acknowledge that the Law *does* have legitimate implications in the common realm, at least to the extent that the WLC sees it.
This does not mean that the church has jurisdiction in the common realm; rather, it seems to me that it means that each man, saved or not, has individual accountability to the Law in his conduct in the common realm.
JRC
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Jeff,
I suppose you benefit from my apathy towards the whiny culture of easily offended. Don’t sweat the snark.
But I am puzzled by this notion of yours that categories like sacred/common, redemptive/creational float around at 35K feet. They seem much more basic than esoteric. Simplicity is a Reformed virtue, you know.
And I know the high opinion/low view point gives you fits. But I still don’t know another way to begin to explain this odd idea that creation was downgraded from “very good” to “less than very good” as a result of sin. I hate sounding like a broken record on this one, but the essence/condition distinction really does help. My guess is that what might explain your unease at these categories is an unease with duality, paradox and tension. But classic Reformed theology is semi-eschateological and talks about the already/not yet, being at once just and sinful, a pilgrim and a victor, etc. None of this is anything new.
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Oiy Jeff! Please define the difference between Christian plumbing and Pagan plumbing?
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P.S. No confessions or theologians allowed. Your own words and pure scripture support only, please.
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“Christian plumbing” doesn’t really exist. It’s a non-thing that 2k-ers like to vigorously assert the non-existence of, for reasons non-understood.
Christians who plumb, on the other hand, are plentiful. Some at least attempt to plumb for the glory of God. And in so doing, they sometimes find occasion to put 1 Cor 10.31 or Phil. 2.14-16 into service, or the 8th commandment.
If one wants to call that “Christian plumbing”, I suppose one could. I prefer to call it “Christians, plumbing.”
JRC
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Thanks Jeff,
I can only share from a Lutheran view, so for what it is worth:
The point I’m trying to help you see is that plumbing is a vocation that is taught by civil schools and regulated by civil authorities. Both the pagan and the Christian work under civil authority. The pagan may be an excellent conscientious plumber worthy of praise and the Christian may be a lousy plumber who loses his license and is worthy of condemnation. It’s all Law. Both men have the same responsibilities and are accountable to both civil and Divine authority (Judgment Day).
Now let’s look at the Christian and the Pagan. What is the difference between them? There are two kinds of righteousness. The Christian’s only righteousness is a gift given through faith created by the Holy Spirit. Civil righteousness, on the other hand, is rooted in a morality of which all are capable, including pagans. Human beings are righteous in relation to God only by faith in Christ, while they may be righteous in relation to one another through law-abiding/civil obedience. So what is the difference between the two men? One man was graciously given the gift of salvation and love for God through no merit of his own, the other was not.
So, what about sanctification? The holiest saint’s work is still nothing but filthy rags. Sanctification is a gift from God. You cannot earn it. Christians don’t go out into the world trying to look better than others because they are Christians. Christians go out into the world because they love God and want to love their neighbors. Sanctification has to do with us presenting our bodies as living sacrifice doing whatever work, no matter how lowly, there is for us to do that day. Daily we repent, fulfill our duties, and trust in Christ’s sufficiency for all. No one is smart enough to figure out sanctification. It is a gift and the mystery of it’s bestowal belongs to the Gift-Giver. Humility doesn’t worry about sanctification because it knows that God will give what he has promised. Humility is content to seek to love God by serving others.
Matthew 25:34-40
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
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It’s not Creation that was downgraded. It’s man. Our consciences and even our reasoning ain’t what they were, pre-fall. (WCoF 6.2, 4). It is man as interpreter of Creation who is broken. That’s what Dort was saying when it denies that man can use creational ordinances arightly in the civic arena.
You say, “It’s the best we can do.”
And maybe, you’re right. Asking hypotheticals like, “Is natural law the best possible civil code, or could we do better if Greg Bahnsen re-wrote the entire civil code?” are kind of like asking whether Superman or Batman would win a boxing match. (It’s Batman. He pulls out the Bat-Kryptonite dispenser in round 5).
I really, truly, and I promise, haven’t been arguing that “natural law doesn’t work, so let’s reach for the Bible.”
I’ve rather been arguing that
* Christians must obey the Law in their common professions. This, not out of a covenant of works, but just because it’s what it means to belong to Jesus.
* The Christian magistrate is therefore in a curious position, because *to the extent that he sets policy by his decisions* (some do, some don’t), his moral compass is going to make its mark on the policies of the land, and
* The 2K position says that in his policy-making, he should “bracket his faith” and not appeal directly to Scripture as the basis for determining right and wrong, which
* Seems impossible. He might do so outwardly, but he cannot do so in his thoughts.
One the one hand, it seems desirable that the Christian magistrate not force non-Christians to obey God’s law. On the other, it seems an exercise in futility to say to the Christian magistrate, “You’ve been reading the Scriptures for years now. Set all that aside and go with your conscience.”
You’re reading me as trying to reach the best possible world. I’m not trying to solve that problem. I’m asking, “What does the individual Christian do?”
And this question is acutely vexing when the individual Christian is a Christian magistrate. (This is a real issue, BTW. My church has folk who work for the FDA and other agencies, as well as NGOs. They have to deal in a practical way with how faith intersects with policy-making.)
JRC
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I think this is a sticking point for me. I don’t (yet) see two kinds of righteousness in Scripture, but rather two degrees of righteousness: Christ’s perfect righteousness, imputed to us by faith, and the relative righteousness of one sinner looking or even being somewhat better than other sinners. It seems to me that the flow of Romans requires this view. We have the Law, that judges man’s heart and declares “guilty.” We have Jesus, who fulfilled the righteous requirements of that Law and provides a verdict of “righteous” to His people.
Put another way: when Jesus fully obeyed the Father and became the perfect atoning sacrifice for us, He did so by being righteous according to the same law that bound Adam and his posterity: the moral Law of God.
When Christ judges the nations as you mention in Matt 25, he will not pull out a book of “civil righteousness” as the basis for his judgment. It will instead be the Law and prophets, summed up in “love God; love neighbor.”
So I see a unity of kind, but a difference in degree, between a Christian’s righteousness received by faith, and man’s right behavior towards one another. Am I misunderstanding you?
(Coming back to our plumber: being an “excellent plumber” is not a moral excellence at all. It is a skill, which is either used for good purposes or bad. When we mistake skill for goodness, we start to give a “moral pass” to skilled folk. This is one of the common features of our age: we say of a politician, “He is a man of character”, when in fact, he simply has good rhetorical skill.
Now, the plumber may be conscientious and deserve praise for that reason. But from whom? Other men? OK. But that’s just the “relative righteousness” from above. The skilled, conscientious plumber gets praise until the new kid comes along who’s willing to work on Sundays, and then all the sudden the old guy looks shabby. Such is the way of the world, looking at relative righteousness and mistaking it for the real thing.)
(I fully agree with your description of sanctification, BTW.)
JRC
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Jeff,
Let’s see if we can straighten out the righteousness issue. We cannot speak in degrees only kinds for they are two different critters. One kind is Christ’s blood won righteousness imputed to us and it is only true/real righteousness – this I know you see clearly in scripture and yes, this is the only kind of righteousness that counts before God (right-hand kingdom). The other kind is worthless before God, but this righteousness is what men call each other when they do what it considered right by men’s standards – this I think you know well from common sense and a couple of references are: Ro. 12:17, 2 Cor. 8:21 (left-hand kingdom).
As for excellent, I think you know that excellent is not limited to skill. It can mean a multitude of moral qualities like charge a fair price, stand behind the quality of your work, be on time, politeness, and etc. virtues. Please don’t strain gnats with me. If I think someone wants me to do their homework for them, I will not help them.
And as for praise among men, it is not ‘relative’ righteousness from above. Does your family or do your friends ever praise you? Is it genuine? Again, I warn you not to play games with me. You have a brain.
Lastly, I did give a watered-down version of Lutheran sanctification. I was trying to not get too Lutheran. 🙂
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Lily & Jeff:
If you don’t mind my jumping into this conversation, I’d like to add a couple comments. I hope to further flesh out the distinction between civil righteousness and the righteousness that avails before God. Righteousness before God is determined by God’s nature and character, as such, it requires perfect obedience. This, of course, is what is imputed to us in the forensic act of justification having been acquired on our behalf by Christ. This righteousness belongs to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Civil righteousness, on the other hand, is not determined by God’s nature or character. Rather, it is determined by the temporal, earthly needs and desires of our neighbors. There is no need for special revelation. What’s needed is the willingness to help our neighbors coupled with the ability to meet those needs within the bounds of the presently prevailing societal conventions, which includes both formally enforced codified laws (e.g. building codes and professional oaths) and informally enforced social mores (e.g. etiquette, social conduct, and pricing policies). This righteousness pertains only to temporal things, particularly to the relationships that define our political and economic lives. These things are fading away.
Since plumbing belongs only to the temporal kingdom, the plumber’s righteousness as it relates to his plumbing must be judged by the temporal standard. By this standard, the plumber can earn the respect of men and sometimes repeat customers and promotions. And according to this standard, the Christian has no advantage over the non-Christian.
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It’s not Creation that was downgraded. It’s man. Our consciences and even our reasoning ain’t what they were, pre-fall. (WCoF 6.2, 4). It is man as interpreter of Creation who is broken. That’s what Dort was saying when it denies that man can use creational ordinances arightly in the civic arena.
But man is created. The intrinsic very goodness of the imago Dei has not been diminished. Its his condition that has fallen. There is a difference between utter depravity and total depravity. The former says that man is as temporally bad as he could be, the latter says he is totally unable to effect eternal righteousness before God but can temporally god a pretty good job. On your view, the only real way to get along with unbelievers in the temporal is to convert them because, evidently, created beings are unable to do very well.
The 2K position says that in his policy-making, he should “bracket his faith†and not appeal directly to Scripture as the basis for determining right and wrong, which
* Seems impossible. He might do so outwardly, but he cannot do so in his thoughts.
Again, 2K is not saying that one’s faith is hermetically sealed off in the believer’s common life. You’e right, that is impossible. What is wants to say, simply, is that there is a more careful way to consider how private faith relates to public life.
One the one hand, it seems desirable that the Christian magistrate not force non-Christians to obey God’s law. On the other, it seems an exercise in futility to say to the Christian magistrate, “You’ve been reading the Scriptures for years now. Set all that aside and go with your conscience.â€
No. 2K says, “When dealing with those who may or may not have a private devotion to the Bible appeal to that which we all agree on.” The Mormon who meets me in the common sphere and appeals to the Book of Mormon won’t get very far with me, nor the Muslim appealing to the Koran. It’s the smart Mormon and Muslim who appeal to natural law who move things along in a sane way. I know they both have the BOM and the Koran swirling around in the backdrop, but that doesn’t bother me and I don’t cry foul for them doing it.
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Also, Jeff, consider this.
When I meet pro-lifers in the common sphere I appeal to a conservative Calvinism to make some points. I have trouble with the notion that the implication of human conception is that certain beings are special and beyond the pains and injuries of life, up to and including death and deserve the sort of vigorous protection those who are ex vitro don’t seem to enjoy. I think Calvinism (shorthand for biblical witness) suggests that joining the human race means one has joined the ranks of sinners, has become a child of wrath subject equally to the pains and injuries of life.
Now, if I really thought that 2K means I must hermetically seal off my faith from common discourse I shouldn’t appeal to Calvinism to say these things to fellow believers as they get unquestioningly behind a movement unbecoming a better Calvinism.
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RL.
Absolutely jump in! I was trying to help lay a basic framework and not be too complex in hopes that the two kingdoms would be easier to see. Your elaborations on the two kinds of righteousness are very true and helpful. It’s hard to know where to start and stop in attempting to assist someone seeking to understand the two kingdoms. There is so much that can be said about it. Can you imagine the fun we could have if we had a chalkboard? I wonder that it might be easier to see on a chalkboard since charts and graphs can be helpful.
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@ RL: As always, I appreciate your contributions. I don’t know whether our psalms/hymns thread just petered out or whether it got buried, but I left you a couple of questions over there. The thread can pass away in peace if that’s your desire.
@ Lily: Please forbear with my non-Lutheran ignorance. I’ve not heard the term “civil righteousness” prior to this as a formal theological term, and I may not have properly understood it, or interacted with it. Nevertheless, I am making a real effort here.
@ both:
If I understand what you are saying, “civil righteousness” is not “true/real” righteousness, but rather righteousness as viewed by men. This takes away my objection concerning Jesus and the atonement. I thought we were talking about two types of real righteousness, one by grace and one under Law, and that would have wreaked havoc with our Christology.
Two thoughts:
(1) A reason to consider the language of “degree” instead of “kind” is that man’s view of goodness, to the extent that it is genuine, is the result of man’s being created in the image of God. Given this, it seems like “civil righteousness” is a shadow of God’s righteousness, rather than of an entirely different kind.
That may just be a matter of semantics, but can we agree that “civil righteousness” is derived from God’s righteousness, rather than from a completely different source?
(2) There is a problem of uniqueness. Both of you present civil righteousness as if it were monolithic, as if man agrees on what is just and right and good in the civil arena. But in fact, the reason that we have such controversy about political issues is that man *doesn’t* agree, all over the place. Hard-core pro-abortion supporters genuinely see themselves as virtuously upholding the woman’s right to defend herself against an invading fetus.
Mentioning this problem isn’t a game; there is a concrete ethical problem underlying this, having to do with accounting for differences in moral values (See, for example, the “Criticisms of Virtue Ethics” section here).
Gotta grade labs.
JRC
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There is a problem of uniqueness. Both of you present civil righteousness as if it were monolithic, as if man agrees on what is just and right and good in the civil arena. But in fact, the reason that we have such controversy about political issues is that man *doesn’t* agree, all over the place. Hard-core pro-abortion supporters genuinely see themselves as virtuously upholding the woman’s right to defend herself against an invading fetus.
Sharing a moral sense of what is fundamentally right, true and good isn’t the same as agreeing on how these things are politically applied. If you’re right then political controversy unravels Paul’s point in Romans about the moral law being written on the human heart.
But I think what is also at play in your reasoning is a ubiquitous affliction in our time: the confusion of politics and morality, such that one can call another amoral who disagrees with him politically. Some people think one segment of the human population should have the legal right, at will or whim, to decide the life and death of another segment simply because the former house the latter. I don’t. But that doesn’t mean my interlocutor is bankrupt any fundamental sense of morality. If he is then I have no hope of persuading him. If he does, and I don’t persuade him, I come back tomorrow and try again. But I don’t see why my failure to persuade means he is amoral, especially since Paul says he isn’t.
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Jeff,
Well, why are you banging on 2k when you also say there is no Christian plumbing. 2kers would say with you that there are Christian plumbers, but not Christian plumbing.
Here is a key factor: in case you haven’t noticed, there are lots of churches and ministers saying that there are such things as Christian aerobics, Christian financial planning, Christian diets, the list goes on. So what is the prudent thing to do in these times? Side with Frame and defend something approaching biblicism? Or is it to bang hard on the difference between special and general revelation, the church and the world, the common and the holy. As I’ve said before, beware the company you keep. And by lamenting the “slogans” of 2k, you are in a company with lots of folks whom I doubt you’d defend. So why aren’t you criticizing those who cheapen the gospel, the word, and the church, by turning Christianity into a way to tie my shoes? Why are you giving those who warn about trivializing the gospel such a hard time about being precise and clear? Or why do you say that we have made a slogan out of The Bible Doesn’t Speak to Plumbing when you yourself also say that there is not Christian plumbing (only Christian plumbers)?
And while we’re on the point about what the Bible teaches: what does a Christian father do when his son slaps him in the face? Is he supposed to heed the word of our Lord and turn the other cheek? Or is he to turn to passages in proverbs about sparing the rod? The point is that the Bible is not a manual that you can turn to the right instructions for middle-aged men with two kids and a working wife who home schools. The Bible needs wisdom in its application and teaching. (That’s why we have ST. The Bible didn’t come down to us as a handbook of anything.)
And also, if you’re going to talk about the Larger or Shorter Catechism on the law, I sure wish you’d hit hard those parts dealing with the sanctification of the Lord’s Day. Talk about the elephant in the room. Lots of Christians love the law when they can use it to show the lawlessness of others. But how about when it convicts us about the way we use every seventh day, and whether or not our own congregations are encouraging people to cease and desist from their worldly employments and recreations.
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Jeff,
I would in return ask that you bear with me and thank you for your patience with my Reformed ignorance. I apologize for my curtness. I was wrong to judge some things as quibbling over words and to take for granted that you should know what I meant. I did not want to go down rabbit-tracks and obscure the framework of the two kingdoms. Sheesh, how unfair! I struggle with trying to understand different words/concepts and wander down rabbit tracks frequently! I’m not even sure I rank as an amateur on some the issues I’m trying to grapple with right now… not to mention, my some of my occasional trips into La-La land. Yikes, I am sorry and I deeply apologize.
As for your questions, I’ll need to try to comment later. But I’m convinced that RL, Zrim, DGH, etal are much shaper than I, so it may be a real blessing if I don’t muddy the water. 🙂
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Maybe I’ve overbanged and should desist.
But I *have*, I think, consistently said that we aren’t talking about the Bible as theory of plumbing. So we’ve been agreeing for a long while now that there are Christians who plumb, but not according to a different, alternate theory of plumbing.
There are churches that do that. I don’t have contact with any Reformed churches that do that, and I always assumed it was a non-Reformed thing. Mileage may vary.
I see some of it at my school; but for every transformationalist here, there are five or ten who move along in life, reacting out of instinct instead of considering *legitimate* ways in which Scripture might apply to their actions.
They have taken the idea of common grace and run pragmatically amok, using one another as the basis for evaluating their own actions, and sometimes deliberately rejecting or ignoring Scripture as the basis for their own ethics.
So the danger before me is the opposite: instead of over-spiritualized Christians, I have to work with Christians who naturally over-secularize.
I think the Confession requires something close to biblicism, but I’m probably in the minority here. That conviction preceded my reading of Frame. I became Presbyterian in part because of WCoF 1.
Consider me as a data point. I am a person not antagonistic to the 2k project, who nevertheless sees an issue with the language because I see a distortion of it in my own situation (as in above).
I also see a lack of clarity, a kind of “don’t worry about *that*”, on the issue of Christian magistrates, which as I explained is a relevant issue in my church.
If those two observations are not helpful to make, then I think I should stop making them.
But I think there are a large chunk of Christians who are “some kind of 2k” (not counting your die-hard opponents), who might be better able to listen to a different set of slogans and arguments that simultaneously upholds the role of Scripture and the role of common grace in our walk of life.
On the other hand: warn away! To the extent that there are churches who advocate Christian plumbing, or “Bible as magic-book” thinking, or who want to cozy up to the state, they should hear a message of “be careful.”
Total agreement: we need wisdom in understanding what the Scripture means in our situation. I think Frame’s method, my account of “Scriptural framework”, and 2k’s account of common wisdom are all trying to get at this issue in different ways.
OK, what would you like for me to say about it? I started with commandment #5 because if I had started with #1, I figured that everyone would immediately dismiss it as “sacred” instead of “common.”
But in fact, commandments #1 – 4 have things to say that intrude into the common as well.
I know I look stubborn. Hey, I am stubborn! But our conversation has been profitable to me in a couple of areas:
(1) I am more sensitive to the RPW in worship,
(2) I’ve had to think through Christian involvement in politics, and
(3) I’m more settled in my conviction that spiritual growth comes through Word and sacrament and not other programs.
So I don’t know if that makes any difference, but the engagement has been worthwhile for me.
JRC
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Jeff,
You’re in the PCA, right? Pardon for asking this way, but what denominational planet do you live on? Do the names Tim Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church mean anything to you? If not, then they might be a good instance of transformationalism run a tad amok. This is from the church’s Center for Faith and Work website: http://www.faithandwork.org/ (They also have sites for “Arts Ministry” and “Entrepeneurship Initiative.”
And here’s the copy for the Entrepreneurship Initiative:
And you wonder why 2kers are calling for some distinction between the church and the world, between the holy and the common, between — dare I say — the sacred and the secular? As Carl Trueman once said to me, “sheeesh.”
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Yes, I’m in the PCA. And I’ve heard of Keller, and read one of his books. No, two: “Ministries of Mercy” and “Prodigal God.” But his name isn’t on everyone’s lips around here.
It’s a big world.
Out of curiosity, does Keller think that there’s such a thing as Christian plumbing? Or does his notion of “Christian worldview of their profession and industry” mean something else?
JRC
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No problem at all. I really did need to stop and think carefully about what you were saying.
Do you agree or disagree that civil righteousness is a shadow of God’s righteousness?
JRC
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OK, so in what sense do we all “share a sense” if everyone’s sense is a different sense?
More seriously, Paul’s point in Romans is a soteriological point, not a social one. The law written on the hearts serves to condemn us, or sometimes to justify us, but there’s just nothing in the text that says “and so this is the basis for common society.”
So if I’m right, then it unravels certain readings of Paul, but not Paul’s point itself.
That’s an astute point, and I would say that utilitarian ethics plays a role here. Bentham and Mill’s original visions were to provide rulers with a guide to decision-making. Today, most “ethics classes” center on public policy issues, unless they happen to be run by a hard-core virtue ethicist.
No, of course not. Corrupted morality is not a-morality. And, we recall that you and I as Christians suffer the same internal malady as our interlocutors (say *that* word 5 times quickly…).
So that’s not where we’re going here.
But now your interlocutor challenges you: on what grounds to you object to abortion? Let’s leave abortion; it’s a bit tired today. On what grounds do you support the reinstatement of blue laws?
And you say, “Because Christians are citizens, too; and their liberty will be curtailed if you permit commercialized sports.”
And the response back:
(1) The pragmatic: “Why should we limit this to Sundays? Jews observe Sabbath on Saturdays. So when should the games be, during the workweek?” (It never occurs to them that perhaps commercialized sports games could simply not be played.)
(2) The wounded libertarian trump card: “And anyways, why do you have to go imposing your Sabbath on everyone else? Just don’t go to the games if you don’t want to.”
(3) The justify-yourself trump card: “If you want to impose your value on the rest of us, then justify it. How do you know that you’re really supposed to do nothing but sit around all day on Sunday, instead of treating every day as a rest from the labor under the Law?”
(See, our interlocutor has been studying up on his Cocceian View of the Sabbath, not to be confused with a Cocceian Opinion of the Sabbath. 😉 )
And it’s this last question that gets at the “meta-ethical” issue I’ve raised. Even if I bracket my faith properly, there will be times when I’m called upon to justify the position I’ve taken.
At those times, isn’t it the case that my bottom-line and most honest answer is, “Because as far as I can tell, God says so.”?
JRC
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Jeff,
Let me briefly address your two points, and when I get the chance, I’ll bounce back over to our psalm-hymn conversation.
As to civil righteousness being a shadow of God’s righteousness, we need to be very careful in how we speak; “God’s righteousness” can mean different things to different people. My earlier comments were a bit too casual. When I referred to the righteousness that avails before God I had in mind the believer’s status as righteous before God–the verdict of justification–granted to believers because of Christ’s covenantal obedience. Thus, the righteousness of God that is imputed to believers is not God’s essential righteousness; instead, it is Christ’s righteousness which he merited by being born under the Law and fulfilling all of the Law’s obligations.
Civil righteousness or righteousness before men is likewise a status–the status of a person being judged righteous by prevailing societal norms or simply being held in esteem by other men. So, we can say that Gen. David Petraeus is highly esteemed by a large portion of society, while we also acknowledge that he is reviled by another portion of society. On certain matters there is no consensus. I hesitate to say that this judgment is somehow based on a “shadow” of God’s righteousness. God’s essential righteousness only condemns–the righteousness that is God’s qua God demands perfect holiness.
Righteous standing before God has our perfectly holy God as judge. Righteous standing before men has other fallen, finite men as judge. Righteous standing before God is measured against the standard of the revealed law of God, which reflects his perfect justice and causes every mouth to be stopped. Righteous standing before men, is measured against a standard derived from intuition, experience, and reason (and often times even informed by heretical religious traditions). Because both the judge and the standard are qualitatively different, I think the two types of righteous standings are qualitatively different. (I think especially of Paul’s comparing his own punctilious observation of the law with the righteousness received through faith in Philippians 3; even while his law keeping surely earned him esteem in the eyes of his fellow pharisees, he famously refers to it as dung when he has God’s judgment in view.)
As to your second point, I would like to retract anything that seemed to imply that men sing with one voice concerning all things moral. I do, however, affirm that there is consensus concerning many things. As to abortion, I think the moral standard of many pro-lifers and pro-choicers are similar; they simply disagree about the facts. The moral standard that condemns abortion, for me, is the same that condemns murder–it’s simply wrong to kill another person. While there are certain justifications for killing someone (e.g. self defense), convenience certainly isn’t one of them. Many pro-choicers whom I know (and love to argue with) agree on this point. The mistake they make is factual, not moral. They simply fail to recognize that an unborn baby is a person.
A mistake of fact is a valid moral defense. Think of a person who shoots a gun into an abandoned house. If he believes the house to be empty, there is nothing wrong with this (so long as he’s not damaging another’s property without their consent). If a person shoots into a house believes that another person is inside, then he is doing something morally culpable. The culpability of the actor hinges on his mental state (what lawyers call mens rea). In my experience, most pro-choicers simply wrongly believe that the womb is empty (or inhabited with something sub-human). It’s a factual mistake of fact.
This I believe gives us a very strong starting point for debating with pro-choicers. We start off not as antagonists but as people who share a common morality. Starting with this common ground gives us pro-lifers a huge advantage and leaves open several avenues of persuasion. The most effective debate that I’ve ever seen on the issue involved the pro-lifer simply projecting a high resolution ultrasound image of an unborn baby onto a screen and declaring “that is a person.”
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More seriously, Paul’s point in Romans is a soteriological point, not a social one. The law written on the hearts serves to condemn us, or sometimes to justify us, but there’s just nothing in the text that says “and so this is the basis for common society.â€
True that his larger point is soteriological. But it’s premised on a natural truth which is pressed into its service: all men know what is right, true and good. If they didn’t then there would be no way to build a just society without first converting everyone to Christ. But there was good reason the cross was shameful. If you hung on a tree it was because you belonged there. Roman justice was a very good thing. In fact, our theology depends upon this premise. True, the cross demonstrates the futility of human justice, but the cross also represents God’s perfect judgment of our sin. God employed the practice of those who knew how to maintain a just society.
“Zrim: But that doesn’t mean my interlocutor is bankrupt any fundamental sense of morality. If he is then I have no hope of persuading him. If he does, and I don’t persuade him, I come back tomorrow and try again. But I don’t see why my failure to persuade means he is amoral, especially since Paul says he isn’t.â€
No, of course not. Corrupted morality is not a-morality. And, we recall that you and I as Christians suffer the same internal malady as our interlocutors…
Apologies, I should have been more precise, amoral or under-moral. But I still don’t think he who disagrees with me politically is either amoral or under-moral. He’s just wrong.
But now your interlocutor challenges you: on what grounds to you object to abortion? Let’s leave abortion; it’s a bit tired today. On what grounds do you support the reinstatement of blue laws?
I’d be glad to leave it, since it seems to be the signature politics of even conservative Calvinists who employ it to determine true piety from not-so-true piety. But if you don’t mind, I prefer the abortion question. First, you brought it up. Second, I think it’s helpful to make the points I want to make. Third, the blue laws thing is another thread and initiated by someone else and not quite as useful to me.
I morally object to abortion, as it is commonly understood, on the simple grounds that it is murder (I don’t even make room in cases of assault). It is one person taking the life of another person. So when the question is posed, “May she or mayn’t she,†I say she mayn’t, not because the unborn are special untouchable creatures who are entitled to special hands-off treatment, but because nobody has the right to take another’s life. I think this distinction is important and begins to distinguish an outlook that is “pro-life†and one that is simply “opposed to abortion.â€
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Jeff asked: “Do you agree or disagree that civil righteousness is a shadow of God’s righteousness?”
You do beat all! I thought I had already pleaded that I’m not a scholar. 🙂
FWIW: It looks like a spiritual indigestion question. Years ago, as part of theology class (non-Lutheran), one assignment was to review an online Roman Catholic scholars forum where they debated questions similar to yours. Long story short – it cured me of asking or trying to answer these kinds of questions.
Anyhow, the best I can do is point you back to your brethren and encourage you to read VanDrunen’s book on 2k.
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Paul does not argue that all men know what is right, true, and good. He says that they know enough to be without excuse; that the certain facts about God are generally obvious. He also says that men have been given over to a depraved mind, and a long litany of examples follows.
Paul’s direction is towards depravity; you want him to be making a statement about “goodness in essence.” That statement simply isn’t there, and it moves 180 deg. opposite in direction from Paul’s point.
Precisely, which is why there will *be* no just society until the eschaton.
This is a reach. If it were true that our theology depended on it, it would be attested somewhere in Scripture or the Confession or the creeds that “Roman justice was a very good thing”
As it is, shameful treatment can and does carry shame without being just. The trial of Jesus is portrayed as a mockery of justice (both Jewish and Roman). And in fact, Roman justice was cruel, brutal, and frequently arbitrary.
OK. So we see the residual moral Law in the norm, “Thou shalt not murder.” But now it comes back to you, “How do you know that this is a person?” The questioner might be crude (“It’s just a blob of cells no bigger than my pinkie-tip”) or sophisticated (“Being a person requires consciousness and sentience, which the fetus lacks”). And the allegation is made, “Your belief that the fetus is a person is a religious belief, not a factual one.”
How do you respond? Don’t we see here simultaneously the action of the sin nature, suppressing the truth (much as … say, slaves were dehumanized in Rome, placing them beneath the protections of the ethical norm not to murder).
I guess I see an “always mixed bag” after the fall. On your account, this is because of an overlay of depraved “condition” on top of a good “essence.” But interestingly, the Confession doesn’t use this language. Instead, it calls the fall a “corruption of [our] nature.”
(And here’s an interesting puzzle: if our depravity were simply a matter of condition, why do we need a “new man” instead of a simple reset of condition? On your account, our essence wars against our condition, which sounds more like the “new man” resides in all of us, regenerate or not.)
So where is this idea of condition / essence coming from?
JRC
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You’re right, Jeff. I doubt Redeemer is helping start-up Christian plumbing companies in NYC as part of its entrepreneurial initiatives. Odd, that, since running water and the elimination of human waste does truly transform a city.
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Paul does not argue that all men know what is right, true, and good. He says that they know enough to be without excuse; that the certain facts about God are generally obvious.
I don’t see the difference.
“Zrim: If they didn’t then there would be no way to build a just society without first converting everyone to Christ.â€
Precisely, which is why there will *be* no just society until the eschaton.
You’re still not distinguishing between temporal justice and eternal justice. It’s true that there will not be utter perfection until the consummation (which is a good reminder to transformers of all stripes), but that doesn’t at all mean we can’t build a just society in the meantime. It means we can pursue, imperfectly, a good society. We build the kingdom of God by converting sinners, but we don’t need to convert sinners to have a good society.
“Zrim: But there was good reason the cross was shameful. If you hung on a tree it was because you belonged there. Roman justice was a very good thing. In fact, our theology depends upon this premise.â€
This is a reach. If it were true that our theology depended on it, it would be attested somewhere in Scripture or the Confession or the creeds that “Roman justice was a very good thingâ€
Your Biblicist slip is showing. But that is why I said the cross also represents a miscarriage of justice. More dualism on my part—Rome temporally pretty good but ultimately criminal, just like us, total depravity; and more need to solve dualism on yours—Rome bad, always bad, utter depravity.
OK. So we see the residual moral Law in the norm, “Thou shalt not murder.†But now it comes back to you, “How do you know that this is a person?†The questioner might be crude (â€It’s just a blob of cells no bigger than my pinkie-tipâ€) or sophisticated (â€Being a person requires consciousness and sentience, which the fetus lacksâ€). And the allegation is made, “Your belief that the fetus is a person is a religious belief, not a factual one.â€
Jeff, I’m not an ethicist or philosopher, just an ordinary person. You asked me how I ground my belief that abortion is to kill a human being. I assume that at the moment of conception human life has been fully enacted. I don’t feel the need to dispute someone else’s basic presumptions; to say conception doesn’t enact full humanity is as wrong as saying there exist a whole number between four and five.
And here’s an interesting puzzle: if our depravity were simply a matter of condition, why do we need a “new man†instead of a simple reset of condition? On your account, our essence wars against our condition, which sounds more like the “new man†resides in all of us, regenerate or not.
On your account we need a whole new essence, to be something more than human. But in our glorification we will still be finite beings (you know, Creator/creature distinction) and as fully human as we are now, nothing less and nothing more. Our humanity will be restored, not replaced.
So where is this idea of condition / essence coming from?
This has always been my understanding of standard Reformed orthodoxy. What I’d like to know is where this idea of creation being pronounced very good then getting downgraded to not so very good comes from. I have never seen anything remotely like it in Reformed orthodoxy.
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The difference is scope. My daughters don’t know (formally) how to sing. But they do know enough to tell on-key from off-key, somewhat.
Likewise, the statement “men know enough right from wrong to have consciences that accuse or excuse them”, is a long distance from “men know enough right from wrong to set up a just society” (which Dort denies anyway)
And it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about God’s justice or civil justice. Even if we limit ourselves to civil justice, there isn’t a country in the world that measures up. The USA is probably one of the best ever in history (not that I’m prejudiced …), and we still have a deeply unjust history with regard to native Americans, slaves, Mexico, etc. And we’re the “good guys.”
Have you ever traveled around in countries that demand bribes at every turn? Or deliberately divert shipments of food so that citizens will starve?
You realize you jumped ships, right? We went from “Roman justice was a very good thing; our theology depends on it”, to “Rome temporally pretty good but ultimately criminal.”
Rome’s justice was bad, in certain areas. It was also good in certain areas. I can say that from a civil justice point of view.
But the point of Romans 1 – 2 is this: even measured by our own standards, we fail. The reason our consciences accuse us is NOT because we have the direct, bright blazing light of the full knowledge of God’s holiness shining in our hearts; it’s that we have a dim and corrupted image of God’s holiness within, and it still condemns us.
I’ll do some studying up and see what I can find on the issue. Note that we are not talking about creation in general but man in particular. The question is,
“Did the fall corrupt the essence of man, or did it corrupt his condition, leaving his essence still good?”
My read of both Scripture and Confession is the former, but I could well be wrong.
Do you have sources?
JRC
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Zrim, I posted something lengthy here that deals with Dabney, Berkhof, Hodge, Calvin, other. It got swallowed (2 days and it hasn’t showed up yet); I may have dorked up a tag or something.
Short: We’re both wrong. -ish.
I’ll try again later.
JRC
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Likewise, the statement “men know enough right from wrong to have consciences that accuse or excuse themâ€, is a long distance from “men know enough right from wrong to set up a just society†(which Dort denies anyway)
And it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about God’s justice or civil justice. Even if we limit ourselves to civil justice, there isn’t a country in the world that measures up. The USA is probably one of the best ever in history (not that I’m prejudiced …), and we still have a deeply unjust history with regard to native Americans, slaves, Mexico, etc. And we’re the “good guys.â€
Have you ever traveled around in countries that demand bribes at every turn? Or deliberately divert shipments of food so that citizens will starve?
If we cannot make a just society then what keeps us from not just packing it all in? It seems to me that on your view, since I cannot be perfect I ought not strive. Ironically, for all the antinomian charges against 2K, your criticism ends up sounding pretty apathetic. But 2K wants to lower the stakes while retaining the dignity of earthly striving. More tension. I still think at the heart of this is the refusal to distinguish between the temporal and the eternal, the attaching of eternal stakes to temporal enterprise.
The question is,
“Did the fall corrupt the essence of man, or did it corrupt his condition, leaving his essence still good?â€
My read of both Scripture and Confession is the former, but I could well be wrong.
Do you have sources?
Try thinking of the essence as the imago Dei. Did we lose our status as created in the image and likeness of God? No. If we did, then we are less than human. (Especially for those who want to protest the notion that a fetus is less than human, this seems essential to understand.) Fallen human beings never lost their essential worth because it is still grounded in God. What we lost was our right standing before God. Being fully human is precisely why we may be judged. If we are less than human, why bother judging? God doesn’t judge trees and dogs, only humans. If we lost our essential nature as human we join the ranks of trees and dogs. Re a source, try this about mid way down:
http://www.wscal.edu/clark/heidelbergcommentary.php
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About mid-way down!! It’s 30+ pages in print!
Sadist. 🙂
Anyways, there are several issues that need to be carefully teased out. The first is the meaning of “essence” and “condition” — I assume that’s meant to be equivalent to the Aristotelian “substance” and “accident.”
The good news for you is that several theologians (Berkhof, Dabney) agree with you that sin is not in the “substance” (essence?) of man, but in the “accident.”
The bad news for you is that Dabney also denies that God’s goodness is in the substance, but is also “accidental.”
Hm.
On the other hand, Calvin cuts out the substance/accident distinction and speaks only of “nature.”
Something to think about: in the article you link to, RSC says that “The confessional Protestant view is that grace renews nature” — for Elder Hoss, this is the Big Deal that keeps him apart from you guys.
More later, gotta teach.
JRC
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Something to think about: in the article you link to, RSC says that “The confessional Protestant view is that grace renews nature†— for Elder Hoss, this is the Big Deal that keeps him apart from you guys.
If Hoss likes the more Roman construal of grace perfecting nature, probably. But the Protestant view, contra donum super additum, is that the imago Dei (or, essence) was never defective either before or after the fall. It never needed, nor does it yet need any sort of perfection or to move up the “scale of being,†nor is its goal to participate with the Divine being.
It is sort of tongue-in-cheek, but when the transformers say we need to redeem or transform creation one response is, “Why, what’s wrong with it?â€
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Zrim, here’s the longer version. As I mentioned, Reformed theologians appear to take different approaches to man before and after the Fall.
Berkhof sums up the situation best: The Reformed Churches, following in the footsteps of Calvin, have a far more comprehensive conception of the image of God than either the Lutherans or the Roman Catholics. But even they do not all agree as to its exact contents. Dabney, for instance, holds that it does not consist in anything absolutely essential to man’s nature, for then the loss of it would have resulted in the destruction of man’s nature; but merely in some accidens. McPherson, on the other hand, asserts that it belongs to the essential nature of man, and says that “Protestant theology would have escaped much confusion and many needless and unconvincing doctrinal refinements, if it had not encumbered itself with the idea that it was bound to define sin as the loss of the image, or of something belonging to the image. If the image were lost man would cease to be man.” These two, then, would seem to be hopelessly at variance. Other differences are also in evidence in Reformed theology. Some would limit the image to the moral qualities of righteousness and holiness with which man was created, while others would include the whole moral and rational nature of man, and still others would also add the body.
An Aristotelian approach is represented by Dabney and Hodge, who separate the substance of the soul from its accidents.
Dabney takes the view that the image of God is not a part of essence but of accident, and the the image has been lost as a result of the Fall (Syst. Theol. Chap. 29).
Hodge (Outl. Theol. Ch. 19) likewise argues that original sin does not change the substance of man, but instead that sin causes “(l) The loss of the original righteous habit of will. (2) The presence of a positively unrighteous habit.”
Berkhof on the other hand disagrees with Dabney, separating the “moral image of God” (which he says is lost in the fall) and man’s natural faculties:
So for Berkhof, the image is partially lost, partially vitiated. In saying this, however, he leaves room for man to have “civil righteousness” (there’s the term!) and to have proximate justice, etc.
Finally, Calvin avoids questions of accident and substance altogether, speaking only of man’s nature. For Calvin, the nature of man has been thoroughly corrupted by sin, not so much that he is unable to do any good at all, but so that in all parts of his nature, the image of God has been marred. (Inst. 2.1.8 – 11). (Not so much, of course, that man always does the worst thing possible, but such that no part of man’s nature is untouched by sin). In this, he follows Augustine, whose concept of “nature” was put forward against Pelagius’ idea that man is born innocent and sins by imitation of Adam only and not out of nature.
Importantly, the language of Calvin was that adopted by the Confession as well as Dort, and BC 15.
Importantly, Calvin does not make a wide distinction between civil righteousness and righteousness before God. One telling feature is that for Calvin, the magistrate is directly accountable to the 10 Commandments (Inst. 4.20.9), and his chief functions are to ensure that “public form of religion may exist among Christians, and humanity among men.” (Inst. 4.20.3). The relationship to the image of God question is this: For Calvin, it appears that the marring of man’s nature does indeed require that man (the magistrate, for example) be informed by the Scripture as a rule of righteousness.
To sum up: from a substance/accident point of view, it is proper to say that sin touches the accidents of man (condition) but not his substance (essence). However, much of man’s “image of God” lies in his condition, so that it is improper to say that the image of God is not defective after the fall.
From a “nature” point of view, the image of God is “marred” in man, so that once again, we may not say that the image of God is not defective after the fall.
—
I would say that my research leads to this conclusion: there was surprisingly more variance in the Reformed view than I realized. Certainly, there is support for your notion that the Fall touches our condition and not our essence; but there is no support for your extension of this idea to the claim that the image of God is not defective in us. Instead, it has been marred by a positive presence of sin within.
Likewise, there is support for my contention that sin is part of fallen man’s nature; but it may be the case that I take too pessimistic a view of man’s ability to form civil government.
JRC
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Jeff,
Thanks for the research.
Just to be clear, my point hasn’t really been that the image of God hasn’t been marred because it has, and I can be satisfied with the fact that you can find at least some support for my essence/condition point. Instead, my real point has been that, just as redeemed beings are at once saints and sinners, created beings live in a tension between being very good and totally depraved. The Reformed tradition is rife with this sort of duality and tension, but not so much with attempts to resolve them. God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, two seemingly antagonistic realities, co-exist but the Reformed tradition is satisfied to say that their co-existence remains a mystery. God is fully sovereign and humans are always fully responsible, and neither reality is ever diminished. Same thing goes for the very goodness and total depravity of the created order.
But if one is inclined to be discontent with the created tension in human beings to be at once very good and also totally depraved, it seems to me that one of the ways is to diminish the former in order to make more room for the latter. And it’s only a couple of leaps until out pops the idea that general revelation simply isn’t good enough to rule general society, because sin goes so far down and has so infected the image that it cannot effect civil righteousness. So, yes, I would agree with you that yours is an overly-pessimistic a view of man’s ability to form civil government. But I think it may owe to wanting to resolve the created tension instead of simply living with it.
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I suppose so. Or to diminish the latter in order to make room for the former (Pelagius). Or even … to consign “very good” over to the common realm and “totally depraved” to the sacred?
Could it be possible that you are overly optimistic?
In any event, in defense of my “something close to pessimism”, I would argue that there is a structural link between Calvin’s view of the fall, as marring man’s nature, and his view of civil government. In his view, the magistrate is obligated to the 10 Commandments *as the means of determining right from wrong*. Inst. 4.20.6 and 9 and especially 15-16 demonstrate this quite clearly, in my view.
“it alone” means the moral law, identical in content to the testimony of natural law and conscience.
So … if pessimist I am to be, at least I shall having Calvin as a drinking partner.
JRC
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While you and Calvin are hoisting frothy ones, I’ll sit over here with Uncle Abe, who wrote a pamphlet rejecting the original language of Belgic 36:
We oppose this Confession out of complete conviction, prepared to bear the consequences of our convictions, even when we will be denounced and mocked on that account as unReformed.
We would rather be considered not Reformed and insist that men ought not to kill heretics, than that we are left with the Reformed name as the prize for assisting in the shedding of the blood of heretics.
It is our conviction: 1) that the examples which are found in the Old Testament are of no force for us because the infallible indication of what was or was not heretical which was present at that time is now lacking.
2) That the Lord and the Apostles never called upon the help of the magistrate to kill with the sword the one who deviated from the truth. Even in connection with such horrible heretics as defiled the congregation in Corinth, Paul mentions nothing of this idea. And it cannot be concluded from any particular word in the New Testament, that in the days when particular revelation should cease, that the rooting out of heretics with the sword is the obligation of magistrates.
3) That our fathers have not developed this monstrous proposition out of principle, but have taken it over from Romish practice.
4) That the acceptance and carrying out of this principle almost always has returned upon the heads of non-heretics and not the truth but heresy has been honored by the magistrate.
5) That this proposition opposes the Spirit and the Christian faith.
6) That this proposition supposed that the magistrate is in a position to judge the difference between truth and heresy, an office of grace which, as appears from the history of eighteen centuries, is not granted by the Holy Spirit, but is withheld.
We do not at all hide the fact that we disagree with Calvin, our Confessions, and our Reformed theologians.
And I’ll be the one with a copy of the 20th Century revision of 36 in my hands:
*In the original text this sentence read as follows: “Their office is not only to have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the civil state, but also that they protect the sacred ministry, and thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship, that the kingdom of antichrist may be thus destroyed and the kingdom of Christ promoted.†The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1910, recognizing the unbiblical teaching, contained in this sentence, concerning the freedom of religion and concerning the duty of the state to suppress false religion, saw fit to add an explanatory footnote. The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1938, agreeing with the Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1910 as to the unbiblical character of the teaching referred to, but recognizing a conflict between the objectionable clauses in the Article and its footnote, decided to eliminate the footnote and to make the change in the text of the Article which appears above, corresponding to the change adopted in 1905 by the General Synod of the “Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland.†(See Christian Reformed Church Acts of Synod, 1910, pp.9,104-105; also Christian Reformed Church Acts of Synod, 1938, p. 17.). The Christian Reformed Church Synod of 1958 approved the following substitute statement which has been referred to other Reformed Churches accepting the Belgic Confession as their creed for evaluation and reaction: “And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, in subjection to the law of God, while completely refraining from every tendency toward exercising absolute authority, and while functioning in the sphere entrusted to them and with the means belonging to them, to remove every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship, in order that the Word of God may have free course, the kingdom of Jesus Christ may make progress, and every anti-christian power may be resisted.â€
I suppose so. Or to diminish the latter in order to make room for the former (Pelagius). Or even … to consign “very good†over to the common realm and “totally depraved†to the sacred?
No, “very good†and “totally depraved†belong to the created order. Redeemed creatures are first created, then redeemed, which means they are “very good, totally depraved and a royal priesthood,†as in simil justus et peccator.
Could it be possible that you are overly optimistic?
Could be. But I take my inspiration from the book of Ecclesiastes, which says there is nothing new under the sun and all is vanity. I have a low view of man and his projects, sacred or secular. The human condition does not improve or worsen as time either progresses or retreats. That’s how an amil Calvinist does total depravity after affirming the very goodness of the imago Dei.
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I’m surprised that you are cool with “And being called in this manner to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God, the civil rulers have the task, in subjection to the law of God…”
I thought that you didn’t believe in advancement of society, or think that it was the civil ruler’s business to contribute to the advancement of a society that is pleasing to God?
But in any event, I don’t want to quarrel. I’m not actually in full support of Calvin’s position; I’m just noting that his view on the Fall is connected to his view of the magistrate.
And, I’m noting that I find myself in his camp on the way of articulating the Fall.
—
What’s with having a low view of man and his projects? Weren’t you just telling me that *I* have a low view of man? I’m so confused.
JRC
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What’s with having a low view of man and his projects? Weren’t you just telling me that *I* have a low view of man? I’m so confused.
Again, the confusion owes to the confusing of the temporal and eternal. Man can make good society but not heaven on earth. The choice isn’t between cynicism and optimism when it comes to human ability—there’s also a skepticism.
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So I’m a “pessimist”, but you’re a “skeptic.” OK, if it’s important to you to be able to point to a difference between us, then I’ll have to accept those as labels.
But for my money, the difference between a pessimist and a skeptic is consonants and vowels.
JRC
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