Readers of Oldlife may think I am too hard on Kuyper and neo-Calvinism. I know of one reader and commenter who regularly replies that I am just pointing out errors but that neo-Calvinism in its purity is — well — pure. Another respondent has admitted to some flaws along the way but nothing inherently erroneous about neo-Calvinism per se.
And then I receive a deluge of examples that suggest neo-Calvinism is not simply prone to abuse by a few of its proponents. Instead, repeatedly, neo-Calvinism blurs the distinctions between the church and culture (what we used to call the world), and consistently does not recognize the fundamental difference between redemption and cultural activity. Herewith some examples (and I have the good Dr. K. to thank for several of them).
The first comes from James K. A. Smith in an article he wrote for Pro Rege in which he tried to argue for more of a liturgical component for neo-Calvinism. (I actually think Smith has a point, especially when he conceives of a church-college as a worshiping community in which liturgy should be at the center of campus life.) But to defend his view, he observes a tendency within neo-Calvinism (and he is pro-neo-Calvinist) that is precisely what Old Lifers detect in Kuyperianism:
Kuyper has been inherited in different ways in North America, yielding different Kuyperianisms. While Zwaanstra suggests that “ecclesiology was the core of [Kuyper’s] theology,” one quickly notes that it is the church as organism that is the “heart” of his doctrine. This emphasis, coupled with some other emphases in Kuyper, led to a strain of Kuyperianism that actually had little place for the church as institute in its understanding of Christian engagement with culture. Indeed, there have even been strains of Kuyperianism that have been quite anti-ecclesial. On the other hand, Kuyper himself clearly saw a crucial role for the church as institute and devoted a great deal of his time, energy, and gifts to its welfare and reform.
Next comes a quotation, which also came to my attention through Dr. K., which seems to run rough shod over distinctions between redemption and creation, such that Bach, bordeaux, and republican governments become the fruit of the Spirit.
Reformational Christians are not very accustomed to relating the working of God’s Spirit to nature and to culture. The under-appreciation of the broader work of the Spirit betrays an incorrect vision of the relationship between nature and grace. Here, too often the point of departure involves an antithesis between the general and the special working of the Spirit. Only the latter is saving.
For the Reformation, grace is not opposed to nature, but opposed to sin. By grace, a person does not become super-human, but genuinely human. Grace restores and redeems nature, but it adds nothing new to nature. “The re-creation is not a second, new creation. It introduces no new substance, but is essentially reformatory,” according to Herman Bavinck. . . .
The Bible connects the work of the Spirit also to the gift of art. That applies to devotional music, to be sure. But architects and visual artists like Bezalel and Oholiab were also filled with the Spirit of God in order to be able to do their creative work [Ex. 31.6; 36.1-2; 38.23].
Christians may pray for the working of the Holy Spirit in their own lives, but also for the corruption-restraining working of the Spirit in society. That working extends to the meetings of literary guilds, of the advertising review council, and of the film rating commission. Where the Holy Spirit is absent, the demons of terror have free reign.
Therefore the church prays for the world this petition as well: “Veni creator Spiritus”—Come, Creator Spirit! (Dr. H. van den Belt, “Focus op bekering mag zicht op vernieuwing aarde niet ontnemen,” Reformatorisch Dagblad [13 June 2011])
We can see where such blurring leads when we look at a new initiative at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. I learned about this one thanks to the ever watchful eyes of the Brothers Bayly. (It should also be mentioned that the good Dr. K. seems to approve of Tim Keller because of the New York pastor’s use of Kuyper.)
The Center for Faith and Work at Redeemer PCA/NYC is hosting a conference this fall on the gospel and culture. The vision for this conference sounds like this:
“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Rev 21:2
In this great climax of redemption, we get a glimpse of where all of history is moving, and the scope of God’s redemptive purposes extends far beyond what we could have ever imagined. God is at work preparing his bride, and this bride is a holy city—a city designed and built by God Himself. God has intimately invited us into this redemptive story, and when we understand how the story ends, the way we see and engage the city around us changes. When we begin to realize that God cares for New York City, in all of its dimensions and sectors, our eyes become opened to see His love and care for all that we often overlook. Our hope for this conference is that you will begin to see how real the gospel is in every inch of our city and to leave with a renewed sense of purpose and calling as you see hope-filled glimpses of the great City of Peace that is to come.
What is striking about this understanding of the gospel in the city is that the gospel seems to be there even if the church isn’t proclaiming the gospel or transforming the culture. It sounds like this wing of Redeemer believes that the gospel is already there in NYC and so Christians need to become more sensitive to it so they can see how God is at work everywhere. So much for needing to transform the city. The church needs to be culturalized.
To add plausibility to this interpretation, consider that one day of the conference will be devoted to “glimpses,” that is, a “cultural event (1) based in New York City, (2) experienced in community, (3) which points toward evidence of God’s glory and Sovereignty over all things.” Conference participants may gain a glimpse by engaging in one of the following suggested activities:
STARTER IDEAS — Food Tour · Metropolitan Museum · BAM · NYPhil · Brooklyn Heights History Walk · Brooklyn Bridge Architecture Walk · The Morgan Library · Times Square “Branding” Walk · Off B’way · Carnegie Hall · City Opera · City Ballet · IFC · Angelika · Lincoln Square Cinema · Jazz @ Lincoln Center · Fashion Show · Joyce Dance · B.B. King’s · NY Historical Society · The MET · Rockwood Hall · Living Room · 92nd St.
I have had some very good meals in NYC. They were better temporally than the meal of the Lord’s Supper that I now eat weekly at our OPC congregation (though the bread made by the pastor’s wife is very good!!). But I never suspected that when dining on Osso Bucco I was actually experiencing the coming of the kingdom of grace or the relishing the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And I don’t think it is necessarily fundamentalist to distinguish peace, love, and joy from the creations of Winslow Homer and Woody Allen.
In which case, if the gospel can be construed so broadly, and if Kuyperianism has a tendency for the church as organism to outrun the church as institute, why won’t neo-Calvinists exert a little internal regulation and pot down the excess? For that matter, do the Allies at the Gospel Coalition really endorse Redeemer church’s understanding of the gospel and culture?
The culture cannot be saved — only created beings with souls can. But if you are in the habit long enough of thinking that cultures can be saved, then perhaps you start to adjust your understanding of the gospel and find salvation in the culture that you deem civilized (or hip).
Old Life 
Read that quote from Smith again, notice:
“…Kuyperianism that actually had little place for the church as institute in its understanding of Christian engagement with culture. Indeed, there have even been strains of Kuyperianism that have been quite anti-ecclesial.”
Little place for the institutional church in engaging culture… YES, that’s what we *want*. This is not “anti-ecclesial,” it is Confessional. We don’t want the institutional church trying to “engage” (let alone save) culture.
The sort of neocalvinism Smith is critiquing is mine. And it is genuinely Kuyper’s Kuyperianism, and pro-ecclesial.
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Great insights Darryl. I agree with you regarding neo-Calvinism. I came across this quote in a book about the “abundant life.” The author is Roger Weldon,
“God gave us the heart to do something (passion); he gave us an image of what we are to do (vision); and he gave us the tools or implements of our trade in order to carry out the plan (gifts). That is the role of spiritual gifts in the journey toward abundance. Gifts are given for Kingdom work. We are created for Kingdom work. *When we live abundantly everything we do is Kingdom work.*”
This is the sort of sloppy thinking that is dominant in authors like Joel Osteen and other “abundant life” teachers. What is amazing is that neo-Calvinists do not realize how similar their message is to these sorts of authors. The doctrine of vocation is supposed to make this sort of thinking unnecessary.
And, of course, it also makes a mess out of what the church is supposed to be in this world.
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Why are there no sports in the list of “Starter Ideas”?
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For the Reformation, grace is not opposed to nature, but opposed to sin. By grace, a person does not become super-human, but genuinely human. Grace restores and redeems nature, but it adds nothing new to nature. “The re-creation is not a second, new creation. It introduces no new substance, but is essentially reformatory
This is the sort of thing I never really understand. Yes, grace is opposed to sin, not nature. Yes, nature is essentially very good but conditionally totally depraved, thus needs to be redeemed and not re-created. But if that’s true then how does it follow that grace makes an imago Dei creature “genuinely human”? Aren’t all such creatures genuinely human by virtue of their creation, full stop? How does one circumvent the clear implication that unbelievers are somehow less-than-human if grace makes believers genuinely human? I’m glad that one doesn’t become super-human, but is that really much better than suggesting there are sub-humans and genuine humans? Since neo’s populate the pro-life movement, doesn’t this undermine their cause?
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Paul tells us not to be conformed to the world. The Apostle John praised those who overcame the world by faith and the blood of Christ. Israel was warned not to imitiate the practices of the people around them. It seems Christianity has a negative evaluation of the world. But, I can’t remember the last time I heard a sermon expressing this point of view. Transformation, of whatever kind, seems to be assumed these days.
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Baus, Smith is also pro-ecclesial.
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Everett, indeed, for every use of the word kingdom, the word vocation disappears more.
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David, artists glisten, athletes sweat.
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Darryl, Smith is not *our* (your or my or Kuyper’s) kind of pro-ecclesial.
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What’s the difference between Ken Myers and Tim Keller? I don’t think I’m wrong when I notice parallels in their thinking. Yet I find Myers’ cultural approach persuasive but Keller’s not so much. Is it because Myers appeals to creation while Keller appeals to redemption with respect to how we engage culture? That’s my superficial conclusion but I’m not sure. Thoughts?
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James K.A. Smith’s book “Letters to a Young Calvinist” is a trenchant, though gentle, critique of the Young Restless Reformed that fill the seats at conferences of the Gospel Coalition. Old Lifers might actually find much to agree with.
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I used to be so drawn to Kellers very “holistic/organic” universal salvation. It just seems so, tragic that God loves entertainment and nature more than he does the reprobate souls. How do you have any type of victory other than universalism in a system like his that makes God, loving. The entire system is built on God’s love of “all his creation”, but one must ultimately say that God loves dogs more than people…or at least it has the appearance of such a position. Two Kingdom theology fills in so many gaps and eases so many tensions that Kellers system of redemption left me with.
Cheers Darryl on another great post!
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Baus, these days getting Reformed folks who generally think in terms of doctrine, experience, or culture to be pro-ecclesial is a help of some kind.
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Michael T., one difference is that Ken wrote two relatively strong anti-transformational pieces, one his book on pop culture that was informed directly by Kline, the other a pamphlet on common grace. But of late, as Ken has turned toward recreation as a theme of his journals, he has moved seemingly toward the transformational view. But I don’t think Ken is as impressed with NYC as Keller.
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Stephen, I appreciate Jamie’s critique of YRR, but I find his own presentation of the Reformed faith there too Grand Rapidian.
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Johnny K., thanks.
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Darryl, I take it that your main point in this post is that confusing creational goodness and common grace in culture with the gospel is worse than erroneously believing that the mission of the church is to engage culture.
Anyway, I agree that they are both terribly wrong and bad.
But once you said: “what I am still waiting for is an account of neo-Calvinism that avoids the unhinging of the church” [from her proper mission].
I was highlighting that Smith has given you that account, not in his own view, but in the view that he calls anti-ecclesial (ie, Kuyper’s view). He seems to call it anti-ecclesial because it is Confessional and restricts the institutional church to Word&Sacrament (rather than extending it to engage culture).
I felt as though you missed the significance of this entirely.
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I don’t think many of the neo-Cal’s have properly contemplated the radical newness of the new creation. This leads to the common error of making this current creation the locus of God’s redemptive work. The radical disjunction between the current cosmic state and the eschatological cosmos is strongly featured in the last 3rd of Isaiah, in Paul’s epistles, and even Revelation.
Even humans cannot enter into the irrupting new creation without becoming new themselves. The fact that Paul doesn’t talk about the renovation of those under the first Adam’s regime, rather he speaks of the new man fashioned after the second Adam, who is in fact a new creation and at odds with this present age should be instructive.
I don’t think I would take as much of an issue with neo-Cal’s if they saw their role centering on making this world a better place to live in, and that this was a byproduct of Christian vocation, not the work of the institutional Church. But they conflate this present age with the work of the age to come far outside the walls of the church. It seems that the church, instead of this present world is the locus of God’s redemptive work as he calls a people to himself and makes them partakers in the new creation.
Dr. K’s example of Bezelel and Oholiab is interesting, but I think that he overlooks the fact that these Spirit-empowered men were working under the theocratic regime of Israel, which is held up as an ideal and type of the coming creation, not an indicative of the current creation. Eden, Israel (and the Temple), and the Church are all signs of the irruption of God’s kingdom in an otherwise hostile world. The only way for the transformational model to work would have been if Adam had not failed in Eden and proceeded to expand the borders of the Edenic sacred space.
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Baus, that’s not the way I read Jamie. I think he is trying to add worship to the neo-Cal mix and move the movement from its intellectualist (world view/philosophical) mindset to one more in keeping with practice and habitus.
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Darryl, I agree he’s “trying to add worship”… but he’s adding it to a means of cultural engagement. Is this any better than Keller’s overblown “deaconate” or a church that commissions professional musicians as “missionaries”?
I’m confused about whether you’re really criticizing Smith on this score, or appreciating his view, and/or appreciating his supposed critique of “my sort” of neocalvinism (which you should rather be in favor of).
Can you clarify?
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Zrim,
“But if that’s true then how does it follow that grace makes an imago Dei creature “genuinely human”?”
Traditional Reformed categories is that the imago is *marred*.
In any case, suppose you look at the neo-cal point—and I don’t know why it would be a neo-Cal point, for it could just as well be an Aquinas point—is in terms of *proper function*. Humans do not *function* as they ought—at least fully. Grace restores this functional element to our humanness. Considered as a totality, our proper function, or, in scholastic categories, our final cause or teleology is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Not doing this does affect the ontology in a sense. For example, a dull knife is still made of the same kind of “very good” *matter* as a sharp knife is. But scholastics would say that, ceteris paribus, the dull knife really isn’t a knife at all. To the extent that it is, it’s not fulfilling its telos properly, which affects, according to the older metaphysic, the nature of the knife qua knife. You must remember, older Reformers worked with these categories; for instance, they didn’t think hands detached from bodies are properly even called “hands” anymore, for they don’t *function* as hands. Thus, how we function is part of who we are, distinct from, say, the proper function of a snail. Thus, on this analysis, you shouldn’t find it hard to see how grace might make one “fully” human. But if you want to work with the modern metaphysical categories of mechanistic, mundane methodological naturalism, then we’d have to discuss at that level. If you are thinking in terms of the older Reformed metaphysic taken for granted back then, this point should be clear to you now. Does that dog hunt?
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Not really, Paul. My understanding of the older Protestant construal was that it opposed the medieval conception that held creation to be not only morally and conditionally but also essentially and ontologically flawed, such that the super added gift of grace was necessary for salvation. Protestantism denied that the problem is that we are human but instead that we are sinners; the Protestant categories are not ontological and metaphysical but moral and legal. Being limited (where God in unlimited, as in Creator-creature distinction) is to be fully human, not sub-human. The telos of humanity is glorification, not some form or another of deification.
So when my knife is dull it is still a knife. And when my hands are cut off I am still fully a human being. I am not, speaking of modern categories, the sum of my parts.
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Baus, what I like is that Smith is noticing problems within the neo-Cal consensus which no one within the Dutch-American academia has taken on for as long as I’ve been watching. What I also find surprising is that the Dutch appear to suffer these criticisms from the goyim, Smith. That’s not to say I agree. But I’ve long thought that the neo-Cal movement needed some fresh, even brash, reshuffling if it were to be interesting again.
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I’m fairly late to the party here, but I’ll add to DGH’s other rejoinder re: the differences between Keller & Ken Myers include the fact that 1) Myers isn’t a pastor, 2) isn’t _even_ anywhere close to running a (decidedly parachurch in the case of Mars Hill Audio Journal) ministry that ever has blurred the lines between the local expression of the Church like TGC or T4G routinely seem to do.
The work done by MHAJ is more like auditing a good media ecology course than anything, and having subscribed for years, it’s always been like that and nothing more, imho.
Dr. Hart, I don’t doubt what you said above about more recent leanings that may have appeared in the Journal’s content or Myers’ guest/subject choices of late. Even so, it’s pretty subtle, that’s for sure. And I am confident, not only because of experience listening to KM and the Journal, but based on your analysis of his’ work in “All God’s Children & Blue Sued Shoes,” et al, that Myers understands the basic issues at hand, even if he doesn’t fully embrace 2K. You’ve actually been a guest on one (?) edition, if memory serves me.
On that note, I’d be very interested in any thoughts you or others may have for T. David Gordon’s work, particularly his books on preaching and hymnody/psalmody.
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I’m not up on recent Mars Hill Audio as I let my subscription expire a couple of years ago. I did however recently come across a chapter called “A Better Way: Proclamation Over Protest” by Myers in a Michael Horten edited work entitled Power Religion from 1992. I would be very surprised if Mr. Myers did not still hold to what he originally wrote there.
Mr. Myers article seems to be a paragon of 2 Kingdom/Spirituality of the Church thinking. The context of the article is the response from the National Association of Evangelicals to the Last Temptation of Christ movie by MCA/Universal. They embarked upon a whole campaing of protest and “punishment” by trying to get evangelicals not to buy the video release of the E.T. movie. This strategy was an absoulte failure. Here are a few quotes from Myers:
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Zrim,
Not really, Paul. My understanding of the older Protestant construal was that it opposed the medieval conception that held creation to be not only morally and conditionally but also essentially and ontologically flawed
Er, um, that wasn’t my point. On this issue I cited, they were in agreement, See Muller, Horton, and Clark on this. Why do I bother . . . You’re right Zrim. So long as you’re a Confessionalist, you know everything about everything. I didn’t think neo-Confessionalism was Kuyperian worldviewism on steroids. Learn something new everyday.
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Paul,
Here we go bud, I’ve got some points of contention with your initial comment to Zrim, maybe we can tease a good conversation out of this, since I am never sure if you are simply stating a case for the sake of argument or if you actually believe it, either case maybe this can be fun:
Agreed on *proper function*, sinful humans do not properly function since sin is the introduction of chaos into the moral realm. However, can’t we argue that sin changes the nature of the human being to such a degree that there is an ontological shift (by this I mean a shift from a temporal human to an eschatological one). Maybe the sinner and the saint share similar human ontologies, but the sinner cannot merely undergo a renovation (i.e. grace changing nature) to become a saint. We are speaking of the saint as a new creation, with a new capacity for immortal goodness, a creaturely capacity the sinner never has. Likewise the sinner has a capacity of immortal and total depravity that the sinner never has.
This is why the Thomistic notion of grace changing nature seems deficient. It goes a bit beyond your knife description, since a dull knife can still cut, however badly that might be, and that dull knife isn’t said to be a new knife in the way that a saint is called a new creation. After an hour on the whetstone we probably wouldn’t be called sane to say that the old knife has passed away and the new one can now make quick work of my pork chops. Usually we would say, wow, this knife is sure a lot sharper, we would even say it’s like new, but I am not so sure we’d call it a new knife.
This is why I think neo-Cal’s have their proverbial ball lost in the weeds when they assert a renovative capacity of grace. I see grace working to constitute new creations (i.e. saints) who are fit to inhabit the New Creation. See where the rub is?
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Paul, what you said was that grace restores nature. And from there you continued to make the case for a defective ontology such that saying that grace makes the created being “fully” human is supposed to make sense. You seem to suggest that Clark is agreed. But here is Clark:
When the Reformed Churches turn to history to begin to explain or mitigate the problem of sin and evil, we are following Scripture. The fact is that God created everything and everyone “good.” The affirmation is terribly important. It was widely held in the medieval church that creation (including humanity) was inherently defective by virtue of its finitude. It was widely assumed that there is a sort of scale of being (think of a ladder) at the top of which is God and at the bottom of which is creation and what creation needs is “perfection,” i.e., to move up the scale of being toward God. In this scheme, the fundamental human problem is not sin but finitude. Sin is regarded as a symptom of a more fundamental problem.
This doctrine continues to be the magisterial teaching of the Roman Church, which teaches that humans and God both participate in “being.” Many evangelicals are also influenced by this way of thinking. Their piety and theology revolve around the quest to deny or over come their humanity. One sees this in the fundamentalist rules that say, in effect, “don’t touch,” “don’t taste” (Col 2:21). The influence of this scale of being idea reflects itself in false dualisms, where that which is immaterial is good and that which is material is either thought to be evil or worthy of suspicious. The old Roman Catholic and fundamentalist view of sex as inherently sinful reflects such a dualism. The evangelical (and fundamentalist and revivalist) neglect of the visible, institutional church. Much of that neglect or denial is grounded in the view that God does not operate through human, created things such as sermons, water, bread, and wine. One sees this tendency in the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation. The elements cannot remain mere elements. The essence of the elements of communion must be transformed into divinity.
Even more fundamental to this whole discussion is the question of the relation of nature to grace. There is much confusion surrounding this topic. There are four basic views:
1) Rome says that grace perfects nature. This is the “scale of being” view already described. In this scheme nature, as such, is thought to be defective.
Among the mainstream Protestants (Reformed and Lutheran) there was a general consensus against the medieval doctrine of the donum superadditum (superadded gift) i.e., that man was created with a certain deficiency in grace which was remedied before the fall with a “superadded gift” of grace. According to most medieval theologians, this “superadded gift” was lost in the fall. In such a scheme, the fall becomes not a primarily a violtion of God’s law but a fall from grace. They held this doctrine because they assumed the existence of a sort of chain of being between God and humanity with God at the top and us at the bottom. They conceived of the fundamental human problem not as a legal problem but as a lack of being or even a lack of divinity. Thomas Aquinas spoke of salvation as “divinization” and the Roman Church today (Catechism, 1994) teaches that God and humans both participate in “being.” The “chain of being” lives on in Roman theology. In the medieval (and Roman) view, human beings, by virtue of being human and finite, are in need of this grace. Hence Aquinas taught the “grace perfects nature.”
Scripture, however, knows nothing of such a “chain of being” or of the sort of “grace” before the fall. The medieval view makes sin an ontological or metaphysical (i.e., our ‘being’ or creation) problem rather than a moral-legal problem. [See s.v. donum super additum, Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985).] In contrast, the Belgic affirmed the paradox of man’s high state at creation, his free will and his mutability (posse peccare, posse non peccare), which made the fall a possibility.
But the Protestant view (Reformed and Lutheran) says that Scripture knows nothing of such a “chain of being” or of the sort of “grace” before the fall. The medieval view makes sin an ontological or metaphysical (i.e., our ‘being’ or creation) problem rather than a moral-legal problem.
2) The Anabaptists (and many evangelicals) say that grace obliterates nature. Like Rome, these folk regard nature, as such, as inherently defective, but unlike Rome, they expect grace to utterly replace creation altogether. Various forms of perfectionism and the higher life/second blessing doctrine.
3) Pantheists and liberals equate grace with nature. In this scheme there is no distinction whatever between nature and grace. In this scheme there is no distinction the Creator and the creature. There can be no doctrine of sin and redemption except to reduce everything to metaphor and figure. “Sin” can be a lack of awareness of one’s potential (or state) and “redemption” becomes realization of one’s state.
4) The confessional Protestant view is that grace renews nature, that the latter was created good (and was, therefore, not defective) and has been corrupted or is put to corrupt use by virtue of sin. All human faculties (e.g., the intellect, the will, and the affections) are radically corrupted by sin. Because of the fall, by inclination, we think wrongly, we choose wrongly, and we love wrongly. It is only by grace that we ever come to think, will, or love rightly.
There is no question that humans are fallen and sinful. Rom 1-3 and Eph 1-2 (among other places) is abundantly clear about that. It is less clear to me that creation per se is fallen or sinful nor is it clear to me that creation or creational enterprises need to be redeemed, though evangelicals and transformationalists speak this way routinely. Creation is subject to futility (Rom 8:19-23) and is groaning to be released from the bondage to decay and to enter into the consummate state, but that is not quite the same thing as to say that creation is “fallen.” Rocks don’t have any faculties. They don’t sin. I doubt that dogs sin — my Scottish Terrier is stubborn, but we wouldn’t expect any less from a proper Scotsman would we? Certainly he suffers from the consequences of the fall, but whatever we say in that regard, nothing about the fall makes creation, as such, evil or even something that needs to be “redeemed.” I worry about the effect of equivocating about sin and redemption by applying the same terms to humans and creationally generally. The effect is to broaden thus weakening the ideas of sin and redemption.
Nature generally may need to be renewed, but certainly human nature (it was humans who sinned and they who are redeemed) must be renewed by grace. Humanity, however, remains humanity even in a state of grace. Humans shall ever and only be human, even in glorification.
I don’t know about you, but it is unclear to me how it can follow from what Clark is saying that grace makes one fully or genuinely human. To be created is to be fully or genuinely human. Grace is needed to renew and save nature, but not to give it original dignity or fullness or genuineness. I can see how this notion that grace makes nature genuine appeals to medieval, evangelical and neo-Calvinist sensibilities, but I still fail to see how it comports with confessional Protestant views.
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Jed,
I’m not talking about grace changing nature. In fact, I’m not talking about anything your talking about, My comments were, as clearly laid out, in the vein of the four causes needed to explain what a thing is.
Zrim,
I did not say that. You’re imposing a construct on me because you don’t know how to do anything but force people into categories you’re familiar with.
As I said, why do I bother. 2K and Confessionalism must raise the I.Q. and make regular Joe’s experts on everything. Reformed goat breeding society indeed!
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I don’t know about you, but it is unclear to me how it can follow from what Clark is saying that grace makes one fully or genuinely human. To be created is to be fully or genuinely human.
If one needs to look at the *teleological* cause to fully explain a thing, then since fallen men do not function as they ought as humans, and grace ultimately allows this functional category to be fulfilled, then it can be said that grace restores humanity to full humanness *in the sense of final causality*.
My point about Clark et al was that they said the Reformed operated with a Thomistic *metaphsyic* on this point.
Clearly, I’m not even talking about what you are.
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Paul,
I’m not talking about grace changing nature. In fact, I’m not talking about anything your talking about,
Then you lost me. It looked a lot like you were speaking of scholastic metaphysics that stated that it did. I am trying to figure out where you were zigging while I was zagging if you catch my drift.
In terms of a human nature *marred*, I am not sure how that squares with total depravity, but I haven’t studied the Scholastics enough to understand their definitions.
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Paul, if you’re not talking about what I’m talking about then why did you pipe up to my original questions and suggest that your answers should clear it up for me? Who’s forcing familiar categories?
If Clark said that the Reformed operated with a Thomistic metaphysic, then how do you account for his setting up Aquinas’s conclusion that “grace perfects [or restores] nature” against the Protestant “grace renews nature” in the aboved quoted? As he suggests, a Thomistic metaphysic ends up with “salvation as divinization.” A Protestant metaphysic ends up with glorification following justification. So what do you mean that they had the same metaphysic?
But my point remains: creation does not need grace to be made genuine. It is very good and complete, if also totally deparaved, as is. One hears this notion that to be saved is to be made more human in one form or another in broad evangelicalism and neo-Calvinism all the time. It’s actually more medieval than Protestant.
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Deege, that sloppy joe picture is grossing me out, and now you’ve used it twice. Here’s a theologically-informed food pic I’m sure you can find a future use for: http://tinyurl.com/3o9fze6. And it actually makes me hungry.
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Brad, now I’m feeling peckish.
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