Tag: neo-Calvinism

Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Mystery-Averse Minds

Published on by D. G. Hart45 Comments

In case you haven’t noticed, Christianity is riddled with dilemmas and perplexities. For instance, Christ tells his followers to have nothing to do with the world but then he leaves Christians in the world. Another is that Christ wins by defeat; by dying on the cross, Satan’s apparent victory, Christ snatches believers from the grip of the evil one. Yet another is the doctrine of the Trinity. Still another is that Christ is Lord and Christians should submit to a counterfeit lord by the name of Nero. If you wanted intellectual consistency, then you’d likely end up abandoning orthodox Christianity.

The intellect defying mysteries of Christianity do not prevent critics of 2k from pointing out 2k’s apparent inconsistencies. Neo-Calvinism’s condemnation of all dualism fortifies critics in their quest to iron out all of Christianity’s wrinkles and gives them the upper hand in public relations contests since St. Joe the Home Schooler is more likely to trust a simple and direct answer to his questions than one that begins “well, yes and no.”

A recent attempt to catch 2k in the clutches of inconsistency came from Steven Wedgeworth at his new blog, The Calvinist International. He asks whether a seminary that trains pastors belongs to the spiritual or temporal kingdom and follows the reasoning of Ryan McIlhenry from an article in Mid-America Journal of Theology, not a journal that one associates with fans of the Federal Visions (but opposition to 2k makes for strange bed bugs). At a conference at Westminster California, David VanDrunen responded to this question in ways inconceivable to the perplexity challenged. Dissatisfied by VanDrunen’s response, Wedgeworth argues:

. . . VanDrunen attempts to soften things with a general admission of complexity and a denial that “every single plot of ground” can be put into one kingdom or the other, he does not admit the more obvious point: his specific expression of the two kingdoms cannot be coherently applied in the world. This is because he is still attempting to distinguish the kingdoms along the lines of vocation. Churchy callings and, specifically, Bible-teaching, are the business of the spiritual kingdom, whereas more ordinary jobs like committees, administration, and custodianship are the business of the worldly kingdom.

But what business does a common institution have training up the leaders of the spiritual kingdom? Indeed, under the terms of de jure divino Presbyterianism, this would mean that the spiritual kingdom of Christ is in fact dependent upon the worldly kingdom for one of its essential marks. Is VanDrunen now also among the Constantinians?

Notice that VanDrunen’s response was complex. But the actual 2k doctrine, elaborated by Wedgeworth’s interaction with Calvin and Luther, will not admit of such complexity. In which case the proponents of 2k are really not 2k after all.

But once again, history to the rescue. You don’t have to be 2k to understand that the work of seminaries does not fit easily in any of the modern categories of politics, education, or religion. Back in the 1940s the OPC debated whether to adopt Westminster Seminary as a denominational institution. Each of the committee members who studied the matter and rejected the idea of an ecclesiastically overseen seminary — R. B. Kuiper, John Murray, and Paul Woolley — appealed to the neo-Calvinist notion of sphere sovereignty, an indication that they may have been channeling Kuyper more than Machen. And each member recognized that a seminary does not belong to the church, nor to the state, but — get this — to the family, a common institution that belongs to both believers and unbelievers. According John Murray (in his portion of the report):

The teaching of the Word of God given in the family and in the Christian school will indeed, as regards content, coincide with the teaching given by the church, but this coincidence as regards content does not in the least imply that such teaching should be given under the auspices of the church. In like manner a theological seminary should teach the whole counsel of God. A great deal of the teaching must therefore coincide with the teaching given by the church, and, furthermore, a great deal of it is the teaching that may properly be conducted by the church and under its official auspices. It does not follow, however, that the teaching of the Word of God given in a theological seminary must be given under the auspices of the church. The mere fact that, in certain particulars, the type of teaching given is the type of teaching that may and should be given by the church and may also properly be conducted under the official auspices of the church does not rove that such teaching must be conducted under the auspices of the church. This does not follow any more than does the-fact that the teaching of the Word of God given in the home and in the school is in content the same as may and should be given by the church prove that the family and the school should be conducted under the auspices of the church. A theological seminary is an institution which may quite properly be conducted, like other Christian schools, under auspices other than those of the church, and a great deal of its work is of such a character that the church may not properly undertake it.

So if Reformed theologians not known for advocating 2k recognize that the formal academic training of ministers does not easily fall within either the temporal or spiritual kingdoms as designated by the earthly institutions of state and church, is it really a problem that 2kers offer complex answers to questions about to which kingdom Westminster California belongs?

Which leads to one last quibble. My impression of Mr. Wedgeworth is that he is a nice enough fellow and does not intend to bray or holler the way some anti-2k bloggers do. But when he complains that VanDrunen’s “expression of the two kingdoms cannot be coherently applied in the world,” my jaws tighten. When will the critics of 2k acknowledge that the teachings of Calvin or Richard Hooker cannot be applied coherently to our world either, or that 2k looks a whole lot more coherent after the revolutions of the late eighteenth century than do Constantinian politics applied to a mixed body of citizens? Again, for the gazillionth time, the problems of state churches and the demands of diverse populations led all the Reformed churches to drop the Reformation’s teaching about the Christian responsibilities of the magistrate. This may mean that all the Reformed communions are incoherent in their application of 2k theology. But that problem is not the peculiar possession of 2k’s advocates. I’d encourage pastor Wedgeworth to send a letter to NAPARC.

Santorum, W— V—, and the Michigan Primary

Published on by D. G. Hart67 Comments

Is it a coincidence that Rick Santorum, the former Senator from the virtuous commonwealth of Pennsylvania, has started to drop “w— v—” into his remarks this past week, a time when Grand Rapidians are deciding for whom to vote among the Republican contestants? First, Santorum questioned Obama’s w— v—. Then he attacked Obama’s plans to increase college enrollments because of the hostile w— v— students receive at college. The timing is striking.

But the appeal to w— v— has its limits and this video suggests what they are. It is of course biased toward Ron Paul and mocks Santorum. But it does remind me of how invoking w— v— often reassures and inspires instead of supplying answers to a society’s difficult questions. The key phrase is, “I like my w— v— a lot. It makes me happy” and can be found around the 3:15 mark in this video.

Rabbi Bret Borrowing Capital from Those 2k Swiss Bank Accounts

Published on by D. G. Hart7 Comments

On the one hand, I am touched that the good Rabbi would devote ten-plus paragraphs to refuting the a minor question I raised about epistemological self-consciousness. On the other hand, I am hurt that Bret shows more charity to Ron Paul than to me. Despite the crusty and vinegary exterior, I am really a pussy cat in person, without claws — the effects perhaps of living with cats for more than two decades — and not to be missed I can cry with the best of them, being the son of a private first-class Marine who was a weeper. I try to console myself that Bret is only opposed to 2k as a set of ideas; he does not dislike (all about) me.

Still, the tolerance that anti-2kers show to non-Reformed Protestants (e.g. Ron Paul) and even to non-Christian ideas (more below) is puzzling and suggests a level of personal antagonism that is unbecoming. In the case of Ron Paul, Bret tries to justify his intention to vote for the libertarian Republican as consistent with Christian faith because this proposed vote has received flak from a theonomist whom he apparently follows on Facebook. Bret explains:

I intend to vote for Rep. Ron Paul if I can I do acknowledge that there are issues he supports that I do not think are Christian. Paul’s recent vote supporting homosexuals in the military is not the vote a Christian man would have made. Also, Ron Paul’s fuzzy stand on illegal immigration is a head scratcher. I also would that Rep. Paul would clearly articulate that the Constitution as it currently stands outlaws Abortion, and because of that States should overturn laws on their books that are contrary to that Constitutional requirement. I also do not believe that Dr. Paul’s Libertarian instincts will work in a country that has been balkanized by both it’s legal immigration policy pursuit since 1965 and it’s benign neglect of illegal immigration. . . .

Our greatest need of the hour in order to restore biblical statecraft is for someone to slay the Leviathan State. This is the platform on which Dr. Paul is campaigning. Biblical statecraft will not be restored until the Leviathan state is slain. First things first. To suggest that any Christian who intends to vote for Ron Paul is abandoning biblical principles for voting and statecraft is like a Jew complaining that the person who stopped the rape of his wife was not circumcised. It is true that there are faults with Dr. Paul, but currently he is the gentleman who promises to help us with our most current and pressing problem. Mr. Ritchie just isn’t thinking correctly.

First things first? Does not the first table of the law come before the second table? Does not doing what is right in God’s eyes take precedence over what may be beneficial to the survival of the United States? In which case, could it be that Bret is letting his own political convictions dictate what comes first? As I’ve said a guhzillion times, Covenanters would not construe first things this way. They refused to vote, run for office, or serve in the military because the first thing — Christ’s Lordship — was not part of the U.S. Constitution. I disagree that the Constitution must include such an affirmation. But I greatly admire the Covenanters’ consistency and wish Rabbi Bret would be as hard nosed in the political realm as he is with (all about) me in the theological arena.

What seems to be operative here is that Rabbi Bret borrows selectively from 2k by using non-biblical standards for evaluating the United States’ political order. He says we must follow wisdom in the current election cycle. Well, what happened to the Bible as the standard for all of life? And just how do you get a license to practice such wisdom (when 2kers are the ones who issue them)?

Additional evidence of the Rabbi’s appeal to wisdom and implicit use of 2k comes in a good post he wrote about the differences between “classical” conservatism and neo-conservatism. I’ll paste here only one of the piece’s five points (though the entire post is worthwhile for those who don’t know the differences among conservatism):

Neo-conservatives believe that America is responsible to expand American values and ideology at the point of a bayonet. This was the governing ideology of progressive Democrats like Woodrow Wilson who desired to make the world safe for Democracy. However, before the Wilsonian motto of making the world safe for Democracy (a motto largely taken up by the Bush II administration) Wilson understood the American instinct for a humble foreign policy by campaigning in 1916 with the slogan, “He kept us out of war.” Before American entry into W.W. II the classically conservative approach to involvement in international affairs was one of modesty, as seen in the previous mentioned Wilson approach to campaigning in 1916. Classical conservatism, as opposed to neo-conservatism embraced the dictum of John Quincy Adams who once noted that, “America is a well-wisher of liberty everywhere, but defender only of her own.”

However, today’s conservatism is internationally militantly adventurous. What is sold by those who have co-opted the title of “conservative,” is the exporting of American values but the dirty little secret is that the American values that are being exported in the name of Democracy is just a warmed over socialism combined with some form of Corporate consumerism.

Good point, but where exactly is the justification for this from Scripture or the Lordship of Christ or the antithesis? I’m betting that loads of Christian Reformed Church ministers and laity who invoke the antithesis every bit as much as the Rabbi does, would never countenance Bret’s understanding of U.S. foreign policy. In which case, either the Bible speaks with forked tongue about a nation’s military involvement or all neo-Calvinists are dictating to special revelation what their “wise” observations of the created order and contemporary circumstances require. Why then are 2kers guilty of doing something illegitimate if Rabbi Bret or liberals in the CRC do the very same thing?

Which leads me back to the deep emotional wound mentioned at the outset. In his response to my post on epistemological self-consciousness, Bret says that it all comes down to this:

I mean that is what this boils down to isn’t it? Van Til repeatedly emphasized the necessity of epistemological self-consciousness while Darryl is suggesting that each man must do what is right in his own unique epistemological self consciousness. One epistemologically self-conscious Christian likes Kant, another epistemologically self conscious Christian likes Hegel. Vive la différence!

This is an odd summary of the entire difference since at the beginning of the post Bret says that the notion of the Lordship of Christ was hardly a Dutch Reformed idea, and then he goes on to say that it all comes down to a point made (as he understands it) about the Lordship of Christ by a Dutch-American. But aside from the intellectual hiccup, does Bret really not see that his own support for Ron Paul throws the antithesis to the wind. Paul doesn’t have to be a Reformed Christian affirming the Lordship of Christ to gain Bret’s support. Bret’s analysis of conservatism doesn’t need to follow the dictates of the antithesis in order for it to be wise. And yet, if I or other 2kers don’t follow the antithesis when recognizing a common realm of activity for believers and unbelievers, or when finding truths by which to negotiate this common terrain other than from Scripture (only because the Bible is silent, for instance, on basements or how to remove water from them), we are relativists and antinomians. (We don’t even get a little credit for putting the anti in antinomian.)

Until the critics of 2k can possibly create a world in which the antithesis applies all the time, they will be indebted to 2k for borrowed capital. The reason is that it is impossible to live in a mixed society if the sort of antithesis that will ultimately result in the separation of the sheep from the wolves is going to be the norm. The antithesis requires not only withholding support from Ron Paul, but also opposition to a political order that would allow him on the ballot (not to mention that difficult matter of what to do with Mitt Romney’s Mormons or Rick Santorum’s Roman Catholics). Bret believes that the “Escondido” theology will one day pass away like the Mercersburg Theology did. I too believe it will, whenever God chooses to separate believers from unbelievers. But until then, as long as we live with unbelievers, guys like Bret will need and use 2k theology. I only wish he’d show a little gratitude and start to pay off the debt. He is well behind in payments and snarky about it.

Epistemological Self-Consciousness, Intellectual Theonomy

Published on by D. G. Hart663 Comments

What kind of a worldview does a wren exhibit when it sees the neighbor’s cat crouching in preparation to pounce and flies to the nearest telephone line? Is the bird’s knowledge of the feline species somehow diminished because he can’t theorize about his knowledge of cats and their objects of backyard prey?

What about a baseball player who can spot the difference between a curve and a four-seam fastball, all within a nanosecond, and swing his bat while uncoiling his body to launch the baseball into the right field stands? If the batter can’t explain his theory of hitting, if the Phillies won’t hire him when he retires to be a hitting coach, does that make his knowledge of crushing mistake pitches illegitimate? Does every batter have to be a Ted Williams for his hits to be certain and his runs-batted-in certified? Did Richie Allen not win the American League MVP for 1972 because he could not theorize about what he did in the batter’s box?

I have contemplated these two sets of questions recently while continuing my reflections on neo-Calvinism, worldview thinking, and a certain sector of the Reformed world’s infatuation with philosophy. Countless times I have encountered the argument that someone’s knowledge is not really knowledge because they have no epistemological foundation for it. The public high school teacher may be able to teach algebra but because she doesn’t know where the truths of math come from, she doesn’t really understand math. Or the elected official may understand that human life should be protected and vote for harsher penalties for manslaughter but unless he understands that human beings are created in the image of God, his vote is inauthentic.

Perhaps the best bumper sticker expression of this outlook comes from the Greg Bahnsen quotation that adorns Rabbi Bret’s blog:

In various forms, the fundamental argument advanced by the Christian apologist is that the Christian worldview is true because of the impossibility of the contrary. When the perspective of God’s revelation is rejected, then the unbeliever is left in foolish ignorance because his philosophy does not provide the preconditions of knowledge and meaningful experience. To put it another way: the proof that Christianity is true is that if it were not, we would not be able to prove anything.

But as the two examples above indicate, creatures have knowledge and understanding of the created order all the time without being able to give a theoretical account of such ideas or activities. Why isn’t knowledge of math and batting the human equivalent of the instincts and cunning that birds show when fleeing cats? Granted, human beings are more than natural; we have souls, minds, language capacities. But even these higher ranges of human existence are part and parcel of the way human beings operate on planet earth. Those higher ranges are natural to human beings. I see no compelling reason why we need to spiritualize of philosophize human activities that are simply analogous to what other creatures do.

Some neo-Calvinists and theonomists will object that such an understanding of human activity denies God and the relationship that all people have with him by virtue of creation. In other words, human beings should do everything that they do to the glory of God. To fail to connect the dots between algebra and doxology is to operate in a world of autonomy from God.

One possible response is to say that God may be as delighted by the batter’s ability to hit the ball as he is by the wren’s capacity to elude the cat. Which is to say that human beings in their creatureliness, in the games they play, the poems they memorize, the bridges they build, and the voyages they take, delight God because he created human beings precisely with the capacity to do these things. And if all of creation can praise to God, from the movement of the stars to the way cats clean themselves, then why can’t human life in its naturalness also give God glory as creator whether or not a human being is engaging in eating or playing or learning self-consciously to the glory of God. Why can’t it be the case that even despite the sinful natures that afflict all people, their existence and range of activities as created beings delight God simply as the fulfillment of his creation and providence in the same way that creatures without souls also give glory to God in accomplishing the ends for which they were created?

Of course, the paleo-Calvinist answers to these questions seem plausible to this paleo-Calvinist, but I would also venture an example from the spiritual world that could throw a wrench into the seemingly perpetual philosophical motion machine of neo-Calvinists. Aside from the batter or the wren, what about the regenerate believer who can’t tell the difference between Plato and Kant? What about the Christian who is not given to self-consciousness? Is his plumbing any less valuable or virtuous because he can’t conceive of a philosophically coherent system that will explain how his knowledge of the leak and his experience with fixing such leaks depends upon the ontological Trinity? If he simply begins his day asking for God’s blessing, thanks God for strength and sustenance, goes about his job, provides for his family, and leads family worship – that is, if he simply goes about his routine and seeks to honor his maker, but cannot fathom the theories that would turn his activities into the self-actualized doings of an epistemologically self-conscious believer, does that make his knowledge of plumbing, his love of family, and his enjoyment of pizza invalid?

I hope not.

Is This Where Neo-Calvinism Leads?

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

Our favorite PCA blogger (why? He’s more my age than Stellman) has adapted an older article from the Nicotine Theological Journal for his blog, calling it “Bye, Bye Kuyper.” Here is an excerpt:

Christians have come to believe that they worship God as much in their weekday jobs as they do on the Lord’s Day gathered with the congregation to pray, sing, read, and preach. In fact, Monday can be more important than Sunday. Sunday’s gathering is justified not by offering God acceptable worship and dispensing the means of grace, but only if it has some good effect on one’s work and leisure Monday through Saturday.

Ministers who lead in worship, preach the Word, and administer the sacraments are doing nothing more important than the politician or housewife (or husband) or professor of physics or laborer. In fact he may be doing something less important as he provides only the spiritual inspiration for those who really advance the kingdom. The Christian school is as important as the Church, perhaps more important if we want to prepare our young people to conquer the world for Christ.

The whole thing has led to a denigration of the traditional mission of the church. Churches are embarrassed to say that they have no more to offer than the ordinary means of grace. Ministers feel they must apologize if they do no more than preach the Word, administer the sacraments, show lost sheep the way to the fold, and help make sure the gathered sheep have the provision and protection they need as they make their way to the heavenly sheepfold. The world, it is contended, will rightly condemn the church if it does not see the “practical effects” of its existence (hence the church must distribute voters’ guides to promote Christian political agendas, create faith-based ministries to provide cradle to grave welfare, put on get seminars so everybody can communicate and have good sex, and offer concert seasons and art shows to provide the congregants and community with cultural experiences).

I know that not all Kuyperians approve of the way Kuyperianism has been domesticated. But what I am still waiting for is an account of neo-Calvinism that avoids the unhinging of the church that The Christian Curmudgeon describes. It is one thing to say that voters’ guides are a problem. It is another, though, to say that voting is kingdom work. It seems to me that Kuyperians are so reluctant to give in to the spirituality of the church that they end up making the world safe for both Jim Skillen and Jim Wallis.

Introducing the Old School Presbyterians: Stuart Robinson

Published on by D. G. Hart9 Comments

I’ve been wondering. Do contemporary Reformed Protestants read Old School Presbyterians — at all?

Over at Green Baggins where a fiesty exchange of slings and arrows — count ’em, over 1,300 comments and climbing — over 2k has diverted what could have been a good conversation about the value of polemical theology I posted the following excerpt from Stuart Robinson’s The Church of God An Essential Element of the Gospel. I have wondered for a while whether neo-Calvinists and transformers have actually ever considered what were standard argument and distinctions like the one that Robinson here makes. And if they had read the Old School, would they be flummoxed by today’s 2k arguments? Even more, what level of shock set in for neo-Calvinists and transformers to learn that they have more in common with New School Presbyterians like Charles Finney and Albert Barnes than with Charles Hodge or Samuel Miller. Although my pasting this quote has led the crickets to chirp very loudly, it is one worth highlighting here.

1. In that the civil power derives its authority from God as the Author of nature, whilst the power ecclesiastical comes alone from Jesus as Mediator.

2. In that the rule for the guidance of the civil power in its exercise is the light of nature and reason, the law which the Author of nature reveals through reason to man; but the rule for the guidance of ecclesiastical power in its exercise is that light which, as Prophet of the Church, Jesus Christ has revealed in his word. It is a government under statute laws already enacted by the King.

3. They differ in that the scope and aim of the civil power are limited properly to things seen and temporal; the scope and aim of ecclesiastical power are things unseen and spiritual. Religious is a term not predicable of the acts of the State; political is a term not predicable of the acts of the Church. The things pertaining to the kingdom of Christ are things concerning which Caesar can have rightfully no cognizance, except indirectly and incidentally as these things palpably affect the temporal and civil concerns of men; and even then Csesar cannot be too jealously watched by the Church. The tilings pertaining to the kingdom of Csesar are matters of which the Church of Christ as an organic government can have no cognizance, except incidentally and remotely as affecting the spiritual interests of men; and even then the Church cannot watch herself too jealously.

4. They differ in that the significant symbol of the civil power is the sword; its government is a government of force, a terror to evil-doers; but the significant symbol of Church power is the keys, its government only ministerial, the functions of its officers to open and close and have a care of a house already complete as to its structure externally, and internally organized and provided.

5. They differ in that civil power may be exercised as a several power by one judge, magistrate, or governor; but all ecclesiastical power pertaining to government is a joint power only, and to be exercised by tribunals. The Head of the government has not seen fit to confer spiritual power of jurisdiction in any form upon a single man, nor authorized the exercise of the functions of rule in the spiritual commonwealth as a several power.

6. It is unnecessary to digress here into a discussion of the rationale of these fundamental distinctions. It would not be difficult to show, however, that they are neither accidental nor arbitrary, but spring out of those fundamental truths concerning the nature of the Church itself, and of its relations to the gospel, which have already been pointed out. These distinctions, therefore, are of a nature to forbid all idea of any concurrent jurisdiction, and to render certain the corruption and final apostasy of any part of the Church which shall persist in the attempt to exist as a governmental power concurrent with the State,—it matters not whether as superior, inferior, or equal. They are the two great powers that be, and are ordained of God to serve two distinct ends in the great scheme devised for man as fallen. The one is set up, in the mercy and forbearance of the Author of nature toward the apostate race at large, to hold in check the outworking of that devilish nature consequent upon the apostasy, and to furnish a platform, as it were, on which to carry on another and more amazing scheme of mercy toward a part of mankind. The other is designed to constitute of the families of earth that call upon his name, and into the hearts of which his grace has put enmity toward Satan and his seed, a nation of priests, a peculiar nation, not reckoned among the nations, of whom Jehovah is the God and they are his people. That not only the utter disregard of this distinction in the formal union of the Church and State—either merging the Church in the State or the State in the Church—is ” destructive of the Church, but that, also, any degree of confusion in respect of this distinction is proportionally dangerous and corrupting, the history of the Reformed Churches generally, and in particular of the Church of Scotland, is a most striking illustration. Nay, the entire history of the Church, from its first organization, testifies that his people must render to Csesar the things that are Caesar’s, as distinct from rendering to God the things that are God’s, or the Church suffers. (pp. 86-87)

How radical is this if the OPC has reprinted this book?

Otherworldly Thursday: Calvin on the Spiritual Life

Published on by D. G. Hart16 Comments

As much as some critics may question my personal piety, I do daily attend to private worship and often make use of readings from the likes of the Reformers. (It grieves me to admit this since such public unction seems to be at odds with Christ’s own counsel to his followers in Matt 6: 5.) Just this morning I ran across a passage that I felt I should pass along, especially for those neo-Calvinist readers who do seem to be unaware of the difference between their own piety and the one that Calvin embodied and attempted to cultivate among the citizens and exiles in Geneva.

Here is Calvin’s comment and prayer from his lecture on Joel 2:28: And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.

Calvin writes:

We have explained why the Prophet began with earthly blessings. One may indeed think that this order is not regular; for Christ does not in vain remind us, that the kingdom of God ought to be first sought, and that other things shall be added in their place, (Matthew 6;) for food, and every thing that belongs to this frail life, are, as it were, additions to the spiritual life. But the Prophet designedly mentioned first the evidence of God’s favor in outward benefits; for we see how slow the perceptions of men are, and how slothful they are in seeking spiritual life. As, then, men rise to things above with so much difficulty, the Prophet makes use of the best helps; and we must indeed be dealt with as we usually deal with children. For as there is not so much discernment in them as to be influenced by reasons, we set before them what is suitable to their weak and simple comprehension; so the Prophet did; for he showed first that God would be kind to the Jews in food for the body, and having used this as a help, he then added, Afterwards I will pour my Spirit upon all flesh.

By these words the Prophet reminds us, that people act absurdly when they are satisfied with vanishing things, when they ask of God nothing more excellent than to be pampered like brute animals; for in what do the children of God differ from asses and dogs, except they aspire after spiritual life? The Prophet, then, after having set before them lower things, as though they were children, now brings before them a more solid doctrine, (for thus they were to be led,) and affords them a taste of the favor of God in its external signs. “Ascend, then, now,” he says, “to spiritual life: for the fountain is one and the same; though when earthly benefits occupy and engross your attention, ye no doubt pollute them. But God feeds you, not to fill and pamper you; for he would not have you to be like brute animals. Then know that your bodies are fed, and that God gives support to you, that ye may aspire after spiritual life; for he leads you to this as by the hand; be this then your object.” We now, then, understand why the Prophet did not at first speak of the spiritual grace of God; but he comes to it now. He began with temporal benefits, for it was needful that an untutored people should be thus led by degrees, that on account of their infirmity, sluggishness, and dullness, they might thus make better progress, until they understood that God would for this end be a Father to them.

Then Calvin prays:

Grant, Almighty God, that since we want so many aids while in this frail life, and as it is a shadowy life, we cannot pass a moment, except thou dost continually, and at all times, supply through thy bounty what is needful, — O grant, that we may so profit by thy so many benefits, that we may learn to raise our minds upwards, and ever aspire after celestial life, to which by thy gospel thou invites us so kindly and sweetly every day, that being gathered into thy celestial kingdom, we may enjoy that perfect felicity, which has been procured for us by the blood of thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I do wonder if neo-Cals ever thought about life on planet earth in this way (a radically biblical one?) then they might come around to a higher estimate of the visible church and a more sober regard for cultural endeavor.

What Makes Neo-Calvinism Biblical?

Published on by D. G. Hart63 Comments

Carl Trueman wrote a series of posts about how churches go liberal. Among the culprits are celebrity pastors, pastors who publicly reject a denomination or church’s professed standards, and their enablers, pastors who pursue peace and purity of the church to avoid controversy.

As the Baylys point out — and this is truly scary when you are 2k and find yourself agreeing with 2k haters — Trueman’s post lacks specifics; it’s an abstract account of how churches go liberal (which is surprising since at Westminster Trueman is sitting on a gold mine of evidence about how American Presbyterians lost their way).

One further abstraction that Trueman may have noted was the tendency for Christians to identify their own ideas with the Bible, thus turning the thoughts and words of men into those of God. To avoid the problem of abstraction, I offer the case of — yet again — neo-Calvinism. I understand Baus will go berserk but at his prodding I cracked open Roy Clouser’s Myth of Religious Neutrality and found the following argument identified by Clouser himself as “radically biblical”:

In the context of scientific or philosophical theory making people are generally quite earnest about what they are doing, quite anxious to be as clear as possible, and have nothing to gain by proposing or defending a theory they do not believe. Thus, the possibility of deception rarely interferes in the world of theory making. Of course, the obstacle of cultural difference remains and can perhaps only be overcome by experiencing and appreciating the other culture. But at least one of the two major difficulties with recognizing presuppositions is reduced to a minimum when we are dealing with highly abstract theories.

These features of presuppositions are important because it is by acting as presuppositions that religious beliefs exercise their most important influence on scientific and philosophical theorizing. This point therefore sharply distinguishes the radically biblical position from all the other positions concerning the relation of religion to theory making, including the position of the fundamentalist. The radically biblical view does not seek to find statements in Scripture on every sort of subject matter to establish religious influence. What we want to say is that the influence of religious beliefs is much more a matter of presupposed perspective guiding the direction of theorizing than of Scripture supplying specific truths for theories. (pp. 103-104)

First, I’m not sure why we need a radically biblical understanding of theory making. Why can’t we have Christian liberty about how we make theories — as opposed to the theories we hold. This seems like the philosophical version of the helicopter mom who home schools and doesn’t allow her daughters to eat any nuts for fear of any allergies.

Second, is the Bible given to us to turn us into philosophers? Clouser may think this is a fundamentalist question because it expects to find specific answers from Scripture. But he could simply talk about various philosophies of theory making without using the Bible as an adjective. So why the need to turn a common activity into a supernatural one?

Second, part two, was Paul concerned about theory making? He interacted with philosophers but doesn’t seem to say much about how to do philosophy or the theories of the mind? And what happens when you turn a philosophical theory into the accepted reality for everyone in the church, from Joe the Plumber to Sarah Palin? Do people need to be smart to be Christian?

Third, presuppositions don’t appear to be all that analogous to regeneration. I can see the import of the illumination of the Holy Spirit for understanding and accepting truths in Scripture that had been previously antithetical to my understanding of God, myself, sin, and salvation. But do we need to turn regeneration into a construct of philosophy.

Fourth, and back to the point — if you end up calling human endeavors that are common “biblical,” do you lose sight of what the Bible really teaches and what it doesn’t teach? No matter what the motives may be for overreach — and I generally concede that they are good in Clouser and many neo-Calvinists’ cases — why don’t these smart guys ever see where extending the category of “biblical” beyond the Bible leads? Do historians really need to come to the rescue with specifics from church history like the effects of world-and-life viewism on the Christian Reformed Church where to be Reformed was all Kuyper and Bavinck and very little Dort or Belgic?

BTW, I fear the strained exegesis that this post is inviting.

Suffer, Submit, and Suck It Up

Published on by D. G. Hart23 Comments

One of the interlocutors at this site suggested that neo-Calvinism and biblical theology of an amillennial variety go together well, and that no reasons existed for suggesting tension between someone like Geerhardus Vos and Abraham Kuyper. He linked to an essay that Richard B. Gaffin wrote on theonomy and claimed that Gaffin, a marked proponent of biblical theology in the Vosian tradition, was on board with neo-Calvinism. He even supplied a quotation from Gaffin that showed his neo-Calvinist bona fides:

It will not do simply to dismiss this chapter as the ramblings of someone who has be-
trayed his Reformed heritage—with its ennobling vision of life itself as religion and the whole of life to the glory of God—for an anemic, escapist Christianity of cultural surrender. Without question, the Great Commission continues fully in force, with its full cultural breadth, until Jesus returns; “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” is the mandate of the exalted Last Adam to the people of his new creation. We can not measure the limit of that “everything” and its implications; of it we can only confess with the Psalmist: “To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless” (119:96). That mandate, then, is bound to have a robust, leavening impact—one that will redirect every area of life and will transform not only individuals but, through them corporately (as the church), their cultures; it already has done so and will continue to do so, until Jesus comes.

Not to pick nits but when this comment referred to this paragraph as the concluding one in Gaffin’s essay I decided to take a look. In point of fact, Gaffin concludes that essay on a decidedly different note, one that fits the allegedly wimpy profile of 2k as opposed to those world-beaters, the neo-Calvinists. Here is what Gaffin wrote in his conclusion:

The comprehensive outlook found in the Book of Hebrews provides a fitting close to
these remarks. Two realities dominate the writer’s marvelous exposition of God’s eschatological, “last days” speech in his Son (1:2). The one reality is Jesus, the high priest in heaven (e.g., 4:14; 8:1). Fulfilling Psalm 110, the exalted Christ is “priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek” (e.g., 5:6; 6:10; 7:17); the New Testament contains no more impressive presentation of the realized eschatological dimension of his person and work than this.

But for whom is the exalted Christ high priest? Who is served by his sanctuary service (8:2) of eschatological intercession (7:25)? The answer to that question is the other reality in view—the church as a pilgrim congregation, a people in the wilderness. Utilizing a broad covenant-historical analogy, the writer compares the church between Christ’s exaltation and return to Israel in the desert (see esp. 3:7-4:11): just as the wilderness generation delivered from Egyptian bondage (picturing realized eschatology) had not yet entered Canaan (a picture of still future eschatology), so the New Testament church, presently enjoying a real experience of the salvation promised in the gospel, has not yet entered into the possession of that salvation in its final and unthreatened form (“God’s rest”).

Two basic perspectives emerge with these two realities. On the one hand, the writer’s realized eschatology leaves no room for a premil position: Once Jesus “has gone through the heavens” (4:14) and “has sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven” (8:1), his return for a provisional earthly rule, prior to the eternal heavenly order, would be retrograde for the writer, a step backward eschatologically. Christ’s return will be the return of the heavenly high priest, not the appearance of Christ temporarily exchanging heavenly ministry for earthly duties. That return will mean the appearance on earth of the heavenly order/sanctuary where Christ is “a high priest forever” (6:20), the manifestation on earth, without delay at his return, of the “heavenly Jerusalem” (12:22), the “lasting city” (13:14), the eternal “rest”-order (4:11).

But the writer is no less indisposed toward a postmil outlook: Until Christ returns the church remains a wilderness congregation; like the Patriarchs in the land of promise, believers are “aliens and strangers on earth” (11:13). That tension is an essential dimension of their identity — aliens in the creation that is theirs by right and whose eschatological restoration has already been secured for them by their high priest-king.

There is no “golden” age coming that is going to replace or even ameliorate these desert conditions of testing and suffering. No success of the gospel, however great, will bring the church into a position of earthly prosperity and dominion such that the wilderness with its persecutions and temptations will be eliminated or even marginalized. That would have to be the outcome if prosperity—understood, for instance, in the terms of Isaiah 65:17ff.—is to be at all meaningful. Such prosperity and blessing for the church are reserved until Christ returns.

The writer of Hebrews operates with a simple enough eschatological profile: the bodily absence of Christ means the church’s wilderness existence, his bodily presence, its entrance into God’s final rest. What he must confront in his readers is a perennial problem for the church, a primal temptation bound up with its wilderness existence: the veiledness, for the present, of messianic glory and the believer’s eschatological triumph; “at present we do not yet see everything subject to him” (Heb. 2:8), with the longing as well as the promise that “at present” holds for the church. All of us, then, are involved in a continuing struggle—against our deeply rooted eschatological impatience to tear away that veil and our undue haste to be out of the wilderness and see the realization of what, just because of that haste and impatience, will inevitably prove to be dreams and aspirations that are ill-considered and all too “fleshly.”

“For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14).

The point of this exercise is not to expose the error of an Old Life reader. It is to raise a question, though, about the way that 2kers and neo-Calvinists read. It strikes me that neo-Cal’s generally favor readings from texts that highlight a progressive and triumphant understanding of Reformed Protestantism’s effects upon the world. This extends to which passages of Scripture to highlight in exploring a believer’s identity as well as how to read the development of history and culture.

Abraham Kuyper established the model for this sort of reading when in his infamous Lectures on Calvinism he uttered inspirational prose such as the following:

The avoidance of the world has never been the Calvinistic mark, but the shibboleth of the Anabaptist. The specific, anabaptistical dogma of “avoidance” proves this. According to this dogma, the Anabaptists, announcing themselves as “saints,” were severed from the world They stood in opposition to it. They refused to take the oath; they abhorred all military service; they condemned the holding of public offices. Here already, they shaped a new world, in the midst of this world of sin, which however had nothing to do with this our present existence. They rejected all obligation and responsibility towards the old world, and they avoided it systematically, for fear of contamination, and contagion. But this is just what the Calvinist always disputed and denied. It is not true that there are two worlds, a bad one and a good, which are fitted into each other. It is one and the same person whom God created perfect and who afterwards fell, and became a sinner– and it is this same “ego” of the old sinner who is born again, and who enters into eternal life. So, also, it is one and the same world which once exhibited all the glory of Paradise, which was afterwards smitten with the curse, and which, since the Fall, is upheld by common grace; which has now been redeemed and saved by Christ, in its center, and which shall pass through the horror of the judgment into the state of glory. For this very reason the Calvinist cannot shut himself up in his church and abandon the world to its fate. He feels, rather, his high calling to push the development of this world to an even higher stage, and to do this in constant accordance with God’s ordinance, for the sake of God, upholding, in the midst of so much painful corruption, everything that is honorable, lovely, and of good report among men Therefore it is that we see in History (if I may be permitted to speak of my own ancestors) that scarcely had Calvinism been firmly established in the Netherlands for a quarter of a century when there was a rustling of life in all directions, and an indomitable energy was fermenting in every department of human activity, and their commerce and trade, their handicrafts and industry, their agriculture and horticulture, their art and science, flourished with a brilliancy previously unknown. and imparted a new impulse for an entirely new development of life, to the whole of Western Europe. (from Lecture 2)

2k proponents, in contrast, tend to take a more restrained even pessimistic view of Christian existence in this world. Believers have enough trouble overcoming sin in their own lives that taking on the entire world in a project of domination seems foolhardy and not the best use of spiritual resources.

This leaves 2k in a decided disadvantage with the Reformed rank-and-file. Neo-Cals can win people to their side because they are long on inspiration even if short on practical steps toward square-inch subjection. They can rally the faithful for all sorts of “yes, we can projects,” from taking back city hall to reclaiming the proper interpretation of the American or Dutch republics’ foundings. All 2kers can do is tell the faithful to cope; look to the Lord, count your blessings (name them square-inch by square-inch?), receive the means of grace, pray, and be faithful in your callings. This is not a project for changing the world. Most people – Reformed Protestants included – want to know “Can’t we do more!?!”

But if neo-Cals are better at inspiration, they are not so good at close reading. Not only do we fail to see in the New Testament exhortation for Christians to change the world, but we also read terms that 2kers are prone to use and neo-Cals to avoid. Peter and Paul refer to believers as strangers, aliens, and pilgrims. These are not the words that come to mind with neo-Calvinism. The mascot of neo-Cals is the crusader (retired recently by Wheaton College for obvious culturally insensitive reasons; but when have neo-Cals been sensitive to culture let alone people?)

But 2kers can take hope from the original Calvinist, John Calvin. He is hard to turn into a cultural transformer despite the efforts of Kuyper and H. Richard Niebuhr (has any neo-Cal ever asked why Kuyper’s reading of Calvinism is so similar to a liberal Protestant’s?). When you read Calvin you see the biblical themes of exile and pilgrimage. And when he comments on those favorite texts of cultural dominators, he is very short on the inspiration that typifies neo-Calvinism. Here are a couple of illustrations.

Calvin on Romans 8: 37 (“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”)

We do more than conquer, etc.; that is, we always struggle and emerge. I have retained the word used by Paul, though not commonly used by the Latins. It indeed sometimes happens that the faithful seem to succumb and to lie forlorn; and thus the Lord not only tries, but also humbles them. This issue is however given to them, — that they obtain the victory.

That they might at the same time remember whence this invincible power proceeds, he again repeats what he had said before: for he not only teaches us that God, because he loves us, supports us by his hand; but he also confirms the same truth by mentioning the love of ChristAnd this one sentence sufficiently proves, that the Apostle speaks not here of the fervency of that love which we have towards God, but of the paternal kindness of God and of Christ towards us, the assurance of which, being thoroughly fixed in our hearts, will always draw us from the gates of hell into the light of life, and will sufficiently avail for our support.

Calvin on 2 Cor. 10:5 (“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”)

And bring into captivity I am of opinion, that, having previously spoken more particularly of the conflict of spiritual armor, along with the hinderances that rise up in opposition to the gospel of Christ, he now, on the other hand, speaks of the ordinary preparation, by which men must be brought into subjection to him. For so long as we rest in our own judgment, and are wise in our own estimation, we are far from having made any approach to the doctrine of Christ. Hence we must set out with this, that he who is wise must become a fool, (1 Corinthians 3:18), that is, we must give up our own understanding, and renounce the wisdom of the flesh, and thus we must present our minds to Christ empty that he may fill them. Now the form of expression must be observed, when he says, that he brings every thought into captivity, for it is as though he had said, that the liberty of the human mind must be restrained and bridled, that it may not be wise, apart from the doctrine of Christ; and farther, that its audacity cannot be restrained by any other means, than by its being carried away, as it were, captive. Now it is by the guidance of the Spirit, that it is brought to allow itself to be placed under control, and remain in a voluntary captivity.

So the lesson for 2kers is the same lesson for all Christians: suffer, submit, and suck it up. But is contrary to such sucking to wish neo-Cals were better students of the Bible’s and Calvin’s assigned readings?)

It's Only Culture

Published on by D. G. Hart9 Comments

At the risk of opening up the Scripture-is-silent can of worms again, I did have a thought recently about how a biblicist might attempt to employ the Bible to define culture. Definitions of culture abound, and Scripture certainly teaches truths about human beings and their relations that imply basic ingredients of human existence. But for an easy definition from a biblical passage I’m left scratching my head. Just to add to the point, none of the catechisms I know come remotely close to describing culture. They certainly discuss virtues that would contribute to a wholesome culture, or vices that would work havoc on culture. But the basic contours of human experience as culture are absent from the catechisms and Scripture.

The reason for bringing this up is the recent post by Patrick Deneen at Front Porch Republic in which he gives one of the better definitions of culture that I have seen in some time. According to Deneen, the basic component of culture is the reality of man as a technological being – “the creature that survives through the tools he creates, one that allow him to carve out a space for survival and even flourishing from the natural world that would otherwise be so hostile and unforgiving.”

Deneen is following Romano Guardini’s book Letters From Lake Como, who argues that “human techne developed alongside nature, seeking to conform itself to nature’s offerings, its rhythms, its cadences, and in cognizance of its place of majesty and governance.” As such, human cultures vary in relation to the diversity of natural settings in which people live. This means that “while every culture has tended to share certain basic features – the celebration of birth, the ceremonial acknowledgement of adulthood, the sanctification of marriage, honor paid to the elderly, and the memorialization of the dead – these practices have varied in accordance with the accumulation of experience and interaction with the world.”

And this understanding of human interaction with and limitation by nature leads to the following definition:

The accumulation of these practices and traditions as a way of life is what we call culture. Culture is among the paramount forms of human technology, perhaps in its purest form the lived collection of memory. Again, Greek myth is instructive: the Muses, who embody the different arts and sciences that we have come to call “culture,” were the daughters of Mnemnosyne, the goddess of Memory. Culture is thus unique to humans, for it is the way that we make the continuous flow of time present to us in spite of its fleeting nature. Culture is the repository of memory of time past, just as it is the promise to the future, an inheritance that is passed on to future generations. Culture assumes that, in order for future generations to survive, the accumulated knowledge of the past must be passed on, and thus, that the conditions of life of the future will be continuous and similar to the conditions of life of the past. Culture innovates, but slowly, carefully, cautiously, with awareness that novelty can endanger as much as it can liberate. Culture, in fact, tends to mistrust the new, the strange, the unique, as temptations that can offer shortcuts or easy solutions that experience shows more often than not to be a Siren’s song.

Whether or not this is an adequate definition — it is one that I would gladly use in class whether at a college or seminary — it is remarkably different from the way neo-Calvinists talk about culture. I came across Deneen after spending more time Henry Van Til’s book, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture. I don’t know, I might be a faux Calvinist. I’m sure I can think of several Old Life readers who would reach quickly for that explanation. Still, Van Til leaves the impression of a very thin account of culture compared to Deneen’s, one that is high on abstraction and philosophy, but low on the humanness and creatureliness of basic human experience. The reason has much to do with the neo-Calvinist mental tick of viewing everything as if it’s a philosophical system or a set of logical propositions.

Here is one example of Van Til’s outlook:

. . . the position here presented is that there is no culture without a presupposition, since man is a religious being. There is no such thing as . . . . the postulate that the scientist must have no presuppositions. In this sense neutrality is altogether impossible; it does not exist. Every man, as cultural agent, whether he be a philosopher or artist, agriculturist or architect, lives by faith, which determines his whole being and mode of life. . . . If a man does not choose the Christian faith that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth from all sins, then he must choose an alternative metaphisics, for, “The metaphysical dimension of the mind never remains empty, but must always have a content.” . . . So then it is man as religious being that is called to culture. Faith, therefore, is the religious a priori of man’s whole cultural enterprise, and particularly of his scientific quest. (pp. 171-72)

I don’t object to anything that Van Til writes about the priority of faith or belief for understanding the end of human existence, but he is not writing about culture. Instead he is looking at culture as a means to the end of proving a philosophical point. Philosophy has its place. And Deneen himself is a philosopher – a political rendition. But Van Til reads like the philosophical version of the adage that to a hammer everything looks like a nail. For Van Til, culture looks like an abstraction. And my sense is that anyone who started with his account of culture would have trouble analyzing, critiquing, or even transforming it with any significance.

What is particularly striking about the differences between Van Til and Deneen is that on Deneen’s view of culture a Christian could conceivably recognize his own stake in the contemporary setting and how he might attempt to preserve or engage his own culture. After all, he is a human being and he relates to nature in his day-to-day existence much like his neighbors, whether they are Christian or not. On Van Til’s view, however, the Christian will likely flee all those cultural expressions that do not spring from the proper faith-motive. On this view, the Christian participates in culture not as a human being created in the image of God but as a regenerate saint, set apart from the unregenerate.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the Calvinistic philosophical approach to culture has an amazing irony attached to it. The one group of Reformed Protestants for whom world-and-life view thinking is pronounced are the same ones who are bound not by philosophical abstractions or answers to the Heidelberg Catechism. No, what binds Dutch-American Calvinists together is the shared human experience of being Dutch immigrants to a foreign land and creating sub-cultures that appropriate the Old World’s ways for life in the New. To be sure, the church was an important part of that cultural adaptation. But seeing how communions like the CRC have fared, what looks more typical of Dutch-American Calvinism after World War II is the importance of the human as opposed to the spiritual part of being Dutch Reformed. In other words, it is the Dutchness, not the Calvinism, that binds most neo-Calvinists together.

And that is why Dutch bingo lives.