Monthly Archives: December 2007

Gary North wants to make a decisive distinction between God’s “favor” and “favors”-only allowing the latter to the reprobate. Hoeksema maintains the same sort of division. In his self-interrogating catechism he writes:

9. Is it then, not also true, that in these things of this present life both the godly and ungodly receive tokens of God’s favor toward them?

By no means; for, as it must be evident both from Scripture and experience that the evil things of this present life, such as sickness, pain, sorrow, adversity, poverty, yea, even death, are not sent to the godly in God’s wrath and to curse them; so it must be evident that the good things of this present life; are not sent to the wicked in God’s favor and to bless them. We must not confuse grace and things.

10. In what light, then, must we consider the things which in this life the godly and ungodly have in common, in order correctly to evaluate them and understand their significance?

In the light of eternity. All the things of the present life are but means to an eternal end. As they are received by us and employed by us as rational-moral creatures they all bear fruit, either to eternal life and glory, or to eternal death and desolation. If they tend to life they are bestowed on us in the grace of God and are a blessing, no matter whether they are in health or sickness, prosperity or adversity, life or death, for all things work together for good to them that love God; if they tend to death and damnation they are bestowed on us in God’s wrath and are a curse, even though our eyes stand out with fatness and we bathe in luxury. [Protestant Reformed Churches in America, pp. 313-314.]

Murray simply does not accept this sort of reasoning. He makes a distinction, using traditional dogmatic terminology between different sorts of ways in which God wills:

It is not to be forgotten that when it is said that God absolutely and universally takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, we are not here speaking of God’s decretive will. In terms of his decretive will it must be said that God absolutely decrees the eternal death of some wicked and, in that sense, is absolutely pleased so to decree. But in the text it is the will of God’s benevolence (voluntas eurastias) that is stated, not the will of God’s decree (voluntas eudokias). It is, in our judgment, quite unjustifiable to think that in this passage there is any reflection upon the decretive will of God . . . [Collected Writings, p. 125-126.]

Thus, it is simply wrong to insist that the end to which a thing (sunshine, rain, a presentation of the Gospel, etc.) will lead according to God’s immutable and infallible plan is the only consideration one should weigh in deciding whether it is a “favor” or represent’s God’s attitude of “favor.”

(Gary North’s distinction between a God giving reprobates “favors” instead of having an attitude of “favor” toward them seems unjustifiable. An argument that God has no attitude of “favor” toward the reprobate would also seem to prove that He gives them no favors but only snares to trap them in their ingratitude. The term “favor” as applied to things is just as much dependent on the attitude of the one giving them as it is when used to describe the attitude itself.)
To use different terminology, Murray is rejecting an exclusively teleological approach to understanding God’s actions. Is this rejection warranted?

Yes, because an exclusively teleological approach would lead one to accuse God of hating His creatures without cause. This is the case because reprobation has occurred apart from depravity on the part of those who were reprobate. For instance, when the Devil and his angels first fell, they fell from grace. Their punishment was and will be determined in part by how much they had received from God, for which they were not properly grateful. Furthermore, God gave many favors to Adam and Eve–for all of which they were held accountable. Every good and perfect gift which God gave to Adam and Eve only added to the perversity of their sin. Unless one denies that, “from everyone who has been given much shall much be required,” is a universal principle, one simply cannot deny that all the favors shown to Satan, Adam, and Eve simply magnified the seriousness of their sin and the severity of their condemnation.

But does this fact mean that God did not love Adam and Eve? Were Adam and Eve, knowing that it was possible that they might Fall, supposed to infer that God might not love them? Were they supposed to wonder about all the good things they had been given by God–to worry that maybe God was “setting them up”? To ask such questions is to answer them. God unambiguously revealed His love for Adam and Eve in all the blessings which He lavished upon them. To claim otherwise is to take sides with the Serpent who ascribed horrible and underhanded motives to God.

Of course, it is hard to understand how God could love a creature and predestine his sin. But this is simply a problem that theists are going to have to live with. For an attempt to get a handle on the postlapsarian aspect to this problem, see Piper’s discussion of “The Infinitely Complex Emotional Life of God” (The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God [Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1991],p. 66). He asks if it is any more problematic to speak of God both loving and hating the wicked than it is to consider God simultaneously grieving and rejoicing and empathizing in other ways with millions of Christians around the world.

Keep in mind that this is not an exclusively “calvinist” problem but one that besets any form of Christian classical theism. Anyone who admits that God knows the future, even if he rejects foreordination, is going to have problems understanding how God maintains a genuinely loving relationship with his ethical creatures. If God knows that John Smith will reject the Gospel, and yet brings it about that John Smith is offered the Gospel, isn’t God merely guilty of entrapment? Likewise, if God knows that every privilege and blessing He gives to Satan, Adam, and Eve will be eventually rejected and exacerbate their sin, then isn’t God enticing them into a greater rebellion? How can He possibly view His gifts to such creatures to be “good” for them when He knows evil will result?

It is hard to quite get one’s mind around this problem, but the answer has to be that God’s blessings are blessings apart from the ends to which they lead. Grace is grace, even if it leads to reprobation. God’s offer is sincere, and His mercy–even His non-saving mercy–is genuine. The Bible speaks both of sincere offers and certain reprobation. The Bible, it seems, does not deny the reality of teleology in God’s plan, but it does not allow teleology to exhaustively explain God’s feelings toward people, or our interpretation of his gracious acts of providence.

The Gospel Offer is Sincere: Part 6 in a series

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The texts Murray cites to prove that God sincerely desires the repentance of the reprobate are rather straightforward. Indeed, the issues are more or less settled by whether or not one acknowledges the reality of common grace. If God’s desires or pleasures can only be exhaustively identical to His decrees, then such statements as, “‘As I live!’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’” (Eze 33.11; cf. 18.23, 32), can only be rationalized away for the sake of alleged theological consistency. Thus, John Gerstner insists that Murray (and Stonehouse) must be wrong:

We certainly agree that if God says that He desired what He did not desire we would have to agree with God. Since we know that God does not desire what God does not desire, for this is evident on every page of Scripture, as well as in the logical nature of God and man, we know this exegesis is in error, must be in error, cannot but be in error. . . But where is it’s error? It must be that Murray and Stonehouse are taking God literally where He desires to be taken anthropomorphically. . .[Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991), p. 128.]

There are a couple things to say of Gerstner here: In the first place, it is rather hard to see any difference between saying that passages like Ezekiel 33.11 are meant “to be taken anthropomorphically” and saying that such passages are not true. What good is a verbal affirmation of Scriptural infallibility if any passage therein can be so easily done away with? Anthropomorphisms, whatever else one might say about them, are supposed to communicate truth; but Gerstner leaves this passage without admitting that it contains any message for us whatsoever. He only goes on for more than a page on how it does not mean, cannot mean, must not mean what it says.

(For a much better and more Scripture-honoring approach to the Ezekiel passages, see John Pipers discussion of “Does God Have Pleasure in the Death of the Wicked?” in The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1991), p. 61ff. Especially helpful is his citation of Deuteronomy 28.63 (p. 65). Unlike Gerstner, Piper actually gives us Biblical reasons to nuance what we might think Ezekiel is telling us.)

Secondly, as we will see below, Murray does not present a contradiction. What Gerstner insists is a contradiction, Murray insists is not one. Thus, Gerstner is begging the question throughout his critique. He never argues that a contradiction exists but only quotes one portion of Murray’s essay which sets forth what appears to be contradictory. He then asserts that the apparent contradiction is real and concludes that Murray’s position must be wrong.

Other passages Murray cites are, in addition to passages used to prove common grace, Deuteronomy 5.29; 32.29; Psalm 81.13ff; Isaiah 48.18; Matthew 23.37; Luke 13.34; Isaiah 45.22; and 2 Peter 3.9. A detailed defense of these passages would be redundant, since all the counterarguments I can find involve heavy-handed special pleading which presupposes that passages teaching a genuine offer of the Gospel would contradict other passages. What is manifestly lacking, as in the case of Gerstner, is proof that such a formal contradiction is present between the doctrine of reprobation and the genuine offer. It is simply asserted.

(Indeed, Hoeksema, does not hesitate to accuse Murray, Van Til and others of being “purely Arminian. And their irrationalism is only an attempt to camouflage their real position” “The Text of the Complaint”-A Critique (no pub, n.d.), p. 26. [I believe this booklet of mimeographed sheets has been published by the Trinity Foundation as The Clark-Van Til Debate.] Observers of the current scene will be quite familiar with the strategy of compensating for inadequate argumentation by accusing one’s opponent of deceptions.)

Calvin, Calvinism, and all that

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Excellent post here. Wish I could say the same for the quality of some of the comments.

Shifting ground while pretending to be immovable

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This entry is a knock-your-head-against-the-wall-until-it-bleeds moment in anti-fv polemics.

Their reasoning is as follows. Since the creature owes all obedience to God, and since there is an infinite distance between God and man; therefore, man’s obedience cannot merit anything from God. As Lusk writes, “The creature is indebted to the Creator for his very existence; the creature can never indebt the Creator, no matter how much he serves or obeys” (Auburn Avenue, 121-122). In other words, since man owes God everything, man can never make a claim on God. Consequently, Lusk, Shepherd, and many others reject the idea of a covenant of works.

The problem with this is that they have not really rejected the covenant of works. They have rejected the idea of merit in the covenant of works, but so did the classic Reformed theologians. Thus, Francis Turretin writes, “Hence also it appears that there is no merit properly so-called of man before God, in whatever state he is placed. Thus Adam himself, if he had persevered, would not have merited life in strict justice…” (Institutes, XVII:v.7). This is clearly the doctrine of the Reformed confessions. The Westminster Confession of Faith says that man “could never have any fruition of [God] as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension” (7.1). The Formula Consensus Helvetica states that God “in this covenant freely promised [Adam] communion with God, favor, and life, if indeed he acted in obedience to his will” (emphasis mine, Canon 7). Whatever “different theologians” might have said, they agreed that this reward of eternal life was not a matter of simple justice.

Unbelievable. I have been saying this for five, six, more years and suddenly it is acknowledged as if every one had not been denying this very thing. Rich Lusk quoted Klinean disciple Bill Baldwin way back to point out the innovation that was being made in asserting a “strict justice” covenant. Wes White is silently moving into FV ground and pretending it is his after years of railing accusations.

Not happy about this.

Here is what I re-blogged a few months ago on the topic. I wrote this back in 2002, and started out by writing,

Adam’s good works were acceptable to God. He could do them and God would receive them. Our own “good” works, our very best works, require the forgiveness of God and the continual intercession of Jesus Christ due to their impurity. Thus, it is appropriate to describe God’s covenant with Adam as a covenant of works and God’s covenant with us as a covenant of grace in that we need and (if we are ultimately to be saved from God’s wrath) receive God’s grace in that he forgives what is lacking in our works.

And suddenly this is OK. Compare White’s concessions with how Lane responded to just these claims (text search the comments for “canoe” or “bricks” or “trucks” and go up and down from there).

And from there the posturing continues:

we note that while Adam’s obedience was not inherently meritorious of eternal life, it was certainly an absolutely necessary condition of obtaining eternal life.

Duh. No one has said, implied, hinted, or said otherwise while they were talking in their sleep. Not the big bad Norm Shepherd or his horrible demon spawn.

He goes on to assert what Zacharias Ursinus would consider redundant debt. Man as sinner allegedly owes God both obedience and death. Ursinus believed that the law demanded either obedience or death. If the punishment was paid for disobedience there could be no further claim on the person that he was liable for disobedience. Since both views were allowable at the Westminster Assembly, White has no constitutional basis for calling others out (though I’m afraid that consideration is considered all too trivial in the rush to condemn the brethren).

White goes on to give us a great “how much more” statement referring to Christ’s obedience which is refreshingly confessional. And reasonable. But I would also have thought that he might have considered Christ’s present submission to the Father at God’s right hand. Are we not, in Christ, reckoned to have that new creation obedience also? Why stop with Jesus’ earthly life?
I’m glad to see the earth-shaking concession in this entry but am not impressed with the revisionist pretence that FV has not been attacked on this very ground.

And what about the requirement of obedience made on believers in order that they may inherit eternal life? Is White going to argue that there is no such requirement because “Jesus did it all?”

That would be odd since Turretin thought such a position counted as an argument against the doctrine of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, one that needed to be refuted if the doctrine was to be defended. He wrote:

Although Christ fulfilled the law for us as to obedience, it cannot be inferred that we are no longer bound to render obedience to God. It certainly follows that we are not bound to obey for the same end and from the same cause (to wit, that we may live by it, from our federal subjection). But this does not hinder our being bound by a natural obligation to yield the same obedience to God, not that we may live but because we live; not that we may acquire a right to life, but that we may enter upon the possession of the acquired right. Just as (though Christ died for us) we do not cease to be still liable to death—not for punishment, but for salvation (14.13.27, p 452; Emphasis added).

This certainly works well with Turretin’s insistence that good works are necessary to salvation “as means.”

But more importantly, for a denomination that insists that the church does not need to finally appeal to the Bible in all controversies of religion (if you know enough to taste the rich irony in that fact, you know more than most Presbyters), the Westminster Confession and Catechisms say the same thing over and over (here’s one example).

Just for the record, dealing with this stuff stopped being fun a long time ago.

Related: Is Forgiveness So Worthless?

No kidding

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Brian Cosby reviews Guy Waters.

For the record, I don’t think people are capable of accurately handling that which they idolize.

Doug Wilson on Westminster & Baptism

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Doug wrote:

6. The efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered (John 3:5, 8); yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in His appointed time (Gal. 3:27; Tit. 3:5; Eph. 5:25–26; Acts 2:38, 41).

Baptism is efficacious. But the efficacy of the sacrament is not tied to the moment when it is administered. This efficacious grace is conferred on the elect at the appropriate time, the time of their conversion, and what happens in that moment is the applied grace of their baptism. For someone baptized in infancy in a covenant home, and who was converted as an adult, the Confession teaches that their conversion was due to the efficacy of their baptism. When someone under such circumstances is not converted, we obviously cannot speak of the saving efficacy of their baptism. But when such a person is converted, it is beyond all question that the Confession teaches that their baptism was efficacious, taking the grace promised in baptism, and “really exhibiting and conferring” it. It is common for many contemporary Presbyterians to depart from the Confession here by saying that the two sacraments are genuine means of grace, but that they are means of sanctifying grace only, and not saving grace. This is out of conformity with the Confession at this point—it is not heresy, but it is plainly out of conformity with the Confession, and those who hold to this position need to take an exception to the Confession. We may summarize this section as saying that “the Holy Ghost uses as His instrument a right use of the ordinance of baptism to really exhibit and confer the saving grace promised in that baptism to those elect who are the rightful beneficiaries of that grace.”

OK, Doug didn’t use the adult baptism’s example as he does here, but they are both exactly what the Confession states, but the principle is exactly the same and amply support his contentions.

Otherwise, the divines would have written a question in the Larger Catechism, “How is effectual calling to be improved by us?” But they didn’t ask that did they. One question was sufficient for all cases:

Q. 167. How is baptism to be improved by us?
A. The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others; by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it, and of the ends for which Christ instituted it, the privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby, and our solemn vow made therein; by being humbled for our sinful defilement, our falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism, and our engagements; by growing up to assurance of pardon of sin, and of all other blessings sealed to us in that sacrament; by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body.

So what is the problem? The problem is that the Westminster Assembly has created confusion by articulating a view of baptismal efficacy that is far too high–far more like baptismal regeneration than anything articulated in recent Reformed thinking.

However, the Westminter documents are no longer open to analysis and discussion. They are simply an object of superstitious fear and totem power. So when someone does nothing more than articulate what the Westminster confession states, then he is accused of being illogical.

No. He is reading what the words say. If you have problems with the logic, own up to with whom you are disagreeing.
For my part, I always stay away from actually doing constructive theology out of paragraphs 5 and 6 in the Westminster Confession because I don’t believe in baptismal regeneration in that sense. (I don’t mind pointing to the paragraphs to show what the Divines believed, but that’s about it. I don’t so much disagree as find it unhelpful to teach. It meets resistance, as the blogosphere has shown us today.) As I pointed out in this essay, baptism as entrance into the visible church is far more helpful and Biblical than baptism as sign that gives saving faith, etc. Baptism bestows “conditional unmerited grace” (to used John Piper’s vocabulary), not “unconditional unmerited grace.”

Here is another essay I wrote that might help.

Overreaching

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I write stuff like this because it involves false accusations made by anti-FV types.

Faith & Sacraments / Adults & Infants

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Question 65. Since then we are made partakers of Christ and all his benefits by faith only, whence does this faith proceed?

Answer: From the Holy Ghost, who works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the gospel, and confirms it by the use of the sacraments.

So reads Q&A #65 of the Heidelberg Catechism.

Zacharias Ursinus, the primary author of the catechism, has some interesting comments on this answer:

Faith is begun and confirmed by the word; by the sacraments it is only confirmed, as in the supper. The word teaches and confirms without the sacraments, but the sacaments not without the word. Adults are not saved without a knowledge of the word; but men may be regenerated and saved without the use of the sacraments, if this omission be not accompanied with any contempt. The word is preached to unbelievers and wicked men; the church should admit none to the sacraments, but such as will have us to regard as members of his kingdom (p. 356; emphasis added)

Notice, that Ursinus believes he is speaking particularly about adults converted to Christianity. If, on the other hand, you want to know what the Reformed believed about infants, you have to read what they say about infants.

Mark Horne

something helpful… or at least interesting

Monthly Archives: December 2007

“You can’t change horses in the middle of the stream”

The Sincere Offer of the Gospel to elect and reprobate alike: the conclusion so far

God’s Plan, God’s Attitude, and the Nature of Things: Part 7 in a series

The Gospel Offer is Sincere: Part 6 in a series

Calvin, Calvinism, and all that

Shifting ground while pretending to be immovable

No kidding

Doug Wilson on Westminster & Baptism

Overreaching

Faith & Sacraments / Adults & Infants