Preservation & providence

Vincent Cheung has posted a quote from Edwards on his doctrine of continuous creation. But this appeal raises a number of theological and philosophical difficulties:

1.In order to count as knowledge rather than unjustified opinion, Cheung needs to reduce Edward’s argument to a formal syllogism with a true premise and a conclusion which follows by strict implication from the major and minor premises. In addition, he must demonstrate that all this is deducible from Scripture by logical necessity.

2.It is painfully ironic that a rationalist like Cheung would take refuge in Edwards. For as Gordon Clark has pointed out, “Edwards was not a realist at all. He was an empiricist, deeply influence by Locke and Berkeley,” The Biblical Doctrine of Man (Trinity Foundation 1984), 69.

3.Gordon Clark adhered to the Boethian tradition of divine timelessness. However, adherence to continuous creation logically commits Cheung to the belief that God is a temporal agent. For continuous creation implies that divine creation is subdivided into discrete successive fiats. God recreates the world moment-by-moment.

On this view, Cheung must reject the Westminster Confession on the timeframe of creation (4.1).

And Cheung must also exchange the classical view of God, as held by Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, and Calvin, for process theology.

4.In addition to empiricism, continuous creation logically commits Cheung to nominalism. For if there are no second causes, which there cannot be, given Edwards insistence on the omni-immediacy of divine agency, then there can be no concrete universals or internal relations, but only bare particulars. If there is even room for universals in this scheme, they remain unexemplified in time and space.

If continuous creation is true, then an individual thing is not even self-identical over time, much less related to any other individual.

On this view, all relations are external rather than internal. The sinner bears no more intrinsic connection to Adam than he does to any other man or woman or child or angel or devil or rock or tree. All that binds them together is an Occamist-style voluntarism. And it is not coincidental that Ockham was both a voluntarist and a nominalist. For the only thing that can unite discrete particulars is a sheer act of the will.

Logically speaking, and Cheung claims to be a champion of logic, he must reject the Westminster standards on the natural headship of Adam (WCF 6:3), as well as the doctrine of second causes (3.1; 5.2-3).

I’m aware that Cheung still pays lip-service to second-causes, but as Aquascum has pointed out, this is already incompatible with occasionalism, before we even get to continuous creation, which would also serve to negate second-causes.

5.Continuous creation, with its commitment to presentism (only present moments or instants are real), entails the A-theory of time. And this, for its own part, returns us to all the old conundra about the infinite divisibility of time—a la Zeno, Leibniz, McTaggart.

6.Edwards' theory of continuous creation also undercuts his action-theory. For his model of compatibilism is predicated on the principle of character-determinism, but if continuous creation is true, then there is no causal chain between what we are and what we do.

Cheung’s basic problem is that he suffers from intellectual isolation. If he were more widely read, and if he were to dismount from his high horse long enough to humbly interact with other Christians, he could spare himself so many self-contradictory and heterodox positions.

I realize Mr. Cheung has indicated that he only does apologetics as a preliminary exercise—that, at heart, he’d rather be a Bible teacher.

But, in all honesty, I don’t know what makes him think that he has the competence to be writing commentaries on the Bible. Just compare, say, his exposition of Ephesians with the recent commentary by Harold Hoehner.

Again, I realize that he wants to pitch his stuff to the layman. But even for purposes of popularization, you need to bring a certain level of scholarship to the task.

With all due respect, what makes him any more qualified to write a commentary on Ephesians or Philippians or Matthew or Malachi than Benny Hinn? Is Cheung a Hebraist or a Classicist? Does he have a well-stocked library? To judge by the footnotes, it’s pretty thin.

I know that some of his followers would resent these questions, but why shouldn’t I raise them? I may not be the best person to do it, but someone needs to. Indeed, his followers ought to be raising these very questions.

Frankly, it looks like the same sort of personalit- cult we see with Harold Camping. As long as you sound a conservative note, it doesn’t matter what you actually say. It’s the tone that counts, not the content. Just make the right noises, use the right passwords, and you can get away with anything, however illogical, outlandish, or unscriptural.