Scott Clark grudgingly admits that a Baptist can be a Calvinist, but he can't be "Reformed." And he can't be "Reformed" because Baptist theology is (allegedly) out of kilter with the 16-17 Reformed confessions, catechisms, &c., at key points.
Traditionally, Reformed theology, especially the Presbyterian variety, involves a hermeneutic of continuity, in contrast to Anabaptism, with its hermeneutic of discontinuity. And, of course, that’s what grounds the Presbyterian practice of infant baptism.
Other positions range somewhere within that continuum. The Baptist theology of the LBCF lays more emphasis on continuity, whereas NCT lays more emphasis on discontinuity.
WCF>LBCF>NCT>Anabaptism/Dispensationalism
However, the covenant theology of Kline, which underwrites 2k, and rewrites traditional covenant theology, involves a hermeneutic of discontinuity. It's the polar opposite of the WCF, and other suchlike.
Yet covenant theology is a central feature of traditional Reformed theology. And that differentiates 17C Presbyterianism (and its Dutch counterparts) from those "un-Reformed" 5-point Baptists.
So isn't Clark's core position pulling in diametrically opposite directions at this juncture?
"So isn't Clark's core position pulling in diametrically opposite directions at this juncture?"
ReplyDeleteIt sure looks like it.
R2K is an incoherent mess.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteHow is Kline's covenant theology "the polar opposite of the WCF," and how does he "rewrite" "traditional covenant theology"?
Kline's covenant theology operates with a hermeneutic of discontinuity, pace the WCF. And he replaces the WCF schema with a very different schema. For an overview, cf.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.upper-register.com/papers/kline's_analysis_law.pdf
I don't know what you mean by a "hermeneutic of discontinuity." (I know what a hermeneutic is, and what discontinuity is, but the phrase seems too vague/broad. The Reformed have always seen elements both of continuity and discontinuity. And what relata do you have in mind exactly? Discontinuity between Testaments? Specific covenants/administrations? If so, which ones? And discontinuity in what respects?)
ReplyDeleteI looked at the pdf, and I'm guessing that by replacing the WCF's "schema" with a new one, you mean the division into moral / typological, instead of moral / civil / ceremonial. This pertains to the Mosaic law, not covenant theology tout court. Further, I don't see the inconsistency between the two schemas; Kline provides another way to conceptually carve things up, as well as adds to the picture. Such hardly constitutes "rewriting" or presenting "the polar opposite" of the WCF's view of the Mosaic Law, much less of its covenant theology more generally.
DAN SAID:
ReplyDelete"I don't know what you mean by a "hermeneutic of discontinuity." (I know what a hermeneutic is, and what discontinuity is, but the phrase seems too vague/broad."
It's only vague if you're unfamiliar with standard literature on the subject. Take this now-classic monograph:
http://www.doxapress.com/continuity_excerpts.htm
More later.
Traditional covenant theology accentuates the unity of the covenants in terms of their sharing the grace/faith principle.
ReplyDeleteBy contrast, Klinean covenant theology accentuates a law/works principle vis-à-vis the Mosaic covenant in contrast to the new covenant. That’s an antithetical relation.
Traditional covenant theology (e.g. Westminster Standards) accentuates the unity of OT and NT ethics by enshrining the Decalogue.
By contrast, Klinean covenant theology accentuates discontinuity by introducing the concept of intrusion ethics.
Hi Steve, thanks for the responses.
ReplyDeleteTraditional covenant theology accentuates the unity of the covenants in terms of their sharing the grace/faith principle.
By contrast, Klinean covenant theology accentuates a law/works principle vis-à-vis the Mosaic covenant in contrast to the new covenant. That’s an antithetical relation.
There is no antithesis here, since Kline asserts the applicability of the law/works principle in the Mosaic covenant not with respect to individual salvation, but rather with respect to the nation's status in the typological land/kingdom. Kline does accentuate, with traditional covenant theology, the unity of the covenants with respect to the faith/grace principle, with respect to individual salvation.
Traditional covenant theology (e.g. Westminster Standards) accentuates the unity of OT and NT ethics by enshrining the Decalogue.
By contrast, Klinean covenant theology accentuates discontinuity by introducing the concept of intrusion ethics.
Another false dichotomy. The normativity of the Decalogue, for Kline, is not bound up with intrusion. He does posit certain applications of certain words as being bound up with intrusion, such as the attachment of civil penal sanctions to violations of the first four; but so does the WCF, it seems (on the expiration of the judicial laws). In fact, far from the Decalogue's normativity being grounded in intrusion ethics, Kline says that the *non*-normativity of certain words (or, more precisely, modification in their application) is part of intrusion ethics (e.g., Rahab was permitted to not honor the fifth in concealing the spies).
Kline affirms the normativity of all 10 words; he attaches the authority to punish infractions of the first four to the church (in the present age), and with respect to five through ten he says that their essence is to love one's neighbor as oneself, a command that is constitutive of "common grace" ethics.
(My claims on intrusion ethics here are taken from Kline's Structure of Biblical Authority.)
I'll have more to say later. For the moment:
ReplyDeletehttp://patrickspensees.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/in-defense-of-moses.pdf
http://www.puritanboard.com/f117/meredith-kline-subscriptionism-35538/#post498739
Dan said...
ReplyDelete"He does posit certain applications of certain words as being bound up with intrusion, such as the attachment of civil penal sanctions to violations of the first four; but so does the WCF, it seems (on the expiration of the judicial laws)."
I may well have more to say about your other claims later on, but for now I'd note that this grossly oversimplifies the Confessional position.
Even Kline admits:
In support of this position, Bahsen makes precedential appeal to the Westminster Confession of Faith (pp. 537 f.) and, as already intimated, there is a degree of validity in that appeal. For though we may hold that on the subject of the civil magistrate the Confession, even in its original form, is non-Erastian, we must still admit that the original Chapter 23 did attribute to the state the function of enforcing the first four laws of the Decalogue. It must also be acknowledged then that in its original intent, WCF 19:4 must also have placed the “four first commandments containing our duty towards God” (19:2) under the jurisdiction of the state, whatever precisely is meant by saying that the judicial laws given to Israel “expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.”
http://www.meredithkline.com/files/articles/Kline_on_Theonomy.html
Likewise, Irons also admits:
It is tempting to quote only the first half of the statement: the Confession says that
the judicial laws have “expired” and are thus “not obliging any other [state] now.”
However, we may not ignore the qualifying statement, “further than the general equity
thereof may require.” The hermeneutic by which they ascertained this “general equity” is illustrated in their extensive appeals to the Mosaic judicial laws in support of their
doctrinal statements concerning the civil magistrate (see above). It must be candidly
acknowledged, then, that the divines regarded the Mosaic judicial laws as a significant source of biblical instruction to the civil magistrate, informing him of his duties and responsibilities, not only in the common affairs of governance, but specifically with regard to the public enforcement of religion.
Although it could be argued that modern theonomists tend to have a more
extensive, detailed, case-law approach to the civil law than the Puritan authors of the
Confession, it cannot be denied that both the modern theonomist and his Puritan forebears shared this much in common: both agree that promoting true worship and suppressing public expressions of idolatry, are important duties entrusted to the civil magistrate by Scripture. The traditional language describing these duties in connection with religion, is that the civil magistrate is the custodian of both tables of the Decalogue (custos utriusque
tabulae).
http://www.upper-register.com/papers/1788_theonomy.pdf
"There is no antithesis here, since Kline asserts the applicability of the law/works principle in the Mosaic covenant not with respect to individual salvation, but rather with respect to the nation's status in the typological land/kingdom. Kline does accentuate, with traditional covenant theology, the unity of the covenants with respect to the faith/grace principle, with respect to individual salvation."
ReplyDeleteCovenant theology operates at a corporate level, not just an individual level. Groups of people.
Dan said...
ReplyDelete"Another false dichotomy. The normativity of the Decalogue, for Kline, is not bound up with intrusion."
I didn't say the normativity of the Decalogue was bound up with intrusion. Rather, I said intrusion generates a drastic discontinuity between OT ethics (exemplified by the Decalogue) and NT ethics (during the church age).
I grant that
ReplyDeletehttp://www.puritanboard.com/f117/meredith-kline-subscriptionism-35538/#post498739
points out what is strictly speaking an inconsistency between Kline and WCF 19.2,5, in that a passage is provided wherein Kline claims that the fourth word has been abrogated. However, the post is misleading, in my view, since it isn’t pointed out that in the broader context of the passage, Kline affirms that what many commonly mean by “the Sabbath” (involving the 1-in-7 pattern, the “1” being set aside for public worship) has not been abrogated. Since one is not told exactly what Kline means by “Sabbath” in the quoted passage (and hence exactly what he is, and is not, saying has become obsolete), I think the post is liable to cause confusion; which is not to deny what I’ve granted, that there seems to be, strictly, the mentioned inconsistency with the WCF.
As far as
ReplyDeletehttp://patrickspensees.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/in-defense-of-moses.pdf
, I read a good bit of it, and stopped because of some basic problems in the argument. But if there’s a point you want to extract from the paper, feel free. We’re told:
The view that bears the closest resemblance to Kline and Karlberg [out of four antecedently mentioned views] is the Subservient Covenant. If this view is proven to be contrary to the Westminster Confession of Faith, then it must follow that Kline and Karlberg do not hold to the classic form of covenant theology (at least as it is expressed in the WCF) and that their view is also rejected by the Confession. (p. 7)
“There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations.” All that is required, therefore, to demonstrate that the Subservient Covenant is incompatible with the Confession is to show that it is a covenant different in substance. (pp. 10 – 11)
Both of these passages contain non sequiturs. And even if one can refine them in such a way so as to remedy this, arguing that Kline’s covenant theology is inconsistent with the Confession’s shouldn’t require such a circuitous line of argumentation.
Dan: "He [Kline] does posit certain applications of certain words as being bound up with intrusion, such as the attachment of civil penal sanctions to violations of the first four; but so does the WCF, it seems (on the expiration of the judicial laws)."
ReplyDeleteSteve:…for now I'd note that this grossly oversimplifies the Confessional position.
It looks like you’re right; thanks.
Dan: There is no antithesis here, since Kline asserts the applicability of the law/works principle in the Mosaic covenant not with respect to individual salvation, but rather with respect to the nation's status in the typological land/kingdom. Kline does accentuate, with traditional covenant theology, the unity of the covenants with respect to the faith/grace principle, with respect to individual salvation.
ReplyDeleteSteve: Covenant theology operates at a corporate level, not just an individual level. Groups of people.
You said that “traditional covenant theology accentuates the unity of the covenants in terms of their sharing the grace/faith principle,” and that Kline’s covenant theology “accentuates a law/works principle vis-à-vis the Mosaic covenant in contrast to the new covenant.” You then said this was an antithetical relation. You’re just-quoted response to me doesn’t vindicate this claim. There is no antithesis, because the works principle is not posited instead of the grace principle, but in addition to it (and with respect to something distinct from that to which the grace principle is attached). We would only have a clash with traditional covenant theology if this covenant theology denies (in a relatively unanimous way) the applicability of a works principle at the corporate level (for this is the only level at which Kline posited the works principle with respect to the Mosaic covenant).
Dan: Another false dichotomy. The normativity of the Decalogue, for Kline, is not bound up with intrusion.
ReplyDeleteSteve: I didn't say the normativity of the Decalogue was bound up with intrusion. Rather, I said intrusion generates a drastic discontinuity between OT ethics (exemplified by the Decalogue) and NT ethics (during the church age).
I didn’t say that you said that the normativity of the Decalogue was bound up with intrusion; I implied that you implied that, for Kline, the Decalogue’s normativity was bound up with intrusion. How else are we to understand your contrasting the traditional view of the unity of the OT and NT ethics in the Decalogue with Kline’s invocation of intrusion ethics? And in the just-quoted response, you seem to be saying the same thing. How is one to understand the idea that intrusion ethics generates a drastic discontinuity between OT ethics as exemplified by the Decalogue and NT ethics, if the Decalogue’s normativity is not rooted in intrusion ethics? Conversely, if you grant what I argued in the post to which you’re responding, that, for Kline, the Decalogue’s normativity is not bound up with intrusion (i.e., obtains independently of intrusion), then how is referencing Kline’s doctrine of intrusion supposed to back up your assertion that there is a contrast between his covenant theology and traditional covenant theology with respect to the Decalogue’s role under the Mosaic covenant and new covenant respectively?
Kline substantially affirms continuity with respect to the Decalogue’s normativity, and he affirms the application of the faith/grace principle in the Mosaic covenant as an administration of the covenant of grace. Though there may be important differences in the details, I don’t see how it’s fair or accurate to characterize Kline as if his covenant theology is “the polar opposite” of or a “rewriting” of the WCF’s; especially in light of the fact that the intricacies of the Mosaic covenant (which seems to be your focus) form only one part of one’s covenant theology more generally.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteIt appears from your post that your beef is with Kline and Kline as understood by Irons. I don't see what I have do in this discussion at all. My theology is that confessed by the Reformed churches in the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards.
Have you read the two books I've published on covenant theology? Have you read any of the several articles I've published on covenant theology? Why do you assume that I agree with MGK or Irons on every point? Isn't that a gratuitous assumption?
I agree with MGK where he agrees with the standards. He defended the covenant of works (WCF 7). He defended the essential unity of the covenant of grace. He defended the pactum salutis (arguably implied by the WCF) and he defended WCF 19.
I wouldn't defend where MGK ended his career regarding the Sabbath nor would I defend everything he said about faith and science or on the decalogue. I think that later in his career, in reaction to theonomy and theocracy, he sometimes overstated the distinctly Mosaic character of the decalogue at the expense of its relation to the prelapsarian/natural law, something on which he was better earlier in his career.
My covenant theology, including my criticism of the Baptist hermeneutic, is much more influenced by the classic Reformed theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries than it is by MGK. If you've read my work on covenant theology you then you would know that. That said, MGK, when I had him as a prof, was quite critical of the Baptist construal of the covenant of grace. His view was quite traditional in that regard. The only question I can recall from his Pentateuch exam wanted an answer defending the continuity of the Abrahamic covenant (of grace). He stoutly rejected dispensationalism.
There's nothing distinctively Klinean about the positions argued in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry or in Baptism, Election, and the Covenant of Grace or in "Baptism and the Benefits of Christ" (http://www.cpjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/CPJ2-RSClark.pdf) or in my historical work on Caspar Olevianus.
http://clark.wscal.edu/publications.php
http://clark.wscal.edu/covtheology.php
Those links should be:
ReplyDelete"Baptism and the Benefits of Christ"
Publications
Covenant Theology
Clark's Books
"It appears from your post that your beef is with Kline and Kline as understood by Irons. I don't see what I have do in this discussion at all."
ReplyDeleteIt's that you boot Baptists, Frame, and others from having the title "Reformed," but yet you don't do that with Kline. If one parts with the Confession on images, or subjects of baptism, they're not Reformed. If another, whom you like and respect, parts on other matters, like sabbath, they don't get shoved out of the Reformed name. It begins to look like a good ole boys club rather than a sincere demarcating device. You heep scorn, ridicule, and derision on those like Frame and Baptists when they part with the Confession, but not Kline. That's one reason some might not take you seriously. Too emotional. Too invested.
There is a hierarchy of values within the confession. There's an overwhelming consensus on baptism. The Reformed confessions from 1523 on repeatedly confess infant baptism and reject the denial of the same. Kline was a paedobaptist. He taught the Reformed view on the essential unity of the covenant of grace. He practice the Reformed hermeneutic. He taught the essentials of covenant theology. He kept the covenant of works and the covenant of redemption (pactum salutis) alive when they weren't fashionable.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that everything Irons says = MGK. Further, he was never disciplined by his assembly whereas the denial of infant baptism would have brought certain discipline.
This isn't about being selective. If Kline erred, if he departed substantially from the confession, then he should have been disciplined. I've argued in print that Mr Murray's experiment in covenant theology should have been tested in the courts of the church. Perhaps the same is true of aspects of MGK's later writings?
I can't see how that's selective.
Infant baptism and the covenant theology and hermeneutic that produced it is essential to Reformed theology. Baptists deny the same. They aren't Reformed. That's not selective either.