Closet Arians

Drake Shelton:

And I dare you to study the way this scripture is interpreted in the Pre-Nicene and Nicene Fathers. You will be most horrified to find that it is I who am holding to Orthodoxy while your party has followed a Roman innovation designed to conflate the ontological trinity with the economical and thus weave ther Church into the Godhead.

Several issues:

i) I appreciate Drake’s candor in giving me straight answers to my questions. He didn’t dodge the questions. Mind you, I think his answers are damning. They confirm my worst suspicions. But at least he’s forthright about saying what he believes. Unfortunately, Drake’s “semi-Arian” Jesus is literally a second-rate deity.

ii) I don’t grant Drake’s interpretation of the church fathers or the Nicene creed. Drake is not a patrologist. And he’s done very little reading in contemporary scholarship on the church fathers. Instant expert syndrome leaves me unimpressed. 

For instance, in the Nicene creed, “One God the Father” is paired with “One Lord Jesus Christ,” where “Lord” stands for Yahweh. Both “God” and “Lord” are divine titles in the Nicene creeds. Drake fails to distinguish between “God” as a common noun and “God” as a proper noun.

In addition, it’s not as if the Nicene creed reserves the name of “God” for the Father alone. To the contrary, it goes on to call Jesus the “true God,” paralleling the same designation for the Father.

iii) Likewise, I don’t grant Clarke’s interpretation of the church fathers. Clarke’s interpretation was challenged in his own day. Cf. Edward Hawarden, An answer to Dr. Clark, and Mr. Whiston, concerning the divinity of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Gale ECCO, 2010).

Keep in mind that Clarke may well be playing his cards close to his vest. England has a national church. Back in the 17-18C, expressing certain theological views could get you into hot water with the authorities. To hold an appointment at Oxford, Cambridge, &c., you had to be an Anglican in good standing with your ecclesiastical superiors. You could lose your job if you were too outspoken. Indeed, you could be prosecuted. Blasphemy was a crime.

So men like Clarke may well have more radical views than they held forth in public. Take Isaac Newton’s posthumous writings on the Trinity. Newton was held in awe by his contemporaries. An object of national pride. Buried at Westminster Chapel. If a man of his unrivaled standing didn’t think it was politically safe to publish his theological views, a far lesser figure like Samuel Clarke would be much more vulnerable.

What often happens in situations like this is that heretical writers will say less than they think. But what they do say is a softening-up exercise to begin lowering resistance to their true position. Cf. P. Dixon, Nice and Hot Disputes: The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Seventeenth Century (T. & T. Clark 2003), chap. 6.

iii) Acquainting myself with patristic exegesis is not my priority. The church fathers are not authority figures. And exegetical theology has made great strides since their day and age.

BTW, I’m not suggesting that whatever is newer is truer. I’m not saying there’s a presumption in favor of modernity. But by the same token, there’s no presumption in favor of antiquity. You need to judge things on a case-by-case basis. Who has the best argument.

Because Drake isn’t a student at a seminary or university with a major library collection, and because he probably can’t afford to spend much on books, he’s very reliant on whatever he can find for free on the internet. That includes old writers like Samuel Clarke, quaint editions/translations of church fathers, a quaint edition of the Catholic encyclopedia, Wikipedia, &c. Whatever is old enough to be in the public domain.

That doesn’t include modern commentaries on the Bible, modern exegetical monographs, or other up-to-date reference works. Likewise, it doesn’t include modern scholarship on historical theology. So Drake is making a virtue of economic necessity. He doesn’t have access to the best resources.

Drake is largely self-taught. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the potential downside of being self-taught is that you’re only as good as what you read. You’re at the mercy of your reading material. In Drake’s case, his reading material is atrocious, of which Samuel Clarke is Exhibit A.

Moreover, people like Drake find serious Biblical exegesis too confining. It doesn’t give free rein to their imagination. Serious exegesis puts you at the service of the text. By contrast, philosophizing about the Trinity feeds their intellectual pride.