tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post112649641546181672..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Nature & personRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1126533060707492032005-09-12T09:51:00.000-04:002005-09-12T09:51:00.000-04:00Perry, Since you won't get around to a reply for a...Perry, <BR/><BR/>Since you won't get around to a reply for a few days, I have a few after thoughts of my own:<BR/><BR/>1.As to the Reformed tradition, as I’m sure you know, Calvin declined Caroli’s challenge to sign the ancient creeds. <BR/><BR/>There is much in the ancient creeds that is unobjectionable, and there is nothing wrong with creeds per se. But the purpose of a creed is to clarify certain matters and not to occasion further mental reservations.<BR/><BR/>2.It is true that most of the Reformed didn’t follow Calvin in this regard. But I can only judge them by their arguments, which tend to be thin and perfunctory.<BR/><BR/>3.Apropos (1), it is one thing to introduce a distinction which clarifies something otherwise obscure, another thing to introduce a distinction which is, itself, rather obscure. We are moving from one mystery to something even more mysterious, and—what is worse, from a revealed mystery to something of a man-made mystery.<BR/><BR/>Even Cunningham confesses that the distinction "does not perhaps admit of any very clear, formal definition," Historical Theology 1:316.<BR/><BR/>4.I agree with you that Berkhof’s formulation (“complex person”) is more acceptable than Warfield’s. Warfield’s may be correct, but not without its own obscurities, and is more firmly committed to a particular solution than we can grant without further study, if at all.stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.com