The root of Calvinism

Calvinism is often defended or derided. For freewill theists, Calvinism is the standard foil. But usually there's not much by way of definition beyond TULIP. Here's a definition by a great Reformed theologian. It's a useful point of reference whether or not we completely agree with his interpretation. 

It begins, it centers, it ends with the vision of God in His glory…

Whoever believes in God; whoever recognizes in the recesses of his soul his utter dependence on God...

Perhaps the simplest statement of it is the best: that it lies in a profound apprehension of God in His majesty, with the inevitably accompanying poignant realization of the exact nature of the relation sustained to Him by the creature as such, and particularly by the sinful creature...Theism comes to its rights only in a teleological conception of the universe, which perceives in the entire course of events the orderly outworking of the plan of God, who is the author, preserver, and governor of all things, whose will is consequently the ultimate cause of all. The religious relation attains its purity only when an attitude of absolute dependence on God is not merely temporarily assumed in the act, say, of prayer, but is sustained through all the activities of life...

The doctrine of predestination is not the formative principle of Calvinism, the root from which it springs. It is one of its logical consequences, one of the branches which it has inevitably thrown out. It has been firmly embraced and consistently proclaimed by Calvinists because it is an implicate of theism, is directly given in the religious consciousness, and is an absolutely essential element in evangelical religion, without which its central truth of complete dependence upon the free mercy of a saving God can not be maintained.

This is the root of Calvinistic soteriology; and it is because this deep sense of human helplessness and this profound consciousness of indebtedness for all that enters into salvation to the free grace of God is the root of its soteriology that to it the doctrine of election becomes the cor cordis of the Gospel. He who knows that it is God who has chosen him and not he who has chosen God, and that he owes his entire salvation in all its processes and in every one of its stages to this choice of God, would be an ingrate indeed if he gave not the glory of his salvation solely to the inexplicable elective love of God. B. B. Warfield, "Calvinism," The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge.

The radiance of his glory

I'm going to comment on this article:

http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/b-b-warfield-and-the-biblical-doctrine-of-the-trinity

where Swain takes issue with Warfield's reformulation of the Trinity. Although Swain makes an intelligent case for his position, I think Warfield had a more penetrating grasp of the issues.

From a linguistic perspective, relations of origin (i.e., eternal generation, eternal procession) gloss the personal names (i.e., Son of God, Spirit of God). From a metaphysical perspective, relations of origin distinguish the persons without dividing the essence—indeed, they are the only way of distinguishing the persons without dividing the essence. Grasping this point helps us appreciate where uses of terms such as “subordination” are appropriate or inappropriate in Trinitarian theology. When the term “subordination” is used, as it traditionally has been used, to refer to relations of origin (or to their temporal expressions in mission), then the term is licit. 

It's refreshing to see Swain admit that on his paradigm, there is subordination within the immanent Trinity vis-a-vis relations of origin. 

Is the Holy Spirit a personification?

http://www.equip.org/article/is-the-holy-spirit-a-personification/

https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/spiritot.html

Free ebooks by Warfield

https://www.monergism.com/blog/16-free-ebooks-b-b-warfield-0

The History Of Belief In Biblical Inerrancy

Here's something I just posted on the subject on Facebook. It's in response to some recent comments by a New Testament scholar, Richard Burridge. The post cites a lot of resources on the history of the doctrine of inerrancy.

The development of the doctrine of infant salvation

https://archive.org/details/twostudiesinhist00warf

Say your daddy is rich. Say you're smart. What next?

Both Donald Trump and William F. Buckley came from privileged backgrounds. But while Trump used his advantages to promote self-aggrandizement, Buckley used his advantages to improve the world:

http://www.worldmag.com/2008/03/standing_athwart_history_yelling_stop

B. B. Warfield, Oswalt T. Allis, Gresham Machen, and John Frame all came from very affluent families. After using their hereditary wealth to get a first-class education, all of them devoted their lives to Christian service. 

What Scripture says, God says

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/warfield/warfield_itsays.html

More About “Knowing”

For those who are following along:

Warfield on Calvin on Special and General Revelation.

From Richard Muller:
Echoes of Scotus, Ockham, and Eck in the Reformed Orthodox discussion of faith and reason

Warfield on predestination

A classic overview:

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/warfield/warfield_predestination.html

Is inerrancy, at best, a secondary doctrine?

I'm going to comment on a recent statement by Mike Licona:

Third, the truth of Christianity is grounded in the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection rather than the inerrancy of the Bible. If Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity would still be true even if it were the case that some things in the Bible are not. In fact, because Jesus rose, Christianity was true in the period before any of the New Testament literature was written. So, how could an error in the Gospels nullify the truth of Christianity? This is not to say the Bible contains errors. It is to say that, since the truth of the Christian gospel does not hang on every word in the Bible being correct, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is, at the very most, a secondary doctrine. 

This position is only an echo of that articulated in 1893 by B. B. Warfield, regarded as the father of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy:

Let it not be said that thus we found the whole Christian system upon the doctrine of plenary inspiration. We found the whole Christian system on the doctrine of plenary inspiration as little as we found it upon the doctrine of angelic existences. Were there no such thing as inspiration, Christianity would be true, and all its essential doctrines would be credibly witnessed to us in the generally trustworthy reports of the teaching of our Lord and of His authoritative agents in founding the Church, preserved in the writings of the apostles and their first followers, and in the historical witness of the living Church. Inspiration is not the most fundamental of Christian doctrines, nor even the first thing we prove about the Scriptures. It is the last and crowning fact as to the Scriptures. These we first prove authentic, historically credible, generally trustworthy, before we prove them inspired. And the proof of their authenticity, credibility, general trustworthiness would give us a firm basis for Christianity prior to any knowledge on our part of their inspiration, and apart indeed from the existence of inspiration. Warfield, "The Real Problem of Inspiration." 

http://www.risenjesus.com/chicagos-muddy-waters

i) I disagree with Warfield's methodology, for reasons I'll come to momentarily. But I'd also note that Warfield is using a different argument than Licona. Warfield didn't say: 

Even though the Bible claims to be plenarily inspired, if the self-witness of Scripture were proven false, Christianity would still be true.

Warfield is speaking hypothetically. This is even clearer from a similar statement he made:

We may say that without a Bible we might have had Christ and all that he stands for to our souls. Let us not say that this might not have been possible. But neither let us for- get that, in point of fact, it is to the Bible that we owe it that we know Christ and are found in him.  ‘‘The Inspiration of the Bible,’’ in Revelation and Inspiration, 72.

So Warfield is discussing a counterfactual scenario in which the Bible doesn't claim to be plenarily inspired in the first place. A counterfactual scenario in which there is no Bible. A possible world where Christianity is not a revealed religion. Where the knowledge of Christianity solely depends on collective memory. 

That wouldn't be the same religion. It would be significantly similar to Christianity inasmuch as many of the key events would be the same, but it would be significantly dissimilar as well. 

That is very different from Licona's argument that if, in the real world, Scripture was found to be errant in spite of Scripture's self-witness to the contrary, Christianity would still be true. Even if Licona's argument is a good argument, it's not the same argument as Warfield's. It's not the same position. 

ii) It's true that inspiration and the Resurrection are two causally independent events. In that sense, the truth of the Resurrection is not contingent on the truth or falsity of inspiration. Hypothetically speaking, you could have many of the same redemptive events with or without an inspired record.

That, however, doesn't mean Christianity would still be true. Rather, that would mean Christianity is partially true. 

For instance, imagine OT Judaism without the prophets. Imagine Judaism without Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, &c. You could still have many of the same events. The calling of Abraham could still be true. The Exodus could still be true. And so on and so forth. However, OT Judaism without the prophets would not be the same religion. 

iii) In addition, Licona is erecting a false dichotomy between divine words and divine works. But when God raised up prophets, that's a divine event. Sending prophets to Israel is something God does as well as something God says. So we can't neatly separate the works of God from the words of God. 

iv) To take another example: in Isa 40-48, one factor distinguishing the true God from false gods is that Yahweh says he's going to do something, then does it. Predictive prophecy is a fundamental element of OT theism. God does what he says he will do. God says what he will do before he does it. 

If, however, God simply did things without announcing his intentions in advance, you'd only have half the religion. There's far more to Biblical theism than what God does. God is a God who foretells his actions, then fulfills what he foretells. Among other things, inspiration points to a God who knows and controls the future. God gives a word (to or through a prophet), then acts on his word. That's an essential component of Biblical theism. A God who makes promises, then makes good on his promises. 

v) What about Warfield's argument? In addition to what Licona quoted, Warfield deploys variations on this same argument. For instance:

Inspiration, in its more exact sense, cannot come into the discussion until theism, the reality of revelation, the divine origin and character of the religion which they present, and the general trustworthiness of their presentation of it, have been already established. It is the crowing attribute of these sacred books, and is inconceivable and would not be affirmed if they were not previously believed to be the trustworthy records of a divinely given religion. Selected Shorter Writings, 2:632. 

But certainly, before we draw it from the Scriptures, we must assure ourselves that there is a knowledge of God in the Scriptures. And, before we do that, we must assure ourselves that there is a knowledge of God in the world. And, before we do that, we must assure ourselves that a knowledge of God is possible for man. And before we do that, we must assure ourselves that there is a God to know. Thus, we inevitably work back to first principles. Selected Shorter Writings, 2:98. 

In other words, Warfield is proposing a stepwise proof, in which one thing presupposes another, like a logical syllogism. But even if we grant his methodology, it doesn't follow from this that the order in which you prove something parallels the order of importance. 

Suppose we said, the resurrection of Christ presupposes the death of Christ, and the death of Christ presupposes the birth of Christ. Therefore, the Resurrection "is, at the very most, a secondary doctrine."

Likewise, the NT presupposes the OT. Does it follow that the NT is, at best, of secondary importance to the Christian faith? 

Even if you use a linear proof, the order in which you prove something is not a ranking system. It's not an argument in descending order of importance, where what is prior is more essential or fundamental than what is posterior in the logical or causal sequence. 

vi) Moreover, is Warfield's argument the only proper way to arrive at the conclusion? Must we always begin with first principles? 

Take a comparison: when I observe seagulls, I know a large body of water is nearby. Suppose I'm driving to the coast, but I'm lost. If, however, I begin to notice seagulls in the direction I'm driving, whereas there were no seagulls for miles behind, I can reasonable infer than I'm approaching the coast. I'm getting close to the ocean.

But suppose I'm Warfield. Suppose I say: 

In proving my proximity to the beach, seagulls are not the first thing I appeal to. For seagulls can't exist unless seagulls come from eggs. And seagulls can't make coastal waters their habitant unless there's an ocean in the first place. Therefore, I must first prove the existence of the sea, then prove that seagulls come from eggs, before I can appeal to sightings of seagulls as evidence for the nearby ocean.

That's clearly backwards. And that's because the order of knowing reverses the order of being. 

You don't have to begin with first principles. You don't have to begin with causes. You can begin with effects. The Bible is the effect of divine agency: revelation, inspiration, and historical causation. So it's not illicit to reason back from Scripture, as a starting-point, to its ultimate cause. 

vii) How did most Jews and Christians come to believe in the scriptures? Not through Warfield's argument. For Jewish and Christian believers who were raised in the faith, in many cases they can't remember a time when they didn't believe in the God of prophets. Their religious experience is a package. 

If, moreover, the God of Scripture exists, then these aren't separable elements in reality, even if they are logically separable. So why demand that we must take it apart and rearrange it in Warfield's schematic fashion? 

In fact, Warfield falls back on intuition when he's writing for a popular audience. He knows his methodology won't work for the average layman. Take his essay on the deity of Christ (from The Fundamentals):

A man recognizes on sight the face of his friend, or his own handwriting. Ask him how he knows this face to be that of his friend, or his handwriting to be his own, and he may be dumb [i.e. speechless], or, seeking to reply, may babble nonsense. Yet his recognition rests on solid grounds, though he lacks analytical skill to isolate and state these grounds. We believe in God and freedom and immortality on good grounds, though we may not be able to satisfactorily analyze these grounds. No true conviction exists without adequate rational grounding in evidence. So, if we are solidly assured of the deity of Christ, it will be on adequate grounds, appealing to the reason. But it may well be on grounds not analyzed, perhaps not analyzable, by us, so as to exhibit themselves in the forms of formal logic. 

We do not need to wait to analyze the grounds of our convictions before they operate to produce convictions, any more than we need to wait to analyze our food before it nourishes us. The Christian's conviction of the deity of his Lord does not depend for its soundness on the Christian's ability convincingly to state the grounds of his conviction. The evidence he offers for it may be wholly inadequate, while the evidence on which it rests may be absolutely compelling. 

Right reason

http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2012/06/reason-and-right-reason.html

Organic inspiration

The biblical writers spoke not from a lofty height, separate from the customs and conventions of their day. They spoke of God from out of their own place and time. We are seeing God through their eyes.

That’s why we today should try to see the historical shaping of Scripture not as something to tip our hat to or a hindrance to be over come, but as the very means by which God chose to speak.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/04/c-s-lewis-and-how-the-bible-shows-gods-humility/

Inerrantists don’t deny that Scripture reflects the cultural milieu in which it was given. But what Enns ignores is the source of the cultural milieu in which Scripture was given. Divine agency isn’t confined to the psychological process of inspiration. For divine agency lies behind the culture milieu in which Scripture is given.

Enns acts as though God was stuck with the historical status quo. That God had to make the best of the hand that history dealt him. But this disregards the creatorship and the providence of God. If Scripture has a historical shaping, God is shaping the history. God is the Lord of history.

Enns speaks of the “cultural limitations” of Scripture, but God isn’t limited by culture; rather, culture is limited by God. God isn’t limited to who or what he can find in the world. Rather, God “finds” what he put there in the first place. As Warfield pointed out so long ago:

This is the general problem of the origin of the Scriptures and the part of God in all that complex of processes by the interaction of which these books, which we call the sacred Scriptures, with all their peculiarities, and all their qualities of whatever sort, have been brought into being. For, of course, these books were not produced suddenly, by some miraculous act—handed down complete out of heaven, as the phrase goes; but, like all other products of time, are the ultimate effect of many processes cooperating through long periods. There is to be considered, for instance, the preparation of the material which forms the subject-matter of these books: in a sacred history, say, for example, to be narrated; or in a religious experience which may serve as a norm for record; or in a logical elaboration of the contents of revelation which may be placed at the service of God’s people; or in the progressive revelation of Divine truth itself, supplying their culminating contents. And there is the preparation of the men to write these books to be considered, a preparation physical, intellectual, spiritual, which must have attended them throughout their whole lives, and, indeed, must have had its beginning in their remote ancestors, and the effect of which was to bring the right men to the right places at the right times, with the right endowments, impulses, acquirements, to write just the books which were designed for them. When “inspiration,” technically so called, is superinduced on lines of preparation like these, it takes on quite a different aspect from that which it bears when it is thought of as an isolated action of the Divine Spirit operating out of all relation to historical processes. Representations are sometimes made as if, when God wished to produce sacred books which would incorporate His will—a series of letters like those of Paul, for example—He was reduced to the necessity of going down to earth and painfully scrutinizing the men He found there, seeking anxiously for the one who, on the whole, promised best for His purpose; and then violently forcing the material He wished expressed through him, against his natural bent, and with as little loss from his recalcitrant characteristics as possible. Of course, nothing of the sort took place. If God wished to give His people a series of letters like Paul’s, He prepared a Paul to write them, and the Paul He brought to the task was a Paul who spontaneously would write just such letters.

If we bear this in mind, we shall know what estimate to place upon the common representation to the effect that the human characteristics of the writers must, and in point of fact do, condition and qualify the writings produced by them, the implication being that, therefore, we cannot get from man a pure word of God. As light that passes through the colored glass of a cathedral window, we are told, is light from heaven, but is stained by the tints of the glass through which it passes; so any word of God which is passed through the mind and soul of a man must come out discolored by the personality through which it is given, and just to that degree ceases to be the pure word of God. But what if this personality has itself been formed by God into precisely the personality it is, for the express purpose of communicating to the word given through it just the coloring which it gives it? What if the colors of the stained-glass window have been designed by the architect for the express purpose of giving to the light that floods the cathedral precisely the tone and quality it receives from them? What if the word of God that comes to His people is framed by God into the word of God it is, precisely by means of the qualities of the men formed by Him for the purpose, through which it is given? When we think of God the Lord giving by His Spirit a body of authoritative Scriptures to His people, we must remember that He is the God of providence and of grace as well as of revelation and inspiration, and that He holds all the lines of preparation as fully under His direction as He does the specific operation which we call technically, in the narrow sense, by the name of “inspiration.” The production of the Scriptures is, in point of fact, a long process, in the course of which numerous and very varied Divine activities are involved, providential, gracious, miraculous, all of which must be taken into account in any attempt to explain the relation of God to the production of Scripture. When they are all taken into account we can no longer wonder that the resultant Scriptures are constantly spoken of as the pure word of God. We wonder, rather, that an additional operation of God—what we call specifically “inspiration,” in its technical sense—was thought necessary. Consider, for example, how a piece of sacred history—say the Book of Chronicles, or the great historical work, Gospel and Acts, of Luke—is brought to the writing. There is first of all the preparation of the history to be written: God the Lord leads the sequence of occurrences through the development He has designed for them that they may convey their lessons to His people: a “teleological” or “etiological” character is inherent in the very course of events. Then He prepares a man, by birth, training, experience, gifts of grace, and, if need be, of revelation, capable of appreciating this historical development and eager to search it out, thrilling in all his being with its lessons and bent upon making them clear and effective to others. When, then, by His providence, God sets this man to work on the writing of this history, will there not be spontaneously written by him the history which it was Divinely intended should be written? Or consider how a psalmist would be prepared to put into moving verse a piece of normative religious experience: how he would be born with just the right quality of religious sensibility, of parents through whom he should receive just the right hereditary bent, and from whom he should get precisely the right religious example and training, in circumstances of life in which his religious tendencies should be developed precisely on right lines; how he would be brought through just the right experiences to quicken in him the precise emotions he would be called upon to express, and finally would be placed in precisely the exigencies which would call out their expression. Or consider the providential preparation of a writer of a didactic epistle—by means of which he should be given the intellectual breadth and acuteness, and be trained in habitudes of reasoning, and placed in the situations which would call out precisely the argumentative presentation of Christian truth which was required of him. When we give due place in our thoughts to the universality of the providential government of God, to the minuteness and completeness of its sway, and to its invariable efficacy, we may be inclined to ask what is needed beyond this mere providential government to secure the production of sacred books which should be in every detail absolutely accordant with the Divine will.

The answer is, Nothing is needed beyond mere providence to secure such books—provided only that it does not lie in the Divine purpose that these books should possess qualities which rise above the powers of men to produce, even under the most complete Divine guidance. For providence is guidance; and guidance can bring one only so far as his own power can carry him. If heights are to be scaled above man’s native power to achieve, then something more than guidance, however effective, is necessary. This is the reason for the superinduction, at the end of the long process of the production of Scripture, of the additional Divine operation which we call technically “inspiration.” By it, the Spirit of God, flowing confluently in with the providentially and graciously determined work of men, spontaneously producing under the Divine directions the writings appointed to them, gives the product a Divine quality unattainable by human powers alone. Thus, these books become not merely the word of godly men, but the immediate word of God Himself, speaking directly as such to the minds and hearts of every reader. The value of “inspiration” emerges, thus, as twofold. It gives to the books written under its “bearing” a quality which is truly superhuman; a trustworthiness, an authority, a searchingness, a profundity, a profitableness which is altogether Divine. And it speaks this Divine word immediately to each reader’s heart and conscience; so that he does not require to make his way to God, painfully, perhaps even uncertainly, through the words of His servants, the human instruments in writing the Scriptures, but can listen directly to the Divine voice itself speaking immediately in the Scriptural word to him.

http://www.bible-researcher.com/warfield3.html

Princeton and the Old Testament

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=2291283878


HT: Jeff Downs

"B.B. Warfield's Path to Inerrancy"

From Paul Helm (PDF).