The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture

I've quoted and/or interacted with Iain Provan's The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, which was published, not coincidentally, during the 500th anniversary or the Reformation. 

i) It's an uneven book. On the plus side, it makes some important contributions to the case for the Protestant canon, literal interpretation (as Provan defines it), and typology. And it's very well documented.

ii) On the minus side, he rejects inerrancy. In addition, he fails to directly rebut or solve the alleged problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism" spawned by sola scriptura. He doesn't seem to have a full-blown answer to that. He stakes out a compromise position similar to Keith Mathison, as well as Allen and Swain in Reformed Catholicity. For reasons I've detailed on other occasions, I think that's a conceptually confused and unstable mediating position. 

iii) However, he doesn't seem to think it's that big a deal. For one thing, he doesn't seem to think the Bible is that ambiguous or obscure. He remarks on how Jesus and Paul directly appeal to the OT to prooftext their positions. And they do this in public speeches to rank-and-file Jews, not just the experts. Likewise, Paul takes for granted that a Gentile audience should be able to follow his OT-based arguments.

iv) In addition, since Provan doesn't think the Church of Rome has a living oracle, the invidious contrast between fallible Protestant interpretation and infallible Catholic interpretation is illusory. Catholics are in the same boat as Protestants: they just pretend that they occupy a different boat. If interpretive pluralism is a problem, that's a problem for both sides. It's just that Rome tries to camouflage the problem. 

v) Provan also notes that the Catholic church has come around to Protestant positions on hermeneutics and textual criticism, so that diminishes the contrast. 

vi) There's the further fact that Provan is an academic whose Catholic dialogue partners are fellow academics. There's a difference between the quaint Catholicism of lay Catholic pop apologists and mainstream Catholic Bible scholarship representing spokesmen with Catholic training and institutional positions. The reactionary antimodernist scholarship of Brandt Pitre (and his sidekick John Bergsma, a convert to Catholicism) is virtually a lone exception.

So to some extent I think Provan's book is a failure. It doesn't provide a fully-satisfactory alternative to Catholicism (although that wasn't it's only aim). It can, however, be cannibalized from some very useful spare parts. 

The Legacy of the Reformation

https://arcdigital.media/the-legacy-of-the-reformation-3e03f30af49f

Faith Alone: The Doctrine of Justification

Tom Schreiner has just published an exegetical defense of the Pauline/Protestant doctrine of sola fide. A useful corrective in an age of willful ecumenical confusion.

An 11th Century “Sinner’s Prayer”

There is an exhortation of Anselm (1033-1109) to a dying brother, written in the most comforting words: “When a brother seems to be in his death struggle, it is godly and advisable to exercise him through a prelate or other priest with written questions and exhortations. He may be asked in the first place: ‘Brother, are you glad that you will die in the faith?’ let him answer: ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you confess that you did not live as well as you should have?’ ‘I confess.’ ‘Are you sorry for this?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you willing to better yourself if you should have further time to live?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has died for you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you believe that you cannot be saved except through his death?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you heartily thank him for this?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Therefore always give thanks to him while your soul is in you, and on this death alone place your whole confidence. Commit yourself wholly to this death, with this death cover yourself wholly, and wrap yourself in it completely. And if the Lord should want to judge you, say: “Lord, I place the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between me and thee and thy judgment; I will not contend with Thee in any other way.” If he says that you have merited damnation, say: “I place the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between myself and my evil deserts, and the merits of his most worthy passion I bring in place of the merit which I should have had, and, alas, do not have.” ’

Commenting on Sola Fide prior to the Reformation. Martin Chemnitz, “Examination of the Council of Trent, Part 1, Eighth Topic: “Concerning Justification”, Section II, “Testimonies of the Ancients Concerning Justification, pg 511.

Bavinck and Berkhof

"Bavinck and Berkhof" by Paul Helm.

"The End of Protestantism"

I'm going to comment on this post:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/11/the-end-of-protestantism

When I studied at Cambridge, I discovered that English Evangelicals define themselves over against the Church of England. Whatever the C of E is, they ain’t.

Since most English Evangelicals are Evangelical Anglicans, his statement is demonstrably false.

What I’m calling “Protestantism” does the same with Roman Catholicism. Protestantism is a negative theology; a Protestant is a not-Catholic. Whatever Catholics say or do, the Protestant does and says as close to the opposite as he can.

That wasn't even true of the Protestant Reformers, who were ex-Catholics. They had a positive identity. They defined themselves in reference to the faith of the Old and New Testaments. And, with due qualifications, they identified with certain church fathers. 

Leithart's statement is even more inaccurate this far down the pike. Protestant theology has continued to develop internally. It's focus on Scripture has meant continuous engagement and reengagement with the text of Scripture. To pick some names at random, it's preposterous to say Tom Schreiner, Darrell Bock, Bruce Waltke, Desi Alexander, Jim Hamilton, Daniel Block, D. A. Carson, John Currid, Gregory Beale, Frank Thielman, Peter O'Brien, J. A. Motyer, and O. Palmer Robertson are defined by their opposition to Roman Catholicism.  

A Protestant exaggerates his distance from Roman Catholicism on every point of theology and practice, and is skeptical of Roman Catholics who say that they believe in salvation by grace. 

That's because, when Roman Catholics say they are saved by grace, we read the fine print. The riders.  

A Protestant believes (old-fashioned) Roman Catholic claims about its changeless stability. A Reformational Catholic knows that the Roman Catholicism has changed and is changing.

Which doesn't mean it's changing for the better.

Some Protestants don’t view Roman Catholics as Christians, and won’t acknowledge the Roman Catholic Church as a true church. 

For good reason. 

A Reformational Catholic regards Catholics as brothers, and regrets the need to modify that brotherhood as “separated.”

Leithard is unwittingly giving us reasons not to be Reformational Catholics. 

 To a Reformational Catholic, it’s blindingly obvious that there’s a billion-member Church of Jesus Christ centered in Rome. 

Which says everything about Leithart's values, and nothing about the church of Rome. 

Because it regards the Roman Catholic Church as barely Christian, Protestantism leaves Roman Catholicism to its own devices. “They” had a pedophilia scandal, and “they” have a controversial pope. A Reformational Catholic recognizes that turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church is turmoil in his own family.

First of all, why the past tense. They had a pedophilia scandal? That's not a thing of the past.

They have it, in part due to their policy of mandatory priestly celibacy, and in part due to a permissive theology that's all about unconditional forgiveness. 

That's not a case of turmoil in the Protestant family unless your denomination has the same theology and/or policy. 

A Protestant views the Church as an instrument for individual salvation. A Reformational Catholic believes salvation is inherently social.

Societies aren't justified by faith. Individuals are. Societies aren't redeemed by the penal substitution of Christ. Individuals are. Societies don't go to heaven or hell when they pass away. Individuals do. 

A Protestant’s heroes are Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and their heirs.

To the extent that I have a "hero," that would be Jesus. 

 If he acknowledges any ancestry before the Reformation, they are proto-Protestants like Hus and Wycliffe. A Reformational Catholic gratefully receives the history of the entire Church as his history, and, along with the Reformers, he honors Augustine and Gregory the Great and the Cappadocians, Alcuin and Rabanus Maurus, Thomas and Bonaventure, Dominic and Francis and Dante, Ignatius and Teresa of Avila, Chesterton, de Lubac and Congar as fathers, brothers, and sisters. A Reformational Catholic knows some of his ancestors were deeply flawed but won’t delete them from the family tree. He knows every family has its embarrassments.

Ignatius Loyola was the spearhead of the Counter-Reformation. He was militantly anti-Protestant. 

Protestants are suspicious of a public, “Constantinian” church. 

That's a matter of definition.

A Protestant mocks patristic and medieval biblical interpretation and finds safety in grammatical-historical exegesis.

Modern Catholic Bible scholars like Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer, John Meier, John Collins, Luke Timothy Johnson are scarcely any different.    

A Reformational Catholic revels in the riches, even while he puzzles over the oddities, of Augustine and Origen, Bernard and Bede. He knows there are unplumbed depths in Scripture, never dreamt of by Luther and Calvin.

When you adopt the hermeneutics of Origin, Augustine, and Bernard, et al., you're not plumbing the depths of Scripture. At best, your plumbing the depths of Origin, Augustine, and Bernard. What they project onto Scripture. You're exploring their minds rather than the minds of the Bible writers. 

When Leithard turns to the fanciful, allegorical expositions of Origin or Bernard to discover the depths of Scripture, he's inadvertently disclosing that he thinks Scripture is shallow. It has to be supplemented by pious nonsense. 

In addition, life is short. If you spread yourself as thin as Leithard, something has to give. The more time you spend on Bernard or Teresa of Avila, the less time you have for Scripture, or a serious commentary on Scripture. And by looking for direction from the wrong guides, he is missing out on the truly unplumbed deaths of Scripture.

A Protestant wears a jacket and tie, or a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, to lead worship; a Reformational Catholic is vested in cassock and stole. 

Did Jesus wear a cassock and stole at the Last Supper? Or did he wear his ordinary work clothes? 

To a Protestant, a sacrament is an aid to memory. 

Sounds good to me. 

A Reformational Catholic believes that Jesus baptizes and gives himself as food to the faithful, and doesn’t avoid speaking of “Eucharist” or “Mass” just because Roman Catholics use those words.

I don't avoid the word Eucharist. However, the "Mass" is a brand name. No point calling a communion service a "Mass" unless you espouse the theology of the Mass. 

Protestantism has had a good run. It remade Europe and made America. It inspired global missions, soup kitchens, church plants, and colleges in the four corners of the earth. But the world and the Church have changed, and Protestantism isn’t what the Church, including Protestants themselves, needs today. It’s time to turn the protest against Protestantism and to envision a new way of being heirs of the Reformation, a new way that happens to conform to the original Catholic vision of the Reformers.

Well, Jesus warned us to be very particular about our spiritual genealogy:

29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers (Mt 23:29-32).

Parting with God Without Parts

In this post I’m going to comment on Dolezal’s theory of divine simplicity. This is an extension of my response to Shannon’s critique of the Welty/Anderson’s theistic ontology of logic. One of Shannon’s objections was to deploy the theory of simplicity against Welty/Anderson. And Shannon is indebted to Dolezal.

Historically, some Reformed theologians like Owen and Turretin defended divine simplicity. They did so in opposition to Socinians and Remonstrants. In that respect, I support what they are opposing.

However, it would be a mistake to imagine that there’s a Reformed consensus on this issue. For instance, Charles Hodge was an outspoken opponent of divine simplicity.

Dolezal seems to have a following in some Reformed circles. One reason may simply be that he’s a Calvinist, so there’s a built-in constituency for whatever a Calvinist publishes. A sympathetic predisposition.

It may also be that some young Calvinists enjoy philosophical theology. They’d like to see Calvinists get back in the game. They look forward to a renaissance of Reformed scholasticism.

I have no problem with that. But we must also acknowledge the limitations of philosophical theology.

In addition, divine simplicity is often presented as a bulwark for classical theism generally. To some extent, I think divine simplicity becomes a synecdoche for other components of the classical theistic package, like aseity, impassibility, timeless eternality, omnipotence, omniscience. By the same token, some (but not all) of those who object divine simplicity do so because they object to other components of classical theism.

But in that case we need to be clear. Are we defending simplicity in its own right, or by association with other tenets we hold dear? Is simplicity inseparable from the other tenets? And what if simplicity is actually in tension with some other important tenets?

Dolezal’s monograph doesn’t address major objections to divine simplicity involving divine freedom, the Incarnation, and the Trinity. He does, however, sketch his position in that respect in other forums. Among other things, he’s said:

As a Christian who confesses God’s incomprehensibility based upon his pure actuality, I cannot see how I can avoid appealing to mystery in the sense of (1). Yet there seem to be good reasons for this appeal. Most notably, as pure act God is beyond all categorical being and thus beyond definition in any scientific sense. (Hence, my commitment to analogical predication about God) It is God as ipsum esse subsistens (or, in biblical terms, as “I AM”) that chiefly accounts for his incomprehensibility and the mystery that permeates any discussion of his existence, essence, or triunity.

With respect to the difficulty of explaining how God is both free and simple (point 4 of your post), I would not locate the mystery primarily in the “conjunction” of the terms, but in the terms themselves. Yes, the conjunction is mysterious and I, like you, am not convinced by the numerous theistic attempts to overcome it. But, if I do indeed make a “mysterian move” it is not made at the end of a process in which I have grasped all the terms involved and simply cannot figure out how to link them together. Rather, I confess divine mystery at the outset, at the moment I conceive of God as pure act (as “I AM”). Admittedly, I did not make this as clear as I should have in chapter 7 of my book. The mystery of the conjunction follows from the mystery of God’s purely actual existence. Indeed, the mystery of divine freedom itself follows from the same. It is for this reason that I don’t expect (or even desire) “resolution” to the difficulty; such resolution could only be achieved by eradicating the ontological distinction between God and his creatures (which I would regard as impossible since God cannot produce a purely actual being distinct from himself). In this regard the “cognitive limitation” of humans is be located not in the circumstances of their present mental development or non-development, but in the fact of their ontological and intellectual compositeness.

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2012/01/dolezal-on-divine-simplicity-does-he-make-a-mysterian-move.html?cid=6a010535ce1cf6970c0168e672e00f970c#comment-6a010535ce1cf6970c0168e672e00f970c

 

If God produced the world by an absolute necessity then his very being as God would be correlative to the world’s existence. But such correlativity would obviate his pure actuality, i.e., he would be made actual in some sense by something other than himself and consequently would fail to satisfy the requirements for an agent that is pure act. In other words, he couldn’t be the absolutely sufficient explanation for the world’s existence if he were in any way correlative to the world.

It seems to follow, then, that if an absolutely simple God is going to create (and only a simple God satisfies the requirements for creation ex nihilo) he must do so freely.

I am hesitant to move too quickly in the direction of “libertarian freedom” before considering other ways in which divine freedom might be expressed. Perhaps most importantly, if divine simplicity means that God’s is the primary object and final end of all his knowing and willing (as I argue in chapter 6 of my book), then he is first and foremost free in that older Aristotelian sense of the one who is “for himself.” As pure act, he must be most “for himself” and thus most free, absolutely free of dependence upon all things not identical with him. I think that this is one sense of divine freedom that is often lost sight of in the modern stress upon power for counterfactuals.

Still, you are right to raise the question of God’s power for counterfactuals. How shall I explain the modality of such freedom? I confess that I cannot. I have no idea how to adequately express the modality of a free choice made by an agent who is pure act. And yet his pure actuality requires that his will for the world’s existence be free. I would not hesitate to affirm that human libertarian freedom is an analogue of this divine liberty; but it fails to convey the precise modality of that freedom as it is in God. Human acts of knowledge are also analogues of the divine act of knowledge and they too do not disclose an adequate (or univocal) notion of the modality of God’s knowledge. As I cannot form a univocal notion of God’s pure actuality, neither can I form a univocal notion of all he does in that actuality (knowing, willing, relating among the divine persons, creating, etc.).

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2012/01/dolezal-on-divine-simplicity-does-he-make-a-mysterian-move.html?cid=6a010535ce1cf6970c01630096acf9970d#comment-6a010535ce1cf6970c01630096acf9970d

i) Dolezal is resorting to mystery or paradox to justify his position. A position grounded in his view of divine incomprehensibility.

ii) I think appeal to mystery or paradox is a legitimate defense when we’re dealing with revealed truths. Faith in revealed truths is authorized by divine revelation.

However, I don’t think simplicity enjoys the status of a revealed truth. Simplicity is a philosophical construct. Even if it has some revelatory truths feeding into it, I think it goes well beyond the logical implications of God’s self-revelation.

That, of itself, doesn’t make it illicit. However, that does have two consequences:

a) As a philosophical construct, it has to withstand philosophical scrutiny. It can’t be justified by arguing from authority, for it’s not a revealed truth. The theory of divine simplicity is only as good as the rational arguments marshaled in its favor. It must stand or fall at the bar of reason. It must be cogent on its own terms. It can’t fall back divine authorization.

b) In case of conflict between the theory of divine simplicity and revealed truths, we should sacrifice simplicity. We can’t defend simplicity at the expense of revealed truths.

iii) There’s a viciously circular quality to his appeal. For simplicity figures in his definition of divine incomprehensibility based on God’s pure actuality. Isn’t simplicity one of the primary ways in which he explicates the pure actuality of God? If simplicity grounds divine incomprehensibility, then he can’t turn around and invoke divine incomprehensibility to give it cover.

iv) He seems to duck the question of whether God has counterfactual power. I assume that’s because he hasn’t made up his mind. And I assume he hasn’t made up his mind because he doesn’t have a strategy for reconciling divine counterfactual power with his precommitment to divine simplicity. At the same time, he clearly wants to affirm something like divine counterfactual power.

v) Consider what it would mean to deny God’s counterfactual power. It would mean the actual world exhausted the resources of divine omnipotence. But surely that’s implausible. Does God lack the knowledge or power to do a single thing differently than he did? Can’t God imagine alternatives? If so, is God impotent to do what he imagines?

vi) That would also make the created order commensurate with God. The finite effect would mirror the scope of divine omnipotence. A spent force.

vii) In addition, if God lacks counterfactual power, then the Son cannot become incarnate in one world unless he is incarnate in every possible world. But is it reasonable to stipulate that there is no possible world where the Son is not incarnate? Doesn’t the Bible tie the Incarnation to redemption, which is, in turn, tied to the Fall? Is every possible world a fallen world?

viii) Some Calvinists might say that we’re already used to denying human counterfactual power, so there’s no compelling reason why we should apply a different definition to God. There are, however, some basic problems with that comparison:

a) Calvinists deny the specific contention that humans must have counterfactual power to be moral agents. But the argument for divine freedom is not predicated on the assumption that God must have counterfactual freedom to be a moral agent.

b) Calvinists typically deny human counterfactual power precisely because that would conflict with divine counterfactual power. The human agent would be choosing what will happen rather than God. The creature would control the outcome. So the denial of human counterfactual power stands in contrast to divine power.

c) Apropos (b), why should Calvinists expend so much energy rebutting freewill theist restrictions on divine sovereignty only to embrace divine simplicity? Why stand adamantly opposed to Arminian, Molinist, and open theist restrictions on God’s sovereignty to spin around and enthusiastically accept a theory of divine simplicity which imposes a restriction on God’s sovereignty at least as radical (and arguably more so)? It’s like barring a wolf at the front door while inviting a tiger inside through the backdoor.

ix) One source of the problem may be the way in which Dolezal defines counterfactual freedom. He seems to think counterfactual freedom involves one or two assumptions: (a) choosing which possible world to create requires God to transition from a state of indecision to a state of resolve; (b) God’s range of options is confined to platonic realm of abstract objects or a plenum of preexistent possibilities, which subsist independently of God.

However, God’s counterfactual freedom doesn’t require either one of those assumptions. God’s omnipotence is the source of alternate possibilities, and his choice of one possibility over another is a timeless intention.

x) When he says:

As pure act God is beyond all categorical being and thus beyond definition in any scientific sense. (Hence, my commitment to analogical predication about God)

That seems reminiscent of Neoplatonism, where God is not a being, however exalted, but beyond being or nonbeing. Isn’t that a form of words without any intelligible concept to back it up?

Moreover, his statement seems to commit him, not to analogical predication, but apophaticism. God is incommensurable with human experience. None of our categories corresponds to what God is really like, in himself.

I don’t see how appeal to analogy will salvage his position, for analogy is a comparative relation. But if God is beyond all categorical being and thus beyond definition in any scientific sense, then we have no comparative frame of reference. 

xi) When he says:

It is God as ipsum esse subsistens (or, in biblical terms, as “I AM”) that chiefly accounts for his incomprehensibility and the mystery that permeates any discussion of his existence, essence, or triunity…Rather, I confess divine mystery at the outset, at the moment I conceive of God as pure act (as “I AM”).

Is he deriving the concept of God as pure act from God’s name in Exod 3:16? That’s how Aquinas tries to prooftext his position:

I answer that, This name HE WHO IS is most properly applied to God, for three reasons:

First, because of its signification. For it does not signify form, but simply existence itself. Hence since the existence of God is His essence itself, which can be said of no other (Q[3], A[4]), it is clear that among other names this one specially denominates God, for everything is denominated by its form.

Secondly, on account of its universality. For all other names are either less universal, or, if convertible with it, add something above it at least in idea; hence in a certain way they inform and determine it. Now our intellect cannot know the essence of God itself in this life, as it is in itself, but whatever mode it applies in determining what it understands about God, it falls short of the mode of what God is in Himself. Therefore the less determinate the names are, and the more universal and absolute they are, the more properly they are applied to God. Hence Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i) that, "HE WHO IS, is the principal of all names applied to God; for comprehending all in itself, it contains existence itself as an infinite and indeterminate sea of substance." Now by any other name some mode of substance is determined, whereas this name HE WHO IS, determines no mode of being, but is indeterminate to all; and therefore it denominates the "infinite ocean of substance."

Thirdly, from its consignification, for it signifies present existence; and this above all properly applies to God, whose existence knows not past or future, as Augustine says (De Trin. v).

Reply to Objection 1: This name HE WHO IS is the name of God more properly than this name "God," as regards its source, namely, existence; and as regards the mode of signification and consignification, as said above. But as regards the object intended by the name, this name "God" is more proper, as it is imposed to signify the divine nature; and still more proper is the Tetragrammaton, imposed to signify the substance of God itself, incommunicable and, if one may so speak, singular.

Reply to Objection 2: This name "good" is the principal name of God in so far as He is a cause, but not absolutely; for existence considered absolutely comes before the idea of cause.

Reply to Objection 3: It is not necessary that all the divine names should import relation to creatures, but it suffices that they be imposed from some perfections flowing from God to creatures. Among these the first is existence, from which comes this name, HE WHO IS.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/sum016.htm#FP_Q13_A11-p5.1

a) There is no scholarly consensus on the right way to render the Tetragrammaton. Cf. V. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Baker 2011), 64-66.

b) Even if the rendering favored by Aquinas and Dolezal was correct, it commits the word-concept fallacy to imagine that you can derive the highly specialized concept of “pure act” from one of God’s Hebrew names.

Yes, I do interact with the truthmaker account and argue that it provides a way out of the problems that plague the various “property accounts” of DDS defenders like Stump, Kretzmann, and Mann. In short, I conclude that God does not actually possess properties in a metaphysical sense. All talk about “divine properties” is simply an accommodation to our creaturely way of thinking. Among the truthmaker theorists, I found Jeffrey Brower to be the most useful for the Reformed and Thomistic view of simplicity.

http://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc185/#comment-53830

i) There are problems with the truthmaker defense. For instance:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/#TruDef

ii) In addition, we don’t have to begin with a general category of “properties” or “attributes.” We can start with specific ascriptions of Scripture, viz. God is just, holy, righteous, gracious, merciful.

Justice characterizes God. So does mercy. Surely those ascriptions aren’t merely accommodations to our creaturely way of thinking. Is there nothing in God to which those ascriptions actually correspond? Is God in himself “beyond” those categories? That’s not Reformed theology. That’s theological noncognitivism.

Likewise, is justice reducible to mercy, and vice versa? Doesn’t Calvinism demand that justice and mercy are not interchangeable? According to Reformed theology, God treats the elect mercifully in contrast to treating the reprobate justly. Likewise, justice is necessary whereas mercy is discretionary.

Why would a Calvinist adopt a theory (simplicity) that erases these crucial distinctions? Isn’t that antithetical to Calvinism?

Martin Luther’s Understanding of Baptism

Since most of our readers are Reformed, and since the Lutheran concept of baptism has been brought up, I thought it would be helpful to share what Bernhard Lohse, a Lutheran Professor of Church History and Historical Theology, has written about Luther’s view of the sacraments in general and of baptism in particular:

Formation of a new, Reformation theology of baptism went hand in hand with Luther’s entire theological development, particularly during his first lectures on the Psalms and Romans. In dealing with the sacraments, concentration on questions such as judgment and gospel, righteousness and faith, or on the divine promise and human confidence, led to a new impulse and important consequences: the criterion under which Luther dealt with baptism and baptismal usage. In other words, the relation of baptism to life from the perspective of the acceptance of the divine judgment promised in baptism took center stage. Since Luther’s understanding of the nature of sin was more radical than the theology of late scholasticism, he could no longer share the view that baptism purges inherited sin, of which a mere “tinder” (fomes) remains, and against the seductions of which the baptized can successfully resist.

Reformation Season

Jason Engwer has made the appeal here a number of times that we should not forget Reformation Day. I was perusing some of the other Reformed sites, and there are, on Reformation Day (October 31), a number of articles entitled “A Reformation Day Thought” or “A Reformation Day Article”.

Given that I’m a marketer by trade, I’d like to suggest that we expand “Reformation Day” into “Reformation Season”. After all, the secular marketers do that all the time – we are in “election season” right now, and “Halloween season”, and before you know it, the Christmas season (or in Pittsburgh, “Sparkle season”) will be coming along, too.

The concept, too, can be found in church history: the Easter “season”, the Pentecost “season”. These were attempts, even by the early church, to recognize that, even in the midst of the kinds of illness and death to which they were subjected, that life goes on. And it goes on in “seasons”.

But “Reformation Season” should not just be limited to the next two weeks. It should extend through the next five years – October 31, 2017 will be the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. It wasn’t really the beginning. Luther taught through the Psalms from 1513 through 1515. He taught through Romans (1515–1516), Galatians (1516–1517) and Hebrews (1517–1518). All of these will give us ample opportunities for reflection.

And nor will 2017 be the end of the “season”, because we’ll still have the 500th anniversary of the Diet of Worms, for example (2021), the Marburg Colloquy (2029), the first publication of the Institutes (2036), the publication of the Institutes that we have now (2059), and that’s not to mention all of the confessions.


Rome managed to survive the Reformation era, in part, because of a huge misinformation campaign it put out about Martin Luther. For such times as the enemy chooses to “act-up”, we have tremendous resources at our disposal, such as James Swan’s Exposing the Myth series, as well as his other Martin Luther archives.


On the “other side of the aisle”, too, we should not forget that during these next five years, the Roman Catholics will be talking about the 50th anniversary of Vatican II. We should not hesitate to investigate the liberal theologies that they adopted, condemned by Pius X, but warmly welcomed by smiling “Good Pope John”. We should not forget the inconsistencies they adopted with the “Separated brethren” stance.

We should not forget that in the years since the Reformation, Rome adopted such unhistorical atrocities as papal infallibility (1870), as well as two idolatrous Marian dogmas (1854 and 1950), which it imposed on the world, with the intention that “to oppose and counter” these dogmas, would bring with it “the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”

What a statement. It would be humorous if they weren’t so serious about it.

This is what we’re dealing with in the world, though. And if we look upon the next five – or 50 – years as a “season”, it can be a “teaching moment” that the world will not soon forget.

The Donum Superadditum, Aquinas, Pseudo-Dionysius, and the false and empty nature of Roman Catholic Tradition

WSC professor of historical theology Scott Clark has put up a post that I think gets to the heart of the disagreement between the Reformers and Rome.

http://heidelblog.net/2012/10/defining-nature-grace-dualism/

To begin to come to some understanding consider these passages from an essay by Herman Bavinck, “Calvin and Common Grace,” trans. Geerhardus Vos The Princeton Theological Review 7 (1909): 437–65, in which he gave an account of his understanding of the differences between the medieval and Reformation churches on the relations between nature and grace. In the medieval period,

The Church, however, is not merely the possessor of supernatural truth; in the second plea it is also the depository and dispenser of supernatural grace. As the Church doctrine is infinitely exalted above all human knowledge and science, so the grace kept and distributed by the Church far transcends nature. It is true this grace is, among other things, gratia medicinal is, but this is an accidental and adventitious quality. Before all else it is gratia elevans, something added to and elevating above nature. As such it entered into the image of God given to Adam before the Fall, and as such it again appears in the restoration to that original state. In view of its adding to exalted nature a supernatural element, it is conceived as something material, enclosed in the sacrament, and as such dispensed by the priest. Thus every man becomes, for his knowledge of supernatural truth and for his reception of supernatural grace, that is, for his heavenly salvation, absolutely dependent on the Church, the priest and the sacrament. Extra ecclesiam null salus.

The most important thing to observe here is that, in this conception, grace elevates nature. Thomas (Aquinas) taught that grace “perfects” nature, that creation is inherently imperfect. It is not that, as the Reformed would say later, creation was created awaiting glorification. It was, rather, that creation was inherently corrupt. As Bavinck wrote,

The world, the state, natural life, marriage and culture are not sinful in themselves; only they are of a lower order, of a secular nature, and unless consecrated by the Church, easily become an occasion for sinning.

Again, the thing to notice is the hierarchical conception of existence. Gradually, through the medieval period, the Western church came to think of the relations between God and man as an ontologically hierarchy with man at the bottom and God at the top.

The whole hierarchical idea is built on the sharp distinction between nature and grace.

This gets at the crux of the issue: “the sharp distinction between nature and grace.” Which, distinction, according to Bavinck, was repudiated by the Reformation.

…the Reformation of the sixteenth century differed from all these attempts in that it not merely opposed the Roman system in its excresences but attacked it internally in the foundations on which it rested and in the principles out of which it had been developed. The Reformation rejected the entire system, and substituted for it a totally different conception of veritias, gratia, and bona opera.

This is an under appreciated element of the Reformation, the reassertion of the distinction between the Creator and the creature. That distinction destroyed the hierarchy and asserted a strict analogy between God and man. According to the Reformation, salvation was no longer to be considered deification, participating in the divine being, or “elevation” but deliverance from wrath, free acceptance by God on the basis of Christ’s righteousness imputed and received through faith (trusting in Christ). Sanctification, conformity to Christ, became the consequence of justification.

This account of the difference between the medieval and Reformation is consistent with the way the Reformed saw the issue.

Thus, for Bavinck, the issue seems to have been two things: a hierarchical ontology (view of being) and the “sharp distinction” (dualism) between nature and grace.

The key difference is this: in the Protestant scheme, the Biblical statement (Gen 1:31) is authoritative: that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good”. Man, as created, was “very good”.

But in the Roman Catholic scheme, created man was not “good enough”, and a “donum superadditum” (“superadded grace”) needed to be “added”. In the Roman Catholic scheme, in the fall, man only lost this “donum superadditum”. But in the Protestant scheme, there was no “superadded grace” to lose. Man simply became dead in sin.

This “ontological” distinction had some history in the early church.

Another egregious difference, more importantly, that Clark points out, is “the hierarchical conception of existence”. As he says, “gradually, through the medieval period, the Western church came to think of the relations between God and man as an ontologically hierarchy with man at the bottom and God at the top.”

Aquinas relies heavily on this “hierarchy”, which is a neo-Platonic concept, which Aquinas got from a sixth century theologian named “Pseudo-Dionysius”. He is “pseudo” because he tried to portray himself as the first-century Dionysius, a companion of Paul, from Acts 17:34.

Aquinas believed that Pseudo-Dionysius was the real thing, and he relied on him as a source almost as authoritative as Scripture. Such is the vacuous nature of Roman Catholic “Tradition” that it relies so heavily on an imposter, and they didn’t even know it.

I suspect more of this sort of thing will follow.

[Bryan Cross’s name inserted here so it comes up on a Google Alert, and he can try to respond to this one.]