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Monday, February 21, 2011

Heidelbog

HEIDELBLOG SAID:

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. 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?

Which misses the point. You deny that Baptists can be “Reformed” because, according to you, Baptist theology is contraconfessional.

Yet I don’t see you saying the same thing about Meredith Kline. So this presents a dilemma:

i) Either you think Kline, despite his contraconfessional positions, was still Reformed–in which case you need to explain why his contraconfessional positions remains within the bounds Reformed identity while the (allegedly) contraconfessional positions of a Baptist who, lets us say, subscribes to the LBCF, are out of bounds with Reformed identity,

or else:

ii) Deny that Meredith Kline and his disciples are really Reformed.

Horns of what dilemma? In a post-theocratic world (after the expiration of the Mosaic theocracy) no state is authorized by the Creator to enforce religious orthodoxy. Israel was unique in world history. No other state has ever been authorized to enforce religious orthodoxy. The primary function of the state, in the nature of things, is to keep citizens, as much as possible, from killing one another and to punish those who violate that law. That's the plain teaching of Rom. There's not a hint of theocracy in the NT. Never did the apostles ask the magistrate to do anything but enforce the sort of justice I sketched above. National israel was a supernaturally state. All other states before and since are not supernaturally constituted.  This isn't a OT v NT but it is a recognition of the intentionally temporary nature of the Mosaic theocracy, something that is taught explicitly in WCF 19. It was the divines, not Clark, who gave us the word "expired." How is this arbitrary or inconsistent?

That simply ducks the issue which Lee raised. To restate the dilemma:

i) On the one hand, 2k opposes theocracy/theonomy

ii) On the other hand, 2k (of the type that you and others [e.g. VanDrunen] advocate) grounds the duties of the civil magistrate in natural law.

That, however, generates a dilemma. As Lee points out (which I already quoted above):

Since he [Clark] has appealed to natural law as the foundational principle of his theory of civil government, he is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Either he maintains his foundational principle (namely, that the civil magistrate has a moral obligation to enforce the moral law) and applies it consistently to the civil enforcement of the entire moral law, both the so-called first and the second table. Or he backs down and makes a much less dramatic claim: the civil magistrate may enforce parts of the moral law to the extent that it promotes good order and well-being in society. But then Clark would no longer be able to claim that the civil magistrate is morally required to enforce the creational boundaries concerning marriage. The civil magistrate could still enforce the creational boundaries concerning marriage, but now only on the softer ground that various sociological studies have shown that it is better for society, for children, etc., not because natural law requires it.

Accentuating the difference between Israel and the church, the old covenant and the new covenant, &c. does nothing to relieve the dilemma generated by your commitment to natural law, over against your opposition to theocracy/theonomy.

This is why all the American Reformed/Presbyterian churches have revised their confessions. The Dutch churches no longer confess and have positively rejected the old version of BC 36.

i) That’s irrelevant to natural law

ii) Moreover, once you pull that string, your effort to tie Reformed identity to confessional identity unravels. For at that juncture it’s no longer the confessions defining the church, but the church defining (or redefining) the confessions. The churches, rather than historic creeds, catechisms, and confessions, become the yardstick of Reformed identity. Reformed identity is whatever the confessions say, but the confessions say whatever the churches make them say. So your confessional grounding is viciously circular and relativistic.

If, tomorrow, the URC revises the canons of Dordt to accommodate the five articles of the Remonstrants, then that’s consistent with Reformed identity.

11 comments:

  1. Steve: So your confessional grounding is viciously circular and relativistic.

    Vytautas: The circle seems large. What the Reformed churches confessed happened during periods of time, over amounts of space, and among different nations. This buffer does not allow for sudden changes.

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  2. The revisions to the WCF (on statecraft) do involve a sudden change, owing to the aftermath of the American Revolution.

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  3. I'dd add that even the Dutch church's rejection of article 36 of the Belgic still isn't congenial to 2K statecraft. Darryl Hart says it's not something a theonomist would like, but neither is it something a 2ker should like. So Clark still has a Confessional problem, or maybe he can correct Darryl Hart.

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  4. I'd add that beyond formal revision, you also have nonenforcement. Take the fact that denominations like the OPC and PCA don't enforce the Westminster Standards on the creation days. That's a de facto revision, even if they didn't actually rewrite the terms of the creed.

    Right now I'm not debating the merits of the case–either on statecraft or creation. Just discussing the internal tensions generated by Clark's position.

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  5. Steve: The revisions to the WCF (on statecraft) do involve a sudden change, owing to the aftermath of the American Revolution.

    Vytautas: The Revolution did not happen over night and neither did American revision of theocratic/erastian sections of the WCF. The definition of Reformed is not absolute, but it drags along the drift of historical circumstance.

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  6. Except that Clark is defining Reformed identity in terms of historic 16-17C creeds. Once you allow for common sense qualifications, Clark is shooting blanks instead of silver bullets at the Reformed Baptists.

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  7. "Either you think Kline, despite his contraconfessional positions, was still Reformed–in which case you need to explain why his contraconfessional positions remains within the bounds Reformed identity while the (allegedly) contraconfessional positions of a Baptist who, lets us say, subscribes to the LBCF, are out of bounds with Reformed identity,"

    Didn't you discuss this horn of the dilemma with your post titled "Selective Confessionalism"?

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  8. I think Baptists aren't Reformed because they're more particular...I think that's what Clark is saying.

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  9. Look, this is silly,. Yes, Reformed theology has developed. It did so by rejecting theocracy, which was not essential to the Reformed confession. What was essential was (and remains) that the civil magistrate is God's minister for justice in the civil sphere. What is essential is the basic distinction between the civil and spiritual spheres or kingdoms under God's sovereign providence.

    The same is true of creation. Most Reformed theologians have matured beyond the views held in the 17th century but we still confess that God sovereignly spoke into nothing.

    The essence of the confession hasn't changed. Baptism is essential to the Reformed confession. Theocracy isn't.

    Why don't you read RRC? I tried to make the case there that not everything is equally important but that there is a core.

    Seems to me that if we never revised any of our views, then you would attack as unreflective traditionalists. But, when the churches get together and revise the confession, as in the case of BC 36, which is amenable to the 2K (see Danny Hyde's commentary on the Belgic Confession) then you accuse us of being unstable. You miss the point.

    The point is that the churches are reading God's Word together, using a common hermeneutic and reaching substantially the same conclusions now that we did in the 16th and 17th centuries but we do see a few, non-essential things, differently. We no longer think that Paul wrote Hebrews or that some books are commonly called Paralipomnon. That's hardly a defection from what was confessed originally.

    If I didn't know better I'd say that some fellows on this blog are just looking for things to criticize. I'm sure that's not true but one could hardly blame someone for thinking that.

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  10. ps. As I said on another post just as I have said that Mr Murray's experiment in revising covenant theology should have been tested in the courts of the church perhaps MGK's later views should have been tested too?

    I really don't believe that I'm being partisan here. The OPC had 50 years to charge MGK and they never did it. That may say something about the relative weakness of the case against him, I don't know. His views did develop over the years.

    It also seems a little unfair to use Lee Irons' posts to get at MGK. If the concern is with his theology, shouldn't you be dealing directly with him? It's not as if he never published anything.

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  11. “It did so by rejecting theocracy, which was not essential to the Reformed confession.”

    There is no anti-theocracy language per se in any of the (revised) Reformed confessions. How are these modifications to be taken as a “rejection?” They simply broadened the tent.

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