What is also striking in the historical record prior to Worms–in an era when people had more and more access to primary scriptural and patristic sources against which the teaching of the medieval Church could be measured–is just how often those who heard and read Luther became convinced by his arguments, even if they had begun by resolutely opposing him on the basis of their immersion in medieval scholastic theology. In 1516, Luther's Wittenberg colleague Karlstadt, for example, "who did not even own a Bible when he earned the doctor of theology degree or for many years afterward," appears in the record "as an opponent of Luther's interpretation of Augustine" and some of his other opinions. Yet very shortly thereafter Karlstadt "became convinced of Luther's views," not least because he had bought Augustine's works and actually read them for himself finding as he did that "the scholastic edifice collapsed." Another Wittenberg opponent, Thomas Dielsch, describes his own bondage to medieval scholasticism before Luther–impressing him in debates about Scripture–persuade him to turn instead to the study of the Church Fathers and the Bible. Faced for the first time with Luther's provocative tract The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), Johannes Burgenhagan "felt that Luther was the wickedest heretic; however, after examining it thoroughly he believed that Luther was the only man who had recognized the truth in the prevailing blindness and darkness." Luther's arguments did "prevail" for many people in the Church of his time–including many who ultimately chose not to join the Protestant movement–and the hierarchy of the Church was widely perceived on the other hand as resorting to power in the place of cogent argument. It was this that led John Eck to lament that even the papal bull of 1520 threatening Luther with excommun cation "lacked a refutation of Luther's errors on the basis of the Bible, the chuch fathers, and the decisions of church councils," I. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor 2017), 291-92.
Showing posts with label Luther. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luther. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 03, 2020
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Thursday, November 02, 2017
Wednesday, November 01, 2017
Friday, April 17, 2015
Erasmus was right!
According to Arminian theologian Roger Olson:
Thank you for providing this nice illustration of the kind of Calvinism I am especially opposed to. Erasmus was generally right vis-à-vis Luther in that debate. Luther just fussed and fumed and called Erasmus names and engaged in ad hominem argumentation. And he completely overlooked Erasmus' insistence of grace assisting free will in salvation. We agree about one thing: Hyper-Calvinism is true (logically consistent) Calvinism.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2015/04/why-hyper-calvinism-is-consistent-calvinism/#comment-1972445108
Friday, April 18, 2014
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Friday, November 30, 2012
Warmed over Lutheran talking-points
I see that Lutheran commenters are simply rehashing the same
arguments that I already rebutted in the past. For instance:
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Faith-ians
I find this sort of thing a bit puzzling:
It’s a bit puzzling because Lutherans are just as smart as
other Christians, so I don’t know why some Lutherans find really dumb arguments
like this convincing.
I have, over the years, talked to many Calvinists, in person and over the Internet. I always ask them, “Do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are among God’s elect and are saved?” There are generally two reactions to that question: (1) A long and rather painful pause after which they say, “I hope I am. I do believe in Christ.”
So what? Why assume every Christian should be able to say he
knows “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that he’s saved?
Also, why frame the question in terms of knowing you’re
elect rather than knowing you’re saved? If a Calvinist is saved, he knows that
he’s saved the same way other saved Christians know that they are saved. (I’m
distinguishing “saved” believers from nominal believers.)
If our confidence that we are saved is based on our feeling that we have faith, we will flounder. The answer we must always give to the question of “Do you know you are saved?” is not, “Yes, because I have faith” but rather, “Yes, because Christ Jesus died for me” and of course, in my opinion, the very best answer of all is simply to point people to Luther’s explanation of the Creed and say, “Here, this puts it very well.”
Two glaringly obvious problems:
i) To answer that “Christ died for me” is, itself, a faith-statement.
That’s an expression of your faith in what you think Jesus did for you.
ii) Since Lutherans believe that Christ died for the damned,
how can our confidence that we are saved be based on universal atonement?
Never look to your subjective feeling that there is faith in your heart. Always, always, always, look to Christ and what He has done for you and the whole world. Do not confuse faith in faith, with trust in Christ. There is a key difference.
Once again, he’s ignoring the obvious. You can only “look to
Jesus” through the eye of faith. Trusting in Jesus is an act of faith. So
that’s hardly an alternative to faith-based assurance.
If you believe you are a child of God because you feel you have faith, this is no better than the Mormon who tells you about the “burning in his bosum” or the Muslim who tells you he feels the Koran is true, etc.
Of course, that’s blatantly equivocal.
Salvation rests on objective realities that have absolutely nothing to do with feelings or emotions. Faith is merely and only the receiving hand God gives us and into which He pours His good gifts, it is not the cause of our salvation.
We’re not saved apart from saving faith. Our salvation is
contingent on faith in Christ. Salvation has subjective necessary conditions as
well as objective necessary conditions.
And that’s not a problem in Calvinism, for God controls the
subjective conditions as well as the objective conditions.
It’s also fallacious to act as if Christian faith is
synonymous with mere feelings or emotions.
We are Christians, not Faith-ians.From Cyberbrethren Lutheran Blog. Nov 20th 2012.
That’s a nice-sounding slogan, but it doesn’t survive
logical or theological scrutiny.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Does baptism save?
Nicholas LeoneI was a Baptist, but after a study of the Scriptures, I became a Lutheran. The Lutheran position on Holy Baptism is the only Biblical one. Most people are offended at the idea that Baptism can save! . . . Baptism in the Holy Spirit cannot be separated from water Baptism. They happen simultaneously."1 Peter 3:21-2221 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
I don’t
usually criticize Lutheran theology. Since, however, a Lutheran commenter has
thrown down the gauntlet, I’ll respond. Lutherans are, of course, welcome to
criticize my Calvinism. I’m just pointing out that I didn’t initiate this
debate.
Before discussing specific prooftexts, let’s make a few
general observations:
i) This appeal reflects a naïve understanding of symbolism.
I realize some Christians instinctively flinch at the word “symbolism,” as if
that’s a weasel word. But this is a principled distinction.
For instance, Paul talks about how we are saved by the
cross. Needless to say, he doesn’t mean we’re literally saved by a piece of
wood. Rather, he’s using the cross as a symbol for Christ’s redemptive death at
Calvary. It’s not the wooden cross that actually saves anyone, but what that
stands for.
You can quote NT passages about the gracious efficacy of
baptism, but that’s perfectly consistent with a purely symbolic understanding
of baptism.
ii) In Acts, you can’t assume that the gift of the Spirit is
equivalent to regeneration. Rather, it’s generally used in connection with the
charismata. It’s a mistake to filter Acts through the lens of John’s Gospel or
Paul’s epistles.
iii) Lutherans subscribe to infant baptism. But in Acts, the
specific baptismal candidates are believers or converts. Promises are made to
them if they repent of their sins and believe in Jesus. And they submit to
baptism in obedience to the apostolic kerygma. You can’t simply rip that out of
its missionary setting and transfer it to babies, as if these are
interchangeable parties.
Keep in mind that I don’t object to infant baptism. But you
can’t wrest these passages out of their embedded context and make them refer to
something they don’t.
iv) In Scripture, water has three symbolic meanings: (a) a
cleansing agent; (b) a destructive agent (e.g. flood waters), and (c) a source
of life (e.g. drinking water).
Baptism trades on the natural, varied symbolism of water.
v) What Scripture sometimes attributes to the effect of
water baptism, it elsewhere attributes to the effect of faith in Christ.
Therefore, it’s logical to view the rhetorical effect of baptism as a
picturesque metaphor for the actual effect of faith.
vi) Although it’s customary for Lutherans to prooftext
baptism regeneration by citing Jn 3:5 and Tit 3:5, the baptismal referent isn’t
a given. Mere aqueous imagery doesn’t single out baptism, for aqueous imagery
is commonplace in Scripture.
vii) In Acts, there’s no normative sequence for water
baptism and the gift of the Spirit.
viii) They are inherently separable. The Holy Spirit isn’t
chained to a ritual. The Holy Spirit is a sovereign agent, free to act at his
own discretion (Jn 3:8; 1 Cor 12:11).
To insist that the Holy Spirit must regenerate the baptismal
candidate reflects a classically magical outlook. In pagan witchcraft, you can
manipulate supernatural forces to do your bidding by saying the right words in
the right order, or by doing the right things in the right order.
ix) To use 1 Pet 3:21 as a Lutheran prooftext for baptismal
regeneration proves too much. For that would mean whoever is baptized is
guaranteed salvation. Yet Lutheranism deems it possible for a born-again
Christian to lose his salvation.
x) It’s important not to overload the word “save” in 1 Pet
3:21. This is not a technical term for salvation in the soteriological sense.
Peter is punning. There’s wordplay between “salvation” from drowning (v20) and
“salvation” by baptism. But “salvation” from drowning means physical
deliverance. God rescued Noah and his family from watery death by means of the
ark. The word itself doesn’t mean spiritual salvation. That turns on the larger
context.
xi) Peter explicitly plays on the symbolic imagery of
baptism. Where dirt represents sin, and washing represents forgiveness. In
analogy with the flood, he also trades on the destructive symbolism of water.
So the rite is emblematic.
xii) As his further qualifications indicate, baptism is a
token (“pledge, appeal”) of faith in Christ, and the resultant effects of
saving faith.
xiii) Apropos (xii), Peter is clearly referring to believers
or converts who submit to baptism, as an expression of their newfound
allegiance in Christ. It doesn’t refer to babies.
BTW, I don’t object to infant baptism. But you must respect
the context of your prooftexts.
xiv) Like Jews who put their faith in the efficacy of
circumcision or their physical lineage (e.g. Mt 3), there’s a constant
temptation to substitute external rites for faith in Christ. That’s false
assurance. There’s no substitute for trusting in Christ from start to finish.
Friday, November 02, 2012
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Martin Luther and Hector Avalos
(Posted on Steve's behalf.)
Hector Avalos contributed a chapter to TCD in which he tried to pin the blame for the Holocaust on Christianity, including Martin Luther in his roster of villains. Here's a corrective to his slanted treatment:
Hector Avalos contributed a chapter to TCD in which he tried to pin the blame for the Holocaust on Christianity, including Martin Luther in his roster of villains. Here's a corrective to his slanted treatment:
Christless Calvinism!
Watch this video. American Presbyterians are aiming at planting Reformed congregations back in Germany. Watch this video and notice how lacking an articulation of the Gospel actually is. Notice particularly the first several minutes where not once is the name of Christ mentioned, and only God is referred to and his glory. The word “Gospel” is mentioned but not articulated. Typical of Calvinism, unfortunately.
http://cyberbrethren.com/2010/08/28/the-reformed-are-aiming-at-planting-the-calvinist-faith-back-in-germany/
Read this hymn:
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Read this hymn and notice how lacking an articulation of the Gospel actually is. Notice particularly the first stanza where not once is the name of Christ mentioned, and only God is referred to and his might. Typical of Lutheranism, unfortunately.
http://cyberbrethren.com/2010/08/28/the-reformed-are-aiming-at-planting-the-calvinist-faith-back-in-germany/
Read this hymn:
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Read this hymn and notice how lacking an articulation of the Gospel actually is. Notice particularly the first stanza where not once is the name of Christ mentioned, and only God is referred to and his might. Typical of Lutheranism, unfortunately.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Why Lutherans deny the empty tomb
Did you know that Lutherans deny the empty tomb? No, I don’t mean liberals like Rudolf Bultmann. I mean confessional Lutherans.
You see, Lutherans insist that, due to the hypostatic union, Jesus is physically ubiquitous. If you dispute this they accuse you of being “Nestorian” cuz you “divide” or “separate” the two natures.
So, if Jesus is everywhere, then he’s still in the empty tomb. If he’s everywhere, then that includes the tomb that Joseph of Arimathea interred him in.
Sure, Peter and John inspected the tomb on Easter Sunday. To their eyes, it looked like the tomb was empty. But this doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t really there. You see, as one Lutheran epologist recently explained, “suppose Jesus multiplied his flesh as necessary, and made it small so you couldn't see it?”
But because Peter and John were Nestorian heretics, dogmatically committed to their naturalistic philosophy, they had the temerity to say the tomb was empty!
Likewise, did you know Lutherans deny the Second Coming of Christ? That’s because Lutherans don’t think Jesus ever went away. He’s been here all the time!
Likewise, Lutherans don’t really think that Jesus actually went into the upper room. For, if Jesus is omnipresent, then Jesus never left the upper room!
Jesus was always inside upper room and outside the upper room.
You see, Lutherans insist that, due to the hypostatic union, Jesus is physically ubiquitous. If you dispute this they accuse you of being “Nestorian” cuz you “divide” or “separate” the two natures.
So, if Jesus is everywhere, then he’s still in the empty tomb. If he’s everywhere, then that includes the tomb that Joseph of Arimathea interred him in.
Sure, Peter and John inspected the tomb on Easter Sunday. To their eyes, it looked like the tomb was empty. But this doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t really there. You see, as one Lutheran epologist recently explained, “suppose Jesus multiplied his flesh as necessary, and made it small so you couldn't see it?”
But because Peter and John were Nestorian heretics, dogmatically committed to their naturalistic philosophy, they had the temerity to say the tomb was empty!
Likewise, did you know Lutherans deny the Second Coming of Christ? That’s because Lutherans don’t think Jesus ever went away. He’s been here all the time!
Likewise, Lutherans don’t really think that Jesus actually went into the upper room. For, if Jesus is omnipresent, then Jesus never left the upper room!
Jesus was always inside upper room and outside the upper room.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Lutheran cartoons
Alan did a post over at Beggars All which generated a remarkable number of comments in short order. I’ll comment on the comments that are worth commenting on.
i) Before doing so I’ll make two general observations. In the Reformed version of the communicatio idiomatum (a la Turretin), the properties of the two natures are attributable to the person of Christ. By contrast, the properties of each nature are not attributable to the other nature. There is no transference of divine properties to the human nature, or human properties to the divine nature.
ii) This debate is frequently framed in relation to the creed of Chalcedon. The key statement is “We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation (in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter). The distinction between natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.”
Lutherans typically accuse Calvinists of violating Chalcedonian Christology by “dividing” or “separating” the two natures.
However, this objection is doubled-edged since Calvinists retort by accusing Lutheran’s of violating Chalcedonian Christology by “confusing” or “changing” the two natures.
The Lutheran appeal to Chalcedon is selective and lopsided.
Edward Reiss said...
“I was wondering what you think St. Paul meant when he said the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily. Do you see any implications from that?”
That’s a picturesque description of the Incarnation–using some allusive imagery from the OT motif of God indwelling the temple. Cf. D. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (Eerdmans 2008), 193f.
Edward Reiss said...
“OK. Now I have another question. Since we all acknowledge God is infinite, how can that fullness fit inside a little baby? It would seem to violate the fact that a human bode, being finite, can contain the infinite, which might force us to say the fullness was not contained in Jesus Christ bodily.”
Reiss is implicitly defining God’s infinitude in spatial terms, as though God were a physical or material entity.
It’s odd how many professing Christians entertain a view of God which is scarcely distinguishable from a worshiper of Zeus.
So that’s like asking whether a supertanker can fit inside a matchbox. Well, if you put it that way, then the answer is “no.”
But, of course, the way in which Reiss poses the question involves a flawed assumption. Since divine infinitude is not a spatial property, the hypostatic union doesn’t involve God fitting inside the dimensions of a baby. The body of Jesus isn’t literally a “container” for God’s Son, as if the Son of God were made of subtle matter–which had to squeeze inside the confines of Mary’s womb.
Edward Reiss said...
“OK, fair enough. I would just like to know if you believe the fullness of the Godhead is in the little baby or not, as an objective fact. I will leave it at that.”
Reiss is treating a picturesque metaphor as if this were a literal description. But to properly answer the question, it’s necessary to unpack the metaphor.
A metaphor is not an objective fact. Rather, a metaphor stands for an objective fact. (At least in the case of an inspired metaphor.)
It’s an objective fact that Christ is God Incarnate.
Otherwise, we end up reading the Bible the way a Mormon does, where we make no allowance for figurative or anthropomorphic depictions of God.
L P said...
“From what I can understand on the Lutheran side, the communication of attributes is the way Luther/Lutherans explain what is happening when Jesus for example did things that only the divine could do, such as walk on water, appear at will in the disciples room after the resurrection, or vanish in their presence on the road to Emmaus etc. These things are found in Scripture and as such the examples you required, from Scripture.”
i) The obvious problem with that argument is that if you invoke the Lutheran communicatio idiomatum to explain some things involving God Incarnate, you must then, by parity of argument, apply the same principle in the case of comparable events involving mere mortals or subhuman creatures (e.g. the burning bush, floating axe head, Jonah surviving in the belly of the “whale,” Daniel’s friends surviving in the furnace). It’s odd that Lutherans are utterly oblivious to these counterexamples.
ii) Remember that in the account of Jesus walking on water we also have Peter walking on water–at Jesus’ behest. Why don’t Lutherans notice that?
Apparently they stopped reading the actual account. Instead, their knowledge of the account seems to come from a secondary source, where it’s deployed as a prooftext for Lutheran Christology.
But if Jesus walking on water was grounded in the hypostatic union and Lutheran communicatio idiomatum, then the same applies to Peter. So the argument either proves too much or too little.
Edward Reiss said...
“I think that your claims Re: Monophysitism are a little too broad, so I would like to ask a couple of questions to clarify what you believe is the relationship between Jesus' human and divine natures. These are ‘yes and no’ questions and can be easily answered by Chalcidonian Christians, and even most prots are Chalcidonian Christians.”
Of course, slick lawyers are fond of “yes or no” questions. They deliberately pose a trick question to compel a misleading answer.
Like asking a witness: “Yes or no–were the defendant’s fingerprints on the murder weapon?”
The damning insinuation is that if the defendant’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon, then that’s incriminating. They must have been there because he used the weapon to murder the decedent.
But, of course, that’s extremely misleading since it omits relevant contextual factors.
If the murder weapon belonged to the decedent, then it’s suspicions to find the defendant’s fingerprints on the murder weapon.
If, on the other hand, the murder weapon belonged to the defendant, then we’d expect to find his fingerprints on the weapon.
So beware of “yes or no” questions in apologetics. That’s generally a polemical ploy to oversimplify the issues and extract a bogus concession by arbitrarily excluding necessary qualifications.
“If you were to shake Jesus' hand during his earthly ministry, would you be shaking God's hand?”
i) That’s not a “yes or no” question since it could be either yes or no depending on the intended referent. Reiss is equivocating.
Did Jesus have a divine hand–like Thor? No. Jesus had a human hand. By shaking his hand qua hand, you’re shaking a human hand–attached to a human arm, attached to a human body.
But at another level, you’re shaking the hand of a person who has a divine nature as well as a human nature. So, in that indirect sense, yes, you’re shaking God’s hand.
The hand you shake isn’t composed of divine flesh. It doesn’t have a different composition from ordinary human flesh. Jesus didn’t have ichor flowing through his veins, rather than hemoglobin.
But it belongs to a person who is a theanthropic person.
ii) To illustrate Edward’s equivocation, let’s take a comparison. Celebrities sometimes travel incognito. They try to disguise themselves to avoid the paparazzi.
Suppose you caught sight of Catherine Deneuve when she was traveling incognito. What did you see? Is that a “yes or no” question? Not really.
i) In one respect, you didn’t actually see (i.e. perceive) Catherine Deneuve. All you saw was her disguise.
ii) But in another respect, you saw a person who is Catherine Deneuve.
The person whom you saw was Catherine Deneuve, but you didn’t see that she was Catherine Deneuve. You didn’t see her face. You only saw her disguise.
“Did Jesus' human body have less mass than the amount of water displaced by his feet?”
i) Of course, the question is speculative, but I’d say no.
Reiss is tacitly assuming that if Jesus didn’t sink, then that must be due to the fact that his body had different properties than a normal human body. Buoyant properties!
Keep in mind that even if this explanation were true, it’s not a Scriptural explanation. That explanation isn’t given in Scripture.
Rather, it’s a philosophical explanation. It makes philosophical assumptions about what physical or metaphysical conditions would have to obtain for Jesus to walk on water.
Reiss didn’t get that from Scripture. He didn’t get that from the Gospel narrative of Jesus walking on water. Rather, that’s an explanatory framework which he is bringing to the text.
So even though he accuses Calvin of intruding philosophical assumptions into the debate, Reiss is oblivious to his own philosophical assumptions.
ii) Moreover, I have no reason to assume that if Jesus can do something extraordinary in or with his body–or, conversely, if something extraordinary can happen to his body–then this must be due to something intrinsic about his body. To some inherent properties of his body.
Why should we make that assumption? Does Reiss make that assumption about Jonah in the “whale” or Daniel’s friends in the furnace?
Isn’t the issue how one physical substance ordinarily interacts with another physical substance? The normal relation between the two?
In situations where that relation does not obtain, why assume it’s due to a change in one of the substances?
Why not assume that God simply suspends the ordinary relation, or buffers the ordinary relation? God miraculously insulates or isolates their ordinary interaction.
iii) Put another way, Reiss is implicitly naturalizing miracles. He still views a miracle as the effect of a causal chain. What makes a miracle different from an ordinary effect is that God introduces different physical preconditions to yield a different effect.
But why should we naturalize a miracle in this fashion? Why assume that a miracle has to be mediated by some physical process? Why is it not possible (indeed, preferable) to view certain miracles as direct divine fiats?
I see no reason to accept his apparent model, according to which a miracle must always occur within some causal continuum or another.
iv) And we see this naturalistic framework in play when he insists that Jesus “passed through the doors” of the upper room.
Yet to ask “how” Jesus miraculously entered the upper room commits a category mistake. For a miracle requires no “how to”–in the sense of a facilitating mechanism. It only requires the agency of God–which may either be immediate or mediate–continuous or discontinuous causation.
Acolyte4236 said...
“Physical locative limitation may be true of the body, but not the soul. Your soul is not spatially circumscribed by your body and so can be present to more than one place (toes, head, hands) at a time. Or to put it more correctly, your soul can access and affect your body at many places without being limited to any of them. This is also part of human nature.”
I basically agree with this statement.
“Consequently, it seems possible for the human body, divinely empowered to be accessible and participatable to a plurality of locations without being spatially limited to any one of them.”
That doesn’t begin to follow from what Perry just said. How does he infer the bilocality of a body from the illocality of a soul?
A body is material whereas a soul is immaterial. Where’s the analogy?
“This brings us to Chalcedon and the communicatio idiomatum. This is an exchange of properties or specifically energies or activities from the divinity to the humanity of Christ”
And where do we find that in the actual text of the Chalcedonian creed?
“This involves no confusion of essences for the simple reason that energies are not the essence of which they are energies.”
Once again, where do we find that distinction in the actual text of the Chalcedonian creed?
“Consequently, your humanity unempowered by divine energies does not shine as Moses’ face did or Christ’s flesh did at the transfiguration with the divine glory.”
Well, that’s one conjectural paradigm which we could dream up to explain the luminosity of Moses and Christ. But other conjectural paradigms are available.
“I’d recommend reading Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation to get a better grasp of Scholastic Christology.”
And isn’t Turretin’s version if the communicatio idiomatum similar to the Thomistic and Scotist models?
“If you do not think that divine properties can be and are conveyed to the humanity of Christ, perhaps you can offer an explanation of the Metamorphesis or Transfiguration where the disciples see the divine glory coming from Christ’s flesh.”
i) Well, that’s equivocal. What is more, that’s even equivocal on Orthodox grounds.
Since the divine energies aren’t identical to the divine essence, when they perceive the glorious manifestation of divine energies, they don’t perceive God’s glory in itself.
ii) Moreover, we’re dealing with a theophanic manifestation in which sensory properties signify God’s presence. That’s emblematic.
“I also do not believe that Reformed Christology is Chalcedonian either. They deny a transfer of divine properties…”
True. We’re not pantheistic. So sorry.
“So do you agree with say the WCF 8.2 that says that Jesus is a divine and human person?”
i) What, specifically, does Perry take issue with in the WCF definition?
ii) And, ultimately, shouldn’t we take our frame of reference from NT Christology?
“It then seams to me, supposing that Rome is monophysite and your position is Nestorian that you share fundamentally the same principle doctrine, namely that God cannot be intrinsically present in creation without replacing the essence of the creature.”
Of course, the Orthodox fudge on this by introducing the compromise expedient of divine "energies"–a tertium quid which isn’t essentially divine or properly mundane. It’s like the Neoplatonic “intelligences” which bridge and buffer the relation between divinity and mundanity.
“This then implies that for you, nature enjoys a kind of intrinsic autonomy in relation to God and can only be related to him by an extrinsic act of will.”
No. What this implies is that creatureliness is inherently limited.
“Moreover, Calvin, among other Reformed writers indicate that the value of the atonement was due to God’s willing it to be valuable whether or not it intrinsically was valuable.”
Well, that grossly oversimplifies the issue. For example, an estate may be intrinsically valuable, yet only the designated heirs acquire the estate.
“Regardless of what Rome does, the term Theotokos is Christologically appropriate since Mary bore a divine person.”
The title has a perfectly orthodox sense. At the same time, it’s an extrabiblical title, so there’s no obligation on the part of Christians to use that title.
“Is Jesus a divine and human person or not?”
According to the NT, Jesus is a complex person or theanthropic person.
“When you say that he is a person of the Trinity, is that person in question a divine hypostasis or a human hypostasis or a resulting composite of both? If both, what constitutes the union if not the hypostasis of the eternal Son? What unites them?”
i) Perry has many questions, but he doesn’t take his questions from Scripture, and so he doesn’t take his answers from Scripture.
Perry’s Christology is just a human construct, not a revelatory datum.
ii) As far as Scripture is concerned, a divine incarnation makes a difference in terms of how each nature is expressed–in contrast to how each nature would expressed apart from the Incarnation.
But Perry doesn’t care about revealed truth. He’s just a loyal, Orthodox apparatchik.
“Either the Son must not be a person prior to incarnation since the person is a product of the union and so the Son came into existence at the union, or there are two Sons, one subordinating the other.”
Of course, that’s a false dichotomy. We are hardly limited to such a simplistic choice.
L P said...
“My point is this...If one separates Jesus' humanity from his divinity then this is a Nestorian view. For you cannot separate the one person who has two natures.”
Of course, “separate” is a spatial metaphor. It’s not as if the two natures are glued together.
So before we can intelligently respond to his objection, LPC needs to translate his metaphors into literal propositions.
“Wherever his divinity is, his humanity is there and vice versa.”
Once again, “there” is a spatial marker. Bodies can be here or there. But God is not a physical being.
“This is again from the postulate that you cannot divide the person.”
“Division” is literally a spatial relation. So LPC needs to translate his metaphors into literal propositions before we can intelligently respond.
Lutherans don’t know picture language when they see it. Their theology is cartoonish.
Incidentally, the materialistic conception of divine ubiquity which we find in Lutheran theology has an ironic consequence. For if you define God’s ubiquity in physical terms, then a hypostatic union is superfluous to the Real Presence inasmuch as God can be physical present in the communion elements apart from any divine Incarnation. For you already defined a divine attribute in physical or materialistic terms in itself–prior to the Incarnation.
i) Before doing so I’ll make two general observations. In the Reformed version of the communicatio idiomatum (a la Turretin), the properties of the two natures are attributable to the person of Christ. By contrast, the properties of each nature are not attributable to the other nature. There is no transference of divine properties to the human nature, or human properties to the divine nature.
ii) This debate is frequently framed in relation to the creed of Chalcedon. The key statement is “We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation (in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter). The distinction between natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.”
Lutherans typically accuse Calvinists of violating Chalcedonian Christology by “dividing” or “separating” the two natures.
However, this objection is doubled-edged since Calvinists retort by accusing Lutheran’s of violating Chalcedonian Christology by “confusing” or “changing” the two natures.
The Lutheran appeal to Chalcedon is selective and lopsided.
Edward Reiss said...
“I was wondering what you think St. Paul meant when he said the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily. Do you see any implications from that?”
That’s a picturesque description of the Incarnation–using some allusive imagery from the OT motif of God indwelling the temple. Cf. D. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (Eerdmans 2008), 193f.
Edward Reiss said...
“OK. Now I have another question. Since we all acknowledge God is infinite, how can that fullness fit inside a little baby? It would seem to violate the fact that a human bode, being finite, can contain the infinite, which might force us to say the fullness was not contained in Jesus Christ bodily.”
Reiss is implicitly defining God’s infinitude in spatial terms, as though God were a physical or material entity.
It’s odd how many professing Christians entertain a view of God which is scarcely distinguishable from a worshiper of Zeus.
So that’s like asking whether a supertanker can fit inside a matchbox. Well, if you put it that way, then the answer is “no.”
But, of course, the way in which Reiss poses the question involves a flawed assumption. Since divine infinitude is not a spatial property, the hypostatic union doesn’t involve God fitting inside the dimensions of a baby. The body of Jesus isn’t literally a “container” for God’s Son, as if the Son of God were made of subtle matter–which had to squeeze inside the confines of Mary’s womb.
Edward Reiss said...
“OK, fair enough. I would just like to know if you believe the fullness of the Godhead is in the little baby or not, as an objective fact. I will leave it at that.”
Reiss is treating a picturesque metaphor as if this were a literal description. But to properly answer the question, it’s necessary to unpack the metaphor.
A metaphor is not an objective fact. Rather, a metaphor stands for an objective fact. (At least in the case of an inspired metaphor.)
It’s an objective fact that Christ is God Incarnate.
Otherwise, we end up reading the Bible the way a Mormon does, where we make no allowance for figurative or anthropomorphic depictions of God.
L P said...
“From what I can understand on the Lutheran side, the communication of attributes is the way Luther/Lutherans explain what is happening when Jesus for example did things that only the divine could do, such as walk on water, appear at will in the disciples room after the resurrection, or vanish in their presence on the road to Emmaus etc. These things are found in Scripture and as such the examples you required, from Scripture.”
i) The obvious problem with that argument is that if you invoke the Lutheran communicatio idiomatum to explain some things involving God Incarnate, you must then, by parity of argument, apply the same principle in the case of comparable events involving mere mortals or subhuman creatures (e.g. the burning bush, floating axe head, Jonah surviving in the belly of the “whale,” Daniel’s friends surviving in the furnace). It’s odd that Lutherans are utterly oblivious to these counterexamples.
ii) Remember that in the account of Jesus walking on water we also have Peter walking on water–at Jesus’ behest. Why don’t Lutherans notice that?
Apparently they stopped reading the actual account. Instead, their knowledge of the account seems to come from a secondary source, where it’s deployed as a prooftext for Lutheran Christology.
But if Jesus walking on water was grounded in the hypostatic union and Lutheran communicatio idiomatum, then the same applies to Peter. So the argument either proves too much or too little.
Edward Reiss said...
“I think that your claims Re: Monophysitism are a little too broad, so I would like to ask a couple of questions to clarify what you believe is the relationship between Jesus' human and divine natures. These are ‘yes and no’ questions and can be easily answered by Chalcidonian Christians, and even most prots are Chalcidonian Christians.”
Of course, slick lawyers are fond of “yes or no” questions. They deliberately pose a trick question to compel a misleading answer.
Like asking a witness: “Yes or no–were the defendant’s fingerprints on the murder weapon?”
The damning insinuation is that if the defendant’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon, then that’s incriminating. They must have been there because he used the weapon to murder the decedent.
But, of course, that’s extremely misleading since it omits relevant contextual factors.
If the murder weapon belonged to the decedent, then it’s suspicions to find the defendant’s fingerprints on the murder weapon.
If, on the other hand, the murder weapon belonged to the defendant, then we’d expect to find his fingerprints on the weapon.
So beware of “yes or no” questions in apologetics. That’s generally a polemical ploy to oversimplify the issues and extract a bogus concession by arbitrarily excluding necessary qualifications.
“If you were to shake Jesus' hand during his earthly ministry, would you be shaking God's hand?”
i) That’s not a “yes or no” question since it could be either yes or no depending on the intended referent. Reiss is equivocating.
Did Jesus have a divine hand–like Thor? No. Jesus had a human hand. By shaking his hand qua hand, you’re shaking a human hand–attached to a human arm, attached to a human body.
But at another level, you’re shaking the hand of a person who has a divine nature as well as a human nature. So, in that indirect sense, yes, you’re shaking God’s hand.
The hand you shake isn’t composed of divine flesh. It doesn’t have a different composition from ordinary human flesh. Jesus didn’t have ichor flowing through his veins, rather than hemoglobin.
But it belongs to a person who is a theanthropic person.
ii) To illustrate Edward’s equivocation, let’s take a comparison. Celebrities sometimes travel incognito. They try to disguise themselves to avoid the paparazzi.
Suppose you caught sight of Catherine Deneuve when she was traveling incognito. What did you see? Is that a “yes or no” question? Not really.
i) In one respect, you didn’t actually see (i.e. perceive) Catherine Deneuve. All you saw was her disguise.
ii) But in another respect, you saw a person who is Catherine Deneuve.
The person whom you saw was Catherine Deneuve, but you didn’t see that she was Catherine Deneuve. You didn’t see her face. You only saw her disguise.
“Did Jesus' human body have less mass than the amount of water displaced by his feet?”
i) Of course, the question is speculative, but I’d say no.
Reiss is tacitly assuming that if Jesus didn’t sink, then that must be due to the fact that his body had different properties than a normal human body. Buoyant properties!
Keep in mind that even if this explanation were true, it’s not a Scriptural explanation. That explanation isn’t given in Scripture.
Rather, it’s a philosophical explanation. It makes philosophical assumptions about what physical or metaphysical conditions would have to obtain for Jesus to walk on water.
Reiss didn’t get that from Scripture. He didn’t get that from the Gospel narrative of Jesus walking on water. Rather, that’s an explanatory framework which he is bringing to the text.
So even though he accuses Calvin of intruding philosophical assumptions into the debate, Reiss is oblivious to his own philosophical assumptions.
ii) Moreover, I have no reason to assume that if Jesus can do something extraordinary in or with his body–or, conversely, if something extraordinary can happen to his body–then this must be due to something intrinsic about his body. To some inherent properties of his body.
Why should we make that assumption? Does Reiss make that assumption about Jonah in the “whale” or Daniel’s friends in the furnace?
Isn’t the issue how one physical substance ordinarily interacts with another physical substance? The normal relation between the two?
In situations where that relation does not obtain, why assume it’s due to a change in one of the substances?
Why not assume that God simply suspends the ordinary relation, or buffers the ordinary relation? God miraculously insulates or isolates their ordinary interaction.
iii) Put another way, Reiss is implicitly naturalizing miracles. He still views a miracle as the effect of a causal chain. What makes a miracle different from an ordinary effect is that God introduces different physical preconditions to yield a different effect.
But why should we naturalize a miracle in this fashion? Why assume that a miracle has to be mediated by some physical process? Why is it not possible (indeed, preferable) to view certain miracles as direct divine fiats?
I see no reason to accept his apparent model, according to which a miracle must always occur within some causal continuum or another.
iv) And we see this naturalistic framework in play when he insists that Jesus “passed through the doors” of the upper room.
Yet to ask “how” Jesus miraculously entered the upper room commits a category mistake. For a miracle requires no “how to”–in the sense of a facilitating mechanism. It only requires the agency of God–which may either be immediate or mediate–continuous or discontinuous causation.
Acolyte4236 said...
“Physical locative limitation may be true of the body, but not the soul. Your soul is not spatially circumscribed by your body and so can be present to more than one place (toes, head, hands) at a time. Or to put it more correctly, your soul can access and affect your body at many places without being limited to any of them. This is also part of human nature.”
I basically agree with this statement.
“Consequently, it seems possible for the human body, divinely empowered to be accessible and participatable to a plurality of locations without being spatially limited to any one of them.”
That doesn’t begin to follow from what Perry just said. How does he infer the bilocality of a body from the illocality of a soul?
A body is material whereas a soul is immaterial. Where’s the analogy?
“This brings us to Chalcedon and the communicatio idiomatum. This is an exchange of properties or specifically energies or activities from the divinity to the humanity of Christ”
And where do we find that in the actual text of the Chalcedonian creed?
“This involves no confusion of essences for the simple reason that energies are not the essence of which they are energies.”
Once again, where do we find that distinction in the actual text of the Chalcedonian creed?
“Consequently, your humanity unempowered by divine energies does not shine as Moses’ face did or Christ’s flesh did at the transfiguration with the divine glory.”
Well, that’s one conjectural paradigm which we could dream up to explain the luminosity of Moses and Christ. But other conjectural paradigms are available.
“I’d recommend reading Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation to get a better grasp of Scholastic Christology.”
And isn’t Turretin’s version if the communicatio idiomatum similar to the Thomistic and Scotist models?
“If you do not think that divine properties can be and are conveyed to the humanity of Christ, perhaps you can offer an explanation of the Metamorphesis or Transfiguration where the disciples see the divine glory coming from Christ’s flesh.”
i) Well, that’s equivocal. What is more, that’s even equivocal on Orthodox grounds.
Since the divine energies aren’t identical to the divine essence, when they perceive the glorious manifestation of divine energies, they don’t perceive God’s glory in itself.
ii) Moreover, we’re dealing with a theophanic manifestation in which sensory properties signify God’s presence. That’s emblematic.
“I also do not believe that Reformed Christology is Chalcedonian either. They deny a transfer of divine properties…”
True. We’re not pantheistic. So sorry.
“So do you agree with say the WCF 8.2 that says that Jesus is a divine and human person?”
i) What, specifically, does Perry take issue with in the WCF definition?
ii) And, ultimately, shouldn’t we take our frame of reference from NT Christology?
“It then seams to me, supposing that Rome is monophysite and your position is Nestorian that you share fundamentally the same principle doctrine, namely that God cannot be intrinsically present in creation without replacing the essence of the creature.”
Of course, the Orthodox fudge on this by introducing the compromise expedient of divine "energies"–a tertium quid which isn’t essentially divine or properly mundane. It’s like the Neoplatonic “intelligences” which bridge and buffer the relation between divinity and mundanity.
“This then implies that for you, nature enjoys a kind of intrinsic autonomy in relation to God and can only be related to him by an extrinsic act of will.”
No. What this implies is that creatureliness is inherently limited.
“Moreover, Calvin, among other Reformed writers indicate that the value of the atonement was due to God’s willing it to be valuable whether or not it intrinsically was valuable.”
Well, that grossly oversimplifies the issue. For example, an estate may be intrinsically valuable, yet only the designated heirs acquire the estate.
“Regardless of what Rome does, the term Theotokos is Christologically appropriate since Mary bore a divine person.”
The title has a perfectly orthodox sense. At the same time, it’s an extrabiblical title, so there’s no obligation on the part of Christians to use that title.
“Is Jesus a divine and human person or not?”
According to the NT, Jesus is a complex person or theanthropic person.
“When you say that he is a person of the Trinity, is that person in question a divine hypostasis or a human hypostasis or a resulting composite of both? If both, what constitutes the union if not the hypostasis of the eternal Son? What unites them?”
i) Perry has many questions, but he doesn’t take his questions from Scripture, and so he doesn’t take his answers from Scripture.
Perry’s Christology is just a human construct, not a revelatory datum.
ii) As far as Scripture is concerned, a divine incarnation makes a difference in terms of how each nature is expressed–in contrast to how each nature would expressed apart from the Incarnation.
But Perry doesn’t care about revealed truth. He’s just a loyal, Orthodox apparatchik.
“Either the Son must not be a person prior to incarnation since the person is a product of the union and so the Son came into existence at the union, or there are two Sons, one subordinating the other.”
Of course, that’s a false dichotomy. We are hardly limited to such a simplistic choice.
L P said...
“My point is this...If one separates Jesus' humanity from his divinity then this is a Nestorian view. For you cannot separate the one person who has two natures.”
Of course, “separate” is a spatial metaphor. It’s not as if the two natures are glued together.
So before we can intelligently respond to his objection, LPC needs to translate his metaphors into literal propositions.
“Wherever his divinity is, his humanity is there and vice versa.”
Once again, “there” is a spatial marker. Bodies can be here or there. But God is not a physical being.
“This is again from the postulate that you cannot divide the person.”
“Division” is literally a spatial relation. So LPC needs to translate his metaphors into literal propositions before we can intelligently respond.
Lutherans don’t know picture language when they see it. Their theology is cartoonish.
Incidentally, the materialistic conception of divine ubiquity which we find in Lutheran theology has an ironic consequence. For if you define God’s ubiquity in physical terms, then a hypostatic union is superfluous to the Real Presence inasmuch as God can be physical present in the communion elements apart from any divine Incarnation. For you already defined a divine attribute in physical or materialistic terms in itself–prior to the Incarnation.
A Lutheran's unresponsive response
"UPDATE: Triablogue Responds. He basically recapitulates Calvin's critique. I will respond in another post."
http://upstatelutheran.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-jesus-body-even-before-resurrection.html
In fact, I didn't nothing of the kind. I merely responded to Edward on his own terms. In a nutshell, he used a 3-step argument:
i) In Scripture, Jesus did various things which "violate" what a human body can normally do.
ii) This was possible because Jesus has a different kind of body than ordinary human beings.
iii) And this is grounded in the hypostatic union.
I responded by pointing out that (i) isn't limited to cases of Jesus doing extraordinary things. We have analogous cases in Scripture, both human (Moses, Jonah, Lazarus, Daniel's friends) and subhuman (burning bush, axe-head).
Given i(b), then:
ii) Moses, Jonah, Lazarus, and Daniel's friends had different kinds of bodies than normal human bodies. Likewise, the axe-head and burning bush were made of different stuff.
iii) Given i(b)-ii, then Moses, Jonah, Lazarus, Daniel's friends, the axe-head, and the burning bush were all instances of God Incarnate.
My response is simply a parallel argument to Edward's argument. It doesn't employ Calvin's framework. Rather, it confines itself to Edward's own logic and presuppositions.
It's odd that Reiss suffers from such chronic inability to follow someone else's argument–especially when my argument was merely following his argument. Is Reiss an only-child whom his evil step-dad locked away in the basement? Is that why he's unable to relate to what other people tell him? He missed out on that part of his formative socialization?
http://upstatelutheran.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-jesus-body-even-before-resurrection.html
In fact, I didn't nothing of the kind. I merely responded to Edward on his own terms. In a nutshell, he used a 3-step argument:
i) In Scripture, Jesus did various things which "violate" what a human body can normally do.
ii) This was possible because Jesus has a different kind of body than ordinary human beings.
iii) And this is grounded in the hypostatic union.
I responded by pointing out that (i) isn't limited to cases of Jesus doing extraordinary things. We have analogous cases in Scripture, both human (Moses, Jonah, Lazarus, Daniel's friends) and subhuman (burning bush, axe-head).
Given i(b), then:
ii) Moses, Jonah, Lazarus, and Daniel's friends had different kinds of bodies than normal human bodies. Likewise, the axe-head and burning bush were made of different stuff.
iii) Given i(b)-ii, then Moses, Jonah, Lazarus, Daniel's friends, the axe-head, and the burning bush were all instances of God Incarnate.
My response is simply a parallel argument to Edward's argument. It doesn't employ Calvin's framework. Rather, it confines itself to Edward's own logic and presuppositions.
It's odd that Reiss suffers from such chronic inability to follow someone else's argument–especially when my argument was merely following his argument. Is Reiss an only-child whom his evil step-dad locked away in the basement? Is that why he's unable to relate to what other people tell him? He missed out on that part of his formative socialization?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Real deal
Edward Reiss said:
It's practical, pastoral advice for any believer struggling over whether he's saved. These grounds of assurance aren't limited to the Reformed. We don't necessarily have to dispute over irresistible grace or perseverance of the saints in order to answer the question of how does one know if he is saved per se (although I can't see how God can save someone only to later lose that person, for e.g., but be that as it may for the moment).
A Christian struggling with whether he's saved can ask himself: (a) am I trusting in Christ, in the promises of Scripture; (b) do I see the fruit of the Spirit in my life (e.g. Gal 5:19-21 vs 22-24); and (c) does the Holy Spirit testify with my spirit that I'm a child of God, that is, do I cry "Abba! Father!" in my innermost being? Thus he can better determine if he's the real deal or a faker shaker.
We believe a sacrament is the word united with material objects according to Christ's command. This, e.g. Baptism isn't just a bath, but the water united with the word in according to Christ's command. And the word in both cases is the preached law and gospel. As long as you (and others here) insist in dividing sacraments from the word, you won't understand Lutheranism. This does not mean you have to agree with Lutheranism, it is just that we don't have a category of "sacramentalism" which means something which is not the gospel, which your remarks plainly imply.If this is true, then wouldn't it go back to the question Steve asked in his post, "Was George Tiller saved"? In other words, if a Lutheran has received a valid baptism and is a faithful communicant receiving valid communion, then, if I understand you correctly, he'd be receiving the gospel as well. But what if this same Lutheran happened to be someone like George Tiller? It'd have to mean he was saved according to Lutheranism, wouldn't it? If this is so, then it'd seem to be a monumental injustice.
For this reason I do not agree when you say "...your position seems to add more than what the LCMS has said here" because belief in the gospel is believing the gospel, whether it is verbal or verbal with material things according to Christ's command for the remission of sins.
I have been speaking of subjective assurance. It has been acknowledged all around that the elect may not ever have subjective assurance, and the non-elect may believe they are assured. The touchstone is what you alluded to above: irresistible grace, and its cousin, perseverance of the saints. If one wants to know one is elect, one is pointed to "fruits". But the WCF itself allows for these fruits to be misinterpreted, and even allows for the elect to lose their assurance for a time, with the attendant advice to look for fruit to see if one is elect. In effect, the system is pointing one to one's self for proof to one's self--but that proof is not a solid as we would like.1. I think your interpretation of the WCF is reductionistic. As I've said before, the WCF's advice on the assurance of salvation isn't reduced to merely looking to oneself or one's fruits. Again, there are three grounds of assurance. None of these is reducible to one of the other three grounds.
- To quote John Frame on the WCF:
First, the Westminster Confession speaks of "the divine truth of the promises of salvation." Clearly, God promises eternal life to all who receive Christ (John 1:12; 3:15-18, 36; 5:24; 6:35, 40, 47; etc.). His promises are absolutely infallible. . . .
The second basis of assurance the Westminster Confession mentions is "the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made." This ground corresponds to the doctrine of sanctification. When we introspect in this way, we are asking if indeed the Lord is sanctifying us. . . . God has promised to make his people holy (1 Peter 1:15-16; 2 Peter 1:4). So, as we observe what God is doing within us, as we observe our own progress in sanctification, we "make [our] calling and election sure," as Peter says (2 Peter 1:10-11). . . .
The third ground of assurance, corresponding to the doctrine of adoption, is "the testimony of the Spirit to our adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are children of God." This confessional statement comes right out of Romans 8:16-17. This is to say that, in the end, our assurance is supernatural. Note in Romans 8 that it is not only the witness of our own Spirit but something over and above that, a witness of God's Spirit with our spirit that we are the children of God. Our scrutiny of God's promises and our own sanctification, in the end, is fallible. We make mistakes in our judgments. But the Spirit never makes a mistake. So, he persuades us that what we observe in God's Word and in our own lives is really true, really evidence of grace. - What's more, Frame anticipates your objection that "the system is pointing one to one's self for proof to one's self":
Many say that we should not look at ourselves but that we should look beyond ourselves, outward, at the work of Christ, at his word of promise. That was what we advised under the first ground of assurance, and certainly we should not look inward without looking outward at the same time. But it is important not only to look at God's promises but also to see how God is fulfilling those promises within us.
So it's not as if the WCF advises us to look solely to ourselves. The WCF's advice is not reducible to this point. - Btw, notice that the WCF bases these grounds of assurance in Scripture. For example, the third ground of assurance comes from Rom 8:16-17. In other words, there's an exegetical basis for what's said here. A little bit more on this in my next point.
- Why does Paul command us to "Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? - unless indeed you fail to meet the test!" (2 Cor 13:5)?
- Likewise, why does Peter in 2 Pet 1:5-11 list off qualities like "faith," "virtue," "knowledge," "self-control," "steadfastness," "godliness," "brotherly affection," and "love," and follow it with the exhortation, "Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall," if looking for these qualities isn't in some way conducive to making our "calling and election sure"?
- And why would John say things like, "And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments" (1 John 2:3) or "If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him" (1 John 2:29)? After all, how can we know if we have kept God's commandments or if we are practicing righteousness without examining ourselves and/or having others examine us?
Also, looking for the Holy Spirit to testify with our spirits that we are God's children, John writes: "Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself" (1 John 5:10).
Now, John tells us precisely why he has written the letter of 1 John: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13). Hence, from start to finish, 1 John is a letter dealing with the assurance of salvation. So that those who believe in Christ may know that they have eternal life.
In this letter, John exhorts believers to do several things so that they may know they have eternal life, but one of them is to look for evidence of sanctification in one's own life. It's not the only thing John mentions but it is one of the things.
It's practical, pastoral advice for any believer struggling over whether he's saved. These grounds of assurance aren't limited to the Reformed. We don't necessarily have to dispute over irresistible grace or perseverance of the saints in order to answer the question of how does one know if he is saved per se (although I can't see how God can save someone only to later lose that person, for e.g., but be that as it may for the moment).
A Christian struggling with whether he's saved can ask himself: (a) am I trusting in Christ, in the promises of Scripture; (b) do I see the fruit of the Spirit in my life (e.g. Gal 5:19-21 vs 22-24); and (c) does the Holy Spirit testify with my spirit that I'm a child of God, that is, do I cry "Abba! Father!" in my innermost being? Thus he can better determine if he's the real deal or a faker shaker.
The Styrofoam Jesus
According to Lutheran epologist Edward Reiss, “When the Reformed argue against the Real Presence they often say that since Jesus' body is a material body, just like ours, he cannot be bodily present in the bread and nor can his blood be present in the wine. Jesus' body and blood, being localized in space and time, cannot be in more than one place at a time as a body…This for Calvin the objective, local presence of Jesus' body and blood is an empirical question more or less answered by the properties of a human body. It is my purpose to show that this is not a very strong objection at all. All I have to do is show from Scripture that Jesus' body is not like ours in every respect…There are some miracles which seem to defy what a body can do, but which never the less Jesus Christ did. (All Bible citations ESV). First let us consider Jesus walking on water (John 6:16-20)… Human bodies sink when we try and walk on water without special equipment. This is because human bodies are subject to the physical laws of gravity as well as other physical laws--such as we cannot be in two places at one time. Human bodies have mass and three dimensions. If the displacement of the mass of water is less than the mass of the human body, the human body begins to sink. This behavior is called buoyancy.”
http://upstatelutheran.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-jesus-body-even-before-resurrection.html
I think Ed is definitely onto something here. When Jesus walked on water, that wasn’t made possible because Jesus miraculously suspended the way in which deep water and human bodies naturally interact. No, it was actually cuz Jesus had a different kind of body than you and me. You see, Jesus had a Styrofoam body. So his body had the natural property of buoyancy. A such, there was nothing miraculous about his walking on water. It was a natural event, given the natural properties of his unique corporeal composition.
“Second, let us consider the transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36)… Human bodies do not change their faces and cause their clothes to become ‘dazzling white.’”
Yes, Jesus could glow in the dark because his body was made of fluorescent material.
“However, seems to me that the physical quality of Jesus’ body is quite variable--especially if we are not limited by our experiences of what exactly human nature is, and what a human body can do.”
That’s right! Jesus had several different bodies-types which he hung in his closet. Depending on which kind of body he needed, he could reach into the closet and put on a different kind of body.
For example, when the Devil flew Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, Jesus donned his winged-body.
And it wasn’t just Jesus. Moses was luminous because Moses also had a body made of fluorescent material. Daniel’s friends could survive in the furnace cuz they had asbestos bodies. And Jonah could survive in the body of the “whale” cuz he had gills and rubber skin (to protect him from the stomach acid). Not to mention Lazarus. He returned from the dead because his body could spontaneously regenerate.
“All I have to do is show from Scripture that Jesus' body is not like ours in every respect. And Lutherans believe this is so because of the personal union, which is to say for instance that shaking Jesus' hand is the same thing as shaking God's hand. But that is a post for another day…However, is it true that when God assumed human flesh that the resulting God-Man has the same properties we do?”
That’s very insightful. Come to think of it, that also explains some other apparent miracles in Scripture. Take the floating axhead. It was able to float due to a hypostatic union between God and the axehead. This was no ordinary axhead. Rather, this was nothing less than the God-Axhead. Likewise, the burning bush was really the God-Bush.
And when the Holy Spirit descended in the “form of a dove,” that’s because he really transmogrified into a dove–just like Odo.
“In the two John passages [Jn 19:26-29; 20:19-23] Jesus appears to pass through locked doors.”
Yes, in this case Jesus vaporized into a puff of smoke and passed through the keyhole in a wisp of smoke. Or maybe he had a body like the Sandman in Spiderman. If your body has the right natural properties, you can do just about anything.
Lutherans not only worship the Pillsbury Doughboy, but they also worship Casper the Ghost!
“In the second case, one must re-interpret ‘the doors were locked’ to mean ‘the doors were unlocked’, based solely upon the propositions of what properties a human body must have.”
Of course, John doesn’t say that Jesus “passed through the doors.”
Moreover, why assume that Jesus had to pass through the wooden doors to enter the room? If it was a miracle, then there is no one particular way in which a miracle has to occur.
That’s the point. If something is a naturally occurring event, then it can only occur in a certain way–consistent with the “laws of nature.”
If, however, something is a miracle, then it’s occurrence needn’t be facilitated by any particular process or medium. As a miracle, there’s more than one possible pathway to yield the desired effect since, in fact, it requires no pathway to get there. So if Christ’s appearance in the upper room is a miracle, then there was no particular method he had to employ (e.g. passing through solid doors).
Indeed, miracles are frequently defined as immediate effects. There is no causal chain leading up to the miracle.
Mind you, that definition is overstated. For some miracles may employ natural forces. But that is not a precondition of a miracle.
“In both cases, an extraneous interpolation of philosophical commitments into the text to make them fit those commitments.”
Yes. In Lutheran hermeneutics, the God-Bush, the Styrofoam Jesus, and the asbestos Abednego derive from the plain sense of Scripture rather than an extraneous interpolation of philosophical commitments into the text to make them fit those commitments.
http://upstatelutheran.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-jesus-body-even-before-resurrection.html
I think Ed is definitely onto something here. When Jesus walked on water, that wasn’t made possible because Jesus miraculously suspended the way in which deep water and human bodies naturally interact. No, it was actually cuz Jesus had a different kind of body than you and me. You see, Jesus had a Styrofoam body. So his body had the natural property of buoyancy. A such, there was nothing miraculous about his walking on water. It was a natural event, given the natural properties of his unique corporeal composition.
“Second, let us consider the transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36)… Human bodies do not change their faces and cause their clothes to become ‘dazzling white.’”
Yes, Jesus could glow in the dark because his body was made of fluorescent material.
“However, seems to me that the physical quality of Jesus’ body is quite variable--especially if we are not limited by our experiences of what exactly human nature is, and what a human body can do.”
That’s right! Jesus had several different bodies-types which he hung in his closet. Depending on which kind of body he needed, he could reach into the closet and put on a different kind of body.
For example, when the Devil flew Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, Jesus donned his winged-body.
And it wasn’t just Jesus. Moses was luminous because Moses also had a body made of fluorescent material. Daniel’s friends could survive in the furnace cuz they had asbestos bodies. And Jonah could survive in the body of the “whale” cuz he had gills and rubber skin (to protect him from the stomach acid). Not to mention Lazarus. He returned from the dead because his body could spontaneously regenerate.
“All I have to do is show from Scripture that Jesus' body is not like ours in every respect. And Lutherans believe this is so because of the personal union, which is to say for instance that shaking Jesus' hand is the same thing as shaking God's hand. But that is a post for another day…However, is it true that when God assumed human flesh that the resulting God-Man has the same properties we do?”
That’s very insightful. Come to think of it, that also explains some other apparent miracles in Scripture. Take the floating axhead. It was able to float due to a hypostatic union between God and the axehead. This was no ordinary axhead. Rather, this was nothing less than the God-Axhead. Likewise, the burning bush was really the God-Bush.
And when the Holy Spirit descended in the “form of a dove,” that’s because he really transmogrified into a dove–just like Odo.
“In the two John passages [Jn 19:26-29; 20:19-23] Jesus appears to pass through locked doors.”
Yes, in this case Jesus vaporized into a puff of smoke and passed through the keyhole in a wisp of smoke. Or maybe he had a body like the Sandman in Spiderman. If your body has the right natural properties, you can do just about anything.
Lutherans not only worship the Pillsbury Doughboy, but they also worship Casper the Ghost!
“In the second case, one must re-interpret ‘the doors were locked’ to mean ‘the doors were unlocked’, based solely upon the propositions of what properties a human body must have.”
Of course, John doesn’t say that Jesus “passed through the doors.”
Moreover, why assume that Jesus had to pass through the wooden doors to enter the room? If it was a miracle, then there is no one particular way in which a miracle has to occur.
That’s the point. If something is a naturally occurring event, then it can only occur in a certain way–consistent with the “laws of nature.”
If, however, something is a miracle, then it’s occurrence needn’t be facilitated by any particular process or medium. As a miracle, there’s more than one possible pathway to yield the desired effect since, in fact, it requires no pathway to get there. So if Christ’s appearance in the upper room is a miracle, then there was no particular method he had to employ (e.g. passing through solid doors).
Indeed, miracles are frequently defined as immediate effects. There is no causal chain leading up to the miracle.
Mind you, that definition is overstated. For some miracles may employ natural forces. But that is not a precondition of a miracle.
“In both cases, an extraneous interpolation of philosophical commitments into the text to make them fit those commitments.”
Yes. In Lutheran hermeneutics, the God-Bush, the Styrofoam Jesus, and the asbestos Abednego derive from the plain sense of Scripture rather than an extraneous interpolation of philosophical commitments into the text to make them fit those commitments.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Lutheran antinomianism
Notice the predictable progression (or should I say, regression?) from Lutheran disdain for self-examination to brazen antinomianism:
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February 7th, 2010 at 09:34 | #1 Reply | Quote
Pr McCain, Thanks for this. I speak as an evangelical who recently started to explore Lutheran theology. I thank God for the clear understanding of our standing before God on the basis of Christ’s merits, not ours, that is at the heart of the Lutheran faith. But indeed I have frequently encountered examples of this undermining or ignoring of sanctification that you mention. I confess I have been shocked by the aversion to speaking in terms of sanctification that I have found. As you point out, certain exhortations of St Paul himself would be out of bounds in some modern Lutheran pulpits. You mention above the influence of certain theologians. Do you see this also as an overreaction to the (probably more serious) influence of pietism in Lutheran history?
Rev Allen Yount (CRSM)
February 7th, 2010 at 18:57 | #3 Reply | Quote
Stephen,
I think your on to somthing when you mention that there might be an overeaction to pietisism. I also think the influence of Forde and others helped fuel the fire of this, what I call semi-antinomism. Most confessional lutherans who are in this camp, are very strong on the 2nd use of the law, but very, very weak on the 3rd use. Many also in this camp will have no problem calling the “old” Missourians pietists and disliked the preaching of Walther and Maier for example. I had a conversation with a pastor awhile back and he thought Dr. Louis Brighton was a pietist, when I heard this, I knew I wasn’t going crazy on seeing this difference.
Fom what little research that I have done on this, this began with the liturgical renewal movement back in the 1940’s. Not that liturgical renewal was bad in of it self, but the theology that was imported from Germany that came with it. If you really what to see the stark contrast between the old and modern Missourians, take a look at Kretzmann’s Commentarys of the Bible. You can read it online here: http://kretzmannproject.org/. I also think the new TLSB does a nice job going back closer to an old Missourian / Synodical Conference understanding of sanctification, thats’ reflected in the notes.
Pastor McCain,
I think we might be in the minority on this, but keep fighting the good fight and I’m glad we have you as a voice on this topic.
MM
Matt P.
February 8th, 2010 at 09:35 | #5 Reply | Quote
Matt, it’s an interesting query you raise. I think the point here is that Luther is speaking directly to Christians who think that because they sit in Divine Service, hear sermons, and can wear the name tag: “I am a confessional Lutheran Christian” they are “free” to indulge themselves because, after all, we are baptized and take communion, etc.
First, Second, Third…call it whatever you will…some Lutherans have a problem discussing Christian living, as Luther does so powerfully and pointedly in this sermon.
Just last night I heard from a pastor who again told me, in no uncertain terms, that it is wrong to mention anything about our response to God’s grace at the end of the sermon, for that is Law, and the Law always accuses, therefore if we conclude a sermon that way we are just leading people to despair or to be hypocrites.
This is not a “made up” problem we face, it is a very real problem that has developed in our circles, and it deeply saddens me.
http://cyberbrethren.com/2010/02/07/are-lutherans-antinomian-some-are-but-genuine-lutheranism-is-not/
*****************************
February 7th, 2010 at 09:34 | #1 Reply | Quote
Pr McCain, Thanks for this. I speak as an evangelical who recently started to explore Lutheran theology. I thank God for the clear understanding of our standing before God on the basis of Christ’s merits, not ours, that is at the heart of the Lutheran faith. But indeed I have frequently encountered examples of this undermining or ignoring of sanctification that you mention. I confess I have been shocked by the aversion to speaking in terms of sanctification that I have found. As you point out, certain exhortations of St Paul himself would be out of bounds in some modern Lutheran pulpits. You mention above the influence of certain theologians. Do you see this also as an overreaction to the (probably more serious) influence of pietism in Lutheran history?
Rev Allen Yount (CRSM)
February 7th, 2010 at 18:57 | #3 Reply | Quote
Stephen,
I think your on to somthing when you mention that there might be an overeaction to pietisism. I also think the influence of Forde and others helped fuel the fire of this, what I call semi-antinomism. Most confessional lutherans who are in this camp, are very strong on the 2nd use of the law, but very, very weak on the 3rd use. Many also in this camp will have no problem calling the “old” Missourians pietists and disliked the preaching of Walther and Maier for example. I had a conversation with a pastor awhile back and he thought Dr. Louis Brighton was a pietist, when I heard this, I knew I wasn’t going crazy on seeing this difference.
Fom what little research that I have done on this, this began with the liturgical renewal movement back in the 1940’s. Not that liturgical renewal was bad in of it self, but the theology that was imported from Germany that came with it. If you really what to see the stark contrast between the old and modern Missourians, take a look at Kretzmann’s Commentarys of the Bible. You can read it online here: http://kretzmannproject.org/. I also think the new TLSB does a nice job going back closer to an old Missourian / Synodical Conference understanding of sanctification, thats’ reflected in the notes.
Pastor McCain,
I think we might be in the minority on this, but keep fighting the good fight and I’m glad we have you as a voice on this topic.
MM
Matt P.
February 8th, 2010 at 09:35 | #5 Reply | Quote
Matt, it’s an interesting query you raise. I think the point here is that Luther is speaking directly to Christians who think that because they sit in Divine Service, hear sermons, and can wear the name tag: “I am a confessional Lutheran Christian” they are “free” to indulge themselves because, after all, we are baptized and take communion, etc.
First, Second, Third…call it whatever you will…some Lutherans have a problem discussing Christian living, as Luther does so powerfully and pointedly in this sermon.
Just last night I heard from a pastor who again told me, in no uncertain terms, that it is wrong to mention anything about our response to God’s grace at the end of the sermon, for that is Law, and the Law always accuses, therefore if we conclude a sermon that way we are just leading people to despair or to be hypocrites.
This is not a “made up” problem we face, it is a very real problem that has developed in our circles, and it deeply saddens me.
http://cyberbrethren.com/2010/02/07/are-lutherans-antinomian-some-are-but-genuine-lutheranism-is-not/
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