On the Professionalization of Theology

Education has always played a large role in my thinking on the hope of future reunion of the Protestant churches, because I am convinced that a major reason (though not the only reason) for our disunity is lack of education about our theological heritage. Christians generally have no idea what the real issues that divide them from other Christians are or how those differences came about; much less do they have the first clue about how these divisions might be healed. This lack of historical and theological perspective serves only to increase defensive and militant postures towards opinions foreign to us and those who hold such opinions. And this is by no means a problem which simply exists among the laity. It is in fact just as much a problem within the theologically “educated” clerical ranks.

Playing a part in rectifying this problem has thus always been in the forefront of my mind as I have pondered where to exercise the gifts I have been given. I was at one time convinced that the best place for me was in the academy, working to educate the future leaders of the church and hopefully playing a part in instilling in them a desire to be united with their brothers and sisters with whom they may differ, or at least helping them to understand why they differ. A laudable goal, I’m sure you’ll agree. However, I have since decided to seek ordination to pastoral ministry, and what follows lays out, in all too brief a manner, my basic line of thinking which initially convinced me that I should forsake the idea of pursuing a career in the wonderful world of academia.

I remain convinced that God does indeed call people to work in the academy in order to serve the church in that capacity, so I don’t want any of my comments here to be taken as a deprecation of the academy per se or those who work therein by any means. However, I am concerned about a rather troubling trend which I have noticed for some time now. Most of the best Christian scholars are going to the academy while those who are not “academic” are going into the pastorate. Thus, our seminaries are full of a sort of intellectual hierarchy amongst the students (I say this as one who has observed closely the student life of two very prominent Protestant seminaries): the majority of highly intellectual students go for PhDs and a career in professional theologizing, while those who are not quite so intellectual enter the pastorate. Thankfully there are exceptions here, but this, it seems to me, is the general rule.

This is a dangerous trend, and one I hope to play a part in breaking. Theology exists for the church, not the church for theology. This is the natural order of things, and I am convinced that it has been reversed in recent years.

One thing we desparately need in order to reverse this situation is pastors who know the entire breadth of Christian thought and its history; who can speak intelligently to the church and the world in our day and effectively combat the fragmentation of church and society.

But also, it is imperative that the locus for theologizing move back to the church. The primary place where theologizing is done has been the abstract world of the academy for far too long. In this situation, the theologizing of the church has come in one of two forms: either a trickle down of ideas originating in the academy, or a reaction against the academy. But in both cases, the academy has dictated the direction in which the theology of the church has moved. But history furnishes us with numerous examples for the rule that most of the best theologians (and by “best” I mean those who have had the most wide-ranging impact) are generally also pastors, so this situation is needless, not to mention very unhealthy.

Thus, I don’t think it is too much of an overstatement to say that the professionalization of theology is a plague on the modern day American churches, and I am convinced that it has played perhaps the biggest role of all in the continual fracturing of the church in this country.

I am not the only one who has seen this. In fact, professional theologians themselves are pointing it out. E. Brooks Holifield, in his magisterial work Theology in America (New Haven: Yale, 2003) provides a very revealing assessment of the beginning of this phenomenon in the nineteenth century:

Presbyterians, both Old school and New, assumed leadership in the professionalizing of theology. As a full-time theologian who never held a position outside the academy, [Charles] Hodge joined the ranks of a new kind of American religious leadership. And as theology moved from the parishes to the seminaries, rivalries among the schools intensified theological disagreements. Princeton saw Andover, for instance, as dedicated to making ‘Old-School doctrines appear ridiculous and odious,’ and it viewed Yale as an enemy of orthodoxy. Old School seminaries competed also among themselves; the southerners at Union, Danville, and Columbia tried to ‘break the charm’ of Princeton’s ‘ascendancy,’ and northern ultraconservative kept Princeton on the defensive by threatening to create new schools whenever the Princeton faculty strayed. Other seminaries, including Auburn in New York, Lane in Ohio, and Union in New York City, became centers of New School thought arrayed against Old School institutions. (371-372)

And, as many of us well know, this was only the beginning.

This is a shame, and I believe it is the calling of our generation to begin an effort to reverse this situation. There is a place for the academy and for academics working therein, of course. But there also needs to be a place in the church for pastors who undertake rigorous academic work and also for career academics who are deeply immersed in the life of the church. And a healthy relationship will never exist between the two institutions unless the church begins to reassert its role as that place for which theology exists and in which the task of theology is to be undertaken.

Also, it is necessary that theologians be pastoral in both perspective and ethos if their ideas are ever really going to have any impact on people. To steal an immortal phrase from The Fearsome Pirate: “If you don’t give a crap about people and their crap, it all goes to crap.” I am convinced that a major problem with the church’s theologizing in our day is that it exists only for the most part in the form of abstraction. Our theology is “out there” somewhere. It exists in an ideal world. But the problem is that the church (for the good of which theology exists) does not exist in an ideal world. The church is a real life, messy place, full of sinful men and women. Jesus Christ took on flesh so that we would no longer have to theologize about a God “out there” with endless theorem. Theology—if it does not exist in the real world and for the real flesh and blood people who constitute the church—“all goes to crap.”

And indeed, it has very much gone to crap in a variety of ways. We find ourselves in a lamentable situation. But it is not a hopeless one.

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Prisca Theologia and Pia Philosophia

Keeping in mind that this blog is a collaborative effort between several authors who do not necessarily always agree with each other, I’d like to offer the following reflection on the notion that pre-Reformation Christians allowed the Faith to be disastrously co-opted by “pagan philosophy” rather than remaining faithful to and consistent with Scripture, the understanding of which requires no significant interaction with an outside world that is taken to have its own created integrity, goodness, and usefulness.

Speaking for myself and not for the other authors on this blog, I take it as (almost) axiomatic that if one wants to practice catholicity, one must not start to approach the thing by confusing the sectarian with the catholic. What this means for the following reflection is simply this: the presumption that we, with our post-Reformation standards of biblical exegesis and theological activity have managed to do what our fathers in the Faith did not (could not?) because, supposedly, they were just not quite “into the Bible” as much as we are and thought too highly of “philosophy,” has to be jettisoned as a merely sectarian and not a catholic belief.

Said belief has been proposed by only one small sector of the Church (the Reformed sector – or really, the post-Machen Fundamentalist sub-sector of the Reformed sector), and, because it is soundly rejected by most of the rest of the Church, can thus in no way be taken seriously when it claims to be the standard-setter for everyone else. Indeed, that sub-sector of the Church is one which is arguably in the grip of several serious philosophical prejudices and a reactionary mentality that borders on Manichaeanism in its suspicion of the integrity of man as created. It’s not a catholic belief, and if it is embraced and consistently sought, it actually isolates us as Evangelicals from the only exemplar of living, on-the-ground catholicity which we have – the pre-Reformation era of Christendom.

Anyway, enough of that. Here’s my reflection on the topic at hand.

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Just as the idea of a great yawning antithesis between all things non-Christian and all things Christian can be overdrawn, yielding pessimistic excesses, it seems that the idea of a “prisca theologia” (ancient theology) in which the best of non-Christian thought virtually mirrors later developed Christian ideas, can be overdrawn, yielding optimistic excesses.

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), king of early Renaissance Platonists, translated a 14th-century manuscript of an older Greek work known as the Corpus Hermeticum, which was believed to be a work by one Hermes Trismegistus and was dated to the time of Moses. Ficino and his contemporaries joyously celebrated the fact they discovered from the contents of the Corpus that apparently much of Christian theology had been known (albeit in a veiled, less developed form) by the best educated pagans many generations prior to the actual advent of Christianity. Ficino, indeed, wrote of a grand lineage of six pre-Christian philosophers – Hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus, Aglaophemus, Pythagoras, Philolaus, and Plato – who together developed the prisca theologia. Writes Ficino:

…In this way, from a wondrous line of six theologians emerged a single system of ancient theology, harmonious in every part, which traced its origins to Mercurius [Hermes Trismegistus] and reached absolute perfection with the divine Plato. Mercurius wrote many books pertaining to the knowledge of divinity,…often speaking not only as philosopher but as prophet….He foresaw the ruin of the old religion, the rise of the new faith, the coming of Christ, the judgement to come, the resurrection of the race, the glory of the blessed, and the torments of the damned. – Cited in Brian P. Copenhaver and Charles B. Schmidt, A History of Western Philosophy, Vol. 3: Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1992), pg. 147

Unfortunately for this joyous story, actually the Corpus Hermeticum was written early in the Christian era, not the time of Moses. In this sense, its celebration as an early non-Christian parallel with Christianity goes along with the mistaken Medieval attribution of the Neoplatonic works of Pseudo-Dionysius to the Dionysius whom Paul converted in Acts 17, the warping of papalist theology by the spurious Donation of Constantine and the False Decretals of Pseudo-Isidore, and the like. To be sure, all these problematic attributions of authority to documents which were either fraudulent or not clearly seen for what they were had very human causes that, upon careful study of the circumstances often render the errors of the past based upon their acceptance much more understandable. We ought not to hold ourselves better than those who in times of great distress (the feudal chaos of post-Carolingian Europe which produced the Donation and the False Decretals) or starry-eyed rediscovery (the early Renaissance) made errors of judgment which had long-lasting and systematic repercussions. We likely wouldn’t have done any better ourselves, had we been there.

Still, keeping in mind the fact that for all our Modern sophistication we are able to be just as frail and fallible as our fathers, there is still a benefit to hindsight. Somewhere or another I read someone learned saying that one big problem with the Medievals was that, books being exceedingly rare and as a general class of things quasi-sacred, they had such a high reverence for them that they would believe just about anything if it was found in a book – especially an old book. The problems to which such a naive trust in the written word – or perhaps more accurately, such a naive trust in our culture’s (or subculture’s) interpretations of the written word – can lead are evident to any serious student of history and culture. While we should not spurn the wise counsel of the fathers, neither should we be too hasty to believe them unconditionally – the best of men are men at best. As Peter Abelard wrote in Sic et Non, all books not belonging to the canon of Sacred Scripture “are to be read with full freedom to criticize, and with no obligation to accept unquestioningly; otherwise they way would be blocked to all discussion, and posterity be deprived of the excellent intellectual exercise of debating difficult questions of language and presentation.”

The notion of a yawning, unbridgeable, antithetical chasm between all things non-Christian and all things Christian is a serious exaggeration of the truth. On the other hand, the idea that even after the Fall man’s rational powers remain able to discern, explain, and preserve really substantial outlines of truth such that perhaps only by changing a few words and phrases Plato or Aristotle might be thought of as Christians-in-disguise is a serious exaggeration of the truth. Yet, like all great myths, both of these exaggerations have a kergyma of the truth buried deep inside. The pessimistic antithesis idea retains the truth that whatever prisca theologia might actually exist, it always has to be subject to ongoing dialogue with and correction by the final theology, the revelation of God in Christ. The optimistic continuity idea retains the truth that at the end of the day God’s creation does actually reveal something and men are actually able to understand it in more than a trivial manner.

Contrary to the optimists, there really is such a thing as being taken captive by philosophy which is according to the basic principles of the world rather than according to Christ (Col. 2:8). However, contrary to the pessimists, there really is such a thing as a pia philosophia (pious philosophy) which prepares the way for Faith and after Faith is embraced, continues to function as the ancilla theologiae (handmaiden of theology). While we should remember that the antithesis-thinkers are properly interested in safeguarding the integrity of the final revelation, at the same time we should remember that for synthesizers like Ficino, the goal of the whole project was not some muddle-brained attempt to mix oil and water on account of a silly fascination with self-evidently dumb pagan ideas, but rather, as Ficino himself put it, a noble quest to “free philosophy, God’s holy gift, from impiety…[and] to save holy religion from detestable ignorance.” [ibid., 148]. Seen in this light the prisca theologia and the pia philosophia can hardly be all that objectionable.

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Nicholas of Cusa on Justification By Faith (Alone)

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), of whom I have written a biographical sketch elsewhere, wrote a work called De Pace Fidei (On Peace in Religion), which is a dialogue between the adherents of various religions. In the dialogue the following interesting discourse on justification appears:

Thereupon Paul, a teacher of the Gentiles, rose up, and by the authority of the Word spoke the following:

Paul: It is necessary that we show that salvation of the soul is not obtained by works, but rather from faith, for Abraham, the father of the faith of all those who believe, whether Arab, Christian, or Jew, believed in God, and he was considered as being justified. The soul of the just will inherit life everlasting. Once this is admitted, these varieties of ritual will not be a cause of dissension, for as sensible signs of the truth of belief these things that have been instituted and received as signs are capable of change, not so the thing that is signified.

Tartar: Tell us how, then, does faith save?

Paul: If God should promise certain things because of His liberality and generosity, should not He, Who is able to provide all things and Who is truth, be believed?

Tartar: I’ll have to admit that. No one can possibly be deceived who believes Him, and if he fails to believe him he would not be worthy of obtaining any gift.

Paul: What, therefore, justifies him who obtains justice?

Tartar: Not merits, otherwise this would not be something gratuitous, but a debt.

Paul: Very well put, but because no living person can be justifed through works in the sight of God, but only gratuitously, the Omnipotent gives whatsoever He will to whomsoever He will. Then, if anybody would be worthy to acquire a promise that was purely gratuitous, it is necessary that he believe in God. It is in this, therefore, that he is justified, because from this alone will he obtain the promise, because he believess in God and expects the Word of God to take place.

Tartar: After God has promised something it is certainly just that He keeps His promises. The person who believes Him is justifed rather through the promise than through its faith.

Paul: God, who promised the seed of Abraham, in which all were to be blessed, justified Abraham, that he might acquire the promise. But if Abraham had not believed in God he would have obtained neither justification nor the promise.

Tartar: I agree with that.

Paul: The faith, therefore, in Abraham was only this, that the fulfillment of the promises was just, because otherwise it would not have been just, nor fulfilled.

Tartar: What did God promise?

Paul: God promised Abraham that He would give him this one seed in the person of Isaac, in which seed all races would be blessed, and this promise actually took place. Since according to the ordinary laws of nature it was impossible for Sarah, his wife, to conceive or give birth, yet because he beleived he acquired a son, Isaac. Later on God tempted Abraham, in that He asked him to offer and slay the boy Isaac, in whom His promise of the seed had been fulfilled. And Abraham obeyed God, believing no less in the future promise, even though it would involve the resuscitation of his dead son. When God discovered this faith in Abraham, then he was justified, and the promise was fulfilled in this one seed which descended from him through Isaac.

Tartar: What is this seed?

Paul: It is Christ, for all races have obtained in Him a divine blessing.

Tartar: What is this blessing?

Paul: The divine blessing is that final desire for happiness which we call eternal life, about which you have alerady heard.

Tartar: Do you desire, therefore, that God should promise us the blessing of eternal life in Christ?

Paul: That is what I wish. For if you believe in this same way you will be justified along with the faithful Abraham, and obtain the promise that was found in the seed of Abraham, Christ Jesus, and that promise is the divine blessing.

Tartar: Do you mean to say, therefore, that this faith alone justifies and enables us to attain of eternal life?

Paul: I do. – from “De Pace Fide,” in Unity and Reform: Selected Writings of Nicholas De Cusa, ed. John P. Dolan (University of Notre Dame Press, 1962), pp. 227-229

Note that this was written in 1453, thirty years before the birth of Martin Luther.

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Reformed Resourcement

There is an interesting series of posts discussing the recent “Denominational Renewal” conference over at Common Grounds Online.  They come from a variety of perspectives, with both positive and negative criticisms of the conference.

Though the conference was limited to the PCA (and its speakers all maintained that PCA was basically founded on the right principles in need mostly of an attitude adjustment, whereas our own commentators might hold it to be a slightly more periphereal movement in the scope of Reformed orthodoxy), I think there are still some important overlapping concerns to be noted.  For instance, one comment calls for a sort of “Reformed Resourcement.” This is exactly what we would like to see as well, and in fact, we’ve been planning on running a series of posts that investigate just that.  A few thoughts come to mind:

Reformed Resourcement must deal with real history.  It cannot relegate real-time people and events to “ideologies,” nor can it be content with a theological communitarianism where each tradition colors within its own confessional lines and promises not to bother the other.  Our project will seek to make some universal truth claims.

In keeping with this idea, Reformed Resourcement must be willing to question our current lines of demarcation.  Is it really true that the Puritans were Reformed and their Anglican opponents were not?  Is it true that the most extreme branches of the tradition are the most faithful?

Reformed Resourcement will also only be as ecumenical or unecumenical as the Reformers were.  If it is true that they were all sectarians, then a recovery of their ideas can hardly fail to note that.  Or, more happily, if they were more ecumenically minded than the present age, so too must the project be.  I suspect that the reality will be a little of both.  The Reformers were not interested in unity with idolatry, but they were willing to relegate certain doctrines, now much beloved, to the realm of adiaphora.

Another key point will be to get beyond our current departmentalization of knowledge.  The Reformation was magisterial, meaning that it involved the magistrates.  To properly understand the Reformed churches, we will have to understand the Reformed commonwealths.  America has done a poor job at this, opting instead to discover faithful remnants that set the stage for the American project.

Perhaps the final challenge will be in deciding how much of the tradition can be carried over, and what parts will require appropriate modification, even if only mutatis mutandis.

Once we can become clear on the parameters of this project, then we will be free to offer observations and critiques on other competing movements, but no sooner.  Look for a solid intro post on this by our friend Peter Escalante in the week to come.  It would be great if we could attract a broader Evangelical audience to interact.

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Bavinck on Dogma Quoad Nos

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) is one of the greatest and most profound thinkers which the Reformed tradition has to offer.  His four volume Reformed Dogmatics (Gereformeerde Dogmatick) is required reading for any student of Reformed theology or history.  (Thankfully, the translation into English of the fourth volume of this work was just recently published.)  Picking up on my previous couple posts which have had Reformed confessionalism as their theme, I figured I’d offer a brief selection from Bavinck’s Prolegomena, on dogma quoad nos (for us).

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Some Brief Thoughts on being Reformed, Catholic, and Confessional

Since we’ve been talking a little lately about what it means to be “confessional,” I figured I’d offer these brief thoughts on what it means for me at least, as a catholic and Reformed Christian, to be confessional. This is from a comment which I left this morning over on Sacramental Piety .

The historic Reformed confessions are not to be adhered to in a slavish manner, with the church simply going along reciting the same old things over and over as though our confessions are on a par with Scripture. To be a confessing church is to be a church that confesses here and now, and this necessitates, at times, making progress on earlier forms of thought. Schaff has rightly pointed out that this idea of progress upon older forms is indeed a fundamentally Protestant principle, for without the validity of progress in light of Scripture and the ongoing tradition of the Church (which did not reach canonization in 1647), the Reformers had no right to do what they did: that is, question hundreds of years of Medieval dogma and reformulate church doctrine in the light of Scripture.

Thus, we must continue to build on their work, and continue confessing our faith. Just because someone disagrees with a Reformer on this or that point, or articulation of a common point (and the Reformers were no monolithic bunch, anyway), does not necessarily imply that one is an enemy of the Reformation. In fact, if the views which such a person is advocating are Scriptural, it may even be the case that said one’s agenda is more in line with the spirit of the Reformers than detractors who claim the title “confessional.”

Now, let me be clear: Confessing and Reformation are acts of the Church. It takes a Church to confess and it therefore takes a Church to revise a confession. If a man brings to the table a doctrine with Scriptural arguments in support of it, which he claims should lead to a revision of our confessional standards, and the confessing Church (represented by her appointed presbyters) as a whole finds those arguments lacking, then said man ought to submit to the faith of the community. However, this does not mean that we ought to reject all such attempts out of hand as being “opposed to the confession” or “against the Reformation,” for the Reformed confessions themselves were never meant to operate in this way, and the Reformation itself was never about holding up a certain stage in the church’s theological development as the standard by which all later developments might be judged. This right is reserved for Scripture.

The Reformed churches must never, of course, abandon their doctrinal heritage or the theological trajectory set by our forefathers. But we must be a continually confessing and Reforming church, building upon the thought of past ages with a perceptive eye turned to the present and the future. As a committed Presbyterian, I believe that Wesminster Confession 1.10 was included in the Standards of my particular tradition for precisely this purpose.

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Random Thoughts about Semantics and Theological Self-Definition

This started out as a comment, but evolved in reflection on recent posts touching theological self-definition (What is “Reformed Orthodoxy“) and continuing developments to circumscribe theological development (In Defense of Westminster Seminary).

Ah, Foucault would have fun with these threads, noting the proprietary claims over words as a quest for the power to include and exclude. Perhaps we all would be well-served if we were to take a deep breath and admit to a bit of creeping idolatry here.

If recent studies in lexical semantics have taught us anything it is that there is no inherent stability in a word’s meaning. Rather, it finds its meaning in pragmatic usage and its semantic range is delimited only by its difference from other lexemes in the given discourse.

Perhaps Wittgenstein might also be of use here…

On one hand, Hoss and others are certainly correct to note that words like “Reformed” and “regenerate” are much more elastic than than the public strictures that Hart and others would wish to impose. If we are playing a language game where the rules are informal or irenic or deliberately constructive (as in constructive theological discourse), “Reformed” can embrace something as broad as “corrected” (as when Trent is often described as a “reforming council”) or more narrowly Protestant (Lutherans, Zwinglians, Anabaptists, are all communities originating from the “Reformation”) or even more narrowly not Lutheran (Zwinglians and Calvinians are usually described as “Reformed” in the academic literature).

The problem, however, is undefined or non-stipulated use in specialized, stipulated, or politicized contexts. This practice (whether unintentional or intentionally subversive) virtually guarantees miscommunication and a breakdown of a common discourse. Here, Hart has a point and should be respected for his desire to think and self-define as a Presbyterian and Reformed churchman. One may disagree with the narrowness of his scope and demur at his intransigence with regard to definitions, but his posturing is not simply a self-supplied character defect or evidence of muddleheadedness. Rather, it is more akin to a Catholic theologian who remains unwilling to describe Protestant ecclesial communities as “churches”. Stipulating the Catholic definition of “Church,” he is simply working from the integrity of their own horizon in speaking as he does. It certainly does not imply sin against charity (though the Roman definition itself might be uncharitable) or ignorance of Protestant self-description.

Hart’s ecclesial/academic community is currently engaged in a long, self-conscious effort to shore-up its heretofore fuzzy boundaries. By this, his community hopes to renew some of its flagging integrity as a body distinct from others. Anyone who has read “Deconstructing Evangelicalism” (a book with which I largely agreed, BTW) should have seen this coming like a neon-lighted parade float up 5th Avenue.

This branding of Hart and his OPC/WTS/NAPARC compatriots is nakedly ideological and utopian (both terms intended as Ricoeur uses them) and much of the soreness I detect in Hoss, etc. flows from a self-conscious repudiation of that particular ideological/ utopian power-grab. I have shared in much of that repudiation which is why I am no longer a Teaching Elder in the PCA.

It is certainly fair to note how history attests to self-described “Reformed” adherents outside of strictly Presbyterian contexts and to defend the notion that most of the Magisterial “Reformed” luminaries (Calvin, Bucer, Vermigli, etc.) would leap to agree. The fact that Calvin signed the Wittenberg Concord (containing an explicit declaration of loyalty to the 1530 edition of the Augsburg Confession) when he became pastor in Strassburg testifies that he didn’t seem to self-define as Hart’s later Reformed communities have. We might also note how Calvin attended the ecumenical colloquies at Hagenau, Worms, and Regensburg (1540-41) as a “Lutheran” representative.

It is also quite fair to note that the OPC/WTS/NAPARC agenda is misguided and quite probably quixotic. If we have learned anything from the Norm Shepherd affair, the creation days debate, paedocommunion, Auburn Avenue/ Federal Vision, the New Perspective on Paul, and now the Enns dismissal from WTS, it is that a 17th Century White European confession cannot possibly be employed to speak with unequivocal force to define a 21st Century, multi-ethnic, and  globalized Christian body. Such a refusal to engage in the hard work of communal introspection, continuing reformation, and renewed self-definition (John XXIII’s ressourcement and aggiornamento) impedes the all the [super]natural linguistic, spiritual, theological, and ecclesial developments of faith communities. This strikes me as an effort to close the barn door after the departure of the horses. The result will only be continued “group think” and  increased irrelevance in a globalized Christian context.

Barring accord on these issues, it would be my hope that we could at least be clear with regard to our own ideological commitments and charitable with regard to those who do not share them.

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In Defense of Westminster Seminary, with Appreciation for Pete Enns

I’m sure that by now many of our readers have heard that Westminster Seminary (Phila.) and Dr. Peter Enns have come to mutually agreeable terms, and that Dr. Enns’ tenure as prof. of OT at WTS is now officially over (see here).  Some have taken this latest announcement in the Enns-gate controversy as an opportunity to continue mocking the Seminary for its fundamentalist and sectarian ways (see here, and here), others view this as a great day for Westminster and the cause of orthodoxy in America (see, for one example, some of the comments on this thread). 

I, for one, don’t really buy in to either of these perspectives.  I am not convinced, as many seem to be, that Westminster is Satan’s playground or a place where the chief concern of the “powers that be” is to avoid cutting edge scholarship and/or to perpetuate schism.  But at the same time, I cannot view anything that has happened in this controversy as a good thing.  Even if this mutually agreeable settlement between the respective parties is more desireable than a number of other outcomes which might be imagined, it is not necessarily good.  At the end of the day, a good servant of Christ is out of work and has surely suffered much turmoil and humiliation.  And, conversely, at the end of the day, a good school has lost one of its most notable professors and has also undergone tremendous turmoil and humiliation (from the tenured faculty on down to first year students).  Splits and divisions amongst Christians, especially of this sort, are never “good,” even if they may at times be necessary.

But one thing I feel constrained to combat is the seemingly prevalent insistance that Westminster and other seminaries like it, simply because they see fit to hold fast to their confessional identity, are somehow doing a dis-service to the church by “avoiding the difficult questions” in the name of a confessional orthodoxy.  For some reason it is assumed that seminaries simply exist as places to heap academic information onto students so that they can have a good understanding of the “cutting edge” scholarship being done in the various biblical-theological disciplines.  While this no doubt ought to be a primary concern for most academic institutions, it is not so, or at least it ought not be so, for seminaries. 

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Iustitiam Carnis and “Total” Depravity

Philiip Melanchthon identifies the hotly-disputed issue of free will as being “about the deterioration of human strength through sin, man’s inability to free himself from sin and death, and about the works that man is able to do in such a state of weakness.” [As excerpted from the Loci Communes (1521) in The Renaissance Reader, ed. Kenneth J. Atchity [New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1996], pp. 131-134.] For Melanchthon, seemingly unlike for Luther, the deep questions of necessity and the relationship of God’s knowledge to human actions are “extraneous questions” that sidetrack the real issues. Free will is about the harmonious relations between man’s understanding, will, and heart. This harmony was lost in the Fall, and “man’s natural powers became very weak.” [Ibid., 131.]

Though corrupted by sin, man’s natural powers did not become utterly useless. So that God might recognize sin and be able to be punished for it, God ensured that some “knowledge remained in this ccorrupted nature, although it is dim and full of doubt and uncertainty about God.” The ability to have virtue toward God (love of God, trust in Him, and fear of Him) was lost, and man’s heart is “wretchedly imprisoned, impaired, and ruined.” However, this ruination does not extend to man’s ability to perform outward acts based on what he does understand of God and his situation as a creature: God “wants all men to have external morality, and thereby learn the distinction between powers that are free and powers that are bound.” [Ibid., 132.]

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Future Justification in Reformed Orthodoxy

For those who might be interested (and I’m not sure that it is all that many), I am doing a survey of Reformed Orthodoxy’s implementation of future justification(s) over at my own blog. So far I have Diodati and Pictet, both ministers associated with Geneva, posted. I’ll be adding selections from John Preston, James Ussher, Gataker-Gouge-and Downame’s Annotations, Edward Polhill, and perhaps Turretin and Witsius.

Essentially these authors fall into two positions.

The first asserts that there are two distinct types of justification: one justification of the sinner as sinner, in which he receives Christ by faith alone, and Christ’s righteousness is imputed to him, thus justifying him before God, and the other as the “justification of the righteous man” in which he is justified by works, though judged by a gracious standard, that of the evangelical law.

The second position asserts that the apostle James’ use of “works” is a synonym for “working faith,” and that working faith displays the truth of one’s faith. Thus all types of justification are one and the same: by a working faith.

These positions are an attempt to harmonize Paul and James, as well as explain how we will be judged on the last day. Their existence is important for current controversies, but also, perhaps more importantly,  for opening up ecumenical dialog between traditions that too often misunderstand one another on a fundamental point of religion.

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If You Can’t Be Charitable, Then At Least Do Your Homework

While thinking about Tim’s latest post, the belligerent angel on my left shoulder gave me a few ideas. Obviously the best case for theological discussion is for both sides to enter into conversation with the possibility of being wrong, and thus with something of an open mind and a kind tongue. This is ideal. I think it was Wolterstorff who said that it is only a discussion if you accept the possibility of being changed.

However, if this is too much to ask, the goal of catholicity can also be accomplished by challenging the other party to actually do his homework, read carefully, and get it right. This will actually work with some TRs because they pride themselves on being the “real deal.” So, simply show them all of the guys whom they profess allegiance to saying crazy stuff that doesn’t fit the paradigm.

Then challenge them to figure out why the guy said what he did. What questions was he seeking to answer? What paradigm was he working in? Who were his sources?

That’s really how you understand a thinker. If you find more than one or two weirds that don’t fit the model, then you need to change the model. This isn’t hip and trendy catholicity talk here. This is just basic academic advice.

Thankfully, we have a strong history with diverse thinkers upon which we can rely.

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Pop-Protestantism

Does anyone else here ever try to deal with popular Protestantism? By that term I mean the broad, somewhat informal coalition of Baptists, Presbyterians, and some Lutherans who think such things as that (1) the Reformation is reducible to “the Five Solas,” (2) Calvinism is reducible to “the Five Points,” (3) the Gospel is reducible to a scientific explanation of the mechanics of faith and works in justification, and (4) the purpose of being Reformed is to defend all these reductionized things and to rail continuously against all the “compromise” outside the camp.

I confess to being like a moth drawn to a flame in terms of popular Protestantism, and particularly toward trying to bring some clarity into their very muddled understanding of apologetics. Alas, very rarely does anything truly constructive occur. If you question these guys with scholarship, they typically claim you are an arrogant jerk or a kid who’s in out of his depth or that you’re simply babbling nonsense that has no relevance to “Truth.” If you question their exegetical methods, they claim you don’t like “Truth” and fear engaging “the plain meaning” of Scripture. If you question their interpretation of the Reformation, they accuse you of wanting to overthrow the Gospel and make eyes at Romanist idolators. If you question their unreflective commitment to Cartesian foundationalism, they blast you for being a “postmodern relativist,” or worse.

Asinine, yes. A waste of time and energy? So it seems. And yet…..these are brothers in Christ, for whom He shed His blood and to whom we are bound in covenant. Are they to be ignored and vilified and cast out of the project of Evangelical catholicity? Are they to be repudiated on the grounds that they excommunicate themselves from everyone else? I’m really floundering here as to how to deal with these brothers. Anyone else have the same problems and have any words of wisdom?

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