Heresy never dies (7): Luther on denying God's exhaustive foreknowledge

"For He must be a ridiculous God, or idol rather, who did not, to a certainty, foreknow the future, or was liable to be deceived in events..."

Martin Luther

"To confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that he has foreknowledge of future things is the most manifest folly"

Augustine

Sacrificing God's exhaustive foreknowledge for the sake of preserving libertarian free-will seems an incredibly high price to pay. Luther certainly thought so. This, however, is what the open theists have been prepared to do.

For example, take Richard Rice's 1989 essay “Divine Foreknowledge and Free-Will Theism” (in Clark Pinnock [ed.], The Grace of God and the Will of Man):

To avoid the difficulties involved in trying to reconcile creaturely freedom with absolute divine foreknowledge, a number of thinkers propose revisionary interpretations of omniscience. (p. 128)

Moreover, Bruce Ware has shown that open theism has pressed this issue upon Arminians:

The challenge from open theism to other Arminians is simple: Comprehensive divine foreknowledge and libertarian freedom are mutually exclusive notions. You cannot have both together. So if you value libertarian freedom (as classical Arminianism clearly does), then you must be willing to give up your commitment to comprehensive divine foreknowledge. (God's Lesser Glory, p. 33)

Tampering with God's foreknowledge is something that Luther addressed in his thunderous response to Erasmus. His words are relevant to the present day modifications that open theists have made to omniscience and foreknowledge. As is so often the case, the names may change, and the dates, but the fundamental theological, exegetical and philosophical issues remain the same.

Here are some extracts from The Bondage of the Will:

If God be not deceived in that which he foreknows, that which he foreknows must, of necessity, take place.

If it were not so, who could believe His promises, who would fear His threatenings, if what He promised or threatened did not of necessity take place!

Or, how could he promise or threaten, if His prescience could be deceived or hindered by our mutability.

We are dispuitng about the prescience of God! And if you do not subscribe to this, the necessity of the consequent foreknown, you take away faith and the fear of God, you destroy the force of all the divine promises and threatenings, and thus deny divinity itself! (Baker edition, p. 237)

For is it not searching with temerity, when we attempt to make the all-free prescience of God to harmonize with our freedom, prepared to derogate prescience from God, rather than lose our own liberty? (Baker edition, p. 241)

Wherefore, the prescience and omnipotence of God, are diametrically opposite to our "free-will." And it must be, that either God is deceived in His prescience and errs in his action, (which is impossible) or we act, and are acted upon, according to His prescience and action. (Baker edition, p. 242)

How religious, devout, and necessary a thing is it to know [of God's foreknowledge]. For if these things are not known, there can be neither faith nor any worship of God. For that would be ignorance of God, and where there is such ignorance, there cannot be salvation, as we know.

For if you doubt or disdain to know that God foreknows all things, not contingently, but necessarily and immutably, how can you believe in his promises and place a sure trust and reliance on them?

For when he promises anything, you ought to be certain that he knows and is able and willing to perform what he promises; otherwise, you will regard him as neither truthful nor faithful, and that is impiety and a denial of the Most High God.

But how will you be certain and sure unless you know that he knows and wills and will do what he promises, certainly, infallibly, immutably, and necessarily?

Therefore, Christian faith is entirely extinguished, the promises of God are completely destroyed, if we teach and believe that it is not for us to know the necessary foreknowledge of God. (Quoted in Steven C. Roy How Much Does God Know? From the Westminster edition of The Bondage of the Will, p. 122)

Tom Schriener has a short introduction to open theism that sets out the contrast between it and the historic Christian view entitled "My God and Their God."

Monergism have a page of links to articles on open theism that you can find here.

The painting by the way is of King Nebuchadnezzar by William Blake (1757-1827)

Heresy never dies (6): Jonathan Edwards on the denial of God's exhaustive foreknowledge

Back in the summer of 2001, when we lived in sunny Swansea, I read Jonathan Edwards' treatise on The Freedom of the Will (or as the full title has it, A Careful and Strict Inquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, virtue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame).

As you can imagine it was a hard but rewarding read, plus I read it in the Banner of Truth edition and nearly lost my eyesight in the process.

Edwards has a brilliant section (XI) on "The Evidence of God's Certain Foreknowledge of the Volitions of Moral Agents." He has an interesting caveat before he builds his case from Scripture:

One would think it wholly needless to enter on such an argument with any that profess themselves Christians: but so it is; God's certain foreknowledge of the free acts of moral agents, is denied by some that pretend to believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God; and especially of late. I therefore shall consider the evidence of such a prescience in the Most High...

My first argument shall be taken from God's prediction of such events. Here I would, in the first place, lay down these two things as axioms.

1. If God does not foreknow, He cannot foretell such events; that is, He cannot peremptorily and certainly foretell them. If God has no more than an uncertain guess concerning events of this kind, then he can declare no more than an uncertain guess. Positively to foretell, is to profess to foreknow, or declare positive foreknowledge.

2. If God does not certainly foreknow the future volitions of moral agents, then neither can he certainly foreknow those events which are dependent on these volitions. The existence of the one depending on the existence of the other, the knowledge of the existence of the one depends on the knowledge of the existence of the other; and the one cannot be more certain than the other.

Heresy never dies (5): The Flight from Calvinism

The 19th Century Scottish theologian William Cunningham looked upon Socinianism as a unified system of theology and the only consistent rival to Calvinism.

He also reasoned that "when men abandon the great features of the Scriptural system of Calvinism, they have no firm and steady resting place on which they can take their stand, until they sink down to Socinianism." (Historical Theology Volume 2, p. 183)

Cunningham's words, with reference to divine omniscience, can be illustrated from the experience and reasoning of open theists Clark Pinnock and Richard Rice.

The following quotations from Pinnock are taken from his chapter “From Augustine to Arminius: A Pilgrimage in Theology.” He frames his journey, throughout that chapter, in the language of being freed from Calvinist logic. In his new found emancipation he was now able to listen to what the Bible was saying.

A careful reading of the whole chapter, and from the extracts below, reveal, however, that there is a commitment on his part to following the logic of a non-negotiable premise, namely libertarian free will:

Finally I had to rethink the divine omniscience and reluctantly ask whether we ought to think of it as an exhaustive foreknowledge of everything that will ever happen, as even most Arminians do.

I found I could not shake off the intuition that such a total omniscience would necessarily mean that everything we will ever choose in the future will have been spelled out in the divine knowledge register, and consequently the belief that we have truly significant choices to make would seem to be mistaken.

I knew the Calvinist argument that exhaustive foreknowledge was tantamount to predestination because it implies the fixity of all things from"eternity past," and I could not shake off its logical force. I feared that, if we view God as timeless and omniscient, we will land back in the camp of theological determinism where these notions naturally belong.

It makes no sense to espouse conditionality and then threaten it by other assumptions that we make. (Clark Pinnock, “From Augustine to Arminius: A Pilgrimage in Theology” in Pinnock [ed.], The Grace of God and the Will of Man, p. 25)

The same pursuit of consistency, even at the cost of revising divine omniscience can be found in author Richard Rice:

In the earlier part of this discussion we noticed the considerable difficulties encountered by those who seek to reconcile the concept of absolute divine foreknowledge with an affirmation of creaturely freedom. Now we can identify the basic cause of these problems. They arise from the attempt to combine contradictory elements from different views of God, specifically from the attempt to incorporate elements of the Calvinist view of God with the Arminian model.

The concept of absolute foreknowledge retained from Calvinism is incompatible with the dynamic portrait of God that is basic to Arminianism. Absolute foreknowledge--the idea that God sees the entire future in advance--is incompatible with the concept that God interacts with his creatures on a momentary basis.

But we cannot make such changes in our concept of God coherently while clinging to the traditional concept of divine foreknowledge. To be consistent, we must reformulate our understanding of omniscience. (Richard Rice "Divine Knowledge and Free-Will Theism" in Pinnock [ed.], The Grace of God and the Will of Man,p. 133-4)

The above bears out what Cunningham argued around 150 years ago. It is also substantiated in his telling of the following anecdote:

It may be worthwhile to mention...that, in what is probably the earliest summary ever given of the whole Socinian system of doctrine, after it was fully developed, in a little work, understood to have been written with the view of explaining and defending it, by Ostorodus and Voidovius, when, in 1598, they were sent from Poland on a mission into the Low Countries, in order to propogate their doctrine there, it is expressly assigned as a reason why they denied God's foreknowledge of the future actions of men, that there was no other way of escaping from the Calvinistic doctrine of presdestination. (Historical Theology Volume 2, p. 174)

Heresy never dies (4): God cannot know future free decisions

Here is another post comparing the views of contemporary open theists with their theological ancestors on this point, the Socinians.

Although separated by centuries, and although they worked out their theological views under different cultural and philosophical conditions, they have entertained the same ideas, adopted the same premises, and arrived at the same doctrinal conclusions concerning God's omniscience. And that, as I have previously shown (and I am unaware that anyone else has demonstrated), without any literary connection between the two views.

Indeed John Sanders and Greg Boyd have strongly denied that the comparison is even fair, let alone that there is any dependence or borrowing of ideas. The connection between the two views, at a conceptual level, is remarkable.

Why then are we seeing living representatives of the old Socinian view even though they did not arrive at this view by being influenced by the Socinian literature, or by the descent of Socinian ideas in other theological works?

Weighing up the variables and the constants in the respective environments, methodologies and presuppositions of the open theist and Socinian camps I consider the following comment by the late Harold O. J. Brown to be a key insight:

Over and over again, in widely separated cultures, in different centuries, the same basic misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the person and work of Christ and his message reappear. The persistence of the same stimulus, so to speak, repeatedly produces the same or similar reactions.

In their flight from Calvinism the open theists have not found the Arminian understanding of free will and foreknowledge to provide sufficient cognitive rest. Roger Olson has said that open theists look upon their view as consistent Arminianism. It is more true to say that, as Robert Strimple did back in 1996, it is Socinian.

Open theists are careful to note that the revised version of divine omniscience that they are putting forward is logically coherent and does not diminish the perfection of God's knowledge.

God, says Clark Pinnock, “knows all that it is possible to know,” (The Openness of God, p. 124) indeed he has come to position where he thinks it is biblically possible “to hold that God knows everything that can be known, but that free choices would not be something that can be known even by God because they are not yet settled in reality.” (Clark Pinnock, “From Augustine to Arminius: A Pilgrimage in Theology” in Pinnock [ed.], The Grace of God and the Will of Man, p. 25).

Richard Rice, one of the contributors to The Openness of God, defends this revision of omniscience:

It implies no deficiency in divine knowledge to say that God does not know them [creaturely decisions] until they occur. Indeed, to say that God is ignorant of future creaturely decisions is like saying that God is deaf to silence. It makes no sense, because before they exist such decisions are nothing for God to be ignorant of. (The Grace of God and the Will of Man, p. 129)

Compare the position adopted by Pinnock and Sanders with the description of the Socinian denial of God's exhaustive foreknowledge found in William Cunningham's Historical Theology Volume 2 (1862).

Summarizing the Socinian argument Cunningham wrote:

That they may seem, indeed, not to derogate from God's omniscience, they admit indeed that God knows all things that are knowable; but then they contend that future contingent events, such as the future actions of responsible agents, are not knowable,--do not come within the scope of what may be known, even by an infinite Being; and, upon this ground, they allege that it is no derogation from the omniscience of God, that He does not, and cannot, know what is not knowable. (Historical Theology Volume 2, p. 173)

Heresy Never Dies (3): The amazing prescience of Charles Hodge

How did Charles Hodge know about open theism over a hundred years before it arose? Because it was knocking around centuries before he was born:

The Socinians, however, and some of the Remonstrants, unable to reconcile this foreknowledge with human liberty, deny that free acts can be foreknown. As the omnipotence of God is his ability to do whatever is possible, so his omniscience is his knowledge of everything knowable. But as free acts are in their nature uncertain, as they may or may not be, they cannot be known before they occur. Such is the argument of Socinus. This whole difficulty arises out of the assumption that contingency is essential to free agency. (Systematic Theology Volume 1, p. 400-1)

This was the same point that John Owen made in his treatise Vindicae Evangelicae (1655):

Socinus in his Prelections, where the main of his design is to vindicate man's free-will into that latitude and absoluteness as none before him had once aimed at, in his eighth chapter objects to himself this foreknowledge of God as that which seems to abridge and cut short the liberty contended for. (Vindicae Evangelicae, p. 116)

This is the same move that the open theists have made in our own day. For example, take Richard Rice's 1989 essay “Divine Foreknowledge and Free-Will Theism” (in Clark Pinnock [ed.], The Grace of God and the Will of Man). Five years prior to the publication of The Openness of God Rice noted that:

To avoid the difficulties involved in trying to reconcile creaturely freedom with absolute divine foreknowledge, a number of thinkers propose revisionary interpretations of omniscience. (p. 128)

Rice goes on to suggest that this is achieved by developing a definition of omniscience in line with the generally accepted definition of omnipotence. If omnipotence is understood as God having power to do anything logically possible, as opposed to having power to do anything, so omniscience should not be understood as knowing everything but rather as knowing everything that is logically knowable. (p. 128).

The "new paradigm" for understanding God (as the January 1995 subtitle of the Christianity Today forum called it) was in fact a repetition of the old Socinian paradigm. I think that John Frame's conclusion in No Other God is warranted:

In my judgment, the concept of human freedom in the libertarian sense is the engine that drives open theism, often called freewill theism. For the open theist, libertarian free will serves as a kind of grid, through which all other theological assertions must pass—a general criterion for testing the truth of all other doctrines. (No Other God, p. 119)

Waking the dead: Socinus redivivus

Have a read of this description of the open theist understanding of God's foreknowledge from the pen of Clark Pinnock (it is a bit long but worth reading):

Obviously God must know all things that can be known and know them truly. To be able to know all that can be known is a dimension of God's power. Ignorance, or not to know something God needs to know in order to govern the universe and pursue his will, would be a serious limitation.

However, omniscience need not mean exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events. If that were its meaning, the future would be fixed and determined, much as is the past. Total knowledge of the future would imply a fixity of events. Nothing in the future would need to be decided. It also would imply that human freedom is an illusion, that we make no difference and are not responsible. (The Openness of God, p. 121)

We should not think of God's omniscience as a vast encyclopedia of past, present and future facts. The Bible does not see it this way, nor is it a helpful way to think of it.

When God gave creatures freedom, he gave them an open future, a future in a degree to be shaped by their decisions, not a future already determined in its every detail...Philosophically speaking, if choices are real and freedom significant, future decisions cannot be exhaustively foreknown.

This is because the future is not determinate but shaped in part by human choices. The future is not fixed like the past, which can be known completely. The future does not yet exist and therefore cannot be infallibly anticipated, even by God. Future decisions cannot in every way be foreknown, because they have not yet been made. God knows everything that can be known—but God's foreknowledge does not include the undecided.(Ibid., p. 123)

The Openness of God was published in 1994.

Please bear in mind that when Christianity Today published an article on open theism (9th January 1995, "Has God been held hostage by philosophy?" with contributions from Roger Olson, Douglas Kelly, Timothy George and Alister McGrath) the subtitle for the article read "A forum on free-will theism, a new paradigm for understanding God."

Just how new was this new paradigm? Well compare Pinnock's words above with the following from Charles Hodge written in 1871:

The Socinians, however, and some of the Remonstrants, unable to reconcile this foreknowledge with human liberty, deny that free acts can be foreknown. As the omnipotence of God is his ability to do whatever is possible, so his omniscience is his knowledge of everything knowable. But as free acts are in their nature uncertain, as they may or may not be, they cannot be known before they occur. Such is the argument of Socinus. This whole difficulty arises out of the assumption that contingency is essential to free agency. (Systematic Theology Vol. 1, p. 400-1)

And also these words from Herman Bavinck (1854-1921):

In a later period the Socinians taught the same thing. God knows all things, they said, but all things according to their nature. Hence, he knows future contingent (accidental) events, not with absolute certainty (for then they would cease to be accidental), but as contingent and accidental; that is, he knows what the future holds insofar as it depends on humans, but not with infallible foreknowledge. If that were the case, the freedom of the will would be lost, God would become the author of sin, and he himself would be subject to necessity. (Reformed Dogmatics Volume 2: God and Creation, p. 197. Emphasis added)

The point? The new view of God known as open theism was at least as old as the Socinian denial of God's foreknowledge, and it rested on the non-negotiable commitment to the same premise: libertarian free will.

The connection between open theism and Socinianism is not literary but methodological. They share the same convictions and have arrived at the same conclusions concerning the relationship between human freedom and divine foreknowledge.

Heresy never dies (2)

Whilst working on a chapter comparing the Open theist denials of God's exhaustive foreknowledge with their theological ancestors, the Socinians, I came across the following striking remark by Archibald Alexander.

In an article in The Biblical Repertory and Theological Review (Vol. 5 No. 2, 1833) Alexander had translated a large section of N. Arnold's refutation of the Racovian Catechism, at the end of which he concludes:

One thing must have struck the reader as remarkable, namely, that the modern arguments, by which error attempts to defend her cause, are precisely the same as those employed for centuries past. We know, indeed, that those who now adopt and advocate these opinions, greatly dislike this comparison of modern theories with ancient heresies, and denounce it as invidious.

But why should it be so considered? Or why should they be unwilling to acknowledge the conformity of their opinions with those of ancient times, when the agreement is so manifest, not only in the doctrines themselves, but in the arguments and interpretations of Scripture, by which they attempt to support them?

Some of the conditions under which heresies arise are variable (philosophical, political, cultural etc.) and some are constant (the nature of the orthodox doctrines being opposed, the non-negotiable aspects of their system such as the place of reason, or free will).

It is the presence of the latter that I think best accounts for the recurrence and resurgence of old errors in new forms. Heresy never dies. And that is why John Owen in the seventeenth century and the likes of Bruce Ware in the twenty-first, adopt the same arguments and the same exegesis in denying the same errors put forward by Socinians and Open theists.

Calvin 365: (14) Exposing a fictitious righteousness

Calvin describes the effects of being confronted by the moral law:

So long as he is permitted to stand upon his own judgment, he passes off hypocrisy as righteousness; pleased with this, he is aroused against God's grace by I know not what counterfeit acts of righteousness.

But after he is compelled to weigh his life in the scales of the law, laying aside all that presumption of fictitious righteousness, he discovers that he is a long way from holiness, and is in fact teeming with a multitude of vices, with which he previously thought himself undefiled.

So deep and tortuous are the recesses in which the evils of covetousness lurk that they easily deceive man's sight. The apostle has good reason to say: "I should not have known covetousness, if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'" [Rom. 7:7].

For if by the law covetousness is not dragged from its lair, it destroys wretched man so secretly that he does not even feel its fatal stab.

Institutes, 2. 7. 7.

Calvin 365: (13) The first use of the law

Let us survey briefly the function and use of what is called the "moral law." Now, as far as I understand it, it consists of three parts.

The first part us this: while it shows God's righteousness, that is, the righteousness alone acceptable to God, it warns, informs, convicts, and lastly condemns, every man of his own unrighteousness.

Institutes, 2. 7. 6.

Calvin 365: (12) The righteousness of the law

Having been sick and bad of late (long "a" in "bad," and "bad" is Wenglish for unwell) I have fallen behind with the daily quote from Calvin:

If it is true that in the law we are taught the perfection of righteousness, this also follows: the complete observance of the law is perfect righteousness before God. By it man would evidently be deemed and reckoned righteous before the heavenly judgment seat...We cannot gainsay that the reward of eternal salvation awaits complete obedience to the law, as the Lord has promised.

Because observance of the law is found in none of us, we are excluded from the promises of life, and fall back into the mere curse.

Institutes, 2. 7. 3

Resurrection and union with Christ

Last Friday I had the privilege of conducting the funeral service of Lynda Carr. Lynda was a believer, a long term member of Christ Church Deeside, mother of eleven and a wonderful, wonderful character. We will all miss her terribly. She was resting and relying on Christ and looked forward to being with him wich is far better. At the funeral service I spoke from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 about an intelligent faith, a certain hope, and a real comfort.

My practice at the burial of a believer is to read and explain question thirty-seven from the Shorter Catechism:

What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?

A. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united in Christ, do rest in their graves, till the resurrection.

Christ is Saviour of body and soul (see HC Q. 1, 57, 58). He assumed our humanity, real and sinless, that he might redeem all that was fallen.

There seems such a terrible finality to the grave. As the coffin is lowered down it all appears to be so final. What a difference it makes to stand there with the Word of God proclaiming a different perspective, a greater reality than death. Christ is risen, death is conquered.

Those who fall asleep in him were not appointed for wrath but for salvation through the Lord Christ. Their union with him extends to the resurrection of the body. How could the grave be the end if Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, reigning over heaven and earth, having all power and authority? How could this be the end since he loves us so much that he will make our lowly bodies like his glorious body?

As the Puritan Samuel Bolton put it "our dust and bones are still united to the Son of God."

"Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church" due out in Spring 2009

The release date for the interviews book is Spring 2009. Check it out here. I've had a sneak preview of the cover design (The picture above is not it. This is Augustine refuting heretics!).

Risking The Truth: Handling Error in the Church
Interviews with Mark Dever, Carl Trueman, Mike Horton, Tom Schreiner, Scott Clark, Ligon Duncan, Derek Thomas, Kim Riddlebarger...

Foreword by Sinclair Ferguson

...and there are interviews with several other senior ministers and seminary professors.

Here's the blurb:

A collection of interviews on handling truth and error in the church. Contributors reflect on this issue in relation to the minister's own life, pulpit ministry, local church leadership, seminary training, denominations, the impact of the academy, Evangelicalism, contemporary trends, history, creeds and confessions, and doctrines that are currently under attack.

There is also personal reflection on these matters, lessons drawn from experience, and practical advice. The interviews are introduced by a primer on heresy and false teaching, and concluded with a chapters on "Why being against heresies is not enough" and "What really matters in ministry: directives for church leaders in Acts 20."

And here are some endorsements:

"This collection is fascinating, sobering and encouraging. It presents an impressive range of experience and wisdom on the challenges facing the church and its ministry in dealing with false teaching while being sensitive to those affected by it."

Robert Letham
Tutor in Systematic Theology
WEST (Wales Evangelical School of Theology)

"Serious. Thoughtful. Humble. Godly. Loving. Bracing. Encouraging. These interviews will be a blessing to anyone seeking to be faithful in Christian ministry."

James M. Hamilton Jr.
Associate Professor of Biblical Theology
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

"What a novel way to approach this most vital of subjects! Given that theological reflection is human thought about the Scriptural revelation of a tri-personal God, I have always believed that the personal element has a place in all of our theologizing. The subjective should not—indeed cannot—be removed from theology. And here we see the way that some of the most important theological minds of our day personally grapple with how truth is to be defended. This mesh of subjectivity and Christian apologetics—in which objectivity is so vital—makes for both compelling and profoundly instructive reading."

Michael Haykin
Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

"Affirmations and Denials Regarding Recent Issues" WTS Board of Trustees document

Mike Bird points us to a recent document (3rd December 2008) adopted by the Board of Trustees of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, on "Affirmations and Denials regarding recent issues " (related to the recent controversy over the doctrine and interpretation of Scripture).

The document contains the required pledges for voting faculty members and members of the Board of Trustees.

The "Affirmations and Denials" are set out as follows:

I. Confessional Subscription

A. Basic character of subscription

B. Progress in understanding Scripture

C. Specific obligations implied by the pledge

D. Judgments about subscription

II. Confession and Mission

A. Universality of truth

B. The legitimacy of pedagogical adaptation

III. Scripture

A. The inspiration of Scripture

B. The interpretation of Scripture

C. The pertinence of ancient contexts: Ancient Near-Eastern and First Century Mediterranean World

D. The truthfulness of Scripture

E. The role of the Holy Spirit

IV. Special Areas of Interest

A. Special Area: Harmony of Scripture

B. Special Area: Implications of Details in Scripture, Including NT Use of the OT

C. Special Area: Old Testament Teaching

D. Special Area: Old Testament History

Westminster Seminary Distinctives

The document is ten pages long and is available here.

The cross should offend no one

The makers of the soap Coronation Street recently filmed an wedding scene in a quintessentially English church. Concerned that a cross would offend people they concealed it from view with flowers and candles before filming. You can read about it here. There have been apologies for this error and the upset it has caused. However, the following comment from a spokesman at the Diocese of Chester caught my eye:

"The cross is universally accepted as a symbol of Christianity, and should offend no one."

I'm not surprised that the media wishes to cover up a cross. Such a move is ideologically driven and intellectually shallow, but not particularly surprising. That's what people do when they are on the run from God. It is an act of suppression to relieve the pressure of God's special and general revelation.

But it is somewhat bizarre that a church spokesman should say that the cross should offend no one. The cross should offend everyone. It is a direct challenge to our moral calculus, to our deeply held philosophies, to our assessment of human nature, freedom and ability. The cross strips away all our religious, intellectual, and ethical pretensions.

The cross is the very central point of the "scandal of particularity." It tells us not only that God is to be found in this way, and in no other, but he cannot be known rightly without us coming to terms with our sin and corruption and with this way of rescue alone.

The cross leaves all people, in all cultures, at all times, horribly exposed as God defying, God evading, rebels. And yet at the same time the cross displays, as nothing else can, the wisdom and power of God. Who would have thought that the very God that we spend all our lives rejecting and replacing should give his own Son to die in the place of the guilty, and to bear their punishment? That he should freely offer to all people life and forgiveness through the cross of Christ? That God should be in the business of making his bitterest enemies his closest friends?

Don't look in the wrong place

Samuel Bolton on law, gospel, justification and assurance:

Alas, there are multitudes in the world who make a Christ of their own works, and this is their undoing. They look for righteousness and acceptance more in the precept than in the promise, in the law rather than in the Gospel, more in working than in believing...There is something of this spirit in us all; otherwise we should not be up and down so much in respect of our comforts and out faith, as is still so often the case.

The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, p. 70

The substance of the moral law and its redemptive-historical administration

At the start of February I will be heading to London for the Affinity Theological Conference. The subject this year is The End of the Law?

Here are some quotations from Samuel Bolton (1606-1654) on the moral law:

Indeed, the law, as it is considered as a rule, can no more be abolished or changed than the nature of good and evil can be abolished and changed...for the substance of it, it is moral and eternal, and cannot be abrogated.

We grant that the circumstances under which the moral law was originally given were temporary and changeable, and we have now nothing to do with the promulgator, Moses, nor with the place where it was given, Mount Sinai, nor with the time when it was given, fifty days after the people came out of Egypt, nor yet as it was written in tables of stone, delivered with thunderings and lightnings.

We look not to Sinai, the hill of bondage, but to Sion, the mountain of grace. We take the law as an image of the will of God which we desire to obey, but from which we do not expect life and favour, neither do we fear death... (p. 57-8)

For what is the law in the substance of it but that law of nature engraven in the heart of man in innocency? (p. 59)

More to come on this.

Calvin 365: (11) Our God will help us

If you are not confident that God really is sovereign over all things then you will place your trust in something else appart from him in times of need. Psalm 115: tells us that "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases." On the basis the Psalmist exhorts us to trust in the Lord and to find him to be our help and shield.

Preaching on Psalm 115 for the weekly day of prayer on November 4th, 1545, Calvin said:

After the prayer, let us remember how this thought is given to us, that "our God in in heaven" (Psalm 115:3), in order that it may be for us a shield to withstand every evil thought-thoughts such as wondering whether our God can aid us.

This must be imprinted in our memory: our God will aid us.

The reason: nothing can prevent Him.

And He has declared to us that it is His God pleasure never to fail us at need...And if God does not help us at first, let us wait on Him; we will not be disappointed.

Our God will come, and when?

He knows when it will be time.

Quoted in David B. Calhoun, Prayer: "The Chief Exercise of Faith" in David W. Hall & Peter A. Lillback [eds] A Theological Guide to Calvin's Institutes: Essays and Analysis, p. 366-7

Calvin 365: (10) Romans is the key to the whole Bible

If we understand this Epistle , we have a passage opened to us to the understanding of the whole of Scripture.

Dedication to Simon Grynaeus, p. 2

If we gained a true understanding of this Epistle, we have an open door to all the most profound treasures of Scripture.

The Theme to the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, p. 5

Calvin 365: (9) Sound advice to preachers and commentators

Since it is almost his only task to unfold the mind of the writer whom he has undertaken to expound, he misses the mark, or at least strays outside his limits, by the extent to which he leads his readers away from the meaning of his author.

Commentary on Romans, Dedication to Simon Grynaeus, p. 1

WSC Calvin conference

Westminster Seminary California are holding a conference next weekend on "Calvin's Legacy: Reforming the Church today." They are just about fully booked, but you can catch up with the action through the live blogging of Scott Clark.

Details can be found here.

The Reformation and its impact (audio links)

I could listen to David Calhoun all day. Here is the link for his lectures on the Reformation and Modern Church History. They include the following, plus much more:

Lesson 1: Introduction to Reformation and Modern Church History

Lesson 2: The Context of the Reformation

Lesson 3: Erasmus and the Humanists

Lesson 4: The Life of Martin Luther

Lesson 5: Luther's "Theology of the Cross"

Lesson 6: The Life and Theology of Ulrich Zwingli

Lesson 7: The Radicals of the Reformation

Lesson 8: The Life of John Calvin

Lesson 9: The Theology of Calvin

Lesson 10: The English Reformation

Lesson 11: John Knox and the Scottish Reformation

Lesson 12: The Catholic Reformation

Lesson 13: The Results of the Protestant Reformation

Lesson 14: The Anglicans

Lesson 15: The Puritans

Lesson 16: The Scottish Presbyterians

Lesson 17: The Church in the Netherlands

Lesson 18: The Westminster Assembly

Lesson 19: Calvinism in the New World

Lesson 20: Protestant Orthodoxy

and this...

Lesson 35: Christianity and Liberalism

Calvin 365: (8) I want a real Calvinist!

What effects upon the soul are the result of the Spirit wrought application of the sovereignty of God (in creation, providence and redemption) as declared in his Word?

Do these truths make men and women narrow and bigoted, proud, arrogant, unloving, harsh, and cold? Do they make them humble, considerate, kind, loving, and motivated in their love to others?

I realise that not all accusations that Calvinists are arrogant, cold and harsh are misplaced. At times we are inconsistent with what we believe to be true, and fall short of being truly shaped by the truth. One of my favourite blog posts deals with this issue, you may like to read it (Why [some] Reformed people are such jerks)

But, to borrow some words, with a little adaptation, from ER: I want a real Calvinist, who believes in a really gracious salvation! Here is Warfield's assessment that Calvin was in fact that kind of Calvinist:

It was that we might know ourselves to be wholly in the hands of this God of perfect righteousness and goodness--not in those of men, whether ourselves or some other men--that he was earnest for the doctrine of predestination: which is nothing more than the declaration of the supreme dominion of God.

It was that our eternal felicity might hand wholly on God's mighty love--and not on our sinful weakness--that he was so zealous for the doctrine of election: which is nothing more than the ascription of our entire salvation to God.

As he contemplated the majesty of this Sovereign Father of men, his whole being bowed in reverence before him, and his whole heart burned with zeal for his glory.

As he remembered that this great God has become in his own Son the Redeemer of sinners, he passionately gave himself to the proclamation of the glory of his grace.

B. B. Warfield, "John Calvin: The Man And His Work" in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield Volume V: Calvin and Calvinism, p. 23

TSK is reading Reforming or Conforming?

Tall Skinny Kiwi (Andrew Jones) is reading Reforming or Conforming? He has this to say:

A really good book came in the mail two days ago. Reforming or Conforming? Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church. I always said that when a book of a decent calibre comes out as a corrective to the emerging church, I would give it some airplay and consideration on the blog. Although I think it misses the mark at many points, its probably a better critique of the emerging church movement [or EmergentVillage, to be precise] than any other I have come across. Its well written, not condescending, not patronizing and it offers some good advice for the wider evangelical church.

There are posts on the intro, chapter 1, chapter 7 and chapter 9

Preaching Christ Crucified

I came across the following helpful comment on preaching Christ by Sinclair Ferguson:

We do not preach "the atonement" as such, or "salvation," "redemption," or "justification" as such, but Jesus Christ and him crucified. These blessings were accomplished by Christ and are available only in Christ, never abstracted from him. We must learn to avoid the contemporary plague of preaching the benefits of the gospel without proclaiming Christ himself as the Benefactor in the gospel.

We do not offer people abstract blessings (peace, forgiveness, new life) as commodities. Rather we preach and offer Christ crucified and risen, in whom the blessings become ours and not otherwise. We preach the person in the work, never the work and its blessings apart from the Saviour himself.

"Preaching the Atonement" in The Glory of the Atonement (Hill & James, eds), p. 437

Does God need to be reconciled to us?

I'm currently writing a chapter for a book. The chapter title is "Heresy Never Dies: The shadow of Socinianism falls on Evangelicalism." The Socinians were a 16th and 17th century group that denied the trinity, the deity of Christ (obviously), justification sola fide, penal substitution, eternal hell, and God's exhaustive foreknowledge (yup, they are the ancestors of Clark Pinnock and the other openness guys on that one).

The Racovian Catechism has the following to say about the death of Christ and reconciliation (Section V, Chapter 8):

...the Scripture never asserts that God was reconciled to us by Christ, but that we were reconciled to him; which indicates no wrath on his part, but our aversion to him, and our enmity against him. Wherefore the satisfaction, which they fancy, can by no means be inferred from any of those passages.

As I read that I also remembered coming across the following footnote, quite unrelated to Socinianism, in Don Carson's chapter "Atonement in Romans 3:21-26" in The Glory of the Atonement (Hill & James, eds):

As Paul uses "reconciliation" terminology, the movement in reconciliation is always of the sinner to God. God is never said to be reconciled to us; we must be reconciled to him. At the level of exegesis, those are the mere facts.

On the other hand, because the same exegesis also demands that we take the wrath of God seriously, and the texts insist that God takes decisive action in Christ to deal with our sin so that his wrath is averted, in that sense we may speak of God being "reconciled to us": Wesley was not wrong to teach us to sing "My God is reconciled," provided it is recognized that his language is drawn from the domain of constructive theology and not from the narrower domain of explicit exegesis (although, we insist equally, the constructive theology is itself grounded in themes that are exegetically mandated). (p. 134, n. 53)

In due course I will post some comments by John Owen on this point from his work Vindicae Evangelicae.

Calvin 365: (7) The wonderful plan of justification

Who can adequately calculate the loss when the truth set out in the following words is obscured and lost? Who can rightly estimate the weight of judgment involved in the deliberate rejection of this truth?

How great presumption is it to condemn the supreme Judge when he freely absolves, so that this answer may not have full force: "I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy"?

And yet Moses' intercession, which God restrains in these words, was not to the effect that he should spare no one but that he should wipe away the charge against them even though they were guilty, and absolve them all equally.

And on this account, indeed, we say that those who were lost have their sins buried and are justified before God because, as he hates sin, he can love only those whom he has justified.

This is a wonderful plan of justification that, covered by the righteousness of Christ, they should tremble at the judgment they deserve, and that while they rightly condemn themselves, they should be accounted righteous outside themselves.

Institutes, 3.11.11

Calvin 365: (6) The free offer of the Gospel

As a teenager I spent some summers involved in outreach at the seaside (n.b. British summers are a washout and British beaches something of a health hazard at the best of times).

We would teach children a chorus that said "Jesus-said-that-who-so-ever-will-may-come!" to which a few of us added in a late night discussion, and "Calvin-said-that-who-so-ever-won't."

At that stage I had not read a single word that Calvin had written, but that didn't stop me from having a grotesquely misshapen view of the man and his theology. It was a few years later, when reading through Ephesians 2:1-10, that my misinterpretation of Calvinism was exposed, and my inadequate grasp of the grace of God in the gospel was laid aside. I then saw, for the first time, that the Triune God saves, he really does do the work of saving, and that the offer of the gospel to all is made effective to those who are called. I saw that I was dead, but God made me alive with Christ even when I was dead in sin.

That is why today I am both a Calvinist, for want of a better phrase (I believe that the sovereign God graciously saves undeserving sinners) and an evangelist who is free to tell all people everywhere to repent and believe.

And Calvin, as the following makes clear, really did believe and teach that "who-so-ever-will-may-come":

The Gospel is indeed offered to all for their salvation, but its power is not universally manifest.

The fact that the Gospel is the taste of death to the ungodly arises not so much from from the nature of the Gospel itself, as from their own wickedness. By setting forth one way of salvation, it cuts off confidence in every other way. When men withdraw from this one salvation they find in the Gospel a sure evidence of their own ruin.

When, therefore, the Gospel invites all to partake of salvation without any difference, it is rightly termed the doctrine of salvation. For Christ is there offered, whose proper office is to save that which had been lost, and those who refuse to be saved by Him shall find Him their Judge.

Commentary on Romans, 1:16, p. 27

Calvin 365: (5) Faith is a gift so gratitude is the right response

One of the notes that the apostles keep sounding in their letters is that of thankfulness. It is a mark of the Christian and of the Church to express thankfulness to God for his common blessings and for his special mercies in the gospel.

Where thankfulness is weak, in our souls and churches, a critical spirit, cynicism, pride, and envy are permitted to flourish. How can you respond with jealousy or resentment toward others at the same time as you are bending your knee to thank God for his grace in helping, strengthening, equipping, and blessing others. The two frames of mind cannot co-exist. Which is why we would be much healthier if we spent less time inhabiting our own thoughts, or involving others in our dark broodings, and more time bowed before the Father, the God of all grace.

Calvin gets to the heart of the matter in his comments on Romans 1:

It is worth noting, first of all, that Paul commends their faith in such a way as to imply that it had been received from God. From this we learn that that faith is a gift of God.

If thanksgiving is the acknowledgement of a benefit, whoever thanks God for faith acknowledges that it is His gift. When we find that the apostle always begins his congratulations with thanksgiving, we may know that the lesson we are being given is that all our blessings are the gifts of God.

We should also accustom ourselves to such forms of expression as may ever rouse us more keenly to acknowledge God as the bestower of all God things, and so to stir up others at the same time to a similar attitude.

If it is right to do this in little blessings, how much more ought we to do so in regard to faith, which is neither a commonplace nor an indiscriminate gift of God.

Commentary on Romans, p. 20

Calvin 365: (4) God listens to our prayers and praise with a stethoscope

The great danger in prayer and praise is to be caught up with the form and not the very essence of engaging with God. Here are some helpful words from Calvin to ponder at the beginning of the Lord's Day, and to take with us if we are able to gather together with his people. The closing sentence is worth committing to memory and reflecting on often:

We not only must serve God and call on him with only our mouth and voice, but that it is necessary that our heart be lifted up so that our melody rises above the heavens and comes right before the majesty of God.

Now it it true that to attain this, it is not necessary that the tongue labours too much. For they who have spoken not a word have sometimes really called out to God, and he has heard and answered them...He knows what we need before we ask it of him.

He thus looks into our heart and gives it more attention than he does to the voice of the mouth. For there are many who cry out enough, but it is nothing more than a voice sounding in the air. All this is of no use unless the heart is touched.

For if we desire that God hears us and answers our prayers, it is necessary that the heart speaks and is burning with a strong desire to pray to him and praise him.

"A Fragment from a Sermon of John Calvin" quoted in David B. Calhoun, Prayer: "The Chief Exercise of Faith" in David W. Hall & Peter A. Lillback [eds] A Theological Guide to Calvin's Institutes: Essays and Analysis, p. 354

School's out forever

Comic story in The Times about Watercliffe Meadow Primary in Sheffield. Apparently the word "school" has far too many negative connotations for pupils and parents, so the received wisdom is that it should now be referred to as "a place for learning."

Read about it here.

The Times also has the following list of alternative job titles:

Waste removal engineer Dustman

Domestic engineer Housewife

Knowledge navigator Teacher

Stock replenishment adviser Shelf stacker

Dispatch services facilitator Postman

Leisure services administrator Masseuse/masseur

Flueologist Chimney sweep

Head of verbal communications Receptionist/secretary

Environment improvement technician Cleaner

Education centre nourishment production assistant Dinner lady

Calvin roundup

Here are some Calvin links. Of course there are five, as there ought to be, not four or four and a half.

Scott Clark has some great book recommendations here (these will give plenty of historical and theological context to the man and his theology).

Justin Taylor tells us about the Princeton "read through the Institutes in a year" planner here

You can also read Jim Packer's foreword to Hall & Lillback [eds] A Theological Guide to Calvin's Institutes: Essays and Analysis here

And Derek Thomas reminds us about the reading schedule here

And another fellow Welshman, Guy Davies, recently reviewed Paul Helm's Calvin: A Guide for the Perplexed here

Calvin 365: (3) The happiness of promoting God's glory

A short, sweet, and Piper-esque third installment (of 365) from Calvin:

There is no truer characteristic of believers than that they should promote the glory of the Lord, with which their whole happiness is connected.

Commentary on Romans, p. 25

Calvin 365: (2) The basis on which we stand before God

From his commentary on Psalm 130:

Whenever God then exhibits the tokens of his wrath, let even the man who seems to others to be the holiest of all his fellows, descend to make this confession, that should God determine to deal with us according to the strict demands of his law, and to summon us before his tribunal, not one of the whole human race would be able to stand...But the Prophet...confesses, after having thoroughly examined himself, that if of the whole human race not even one can escape eternal perdition, this instead of lessening rather increased his obnoxiousness to punishment.

Whoever, as if he had said, shall come into the presence of God, whatever may be his eminence for sanctity, he must succumb and stand confounded, what then will be the case as to me, who am not one of the best?

The right application of this doctrine is, for every man to examine in good earnest his own life by the perfection which is enjoined upon us in the law. In this way he will be forced to confess that all men without exception have deserved everlasting damnation; and each will acknowledge in respect to himself that he is a thousand times undone.

Farther, this passage teaches us that, since no man can stand by his own works, all such as are accounted righteous before God, are righteous in consequence of the pardon and remission of their sins. In no other manner can any man be righteous in the sight of God.

N.T. Wright's rejoinder to Piper on justification

Michael Bird has an interesting post on N.T. Wright's forthcoming response to John Piper's critique of his views set out in The Future of Justification. The book is due out in February. Those wishing to take a crash course to orient themselves to this debate may wish to take a look at this or this and also this too (not forgetting this book as well).

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Calvin 365: (1) Be content with what God has revealed

2009 marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. In addition to my normal posts I was also being putting up a daily quotation from Calvin. The first comes from his letter to Laelius Socinus, the uncle of the infamous Fautus Socinus.

The younger Socinus galvanised the disparate anti-trinitarians who had found refuge in Poland. Their resulting theology, as stated in the Racovian Catechism, was the antithesis of confessional Reformed theology and the consensus documents of the early church (the ecumenical creeds). Calvin warned the elder Socinus about his speculations:

Certainly no one can be more averse to paradox than I am, and in subtleties I find no delight at all. Yet nothing shall ever hinder me from openly avowing what I have learned from the Word of God; for nothing but what is useful is taught in the school of this master. It is my only guide, and to acquiesce in its plain doctrines shall be my constant rule of wisdom.

Would that you also, my dear Laelius, would learn to regulate your powers with the same moderation! You have no reason to expect a reply from me so long as you bring forward those monstrous questions. If you are gratified by floating among those airy speculations, permit me, I beseech you, an humble disciple of Christ, to meditate on those things which tend towards the building up of my faith.

...And in truth I am very greatly grieved that the fine talents with which God has endowed you, should be occupied not only with what is vain and fruitless, but that they should also be injured by pernicious figments.

What I warned you of long ago, I must again seriously repeat, that unless you correct in time this itching after investigation, it is to be feared you will bring upon yourself severe suffering.

I should be cruel towards you did I treat with a show of indulgence what I believe to be a very dangerous error. I should prefer, accordingly, offending you a little at present by my severity, rather than allow you to indulge unchecked in the fascinating allurements of curiosity.

Letters of John Calvin, No. 30 (Banner of Truth), p. 128-9.