Editor's Notes -- Robert D. Decker
Setting in Order the Things That Are Wanting - Robert D. Decker
Genesis 1:11: Myth or History (2) - David J. Engelsma
Thomas Brandwardine: Forgotten Medieval Augustinian (2) - Russell J. Dykstra
Book Reviews:
In this issue Prof. David J. Engelsma contributes part two of his extensive and very important study of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Engelsma argues convincingly that the events recorded in these chapters, "…happened, in and with time. They happened as recorded."
Prof. Russell J. Dykstra continues his fine study of Thomas Bradwardine, whom he regards as the "Forgotten Medieval Augustinian."
Undersigned continues his exposition of Paul's Letter to Titus. These expositions, the reader may recall, were first presented in the weekly chapel services at the seminary.
Again we offer a number of book reviews on a variety
of subjects. These are intended to guide the busy pastors to worthwhile
books.
Robert D. Decker
In the previous issue we offered an exposition of verses five
through seven of the first chapter of Titus. We continue our exposition
beginning at verse eight. Verses eight and nine read as follows1:
"But given to hospitality, loving goodness, 2
sober, just, holy, temperate. Holding fast the faithful (reliable,
trustworthy) Word which is according to doctrine in order that
he might be able both to exhort,3
by means of his sound teaching, and to refute the ones who speak
against it."
Verse 8
Having described what the bishop or elder must not be in verses 6 and 7, the apostle in verses 8 and 9 describes what the bishop must be. This is the force of the conjunction, "but," with which verse 8 begins. This is the sharp contrast between the negative and the positive. In verses 8 and 9 the apostle lists the gifts the bishop must have from the Lord. He concludes the section by stating the purpose for these gifts. They enable the bishop both to exhort the people of God and to refute the gainsayers.
The bishop must be "given to hospitality," i.e., hospitable, generous to guests. The same expression is found in I Peter 4:9, where Scripture exhorts the saints to "use hospitality one to another without grudging." This verse and verses 10 through 11 of I Peter 4 are a further explanation of the exhortation of verse 8, which is, "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins." This means that hospitality is an expression of the love of God which the saints must have to one another.
We find the same word used in Romans 12:13, "Distributing to the necessity of the saints; given to hospitality." The context in this passage is similar to that of I Peter 4. Scripture exhorts the members of the one body of Christ to use their gifts for the benefit of their fellow saints. Lying at the heart of that exhortation is the imperative of verses 9 and 10, "Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another." The idea is that the saints of God are to be given to hospitality as an expression of God's love for one another.
This is especially necessary for the bishop. He must be given to hospitality out of the love of God for those whom he oversees. The elder must be unselfishly humble. He must deny himself as he cares for his fellow saints. Always the elder must seek the welfare, i.e., the salvation, of the members of the church. The elder is generous to the people of God when by means of bringing them the Word of God he governs them. When he comforts them in their sorrows, when he encourages them in their sicknesses, when he helps them through their trials, when he instructs them, admonishes and disciplines them when they wander in sinful ways, when he feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, gives drink to the thirsty - in all these ways the bishop manifests the generosity of Christ's love for the flock. Thus must the elder deny himself as he seeks the welfare of God's people and the glory of God's name. One who desires the office of a bishop must be given to hospitality.
Further, the bishop must be a "lover of good." 4 "The good" or "goodness" is that which is the fruit of faith, performed according to the law of God, and done to the glory of God. 5 Goodness is that which is in harmony with God's law, and Jesus taught us that God's law is this, to love God and the neighbor. Hence, when William Hendriksen translates this as "ready to do what is beneficial to others," he has it exactly right. God in His love always seeks our welfare. We love God and manifest that love to the neighbor exactly in the way of being ready to do what is beneficial to them. And, seeking the eternal welfare of the saints, the bishop will of necessity be caring for the saints with a view to God's glory.
If a man does not love goodness, he must not seek the office of a bishop. He is not qualified for the office of Christ.
The bishop must also be sober. This is the opposite of drunkenness. Since we have already explained this concept in our exposition of verse seven, we may be brief. That the bishop must be sober simply means he must be in control of his faculties so that he has his spiritual senses about him. If he lacks this, the bishop cannot take care of God's people. Only when he is sober is he able to oversee, rule, admonish, teach, comfort, and encourage God's people.
The bishop must be just. If "blameless," as used in verses 6 and 7, means "one who cannot be called to account, unreprovable, unaccused," and it does mean this, then "just" is the positive expression of the same qualification. To be just is to be right or righteous. The elder must be judged to be in compliance with the commandments of God's law. This is really a legal idea. Before the law of God, as judged by the criterion of God's law, the bishop must not be guilty, but righteous.
The bishop must be holy, i.e., undefiled by sin, free from all wickedness. He must be pure and pious, "observing religiously every moral obligation." The bishop must be a pious worshiper of God. This must be true of him in the formal sense. Certainly the bishop must attend faithfully and participate obediently in the worship services of the church. This is crucial! The elder needs to be a faithful preacher of the Word of God with all that this means and implies. If he be a ruling elder, the bishop must oversee the preacher and the preaching and teaching of the Word. He must watch for the souls of God's people.
But also in his entire life must the elder be separate from sin and consecrated to the Lord's service. Thus he is holy.
The elder must be temperate. The literal meaning of the Greek is "having power over." The bishop must have power over himself so that he is able to curb, restrain, and control himself. In plain words he must not lose his temper and be given to angry outbursts. Nor ought the bishop be given to a sort of silly humor. He must not be boisterous, loud, constantly making fun of the serious matters of the Christian life and doctrine. If the bishop be not temperate, it will not be long before the people of God lose respect for him and confidence in him as a servant of the Lord.
According to this portion of sacred Scripture the elder in God's church must be characterized by these gifts and qualifications. He must be blameless, a one-wife husband with believing children, not in the state of being accused of a dissolute life, or unruly. It is necessary that the bishop be blameless as the steward of God. Rather than being self willed, prone to anger, a drunkard, a striker, covetous of base gain, the bishop must be given to hospitality, loving good, sober, just, holy, temperate.
All of these gifts, to one degree or another, must characterize the man who desires the office of the bishop in the church. One man may have one or more of these gifts in greater measure than another, but all bishops must have these gifts! No one who lacks these may serve as an elder in the church.
In this connection we should not let it escape us
that these are gifts from our gracious God. God blesses those
whom he calls to the sacred office of elder with these gifts/qualifications.
But we should also not fail to understand that these gifts from
our gracious God can be and must be prayerfully developed. If
a man desires the office of a bishop he must be gifted and he
must prayerfully cultivate those gifts for the good of the church
and the glory of God.
Verse 9
This verse marks the conclusion to the section which begins with verse 5 and wherein the inspired apostle speaks of the qualifications or gifts which a man must have if he is to serve as an elder in the church.
The elder must be "holding fast the faithful word which is according to the doctrine." This, John Calvin calls "the chief gift in a bishop." 6 This faithful word is, literally, the trustworthy or reliable Word. And it is the reliable Word because it is the Word of God Himself, the God-breathed Word. It is the Word which holy men from God spoke as moved by the Holy Spirit (II Pet. 1:20-21). Because that Word is inspired it is infallible. And, because it is the inspired, infallible Word, it is the only, absolute rule for the faith and life of the Christian. It bears God's authority. Before that Word of God all must bow in humble submission!
But there is more! That that Word is reliable or trustworthy means it is the only word on which we may depend. It is absolutely true. All that it teaches and promises will surely come to pass. It is the only word which will never fail.
But note well, it is the reliable, trustworthy Word which is according to doctrine. This means that this Word is in harmony with sound doctrine. The trustworthy Word reveals the teaching or doctrine which alone can edify God's church! It is the only word from which we may learn the great doctrines of God, man, Christ, salvation, the church, and the last things. That doctrine is the only sure foundation for a life of sanctification, thankful obedience to the will of God as summed in His Law.
To that reliable, trustworthy Word the bishop must hold fast. In the middle voice as it occurs here this verb "hold fast" means "to hold one's self face to face with, and in this way to cleave, cling tenaciously to, the trustworthy Word!7 The faithful minister/elder must hold himself face to face with the reliable, trustworthy Word. He must cling to it.
This is an extremely important imperative for the ministers and elders of God's church. If the bishop is to hold fast to the teachings of the reliable, trustworthy Word, he obviously must know those teachings thoroughly. He must learn them in such a way that he has a clear and solid grasp of the doctrine of the reliable Word of God. And, knowing that reliable Word, he must cling tenaciously to it. He must faithfully maintain and defend that trustworthy Word. The minister and elder must never allow it to be torn from them. He must not be as an unlearned, immature child tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, as this same apostle wrote to the Ephesians in chapter four of that Epistle.
In a word, those who would serve in office in Christ's church must not only know the reliable Word which is in harmony with the doctrine or teaching, he must believe it and be convinced of it with all his heart!
How all of this applies to our work here in the seminary is not at all difficult to determine. Here the professors must teach the scholars the fundamentals of the doctrine of the reliable, trustworthy Word of God. They must teach the students how the church all through the ages developed her understanding of the doctrine of the Word; how the church taught it, maintained and defended it, and confessed it against the heresies of the false teachers. Here the professors are called to teach future ministers how to expound that reliable Word and thus glean from it the sound doctrine of Scripture. The professors must teach the students how to preach and teach the trustworthy Word of God.
And the students must receive all this instruction. But the learning does not end with graduation from the seminary! As the students presently, God willing, begin their ministerial careers, they must make all this teaching their own. Through faithful labor they are privileged to spend a lifetime growing, developing in the knowledge of the doctrines of the reliable Word. That trustworthy Word they must believe and defend until their last breath!
The last clause of verse nine states the purpose of holding oneself face to face with the reliable Word, "in order that he might be able both to exhort or encourage 8 others by means of his sound teaching and to refute the ones who speak against it."
The minister who holds fast the truth of the reliable Word is able to take good care of the church of Christ. By means of his sound teaching he is able to exhort, correct, admonish and thus encourage the faithful members of the church. By means of his sound teaching he is also able to refute the ones who speak against the truth of the reliable Word. Those who contradict and oppose the gospel; those who refuse to submit to the trustworthy Word of God, need to be exposed, refuted, and, assuming that they refuse to repent, put out of the church. If they are allowed to remain, they will corrupt the church.
Let it be clearly understood, the only way to keep the church of Christ pure is by edifying and encouraging the faithful and their children and by refuting the ungodly enemies of the truth. Both the edifying of the faithful and the refutation of the opponents are accomplished by the sound doctrine of the reliable Word.
One must simply be impressed by the great emphasis Scripture puts on the necessity of sound doctrine, not only here in Titus one, but in a host of other passages as well. Let us seize the opportunity which is put before us here in the seminary. Let us embrace with believing hearts and minds the sound doctrine of the trustworthy Word of God as that doctrine is summed in the Reformed confessions and by the grace of God taught in our Protestant Reformed Churches. Let us hold it fast. Let us preach it faithfully. Let us who are called to teach prospective ministers delve deeply into the trustworthy Word in order to maintain and defend it and impart it to those pursuing the gospel ministry.
In this way and only in this way will God be pleased to keep our churches faithful in doctrine and in life and in the ministry He calls those churches to perform.
That prince among expositors, John Calvin, puts it
powerfully when he comments on verse 9,
Holding fast the faithful word. This is the chief gift in a bishop, who is elected principally for the sake of teaching; for the church cannot be governed in any other way than by the word…. He wishes that a bishop should hold it fast, so as not only to be well instructed in it, but to be constant in maintaining it. There are some fickle persons who easily suffer themselves to be carried away to various kinds of doctrine.… And, indeed, nothing is more dangerous than that fickleness…when a pastor does not steadfastly adhere to that doctrine of which he ought to be the unshaken defender. In short, in a pastor there is demanded not only learning, but such zeal for pure doctrine as never to depart from it…. The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both; for he who is deeply skilled in it will be able both to govern those who are teachable, and to refute the enemies of the truth…. This is remarkable applause bestowed on the word of God, when it is pronounced to be sufficient, not only for governing the teachable, but for subduing the obstinacy of enemies. And, indeed, the power of truth revealed by the Lord is such that it easily vanquishes all falsehoods. Let the Popish bishops now go and boast of being the successors of the apostles, seeing that the greater part of them are so ignorant of all doctrine, as to reckon ignorance to be no small part of their dignity. 9
Part one of the polemical article that is continued here examined
and condemned the heresy that the opening chapters of the Bible
are non-historical, that is, mythical. This heresy prevails now
in evangelical, Reformed, and Presbyterian churches, seminaries,
colleges, publishing houses, and Christian schools. The first
installment concluded with these words: "The child of God
must have history in
Genesis 1-11.
Christianity must have
history there, history that is clearly and reliably set down by
divine inspiration." Part one appeared in the November, 2000
issue of this journal.
History
The foundation of the entire Scripture (such was Luther's description of Genesis 1-11) is history. The events recorded there happened, in and with time. They happened as is recorded. Only if they happened as Scripture records them as happening are the events historical. The subtle mythologians, aware of how much is at stake here, assure us that they maintain the "historicity" of the events in Genesis 1-11. What they mean is that the myths found on the opening pages of Scripture have a certain rootage in things that did really happen in the dim and distant past. What these things may have been, how they actually happened, and in what way they are related to the mythical representations of them in Genesis 1-11, however, no one knows.
The highly reputed evangelical Henri Blocher is representative. In his exposition of the opening chapters of the Bible, with regard particularly to the account of the fall in Genesis 3, Blocher strongly affirms the importance of "'the historicity of the content' of Genesis 3. " Such is the importance of the historicity of Genesis 3, according to Blocher, that "along with ethical monotheism and the doctrine of sin . . . nothing less than the gospel is at stake." The unwary Christian and the trusting church suppose that Blocher is teaching that Genesis 3 is history. They are deceived. Blocher denies the reality of the two trees, the reality of a speaking serpent, and the reality of the creation of a woman-Eve-from a rib of a man-Adam. Blocher subtly distinguishes between "a historical account of the fall" (which, according to him, Genesis 3 is not) and "the account of a historical fall" (which, according to him, it is). Although Genesis 3 is "the account of a historical fall," the chapter is not historical. It is mythical .1
Genesis 3 is historical inasmuch as, and only inasmuch as, it is not only the account of a historical fall but also a historical account of the fall. In Genesis 1-11 the Holy Spirit describes events as they happened. Genesis 1-11 is reality.
But the reality of Genesis 1-11 is far more than that the events merely took place. They took place as acts of the triune, living God, which He did before His own face, according to His counsel. His purpose with them was to give Jesus Christ the preeminence in all things (Col. 1:13-20). This is the historicity of Genesis 1-11. This is its reality, its truth. And all this history was written down by Moses, who wrote not one word of his own private interpretation or by his own will, but who wrote as he was moved by the Holy Ghost (II Pet. 1:20, 21).
Genesis 1:1-2: 3 is not excluded from the inspired account of historical events. As a historical Genesis 1-11 is fundamental to the rest of Scripture, a historical Genesis 1:1-2: 3 is fundamental to the rest of Genesis 1-11. And the content of Genesis 1:1-2: 3 is the "days"-six days of divine creation, each consisting of one evening and one morning, and one day of divine rest. If the days of Genesis 1 and 2, their order, and the speech and acts of God on the days are not historical, that is, if the events of Genesis 1 and 2 did not happen as Genesis 1 and 2 record them as happening, nothing in Genesis 1-11 is historical. The issue in the controversy, " Genesis 1-11: Myth or History?" is the historicity of Genesis 1:1-2: 3, that is, real days of one evening and one morning, in the order given, with God's doing on each of them what the passage says He did.
Because Genesis 1-11 is history, the passage has meaning for mankind, especially the believing church. What a superstructure of meaning is reared up on, and supported by, the foundation of the history of Genesis 1-11. Genesis 1-11 sets forth the origin of all things: the universe, including time and space; man; marriage and the family; the basic ordering of man's life in a week of six days of work and one day of rest; sin; the curse and death, not only for the human race, but also for the brute creation; the gospel and the Savior who is promised by the gospel; the antithesis between godly and ungodly; and the nations.
The origin of Israel is also to be found in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Israel's origin in Scripture is not in Genesis 12 in the call of Abram. Rather, it occurs in Genesis 9:26 in the blessing of Shem.
All of this solid reality of origins fades into a mist of fantasy if Genesis 1-11 is mythical.
Not only is Genesis 1-11 the all-important account of the origin of all things, but this passage is also the foundation of all Christian doctrines and ethics. It is the foundation of all the great doctrines of the faith: creation, fall, and redemption; man as the image of God; original sin and total depravity; atonement and, thus, the satisfying of the justice of a righteous God; and salvation by a substitute-a federal head, just as Adam was a federal head.
Upon Genesis 1-11 depends also the doctrine of an eschatological destruction of the world, out of which will come a new world of righteousness. The one historical evidence that the believer can appeal to against the scoffers who challenge his hope of an end of the world at Christ's coming is the flood (II Pet. 3:1-7).
If Genesis 1-11 is not history, all these doctrines are lost.
The figurative interpretations in evangelical and Reformed churches of the opening chapters of Genesis are presently serving the theory of theistic evolution. If theistic evolution is the real explanation of the origin of our world, death has been in the world from the very beginning as a natural part of the process of evolution, and man has been morally weak and sinful from his appearance from the primates. Since theistic evolution is the means that God used to create the world and man, God Himself is responsible for death in the world and for man's sinfulness. There is then no such thing as original sin, particularly original guilt that is imputed to every child of a real Adam, who, being sinless, disobeyed a command about a piece of fruit. And if there is no original sin, indeed no sin at all, there is not, and need not be, a Redeemer, who delivers by becoming sin for sinners.
Just as all doctrine is lost, if Genesis 1-11 is a myth, so also are lost all the ethical teachings of the Christian religion. Genesis 1-11 is the foundation of the Christian life. It is the foundation of the calling to love, fear, obey, and serve God our Creator and Savior. This is the primary duty of our life. And this is the primary cause of the attack on the doctrines of creation and the fall by the theory of evolution, which attack is accommodated by reducing the opening chapters of the Bible to myth. Darwinian evolution is not physical science, not even mistaken physical science. It is spiritual revolution against the sovereign Creator, before whom men and women must bow and to whom they are responsible.
Genesis 1-11 is the foundation of the calling to love the neighbor, for the passage teaches that the neighbor is created and put next to us by God.
It is the foundation of the calling ordinarily to marry and then to live faithfully with the one woman or the one man for life. At the beginning of the twenty-first century in depraved Western society, it is necessary to specify that Genesis 1-11 is the foundation of the calling to marry someone of the opposite sex.
The opening chapters of Genesis are the foundation of the order in the home that consists of the willing headship of the husband and father and of the equally willing submission of the wife and mother.
Genesis 1-11 is the foundation of work-six days of work, as it is the foundation of the rest of the weekly Sabbath.
Third, the importance of Genesis 1-11 as historical truth is this, that on the historicity of Genesis 1-11 depends our knowledge of God. Upon Genesis 1-11 depends our knowledge of God as Creator, as covenant Friend, as Judge, and as Savior. "In the beginning, God!" To transform Genesis 1-11 into myth is to make atheists out of us. This is what has actually happened in churches where Genesis 1-11 came to be regarded as mythical. Before a church succumbs to the thinking that Genesis 1-11 is myth, believers in this church should do themselves and their children a favor and examine the churches that have already yielded to the mythologians-the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland: GKN), the Presbyterian Church (USA), and others. They are full of people who no longer believe in the Christian God and are ready, therefore, to worship the idols.
Charles Darwin himself is an example. Doubt about
the historicity of the opening chapters of the Bible made an atheist
out of him. Warfield gives the chilling account of Darwin's religious
development in his essay on the Life and Letters of Charles
Darwin.
As he [Darwin] wrought out his theory of evolution, he gave up his Christian faith-nay, … his doctrine of evolution directly expelled his Christian belief. How it operated in so doing is not difficult dimly to trace. He was thoroughly persuaded (like Mr. Huxley) that, in its plain meaning, Genesis teaches creation by immediate, separate, and sudden fiats of God for each several species. And as he more and more convinced himself that species, on the contrary, originated according to natural law, and through a long course of gradual modification, he felt ever more and more that Genesis "must go." But Genesis is an integral part of the Old Testament, and with the truth and authority of the Old Testament the truth and authority of Christianity itself is inseparably bound up. Thus, the doctrine of evolution once heartily adopted by him gradually undermined his faith, until he cast off the whole of Christianity as an unproved delusion…. Here is the root of the whole matter. His doctrine of evolution had antiquated for him the Old Testament record; but Christianity is too intimately connected with the Old Testament to stand as divine if the Old Testament be fabulous .2
The secular thinker John Herman Randall, Jr., has
warned the church that the truth of a Creator God is ruled out
by evolutionary science:
The very form of nineteenth-century evolutionary science has made that idea [namely, an "external Creator"] all but impossible and substituted for it the notion of a God as immanent, as a soul or spirit dwelling within the universe and developing it through long ages. 3
If Genesis 1-11 is myth, atheism is warranted. On the day that I am convinced that Genesis 1-11 is mere myth, because God Himself convinces me through evolutionary science ( I write nonsense), on that day I will renounce Christianity and Christianity's God. And if at the end of the day I must stand before God to give account of my apostasy, I will defend my renunciation of Christianity with a defense that He Himself will not be able to gainsay. "You yourself," I will say, "made the Christian faith and the knowledge of yourself depend upon Genesis 1-11, but this worthless 'Scripture' was only a myth. I put no stock in myth, and no self-respecting God, worthy of my time and worship, should have put any stock in it either."
But this is foolish talk. Genesis 1-11 is history. And the true church has always proclaimed it as history.
The reason why the true church and the genuine believer have always received Genesis 1-11 as history is not extra-biblical evidences that prove, or are thought to prove, the historicity of the biblical record. Extra-biblical evidences for the truth of creation as taught in Genesis 1 and 2 mean as little to the church as someone's finding a piece of wood on Mt. Ararat would mean for the church's belief of the biblical account of the flood. The church's faith concerning Genesis 1-11 does not rest at all on anything outside Genesis 1-11 and outside the rest of Scripture. Just for this reason, nothing, absolutely nothing, can shake the church's faith concerning the historicity of Genesis 1-11.
I have to smile when the evangelical and Reformed mythologians pile up their impressive findings and authorities, to convince us that Genesis 1-11 is myth, or primeval history, or literary genre, or some other euphemism meaning unhistorical. The mythologians do not understand. If an angel from heaven appeared to tell us that Genesis 1-11 is myth, not only would we not believe him, but we would also curse him as a devil and deceiver (Gal. 1:8, 9).
Believers receive Genesis 1-11 as historical because Genesis 1-11, the Word of God, claims to be historical. Read it! Believers receive Genesis 1-11 as historical because it is the testimony of Jesus Christ and the apostles that the Old Testament passage is history. Hebrews 11:3 testifies to the historicity of the account of creation. Matthew 19:3ff. testifies to the historicity of the entire account of Adam and Eve. Romans 5:12ff. testifies to the historicity of the record of the fall. I Peter 3:20 testifies to the historicity of the Genesis flood. Acts 17:26 testifies to the historicity of the account of Babel. And believers receive Genesis 1-11 as historical because the Holy Spirit witnesses in their heart that the testimony of God the Holy Spirit on the pages of Holy Scripture is true, whereas every man is a liar.
But how can anyone maintain that Genesis 1-11 is history, it will be asked, in the face of the contradiction of this by general revelation, by "Science," and by virtually all the scholars within the churches as without.
First, the Reformed believer permits nothing to set aside, or overrule, the teaching of Scripture. Is not the great Reformation-principle just this: "Scripture alone"? With specific reference to God's revelation of Himself in creation and history, general revelation does not control Scripture. Rather, the believer receives and interprets general revelation in the light of Scripture. The notion that the revelation of Scripture on origins in Genesis 1-11 is quite obscure so that it must be enhanced and corrected by the brighter light of general revelation is folly on the very face of it. As regards origins, Scripture is perfectly clear. It could not be clearer. In comparison with general revelation, as regards the truth of creation, God "makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by His holy and divine Word" (Belgic Confession, Art. 2).
In addition, the content of general revelation regarding creation is limited. General revelation makes known only that God made the world. It testifies to the Creator (Rom. 1:18ff.). Scripture reveals far more. Scripture reveals how the Creator brought the universe into existence.
Second, the Reformed believer is not awed by "Science." As regards genuine science-the investigation into and knowledge of some aspect of creation in submission to the Word of God-the Reformed faith is no enemy of science; nor is science an enemy of the Reformed faith. There is even a good case to be made, that the Christian faith, especially through the Protestant Reformation, gave birth to modern science. But the Reformed believer is well aware, or should be, that "Science," that is, autonomous man's sovereign reason and research, is one of modern man's favorite gods. In maintaining the authority of God's Word in Genesis 1-11 and in confessing the wonder of biblical creation, the Reformed believer is obeying the first commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before me, specifically the god, "Science."
Besides, the Reformed believer does not confuse modern evolutionary scientific theory with science. Modern evolutionary scientific theory is sheer nonsense. It is unproved, unprovable foolishness. The theory was proposed, not because it was proved, but because unbelieving scientists found the alternative-creation-repugnant. The philosopher, Fichte, expressed the real reason for the adoption of evolution as the explanation of origins. Creation, he said, is the basic error of all thinking and of all religion, because creation confronts man with a sovereign God. 4
Darwin himself freely admitted the lack of evidence
for the notion that is basic to his evolutionary theory, namely,
the development of one species from another by "intermediate
links." In The Origin of Species, he wrote:
Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory.5
In his ecstatic welcome of Darwinian evolution, the Anglican clergyman, Charles Kingsley, managed to combine all of these errors-honoring general revelation above Scripture, worshiping "Science," and confusing the latest theory of a scientist with science. "Science is the Voice of God-her facts, His words-to which we must each and all reply, 'Speak Lord, for Thy servant heareth.' " 6
Third, science cannot possibly get at the events recorded in Genesis 1-11, to analyze, judge, and confirm them. Creation itself was a wonder. As a wonder it is as little accessible to the scientist's tools of investigation as is the resurrection of Jesus. The wonder is known only by faith, which humbly and thankfully receives God's Word about the wonder.
In addition, between God's work of creation, as described in Genesis 1 and 2, and present-day science lie two barriers that scientific effort cannot penetrate: the fall with the attending curse on all creation and the flood which destroyed the world that then was, bringing about an entirely new form of the world (Gen. 3:17, 18; II Pet. 3:6). No scientific instrument can reach back beyond the flood. The world before the flood cannot even be known by any scientific theory, since scientific theories work on the basis of the principle of uniformitarianism. But as the apostle declares in II Peter 3:1-7, it is not true that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." In the flood-the real, historical flood of Genesis 6-8, not the pitiful, mythical puddle of a local flood in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers7 -the watery "world that then was . . . perished"; out of the flood came the present fiery world. The only knowledge that anyone has, or can have, of the world before the flood is that given by God Himself in Genesis.
Fourth, the opinions of the scholars, particularly the theologians, that Genesis 1-11 is myth, mean nothing to the Reformed Christian. At the Reformation, virtually all the scholars opposed the Reformation and its gospel. Learning and scholarship were the enemy. For the most part, it is the same today. This is not a reflection on learning and scholarship, but on the vainglorious, treacherous, cowardly men and women who use these good gifts of God to criticize His Word, deny His wonderful works, and wreak havoc on His church.
Recently, A. M. Lindeboom has written a book on the spiritual destruction of the once glorious Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN). These churches have fallen away from Christ. They believe nothing of the gospel. They practice every corruption, no matter how vile. This awful-and rapid-apostasy began with an arrogant intellectualism that challenged the authority of Scripture. The challenge began at the opening chapters of Genesis. The reason? "The doctrine of evolution, which is taught in schools and universities everywhere in the world as an established fact." The title of Lindeboom's book is De theologen gingen voorop-The Theologians Led the Way. 8
Fifth, the believer who reads Genesis 1-11 as history cannot be moved by ridicule. There is such ridicule. Nor does it come only from "liberal" quarters. "Do you still believe such absurdities as creation in six real days, God's forming a man out of real dust by His own hand, God's forming a woman out of a real rib of the man, and a speaking serpent?" "Fundamentalist!"
This cannot move the believer, because by the grace of God he has already believed a far more impossible impossibility and a much more ridiculous absurdity: the incarnation of God by a virgin birth, in order to redeem sinners by a cross. What is creation in six real days, forming a woman from a rib, and a speaking serpent in comparison with this? The Christian glories in the absurdities of the faith. If he does not, with Tertullian, quite believe because the truth is absurd, the absurdity of the truth certainly poses no problem to his faith. Does not the Word itself tell him that God's wisdom is foolishness to the ungodly world and to the mind of the natural man (I Cor. 1:18-31; 2:14)? With Abraham and Mary, the Christian believes the impossible, because his God-the God of Christianity-does the impossible.
This brings us to the heart of the issue, " Genesis 1-11: Myth or History?" namely, Jesus Christ.
Christ
Out of a mythical Genesis 1-11 comes a mythical Christ. This is necessarily so. First, the thinking that sets Genesis aside as a human word must also set aside the gospels as a human word. Second, if there never was a historical fall from the sinless height of a historical creation of a historical Adam, there is no need for a historical Jesus. Third, the Bible itself makes Jesus analogous to, and dependent upon, Adam (Rom. 5:12ff.). No Adam, no Christ! Fourth, Jesus Christ comes out of the womb of the promise of Genesis 3:15: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." But to whom did Jehovah God speak the words in which this promise-this "mother-promise"-is found? To the speaking serpent! Deny the historicity of Genesis 3, deny the historicity of the speaking serpent, and you annihilate the promise whence Jesus the Christ has come. No speaking serpent, no Savior!
A mythical Genesis 1-11 means a mythical Christ. But a mythical Christ did not die for our sins. A mythical Christ cannot forgive us our very real sins. A mythical Christ will not go with us through the valley of the shadow of death. A mythical Christ will not raise our body from the grave. Only the historical Christ did and will do these things.
The historical Christ makes a historical Genesis 1-11 the foundation of Himself and His work. His coming is by promise made to Adam and Eve in a garden in Eden in view of their disobedience to God's command concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He came to redeem men and women originally made by God in God's own image from the sin and death of the fall. As Adam's disobedience, so Christ's obedience (Rom. 5:12ff.). As Adam's plunging all into death, so Christ's making alive (I Cor. 15:21, 22).
The historicity of
Genesis 1-11
is the foundation
of Jesus Christ in another way. Christ was God's goal, or purpose,
in creating the world, as well as in God's providential government
of the course of the creation thereafter.
By him [Christ] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven (Col. 1:16-20).
Creation was for Christ. Every event in Genesis 1-11 happened for the sake of Christ. The end that the beginning of Genesis 1:1 and all that follows in Genesis 1-11 look to is the new world of Revelation 21 and 22, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and renewed by His Spirit. Upon the historicity of Genesis 1-11 depends the reality of the coming Day of Christ, our hope.
Compromise
There may be no compromise with the denial of the
historicity of
Genesis 1-11.
But the evolutionary theory of origins
necessarily involves the dismissal of the opening chapters as
non-historical. Among many others, David Lack, himself an ardent
proponent of Darwinian evolution, has stated this bluntly:
While Darwinism was widely supposed to contradict the accuracy of the Bible, what it actually challenges is the literal rendering of the first three chapters of Genesis, and if these are properly to be regarded as allegorical, no conflict need arise. 9
There may be no compromise, therefore, with the evolutionary theory of origins. None.
Benjamin B. Warfield's surrender of the historicity
of the biblical account of creation to Darwinian evolutionary
theory was shameful. Warfield made epochs of the days of
Genesis
1,
allowed for what today is known as the theistic evolution of
all the forms and species other than man, and found acceptable
the biological development of man from the apes as regards
the body. So far would Warfield go with Darwin. Only the soul
of man could not have derived from the beasts. This, God had to
slip into brutish Adam as a kind of aboriginal deus ex machina.
If under the directing hand of God a human body is formed at a leap by propagation from brutish parents, it would be quite consonant with the fitness of things that it should be provided by His creative energy with a truly human soul.10
As regards the biblical account of the creation of
Eve, which cannot be harmonized with theistic evolutionary theory
and which is virtually impervious to exegetical manipulation,
Warfield, though he recognized the difficulty, suggested that
the creation of Eve from a rib of Adam could somehow be explained
away so as to allow for the evolutionary development also of the
body of the woman.
I am free to say, for myself, that I do not think that there is any general statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either as given in Genesis 1 and 2 or elsewhere alluded to, that need be opposed to evolution. The sole passage which appears to bar the way is the very detailed account of the creation of Eve. It is possible that this may be held to be a miracle (as Dr. Woodrow holds), or else that the narrative may be held to be partial and taken like the very partial descriptions of the formation of the individual in Job and the Psalms; that is, it teaches only the general fact that Eve came of Adam's flesh and bone. 11
At the end of his consideration of the life of Charles Darwin, self-confessed unbeliever and enemy of the Christian faith, Warfield could write: "We stand at the deathbed of a man whom, in common with all the world, we most deeply honor."12
Warfield refused to oppose the evolutionary theory of origins with its concomitant reduction of the opening chapters of Genesis to myth. Instead, he approved it. Thus, Warfield contributed greatly to the destruction of his Presbyterian Church as a Christian body. Warfield's error is now doing grave damage to conservative evangelical, Reformed, and Presbyterian churches on a wide front. In almost all the conservative churches and seminaries, the theologians are appealing to the great Princetonian in defense of their own acceptance of evolution and rejection of the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2.13
This appeal to Warfield is not without its value. It indicates how far those who make the appeal have gone in their own thinking and how far they are willing to have their churches go. Usually, these theologians are quite reticent about their own views, contenting themselves with striking out against the "fundamentalism" and "anti-intellectualism" of those who insist on a literal reading of Genesis 1 and 2 as history. By appealing to Warfield, these men show, at the very least, that they are open to epochs of millions of years, theistic evolution as the explanation of all the forms and species other than man, the biological descent of man from the beasts as regards his body, and even "Adam's" begetting of "Eve's" body from a primate. How such thinking answers the question, " Genesis 1-11: Myth or History?" is plain to all.
What explains the vulnerability of Warfield and other otherwise orthodox men of his day to the pressures of evolutionary scientific theory? The explanation is fourfold. First, the assault on the doctrine of creation and on the inspiration of Genesis 1-11 by the enemy of the Christian faith and its God in these last days is powerful and crafty.
Second, Warfield was mistaken in his thinking about general revelation. He supposed that general revelation and Scripture are two equal authorities for Christians. Indeed, in practice Scripture must give way to general revelation. Warfield then naively identified the latest scientific theory with general revelation. Worse still, Warfield thought that God's revelation of Himself in creation to unbelievers, for example, Charles Darwin, resulted in right knowledge of God as Creator, so that the Christian church is required to yield to Darwin's proclamation of the truth of God. Darwin is virtually a herald of God in the world! Warfield confused general revelation with natural theology. 14
Third, Warfield was not sufficiently impressed with the total depravity of the mind, or reason, of the ungodly. This is also a fundamental error in Warfield's apologetics. Ungodly scientists, for example, Charles Darwin and Thomas ("Dr. Beelzebub") Huxley, do not think neutrally, much less favorably, about God and His Word on the basis of raw data. They theorize in enmity against God and His Word. Their scientific theories are the weapons of their warfare against the church.
Fourth, Warfield's attitude toward the culture of the world of the ungodly, especially the culture of the universities, learning, and science, was not antithetical. It was not the attitude of spiritual separation and warfare. Relations between the Presbyterian Church and its colleges, on the one hand, and the surrounding culture, on the other hand, were friendly. The world would bless the church through its learning, and the church would Christianize the world with its theology. No doubt, the theory of common grace helped to frame this attitude. 15
Whatever the reasons, by his concessions and compromise, Warfield sold out the historicity of Genesis 1-11.
There may be no compromise with Darwinian, or any
other, evolutionary theory of origins. History has abundantly
proved the truth of Darwin's own confidence, that the slightest
concession to his theory invariably will result in complete surrender.
It early became a maxim with Darwin that those who went a little way toward his doctrine would eventually go much farther, and that those who went a great way, would eventually become converts. 16
On the contrary, faithful churches, with their seminaries, must nail their colors to the mast on this issue. The Protestant Reformed Churches require all candidates for the ministry to believe from the heart and to confess the historicity of Genesis 1-11, particularly the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2, that is, the seven days of creation and rest. The ministerial candidates must promise that they will not tolerate but oppose every form of the lie of the mythical nature of the opening chapters of the Bible. All members of the churches are required to believe the historicity of Genesis 1-11.
"Suffer the Little Children"
To us, the issue, " Genesis 1-11: Myth or History?" is not intellectual and academic.
In the Protestant Reformed Churches, the covenant children begin their catechism instruction at the age of five or six. These are the questions and answers that they learn in the first lessons of the first book:
We want these little children to go to heaven. If they come to doubt all these answers as myth, they will go to hell as unbelievers. Whoever is responsible-parent, preacher, school-teacher, theologian, or synod-it were better for them that a millstone were hanged about their neck and that they were drowned in the depth of the sea.
These little ones, who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, mustbelieve a historical Genesis 1-11.
And the theologians are called, and privileged, to lead the way.
Bradwardine's Theology
The cornerstone of Bradwardine's theology is, without question, the truth that God is sovereign. Oberman notes that Bradwardine returns "in the discussion of every problem to his dominant theological idea: the Sovereignty of God." 1
Bradwardine builds his argument for God's sovereignty on two axioms, which serve as a basis for every statement about God that follows. The two axioms are these:
1. God is the highest good, "in comparison with whom nothing is better or more perfect." 2
2. "There cannot be an endless hierarchy in things, but … in the chain of causes there is a first cause."3 Bradwardine writes, "God makes all things, and moves all things. In every formation, in every motion, there must be some ... immovable mover; else the process would be endless." 4
This God, being the first cause, always existed and, being perfect, is immutable. God "cannot change for the better because he is already perfectly good. Neither can he change for the worse, because he is necessarily perfect, and therefore cannot cease to be so."5
Based on these truths, Bradwardine proceeds to set forth forty corollaries against the same number of heresies previously condemned by the church. This serves two purposes. First, Bradwardine proves that he is orthodox and a faithful theologian of the church. Secondly, he shows that all these heresies contradict these basic truths about God. The implication is that all heresies will deny these central truths.
Bradwardine maintains not only the greatness of God, but also that God is far greater than the creature. Leff comments (critically) that "theologically, on the contrary, the whole spirit and purpose of De causa Dei is only too concerned with emphasizing the infinite chasm between God and his creatures."6 Bradwardine insists on the incomprehensibility of God's being and works, but, contrary to Ockham, he denies that God is thus arbitrary.
Bradwardine rejects the teaching that the actions of God are "contingent," but rather defends the proposition that His actions are "necessary." However, this necessity arises from within God Himself. Oberman explains: "God is unchangeable love and this love gives direction to His will, and thus the idea of God's will as without norm has been rejected."7
God's absolute sovereignty derives from His being the Creator of all things. Writes Bradwardine, "Thus Thou truly art my God…. Nothing else is necessary in an absolute way or exists by itself; yea, by itself nothing exists, but out of Thee, through Thee and to Thee, for in no other way can anything exist."8 God not only created all, He continues to govern and sustain all.
Since God is sovereign, His will "is universally efficacious and invincible, and necessitates as a cause."9 Bradwardine insists that nothing can defeat or make void God's will. He argues that the frustration or vanquishing of God's will could only arise from the created wills of either men or angels. However, that necessarily means that "the will of the creature must be superior … to the will of the creator: which can by no means be allowed." 10
Many a theologian pays lip service to the sovereignty of God, yet most flinch when it comes to God's control over the actions of men, especially their sins. Distinctions are made between God willing sin and God permitting sin. Faced with this question, Bradwardine does not retreat from the conviction that God is sovereign in all and over all. He insists that even when God only permits (voluntas permittens) sin, God is in some way yet actively willing. He draws the conclusion, "Therefore God does not merely permit but actually wills to be done all that is done."11 He maintains that, somehow, all things good and evil fit into the counsel of God. As to the actions of the creatures, if God does not will it, the action will not be performed.
Yet Bradwardine goes farther than this. He insists that no creature can act apart from God, not only because God must will the action, but also that God must give the power to the creature to act. God authors, man does, Bradwardine maintained.12 This applies to all the actions of men, both good and evil deeds. Bradwardine certainly understood that the manner in which God works is entirely different in the good and the evil deed. Nonetheless, God is involved in the action as a coeffector.
Does God then become responsible for evil? Bradwardine rejects that notion, but even then is careful not to detract in any way from God's sovereign control. He insisted that "all things that happen, happen of necessity." 13 However, Bradwardine does not use the word "necessity" as an antonym for "freedom" but rather as the opposite of "contingency," for he will not allow any contingency in God. Bradwardine called upon a distinction made by Augustine between necessitas invita and voluntaria, that is, a necessity upon man that is involuntary versus a necessity that is in some way voluntary. The first idea, Bradwardine rejects; the second, he asserts. Oberman's evaluation is that "this conception of necessity can become the basis of a doctrine of coefficiency according to which God works supremely, but in such a way that the freedom of will is maintained." 14
Yet the objection was raised against Bradwardine that since God wills sin, God is responsible for it. However, Bradwardine teaches that God wills sin, not in the sense that God wants sin as an anarchist wants lawlessness to cover the land. Rather God wants sin to be, even as God wants natural disasters to occur. The sin committed by man is not the end or goal of God when God wills that sin will occur. Sin is rather the means God uses to accomplish another goal, and that, a good one.
Bradwardine presents a number of arguments to prove that God uses sin for a good purpose. First of all, this belongs to the perfection of God's sovereignty. That is, "God's sovereignty is much more perfect when it extends over the good and the evil than over the good."15 Secondly, Romans 8:28 teaches that God uses all things for good to the elect. This "all things" would necessarily include sin. Thirdly, Bradwardine teaches that sin, by way of contrast, accentuates the beauty of the good in this life. In this connection, he refers to the beauty of the star, which beauty appears only in the darkness of night. Fourthly, God wills sin as a punishment for previous sins.16
Gordon Leff is highly critical of Bradwardine's doctrine
of God's sovereignty. He writes:
By means of His will, Bradwardine eliminates any autonomous activity on the part of God's creatures; the divine and the created become merged; the barrier between the natural and the supernatural is overlaid by the sheer physical presence of divine power amidst His creatures. Duns Scotus, through this theory of God's will as knowledge, drew a more exalted picture of man as a consequence. Bradwardine, on the other hand, uses this concept to depress the merits and powers of His creatures: God's presence everywhere, far from exalting them, is a measure of their dependence upon Him. They have nothing in their own right; God alone is their raison d' etre. 17
In The Cause of God, not only does Bradwardine
explicitly reject determinism, he refutes it. Nonetheless, Leff
maintains that Bradwardine's theology is essentially determinism.
He is convinced that Bradwardine leaves man with no freedom. Again,
Leff writes:
God has a triple relation to His creatures, as their cause (efficient, formal and final), as their conservator, and as the senior co-actor in all that they do. Bradwardine has by these tenets fashioned so strong an instrument of divine power that its application leaves no room for the slightest freedom in the actions of his creatures. God's activity, by the principle of divine participation, has been extended into the whole of creation. 18
Leff virtually ridicules Bradwardine's efforts to
solve the tension between God's sovereignty over sin and man's
freedom as a thinking and willing creature who is responsible
for his own sins. He concludes:
Bradwardine seems finally to be caught in his own system. The delicate balance established between sin and God's will is too precarious to maintain. As the work proceeds, sin comes more and more within the area of God's will, so that in these latter references God is causa actus peccati. The route to this position is hesitant and (almost) illicit. From the first, the conflicting tenets allow of no satisfactory explanation; and Bradwardine turns now to one door, now to another, like a man who has become imprisoned in his own house. We miss the incisive progress from position to position; and the final words of Chapter 34 seem almost a relieved admission that he has tried his best and that he can say no more: "I would prefer on so important a question to hear the great rather than, as one so small, reply."19
It is telling that while Leff sees this conclusion very nearly as an admission of failure, Oberman views it as evidence of Bradwardine's humility. Oberman correctly concludes that Bradwardine "has succeeded in not making God the author of evil, in spite of pressing the divine operation in the deep of sin very far. It should, however, be admitted that he does not make it easy for critics to believe in his orthodoxy."20
This significant issue, namely, God's sovereignty over sin and man's culpability for his sins, is a question with which theologians have struggled for centuries. It is impossible to arrive at a complete solution with all the details fixed. At some point the believer must admit that he cannot penetrate farther into the mystery. Such an admission is not due to a failure in the theological system. Rather it is due to the fact that man cannot comprehend the ways of God. He can set forth the truth of the Bible that God is sovereign over all; that God cannot sin; that man is guilty for his sins. The theologian may go as far as he can to give a rational explanation to these truths. However, at some point he is forced to stop and admit that he can go no farther, as did Bradwardine.
In this respect, Bradwardine is not different from Augustine. Augustine did not face the question in the same form. His concern was the sovereign right and power of God to change one sinner and not another. How was it that God worked in a man the will to believe, and yet did not override the freedom of man? Augustine answers, "Now, should any man be for constraining us to examine into this profound mystery, why this person is so persuaded as to yield, and that person is not, there are only two things occurring to me, which I should like to advance as my answer: 'O the depth of the riches!' and 'Is there unrighteousness with God?'" And then Augustine concludes with what his English disciple may well have been consciously imitating, "If the man is displeased with such an answer, he must seek more learned disputants; but let him beware lest he find presumptuous ones." 21
Bradwardine obviously did not shrink back from maintaining the absolute sovereignty of God over all, including the sins of men.
This insistence on God's sovereignty Bradwardine
maintains in the doctrines of salvation, starting with a vigorous
defense of sovereign, absolute, double predestination. He grieves
that "those pestiferous Pelagians deny predestination."22
In a prayer included in the Cause of God, Bradwardine describes
the folly of the Pelagians.
Yet I know, O Lord, I know, and it is not without grief that I tell Thee, that there are certain proud Pelagians, who prefer to trust in man, and so in themselves. For they say that if God can elect or damn a man nobody has any certainty. But, they add, we can have certainty if predestination and damnation depends on our free will, and we alone are free masters of our deeds without God; then we shall prosper and only then can we trust and hope.
O, vain children of men… 23
The issue Bradwardine faces is twofold. First, what is the relation of predestination to foreknowledge? And secondly, what is the relation of predestination to works? The answer of the Pelagians of Bradwardine's day to the first question is the same given by the Semi-Pelagians of the fifth century - namely, that predestination is based on God's foreknowledge. God elected based on His foreknowledge of the faith and works that men do. That brings in the second question, and the answer of Bradwardine's opponents is that predestination is based on the works that men do.
Hence one of the first tasks Bradwardine faces is to define the foreknowledge of God and to determine the extent of it. Not unexpectedly, Bradwardine maintains that the knowledge of God is both absolute and determinative. He writes, "It is certain, that God has a knowledge of all things present, of things past, and of things to come: which knowledge is supremely actual, particular, distinct, and infallible."24 God's knowledge is not dependent on the creature, nor does God obtain His knowledge of all things as men do. God is omniscient and knows His creatures eternally. Bradwardine teaches that if God be dependent for His knowledge on His creatures, then God is neither the highest nor the first. 25 But, he insists, "God himself is the first and the last, the beginning and the end."26 In fact, he avers that "the knowledge of God is a cause of the thing known and not vice versa."27 Bradwardine agrees with Augustine that "God knew all his creatures both corporeal and incorporeal, not because they exist; but they therefore exist, because he knew them," adding this significant address to God: "No incident can possibly arise which thou didst not expect and foresee, who knowest all things: and every created nature is what it is, in consequence of thy knowing it as such." 28 Obviously, the reason why God has this knowledge is simply because God is sovereign and what God wills eternally is what happens.
This is significant for the question of the relationship of foreknowledge and predestination. For Bradwardine, they are one and the same. God's foreknowing the people He would bring to heaven is due to the fact that God wills it, and will accomplish it.
Fully in harmony with that, Bradwardine rejects the notion that predestination is in any way based on the works of men. On the contrary, Bradwardine maintains that predestination is the cause of the grace that men receive. Oberman notes that this is the "the main motif of his doctrine of predestination: predestination does not happen on account of human works, but on account of the gracious will of God."29
Leff indicates that Bradwardine faces all the arguments
in that regard.
Bradwardine rejects in turn Cassian's solution that God gives grace to some without preceding merit and to others only if they have merited it; the semi-Pelagian plea of making merit the ground for grace; the theory that men can prepare themselves for grace and that then God will freely award them grace; and finally that consent by man to God's grace is the cause of his conferring grace. 30
Since Bradwardine has firmly established that God is sovereign, also as creator and redeemer, he does not need much additional evidence to reject the notion that man merits election. He points out that if God saved not graciously but based on some cause outside of himself, that would mean that God's foreknowledge was not certain, but that is impossible.31 Bradwardine also uses Ephesians 1 to demonstrate that election is all of grace, for there would be no praise and thanksgiving to God for election if it were based on man's works.
Bradwardine defines predestination as "God's prevolition, or pre-determination of his will, respecting what shall come to pass."32 He does not limit that predetermination of God to the final state of men. He includes all that the future holds. Bradwardine teaches that there are two aspects of this predestination. The first includes all that God has determined for the man's life on earth, including grace, merits, and wiping out of sins in the present. Everything God determined eternally for the elect He brings to pass. The second aspect of predestination has to do with the future life, and includes glory and reward. The two fit together in that the life of each elect person is intended to bring him to glory and the specific reward God had determined for him.
Bradwardine maintains that predestination is of two kinds (gemina), that is, election and reprobation. Here Bradwardine faces fiercer battles. As is true today, so also in the fourteenth century, many fancied themselves follows of Augustine because they maintained a doctrine of election of one form or another. Reprobation is another matter. If it be allowed as a doctrine at all, surely (so the enemies of reprobation declare) it must be maintained that reprobation is based on the evil works of men. God rejects the guilty. If it be unfair and cruel to harm someone without provocation or just cause, does not reprobation ascribe to God injustice and cruelty? Would a just God reprobate and predestine anyone "to eternal fire unless it were done on the account of preceding guilt"?33
Bradwardine, however, did not compromise on this cardinal truth of sovereign, unconditional, double predestination. He writes plainly, "All those to be saved or damned … he willed from eternity to be saved or damned, … and this by no means by a conditional or indeterminate will, but by his absolute and determinate will."34 In order to demonstrate that God is just, Bradwardine carefully distinguishes, on the one hand, the reason for reprobation, namely, God's sovereign, unconditional decree, and, on the other hand, the basis for the reprobate being punished. He writes, "God … punished no one apart from his own temporally preceding and eternally lasting fault (culpa); however, God did not eternally reprobate anyone on account of fault, as a cause antecedently moving the divine will, but on account of certain final causes."35
Let the enemies of the truth marshal their arguments (and they did). Bradwardine is ready. They point out that John 1 states, "He gave them power to become the sons of God" and conclude that, since it is by predestination and grace that men become sons of God, "this lies within their own free power and occurs in no other way than by merits acceptable to God."36 This text, he replies, teaches the opposite. The text obviously says that those referred to in John "did not make themselves sons of God. God does this."37 He then proceeds to quote church fathers and philosophers to refute their claim, making heaviest use of Augustine.
Another argument claims that on the basis of the
Psalm 69,
"Let them [the sinners] be blotted out of the book
of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous,"
it is plain that the works of men merit their being reprobated.
Bradwardine notes first how impossible is that interpretation.
If this is understood with superficial literalness, we must concede that predestination and reprobation are subject to change; it would imply that someone who was previously elected and not reprobated is now reprobated and not elected. If someone can at any time be erased from the book of the living, this contradicts everything which previously has been shown. 38
Then Bradwardine presents the proper interpretation, presenting Augustine's supporting exposition - "Brethren, let us not take this to mean that God would have enrolled someone in the book of life and then erased him out of the book…."39
Quoting the fathers - ancient and medieval - and
expounding the Scriptures, Bradwardine boldly sets forth the truth.
Interestingly, he teaches that God has a deeper purpose in reprobation
than the mere destruction of the reprobate, namely that they serve
the good of the elect. Oberman summarizes the profit for the elect:
1. For the profit of the elect, as in them God's power is revealed.
2. To keep the elect on the path of the law: with fear and trembling they will work out their salvation.
3. So that now the elect also learn to be thankful for the particular grace granted to them. 40
Bradwardine insists that "because [God] chooses to predestine and create one of His creatures for the service of another creature," that removes from God the charge of being cruel or unjust. Adding, "This is particularly true, since He punishes no man with eternal damnation unless such a man deserves it, that is to say, unless through his sins he deservedly and justly requires eternal punishment." 41
And yet, that is not the final word. Bradwardine is quick to point out that the purpose of predestination is exactly the exaltation of God's name. God created and predestined both elect and reprobate "for His own service, praise and glory."42
Bradwardine ends where he began - God is sovereign.
He writes that,
since God is omnipotent, completely free Lord of His whole creation, whose will alone is the most righteous law for all creation-if He should eternally punish the innocent, particularly since He does it for the perfection of the universe, for the profit of others, and for the honor of God Himself, who would presume to dispute with Him, to contradict Him, or ask, "Why do you do this?" I firmly believe, no one! "Has the potter no right over the clay to make of the same lump one vessel for honor and another for menial use?"43
Anyone who maintains sovereign predestination will inevitably face the charge that this doctrine eliminates the need for preaching the gospel to all. Bradwardine heads off the charge. He insists that "God instructs all to come to Christ, not so that all will come, but because otherwise no one would come."44 In fact, he asserts that "God operates in the heart of man with that call…not that they hear the gospel in vain, but thus the hearer is converted and believes."45
... to be continued
For Thy Truth's Sake: A Doctrinal History
of the Protestant Reformed Churches, by Herman Hanko. Grandville,
MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2000. 541 pp. $39.95
(hardcover). [Reviewed by Thomas C. Miersma.]
In connection with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the denomination, the 1997 Synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches requested Professor Herman Hanko to write a doctrinal history of the PRC. This book is the result of that request. The emphasis in that request was on the doctrinal development within the PRC in its history, and that is also the focus of the book.
This focus shapes the book in several ways. The book is not a denominational history. Rather, the history is treated briefly and consistently from the viewpoint of the doctrinal issues involved. Professor Hanko addresses the various controversies through which the churches have passed, but with a view to understanding the doctrinal issues which arose and the development of doctrine which took place. This does not mean that the book is not useful also as a starting point to learn of that history. The interested student seeking to locate more detailed historical material will find the book is well footnoted and documented. The book focuses, however, on the doctrinal distinctives of the PRC.
That such a book should be considered or written at all is itself significant. No church or denomination stands still in the truth of God's Word. There is either growth or decline, either spiritual development in the truth or spiritual drift from the truth in the life of the church. Addressing such an issue as the doctrinal history of a denomination calls for a certain measure of spiritual reflection on where the Lord has led. At the same time, it is also an occasion to set forth what are the doctrinal distinctives and unique doctrinal development which gives the reason for existence as churches.
In harmony with this expressed purpose, the book is not intended as a general treatment of Reformed doctrine but to set forth the doctrinal distinctives of the PRC as they have developed over the seventy-five years of our history. To accomplish this, Professor Hanko has organized the material along the lines of both its historical development and the doctrinal concepts involved. In doing so it is the doctrinal concepts which have the preeminent position. The effect of this is that he often traces the doctrine through its later historical development in the churches to the present and then returns to the history. As Herman Hoeksema was the central theologian of the churches throughout most of that history, this book also, in many respects, traces his theological development and thought in various areas. While such an approach disrupts the historical flow of the book somewhat, it serves to set forth the doctrinal concepts with greater clarity.
The book is divided into five parts. The first section treats the roots of the denomination in both the Netherlands and North America and the doctrinal issues which were behind that history. In the second section Professor Hanko treats the origin of the churches and the doctrinal issues which formed the early concern of the churches. In treating this material, he presents the battle for particular grace over against common grace and the well-meant offer. He also addresses the issue of the autonomy of the local church, which has formed an important part of the history of the PRC.
The third section, both the most extensive and in many ways the most significant element of the book, treats issues which are often overlooked, but which are distinctive to the Protestant Reformed Churches. In it Professor Hanko deals with the positive development in the truth which has taken place along the lines of particular grace. The material included in this section is scattered throughout our writings, and Professor Hanko has done the churches a great service in bringing it together into one place. In this section he discusses miracles and God's providence, revelation, the doctrine of Scripture, the antithesis, our confessional approach to doctrine, the organic idea, and the organic development of sin.
The PRC have a distinctive world and life view founded on their view of the covenant and rooted in their commitment to sovereign particular grace. That viewpoint cannot be fully apprehended, however, merely by treating their view of the covenant. It must be put in the context of the organic idea as it embraces the doctrine of the covenant, the doctrine of the antithesis, and the development of sin. The doctrines of providence, revelation, and Scripture also shape that world and life view. At the heart of it is the organic idea. Professor Hanko reflects on both the difficulty of this concept and its importance. He writes, "The importance of the term 'organic' in PR theology cannot be denied. Nevertheless the difficulty of describing precisely what PR theologians meant by this term is great" (p. 233). He then points out that its frequent use often assumes a "knowledge and understanding of the term on the part of readers" (p. 233). He also mentions that it is used in many different connections and in different ways in our churches. In this he is correct. The organic idea in the PRC stands over against the false individualism and mechanical conceptions which fragment God's works and His grace and which pervade much of modern Reformed thought. Professor Hanko, having noted its importance, then proceeds to explain the concept and meaning of the term.
Speaking as one who grew up outside the PRC, and with roots in the split in 1953, I can say that the organic idea, as it pervades the whole of PRC theology, impressed me when I first came across it as one of the most striking concepts in PR thinking. In a world of Reformed thought rooted in two-track theology, with its lack of unity and doctrinal fragmentation of grace, the organic idea is distinctive to the PRC. Speaking as a missionary for the PRC, I can also say that it is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp, exactly because of its pervasive character in all PR writings. It is also one of the most important. The organic idea is rooted in the unity of God, of His decrees and purpose, and the unity of His particular grace and work in Christ. For one coming from outside the PRC, it is both an illuminating truth and one that involves, in very real terms, looking at doctrine in a new way, from the viewpoint of its essential living unity. The treatment of this subject alone makes Professor Hanko's book an extremely valuable one. This does not mean he exhausts the subject, but he does an excellent job of outlining the basic idea of the concept and showing its application to various areas of PR thinking and providing references for further study.
The fourth section of the book addresses the doctrine of the covenant, which is absolutely crucial in the life of our churches. In a sense this fourth section is the application of the principles developed in the third section. Professor Hanko treats the doctrine of the covenant as it was understood at the time of the beginning of the Protestant Reformed Churches, as doctrine developed in their history, and as it underlay the split in the denomination in the 1950s. The role of our contacts with Dr. Klaas Schilder, the "Declaration of Principles," and the subsequent controversy in 1953 are discussed in this section. He carefully lays out the doctrine itself in its various relationships. The idea of the covenant, its relation to election, and its bearing on the children of believers are all discussed. Moreover, Professor Hanko manages to treat this important and sometimes difficult subject in a way which makes it readily accessible to the layman as well as the theologian. Appropriately, the Protestant Reformed view of divorce and remarriage is also treated in this section.
The fifth section, entitled "concluding considerations," treats various areas of additional development along the lines of the loci of dogmatics. This is a brief section but points the reader to areas for further profitable study.
Overall the book is written in such a way that, although it treats sometimes difficult concepts and doctrinal issues, these subjects are made clear and understandable. Professor Hanko has accomplished no easy task of writing a book about difficult issues and making them simple, without oversimplifying them. This makes the book valuable for young people as well as adults, that our children might know the heritage God has given us. It makes the book valuable also as an introduction to the Protestant Reformed Churches, to those seeking to understand what the Protestant Reformed Churches are doctrinally, and how they differ from other Reformed churches. This, combined with the overall treatment of the doctrinal development of the PRC, makes this book a very valuable tool on the mission field. It is also a resource for anyone who wishes to understand the doctrinal distinctives of the PRC. Finally, the book is a good starting point for further study and research, as well as a useful reference work on the issues treated. I wish I had had this book twenty-five years ago, when I was combing PRC writings to find what was unique about the PRC, and in my own struggle for understanding when I first came back to the PRC. Professor Hanko has managed to bring together a wide diversity of material from PR writings into one place, for which, otherwise, one must search widely and then try to piece the material together.
Professor Hanko is to be commended for the accomplishment of a very difficult task and undertaking. He has given the Protestant Reformed Churches a valuable summary of their rich doctrinal heritage. This is a book which should be in every Protestant Reformed household and read in families, also by older young people. The truths set forth in it are very really ones for which our spiritual forefathers fought and suffered.
Charismatic Confusion,
by William Goode. Trelawnyd, North Wales: K & M Books, Publisher,
2000. Pp. 400. $30.00US which includes postage. [Reviewed by Herman
C. Hanko.]
William Goode was an early nineteenth century theologian in the Church of England. He wrote this book in its original form as a response to, what the editor calls, the Irvingite delusion, which was a forerunner of the modern Pentecostal and Charismatic Movement. The sub-title of the book explains its contents: "The Modern Claims to the Possession of the Extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit Stated and Examined." K & M Books has given us a reprint of the second edition of Goode's book, which contains an appendix in which Irving's doctrinal errors are pointed out, chiefly his error of denying the sinlessness of our Lord's human nature. In this appendix Goode shows that this vicious error of Irving, who was so closely associated with the entire Charismatic movement, is destructive of the entire Christian faith.
William Goode has written a book which is surprisingly relevant to our modern times when the charismatic movement has made its inroads into most denominations throughout the world. It is, therefore, a valuable book to have, to read, to study, and to use in the church's ongoing apologetic against the charismatic movement.
The book contains a brief biography of William Goode, and a history of the Irvingite Movement. Although Irving is considered the father of all Pentecostalism, the book reminds us that we ought to remember that his views were condemned by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and that he is branded for all time as a heretic.
The material of the book, however, is given over to a description of the movement which Irving founded. It gives careful descriptions of what is meant by speaking in tongues, ecstasies, prophecies, and miracles. These claims of the Charismatics are carefully refuted. They are shown to be contrary to Scriptural teaching. The arguments that the evidences of the Holy Spirit ceased soon after the apostolic age is made in a convincing way. It is demonstrated that Pentecostal teaching is closely associated with extra-biblical revelation. The book also demonstrates how the entire charismatic movement has been plagued by false doctrine.
On the other hand, these phenomena, such as tongue-speaking, are explained as being partly psychological phenomena, and the possibility is opened that these phenomena are, at least partly, Satanic.
Probably the greatest value of the book is its historical material. Goode traces history carefully as he points out that the phenomena of the charismatic movement began in the early church and reappeared over and over again throughout the ages. In every instance, however, these movements stood outside the orthodox church of Christ and were condemned by the decisions of the church and the writings of orthodox theologians. From early Montanism, through medieval mysticism, on into Reformation and post-Reformation Anabaptism, the church has stood solidly opposed to every form of it. All the data which the author has collected are bolstered with copious quotes from contemporary sources. This material alone makes the book worth the price.
What is particularly interesting is that the similarity between the charismatic movement and revivalism is brought out by the book. The bizarre behavior and ecstasies of those under the influence of the Holy Spirit at the time of revival are little different from the same strange phenomena in the charismatic movement.
This similarity is especially brought out in the third appendix in which the author charges Martyn Lloyd-Jones with opening the door to Pentecostalism with his own emphasis on and longing for revival.
The appendices are excellent additions to the book. The first appendix was added by William Goode himself in the second edition of his book. It is an important description of the error of Mr. Irving in teaching that Christ took on a sinful nature.
The last three appendices were added by Nick Needham, who also wrote the introduction to William Goode, and by Alan Howe. These are also interesting and valuable. The first of these appendices traces the modern charismatic movement from its roots in the holiness movement of Methodism and its roots in the doctrine of divine healing to the Azusa St. "outpouring of the Spirit," which is supposed to be the real beginning of modern Pentecostalism. The path this movement took is followed to the Latter Rain Movement and the Toronto Blessing, more recent manifestations of the same thing. It is filled with valuable information. The second appendix of these last three gives brief biographies of many men who opposed the charismatic movement, along with some of their arguments. And the third of these last appendices describes the spread of the movement, the role of Martyn Lloyd-Jones in this spread, and its relation to revivalism.
All in all, K & M Books has given us a valuable addition to the literature on the Charismatic movement.
It is hoped that many of our readers will buy the book. It can be obtained from:
This book is the second edition of a previously published one by the same title. We are thankful for the effort which Professor Engelsma put forth to publish this second edition. This edition is a major expansion of the first one. Its expansion is mainly a part two section on the history of the church regarding its position on marriage and divorce and remarriage. We will comment on each of the two sections of this excellent book.
The first section of this book is essentially the same as the first edition. The chapters of this section are printed copies of the sermons Engelsma preached during his years of being pastor of the South Holland Protestant Reformed Church in South Holland, Illinois. I have personally used this book as a pastor for pre-marriage counseling many times in connection with marriage ceremonies I have been asked to perform. Over the years this has given me deep appreciation for Engelsma's book. The chief point of excellence of this book is that it is based on careful and incisive biblical exegesis. Such exegesis gives any sermon its real power and decisive authority. This is reflected in the book. Over the years I have, by the grace of God, learned more and more the truth that there is no better marriage counseling manual than the Scriptures. The Bible has much to say about marriage because of the great importance of marriage in God's purpose and for His church. The reason why Engelsma's book is so helpful is because it clearly, forcefully, and decisively states what God's Word says concerning marriage. This book is not a discussion of humanistic psychology on marriage. It is not even a book of human wisdom with the addition of teaching of Scripture interspersed. Engelsma does not dwell on the results of surveys taken to come to certain conclusions about how we should live in marriage. The church does not need that. God's people do not need that. To begin marriage truly in the Lord, God's people need the plain, simple, and sound teaching of the Word of God for their marriages.
Engelsma writes as a pastor. His book is a collection of sermons. There is a great advantage to this. The author does not present abstract teaching. He speaks as a pastor to the heart and life of the people of God, members of the church. Engelsma them gives biblical counsel concerning the tremendously important subjects relating to marriage.
The main contention of the book is the author's firm conviction that according to the Word of God marriage is a lifelong, unbreakable bond of love and faithfulness between husband and wife. This bond was established by God Himself and therefore cannot be broken by man. God alone can dissolve this bond by death. It is this beautiful and wonderful aspect of marriage that according to Scripture especially makes Christian marriage a reflection of the faithful covenant love of Christ for His church.
The inescapable and necessary consequence of this position is that adultery is a grievous sin not only against one's marriage partner but also against God. Putting away one's partner is forbidden by the Word of God except in the case of fornication. Separation between husband and wife is allowed by God in the case of fornication on the part of one of the partners in marriage. But fornication, though a grievous and evil act of man against the covenant of marriage, does not dissolve the marriage covenant made essentially by God Himself. Only God can and does break the bond of marriage through the death of one of the partners.
A further consequence of this position is that all remarriage of divorced persons is forbidden by the Word of God. Remarriage of the guilty party in the case of fornication is clearly adultery. It involves the guilty party in a life of continual adultery with a man or woman with whom the party is not married in the eyes of God, in spite of the fact that he or she might have gone through a ceremony sanctioned by the law of the land. The church must call those in such a life to repentance, for this is the only way of forgiveness and receiving the mercy of God. This is true for this sin, as it is for all sin.
Engelsma shows by his typical incisive exegesis of the extremely crucial passage found in Matthew 19, that it is the teaching of God's Word that also the innocent party, when there is "divorce" because of adultery, is forbidden by the Word of God to marry again. The reason why the innocent party is forbidden by the Word of God to marry again is clearly because in the sight of God the original marriage is still intact.
This latter teaching of the Word of God is a hard teaching. The Lord Himself recognized that. The disciples to whom the Lord explained this truth of God found it to be a hard teaching. Every minister of the Word of God who is solemnly obligated to maintain the teaching of the Word of God on marriage will at times in his ministry learn how very hard this teaching is, especially when he deals pastorally with truly innocent parties in the tragedy of the break up of a marriage. This tragedy is made even far more grievous when one of the partners in marriage is unfaithful to his or her partner through the vile and treacherous sin of fornication and adultery.
The first comment that must be made in regard to the hardness of this teaching is this, that it is the clear and simple truth of the Word of God. The second comment is that as difficult as this teaching may be, especially to those who suffer as innocent parties as a result of the evil treachery of sin in marriage when there is a divorce, this is nevertheless the good Word of God for marriage. It is the good Word of God for marriage because it was given to guard, protect, and preserve the marriages of God's people from the untold suffering and anguish that results from the corruption of marriage by the evil of men. There is mercy from God for those who faithfully maintain His Word in a very difficult circumstance in life.
Finally, in this regard, it is the contention of Engelsma in this book, and we wholeheartedly agree, that marriage is a beautiful reflection of the love and faithfulness of Christ for His church exactly on the point that marriage is according to God's ordination a lifelong, unbreakable bond of faithfulness and love between husband and wife. We thank Professor Engelsma for his extensive, bold, and courageous efforts in defending the teaching of the Word of God also in the publication of the second edition of his book.
The teaching of the Word of God on marriage is contradicted, opposed, and even hated in our modern-day world, not only by the so called outside world, but also by much of the modern-day church. Our age is one of lawlessness on marriage. Our age is one of abounding adultery and immoral lust, and shameless debauchery. Engelsma has a whole chapter in this book about this tragic reality of our times. Many churches are more and more becoming silent on the condemnation of adultery and the condemnation of divorce. This is so obvious that no one can deny it. The consequences of the refusal of the church to uphold the Word of God concerning marriage are so great that it is no exaggeration to say that this evil is one of the chief factors that has led to the ruin of many churches and of many homes and families.
As one surveys the history of the church, one comes across much compromise on the teaching of God's Word on marriage, sometimes even by otherwise stalwarts of the faith. The Reformed churches, tracing their history, do not have a tradition that was always faithful to maintain the Word of God on marriage. Engelsma demonstrates this in the second section of the new edition of this book. The second section of the book is an excellent survey of the teaching of the church in history in explaining and defending God's Word concerning marriage. Many interesting points are made in this section from church history that are well worth reading about in this book.
Several conclusions are made from this historical survey. Though many indeed compromised God's Word on the subject of marriage in the history of the church, nevertheless, from the time of the early church fathers, God has raised up faithful witnesses to His Word in His church through all ages. The author of this book has great appreciation for the testimony of church history, something which is entirely proper for a Reformed believer. Even given this appreciation however, the final stand of the church must be on the infallible and unchanging authority of the Word of God. The historical survey given in this book shows how compromise on the teaching of the Word of God on marriage has again and again led to lawlessness in the church world regarding marriage. This lawlessness has led to the great tragedy of the prevalence of divorce in the church and even of the silence of the church on the gross sin of adultery.
Our prayer is that this book may be of help to many pastors and people of God to uphold the important truth of the Word of God regarding marriage so that there might be still be many marriages in the church of the Lord that truly reflect the beauty of the Lord's love and faithfulness to His church.
This reprint of a book originally published in 1911 provides sketches of the life and labor of many ministers and theologians of the Southern Presbyterian Church from its founding to about 1900. One chapter near the end of the book briefly describes the church work of ruling elders Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson, Daniel Harvey Hill, and Thomas R. R. Cobb.
Especially one who is not himself from this tradition will come to appreciate the Southern Presbyterian Church in the time of its soundness and vigor and to honor the work of the Spirit in that church. The southern church was graced with gifted, hard-working ministers, selfless missionaries both at home and abroad, great theologians, and towering intellects. Included, of course, were Alexander, Thornwell, Dabney, Breckinridge, and Girardeau. But there were many other good and great men of God, e.g., John Leighton Wilson, who toiled for some 18 years as a missionary in Africa and who then guided the Presbyterians in the South through the hard times of Reconstruction. To Wilson's personal godliness, Robert Dabney gave eloquent testimony: "Every one was certain of the purity of his aims. Always modest and conciliatory, yet he was perfectly candid and manly. He practiced no arts nor policies, but relied solely upon the appeals of facts and reasoning to the consciences of his brethren" (pp. 407, 408).
Among these men of the South were the founders of
the great colleges and seminaries in the South. The sketches give
an account of the founding of these institutions of learning.
They usually began small and poor. They invariably began on the
foundation of the Word of God. At his inauguration as the first
president of Davidson College in North Carolina, Robert Hall Morrison
declared:
Religious instruction is not only important, but indispensable in education. Religious instruction should be held where God has placed it as paramount to everything else. The Bible must be supreme in seats of learning, if their moral atmosphere is to be kept pure. Learning should be imbued with the spirit of heaven to give it moral power.... Education without moral principle only gives men intelligence to do evil. Let any system of education prevail which renounces God and disowns the Bible and how long would magistrates be honored, parents obeyed, truth spoken, property safe or life secure? (p. 269)
Along the way, the reader learns of the age-old and never-ending struggle in southern Presbyterianism to keep Armini-anism out of the southern church. The code name for the party that propounded that heresy was "New School." The orthodox were called "Old School." The author describes the theology of the New School as a "modified Calvinism." He adds, significantly: "They neglected the Westminster Confession by not requiring young ministers at their ordination to accept it" (pp. 228, 229). When in 1837 the united Presbyterian Church in the United States expelled four entire New School synods, four southern ministers, one northern minister, and two elders made up the committee that advised the General Assembly to condemn the New School errors and cut off the offending synods. In the end, the southern church failed to maintain its condemnation of Arminianism. In 1864, the Southern Presbyterian Church welcomed back the New School Presbyterians of the South. Robert L. Dabney took a leading role in the reunion, which raises questions about the firmness of Dabney's stand against Arminianism.
The Civil War looms large in the book. The southern view of the war and the issues in that war prevails. Benjamin Morgan Palmer thought that the "religion and patriotism [of the South] demanded resistance to the wild fanaticism of the abolitionists who were seeking to make a wreck of the best civilization on the earth-that of the Southern States" (p. 369). The position of the southern church on slavery was that, although it is an effect of sin in the world, slavery is not inherently sinful, since Scripture does not condemn and forbid it, but rather regulates it. The book makes plain that the ministers of the southern church exerted themselves mightily and admirably to evangelize the slaves and educate them in the Word of God.
These sketches say almost nothing about the theology of the southern leaders. This lack is supplied by such a book as Morton H. Smith's Studies in Southern Presbyterian Theology.
A reviewer of Southern Presbyterian Leaders
would be remiss if he did not include in his review the following
anecdote from the life of James Henley Thornwell.
One Sunday morning … after he had been preaching for an hour and a half, he stopped suddenly, looked at his watch and made an apology by saying that he had not been conscious of taking so much time. "Go on! Go on!" This was the exclamation heard from every part of the house. He continued to preach, therefore, an hour longer (p. 313).
The bulk of this fifth volume of Donald Bloesch's projected seven-volume systematic theology is devoted to a historical study of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the church. This is also the book's main value for the Reformed reader. Much of the book is a wide-ranging account of the views of the Spirit held by the church and her theologians in the past and in the present. As with the preceding volumes, the reader will benefit from Bloesch's erudition. Bloesch knows the theological territory. He writes with precision and clarity.
The first three chapters are introductory, setting the stage with a consideration of the doctrine of the Spirit in contemporary discussion and with an overview of biblical teaching on the Spirit. Then follow six chapters in which Bloesch examines the doctrine of the early church, the Reformation, post-Reformation movements, the cults, Pentecostalism, and contemporary theologians. Of special interest to this reviewer are the treatments of the mystics, the Reformation, and such post-Reformation movements as Puritanism and pietism.
Regarding Puritanism and Pietism, Bloesch makes the significant observation that these movements were inclined to "find the source of our certainty in the faith experience rather than in God's promises in holy Scripture (as with Luther and Calvin)." This would explain why churches that are strongly influenced by Puritanism and Pietism are plagued by doubt. Still more ominous is Bloesch's analysis of Pietism: "A more serious problem with Pietism was its synergistic theology in which we cooperate with prevenient or preparatory grace in coming to a saving knowledge of God in Christ" (p. 32).
The last two chapters are Bloesch's own theology of the Holy Spirit and His work.
Bloesch intends to develop an evangelical theology. Indeed, he claims to be a Reformed theologian. This accounts for statements, now and again, that have the ring of Reformation orthodoxy. But the evangelical theology of Donald Bloesch is wide open to traditions and teachings that are opposed to the gospel of salvation by grace alone as recovered by the Reformation. Bloesch's theology incorporates the doctrines of virtually all branches of Christendom: Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, liberalism, and the charismatic movement. Bloesch cannot, or will not, say no. The ne plus ultra of this openness to everything religious must be Bloesch's statement that "theologically Mormonism is close to being a cult" (p. 156).
Two instances of Bloesch's inveterate synthesizing of opposites, to the ruin of biblical Protestant and Reformed truth, will serve to illumine the entire project. Both instances are high on Bloesch's agenda in the book. The first is the combining of Calvinism and Arminianism. The book is dedicated to the memory of Wesley and Whitefield. Calvinists need to learn from Arminianism, and Arminians can learn from aspects of Calvinism (p. 339). It is not Calvinism, however, that has Bloesch's heart. Bloesch teaches a prevenient grace in humans that causes them to seek for Christ and salvation, although they may never find Christ by a saving faith (p. 63). Calvin's glorious confession, that "our salvation is not only helped forward by God, but also … it is begun, continued and perfected by him, without any contribution of our own," Bloesch condemns as the Reformer's lapse "into divine determinism" (p. 330).
The Calvinist theology of salvation by the sovereign grace of God and the Arminian theology of salvation by the sovereign will of man are two radically different theologies. Every theology that results from the attempt to combine the two, be the attempt never so heroic, will be only a slightly disguised Arminianism.
The second instance of Bloesch's synthesizing theology is his warm embrace of the charismatic movement. He announces at the beginning that "this book should be viewed as an effort to build bridges between the various traditions of Christian faith, particularly between Reformed theology and the Pentecostal movement" (p. 15). He concedes the Pentecostal premise, that the spectacular gifts continue in the church (p. 294).
The fundamental explanation of Bloesch's remarkable ability to embrace opposites is his neo-orthodox doctrine of Scripture. As has been pointed out in the reviews in this journal of his earlier works, Bloesch rejects the biblical, Reformed doctrine that Scripture is an inspired book. For Bloesch, Scripture as such ("the text") is not "the infallible norm." Theologian Bloesch feels himself free to critique Scripture ("the text") "in the light of God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ." "God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ" is not Scripture. It is Donald Bloesch's understanding of spiritual things. This understanding is not even formed by Scripture alone. It is arrived at "through various means, especially Scripture and the preaching of the gospel" (pp. 41, 46).
When he comes to set forth his own doctrine of the
Spirit, beginning with the Spirit in the Trinity, Bloesch advocates
the modalistic heresy. He follows his mentor, Karl Barth, here.
The importance of the issue warrants a lengthy quotation.
The Trinity does not constitute a society of individuals bound together in an inseparable unity but a tripersonal interaction within the life of God. Hypostasis especially in the Western Church indicates an agency of relationship rather than an individual center of consciousness…. I prefer to see one God in three events rather than three persons in one nature (though I have no qualms in accepting the latter when rightly interpreted). God remains God, but he is God in a different way in each event. There is one subject but three modalities of action. There is one overarching consciousness but three foci of consciousness. God exists as one self but with three identities. The unity of God is differentiated though not individualized. I hold to one divine being in three modes of existence, not three beings who interact in a social unity. What we have in the Trinity is not separate selves that function in an indissoluble unity but an all-encompassing consciousness in three modes of relationship…. The Trinity is not one God in three roles (this would be the economic Trinity only) nor three Gods in one inseparable unity (this would be tritheism) but one God in three subs