Grad School Final Papers and Tests!

We will not be posting that much for the next month or so because we are all working hard toward the end of the semester. But this blog at the end of the month should be getting some good posts because two of authors of the blog will be writing theological and philosophical papers for their classes. Sorry about the long wait!

In Christ,

Nathanael P. Taylor

Greg L. Bahnsen on Justification

Here is a paper demonstrating that the late Greg L. Bahnsen would not have agreed with the federal visionist and that he held a orthodox view of justification:

http://www.westminsterrpcus.org/pdf/Bahnsen.pdf

There is one quote he cites that is rather controversial and hard for me to deal with, but at the same time I think the author shows pretty clearly that at the end of Bahnsen's life he held a orthodox view of justification, which is something that cannot be said of the federal visionist.




This is the quote that the federal visionist cite from Bahnsen when he was doing a lecture on Calvin and James 2:

"I think (this) is rather convoluted … let me very briefly point
out, some people will say James can’t mean the word justify
in a forensic sense, because then he would contradict Paul.
Paul says we are justified by faith, not works. James says we
are justified by works. So if they both mean “justify” in the
forensic sense, there is a contradiction. Well, I don’t think so,
because in Galatians 5:6 Paul teaches exactly what James
does. Paul says we are justified by faith working by love. We
are justified by working, active, living faith. I think that’s
what James is teaching. They mean exactly the same thing.
But nevertheless some people have insisted- and this has
been a bone of controversy in my denomination even,
because a professor at Westminster Seminary insisted James
means this in the forensic sense.
Now … people who don’t like that say, It is to be taken in the
demonstrative sense. The problem is, the demonstrative
sense of the word justify means “to show someone to be
righteous,” and that doesn’t relieve the contradiction between
James and Paul, because Paul in Romans 4 looks at Abraham
as an example of how God justifies the ungodly. James is saying,
Look at how God justifies someone demonstrated as
godly. The contradiction is not relieved. And so what you
really get – and this is crucial, this is a crucial point- modern
interpreters who don’t like what I am suggesting and what
Professor Shepherd is suggesting end up saying that to justify
in James 2 really means “to demonstrate justification,” not
to “demonstrate righteousness.” That is, they make the word
to justify mean “to justify the fact that I’m justified.” And the
word never means that. That’s utterly contrived. It means
either “to declare righteous” or “to demonstrate righteous” It
does not mean “to justify that one’s justified.”
… Am I making myself clear? I’m suggesting that the reason
Paul and James are not contrary to one another is because the only
kind of faith that will justify us is working faith, and the only kind
of justification ever presented in the Bible after the Fall is a justification
by working faith, a faith that receives its merit from God
and proceeds to work as a regenerated, new person."

This is the statement that he made the end of his life when preaching on Romans:

"Justification is not causing someone to have sanctifying grace
in his heart. The Roman Catholic church is simply wrong
about this. For God to justify the sinner is for God to act as a
judge and to declare the sinner righteous. God will also make
the sinner righteous. You say, “Well then what difference
does it make, Dr. Bahnsen; you admit what the Roman
Catholics do, that those who are going to be saved need to
lead new lives.” Absolutely, But that isn’t what the Roman
Catholic church teaches. It teaches that those who lead new
lives will be saved. Don’t think that I am just drawing a very
minor point in English grammar when I put it to you that way
because on that point rests your salvation. It is a matter of
eternal consequences that you get this right. God does make
saved people to be holy but He does not save them by making
them holy."

I really hope he believe the latter rather than the former.

A Christian Conceptual Pragmatist Epistemology: Part I

By David Bruner

In this part I will give a brief summary of Lewis’ construal of conceptual knowledge in MWO.

In the opening chapter of MWO C. I. Lewis prescribes the boundaries of the philosophical domain. Unlike the natural sciences, the dealings of philosophy are said to be exclusively in further investigation of what is already known.

“It is not the business of philosophy, as it is of the natural sciences, to add to the sum total of phenomena with which men are acquainted. Philosophy is concerned with what is already familiar.”

Those who practice philosophy are not to rely on collection of empirical data in order to establish the logical and ethical judgments which they are after, nor are they to prophetically forecast constraints upon what will be the actual findings of metaphysical investigation. Rather,


“just this business of bringing to clear consciousness and expressing coherently the principles which are implicitly intended in our dealing with the familiar, is the distinctively philosophic enterprise.”

Lewis points out that study of logic requires the use of logic as a rule and guide, that inquiry about right and wrong requires a moral sense for direction, and that formulation of principles of interpretation of reality must make use of, “principles of interpretation already immanent [inherent] in intelligent practice.” Lewis claims that philosophy exceeds its responsible bounds when it takes up speculation about what transcends experience and that it is rightly limited to reflective consideration of the ways in which we deal with what is already possessed within ordinary experience. So the ethicist will make it his or her ambition to more clearly define the good, the logician to define the valid, and the metaphysician to define the real all in terms of experience already encountered and our attitudes taken toward it. Yet as antecedent clarifiers of the meanings of the terms which are to be used in whatever ampliative propositions one may make, these definitions which philosophy will attempt to elucidate shall be determinative of the way in which we understand experience. Lewis writes,

“So understood, the principles of the categories, which metaphysics seeks, stand, on the one side, in close relation to experience and can not meaningfully transcend it. But on the other side – or in a different sense – they stand above or before experience, and are definitive or prescriptive.”

This is to say that in philosophy we work to analyze only the content of our experience and our relation to it in order to make explicit and to sharpen our decisions about categorizations of the elements of experience, but that these categorizations as explicated and sharpened determine exactly what we will make of the content of our experience and our relation to it. Again on this point, Lewis explains,

“It is through reflective examination of experience (more particularly of our own part in it or attitude toward it) that we may correctly formulate these principles of the categories, since they are implicit in our practical dealings with the empirically given. But they are not empirical generalizations in the sense that some later experience may prove an exception and thus invalidate them. They formulate an attitude of interpretation or discrimination by which what would be exceptional is at once thrown out of court.”

So philosophy, in bringing into focus the blur of our implicit decisions about how to interpret experience, legislates explicit rules of interpretation of experience which experience itself cannot alter. The explicit rules of interpretation determine how any experience whatsoever is to be understood. These rules of interpretation which philosophy is concerned to bring to conscious light in the form of definitions constitute what Lewis refers to as the a priori in his epistemological design.

The mind’s formation and use of legislative rules of interpretation are an integral part of Lewis’ holistic conception of human cognitive experience which I will here recount in some detail. Lewis, in accord with philosophical tradition, cites two distinct elements in the mind’s experience of the world. He states,

“There are, in our cognitive experience, two elements; the immediate data, such as those of sense, which are presented or given to the mind, and a form, construction, or interpretation, which represents the activity of thought.”

Lewis introduces a conception of these two elements and their relation to one another which emphasizes the activity of thought as the mind’s volitional contribution to knowledge. The given element of experience, the immediate data, is recognized as that aspect of experience which we have no part in creating and which we cannot alter by our thinking. The a priori element is that interpretation which we place upon the given – our abstractions of parts of the given from the whole and the associations we make between the parts of the given and parts of past experiences and relations we have observed between our own actions and parts of these past experiences. Lewis at one point recounts an exemplary illustration of the interplay between the two elements of cognitive experience in a description of his experience of a fountain pen:

“At the moment, I have a fountain pen in my hand. When I so describe this item of my present experience, I make use of terms whose meaning I have learned. Correlatively I abstract this item from the total field of my present consciousness and relate it to what is not just now present in ways which I have learned and which reflect modes of action which I have acquired. It might happen that I remember my first experience of such a thing. If so, I should find that this sort of presentation did not then mean, ‘fountain pen,’ to me… This present classification depends on that learned relation of this experience to other possible experience and to my action, which the shape, size, etc. of this object was not then a sign of.

Lewis, upon encountering a certain array of sense data, purports, by his own thought process, to abstract from the array a single object and to ascribe to that object qualities which he does not at present observe in it based on its apparent similarity to objects which he has observed in the past that exhibited these qualities when acted upon in certain ways. He notes that any number of different interpretations could be applied to the same given array of sense data depending upon the individual mind’s past subjective experience or pragmatic interest, thereby showing that the immediate sense data are indeed given by an external source and that the mode of interpretation is indeed volitionally contributed by the mind itself. Thus Lewis views the two elements in knowledge as operating independently of one another to an extent. The given is clearly independent of the mind’s interpretation since no activity of the mind can in any way control or alter its nature; and while the characteristics of the given serve as stimuli for the mind to interpret it by ascribing to it certain presently unobserved qualities, the decision of the mind to correlate instances of objects like the one at hand with a specific set of presently unobserved qualities is made independently of and antecedently to encountering the given object. Even the decision of the mind to abstract from instances of arrays of sense data somewhat similar to the one at hand parts which can be recognized as instances of similar objects is independent of and antecedent to encountering the given array of sense data. Lewis speaks of this basic interpretation of the given saying,

“The absolutely given is a specious present, fading into the past and growing into the future with no genuine boundaries. The breaking of this up into the presentation of things marks already the activity of an interested mind.”

For Lewis the most fundamental singling out of specific parts of experience from the rest of consciousness involves the mind’s working independently of what is given.
Since its operation is independent of the sense data given to the mind, Lewis views the element in knowledge comprised of the mind’s interpretational contribution as, in itself, entirely abstract from sense data. He claims that the interpretations made by the mind consist of, “concepts,” or terms with specific logical intensions or connotations. Considered in isolation, these concepts are not tied to any specific sense data. Lewis extricates the conceptual element in knowledge from the sensorially given for us by describing it, for expository purposes, as, “that meaning which must be common to two minds when they understand each other by the use of a substantive or its equivalent.” This manner of describing the purely conceptual is illustrative of its purely logical character since it is obvious that despite considerable idiosyncrasy in different minds’ sense data, people still understand one another. Lewis at one place inserts an example of a logical conceptual interpretation bridging the gap of possible sensory variation between two minds:

“What I would point out is, rather, that in the determination of common concepts, the conveying of ideas, such possible idiosyncrasy in the correlated sense feelings is entirely negligible. You and I mean the same by, ‘red,’ if we both define it as the first band in the sun’s spectrum, and if we both pronounce the same objects to be red. It does not matter if neither the red rug nor the first band of the spectrum give to the two of us identical sensations so long as we individually discover that same sense-quality in each thing which we agree in describing as, ‘red.’ ”

So we see that on Lewis’ view concepts in their pure and shareable form are not references to given sense data but consist in logical definitions. Lewis does hold that these logical concepts would be meaningless if they were not referred to specific aspects of sensory experience by each mind that employed them. However, as sharable between two minds, the concept is not necessarily correlated to any specific aspect of sense. He points out that,

“no such concept ever existed, apart from imagery and sensory material, in any human mind. For each individual there must be a correlation of concept with specific sense-quality. But this correlation is intrinsically individual; if it, too, should be shared, we could not verify that fact, and it is not in the least essential to common understanding that it should be.”

For Lewis the mind’s interpretational work is active in the whole of our cognitive experience bringing logical conceptual shareable meaning to given experience. Even the most basic recognitions of facts in experience are said to be supplied a cognitive significance by a concept’s denotation of them. As Lewis remarks,

“The end-terms which for us are thus understood directly by reference to sense and feeling, have still a conceptual meaning; they are not indefinable. This conceptual meaning is shareable; our imagery is essentially not. Thus the end-terms of such analysis are no different than the beginning terms.”

If the mind’s activity of thought in interpreting experience is thus construed, it becomes apparent that what form our completed knowledge will take is up to us to decide. It is up to us to enumerate whatever specific types of sensory occurrences we choose by means of specific concepts and it is up to us to declare these basic concepts to be related to one another in whatever ways we choose. The sum of these decisions about what our attitude will be in interpreting experience amounts to Lewis’ a priori, the clarification and conscious apprehension of which constitutes his proper domain of philosophy.

Lewis’ a priori consists in designations of criteria by which to classify certain parts of experience into categories. When a sensory experience is inducted into a category on account of its displaying a satisfactory amount of the criteria associated with that category, all of the criteria of that category which are not at the moment displayed in the experience are also attributed to the experience. The category is a complete set of characteristics, the fullness of which may be ascribed to a sense experience when enough of the characteristics are present in the sense experience to safely judge that it may be assumed that the rest will be near in following. Categorizing experience is a matter of examining experience for signs cluing us to the applicability of certain categories and if certain of these categories are applied, predicting that other specific experiences will be forthcoming in connection with what is presently experienced, should certain changes take place. So the a priori designation of criteria by which to classify certain parts of experience into categories takes the form of conditional statements. Lewis uses the statement, “If this is round, then further experience of it will be thus and so (the empirical criteria of objective roundness)” as an example of an a priori designation. A more lucid example would be the statement, “If it is an apple, it will feel smooth, appear smallish, round, and red, and have a sweet taste.” The category, “apple,” is designated a priori to denote an experience which exhibits the criteria of being smooth, smallish, round, red and sweet etc. If an experience is encountered which exhibits a good many of these criteria (smoothness, smallness, roundness and redness), I may a posteriori (upon discovery in the world) apply the category of apple to it and in doing so assume that the present experience will lead directly to other experiences such as an experience of a sweet taste if I act in certain ways or if other changes occur.

3 Reasons Evangelicals Should Accept The Essence-Energies Distinction

Over the next year or so I will be exploring the concept of the "energies" of God. This is an ancient Christian doctrine that goes back to the Early Church Fathers. While it remains an integral part of the doctrine of God in the Eastern Orthodox churches, it never truly took hold in the Latin West and seems to have been almost entirely forgotten until the Reformers. Both John Calvin and the Reformed Scholastics (such as Francis Turretin) made frequent use of the essence-energies (E-E) distinction in their theology. Sadly, this began to fall out of practice even in Reformed circles, so that today virtually no Western Protestant has even heard of the energies of God.


So, what are the energies? Crudely speaking, they are the "activites" of God. Because God's essence is wholly other, outside of the realm of space and time, incomprehensible, we cannot come into direct contact with it. And yet God is a God who intervenes in his creation and enters into relationship with his creatures. It is the energies of God that we come into contact with. God's glory and love and goodness are all energies. According to Mike Horton:

God's energies are radiations of divine glory, but are no more the divine essence than rays are the sun itself. God's uncreated glory emanates, but the essence does not. ...[The energies are] God-in-Action... They are not God's essence, but a certain quality of God's self-revelation and saving love.
(Covenant And Salvation, 268.)

But we must also keep in mind that the energies are not ontologically separate from God's essence, nor are they parts or pieces of God. They are God.

This may seem a bit confusing, and I have not even begun to do the topic justice. This is merely an introductory post that, I hope, will show that such a distinction is desperately needed in Western Protestantism today. All that is important at this point is that idea that there is a distinction between God as He is in Himself (His essence) and God as He manifests Himself to His creation (His energies).

Now then, three reasons Evangelicals need to start thinking about this distinction:

1) Pantheism (or Panentheism)

There has long been a tendancy in the West toward a kind of Pantheism. Medieval mysticism and its quest for the Beatific Vision was an extreme form of this. If God is absolutely simple and "only" an essence, how do we come into contact with Him without in a sense become a part of Him? What does the Apostle Peter mean when he says that we will "partake" of the divine nature? Do we partake directly of God as He is in Himself? At the very least, this seems to imply some sort of Panentheism, which is the belief that God is contianed within and permeates all of the natural world, as if He were the "world soul." By positing the doctrine of the energies of God, we can explain how it is that we come into direct contact with God and even partake of Him without falling into this dangerous tendency of Western theology.

2) Stoicism

This is not as dangerous of a problem for Protestants today, but it is always a potential. If God is, as traditional Christian theology has always maintained, unchanging and impassible, not affected by his creation (as He says in Samuel, He is not a man that he should repent), one could easily come to the conclusion that God is like the great Stoic philosopher in the sky. After all, impassible could mean "cold" and "unfeeling." Perhaps God is just an impersonal being from which all reality flows, a being who doesn't care about us or love us (certainly not enough to save us from our sin). Again, the E-E distinction saves us from such extremes. God in His essence is simple, unchanging and impassible. But his energies are manifold. Through His energies He comes into contact and enters into relationships with his creatures, and in an analogous way He feels with them, responds to their pleas, etc.

3) Open Theism

I saved the best for last! Of the three reasons I've given, this one is obviously the biggest potential danger for contemporary Protestantism. After considering Stoicism, it should be easy to see how the E-E distinction will help here, since Open Theism is simply the opposite problem. Open Theists want a God who can feel our pain, react to our cries for help, and genuinely respond to our prayers. Ignoring for the moment that the incarnation of Christ solves many of these problems (Hebrews specifically addresses how Christ can empathize with our struggles with sin, for example), the E-E distinction does as well. God's essence can remain unchanging while His energies remain manifold. His essence is simple while His activities in creation are varied.

So, are you interested yet? At any rate, I hope you can see how potentially important this distinction can be for the problems facing modern Protestantism. As I said, I will continue to explore this theme in greater detail over the next year. This is only the tip of the iceberg. If I've managed to whet your appetite, you can hear more on the E-E distinction in Mike Horton's systematic theology lectures (click here), specifically the most recent lectures on the incommunicable attributes of God. For a slightly more detailed introduction to the topic and its relation to the early Reformers' theology, check out the last section of Dr. Horton's book Covenant And Salvation (click here to buy the book online).

A Fine Argument Against Donatism

Here is a Biblical Argument against Donastism, a ancient Hersey that taught that the effective administration of the sacrament was based on the ministers holiness. In Philippians Paul teaches against such thinking:

Philippians 1:15-18 15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice,

Here Paul is saying that the motive behind preaching the Gospel is not of concern, but rather that the Gospel is preached correctly.

Perfect Being Theology And The Classical Western Conception of God

Anselmian Perfect being theology and philosophy argues for the Divine properties from the conception of God being the greatest possible being. In this blog post I will argue for the traditional western conception of God on the basis of Perfect being theology and philosophy.

The formula to determine what properties God has in Anselmian Perfect Being theology is the following propositions:

P1: God is the greatest possible being

P2: God being the greatest possible being entails that he will have every property that is better to have rather than not.

P3: It is better to have x rather than not

C: Hence, God has x



This is an example of how this would work in practice: Reformed Theology wants to say that God is omniscient which means He knows all true propositions even future ones.

Lets apply this to the argument formula provided above:

P3: It is better to have omniscience rather than not

C: Hence, God is omniscient

This seems pretty reasonable considering that we think that it is better to know things rather than being completely ignorant. Thus, it seems more reasonable than not to think a greater being would know every truth rather than not.

From this example we see that the concept of God as the greatest possible being acts as a sort of divine properties generating machine; that is to say: we can apply this formula to warrant many of the properties we would want to predicate of God.

Here are some more Divine Properties that God has in Reformed Theology and in Traditional Western theology:

Divine Properties:

1) Omnipotence: being able to do anything that is logically possible and great (this is a good combination of Anselm's and Aquinas's Definition of omnipotence)

2) Morally Perfect: Being of the highest moral perfection and grounding moral perfection it-self

3) Omnipresent: God being conscience of ever event and point in History, God is not bound to any particular historical event but is boundlessly present at every point in the natural world.

4) Immutability: God's essential, necessary, and intrinsic properties are such that they are not subject to any sort of change.

5) Impassibility: No one can act on God, God only acts on all things. Thus, God in his Divine nature cannot be destroyed, suffer, or be injured.

6) Atemporal: God is timeless. He is not bound by time or bound inside of time.

7) Eternal: God does not begin to exist, but he always exists.

8) Aseity: God is only dependent upon himself.

Reasons for believing 1-8 (the numbers below corresponds with the numbers above)

1) When we think of a great being we tend to think of him being able to a lot of great things rather than being able to either do a) really bad things or b) nothing good at all all.

2) This one is perhaps the most obvious a perfect being is better than a evil being.

3) A God that is everywhere at once is better than a God that is limited to time and space.

4) If God is already the greatest possible being then why would he need to change if he already is the greatest.

5) A God that can be damaged and is not the source of action on everything is not as good as a God who cannot be damaged and acts on everything.

6) A God who is bound by time is not as great as a God who is not constrained by time or atemporal.

7) If God is the greatest possible being then it would be better if he always existed rather than not because this makes him unique from his creation and the it is better for the best to always be existing.

8) Everything outside of God is not as great so it seems that a being that is only dependent upon himself as the greatest possible being would be the greatest possible being.

All one has to show is that there is more reason to believe that 1-8 is greater to have rather than not in order to show that God has these properties. The way we justify that these properties are better to possess rather than not is our intuition. Intuition is basically our mental seeing. We sort of just see that 1+1=2 and we just sort of see that murdering infants for fun is in fact wrong. We cannot give arguments for these sort of things but they are reasonable to believe. This is just like it is reasonable to believe that you see a tree in front of you and that you believe rightly that a tree exists in front of you. You cannot give any argument apart from saying "look and see the tree is in front of me". Likewise, you cannot give a argument for these apart from just using your mental conception to see that one is better to have rather than not.

Conclusion:

The Divine properties 1-8 are properties had by the traditional Western concept of God and since these properties are more reasonable to believe rather than not then we are warranted in believing that a God such as this exists.

A Problem For The New Perspective

One of the major tenants of the New Perspective on Paul is that the phrase "works of law" only refer to the specific Jewish identity markers in law. As James Dunn (1) puts it:

"‘Works of law', 'works of the law' are nowhere understood here, either by his Jewish interlocutors or by Paul himself, as works which earn God's favor, as merit-amassing observances. They are rather seen as badges: they are simply what membership of the covenant people involves, what mark out the Jews as God's people;...in other words, Paul has in view precisely what Sanders calls 'covenantal nomism.' And what he denies is that God's justification depends on 'covenantal nomism,' that God's grace extends only to those who wear the badge of the covenant."

In this blog post I will give two counter examples to what Dunn argues here about the phrase "works of law", I will show that the term means more than the narrow definition of mere Jewish identity markers.



Counter Example 1:

Romans 2:14-15 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

Explanation: Here Paul is teaching us that us that the gentiles lack the Mosaic law, which would include these Jewish identity markers like circumcision and so on. But yet Paul says that even though they do not have the Mosaic law they have another law, namely, the Law that is written on their heart, this would be the natural law. But Paul uses the Greek phrase argon tou nomou or "work of the law" to describe this natural law. Thus, this shows us that the phrase "work of the law" is not refering only to the narrow use of the Mosaic law but the general natural law instilled on all mankind.

Counter Example 2:

Romans 3:19-20 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Explanation: At this point Paul has shown that both Gentiles (Romans 1) and Jews (Romans 2) both stand condemned before God. Romans 3:19-20 offers a summary statement of this universal condemnation to lead us to the Gospel of Justification by faith alone. Paul begins in verse 19 to remind us that all are held accountable to God because they are under the law. This cannot be referring to just the Mosaic law alone because only the Jews are held accountable to the Mosaic law, but not the Gentiles and then, if this were true, the whole world would not be held accountable under the law. But Paul seems to be stressing that the whole world is held accountable and thus the phrase "under the law" has to be referring to the moral law of God by which everyone is subject to; both Jew and Gentile. Paul continues in verse 20 to say that no one will be justified in his sight by "works of the law". Paul has just shown that all are held accountable to God and then he goes on to argue that because of this no one will be justified in his sight because of being under the law. Paul uses the phrase "works of the law" to title this universal law by which Jews and Gentiles stand condemned. Thus, the phrase works of law have a much broader meaning than just the narrow identity badges of the Jewish people.

Conclusion:

We can see from this that the New perspective on Paul is unreasonable because it ultimately rests on unbiblical presuppositions. But I think Paul's traditional Reformed message is worth considering. Paul tells us that we are all condemned before a Holy God. But the question that we must think about is this: How are we to be made right before a Holy God that is terribly angry at the countless sins we have committed ? I think Paul answers this question clearly:

Romans 3:21-22 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it- 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

And again:

Romans 4:5-8 5 And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."


Thus, the Word of God teaches us that we cannot be made right before God by works, but by Faith in Jesus Christ who imputes to us his works (Phil. 3:9).


*** For more useful material on this subject read Douglas Moo's commentary on the Book of Romans***

Bibliography

1. Cf. Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press), 1990; Romans; The Epistle to the Galatians (Black's New Testament Commentary; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers), 1993.

Does everyone believe in God?

Romans 1:18-21 says that all people believe in God:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

1) It seems that there are people who are unbelievers. 2) Paul says that all people believe in God in Romans 1. Does not 1 in conjunction with 2 seem like a contradiction? In this post I will argue that there is no contradiction here.



I think the contradiction disappears when one understands the distinction between believing *in* and believing *that*. Believing *in* would be trusting in someone, this would be a non-propositional personal relationship. On the other hand, believing *that* would be believing that a certain proposition or state of affairs is true. So for example, when I say I believe that my girlfriend is watching I love Lucy at 12:35 am on Sunday, this is a example of believing that a proposition is true. But when I say I believe in my girlfriend to be faithful to me, this is a non-propositional trusting relationship I have. Thus, the distinction is between believing that and trusting in.

Clearly Romans 1 is teaching that all people believe *that* God exists but certainly it is not teaching us that unbelievers believe *in* God and have a relationship because this is something that is only true of a believer who has faith and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Thus, it is clear that there is no contradiction here.

But there is another sort of problem that has been answered By Greg L. Bahnsen in his famous dissertation on the paradox of self deception. The problem is that atheists claim that they do not believe *that* God exists. In other words they reject that they believe the proposition that God exists. If they are right then this means the bible is unreasonable in what it says about unbelievers. But there is no reason for thinking this, as Bahnsen has argued they might be very well self-deceived. Here is what that possibly might look like. The unbeliever possibly believes:

P1: S believes that p is true

P2: S believes that he is not the kind of person to say that he believes that p is true.

Let us say that S would stand for subject or person; P would be the proposition that God exists. Thus, this shows us that there is no contradiction between what Romans 1 has to teach and what an atheist has to say. Because a atheist is self-deceived and from what I have shown from P1 and P2 in conjunction it seems that self-deception is certainly possible. But why would a unbeliever do this? Well perhaps it is because they hate God and the worst thing they could do to God in their mind is say that he does not exist. It is sort of like if I were to pretend that my father did not exist anymore, certainly this would be a hateful action I would perform in order to cause disrepute to my father. Likewise unbelievers do the very same thing, they hate God so they say that he does not exist. It is reasonable to think this, that unbelievers hate God because John says that they love the darkness:

John 3:19 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

In light of this, it seems that Paul's teaching in Romans 1 is reasonable.

Can a Christian Struggle With Sin?

The short answer to this question is yes, a christian can and does struggle with sin. In fact, I would go so far to say that if one does not struggle with sin in this life then he or she is not a christian. The reason I say this is because the more holy one becomes the more they hate their sin and the sins they commit even if they have grown in their walk with Christ. But unbelievers do not struggle with sin because they do not care about whether or not they violate God's law. Thus, I believe, with the majority of Reformed Christians that Christians in this life always struggle with sin.

The main biblical text that justifies this position is Romans 7:14-25. In this blog post I will offer three of the strongest reasons for thinking that the person in Romans 7 is Paul, a believer, rather than a unregenerate Jew struggling with the law.

Reason 1: The person in Romans 7 relies and gives thanks to Christ and then continues to struggle.

Romans 7:25 - 8:1 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

A unregenerate Jew does not have this sort of relation with Christ, rather only a believer has this sort of relation with Christ, a relation that is such that one gives thanks and relies on Christ in the midst of their struggles.

Reason 2: The person in Romans 7 is speaking in the first person and in the present tense.

This makes a good case that if this person is speaking in the first person and in the present tense that this is in fact Paul and that this is his normative experience as a believer.

Reason 3: The person in Romans 7 delights in the law of God and wants to do the good.

These two characteristics are not true of unbelievers but only believers.

For John writes of unbelievers:

John 3:19 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.


But Paul writes of the person in Romans 7:

Romans 7:15-18 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.


And again Paul Writes in Romans 7:

Romans 7:22 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,

It is pleasing to God that we love and delight in his law, but unbelievers cannot please God as Paul writes in the very next chapter:

Romans 8:7-8 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Thus, given these reasons it seems that it is most reasonable to think that Paul is speaking of himself in Romans 7 and thereby showing that this is the regular life of the Christian.

Perfect being Theology and Eastern Orthodoxy

In this post I will look at a modified Anselmian model of the Divine Essence. I will argue that this modified version is more reasonable than not and that it is wholly incompatible with the Eastern view of the Divine essence, thereby showing that Eastern Orthodoxy is necessarily false.

Here are some ontological arguments and then after I will briefly show how these are incompatible with the Eastern view of the Divine Essence:

The Three strongest ontological arguments:

The one that is falsely attributed to Anselm, but it is still valid and sound:

1) I can think of the greatest possible being (or I define God as the greatest possible being)

2) It is better to exist in reality and in thought than just merely in thought

3) Since the greatest possible being is the greatest then he will have everything that is better to have rather than not to have those great things

4) If the greatest possible being does not exist in reality and in thought then he is not the greatest possible being

5) The greatest possible being would not be the greatest possible being which is a contradiction

6) Therefore, The greatest possible being exists in reality and in thought and this is what we call God

Answering the most popular objection: It is often objected to this argument that just because I can think of the greatest possible thing doesn’t mean that it exists because I can think of the greatest possible Island, animal, house, or girl but that doesn’t mean that those things exists. The problem with this counter argument is it over looks the definition of God as being the greatest possible being. If God is the greatest possible being then he would have only those attributes that would be great to have rather than not have those attributes. One of those great making attributes is that God is entirely unique from the creation which is his creation is lesser than God in many ways. One of those ways in which his creation is lesser is that God is the only being that in his definition or nature there contains a claim of existence. In other words God would be better if he was the only being that could be shown to exist merely by contemplating him rather than not. Since God is the greatest possible being then he is the only being that could be shown to exist merely by contemplating him since this displays a great making property of God, namely his utter uniqueness from the lesser created things.

Here is my version of the argument:

P1: I can think of the greatest possible being (G*)

P2: It is better to be necessary iff one were G* rather than not

P3: G* entails that he will have every property that is better to have rather than not

P4: G* is necessary

C: Hence, G* exists and exists necessarily and we call this being God.

Here's Moreland’s formulation of the ontological argument:

1. A maximally perfect being possibly exists.

2. If a being is a maximally perfect being, it exists
in all possible worlds.

3. The actual world is a possible world.

4. Therefore, a maximally perfect being exists in the
actual world.


Now let's get to the incompatibility with this reasonable and ontologically robust view of the Divine Essence's with the Eastern view of The Divine Essence.

P1: A Essential feature of Eastern Orthodoxy is the rejection of God's existence

P2: Anselmian Perfect being theology demonstrates that God exists necessarily

C: Hence, Eastern Orthodoxy is essentially and necessarily false

The Divine Essence in Eastern Theology does not exist but it is not true that it doesn't exists (the way of negation), but in Anselmian perfect being theology God's essence exists because this is true by definition thus the eastern view is necessarily false since they believe that God's essence doesn't exist. Furthermore, The East doesn't think the Divine Essense is contigent or necessary, but on perfect being theology and philosophy (the second and third argument) the divine essence exists necessarily thus if one holds to perfect being theology he would be most reasonable in thinking that the conception of the Divine essence in Eastern Orthodoxy is necessarily false. From these conclusions it is more reasonable than not that eastern orthodoxy in necessarily false if one wants to think that God is the greatest possible being.

The Law and Gospel: Part 3

The Law and Gospel in New Covenant Preaching in Acts

If the law/gospel distinction is truly biblical and something we ought to preach then we should be able to find at least some form of it in the preaching of the Apostles. In this section we will look at two sections in the book of Acts that will support the preaching of the law and the gospel distinction in apostolic preaching.

The Law and Gospel in Acts 2:36-39

In the sermon in Acts 2:36-39 the Apostle Peter preaches the law and gospel. Peter starts out with the preaching of the law to his audience by condemning them for the cause of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as he says in verse in 36: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." What I mean by Peter preaching the law in this verse is that he using their sinfulness as a means of conviction so that they can be driven to Christ (the first use of the law). The first use of the law is evident from what is in the next in verse 37: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter’s preaching that they had crucified the Lord has caused them to be convicted by their sin of rebellion against the anointed one. When they were convicted in heart for what they had done it produced in them a need to be saved from their sin. This is made evident by their need to ask the question to Peter and the other apostles: "Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter responds to this question with the answer of the Gospel in verses 38-39:

And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."

There are three elements of the gospel that are emphasized in this statement. First, Peter tells them to be baptized in name of Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. Notice that Peter does not teach that fulfilling the law as a means by which they receive the forgiveness of sins. He just says that they just have to be baptized and repent, which these two actions can only occur if one has faith in Christ. Second, says that they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This means that the Holy Spirit that is given to us is a gift or in Greek a dw/ron, which means that it is not based on our doing but rather on God who has grace. As Paul says concerning a dw/ron, in Ephesians 2:8 “kai. tou/to ouvk evx u`mw/n( qeou/ to. dw/ron\” Paul says that a gift is excluded from being based on anything pertaining to us. That is to say that it is not based on anything intrinsic on us but rather extrinsically on free graciousness outside of us. Thus, the gift of the Holy Spirit is pure gospel in its orientation because it is not based on obedience to the law. Lastly, Peter speaks to believers as having a promise to them and their children and to all those who are far off. This is referring to the “promise” in the Old Testament to Abraham, David and Noah that is of the covenant of grace (13:15; 17:7; Gal. 3:16; Ps. 18:50; 89:34; 132:11) that is now inherited by new covenant believers. As Paul points out elsewhere the promise has an antithetical relationship to the law and doing (Gal. 3:18). In Short, Peter communicates the Gospel in three different ways after he presents to his audience their condemnation through the first use of the law. There is other passages in Acts that also strongly suggest that Law and Gospel was conveyed in apostolic preaching.



The Law and Gospel in Acts 4:10-12

When Peter was preaching before the Jewish council in Acts 4:10-12 he preached the law in its first use and the gospel. Peter starts out by condemning them with the law with the egregious sin of murdering and rejecting Jesus Christ (4:10-11). Because Peter knows the sins they have committed specifically he does not have to preach the law in a general sense (in the general imperatival mood) so as to make one conscience of their own sin, but rather he tells the council the sin they have committed. Then he stress that there is no other way in which people are saved except through Jesus Christ, as Peter says in verse 12: And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." In this section Peter uses the condemnation of the law as a mean to point to salvation in Christ alone. Thus, it is clear from these sermons in Acts that the Law/Gospel distinction was preached by Apostles in the New Covenant.

Application to Preaching the Law and Gospel in the New Covenant

Now that we have established a firm theological foundation for the Law and Gospel in new covenant preaching we ought now to apply it to our preaching.

Preaching the first use of the Law and the Gospel

The law as preached in its first use is supposed to make the subjects we are preaching at to want the Gospel desperately. The law is to ct7ome first in preaching because without the law we would not even know why we would need the Gospel (Rom. 7:7) Furthermore, the more law we preach before we preach the Gospel the more the subjects realize how much they need the Gospel of grace (5:20). Furthermore, the preaching of the law can even increase transgression on those who do not take hold of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, just like the Mosaic Law increased transgression to drive us redemptive historically to the fulfillment of the promise: Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:20). The preaching of the Gospel may sound like a license to sin, but this is a natural reaction when people initially hear the first use of the law and the preaching of the Gospel. Michael Horton notes concerning the Gospel in Romans 6:1:“Paul asks in Romans 6:1, “”what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?”” If the preaching of the gospel we have heard leads us to wonder whether we can dispense with the law altogether, then it has been correctly heard .” The Gospel is so antithetical in our preaching to the first use of the law that it should make one prima facie wonder whether we should just entirely abolish any type of commandments at all that are taught in the Bible. When we preach the first use of the law to our subjects this produces an enormous amount of guilt, but when we preach the Gospel to believing subjects they feel the grace of God in their life. This guilt and grace paradigm is essential for understanding the struggles in the believer’s life as well as the flow in the history of redemption.
It is the minister’s obligation to preach in some form the first use of the law and the gospel from the text or texts in which his sermon is based on. Paul as an Apostle and minister of the Gospel preached the entire counsel of God (Acts 20:27). At the same time Paul preached Christ and him crucified and desired to know nothing else but this fact (1 Cor. 1:23; 2:2). Moreover, it seems with these two statements in scripture in mind that Paul preached the whole counsel of God and that he preached Christ Crucified suggests that each section of the word of God he preached in, he preached Christ through it. Furthermore, the reason why Christ came and died in the first place was because of sin which is exposed by the law (Rom. 7:7). In addition, the only way for the preaching of “Christ and him crucified” to make sense in history of redemption is if we know that we are sinful and in need of such a savior. The way we know we are sinful and we need such a savior is exposed through the preaching of the first use of the law. Lastly, speaking of the Savior Jesus Christ and him crucified is the core teaching of the gospel (1 Cor. 15:1-11). This is why the minister of the Gospel is obligated to preach the Law (in its first use) and the Gospel.

After the Gospel Preaching and the Third use of the Law

Once the minister preaches the Gospel the believer has gratitude toward God for saving him from his sins then the minister ought to employ the third use of the law. As defined previously this use of the law is the normative use of the commandments in scripture for Christian sanctification. This use helps to be the guide or aim for works of gratitude toward God. In preaching the first use of the law in conjunction with the Gospel may seem prima facie like the law the ought to be done away with entirely for the believers, but this is not so because the believer still need a guide by which to produce works of gratitude in sanctification (Eph. 2:10). If we are left with the first use of the law in preaching then we cannot make sense out of passages that ask us to observe the law like Romans 3:31: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” This verse ought to be understood as upholding the law in its third use for Christian sanctification . In light of the strong reason for Christians to uphold the law of God as aim of the sanctification the preacher ought to exhort believers in his congregation to have fruits of spirit as Paul does in Galatians 5:16. Paul also goes on to describe what the works of the flesh are and what the works of the spirit are (Gal. 5:19-24), likewise the preacher of the new covenant should preach what actions are fruits of the Spirit and which works are of the flesh, the world, and the devil. Moreover, the preacher should take the commandments in scripture and apply it to the believer’s circumstance so that they can walk according to the Spirit. By the believers circumstances I mean the time, place, and culture in which the preacher and his congregation are imbedded in. Thus, the third use of the law should be preached and applied to the believers so that they may walk according to the Spirit so that they can produce fruits.

In Conclusion

The Law and the Gospel is an important distinction for the Protestant Reformation as well as an important distinction for the modern day preacher of the New Covenant. As we have seen from our study to reject the law/gospel distinction is not only unbiblical, but it also does not make any sense. The law without the Gospel is legalism and despair. However, the gospel without the law is just as worse because there is no reason for the gospel without the law to expose sin. We have also seen that the Apostle Peter gave us examples of how to preach the law and the gospel. Lastly, we have seen that the Law can serve as guide to those who have been crucified with Christ and want to produce fruits of sanctification. Thus, the Law and Gospel is a essential distinction for any preacher of the New Covenant.

Bibliography

Arand, Charles P., and Joel D. Biermann. Ap 2007. Why the two kinds of righteousness? Concordia Journal. 33 (2):123.

Bruce, F.F. Commentary on The Book of The Acts. Grand Rapids, Michigan, WM B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1973.

Clark, Scott. Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry New Jersey, P&R Publishing: 2007.

Horton,Michael. (Fall 2002). Law, gospel, and covenant: reassessing some emerging antitheses. Westminster Theological Journal. 64(2), 279-287.

Horton, Michael. God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology Grand Rapid, Baker Books: 2006.

Karlberg, M. W. (Spr 1981). Justification in redemptive history. Westminster Theological Journal. 43(2),

The Law and Gospel: Part 2

The Biblical Data that supports Law and Gospel

Now that we have taken a look at dogmatics of law and gospel we should explore the biblical foundations for the law and the gospel because if it is not found in God’s word then it is not worth preaching at all.

The Law: Its Uses and Nature in Scripture

My contention is that general characteristics in the Reformed understanding of law are found in the biblical data including the first and third uses of the law. The law of God is a reflection of the Holy character of God and thus requires perfection as is clearly taught in Matthew 5:48: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” If one violates the law at one point then he has broken all of it (James 10:10-12). Thus, the scriptures clearly teach that the law requires as the Westminster confession says “perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience” (WCF 7.2; WLC 20, 93) and it is Holy because it is a reflection of the nature of God. In addition, the law is revealed to everyone, even those who lack special revelation, but have general revelation (Rom. 2:12-15). The law also points out our sin and misery and our desperate need for a savior (Rom. 3:20). The scriptures even go so far as to say that the law produces more sin in us as it says in Romans 5:20 “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased”. In light of these consideration it seems that pedagogical use of the law is taught clearly in scripture (Romans 3:10-12 ,3:19, 4:15, 5:13 ,7:5, 7:7, 7:12-13). Now that we have been shown to be dead in our sins by the law we can now be redeemed and live to God out of gratitude for what he has done for us and follow the law as a norm (Gal. 2:19-20). For all believers that are justified by faith are required to follow the law in its third use as Paul teaches us in Romans 3:31: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” Thus, it seems that given the biblical data we are warranted in believing in the third use of the law as well as the rest of the teaching concerning the law in the Reformed tradition.



The Gospel: A Free Gift

My contention is that the Gospel taught in the Bible is the Gospel of the Reformation of a free gift to be received by faith alone through grace alone on the basis of Christ’s righteousness. We receive what God has given to us as a gift by grace and faith as Paul says in Ephesians 2:8 “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” Paul teaches in Ephesians that this is not of our own doing at all. Moreover, he teaches that this gift we have received righteousness not from us or anything we have done but by faith in Christ as he states in Philippians 3:9 “be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith”. This righteousness is from Christ and his obedience by fulfilling the law and giving to us as an unconditional gift by his free grace (Rom. 5:15; 8:1-4) . God gave us his righteousness and he took up the punishment of sin on the cross so that we can receive his gracious gift as Paul teaches in 2 Corinthians: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Moreover, another key point of the Gospel is that God out of his grace sent his son into the world to redeem us from the law so that we might become adopted sons and receive Christ’s benefits through faith alone (Gal. 4:4-5). Thus, it seems that the Bible is covered with the Gospel message of the Reformation (Rom. 3:20-31; 5:1-5; Gal 3:6-9).

The Relationship between Law/Gospel

In this section we will look at the relationship between the law and the gospel in the Reformed tradition and how that tradition is established by the word of God.
The Relationship of Law and Gospel in the Reformed Tradition

There are two antithetical hermeneutical moods that one ought to read the scriptures with in the Reformed tradition; they are the Law and Gospel. As I have mentioned in passing above the relationship between law and gospel to us is antithesis. As Dr. Scott Clark notes about the law/gospel distinction in the mind of the Reformed Scholastic Wollebius “They differ in their “proper material” (propria material). That is, the stuff of gospel is not the stuff of law. The law is about our “doing” (facienda), and the gospel is about our “believing” (credenda) .” Dr. Clark is emphasizing that the essential fundamental difference between law and gospel is that the gospel asks us to believe and the law asks us to do . This is why the distinction can also be seen as the antithesis between faith and works. However, Dr. Clark does note that the Law and Gospel are only antithetical to us as sinners but to God they are not antithetical . In other words, he is trying to say that the law/gospel distinction is analogous to the doctrine of divine simplicity, there may be distinctions to us as creatures, but to God it is all one; these creaturely distinctions are called “relative distinctions” . Beza thought that if one did not know the fundamental distinction between law and Gospel as two parts then this would lead to the corruption of Christianity . The Reformed antithesis between law and gospel are essential moods but there are other ways to view and express these moods in scripture.

The law and gospel distinction can be also seen as the antithesis between law and promise-fulfillment or between a covenant of works and a covenant of grace. Reformed theologians like Ursinus explained the distinction between law and gospel in language of the covenant of works and the covenant of grace . In other words, the covenant of grace is on an entirely different attitude than the covenant of works . The reason why they are different principles is because the law does contain promises but they are largely legal; they are based on our doing and following the conditions set before us . Whereas the Gospel or the covenant of grace is not based on our doing but based on Christ’s doing and we receiving this promise by faith alone. As Scott Clark Rightly points out about the relationship between the law/gospel distinction and covenant theology in the thinking of the Reformed theologian Ursinus:

“Ursinus’s construal of the law/gospel distinction would seem to make impossible any disjunction between covenant theology and the law/gospel hermeneutic. In other words, if we follow Ursinus, to preach covenantally is to preach the law (relative to justification) and the gospel as two distinct principles .”

It seems then that our covenant theology is going to be intimately connected to a Reformed conception of the law and the gospel distinction. Moreover, other Reformed theologians like Michael S. Horton also believe that there is a link between this intimate relation between covenant theology as it relates to the law gospel distinction . He writes “….law and gospel are distinguished and even opposed whenever we mean by these terms a covenant of law and a covenant promise .” In this quotation the law/gospel distinction are defined in terms of covenant theology and thus reinforces the close connection between law/gospel and covenants of grace and works. In lights of these considerations this seems to suggest that the law/gospel distinction is linked and grounded in the distinction between the covenant of works and grace.

The Law/Gospel distinction in Scripture

The law gospel distinction of antithesis is grounded in the scriptural distinctions between works/law and faith/promise. In Romans 3:21-23 Paul makes a distinction between the righteousness of God through faith in Christ and the law which has righteousness apart from this. In Romans 3:27 Paul makes a starker distinction when he says “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.” The Greek word here for “law” as used two times in this verse is no,moj and is probably best translated as principle or rule. The reason why it would not be best to translate no,moj as a command from the moral law of God or from the Torah is because faith is called a no,moj and faith is being contrasted with works in this verse. Moreover, above in the previous context (Rom. 3:21-26) Paul contrasts faith and works so that it would not make sense if he was using no,moj in this way because he would be contradicting himself in this verse. Thus, if we take Paul use of no,moj as a principle or as a rule then Paul would be teaching two distinct principles in the word of God: works and faith. This is nearly a decisive argument for the law/gospel distinction but there are other strong biblical arguments.

However, there are other strong biblical arguments throughout the writings of New Testament. In Galatians 3:18 Paul contrast between Law and Promise “For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.” Paul’s contrast is so stark that he argues that to even think that the inheritance came through law would exclude any notion of promise. This point is also reemphasized in the book of Romans as well as it relates to the promise of Abraham through faith and not through the law (Romans 4:13-16).
Another strong argument for the law/gospel distinction is found in the combined force of Romans 10:5-13 and Galatians 3:10-14. Romans 10:5 Paul argues that the righteousness based on the law is “that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.” Paul is saying here that a person who lives by the law is the righteousness based on the law. He contrasts this verse 6-13 with the righteousness by faith that does not find it’s righteousness in doing but rather believing and confessing. As it says in verse 9 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Here Paul is contrasting this believing with the righteousness based on the law in verse 5 . A similar line of biblical teaching is reinforced in Galatians 3:10-14 when Paul understands works of the law (e;rgwn no,mou) as a curse because “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them (v.10).” Thus the e;rgwn no,mou requires perfect obedience in all of God’s commandments or else a curse. Verse 12 Paul indicates a clear contrast between the law and faith when he says “But the law is not of faith, rather "The one who does them shall live by them."” Paul is teaching that faith is not the same thing as the law because the law is about living by the commandments perfectly, whereas faith is just about “believing”. In verse 14 Paul concludes that we received the promised Spirit and the benefits of Christ through faith which is contrary to the law, as Paul says “so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” These sections in the scriptures strongly support a robust law/gospel antithesis but the scriptures use different language like law and faith or belief in place of the law and gospel. This does not suggest that the law/gospel distinction is somehow unbiblical because the precise language is not found in scripture. If someone thought this was a legitimate criticism of the Reformed law/gospel distinction then to be consistent they ought to give up the doctrine of the trinity since the word trinity is never used in the Bible. What is important for a doctrine to be biblical is not that the precise wording is in the Bible but that the content and concepts are taught in the word of God.

Bibliography

Arand, Charles P., and Joel D. Biermann. Ap 2007. Why the two kinds of righteousness? Concordia Journal. 33 (2):123.

Bruce, F.F. Commentary on The Book of The Acts. Grand Rapids, Michigan, WM B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1973.

Clark, Scott. Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry New Jersey, P&R Publishing: 2007.

Horton,Michael. (Fall 2002). Law, gospel, and covenant: reassessing some emerging antitheses. Westminster Theological Journal. 64(2), 279-287.

Horton, Michael. God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology Grand Rapid, Baker Books: 2006.

Karlberg, M. W. (Spr 1981). Justification in redemptive history. Westminster Theological Journal. 43(2),

Moo, Douglas. The Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company: 1996.

The Law And The Gospel: Part 1

Introduction

(This is a paper I wrote for a class at Westminster Seminary California. The research and citations of this paper are largely based off of Dr. Scott Clark's work on the Law-Gospel distinction in the book Covenant, Justification, And Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California.)

In today’s contemporary mainline and evangelical churches one finds a large dose of moralism and legalism. This legalism is without Christ and is just preaching steps of self-help so that people can feel good about themselves. If these churches preached from the word of God in a way that makes sinners need the cross of Christ and produce fruits from their gratitude then they would escape their error of legalism and positive thinking preaching. This is why preaching is so important for Christ’s church. If one does not know how to preach correctly and biblically then he will cause much error and confusion in the flock of God. One of the ways to avoid such an error is preaching the law and the gospel correctly. In this paper I plan to define, defend, give examples of and apply the Reformed and Lutheran use of the law and gospel distinction in New Covenant preaching. I plan on doing this by first giving a definition of the law and gospel and defending these definitions biblically. Furthermore, the antithesis between law and gospel shall be defined and argued for textually. Then I will give two examples of how the law and the gospel were preached by the Apostles. Lastly, I shall give an application of the different uses of law and the gospel in preaching to the New Covenant community.

Defining Law and Gospel

In this section I will define law and gospel as they are used theologically in the Reformed and Lutheran tradition so that we may have an understanding by what I mean when I use these terms, which will help me to avoid equivocation.

The Law in the Reformed/Lutheran systematic theology

This paragraph seeks to explore the meaning of the law in the Reformed/Lutheran tradition. The law is a principle that refers to anything that God commands of us. Moreover, anything that is in God’s revelation that is in the imperative mood is law . In other words anything that requires us to perform a given action or not to perform a given action is law. According to the Westminster confession of faith the law requires “perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience” (WCF 7.2; WLC 20, 93). In are fallen state this standard is impossible to fulfill and this led Martin Luther to say this of the law:

“Law is a word of destruction, a word of wrath, a word of sadness, a word of grief, a voice of the judge and the defendant, a word of restlessness, a word of curse…Through the law we have nothing except an evil conscience, a restless heart, a troubled breast because of our sins, which the law points out but does not take away. And we ourselves cannot take it away .”

The reason why Luther speaks so negatively of the law is because of its standard of perfection that we as creatures that are dead in our sin have to fulfill perfectly. This seems impossible and thus the law as viewed in this context only causes the despair that Luther speaks of above. Another important element about the law is that it is revealed in nature to unbelievers so that all men are condemned before God . The law is for believers a standard to live by once they have been justified by faith, since the law is intrinsically holy and is a reflection of God’s holy character . Lastly, the law ultimately brings God glory . Thus, there are many complex elements of the law, but for clarity sake they can be categorized into three uses in the new covenant.

The Three uses of the Law in the New Covenant

There are three ways that the law is used correctly in the new covenant . The first use of the law is called the pedagogical use of the law . This use of the law exposes our sin as utterly sinful and condemns us before a Holy God. Moreover, this use of the law drives us to Christ because it makes us realize how much we need him to save us from our sin . The second use of the law is called the civil use of the law . This use of law applies to unbelievers as well because unbelievers have the certain aspects of the law in their heart. This makes the unbeliever “think twice” about doing something morally outrageous because of the penal sanctions in the city of man The third use of the law is called the normative use . This use of the law is the “norm” for the believer who has been justified by faith. In other words, this use of the law gives us guidelines for sanctification . This use of the law is only for the believer because the curse and condemnation of the law is removed and the believer feels gratitude because of this and wants to produce good works . These are three uses of the law, but since this is a paper on preaching the law and the gospel we are only going to be concerned with the pedagogical use and the normative use.

The Gospel in Reformed and Lutheran Systematic Theology

This paragraph seeks to explore the meaning of the gospel in the Reformed/Lutheran tradition. The Gospel in a principle in the scriptures that refers to anything that God has accomplished for us. The Gospel is only in special revelation and it is usually in the indicative mood, that is to say it refers to things that have been already done for us . The Gospel is about believing and it is by this believing that we are able to obtain the merits of Christ. As Theodore Beza put it concerning the Gospel “We call Gospel the Good News, which, from the beginning, and by his grace and mercy alone, God has announced to his Church: those who, by faith, embrace Jesus Christ shall partake of eternal life in him (Rom. 3:21, 22; John 6:40) .” As Beza points out in this quotation, the Gospel is made up of the grace and mercy of God which he uses as faith as the instrument to partake in eternal life. Luther himself describes the Gospel as:

“gospel is a preaching of the incarnate Son of God, given to us without any merit on our part for salvation and peace. It is a word of salvation, a word of grace, a word of comfort, a word of joy, a voice of the bridegroom and the bride, a good word, a word of peace .”

In this quotation Luther seems to see the gospel as primarily something that is wonderful to hear preached and the content of that preaching is the Son of God and that the salvation that is given to us is not based on our merit whatsoever. The Gospel is a promise that came to actuality by Christ’s passive and active obedience that is transferred to us by the sole instrument of faith through grace. The Gospel is us with empty hands before a Holy God as he fills our hands with a free gift of imputed righteousness. Thus, the Gospel has many elements to it, but a central one is that it is a gift that is given to us by someone else’s work and merit; Jesus Christ’s merit.

Bibliography

Arand, Charles P., and Joel D. Biermann. Ap 2007. Why the two kinds of righteousness? Concordia Journal. 33 (2):123.

Bruce, F.F. Commentary on The Book of The Acts. Grand Rapids, Michigan, WM B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1973.

Clark, Scott. Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry New Jersey, P&R Publishing: 2007.

Horton,Michael. (Fall 2002). Law, gospel, and covenant: reassessing some emerging antitheses. Westminster Theological Journal. 64(2), 279-287.

Horton, Michael. God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology Grand Rapid, Baker Books: 2006.

Karlberg, M. W. (Spr 1981). Justification in redemptive history. Westminster Theological Journal. 43(2),

Moo, Douglas. The Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company: 1996.

A note to the reader: This is part 1 but the bibliography is for all three parts of my paper.

Is Reformed Theology Pelagian?

Perry Robinson in his recent blog post on Energetic Procession has argued that Classical Reformed Protestant theology is inherently Pelagian.

Perry’s blog post can be found here.

Perry of course grants that there are aspects of Reformed theology that are not Pelagian, but Perry charges that the Reformed conception of anthropology and the covenant of works are Pelagian. In this blog post I will argue that the Reformed conception of man and the covenant of works pre-fall are not Pelagian and that the Catholic and Eastern view of man pre-fall is unreasonable.


First let us look at some quotes where Perry charges that the Reformed are Pelagian, he writes:

Adam was then perpetually under a “covenant of works” since he intrinsically possessed the requisite power to fulfill it. This is why incidentally the Reformed doctrine of the Covenant of Works is essentially Pelagian.

And again he writes:

And historically, the neo-semi-pelagian anthropology of the Ockhamist school trickled down on this point to the Reformers. The obvious irony is that the Protestant protestation against Pelagianism is directly applicable to their own theological system. Providing as a foundation for the Pelagian scheme an Augustinian soteriological doctrine of divine pre-emption doesn’t make the fundamental outlook any less Pelagian.

The standard definition of Pelagianism is this:

A concept proposed by Pelagius (circa 356 to circa 418) who denied the existence of original sin inherited from Adam. He taught that a soul created by god cannot inheret sin from an ancestor. Thus humans are born morally neutral. They can fall into habits of sin but can overcome sin through mental effort. He promoted adult baptism in place of infant baptism. His beliefs were declared heretical by the Christian movement.

The fundamental mistake that Perry Robinson is making here according to R. Scott Clark in his class lectures on Reformed Scholasticism is that the whole discussion of Pelagianism with respect to grace has to do with man after the fall. Perry is illegitimately expanding the definition of Pelagianism.

This is obvious when one reads the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Errors of Pelagianism:

1) Even if Adam had not sinned, he would have died.
2) Adam's sin harmed only himself, not the human race.
3) Children just born are in the same state as Adam before his fall.
4) The whole human race neither dies through Adam's sin or death, nor rises again through the resurrection of Christ.
5) The (Mosaic Law) is as good a guide to heaven as the Gospel.
6) Even before the advent of Christ there were men who were without sin.
On account of these doctrines, which clearly contain the quintessence of Pelagianism, Caelestius was summoned to appear before a synod at Carthage (411); but he refused to retract them, alleging that the inheritance of Adam's sin was an open question and hence its denial was no heresy.

Thus, we see that the Reformed accept neither of 1 through 6 because the whole discussion of Pelagianism with respect to grace is post-fall and not pre-fall.

However, when Perry tries to argue that the Reformed share similar views to Pelagius on human nature pre-fall, he specifically argues that we believe like Pelagius that human nature pre-fall is intrinsically naturally righteous and able to fulfill the commands of God’s covenant, the covenant of works that is. Perry is right about this, but this does not make us Pelagian, that just means that we share a view with Pelagius. I am sure Perry shares views with Pelagius as well, like he has two arms and that he is a male, but this does not make Perry a Pelagian. If he tries to argue that this view of human nature leads one to Pelagianism then he is wrong because the Reformed are obviously not soteriologically Pelagian. If he tries to argue that if one shares a view with Pelagius that is not condemned as a Heresy by a council but that the Orthodox do not share, then he is begging the question because he is assuming in the argument that the Reformed are Heretics and that the Orthodox position is not (which is what the post was intending to prove, that the Reformed are Heretical on this point).

But it is worse than this because the Catholic and Orthodox position on human nature pre-fall is actually unbiblical and philosophically flawed.

The author of Genesis says that all of God’s creation is good:

Genesis 1:31 "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

If everything that God created is good then the Reformed are right to think that human nature is good in the pre-fall circumstances.

But there are other philosophical problems with the non-Reformed position. Why would God create human nature defective so that it would need grace? If God is the greatest possible being then it seems that it would be better for him to create human nature intrinsically good rather than not. Thus, it seems that the non-Protestant position on this is unreasonable and that Perry's arguments have failed because he is using an incorrect definition of Pelagianism.

Finally, If anyone is Pelagian in this whole mess then it is Perry, who is a Eastern Orthodox. This is because Eastern Orthodox reject the imputation of Adams sin to us. In short, they reject original guilt just like Pelagius. Catholics are also Pelagian because they reject sufficient grace just like Pelagius. If anyone is not Pelagian it are those who hold to the Classical Reformed Protestant position which accepts the imputation of Adams sin to us and sufficient grace.

Works Cited:

1) http://www.translationdirectory.com/glossaries/glossary007_p.htm

2) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm

Is Natural Law Biblical?

This Blog is a response to Danny Pelichowski's post on his Blog theological sharpening. His original post can be found here. Danny critiques the concept of Natural Law as being unbiblical. I will respond to Danny and argue that his critique is incorrect.


Danny thinks this about natural law:

"The concept of “natural law” is the most prominent error in this discussion. Dr. John Frame proclaims that “…the idea that there is some impersonal mechanism called “nature” or “natural law” that governs the universe is absent from the Bible.”[8] According to the Scriptures God is providentially ruling over his creation and has not set up impersonal laws to govern the world as Aquinas and his mentor Aristotle would have us believe. Due to the prominence of this belief in our modern culture it would take a great deal to overthrow the theory of “natural law,” However, for Protestants the absence of the concept of “natural law” in divine revelation should be more than sufficient to reject it as false."

The first mistake that I think Danny makes is by defining natural law in a incorrect way. Natural law is simply the belief that the moral law is made know to the conscience of all mankind. This moral law can be from God's nature and commandments and thus it does not necessarily entail some sort of impersonal mechanisms at all. It could be written on the hearts and conscience of all mankind by the God of the Bible, YHWH.


But I think worst of all is that Danny thinks that natural law is not biblical. But one wonders how he might deal with the clear teachings of scripture on this. Specifically Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans:

Romans 2:14-15 "14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them"

What Paul describes here is precisely how I defined natural law and thus I conclude that Natural Law is biblical.

On The Wrath Of God

This post will largely be a response to another blog post written by Father Stephen Freeman at his blog Glory To God For All Things. Father Freeman attempts to address the question of God's wrath from an Orthodox perspective, arguing that God is not actually "wrathful" toward anyone in the way Protestants (and Catholics) have tradtionally thought. In this post I will respond to Father Freeman's arguments and attempt to defend the traditional Protestant view of the Wrath of God.

Father Freeman sets the tone of his post by beginning with this Scripture passage:

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them.
-Luke 9:51-55

(Father Freeman's quotation of this verse includes the phrase "and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of", which is included in the ESV only as a textual variant in a footnote. For the purpose of this post, I will grant Father Freeman that his citation is correct)

He goes on to juxtapose this passage with another one:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming
-Colossians 3:5-6

Now Father Freeman says, "A legitimate question has to be: has the Spirit “of which we are” changed between Luke 9 and Colossians 3? Or is there a deeper understanding at work?" He then argues that the revelation of Christ in the Gospels must be the definitive revelation of God, not the Old Testament or even the Epistles.

Let me just stop here and make one comment. Even if this were so (and I'm not saying it is or it isn't), this seems a bit simplistic to me. Surely the Old Testament must be interpreted in light of the New, but why shouldn't we allow there to be some interplay between the Gospels and Epistles? Part of the reason the Orthodox interpret the Resurrection of Christ in the way that they do is because of Paul's teaching on it. The only thing the Gospels tell us explicitly is that Jesus was dead and then he was alive again. The interpretation of those events is in large measure left up to Paul and others.

Moving on, Father Freeman responds to a potential objection, saying, "Of course my citation of Luke 9 is often countered with, “What about the moneychangers in the Temple?” To which I can only say that He “drove them out with a whip” which is not the same thing as saying that Christ beat them, nor did He call down fire from heaven to consume them."

This seems to miss the point. The discussion is not about specific instances of judgement or types of punishment, it's about (speaking anthropomorphically) an emotive stance or attitude of God toward sin. Was Jesus angered by what the moneychangers were doing? Did he drive them out by force? Was he whistling and smiling as he did it? This is an important matter that the Father dismisses too quickly.

Father Freeman continues:

For various reasons, some people are determined to make the economy of salvation to be linked with the Wrath of God. If you do not repent, then God will do thus and such… I have always considered this representation of the gospel to be coercive and contrary to the love of God. I have heard convoluted ways in which this wrath is interpreted to be “the loving thing to do” but I do not buy it.

At this point, and for the remaining few paragraphs of the article, Father Freeman, in my opinion, totally side-steps the issue in favor of a discussion of God's love and how we present the gospel to others. Whether or not we can make the gospel sound "coersive" is not the issue. What the Bible actually says about the wrath of God is the issue. Of course, dispensing wrath upon sin is not so much the "loving" thing to do as it is the just thing to do, but Father Freeman neither engages with nor argues against either of these positions, so I can't respond to him on that point.

Of the use of "wrath" in the Bible, Father Freeman says, "The common witness within Orthodox Tradition is that the wrath of God is a theological term which describes not God Himself, but a state of being in which are opposed to God." I have never understood the argument that the phrase "wrath of God" is not referring to God's wrath, nor have I seen convincing arguments that clear instances of judgement in Scripture are not really judgement. But again, Father Freeman provides no Scripture passages or arguments here.

So let's engage Father Freeman's original question. Has the Spirit “of which we are” changed between Luke 9 and Colossians 3? What is this Spirit?

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."
-Romans 12:19

Here I think we see a clear example of what Father Freeman might have in mind. We are not to be, as the Apostles in Luke 9 were, seeking after vengence. We could say that we ought not have a vengeful spirit. But why? In this passage, Paul tells us why. Because vengence belongs to God. This is extremely important. Paul here not only tells us not to be vengeful or wrathful, but he grounds that command in the fact that God is the one who is wrathful and vengeful. God alone can execute judgement perfectly against the wicked, so we should not attempt to do so. Far from being some kind of horrid doctrine that is "not worthy of the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ" (in Father Freeman's words), the doctrine of the retributive wrath of God is used by Paul to ground a very "Christ-like" attitude of charity and forgiveness toward others (the very attitude that Father Freeman assumes will be threatened by such a doctrine).

It is also important to note that the phrase "wrath of God" here is explicitly connected with vengence and the Lord's active "repayment" for wickedness. There can be no doubt here of what "wrath" Paul is speaking of.

Father Freeman concludes:

It is very difficult in our culture, where the wrathful God has been such an important part of the gospel story, to turn away from such portrayals - and yet it is necessary - both for faithfulness to the Scripture, the Fathers, and the revelation of God in Christ.

On the contrary, it is becoming increasingly more rare to hear any Christian preacher in America (at least among Evangelicals) even mention the wrath of God, let alone consider it an important part of the gospel story. Not only does the Emergent movement show us this, but the flight among evangelical youth to Eastern Orthodoxy does as well. "Postmodern" America is not the sort of culture that looks kindly upon a perfectly Holy and Just God who follows through on His promises to punish sin by His wrath. That is why it is so important to stand firm on the teachings of the Bible, and not be swayed by the opinions of men.

Sola Scriptura

Often times Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apologists object to the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura on the grounds that it is not found in scripture. That is, they argue that this is a self-refuting proposition because the phrase “scripture alone” is itself not in scripture. In this blog post I plan to give a correct definition of Sola Scriptura that avoids these misunderstandings and then I intend on giving Biblical arguments for this definition of Sola Scriptura.


This is what Sola Scriptura means According to Protestant Reformed scholar Dr. W. Robert Godfrey:

“The Protestant position, and my position, is that all things necessary for salvation and concerning faith and life are taught in the Bible clearly enough for the ordinary believer to find it there and understand.”

We can see by this definition that there is no contradiction here because the Bible clearly teaches this proposition in 1 Timothy 3:16:

“16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

This verse teaches the sufficiency of scripture for faith and practice. It also seems implicit within this text that if scripture can by itself equip every person for every good action then it seems that we would have to individually understand it. This is not the only text that teaches Sola Scriptura, there are two other texts that I believe imply this doctrine.

1 Corinthians 4:6 6 I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.

Paul is teaching that the Corinthians not ought to be judgmental and puff themselves with arrogant pride rather they are to be submissive to what is written and not to go beyond it. If this holds true when Paul is saying this to a church in the first century when the Holy Apostles were alive, then how much more should we follow this principle when there is no more living apostles? This is what Reformed Theologian Michael Horton has argued in his class lectures. If Paul is arguing not to go beyond what is written then it is clear that Scripture is necessary for all things pertaining to our salvation, practicing our faith and he is also presupposing in this that we can understand what is written in Holy Scripture.

Acts 17:11 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

In this text, Luke is saying that it was a noble thing that the individual believers were themselves examining the scripture to see if what Paul the Apostle had been saying was true. This shows that it is a noble task to even check the scriptures even against a Holy Apostle. If that was true then, then it would be true today when there are no more Apostles. This shows that individual believer can sufficiently understand and interpret the things in scripture because Luke says this is a noble task if they were getting everything wrong by their individual interpretations then it certainly would not be noble.

In Conclusion:

Therefore, I believe to have shown two things from this post: 1) The definition of Sola Scriptura is coherent contra Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apologist and 2) this definition is biblical derived.

Works Cited:

http://www.the-highway.com/Sola_Scriptura_Godfrey.html