If you stop and take the time to take notice of just how often in the New Testament the Gospel impacts, changes, gives imperatives for, or opposes the cognitive life of man, you will find that the prevalence is staggering.[i] As Christ claims all things for himself in his redemptive work, so he claims for himself the consciousness of man.

Jesus in his explanation of the Greatest Commandment, as the Lord and Lawgiver of his people, sees fit to append to Deut. 6:5 that we are to love God with all of our mind, as well as all heart and soul (Matt. 22:37; Mk. 12:30; Lk. 10:27). Paul tells us that the Gospel demands of us not to “be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom. 12:2)

Among this mass of intersections between the Gospel and the cognitive life of man is an imperative in Romans 6:11 which has particular relevance for discussions in the PCA which have now gained even more gravity in light of the actions of the 47^th General Assembly.

In response to Overture 4 from Calvary Presbytery the 47^th General Assembly opted (after a lengthy and impassioned debate) to “declare the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood’s ‘Nashville Statement’ on biblical sexuality as a biblically faithful declaration and refer the ‘Nashville Statement’ to the Committee on Discipleship Ministries for inclusion and promotion among its denominational teaching materials.”

Debate over this proposal covered a wide range of things which I will not touch upon here. But one of the most salient objections marshalled by those opposed to the overture which spoke to the actual content of the Nashville Statement centered on Article 7 of the statement.

Article 7 reads:

WE AFFIRM that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.

WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.

In the words of the Missouri Presbytery’s report on their investigation of Revoice, “The statement alienated the Side B community, who felt that the authors of the Nashville Statement did not consider the,ir [sic] viewpoints or experiences. They were especially offended by the language ‘we deny adopting a homosexual or transsexual self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes’ since Side B proponents identify as ‘gay,’ but qualify the meaning of the term.”[ii]

Questions of Identity and Nate Collins’ Project

Nate Collins, the founder and president of ReVoice, authored a book in which the question of the relationship between same-sex attraction and Christian identity was at the center of his overarching purpose. His descriptive subtitle indicates that centrality: All but Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, & Sexuality. We cannot treat the entire complex of issues which Collins addresses in his 312 page book in the space of this post, however, putting our finger on a few key elements is needed before we proceed, especially given that frequently it is claimed in the debate over “side B” Christians that the various spokespersons are talking past one another.

One element that needs to be noted is that Collins deploys an array of eclectically appropriated sociological schools of thought in order to serve the goal of helping to “understand the concrete benefits of encouraging gay people to integrate their orientation into their Christian identity.”[iii] Prominent in the conceptual framework Collins constructs is the school of social identity theory represented in Henri Taijfel and John Turner.[iv] I will not give a detailed recounting of Collins deployment of these thinkers here. I note them, however, in order to point up how much of the technical terminology Collins deploys in his own systematic-theological project assumes the conceptual framework of these schools. His use of terms like “nested subgroup,” and “subgroup v. subtype” comes from this appropriation. This makes a conversation about Collins’ claims about a space for an identity as a “gay Christian” quite complex. His project of constructing space within the church for a “gay Christian identity” is at points largely dependent upon very specific and very detailed theories of sociology.

Another key element that needs to be noted in Collins’ project is his central thesis that “being gay (understood as an aesthetic orientation) is not sinful in itself. . .”[v] Collins contends that what the church needs in order to address the current crisis of sexuality is “a degree of theological innovation”[vi] which involves a re-centering of gay orientation off an exclusive focus on sexual attraction and onto what Collins terms an “aesthetic orientation.”[vii] Collins writes,

If we are to speak of an aesthetic orientation and use it to differentiate between gay and straight, we would say that both gay men and straight women are, for example, less aware (in general) of the beauty of feminine personhood than straight men or lesbian women. These general patterns that we discern in the way people experience the beauty of others are now the basis for distinguishing between straight and nonstraight orientations, rather than an impulse toward sexual activity.[viii]

This theological-ethical innovation which moves gay orientation off an axis of sexuality to a relational aesthetic is the linchpin of Collins’ claim that a gay orientation can be and should be integrated into a larger Christian identity for those who experience same-sex attraction. It is what allows Collins to claim that as “individual people with a particular identity” Christians who experience same-sex attraction can submit their gay orientation to Christ as part of “the global claim of the Christian calling to submit all things to the lordship of Christ”[ix] and yet not have the lordship of Christ eradicate that orientation from one’s identity.

As submission to the lordship of Christ looks categorically unique when it comes to submitting one’s sinful desires to Christ, we can say without exaggeration that the entirety of Collins’ projects hinges upon his attempt to carve out a space for a gay orientation that is morally neutral. While both a chaste heterosexual orientation for a single Christian and a monogamous heterosexual orientation for a married Christian sit in a subordinate way to union with Christ in the hierarchy of Christian self-conception and identity, a homosexual orientation and self-conception sit in an antithetical way to union with Christ as it is sinful. The two things are morally incomparable in that respect. They are thus also in many ways (but not all ways) incomparable in what they respectively look like as the Christian submits them to the lordship of Christ. Now, a full critical engagement and refutation of Collins’ thesis about a morally neutral gay aesthetic orientation is beyond the scope of my purposes here. Such an engagement is needed, but that would require an entirely distinct article from what follows. I will simply say here that it is most unclear what exactly a non-sexual gay orientation is, or to put things in the common terminology of the conversation, it is apparently contradictory to speak of a nonsexual homosexual orientation.

A redefinition of gayness which takes sexuality out of the picture produces a conceptual mutation that appears to be rather unrecognizable in comparison to the issues involved in the debate over a Christian sexual ethic thus far. If an aesthetic orientation towards members of the same gender is non-romantic and non-sexual, it is hard to see how it could be labeled as “gay,” since gayness has historically been understood to encompass an aesthetic appreciation for the physical and personal beauty of another member of the same sex that is irreducibly oriented to the possibility of romance and sexual intercourse. The rest of my article will proceed on the assumption that Collins’ conceptual project to create a theological category for gayness as a morally neutral aesthetic orientation is an unsuccessful one.

Without his assumption that gayness can be such, we are left with the inescapable conclusion that what a homosexual or gay orientation is oriented towards is something unlawful. It desires something that is categorically prohibited by the law of God, i.e. a romantic and sexual relationship with someone of the same sex. Thus, an orientation towards this for the Christian—its spontaneous givenness notwithstanding—is, in the Reformed understanding, an example of remaining corruption which “though it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.” (WCF 6:5)

Much more could be said, but hopefully this positions us now to work through a Biblical reasoning for why Article 7 of the Nashville Statement is in fact Biblically faithful in its denial “that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.”

Self-Conception and the Gospel

In Romans 6:11 Paul issues a command to the Christian which flows out of the intricate chain of reasoning he constructs from the opening of the chapter in order to answer the rhetorical question “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1). Paul declares in Romans 6:11, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

This verse is particularly relevant to the debate over Article 7 of the Nashville Statement. In it Paul issues an imperative which refers to a cognitive act or process. The Greek verb he uses (λογίζεσθε) is sometimes translated as “reckon” in the sense of mathematical calculation or a crediting in the realm of accounting. More broadly its semantic domain covers the activity of consideration or categorization. It refers to the cognitive process of the way of conceiving a thing.

Noteworthy in Romans 6:11 is the fact that the object of that cognitive process is the believer’s very self (ἑαυτοὺς). What must be conceptually categorized in a very specific way is the very personhood of the believer, or put another way, their understanding of their identity or self-conception. The cognitive reckoning that the believer must do towards themselves is to consider themselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

John Murray helpfully points to the exact nature and ground for Paul’s command here. “We are not commanded to become dead to sin and alive to God; these are presupposed. And it is not by reckoning these to be facts that they become facts. The force of the imperative is that we are to reckon with and appreciate the facts which already obtain by virtue of union with Christ.”[x]

Charles Hodge provides a similar commentary on this verse, “What is true in itself, should be true in their convictions and consciousness. If in point of fact believers are partakers of the death and life of Christ; if they die with him, and live with him, then they should so regard themselves. They should receive this truth with all its consoling and sanctifying power, into their hearts, and manifest it in their lives.”[xi]

Assumed in Paul’s reasoning is that the believer has been represented by Christ in his once and for all actions in redemptive history of executing judgment upon sin as a power (Rom. 6:7), that Jesus not only died for the sins of the believer in his substitutionary death on the cross, but also that in his representation of his people he also died a death to sin on their behalf (Rom. 6:10). Furthermore, Paul assumes that in his resurrection, Christ, as our representative head, has left the realm of the dominion of the flesh and death never to die again (Rom. 6:9) and is alive in resurrection power in a life lived unto God (Rom. 6:10). In order to lay the ground for the freedom which the believer has from sin, Paul appeals to both the decisive, unrepeatable, and irreversible actions of Jesus’ crucifixion and his resurrection. As Murray puts it,

It is just because we cannot allow for any reversal or repetition of Christ’s death on the tree that we cannot allow for any compromise on the doctrine that every believer has died to sin and no longer lives under its dominion. Sin no longer lords it over him. To equivocate here is to assail the definitiveness of Christ’s death. Likewise the decisive and definitive entrance upon newness of life in the case of every believer is required by the fact that the resurrection of Christ was decisive and definitive. As we cannot allow for any reversal or repetition of the resurrection, so we cannot allow for any compromise on the doctrine that every believer is a new man, that the old man has been crucified, that the body of sin has been destroyed, and that, as a new man in Christ Jesus, he serves God in the newness which is none other than that of the Holy Spirit of whom he has become the habitation and his body the temple.[xii]

This is what theologians refer to as “definitive sanctification.” The process of progressive sanctification in the Christian life in which the believer more and more dies to sin and lives in obedience to God unfolds from an alpha point in which the Christian is existentially united to Christ by the Spirit, and thus has the Spirit apply to them what Christ has already accomplished on their behalf as Jesus represented them in his person and work in redemptive history. Herman Ridderbos summarizes this relationship well.

The reverse side of all this is that just as the church has once died with Christ, it also has been raised with him. Here again the aorists denote the redemptive-historical moment, that of Christ’s rising. The thought is thereby that as in Christ’s death on the Cross the church has died to the powers of sin, world, and law, in the resurrection of Christ it has been set at liberty for Another, in order to live for him, under his government, for Christ himself (Rom. 7:4; 2 Cor. 5:15); or for God (Gal. 2:19). From these passages, too, which speak of having been raised with Christ, it is evident how much the new life of the church not only has been grounded—as something that has taken place for them and outside them—but also has been given and has begun in the resurrection of Christ. This finds clear expression, for example in Ephesians 2:4ff.: “God . . . For his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up together, and made us to sit together in heaven in Christ Jesus. . .”[xiii]

Paul’s cognitive command for the believer’s self-conception in Romans 6:11 flows out of the definitive character of Jesus’ death and resurrection as it has ransacked the kingdom of Satan and debilitated the cosmic power of sin.

Remaining Sin and Self-Conception

However, as any self-aware believer can attest, that definitive conquest of the power of sin of which the Christian becomes participant in their union with Christ, does not mean that the remnants of sin are obliterated in the believer. The Christian still lives as one in need of waging a war against the internal reality of indwelling sin and the external reality of the temptation of the world and Satan. Frank Thielman captures well the almost counter-intuitive nature of Paul’s command in Romans 6:11.

Here too Paul asks his readers to draw conclusions that do not at first seem obvious. They have not experienced physical death as Christ does; and they still experience the effects of the sinful world around them, including its deceptive appeal. Nevertheless, because they are ‘in Christ’ they are now in the realm that he rules. Within this sphere, his death and resurrection have effectively atoned for sin, reconciled them to God, and broken the power of sin (3:24–25; 5:1–6:11; cf. 8:1). They can only live in a way that is consistent with these truths if they “count” (λογίζεσθε) them as true for themselves. . . In light of the sinful nature of the visible world around them, they will need to make a conscious mental effort to reason from their identity in Christ to conduct that is consistent with this identity.[xiv]

Herein lies the struggle of the Christian life, the struggle assumed by Paul’s imperatives regarding the believer’s war against sin which appear throughout every letter Paul wrote. As Murray puts things,

The exhortation, ‘Put to death, therefore, the members which are upon the earth,’ is one that arises from the categorical propositions which precede. It is clear, as in Romans 8:13, that the activity of the believer is enlisted in this process. The implication is, therefore, to the effect that, notwithstanding the definitive death to sin alluded to in Colossians 2:20; 3:3, the believer is not so delivered from sin in its lust and defilement but that he needs to be actively engaged in the business of the slaughterhouse with reference to his own sins.[xv]

In Romans 6:11 Paul is providing a reference point by which believers are to reckon themselves that is not primarily indexed to the existential experience of the believer. It is primarily indexed to the once and for all death and resurrection of Christ which he accomplished on behalf of his people. True, we only come into possession of that by the existential experience of a Spirit-wrought union with Christ through faith. Nevertheless, the cognitive imperative which Paul extends in Romans 6:11 calls the believer to look beyond their existential experience, or rather look through their existential experience of union with Christ, and back to the objective work of Christ on their behalf as he accomplished it once for all in redemptive history.

It is thus a call for a self-judgment which is based upon faith; and like all faith it looks beyond what is seen to what is unseen (Heb. 11:1; cf. Rom. 8:24–25). It is a call for the Christian to imitate Paul in the life they now live in the flesh, to be lived in a way that looks beyond the existential experience of the present with all of its imperfections and sinful orientations, and instead lives in the flesh in the present by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us (Gal. 2:20).

One glorious implication of this is that the present state of frustration which the believer experiences in their battle against the remnants of the corrupt flesh which still inhabits their members is not the primary standard by which the Christian should judge themselves. The cognitive experience of the internal opposition of the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit which keeps us from doing the things we want to do (Gal. 5:17) is not the cognitive moral ideal for the believer. The present experience of the internal contradiction of the Christian life is to be expected, but that expectation does not make that internal contradiction ethically normative, nor the standard by which the believer is to conceive of their identity.

This is not to deny the reality of the intensity of struggle that obtains from this war within the self, nor to deny how it manifests in a uniquely difficult form for those Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction. It is also not to deny that this real experiential and psychological struggle for same-sex attracted Christians might in fact persistently resurge throughout their Christian life. But it is to point out that we cannot equate the psychological and experiential real with the moral ideal.

The Christian ought not to reckon their identity by means of the present experience of their struggling and often failing battle with temptation and sin. Rather, the Christian ought to reckon their identity—their conception of self—in a way that is indexed to the once-for-all judgment Christ has executed against sin, the world, and Satan in his death and resurrection. Our union with Christ summons us to lift up our eyes away from our contemporary experience with the exasperating hindrance to holiness which our remaining sin presents, and to behold by faith the cross and the empty tomb and there find the decisive standard by which we are to conceive of ourselves.

 This allows us to pinpoint the problem with the objections to the denial set forth in Article 7 of the Nashville Statement. The imperative to “consider yourself” in Romans 6:11 assumes the context of the pervasive and ongoing struggle of the Christian life. The cognitive warfare of establishing a self-consciousness and self-perception that is fundamentally aligned with what is already true of us by virtue of our union with Christ is merely a permutation of mortification of sin and vivification unto God.

Whenever we fail to adorn our mental life and self-conception with our identity in Christ in such a way that is fundamentally calibrated unto the past victory which Jesus accomplished over sin in redemptive history, we are then failing in a Gospel imperative. Whenever we conceive of ourselves, or adopt a self-conception, in such a way that fails to reckon with the definitive breach with sin that has occurred in us on account of our union with Christ, we are then acting in inconsistency with God’s holy purposes in redemption.

That is true of a self-conception that frames our personhood or self-identity in terms of homosexuality or transgenderism, but it is equally true of self-conceptions that would frame our personhood or self-identity with any other remaining corruption within us be it gossip, pride, adultery, fornication, greed, alcoholism, etc. In light of Paul’s exhortation in Rom. 6:11, we can safely say that the battle of self-conception is one more place, indeed one preeminent place, where the believer must be “actively engage in the business of the slaughterhouse,” in the business of putting sin to death.

It is not to say that the irreconcilable war between the remnants of our flesh and the Spirit who is within us will not continuously exert its pressure upon that most central sphere of our life, i.e. our very consciousness as it is directed towards our own personhood. It is to say rather, that even there in the realm of self-consciousness or self-conception that a Gospel ideal lies before us, a Gospel imperative with which we must daily reckon. We must conceive of ourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. In fact the hope that the Christian awakens to every day is that, despite our failures to live in a way that is dead unto sin and alive unto God—even the cognitive failures to reckon ourselves thus—the Gospel imperative of Romans 6:11 still calls us to look beyond those failures to the irrevocable work of Jesus and there find the identity which will endure for us until the day when all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more.

Article 7 of the Nashville Statement does not necessarily deny the life and death struggle of pervasive internal corruption which seeks to enthrone itself in command and control of our very self-consciousness, or the unique way that struggle unfolds for the Christian who contends with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. Article 7 does not necessarily deny the persistent difficulty and imperfection which Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria face in fending off this military coup which would place the junta of sin over their very personhood.

But Article 7 of the Nashville Statement does hold before us the Gospel imperative and the Gospel ideal of a cognitive life of consciousness towards self in which no sin, including homosexuality and transgenderism, claims hegemony over our very personhood. Christ has planted his flag there, and he will countenance no rivals.

[i] If you would like to trace through the repetitious appearance of intersections of the Gospel with the life of human cognition, just take the time to run through this sampling of the New Testament – Mat. 6:28ff.; 15:16; Mk. 12:33; Rom. 1:28ff.; 7:23ff.; 8:5–7; 12:2; 1 Cor. 1:10; 1:26; 2:16; 3:18; 7:36; 10:12; 10:18ff; 14:15–19; 14:20; 2 Cor. 3:14; 4:4; 10:12; Gal. 6:3; Eph. 2:3; 4:17–24; Phil. 1:27–28; 2:2ff.; 3:15; 3:19–21; 4:4–7; 4:8; Col. 1:9; 1:21ff.; 2:2–4; 3:2; 2 Thess. 2:2; 1 Tim. 1:6–9; 3:2; 3:11; 6:5; 2 Tim. 2:7; 3:8; 4:5; Titus 1:15; 2:2; Heb. 8:10; 10:16; 10:24; 12:3; 13:7; 12:3; James 1:6–8; 1:26; 3:13; 1 Pet. 1:13; 2:19; 3:6; 3:7; 3:8; 4:1; 4:7; 5:8; 2 Pet. 3:1ff.; 1 Jn. 5:20). I am sure much more could be added to this list, but I hope it is enough to grasp the magnitude of the Gospel’s impact upon the life of human consciousness.

[ii] Missouri Presbytery Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate Memorial Presbyterian Church for Hosting the Revoice 18 Conference in July 2018, pg. 17.

[iii] All but Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, & Sexuality, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017),pg. 289.

[iv] Ibid, 245–249.

[v] Ibid, 303.

[vi] Ibid, 142.

[vii] Ibid. 149–156.

[viii] Ibid, 150. Emphasis original.

[ix] Ibid, 292.

[x] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965), vol. 1, 225–226.

[xi] Charles Hodge, Commentary of the Epistle to the Romans, (Philadelphia: William S. & Alfred Martien, 1864), 315.

[xii] John Murray, “The Agency in Definitive Sanctification,” in Collected Writings of John Murray, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust), vol. 2, 293.

[xiii] Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975), 211.

[xiv] Frank Thielman, Romans: Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 309.

[xv] John Murray, “Progressive Sanctification,” in Collected Writings of John Murray, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust), vol. 2, 296

The connection between historia salutis and ordo salutis, that is, between salvation as it has been accomplished in redemptive history and salvation as it is applied in the life experience of the believer, has been a fruitful field cultivated with tremendous richness over the past century of Reformed scholarship as Systematic Theology has been fertilized with the work of Biblical Theology. Herman Bavinck, with his characteristic eloquence, has brought this connection between the objective work of redemptive history and its application to bear on the necessity of the limitation, or better put, the definiteness of Christ’s atonement.

All the benefits of the covenant of grace are linked (Rom. 8:28-34) and find their ground in the death of Christ (Rom. 5:8-11). Atonement in Christ carries with it salvation and blessedness. For Christ is the head and believers are his body, a body that receives its growth from him (Eph. 4:16; Col. 2:19). He is the cornerstone, and we are the building (Eph. 2:20-21). He is the firstborn, and we are his brothers (Rom. 8:29). Believers, accordingly, have objectively died, been crucified, buried, raised, and seated in the heavens with and in him. That is, the church is not an accidental and arbitrary aggregate of individuals that can just as easily be smaller or larger, but forms with him an organic whole that is included in him as the second Adam, just as the whole of humankind arises from the first Adam. The application of salvation must therefore extend just as far as its acquisition. The application is comprehended in it and is its necessary development. … If Jesus is truly the Savior he must also really save his people, not potentially but really and in fact, completely and eternally. And this, actually, constitutes the core difference between the proponents and opponents of particular atonement.[1]

This line of thinking can be extended to help explicate how the definite work of Christ in historia salutis bears upon an aspect of its application to his elect in the means of grace of the Lord’s Table. We can do this specifically to help us unfold the distinctive Reformed insistence on how the believer experiences communion with the body and blood of Christ there. As we come to the Lord’s Table by faith we really and truly commune in his body and blood, but not because we physically ingest the substance of Christ’s flesh there, nor because his physical presence somehow comes down from whence it has ascended. Rather, we do so because we are united to him by the Spirit and in that union we own Him as our head who acts on our behalf in redemptive history. We truly commune in his body and blood because as he yielded up his body and blood he did this for us particularly by name as those written in the book of life before the foundation of the world, as those whom the Lamb had determined to purchase specifically through his body and blood by which we have been represented in the historia salutis and unto which we have been united in the ordo salutis. We commune with Christ’s body and blood at the Lord’s Table because the lifeblood he spilled and the skin and muscle he rent were given with a deliberate exactitude that foreknew the face of each and every person for which it made atonement. We truly commune in his body and blood because the Spirit whom the Lamb has sent, he has sent precisely to each he has purchased with his body and blood in order to call them irresistibly and give to them irrevocably the boundless efficacy of his sacrifice for them. The Spirit sent to the Church is the Spirit of Christ as the representative Head of his elect Body. And thus the Spirit ensures that as we approach the table which Christ has set, there we find that our Host has laid out places for us which are adorned with our own namecards. We come there as those written on a guest list which he has drafted by his body and blood. We come there and hear Jesus say, “This is my body which is given for you” and “This is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you” (Lk. 22:19-20) and know that he does not speak those pronouns to an undifferentiated mass of potential believers, but to the definite number of his elect. And so there we really and truly commune with his body and blood as their gracious potency nourishes us by faith again and again until all the ransomed church of God is gathered up to where the physical body of Christ is in fact presently located. While the Table is an act of covenantal remembrance in which we appropriate by faith the abiding significance of Christ’s sacrifice into the contemporary, it is also much more than a sheer act of memory. It is an act of union and communion in the body and blood that was offered up once and for all. For this communion in Christ’s body and blood we do not need a transformation of substance or a transportation of Christ’s body down from heaven. For this communion we only need the Spirit and the faith which he gifts to us. For this communion we only need the relationship Scripture has shown us to exist between the coextensive nature of the acquisition of salvation and its application. The link between the Lord’s Supper and the physical body and blood of Christ is not one forged by substance at a physical location at the table, but by the Spirit wrought union of the believer with Christ in what has been done for him in redemptive history. In that faith-union when the believer receives the bread and wine which Christ hands to him particularly, he really and truly receives the body and blood which Christ offered up for him particularly in the historia salutis and continues to plead for him particularly at the right hand of God as the Spirit applies it to him particularly in his vital union with Christ in his experience of the ordo salutis. [1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, (ed. John Bolt; trans. John Vriend; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003-08.),3:466-467.

In his little book, Letters to a Young Calvinist, James K.A. Smith indulges in a riff I have heard echoing through certain halls of the Reformed house of late. At the end of Letter XI, “On Being ‘Confessional’” he gives a swift sideswipe to the Westminster Standards. “But I have to confess that when I discovered the Heidelberg Catechism, it was like discovering a nourishing oasis compared to the arid desert of Westminster’s cool scholasticism.”^[1] This sets up his next letter, entitled “Beyond Westminster.” Smith’s evaluation of Heidelberg v. the Westminster Standards is one I’ve heard before and it is one I find to be rather unhelpful. Now, you will get no argument from me that the Heidelberg Catechism is a personal and pastoral treasure-trove. And of course the crown jewel in that vault is the opening question. Heidelberg Q&A #1 is in an elite class of Gospel summaries. I also recognize that there is a crisper and more pedagogically precise air about the Westminster Standards. But does that pervasive theological precision thus make the Westminster Standards an “arid desert” for our faith? Smith thinks so. “The latter (“continental”^[2]) confessions have an existential esprit about them that seems to seep into my soul in a way that Westminster’s more ‘logical’ approach does not.”^[3] But I think not. I don’t know how someone can read WCF 5.5 amidst grappling with their own sinful failures and not leave with a sense of encouraging clarity as to the purpose of God’s providence in their crucible. I don’t know how one can hear that we have been “taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God,” and read that we are “pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by him as by a father, yet never cast off” (WCF 12.1) and not flush with an inexhaustible sense of love and gratitude towards our Heavenly Father. I don’t know how one can read that “worthy receivers” of the Lord’s Supper spiritually “receive, and feed upon Christ crucified and all the benefits of his death” (WCF 29.7) and not want to sprint to the nearest celebration of the Lord’s Table. I don’t know how someone can answer that Christ is “ruling and defending us” and “restraining and conquering all his and our enemies” (WSC 26) and not rise to meet their life in this world with unshakable trust in their King. I don’t know how one can read that in our union with Christ, we are “united to one another in love,” and “have communion in each other’s gifts and graces,” (WCF 26.1) and not increase in how they cherish their relationships within the Body of Christ. We could be here all day and still barely scratch the service of the Westminster Standards. But I list these to put a face on something: it has been my experience that the Westminster Standards are soaked in the language of theological truth which inflames my soul. My first thought when I read Smith’s assessment of the Westminster Standards was, “Has he actually read them?” But, surely a man of his credentials has. So I suspect that maybe it is because he suffers from the same malady that infects many of my generation. It is the instinct that the moment theology begins to be ‘logical’ or more technically precise, it is as though someone poked a hole in its bottom to let all the life drain out of it. I get that instinct when I encounter it among immature Christians and the 11 year olds entering my junior catechism class for the first time. It befuddles me when I encounter it among my thoughtful and erudite Reformed brothers. I think the remedy for this malady is actually prescribed by Smith just before he launches into his polemic against the Westminster Standards. He compares the function of creeds and confessions to learning Greek grammar in order to read the Greek New Testament. “So also, I learn the ‘grammar’ of faith articulated in the creeds and confessions, not as ends in themselves, but as an invitation to read Scripture well, and as guides for faithful practice.”^[4] Smith is on the money here. The “grammar” given to us by our Reformed confessions allows us to read Scripture better and practice the Christian life more faithfully. But they do that in large part exactly because they have given us “logical” and technically precise boundaries to give clarity in those tasks. Isn’t that what grammar does after all, give an ordered set of nerves, muscles, and bones, so that living breathing use of language may move to its fullest potential? Theological precision, when understood and used rightly, supports life rather than draining it. It ought to give our personal faith and ministry to others greater vivaciousness and dexterity. It is not the case that precision in orthodoxy necessarily stifles doxology and piety. Far from it, such precision gives intricate expression to the multifaceted jewel of the Gospel. And such intricate expression lends depth of texture to the truth which cannot but open our lips in praise to our Redeemer and move our hands in faithful service to our King.

[1] James K.A. Smith, Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition, (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2010), pg. 55. [2] Would Smith include the third installment of the Three Forms of Unity in this, the Canons of Dordt? [3] Ibid, pg. 59. [4] Ibid, pg. 52

Many Christians are disconcerted when they see Christian apologists polemicize against each other. Is it not the job of the Christian apologist to defend Christianity to the unbeliever? Why waste time and energy and even create division among Christians by going after fellow Christian apologists who differ from you in method? Are we not doing the cause of Christian apologetics harm when we fight among each other? There is some validity amidst such concerns. As one who has more than a few polemical bones in his body, I confess that I have often struggled with how I perceive and subsequently how I engage other Christians I disagree with, not just on apologetics but on all manner of theological topics. It is all too easy to begin to see those you disagree with as enemies in need of vanquishing rather than as brothers or sisters in Christ in need of loving correction. But as hard as it may be to carry out polemics in a spirit of Christian love, we cannot assume that a spirit of Christian love prohibits polemics. The characteristic wisdom of Proverbs ought to shape our thinking here: “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid” (Prov. 12:1 ESV). Love and reproof are of a piece in Scripture. Granted, reproof can easily be doled out without love. But, if we are tempered by a spirit of Christ-like love, then we ought not be overly reluctant in opening our mouths to issue words of correction when we are convicted that our brothers or sisters need them. This does not make us the cold-hearted orthodoxy police, but the body of Christ committed to guarding one another from harmful error in a demeanor of love and the Spirit of love. We easily recognize this in the general fabric of the Christian life. It is no less true in the common task of Christian apologetics. If done in love, it will only sharpen the cause of the defense of the faith. With this in mind it is worth revisiting the criticisms that Cornelius Van Til made of another titan of Reformed apologetics, Francis Schaeffer. First, I want to revisit some of those criticisms since they are a helpful guard against a perennial temptation that is all too easy to fall into when engaging in apologetic discussions. Second, I want to end this discussion with a reminder of the spirit of loving correction with which Van Til himself understood his criticisms to be made.

The Critique

Van Til’s criticism of Schaeffer is much the same as Van Til’s criticisms of most every Christian apologist he critiques. It is that Schaeffer refuses to be immediately Christian in his discussion of epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical first principles. Schaeffer instead speaks of the necessity of “pre-Evangelism.”^[1] What Schaeffer means by this is getting the non-believer to reckon first with the truth of the external world before confronting him with the truth claims of Scripture. Schaeffer uses the metaphor of a roof to get at how each person has constructed protective barriers of denial in order to allow him to be shielded from the tension of the logical conclusion of their presuppositions and the real world that confronts him. The task of “pre-evangelism” for the apologist is removing that roof. “The Christian, lovingly, must remove the shelter and allow the truth of the external world and of what man is, to beat upon him. When the roof is off, each man must stand naked and wounded before the truth of what is.”^[2] This seems well and good so far to the apologist who has been shaped by Van Til’s insights. It may seem like Schaeffer is saying that what we need to do is engage in the internal critique of unbelief and deconstruct the façade of the autonomous worldview with the claims of a Biblically consistent Christianity. But that is not quite what Schaeffer is saying. He continues:

The truth that we let in first is not a dogmatic statement of the truth of the Scriptures, but the truth of the external world and the truth of what man himself is. This is what shows him his need. The Scriptures then show him the real nature of his lostness and the answer to it. This, I am convinced, is the true order for our apologetics in the second half of the twentieth century for people ling under the line of despair.^[3]

Schaeffer’s method is a two-step approach to apologetics. The first step is, I believe, what Schaeffer would call “pre-evangelism.” We need to be careful here. For Schaeffer, it is not a classical natural theology in which the apologist argues for the existence of some generic god by use of some form of the traditional theistic proofs. Rather, for Schaeffer, pre-evangelism is much more existential in nature. It is getting man to feel the full weight of his despair before the “external world.”

Hence we begin to deal with “modern man” by preaching at the place where he can understand. Often he understands the horrible point of meaninglessness. Often he recognizes the tension between the real world and the logic of his presuppositions. Often he appreciates the horror of being dead and yet still alive.^[4]

Schaeffer himself describes this method as similar to a Lutheran law/gospel paradigm.^[5] Man is shown his deadness and hopelessness first, and then and only then is the solution from Scripture presented to him. But, the big difference even between the Lutheran law/gospel method and Schaeffer’s two-step approach is that the “law” which Schaeffer presents is not straight away informed by Scripture. It is an existentialized “law,” not a law which drives one to despair because of God’s holiness but a law that drives one to despair because of one’s existential misery. One does not need Moses for this; one only needs Sartre. What makes it pre-evangelism is that the evangel is not allowed to speak immediately. It must stand in line behind the exposure to Schaeffer’s existentialized law. Another line of pre-evangelism in Schaeffer comes in Schaeffer’s attempts to take the modern relativist and first turn him into a modern objectivist, before turning him into a Christian. “The invitation to act comes only after an adequate basis of knowledge has been given.”^[6] “We are concerned, at this point, not with the content of truth so much as with the concept of what truth is.”^[7] Granted, Schaeffer does frame his concept of truth ultimately by “the God who is there.” “The Bible, the historic Creeds, and orthodoxy are important because God is there, and, finally, that is the only reason they have their importance.”^[8] This last statement is entirely in line with the convictions of Reformed orthodoxy. The basis for Scripture functioning as our principium cognoscendi for our knowledge of God and His world is God’s own being and knowledge of himself as the principium essendi.^[9] But, Schaeffer’s problem is that Scripture as our principium cognoscendi is only secondarily related to man in the apologetic discussion. In his defense of rationality one often gets the impression that he is arguing for an objectivism that stands on its own first irrespective of any relation to the Triune God and the Gospel.^[10] It is an attempt to lay first the foundation of philosophical objectivism and then only afterwards to construct the edifice of Christianity upon it. Hence he grants,

But the Jewish and biblical concept of truth is much closer to the Greek than to the modern, in the sense that it does not deny that which is a part of the ‘manishness’ of man—the longing for rationality, that which can be reasonably thought about and discussed in terms of antithesis.^[11]

Schaeffer makes the mistake that so many Christian thinkers are tempted to drift towards in our post-modern climate: to think that somehow the philosophical world before Kant was a safer haven for Biblical Christianity. Against this tendency Van Til levies a cutting criticism against Schaeffer which is worth quoting at length.

It is, to be sure, only in modern times, particularly since Immanuel Kant, that the purely dialectical nature of apostate thinking has revealed itself clearly. But Greek philosophy was based upon the same assumptions as is modern philosophy. There is no “classical view of truth” that is basically any better or any worse than the philosophy of 20^th century man. There is and can be no descent into idolatry that is or can be any deeper than the descent of worshiping the creature more than the Creator. There are no “degrees of apostasy and error” here. Classical non-Christian thinking was as truly relativist as is that of the pragmatism, existentialism, empiricism, or analyticism of our day. There are, no doubt degrees of violence as well as variations in form in which the basic principle of apostasy expresses itself. But the best-dressed and best-mannered suburbanite of whatever time is no more ready, of himself, to surrender his thought and life captive to the obedience of Christ speaking directly to man in the words of Scripture than is the most blatant blasphemer and sensualist.^[12]

Van Til’s critique of Schaeffer at this point, as was said earlier, is much the same as his critique of most other apologists. It will not do to have a theory of truth that separates concept and content as Schaeffer offers. As Van Til is fond of reminding us, the what and the that go together. Denotation and connotation cannot be separated for the Christian. We cannot really point man to the true nature of his misery unless he sees that misery qualified in relation to God. Existential angst that is a product of man’s navel gazing is not enough. It is not enough for man to feel uncomfortable because he faces physical death and the nausea of being. He must see that his misery is misery precisely because he stands as an autonomous rebel in relation to the holy Triune God who created him. And to do this he must reckon not with a general sense of reality, but he must be confronted by the Christian apologist at once with God’s own speech defining the nature of that misery. It is also not enough for the Christian apologist to get the non-Christian to accept a correspondence theory of truth. “Modern subjectivism cannot be challenged in terms of any view of objectivity that has not been accepted on the authority of Christ.”^[13] If we really believe with Paul that God has created all things by Christ, that in Christ all things hold together, and that God is also reconciling all things to himself in Christ (Col. 1:15-20), then there is no thing we can know that is not immediately related to Christ. To turn a non-Christian subjectivist into a non-Christian objectivist is not really a movement at all. He still regards his own mind as the ultimate arbiter of rationality, since whatever counts as a proposition corresponding to the truth of the external world is still left to his autonomous rational judgment. We are still asking him to interpret his world first without reference to Christ. Thus to engage in pre-evangelism of any sort is to automatically grant that “the external world and the truth of what man is” has meaning and significance apart from Christ presented in the evangel. The Gospel still stands in line behind man’s independent and autonomous assessment of himself and his world. In line with this William Edgar has put his finger on the issue consistent Van Tilians have with Schaeffer,

At bottom, then, Schaeffer’s view of presuppositions does not allow him truly to be transcendental. Rather, he uses presuppositions as a kind of adjunct to various traditional methods in apologetical argument.^[14]

Schaeffer does not immediately confront the non-Christian with the necessary pre-conditions of human knowledge in light of the Trinity and the gospel. Instead, he confronts him with what is supposed to be the truth of the external world as though that world could be interpreted intelligently without immediate reference to the Word of the God who created, defines, upholds, and is redeeming that world. Van Til’s charge to Schaeffer and those who would take their cue from him is instead to be fearlessly direct with the non-Christian as an apologist. Own your Christian epistemology. Own your Christian metaphysic. Own your Christian ethics. Let your method be immediately shaped by them. If we confess that they are principial in theology, then they cannot be anything less in our defense of that theology.

The Qualification of Love

An unfortunate misunderstanding exists both in the disposition of some committed to Van Til’s apologetic methodology and in some of its critics. Because of Van Til’s penchant for totalizing polemics it is often assumed that he and his followers comb through the historic volumes of Christian theology and apologetics on a mission such as David Hume’s. “Does it contain a consistent outworking of Biblical, Trinitarian, and Reformed truth?” “No.” “Consign it to the flames!” One can get the impression from Van Tilians (and sometimes from Van Til himself) that any Christian theology or apologetic which is compromised by some taint of autonomous thinking deserves a summary dismissal. Perhaps it is because Van Til frequently seized upon such inconsistencies and then drew them out to what he saw as their logical end. But, even though Van Til pushes us to be tirelessly consistent in our theological and apologetic method, it does not mean that he did not recognize the helpful contributions of those who sometimes found themselves on the sharp end of his polemical scalpel. Such is the case with Schaeffer. The letter which comprises the first part of his syllabus in which he collected his criticisms of Schaeffer begins and ends with an important qualification. At the opening, Van Til confesses his personal affection for Schaeffer but qualifies that this ought not deter him from speaking openly and frankly to what he sees amiss in his apologetic method.

I now turn to a consideration of Schaeffer’s writings. I ask myself whether they support your contention that they depart from what you call a Reformed method of apologetics. You should remember that I have known Schaeffer for a long time. It will be with reluctance if I grant you your point. On the other hand, I do not want to be carried away by my love for him personally or by the reports of the “good work” that he has done in connection with L’Abri Fellowship. “Good work” is done in God’s kingdom all the time by those who hold to unbiblical views on apologetics and theology.^[15]

Okay. We can sense Van Til’s tongue in cheek dig at the unqualified assessment of Schaeffer’s work as “good” by his use of quotation marks. This could be read as Van Til being uncharitable. On the other hand, it simply could be read as realistic exasperation at a certain tendency that often surfaces in the Church. The good work (yes, good work without quotation marks) that is done in the kingdom is often used as a means to wave away any criticism of that work. If you don’t think this is true, try criticizing Billy Graham in any way whatsoever in front of Evangelicals. You will meet a wall of righteous indignation that surpasses even how Catholics respond to criticism of the Pope. Just because someone is being used in positive ways to advance the mission of the Church does not mean that they have a sacrosanct status elevated above all critique. Conversely, just because one critiques (or even scathingly critiques) a “good work” does not mean that they do not genuinely believe that there is good being done for the kingdom by that work. I think such is the case with Van Til in his critique of Schaeffer. The rigorous criticism of what he pens in the body of his letter is no reason to doubt the sincerity of that with which he ends his letter:

In conclusion let me reiterate what I said to you at the beginning. I am convinced that Schaeffer is, at heart, committed to a more biblical form of apologetics, than the one he actually presents in his writings so far discussed. I have written as I have written in the hope that he, as my brother in Christ, will stir me up to faithfulness in Christ as I, as his brother in Christ, am stirring him up now. May our common Savior make us ever increasingly useful in his service.^[16]

As we wrestle over the differences between these two men, may Christ do the same for us.

Notes

[1] Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, in The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, Vol. 1 (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books), 155. [2] Ibid, 140. [3] Ibid, 140-141 [4] Ibid, 141-142. [5] Ibid, 144. [6] Ibid, 153. [7] Ibid, 155. [8] Ibid, 157. [9] For more on this see Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (ed. John Bolt; trans. John Vriend; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003-08.), 1:210-214. [10] This is one of Van Til’s explicit criticisms. The Apologetic Method of Schaeffer, iv. [11] Schaeffer, Escape from Reason, in The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, Vol. 1 (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books), 269. [12] Van Til, The Apologetic Method of Schaeffer, 6. [13] Van Til, The Apologetic Method of Schaeffer, 5. [14] William Edgar, “Two Christian Warriors,” WTJ 57 (1995), 75. [15] Van Til, The Apologetic Method of Schaeffer, 3. [16] Ibid, 14.

In his little booklet, The Certainty of Faith, Herman Bavinck penned a short sentence which is laden with profundity. “Apologetics is the fruit, never the root, of faith.”^[1] Bavinck’s insight highlights something crucial. When it comes to our attitude towards the gospel there is a fundamental difference between faith seeking understanding and doubt demanding proof. The two are actually antithetical spiritual postures. I have often had apologetic conversations in which the person I am dialoguing with issues the demand, “Prove it!” Most always that demand is a verbal power play. The person is not interested in exploring the complexities of theological inquiry but is calling for a short refutation which can confound their unbelief in a few sentences. I have thus felt the anxiety that I’m sure many Christians feel when faced with that challenge. “How do I pull a silver bullet out of my pocket right now to defend my faith?” But the best way I have found to defuse the conversational stalemate produced by the commandment to “prove it” is the often overlooked but necessary question, “What do you mean by proof?” Asking that question moves the conversation into crucial examination of our fundamental posture towards God. Answering that question illuminates what is at play in the apologetic conversation and that is what Van Til labels “two opposing principles of interpretation.” He explains, “The Christian principle of interpretation is based upon the assumption of God as the final and self-contained reference point. The non-Christian principle of interpretation is that man as self-contained is the final and self contained reference point.”^[2] Doubt which demands proof assumes that certainty can only be the product of absolute comprehension. It assumes that in order for man to be rationally certain about the claims of the Gospel, (and really certain about anything in the world since the Gospel touches everything in the world), that man must be able to know and explain something so thoroughly that there is no corner of that thing his mind cannot penetrate and apprehend. It assumes at the very least that if man does not presently comprehend absolutely that at least he can do so with enough intellectual grunt work. It assumes that the complexities of God and his relation to the world both as Creator and Redeemer are capable of being fully mastered and dissected by human inquiry. That is the proof which autonomous man requires as he attempts to interpret his world with himself as the final and self-contained reference point. Such proof the Christian can never give to the unbeliever because such proof requires that God get off his throne so that man can take his place upon it. It is not merely an intellectual attitude. It is a moral and spiritual attitude. It is an expression of human pride which assumes that the human mind can only count as proof what it understands exhaustively and that without submission to divine authority. The call to “prove it,” begins with the Cartesian assumption that doubt toward the God of the Bible is the only virtuous and rightful place to begin. I have to admit with honesty that as I have thought about apologetics I have often fallen into sin and adopted this attitude. And it always leads to agitation and dark unsettlement. As I have grappled with theological mysteries and the question of whether or not my faith is rational, I have all too often assumed, whether conscious or not, that true proof leaves no residue of mystery. And when I have done so, my soul has been assaulted by the malignant restlessness of doubt. Faith seeking understanding, on the other hand, is at home with the assumption of mystery as a necessary component of human knowledge. It starts with the interpretive base that man will never know anything in the mode that God knows things. God’s mode of knowing things is original, archetypal, in sum as the Creator. His knowledge of the apple on my desk is knowledge which actually does grasp all the vast relationships that that apple has to other things in the world. What’s more his knowledge of that apple is wholly unique in that He is the one who has ordered and defined all those relationships by his decree. His knowledge of the apple on my desk actually causes that apple to be, and to be on my desk. Christian faith seeking understanding starts with the assumption that my knowledge of things will never equal that sort of knowledge. It is never original and definitive. It is always derivative and receptive. It starts with the humility of faith which is not restlessly agitated by the fact of mystery, but instead sees mystery as cause for doxology. It investigates and seeks understanding, but it does so out of the posture of faith and never the demands of doubt. And of course this disposition can only be the result of the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit applying the work of Christ. But it is important to note, especially in our present post-modern context, that a truly humble epistemology is not one that denies the possibility of certainty. Rather a truly humble epistemology is one that insists that certainty can only be the product of faith in the triune God of the Bible. It rests in faith in the authority of the Word of the God who created, sustains, and is redeeming the relationships between every object of my knowledge. And that posture of faithful and humble rest is the wellspring of Christian certainty. Such certainty can never be arrogant certainty for it is certainty which always bows the knee before God as the archetypal Knower. And no one is prideful when prostrate thus. Bavinck’s insight is rich food for the soul. It is only when we begin with the posture of faith and then stubbornly maintain that posture of faith that we can authentically defend our faith. To move away from apologetics as the fruit of faith instead into the posture of doubt which demands proof is to have already surrendered what is essential to Christian faith.