Let’s formulate a simple doctrine of simplicity. The doctrine of divine simplicity affirms that God is not made up of more basic parts (or any parts whatsoever). Perhaps two illustrations will help us understand this. First, consider a brick wall. A brick wall is a single thing, right? Yes and no. Yes, it is one thing. It is a wall. But it is made up of more basic or primitive parts, namely: bricks and mortar. Second, my wife makes a wonderful Johnny Cake (cornbread). It is one thing: it is Johnny Cake. But as I watch my wife make the Johnny Cake I see that she uses many ingredients. She uses corn meal, eggs, butter, salt, sugar, etc. We say that the ingredients that go into making the Johnny Cake are more basic than the Johnny Cake itself. In like manner, bricks and mortar are more basic than the brick wall.

The doctrine of divine simplicity is formulated from biblical texts and the implications we can draw from them that God is not made up of more basic ingredients (for instance, Deuteronomy 4:15-16; John 4:24; and Luke 24:39). We cannot even think of the three persons that way. God the Father is not one third of the Triune Godhead, the Son a third, or the Spirit another third. Each person of the Godhead is wholly God and the full God due to the mutual interpenetration of the persons in one another (called perichoresis in Greek or circumincessio in Latin).[ii]

You may be wondering what the big deal is. Perhaps this all strikes you as so much abstract philosophizing. But it isn’t. Let’s consider some implications of the doctrine of divine simplicity and connections it may have with other aspects of what we know about God as revealed in the pages of Scripture and developed in systematic theology (see the Westminster Confession of Faith chapters 2, 5, and 8; the Larger Catechism Q&A 7, 10, and 12; and the Shorter Catechism Q&A 4).

The doctrine of divine simplicity is inextricably tied up with God’s other attributes. This should not surprise us since God is simple. Properly understood, God is his attributes. Divine simplicity articulates the truth that God is not made up of ingredients that are more basic than he. As the WCF 2.1 has it, “God is without body, parts, or passions…” There is no before or after with God. This is divine simplicity seen in terms of time. There also is no here or there with God’s location since he fills all space. This is what divine immensity is about. It is divine simplicity with regard to space. Also related is the doctrine of divine aseity. God is a se, from himself. As Cornelius Van Til was fond of saying, God is the “self-contained ontological Trinity.”[iii] That is, God is absolutely independent. Whereas we as creatures are dependent on God, he is never dependent upon us. God is also pure act(ion). He has no unactualized potential. God is an utterly immutable, simple dynamic perichoretic Triune being.

This ties closely into God’s omnipotence and omniscience. God could not be all-powerful or all-knowing if he is not a se or simple. If God was not simple he could get stronger or weaker. If God was not simple he could discover new truth he did not know before or he could forget knowledge he had once possessed. To say that God is simple is to affirm divine immutability. God does not change. Even the incarnation does not change this. God the Son united himself to a true human nature, a “true body and a reasonable soul” as the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 22 has it. The Son as to his divine nature did not change in the incarnation. Yes, a human nature was added to the divine nature. But the person of the divine Logos was the person of the God-man Jesus Christ. That is, the Son as to his divine nature did not undergo change in the incarnation even though his human nature most assuredly did.[iv]

One concern with the doctrine of divine simplicity is that it destroys God’s ability to relate to his creation. God cannot enter into real relations with his creatures if he is simple (and immutable and eternal and impassible ad infinitum). One problem with this criticism is that it confuses the Creator with the creature or puts God and his creation on the same level. If we humans only relate to one another through the experience of change and the addition and subtraction of characteristics (say we lose or gain weight, our hair turns gray or falls out, and we learn something new or forget what we once knew) then it must be true of God too. If God is a person, and he is, then he too must undergo this same kind of addition or subtraction. But this fails to reckon with the fact that God is, as we have already had occasion to note, pure act(ion) and is a dynamic Triune fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit. The relation between a simple God and his creatures undergoes change, but he does not. This is ultimately beyond us mere creatures because God is God and we are not.

I do not pretend to have wrestled with all the various challenges brought against this doctrine. But the doctrine is sound nonetheless. Let me close with these brief observations. If the Triune God of Scripture is not simple, then it is possible for him to disintegrate into a heaping pile of nothingness. Further, if our God is not simple then it is possible for him to change his mind on the plan of redemption. Perhaps God will decide that those who believe on Christ will all go to perdition. Even further, if God is not simple then his Word is no longer the sure revelation of his will for us and for our salvation. If God is essentially complex, then God could be wrong about the final outcome of his unfolding plan of redemption. It is one thing to recognize that God’s plan of salvation is progressive throughout history culminating in the person and work of Jesus Christ, but it is another thing for this plan to unravel. Finally, if God is not simple, then perhaps he is an evolving God who grows through self-awareness and self-actualization and becomes what he once was not. So much for God engraving us on the palms of his hands (Isaiah 49:16). So much for his knowing the end from the beginning. He may be the best guesser. But that may not even be true. What’s worse, perhaps God has evolved from an undifferentiated monad into a Triune God. If that’s the case, just maybe God will evolve even further. Do not fret. God is simple and none of these potential problems really reflect his nature. This is such a straightforward doctrine delivered from various and sundry texts of Scripture and arising from their interplay with one another, it is a real shame that this even has to be said. But it does need saying. Over, and over, and over again. It’s that simple.

[i] Alvin Plantinga, Does God Have a Nature? Aquinas Lecture 44 (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1980).

[ii] See Dr. Richard A. Muller’s Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Being Drawn Principally From Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017).

[iii]See Cornelius Van Til’s Introduction to Systematic Theology and Defense of the Faith for this kind of language.

[iv] See the Chalcedonian Formula for an orthodox understanding of the hypostatic union of the two natures in one person of Jesus Christ. Each nature retains its proper characteristics while being joined together in one person, namely the eternal divine Logos.

[Update from the Editor: December 5, 2019] At the author’s request, we had temporarily removed this essay. Westminster Theological Seminary is reviewing the theology of Dr. Oliphint and have asked that faculty members (including adjunct faculty) refrain from blogging, podcasting, or writing about the thesis of Dr. Oliphint’s book, God With Us. At the time, the author was an adjunct faculty member and was made aware of this policy following the initial publication of this essay. The author has since resigned his position due to the handling of matters regarding Dr. Lane G. Tipton.

Following a previous essay, I continue a series of interactions with the first edition of Dr. K. Scott Oliphint’s God With Us.[1] I want to consider Dr. Oliphint’s treatment of the biblical, confessional, and sadly much misunderstood and maligned doctrine of divine simplicity. That this doctrine has been a bulwark of orthodoxy is something so simple and straightforward I should not even have to say anything, but alas, I must say something.

It seems clear to me that while Dr. Oliphint ostensibly affirms a kind of divine simplicity, his unique doctrine also presents something of a two-natured God, which undermines whatever affirmation of the doctrine he may offer. Let me be transparent. This is not now, nor has it ever been, a personal issue. It is all a matter of doctrinal fidelity and clarity. There would be nothing better than to see Dr. Oliphint issue a revised and improved edition of his God With Us.[2] That being said, let’s begin by formulating a simple doctrine of simplicity.

The Doctrine of Simplicity

The doctrine of divine simplicity affirms that God is not made up of more basic parts (or any parts whatsoever). Perhaps two illustrations will help us understand this. First, consider a brick wall. A brick wall is a single thing, right? Yes and no. Yes, it is one thing: a wall. But it is made up of more basic or primitive parts, namely: bricks and mortar. Second, my wife makes a wonderful Johnny Cake (cornbread). It is one thing: a Johnny Cake. But as I watch my wife make the Johnny Cake, I see that she uses many ingredients. She uses corn meal, eggs, butter, salt, sugar, etc. We say that the ingredients that go into making the Johnny Cake are more basic than the Johnny Cake itself. In like manner, bricks and mortar are more basic than the brick wall.

The doctrine of divine simplicity is formulated from biblical texts and the implications we can draw from them that God is not made up of more basic ingredients (e.g. Deut. 4:15–16; John 4:24; Luke 24:39). We cannot even think of the three persons that way. God the Father is not one-third of the Triune Godhead, the Son another third, and the Spirit yet another. Each person of the Godhead is wholly God and the full God due to the mutual interpenetration of the persons in one another (called perichoresis in Greek or circumincessio in Latin).[3]

You may be wondering what the big deal is. Perhaps this all strikes you as so much abstract philosophizing. But it isn’t. Before we turn to Dr. Oliphint’s formulation of the dual-layered nature of God, let’s consider some implications of the doctrine of divine simplicity and connections it may have with other aspects of what we know about God as revealed in the pages of Scripture and developed in systematic theology (see the Westminster Confession of Faith chapters 2, 5, and 8; the Larger Catechism Q&A 7, 10, and 12; and the Shorter Catechism Q&A 4).

The doctrine of divine simplicity is inextricably tied up with God’s other attributes. This should not surprise us since God is simple. Properly understood, God is his attributes. Divine simplicity articulates the truth that God is not made up of ingredients that are more basic than he. As the WCF 2.1 has it, “God is without body, parts, or passions. . .” There is no before or after with God. This is divine simplicity seen in terms of time. There also is no here or there with God’s location, since he fills all space. This is what divine immensity is about. It is divine simplicity with regard to space. Also related is the doctrine of divine aseity. God is a se, from himself. As Cornelius Van Til was fond of saying, God is the “self-contained ontological Trinity.”[4] That is, God is absolutely independent. Whereas we as creatures are dependent on God, he is never dependent upon us. God is also pure act(ion) meaning he has no unactualized potential. God is an utterly immutable, simple dynamic perichoretic Triune being.

This ties closely into God’s omnipotence and omniscience. God could not be all-powerful or all-knowing if he is not a se or simple. If God was not simple, he could get stronger or weaker. If God was not simple, he could discover new truth he did not know before or he could forget knowledge he had once possessed. To say that God is simple is to affirm divine immutability. God does not change. Even the incarnation does not change this. God the Son united himself to a true human nature, a “true body and a reasonable soul” as the Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 22 has it. The Son as to his divine nature did not change in the incarnation. Yes, a human nature was added to the divine nature. But the person of the divine logos was the person of the God-man Jesus Christ. That is, the Son as to his divine nature did not undergo change in the incarnation even though his human nature most assuredly did.[5]

God With Us and Simplicity

Now that we have given a brief definition of divine simplicity as God not having more basic or primitive parts (elements or ingredients) in terms of time or space that can be gained or lost, let us consider what Dr. Oliphint says in his book God With Us that might relate to this subject. I will not be citing or referencing every possible instance of relevant material but providing clear illustrations of statements that relate to divine simplicity followed by some interaction and analysis. Before we look at a few instances of Dr. Oliphint’s thinking, I will seek to provide a brief overview of his articulation of the God/world or Creator/creature distinction and relation.

Dr. Oliphint argues in God With Us that in order for God to relate to his creation he has to take on properties or attributes which he would otherwise not have. To accommodate this, Dr. Oliphint distinguishes between God’s essential nature and his covenantal nature. He also speaks of essential and covenantal attributes or properties. We need to realize that the term “covenant” has a unique or idiosyncratic working definition in God With Us. According to Dr. Oliphint, God’s essential nature is immutable, but his covenantal nature (comprised of created, covenantal, human properties) is changeable.[6]

Dr. Oliphint seems to believe he maintains biblical and Reformed orthodoxy by maintaining the mere existence of God’s essential nature. But in this schema, there are two senses in which divine simplicity is denied in fact even if not in intention. First, the very distinction between God’s essential nature and his covenantal nature, brought about by the assumption of covenantal properties or attributes is itself a contravention of the doctrine of divine simplicity. Second, the covenantal nature is itself changeable or mutable, not to say malleable. To sum up my concerns, Dr. Oliphint has ontologized in his theological formulation what has been understood by the vast majority of the Christian tradition as a relation between the absolutely immutable Creator and his changeable creatures.

The following are examples of Dr. Oliphint’s view that God had to assume covenantal properties in order to relate to his creation (bolded italics mine):

First, there can be no question that God appears to his people from the beginning. These appearances of God entail that he is making himself known by way of properties and qualities that would otherwise not belong to him.”[7]

God’s covenantal character includes, at least, the span of covenant history . . .”[8]

The Son of God had been appearing to the saints throughout redemptive history. He did that by temporarily taking on various qualities and characteristics in order to be with His people, to speak to Moses and the prophets, etc.[9]

The mediation of God (the Son) is, to use Turretin’s word, theandric [divine human union]; it includes, necessarily, both the divine and the human. In the same way, therefore, and proleptically, the mediation of God (the Son) prior to the incarnation is theandric as well. The point is not that it includes the permanent assumption of a human nature, as is the case in the incarnation, but that it includes the fact of God’s taking to himself created, covenantal, human properties, all the while maintaining, as he must, his essential divinity.[10]

Dr. Oliphint goes further and notes that these assumed covenantal attributes are not just “improper” or metaphorical ways of speaking. They really do exist:

. . . those covenantal attributes of God’s are no less ‘literal’ than are his essential attributes. God’s repentance, then, is not simply something that ‘seems to us’ like repentance. It is literal repentance, he is (covenantally) changing directions because of his faithfulness to his covenant. But it is repentance of a condescended, covenant God who has come down . . .[11]

On the contrary, as we have seen, we can truthfully predicate both aspects and properties of Christ; the communicatio [communication of sharing of attributes] means that both aspects of Christ’s character can (and must) be affirmed. So also with God. He both is immutable andin his condescension takes on covenantal properties in order really and truly to relate himself to us.[12]

Briefly put, explanations of God’s interaction with creation have tended in one of two directions. Either God gives up aspects of his essential character and is, thereby, essentially constrained by his creation, or those passages in Scripture that indicate constraint or limitation in God as he interacts with creation are metaphorical or somehow ‘improper.’ Neither of these tendencies allow the proper, gospel emphasis of Scripture to shine.[13]

Rather, the God who is immutable and whose plan and purpose for creation and his people will not fail nevertheless can and does relent.[14]

So why does God say of himself, “Now I know . . .”? He says this, in part, not because he wants us to map this expression of his knowledge onto his essential character. Rather, we have to take seriously God’s condescension. Once God condescends, we should recognize that, in taking to himself covenantal properties, he takes to himself as well the kind of knowledge (and will, to be discussed later) that accrues to those properties. Or, to put it another way, one of the covenantal properties that he takes to himself is the development of knowledge that is conducive to his interaction with his creation generally, and specifically with his people.[15]

These selections should clearly indicate that Dr. Oliphint has provided us with a new understanding of how God condescendingly relates to us creatures. Dr. Oliphint is forthright about this on page 43 of God With Us. If it was not new, it would altogether eliminate the raison d’etre for the book. With this formulation of the doctrine of God, how can one avoid seeing a schizophrenic God who has a dual-layered nature that is essentially immutable but covenantally open to the future free actions of his creatures? How can one avoid making God dependent upon his creatures? Do we have access to the essential God or only his mutable covenantal nature? Is God even capable of a relation according to his essential nature? This appears to me to be an unstable mixture of the classical theistic and the open theistic views of God. The orthodox tradition has rightly understood these to be incommensurable. And so it rests on the church to answer these questions in humble submission to her Lord as he has revealed himself in the Scriptures.

[1] K. Scott Oliphint, God With Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012). I have drawn from a few other sources for instances of Dr. Oliphint’s thinking.

[2] Dr. Oliphint has indicated that he is in the process of revising God With Us. We anticipate a greatly improved version of the book.

[3] See Dr. Richard A. Muller’s Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Being Drawn Principally From Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017).

[4] See Cornelius Van Til’s Introduction to Systematic Theology and Defense of the Faith for this kind of language.

[5] See the Chalcedonian Formula for an orthodox understanding of the hypostatic union of the two natures in one person of Jesus Christ. Each nature retains its proper characteristics while being joined together in one person, namely the eternal divine Logos.

[6] While Dr. Oliphint does note that the covenantal attributes are created, covenantal, and human, it is not clear that he maintains that clear distinction throughout his writings on covenantal attributes nor does it improve his doctrinal view one iota.

[7] Oliphint, God With Us, 182.

[8] K. Scott Oliphint, “Tolle Lege: A Brief Response to Paul Helm,” Reformation21, accessed February 16, 2019, http://www.reformation21.org/articles/tolle-lege-a-brief-response-to-paul-helm.php.

[9] K. Scott Oliphint, The Majesty of the Mystery: Celebrating the Incomprehensible God (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016), 74.

[10] Oliphint, God With Us, 198.

[11] Oliphint, God With Us, 219.

[12] Oliphint, God With Us, 191

[13] Oliphint, God With Us, 198.

[14] Oliphint, God With Us, 186.

[15] Oliphint, God With Us, 194.

The Hebrew-English Old Testament: BHS/ESV. Stuttgart, Germany/Wheaton, IL: German Bible Society/Crossway Books, 2012. pp. 3148. The Greek-English New Testament: N-A28/ESV. Stuttgart, Germany/Wheaton, IL: German Bible Society/Crossway Books, 2012. pp. 1674. The Systematic Theology Study Bible. ESV. Christopher W. Morgan, Stephan J. Wellum, and Robert A. Peterson, Eds. Graham A. Cole, contributing ed., Wheaton, IL. Crossway Books, 2017. pp. 1883.

While I am generally critical of the glut of various kinds of Bibles which one can find on the shelf at your local bookstore, I must confess that the Bibles I am considering in this brief notice are a happy exception. All three Bibles enhance the regular study of the Scriptures and therefore contribute to our growth in grace and increase in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The Hebrew-English OT and the Greek-English NT provide a large measure of convenience. While it is great to have these texts in electronic format, I am old enough to still appreciate and benefit from the tactile reality of the printed volume. These beautifully bound volumes, which resemble but are not identical with their Hebrew and Greek text counterparts, set the Hebrew and Greek texts side by side (on separate pages) with their English Standard Version translations. This is most beneficial for those who have either not kept up with their facility in the original languages or who have grown a little rusty in their use of Hebrew and Greek. They are useful, among other things, in helping to jumpstart a recovery of the use of the ancient text. These volumes also may prove useful in a group Bible study setting in which you can show folk the original text behind the English translation in an easy to use format. Finally, these two volumes may serve to get a young man who is considering whether God is calling him into the ministry and therefore going to seminary in getting used to looking at the original languages. These are all commendable uses. The Systematic Theology Study Bible demonstrates that Systematic Theology (ST) is or ought to be directly tied to the text of Scripture. While any study Bible worth its salt will be in fact a ST study Bible of sorts, this one has the merit of being up front about its goal of grounding the traditional loci of ST (God, man, sin, revelation, etc) in the biblical text. The multitude of contributors represent a broadly Reformed perspective (with one recognizable exception) as that is reflected in such parachurch organizations as the Gospel Coalition. There are useful book introductions and the topical notes are placed in locations where the topic arises from the text. I note that the reader can read for pages without the interruption of study notes so these are not overwhelming. The Bible contains the standard ESV cross references and concludes with ST topical appendices and indices. These volumes are tremendously useful and the pastor can use all three in the pulpit and laypeople could benefit from using the Systematic Theology Study Bible in the pew during public worship and in weekday personal and family worship as well. The use of these Bibles would go far in fulfilling the Westminster divines reminder that the Scriptures are known through the diligent and due use of all outward and ordinary means of grace (WCF 1.7).

We are embarrassed by a wealth of riches in this age in which we live. Books are not only available in print but in electronic form as well. We can build whole libraries of the best in Reformed and broader Christian theological literature in a compact digital form easily and quickly accessible at the fingertip. We can call up classics like John Calvin’s Institutes on our desktops, notebooks, tablets, and phones. But some of us want to move beyond the reading of the Scriptural text to analyze it. Enter the BibleWorks program. BibleWorks is an exceptional software package that puts at your fingertips a plethora of biblical studies tools. Its capabilities far outstrip the abilities of the average pastor-theologian. That is, if you are like me, you will be constantly amazed at the new and varied tasks you can perform in your effort to come to a better understanding of Scripture. BibleWorks does not replace firsthand knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. But it makes analysis of and meditation on the Scriptures in the original languages much easier and therefore it will be much more likely that the busy pastor-theologian will retain his familiarity with the Hebrew and Greek he sweated over so much in seminary. BibleWorks contains multiple original language texts, numerous modern language versions of the Bible, lexicons, grammars, high resolution photos of original OT and NT manuscripts, Hebrew and Greek review tools, satellite maps (Bible atlases), a word processing editor which allows seamless typing in English, Hebrew, and Greek. You will also find audio forms of the complete Greek NT and various English versions. In addition, included are the early church fathers, the Apocrypha, the Aramaic Targums, the Pseudepigrapha, and other reference works. Additional reference works are available for purchase. Up till now I have given a sample list of the resources available. The breadth of tools is astounding. But the heart of BibleWorks is what it can do. You can do simple and complex searches of the resources. You can do instant analysis simply by pointing and clicking. You can search for various constructions in the original languages. You can diagram your Greek pericopes (who doesn’t remember enjoying diagramming your Greek sentences in seminary?!). While I am tempted to treat BibleWorks as itself infinite, since only God is infinite, I recognize that there really is an end to what this software package can do. I just don’t know where it is! You may already have an earlier version of BibleWorks and are wondering whether obtaining the new edition would be worth the money. Just to whet your appetite, consider these additions to previous editions: (1) You can control the number of viewing panes open in the program and can select from a palette of different color schemes. (2) There is now greater compatibility with Mac. The installer for Mac comes with the program so there is no need for an additional purchase. (3) You can scale the size of your viewing panes. (4) The program now has morphology coloring for nearly instant form recognition. (5) You can now examine the whole of the Leningradensis Codex of the OT. (6) BibleWorks now contains an EPUB ebook reader and organizer. These and many more additions make this a useful resource for sermon and Sunday school lesson preparation, for article and book research, and for just good old Scripture meditation. A program of this sophistication may frighten some of you. Fear not. The manual is available in electronic format and there are a whole host of training videos that will walk you through almost every conceivable function of the software. Of course there is also the ever ready support. BibleWorks 10 is a powerful tool which will assist you in your study of God’s Word. Rather than surround yourself with a pile of original language texts, lexicons, and grammars, you can now have these same reference works at your fingertips with a much smaller footprint. This raises another point: BibleWorks 10 would make a wonderful resource for the missionary who is not able to transport his library half way around the world. Whether you serve at home or abroad BibleWorks 10 will be a toolbox you will turn to over and over again.

Why are we afraid to be Reformed and Presbyterian when we teach church government and pastoral theology in our seminaries? I realize that not all seminaries that self-identify as Reformed and Presbyterian are negligent or derelict in their duty to fully train men for pastoral ministry in churches committed to the Westminster Standards or the Three Forms of Unity. But some are. I also think I know why some schools fall down on the job in this regard. In a desire to have a wider sphere of influence and a larger student body, schools have diluted their strong Reformed convictions. One area that this typically happens in is the so-called “practical theology” department (as if none of the other departments were practical). Years ago I heard it quipped about a certain prominent seminary on the west coast somewhat near a well-known amusement park that the only thing that connected its schools of theology, missions, and counseling was the plumbing. Why has this disintegrated perspective seeped into otherwise solid seminaries? First, I would recommend that we get rid of the designation “practical theology.” As I already noted this suggests that the other theological disciplines of the encyclopedia are impractical at best and perhaps a waste of time and money and talent at worst. Such a perspective, if true, is unbiblical and unworthy of Presbyterian and Reformed ministers and professors. All the branches of theology are practical if we allow the Bible and the nature of theology itself to determine what practical is. I am afraid that many practical theology departments really ought to be designated pragmatic “theology” departments. We go with what works and if dumbing down the curriculum and watering down pastoral practice to watery gruel is what works, so be it. Second, regardless of whether non-Reformed and Presbyterian students attend our seminaries (and I hope they do since we should be graciously sharing with others what God has revealed in his Word about church government and pastoral theology), we should not be apologetic about teaching these disciplines from the biblical point of view. We do not have to be obnoxious and nasty, but we should be forthright and firm about our commitment to what we believe is the biblical form of church government and the biblical and Reformed pattern of pastoral ministry. This means we teach Presbyterian polity and pastoral ministry that involves graded courts, ruling elders, and deacons as well as ministers. Assign students to read James Bannerman, Samuel Miller, and Guy Prentiss Waters on church government. Non-Reformed students should not be offended by or scared off our campuses because we actually believe in and are convinced of our Reformed and Presbyterian principles. Third, we should be unfazed in our advocacy of Presbyterian and Reformed forms of liturgy and worship format. Of course there is a spectrum of views and this can be recognized. But professors should be expected to be able to affirm, defend, and articulate the historic Reformed approach to worship (the regulative principle, the dialogical principle, and the fourfold covenant renewal format of our worship) and interact with non-Reformed approaches and they should be able to show the weaknesses of other approaches all the while being able to learn from other traditions. Have the students read Hughes Oliphant Old and others continuing in that vein. Fourth, we should inculcate and train men in the art of lectio continua and expositional and catechetical preaching. We should not be afraid to teach and model these commitments from history and contemporary practice. We should not be afraid to read, preach, and teach through long and wide swaths of biblical material. Our people will learn and be affected by Scripture in just this way. John Calvin and other practitioners of the consecutive exposition of Scripture can be called upon to illustrate how God’s Word is best preached with the blessing of Christ and his Spirit. Sermon building and delivery workshops should abandon with the common practice of making greenhorn students watch and listen to each other and then hearing the professor dissecting the sermons. If you want men to learn how to preach faithfully and rightly, have them attend services where men who are proven effective preachers can be seen and heard. Have students listen to great preachers on the web (Lloyd-Jones and Stott from the past and Ferguson, Tipton, and Goligher in the present, for instance). Have students read the great preachers of the past. And then have these men preach to real congregations outside the very artificial context of the seminary classroom. Perhaps the sermons can be digitally recorded with video and audio formats for evaluation purposes. Or the professor can attend the service when a student is preaching. However the logistics would be worked out, it can be done. Fifth, teach and model a solid prayer life so that it does not look like an afterthought. Prayer ought to permeate and suffuse the whole theological encyclopedia but especially the pastoral theology department. Model prayer in the home in personal worship, family worship, and most especially public corporate worship. And we should not feel sorry that we Reformed folk believe in the primacy of corporate worship. Sixth, allow the other theological disciplines to undergird the pastoral ministry. Allow exegetical, biblical, historical, and apologetical theology to play their respective roles. These branches of theological learning do not exist for themselves but for the glory of God, the salvation of sinners, and the edification of the saints. Seventh, train men in the specific case-wise application of pastoral work. That is, the minister is to know his people and be at home with them in all their various environments. He is to sit at their bedsides in the hospital. He is to visit in the home. Visit at work and out and about in the world we inhabit. This cannot be achieved in the classroom alone but must be taught and caught on the job in the midst of a particular local congregation. The pastor is to cry with the sorrowing and laugh with the light-hearted. He is to be somber and sober when he needs to be serious. Pastoral care has a long and distinguished history. Perhaps Thomas Oden’s Classical Pastoral Care series would be worth consulting (and please note that he is a Methodist). And we need to veer away from therapeutic approaches to soul care. The feel good approach to life found throughout our culture unfortunately predominates in the church as well. It does not belong. The seminary ought to work hand in glove with local congregations so that the seminary students get experience. All of these and more should be taught and caught within a thoroughly Reformed and Presbyterian environment. We should be apologists for the Reformed faith in all its richness and beauty without being apologetic in the common usage of that word. Why be shy or embarrassed about being Presbyterian and Reformed? I don’t mean to suggest that the practical theology departments at most Reformed seminaries aren’t working hard to train men for the ministry. Far from that. But I think we can improve things in those schools where there is a grave disjunction between the practical theology department and the other disciplines. There is no good reason in any of the departments of the Reformed seminary nor in the church she is called to serve as she seeks to serve the Lord of the church.

After a hiatus we are back to our reading through and engaging with the text of Lewis Ayres’ Nicaea and its Legacy. We come now to the third point of departure that Ayres’ discusses in the opening chapter of the book: theology and the reading of Scripture (31-40). As Reformed Protestants we should be keen to see what the author has to say about the standard Scriptural reading strategies of the early church fathers leading up to the time of the Trinitarian controversy in the fourth century. Ayres begins the section by noting that the latest scholarship on the early church has cast Adolf von Harnack’s charge of the inappropriate “Hellenization” of the church’s theology in more negative light

Recent scholarship has argued that characterizing the fourth century as the culmination of Christianity’s “Hellenization” is misleading. This is especially so if Hellenization is understood as resulting in a philosophically articulated doctrinal system only distantly related to the words of Scripture. The revisionary scholarship to which this book is indebted has tried to demonstrate the ways in which exegetical concerns shaped the theologies with which we are concerned here (31).

The author goes on to note why early church exegesis is so harshly judged.

These negative judgements have usually resulted from comparisons between early Christian and modern academic exegetical practice, comparisons that assume the former is a deficient form of the latter. An implied comparison between fourth-century exegesis and modern historical-critical modes is also frequently embedded in reference, for instance, to post-Reformation divisions between allegory and typology, or to some ways of distinguishing Alexandrian from Antiochene exegesis (particularly those which assume that Antiochenes were more interested in the historical, that they were somehow more modern).

We need to assess the early church hermeneutical and exegetical practices on their own terms rather than subjecting them to the standards of other eras. I would be in general agreement with the author in terms of getting at just what the practices were. At other times I have noted we need to recognize the distinction between the historical question (what was said and done?) and the normative question (is it right or is it Scriptural?). Was the early church guilty of importing pagan notions uncorrected into Christian theology? Was the Reformation and post-Reformation distinction between allegory and typology a distinction without a difference? Did Antioch and Alexandria really embody totally distinct exegetical approaches? These are all interesting and important questions. Was the early church guilty of importing pagan notions uncorrected into Christian theology? The first question has to do with the use of pagan thought in Christian theology. Is that what the church fathers as a whole thought they were doing or actually did? Is it wise to do that? This is another way of wrestling with the relationship and priority of natural revelation and special revelation. It is also another way of relating philosophy to theology, faith to reason, and the antithesis to common grace. We must note with all seriousness that the antithesis came before common grace in the scheme of things. The fall created the antithesis between belief and unbelief. Yes, it is true that the reality of common grace means that unbelievers do know things after a fashion and that we Christians can learn things from unbelievers. But insofar as they deny the connection of everything in creation to the triune God of Scripture and refuse to accept that God determines the meaning and significance of every last thing in the cosmos, to that extent, their knowledge will be corrupted and truncated and distorted. This is why Augustine in his On Christian Teaching talks about plundering the Egyptians and baptizing the truth that we gain from pagan thought. That is why Cornelius Van Til said that while the king of Lebanon could provide timber for the Jerusalem temple, only God could provide Solomon with the blueprints. The question remains, what did the early church fathers think they were doing? It would be best to treat each father on his own terms as I imagine there were a variety of opinions and practices. Von Harnack shared the anti-metaphysical bias of his age and so created a procrustean bed and whatever was too small he stretched and whatever was too big he hacked off according to his Ritschlian (Kantian) standards. In reality I suspect the best of the fathers thought they were using the terminology of Greek philosophy while cleansing the said terminology of its pagan roots much as the New Testament uses the word theos for God, a word used with regard to Zeus and no doubt other gods in the divine pantheon. We have to look at each instance and each theologian carefully. It can be the case that we fail to untwist the twisted truth found in pagan thought. Was the Reformation and post-Reformation distinction between allegory and typology a distinction without a difference? The second question has to do with the Protestant rejection of the so-called quadriga or fourfold sense of Scripture. While the schematization is of later development, our forebears in the Reformed faith no doubt recognized that it had its seeds in earlier hermeneutical practices. Ayres says that the fathers understood the idea of the plain sense or sensus literalis or literary sense of the text of Scripture or what he describes as knowing the “way the words run” (32) but that they also assumed that the text could “have a variety of functions in the education of the Christian mind” (33). Ayres challenges the distinction made between allegory and typology. In our setting we would say that typology is divinely intended and implanted meaning that resides in the text connecting an earlier OT text involving persons, places, events, and institutions to later OT texts or NT texts, especially culminating in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Typology as properly conceived is grounded in redemptive history as well as the literary sense of the text whereas it seems that allegory cuts itself loose from the historical referential moorings of the text. I concede that in practice it is not always easy to see the difference between allegory and typology. And it is likely that various fathers of the church did both intentionally and unintentionally. Did Antioch and Alexandria really embody totally distinct exegetical approaches? On the related question of whether there was a hard and fast distinction between the hermeneutical practices of the schools of Alexandria and Antioch, the current scholarship appears to be calling the clear cut distinction between the two schools overwrought. Alexandria was not committed to unalloyed allegory and Antioch was not tied to only historical concerns. Do we see these tendencies at work in the work of the fathers? Yes. But as Ayres points out, these characteristics were shared by both schools. Sometime back there was a two-part article in the Westminster Theological Journal that argued the same thing. Alexandria and Antioch do not represent two diametrically opposite schools of biblical interpretation. This is where reliance only on secondary literature can be problematic. We can’t be experts in everything so we do rely on the expertise of others to keep us up to date on scholarly developments insofar as they assist us in understanding what were in fact the conditions on the ground in the ancient church. Ayres argues for the figural reading of Scripture which at its best is a trained sensitivity to the theological, historical, literary, philosophical, linguistic, and cultural features of the text. Figural readings are dependent on the historical foundation of the biblical text (37). Ayres is correct to point out that the bifurcation between exegesis and theology, which is so common in biblical studies these days, was not a working assumption of the fathers (38). Pre-critical exegesis has much to commend it and I for one am happy to recover as much of the theological mindset of pre-critical exegetical practice as we can. Related to this are the guides that arose in the early church: the analogy of Scripture, the analogy of faith, and the scope of Scripture. The analogy of Scripture has to do with comparing Scripture with Scripture and allowing clearer passages to shed light on less clear passages. The analogy of faith was a more synthetic idea where one gains a sense of the whole so that we never fall into the trap of not allowing one part of Scripture to enlighten another. And the scope of Scripture has to do with the telos or goal of the Bible, which is Jesus Christ himself (see Ayres’s discussion on 39-40). We have now come to the end of the author’s bird’s eye summary of the book and with the next segment we will delve into the deep structure of the book and the history and theology of the fourth century Trinitarian controversy.

Ralph Cunnington. Preaching With Spiritual Power: Calvin’s Understanding of Word and Spirit in Preaching. Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Mentor/Christian Focus, 2015. pp. 126. A controversy has been going on for some time among generally Reformed churches in the United Kingdom (and regions beyond) regarding the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit in the public proclamation of the Word of God. Much of this kerfuffle surrounds the influence of Moore Theological College in Australia. Can the Word of God ever be preached without the blessing of the Holy Spirit? Do we need to wrestle with the Lord in anxious prayer like Jacob with the angel at Peniel? Is it possible to presume on the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity? Ralph Cunnington, pastor of City Church Manchester, enters into this discussion by seeking wisdom from John Calvin’s approach to the relationship of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God in this concise but significant book Preaching With Spiritual Power. Concerned with parched and passionless preaching seemingly devoid of divine unction, some have accused their brethren of adopting a Lutheran approach to the preaching of the Word where spiritual power is an inherent quality of the Word itself (a sort of ex opere operato) so that the preacher has no need to concern himself with earnestly praying for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the preaching event. The operating assumption of these critics is that it is possible to preach without spiritual power. It is possible to be devoid of unction. Rather than entering directly into this controversy, Cunnington sticks to the historical question. Calvin has been cited by both sides in this debate and so it would be useful to get a sense of how Calvin thinks. Cunnington sets Calvin within the context of other Reformers including Luther and so we get a sense of the time and place rather than approaching Calvin ahistorically. Before considering how Calvin understood the relationship of the Word and Spirit in the public proclamation of the Word he looks at Calvin’s analogous treatment of the role of the Spirit in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Calvin was a theologian steeped in the theological method of the Chalcedonian formula in which the early church developed a way to properly understand the hypostatic union of the two natures in the one person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The expression that came to light is “distinct yet inseparable.” Medieval Roman Catholicism taught that in the Lord’s Supper the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the position known as transubstantiation. Lutheranism affirms consubstantiation in which the body and blood of Christ are in, with, and under the elements of the bread and wine. The Christological position undergirding this view involves the cross-fertilization (really, predication) of the divine and human natures of Christ so that the human nature becomes divinized. That is, whenever the Lord’s Supper is celebrated there Christ is to be found. So that Christ is located everywhere the Supper is commemorated. This is referred to as the ubiquity of Christ’s body. The position usually associated with the Swiss Reformer Huldrich Zwingli is called the memorialist view. This view states that since the risen Christ has ascended to the Father’s right hand, where he is presently located until he returns, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is about the Christian’s remembering and being thankful for the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. We might crassly say that for Zwinglianism, the emphasis falls not on the presence but the absence of Christ from the Supper. John Calvin formulated the view sometimes called the spiritual presence view of the Lord’s Supper. In this view, while Christ is ascended and at the Father’s right hand, he is present to the believing participant of the Lord’s Supper by the ministry of the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Christ. Christ is present by his Spirit. Calvin’s emphasis is on a proper recognition that since Christ is one person with two natures, and these two natures retain their original properties (they don’t become blended or blurred), then Christ as the God-man is circumscribed by his human body (this is not to say that the Son is circumscribed, for that is another matter involving the so-called extra calvinisticum) which therefore is limited to a particular location. Jesus Christ’s two natures are distinct, yet inseparable. The Holy Spirit is always present in the celebration of the table but his presence is only favorable for those who partake of the elements by faith. There is no mechanical effectiveness of the bread and wine. The saint who eats the bread and drinks the wine by faith spiritually (i.e., by the Holy Spirit) feeds upon the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The spiritual benefit of the Lord’s Supper is tied to faith. The Spirit always accompanies the elements of the bread and wine, but only blesses those who feed by faith. Those who partake of the Supper without faith receive no blessing but only condemnation (as Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 11:23-29). The Holy Spirit is distinct from the elements of the Supper but is inseparable. When Cunnington comes to Calvin’s treatment of the Holy Spirit and the Word he is armed with a significant theological conviction. Many problems in theology can be resolved through remembering the maxim “distinct, yet inseparable.” Here we discover that Holy Spirit always accompanies the proclamation of the Word. Calvin sees no context in which the Word properly handled is devoid of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit. Analogous to his treatment of the presence of the Spirit in the Lord’s Supper, here Calvin rightly notes that the Spirit inspired the inscripturation of the biblical text and always accompanies the preaching of that Word. The analogy goes even further. The proclamation of the Word carries with it the presence and activity of the Spirit in either redemption or judgment. So the reason why there are different results from the proclamation of the Word stems from the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Word, as Isaiah 55 tells us, always achieves God’s intended purpose. But that purpose may be judgement. Once again we see that the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Word he has inspired, but he always accompanies its proclamation either to bring about redemption or damnation. Cunnington has done us a fine service in bringing clarity to Calvin’s treatment of this important topic. I believe Calvin is correct. The proclamation of God’s Word is always accompanied by the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit. But the outcome of the presence and activity will vary from person to person. Some of the participants in this discussion appear to me to be falling into the trap of an incipient mysticism. You may or may not agree with Calvin. Calvin may or may not be biblical (he is!), but you know where he stands. Calvin does not give us carte blanche to be presumptuous about the secret ministry of the Holy Spirit. But we can always trust in the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity when the Word is preached properly. That is assuring to preachers. We ought to seek to be as persuasive as we can be, but ultimately the bestowal of redemptive blessing is in the hands of the Holy Spirit in preaching just as it is in the apologetic or evangelistic encounter. Rest in the sovereign ministrations of Christ and his Spirit to the glory of the Father.

Is Origen the Root of All Kinds of Hermeneutical Evil? Renaming the Series This week we rechristen this blog series Standing on Giants’ Shoulders since that reflects more the character of what I am trying to accomplish with this series. Because this is a renaming of the Criterion series we can still number this entry 5. Today we come to the second point of departure for Lewis Ayres’ Nicaea and Its Legacy. We will be covering material from pages 20 through 30. Origen the Brilliant Alexandrian Many of you will no doubt be familiar with the name of the early church father Origen (circa 185-251) who hailed from Alexandria in Egypt. Perhaps he is best known as an early practitioner of textual criticism (he created a six version Bible known as the Hexapla) and for his subordinationistic tendencies and for his being declared heretical by subsequent church councils (he is also known as possibly mutilating his body from an overly wooden interpretation of Christ’s words about eunochs, but that is fodder for another post). Origen’s Complexity Ayres’ concern in this section is to consider Origen’s subordinationism. This tendency is to view the Son of God as a kind of lesser deity than the Father. It is a Trinitarian question. By now we expect Ayres to argue for and typically demonstrate far greater complexity on the question than is usually assumed. Ayres rightly stresses familiarity with the context (and this includes the tradition of said theologian, 20). Clearly the Arian heresy is subordinationist in that Jesus is not even God but an exalted creature. But can we directly lay the blame for Arianism at the feet of Origen? Ayres’ briefly answers that such a view is “implausible” for three main reasons (21).

1. Origen influenced theologians on all sides of the conflict including those within Alexandria and beyond in Egypt and Palestine.
2. No theologian adopted Origen’s system wholesale.
3. Origen’s theology which “in some ways subordinates” the Son to the Father shares this feature with his contemporaries (21).

Origen Among the Theologians Origen was an extremely influential theologian in his day, perhaps analogous to the pervasive influence of Karl Rähner at Vatican II such that he was called the ghost of Vatican II. Ayres notes

Origen commented on a huge amount of the biblical text and at every turn he was determined to display the capacity of the Scripture to illumine the story of creation and redemption, and the ways in which the text draws Christians into a process of purification and salvation. For Origen the text yields its message in degrees as purity of heart and attention to the Logos grows. To serve these he developed several styles of intertextual practice, allowing texts throughout Scripture to illuminate each other and the whole. Many of these interpretative practices are used throughout the fourth century (21).

Origen was in the air, so to speak. Getting down to specifics, Ayres points out that Origen argued for the correlativity of the Father and Son. That is, they presuppose each other. The Father could not be the Father without the Son and vice versa.

Introducing an argument that will be developed in the fourth century, Origen argues that Father and Son are ‘correlative’ terms. The name Father implies the existence of a child, and if God is truly called Father, the Son’s generation must be eternal. The Son’s existence thus seems to be essential to God being what God from all eternity wills to be. Thus we see that while the Father is superior to the Son, Origen works to make the Son intrinsic to the being of God: subordinationism is an inappropriate word for describing this theological dynamic (22-23).

A Nuanced and More Specified Species of Subordinationism I would respond that while our understanding of what subordinationism means might need more nuance or specificity than we normally give it, Origen still is subordinationistic in a significant way (the use of the language of the Son being by the Father’s will is troubling to me). Ayres goes on to note that for Origen the Son while correlative with the Father (i.e., eternally generated) and while the Son was not temporally after the Father, he was a “distinct being dependent on the Father for his existence” (23). Post-Calvin we could ask whether Origen has in view here the derivation of the Son’s divine being or person. Calvin will argue, understandably many years after Origen’s time, that the Son is autotheos as to his divinity but he derives his personhood from the Father. Ayres also points out that Origen shied away from ousia (substance) language because it smacked of materialism to him (24). Origen appears to have begun the use of hypostasis with regard to the existence of the three persons of the Godhead being concerned to stress the equality of the persons with regard to their distinctness as individuals (25). Origen, we are told further, held that the Son did not share the simplicity of the Father (26) either. As Ayres notes after discussing Rowan Williams’ consideration of Origen’s understanding of the relation of the Father and Son (especially in how the Son reveals the Father) in his study of Arius, “Origen’s account of shared but graded divine existence offers an initially clear, but complex language to describe this relationship” (26). It is this graded existence which has yielded charges of subordinationism by others methinks. Origen also spoke of the Son as from the will of the Father and not of his essence (27). However, as Ayres hastens to add, given that the Father’s will is eternal means that the Son’s existence is eternal as well. This would certainly mark Origen out as distinct from Arius who argued that there was a time when the Son was not. Origen also spoke of the Son as created. But he clearly distinguished between the creation of the Son and the material world (27). Ayres goes on to comment on the complexity of Origen’s Christology, “Origen’s account is, then, complex. He speaks of the Son as inferior to the Father, and yet his explanation of this inferiority turns, at many points, into an account of the necessity of the Son within the divine life” (28). Ayres is right to carefully note how Origen should not be confused with Arius (or our understanding of Arianism) at this point. But I would once again note that Origen’s thought is still a species of subordinationism even if a more nuanced and complex form. We Need to Understand the Exegetical and Hermeneutical Practices of the Day Ayres concludes this initial look at Origen’s influence on the fourth century Trinitarian controversy by noting the need for students of the controversy to familiarize themselves with the exegetical and hermeneutical practices of the day,

Origen’s theology thus encountered criticism but influenced many across the theological spectrum. His theology shaped many of the theological trajectories found in the early fourth century. While Origen may, however, serve as a temporal point of departure for understanding fourth-century theology, the constant ground of all fourth-century theologies is a conception of the reading of Scripture and the practice of theology. Narrations of these disputes tend to assume that readers are familiar with the exegetical practice of fourth-century Christians and understand how it may be understood as the core of early Christian ‘theology’. This seems to me a considerable mistake (30).

We will turn to Ayres’ discussion of the grammatical and figural readings of Scripture practiced by fourth century theologians in our next blog post. We will find that treatment interesting and highly relevant to present day concerns. I conclude this blog entry by noting that Ayres has brought to light greater specificity to our understanding of Origen’s subordinationism, but he has not convinced me that the term is altogether inappropriate when applied to Origen. If the term is reserved for views which place the Son outside of the Godhead then yes, the term no longer applies. However, allowing for gradations of existence within the Godhead (as over against the distinction of the persons) seems to me to be a species of subordinationism. Among other things, this compromises the voluntary nature of the plan and execution of redemption and specifically the Son’s part in that. I am not suggesting this was even on Origen’s radar. I recognize the difference between intent and result. I also recognize that Origen is early in church history and we need to be fair to him as we place him within his historical setting. While we would agree that there has been growth in the church’s understanding of the relation between the Father and Son since Origen’s time and that we need to be careful about holding him to the standard of a later development, it is equally true that once the church has come to conclusions on some point of theological dispute or development, there is no benefit in going backwards. Still, having said that, Origen had the Word of God which is not principially shackled by any historical or cultural context. To say that Origen was a man of his times and circumstances is not to say he was a prisoner of his times and circumstances. That would be the error of historicism.

Lewis Ayres begins his consideration of the four points of departure in his Nicaea and Its Legacy by looking at the circumstances which obtained in the church from the time of Arius until the Council of Nicaea in 325 (15-20). To recap, Ayres will proceed through a consideration of the standard treatment of the fourth century Trinitarian controversy (repeat after me, “conTROversy” not “controVERsy”) which ties the whole brouhaha to the fully-formed theology of the Alexandrian presbyter Arius and his followers. This will be followed by a look at the theology of the church father Origen, an examination of the exegesis developing between the time of Origen and late fourth century, and finally Ayres will develop themes from the first three points of departure demonstrating the “variety of theological trajectories existing in tension at the beginning of the fourth century” (15). Traditionally, it has been understood that Arius took umbrage with the teaching of his bishop, Alexander. Alexander taught that the Father and the Son always existed from eternity, suggesting the eternal generation of the Son. Arius is said to have objected to this teaching since it implied two foundational principles of the universe rather than one. Arius is said to hold that the Son was inferior to the Father, being as Ayres notes, a created “derivative copy of some of the Father’s attributes” (16). Whatever we ultimately make of the historical accuracy of this all-too-brief description, it remains true that as explicated here, Alexander is sound and Arius is defective. Whether this summary is adequate will become clear as we move along. Typically, in summaries of church history this is the picture we get. Ayres is trying to overturn this facile reading with a thicker contextually sensitive, historically accurate, and theologically nuanced consideration of matters. This begs the question of how much distortion occurs when we seek to simplify inherently complex matters? Is it possible to bring clarity without distortion? All thinking involves a certain level of selectivity and abstraction. If it didn’t we would be faced with a blooming, buzzing chaos or with bare chronologies which are about as exciting as reams and reams of statistics (with all due respect to all you statisticians out there). In philosophical terms I am talking about the one and many problem. We work hard to wrestle the facts of history into a coherent plan. The voluminous events, persons, and circumstances are the many and our attempted explanation is the one. This is not in itself problematic as this is how God has made us to think. There is a unified plan according to God and his Word. The question is whether we treat the facts of history as bits of silly putty malleable to our template (read procrustean bed) or, to use another metaphor, do we try to shoehorn historical data? Our explanation should arise from the facts of history. Of course this is talking in general terms and I have not considered the sovereignty of God over the whole process and his speaking into our world and into our historiographical method. Huh? God who created the world in which we live and who has created us in his image and who has sent his Son into the world to save us and sent his Spirit to apply the Son’s redemption to us and spoken into this world has something to say about history and truth-telling, etc. Christian historiography at the very least ought to be concerned to uphold the ninth commandment. It is possible to break the ninth commandment with how we do history. We ought to aim for truth. All of this is to remind us that we should allow the evidence left from the past to speak on its own terms within the context of a biblical and Reformed world and life view (ooh, did I use that nasty Kantian word “worldview”?). Our commitment to orthodoxy does not per se determine what in fact various historical individuals said or did. That is a matter of historical investigation and making sense of what is left to us to conclude from the evidence. Our Reformed Christian theological commitment (er, …worldview) provides biblical parameters (for instance, there is such a thing as the supernatural) but it is possible that things get mixed up or misunderstood or simplified or distorted over time. Meanwhile, back at the ranch Ayres points out that there were other issues that may have been at play beyond the purely Trinitarian. Among these was the rise of monarchical episcopacy. That is, the church in Alexandria was moving from the bishop as primus inter pares among a college of presbyters to being sole absolute authority within a diocese (15). The conflict between Arius and Alexander may betray elements of this movement. We need not fear the reality of politics within the church as if this is something new. Politics played its role in the OT church as well and this fact does not undermine the sovereignty of God, nor does it necessarily sully theological formulations. It can, but does not necessarily do so. Politics has been defined as the organization of our common life. That is, any group of people will have to organize themselves around certain agreed-upon principles. So all groups involve politics in this general sense. The question is, is the politics seen in the history of the church godly or corrupt? Ayres highlights the complexity of the situation in the early church.

Alexander and the Alexandrian clergy condemned Arius after he refused to sign a confession of faith presented by Alexander. Over the next few years Arius gained support from some bishops in Palestine, Syria, and North Africa, especially Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine and Eusebius of Nicomedia, near Constantinople. Many of his supporters appear to have greatly valued the teaching of Lucian of Antioch, a priest and teacher in Antioch martyred in 312 and some were Lucian’s students. Although these supporters may have been wary of some aspects of Arius’ theology—especially his insistence on the unknowability of the Father—they joined in opposition to Alexander. For all of them Alexander’s theology seemed to compromise the unity of God and the unique status of the Father. Two small councils, one in Bithynia, the other in Palestine, vindicated Arius, and Alexander may have refused a conciliatory approach from Arius as involving insufficient concession. For some of this period Arius seems to have left (or been expelled from) Alexandria and travelled to seek support; eventually he returned and openly opposed Alexander (17).

There is such a thing as oversimplification and over-complication. These are two extremes to avoid. As we work through theological controversies we need to learn to live with complexity whether we personally like it or not. We might like things to be neat and tidy and wrapped with pretty paper and tied up with a nice bow. But that is rarely how God works. Maturity involves learning to live with our heroes, warts and all, as the Bible does. The Bible presents the saints in all their colorful glory. Only Jesus was sinless. Emperor Constantine even got in on the action, writing to Alexander and Arius, telling them to cease and desist doctrinal bickering (18). After a series of meetings and communications, a council met at Nicaea in 325 which produced a statement

asserting that the Son is generated from the Father himself in an ineffable manner and that the transcendence and ineffability of this generation forbid us from speaking of the Son as in any way like the creation. The text distinguishes the language of the Son’s ‘generation’ from language used about the ‘creation’ of the cosmos (18).

The so-called Nicene Creed that was produced stated the following

We believe in one God, Father Almighty Maker of all things, seen and unseen; and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, begotten as only begotten of the Father, that is of the being of the Father (ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός), God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, consubstantial (ὁμοούσιον) with the Father, through whom all things came into existence, both things in heaven and things on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down and was incarnate and became man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into the heavens, and is coming to judge the living and the dead…But those who say ‘there was a time when he did not exist’, and ‘before being begotten he did not exist’, and that he came into being from non-existence, or who allege that the Son of God is from another hypostasis or ousia (ἐξ ἑτέρας ὑποστάσεως ἢ οὐσίας), or is alterable or changeable, these the Catholic and Apostolic Church condemns (19).

As Ayres points out, this formulation, later modified at Constantinople, did not end the theological controversy swirling around Arius. Arius was a problem, but his teaching did not arise de novo. Arius claimed that Alexander had distorted the theology taught in the catechesis of the Alexandrian church (20). There may be more than a scintilla of truth about this.

Those who assume that this narrative of Arius and his conflict with Alexander is the most important point of departure for the fourth-century controversies interpret the events after Nicaea by narrating the emergence of an Arian conspiracy to keep alive his theology, to oppose Athanasius, and to contend against Nicaea and its theology. In fact, little evidence for any Arian conspiracy can be found. In these confusing events around and after Nicaea, we see the need to consider not simply Arius and his fortunes but the wider context within which that particular controversy occurred. If we are to make useful judgements about Nicaea’s creed and about how the Christian community viewed the conflict over Arius, we need to understand the theological options available in the 300–25 period. For example, the initial opponents of Arius present him as distorting the Church’s traditional faith; Arius argues, however, that Alexander’s theology changes and distorts the traditional catechetical teaching in Alexandria. We can only assess these claims by understanding the wider context within which those claims were made. Indeed, through exploring this context we will find pre-existing deep theological tensions at the beginning of the fourth century. Controversy over Arius was the spark that ignited a fire waiting to happen, and the origins of the dispute do not lie simply in the beliefs of one thinker, but in existing tensions that formed his background (20, emphasis mine).

As far as I can tell, the orthodoxy of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is not being called into question. It just turns out that the path to its formulation was more convoluted than we have traditionally thought. That’s OK. God is sovereign over the meandering historical process. One does not have to choose between a cardboard version of events on the one hand and the Dan Brown Da Vinci Code-like conniving on the other. What Ayres is attempting to get at is a more adequate and hopefully more accurate description of the path the church took to get at the truth of orthodox Trinitarian theology. I am not saying that Ayres would agree with my assessment here. He is a Roman Catholic lay theologian and church historian and has to come to grips with how this topsy-turvy pathway squares with his church’s view of the relationship of Scripture and tradition and how tradition unfolds in history (we touched on this in an earlier post and will come back to this later on). God does not need us sprucing up the messiness of church history. If church history is convoluted and complex, so be it. Redemptive history as revealed in Scripture was not exactly a straight-line development from Genesis to Revelation. If biblical history was filled with twists and turns and our heroes were not typically flawless, why do we think our heroes of church history would be? Does not that expectation fail to square with the grace of the gospel and our own experience of the faith? Another way of putting this is to say that the church is being sanctified in the process of theological development as are the individual heroes of the faith. Richard Muller has argued (in his co-authored book with James Bradley on church history methodology) that our theology does not determine whether someone somewhere at some time in the past said such and such. Our theology can provide, as I have already intimated in this post, parameters or guiderails for historical research, but it cannot determine in advance or a priori the historical particulars as such. That requires historical investigation. History is in God’s hands and we can be sure he is guiding his church through the travails of wrestling with Scripture and the ups and downs of theological development. Scripture is infallible and inerrant. Theological development is not necessarily either. To use the language of the Reformed Scholastics, our theology is ectypal, not archetypal. Our theology is also in via. We are pilgrims on the way to the eternal city. By God’s grace we will arrive at the new heavens and new earth to dwell eternally with the Triune God and the saints and angels. Between our Lord’s ascension and our eternal felicity there have been and will no doubt continue to be a few bumps in the theological road.

A New but Classic Text

We are reading through Lewis Ayres’s Nicaea and its Legacy (Oxford University Press, 2004). Our goal is to read this relatively new but still classic text on the fourth-century Trinitarian controversy with intelligence and understanding. The impetus for our pilgrimage is the recent broadly Reformed internecine conflict on the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father in the Trinity (in se or ad intra). While this is the occasion for choosing this text as our first book it will not inordinantly control our reading. We will sometimes move through the book at a snail’s pace and sometimes at breakneck speed (well, maybe). In the last post we had a brief overview of the book so that we can now delve into the text with abandon. There is no better place than to begin at the beginning. That is, there is no better place once we have read the back of the book cover and the inside flaps, have perused the contents pages, looked at the bibliography and indices (ok, indexes too!). Once we have fanned the pages to get a sense of the whole we can begin.

Point of Departure

The first chapter is titled “points of departure” (11-40) and we will be covering the first five pages (Lane Tipton is my hero!). In this section Ayres wants to line out what he is doing and how he is doing it differently than others who have gone before. This is such an important concern that Ayres devotes the first ten chapters of the book to getting the historical and theological context right. It is not simply that the controversy was a matter of Arius being bad and Nicaea setting the record straight for all time. That is simplistic and not at all helpful. Real history is more complex or complicated than that. This is not to suggest, as far as I can tell, that Arius was somehow a good guy. But the author wants us to get to know all the textures and strands that go into the fabric of the fourth-century Trinitarian controversy. This matters to us because we Reformed folk are catholic in the best sense of that lower-case word. The context I was speaking of is what Ayres calls a “theological culture” (12). He tells us that this theological culture was a combination of doctrinal propositions and strategies for using the doctrines. We could say that the controversy drove the church to develop a theological grammar. That is, the church developed a way of talking about the Triune God through the rough and tumble of theological debate. Ayres puts it this way:

It is now a commonplace that these disputes cannot simply be understood as the product of the Church’s struggle against a heretic and his followers grounded in a clear Nicene doctrine established in the controversy’s earliest stages. Rather, this controversy is a complex affair in which tensions between pre-existing theological traditions intensified as a result of dispute over Arius, and over events following the Council of Nicaea. The conflict that resulted eventually led to the emergence of a series of what I will term pro-Nicene theologies interpreting the Council of Nicaea in ways that provided a persuasive solution to the conflicts of the century (11-12).

Real History is Complex

By stressing the complexity of the era Ayres seeks to consider not only the myriad differences between various theologians and theological parties, but also what ways of thinking and what propositions they may share in common (13). This seems to me to be a basic historiographic necessity. In order to properly interpret and understand a document from another era we must seek to understand as best we can both the uses of language (especially if we detect technical terms) and the historical setting. Expressions can become settled at a later time that are more fluid at an earlier time and we err when we read the later more settled meaning back into the more fluid usage if that is the case. A more recent example would be the use of the words regeneration and sanctification in the Reformers and post-Reformation eras. As best as I can tell from my own reading of John Calvin and some of the scholastics, these words overlap considerably and do not have the later settled significances we are accustomed to. Calvin can speak of sanctification occurring before justification. That may be the result of his twofold blessing understanding of the benefits of redemption and it can be the result of sanctification being used here in a sense that covers what we now refer to as regeneration. This sense is sometimes conveyed in the expression “sanctification begun.” And regeneration can be thought of in terms of an ongoing lifelong work of the Holy Spirit. So you see a fluidity in technical terms that are more settled in our time. Sensitivity to this difference and development is a must when reading older texts. Here is Ayres’s summary of the traditional understanding of the fourth-century Trinitarian controversy:

Many summary accounts present the Arian controversy as a dispute over whether or not Christ was divine, initially provoked by a priest called Arius whose teaching angered his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria. Eventually, this traditional account tells us, the controversy extended throughout the century—even after the decisive statements of the Council of Nicaea—because a conspiracy of Arians against the Nicene tradition represented particularly by Athanasius perpetuated Arius’ views. Even when the century is understood as one of evolution in doctrine, scholars continue to talk as if there were a clear continuity among non-Nicene theologians by deploying such labels as Arians, semi-Arians, and neo-Arians. Such presentations are misleading in two very important ways (13).

Organicism

Before we look at Ayres’s reasons for suggesting the traditional account is misleading, I want to note what he is getting at. Ayres is saying that this controversy was not about settled theological parties simply warring with one another. There was movement, misunderstanding, and conventional ways of thinking and formulating doctrine that fluctuated. It was not a matter of development as neat straight-lined progress. Is Ayres dissenting from the view advocated by John Henry Cardinal Newman in his essay on the development of doctrine and elsewhere? These comments toward the end of the book suggest this may be partially so:

Over the last two hundred years these questions have been faced through a variety of theories of doctrinal development. The emergence of these theories is in many ways another part of the story of modern theology’s appropriation of Hegelianism and Romanticism. This can be seen most clearly in the ways that such theories have tended to use ‘vitalist’ metaphors likening the development of doctrine to the growth of an organism. It is frequently noticed, of course, that the theories of development seen in the nineteenth-century Tübingen school and in such figures as John Henry Newman are attempts to hold together the reality of growing attention to historical development with the need to show the continuity of Christian teaching in a Catholic context. Those theories that were not broadly vitalist in this way (especially Thomist models from the first half of the twentieth century) have tended to work on a rationalist model in which the earliest deposit of Christian faith was seen as the foundation for the developed faith of later centuries, broader propositional content being slowly deduced from logical principles. In liberal Protestant contexts development could of course much more easily be seen as a basic story of departure from an original kernel or the carrying of that kernel through history with various accretions (426).

Ayres is not dealing merely with the nature of developmentalism (organicism in 19^th century terminology) in that it was often viewed as the movement from the acorn to the oak tree. Ayres, as a Roman Catholic, desires to hold together a historical sensibility and a trust in sacred texts and their interpretation by revered theologians and biblical scholars. These are not questions limited to Roman Catholics with their views of the relation of Scripture to tradition which we as Protestant Reformed folk would dissent from. The question of the nature of doctrinal development and the relationship of Scripture to tradition is a live issue for us as well. I am not sure we need to set the logical deduction of doctrine by good and necessary consequence from Scripture against a robust recognition of the complex nature of the historical development of doctrine. How else would one be able to assess whether historical changes in doctrine are in fact advances and not backtracks or other kinds of errors? I doubt Ayres would advocate the pitting of reason against historical understanding unless he assumes rationalism and/or historicism. That is, rationalism is the idea that the human mind can determine all reality without divine revelation. Sir Arthur Eddington once said “what my net can’t catch ain’t fish.” That is unvarnished rationalism. Historicism is the view that all of reality can be reduced to the historical setting in which some text was written. It tends to be anti-supernatural and there is no room for divine activity. History is the record of human activity only. Ayres is clearly critical of the influence of Hegel on historiography. That is certainly salient. Hegel (and Romanticism more generally) viewed everything (so it seems) through the lens of gradualism/developmentalism/evolutionism. We will return to this when we come to the end of the book. Just remember that this is one of Ayres’s concerns throughout the book. Historical development is often a two steps forward, one step back kind of experience (or more realistically, a one step forward and two steps back reality). Back to the two reasons why the neat and clean view of doctrinal development as applied to the fourth-century Trinitarian conflict is misleading. The first reason this approach is misleading is that it treats the Arians as a cohesive party (13). As Ayres points out, many painted with the label Arian protested their ignorance of his writings. These theologians may have shared common characteristics unrelated to any connection with Arius. We shall see. The second reason why the organicist reading of doctrinal development errs with regard to this controversy is that it was not a simple dispute over whether Christ was divine (14). There were different ways of understanding this question and it is arguable whether this was even a major question in the overall controversy. So says Ayres.

Theological Grammar

Ayres offers a helpful definition of grammar: “a set of rules or principles intrinsic to theological discourse, whether or not they are formally articulated” (14). This is a key to properly assessing the meaning and significance of a historical text or artifact. One example of this is that there was the possibility of understanding degrees of deity. A theologian might argue for the Son as God but not as “true God” (14). Sensitivity to these realities makes our investigation more realistic and accurate. We ought to aim for accuracy in understanding texts. I do not buy into the postmodern reader response theory approach to handling texts. Texts have authors and authors intend to communicate something. This is not to ignore the fact that sometimes human authors fail to adequately convey their meaning. Sometimes traditions of misunderstanding arise and gain hegemony. Scripture is free of the failure to communicate because of divine inspiration (this says nothing about adequate spiritual receptivity as that is a different matter).

Going Forward

Ayres sets out to discuss the origins of the Trinitarian dispute along the following lines which will be unpacked over the next several posts: (1) Ayres will consider events involving Arius up to the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325. (2) Ayres will then consider the theological legacy of the church father Origen. (3) Then Ayres will examine the exegesis between the time of Origen and the late fourth century. Finally, (4) Ayres will look at the varieties of theological trajectories existing in “tension” when the fourth century commenced (15). Ayres wants to relativize the importance of the first point (the traditional interpretation) along the following lines:

One of my goals in offering this fourth point of departure is to relativize the first: the controversy surrounding Arius was an epiphenomenon of widespread existing tensions and understanding those tensions is essential to understanding how the controversy developed in the decades that followed (15).

Perhaps another way to say this is to say Arius has become a convenient catch-all symbol of the tensions that existed in the church of the fourth century. The tensions were apparently there whether Arius had happened upon the stage of history. Or we might say that Arius reflected theological sensibilities already in place or in development before his time. This will be a very interesting study. I hope you all are able to follow along. As I said on another occasion, this is a dense book. We are dealing with texts written in an age other than our own (yes, Charlie Dennison, I know we live in the same redemptive historical age as the fourth-century church fathers!) and it is easy to gloss (and here I have absorbed the special meaning of the word “gloss” held by one of my august seminary professors who shall remain nameless-to gloss a text is to read it in a facile manner) texts from another culture and language and historical context. In my next post I will begin to look at the four points outlined above. I dedicate this post to my most favorite Christian blogger of all time—Lane G. Tipton.

Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren (played so well by Ralph Fiennes in the movie Quiz Show) argue in their very useful How to Read a Book that we ought to read above our present level of familiarity and understanding. We can say that we ought to challenge ourselves mentally. In my personal goal to shed excess weight I have taken up walking and working out at the gym. In both cases I need to push myself beyond my comfort level but I need to do it wisely and constructively. I need to take baby steps. After all, it has been 34 years since I did serious weight lifting. So slow and easy wins the race. I need to exert myself without injuring myself. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about before we begin our study of pro-Nicene theology. Thirty years ago I purchased Carl F. H. Henry’s six-volume magnum opus God, Revelation, and Authority as originally published by Word. This challenging work on Christian epistemology is a classic in evangelical literature even though so-called post-conservative evangelicals have panned its emphasis on propositional revelation (Carl Trueman positively reviewed the Crossway republication of this set in Themelios I believe and Gregory Thornbury of the King’s College in NYC has written and is writing about Henry’s contribution to theology). I bought it in its original hardback format with each volume’s dust jacket being a different color (red, green, plum, brown, etc). I was certainly out of my depth as I read this set. I worked hard not to get too bogged down in minute details but to just read through to the end and go back when I had completed a volume unless I found myself completely flummoxed. In the end, I persevered but I did write to Dr. Henry and one of my many prized possessions is a hand-written note from him that I received back in 1986. He was kind and answered my queries with patience. Now to the business at hand. I want us to read wisely and constructively through Lewis Ayres’s Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology. Ayres is a lay Catholic theologian who is professor of Catholic and historical theology at Durham University in the UK. Published in 2004 by Oxford University Press, this volume contains 16 chapters in three sections. Section one, “towards a controversy,” section two, “the emergence of pro-Nicene theology,” and section three, “understanding pro-Nicene theology.” I think for us to be intelligent constructive, confessional Reformed Christians, we need to wrestle with the catholic heritage of the Reformed church that stands behind the Westminster Standards (and other Reformed symbols). We cannot offer constructive formulations of hallowed doctrines if we do not know the heritage well and reading Ayres will assist us as we seek to understand how the church wrestled with Scripture (with the doctrinal standard being at the time the “analogy of faith” that provided a concise summary of the Christian faith) as it came to grips with the implications and ramifications of the full divinity of the Son and the Spirit along with the Father. We will learn about the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzus who always thought of the three when he thought of the one and the one when he thought of the three…) and about Augustine of Hippo. We will learn about the Arian controversy (there once was a time when the Son was not…) and how that nearly destroyed the church. One thing I want to touch upon now is the fact that Ayres destroys the commonly accepted division between the eastern and western church in terms of its doctrinal development. The east is assumed, for instance to underplay the doctrine of divine simplicity. This is believed to be so because the east is considered the source of the so-called social model of Trinitarian theology. On the other hand, the west, dependent as it is upon Augustine’s psychological model of the Trinity, builds its Trinitarian theology upon a finely articulated doctrine of divine simplicity which some seem to think vitiates a true Trinitarianism. The social model, crassly formulated, treats the three persons of the Trinity as a committee of three who manifest harmony but not ontological unity. The psychological model tends toward Sabellianism/modalism because it treats the three persons of the Godhead as mind, intellect, and will and stresses the divine unity (or another of Augustine’s multiple analogies in his De Trinitate) and so the three are understood only as functions and not as real persons. Ayres points out that this is neither historically nor theologically true on either side of the aisle. The truth is both more complex and less divided. Next week we will begin delving into section one, “towards a controversy,” with the first chapter, “points of departure.” I look forward to seeing you then.

I love to read. I have been doing it for years. I cannot claim to read with pen in hand in the way Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) did so many years ago. Edwards puts me to shame. But I do love to read whether it be the printed page, on my tablet, phone, notebook, or desktop. I love to read different kinds of things: systematic theology, biblical theology and exegesis, apologetics, analytical theology and other forms of philosophical theology, church history and historical theology, practical theology, political theory, political and military history, philosophy, science, contemporary events, and sometimes novels and other kinds of literature. When I was a kid I even used to read Mad, Crazy, and Cracked Magazines! I also used to read American Heritage, Civil War Times Illustrated, American History Illustrated, and British History Illustrated. I made time for Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, and National Geographic. I used to read all these kinds of things and more while listening to Elvis Presley and other early rockers and country music. I have even been known to read about my favorite singers and music. I used to walk to the public library in the days before the world wide web to read the latest issue of Billboard magazine to check on the most recent rankings of albums and singles on various charts. All of this is to tell you I am not normal. Like Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I have been a bibliophile for as long as I can remember. All of this is to say that I enjoy reading a lot. If left to myself I would rather read a good book than do almost anything else. Of course I am hardly ever left to myself these days. I have a beautiful wife and two wonderful adult daughters. We have a dog. I work out at the gym (yes, I do!) and I enjoy walking too. My great joy and privilege is serving the Lord Jesus Christ in his church by preaching and teaching and counseling and providing governance of his church with my fellow ministers and elders. Reading is a prerequisite for pretty much all that I do. Recently I have been reading to members of my congregation during visitation. This has been a blessing to me and for those to whom I read. It keeps the mind active and it blesses and strengthens our spirits.

A New Blog Series

It occurred to me that it might be enjoyable to invite you all along with me as I journey through various books and journal/magazine articles. I am not looking to write reviews per se. I do that elsewhere, and even here at the Reformed Forum site. I have in mind a series in which I critically interact with what I read and display my thought processes. The series is called Criterion. The name was provided by Cris Dickason, my friend and fellow presbyter of the OPC’s Presbytery of Philadelphia. Given the current Trinitarian controversy raging in Reformed complementarian circles, I thought I might begin this series with two substantial books on the topic by Patristics expert Lewis Ayres. In a post I wrote for Reformation21 I recommended these books. The first deals with the development of Pro-Nicene theology and is called Nicaea and Its Legacy published by Oxford University Press in 2006. This is a fairly dense and thorough study of the theological development of Trinitarian theology leading into and coming out of the council of Nicaea (AD 325) with its emphasis on the co-equal nature of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The second related book is Augustine and the Trinity published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. Augustine is credited with creating the so-called “psychological model” of the Trinity that has figured so significantly in Trinitarian theological development in the western church. My purposes in starting with these two books are to introduce some of you to (1) excellent historical and theological literature; (2) to get us to wrestle with significant material in the Patristic (i.e., early church fathers) writings. I recommend we read the church fathers through the lens of the Reformers as Baptist church historian Michael Haykin has suggested in his little volume Rediscovering the Church Fathers. (3) I also want us to ascertain a sound methodology for reading with understanding. As Christians we read the Bible and all other literature under the supervision of the Holy Spirit. We need to read conscious of this reality and our dependence upon the Triune God for all our reading. Finally, (4) I want us to develop the ability to think Christianly and theologically. My goal is to post a blog entry at least once a week. Mark this and hold my toes to the fire. I look forward to our reading journey together.

Recently the Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity in Canada sponsored a conversation between Dr. Joe Boot, founding pastor of Westminster Chapel in Toronto, Ontario and the Ezra institute, and Dr. Matthew Tuininga, assistant professor of moral theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, about two kingdoms theology. The conversation is very interesting indeed. Both men make substantial points throughout. Boot is an articulate advocate of a mono-covenantal form of Reformed Christianity (Boot clearly rejects the covenant of works towards the end of the question and answer period) rightly concerned with upholding the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all areas of thinking. Tuininga is quite possibly one of the ablest defenders of two kingdoms theology, tying it to the eschatalogical insights of Geerhardus Vos and Herman Ridderbos. Read more and listen to the recording at the Ezra Institute.

Logos 6 is a powerful ebook reader and search engine. A passage you remember reading but can’t quite remember where you read it is now much more easily and quickly found. What might have taken hours or days in the past to locate now occurs at the snap of the fingers. Many new books are published in the Logos format but it was quite a pleasant surprise to learn that the Yale University Press edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards would be available in the convenient Logos format. Now the critical text of Edwards’ Works could be summoned at will on my desktop, notebook, tablet, and phone. Edwards would be ubiquitous. You just never know when the exact citation of an Edwards treatise or sermon or miscellany will prove useful to successfully untie a theological Gordian knot. The Yale edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards began publication in the late 1950s under the leadership of Perry Miller with Paul Ramsey’s edition of Freedom of the Will and continued release until a few years ago when the last and 26^th volume was issued which contained Edwards’ reading catalog. Each volume contained a critically prepared version of the text being published along with substantial introductions by the successive volume editors. I especially enjoyed the fact that I did not have to go blind reading Edwards and did not have to suffer the psychological oppression of never getting off the page! Logos does contain an electronic form of the Hickman edition of Edwards’ Works (the two volume edition published by Banner of Truth and Hendricksen) so we can now adjust the size of the font and we can easily compare the Yale and Hickman editions of various texts in Edwards’ voluminous corpus. I know that you are just dying to do some textual criticism of an Edwards treatise. What is that I hear you saying? Oh, you are happy to leave that task to the disciples of Thomas Schafer? I understand completely. I cannot sing enough the praises of Logos and Yale University Press for bringing us this fine new format of Edwards’ Works. I do not want to leave you before sharing with you one of the finer features of this version of the Works. When you cut and paste into your word processor Logos automatically provides a footnote with the appropriate page numbers from the letterpress edition. One of my headaches from earlier ebooks is that if you wanted to cite from a CD or DVD the page numbers from the print edition were often not included. Thus I was reduced to smoldering embers citing “somewhere on the CD.” That was not very scholarly or very precise. We have come a long way from those days baby! Logos has done the church a great service in bringing the Yale edition of the Northampton pastor theologian’s Works to life again.

As promised, I now offer a list of several scholarly works on Jonathan Edwards that I think are must reads. Please remember that there are now over 4,000 items of secondary literature and I am offering here my opinion. That means these are books that have struck me as significant.

1. Reading Jonathan Edwards: An Annotated Bibliography in Three Parts, 1729-2005 – M. X. Lesser. Lesser is the dean of Edwards bibliographers and this is the source to turn to if you intend to study Edwards in depth. Annotations provide a synopsis of the articles or books in question.
2. The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards – John Gerstner. Dr. Gerstner produced this three volume set shortly before his death and it is a virtual encyclopedia of Edwardsiana. I produced my PhD dissertation critiquing one point of Gerstner’s understanding of Edwards, but I want it on the record that in most things, Gerstner was right on target. Gerstner was one of the original sermon volume editors for the Yale University edition of Edwards’ Works.
3. The Infinite Merit of Christ: The Glory of Christ’s Obedience in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards – Craig Biehl. When my friend Craig asked me to read through his dissertation on Edwards’ understanding of God’s unchanging rule of righteousness, I was more than happy to do so. In fact, as I read it I was led to wonder at and worship our great Triune God anew. Edwards has a way of capturing us up into the glory of God and Craig caught the essence of that.
4. Jonathan Edwards and the Covenant of Grace – Carl Bogue. The doyen of Edwards scholars Perry Miller significantly misunderstand Edwards at a most basic point. He argued that Edwards was not a Reformed covenant theologian. Carl Bogue, student of John Gerstner, wrote the seminal study that overturned Miller’s thesis. I should like to note that the recent publication of Edwards’ biblical notebooks has confirmed Bogue’s argument.
5. Jonathan Edwards’ Moral Thought and Its British Context – Norman Fiering. Fiering wrote a groundbreaking study on Edwards’ Christian ethics in the context of transatlantic theological influences. Edwards has often been portrayed as a lone prodigy in the colonial wilderness. Fiering shows that he was an active participant in the republic of letters involving theology, philosophy, history, and natural science.
6. God of Grace and God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards – Stephen R. Holmes. Holmes is a bright light in historical theological circles from the UK and his account of Edwards is spot on for the most part. Holmes has what strike me as Barthian leanings. But what I appreciate about Holmes is that he is up front about that. He does not try to attribute his own views to Edwards. This is refreshing. Holmes also offered one of the first serious considerations of Edwards’ contribution to Trinitarian theological formulations.
7. The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards – Sang Hyun Lee. It cannot be said of every Edwards scholar that he sets the agenda for future studies. But this is certainly true of Lee. Lee discusses his understanding of Edwards’ dispositional ontology involving virtual and actual habits or dispositions. Lee has even established what is typically called the Korean American school of Edwards studies. I had the privilege of studying with Dr. Lee in his Edwards seminar at Princeton Theological Seminary. It was also my honor to assist him with the editing of The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards.
8. The Young Jonathan Edwards: A Reconstruction – William Sparkes Morris. This is the book to read about Edwards’ education at what later came to be called Yale University. It is a big tome, but worth the read.
9. An Absolute Sort of Certainty: The Holy Spirit and the Apologetics of Jonathan Edwards – Stephen J. Nichols. Nichols has provided a thorough discussion of the role of the Holy Spirit in the apologetic encounter, with a significant emphasis on the new sense.
10. Tragedy in Eden: Original Sin in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards – C. Samuel Storms. Storms has produced the seminal work on Edwards’ treatment of the fall of Adam and the doctrine of original sin. It would be great if this could be brought back into print or perhaps Sam Storms could write an updated and expanded edition. Hint, hint.
11. Jonathan Edwards and Justification by Faith – Michael McClenahan. If you wonder what the application of the Richard Muller method of church history/historical theology to Edwards would look like, this is the work. Superb scholarship.
12. Jonathan Edwards’ Social Augustinian Trinitarianism in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives – Stephen Studebaker. Studebaker has written one of the best studies of Edwards’ Trinitarian theology and in the process challenges an inappropriate pitting of the eastern church against the western church.
13. Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation – Kyle Strobel. Strobel offers an intriguing new assessment of Edwards. Strobel was interviewed on the East of Eden podcast last year. You can find that at Reformed Forum.
14. God is a Communicative Being: Divine Communicativeness and Harmony in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards – William Schweitzer. Schweitzer provides a solid treatment of God as inherently communicative and he shows how the three arenas of communication in Scripture, history, and nature cohere.

This is not a complete list of the many excellent studies of Edwards. For instance, I have not included any journal articles. Also note that I do not necessarily agree with everything in each of these books. But all of them have contributed to my understanding of and appreciation for Jonathan Edwards. More importantly, they have helped me to appreciate the Triune God of Jonathan Edwards and that is much more important.

1. Jonathan Edwards: A Life — George Marsden. This is the standard biography of Edwards and I expect it will remain so for many years to come. My East of Eden colleague David Owen Filson agrees with me so it must be so.
2. Jonathan Edwards: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought — Stephen J. Nichols. This book is the first book I would read if I have never read Edwards or anything about him. It is clearly written, easily understood, and covers all the essentials. Stephen is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, so it has to be good, right?!
3. A God-Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards — John Piper and Justin Taylor, editors. This book is the result of one of the Desiring God Ministries pastor’s conferences and the various essays are critically appreciative of Edwards.
4. God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards — John Piper and Jonathan Edwards. This is one excellent book! Really. I mean it. Nick Batzig, my compadre, thinks this is top notch. John Piper offers a biographical account of how he came to appreciate Edwards and then provides extremely helpful annotated notes to Edwards’ The End for Which God Created the World.
5. The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards — John Carrick. This is a very helpful analysis of Edwards’ Puritan plain style preaching.
6. Charity and Its Fruits: Living in the Light of God’s Love — Kyle Strobel, editor. This is an annotated version of Edwards’ series of sermons on 1st Corinthians 13 which culminated in his “Heaven is a World of Love” sermon. Kyle Strobel is a new and up and coming Edwards scholar.
7. The Theology of Jonathan Edwards — Michael McClymond and Gerlad McDermott. This is now the standard treatment of Edwards’ thought. It is, frankly, a mixed bag. It gets Edwards right on some things and wrong on others. The authors take me to task in a few footnotes, so I am not unbiased.

There are many other excellent books I could recommend. Many of them are the more heavy academic type and if there is interest, let me know and I will be happy to plug some of those.    

It is quite clear from God’s Word that the church is called to exhibit unity. Such unity is encouraged (nay, prayed for and commanded) throughout the New Testament. Jesus prayed that the church would experience unity as he and the Father experienced it in John 17:20-21. Church unity is to model, in an analogous way, the unity of the persons of the Triune Godhead. Paul also calls for an end to a party spirit in 1^st Corinthians 3. Here in Philippians 2 Paul again summons the church to unity. Unity is not an option. The problem is that we (the church) often pursue unity by way of a wrong path. We endeavor to manufacture unity through bureaucratic engineering. For instance, back around 1920 some 17 denominations sought to come together in what was called the “Plan of Union.” The United States had just come through World War I (the “Great War,” the “war to end all wars…”) and the churches had banded together to serve the needs to the country and they discovered the reality of synergy. In the shadow of the Great War, these 17 Protestant denominations determined to come together to form a pan-Protestant denomination. This “Plan of Union” was the basis of what later became the Federal (now National) Council of Churches. But there was one who swam against the tide. He taught New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Why did J. Gresham Machen resist this tide of ecumenicity? He resisted this bureaucratically engineered unity (don’t you just love efficiency experts?!) because it was built upon the foundation of doctrinal indifferentism. To put it another way, doctrine was discounted. After all, it was said back then what is sometimes heard today: “Doctrine divides and service unites.” So what are we to do? The Scriptures mandate unity and yet all we see around us is the wreckage of vain attempts to manufacture unity by means of merely humanly contrived bureaucratic engineering. All is not lost. If we consider Paul’s message in Philippians 2:1-11 we see a way forward. If it could be said in its most abstract form, the message of Paul here is that the Christian life flows from the particulars of Christian doctrine. More to the point, true Christian attitudes and actions are based upon the truth of the gospel. More specifically still, Paul draws implications for Christian unity from the fact and the nature of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Yes, to use the technical language, the imperative is grounded in the indicative. Paul tells the Philippians and he tells us that possession of certain godly attitudes ought to yield specific gracious actions. Divinely enabled humility yields unity. Paul calls the church in Philippi (and everywhere else) to do nothing from rivalry or vain conceit, to count others more important than yourselves, to look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. This was a tall order coming from the apostle Paul to the Philippians. And it is a tall order for us as well. But notice that Paul does not ground the command to manifest these attitudes and actions in personal will power. He grounds it in the reality and character of Jesus’ incarnation. Paul exhorts the Philippians to have the mind of Christ. Is Paul suggesting some kind of theological Vulcan mind meld? Not at all. The fact of the matter is that by virtue of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in individual believers and in the body of Christ as a whole, the church can possess the mind or attitude of Christ. The same Holy Spirit who raised Christ from the dead and who worked saving faith in the saints at Philipi is at work in them to conform them to the image of Christ. And that means having the mind of Christ. What is true for the saints in Philippi is true for the saints today. To possess the mind of Christ is no nebulous concept. It is fleshed out (pardon the pun) in the incarnation of the Savior. Paul tells the Philippians that the attitude which characterized the Son of God in his taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul ought to animate the church. Paul’s command to manifest unity in the church is based squarely upon the fact of the incarnation. Such a demanding call cannot be built upon a fairytale. The Son of God left the comforts of heaven and suffered the humiliation of the incarnation for our sakes. He did not have to do it and he did not need to do it. Consider how Jesus’ attitude grounds our attitude and behavior. Jesus did not think his legitimate status as the Son of God was a good reason to not come to earth to save a people for himself. While Jesus did not lay aside his divinity, he did veil it in humble humanity. Jesus left the glories of heaven to experience the miseries of this life so that you and I could experience the glories of heaven. Moreover, Jesus acted in unity with his Father and the Holy Spirit when he agreed to come to earth. Jesus acted in humility and in deference to his Father when he experienced the miseries of this life and his cruel death on the cross. Further to the point, Jesus loved his own for whom he lived and died and so did not merely look out for his own interests or comfort. The Christian life flows from the truth of doctrine. Unity flows from the truth and character of Christ’s enfleshment. So when you are tempted to think doctrine has no practical payoff, think again and thank the Lord for his gracious condescension to save us.

In this 200th year of Princeton Theological Seminary, it seems appropriate to read the latest biography of Charles Hodge penned by Andrew Hoffecker. Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton is also the latest entry in the American Reformed Biographies series published by P&R Publishing. Like its predecessors, this volume was a pleasure to read. It has more of the flavor of an intellectual biography than Paul Gutjahr’s Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy published by Oxford University Press. Hoffecker writes sympathetically yet not uncritically of his subject and the issues of the day. At the end of the book I felt, as I did with John Muether’s volume on Cornelius Van Til in the same series, that I did not want to close the covers and leave the presence of a friend. I have personally found this study to be encouraging and inspirational.

Reformed Media Review had the privilege of interviewing Don Reid, former lead singer of the award winning country music group the Statler Brothers, about his involvement in that group and his more recent work as an author. Especially of interest was Don’s insights into the relationship of country and gospel music. Our listeners will be especially interested to learn that Don Reid is also a long standing ruling elder and Sunday School teacher in his home church in Staunton, VA. Jeff Waddington was more than ably assisted by Michael Dewalt, Dr. Stephen Nichols of Lancaster Bible College and Graduate School and Dr. Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.

Participants: Don Reid, Jeff Waddington, Michael DeWalt, Russell Moore, Stephen J. Nichols

This paper is about one particular aspect of the thought of theologian Thomas F. Torrance.[1] Torrance, is, of course, known for two major contributions he has made to theology. Torrance has made a tremendous contribution to an understanding of the interrelations of science and theology and, especially since his “retirement” from active teaching, for his production of erudite works on Trinitarian theology. Regarding Torrance’s work on the relationship of theology to the natural sciences, Elmer Colyer tells us, Thomas F. Torrance is considered by many to be the most outstanding, living Reformed theologian in the Anglo-Saxon world. One of the leading theologians in the dialogue between theology and philosophy of science, he was awarded the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion in 1978.[2]

Regarding his contribution to Trinitarian studies, Alister McGrath says,

One of Torrance’s greatest regrets is that he was unable to lecture on ‘the doctrine of God’ while Professor of Christian Dogmatics at Edinburgh. This area was deemed more philosophical in orientation, and had hence been treated as the territory of philosophical rather than dogmatic theologians. It was, however, an area in which Torrance took a keen interest from his student days onwards. A careful survey of Torrance’s massive theological output shows that the doctrine of the Trinity is explicitly addressed only on a few occasions throughout his professional career until his retirement in 1979. While it can be argued that Torrance’s emphases on the priority of revelation and on the importance of the incarnation can be understood to make implicit trinitarian claims, these are not explored or in detail until after Torrance’s retirement from the Chair of Christian Dogmatics at Edinburgh. Thereafter, what can only be described as a torrent of substantial studies appeared, culminating in the major studies The Trinitarian Faith (1988) and The Christian Doctrine of God (1996).[3]

Truth is, Torrance’s concern for the relation between theology and science (and the truly scientific nature of theology) and his concern for a proper Trinitarian theology are mutually entwined. Our concern here is not with Torrance’s concern for the scientific nature of theology as such nor with his Trinitarian theology per se, but with a major element in Torrance’s discussion of these two matters, his criticism of the problem of dualism.[4] 1.2 Thesis My concern in this paper will be to examine Torrance’s criticism of dualism and how that effects the formulation of his constructive theology, which has been called holism.[5] Dualism has principally effected two areas of reality, namely cosmology and epistemology.[6] Dualism in the realm of cosmology involves the separation of God from his world and in epistemology it involves the separation of the human knower and the object of knowledge. “Holism” involves for Torrance an indwelling of reality by the human knower so that one comes to learn about other objects through a relation to them (what Torrance calls kataphysin science) rather than from dualistic abstraction. For Torrance, holism would stress an interactionist model of God’s relationship to the world and would embrace a critical realist epistemology in the theological and natural sciences. My goal is to assess the correctness of Torrance’s charges of dualism and the viability of his “holism” (interactionist cosmology and critical realist epistemology) as he interacts with dualism in philosophy, science and theology. My method will be to 1) offer a brief description of dualism and holism and 2) examine one example of Torrance’s criticism of dualism in each of the areas of philosophy, natural science and theology followed by a description of his holistic alternative. I will conclude with a critical evaluation of Torrance’s treatment of dualism and holism in its cosmological and epistemological aspects. My thesis is that Torrance’s cosmology, while correctly reacting to the naturalistic (deistic) elements of enlightenment natural science, tends toward making God and his creation correlative and may be held captive to the Einsteinian paradigm in science and that his critical realistic epistemology denies the epistemological reality that objects have been pre-interpreted by God before any human being ever begins to examine them. 2.0 Dualism & Holism Described I have already mentioned that Torrance believes that one of the central problems of Western thought is dualism.[7] Dualism is the tendency to abstract an object in reality from its inherent intelligibility.[8] Within the theological tradition of Western Christendom, Torrance sees this tendency toward dualism exemplified in the theology of Augustine.

Increasingly, Torrance came to identify a group of theologians who developed a unitary approach to the Christian faith, and especially the question of the relation between God and the world. For Torrance, the telltale sign of such forms of dualism was a positing of a distinction between ‘God’ and ‘revelation’…Torrance identifies a trend in western theology, which he traces back to Tertullian and Augustine, which ‘abstracted knowledge of God from its objective ground in his self-revelation’.[9]

Needless to say, Torrance sees dualism as a problem in more than just Christian theology, since it has been pervasive in philosophy and the natural sciences as well. As Torrance tells us regarding Karl Barth’s discovery of dualism or what he calls ‘the Latin heresy,’

What Karl Barth found to be at stake in the twentieth century was nothing less than the downright Godness of God in his revelation, for the Augustinian, Cartesian and Newtonian dualism built into the general framework of Western thought and culture had the effect of cutting back into the preaching and teaching of the church in such as way as to damage, and sometimes even to sever, the ontological bond between Jesus Christ and God the Father, and thus to introduce an oblique or symbolical relation between the Word of God and God himself. Barth’s struggle for the integrity of divine revelation opened his eyes to the underlying epistemological problems, not only in Neo-Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, but in Protestant Orthodoxy as well. These were bound up with the Western habit of thinking in abstractive formal relations, which was greatly reinforced by Descartes in his critico-analytical method, and of thinking in external relations which was accentuated by Kant in his denial of the possibility of knowing things in their internal relations. This is what I have called ‘the Latin heresy’, for in theology at any rate its roots go back to a form of linguistic and conceptual dualism that prevailed in late patristic and medieval Latin theology.[10]

For Torrance, dualism is guilty of separating God from his creation on the one hand, and of separating the human subject and object in the epistemological context. It takes the triadic reality of the God/man/world context and reduces it to the God/man relation.[11]

Judging from the history of thought in ancient as well as modern times, it would seem evident that so long as theology is restricted to the man/God relationship it can hardly escape from the projective thrust of man’s own self-understanding, so that theology tends to contract into a form of anthropology in which meaning is expressed in the symbolic or mythological objectification of inward experience. This always becomes accentuated under the stress of phenomenalist and dualist theories of knowledge in which the relation between subject and object, or intelligible form and ontological reality, is seriously damaged, if not severed. In this event theology quickly reduces to being a mere second-order activity in which there results a further split between form and content, and between method and subject matter, so that theological concepts become twice removed from objective reality.[12]

Dualism is guilty of separating things that ought to belong together. Subject and object are distinct but not separate.[13] Holism, Torrance’s answer to the dualism prevalent in Western thinking, seeks to address these separations. Holism involves the God/man/world or God/world/man context and so cannot be reduced to an anthropological phenomenon. It involves what Torrance calls the kataphysic method in which intelligible form and ontological reality are fused. It is the opposite of the separation of theological concepts from objective reality. As Colyer tells us,

The fundamental axiom that runs through all of Thomas F. Torrance’s many publications on theological method is that the nature of the object or subject-matter in question defines the methods employed in investigating it, the mode of rationality used in conceptualizing what is discovered, and form of verification consonant with it…The fact that method must be apposite to the nature of the reality under investigation means that method can be distinguished, but never separated, from content. This is the reason for Torrance’s rigorous attention to scientific methodology and theological content throughout his career…Thus we cannot lay down the conditions on which valid knowledge is possible in detachment from the actual knowing relation intrinsic to the reality or subject-matter…[14]

No scientist or theologian (or philosopher) can predetermine the nature of a particular object or subject matter and the scientific method adopted must be adapted to the object under investigation. Additionally, the kataphysic method involves indwelling the reality of the universe (or God) that has levels of contingent rationality. These levels of rationality can be discerned by man, even though there is no necessary relationship between reality and the human mind (what Torrance calls an “isomorphism” between the human mind and reality). Developing an epistemological method akin to the work of Albert Einstein and Michael Polanyi,[15] Torrance calls for a “theoretic structure which, while affecting our knowledge, is derived from the intrinsic intelligibility of what we seek to know, and is open to constant revision through reference to the inner determinations of things as they come into view in the process of inquiry.”[16] This gradational discovery process (which is freely chosen) reflects the gradational nature of the intelligible structures of reality.[17] Movement is made by indwelling reality at the tacit dimension first, and then coming to understand deeper levels of intelligibility. This “kinship” between our knowledge and the reality being examined is not a necessary nor a priori one nor an “innate conceptual counterpart” to the intelligibility being examined.[18] It is, in fact, “an anticipatory intimation of a pattern of order that arises dynamically out of heuristic indwelling and the informal tacit dimension.”[19] There is here, then, no separation between theoretical models (epistemology) and empirical reality (cosmology).[20] We will see that the dualism prevalent in Western thought has, as we have already mentioned, affected the two basic areas of cosmology and epistemology.[21] Cosmologically, dualism posits a separation between God and his world in which God is not able to interact with his creation. God is, “not thought of as interacting with the universe of space and time but as inertially related to it or as deistically attached to it.”[22] Epistemologically, dualism has chiefly been revealed in natural theology as it has been traditionally conceived. “It has always been in periods when epistemological and cosmological dualism have predominated that the demand for natural theology has been urgent, in order to find a way of throwing a logical bridge between the world and God if only to give some kind of rational support for faith.”[23] 3.0 Dualism & Holism Exemplified I have discussed the problem of dualism as criticized by Torrance and his solution of holism somewhat in the abstract and so now I would like to look at one example of dualism and its answer in holism as Torrance has discussed them in the fields of philosophy, natural science and theology. In the field of philosophy, Torrance is undoubtedly critical of the dualism evident in Plato’s distinction between the world of ideas and the world of flux.[24] “I refer here to the irreducible dualisms in the philosophy and cosmology of Plato and Aristotle, which threw into sharp contrast rectilinear motion in terrestrial mechanics and circular motion in celestial mechanics, which were related to the dualisms between the empirical and the theoretical, the physical and the spiritual, the temporal and the eternal, the mortal and the divine.”[25] While these dualisms were serious enough, it is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant that brings these tendencies home with his distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal realms. Responding to the crass empiricism of David Hume with his rejection of innate ideas (following Locke) and his embrace of “sensationism”,[26] Kant had to figure out a way to bring the theoretical and empirical elements together to save empirical science. As Torrance tells us, Kant achieved this bridging of the theoretical and phenomenal in his concept of the synthetic a priori in which sense experience is combined with categories in the mind that are created by the mind so that the order which man perceived in the universe was not discovered “out there” as much as it was imposed “in here” in the mind of man. This combination of sense experience (perception) and mental categories (conception) prevented man from ever coming into contact with the inner nature or reality of the things ( the Ding an sich) with which he came into contact. This also had the tendency of making theology an anthropological exercise. We can see that Kant’s attempt to rescue empiricism from the radicalism of David Hume[27] ended up solidifying the divide (chorismos) between both man and his environment (epistemology) and God and his creation (cosmology). Torrance’s answer to this Kantian bifurcation is his holism doctrine, which we have described above, in which the theoretical and phenomenal realms are fused. Examination of an objective reality external to the human mind is possible, although Torrance denies any kind of “isomorphism” in that the relation between the external world and the human mind is not necessary. This reflects Torrance’s critical realistic epistemology in which a real world exists external to the mind but which also recognizes the perspective of the human knower. McGrath offers this helpful explanation,

Torrance operates with a complex understanding of correspondence between reality and knowledge which avoids the conceded difficulties of ‘naive realism’ (which posits a direct correspondence between knowledge and reality). The general position adopted by Torrance is perhaps best described as ‘critical realism’, a position which has gained increasing support within theological circles in recent decades. The New Testament scholar N. T. Wright offers an excellent approach to this position, which he describes as, ‘a way of describing the process of ‘knowing’ that acknowledges the reality of the thing known, as something other than the knower (hence ‘realism’), while also fully acknowledging that the only access we have to this reality lies along the spiralling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known (hence ‘critical’). This path leads to critical reflection on the products of our enquiry into ‘reality’, so that our assertions about ‘reality’ acknowledge their own provisionality. Knowledge, in other words, although in principle concerning realities independent of the knower, is never itself independent of the knower.‘”[28]

Torrance’s answer to the cosmological dualism inherent in this philosophical perspective, a dualism clearly seen in Kant’s Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone for instance, is his interactionist model of the God-universe relationship which we will discuss below under the dualisms seen in the world of natural science. The problems of dualism in philosophy have spilled over into the natural sciences.[29] Not surprisingly, given Torrance’s concern for the relation between theology and the natural sciences, Torrance has discussed this field of knowledge as well.[30] Torrance sees dualistic tendencies in the science of Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton.[31] With Galileo, we find that he made a distinction between the geometric aspects of reality (which are quantifiable) and appearances and with Newton, we find that he made a distinction “between absolute mathematical time and space and relative apparent time and space that was to become paradigmatic for all modern science and cosmology up to Einstein. This development gave rise to the deistic disjunction between God and the universe that has so deeply plagued modern theology and to the conception of the mechanistic universe, which closed the universe to any interaction with it on the part of the Creator.”[32] This cosmological dualism (which is not without its epistemological fallout) has quite obviously spread beyond the bounds of the natural sciences (just as it failed to remain within the bounds of ancient philosophy). Torrance reminds us that this dualism is reflected in Lessing’s ugly ditch in which the necessary truths of reason can never be grounded in the accidents of history and in Hermann’s distinction between two forms of history, Geschichte and Historie.[33] Torrance’s holistic answer to the dualism evident in science is, of course, related to his answer to dualism in other disciplines. His answer to the cosmological dualism is to stress the interactionist model of understanding the relationship between God and the universe. To illustrate his point, Torrance uses the example of fellow Scotsman James Clerk Maxwell’s work on the electro-magnetic field (or the dynamical field theory) in the nineteenth century, in which Maxwell developed a theory of onto-relations influenced as much by the philosopher Sir William Hamilton[34] as he was by the professors in his physics classes.[35] Onto-relations, for instance, involve atoms not as discreet entities that bump into one another (like so many billiard balls), but also as the relations between one atom and another. Albert Einstein also endeavored to fuse form and being in his development of relativity theory. Torrance’s answer to epistemological dualism in the arena of science is the act of indwelling reality in which a person comes to discover the nature of reality without forcing preconceived notions onto the reality being examined. We must allow the nature of the object which we are examining to determine our scientific method and to shape our knowledge of the object in question. This is kataphysic science, or science “according to nature.” Paralleling the thought of Michael Polanyi, Torrance discusses the gradational nature of the contingent intelligibility of the universe that man can come to know in a graduated manner as he indwells reality and comes to know more about it, in ever increasing levels of depth.[36] Torrance’s discussion of dualism in the arena of theology will, as it will no doubt be unsurprising by now, mirror what he has said in the areas of philosophy and the natural sciences. We should not be amazed at this since all these areas of knowledge impinge upon one another. We cannot discuss every area within theology that has been affected by dualism (any more than we have discussed every example of it in philosophy or science), so I will discuss his understanding of how dualism has affected the church’s doctrine of revelation. Earlier we referred to Torrance’s debt to Karl Barth. This debt is no clearer than in his understanding of the doctrine of revelation. For Barth, as for Torrance, since God’s act is his being, and his being is his act, it makes sense to see God as being his revelation. Dualism entered the picture, for Torrance, when Augustine stressed a distinction between God and his revelation. Since the Son (who is the Word) is homoousian with the Father, this traditional distinction (in which the Western church, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, have followed Augustine) breaks the essential bond, as was attempted in various heretical movements in the early church.[37] It has also led to the problematic attempt at building a natural theology (such as was attempted by the Schoolmen, Thomas Aquinas being the best exemplar of this method) in which one can endeavored to build a “logical bridge” from the created world to the Creator (assuming a likeness between a cause and its effects) that led to a notion of a unitary God, whereas God has revealed himself as Triune. While Barth and Torrance seemingly take a different tack in addressing natural theology (Barth rejects it altogether and Torrance has reworked it as operating within the confines of divine revelation)[38] both rejects its apparent autonomous character as traditionally conceived. Torrance’s answer to this form of dualism replicates what he has elsewhere argued. Stressing the ontological unity of the Triune Godhead, Torrance stresses the homoousial oneness between the Father and the Son. When God reveals himself in history, he himself is given. It is the Triune God who has created the universe and it is he who interacts with his creation in a revelatory manner. Man can come to know this Triune God who has revealed himself in the time-space continuum through taking part in the church community (which possesses, through its worship, a tacit awareness of the Trinitarian God) and in reading the Scriptures, which are the response of the community of reciprocity (Israel in the Old Testament, the church in the New). In reading the Bible, one comes to indwell the reality of the Triune God behind Scripture and that resultant knowledge allows one to come to ever deeper understandings of the reality of the Triune God. We see here the kataphysic nature of theological discovery in which our theological method of examination is determined by the reality of the nature of the Triune God. God interacts with his universe (along lines of something like the Maxwellian magnetic field theory) and reveals himself in a gradational manner, which can be discovered by man as he continues to indwell the reality of God and his creation. In all these arenas of human experience and knowledge, in philosophy, the natural sciences and in theology, we have seen that Torrance has been critical of the dualistic tendencies in Western thought, ranging from the Platonic world of ideas and the world of flux, the Kantian distinction of the noumenal and phenomenal realms and his synthetic a priori, the Galilean distinction between the geometric reality and the appearance of things, the Newtonian distinction between absolute and relative time and space and the Augustinian dualism in which God is separated from his revelation so that the homoousial relation between the Father and the Son is denied or ignored. We have seen that Torrance’s answer to these various dualisms is his holism which involves affirming the cosmological fact of God’s interaction with his creation and the epistemological reality that man can know reality, albeit from a limited perspective and with the proviso that whatever knowledge he possesses must be considered revisable in the face of the reality that governs the knowledge gained. 4.0 A Critical Interaction with the Torrancian Reality My concern in this final section is to offer both positive and negative criticisms of Torrance’s reading of the history of the influence of dualism and of his constructive holistic alternative. I will discuss his treatment of dualism in the fields of philosophy, the natural sciences and theology in terms of the cosmological and epistemological dualisms and will also discuss the holism which he offers as an answer to this all too real problem. Firstly, regarding the problem of dualism that Torrance has seen in the field of philosophy, he is absolutely correct to question the validity of the Platonic dualism of the world of ideas as set over against the world of flux. And it appears as though this idea continued in philosophy for years, especially in the thinking of Descartes, but especially in the thought of Immanuel Kant. As I have already mentioned, Kant endeavored to answer the radical skepticism of David Hume which appeared to virtually destroy the foundations of empirical science with its questioning of the cause-and-effect nexus. For some reason, Kant continued the tradition of splitting the world up into two realms, instead of the world of ideas and the world of flux, Kant had the noumenal and phenomenal realms. The noumenal realm covered things as they are in themselves (the Ding an sich) and the spiritual realm where God is located, and the phenomenal realm embraced things as they appear to the human mind. Rather than endeavoring to bring the noumenal and the phenomenal together, Kant had the human mind creating order out of the chaos of the world of appearances. Order was a figment, so to speak, of the human mind and was not found in the external world “out there.” As Torrance has pointed out, this had disastrous consequences not only for philosophy, but also for the science it was intended to rescue and for theology which got reduced to an anthropological or psychological exercise in futility. If the order we experience in the investigation of the universe is constructed by the human mind, how do we ever know if there is any connection or correspondence to the extra mental reality of the universe?[39] As we already know, Torrance’s response to this epistemological dualism (grounded as it is, in a cosmological dualism) is his notion of holism and the fusion of form and being. I think Torrance’s notion of kataphysic science is essentially correct. My concern here is with its implications for the philosophical endeavor. Man cannot predetermine what a given subject-matter will be like nor can he approach a given object without allowing that object to determine his method of investigation in some way. It would seem to me that an a priori scientific method would create something like a procrustean bed in which the subject-matter under investigation would be distorted. However, Torrance appears to me to proceed as though the reality of the created universe was some sort of surd which man bumps up against without God’s prior knowledge or awareness of the object in question. God has created this world and he has pre-interpreted it, so that man does truly discover the universe in which he lives and God has created him to be able to discover it.[40] Philosophy as such is a sinful autonomous activity if it is done without taking consideration of God’s natural or general revelation as well as his special revelation.[41] Of course, it is not really possible to do philosophy without reference to either God’s revelation intentionally given through creation or in his Word.[42] Inasmuch as Torrance’s discussion of epistemology is in terms of some kind of bare non-divinely pre-interpreted reality, philosophical or otherwise, I would argue that it is sub-biblical. Related to this is, of course, Torrance’s embrace of critical realism. I am not wanting to deny the reality of the universe that Torrance wants to safeguard and affirm, nor do I deny that human beings have only a limited awareness and knowledge of the reality of the world around them. The problem with critical realism seems to be that it forgets what we have mentioned above, that God has a complete awareness of his created universe and so there is an exhaustive knowledge, but that it is not possessed by any individual human or society or culture. Considering the relationship of man’s mind to the world without considering God’s relationship to the world cuts off human knowing from its only ground of certainty. Man can know reality (albeit in a limited and imperfect manner) only because God already knows his creation fully since he knows himself fully.[43] If critical realism proceeds on the assumption, as it appears to do, that God has not already interpreted the world that man discovers, then the universe is a brute thing that man must discover and almost create its meaning and significance since it has none of itself. If God has not revealed himself in and through his creation, then from a philosophical perspective, man must reason his way up to God from creation, which Torrance rejects on the one hand, but appears to embrace on the other.[44] Critical realism also seems to land in an unstable disequilibrium in that it endeavors to affirm that the human subject affects the knowledge he possesses and yet also tries to affirm the existence of an extra mental reality. Apart from the existence of the God of Scripture, on what basis does Torrance or the critical realism he embraces, affirm the reality of the universe? I am not trying to suggest that Torrance doesn’t in fact affirm God’s existence or the existence of the created universe. I am only pointing out what I perceive to be a weakness in his critically realistic epistemology. In this instance we have what I would call a “happy inconsistency” but an inconsistency nonetheless. Secondly, regarding Torrance’s discussion of dualism in science, I can only offer limited criticisms of his approach since I am not trained in the natural sciences. But inasmuch as Torrance’s concerns here are mirrored in his approach to philosophical and theological dualisms , I think I may offer some response. Torrance is, once again, right on target with his criticism of the deistic influence in science in which natural laws are so constructed to eliminate any interaction by God with his world that he created. On this level the interactionist model that Torrance puts forth is a helpful response to the enlightenment mentality still prevalent in certain scientific circles. On the other hand, I wonder if Torrance hasn’t subjected himself to scientific paradigms that will one day be seen to be deficient? Torrance rightly criticizes the scientific theories of Galileo and Newton, which appear to be captive to prevailing dualistic tendencies that have spilled over from philosophy and perhaps theology, but isn’t he doing the same thing, only this time with a different scientific paradigm. While I recognize that he allows for revisability, in fact almost demands it of his epistemology, given the shifting nature of scientific paradigms, does he really want to found his theology or theological method upon something as chimerical as a particular scientific theory or method? I am not in a position to judge the work of James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, or Michael Polanyi on he merits of the their strictly scientific work, and I am happy to embrace truth wherever it can be found, but I think a Christian theologian has absolutely no obligation to allow his theology to be governed by a paradigm, be it philosophical, scientific or theological, that is not grounded in God’s natural and special revelation.[45] Also, does Torrance’s use of the electro-magnetic model with its onto-relations imply some kind of correlativity between God and his creation? Further, does it imply some kind of entity, whether it exists in concept or extra mental reality of a transcendental category that embraces both God and his world together? Again, I don’t happen to think Torrance would embrace these things, but they do seem to be the product of his interactionist God/world/man model. It is not the interaction as such that is problematic, but how Torrance grounds the interaction that seems to lead to a correlative relationship since God and the universe are inside some sort of field. Thirdly, I find the most difficulty with Torrance’s discussion of dualism within the theological sphere. Torrance accuses Augustine of creating an unwarranted distinction between God and his revelation. If God’s act is his being, and his being is his act, which I would affirm, it seems to indicate that God is his revelation. That, I think, is true on one level. But I would want to make the traditional distinction that is often made between God’s revelation of himself in his Son, Jesus Christ (the Living Word) and God’s revelation of his himself and his will in Scripture (the Written Word). The Bible is not merely the response of the community of reciprocity (Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New) to God’s revelatory interaction with it. It is God speaking through his messengers to reveal himself and his will. To speak of revelation as only being God himself in Jesus Christ is reductionistic. I am wanting to affirm the close relationship between God and his revelation. It is, after all, his freely given disclosure of himself and his will. God is his revelation when we consider revelation as regarding his Son, but not when we are thinking of the written Word. But why should we truncate revelation in this fashion? If that makes me dualistic, so be it. Why is it not possible to have a divine Word from God that is not equal to his being? How does making a distinction between the Living Word and the written Word compromise the Godness of God or call into question the homoousial nature of the Father/Son relationship within the Triune Godhead? This dualism seems to require the prior rejection of the distinction between revelation in the Son and the related but different revelation in the written Word. Since I don’t grant the rejection of the distinction, I don’t grant the dualism charged here. It seems to me that if Torrance (along with Barth) accepts the notion of a created universe that is the product of divine activity, yet separate from God’s being, it should not be necessarily problematic for there to be another product of divine activity, namely the inscripturation of the divine Word, which is not the same as his being. I will grant that the use of the word “word” is analogical here, although it is not completely equivocal. That is, I am not confusing the written Word with the Living Word, a confusion improperly attributed to Evangelicals which seems to often lead to the charge of bibliolatry. The traditional comparison between Jesus’ divine and human nature’s being united in one person and Scripture’s having a divine author and several human authors while retaining its singular purpose is not without its usefulness here. It seems to me that if Torrance’s doctrine of revelation is to hold true, he must reject the notion of a creation that is the product of divine activity yet separate from God’s being. Torrance’s doctrine of revelation quite obviously rules out his embrace of the notion of natural revelation. We have already noted that Torrance is critical of natural theology, and we share his aversion to that method of theology, at least as it is traditionally conceived. But natural theology and natural revelation are not the same thing. Now, if revelation is only God revealing himself in his Son, then there would be no place for natural revelation. I believe that God is not limited to the revelation of himself personally in his Son, but has also spoken through his creation and his messengers in his written Word. Natural revelation is limited (it doesn’t reveal the plan of redemption) and it doesn’t reveal the essential Trinitarian nature of God. Because of this, natural or general revelation needs to be completed with special revelation, which would involve both the incarnation in history and God’s other acts in history, including verbal communication with people and the inspiration of Scripture. [46] Natural revelation and special revelation are not two hermetically sealed forms of revelation. They are organically interconnected. As Cornelius Van Til has said, general or natural revelation creates the “playground” or context in which special revelation can occur.[47] In the end, Torrance’s doctrine of revelation is reductionistic since it leaves out of consideration both natural revelation (which is organically connected to special revelation) and it eliminates revelation given through human writers in Scripture.[48] 5.0 Conclusion This examination of Thomas F. Torrance’s criticisms of dualism and his constructive alternative of holism has been valuable and instructive. My desire has been to be accurate in my description of his theology concerning this issue and fair concerning my assessment of his work. Torrance’s contribution to theology and the relationship of theology to the natural sciences has been immense. I have not even begun to scratch the surface in this paper. While I differ with Torrance on many matters, I have been struck by his assessment of problematic dualistic tendencies within Western thought. We have looked at a small portion of his criticisms and have realized that we agree with him at points and greatly disagreed with him at others. Making the distinction has not always been easy for me. I have indicated at several places that my concerns may reflect what I perceive to be the logical outworking of his views and not necessarily the views as he has espoused them. We discovered that Torrance has found dualistic tendencies in both the cosmological and epistemological realm. We also discovered that while he very often offered cogent criticisms, his constructive alternative was also found wanting. Philosophically, the Kantian dualism between the noumenal and phenomenal realms were just targets for Torrance’s criticisms, although I am not convinced that his critical realism is an adequate answer to the split between form and being that Torrance has rightly criticized. Scientifically I questioned Torrance’s dependence on Maxwell, Einstein and Polanyi and his use of the electro-magnetic field metaphor. Theologically I was critical of Torrance’s reductionistic doctrine of revelation that fails to account for the tri-aspectual organic nature of revelation that includes natural revelation given in creation (including within man), the revelation of the Son and the revelation given to writers in the process of inscripturation. Thomas F. Torrance deserves further attention since he has contributed so much toward better relations between theology and the natural sciences and to Trinitarian doctrine, which we have only touched upon in our discussion on revelation. I would hope that others can read him with profit, saving what is useful (and biblically based) and casting off what is problematic.

^[1]My interest in Scottish systematic theologian Thomas F. Torrance began with a course I participated in involving the history of Trinitarian theology in the Christian church over the last two millennia. From my reading of materials produced by Torrance, I came to have a deep respect for his theological acumen. Respect does not, of course, equal agreement. I find myself in disagreement with Torrance in his general Barthian or neo-orthodox theological stance. Torrance is no Barthian epigone, but he has been sufficiently influenced by Karl Barth to classify him in this way.

^[2]Elmer Colyer, How to Read T. F. Torrance: Understanding His Trinitarian & Scientific Theology (Downer’s Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 2001), p. 15. See similar remarks from Alister McGrath in his T. F. Torrance: An Intellectual Biography (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999), pp. xi-xiv.

^[3]McGrath, Torrance, p. 166.

^[4]Obviously I can’t ignore these topics in this paper, but my concern is narrower than the scientific nature of theology per se (or the relations between the natural sciences and theology proper) or Trinitarian theology as such.

^[5]I have picked up this term from Colyer, How to Read, pp. 17 & 55.

^[6]I am indebted to Elmer Colyer for this helpful observation of how Torrance’s criticisms of dualism work themselves out. See Colyer, How to Read, pp. 57-60. Colyer is indebted to Torrance’s remarks in, among other places, Reality & Evangelical Theology (Downer’s Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1999), pp. 31-34.

^[7]Torrance’s indebtedness to Karl Barth at this point can be seen in his “Karl Barth and the Latin Heresy,” which originally appeared as an article in the Scottish Journal of Theology 39 (1986), pp. 461-482 and was later included in Torrance’s Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian (Edinburgh: 1990), pp. 213-240.

^[8]Colyer, How to Read, p. 57.

^[9]McGrath, Torrance, pp. 143-144.

^[10]Torrance, “Latin Heresy,” pp. 215-216. Barth’s and Torrance’s criticism of various dualisms is therefore grounded in their concern that God’s revelation not be severed from his being and in the intimate relations between the Father and the Son within the Trinitarian Godhead. Torrance’s major concern is to guard and build upon the homoousial nature of the three persons of the Godhead.

^[11]Torrance, Reality, pp. 27-30.

^[12]Torrance, Reality, p. 29.

^[13]I would note Torrance’s discussion of the scientific examination of the atom and how James Clerk Maxwell’s theory of the electro-magnetic field exemplifies an understanding of atoms as bodies-in-relation and not as isolated entities. It is this bodies-in-relation notion that gets at the heart of Torrance’s holism or kataphysic approach to scientific (and scientific theological) method. See Colyer, How to Read, p. 186 and W. Jim Neidhardt’s introduction in The Christian Frame of Mind (Colorado Springs: Helmer’s & Howard, 1989), pp. xxiv-xxxi.

^[14]Colyer, How to Read, 322-323.

^[15]Torrance has denied dependence upon these writers, although he has obviously read their literary output. See McGrath, Torrance, pp. 229f for more on this.

^[16]Thomas F. Torrance, Transformation and Convergence in the Frame of Knowledge: Explorations in the Interrelations of Scientific and Theological Enterprise (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), p. 42.

^[17]Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1976), p. 191.

^[18]Colyer, How to Read, p. 337.

^[19]Colyer, How to Read, p. 337.

^[20]Colyer, How to Read, p. 340.

^[21]Torrance reminds us that these elements are often intermingled. Reality, pp. 31-32.

^[22]Torrance, Reality, p. 32.

^[23]Torrance, Reality, p. 32.

^[24]Thomas F. Torrance, The Ground and Grammar of Theology: Consonance Between Theology and Science (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001), p. 21. Plato was trying to relate Heraclitus (flux) and Parmenides (staticism).

^[25]Torrance, Ground, p. 21.

^[26]Torrance holds that Kant was in fact responding to a whole tradition, including Galileo, Newton, Locke and Descartes. Galileo distinguished between geometrical aspects of reality and the phenomenal appearances of things and this was carried through in philosophical circles. Ground, pp. 23-25.

^[27]Particularly, I am thinking of Hume’s rejection of the relationship of cause and effect.

^[28]McGrath, Torrance, pp. 217-218. McGrath quotes from well-known Anglican New Testament scholar, Nicholas Thomas (N. T.) Wright’s New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 35.

^[29]This is not surprising given the fact that the natural sciences were originally included within the parameters of philosophy.

^[30]There would be too many books to list if I were to cite every article, chapter or book that Torrance wrote concerning the relation of science to theology. See the bibliographies in Colyer, How to Read, pp. 375-386 and in McGrath (which is a complete listing), Torrance, pp. 249-296.

^[31]Torrance, Ground, p. 22f.

^[32]Torrance, Ground, p. 23.

^[33]Torrance, Ground, p. 23. See similar remarks in his Preaching Christ Today:The Gospel and Scientific Thinking (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 4-5. A perusal of almost any New Testament introduction, not to mention the Old Testament introductions, will confirm Torrance’s evaluation of this overarching dualism.

^[34]Hamilton is known for his connection to British idealism and to Thomas Reid and Scottish Common Sense Realism philosophy. For More information on Hamilton, see J. David Hoeveler, James McCosh and the Scottish Intellectual Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982).

^[35]Torrance, Ground, p. 7.

^[36]Colyer, How to Read, pp. 322-374. While not intending to distort Torrance or Colyer, my brief description undoubtedly does that.

^[37]Torrance, “Latin Heresy,” p. 215.

^[38]Torrance tells us that he met with Barth shortly before he died in 1968 and that Barth reacted positively to Torrance’s remaking of natural theology.

^[39]As a Christian I am, of course, assuming the reality of an extra mental universe created by the God of Scripture and pre-interpreted by him and upheld in his sovereignty.

^[40]What I am saying here could just as easily apply to the natural sciences and theology, but by now we should not be surprised by the interpenetrating (one could almost say perichoretic) nature of the realities we are discussing.

^[41]A distinction needs to be made between natural revelation and natural theology. I will speak to this issue in more depth below.

^[42]I will address the nature of God’s revelation of himself below.

^[43]I have not addressed the noetic effects of sin at this point. What we are saying holds true whether sin is in the picture or not. I am quite obviously indebted to Cornelius Van Til’ thought here.

^[44]Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time & Resurrection (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), p. 191-193, speaks of something like a chain of being in reference to Polanyi’s notion of tacit knowledge and levels of deeper knowledge imbedded in the universe.

^[45]Again, I am not arguing that Maxwell, Einstein and Polanyi are wrong. What I am saying is that given the chimerical nature of the scientific enterprise, Christians ought to hold any and possibly every scientific theory at a distance. For instance, is it wise, as Torrance appears to do, to depend upon the “big bang” theory of the universe’s beginnings, even though it allows for the possibility of singularities which would, of course, create room within a scientific worldview for things like the incarnation and the resurrection? I can accept the argument for singularities, without embracing the “big bang” theory of the origins of he universe. For a helpful discussion of the shifting nature of scientific paradigms, see Thomas Kuhn, The Structures of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961).

^[46]While special revelation is primarily redemptive in focus, it is not limited to redemptive concerns. With Cornelius Van Til, I would affirm that God’s verbal communication (special revelation) with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden before the Fall involved an awareness of natural or general revelation. To prohibit the couple from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil presupposed their awareness of and knowledge about other trees. The point being that man could know nothing without some kind of revelation.

^[47]Natural revelation does not reveal the Trinitarian nature of God, but it doesn’t lead to a wholly different God, as I believe natural theology, in ignoring revelation, does. See Van Til’s “Nature and Scripture,” in The Infallible Word (Edited by Ned B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1967), pp 267-301.

^[48]I realize that Torrance’s The Uniqueness of Divine Revelation and the Authority of the Scriptures (Edinbrugh: Rutherford House, 1995), pp. 2-3, appears to contradict this point, but a closer reading supports my point.