“Huio-centrism” from the Greek “huios” (or uios), meaning “son.”

Thanks Timothy. I also believe that speaking of God “taking on” or assuming attributes is improper. That is a way of speaking regarding the hypostatic union according to the ecumenical creeds. I do not think it is helpful to use those categories with regard to theology proper. I have been in contact with James on several occasions trying to schedule something. He has an open invitation. I hope we can speak soon. In the meantime, I wrote a short explanation regarding the silence: https://reformedforum.org/dolezal-muller-oliphint-and-public-theological-discourse/

Tim

Later, however, I found a reference in Mark Karlberg to an article Van Til wrote on “Covenant Theology,” published in The New Shaff-Herzog 20th Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. I was able to buy the volumes and read Van Til’s whole article. In it, he wrote, “The three persons of the Trinity have exhaustively personal relationship with one another. And the idea of exhaustively personal relationship is the idea of the covenant”

He then writes, “Since the internal relationships of the triune God are covenantal, God’s relation to mankind is also covenantal.”

Part of the key here, I think, is that Van Til, following Kuyper, sees the covenant not as an “agreement,” but as an “exhaustively personal relationship.” If the fundamental idea of a covenant were “agreement,” then perhaps we would faces some of the problems Dr. Oliphint mentions. But if Van Til’s definition of the covenant is correct, then we discover the roots of God’s covenantal act of creation and God’s covenantal relationship with man in God’s own Triune nature.

That view may not be correct, but I just wanted to make clear that it is not a view for which I am responsible. I am simply trying to think Van Til’s thoughts after him.

God bless,
Ralph Allan Smith
Tokyo, Japan

Thank you.

Turretin uses the exact language of Thomas. You will see in Thomas’ discussion what it means.

I’m sorry I can’t help. I have not read Reymond’s ST.

Adithia (on your second post),

I never continue conversations like this because there is no efficient way to do this on a response/reply blog. But…one more time.

Read Brannon Ellis’ book; it is utterly convincing on Calvin’s view. Then read Warfield’s essay, which is itself a masterpiece. If you are not convinced by those, you won’t be. On Muller’s quote – as I have said, no one who is orthodox opposes the aseity of the Son. The question is *how* we are to think of that. Muller notes that the affirmation of the Son is consistent with communication, and so it is. But aseity, in that case, is only affirmed adjectivally. Calvin’s view is that we must affirm it adverbally, to be consistent with historic Trinitarian theology. On the second quote, Calvin and the orthodox agree that the Father communicates to the Son *with respect to His person.*

Thank you Dr. Oliphint for your response. It’s true that these passages are dealing with the Valentinus Gentilis’s tritheistic interpretation of eternal generation, in which a part of the Father’s essence is essentiated upon the Son. I don’t see Calvin has in view the idea that the Son’s nature is not communicated (communicatio), his rejection is whether the Father essentiates (essentiatum) the Son’s essence. He doesn’t deny that the Son has his essence from the Father, but he deny that the essence is begotten. He vigorously against the view that the Father is the essentiator of the Son. Please correct me if I misread him, it seems to me that the doctrines of the Aseity of the Son and communication of essence is complimentary rather than contradictory.

I noticed this distinction, first through Dr. Richard Muller, “…definitions that speak of the communication of essence are not necessarily opposed to the notion of the Son’s aseitas,” The Triunity of God (2003), 327. Second from, “The essence of the Father doth not beget the essence of the Son; but the person of the Father begetteth the person of the Son, by communicating his whole essence to the person begotten from eternity.” The Irish Articles of Religion (1615) IX. And later from Benjamin Swinburnson, “John Calvin, Eternal Generation, and Communication of Essence: A Reexamination of His Views.” K:NWTS 25/1 (May 2010) 26-49 http://www.kerux.com/doc/2501A4.asp

In the section to which you refer, Calvin is arguing against Valentine Gentilis’ heresy of “essentiation.” Calvin makes his own view clear earlier in this section:

(“And there is no value in the subtle distinction that what is proper to God is transferred to Christ, because he is the splendor of his glory [Heb. 1:3]. For, since the name of Jehovah is set forth everywhere, it follows that with respect to his deity his being is from himself. For if he is Jehovah, it cannot be denied that he is that same God who elsewhere proclaims through Isaiah, “I, I am, and apart from me there is no God” [Isa. 44:6 p.].”),

then shows how Gentilis’ view denies that God is One.

“If it is in the essence, let them tell whether or not he communicated essence to the Son (annon cum essentia Filio eam comunicaverit). This he could not do in part merely, for it were impious to think of a divided God. And besides, on this supposition, there would be a rending of the Divine essence. The whole entire essence must therefore be common to the Father and the Son; and if so, in respect of essence there is no distinction between them.” Calvin, Institutes 1.13.23.