You wrote above that “God’s being is eternal, but his acts of creation, covenant, redemption, and consummation are temporal. This seems necessary to uphold the meaningfulness of redemptive-history…”

I’m not quite sure how the meaningfulness of redemptive-history necessitates that God’s acts must be temporal; unless, we follow Nathan’s distinction taken from Turretin that the *extrinsic effects* of God’s actions of creation, covenant, redemption, and consummation must be temporal. Could you clarify this? Are you saying that God’s *intrinsic actions* are temporal or atemporal? And if the former, how does “the meaningfulness of redemptive-history” necessitate God’s temporal intrinsic actions? This, it seems to me, only follows if God’s actions are viewed univocally. And, opposition to univocal predication of God is *central* to Van Til’s whole project: “The distinguishing characteristic between every non-Christian theory of knowledge on the one hand, and the Christian concept of knowledge on the other hand, is, therefore, that in all non-Christian theories men reason univocally, while in Christianity men reason analogically” (Van Til, “An Introduction to Systematic Theology,” p. 31).

Thanks,
Ray

In case you haven’t seen this yet, James Dolezal offers a number of objections to Oliphint’s Covenantal Properties Thesis here: http://www.reformation21.org/articles/objections-to-k-scott-oliphints-covenantal-properties-thesis.php

Also, as Dolezal mentions in note 4, Robert LaRocca has a more nuanced response in his paper “Against Covenantal Properties”: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-tJ4x9MkN1XOW9YV3pkZFBlT2M/edit

Both Dolezal and LaRocca have studied under Oliphint (as I have as well) and I think they do an excellent and fair job of articulating the unfortunate problems that his thesis creates.

I hope this helps. However, I would be interested to hear your response to Nathan’s question regarding the consistency/inconsistency of Oliphint’s thesis with Reformed orthodoxy.

Ray

Tyler, I don’t want to comment on Oliphint’s thesis specifically. However, I do hold to the Reformed orthodox position on the divine attributes, as I outlined it from the sources above. Do you think Oliphint’s thesis is consistent Reformed orthodoxy?

Nathan,

You seem to be confusing God’s eternal decree and God’s acts of creation and providence whereby God brings about in time what he has eternally decreed (see WCF chapters 3-5 for the differences).

By God’s “temporal acts” I mean the acts God executes in time, like when he created the world, when he walked with Adam in the Garden, when he guided Israel through the red sea and wilderness, and when he came in the flesh as Jesus Christ–in short, I mean God’s deed revelation. I do not at all see how claiming God acts temporally in this sense is contra the Reformed tradition, and,in fact, I think it is the full set of these temporal acts of God that Van Til referred to when he talked about the story of Scripture.

This brings me to a question: what do you mean by the “economical trinity”? In Christian Apologetics, Van Til defines it as God’s activity with respect to the created world. This would explain why I interpret any reference Van Til makes to God as the determinative principle of the *created* one-and-many as a reference to the economical trinity. 🙂 Surely, determination is a type of action, and, surely, the created one-and-many is the created world.

Like I said before, Van Til makes it clear in Christian Theistic Evidences that universals and facts are created, and there is good reason from a survey of Van Til’s writings to think that he used the terms “created” and “dependent” as synonyms. Therefore, in Common Grace and the Gospel, when Van Til says universals and facts are dependent on God, he means that they are created; and since the act of creation is obviously an action of God with respect to the created world, it can be attributed, while remaining faithful to Van Til’s vocabulary (and with the historic usage), to the economic trinity. In sum, Van Til did not mean to exclude the economic trinity from being the Christian concrete universal: he meant to predicate concrete universality to the Christian God, inclusive of his ontology and economy. I do not think more needs to be said on this issue.

It seems to me that your radical emphasis on the atemporality of God and your strict juxtaposition of the ontological and economical trinity are causing some confusion. Both of these commitments are foreign to Van Til’s thought (and the Reformed tradition), thus they are bad lenses through which to interpret Van Til’s books.

As always, I hope this is helpful.

Blessings,

James

Dear James,
What do you mean by God’s “temporal acts”? If you mean that God, in one eternal (atemporal) act, brings about all temporal events, then I think CVT agrees with you. But if you mean that God, in a temporal succession of acts, brings about temporal events, then I think CVT disagrees with you. And on this point, CVT is simply representative of Reformed orthodoxy and classical Christian theism.
Also, I agree we shouldn’t make a word/concept fallacy, but I cannot find any evidence that CVT is referencing the economic trinity even by implication. His stress on the ontological trinity is forceful. It seems that you think that any reference to God as the determinative principle of the created one-and-many implies that God is that determinative principle just in terms of the economic trinity. But this begs the question of whether CVT thinks that it is the ontological or economic trinity that is the determinative principle of the created one-and-many.
But I really would like to hear your interpretation of the texts. Again, I think we should give Frame/Poythress credit for the idea of making the economic trinity the interpretive principle for the created one-and-many—not Van Til.

I appreciate your follow up. I am out of town until next Sunday at the American Philosophical Association Central Meeting, so I will not be able to look at the relevant texts until early next week. For now, let me make some general points.

In the passages I mentioned above, the words “economic trinity” are not present, but Van Til does use terminology that points to the idea that the triune God in both his ontology and economy is the concrete universal, not just the ontological trinity. For example, from his syllabus Christian Theistic Evidences, it is plain that Van Til thought that universals and facts are created objects, they are dependent on the Christian God. Thus, in Common Grace and the Gospel, when he says that universals and facts are dependent on the ontological trinity, part of what he means is that universals and facts are created and sustained by the economical trinity (in other words, bound up with Van Tl’s concept of metaphysical dependance is the concepts of creation and providence). I am trying to avoid the term/concept fallacy: the term “economic trinity” is not in this passage, but the concept is. I think the same is true of the second passage I cited from The Defense of the Faith. The ontological trinity makes sense of the temporal one-and-many partly because the economical trinity created and sustains it.

While I think it is wrong to say that God is temporal, I do not think it is wrong to say that God’s economic acts are (often) temporal acts. God’s being is eternal, but his acts of creation, covenant, redemption, and consummation are temporal. This seems necessary to uphold the meaningfulness of redemptive-history, which in my view is central to Van Til’s whole project.

I hope this off-the-cuff exposition has shown some light on my interpretation of Van Til.

Blessings,
James

James,
Thanks for your reply. Can you help me see what you’re seeing in the passages you cite?
I’m using the 1972 P&R edition of Common Grace and the Gospel and I find no reference to the economic trinity on p. 64. I see only CVT’s characteristic stress upon the ontological trinity as the concrete universal on which all facts and universals depend.
Turning to the 2008 P&R edition of Defense of the Faith, pp. 47-51, Van Til insists that we distinguish the created one-and-many from the uncreated one-and-many. He says that “It is only in the Christian doctrine of the triune God, as we are bound to believe, that we really have a concrete universal” (49). His point is that the uncreated one-and-many (the ontological trinity) is the principle that alone makes sense of the temporal, created one-and-many. There is no hint of the economic trinity as somehow constituting the concrete universal, or Christian principle of interpretation.
Furthermore, there may be two distinct points at issue between us. One is, whether God is in any sense temporal (regardless of whether we’re talking the ontological or economic trinity). I think CVT totally denies that God is in any sense temporal. Second is whether CVT ever thinks of the economic trinity as the concrete universal. Again, I don’t think he does (although I think his triperspectivalist followers do frequently use the economic trinity as their principle of interpretation).

Best wishes
Nathan

Jamie,

You’ve made some great observations. Still, I think Van Til was much more clear and systematic than many let on, especially in his philosophy. Also: Van Til called God the “concrete universal” to make a philosophically apologetic point, not to set a new theological trajectory for orthodox trinitarianism. Van Til did make some advances in trinitarian theology, but not through introducing this idealist terminology.

Still, Van Til nowhere actually does the clear, systematic defining that would be necessary to make this foundation for further theological-philosophical development. He tends to stay on the polemical level (at which level his work has great value). But we would need to do a lot more work. For instance, can we really conceive of the Divine essence as a universal and the Persons as particulars? Does this work better than genus and species, a category that theologians have traditionally rejected applying to God? How might we develop the formulation of God as concrete universal, and what would be the advantages to Christian theology (beyond merely scoring a point versus the idealists)?

Hi Nathan,

Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I see your point. It is true that Van Til most often predicated concrete universality to the ontological Trinity in his writings. However, if you look at page 64 of Common Grace and the Gospel as well as pages 47-51 of In Defense of the Faith, Van Til makes this predication and then goes on to exposit how the Christian God is the concrete universal (i.e., the source of meaningful unity and plurality) in time through his triune economy. Part of Van Til’s point, it seems to me, is that the Trinity is the Christian concrete universal because he is both eternal in his trinitarian essence and capable of temporal activity, not either or. Does that provide some clarification?