Sola Scriptura

Recent events, such as occur from time to time in Reformed circles, have to do with some person of note leaving the Reformed fellowship for a church which does not hold to Sola Scriptura.  This always causes a lot of swirl and comment -- and hate.  But, I think that the blog discussions and articles in Reformed circles that mourn, complain about, or hate the persons who do this often display the theological weaknesses that let this kind of thing happen.

I think that the best approach to any serious religious question is to say, "Let's study the Scripture, and let's study History."  This approach is good for anyone, whether they're sure of Sola Scriptura or not.  And, we who claim to believe in Sola Scriptura ought to practice what we preach.  We should stop making Reformed "tradition," or doctrinal hobby-horses, or the pet teachings of favorite personalities the touchstone of Scripture interpretation.  We should study the Scripture, and let Scripture interpret Scripture.

We Reformed can be highly theological, highly confessional, highly technical, and, Yes! highly traditional, and prone not to always rethink our foundations in Scripture.  As a consequence we do not know our Bibles well.

But, only the Scripture is the Word of God.  Only the Scripture compels allegiance.  Only the Scripture teaches and convinces.  This Word should always be in our hearts and mouths, and we must meditate in it day and night.

The Scripture itself is capable of defending its integrity and its teaching in the minds and hearts of those who are sensitive to its teaching by the Spirit.

The "Rule of Faith"

In the early church, at the time of the Apostles, the Scripture was what we now call the "Old Testament."  The New Testament teaching was embodied in the oral teaching of the apostles and their representatives (people like Timothy or Titus).  As circumstances required, letters, histories, and gospels were written by the apostles or their representatives (such as Mark and Luke).  These writings, some of which only went to certain church assemblies at first, spread through the church in process of time, and were regarded as inspired, just like the Old Testament.  As the apostles passed from the scene, their immediate heirs taught the church through a combination of the memory of the oral teaching of the apostles and the written works by the apostles or their representatives.  In time, the written record of the Old and New Testaments became the repository of truth for the whole church.

In the early period, before the fading of the direct, personal witness of the apostles, the memory of the nature of the apostolic teaching came to be called the "Rule of Faith."  The Rule of Faith, with slight variations in each region of the Roman Empire, guided the interpretation of the (Old Testament) Scripture, and set the standard for the New Testament teaching, even in those churches which at that time did not yet possess the entire New Testament. 

Several consequences flow from the nature of this historical process:

1)  We ought to be curious about the "Rule of Faith" in the early, post-apostolic church.  Though their deeper intellectual understanding of theology required considerable time for full development, their use and interpretation of the apostolically authorized writings and and their memory of the oral apostolic teaching is of value to us.

2)  Regarding the development of Christian "denominations" we see a similar phenomenon.  Each denomination has a "Rule of Faith," which is supposedly derived accurately from Scripture by the founders, which then guides further interpretation of Scripture, often for generations.  When persons are "catechized" (even if it's not called that), they are taught the denominational Rule of Faith by which they afterward then interpret the Scripture.  As a starting point, this is not wrong, because it is wrong to teach people to approach the Bible from "square one," as if they do not need the fellowship of their brothers in Christ or any preexisting system to interpret it.

Sadly, in many cases, the Rule of Faith is taught by non-contextual proof-texting from Scripture, so that those being taught are not aware of the existence of any Rule of Faith, though an unacknowledged Rule is nevertheless being used to  govern their understanding of Scripture.  The Scripture and their Rule cannot be distinguished, because the unacknowledged Rule by which they are being taught appears in their own eyes to be Scripture.

It seems to me that several consequences follow from the phenomenon of the "Rule of Faith."

A)  The learned in any denomination of Christian believers have a duty to discern what their own transcendent Rule of Faith really is, and to always be prepared to test their Rule against Scripture.

B)  This process is beset by two dangers:  1)  Questioning the Rule of Faith may be regarded as dangerous and unorthodox among strongly confessional churches, because it threatens changes in the Confession of Faith.  These churches may put the Confession (Rule of Faith) above the Bible.  2)  Questioning the Rule of Faith, as is done in more liberal churches, may become quite the fad (especially in an academic context), with the result that the historic faith and the truth of Scripture is dissipated with human philosophy and doubts.  As a consequence of these two temptations those who critically question Rules of Faith and compare them to Scripture must walk a fine line.

I suggest (these suggestions are not all mine):

A)  Rather than abandoning all Rules of Faith, and attempting to start over from the Bible ("reinventing the wheel"), one should start by discerning one's own Rule of Faith, which must be studied and compared with other versions of the Rule of Faith in other denominations, including that Rule of the early church.  As it is claimed in the Reformed branch: "We must always be Reforming." 

B)  Hopefully, through concerted study on the part of all fellowships and denominations, a Scripturally based convergence may ensue over centuries, leading to increase of fellowship.  After all, there is only one church.

As a consequence of these thoughts, we see that we must study how to interpret the Bible.  This is called "hermeneutics."  Presuppositions set in place at seminary may "program" future Bible teachers to interpret the Bible a certain way.  But, any such presuppositions always need to be uncovered, investigated, and critiqued believingly.

Righteous by Forgiveness

When I was in the Plymouth Brethren, one of my fellow church-members said to me that Adam was created "neither good nor evil."  This conclusion was reached because in the text of Genesis, God says that Adam, in his Fall, will become like God, "knowing good and evil."  The implication is that Adam, as created, did not "know good and evil."

This friend's sentiment bothered me a great deal, because it was always my conclusion from the Scripture text that Adam was created good, which implied a created righteousness.  If he were not good (righteous in some sense), then how could he fall?  What would the Fall mean?

I believe that I've now come to realize the source of the sentiment expressed by my friend.  I think it is embedded within the later history of Reformed Theology, with the development of the doctrine of the Covenant of Works.

Before getting into this, however, let me explain concepts about the relationship between righteousness and sin.  There are two paradigms:

1)  Righteousness is a positive good, and sin is a negative evil.  One can have ones sins cancelled, but this leaves him with no positive good.  Something else must happen to create the positive good.  To use a physical analogy, good and evil are separate substances, each handled differently, though they do affect one another.  One can eliminate the evil, but this does not create the good.  Or,

2)  Righteousness is the absence of sin.  To have a sin forgiven is to be put in the position of never having done it.  If that sin is the omission of an act of righteousness, then forgiveness makes it exactly as if that act of righteousness were done.  Therefore, forgiving all a person's sins is exactly the same as reckoning that person to be entirely righteous!  All the positive evil is reckoned as if never done.  All the failed good works are reckoned as if they were done.  The process by which this is done is identically the same in both cases.  The forgiveness of sin is the reckoning of righteousness.  They cannot be separated.

I believe it to be the case that the two paradigms shown above imply major differences in the resulting theologies of salvation.

Now back to Reformed Theology.

It is commonly said that Adam and his elect offspring need both the de-imputation of their sins (forgiveness), and the imputation of righteousness from God.  Simply by its mode of expression, this is based in paradigm #1 above.  The need for forgiveness and the need for righteousness are regarded as separate issues.  These are commonly tied to the passive and active obedience of Christ.  In the passive obedience (the endurance of punishment) Christ bore the punishment of our sin and exhausted that punishment.  Therefore, the liability is removed and the sins are canceled.  Furthermore, the active obedience of his life is a righteousness that is put to our account.  This is a separate issue.  But, in any case, having both forgiveness and a positive righteousness, we have full acceptance before God.

Note, however, according to paradigm #1, Adam, put in the Garden at the beginning of his trial of perseverance, had no sin, but this did not mean that he was as fully developed in righteousness as God required for eternal life (Westminster Confession).  Adam obeys the Covenant of Works by persevering in it.  Similarly, in the analogy between Adam and Christ, this would imply that Christ needs to develop his righteousness, because in his human nature even he would be sinless but without developed righteousness at his human birth.  Therefore, in order to carry out the job that Adam failed at, Christ would need to fully create his active righteousness, and that, first, for himself.  Without this, it could not be imputed to our account.

But, contrarily, we are faced with Calvin's (and Augustine's) conviction that Christ in his human nature was entirely and completely righteous from the first instant of his human conception.  This is based in paradigm #2 above.  Reasoning back to Adam, this would imply that Adam was originally righteous, too.  But, if Adam is originally righteous, in the same way as Christ conceived as a man is originally righteous, then the process of perseverance in the state in which each was made does not create the righteousness that each already has by creation or conception.  Perseverance illustrates and confirms the righteousness, but does not create it.  This view of the relationship between righteousness and sin shows that each is the obverse of the other.  Adam, newly created, and Jesus, newly conceived, are each righteous, though they have done nothing.  In other words, sinlessness equals righteousness.  The absence of sins exactly is the presence of righteousness.  The forgiveness of sins which we receive through Christ exactly is the imputation of righteousness.  The imputation of righteousness is therefore not a separate imputation.  There is no distinction between the de-imputation of sins and the imputation of righteousness.  They are the same thing.

Following out the argument, then, there would be no distinction between the active and passive obedience of Christ.  His life and his death, but principally his death, all have the same effect upon us, taken together.  There are not two separate and independent imputations.  He was made sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.  But the "dual imputation," or two-way imputation is not an imputation of sins separately from an imputation of righteousness.  In the dual imputation, our sins going to Christ and his righteousness coming to us is not merely simultaneous, but two sides of the same coin.

This is why Calvin says somewhere that justfication by faith alone (ie, the imputation of righteousness to us) is defined as the cancellation of our sins.  That is, by cancellation of our sins we are righteous.  Or, he says in another place, that Christ by his righteousness (which he had from conception) caused the cancellation of our sins.  Or, that Christ's "merit" is that he created the Christian life in us.  Calvin vehemently denies that Christ's righteousness was obtained for himself first (as the Covenant of Works requires).  All that Christ did was not at all for himself, but all for us.

This needs a lot of thought.  The proper definition and explanation of the Covenants of Works and Grace, the definition of the purpose of the Creation, the real doctrine of Sanctification, and the real focus of Eschatology are all knotted together here.

I think it likely to be the case that the two paradigms of the relationship between sin and righteousness imply different theologies in all these realms.

Scripture vs. Theology

It's an old argument -- the Bible vs. "theology."

After 50 years of personal Christianity, a good deal of that time to the present spent reading theology and church history, I find that the "Bible vs. theology" issue is still very much alive.  And, I'm not talking about arguments with folks who are against "theology."  I'm talking about how Protestant theology, supposedly based in Scripture, can run amok on its own trajectory, regardless of what the Scripture plainly teaches.

Just to give concrete context, I've lately been reading some of the arguments about "neo-Calvinism."  But, regardless of the issue of neo-Calvinism, it's clear to me that the broad spectrum of theology in the Reformed "camp" contains many strains, from "neo-Calvinism" to "pietism," which definitely have a life of their own apart from the well-balanced interpretation of Scripture.

We have to see that our difficulty sticking with the Scripture is part and parcel of the spiritual warfare.  In that war, submission to God's Word is not optional.  Therefore, we must pay attention to the study of the Scripture, the history of the interpretation of Scripture (there has been 2000 years of it, since Christ), and, as a consequence of all this, we must understand the theology of Scripture.  We must give divine wisdom and instruction precedence over the Word of Man that passes for "theology" in our circles every day.

Divine Mysteries and Worship

Good systematic theology of the Great Mysteries of the Faith (Trinity, Incarnation, and others) teaches us not only about the essential dimensions of these mysteries which we must know, but also how to understand that these are mysteries which we must contemplate in worship with awe and wonder.

In other words, a mystery is not a "wall," shutting out our thoughts with intellectual complexity.  Rather, it is a revelation of the unfathomable depth of the greatness, glory and goodness of God.  A divine mystery is, therefore, a well of life, by which we contemplate God's glory.

The mystery of the Trinity and the mystery of the Incarnation are things about which we must speak, according to the terms of Scripture.  We must know these facts, insofar as they are revealed.   This is part of accepting the gospel.  We need to get the revealed dimensions right.  But, do not think that a mystery of the Divine Nature and Divine Works is simply an intellectual thing that only experts might understand, neither let it only function as an object of rote memorization.  Rather, understand such a mystery as leading to the worship of God, where we peer into Him and His works with ever-increasing joy and wonder for all eternity.  The more "expert" we become in the contemplation of such mysteries, the less we have intellectual complacency in our knowledge, and the more we appreciate the unfathomable depth of the great glory of God.

The function of good systematic theology, therefore, is to bring these awesome mysteries before us to stimulate our worship, by which we are moved by God's Glory, in our mind, emotion, and will to serve Him as our God.

In this way, the theological discipline is at the root of all liturgical art and thought. 

The Commercial Theory of the Atonement and "Limited Atonement"

The so-called Commercial Theory of the Atonement is based on calculation:  Christ died for the elect, which are a number of discrete persons, each with a list of sins.  If God had decided to add another person to the count of the elect, then Christ would have had to die "more," since there would have been more persons (or sins) to die for.  The idea behind this is that the moral deficit caused by sinners can be counted, and that the atoning death of Christ distinctly makes up for that deficit, count for count, or head for head.

This is not right.

God himself, in his word, has no trouble making the application of the sacrifice of Christ elastic enough to cover his expressed purposes in every scriptural context, whether it is the redemption of his people (the elect; 1 Cor 15:3), or the redemption of the whole world (2 Cor 5:18).  

It's clear from this that Christ's death is of such infinite value that describing its value in terms of counting up men's sins is absurd.  The infinite value of the death could redeem one -- or all.

It's also clear that the death is advertised with a good will from God to all who hear the gospel, as if it were offered directly and honestly to them (2 Cor 5:20).  Christ wept over the Jerusalem that rejected him (Luke 19:41).  Therefore, his death is plainly portrayed in the preaching of the gospel as offered to, and applicable to, all who hear the gospel.

Christ's death is also described in scripture as made for the benefit of his people, every one of whom he forcefully and irrevocably delivers from death and the devil, and from all the wrath of God, in order to bring all of them perfect into his fellowship (John 17, entire chapter).

Application:

When people speak of "limited atonement," we need to keep all this in mind.  The best explanation of "limited atonement," is that the atonement, among all its purposes, is definitely and primarily directed to the salvation of the elect.  The atonement is otherwise unlimited in its intrinsic value, supporting a well-meant offer from God toward anyone who hears the gospel.  This is actually the doctrine of the Reformed Confessions, and is Charles Hodge's version of orthodox "4.5" point Calvinism in the Princetonian sense.

See Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, p. 544-562; that is, Part III, Chapter VIII, "For Whom Did Christ Die?", for a discussion of all this from almost every imaginable angle, including amazing pronouncements, such as, "every non-elect person who believes will be saved," and "every elect (and mentally adult) person who does not believe will be lost."

Systematic Theology -- How Does It Look?

We're all familiar with the thick tomes that profess to give us the survey of the theology of the Christian Faith, beginning with the doctrine of God, then proceeding step by step through the attributes of God, the doctrine of creation, the creation of the spiritual realm (angels), the creation of man, the fall of man, etc., through the covenants, Christology, and redemption, and on into the practical and sacramental theology of the church, and ending up in eschatology.  Not being an expert on "Prolegomena," which is the exposition of the philosophy underlying the concept of Systematic Theology, I have to say that my opinions to follow are just that.  However, I question the tutorial usefulness of much of this mode of organizing the content of systematic theology.  (This method is actually more suitable for providing a traditional indexing scheme for systematic theology reference books.)

It seems to me that there is an internal architectual conflict in the traditionally structured project.  First, there is the "philosophical" approach which, as a sort of apologetic, seeks to explain and build up the body of systematic Christian knowledge by arguing from first principles.  Secondly -- and here is the problem -- the Bible doesn't present the source material for our knowledge in this way.  So, the construction of a gradually developing philosophical edifice of knowledge is attempted via references to inspired material that doesn't teach this way at all.  Recognizing this inconsistency in method, should we not let the tutorial "shape" of the inspired material instruct us how to teach the edifice of Christian doctrine?

The traditional philosophical scheme seeks to build up the credibility of each doctrine in a way that will supposedly impress and gradually lead the mind of the "reasonable" inquirer into a full knowledge of the truth.  But, did anyone ever come to Christ this way?  Does anyone believe the Bible, as the foundation for Christian thought, without first believing the gospel?  Doesn't the way that God makes himself known to us imply the way that we should study his theology?  

There is an alternative, and that alternative is practiced in early Lutheranism, and elsewhere, though it is certainly not new with them.  It is called the "loci" method.

Locus is the Latin for "place," or "topic."  It is similar in meaning to "topos" in Greek, from which we get the English word "topic."  Both locus and topos refer to (often literary) themes or topics.  Philipp Melanchthon's wrote the first evangelical systematic theology and called it "Loci Communis," or "common places," meaning "common topics."  What is done using the "loci" method is to take Scriptural topics, and elaborate them theologically.  Each topic has its own elaboration in terms of available Scriptural data.  Though there is no desire to be irrational or contradictory, or even insistently paradoxical in the writings, it is nevertheless the case that not all possible theological questions are addressed, because Scripture does not address (or answer) them.  Not all antinomies can be resolved.  Mysteries remain.  The point of the "loci" method is to present the important Scripture topics in a manner that is respectful of what the Scripture actually teaches about the topics, and not in a manner which attempts to cover all the range of questions that the human mind can think to ask, or want to demand answers to.

This approach to systematic theology, is, in my opinion, more respectful not only of Scripture, but of the minds of the believers who need to learn the doctrine of Scripture the way it is taught in Scripture, and who do not need to be taught in a manner structured by philosophical and apologetical conceptions foreign to how the Bible teaches itself.