Credo Ut Intelligam

DW and Xon on the Age of the Earth

Here I really do have a beef with Doug Wilson. And this time I'm not being jocular. What he says in this post is very foolish. Let me be clear: It's not his young-earth exegesis that's foolish (just incorrect). It's the atrocious interbreeding of a slippery slope with an ad hominem, along with his intolerance w/r/t adiaphora, that makes him come out sounding like a fundamentalist.

Toqueville on Industrialism and Aristocracy

This time, I'll translate.

Nupta Electa

I hope you all understand how jocular I was being in my last post. Life is too short for arguing, seriously, about whether or not so-and-so's essay, the substance of which I affirm, had an insufficient emphasis on this or that point. If I seemed to be doing that, it was only for the fun of calling Doug Wilson (of all people) baptistic! But behind my jocularity there was a serious point. The truth that, in the Lord's supper, we feed upon the very body and blood of Christ is a truth I care very much about. And I am sad that this truth is not taught in our churches (I only discovered it by reading Calvin). Of course, it isn't Doug Wilson who is leading the way in this forgetfulness of our theological tradition. Quite the contrary. When it comes to sacramental theology, Wilson and the other FVers are leading the way in exposing and correcting such forgetfulness. So, in my last post, I was really (if you can belive it) expressing my appreciation for FV theology. In this post, I want to continue expressing my appreciation for FV theology, this time in the area of ecclesiology and election.

What is Really Present?

Here's a point on which I'm more FV than Doug Wilson: I take a more realistic view of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Wilson's view, as he expresses it here, is rather wishy-washy. Which is unusual for him. A Lutheran, Matthew N. Petersen, has been very deftly defeating Wilson in the comments.

Blunders

Has anyone else noticed how often scholars who aren't themselves part of the Calvinistic tradition get Calvinism so egregiously wrong -- I mean when they are writing as scholars specifically about Calvinism and Calvinists? Two quick examples -- one a blatant error of fact on a specific doctrine, the other a myopic inability to "get" the most basic ground-motive of the Reformed faith:

The Calvinists took the bread and wine as symbols only, simple reminders of the Last Supper. When Calvin was questioned about the Real Presence, he said that Christ was everywhere and hence present at the sacrament also. (p. 29 From Dawn to Decadence. Jacques Barzun. Harper-Collins, Perennial: 2001.)

Independence of mind ... was stimulated by the new Calvinistic faith. The Kirk had removed from its members any assurance of eternal salvation by the work of the Church and its sacraments. On the contrary, a man's salvation depended on himself: he must prove himself to be one of God's elect -- a congenial doctrine to people who had always believed in self-reliance and a man's importance to himself. (p. 70 The Scotch-Irish: A Social History. James G Leyburn. Chapel Hill U of NC Press: 1962.)

If scholars are so befuddled when it comes to a tradition that still exists contemporary with their scholarship, how much can we trust the conclusions of modern scholars when they tell us about the mindset of, say, second-temple Jews? Don't take that question as more cynical than it was meant to be. I think such scholarship needs to be given a serious look. But I also want to be cautious: the potential for unnoticed (and perhaps uncorrectable) mistakes needs to be taken into account. Stepping back from the work of examining the scholarship itself to see how compelling it is -- even the most compelling-seeming (from our vantage point) scholarship may face a reliability issue. I assume it is not completely unreliable. It is, then, "somewhat" reliable. What are we to make of this somewhat-reliable historical scholarship? What role should it play in our interpretation of Scripture?

FV: Wilson and Clark on justification sola fide.

It started when R.S. Clark challenged FVers to repent of "trying to enlarge faith in the act of justification to be more than simply 'receiving and resting' on Christ and his finished work, of trying to include fruit and sanctity in the act of justification in either faith or the ground of justification rather than simply allowing them to be fruit and evidence of justification."

There is potential ambiguity in this language of faith in the act of justification". Does he mean 1. faith when it plays its role in justification; or 2. faith insofar as it plays its role in justification. From what he says later it is clear that he meant 2. But as the debate continued Wilson kept taking him to mean 1, in spite of his clarifying remarks.

Clark never denied that regeneration precedes faith. That notion came from an argument Wilson was making against a thesis he wrongly took Clark to hold. Clinging to interpretation 1, Wilson figured Clark was saying that faith had no holiness about it when justification happened. Wilson argued against this by using the premise that regeneration precedes faith and drawing the conclusion that justifying faith is, from the start, obedient faith; He then "dared" Clark to deny the premise. But Clark does not deny the premise. In fact, he accepts the whole argument as sound, but he thinks it misses the point. And on this I agree with Clark.

What is at issue here is not chronology. Clark calls that a "red herring". What is at issue is not whether justifying faith IS always already living faith. Yes, Wilson's argument proves that to be the case, but that was never in question. What is at issue is not a matter of IS but a matter of BECAUSE (as Clark put it in a later response to Wilson). The issue is: Does faith play the role it plays in justification [which we all agree is an instrumental role only] in part BECAUSE it is a living, obedient faith. Wilson says yes:

The fact that my faith is alive makes it possible to see Christ, the sole basis or reason for anyone's justification. If my faith were dead, it would be blind also, and incapable of looking to Christ as the sole ground of justification.

(Clark's response to Wilson's argument by analogy, by the way, is just that the analogy fails. While in some respects the analogy of the seeing eye is a good one; like all analogies, when pressed too far, it falls apart; as my alternative analogy shows: although it is because it is alive that an eye can see, it is not because the compasses are red that they aid in navigation of the ship, and it is not because faith is active, obedient, and holy that it plays its role as instrument of justification.)

Word of the Day

Cynomorphic:

"Relating to a dog's ideas and ways of looking at things." (OED)