A really bad argument for immutability

The immutability of God, as I have said before, is perhaps the most abused of God's attributes. The reason, I think, is that it seems to be the easiest divine attribute to grasp, so in our misplaced self-confidence we take liberties with it. And there is also the influence (though always denied) of Aristotle's Unmoved Mover.

In my opinion, the worst argument for immutability is this:

God cannot change from state A to state B, for either he was perfect in state A and then no longer is after changing to state B, or he was not perfect in state A to begin with. In either case God would at some point be in a state of imperfection, ergo not God at all.

Utter nonsense. Total crapola.

We can just as easily postulate a more sensible argument (that is still wrong) that God must change order to remain in a state of perfection. Setting aside what "pleased" and "angry" mean when applied to God, we must only assume they mean something. Now if God is, at the moment, pleased with me and then I sin, he would be in a state of imperfection (untrue to his own nature) if he did not, in light of my sin, change his disposition from pleased to angry.

The response to this argument is usually a weird hybrid fallacy involving an ad hoc argument and question-begging. Something like this:

But that is not possible, because that would make God reactive to the whims of man. 

That is both ad hoc (or "goalpost moving") due to its simply tacking on an unproven assertion (that God does not react to man's behavior) and question-begging because the tacked on assertion (that God does not react) is essentially the same as what is to be demonstrated (that God is immutable), creating a circular argument.

I have seen no valid philosophical argument (it's all word salad) for the immutability of God. The only legitimate argument is an argument from scripture. And there we must limit our understanding of immutability to what is revealed, and not extrapolate it to some place on the basis of philosophical arguments that hang on a shoogly peg.

Does it really have to be Moral *or* Civil?

For better (sometimes) and for worse (sometimes) we reformed work really hard to get our ducks lined up in a row. Mostly this is a feature, but it becomes a bug when we succumb to a form of theological OCD. Such is the case with the delineation of the Old Testament Law. We operate as if there is a passage describing the Old Testament laws this way:

Three shall be the number of the counting of the law types, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. And the names of these law types shall be moral, civil, and ceremonial. ¹ 

This allows us to discard, neatly and conveniently, two of the three types ² and keep only the Old Testament moral law.

The problem is that scripture never makes such a delineation, and neither is it clear in every case how to categorize a law in this man-made schema. Take this famous (and disturbing) passage:

¹⁸ “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, ¹⁹ then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city [a]at the gateway of his hometown. ²⁰ They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ ²¹ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear. (Deut. 21:18-21)

How would you categorize this law? Is it a moral law? A civil law? Both? Neither? Is it not the 5^th Commandment with a promise replaced by a punishment?

I would say it is primarily a moral law. It feels that way to me.

Does Jesus uphold summarily executing a rebellious, drunkard and glutton (if we may assume those are aspects of “loose living”) of a son? Well, we have an example: the Prodigal Son. He fared much better that his likeminded OT counterparts under Deut. 21:18-21. 

God’s Word cannot always be shoe-horned into neat little compartments, as much as we’d like it to be so. Experience shows this is a hard pill for the reformed to swallow.

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¹The author of this blog apologizes for the reuse of this joke in the same manner it was used on a previous post, years ago. Those responsible have been sacked.

² Excepting if you are a dreaded theonomist and discard only one type, or a New Covenant Theology proponent and jettison the whole kit and caboodle.

Which will it be, science or philosophy?

I often hear: “You should not let science trump scripture.” It is a surprising criticism, because I would never let science trump scripture. If in some hypothetical circumstance science and scripture were shown to be truly irreconcilable, then I would immediately abandon my faith because such a circumstance would constitute irrefutable proof that Ggod is a god of chaos, confusion, and misdirection—and not worthy of worship.

A more sensible criticism is this: you should not let science inform your interpretation of scripture. 

Fair enough, though I utterly disagree.

But what about this: you should not let Aristotelian philosophy inform your interpretation of scripture. Have you ever heard that? I don’t think I have. And yet we can see quite clearly the influence of Aristotle in many ancient theologians. Aquinas and Anselm come to mind. And much modern “Doctrine of God” theology is based on Aristotelian thinking applied to scripture.¹

I am not saying this is wrong, just that it is.

Is it obvious that allowing Aristotelian philosophy to inform your interpretation of scripture is somehow “safer” than allowing science? I don’t think it is obvious. Science is objective, falsifiable, and its domain is creation, i.e. general revelation. Aristotelian philosophy is subjective, unfalsifiable, and its domain is primarily secular (i.e., the human condition.) I trust science to arrive at something closer to the truth than Aristotelian philosophy. It’s safer.

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¹ This is manifestly true. However, many will deny any influence from Aristotelian philosophy, as if it might somehow taint their conclusions. They are delusional, and less honest than scientific believers who readily admit that they allow science to "bend without breaking" their view of the first chapter of Genesis.

LBCF 1689 Chapter 1 (my personal commentary)

The last few years I must have read the LBCF at least a hundred times. I made some notes along the way. I'll share them chapter by chapter. The confession is in plain text, and my comments are in boldface. Note these comments were not the result of a scholarly endeavor, but more like stream of consciousness ramblings. Take them for what they are worth, which is next to nothing.

I'm not really interested in arguing. You likely won't agree with me, let's leave it at that.

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LBCF 1689 Chapter 1

1. The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and his will which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in divers manners to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his church; and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased. 

This is partially incorrect, for it implies that there is a critical mass of knowledge of God that is necessary for salvation. It is more accurate (and avoids a pesky influx of Gnosticism) to say this: we are to act as if there is a "quantity" of knowledge of God that is sufficient and necessary for salvation, and to be bandwidth providers of that knowledge. But we must also acknowledge that God, in his sovereignty, is free to have mercy upon whom he will have mercy. Clearly the normal way this occurs is after or during a period in which the knowledge (here being called sufficient and necessary) is provided so that the one whom God has converted has a context to understand what happened, and will likely even feel as if the knowledge attained was the primary cause of his conversion. 

There is also a common inconsistency regarding the “without excuse” passage of Romans 1:20. Creation can not both render one “without excuse” and yet in any way be insufficient. That is as nonsensical as this: We have given you instruction in Calculus I so you are without excuse, even though the final exam will be on Calculus II.¹

2. Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testaments, which are these: Of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Solomen, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations,Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi Of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, The Acts of the Apostles, Paul's Epistle to the Romans, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I Thessalonians, II Thessalonians, I Timothy, II Timothy, To Titus, To Philemon, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Epistle of James, The first and second Epistles of Peter, The first, second, and third Epistles of John, The Epistle of Jude, The Revelation All of which are given by the inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life. 

My only comment here is that while we can agree that all scripture is inspired, it still leaves us with the question: what is scripture? How can we be sure that Jude is, in fact, scripture? To me the only answer is that we assume that the Holy Spirit guided the process. It is, for Protestants,  our version of Catholic “sacred tradition.”

3. The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon or rule of the Scripture, and, therefore, are of no authority to the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings. 

Agreed. They are not scripture and they are also not (some of them) without value.

4. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God. 

Agreed. Scripture is received and is independent of the authority of man or church. Of course, in paragraph 2, above, the confession itself gives testimony to the authority of scripture—a slight bit of irony. 

5. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church of God to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scriptures; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, and the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, and many other incomparable excellencies, and entire perfections thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts. 

Agreed. And if I may say so, somewhat inconsistent with describing scripture as necessary and sufficient. It is neither. It provides knowledge and context through which, and in conjunction with God’s sovereign decree and the working of the Holy Spirit (that’s what’s necessary and sufficient) we can in our own flawed manner, glorify God. 

6. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word, and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed. 

To the extent that this is taken as a statement of completion of scripture and of God’s special revelation, I agree. However, God’s general revelation (which leaves us, recall, without excuse) is a continuously growing body of evidence, and it is achieved (primarily) through science. If you were without excuse because of the awesomeness of creation in ancient times, you are in even deeper trouble now that we are detecting gravity waves and imaging black holes. 

7. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them. 

Oh, if only all my reformed brethren would only take this point seriously. It means this: esoteric doctrines that may indeed be valuable and correct but are, to many in the church, impenetrable, cannot ever be used as cardinal line-in-the-sand doctrines. This is probably the most disregarded paragraph in the entire confession. 

8. The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentic; so as in all controversies of religion, the church is finally to appeal to them. But because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have a right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded in the fear of God to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come, that the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship him in an acceptable manner, and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope. 

Awesome. Converting scripture to the vernacular continues to be one of the most worthy missionary endeavors.

9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself; and therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly.

Agreed. Sometimes my fellow reformed abuse this paragraph. They will use this confession (or its first cousin, the WCF) to interpret scripture or to prove doctrine. The confession should only be used to explain. It should never be part of any proof.² 

10. The supreme judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit, into which Scripture so delivered, our faith is finally resolved. 

Amen.

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¹ I tried to make this point through the use of a play in one act, which you can find here.

² I have an unscientific rule of thumb: The more someone goes to great lengths to assure you that they understand that the LBCF (or the WCF) is not scripture, the more likely it is that they are about to use it in exactly that manner.

Spiritual Lethargy

I'm just back from three weeks abroad: Paris (hot), Edinburgh (cold), and Cambridge (just right) with a great group of students. I even had the unexpected experience (for the second time-- it happened on our previous study-abroad as well) of someone in the UK coming up to me and asking: "Are you guys from CNU?"

No student got injured, victimized, lost, left behind, or arrested (you can't imagine the paperwork if that happened.) They worked hard, had a lot of fun, and represented their country and their university with good manners and grace.

I should be happy and thankful. And I am. I'm in good (secular) spirits.

However... I have no spiritual energy, interest, or curiosity. The same state I was in when I left. The same state I've been in, to varying degrees, although the general slope is unambiguously downward, for about the last three years. In this regard I have not been rejuvenated.

My spiritual lethargy is neither doubt nor depression. I am not suffering from a lack of faith--or I should say the peaks and valleys of my personal faith roller coaster have held constant in their amplitudes. Nor am I depressed. Nor do I find it more difficult to pray. Church is not a burden. None of those things. It is just this: I have no interest in studying anything new, or digging deep into matters theological, or following the latest evangelical kerfuffles.¹

I used to dive into arm-chair theology at every spare moment. I would devour books, study controversies, change my mind, change it again, plot my next Sunday School course, study controversies, study church history, change my mind yet again, and take every opportunity to discuss theology with my brothers and sisters. I believe I had the virtue of not caring whether people thought I was right about a particular doctrine, and of recognizing that I might in fact be wrong. I simply thrived on the proverbial iron-sharpening-iron.

Now, instead of theological persuits, I'd rather read popular novels, binge watch something on Netflix, or play Free Cell on my phone. These activities did not distract me from study. They filled the void when I stopped studying.

I don't think this is temporary. I think it is now congenital. And it's not really worrying me. It seems to be the next iteration of me. It is what it is.

You don't have to thank me for a cheerful post! It's what I do!

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¹ I started to track one yesterday. Some people are upset with Beth Moore, about whom I know very little. There were calls for church discipline. I couldn't focus enough to discern the particulars. The most I could glean is that perhaps she is too soft on the question of homosexuality. It's so tiresome, this circular firing squad of conservative and liberal evangelicals arguing. One commenter announced that he was proud to be a conservative Christian, and that (among other things) socialism was stealing.² Did I really used to jump into this sort of fray?

² If we grant that socialism is a sin (stealing)  because the government takes your money without your permission and uses it elsewhere, then isn't all government expenditure of tax dollars (including defense spending) also stealing for the same reason? How is the line drawn here? <sup>3

3</sup> That's a rhetorical question, and I have no interest in an actual answer.

Thanks for the comments!

Thank you all who commented of the previous post. It appears the commenting system, though not robust, kinda sorta works.

I will be elsewhere for the next three weeks, so it is probable (but not certain) that I will not be posting again until the second week of July.

Cheers!

Comment Test

Two people (which sounds better than the equivalent: 33% of my readers) have told me they can't post comments. If you have a chance, try on this post. If it fails I would appreciate an email to that effect at heddle AT gmail DOT com.

Thanks!

Musings on divine genocide

But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you, (Deut 20:17) 

I have never heard a comforting exegesis of the genocide commands found in the Old Testament as part of the conquest of the Holy Land.

Virtually every explanation centers on how sinful the ites were—but that is simply a variant of the “thank you God that I am not such a sinner as he” false assurance trap. If being sinful and in rebellion against God was a reason for divine ethnic cleansing ¹ then the Jews (and every other ethnicity, ites or not) should have been command to kill one another, with the victors then required to commit mass suicide.

From a theological standpoint I can accept that everything God commands is good. From a human standpoint I recoil at what was commanded and what transpired, and see no good in it, even as I admit that it (the good) must be there, hiding from my sight.

Recently I heard this argument. I’m paraphrasing:

So you find it offensive that God ordained the deaths of these peoples at the hands of the Jews? Is God not sovereign? Would not God have ordained their deaths anyway? Would you find it less offensive if God ordained their deaths scattered over the following 50 years by various means—illness, accident, etc., but nevertheless a death that is just as dead and just as ordained? 

That’s not a helpful perspective (although at least it was novel to me.) Yes I find it more offensive to order one group to annihilate another with the sword even though all deaths, even the deaths by natural causes, are ordained. Not to mention (and the person making this argument did not mention it) that the manner in which God ordained the deaths of these people groups mean the extinction of their bloodlines, as it were. So the argument just doesn’t work. Meh. Thanks for trying.

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¹ Actually it is, except for God’s mercy. Wherein possibly lies the truth of the matter, regardless of how unsatisfying. And it will likely never be satisfying until we come face to face with the awful reality of God’s holiness. Then it will be like: Oh, yeah...

Musings on Original Sin

I believe it is fair to say that there are two views on what one means by claiming an "Augustinian" perspective of Original Sin. One view is this:

V1: That Adam was our representative, and furthermore given that he was chosen by God we can assume he was the best possible representative. When he sinned he lost the moral ability to choose not to sin. Put differently, he lost the ability to please God. This moral inability was then inherited by all his descendants. In other words, we suffer devastating consequences (and in fact, spiritual death) as a result of Adam’s sin.

The other view is:

V2: Everything in V1, plus we are literally charged with Adam’s first sin, as if we committed it.

Now practically speaking the difference between V1 and V2 is completely irrelevant. In both views we cannot save ourselves and we need a savior. However, theologically speaking they say very different things about God. More about that anon. For now, let's discuss the limited question of what did Augustine teach.

More crudely, was Adam's first sin in our debit column? Did the generally credited father of the doctrine, Augustine, teach that? Well, on another site, someone was (politely and cogently) defending the view that Augustine teaches V2, providing as proof quotes from Augustine's works:

In City of God, [Augustine] writes, 

“we all existed in that one man, since, taken together, we were the one man who fell into sin.” Even though “the specific form by which each of us was to live was not yet created and assigned, our nature was already present in the seed from which we were to spring” (13.14). 

Similarly, in On Marriage and Concupiscence [Augustine] states, 

“By the evil will of that one man all sinned in him, since all were that one man, from whom, therefore, they individually derived original sin” (2.15). 

And in A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants (MFS) he makes the connection repeatedly. 

“Adam is the only one in whom all have sinned” (1.19);
“none whatever […] die except in Adam, in whom all sinned” (1.55). 

In A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, he writes that there are two viable options on how to read the last clause of Romans 5:12, but both reveal the same truth: 

“Let them, then, choose which they will,—for either in that ‘man’ all have sinned, and it is so said because when he sinned all were in him; or in that ‘sin’ all have sinned, because that was the doing of all in general which all those who were born would have to derive” (4.7). 

He says much the same thing two more times in the rest of the chapter, and also explains these two readings in MFS 1.11. Adam’s sin, according to Augustine, was the doing of all (and incidentally, he did lean heavily on Romans 5:12 to make his case, even if the surrounding verses and a few other passages were sometimes also mentioned). And how, exactly, did Augustine picture us existing in that one man? The closest he gets to explaining his reasoning comes from his last work, the Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian (I’m quoting the 1999 Teske translation, though second-hand): 

Some sort of invisible and intangible power is located in the secrets of nature where the natural laws of propagation are concealed, and on account of this power as many as were going to be able to be begotten from that one man by the succession of generations are certainly not untruthfully said to have been in the loins of the father. They were there […] though unknowingly and unwillingly, because they did not yet exist as persons who could have known and willed this (6.22) 

We were all present in Adam in seed form, we participated in the sin with Adam, and the sin corrupted our seed form so that, together with Augustine’s view of concupiscence in sexual union (which I won’t get into now), we are conceived in sin. It isn’t just the sexual act that makes us conceived in sin, but this act confirms the sin we already participated in and bear the stain of.

I (and others) would argue that everything above quoted from Augustine (or about Augustine), such as being "in Adam in seed form" and the like, is perfectly consistent with V1 as well as V2. It does not require that we are charged with Adam’s actual first sin. In V1 and V2 we are saying that we inherit something awful from Adam (in V2, epsilon more), and Augustine, in the language of his day, is explaining what that is so. Had Augustine written in the modern era, it is not outrageous to speculate that he would have a much easier time expressing the concealed "secrets of nature where the natural laws of propagation" using the metaphor of genetics.

The great reformed confessions, written by men who certainly considered themselves Augustinian, are explicit only about V1. If they meant V2, they left it for our inference. The 1530 Augsburg Confession, for example, writes:

It is taught among us that since the fall of Adam, all human beings who are born in the natural way are conceived and born in sin. This means that from birth they are full of evil lust and inclination and cannot by nature possess true fear of God and true faith in God” (II:2). 

The Heidelberg catechism states:

III.7. Whence then comes this depraved nature of man? From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise, whereby our nature became so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin. 

The closest that arguably comes to affirming V2 is the Westminster:

VI.3 They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation Even there one could legitimately hold that that while the divines are arguing for imputation, they are explicitly stating the consequences or effect of the imputation (V1) without claiming that the actual sin is in our debit column.

Snide Aside: A sign of being "too reformed" (if that's possible) is using the confessions to prove a theological argument  (see Begging the Question) rather than (as they should be used) to explain a theological position--to give a starting point. ¹

Now, I have heard many of my fellow reformed argue that the word "imputed" in the WCF implies that the divines taught V2. But that would be a very different form of imputation than used elsewhere, where either the consequences of the imitation are inarguably beneficial (Christ's righteousness imputed to us) or are voluntarily accepted (our sin imputed to Christ, what a deal!).

Even in the WCF one could legitimately hold that that while the divines are arguing for imputation (of a sort), they are explicitly stating the consequences or effect of the imputation (V1) without claiming that the actual sin is in our debit column.

The bottom line is this: neither Augustine's writings (or Paul's, upon which it is based), nor the confessions demand V2. If someone tells you that they do, it is because they are demanding an interpretation that fits their conclusion.

The speculative consequences of V2

So, what is the big deal if God actually charges us with Adam's sin, as if we committed it? Here are some purely speculative thoughts:

• Why only Adam's first sin? If Augustine's view really means we were metaphysically bound to Adam such that his sin is our sin as if we committed it (as opposed to V1, where we "only" suffer the consequences of his first sin) why aren't all Adam's sins in our debit column? Where does it teach that Adam's first sin broke that metaphysical connection?


• Does this not impugn God's character? The obvious thought experiment is this: suppose someone accomplished the impossible and lived a sinless life (it's just a thought experiment!) Would they still face the prospect of eternal damnation for a sin they didn't commit?


• In the Incarnation, where is it taught that Christ (fully man) was born not only without a sinful moral DNA inherited from Adam, but also had his debit of Adam's first sin erased?


• Does this not make God unnecessarily cruel, further impugning his character? If we are charged with Adam's sin as if we committed it, why phase two of the fall, in which all of our moral ability is removed? If we have Adam's first sin on our charge, we already stand condemned and in need of a savior.

These are just musings and not intended as well established principles. But I find them worth pondering.

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¹ And sadly I have seen, over and over, that the more reformed you are the more certain you are correct (about everything theological) and the more likely you are to call your views cardinal, and differing views heresy or, if you are slightly more circumspect, to claim that the differing views, while not outright heresy, will, if not corrected, inevitably lead via the ever-handy slippery slope to heresy. If such a point of view were limited to the Gospel, it would be palatable.

Defining the Faith (remix)

Let us quickly review some early church heresies:

Docetism

This was a denial of the incarnation. There were variations, but a common view was that the Christ-Spirit came upon the Jesus-man at his baptism, and departed from him at the crucifixion, leaving the Jesus-man to die. Another Docetic school held that Jesus' human form was an illusion, ghost, or phantom. A form of Docetism is even found in the Koran:

And for claiming that they killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of GOD. In fact, they never killed him, they never crucified him - they were made to think that they did. All factions who are disputing in this matter are full of doubt concerning this issue. They possess no knowledge; they only conjecture. For certain, they never killed him. (Koran 4:157)

Gnosticism

Gnosticism generally included Docetism, but went way beyond it. It was, and is, in many ways, the most dangerous of all heresies for its enduring ability to attract advocates. In the modern era it is represented by the New Age movement, Astrology, Eastern Religions, etc. It incorporated the idea of knowledge as being the path to salvation. The goal of acquiring the special knowledge was to awaken the divine within us—remnants of the creation of the material world by a misguided demigod. As it co-opted Christianity, Jesus was presented a messenger of the supreme god, who came to enlighten us as to how we could return to the intended spiritual state.

Gnostics, unlike Christians, do not believe that God created the earth, or that creation of the material world was "good."

The identification of the physical as evil resulted in one of two extreme lifestyle choices: asceticism or, following the logic that the flesh is irrelevant, "anything goes."

Marcionism

A sort of minimal Gnosticism in which there are two gods: the lesser god of the Old Testament, who did the unsavory act of creating the material world, and the loving merciful god of the New Testament, who was Jesus’ father. Recall that Marcion’s rewriting of scripture provided the incentive for the Church to make great strides in organizing the canon.

Montanism

One could debate whether this is properly labeled as a heresy or just a misguided sect. While Gnosticism exaggerated the importance of the intellect, Montanism overemphasized the experiential. The Montanists believed that the age of the Son had ended and the age of the Paraclete (Holy Spirit) had begun. They exalted prophets and prophetess, who spoke not as messengers, “…Thus saith the Lord,” but rather as if they were possessed by God, such as Montanus: "I am the Father, the Word, and the Paraclete." The greatest known Montanist was Tertullian.

Defining the Faith

The church had to respond to these early heresies. One important way was through early creeds, used for the most part, especially in the earliest days, during baptisms. The creeds were modified from time to time to arrest the spread of error. Thus the early baptismal creed had to be extended beyond the line:

I believe in God the Father.

Since, for example, Marcion could affirm such a statement, to

I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth.

This, neither Marcion (nor any of the Gnostics) could affirm, for it identified the God the Father—whom they would consider the New Testament god—with God the creator, or the Old Testament god. Irenaeus (115-190), Bishop of Lyon, and author of Against Heresies (Full title included Detection and Overthrow of the False Knowledge, i.e., this work was meant to refute Gnosticism) summarized, around A.D. 180, the church’s beliefs as:

"...one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father ‘to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, ‘every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess; to him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all...'" (Against Heresies X.l)

Here it is again made plain that God the Maker is also God the Father, and that the current Christian dispensation is vitally connected to the Old Testament, since through the Holy Spirit it was proclaimed through the prophets.

Here we see our threefold confession: In God the Creator and Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The orthodox understanding relationship among the three personalities, however, would not develop so easily, but more of that anon.

The Apostolic Tradition, usually credited to Hippolytus (?-236, and the first antipope) contains the following baptismal liturgy

When the elder takes hold of each of them who are to receive baptism, he shall tell each of them to renounce, saying, "I renounce you Satan, all your service, and all your works."  After he has said this, he shall anoint each with the Oil of Exorcism, saying, "Let every evil spirit depart from you." Then, after these things, the bishop passes each of them on nude to the elder who stands at the water. They shall stand in the water naked. A deacon, likewise, will go down with them into the water. When each of them to be baptized has gone down into the water, the one baptizing shall lay hands on each of them, asking, "Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?" And the one being baptized shall answer, "I believe." He shall then baptize each of them once, laying his hand upon each of their heads. Then he shall ask, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose on the third day living from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, the one coming to judge the living and the dead?" When each has answered, "I believe," he shall baptize a second time. Then he shall ask, "Do you believe in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Church and the resurrection of the flesh?" Then each being baptized shall answer, "I believe." And thus let him baptize the third time.

Note that from the earlier creedal statement, we see the expansion of the description of Christ. This is adapted into the so-called Apostle’s creed, which we present below annotated so as to clarify its response to Gnosticism.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth,

Gnostics taught that the material world is evil, and that God the Father did not make it.

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary,

Gnostics (and Docetists) denied that God had taken human nature or a human body. As stated, many believed the Christ-Spirit came upon the man Jesus at his baptism, and departed from him at the crucifixion, or that Jesus’ human form was an illusion. Against this denial of the Incarnation, the Church affirmed that Jesus was conceived through the action of the Holy Spirit, refuting the Gnostic claim that the Spirit had nothing to do with Jesus until His baptism, that he was born (i.e., he had a real physical body, and not just an appearance) of a virgin (which implied that he had been special from the first moment of his life, and not just from His baptism).

Suffered under Pontius Pilate,

Affirms that Jesus, in his deity, suffered—he was not whisked away leaving just a human shell to suffer. Recall that Docetic literature such as the Gospel of Peter denied that Jesus as God suffered.

was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into Hades.

The explicit reference to dead and buried, and the descent into Hades (Hell), make it clear that the death of Jesus was not just a swoon or a coma, but death in every sense of the word.

The third day he rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic church,

Gnostics believed that the most important Christian doctrines were reserved for a select, intellectual elite. The creed affirms that the fullness of the Gospel was to be preached to the entire human race. Hence the term "catholic," or universal.

the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,

Gnostics denied that men needed redemption or forgiveness, but enlightenment. Ignorance was the only unpardonable sin. Some of them, believing the body to be a snare and delusion, led lives of great asceticism. Others, believing the body to be quite independent of the soul, held that it did not matter what the body did. They accordingly led libertine lives. Either way, the notion of forgiveness was alien to them.

the resurrection of the body,

The chief goal of the Gnostics was to shed the body, which was but a prison of the spiritual. Their goal was to return spiritually to the heavenly realm. They totally rejected any idea of the resurrection of the body.

and the life everlasting. AMEN

The Nature of the Threefold Revelation

Although the baptismal and doctrinal creeds did much to combat Gnosticism, there still remained the difficult question of the exact nature of the relationship among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This complex issue resulted in additional heresy.

Monarchianism

Monarchianism had a noble goal: addressing the criticism that Christians were tritheists, that is they worshipped three gods. (Today, many non-Christians including Jews, and even some who call themselves Christians, still view orthodox Christianity’s claim of monotheism as being patently absurd.) The various schools of thought know as Monarchianism taught that Jesus and the Spirit were but emanations from God, or that they were merely different forms in which the Father chose to manifest himself from time to time.

One Monarchian school was Dynamism. Christ, according to the Dynamists, was a faculty, feature, or emanation of God, like the rays of the sun or a stream from a fountain. The bottom line: the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are but a single Person. One of the leading proponents of Dynamism was the Bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata. In 268, the Church condemned him as a heretic. He was accused of acquiring great wealth by illicit means, of showing haughtiness and worldliness, of having set up for himself a lofty pulpit in the church, and of insulting those who did not applaud him and wave their handkerchiefs, of admitting women to live in his house, and had permitted the same to his clergy.)

Ironically, this Paul, a heretic, is noteworthy for introducing into the theology of the trinity the Greek adjective homoousios (of the same substance) which will be important in the orthodox formulation.

Dynamism was usually coupled with Adoptionism, which taught that Jesus the man was promoted to the rank of Son of God because of his perfect obedience. This heresy makes its way into classic literature, when Milton, in Paradise Regained, puts these words into the mouth of the Father:

This perfect Man, by merit call'd your Son.

A more popular school of Monarchianism was called Sabellianism (after Sabellius, priest of Northern Africa, ~215) or Modalism. According to this school, The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are simply three roles played by God. The Sabellianists do not deny, for example, the Apostle’s creed, for it describes the three manifestations of God while saying nothing of His inner being.

The Sabellianists were also called Patripassians, (pater –father, passio –suffering) for their doctrine implied that the Father and the Son are essentially the same person, and so the father suffered on the cross. The Sabellianists, according to Tertullian, “drove out prophecy and brought in heresy, expelled the Paraclete (Holy Spirit) and crucified the Father.”

In the same way that Marcion stimulated the church begin formalizing the canon, Monarchianism forced the church to examine the scriptures to formulate the correct view of the triune God. In particular, Sabellianism (Modalism), while not completely unattractive, was simply incompatible with scripture that spoke of the Father sending the Son, or the Father and Son sending the Holy Spirit, or the Son praying to the Father, etc.

that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. (John 5:23)

that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. (John 17:21)

And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" (Gal. 4:6)

¹⁶I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever– ¹⁷the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:16-17)

But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:7)

The problem, then and now, is summarized succinctly by F. F. Bruce: Our conception of God must fall short of His real being, and our language about him must fall short of our conception.

In defining an orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, it has proved extremely difficult to find the right terms that avoid error in the two extremes: Modalism, in which the Father, Son, and Spirit are just three ways that God alternately reveals himself, or tritheism, in which the three are so distinct as to constitute three different gods.

It must be established that, axiomatically, Christianity, and the New Testament, affirms monotheism as ardently as Judaism. Whatever else we may, as Christians, say about the nature of God, we solidly affirm that He is One. As Christians, we agree with the Jewish creed of Maimonides that states:

I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be His name, is a Unity, and that there is no unity in any manner like unto His, and that He alone isour God who was, is, and will be.

But, unlike Jews, we do not see the unity of God as a monolithic unity. As the early theologians struggled to find ways to express this, we must remember that they were not merely waxing philosophical, but trying to find expression that did justice to revelation and experience. God had revealed Himself, and had been experienced, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in His word. God did not, as the Adoptionists taught, wait around until a man of Jesus’ stellar character arrived; God took the initiative in sending the Son.

Among the church fathers, Hippolytus was forceful in his attack on the Roman bishops (popes) Zephyrinus (202-217) and Callistus (217-222) in what he regarded as their complicity in the spread of Sabellianism, although it must be added that Callistus eventually excommunicated Sabellius.

It was, however, Tertullian who provided the greatest service in developing the terms that began to express what Christians believed but couldn’t say.

It is to Tertullian to whom we owe the word “Trinity”, and also the language of one substance in three persons. And though we still use the words substance and persons in describing the trinity, they do not mean exactly what they meant for Tertullian, and so in some ways our expression of the Trinity suffers somewhat.

For Tertullian, the Latin word persona denoted one who played a part or performed a function in society. Tertullian adopted the word to theology, and spoke of three persona in the indivisible Godhead. Today, the word means more that it did to Tertullian, essentially meaning “persons”, but three persons is closer to a tritheist view that we really want to go.

Likewise, when Tertullian used the word substance (Latin substantia) we again have a problem. Tertullian did not mean it as we do today; for us the word substance is inextricably tied to materiality. We view "of one substance" as meaning "made out of the same stuff." Tertullian would have meant something closer to the modern meaning of "essence" rather than substance. For Tertullian and other third century theologians:

God is one Being, eternally existing the threefold relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; each of these three is "the one God, thinking, willing and acting, in one of His three eternal spheres of thought, volition and activity… the indivisible Godhead subsisting and operating in one of the essential relations of His Tripersonal life." (H.B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church)

Origen of Alexandria, probably the church's greatest thinker and scholar of the first three centuries, also struggled with the doctrine of the Trinity. In Origen's reaction to Monarchianism, he went too far. He thought that the Father, Son, and Spirit occupied a hierarchical position within the unity of the Godhead. The Son was subordinate to the Father, and the Spirit to the Son. He even taught that the Son was a creature, not in the sense that he was a created being but that the Son's being was derived from the Father's and is subject to His will. (He was not, however, an Arian—a heresy of the following [fourth] century that denied the divinity of Christ, which we will discuss later.)

The third century did not end (if indeed it ever has ended) the debate on the doctrine of God’s inner being. The next big advancement would come with the Arian controversy.