Tuesday, 20 June 2017

Christ Jesus Came to Save the Ethically Pure?

This is a reply to the article "What Does Scripture Mean by Grace?" by Herman Hanko.

Particularly this will be a response to the latter half of the article where Herman Hanko discusses the meaning of grace as given by Herman Hoeksema.
He points out, first of all, that grace is an attribute of God. God, says Hoeksema, is gracious in Himself. As proof of this use of grace in Scripture, he refers to Exodus 34:6: “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth”; and I Peter 5:10: “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.”  
Hoeksema considers this to be an important point. He argues that God never becomes outside Himself what He is not, first of all, within His own triune covenant life. He is gracious in Himself. The grace that He reveals to sinners is the grace which He is within His own being. And so, such revelations of His grace as He is pleased to show in Christ Jesus are revelations of His own perfections.
Hanko starts off by telling us that Hoeksema teaches that the "grace that He reveals to sinners is the grace which He is within His own being" which means God is revealing his essence to men. This contradicts the doctrine of divine simplicity which denies such a direct communication of attributes is possible since all the attributes of God are his essence and his essence is incommunicable.

Regarding divine simplicity Hoeksema writes:
God's simplicity also signifies that God is not composed, that his essence and his virtues are identical, that he is his virtues, and that all his virtues are absolutely one in him.
Reformed Dogmatics Vol 1, pg 106
We see that Hoeksema defines grace as a virtue as well as an attribute of God.
As an attribute of God, grace is that divine virtue according to which God is the perfection of all beauty and loveliness and contemplates himself as such with infinite delight. 
-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics Vol 1, pg. 160
This means, according to Hoeksema, God's grace is identical to his essence.  So when Hanko writes "The grace that He reveals to sinners is the grace which He is within His own being" he is necessarily saying that God is revealing his essence to sinners.

On page 95 of Volume 1 of his Reformed Dogmatics Hoeksema rejects the division of God's attributes into communicable and incommunicable. The closest Hoeksema comes to saying anything regarding the communicable attributes of God is on page 106:
Of the creature, who has a dependent existence, it may be said that it possesses certain virtues, though only as a reflection of the perfections of God.
If the virtues possessed by creatures are only reflections of the perfections of God then it cannot be that, as Hanko writes:
The grace that He reveals to sinners is the grace which He is within His own being. And so, such revelations of His grace as He is pleased to show in Christ Jesus are revelations of His own perfections.
Does God reveal his essence to man or is God's revelation of his grace only a reflection of that perfection?  It can't be both.  

The affirmation that man receives of God's essence goes beyond even the Eastern Orthodox who make a distinction between God's essence and his energies (attributes) and teach that man participates in God's energies (theosis).

Hanko then goes on to describe how this grace of God applies to man.
It is at this point that the two ideas come together. Grace is attractiveness which is rooted in ethical perfection; but it is also an attitude of God towards men. Now this latter can mean two things. It may mean that the one who is gracious is ethically perfect. God is gracious because He is ethically perfect. 
But, quite obviously, this idea does not do justice to the texts cited above in which Scripture states that David and Mary found grace in the sight of God. The idea is here that these two are the objects of God’s attitude of favor, of approval, of delight. The idea here is, then, that God’s attitude towards them is an attitude which cannot possibly be rooted in themselves or in the kind of people they were. They were wicked and ethically impure.
God is favorably inclined to them, therefore, because they were ethically perfect for another reason than the kind of people they actually were. They were ethically pure objectively in Christ Who died for them so that God sees them in Christ. But that great attitude of God’s favor towards them made them ethically pure.

According to Hanko and Hoeksema God can only be gracious to ethically pure beings. In themselves the elect are wicked and ethically impure.  How then can God show grace to them? He is gracious to the elect because he sees them in Christ as being ethically pure. They say it is God's favour to the elect that makes them ethically pure.

The problem here is that Hanko and Hoeksema leave no room for any real graciousness towards dead sinners. Paul says we were without God and separate from Him. That we were dead in sins and that in Christ we were made alive. So that means God has mercy on us as sinners not as ethically pure beings. 
Ephesians 2:4: But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 
Ephesians 2:5: Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Paul also tells us the Christ came to save sinners. 
I Timothy 1:15: This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
He says that God considered us as and loved us as sinners.
Romans 5:8: But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
But Hanko and Hoeksema are saying that elect sinners are never considered as such by God. They are necessarily seen as ethically pure beings in Christ because if they were not then no grace could be given them. If we are to accept this definition of grace we must say that the elect were never sinners in any objective sense (towards God) but only subjectively (towards themselves). 

In fact this is exactly what Hanko writes:
They were ethically pure objectively in Christ Who died for them so that God sees them in Christ.
While this scheme seems to be another variation of eternal justification it goes much deeper than that. It is  a repudiation of the Scripture teaching that God saves sinners because for Hanko and Hoeksema the elect are never considered as sinners, they are considered as "ethically pure objectively in Christ." This completely undoes the work of Christ which the Scriptures say was done on the behalf of sinners by making sin a moot point.

If man is a sinner and God cannot have communion with sinners then when did he consider them objectively in Chirst since he cannot consider them at all while they are in a state of being sinners? The answer can only be before they were created. Hence eternal justification.  And this would mean the whole she-bang.  Everything about justification, except for man's receiving of it by faith, is accomplished in eternity. But what does that even matter? Objectively the elect sinner has been considered as ethically righteous in Christ  A subjective reception of this by faith is meaningless because there is no consideration of the elect as sinners. Sin is merely an afterthought or not even a thought at all since God cannot commune with sinners according to Hoeksema and Hanko.

There are a lot of problems with this definition of grace. Not the least being that this is not a definition to be found anywhere expect in Hoeskema's Reformed Dogmatics. A God who reveals his essence to man and who does not commune with sinners such as Hoeksema posits and Hanko affirms is simply nowhere to be found in the scriptures or in any of the systems of Reformed dogmatics nor in any theological system East or West.

Tuesday, 6 June 2017

The Protestant Reformed Church is not the Voice of Historic Christianity

Introduction

“What is the nature and potentially the source of the continuities and discontinuities, similarities and differences that exist between the thought of Herman Hoeksema and the PRC and earlier thinkers who stand within the bounds of Reformed confessionality?”

Argument

The Protestant Reformed Church professes to be “The Voice of Historic Christianity” and a “faithful and bold witness to the faith of the Protestant Reformation as set forth in the Reformed and Presbyterian creeds.” 

The Standard Bearer is the periodical of the Protestant Reformed Church

Yet despite this profession the PRC holds to several distinctive doctrines which set them apart from the rest of the Reformed world.  Namely, a denial of common grace meaning the idea that God has a general welfare for all mankind, a denial of the well-meant offer meaning a denial that God desires  in any sense the salvation of all who hear the gospel, a denial that post-fall man is created in the image of God, and a denial of a two-fold covenant schema of works and grace.

Regarding the Covenant

Professor Rusell Dykstra, editor of the Standard Bearer, wrote an article, “God Dwelling With His People in Covenant Fellowship,” where he delineates the development of the covenant within the PRC.  He acknowledges that "the truth which they have emphasized and further developed in distinction from other Reformed Churches” “distinguishes the covenant theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches from virtually all others in the Presbyterian and Reformed church world today.” He also acknowledges that the founders of the PRC “redefined the essence of the covenant.” 

He quotes Hoeksema as calling the PRC covenant doctrine “peculiar.”

Hoeksema, in “The Covenant God's Tabernacle with Men" writes:
“the notion that God promised Adam "eternal life" is a pure invention, a figment of the imagination.”  
This is a serious accusation and basically condemns all of Reformed covenant theology as well as the confessions (WCF and Helvetic Consensus) that teach the Covenant of Works and the promise of eternal life upon obedience as a damnable lie. “Figment of the imagination” is exactly what any Protestant would term transubstantiation since indeed the elements do not change into blood or flesh. This accusation insinuates that the teachers of the Covenant of Works were all deceived rather than led by the Holy Spirit into all truth. This accusation admits of the most serious discontinuity between the Reformed churches and the PRC in regards to the covenant. 

Indeed former PRC seminary professor and minister David Englesma writes, 
"There is reason to be uneasy with the traditional understanding of the covenant by Reformed theology."
Trinity and Covenant, pg 113
Dyskstra ends his article with these words: 
The doctrine of a sovereign, particular covenant of grace, as a relationship of friendship is the distinctive doctrine of the PRC and the probable purpose of God for bringing this small band of churches into existence. True unity between the Protestant Reformed Churches and any other denomination is possible only and insofar as there is agreement on this vital doctrine.
PRC minister Angus Stewart writes:
Hoeksema's formulation of the covenant (both before and after the fall) as a gracious bond of friendship explains the biblical data, excludes all human merit, and preserves the absolute sovereignty of God.”  
-Angus Stewart “Covenant with Adam: A Brief Historical Analysis” 

As if the traditional Reformed formulation of the covenant per Witisius, Turretin, and the WCF do not do the same.

Furthermore the PRC denies that God can make or enter into a covenant with anyone who is not a member of the elect. Regarding the Noahic covenant and the Abrahamic covenant the PRC teaches that only the elect were the objects of the covenant.
“It is not true that when the seed of Noah and his sons is mentioned, all the descendants of them are meant. This is never the case in scripture. The seed of Abraham does not mean all the natural descendants of Abraham, head for head; it does not even mean all the descendants of Abraham through Isaac.”   
-Homer Hoeksema, Unfolding Covenant History Vol. 2, pg 34
“With this revelation God also makes plain that his covenant is with Abraham’s spiritual seed. It is not established with all the seed of Abraham according to the flesh.”   
-Homer Hoeksema, Unfolding Covenant History Vol. 2, pg 172.
Calvin, in his commentary on Genesis, rejects this limited conception of the Noahic and Abrahamic covenants. 
“Moreover, there is no doubt that it was the design of God to provide for all his (Noah’s) posterity. It was not therefore a private covenant confirmed with one family only, but now which is common to all people, and which shall flourish in all ages to the end of the world.”   
-Calvin, Comm. Gen. Vol. 1., pg 297
“There is no doubt that the Lord distinguishes the race of Abraham from the rest of the world. We must now see what people he intends. Now they are deceived who think that his elect alone are here pointed out; and that all the faithful are indiscriminately comprehended, from whatever people, according to the flesh, they are descended. For, on the contrary, the Scripture declares that the race of Abraham, by lineal descent, had been peculiarly accepted of God. And it is the evident doctrine of Paul concerning the natural descendants of Abraham, that they are holy branches which have proceeded from a holy root, Rom. ix. 16.). And lest any one should restrict this assertion the shadows of the law, or should evade it by allegory, he elsewhere expressly declares, that Christ came to be a minister of the circumcision, (Rom. xv.8.). Wherefore, nothing is more certain, than that God made his covenant with those sons of Abraham who were naturally to be born of him.”   
-Calvin, Comm. Gen. vol 1, pg 447-448.
Calvin calls the PRC deceived in their covenant doctrine. Thus we see not only a major discontinuity with the confessions and the doctrine of the Reformed church, which the PRC readily admits, but we see Calvin utterly rejecting and condemning the covenant doctrine of the PRC and any read through of Witsius or Turretin will show the same.

The Well meant offer

The PRC denies the doctrine of the well-meant offer.

Quoting David Englesma from "Hyper-Calvisim and the Call of the Gospel,"
The well-meant offer teaches that God goes out in the preaching to many sinners in love and grace, desiring to save them and trying to save them, but failing to save them... The issue at stake in the doctrine of the offer is nothing less that the truth of sovereign grace: "The standpoint of 1924 is Arminian. That the preaching of the gospel is common grace—this is the Arminian conception." In opposition to the well-meant offer, Hoeksema held, not that there is not a call to all who hear the gospel but that "the preaching of the gospel is grace only for the elect, and that is not and can never be anything else for the reprobate than the judgment and a savor of death to death." This is the issue: this is "our difference with the Christian Reformed Church."  
The well-meant offer teaches that God's grace is universal. The Protestant Reformed Churches maintain that God's grace is particular, specifically now in the preaching of the gospel. The truth that God's grace is particular is essential for a confession of the sovereignty of grace. If God's grace in the preaching is for everybody, it is not sovereign grace. And the truth that God's grace in the preaching of the gospel is particular, sovereign grace is the very heart of the Reformed faith...
That which is objectionable in the "free offer of the gospel" or "well-meant offer," is not the teaching that the church must preach to everyone and must call all hearers to faith in Jesus Christ. But the error of the doctrine of the offer, and the reason why a Reformed man must repudiate it, is its teaching that the grace of God in Jesus Christ, grace that is saving in character, is directed to all men in the preaching of the gospel.
https://rfpa.org/pages/protestant-reformed-faith-well-meant-offer
Contrary to this repudiation that grace and love are universally offered to all hearers of the preaching of the Gospel Calvin says:





-Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, sermon 28, pg. 167


-Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, sermon 31, pg. 187
In these sermons we see that Calvin teaches the love of Christ extends to all because he calls all, great and small, through the preaching of the Gospel. He offers himself generally to all men without exception to be their redeemer. Christ's death is a proof of his love to all men. Likewise it is the preaching of the Gospel that is the warrant of faith for all who hear it.

This conception of Calvin's is totally different from that of the PRC which denies that the preaching of the Gospel is a gracious offer of salvation directed toward all men.

The PRC calls Calvin's teaching Arminian.  But we plainly see it is Calvinistic.


Regarding the Image of God

The PRC holds to a unique view of man whereby they teach that man is no longer created “imago Dei”  but is now “imago Diablo.”
At the fall Adam lost the imago dei and begat children in his image (Gen. 5:1-3), the image of the devil (cf. Canons III/IV:1-2).  
- Angus Stewart,  Image of God in Man A Reformed Assessment
Fallen man is still man, but he is a man who bears the imago diaboli. Redeemed man is also man, a man who bears the imago dei.   
-Angus Stewart, Image of God in Man A Reformed Assessment 
This means redeemed man was once imago diaboli. A sheep was once a goat. 
Rejecting the broader/narrower conception, Hoeksema opts for a formal/material distinction in the divine image. By this he means that man as man, unlike a dog, for example, is capable (formal sense of the imago dei) of bearing God’s image, which consists of spiritual ethical virtues (material sense of the imago dei).  
-Angus Stewart, Image of God in Man A Reformed Assessment  
This is a denial that man was fashioned in God’s image at creation in a way that was intrinsic and necessary to his being. This posits that man is merely an empty vessel, a tabula rasa, who can either bear or not bear, be filled with or not be filled with, contain or not contain, the image of God and that it is nonessential to his nature as man. This doctrine also reduces the image to qualities.

Hoeksema claims it is not “confessionally Reformed” to believe that man is still the image of God in any sense whatsoever.
Later Reformed theologians made a distinction that had found its way into the Reformed churches....and that is rather generally accepted as belonging to Reformed doctrine. The distinction is between the image of God in the wider sense and the image of God in the narrower sense. 
The image in the narrower sense was lost through the fall; the image in the wider sense was retained. 
It must be remembered that this distinction is not confessionally Reformed. 
-Reformed Dogmatics Vol.1 , pg 293 
Yet the Reformed world at large confesses that man is still made in the image of God. See Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pg. 312 - 313. Muller also points out that the measured language of the Canons of Dort do not even mention a doctrine like “total depravity,” as understood by the PRC to mean an absolute lack of any good and a denial that man is imago dei, in the very sections which the PRC appeal to for their doctrine of man bearing the “imago diablo.”
“Whereas Calvin himself used phrases like “totally depraved” or “utterly perverse,” such terminology does not appear in the Canons of Dort, which declare briefly that “all have sinned in Adam” and are therefore under the curse and destined for eternal death. In other words, on the issue of the “T” in TULIP, the language of the Canons of Dort is more measured than that of Calvin. “Total depravity,” at least as understood in colloquial English, is so utterly a grizzly concept as to apply only to the theology of the Lutheran, Matthias Flacius Illyricus, who had an almost dualistic understanding of human nature before and after the fall, arguing the utter replacement of the imago Dei with the imago Satane and indicating that the very substance of fallen humanity was sin.  Neither Calvin nor later Reformed thinkers went in this direction, and to the credit of the Lutherans, they repudiated this kind of language in the Formula of Concord. What was actually at issue, obscured by the imposition of the term “total depravity” on the early modern sources, is not the utter absence of any sort of goodness but the inability so save oneself from sin.”   
-Muller, Calvin and the Reformed Tradition, pg 59-60
Hoeksema is right in saying it is not within the bounds of Reformed confessionality to profess that man is made in God’s image only if one takes the confessions as the be-all end-all of the Christian faith. The confessions are not Scripture and are by no means exhaustive. The confessions contain no covenant doctrine yet Hoeksema has a covenant doctrine. If we are limited to the confessions alone then it is not within the bounds of Reformed confessionality to say that man is now created “imago diablo” because that phrase does not appear in the confessions.

Cannons 3/4 1 & 2 make no mention of “imago diabolo” but only of “Adam's image.” To appeal to the Canons for the “imago diabolo” is futile since such a statement is not in the Canons even by inference and the fact that this doctrine was previously proposed and rejected by the Lutherans as well as the Reformed should give pause to any who would posit it anew.

The PRC reduces the image of god to a donum superadditum not essential to mans nature and consisting only in the qualities of “righteousness, holiness, and true knowledge” which are qualities even the angels possess. Indeed the Leiden Synopsis, the standard handbook of the Reformed faith  during the 17th century which was printed anew in the 19th by Bavinck and in the 21st has been freshly translated into English, declares that the angels were made in the image of God.
Therefore contrary to the Manichaeans and the followers of Priscillian we assert that they were created out of nothing at the beginning of time, and also that they were all good and in God's image. 
-Synopsis Purioris Vol. 1:12.7, pg. 287
This attribution of only three qualities constituting God’s image also compartmentalises man by not taking into account the whole of man in body and soul per Bavinck:
“So the whole human being is image and likeness of God, in soul and body, in all human faculties, powers, and gifts. Nothing in humanity is excluded from God’s image; it stretches as far as our humanity does and constitutes our humanness.” 
-Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 2, pg. 561  
This peculiar doctrine of the image of God is wholly connected to their doctrine of total depravity.
The image of God is a completely ethical category and not in any sense ontological; it consists of spiritual graces not of human faculties. This fits perfectly with the spiritual/ethical view of the fall held by orthodox Protestants. Adam, the federal head of the whole human race, was created after God’s image. At the fall, he lost God’s image completely and partook of the image of the devil, totally and in all his faculties. All his descendants were begotten in this state (cf. Gen. 5:1-3). Only in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus are the elect recreated in the divine image; unbelievers are not in the image of God in any sense. The reprobate will forever bear the imago diaboli, even in Hell. There is no mitigating or limiting factor of the image of God in a broader sense. Just as there is no common grace for all men, so there is no image of God in all men. This means that the divine image of pre-fall Adam is equivalent to Adam’s original righteousness. The image of the devil (which replaced the image of God at the fall) is equivalent to total depravity.
 http://www.cprf.co.uk/articles/imageofgod.htm
The image of God is ethical "not in any sense ontological."  This is a denial that man was created in the image of God. Genesis 1 is very clear that man was created in the image of God.  That is an ontological statement and not an ethical one.  To confess that man is the imago diablo is also an ontological statement and not merely an ethical one since man's total depravity is also ontological.
Psalms 58:3: The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. 
Psalms 51:5: Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. 
Jeremiah 13:23: Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
Certainly sin is accidental and not essential to mans being even after the fall. But it is still a part of his being after the fall. Man sins because he is a sinner.  If total depravity is ontological and imago diablo is equivalent to total depravity than the imago diablo must be ontological and not merely ethical.

Some have taught that the image of God is the connecting point within man which receives the grace of God.  Hoeksema adamantly denies this.
Not infrequently the error is proclaimed even in Reformed circles as if there were in the fallen nature a connecting point for the salvation of man. This must be denied. Nothing in the sinful nature of man is adapted to his salvation.  
-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1, pg. 359
The truth that man is totally depraved implies that man lost what is usually called the image of God in the narrower sense, as it consisted in true knowledge of God, righteousness, and holiness. We must understand, however, that this does not simply mean that he lost the image of God, but rather, that all that is implied in the image of God was turned into its reverse. 
-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol.1, pg. 381
As we have seen above, that "reverse" is the "imago diablo."

This doctrine of the image of God and the equivalency of the imago diablo with total depravity is completely foreign to the Reformed faith and to Christendom. Muller has already been quoted as regards total depravity. To give quote after quote about the image of God would take this article beyond its limits so let Calvin speak.



-Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, sermon 35, pg. 210

Common Grace

The PRC denies that God has any sort of grace or mercy towards the world in general but only toward his elect.  Any perceived grace is actually a manifestation of his wrath.
“The word of God does not know of a divine interest and concern in a general welfare of a human society at large. On the contrary, if we may borrow these terms “welfare” and “society” for a moment, God the Lord is interested in the welfare of the elect society, his covenant people, his church, the saints in Christ Jesus, and in none other.”   
-Homer Hoeksema, Unfolding Covenant History, pg 24
Compare that doctrine with Calvin’s doctrine.
“In this we certainly perceive that God, who is ever attentive to the welfare of the human race, has inclosed the waters within certain invisible barriers, and keeps them shut up to this day.”  
-Calvin, Commentary on Psalms Vol. I, pg 544 (Psalm 33)
“Proofs of the love of God towards the whole human race exists innumerable, all of which demonstrate the ingratitude of those who perish or come “to perdition.” This fact, however, forms no reason whatever why God should not confine his especial or peculiar love to a few, whom he has, in infinite condescension, been pleased to choose out of the rest.”  
-Calvin’s Calvinism, pg. 238
Once again there is discontinuity between the PRC and Calvin.  This discontinuity can also be found by reading various Reformed authors, most notably Bavinck whose dogmatics is imbued with the doctrine of common grace and whom Hoeksema takes many of his cues from.

The root of the PRC's rejection of common grace is their peculiar definitions of God's love, grace, and mercy.

Love
Hence God loves in himself, of himself, through himself, and unto himself. He loves himself. All the love and delight of his divine nature is directed towards his own infinite perfections. 
We may define love as the spiritual bond of perfect fellowship that subsists between ethically perfect, personal beings, who, because of their ethical perfection, have their delight in, seek, and find one another. The love of God is the infinite and eternal bond of fellowship that is based upon the ethical perfection and holiness of the divine nature and that subsists between the persons of the Holy Trinity.   
-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics Vol.1, pg 152 - 153
Grace
However, we may also apply the subjective sense of the word grace, that of a gracious disposition, to God in himself without any relation to the creature outside of him. In other words, God is gracious as the Holy One, as the one who is self-centred and is consecrated to himself, who seeks and finds himself in love. God is attracted by himself, and he is graciously disposed to himself. He is charmed by his own loveliness. He delights in his own infinite beauty, for he is the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
As an attribute of God, grace is that divine virtue according to which God is the perfection of all beauty and loveliness and contemplates himself as such with infinite delight. 
-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics Vol 1, pg. 160

Mercy
As an attribute of God, mercy is the attribute or virtue of God according to which he is tenderly affected toward himself as the highest and sole good and the implication of all perfections, and as the triune God knows and wills himself as the most blessed forever. 
We may add that there is not only a close relation, but also a clear distinction, between love, grace, and mercy. Love is the bond that unites the ethically perfect. Grace is the objective pleasantness and the subjective attraction of the ethically perfect. Mercy wills and desires the ethically perfect to be blessed. It should be evident from this that God cannot be merciful to the reprobate wicked and that his mercy toward his people must be founded in his sovereign election, according to which he beholds them eternally as perfectly righteous in the beloved. 
-Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1, pg 166
The gist of it is that God loves, is gracious to, and is merciful to himself and only himself. Love, grace, and mercy are never directed outward to the creature. God only manifests grace, love, and mercy to any man because he is engrafted into Christ and Christ, as the second Person of the Trinity, is the object of God's love, grace, and mercy.  Since the reprobate are outside of Christ they cannot therefore be shown any grace, love, or mercy.

This definition of God's love, grace, and mercy is unheard of in Reformed doctrine and is completely peculiar to Herman Hoeksema and the Protestant Reformed Church.

Turretin, in his Elenctic Theology Vol 1, Topic 3 Question 20, gives a defintion of God's love and mercy which are radically different from Hoeskema's.
...the goodness of God extends itself to all creatures.... 
From goodness flows love by which he communicates himself to the creature... 
....a threefold distinction in the divine love...."love of the creature"....."love of man"....."love of the elect."
-Turretin, Elecntic Theology Vol. 1, pg 241
Mercy is commonly considered as twofoldthe one general by which God succors all creatures subjected to any misery (Ps. 104:27); the other special by which he has compassion on his own, electing out of the mass of fallen men certain ones to be saved through Christ (who are, therefore, called “vessels of mercy”). The former is temporal, occupied only with secular things (ta biotika) and the good of this life; but the latter is saving and eternal, blessing us with the possession of salvation and of eternal life.
-Turretin, Elecntic Theology Vol. 1, pg 244
Over the years the PRC has been locked in debate with the rest of the Reformed world over their denial of common grace.  But the debate has gone nowhere because many neglect the root problem of the PRC and that is their wrong notions of God's love, grace, and mercy as being attributes directed  inwards only towards himself and not outwards to creatures. Until this root is plucked, or at least recognised, there can be no dialogue and each party will continue to be talking past the other.

Conclusion

The long and short of it is that no hint of Hoeksema’s and the PRC's distinctive doctrines are to be found in Heppe, Bavinck, or anyone else because the Reformed church did not develop along the same trajectory as Hoeksema and the PRC. The PRC stands alone and apart from the entire church, not just the Reformed church.

In answer to the question in the introduction, the source of the discontinuities between the PRC and the rest of Christendom is due to their peculiar and erroneous definitions of God's love, grace, and mercy as well as their definitions of the image of God and total depravity.

Along with these definitions and with the redefinition of the covenant, which the PRC admits distinguishes them from the rest of the Reformed and Presbyterian world, and concerning which they declare they can have no true unity with any ecclesial body which does not adhere to the same covenant view, the PRC cannot maintain that is is a “faithful and bold witness to the faith of the Protestant Reformation as set forth in the Reformed and Presbyterian creeds” which creeds, especially the WCF and the Helvetic confession, teach a covenant view absolutely opposed to theirs.  A view Hoeksema calls “a figment of the imagination.” 

In the same vein the PRC cannot claim to be “The Voice of Historic Christianity” when, with the denial of the “imago Dei” and of God’s benevolence to all men, they set themselves outside of historic Christianity which has always affirmed these two doctrines especially as touchstones undergirding the call to faith in Christ in the early apologies to the heathen down to the present. 

Sunday, 4 June 2017

Get Thee to a Bishop

Over at the Reformed Orthodox Bridge, not to be confused with this blog, Robert Arakaki is doing a 4 part series on James White and his criticisms of Hank Hanegraaff and the Orthodox Church.

In part 3 he discusses the importance of the Church Fathers.
The early Church Fathers are a valuable resource for understanding the historic Christian Faith.  For this reason, they have been a frequent topic of discussion between Reformed and Orthodox. Protestants are to be commended for utilizing the Church Fathers, however, due to their lack of familiarity with the Church Fathers Protestants often misread them or take them out of context.  
...the importance Orthodoxy places on the patristic consensus.  This is the understanding that while Church Fathers may be fallible individually, their collective witness to Tradition is considered infallible. This belief is based on Christ’s promise that He would send the Holy Spirit to guide the Church into all truth (John 16:13) and the teaching ministry as charismatic gift to the Church (Ephesians 4:11).
 He ends his article with this paragraph:
In closing, Reformed Christians and Evangelicals are strongly encouraged to learn about the early Church and to read the writings of the Church Fathers.  The Church Fathers represent a rich theological and spiritual heritage shared by all Christians. However, Protestants should not rush into this thinking that it will be easy.  Becoming familiar with the Church Fathers and the early Church won’t be easy but it will be richly rewarding.
As an Orthodox believer Robert is an opponent of Sola Scriptura.  The Scripture alone is not the sole source of truth for Robert or the Orthodox. What's more important is the "patristic consensus" of what the Scriptures teach.  To the Orthodox you can't just pick up the Bible and read it and hope to get to the truth.

In fact the Orthodox actively discourages Christians from reading the Scriptures. It's in their confession of faith.

http://www.crivoice.org/creeddositheus.html


So, it's rather interesting that Robert encourages Reformed Christians and evangelicals to read the Fathers. If the Scriptures are not plain then how are the Fathers any plainer?  In his article he accuses Protestants of cherry picking the Fathers and often getting them wrong.
...due to their lack of familiarity with the Church Fathers Protestants often misread them or take them out of context. 
I agree with Robert that the Fathers are to be read and that it is not easy.  So does Matthew Raphael Johnson.
You can’t deal with the church and the church Fathers without first being well-versed in metaphysics in general. The metaphysics of the Western philosophical tradition from Plato onward, that's necessary first before you begin reading somebody, an ancient figure like John of Damascus, or a more contemporary figure like Theophan the Recluse because they’re using vocabulary that presupposes that you know the basic history of metaphysics and epistemology. You can’t just pick up St. John of Damascus if you want to get deep into these people you have to study the Greek philosophers first and then that will….because they’re using a vocabulary that goes back to these people.  And they are using words like “hypostasis” or “physis” or you know these kind of things…”nous”. These were words that were first defined in the ancient world and they presuppose that you know what these things are. 
The Orthodox Nationalist episode 132, 17:40 
You do not deal with the church fathers before you have become a fairly well-versed student in Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics, Plotinus, etc.  
The Orthodox Nationalist episode 132, 19:20

You study the history of philosophy first and then that will give you the grounding and the vocabulary that you need to then interpret the later Church Fathers. 

The Orthodox Nationalist episode 132, 19:49
It is the opinion of Matt Johnson that before one reads the Fathers one needs to be well-versed in Greek philosophy.  Regrettably there is much truth in his statements.  It is an undeniable fact that Platonism and Neo-Platonism informs much of early Christian theology.  

Jaroslav Pelkian agrees.  From "The Christian Tradition Volume 1"


pg. 51

pg. 53

All throughout the first chapter of this book, "Preparatio Evangelica," Pelikan discusses the interplay and exchange of ideas between Christian theology and Greek Philosophy.  "The continuing hold of Greek philosophy on Christian theology" is essential to understand the writings of the Fathers and th development of doctrine.

So does one need to be well-versed in the history of western metaphysics to understand the Fathers? I don't think so. Certainly it would be very helpful but to posit a thorough familiarity of western philosophy before one engages the Fathers would mean no one would be reading the Fathers. 

I think Robert might agree as well since he does recommend the reading of the Fathers.  However he refers to the importance of the "patristic consensus."  That means you can't just read Justin or Irenaus or Augustine or Athanaisus or the Cappadocians or anyone else without taking into consideration the whole of the tradition of the Fathers. That means you have to read them all and then distill their writings into a singular consensus and tradition. 


This is not even a complete set of the Church Fathers!

Who's got the time to read thousands of pages of the Church Fathers in an effort to figure out the "patristic consensus?" And since even Robert admits Protestants who do read the Fathers often get it wrong how can anyone hope to get it right just by picking up a book and studying hard?

How can Robert Arakaki, with any sincerity, point Protestants away from the simplicity of the Scriptures to the philosophical complexity of the Church Fathers?
We are saying it’s time to let go of sola scriptura and to go a different way — to stop being Protestant and to embrace Orthodoxy and Apostolic Tradition. 
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/orthodoxbridge/reformation-continues-fail/#comment-30857
Robert considers the "patristic consensus" to be infallible and because Scripture is also infallible this equates the two. Surely the following from the Confession of Dositheus applies to the Fathers:
It is evident, therefore, that the Scriptures are very profound, and their sense lofty; and that they need learned and divine men to search out their true meaning, and a sense that is right, and agreeable to all Scripture, and to its author the Holy Spirit.
Rather than tell Protestants to read the Fathers why not just point them to their local Orthodox bishop? Why tell them to read books they won't understand which is exactly what the Confession of Dositheus prohibits?

Friday, 2 June 2017

No Images in the Church Founded by the Apostle Thomas

From "A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol. 2" by Samuel Moffett we learn that the Church in India founded by the Apostle Thomas condemned images.

page 6
The St Thomas churches had no images; the Portuguese Catholics considered this to indicate a lack of proper reverence to Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. Attributing all this to ignorance rather than to faithfulness to the traditions of the ancient church of the East in which the Indian Christians had been raised, the Portuguese sometimes gently, sometimes rudely, began to press the Indian Chrisitan communities to conform to Western Catholic custom.

page 15

For example, the Malabar church condemns the pope's supremacy; denies transubstantiation; condemns images; denies purgatory, auricular confession, and extreme unction; and allows its priests to marry.

It is the confession of the Orthodox church that icons, images, are essential to the worship of the church.  This is according to the Second Council of Nicea where the worship of images was made a doctrine and the Synodikon of Orthodoxy which, on the first Sunday of every Lent, remembers and exalts the decisions of this council.
If anyone does not worship our Lord Jesus Christ depicted in the icons according to his humanity, let him be,  
Anathema (3) 
http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/02/synodicon-of-orthodoxy.html

Contrary to any assertions that the worship of icons has Apostolic roots we see that the church in India, which was founded by the Apostle Thomas, not only had no images but condemned them as well.  And no wonder for the condemnation of images is the true Apostolic tradition of the church and is in agreement with what all the Scriptures and many of the pre-Nicene Fathers have to say about images and the worship of them.

...it is not possible at the same time to know God and to address prayers to images. 
-Origen, Against Celsus, Book VII, chap lxv, pg. 637, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4
Wherefore it is undoubted that there is no religion wherever there is an image. For if religion consists of divine things, and there is nothing divine except in heavenly things; it follows that images are without religion, because there can be nothing heavenly in that which is made from the earth. 
-Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, pg. 68, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7
Perhaps there is much to learn from the Indian church regarding the true Apostolic tradition in contradistinction to the false traditions of the Western and Eastern churches.