Category: Theology

Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

On October 24, 2020

In Biblical Interpretation, Books, Theology, Women in Ministry

Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. How the Church Needs to Rediscover her Purpose. By Aimee Byrd. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2020. 235 pp. $18.99.

It is an unfortunate development that the terms complementarian and egalitarian have come to describe the position one takes on the ordination of women to ministry. Egalitarians do not deny that, in a general sense, masculine and feminine traits complement each other in society and in the church. Nor do complementarians necessarily deny that women are ontologically equal to men. Not necessarily. But the past several decades have witnessed a rising and more aggressive form of complementarianism that describes women as ontologically weaker; it claims that women are defined by submission to male authority. To bolster this teaching of general male authority and leadership, and a corresponding general female submission and receptivity, a few of these “hard complementarian” theologians projected their gender categories back into the immanent trinity, resulting in a teaching now referred to as ESS, the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son. In 2015, Aimee Byrd, who styles herself “The Housewife Theologian,” was one of the first to call out this transgression into heretical Trinity doctrine, and her suspicions that this was a form of subordinationist heterodoxy were confirmed by a number of leading experts on trinitarian doctrine.

In this book, Byrd examines that hyper-authoritarian, male-centered movement among very conservative churches. Her title is a cheeky play on the title of the 1991 book, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, produced by the parachurch organization specifically founded to promote male authority and leadership and female submission, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). One of the problematic developments Byrd calls out in her book is that the CBMW has produced two “statements” that they encourage church leaders to adopt, the 1987 Danvers Statement, which states that church leadership is reserved for men and condemns biblical interpretation that begs to differ, and the 2017 Nashville Statement, which affirms heterosexuality and condemns homosexuality and “transgenderism,” while betraying no familiarity with the reality of sexual dysphoria. Byrd points out that parachurch organizations have no business putting out these quasi-creedal statements for the adoption of churches. It is the job of the church to do so. But, as Byrd points out, churches have outsourced much of their discipling work to such parachurch organizations.

The cover of Byrd’s volume points to its major theme, taken from the 1892 short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, by women’s rights advocate Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The yellow wallcovering functions in much the same way as gaslighting, keeping persons from seeing the truth of their situation. Byrd argues, persuasively, that there is a kind of “yellow wallpaper” that dulls the senses and obscures the authentic biblical view of women among many Christians and churches today, and particularly in the extreme complementarian movement, in which the patriarchal and racially-incendiary teachings of Douglas Wilson and his disciples should also be included. Byrd aims to peel away the wallpaper, often comprised of unconscious social stereotypes, that keeps us from seeing the authentic biblical picture of men and women. This picture is not centered on “authority and submission, strength and neediness” (22), but on men and women truly complementing each other in the family, society, and the life of the church as co-workers and partners.

After this all-important introduction, the book proceeds in three parts, the first of which examines how men and women read Scripture. Byrd peels back the yellow wallpaper to expose how gender-specific study Bibles reflect patronizing stereotypes of women and assume that men cannot learn from women. Byrd goes on to demonstrate how Scripture, while reflecting a patriarchal context, also challenges that patriarchy. She reviews a number of “gynocentric interruptions” in scripture, episodes in which women take center stage, disrupting the usual male-centered narrative, including the narratives of the Hebrew midwives in Egypt, Rahab (whom she relates quite effectively to Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman), Ruth, the judge Deborah, and Elizabeth and Mary the mother of Jesus. These women are not merely passive and submissive. They take initiative. They lead. She emphasizes how many women in Scripture act as “tradents,” handing down biblical teaching to the next generation. Curiously missing here are the names of Lois and Eunice, who taught young Timothy the faith and are clear examples of women teaching the faith. However, Byrd likely wants to emphasize how so many women in scripture teach and lead adult men, which is more controversial for strict complementarians.

In the second part, Byrd talks about how discipleship in the church is a joint enterprise involving both men and women. Here she peels away CBMW’s claims to represent a biblical view of male-female relations. She questions why churches are looking to parachurch organizations both for discipling members and for considering issues such as gender and sexuality. She exposes how the CBMW perspective, which claims that men and women are inexorably characterized by authority and submission, is shaped profoundly by cultural assumptions, not solid biblical exegesis. She refutes the idea that the Bible teaches different ends, static and unchanging roles, or different virtues for men and women. She rejects the claims of CBMW that tend to make the affirmation of male authority and female submission the litmus test of orthodoxy and the central teaching of the faith, as Owen Strachan did with his audacious claim that “the gospel has a complementarian structure” (121). Byrd only parenthetically mentions intersex persons (121–122), albeit in a gracious way, but she never brings up the issue of gender dysphoria, which is a pressing issue today. A few sentences commending humility and graciousness in such situations would have been welcome.

In the final section, Byrd examines the responsibility of every believer. Here she focuses on men and women as allies and coworkers in the work of discipleship, transmitting the faith, and worship. Byrd consistently draws on some of the leading voices in Reformed theology and biblical studies, as well as outstanding scholars from other traditions. She believes that it is important for both women and men to know their doctrine, and she exemplifies this learnedness herself. She frequently corrects misconceptions, such as the idea that Eve’s creation subsequent to that of Adam implies that Eve is inferior; rather, Eve’s creation has an eschatological meaning, pointing to the man’s end and glory. She foreshadows both humanity’s redemption as the Bride of Christ, and the Bride of the book of Revelation, representing the completion of the redemption of humanity and of all creation.

Byrd affirms how the differences between men and women are positive and, in fact, genuinely complementary, and she encourages churches that have exclusively male ministers not to conduct ministry that is exclusively male-centered. Byrd, who affirms male-only ordination but eschews the labels complementarian and egalitarian, suggests (without citing examples) that egalitarians gloss over these differences. Here one must object that persons have become egalitarian precisely because they have witnessed how women minister and lead in ways that contribute something that men simply cannot; men and women in ordained ministry complement each other and fundamentally improve the work of ministry. But Byrd intentionally avoids the topic of ordination, for good reason. She is especially addressing a rather conservative audience; she speaks from within that conservative tradition and calls believers to a more biblical and more affirming attitude toward women in the church, even if they continue to restrict ordination to males.

Byrd shows that women in the New Testament helped to plant churches and also led house churches. She emphasizes the confidence and authority Paul placed in Phoebe when he entrusted her with delivering his crucially important Letter to the Romans, though she hesitates to affirm that she held the office of deacon. Byrd demonstrates how Paul does indeed refer to Junia as an apostle, though she recognizes how perilous this acknowledgment is for those who claim ministry is reserved exclusively for men (227). Byrd’s arguments are strong, particularly where she critiques the rigid, universalizing claims of CBMW and its flirtation with anti-Nicene heresy. Her biblical interpretation is solid, and often it is fascinating. Some points are more debatable, such as her acceptance of a reading of the highly-contested Eph. 4:12 that denies equipping the saints for ministry and instead emphasizes formal ministry, or the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs; but both of these issues are tangential. One matter that is regrettable and perplexing is a consistent and conspicuous lack of editorial care on the part of the publisher; this mars the book’s style and frequently interferes with the communicative flow of Byrd’s argument. Byrd’s book deserved better.

Byrd’s guide to recovery from the extreme positions of CBMW comes at an important moment; some evangelicals are advocating overt patriarchy as the one faithful and biblical model of church, family, and society life. It is also a moment in which Christians, churches, and Christian organizations are facing the reality of abuse in churches, or sometimes refusing to face that reality. No doubt, Byrd’s volume will truly enable persons, especially women but also men, to recover from the unbiblical constraints of hyper-complementarianism.

Shortly after the publication of this volume, Byrd was vilified in her own conservative Presbyterian and evangelical circles. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals hosted her blog and the podcast that she shared with theologian Carl Trueman and Pastor Todd Pruitt. When she published her book and interacted with some of her critics, the ACE cut ties with her; she had to move her blog and she was removed from the podcast. Moreover, she was the subject of vile, misogynistic attacks and ridicule by Presbyterian and Reformed pastors on social media, which were later exposed to the public. Not only does this behavior serve to prove her point, it also raises a serious challenge to Byrd herself and to the churches she is addressing. Can churches that prohibit women from ordained church leadership—even if they manage to avoid the hyper-complementarianism of CBMW—still affirm women’s gifts and crucial importance to the church? Can such churches take women seriously as coworkers in discipleship and the church’s mission? Historically speaking, they have not. The prospects seem doubtful. Maybe there is still one more bit of yellow wallpaper that needs to be torn away for women to truly be able to thrive according to the biblical model that Aimee Byrd so convincingly brings to light.

—Dr. Raymond A. (Randy) Blacketer

The Mystery of the Golden Mouth, or, The Case of the Dubious Reference

By Raymond Blacketer

On September 21, 2018

In Church History, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Theology, Translating

Sherlock Holmes making deductions in his mind palace about John Chrystostom

Historical research is punctuated by mysteries great and small. I solved a micro-mystery today. It was The Case of the Dubious Reference, or The Mystery of the Golden Mouth. “Golden Mouth” (Chrysostomos, Greek: ὁ Χρυσόστομος) was a title given to the preacher and Bishop by the name of John (St. John Chrysostom, c. 349-407) who preached in Antioch and was consecrated Archbishop of Constantinople. He was called “the golden mouth” because of his gift for preaching. Centuries earlier, a Greek philosopher and orator had also been honored with that title, Dio Chrysostom.

John Calvin often cites John Chrysostom, both positively and negatively. When it came to biblical interpretation, Chrysostom was one of his favorites, because his exegesis tended to be more literal than some other church fathers who preferred to find allegories all through the biblical text. But Calvin was rather unhappy with Chrysostom’s theology of grace and human free will. Chrysostom frequently emphasizes human efforts and virtue in salvation and asserts that grace has to be merited, and that salvation is a cooperative effort between God and sinners. This was not uncommon in the early church, before the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius. By contrast, Calvin was quite critical of Augustine’s exegesis, because he was quite prone to this kind of spiritual interpretation, which Calvin found fanciful and speculative, particularly because medieval Roman Catholic theology used this kind of spiritual exegesis to justify doctrines that the Reformers rejected. But Augustine was Calvin’s favorite when it came to the doctrines of grace, the bondage of the will to sin, and a divine predestination not based on foreseen merit.

Now for the mystery. Calvin cites Chrysostom several times in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.2.4, when he is talking about the capacities of the human will after humanity’s fall into sin. These references originated in the second Latin revision of the Institutes from 1539. This is a topic on which he thinks Chrysostom is quite wrong, and it’s not just because he doesn’t understand Chrysostom’s homiletical context.[note] Pace an otherwise interesting article by György Papp, “Aspects of Calvin’s use of Chrysostom-Quotations Concerning the Free Will,” in Herman J. Selderhuis and Arnold Huijgen, eds., Calvinus Pastor Ecclesiae: Papers of the Eleventh International Congress on Calvin Research (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 423-433). Papp underestimates Chrysostom’s emphasis on human striving, effort, and virtue, and he does not take into account the fact that rejecting late medieval semi-Pelagianism was a central doctrinal concern of the Reformation. [/note] Calvin cites three statements from Chrysostom’s Homiliae in Genesim (Homilies in Genesis) and gives references for the first and third of these citations.[note]Opera Selecta 3: 245, McNeill-Battles ed., 1: 259.[/note] Footnoting was random and capricious in those wicked and dark days of the sixteenth century. The editors of the Opera Selecta (Karl Barth’s brother Peter and two other Barthian scholars, Wilhelm Niesel and Dora Scheuner) identify the second reference as In Gen. hom. 25.7. This is wrong.

The first clue that this is a mistake is that Calvin introduces the next citation with the words “Dixerat autem prius,” “He had previously said”–Autem here is basically a comma; ignore it–and then Calvin cites a passage from In Gen. hom. 53.2. So one would expect that the previous citation would occur after that sentence in homily 53.2. I don’t blame the editors; it can be exceptionally hard to figure out Calvin’s references, and he is prone to mistakes in citations, particularly biblical citations. But still, I am surprised that they did not look for something that occurs after the third citation.

One of the difficulties is that there are a number of Latin translations of Chrysostom that are and were available. Calvin’s Latin does not appear verbatim in the Latin translation that was included in the 19th-century edition thrown together by J-P Migne, the Patrologia Graeca. But Calvin can also paraphrase a passage or alter it to fit the grammar and syntax of his writing. Calvin’s citation or paraphrase reads: Item, Sicut nisi gratia Dei adiuti, nihil unquam possumus recte agere: ita nisi quod nostrum est attulerimus, non poterimus supernum acquirere favorem. (“Further, he says that, just as we cannot ever do anything correctly apart from the grace of God, in the same way, unless we bring what is our own, we will not be able to obtain favor from above.”) You will not find those exact words in the Patrologia Graeca.

Nevertheless, I persisted.

Because you have to be somewhat obsessive in this field. Just enough to enable you to make discoveries, but just short of needing to be institutionalized.

I searched Chrysostom’s homilies on Genesis for something that sounded similar, and which occurred after homily 53, section 2. Fortunately, I found something rather similar at the very end of homily 58, except that it refers to obtaining God’s help rather than his favor.[note]Sicut enim nisi illo subsidio fruamur, nihil umquam possumus recte agere: ita nisi quod nostrum est attulerimus, non poterimus auxilium obtinere. [/note] This could be a simple matter of a different translation, however.

Greek text in de Montfaucon’s edition

I checked the passage in the 19th-century edition of Calvin’s works that the Opera Selecta editors used, edited by Bernard de Montfaucon (1655-1741) who invented the science of paleography. in the process I learned that the Latin translation in de Montfaucon’s edition is the one “borrowed” by the prolific plagiarist Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Graeca.[note]See Sancti patris nostri Joannis Chrysostomi opera omnia quae exstant, ed. Bernard de Montfaucon, 13 vols. (Paris: Gaume Fratres, 1834-1838), 4: 658-659; Migne, Patrologia Graeca 54: 513. [/note]

But there was more. During my investigations, I ran across some fascinating recent work by Drs. Jeannette Kreijkes on Calvin’s use of Chrysostom. She is writing a dissertation on this topic at the University of Groningen. She has refuted the common assumption that Calvin only used one edition of Chrysostom’s works, the Latin translation published in Paris in 1536 by Claude Chevallon, which does not include Chrysostom’s Greek.[note]Jeannette Kreijkes, “Calvin’s Use of the Chevallon Edition of Chrysostom’s Opera Omnia: The Relationship between the Marked Sections and Calvin’s Writings,” Church History and Religious Culture 96.3 (2016): 237–265. She refutes some of the main arguments in Alexandre Ganoczy and Klaus Müller, Calvins handschriftliche Annotationen zu Chrysostomus: Ein Beitrag zur Hermeneutik Calvins (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1981), and in W. Ian P. Hazlett, “Calvin’s Latin Preface to his Proposed French Edition of Chrysostom’s Homilies: Translation and Commentary,” in. James Kirk, ed., Humanism and Reform: The Church in Europe, England, and Scotland, 1400-1643 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 129-150.[/note] I had a very good conversation with her as well, and I learned from her something about the various editions that were available during Calvin’s day. She also has access to the 1536 Chevallon edition, which is nowhere online and quite hard to find. How does Chevallon’s translation of the passage read?

Eureka!

Chevallon’s edition is much closer to Calvin’s citation, and in fact, the latter part is identical.[note]“Sicut autem nisi illam habeamus, nihil unquam possumus recte agere possumus, nisi superna gratia adiuti. Sicut autem nisi illam habeamus, nihil unquam possumus recte agere: ita nisi quod nostrum attulerimus, non poterimus supernum acquirere favorem.” Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani Opera, 5 vols. (Paris: Claude Chevallon, 1536), 1: fol. 118 v^o. [/note] Does this prove that Calvin was using the Chevallon edition? Not at all.

Johannes Oecolampadius and his rather square beard.

Some scholars tend to assume that Calvin used the Chevallon edition throughout his career. When I first found that the Chevallon edition corresponded to Calvin’s citation, that was my first thought as well. But the Chevallon edition is identical in this passage to the translations found in editions prepared by Oecolampadius [note]Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi… in totum Geneseos librum Homiliae, trans. Johannes Oecolampadius (Basel: A. Cratander, 1523), fol. 169 v^o .[/note] in 1523 and Erasmus[note] D. Ioannis Chrysostomi archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani opera quae hactenus versa sunt omnia, etc. ed. Desiderius Erasmus, 5 vols. (Basel: Froben, 1530), 5: 307. [/note] in 1530.

But I think it was Oecolampadius. Why? Because immediately afterward, Calvin cites Chrystostom’s Genesis homilies again, this time In Gen. hom. 53.2. [note]Patrologia Graeca 54: 466).[/note] Except that Calvin’s marginal reference does not indicate homily 53, but homily 52. And the homily that the other editions number as 53, Oecolampadius numbers as 52, because, for some reason, he omits the first homily that the others include and enumerate as homily 1. But that’s a mystery for another day. It is possible that there was another edition that numbered the homilies the same way that I have not found, or that Calvin simply made an error, but my detective instincts do not lean that way. For now, I think Oecolampadius is the prime suspect, and at the very least he should be handcuffed, read his rights, and hauled down to the station for further questioning.

Solving these little micro-mysteries is very satisfying; who doesn’t enjoy a good mystery? (My favorite mystery writer is Lyndsay Faye, whose mysteries are set in the 19th century). And along the way, I met a fellow historical detective, Jeannette Kreijkes, who is a formidable Calvin scholar, to whom I owe much of what I found and learned on this case.

Calvin, Tertullian, and the Species of the Divine Persons

By Raymond Blacketer

On May 21, 2018

In Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Theology, Translating, Trinity

In 1557, the Italian antitrinitarian Giovanni Valentino Gentile took refuge in Geneva with other Italian exiles, some of whom held antitrinitarian views. Gentile and fellow Italian exile Nicola Gallo were charged with heresy in 1558. Gentile would eventually be executed, under Bern’s authority, for his antitrinitarian views in 1566. In the final 1559/60 edition of his Institutes, Calvin takes up Gentile’s antitrinitarian argument; Gentile had cited a number of church fathers to defend his views, including Tertullian. Calvin writes in Institutes 1.13.28:

They are no more honest when they claim Tertullian as their patron, for, despite his occasionally harsh and prickly rhetorical style, he still unequivocally teaches the substance of the doctrine we are defending, namely, that, while there is one God, nonetheless by dispensation or economy there is his Word;that God is one through the unity of substance, and nevertheless that unity is disposed into a trinity by the mystery of dispensation; that there are three, not in status, but in rank;[1] not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in order.

Except that is not what Tertullian says.

Tertullian says that there are three, not in status, but in rank, not in substance, but in form, not in power, but in species. “Tres autem non statu, sed gradu; nec substantia, sed forma; nec potestate, sed specie…” (Adv. Prax. 2; Migne PL 2: 157). Calvin’s Latin reads nec potestate, sed serie, to which the 1560 French corresponds (non pas en puissance, mais en ordre). Battles, following the Opera Selecta (3: 149 note a) presumes this is just a simple error; and Opera Selecta corrects Calvin’s serie to specie.

But was it just a simple error? Tertullian’s original phrasing is problematic in terms of later Trinitarian orthodoxy. In fact, English theologian Herbert Thorndike (1598-1672) observed that both Robert Bellarmine and his fellow Jesuit Gregory de Valentia read this phrase from Tertullian in the works of Bullinger, who did not clearly attribute it to Tertullian, and promptly accused him of Arianism. See The Theological works of Herbert Thorndike, 6 vols. in 10 (Oxford: J.H. Parker, 1844-1856), 3: 294-295. The work in question is Bullinger’s Ad Ioannes Cochlei de canonicae scripturae et Catholicae ecclesiae authoritate libellum, appended to an edition of his De scripturae sanctae authoritate, certitudine, firmitate et absoluta perfectione, etc. (Zurich: Froschauer, 1544), fol. 16^v.

It is possible that Calvin, more or less consciously, corrected Tertullian’s orthodoxy at this point, since the term species often refers to a visible or sensible form or manifestation, which is problematic in describing the Trinity, which is spiritual and invisible. In addition, an understanding that relates essence and persons as genus and species would also be problematic in the context of later, more developed Trinitarian orthodoxy. Calvin had earlier criticized Servetus’s opinion that the persons were only external manifestations (species) of ideas, in 1.13.22. So, Calvin was already on guard against seeing the persons as species.

In any case, this section of the Institutes was based on documents from the controversy and trial. Calvin later published the materials related to the controversy and trial: Impietas Valentini Gentilis detecta, et palam traducta, qui Christum non sine sacrilega blasphemia Deum essentiatum esse fingit, etc. ([Geneva,] 1561), CO 9: 361-420. In this document, Tertullian’s words are correctly reproduced.

So we are left with a few mysteries. Why did Calvin replace specie with serie in the quotation from Tertullian? And how exactly would Calvin have interpreted Tertullian’s problematic phrasing? And, going back further, what did Tertullian himself mean when he applied the term species to the distinction of Trinitarian persons? I am not sure that any of these can be answered with any certainty.

Comments on An Introduction to Christian Theology, chapter 7

By Raymond Blacketer

On March 2, 2017

In Church History, Reformed Theology, Theological Education, Theology

For my HT502 class, Fuller Theological Seminary. Click below for the document.

Comments on ICT Chapter 7

This textbook has a very nice cover, which just proves the old adage: Don’t judge a book by its cover. This tome is seriously flawed and outdated. It evidences a lack of understanding of, and sympathy with, the premodern Christian intellectual tradition. It perpetuates a number of myths, including the Hellenization thesis, and the myth that biblical anthropology is monistic. And it is plagued by dubious doctrinal choices. The central problem is that the book is primarily an apologia for Moltmannian theology, including a social trinitarianism (and a subtle undercurrent of panentheism) that functions as a controlling theme throughout the text. A pretty book, but not a good one, in my judgment, particularly when it comes to historical theology. And modern theology. And it certainly is not confessionally Reformed, despite the fact that the authors are all professors at Calvin College, and have signed the Covenant for Officebearers. Did I mention that it has a nice cover?

ict-cover

Getting Calvin Wrong

By Raymond Blacketer

On July 1, 2016

In Church History, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Reformed Theology, Theology

In an academic book written by leading scholars, one does not expect to find egregious errors. But one finds them nonetheless. I was privileged to attend the 2009 international Calvin conference in Geneva, commemorating the 500th birthday of the Genevan Reformer John Calvin. (Calvin himself was a no-show. Same thing happened when I visited John Knox’s house in Edinburgh in 1989. He wasn’t home).

Anyway, Irena Backus and Philip Benedict edited a collection of the keynote addresses that came out of that conference. Calvin and his Influence, 1509-2009 (Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. 336+xiii). You can get it for $115 on Amazon.com in hardcover. You might opt for the paperback after you read this. Or for looking at the decent essays in the library. And there are many. Even the introduction is fantastic, except where it is deplorable.

You can read my complete review here. As I was trying to describe Calvin’s doctrine of predestination in 1000 words for Christian History magazine (an impossible task, by the way), I was recently reminded of the following unbelievable comment, made by the editors in the introduction to this volume. It still astounds me:

“While [Calvin] stresses election to salvation but not to damnation in his controversy with Bolsec, he prefers in his Institutes of 1559 to emphasize God’s prescience: God elects to salvation those whom he foresees will be true believers, which implies that he also foresees the others as unbelievers and condemns them. … In the Institutes (3,19-25; 4,18-20), he asserts that God foresees who will believe and elects or condemns as a function of this” (p. 13).

If you have a theological education, you can pause here and catch your breath.

Calvin, first of all, does not teach “election to damnation,” because election by definition refers to God’s choice to save. “Election to damnation” is therefore nonsense, and indicates a lack of familiarity with basic Reformed theology. What the authors have in mind, of course, is reprobation, which is the opposite of election. But they clearly do not understand either election or reprobation, as will be seen below. Moreover, the editors of this volume, who are indeed leading Reformation scholars, project onto Calvin the view of Jacob Arminius and his followers, the Remonstrants, who based election on God’s foreknowledge of a person’s faith. This view does not exist until the early 17th century. Calvin, however, opposed the idea, common in one trajectory of late medieval thought, that God elects those in whom he foresees merit, albeit grace-assisted merit, congruent merits, to be precise. Third, these scholars assume that reprobation is the same thing as condemnation, which demonstrates again that they do not know the first thing about Reformed theology. Their goal is to present a more accurate picture of Calvin and to dispel caricatures, but in fact they are part of the problem.

There is a footnote to the authors’ statement that reads: “OS I: 88-90.” OS refers to the Opera Selecta, a five-volume collection of Calvin’s works considered most important by its editor, Peter Barth (Karl Barth’s younger brother). But this reference does not point to the 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion; it points to the 1536 first edition of the Institutes and its very brief and rudimentary treatment of predestination, in which Calvin makes no mention of foreknowledge. Calvin’s mature comments on predestination in the 1559 Institutes actually appear in OS IV: 368-432. Setting aside this serious error, it’s safe to say that Calvin never says what these leading Reformation scholars say he does, because he clearly, frequently, and consistently teaches the opposite. So, for example, in his 1559 Institutes, 3.21.5, Calvin writes:

“The predestination by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death, no man who would be thought pious ventures simply to deny; but it is greatly caviled at, especially by those who make prescience its cause. We, indeed, ascribe both prescience and predestination to God; but we say, that it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former.” (Citations from the Beveridge trans.)

Or a bit later, in 3.22.1:

“If election precedes that divine grace by which we are made fit to obtain immortal life, what can God find in us to induce him to elect us?”

And further in 3.22.2:

“If you say that he foresaw they would be holy, and therefore elected them, you invert the order of Paul. … In the additional statement that they were elected that they might be holy, the apostle openly refutes the error of those who deduce election from prescience, since he declares that whatever virtue appears in men is the result of election. Then, if a higher cause is asked, Paul answers that God so predestined, and predestined according to the good pleasure of his will. By these words, he overturns all the grounds of election which men imagine to exist in themselves.”

And further yet in 3.22.3:

“We have already shown that the additional words, ‘that we might be holy,’ remove every doubt. If you say that he foresaw they would be holy, and therefore elected them, you invert the order of Paul. You may, therefore, safely infer, If he elected us that we might be holy, he did not elect us because he foresaw that we would be holy. …

And how can it be consistently said, that things derived from election are the cause of election? … Assuredly divine grace would not deserve all the praise of election, were not election gratuitous; and it would not be gratuitous did God in electing any individual pay regard to his future works.”

And yet again in 3.22.4:

“The question considered is the origin and cause of election. The advocates of foreknowledge insist that it is to be found in the virtues and vices of men. For they take the short and easy method of asserting, that God showed in the person of Jacob, that he elects those who are worthy of his grace; and in the person of Esau, that he rejects those whom he foresees to be unworthy.”

Théodore de Bèze

To add clichéd insult to this injury, the introduction goes on to claim that Theodore Beza’s Tabula Praedestinationis (or, more properly, his Summa Totius Christianismi, 1555) “presented election and reprobation in diagram form as exactly symmetrical in God’s mind, both constituting a part of his eternal decree.”

Nope.

Yes, election and reprobation are both part of the eternal decree, but they are not “exactly symmetrical.” The opponents of Calvin and Beza would make that charge, but without grounds. Does this look exactly symmetrical to you?

I didn’t think so.

The important non-symmetry between election and reprobation is this: Election is God’s decision to bestow a completely undeserved and unmerited salvation to certain individuals. Reprobation, however, is the divine decision to give sinners exactly what they deserve and merit. Moreover, even if you can’t read Latin, you can see that the lines are not exactly symmetrical. In the matter of calling, for example, God’s call to repent and believe is effective in the elect, but in the reprobate there are two possibilities: some never hear the summons to believe the good news, while others hear but experience a voluntary hardening (induratio spontanea) of their hearts. People are saved because of election and the salvation that ensues because of election, but sinners are not condemned because of they are reprobate. They are condemned because they freely sin and rebel against God. The later Canons of Dordt make this even more clear and explicit than Beza, but the distinction was definitely there in less refined form. (The Canons reject the false charge that the Reformed churches teach “that in the same manner in which election is the source and cause of faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and ungodliness.” Conclusion: Rejection of False Accusations).

Which just goes to show that academics don’t know everything. Even the best of them. And sometimes they don’t even know the basics of theology. And anyone who presumes to study a theologian (like Calvin) should know the basics of theology.

Debating the Descensus

By Raymond Blacketer

On October 2, 2015

In Biblical Interpretation, Church History, Creeds and Confessions, Reformed Theology, Theology

On October 2, 2015, I had a discussion with Western Seminary students, hosted by Prof. Todd Billings, about the phrase in the Apostles’ Creed, traditionally called the descensus. It is the phrase: “He descended into hell.” At the end of the 1990s,

The Harrowing of Hell. Medieval illustration, including Hellmouth. Not the same Hellmouth as featured in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

someone in the Reformed Church of Australia (now the Christian Reformed Churches of Australia) lodged a gravamen (a complaint against a confessional statement) regarding this phrase. The Australian church body considered numerous changes, but wisely submitted the matter to other Reformed churches for review and input. The CRCNA formed a study committee, which gave its final report at the 2000 Synod. The report, which was largely authored by my PhD mentor Richard A. Muller, is an excellent example of solid historical, theological, exegetical, and ecclesiastical analysis. You can read the report here: Descensus report Agenda 2000.

The arguments for deleting or altering the phrase are astounding. They presume that “hell” only means the place or state of eternal punishment. In modern usage, that meaning is dominant. However, its usage in the creed can mean either the place or state of punishment (gehenna) or, more commonly, the rather more neutral realm of the dead (hades, or in Hebrew thought, sheol).

Others state rather confidently that when Christ utters “It is finished,” the work of redemption is complete and therefore there is no more to do. This is clearly false. The work of redemption is absolutely not finished (at least) until the resurrection of Jesus. His resurrection is his victory over death. Moreover, the intercession of Christ still continues, as the book of Hebrews makes clear, and the final judgment, where those in Christ will be declared not guilty, is still to come. And redemption applied is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. So one must be rather cautious about what “It is finished” means. Clearly it has to be limited to Christ’s suffering on the cross.

The original complaint to the Reformed Churches in Australia was apparently operating on the assumption that Jesus physically went to hell. That would be a new doctrine never heard of in the church, since the church has always confessed that Jesus’ physical body remained in the tomb.

Some who are considered evangelical leaders reject the descent into hell phrase in the creed, apparently unaware that by doing so they separate themselves from orthodox, universal Christian faith. John Piper, who considers himself Reformed, rejects the doctrine without much analysis. This is ironic, since no Reformed church would recognize as Reformed anyone who rejects an article of an ecumenical creed. He also refers to himself as a “Calvinist,” but Calvin would not recognize as a kindred spirit anyone who rejected this or any other article of the creed (let alone anyone who rejected infant baptism, as Piper does). Piper seems unconcerned that he separated himself from the universal church when he omits that article of the ecumenical creed; creeds are not a smorgasbord where one takes what one likes and leaves the rest. Wayne Grudem (whose theological positions are similar to Piper’s) also rejects the doctrine, also on mistaken grounds. Both put themselves perilously near the fringe of orthodox Christian faith by doing so. Neither seem to understand this. I suspect this has something to do with an overly rigid sense of sola scriptura, and a lack of understanding of how the Reformers honored universal Christian tradition as embodied in the creeds, as well as how they found more than adequate biblical grounds for the descensus. They also seem to care little about the effect such a selective recitation of the creed would have upon ecumenical relations.

Reading the 2000 report will save anyone who wants to study this issue from a multitude of theological sins.