Recovering the Reformed Confession - Thoughts?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Sebastian Heck's response

Recent Reviews of RRC Heidelblog

Yes, posting Sebastian's reply is self-serving--mea culpa--but he did a better job of responding than I did:

Disappointing indeed, as was Dr. Strange’s presentation at the “Animus Imponentis Conference” earlier this year.

First, Strange misses the “irenical” character of RRC when he says:
“What it means to follow the Reformed confessions (note now the plural)—to develop one’s theology, piety, and practice from such—is more textured and varied than Clark lets on in this book. It is not accurate to present such a thin slice of what it means to be Reformed and argue as if that constricted view is exhaustive of the Reformed faith. Clark occasionally cites Richard Muller in support of his approach, as if Muller’s project of showing concord between Calvin and the Calvinists was intended to present a narrow, uniform Calvinism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”

The way I understood RRC, the use of the singular “Reformed confession” did not narrow the focus at all, but rather broaden it into the broad consensus of what the Reformed have historically held in common.

Second, so the archetypal/ectypal distinction is NOT “confessionally warranted” according to Dr. Strange? If so we probably need to discuss what WCF 1.1 and 7.1 actually mean.

However, where Dr. Strange’s review gets really disappinting is when he says “we need more than these things…” and then launches into how we need more emphasis on union with Christ and communion with God and each other etc. Come on! Is that his recipe for reformation?

Then, he defines “orthodoxism” as, quote, “an emphasis on the forms, on the means of grace, for example, in which the means threaten to become ends in themselves”. True, the latter would be bad, but the former? So, back to Kant and the old argument of form vs. content, eh?

Showing, as you do in RRC, the dangers of an Edwardsian QIRE, does NOT mean, as Strange alleges, an inability “to profit from a remarkably sin-sensitive, Christ-centered writer.” It just ain’t the same thing. One can warn of consequences of a certain view and still profit from it in part.

When Dr. Strange quotes WCF 21.6 to disprove your view in RRC that “private prayer is not a means of grace”, he shows no awareness of the age-old discussion of the function of prayer as a means of grace in the Continental Reformed confessions and the Westminster Standards. Again, Strange misses Clark’s irenical case for an understanding of prayer that does justice to BOTH the Cont. Ref. confessions AND the Westminster tradition.

Finally, when Strange says, “We need restoration in which the outer follows the inner. This was the dynamic of the great Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”- I beg to differ. The genious of the Reformation, and with it, of the Reformed confession (singular!) is the unity between the outer and the inner, call it sacramental union or something else, and decisively NOT that a hollow “outer” follows some pietistic “inner”.

This review is nothing that gives me no second thoughts whatsoever about what I have read, appreciated and enjoyed in RRC. Keep up the good work!
 
I have reviewed the book here. I don't wish my minor disagreements with Scott to cloud the value of the book, which I think is tremendous. On the issue of a literal 6/24 creation week, I do think there are those who would illegitimately disband people from the church for not believing it. I believe in 6/24 creation week, and do not think that the belief itself is QIRC. But then, I don't think that is what Clark is saying, either. It is not the belief itself that Clark attacks, but a certain way that belief is being (ab)used in the church today. I do think it ought to be listed as an exception to the Westminster Standards, because the standards clearly teach it. I also think Clark may have been a bit harsh on Jonathan Edwards. I don't agree with everything Edwards said, but his treatise on Religious Affections was designed to combat the very tendencies that Clark rails against in QIRE, in my opinion. These two areas should not diminish, however, the great value the book has, especially in clearly setting forth what a confessional church ought to look like.
 
I have reviewed the book here. I also think Clark may have been a bit harsh on Jonathan Edwards. I don't agree with everything Edwards said, but his treatise on Religious Affections was designed to combat the very tendencies that Clark rails against in QIRE, in my opinion.

I'm working on a review documenting the misrepresentations of Edwards, which I hope to complete in the near future. I picked up on what Lane mentioned here, that the Treatise on Religious Affections runs directly contrary to Clark's lumping Edwards into sundry nefarious categories. When I was reading RRC{sic}, I seriously questioned whether Clark had even read the book.
 
Before you start blasting with all guns Mark, be sure to read Marsden's biography.

-----Added 6/5/2009 at 01:50:51 EST-----

Lane,

Was Hodge "harsh" toward Edwards? He wrote about Edwards:

"according to the theory of continued creation there is and can be no created substance in the universe. God is the only substance in the universe.”45 He concluded, this “doctrine, therefore, in its consequences, is essentially pantheistic.”
 
Before you start blasting with all guns Mark, be sure to read Marsden's biography.

-----Added 6/5/2009 at 01:50:51 EST-----

Lane,

Was Hodge "harsh" toward Edwards? He wrote about Edwards:

"according to the theory of continued creation there is and can be no created substance in the universe. God is the only substance in the universe.”45 He concluded, this “doctrine, therefore, in its consequences, is essentially pantheistic.”

Well, I certainly would not agree with Edwards in his doctrine of continued creation. Hodge was right in saying that Edwards's doctrine was essentially pantheistic in its consequences. I think that is an important modifier, however. Hodge is not claiming that Edwards thought of his own doctrine as pantheistic. Even on Hodge's own reading of Edwards, Edwards thought of God as the only true substance and the world as having a dependent existence (see Hodge, ST II, p. 218). Let me ask you this, though, Scott (and this is a genuine question, not a snarky one): what exactly do you think is the relevance of Edwards's view of continued creation, on the one hand, to the Great Awakening, on the other (and by implication QIRE)? And does Edwards have anything to say about what you call QIRE in his book Religious Affections?
 
I found Iain Murray's biography of Edwards to be much more balanced and one that men like Mark Noll found to be much more "of Edwards" than Marsden's.

Indeed. While some may accuse Murray's biography of falling into a "Golden Age" representation of persons and events, I found that Marsden often fell off to the other side (which for some reason seems to be more respectable in our circles) of trying to please the academy and standing a little too detached from what should be the acknowledged and impacting reality of Christian truth in a biography that necessarily interacts not just with a man's theology and life on an academic level, but with the reality of his faith in Christ.

It's of the same cloth as McCulloch's work on Cranmer. Measured, informative, but ultimately devoid of any real Christian warmth (at least until McCullochs final chapter). And, no, I don't believe that it is good historical practice to try and separate our Christian faith from our understanding of history; secularists certainly don't chuck their atheism and existentialism/nihilism/etc when composing their own works.
 
Lane,

My point wasn't to set fire to St Jonathan but to call attention to the uncomfortable aspects of his theology and their connection with the 1GA and to the subsequent tradition. The point of that move is to suggest that perhaps (just perhaps!) Edwards is not the paradigm for the way forward.

I tried to point the ontological turn marked by his theology. One way to put it is that it marked a turn from Aristotle (17th-century Reformed orthodoxy) to Plato. As I re-read him, after reading Schleiermacher and others, I found him to anticipate aspects of Romanticism (subjectivism) that have continued to influence Reformed piety in the modern period. This is highly problematic and the neo-Platonic aspects of his thought have been downplayed because it doesn't fit the prevailing myth of Edwards circulated among orthodox Calvinists. The ontological turn is not innocent. In all likelihood it is organically connected to the problems with his doctrine of justification. One cannot utterly divorce Edwards from the more problematic side of his theological/intellectual family tree (New Haven).

We can and must appreciate Edwards but we should read him critically. Typically, in my experience, this is not the way he is read in our circles.

I also wanted to issue an implicit caution about the renewed enthusiasm for all things Edwardsean represented by the Desiring God movement. I'm concerned about the long-term effect of "Christian hedonism." I'm concerned about the effect it will have on ordinary means (i.e. Word and sacrament) ministry. I'm concerned that it moves the Christian life away from dying to self and living to Christ, away from the realism of the Reformed confessions to the idealism of Cambridge Platonism and other pantheizing tendencies. I'm concerned about the quasi-Pentecostal piety I see among those who seem most devoted to Edwards. I'm concerned about an over-realized eschatology. I'm concerned about a theology of glory.

I realize that, for those who are not in touch with the academic literature on Edwards, some of what I wrote might be a little shocking. Before folk fly into a rage over my criticisms of some aspects of the 1GA (which was really the point of the chapter) they ought to read some of the lit for themselves.

The real point of the QIRE chapter is to take issue with the revival paradigm, to challenge the notion that it's possible to separate cleanly revivalism from revival. I worry about folk sitting about praying for revival or worse, for making the next "Great Awakening" the be all and end all of the Christian life instead of getting on with the Christian life in the here and now. I worry about the effect of a mythological, golden-age history of the 18th-century which bears little relation to the history as historians know it.


Before you start blasting with all guns Mark, be sure to read Marsden's biography.

-----Added 6/5/2009 at 01:50:51 EST-----

Lane,

Was Hodge "harsh" toward Edwards? He wrote about Edwards:

"according to the theory of continued creation there is and can be no created substance in the universe. God is the only substance in the universe.”45 He concluded, this “doctrine, therefore, in its consequences, is essentially pantheistic.”

Well, I certainly would not agree with Edwards in his doctrine of continued creation. Hodge was right in saying that Edwards's doctrine was essentially pantheistic in its consequences. I think that is an important modifier, however. Hodge is not claiming that Edwards thought of his own doctrine as pantheistic. Even on Hodge's own reading of Edwards, Edwards thought of God as the only true substance and the world as having a dependent existence (see Hodge, ST II, p. 218). Let me ask you this, though, Scott (and this is a genuine question, not a snarky one): what exactly do you think is the relevance of Edwards's view of continued creation, on the one hand, to the Great Awakening, on the other (and by implication QIRE)? And does Edwards have anything to say about what you call QIRE in his book Religious Affections?
 
I can agree quite thoroughly with all your concerns about directions. I am concerned about most of the same things. I also agree that Edwards needs to be read critically (like any other Reformed theologian). I do not read Edwards uncritically. As I have already pointed out, I don't agree with him on everything. However, I do not see his doctrine of justification as problematic. I have read everything Edwards wrote on justification (except for some of the Miscellanies). I agree with Jeff Waddington's article on it. I also think Edwards might have been more aware of the dangers of pietism than you have allowed him to be. I think Religious Affections was written precisely to combat these problems, not to further them. Edwards saw the problems of overly enthusiastic emotions that leave the basis of doctrine and go on to pure experience. As Marsden notes, "Gentleness and genuinely self-renouncing humility were far better evidences of true saintliness than were merely intense experiences...As the awakening was receding, defeated by its own excesses, he had preached a series of sermons on the proper place of religious affections in the Christian life...Affections was directed first of all toward the misguided emphases of the extreme New Lights who had led many people into arrogant self-delusion" (pp. 284-285). Marsden goes on to note that Edwards's crucial question in all of this "was how to tell true religion from its Satanic counterfeits" (ibid.). Even the so-called true signs of genuine religion were NOT definitive tests for distinguishing true believers from self-deluded counterfeits, a project that was impossible (p. 286). Is this not proof that Religious Affections is not an exercise in QIRE, but rather a move in a direction away from it?

Let me ask you another question, if I may: is there a difference between piety and pietism? Is there such a thing as private means of grace? Is Edwards's piety more along the line of a'Brakel or is it more like Wesley?
 
Lane,

I understand that you're not uncritical of E but that isn't true, in my experience, of most readers of Edwards in our circles. I suspect that most are completely unaware that there might be any problems with Edwards' theology or piety.

As to his doctrine of justification, there are good folks on both sides of this question. For me, there's no reason for any Reformed minister to be confusing about justification. I think the root of that confusion is in Edwards' debt to idealism and neo-Platonism. There's no doubt among serious Calvin or Luther scholars about their doctrines of justification sola gratia, sola fide. As I acknowledged in the book, Edwards can be found to say orthodox things but the can also be found to say unorthodox things. That's a problem. I don't understand the reflex to defend Edwards at every point. Why is he such a hero? I suspect it's because folk (not necessarily you) identify with his quest for the immediate encounter with God. That's a powerful point of connection. People really want that. They aren't satisfied with mere Word and sacrament ministry. If John Piper were advocating nothing more than knowing God, in Christ, through ordinary means would he be as popular as he is? I guess not.

Edwards was aware of the dangers posed by the 1GA as I indicated in the book. Your comments suggest that perhaps you didn't read this section as carefully as I wrote it. I knew that I would take heat for this chapter so I was pretty careful to note that Edwards was trying to protect against excess. Nevertheless, I think that he (and others with him) was a part of the problem he helped to create. That he tried to moderate its excesses doesn't exonerate him exactly. This is true of Religious Affections. My criticism of RA wasn't his attempt to correct the problem but rather the premise from which he attempted to correct the problem. I think some critics have missed that aspect of the argument. The whole 1GA is an evidence of QIRE. The 1GA was not marked by realism or ordinary Word and sacrament ministry. Indeed, as I pointed out in the book, studies suggest strongly that the 1GA wasn't good for attendance to the means of grace.

As you must know from the book Lane, I distinguished clearly between piety and pietism. That was one of the great points of the book. I'm surprised you asked the question.

I think Edwards was more like Wesley than Brakel but there's a bit of pietism in Brakel too.

As to private means of grace, that has to be considered very carefully.

What do you think?
 
Thanks for the clarifications, Scott. They are helpful. One or two points still need to be clarified, in my opinion. One is this: why would lack of agreement among Edwards scholars imply that Edwards himself was wrong or ambiguous on justification? I know that you are saying that he seems ambiguous at best. I simply fail to see the ambiguity just because some scholars have seen it. As I said, my reading of the original Edwards sources in comparison with Owen, Turretin, Calvin, Buchanan, and a host of others on justification proves to my satisfaction at least that Edwards was solid on justification, even if he wasn't solid on some other things. I don't see how his Platonism influences that. Of course, as you probably have guessed by now, I do not see Edwards as the hero that many see him as, though I certainly regard him as a genius of a theologian.

Secondly, although you did note that Edwards was trying to guard against excesses in RA, you are definitely interpreting RA as being against the means of grace. But if he argues that these responses come from the Spirit working through the preached Word (as you yourself, not to mention Marsden, admit), how is that attacking the means of grace, when he is arguing that the true revival can only come from the means of grace (at least the primary means of grace)? Are you arguing that Edwards advocated only occasional preaching revivals? Yet it was during his weekly preaching that the revivals happened.

Thirdly, regarding the distinction of piety and pietism, you say on page 74 that "Pietism is not to be confused with piety, which describes the Christian life and worship; pietism describes a retreat into the subjective experience of God." "The Christian life and worship," however, is ambiguous with regard to possible subjective elements of true piety. Were you meaning to exclude private Bible reading and private prayer and private catechising from the definition of piety? Is all confessionally Reformed piety corporate? Or must all confessionally Reformed piety be tied specifically and directly to the corporate means of grace? It would seem to me that we cannot exclude private devotional piety from true piety, despite the dangers that lurk on every side. I would never desire to exclude a connection between private and corporate piety. However, neither do I want to make them indistinguishable. The example of Daniel comes to mind, not to mention Jesus' injunction in Matthew 6:6. Yes, a retreat into pure subjectivism is a huge danger in modern society that advocates a "me and my Bible and Jesus" mentality. I think I'm just as much against that despising of the church as you are. However, private piety is biblical, I believe, as long as it does not oppose, but is connected to (though not identical with) the corporate means of grace.
 
Lane,

You seemed to admit/concede above that there are problems in the Misc. with Edwards' doctrine of justification. I did not indict Edwards' doctrine of justification but I did want to signal to people that there serious and, as yet (to my mind), unanswered questions. I don't see how any reasonable person can deny that Edwards' was ambiguous about justification. He may have been fundamentally orthodox or it may be that he is best read as being mostly orthodox or whatever, but the very existence of extensive literature on both sides is prima facie evidence that Edwards was ambiguous. The existence of the New Haven connection, the fact that Old Princeton honored him in name, but, as Noll notes, downplayed the substance of his theology in certain respects (Hodge and Warfield were NOT ambiguous about justification, nor were they idealists or neo-Platonists) suggests this too.

Are there continuities with the older tradition? Yes, but Edwards was doing something that they were not. Edwards was under influences that they were not. We need to pay attention to that. I don't think it's helpful to deny that Edwards' was influenced by neo-Platonism and to observe the effects of his idealism.

We may disagree fundamentally on that. Fine. It's not personal. For me its about getting the history right.

On other things, however, I don't think we're that far apart. I wrote at some length about prayer and private piety (and that seems to have been ignored) but the emphasis on the book is on public worship.

I understand that people are tempted to interpret my emphasis on the objective means of grace as an attack on piety but that's just the point, isn't it? The attack begs the question (it assumes that private piety = piety). Why do you think the FV movement arose in the first place? It was a misplaced, ignorant response to pietism. I wanted to offer an account of the objectivity of the means of grace within its proper, historical, confessional context.

I don't apologize for giving priority to public worship over private piety just as I give logical priority to the gospel and justification sola fide to the Spirit-wrought response to that grace in prayer. If we do not have the gospel and worship straight, we will not understand the Christian life properly.

The paradox of the faith is that we produce piety in our people not by telling them, "be holy," but by pointing them to Christ through which message the Spirit has promised to act to create faith and union with Christ (WSC 30; HC 65) and thence piety and sanctity.

The effect of the 1GA was to downplay the means of grace. The whole history of the 1GA was to move the center of piety away from the ordinary in favor of the extraordinary. I agree that, for JE, preaching was hugely important but the end of it came to be in the earlier Tennant and others the QIRE. That's hard to dispute. The modern reception of the 1GA is also not oriented toward to ordinary but the extraordinary.

I hope you'll go back and read the chapter as carefully as I wrote. Try not to read it defensively.

In light of the book do you really believe that "Christian life and worship" is ambiguous? I'm not against private piety. I'm quite in favor of it, but I want to put it back in its place, if you will. It is the servant of the public means of grace.

I've written extensively about the need to catechize. I understand that has to be done privately as well as publicly. The two don't have to be set against each other. Do you really think that's what I'm trying to do?
 
A couple of things in reply. I'm not sure how you got "admit that there are problems in the Misc." concerning Edwards's doctrine of justification from my admission that I had not read the Misc. on justification. I simply have not read them on justification. I have only read his longer treatises and sermons on justification. You say this, "but the very existence of extensive literature on both sides is prima facie evidence that Edwards was ambiguous." I do not acknowledge that this argument is logical. By this argument, if there are two vociferous sides to any question, it brings the issue itself into question. Would you acknowledge the same about Meredith Kline? There are loads of people who argue that Kline is not confessional, as well as loads of people who argue that he is. Does that seem to you to prove that Kline is not confessional? Would you even argue that Kline is not clear on the supposedly controverted points? You haven't in the past, and I would agree with you on Kline, even if I don't agree with Kline on everything. Even if you were to argue that the confessional critics of Kline are not versed in the original sources as Kline was, this isn't true of all of Kline's critics.

I wouldn't deny at all that Edwards was influenced by neo-Platonism. I merely question whether that made his doctrine of justification suspect. At the very least, we should ask the question of the original sources. It is being asked, of course, by many scholars, who are coming to differing opinions. But, as I said above, I don't accept the logic that says that because people differ on something, that therefore the thing itself is ambiguous.

Yes, you do speak of prayer and private piety, but not under the category of the means of grace. Your discussion of it falls in the subheading of the fruit of the Spirit (pp. 111-112), which is followed immediately by the subheading "the due use of ordinary means." If you were not intending to exclude private piety from the due use of the means of grace, then please forgive me for misunderstanding you. It just doesn't seem exceptionally clear that you are including private piety in the means of grace itself. I can agree completely with the statement that the private means of grace are the servant(s) of the public means of grace. I agree that we are really not far apart in actual doctrine, and I'm glad of that, because I would hate to disagree with you on a doctrinal matter. Where we seem to differ is in the evaluation of the 1GA. You seem to pan it entirely, whereas I think there are some good things to glean from it (I certainly do not agree with it completely). If preaching was hugely important for Edwards, then was it for Edwards a QIRE? You said in your comment that it was for Tennent and others a QIRE, but you didn't actually say it was for Edwards. It seems to me pretty hard to dispute that the revival that happened under Edwards's preaching happened in the weekly service. Is there no variation among the 1GA advocates?

I would never interpret your emphasis on the objective means of grace to be an attack on piety itself. I hope you have not interpreted me as having done so. I am only asking whether private piety is part of the means of grace or not. I can agree with you also that the public means of grace take priority. We may not entirely agree as to whether all of private piety must be immediately subservient to the public means of grace. Matthew 6:6 would seem to mitigate against such a position. But this is a very small matter indeed. I hope you are not reading my statements as being defensive. I am not intending to be. Nor am I intending to be antagonistic.
 
Lane,

I'm sorry, I misread what you wrote. The recent lit re JE and justification has focused on the Misc.

Yes, I do think MGK was unclear. His earlier lit (edited by others) was MUCH clearer than his later writing (which was largely unedited).

Edwards was ambiguous because he said different things at different times. We'll just have to agree to disagree (like the sec lit).

As I read the history of theology, the turn to ontology has been highly problematic. Edwards is a part of that tradition. It relocates the problem away from sin as a moral/legal category and makes it a matter of being. Historically, when that has happened problems in justification have followed. I see JE as part of that pattern.

We maI do believe that I did describe prayer as a means of grace but we may have to disagree about the way to speak of private piety. I am not willing yet to call it a means of grace in the same way that the public, divinely ordained means are means of grace. In this I'm influenced by Berkhof's language in his Reformed Dogmatics/ST. I wouldn't be quite as strong today as LB was then but I understand his point. I'm also influenced by the fact that the very idea of private bible reading is truly modern thing. Most people prior to the modern period never had private access to God's Word. They heard it. They didn't read it. It's salutary and important to take advantage of the benefits we have (easy access to printed and digital bibles!) but we can't anachronistically impute that access to the history of the church or to the history of redemption. Most Israelites couldn't even hear Moses when he spoke at Horeb let alone see him or read what he said!

What do you make of that scholarship which argues that there really was no 1GA, that there were local revivals and good publicity? Have you read Stout on Whitefield?

Again, we may simply have to disagree about the benefits of the 1GA.

Do you see any unhappy results from the 1GA?

Do you think we can hermetically seal the 1GA from the 2GA?
 
Lane,

I'm sorry, I misread what you wrote. The recent lit re JE and justification has focused on the Misc.

Yes, I do think MGK was unclear. His earlier lit (edited by others) was MUCH clearer than his later writing (which was largely unedited).

Edwards was ambiguous because he said different things at different times. We'll just have to agree to disagree (like the sec lit).

As I read the history of theology, the turn to ontology has been highly problematic. Edwards is a part of that tradition. It relocates the problem away from sin as a moral/legal category and makes it a matter of being. Historically, when that has happened problems in justification have followed. I see JE as part of that pattern.

We maI do believe that I did describe prayer as a means of grace but we may have to disagree about the way to speak of private piety. I am not willing yet to call it a means of grace in the same way that the public, divinely ordained means are means of grace. In this I'm influenced by Berkhof's language in his Reformed Dogmatics/ST. I wouldn't be quite as strong today as LB was then but I understand his point. I'm also influenced by the fact that the very idea of private bible reading is truly modern thing. Most people prior to the modern period never had private access to God's Word. They heard it. They didn't read it. It's salutary and important to take advantage of the benefits we have (easy access to printed and digital bibles!) but we can't anachronistically impute that access to the history of the church or to the history of redemption. Most Israelites couldn't even hear Moses when he spoke at Horeb let alone see him or read what he said!

What do you make of that scholarship which argues that there really was no 1GA, that there were local revivals and good publicity? Have you read Stout on Whitefield?

Again, we may simply have to disagree about the benefits of the 1GA.

Do you see any unhappy results from the 1GA?

Do you think we can hermetically seal the 1GA from the 2GA?

I can now understand your concern with regard to neo-Platonism. I'll have to dig into the Misc. on justification to see if he makes it a question of ontology. He certainly did not in his treatises and sermons.

Haven't evaluated the scholarship regarding whether there was a general revival or not, although it seems at first glance a bit weird to say there was no general awakening. Haven't read Stout on Whitefield. I've only read Dallimore.

I think there was a very unfair attack on the Old Side folks simply for voicing concerns that came out of the 1GA. That kind of unfair attack has continued down to the present.

I do think the 1GA is far more Calvinistic than the 2GA, which I regard as much more highly problematic, because of the heretical soteriology involved (especially in Finney, who was an out and out Pelagian, not even semi). The 2GA most definitely despised the ordinary use of the means of grace (whether the 1GA did so might be ambiguous, but there is no ambiguity in the 2GA). So, at least in these two areas, there are, I think, significant differences. It would be hard to argue that there was zero continuity (how would one do that?). But it would not be difficult, I think, to posit at least some significant enough differences. I find little to commend in the 2GA.
 
Scott,
Pardon my jumping in; I just want to make sure you are doing no more than pointing out that we are more blessed to have the Word much more available than in past history. The Westminster Standards (and the Scottish directory for family worship) make it pretty clear private reading of the Scriptures is an obligation. Would you disagree with that?

I'm also influenced by the fact that the very idea of private bible reading is truly modern thing. Most people prior to the modern period never had private access to God's Word. They heard it. They didn't read it. It's salutary and important to take advantage of the benefits we have (easy access to printed and digital bibles!) but we can't anachronistically impute that access to the history of the church or to the history of redemption. Most Israelites couldn't even hear Moses when he spoke at Horeb let alone see him or read what he said!
 
Hi Chris,

I had those places in the Standards in mind when I wrote the response. I tried to write carefully so as not to suggest anything contrary to the Standards (through which I just finished teaching this spring in our Confessions course).

I'm making an historical point that we often forget. If it is the case that printed bibles didn't exist before the late modern period (and that is the case) and if it is the case that for the history of redemption most people ONLY heard the Word read and taught, it cannot be the case that private bible reading is on an equal plane with the authorized public proclamation of it.

I'm not suggesting in any way that God's people do not have an obligation to read the bible now that we have them, in our own language, to hand but I do want us to be cautious not to invent a new means of grace that came into existence in the late medieval period. I think we're justly critical of Rome for doing just that!

Scott,
Pardon my jumping in; I just want to make sure you are doing no more than pointing out that we are more blessed to have the Word much more available than in past history. The Westminster Standards (and the Scottish directory for family worship) make it pretty clear private reading of the Scriptures is an obligation. Would you disagree with that?

I'm also influenced by the fact that the very idea of private bible reading is truly modern thing. Most people prior to the modern period never had private access to God's Word. They heard it. They didn't read it. It's salutary and important to take advantage of the benefits we have (easy access to printed and digital bibles!) but we can't anachronistically impute that access to the history of the church or to the history of redemption. Most Israelites couldn't even hear Moses when he spoke at Horeb let alone see him or read what he said!
 
Most people prior to the modern period never had private access to God's Word. They heard it. They didn't read it. It's salutary and important to take advantage of the benefits we have (easy access to printed and digital bibles!) but we can't anachronistically impute that access to the history of the church or to the history of redemption. Most Israelites couldn't even hear Moses when he spoke at Horeb let alone see him or read what he said!

B.B. Warfield has an essay (the first one in the Selected Shorter Writings, v.1) called "The Bible the Book of Mankind". There he marshals an argument that would seem to indicate that your statement here is rather too sweeping. It describes some dark periods in church history, but it does not describe them all.
 
One of the reasons I wrote the book was to let readers know what I discovered. I didn't intend to write on Edwards or the 1GA. I was doing some background research for a paragraph and one thing led to another. That's one reason why the book took 5 years. Those who are going to open upon on the book with both guns have a moral obligation to do the same research I did before they start in. It takes time.

Another thing, as I indicated in the book, that I wanted to work out is problem of the relation between what is, in many of our churches, and what was. I read history organically. Things don't just drop out of the sky. The silliness we see in contemporary "Reformed" worship didn't just happen. It has roots. What are those roots? The traditional/accepted story is that the 2GA was "the bad guy." Whence the 2GA? That's Iain Murray's argument that the 1GA was "good" and the 2GA was "bad," but, as I noted in the book, when push comes to shove even Iain isn't entirely consistent. I heard him lecture on this when I was teaching in Wheaton. His bottom line is "the right sort" of religious experience. This was the Doctor's bottom line too and Packer's. This is why the Dr wanted to qualify Calvinism with Methodism. This is why Jim Packer signed ECT. At the end of the day, Idris Cardinal Cassidy was able to testify to the right sort of religious experience. When did American Presbyterians begin to lose the DPW? Why? When did we lose the psalms in favor of paraphrases and the latter in favor of uninspired hymns? During or as a result of the 1GA.

Where did these folk learn this orientation to religious experience? I say they learned it from the so-called 1GA. There's a serious argument about what really happened. Don't dismiss it until you've read the lit I reference in the footnotes. That's why they're there. I realize that it presents a challenge to the accepted story but that's why the book took so long. I had to re-evaluate and re-think a lot of things.
 
I'm making an historical point that we often forget. If it is the case that printed bibles didn't exist before the late modern period (and that is the case) and if it is the case that for the history of redemption most people ONLY heard the Word read and taught, it cannot be the case that private bible reading is on an equal plane with the authorized public proclamation of it.

I'm not suggesting in any way that God's people do not have an obligation to read the bible now that we have them, in our own language, to hand but I do want us to be cautious not to invent a new means of grace that came into existence in the late medieval period. I think we're justly critical of Rome for doing just that!

I agree with your main point but I just want to ask you this following question: Wasn't Paul referring to written Scripture when he mentioned "sacred writings" to Timothy in 2 Tim. 3:16?

2 Timothy 3:16:
and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Additional: Should we view Timothy's acquaintance with the sacred writings as mainly in connection with the practices that were being observed in the synagogue then or should this not include the private reading of Scripture also?
 
I agree with your main point but I just want to ask you this following question: Wasn't Paul referring to written Scripture when he mentioned "sacred writings" to Timothy in 2 Tim. 3:16?
2 Timothy 3:16:
and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
[/QUOTE]

My understanding is that there were copies of the epistles copied and sent to the churches. As a minister Timothy would have had access to them but almost no one else would have owned a copy of a scroll (codices = books didn't become common for some time after that) of an apostolic epistle. Certainly people didn't have copies of the whole of Scripture to take whom for private reading. Until the printing press that just didn't even become possible except for the most wealthy of folk. Even after the printing press popular or mass ownership of books was rare until the technology was refined and popular literacy and the rise of the middle class increased demand.

-----Added 6/5/2009 at 07:20:42 EST-----

Reuben,

We know a little bit more about the history of printing and reading than we did 100 years ago.

See my reply below.

Most people in the biblical history couldn't read. Widespread literacy is a modern phenomenon and one, judging the literacy rates, that appears to be fading.

Most people prior to the modern period never had private access to God's Word. They heard it. They didn't read it. It's salutary and important to take advantage of the benefits we have (easy access to printed and digital bibles!) but we can't anachronistically impute that access to the history of the church or to the history of redemption. Most Israelites couldn't even hear Moses when he spoke at Horeb let alone see him or read what he said!

B.B. Warfield has an essay (the first one in the Selected Shorter Writings, v.1) called "The Bible the Book of Mankind". There he marshals an argument that would seem to indicate that your statement here is rather too sweeping. It describes some dark periods in church history, but it does not describe them all.
 
Reuben,

We know a little bit more about the history of printing and reading than we did 100 years ago.

See my reply below.

Most people in the biblical history couldn't read. Widespread literacy is a modern phenomenon and one, judging the literacy rates, that appears to be fading.

But that doesn't actually overturn what Warfield asserts, as that children learned to join syllables from the genealogies in Matthew and Luke, or that 7-year old girls were expected to have started memorizing from the Psalms. Nor does it overturn the fact that Timothy did have access to the OT Scriptures from the time he was a child - and this in a home where his father was an unbeliever.

It also ignores the fact that people who can't read, can memorize.
 
Reuben,

I think we are talking past each other.

Yes, people memorized God's Word. They heard it and they recited it and they memorized it. The Rabbis and others memorized the entirety of the Torah. It's likely that Paul had the entire Torah memorized.

I'm ONLY speaking to the fact that most laity lived in poverty. They had a subsistence level existence and did not, could not, have copies of Scripture in their homes. They couldn't read them. Of course they could memorize oral speech. That was common in the ancient world. That's how texts were transmitted. I affirm that. I wasn't speaking to that. What I'm speaking to is the widely held assumption that people have always had written bibles in their homes. It wasn't possible for most to afford copies of Scripture. These were made by hand and were relatively rare.

I don't doubt that Timothy had access to written Scripture at some point (Paul commends him to the public reading of Scripture) but I don't know that the passage intends us to believe that Timothy grew up in a house with access to written texts of Scripture in the home. This seems to be a supposition more than a fact. Paul says,

2 Tim 3:14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Paul does not say say that Timothy has always had access to a written text of Scripture. From what I know I guess it would have been highly unusual for a family to have a copy of the Hebrew text or the LXX. They would have heard in the synagogue and it would have been recited from memory at table and the like. No doubt about that.
 
I can accept that - though I do recommend Warfield's article, and think his account does give the idea of a greater diffusion of the written word (inasmuch as it was the book used for teaching children to read) than your posts would seem to allow.

However, the vital point is surely that people did have access to the word of God, and not only at the time of the public services. Just as I don't really care if someone listens to Alexander Scourby or reads for themselves, so it doesn't matter if someone read or recited from memory. And if people are able to access the word of God in private, it is their duty to do so constantly.
 
I realize that, for those who are not in touch with the academic literature on Edwards, some of what I wrote might be a little shocking. Before folk fly into a rage over my criticisms of some aspects of the 1GA (which was really the point of the chapter) they ought to read some of the lit for themselves.

Dr. Clark, why is it that academic literature seems to hold almost an uncritically examined weight in these discussions? I always felt that to be a problem with certain profs at WSC. There seemed to be a serious hesitancy to give positive affirmation to the reality that academics are not just bare academics in some detached, idealistic two-kingdom realm, doing their duty apart from presuppositions that negatively affect their scholarship in significant ways, but are indeed affected both in their motives and their conclusions in research by their unregenerate natures and rejection of Christ's kingdom. Dropping lines like the above almost makes it sound as if the academy's conclusions should always trump those of the church, and that our agenda should be affected and sidelined by their criticisms. It should be acknowledged that not everyone who is involved in the academic community surrounding the life and work of Edwards is a believer, and that their thoughts on the value of either of the Awakenings will be tainted by their anti-Christian/anti-supernatural positions.



I worry about the effect of a mythological, golden-age history of the 18th-century which bears little relation to the history as historians know it.

Again, you begin with a jab that sounds more like secular academia than anything else. Which historians? How do you prove that Murray's interpretations are any more mythological than the constructions given by secular or secularized academics and biographers?

This is addressed quite thoughtfully by David Wells in his recent The Courage to be Protestant where he seems to be much more honest than many that all historical writing is one part historical/archeological fact, and two (to twelve!) parts reconstruction, speculation, inference, and tentative conclusion. Why should Murray's scholarship (which I find to be well documented, and substantiated by numerous footnotes) be deemed "mythological" while what is put out by "the academy" at large, such as Zachary Hutchins' Edwards and Eve: Finding Feminist Strains in the Great Awakening's Patriarch be seen as more credible?

I think that is where the understanding of common grace has been uncritically used by some WSC profs to conveniently ignore and/or avoid the rampant unbelief that finds home in the broader academy and its scholarly output, whether that is in biblical studies or historical writings. I think that Van Til had a much better handle on the deeply entrenched unbelief of the non-Christian mind, and the antithesis that must necessarily be brought out in discussion than some 2k advocates are willing to accept.

I have never understood why you critique Murray as putting out false, golden-age style scholarship on the whole, when I find much more of a Christian take on Church history in his works than others. Are we then to say that as Christians we must be following a mythological golden-age view of reality regarding, say, the four Gospels when we find that "the scholarship of the academy" disagrees with our faith?

Please explain.
 
Adam,

We discussed this for an entire semester in the HT501 seminar.

I'm sorry I sound like a secularist but the short story is that appeals to special providence do not a "Christian" interpretation of history or even good history make. Providence is ultimately responsible causally, in some sense, for all that happens. Now what? Now we're down to the hard work of reading texts in their original context and to archival work and the like.

Some of the stuff to which I refer the reader, in the footnotes, to which I commend the reader, is better than many of the accepted, popular "Christian" interpretations of history.

You'll have to read the book and do the work I did if you want to challenge my interpretation. I can't accept a sweeping denunciation of all that work on theoretical basis of a wrong use of or view of common grace. I'm sorry soldier but that's just intellectual laziness.

Now get down and give me fifty!

That's a joke.http://www.puritanboard.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
 
Adam,

We discussed this for an entire semester in the HT501 seminar.

I'm sorry I sound like a secularist but the short story is that appeals to special providence do not a "Christian" interpretation of history or even good history make. Providence is ultimately responsible causally, in some sense, for all that happens. Now what? Now we're down to the hard work of reading texts in their original context and to archival work and the like.

Some of the stuff to which I refer the reader, in the footnotes, to which I commend the reader, is better than many of the accepted, popular "Christian" interpretations of history.

You'll have to read the book and do the work I did if you want to challenge my interpretation. I can't accept a sweeping denunciation of all that work on theoretical basis of a wrong use of or view of common grace. I'm sorry soldier but that's just intellectual laziness.

Now get down and give me fifty!

That's a joke.http://www.puritanboard.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Dr. Clark,
When you say appeal to special providence, are you saying that miracles etc cannot be appealed to justify a certain Christian position? Or are you saying that miracles/special providence can be appealed to but you think they are being appealed to in a wrong context? If it is the later, then when in the context proper?

CT
 
I'm saying that it's poor theology to make selective appeals to providence to justify a historical claim. E.g. "God raised up Martin Luther." Well, yes, that's true! But God also raised up (in his providence) Ignatius of Loyola, did he not?

As a matter of good history appeals to providence have limited value. Whether we side with Luther or Loyola is a matter of theology, not history.

The vocation of the historian is to tell the truth about the past as best he can. I don't check to see if the historians I'm reading are regenerate. I do ask whether they are doing good scholarship. E.g. I have no idea what Ned Landsman's theological views are but he's cracking good scholar of the 18th century. My tutor at St Anne's was probably a latitudinarian but he was very good scholar of Dutch Reformed orthodoxy in the 17th century. Heiko Oberman was pretty liberal in his theology (judging by side comments he made) but he was a brilliant scholar of the late middle ages and of the Reformation. Jill Raitt is an ex-Romanist nun with whose theology I have little sympathy but she's fine scholar of Beza and French Protestantism. I have no idea what Irena Backus' theology is but she's one of the best scholars writing today.

What makes these folk good scholars? They did careful research into a particular question or period or person. They paid attention to primary sources and read them well and skillfully. They interacted with relevant secondary lit. Good historical scholarship explains what, in theological terms (WCF 5.2), "second causes" were involved in, e.g. the Thirty Years War. It is true that, relative to first causes, the war occurred in God's providence but history is concerned with second causes.

The best historical explanation of the Thirty Years War will give the most comprehensive account of the intellectual, economic, social, political, and even geographic factors that led to the War and that cause it to continue.

Going back to Adam's post for a moment I doubt very much that careful investigation and description of those causes constitutes infidelity to the faith on my part or that learning from the accounts of others who have studied the Thirty Years War, even if they are unbelievers, compromise with devilish unbelief.

Too often appeals to providence amount to little more than special pleading.

History done properly is a descriptive enterprise. It doesn't tell folk what they ought to believe. It tells what was done, or said, by whom, when, where, and why.

By contrast, theology is a prescriptive enterprise. It's my job as a historian to tell the truth about the past so that the bib studies guys and the theologians can do their job. If I don't do my job well they may operate from bad premises. E.g. I remember a fellow who used to teach that a certain famous Reformed theologian did not teach the pactum salutis. This was false but the conviction that this famous theologian didn't teach the PS influenced him in his own view of the PS and helped to perpetuate a false idea among his students concerning the extent to which the PS was adopted by Reformed theologians. That one mistake, repeated over time, helped to perpetuate a false family history and helped to create a self-identity that wasn't true.

The theologian is concerned with accounting for the theological significance of the meaning of events. The historian isn't. That's not his job.

I understand that American Christians don't really care to be burdened with the past (that anti-historical bias is deeply ingrained in the American psyche-- that's part of why we exist, to get away from Europe and the past) but as Christians I don't think we can afford to be as influenced by the America anti-historical bias as we are. As I read Ps 78 we're commanded to remember the history of redemption and repeat it to our children. I'm not saying that non-canonical history is the same sort of history but it does suggest a slightly different attitude toward the past than the one we often carry.


Adam,

We discussed this for an entire semester in the HT501 seminar.

I'm sorry I sound like a secularist but the short story is that appeals to special providence do not a "Christian" interpretation of history or even good history make. Providence is ultimately responsible causally, in some sense, for all that happens. Now what? Now we're down to the hard work of reading texts in their original context and to archival work and the like.

Some of the stuff to which I refer the reader, in the footnotes, to which I commend the reader, is better than many of the accepted, popular "Christian" interpretations of history.

You'll have to read the book and do the work I did if you want to challenge my interpretation. I can't accept a sweeping denunciation of all that work on theoretical basis of a wrong use of or view of common grace. I'm sorry soldier but that's just intellectual laziness.

Now get down and give me fifty!

That's a joke.http://www.puritanboard.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Dr. Clark,
When you say appeal to special providence, are you saying that miracles etc cannot be appealed to justify a certain Christian position? Or are you saying that miracles/special providence can be appealed to but you think they are being appealed to in a wrong context? If it is the later, then when in the context proper?

CT
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top