Our Church: A Personal History of the Church of England (Scruton)

Scuton, Sir Roger.  Our Church.

Sir Roger’s memoir, if one could call it that, tells of a church’s story, of how the identity of the Anglican Church intertwined itself with that of the English nation.  Our first response is naturally to “tsk-tsk,” seeing the low fortunes today of both Britain and the Church of England. That may indeed be the correct response, but such a response would miss something: the church–a specifically Protestant church–managed to seep into the very essence of a people, even if they at times no longer believed in that essence. Sir Roger tells us that people who fail to see the Anglican church as England’s national church will also fail to understand England’s identity.

The Church managed to do this primarily through the tools of liturgy and the Book of Common Prayer, along with the King James Version. Church rites are “‘points of intersection of the timeless/With time,’ moments at which eternity is made manifest in rituals.”  Indeed, “when it comes to the transcendental, trust is all we can give.”

While the Christian Nationalism phenomenon will (blessedly) soon fade from the scene, the Anglican church is probably the best example of a successful Christian nationalism. “The Church of England is heir to the conciliar tradition and to the alliance between secular government and doctrinal conformity that was forged in the early councils.”  If Christian Nationalists were smart (they aren’t), they would settle for something like an earlier Anglicanism.  It comes with a price, though: the king must be the judicial head of the church.  That rules out Baptists and Presbyterians.  Why the king, though?  This is only a guess (and since Christian nationalism will never get off the ground, it remains only a theory). The monarch (or monarchy) is the focal point of the people, providing a unity for the nation that a General Assembly just cannot give.

Is it still possible to have non-monarchical/non-Erastian Christian nationalisms? I suppose it might be, though one would be hard-pressed to find workable examples today.

The American Anglican church descended from the Episcoal Church of Scotland, bypassing the need to acknowledge the king as head of the church.

“English churches tell of a people who for several centuries have preferred seriousness to doctrine and routine to enthusiasm–people who hope for immortality but do not really expect it, except as a piece of English earth.”

“God, as represented in the tradition of the Anglican Church, is an Englishman, uncomfortable in the presence of enthusiasm, reluctant to make a fuss, but trapped into making public speeches.”

“The Anglican church, by contrast, is a place of light and shade, of tombs and recesses, of leaf mouldings and windows decked with Gothic tracery and leaded glass.”

The Book of Common Prayer

“Words like ‘almighty’ and ‘everlasting’, phrases like ‘the author of peace and lover of concord, transfigure the things and situations to which they are applied. They are familiar, dignified words, which lose nothing from repetition.”

The Church and Politics

“Wesley himself showed no tendency to political radicalism, ending his life as he had begun it, a settled Tory.”

“While it may have been true at the end of the nineteenth century to describe the Anglican Church as the Tory Party at prayer, it would be more correct to say, of its leaders today, that they represent the Labour Party trying to remember how to pray, while not really understanding the point of it.”

Church and Culture

Speaking of public schools: “And the quarantining of female sexuality meant that women were divided, in the thinking of Victorian schoolboys, into two classes: virgins and whores, both forbidden.”

“J. K. Rowling’s Hogwarts, for all its pagan accessories, is an Anglican institution, as Gothic a settlement as any chaplain-haunted public school.”

Criticisms

Despite his legendary status as a conservative philosopher and cultural critic, Sir Roger was not a theologian, and that is painfully evident in places. He freely admits towards the end that his view of the church and Christian life would not “stand under the rigor of Calvinist scrutiny.” The book should not be read as theology, though.  It is a memoir, with all of the strengths and foibles of the narrator.

The Presbyterian Philosopher: The Authorized Biography of Gordon Clark

Douma, Douglas.  The Presbyterian Philosopher. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. Hoopla edition.

A few disclaimers: I write as a friendly outside to the Clarkian school. Neither am I a Van Tillian. As I agree with some of Clark’s positions, especially on the wording of The Complaint, that does not necessarily mean I endorse all of his conclusions regarding the Well-Meant Offer, supralapsarianism, and the like. Those matters deserve their own post. With that said, this was an extremely profitable book.

It is tempting to think that Gordon Clark never had the influence that Cornelius Van Til had, but that might be a mistake.  Clark did influence several key evangelicals, notably Carl F Henry and the earlier Christianity Today. Clark’s influence, though, was never denominational, which is probably why the authorized biography did not appear earlier.

Douglas Douma, utilizing numerous unpublished manuscripts and letters, gives us a unique glimpse into Gordon Clark’s life.  The book was a joy to read and literary qualities aside, it will prove quite valuable in the history of 20th century evangelicalism.

Clark’s Intellectual Influences

He “aggressively studied Plotinus in the original Greek.”  He argues that God’s simplicity is not a simplicity in the Plotinian sense, but Clark believes that the attributes are identical. Douma hints how this might be a problem with Clark’s epistemology.  Man has to know at least some of the same propositions as God knows. But it might not be that problematic: whatever tensions Clark’s position might have, it does not seem to follow that knowing the same content in a proposition man must then have the same mind, and hence essence, of God.

Clark thought, probably with some justification, that his view was Augustine’s: the basic items in God’s mind were not ideas, but propositions.  I think that might be too restrictive, though.  I know God knows me in his mind, yet it seems intuitive that God can know me without having to use the proposition “I know Jacob.”

Wheaton

Clark’s “worldview thinking” became apparent at Wheaton.  He drew heavily upon James Orr’s account of worldview, seeing items as systematically coherent. Christianity must be defended as a whole system. God’s existence is the ultimate basis for all other knowledge.

This entailed for Clark, among other things, a rejection of empiricism. Clark defined empiricism as “the theory of epistemology that bases all knowledge on experience or sensation alone.”  Such a view also entails that the mind is blank, “sensations are basic,” they are stored in the mind, from which we abstract ideas or concepts.

There are several problems with empiricism. A blank mind cannot process sensations. Senses can deceive. One must point out, however, that we still use sense data.  Indeed, we use sense data even on the intuitive level (such as looking both ways crossing the street before one even thinks about looking both ways).

Worldview Thinking

Presuppositionalism as a term was first coined in 1948 by Buswell.  For Clark, theory must precede fact. Indeed, “the alleged events, instead of constituting Christian theism, stand themselves in need of philosophic interpretation” (Clark, quoted in Douma).

All systems have unproven and unprovable axioms, or starting points. In some places, Clark seems to identify these axioms with first principles.  If so, then he is closer to traditional epistemology in this regard than he might suspect. Such an axiom must be shown to be self-consistent, having no contradictions.

The Ordination Controversy

Clark had considered ordination in the Reformed Episcopal Church.

It cannot be the case that the OPC had always rejected Clark’s view of incomprehensibility.  Henry Coray had written to Van Til that Clark’s student, Francis Mahaffy, passed presbytery without any objections (Henry W. Coray to CVT, 15 April 1944, WTS Archives, quoted in Douma).

The problem restated: “Clark, an Old School Presbyterian, was a strict subscriptionist to the Westminster Standards, but The Complaint asked him to subscribe to Van Til’s particular views” (Douma).

“The issue between the two parties, rather, was over how man’s knowledge relates to God’s knowledge.”

“The point of contact was, for Clark, the proposition known.”

“Clark held to a qualitative distinction in the mode or  manner of knowing.  He believed God’s knowledge is intuitive…whereas man’s knowledge is discursive.”  So far, Clark is orthodox. Indeed, the Complaint’s earlier wording spelled disaster, asserting that there was no point of contact between man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge.  This means man knows nothing, since God knows everything and there is no point of contact.  The Complainants ultimately backed off that extreme claim.

The problem with saying the Bible is all paradox or all apparently contradictory: “He who says a given paradox cannot be solved, logically implies that he has examined every verse in Scripture, that he has exhausted every implication of every verse, and that there is in all this no hint of a solution.”

Is the content of man’s knowledge and God’s knowledge as it relates to a specific truth the same?  Clark explains: “Obviously the contents of one’s knowledge are the truths one knows…The contents of a man’s knowledge are the truths the man knows.  The Complaint maintains that these two sets of truths are qualitatively different.”

Douma does not bring this out, but Thomists were already aware of this.  That is why we say that the content of a particular proposition is univocal between man and God, but analogical in terms of judgment.

Douma notes that “content” was changed to mean “character of understanding” in the 1948 majority report. If it now means “mode of knowing,” then the original Complaint does not make sense.  As Clark notes in a letter to D. Clair Davis, “If mode answers how we know, and object answers what we know, what question is answered by the idea of content? They have (to this day, as far as I know) refused to define content so as to distinguish it from mode and object” (14 October 1952, quoted in Douma).

Clark’s Contributions

In light of recent developments by Russell and others on logic, Clark adamantly defended traditional Aristotelian logic.  Here is the problem.  Take your standard “A Proposition,” All S is P. The subaltern(I Proposition) is Some S is P. If all men are mortal, it naturally follows that some men are mortal.  Beginning with Gottlobe Frege, logicians saw a problem. Subalternation seemed to imply that some entities exist which clearly do not.  Douma gives the following example:

“All lions in the room next door have sharp teeth” does not mean “some lions in the room next door have sharp teeth,” because there might not be any lions next door.

Russell framed it this way: all A is b means a<b, all A is included  in b.

For Clark, Russell gave an erroneous definition of “all.” It is one thing to claim A is included in B. It is quite another to say A is B.  For example, 0>1 now reads “All 0 is 1,” yet this is clearly absurd.

Clark makes some important points here, but I am not sure it is enough to overturn the gains in modern logic.

Addendum: Was Clark a Nestorian?

Charity demands we say no. Clark honestly worked through the implications of his system and knew he was at an impasse, which is probably why he did not publish his book on the incarnation.  The problem stems from his definition of person as a “composite of truths.” As Jesus had both divine and human minds, he had divine and human composites of truths.  This seems to lead to the conclusion that he was two persons.

Clark responded that Nestorius did not define person in this way, and that is true.  It is still a problem and I am not sure how he can get out of it. There are a few potential options: we could say that the divine composite of truths “enhypostasized” or hominized the human composite of truths.  That could work, although we are stretching language at that point.

Conclusion

This book was a delight to read and presents Clark’s case to a wider audience.  Douma helpfully summarized Clark’s own views, even showing how Clark’s teachings can reach mainstream evangelicalism.  There are a few areas in which I must differ with Clark, though. I think he overshoots his target on sensation, though his criticisms on empiricism are probably sound.  Notwithstanding that, I found Douma’s case for Clark’s position in the ordination controversy very convincing. In fact, if one keeps in mind the old distinction in Thomism (noting the irony here) between univocal in content, analogical in judgment, Clark’s position is actually common sense.

Martin Bucer: An Introduction to His Life and Theology

McKim, Donald and West, Jim.  Martin Bucer: An Introduction to his Life and Theology. Wipf & Stock Publishers.

There are those who are looked on with suspicion because they are divisive, no doubt thinking they are “bold for truth.”  They are rightly looked upon as cantankerous and divisive.  Others are viewed with suspicion because they are so irenic, always seeing the good in others and promoting Christ’s vision of unity.  Martin Bucer was one such man.  It is unfortunate that Bucer is not as known today as Calvin, especially, in my opinion, because he was far more interesting.  With theological retrieval in full steam for all traditions, this is being remedied.

Donald McKim and Jim West do a decent, if only cursory, job at introducing the lay reader to Martin Bucer.  Whatever limitations to this volume, if it helps young puppy Calvinists, also known as Conference Calvinists, find a deeper expression of the Reformed, especially focusing on the ministry of Word and Sacrament and churchly piety, then this volume will be a success.

My main issue with the book is its only surface-level depth of Bucer’s theology.  For example, if you are already Reformed and have not read Bucer, little of this will be new to you.  That is probably a good thing as it shows a deep unity among the Reformers.  On the other hand, if Bucer is known as being an irenic theologian, then what was it about his theology in specific places that made other Reformers, particularly Luther and Bullinger, suspicious of him.  We get a few hints but nothing really worthwhile.

Bucer’s life is quite interesting, and while the authors do not make this connection, in Bucer we see both theocrat and exile, ending his life ministering to his Majesty, King Edward VI, blessed of God.

God

Bucer sees God as the gift-giver.  No doubt other Reformers would agree, but for Bucer this takes on a particularly joyful character.  The chief source for this claim is his 1537 Catechism. “God is the God who gives rather than takes.”  This is a marked contrast with the theology of late medieval Catholicism, whose vision of God had him receiving indulgence payments.

The Holy Spirit

Because the Holy Spirit establishes faith, his work is the outworking of God’s eternal predestination.  The Holy Spirit works through the church, though not mechanically, and in his work, “the church makes visible, through Word and Spirit, the active presence of Christ in the world.”

In line with his theology of the Spirit, Bucer makes the following suggestions for prayer:

1. Pray by the Spirit.
2. Through the Spirit, “be certain that what one prays for is to the glory of God.”
3. Believe that God will answer your prayers.
4. Pray with humility.

Sin and Salvation

Bucer, being a good Thomist, defines free will as “the faculty of choosing or rejecting the things that come our way, in accordance with our decided judgment.”  Bucer, being a good Protestant, qualified it to note we cannot will our own salvation.

Bucer, like almost all of the early Protestants, did not view predestination with existential angst.  We are not to fret whether we are predestined, but rather ask ourselves, “Do I believe in Jesus Christ and that by his death on the cross, I can be saved?”  ‘Election is focused on the work of Christ,’ not on my own mental agony.

Conclusion and Evaluation

It probably is not fair to criticize the authors for not covering my favorite parts of Bucer.  Nonetheless, I do wish they would have examined his liturgy in more detail and his interesting comments on the sign of the cross.  Their comments on church and state, while accurate enough in noting Bucer as a theocrat, do not add anything to the discussion, being consigned to a few paragraphs.  Notwithstanding those comments, if one can find it for a good price (or for free on a library app), one should get it.

The Church in the Theology of the Reformers (Avis)

Avis, Paul D. L.  The Church in the Theology of the Reformers. Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1981.

This is not a full review. I think it is better served by highlighting the political gains and tensions of the English Reformation.  If the gospel concerns inward and eternal things, which must exclude church government, and if society is understood by all sides as a Christian society, then something like a godly prince or an international pope is necessary.

Thesis: The marks of the church bridge the visible/invisible aspect (Avis 6).  Early Reformers were more interested in defining the Christological center of the church than its wider circumference.  The Reformers supplemented the earlier Lutheran idea by seeing the church as a visible society (7).

Problem under consideration: do we define the nature of the church by its visible marks, or do the marks indicate where it actually exists?

Prince and Bishop

The Reformed Episcopate

Main idea: the English Reformers realized the alternative to episcopal jurisdiction “was the assumption of this power by the magistrate, the godly prince” (114).

Avis is here missing a premise which he will supply later: society was already seen as a Christian society.  Who would rule it: prince or pope?  If that premise is granted, then there are really only two options.  Rule of the church by presbyters, while perhaps more biblical, could not practically, at least consistently, accept this premise. Because their rule was spiritual and distinct from the civil magistrate, they could not directly touch society.  That leaves open the question: who is going to rule this societas christiana?  We are back to the original problem: prince or pope?

Interestingly enough, if the bishop’s power of jurisdiction flowed from the prince (although not his right of sacrament), there was not much need for apostolic succession (115). We Reformed today might look at the Anglican bishopric as “popish leftovers.” The historical reality, however, is quite the opposite. The godly prince “weakened the role of the episcopate in the doctrine of the Christian ministry.”

Even the primary champion of a Reformed episcopate, Richard Hooker, ultimately concludes that the superiority of bishops is “a power of order only” (121).

The Godly Prince

As would have been common in Christian reflection at that time, the godly prince was modeled after the godly Israelite kings (131). This would have been the norm for classical Protestant reflection.  Although muted somewhat by papalism for Rome, similar claims could be found for Orthodox Tsars.

For the early English Reformed it was not a merely theoretical concept.  It was an existential one.  As J. J. Scarisbrick noted, “we must remember that, to such as Cramner and doubtless many others, it was real and compelling–both a revelation and a liberation–and that for them the king’s headship was a holy thing which demanded obedience as to a father in God” (quoted in Avis, 132). The alternative to a godly prince was not a secular Jeffersonian republic, but the role of the Pope.

And here we come to the crucial premise: hard to argue for in our day, but undeniable in its own: “the Reformers are not adumbrating a theory of the state at all…theirs is a view of society, not of the state; of church government, not of political theory.  The background is the theocratic corpus Christianum of the medieval synthesis of Church and commonwealth” (132).

If the “things of God” are simply the gospel and “internal and eternal things,” everything else, including church government, must be Caesar’s. I suppose the question is now “Is Caesar, then, a pope?”  The English Reformers, following in the train of Wyclif, did an end run around this question:  the emperor (or king) preceded the pope in history. And for Elizabeth and her successors, this meant defending English liberties from papal claims.

Church and Commonwealth Revisited

What happens, as has happened today, if church and commonwealth are separate? For Hooker, those who argue for this must either affirm rule by the clergy and incompetence of the laity or make “a radical separation between church and commonwealth” (139). I still think there is something missing in this argument.  For the more theocratic Presbyterians today, there is a formal separation between church and commonwealth, but the line between the two is blurry.  Assuming that a magistrate, in determining which doctrines to apply, is not omnicompetent, he will have to consult the clergy.  The clergy now have an informal rule, or at least an informal judicial role, in society. It seems we are now back, if by an extremely circuitous route, to a corpus Christianum.  We are back to our original question: prince or pope?

The Reformers praised Aquinas?

David Sytsma’s twitter account, although not active at the moment, is a goldmine of valuable bibliographical information on the men the Reformers read. I copied and pasted from him, but I only did about 1%. The information is overwhelming. You have no excuse for saying the Reformers did not like Aquinas and Aristotle.

Tweets by SytsmaDavid

“…our faith is not against nature but only above it. Thus Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa contra gentiles; thus Ramon Llull… [and] Philippe de Mornay…”– Johann Heinrich Alsted (Methodus SS. Theologiae [1634], I.ii, canon 3)

“Of the Scholastics, one should especially study those who have declared war on the Jesuits, such as the Dominicans, whom, since they choose a safe way in many cases, we often praise and follow.”— Paulus Voet, (1657), p. 2

“On numerous occasions, Battles cites Aquinas as the target of Calvin’s criticism when in fact the theology attacked by Calvin is at odds with Aquinas’s theology as well.” – Charles Raith II (p. 13).

“[In the study of philosophy] the erudition of the Greeks, which comprises the universal knowledge of nature, is necessary, so that you can discuss behavior fitly and fully. The most valuable are Aristotle’s Ethics, Plato’s Laws, the Poets…”— Philip Melanchthon (1518)

“Augustine & later, Aquinas, concluded that at first an eternal law dwelt in God who is the most perfect embodiment of reason, & by this reason, God rules the world & thus is the reason for all things that happen. Then,they argue,this reason was imparted to human beings” (Zanchi, On the Law in General).
“[God] is pure act without admixture of any potentiality, most simple, and most perfect.”Franciscus Junius (Theses Theologicae).

“He who follows mainly Aristotle as a guide, and aspires to one, simple and the least sophistic teaching, can now and then take on something from other authors, too.”— Philip Melanchthon, “On Philosophy” (1536)

“[Jean Baptiste] Gonet, perhaps the leading Dominican Thomist at the end of the 17th century, believed that major Reformed theologians had “embraced” Thomist views of grace and free choice.”— Matthew Gaetano, 312

“The existence of God is his very essence or whatness. For God is pure act.”– Rudolph Goclenius (Isagoge in Peripateticorum et Scholasticorum Primam Philosophiam, 1598, p. 10).

“I fully accord with Aquinas” – Westminster divine Anthony Tuckney, citing Thomas on faith and reason, Summa theologiae I, q.1, a.8 (Eight Letters, ed. Samuel Salter, 1753, p. 94).

“The natural law is that which is innate to creatures endowed with reason and informs them with common notions of nature, that is, with principles and conclusions adumbrating the eternal law by a certain participation.”– Franciscus Junius (1545-1602)

That is almost word for word Thomas Aquinas. See below:
Natural law is nothing else than the rational creature’s participation of the eternal law (ST 1-2.91.2).

From Irenaeus to Grotius (O’Donovan and O’Donovan)

O’Donovan, Oliver and O’Donovan, Joan Lockwood. From Irenaeus to Grotius. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

This sourcebook is divided into five parts: The Patristic Age, Late Antiquity and Germanic Kingship, The Integration of Aristotle, Spiritual Polities and Dominum, and Renaissance and reformation.  At the risk of sounding Hegelian (purely accidental) we see the O’Donovans guiding us through the struggles each age had to face in integrating biblical truth, not only with their present culture, but with the achievements of previous ages.  

The Patristic Age

Christian thinkers had to wrestle with the uncomfortable fact that the NT praised Roman soldiers with the present reality of Rome’s attack on the faith.  Further, military service, whatever conclusion one reached, challenged ideas of continuity.

Eschatology factored heavier in these accounts.  As a separate community living in the time between the times, they awaited the arrival of Yahweh and the judgment of the age.  This sheds light on the confrontational (spiritual, anyway) atmosphere:  thinkers like Irenaeus and Cyril of Jerusalem saw a coming showdown with Antichrist (quoted in O’Donovan 41).

Several themes emerge in the Patristic Age, mainly the note of Evangelical Poverty.  Property, as defined by Lactantius, is defined “precisely by the structures of community relations in which material goods are communicated” (O’Donovan 47).  This means human existence has a fundamental sociality.  For the most part, the fathers–and the tradition as a whole-avoid calling private property evil.   But it is always deconstructed.  They see property as already existing within community.  It is to enable the trustee to better rule and share.

The Transition:  Towards the end of the age both East and West will have been shaped by Justinian’s Law.  The West would move to see links between Christology and political imagination (cf Kantorowicz)

Late Antiquity and Romano-Germanic Kingship

Germanic warrior-kings provided an alternative to the orientalizing-divinization cult.  The ecclesiastical structure begins to see itself as more separate (and often superior) to the political order.  Moreover, the episcopate is looked to as a model for rule.  Not surprisingly, and perhaps contrary to earlier gains, there is a return to the idea of a theocratic priest-king (again see Kantorowicz).  

Consistent with the warrior-king motif, and O’Donovan really does not dwell overly much on it, is the idea of David as a type of later Christian kings.  

Transition:  Not exactly a transition moment, but of immense importance was Pope Gelasius’s idea of the “two swords,” dual rulership (179, “There are two by whom the world is ruled, priest and king”).  Ambiguities in this model will create tensions when Aristotle comes on the scene.

The Struggle over Empire and the Integration of Aristotle.

Pope Gelasius’s formulation, for all of its difficulties, never united the two swords into one person. The temptation, however, would later prove too great.  The Papacy would develop the idea of plenitude potestasis, combining theology, law, and metaphysics into one.  One result would be the increasing corporatization of the church, indeed a “corporation of corporations” (O’Donovan 235; again see Kantorowicz).

The corporatization of the church brought an old issue back to focus: what is the church’s relation to property?  Augustinian reflection (eventually triumphing in Wyclif) had long placed restraints on the church’s vision.  Christ and his disciples were poor, so the reasoning went, therefore his successors should not own kingdoms.

For all of Aristotelianism’s problems, Aristotle did allow theologians to advance fruitful ideas of community and rights.  Thomas, in fact, would minimize the distance between pre-lapsarian and post-lapsarian communities.  

Political Community, Spiritual Church, and Dominum

French royalism, following after numerous papal schisms, exposed the vain pretensions of a lordly church in a secular sphere.   O’Donovan notes, “French royalist ecclesiology was a milestone on the way to the spiritualized church” (389).  The key thinker to follow is John Wyclif, who is quite likely the unspoken champion of this volume.  

Evangelical lordship is the “natural, nonproprietary use of necessary things universally open to human beings” (484).  Following Augustine, Wyclif will argue that a just lordship of earthly goods involves a rightly-ordered love towards them, which depends on a true knowledge of them available only in Christ (485; cf. Augustine City of God, BK 19). 

Does this mean that we can overthrow tyrants since they do not have a Christological understanding of rightly ordered loves, and hence no just lordship?  Not so fast, Wyclif would say. It is true they do not have just lordship, but we as those having true dominion in Christ bear witness that they have a “defective use of these goods” (Wyclif, 494). Tyrants posses “an unformed power” (Wyclif 510) but not true lordship.  Rather, it is the believer who has the epistemological authority to judge the failures of church and state  (O’Donovan 483ff). 

Communication and Sharing

“God communicates them (spiritual gifts) to mankind with no alienation or impoverishment to himself the giver” (Divine Lordship, bk. 3 ch. 1. 70c).  

Reformation and Beyond

Expanding exploration and new markets forced a rethinking of many theories, particularly those of ius naturale and ius gentium (O’Donovan 549).  The idea of “covenant” began to play a more prominent role (per Knox and Junius Brutus) in how one relates to kings.  On the Romanist and Anglican sides, develops in Thomism provided new reflections.

I think a lot of early Reformed covenantal approaches were quite strained.  However, Althusius’s symbiotic-covenantal model was not only brilliant, it was quite exciting.  He even summarizes and recapitulates the earlier medieval models as rule-by-communicacio.

Perkins has some great thoughts on equity: the mean between natural and divine law.  

Finishing the moment is Hugo Grotius’s ideas of natural right.  subjective right:  right attaching to a subject (Irenaeus to Grotius, 797-799).  A faculty is a right in the strict sense (entitles me to claim something as my own).  

• faculty::act
• fitness::potency

Grotius reworks subjective rights, not as entitlement, but as “fitness” or “aptitude.”

Observations

It took me ten years to work through this book, but I think it was worth it.  Occasionally O’Donovan might cook the evidence when it comes to political economy, and perhaps he doesn’t include all our favorite theologians, but given the limitations I don’t see how it could possibly be any better.  Definitely recommended.

Book IV of Richard Hooker’s Laws

Hooker, Richard. In Defense of Reformed Catholic Worship. eds. Bradford Littlejohn, Brian Marr, and Bradley Belschner. Moscow, ID: The Davenant Institute.

The vigor of one’s own position is often determined by the strength of his opponent. Alas, Richard Hooker had not an Owen or a Gillespie to quarrel with. He had Thomas Cartwright (The Rest of the Second Replie Against Master Whitgiftes Second Answer [Heidelberg: M. Schirat, 1577]). I have mixed emotions from reading this text. As a Presbyterian, I formally disagree with Hooker’s conclusions. But I do appreciate the force of some of his arguments. He provides, if inadvertently, a latent warning against bad historiography. No doubt you have heard well-meaning modern Puritans remark, “But we’re just doing it the way Athanasius and Tertullian did.” Please do not ever use that argument against a skilled opponent. It will end badly for you. Therefore, we have Hooker to thank for heading off bad arguments.

With that said, I do not think his own arguments are very good. They are probably good enough to rebut Cartwright. They would not be good enough to rebut Owen or Gillespie. On the whole, though, Hooker’s text, especially in its Davenant Institute version, is quite good. He is a master prose stylist, and the lyrical force comes out even in the modernized spelling and syntax. And the book is quite cheap, either in paper or Kindle format.

His argument:

1. “The substance of all religious actions is declared to us by God himself in few words (Hooker 1).
2. It is hard to prove apostolicity in religious worship. This claim might seem striking at first, especially coming from an Anglican who seeks to preserve some continuity with the pre-Reformation church. He is correct, though. He writes, “By restricting the church to the orders of the Apostolic times, they tie it to a remarkably vague standard” (7). We can apply the same standard to apostolic preaching. No one really preaches in the manner of the apostles, as they longest sermon in Acts is maybe five minutes.
3. Must all non-Roman ceremonies go? Hooker says they need not go immediately. If premise (2) holds, and some ceremonies maintain good order for the present time, then it would be counter-productive to remove them at once.\
4. Following (3), if we “needlessly separate ourselves from things indifferent,” we greatly undermine our efforts at reforming the church (31).
5. If our method is to “do the opposite of whatever Rome does,” then why simply apply that to religious worship? Why not apply it to the doctrine of God? Indeed, that is what some biblicists are doing today.
6. Another objection is this makes a stumbling block for weaker brethren. Hooker’s response is wise but misplaced: “good things, in short, have no scandalizing nature in them” (61). I agree, but did he not say earlier that these were “things indifferent?”

What, then, is the problem with Hooker’s presentation? I think he fails to interact with issues of binding the conscience. If God did not command it in his word, must my conscience be bound by it? I grant Hooker his intellectual victory over some radicals, but I cannot submit my conscience as of yet.

The Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book 3

Lombard, Peter. The Sentences, Book 3: On the Incarnation of the Word. Translated by Giulio Silano. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. 2008.

“This is your dissertation topic: explain this problem in Peter Lombard’s Sentences.”

 That is what someone would have done as a scholar in the Middle Ages. Since that is not readers today, what relevance could Peter Lombard have?  For all of his speculation and theoretical probing, he is a practical thinker. One way to evaluate practicality is to see if children would ask the same questions. As it turns out, children often ask deep questions, the kind that Peter Lombard asks.  We might not like his answers.  Even when I do agree with him, I do not agree with how he got the answer.  On the other hand, I do appreciate the logical and thorough way he evaluates opposing viewpoints.

Peter Lombard (1096-1160) was the “Master of Sentences.”  His work, The Sentences, compilations from patristic writings concerning the various loci of theology, formed the basis for the post-Augustinian church. His writings never surpassed Augustine in importance, but they applied Augustine’s writings to numerous questions in theology.

This volume, Book 3, treats the various controversies that arose in post-conciliar Christology. Lombard’s straightforward method facilitates an easy review.  Each distinction examines a particular problem in Christian theology.  Lombard next surveys the Fathers, usually Augustine, on how to explain it.  He then gives his own conclusion, again usually following Augustine.

The Person of Christ

It was more fitting that the Son, rather than the Father or Holy Spirit, took on flesh.  It could not have been the Father, for whoever takes on flesh will also take the property of “being Mary’s Son.” It could not have been the Father, for he would then be both Father and Son. It could not have been the Holy Spirit, for then he would take the name “Son” from the Son.

When we say he took on human nature, we do not mean human nature as a universal, since Christ did not take the whole human race (i.e., I did not become incarnate). Rather, he took “soul and flesh, with the properties of both” (II.1.3). A person took on a nature: the Person of the Son took on a human nature, and that the divine nature was united to a human nature in the Son (V.1.10).

The Work and Life of Christ

Whether Christ, according to his human nature, was able to, and did, make progress in wisdom and grace.vLombard answers that His human nature received the fullness of grace from the moment of conception. The passages pertaining to progress mean, therefore, that he made progress in revelation to others.

Concerning redemption, Christ, “by the pain which he bore on the cross, all temporal punishment due for sin is entirely forgiven to the convert in baptism.” Although this sounds like a shot across the bow against purgatory, Lombard adds that “the same punishment is lessened in penance.”

Anticipating Reformation debates, Lombard says “Christ mediates between men and the triune God according to his human nature.” I could be mistaken, but the Reformed, holding strong to the offices of Christ, would not agree with Lombard here.

The Virtues of Christ 

Did Christ have the full perfection of faith?   Faith is used in different senses. If Christ had full knowledge, and faith is evidence of things not seen, then how could he have had faith?  Yet since faith is a virtue, and Christ was not lacking in virtue, then how could he not have had faith?

Not an answer, but important:  Lombard, being a good medieval, notes that faith is not the cause of charity, but charity of faith.  It is this against which the Reformation responded. This is also why we reject justification by “spirit-wrought sanctity” or reading intense affections into the definition of justifying faith.

Conclusion

It is impossible to really understand medieval theology without at least some familiarity with Peter Lombard. And without that familiarity, key gains in the Reformation, even if they are accepted, will not always be appreciated. 

Wyclif (Anthony Kenny)

Kenny.  Anthony.  Wyclif. London: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Can a lapsed Roman Catholic write a fair book on John Wyclif?  Yes. Can said Roman Catholic write a good book on Wyclif? Again, yes.  Anthony Kenny, noted analytic philosopher, explores the often dizzying philosophical depths of an often misunderstood (both by Roman Catholics and Protestants) late medieval figure.  Indeed, Kenny claims that Wyclif anticipated many key developments in analytic philosophy.

It is fair to say that Wyclif is a man shrouded in myth.  As Protestants, our praise of him is not undue, but it is misplaced.  We are grateful for his efforts in translating the Bible from Latin to English, but that was not the reason for his fame in his lifetime.  Rather, his metaphysics–and later his work on the Eucharist–earned him international fame.  Ironically, it is for any reason other than that that Protestants read him today.

Philosopher of Truth

“All envy or actual sin is caused by a lack of an ordered love of universals…because every such sin consists in a will preferring a lesser good to a greater good” (Wyclif, quoted in Kenny 10).

Nominalists err “because they misunderstand the nature of predication.”  The universal is generally the predicate in a sentence, such as “John is wise.”  The universal, or form, is the predicate shared between at least two entities.  As Kenny notes, “The genus is what is predicated of many things which are different in species” (13).

So far, so good.  This is common fare in the discussion about universals.  Wyclif, like all Christian realists, has to anchor universals in the mind of God, lest he have something existing outside the reality of God.  This leads to a very interesting taxonomy:

(1) The mind of God has the thought of all universals from eternity, which Wyclif calls “Idea.”

(2) Once things are created, they are metaphysical universals, or what we commonly call universals.

(3) When someone thinks about the universals, they are logical universals.

Being, Form, and Essence

Every entity, or existing thing, has esse, or being.  The first kind of being, not surprisingly given Wyclif’s above taxonomy, has its anchor in the Idea in God.  From there, beings have their causes, whether general or specific, and this is essential being (18).  Moving down to the ladder, these beings have existence.  Finally, they have their accidental qualities.  

Wyclif’s discussion of being is straightforward.  Where he hints at new ground is his discussion of “truth-makers,” or what  it is that makes a proposition true.   Being;  being is what makes a proposition true. This sounds odd at first, but it is important to remember that being was not always divorced from truth in earlier ages.  Moreover, Wyclif is talking about essential, not existential being.  A thing’s essential being “is part of the fabric of the universe” (21).

Freedom and Necessity

Wyclif distinguishes between the various kinds of necessity.  Per se necessity, such as a mathematical truth, is absolutely necessary.  Per accidens necessity, such as my own existence, is not (31). Wyclif takes it a step further: hypothetical necessity can flow from something that is eternally the case (Kenny 33). It is not immediately clear what he is aiming at, but it is something along the lines of “eternal contingent truths.”  Kenny outlines the argument in the following way:

1. If God has always known that John will sin tomorrow, John will sin tomorrow.
2. God has always known that John will sin tomorrow.
3. Therefore, John will sin tomorrow.

Even though (2) follows absolutely, in terms of logic, from (1), it is not an eternally necessary truth because John’s existence is not eternally necessary. Wyclif wants to make the argument, plausible enough, that while God can “necessitate a free agent, he cannot compel or constrain him” (35).

Grace and Dominion

On civil dominion: “a man in sin has no right to dominion or lordship; a man who is in a state of grace possesses all the goods of the universe” (45).  He means that just ownership depends on just use, and since a sinner can never use a thing justly, he does not really own it.

That is not the most striking thing Wyclif says.  If each Christian owns the goods of the universe, then he logically shares them with other Christians who are in a state of grace.

Kenny goes a bit too far when he calls this “communism,” since it resembles nothing of Lenin or of the masses seizing ownership of the factories.

Wyclif draws yet another conclusion: if the above is true, then we should be able to tell who is in a state of grace.  This is a problem, since we normally cannot see into God’s predestination. He really does not deal with the question, save to say that some, probably local clergymen, are just manifest sinners that we will know.

The Body of Christ

Wyclif never rejected the doctrine of the Real Presence, only the current explanations of transubstantiation.  The real problem:  where did the bread go?  Transubstantiation seems to entail metaphysical annihilation. On a more concrete note, it involves a theory of accidents without a substance.  And if that holds, why believe in material substances at all?

Conclusion

Kenny writes with admirable and enviable lucidity. Even where Wyclif is not clear, and despite Kenny’s best efforts, two chapters in this book are probably inaccessible to the average reader, Kenny does as good a job for which one cold ask.

Concise Marrow of Theology (Heidegger)

Heidegger, J. H. A Concise Marrow of Theology, trans. Casey Carmichael. Volume 4: Classic Reformed Theology, ed. R. Scott Clark. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2019.

“These are the guys in your footnotes.”  That is a good way to describe “Classic Reformed Theology.” If one peruses a manual Heppe or reads Richard Muller, he will come across names such as Heidegger, Cocceius, and Olevianus.  If he then tries to find English language material on the men, he would have been hard-pressed.  This problem is being remedied by the “Classic Reformed Theology” series.

J. H. Heidegger (1633-1698) ministered in Zurich during the latter end of the Reformed scholastic era. Following “marrow manuals” like the one by Ames, Heidegger works through the key loci in dogmatic theology.  Unlike Ames, at least in this volume, he does not work through the Heidelberg Catechism.  Rather, as the introduction makes clear, he wants to provide youth a reliable and ready-to-use guide for theology, whereas Ames’ work might be better used for sermons or lessons.  There was a certain logic behind “marrow theology”: “In the Renaissance schoolchildren throughout Europe were taught to keep notebook in which they were to record passages from their reading worth saving for memorization and later use” (Ann Blair, The Theater of Nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 65). 

The goal of this manual, Heidegger notes in his preface to the reader, is that “youth may advance by steps in the same manner….from virtue to virtue” (Heidegger 7). Each chapter addresses a locus in theology, under which he subdivides the sections. For example, Locus I, section II reads I.II.

Theological Method

There is not anything particularly new in his method.  He follows the general programme set forth by Turretin, although he is far more concise than Turretin.  Defending natural theology, he writes: “Natural theology is a word about God from nature, taught by the dictate of reason alone” (Heidegger, I.II). Heidegger explains that reason in theology is “either principal or organic.” If principal, it brings out arguments for the faith out of one’s own bosom, “striking down the sophistries of corrupt reason.”  If organic, on matters depending on revelation alone, it receives revelation, “by discerning it from what is false” (I.VIII).

He distinguishes his method from the scholastic method, not because scholasticism is bad.  Indeed, he himself is a scholastic.  Rather, so it seems, for he does not really explain the point, scholasticism, presumably the medieval model, proceeded by way of disputation.  There is a legitimate place for that, but it is not useful to the beginning student.  By contrast, and in line with authors like Herman Witsius, theology follows “in a certain order the progress of revelation, history, and the economy of the covenant of grace” (I.X). That is the outline for the book, though not rigidly so.  He comments on the administrations of the economy of grace, but he does not attempt to force doctrines at different points in biblical history.

On God

Following the model of classical theology, Heidegger distinguishes between the order of being and the order of knowing.  Moreover, in perhaps an advance upon previous models, Heidegger unites the two. The order of being teaches that God exists and is known by right reason. The rational mind, then, “necessarily assents” (III.I).

Following Thomas Aquinas and the better elements of the Great Tradition, Heidegger explains that God’s incommunicable attributes are not blank negatives. Apophatic theology, properly understood, is not a mystic void absent of all specificity. Rather, we remove every imperfection in the term and affirm every perfection by way of analogy (III.IV). For example, “His infinity removes him from essence of the same local boundary through immensity” (III.VIII).

Following Thomas and the tradition, Heidegger says God knows himself “in a most perfect manner, through his essence and in a single act he simultaneously knows himself and all things outside of him, from Him and through Him” (III.XI).

The Covenant of Works

Heidegger gives a strange but seemingly cogent argument for the covenant of works: “It is known from nature because conscience dictates that it is a crime against God for obedience to be stipulated by man” (IX.II). His argument seems to be that since there was some sort of law or command in the garden, and since it could not have been by man, it must have been by God.  Since it was by God, it took the form of a covenant. As there is a covenant of works, so there is a natural law.  Law can be divided two-fold, archetypal and ectypal, both of which are the divine law (IX.VI).

The Covenant of Grace

The covenant of grace is grounded in the testamentary promise of God, “the free disposition of God the Savior about the inheritance of righteousness and heavenly life” (XI.VIII).  It is not the same as the covenant of grace; it is its cause.

The covenant of grace is “one in regard to substance, diverse in regard to economy” and “a little bit more free” under the patriarchs, “the sort for infants” (XII.I).  Heidegger distinguishes this from the economy under Moses, which was “more servile, the sort for children growing into adolescence.” It is probably reading too much into Heidegger to see a fully-fledged republication of the covenant of works, but the concept is certainly there. Indeed, speaking of the covenant at Sinai, it had a legal aspect to it, “flowing from the covenant of works” (XIII:III).

On Christ

The divine Logos communicated grace to the human nature of Christ on account of the personal union (XVII.VIII).  It is an “eminent grace,” seeing the human nature as eminent over creation. It is habitual, conferring “incomparable but finite qualities to it.”  This communion is “real in respect to the person, verbal in respect to the natures” (XVII.IX).

On Grace

Heidegger is willing to use the language of “habit” with regard to faith.  He notes that a “divine disposition (habitus) is infused.  Disposition is infused because believers have (echomen) faith.”  On the other hand, the cause of faith is not the sinner, nor the habit, but the merit of Christ (XX.XIII).

Regarding justification, his argument is simple: the language in Scripture cannot mean “to make,” since a judge can never make a person ontologically wicked or righteous.

In Conclusion

In an earlier review, I said that Caspar Olevianus’s commentary on the Apostles’ Creed was the best place to start with the Reformed scholastics.  It still might be, but many readers will find Heidegger’’s outline and concise points very helpful.  The binding of the book is very nice and it is relatively inexpensive for the quality of material and formatting.