Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (Asselt)

Van Asselt. Willem. Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism. Reformation Heritage Books.

This book changed my life. It should be required reading in at least one seminary course, preferably the first systematic theology class.

Imagine someone taking Richard Muller’s four volume Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics and condensing it to an affordable single volume, and this would be what Van Asselt has done. His thesis does not differ significantly from Muller in that “Reformed Scholasticism” was a legitimate outgrowth of Calvin’s own theology. That last sentence might not be too accurate. It suggests that later Reformed theologians sought to base their theology on Calvin’s work. That is not true. They were there own theologians, and both they and Calvin were in the same stream. In any case, Van Asselt takes his work beyond that statement and posits this book as a “how-to do” historical theology. He covers the basics of Reformed Scholasticism, the important players, the necessary bibliographies, and ends with a few appendices on how to write an historical theology essay for a post-graduate class.

Nature, Necessity, and Free Will

Contrary to Arminian and Catholic charges, the Reformed view of a “necessary” will is not incompatible with “freedom,” provided both terms are understood correctly. Francis Turretin provides six different types of “necessity,” four of which the Arminian/Romanist must affirm are compatible with freedom: 1) there is a necessity of dependence of the creature on God; 2) [Asselt intended to list the second type of necessity, but I do not think he did]; 3) every creature is dependent on God in terms of the future per God’s foreknowledge and decree. 3a) Asselt writes, “However great the creature’s freedom may be, these acts are still necessary from this perspective, otherwise God’s foreknowledge could be false and his decree changeable”; 4) free will must go with rational necessity, for must not a free action be a rational one? 5) Free will relates to moral necessity, or that of habit. If you do an action enough, whether good or bad, it becomes a habit, making it easier to do this action. Few will deny this observation; and 6) The necessity of an event or the existence of a thing. If a thing is, it is necessarily (though not always the reverse)

In short, freedom can be determined because freedom is not absolute (Asselt, 162-163).

Necessity of the Consequent, Consequence

The necessity of the consequent is the necessity of a proposition behind the “then” in an if…then statement. The necessity of the consequence is the consequence itself, i.e., the implicative necessity. In the implicative necessity, neither the antecedent nor the consequent needs to be necessary. Only the necessity of the implicative relation counts. At the risk of confusing the issue even more, it is closer to a “logical necessity between two terms.” Take the two propositions:

(1) If I marry Marian, then Marian is my wife.
(2) It is necessary that Marian is my wife (if I marry her).

In proposition (1), it is contingent that I marry Marian. I did not have to do so. Only the implication between the antecedent and consequent is necessary. In proposition 2, it is the result of the conditional proposition that is necessary.

Proposition 1 does not imply proposition 2. Therefore, in an argument of the implicative relation of necessity, both the antecedent and consequent can be contingent and not necessary. It is the logical relation between the two that is necessary. In this distinction, the Reformed scholastics combat the charge that the divine decree destroys the contingency and freedom of the world. Therefore, necessity and contingency are compatible and not contradictory.

Most important in this distinction is that it depends on God’s will ad extra. If the decision of the divine will is directed to contingent objects ad extra, then God’s will is contingent, too. In other words, God contingently wills all that is contingent. Created reality, therefore, is the contingent manifestation of divine freedom and does not necessarily emanate from God’s essence. For if this were the case, all things would coincide fundamentally with God’s essence, and the actual world would be eternal (198-199).

Ectypal Theology

Van Asselt notes that the ectypal construction has its origins with Duns Scotus. Scotus distinguished between theologia in se (theology in itself) and theologia nostra (our theology). This is an end-run, if not a rejection, of Aquinas on analogy. The difficulty with analogy was pinpointing where the realm of the Creator’s knowledge ends and the creature’s begins. Scotus cuts it cleanly down the middle. Far from being a rationalist construct, this radically limits reason’s claims.

Conclusion

Some of today’s students, outside of some reading Calvin and the Puritans, know next to nothing about their Reformed Scholastic heritage. They know nothing of the distinctions made in theology in response to Catholic, Arminian and now Orthodox critics. As a result, they are woefully underprepared to deal with these challenges (and not a few cross the Tiber). Van Asselt, happily, has presented Reformed Scholasticism in a strong and engaging manner, and has pointed the student in the direction that he may also become a Reformed Scholastic.

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Troilus and Criseyde (Chaucer)

Imagine a high classical version of Romeo and Juliet. The characters have a higher (although not by much) IQ. If one has read Shakespeare’s version, then this will not have the same shock value (though the ending is pretty obvious in these types of situations). Chaucer writes this in “Royal Rime:” seven line stanzas in a-b-a-bb-cc.

Troilus is the son of King Priam and brother of Hector. Criseyde is the widow of a Trojan soldier. Pandar, Criseyde’s uncle, serves as the middleman between the two.

I will not spoil too much of the story; rather, I will use this space to quote Troilus’s famous monologue on Necessity vs. Free Will. Chaucer is no doubt summarizing late medieval debates about predestination and necessity. This easily surpasses most systematic theologies in terms of sophistication and clarity.

(From Book IV, stanzas 137ff)

“For all that comes, comes by necessity,
Thus to be done for is my destiny.”

This is obviously a strong version of determinism. Troilus does not actually maintain this position.

“For if there were the slightest hesitation
Or any slip in God’s foreordering,
Foreknowledge then were not a certain thing.”

This is certainly true. What Troilus does not understand is that God’s knowing of a thing does not force one’s actions. He asks the correct question: does necessity reside in the event itself?

“Of all the human things we call events
Or does necessity in them reside.
And thus ordaining cause for them provide?”

Is the event itself the causal factor? Maybe proximately.

Troilus, unfortunately, is not able to maintain the balance between necessity and contingency. He opts for fatalism:

“And by these arguments you may well see
That all things that on the earth befall,
By plain necessity, they happen all.”

In philosophical terms, Troilus committed a modal fallacy.

P1. ☐, if Christ predicted Judas’s betrayal, then Judas would betray Christ.
P2. Christ predicted Judas’s betrayal.
C1: ☐, Judas betrayed Christ.

This fallacy confuses the necessity of the inference with the necessity of the consequent (a more absolute necessity). The inference of Q from the premises ☐ (P⊃Q) is necessary in accordance with modus ponens. But Q itself, the consequent of the conditional ☐ (P⊃Q), is not itself necessary.

Take premise Q by itself (Judas would betray Christ). It does not exist in isolation. It is not a necessarily self-generating proposition. It is only necessary as a conditional necessity within the syllogism. This is what the older Reformed writers called “the necessity of the consequence,” in distinction from the necessity of the consequent thing.

Back to the book. Although this is a poem about pagan heroes, Chaucer, for whatever reason, ends with a beautiful hymn to the Trinity:

“O Thou eternal Three and Two and One
Reigning forever in One and Two and Three,
Boundless, but binding all through Father and Son,
From Foes unseen and seen deliver me;
And blessed Jesus turn our love to thee…

Divine Will, Human Choice; notes 5 (Scholastic Approaches to Necessity)

Scholastic Approaches to Necessity

Contingency and necessity must be understood at both levels of causality, primary and secondary (212). God executes his decree through the “instrumentality of causes that are themselves not necessary but contingent or free” (213).

Gomarus advances the discussion by making a distinction between free acts and freedom itself. A free act is free to the kind of act it is.  Free choice is a potency flowing from the essence of the soul.  Freedom belongs to the rational agent regardless of whether he is engaged in the act (223).

Wiliam Twisse argued that while God knows everything in one moment through his divine essence, we can still understand him to know and will possibles “in a logical ordering, indeed, in a sequence of non-temporal instants of nature” (226).  Prior to God’s willing, in the in actu primo, “there is a simultaneity of potencies.”

Later Reformed writers rejected the current Jesuit view of a liberty of indifference.  This is impossible because man is not a completely autonomous, abstract individual.  Even in a state before the fall, man was dependent on God. There is an indifference in the will regarded as a potency in primary actuality, but not in its operation (244).

Men like Voetius could even argue for a co-causality between God and man.   God wills A, B, and C to occur by both God and a human being.  God in his absolutely free governance wills B, removing his indifference to A and C “in the composite sense.”  The human was initially indifferent to A, B, and C, but in his “dependent freedom” wills B, which removes his indifference to A and C (245).

Two Types of Necessity

First, Scotus will say:

He considers that human actions are the joint result of the causality of the human agents and God.  But God is not seen as a direct cause of the human will’s acts.  As the first in an essentially-ordered series of causes, God is, rather, responsible for the agent’s causality itself: so the human will acts, and it is due to God’s will that it is able to act (Marebon 289, 290).

necessitas consequentiae (necessity of the consequences):  this is a hypothetical or non-absolute necessity.  It is brought about by a previous contingent act.  It refers to the necessity of the finite order.  There is no absolute necessity that God decree what he decrees, but since he has decreed so, he is bound to fulfill it.

necessitas consequentis (necessity of the consequent):  this is absolute necessity that refers to the opera ad intra.

Practical value of these distinctions:  it allows the theologian to intelligently and without confusion speak of both necessary and free acts.   Our acts are necessary in the sense that Providence is not subject to change.  But our acts are not absolutely necessary, since God was not bound to decree such.

Francis Turretin provides six different types of “necessity,” four of which the Arminian/Romanist must affirm are compatible with freedom:

1) necessity of dependence of the creature on God;
2) [Asselt intended to list the second type of necessity, but I don’t think he did],
3) every creature is dependent on God in terms of the future per God’s foreknowledge and decree.
3a) Asselt writes, “However great the creature’s freedom may be, these acts are still necessary from this perspective, otherwise God’s foreknowledge could be false and his decree changeable.”
4) free will must go with rational necessity, for must not a free action be a rational one?
5) Free will relates to moral necessity, or that of habit. If you do an action enough, whether good or bad, it becomes a habit, making it easier to do this action. Few will deny this observation.
6) The necessity of an event or the existence of a thing. If a thing is, it is necessarily.  This is an example of a necessity of the consequence.   It is not an absolute necessity.

In short, freedom can be determined because freedom is not absolute (Asselt, 162-163).

Necessity of the Consequent, Consequence

The necessity of the consequent is the necessity of a proposition behind the “then” in an if…then statement. The necessity of the consequence is the consequence itself. Ie, the implicative necessity. In the implicative necessity, neither the antecedent nor the consequent needs to be necessary. Only the necessity of the implicative relation counts. Take the two propositions:

(1) If I marry Marian, then Marian is my wife.
(2) It is necessary that Marian is my wife (if I marry her).

In proposition (1) it is contingent that I marry Marian. I did not have to do so. Only the implication between the antecedent and consequent is necessary. In proposition 2 it is the result of the conditional proposition that is necessary.

Proposition 1 does not imply proposition 2. Therefore, in an argument of implicative relation of necessity, both the antecedent and consequent can be contingent and not necessary. According to the Reformed scholastics, the necessity of the consequence corresponds with absolute necessity and the necessity of the consequent with hypothetical necessity. In this distinction, the Reformed scholastics combat the charge that the divine decree destroys the contingency and freedom of the world. Therefore, necessity and contingency are compatible and not contradictory.

Most important in this distinction is that it depends on God’s will ad extra. If the decision of the divine will is directed to contingent objects ad extra, then God’s will is contingent, too. In other words, God contingently wills all that is contingent. Created reality, therefore, is the contingent manifestation of divine freedom and does not necessarily emanate from God’s essence. For if this were the case, all things would coincide fundamentally with God’s essence, and the actual world would be eternal (198-199).

Rutherford and Scotism

I’m not saying Rutherford is right or wrong, just noting particulars.

Taken from Guy Richards, “Samuel Rutherford’s Supralapsarianism Revealed.”

“Rutherford believes that God, although just, merciful, and good, is under no compulsion” to be just to his creatures ad extra (Richards 32).  “But once he decrees to act ad extra, he is bound to do so.”

In other words, for the Reformed voluntarist tradition, paraphrasing William Twisse, the only thing that limits God’s free will (to act ad extra) is his decree.  The Scotists aren’t saying that God’s will makes just anything right.  Rather, they are saying, given what God has indeed ordained to be the case (potentia ordinata), God is bound to will x.

Classic example:  Was Jesus’s atonement necessary?  Rutherford has usually been understood as saying, “No.  God could have forgiven sins otherwise.”  But I don’t think this is exactly what he said.  Rather, as Richards points out, it is contingently necessary (n 29).  Since God has chosen to act this way towards creatures, and to punish sin this way, has it become necessary.  But he was under no obligation to decide to act this way.

Review Hodge Systematic Theology

Charles Hodge is the highpoint of American theology. While Dabney searched deeper into the issues, Hodge’s position (if only because the North won) allowed him a wider influence. Thornwell was the more brilliant orator and Palmer the greater preacher, but Hodge was the teacher and systematician.  Of the Princetonians Hodge is supreme.  His writing style is smoother than Warfield’s and he is deeper than his predecessors.

We rejoice that Hendrickson Publishing is issuing these three volumes at $30.  Even with the page-length quotations in Latin, Hodge is strong where American Christianity is weak.   A renaissance in Hodge would reinvigorate discussions about epistemology, the doctrine of God and God’s knowledge, justification, and God’s law. We will look at Hodge’s discussion of epistemology, doctrine of God, human nature (including both sin and free volition), soteriology, and ethics.

Common Sense Realism

 Far from stultifying the gospel, Hodge’s position safeguards the reliability of “truth-speak” and if taken seriously today, adds another angle to the “convert” phenomenon.   A properly basic belief is one that doesn’t need another belief for justification.  I’m not so sure if Hodge is making that claim.  However, he does anticipate some of Plantinga’s positions by saying that God so constituted our nature to believe x, y, and z.  My aim is to show from Hodge’s own words that our cognitive faculties are (1) reliable and (2) made so by God.  I will advance upon Hodge’s conclusions:  a commoner can read the Bible and get the general “gist” of it apart from an infallible interpreting body.  Secondly, to deny the above point attacks the image of God.   Thirdly,  to deny the above point is to reduce all to irrationality.   The practical application:  Those who deny this position often find themselves looking for “absolute” and infallible arbiters of the faith.    Such a position denies a key aspect of our imago dei.

“Any doctrine [and Hodge is using this word in the technical sense of philosophic and/or scientific beliefs], therefore, which contradicts the facts of consciousness, or the laws of belief which God has impressed upon our nature, must be false” (I: 215).

“Our knowledge of mind, therefore, as a thinking substance, is the first and most certain, and the most indestructible of all forms of knowledge; because it is involved in self-knowledge…which is the indispensable condition of all knowledge” (I: 277).

It is interesting to note his reference to self-knowledge.  One is reminded of Calvin’s duplex cognito dei.

Doctrine of God

…[S]tart with the revelation that God has made of himself in the constitution of our own nature and in his holy word.  This method leads to the conclusion that God can think and act, that in him essence and attributes are not identical (I: 564).

It’s also interesting to note Hodge’s comment about God constituting our nature in a certain way.  Shades of Thomas Reid.

“To say, as the schoolmen, and so many even of Protestant theologians, ancient and modern, were accustomed to say, that the divine attributes differ only in name, or in our conceptions, or in their effects, is to destroy all true knowledge of God…If in God knowledge is identical with eternity, knowledge with power, power with ubiquity, and ubiquity with holiness, then we are using words without meaning (I: 371-372).

The attributes of God, therefore, are not merely different conceptions in our minds, but different modes in which God reveals himself to his creatures…just as our several faculties are different modes in which the inscrutable substance self reveals itself in our consciousness and acts (I: 374).

Following Turretin, Hodge writes,

The attributes are to be distinguished not realiter, but;”virtualiter, that is, there is a real foundation in the divine nature for the several attributes attributed to him (I: 370).

What does virtualiter mean?

Richard Muller defines it as “literally, i.e., with virtue or power” (Muller 371).

It’s interesting that Muller mentioned “power.”  This corresponds with Radde-Galwitz’s interpretation of Gregory of Nyssa.  Alluding to Michel Barnes he notes that divine power is the causal capacity rooted in the divine nature; inseparable from the divine nature and gives rise to the divine energies (183; Barnes).  Further, each “Good” (or attribute, in our case) entails another.

Human Nature

Charles Hodge’s key argument regarding the free will controversy is this:   does infallible certainty of a future event destroy human liberty?  He answers no.  Hodge gives a lengthy explanation that the Reformed tradition can maintain free agency, yet God’s foreknowledge of future actions is not threatened (Hodge, II: 296-304).  Part of his discussion is labored and a bit confusing, for he realizes that “free will” has as many glosses as it does adherents.  He explains what is and is not meant by “free will.”

I do not always agree with his defining of the terms.   He lists the three options:  necessity (fatalism), contingency (free-willism) and certainty (Reformed and Augustinianism).  My problem with Hodge’s list is that traditional Reformed orthodoxy made a distinction between the necessity of the consequent (absolute necessity as pertaining to God ad intra) and necessity of the consequent thing (conditional necessity). My problem with his term “contingency” is that it risks confusion:  God is a necessary being; man is a contingent one.  It is evident, though, that Hodge makes clear he means the semi-Pelagian options.   He does advance the discussion forward, though, with his use of the term “certainty.”  Hodge is content to show that opponents of the Reformed system cannot demonstrate a contradiction between the proposition “all events are foreknown by God and will happen with certainty,” and the proposition, “Man can make rational choices apart from absolute necessity.”  Hodge lists several metaphysical and biblical examples.   God is a most perfect being.   This is a certainty (else we are doomed!), yet few will argue that God’s liberty is impinged.   Jesus’s crucifixion was foreknown in the mind of God, yet the Roman soldiers sinned most freely.

This raises an interesting issue:  many semi-Pelagians try to duck the Reformed charge by saying, “God simply foresees who will believe and elects them based on his foreseeing their believing.”  Besides being a crass works-righteousness, does this really solve the problem?  Is their belief any less certain?   If the semi-Pelagian argues that election is God’s foreseeing their faith, then we must ask if this is a certain action?   It’s hard to see how they can say no.  If they do affirm that it is certain, then they must at least agree (hypothetically) with the Reformed gloss that certainty does not destroy free agency.

So what does it mean for a man to act “freely.”  Few people on either side ever define this satisfactorily.   Hodge loosely follows the standard Reformed gloss:  the will follows the intellect (which is assumed to be fallen).  Man can be said to act freely if he acts naturally:  man acts according to the way he was created (II: 304).

Imputation

One of the objections to the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ is that the transfer of guilt (ours/Adam’s) and/or the transfer of righteousness (Christ’s) is morally and legally impossible.  Hodge answers:

“The transfer of guilt or righteousness, as states of consciousness or forms of moral character, is indeed impossible.  But the real transfer of guilt as”a responsibility to justice, and as righteousness which satisfies that justice,’ is no more impossible than that one man should pay the debt of another.  All that the bible teaches on the subject is that Christ paid as a substitute our debt to the justice of God” (II: 540-541).

Justification

Vol. 3: 114ff

Hodge gives a wonderful and penetrating treatment on justification.  He notes that The nature of the act of justification Does not produce subjective change.  It is an Act of God not in his character of sovereign but in character of judge (speech-act?)

Includes both pardon and declaration that believer is just in the sight of the law.    It is not saying that the believer is morally just in terms of character.  The believer is just in relation to the law–guilt is expiated (120).  It is not mere pardon: sinner’s guilt is expiated (125).  Mere Pardon does not produce reconciliation (128).

Scriptural usage:

Dt 25:1.  Judge pronounces a judgment.  He does not effect a character change. Condemnation is the opposite of justify.  A sentence of condemnation does not effect an     evil character change.  Thus, if sentence of condemnation is judicial act, so is justification (123).

Romanist Views

Infusion of righteousness does nothing for guilt (though possibly they would say the guilt is washed away in baptism).  Accordingly, justification does nothing for the satisfaction of justice.  Even if the Romanist claim that justification makes me holy were true, I would still be                       liable to justice (133).

Satisfaction of Justice

An adequate theory of justification must account for satisfying justice (130). Nothing “within” me can do that.

Works of the Law

Scripture never designates specifically “what kind of works” (137).  The word “law” is used in a comprehensive sense.  Nomos binds the heart–law of nature.  Not ceremonial.  Paul says “thou shalt not covet” as the law that condemns me (Romans 7).  Not ceremonial.  Grace and works are antithetical. It doesn’t make sense to subdivide works (138).

Ground

The Ground of justification is always what is done for us, not what is in us

• justified by his blood (Romans 5:19)
• by his righteousness (5:18)

If just means “morally good,” then it would be absurd to say that one man is just because of another (141).

• We say that the claims against  him are satisfied.
• When God justifies the ungodly, he does not declare him morally godly, but that his sins are expiated.

Hypothetical Objections Proves Protestant View

Why object over possible antinomianism if faith alone not true (Romans 6; p. 140)?

The Law of God

Like older Reformed systematics, Hodge has a treatment of the Decalogue.  Much of it is common fare.  What is interesting is the way he handled it. By reading his arguments we see a commentary on problematic cultural issues.  Of particular importance, which I won’t develop here, are his expositions of the 4th and 7th commandment.  In the latter he specifically deals with Romanist tyranny in marriage.

Throughout the whole discussion he is combating Jesuitism.  We do not see that today.  Modern systematics, even conservative ones, are scared of appearing “conspiratorial.”  Hodge’s age was a manlier age.  They called it for what it was.  They knew that Jesuits swear an oath to destroy Protestant nations by any means necessary. And they knew that only the Law of God provides spiritual and political liberty.

Hodge is not entirely clear, though.  When he wants to prove the Levitical prohibitions as binding today on sanguinuity and close-kin marriage, he argues like Greg Bahnsen. Almost word for word.  If he did that today he would be fired.   But when he wants to argue against more theocratic penalties, he sounds like a dispensationalist.

Sacraments

Keith Mathison’s book on Calvin’s view of the Supper is now something of a classic, and deservedly so.  I am in large agreement with most of the book.  I certainly lean towards Calvin.  That said, I think one of the unintended consequences of the book is a slighting of Charles Hodge among the “Young Turk Calvinists.”  It’s not that I disagree with Mathison or Calvin, but I am concerned about the new interest in Nevin.  I used to be a hard-core Hegelian for 3 years.   Nevin was also an Hegelian.   Granted, Nevin pulled back from the worst of Hegel.  I am not so sure Nevin’s modern interpreters fully understand that.  I hope to give something of a modified defense of Hodge on the Supper:

“really conveying to the believing recipient, Christ, and all the benefits of his redemption…There must be a sense, therefore, in which believers receive the body and blood of Christ” (III: 622).

However,

Anything is said to be present when it operates duly on our perceiving senses” (637).  I am not so sure Hodge is able to dodge Mathison’s charge.  I agree with Hodge’s common sense realism, but I don’t think Hodge’s next point follows:  “In like manner Christ is present when he thus fills the mind, sheds abroad his love into our hearts…” (638).  I suppose the question at issue is this:  we grant that Christ fills the mind.   We grant that sensory operations also fill the mind, but it does not necessarily follow that Christ is present in the Supper in a sensory manner.   In some sense I think all Reformed would agree with that.

Hodge makes the common Reformed point that “what is affirmed to be present is not the body and blood of Christ absolutely, but his body as broken and his blood as shed” (641).  This is a decisive point against High Church traditions:  when they insist upon a literal reading, “This is my body,” the Reformed can point that Christ’s wasn’t sacrificed yet, so the “body” at issue can’t be the sacrificial body.

Hodge concludes his exposition of the Reformed teaching with “There is therefore a presence of Christ’s body in the Lord’s Supper; not local but spiritual; not to the senses, but to the mind and to faith; and not of nearness, but of efficacy” (643).

The Problem with Nevin

Throughout the work is a running attack on Nevin’s theology.  Hodge makes a point that isn’t always grasped by Nevin’s defenders today: if we accept Nevin’s platonic essentialism, especially with regard to the Eucharist and Christology, then we run into huge problems.  If Christ assumed the universal humanity, then he also assumed the rules of predicating of genus:  the more universal a genus, the less specific it is.  If Christ is the universal humanity, then there is nothing specifically human about him!

Evaluation

It is superfluous to sing of Hodge’s greatness.  That is a given.  I do have some issues with his treatment.  Hodge routinely appeals to the “received consensus of the church” for many of his doctrines.  There are several problems with this. Aside from the most general teachings from the Creeds, appeals to the Patrum Consensus are problematic and question-begging.  Further, the Eastern Orthodox Church, to which Hodge sometimes appeals, would not share his assumptions about Adam’s imputed guilt, for example.