Outline of City of God, Book 11

Key ideas: God creates the world AND time. He does not create in time.

Propositions:

1. God speaks by truth in the mind (11.2).
2. Time was created with the world. This one idea is crucial in the history of doctrine. This is one of those “moments of no return” (but in a good sense). Time is finite, limited.
   
   Augustine is not dogmatic on the nature of the days in creation. He notes, “What kind of days they were, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible to say” (11.6).
3. Begetting is not the same as creating. Divine persons are begotten, not created: “For that which is begotten of the simple Good is simple itself” (11.10).
4. Vice is contrary to nature and cannot but damage it. This will be important in the next book as Augustine explores the roots of evil.
5. Image of the Trinity: “For we are, and we know that we are and delight in our being and the knowledge of it” (11.26). Vestigia trinitatis.
   
   Corollary on virtue: “Because in men who are justly loved, it is rather the love itself that is loved” (11.28).

Outline John Owen on the Christian Life

Ferguson, Sinclair.  John Owen on the Christian Life.  Banner of Truth.

The Plan of Salvation

1. Doctrine of the Covenant
   1. The Covenant of Works. The reward of eternal life succeeds strict justice, since it is in the nature of a promise.  Further, there is a grace of promise, even if the covenant is not itself gracious.
   2. Covenant of grace: the conditions in the covenant of grace devolve on the mediator (JO: 11.210).
   3. Covenant of Redemption:
   4. Covenant of Sinai: sometimes referred to as Old Covenant. Owen is aware of the tensions in saying that all covenants are administrations of the Covenant of Grace.
      1. Under the covenant of grace, yet in some way there were principles of the Covenant of Works (JO: 19:389).
      2. Sinai can’t simply be Covenant of Grace because of the sharp contrasts between “a better covenant.”
2. Union with Christ: the work of grace–”same instant wherein anyone is united unto Christ, and by the same act whereby he is so united, he is really and habitually purified and sanctified” (JO: 3.517).
   
   Effectual calling takes place in Christ, is an act of God the Father (JO: 20: 498), and binds the believer by the indwelling of the spirit (JO: 21:147). Effectual calling produces a change in both status (justification) and life (sanctification), yet it does not idenitfy the two.

Grace Reigns through Righteousness

1. The effects of sin.
2. Regeneration.
   1. Owen seems to favor “physical” language of regeneration (JO: 4.166; 10. 459; 11: 443, 448; 567). Physical is seen as the antithesis of moral.
   2. Even in effectual calling, the will is not compelled or destroyed. The will is passive in the first act, but in the moment of conversion it acts itself freely (Ferguson 44).
      1. Conversion is “wrought in us by God” (Phil. 2.13).
3. Structure of sanctification.  The work of grace produces the exercise of duty (Ferguson 55). Owen gives a long definition in JO 3.369-370.
   1. In one sense it is an immediate work on believers, since it flows from regeneration and from our Head, yet it is also a process (56).
   2. The Lord Jesus is the Head from whom all gifts flow, yet the Spirit is the efficient cause who communicates them to us (Ferguson 58).

Fellowship with God

Theme: God communicates himself unto us with our returnal unto him of that which he requireth and accepteth, flowing from that union which in Jesus Christ we have with him (JO 2.8).

1. Communion with the Father.
2. Communion with the Son.
3. Communion with the Holy Spirit.
4. Indwelling. It is real and personal.
   1. Sealing.
   2. Anointing. We receive our anointing immediately from Christ in this way: Jesus communicates the Holy Spirit unto us (JO 4.393).
   3. Earnest.

The Assurance of Salvation

Several things in the Christian life mitigate against assurance: Our conscience, God’s law, and our natural sense of justice.

1. (2) Practical rules for Assurance.
   1. Christ is the ultimate judge of our spiritual condition. He who bears witness to our condition has the same Spirit with us (Ferguson 108).
   2. Sometimes patient waiting is required (JO 6.554).
   3. Self-examination, especially of sins of youth.  Nonetheless, the foundation of assurance is Christ, not our self-examination so don’t spend too much time on this.  The foundation is Christ alone. The building is holiness.
   4. Don’t let complaints against yourself take away from vigorous actings of grace.
2. Hindrances to assurance.
   1. Desire for extraordinary assurances.  We should seek the regular workings of the Spirit.  He does give extraordinary assurance, but we should be careful seeking that while burdened with doubts and anxieties.
3. Sealing of the Holy Spirit
   1. Calvin taught that the Spirit of God is himself the seal (Comm. 2 Cor. 1.21ff).
   2. Perkins: Sealing of the promise to the believer in experience (Ferguson 117). This means the seal is an activity. However, this lead to a between regeneration and a subsequent activity of the Spirit in addition to his indwelling.
   3. Sibbes: We first seal God’s truth by our believing, and then God seals the Spirit on us (118).With later Puritans this comes very close to seeing 2 or 3 different classes of Christians.
   4. Goodwin: “An immediate assurance of the Holy Ghost, by a heavenly and divine light, of a divine authority…” (Goodwin, Works I:233).
   5. Owen: “No special act of the Spirit, but only in an especial effect of his communication unto us” (JO 4:400). He seals the believer by his personal indwelling, but there are no rules as to how/when the believer may recognize it.

Conflict with Sin

1. Sin’s dominion ended. Owen makes a distinction between the dominion of sin and the influence of sin.
2. Sin’s dominion is more than a force; it has the character of law.
3. How do we know whether sin has dominion or not?

 

Scripture and Ministry

1. Scripture. Owen locates Scripture’s authority primarily in God, rather than the autographa (Ferguson 185n 4).  God is the divine original, upon whom Scripture depends.
   1. Inspiration.  
   2. Authority of Scripture.  It is a correlate of the character of God (JO 16.303).
   3. Preservation of Scripture.
   4. Attestation of Scripture. The Scriptures are like light.  They are self-evidencing, but “light” is not “eyes.” Light does not remove men’s blindness.  Faith in Scripture finds its motive cause in Scripture itself, and in its efficient cause in the testimony of the Spirit.
   5. Understanding Scripture.
2. Ministry.
   1. Gifts and graces.  A spiritual gift is not the same as the grace of the Spirit.  This explains how some “fall away.” Graces are evidences of the Spirit’s personal indwelling.
   2. Extraordinary gifts. Only differ in degree from other gifts.  This is a rather unique cessationist approach.

Sacraments and Prayer

1. Have both objective and subjective content: they signify and seal (objective) yet the Holy Spirit is involved in each of the means of communication to ratify subjectively the objective message (Ferguson 211).
   1. Baptism. Ferguson calls attention to the quasi-Baptistic views of paedobaptists like Bannerman and Cunningham, who view adult baptism as the norm and infant baptism as the exception (215 n64).
   2. The Lord’s Supper. Our faith is directed to the human nature of Christ (220).
2. Prayer.

Apostasy and its Prevention

1. Danger of Apostasy. Those mentioned in Hebrews 6 received the outward benefits of the substance of the covenant.
2. Apostasy from Gospel Doctrine.
3. Apostasy from holiness of Gospel precepts.
4. Apostasy from Gospel Worship.

Perseverance and the Goal

1. Perseverance
   1. Immutability of the divine nature.
   2. Immutability of the divine purposes.
   3. Principium essendi of the covenant of grace
   4. Promises of God
   5. Mediatorial work of Christ
      1. He became a surety (JO 11:289).
      2. Satisfied requirements of divine justice.
      3. Intercedes for us.
2. The Goal
   1. Eternal glory.
      1. The mind will be freed from all darkness.
      2. A new light, light of glory, will be implanted.
      3. Our body will be glorified through union with Christ.

 

Outline: Book 2, Calvin’s Institutes

Book 1.

Summary of argument so far:  Doctrine of the Knowledge of God –> Man’s problem –> Ten Commandments –> Old and New Covenants  –> Person of the Mediator.

BOOK 2: THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE REDEEMER IN CHRIST, FIRST DISCLOSED UNDER THE LAW, AND THEN IN THE GOSPEL

Chapter 1: Fall of Adam, Original Sin

1. Two problems with self-knowledge (2.1.3)
   1. How do we acqurire it?
2. Original sin: we are corrupted not by derived wickedness but by inborn defect.

Chapter 2: Man Deprived of freedom of choice

1. The faculties of the soul, situated in mind and heart, are also corrupted.
2. What is free will?
   1. Necessity does not mean compulsion (2.2.7).  God is necessarily good, but he isn’t “compelled.”
   2. Choice belongs to the sphere of will rather than that of understanding (2.2.26).
      1. The power of free choice is not in a certain natural instinct or movement of the will.
      2. Calvin means that the will follows the mind, and not an inclination of nature.
      3. Appetite: not an impulse of will but rather an inclination of nature (bottom of page 286).
3. Calvin rejects the idea of “mere nature” as a faculty of the soul voluntarily able to choose the good (sec. 27).

Chapter 3: Only Damnable Things Come forth from man’s corrupt nature

1. The whole man is flesh.  Calvin is here concerned to rebut the idea that “flesh” refers only to the sensible parts of the soul.

Chapter 4: How God Works in Men’s Hearts

1. Scripture doesn’t quite make the distinction that God only knows of evil happenings by foreknowledge (2.4.3).  God blinds and hardens the reprobate (Isa. 6:10).
2. When God wills to make way for his providence, he bends and turns our wills even in external things (2.4.7).
3. Definition of natural law: “Natural law is that apprehension of the conscience which distinguishes sufficiently between just and unjust, and which deprives men of the excuse of ignorance, while it proves them guilty by their own testimony” (II.2.22).

Chapter 5: Refutation of the objections commonly put forward in defense of free will

1. Can sin which is of necessity be sin (per Erasmus)?  We reply that it is not from creation that men sin, but from corruption of nature.
2. Does this teaching negate reward and punishment? First, per reward, if it is the grace of God working in us, then it is grace, not we, who is crowned.
3. Does this obliterate the distinction between good and evil?  Chrysostom’s argument is that “if to choose good or evil is not a faculty of our will, those who share in the same nature must be all good or all bad” (p.319).  We reply: it is God’s election that distinguishes.
4. Does this negate exhortation?  We reply–God works in his elect in two ways: within, through his Spirit; without, through his Word (322).

Chapter 6: Fallen Man Ought to Seek Redemption in Christ

1. Key transitional argument: Move from knowledge of God the Creator to Knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ.

Chapters 7-11 examines the relationship between OT and NT, with a thorough exposition of the Ten Commandments

1. Gospel = clear manifestation of the mystery of Christ (2.9.2).
2. Differences between the two covenants:
   1. OT is called “bondage” because it produces fear.
   2. OT is called “Law” in the sense that the gospel was not clear (2.11.10).

Calvin on the Mediator

1. Human and divine properties are predicated of the mediator, not of the other nature (2.14.3).
2. His kingdom’s being spiritual proves its eternity (2.15.3).
3. Christ’s cry from the cross: “God was not angry with him” (2.16.11). He bore the weight of divine severity.  Calvin did not believe that God “damned” Jesus, as some critics of Reformed theology maintain that we believe.

Ascension

1. Truly inaugurated his kingdom (2.16.14).
2. The ascension allows him to rule from heaven with more immediate power.
   1. Opened heavenly kingdom (2.16.16; Eph. 2.6).
   2. He is our intercessor
   3. His might (Eph. 4.8–gave gifts to men)
3. Christ’s merit: grace is diffused from the head (2.17.1).  God’s first Cause is the beginning of merit. Christ did not acquire merit for himself.

Outline, John Owen *Mortification of Sin*

https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/SpiritualFormation/Texts/Owen_MortificationOfSin.pdf

Foundation of the Discourse

The relationship between justification and mortification is cause and effect (Owen 6).

Our duty: The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin (7).

The efficient cause of this duty: The Holy Spirit (“if by the Spirit”).  Mortification must be done by the Spirit. Every other way is vain.

What are the deeds of the body?

The body is the seat and instrument of the corruption of our nature (7).  It is the same as “the old man” and the “body of sin.”  The power of our spiritual life depends on how much we mortify the deeds of the flesh (9).

The Necessity of Mortification

We are obligated by the ferocity of the battle to be killing sin at all times.

1. Indwelling sin is always with us even if judicial sin is negated.
2. This sin is still active.
3. If left alone, it will turn into greater sins (“scandalous and soul-destroying sins”).
4. Our new nature and the Spirit is the principle by which we oppose sin.
   1. Gal. 5.17
   2. 2 Pet. 1.4-5
   3. Our participation in the divine nature gives us an escape from the pollutions of the world.
5. If we neglect this duty, our soul is cast into a contrary condition.
   1. “Exercise and success are the two main cherishers of grace in the heart.”
6. It is our duty to be perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Conclusion: notwithstanding our judicial freedom from sin, indwelling sin remains in the best of believers.

False Asceticism: Vanity of Popish Mortification

1. The Holy Spirit is sufficient for mortification
2. Popish Mortification
   1. The ways and ends of their mortification were never insisted on by God.
   2. The means that are appointed by God, and which they do use, are not used properly.  Fasting is important, but it should flow from the Spirit’s work of mortification.  Fasting and watching are streams, not fountains.
3. The Work of the Spirit
   1. The Spirit will take away the stony heart (Ezek. 11.19; 36.26).
   2. This is a gift of Christ, and Christ, as the head, communicates his gifts to us.
   3. How does the Holy Spirit mortify sin?
      1. He causes our hearts to abound in graces and fruits that are contrary to the flesh (Gal. 5.19-21).
      2. The Holy Spirit, as our efficient, hits sin at the root.
      3. He brings us into communion with the cross of Christ.

Chapter 4: The Usefulness of Mortification

1. The vigor of our spiritual life depends on mortification.
   1. Success in mortification won’t always lead to happiness, though.  A godly saint can mortify sin yet still face assaults (Psalm 88).
   2. Mortification shouldn’t be confused with the privileges that flow from adoption.
   3. Unmortified sin weakens the soul (Ps. 38.3).
   4. As sin weakens, so it darkens the soul.
2. Mortification prunes all the graces of God.

Chapter 5-6

1. What it is to mortify a sin.
   1. A habitual weakening of it.
   2. Constant fighting and contending against it.

Chapter 7: General Rules, and Rome’s false view, again

1. Unless a man is a believer, truly ingrafted into Christ, this isn’t possible.
2. It is the work of faith (Acts 15.9).

Chapter 8: Universal Sincerity for mortifcation

1. Without sincerity and an aim at universal mortification, no lust will be mortified.
   1. 2 Cor. 7.1
   2. God sometimes suffers one lust to chasten our other negligences.

Chapters 9-11

1. A lust that isn’t “loud” is often more dangerous.  It could be a sign of inveterateness.
2. The heart often engages in self-deception.
3. Guilt of the Sin
   1. The power of sin is weakened by grace, but not always the guilt is weakened.
   2. Load your conscience with the guilt of sin, so that you can let the Spirit work through you.
      1. Don’t fight guilt by your own righteousness.
      2. Let the law do what it is supposed to do.
      3. And then cry to God.

Chapter 12

I am going to call this one “Study as a mode of sanctification.”

1. Let our meditations fill us with our low estate and God’s high estate
   1. It reminds us how weak in prayer we are.
   2. Even at our best we have feeble notions of God.
2. The being of God.
   1. We have words and notions about the “things of God,” but not the things themselves.
   2. “We know him rather but what he does than what he is.”
3. But what of the difference between believers’ and unbelievers’ knowledge of God?
   1. Their manner of knowing is different, not the content.

Chapter 13

1. If you are upset by sin, don’t speak peace to your heart until God speaks.
2. If we look for healing and peace, we must look to the blood of the covenant.
3. How shall we know that God has spoken peace to us?
   1. We’ll know.  When God gives peace, he doesn’t go halfway.
   2. But he doesn’t necessarily do it right away.
   3. There is a “secret instinct in faith.”

Chapter 14

1. Have faith that Christ is at work killing our sin.
2. Expect in faith for a relief from Christ.
3. Our old man is crucified with Christ, not in respect of time but of causality. If we act on faith in the death of Christ, then we can expect
   1. Power
   2. Conformity
4. The Spirit alone:
   1. Convinces the heart of guilt
   2. Reveals unto us the fullness of Christ for relief.
   3. Establishes the heart in expectation of relief.
   4. Brings the cross of Christ into our hearts with its sin-killing power.
   5. Is the author and finisher of our sanctification.
   6. Supports our addresses to God.

Outline of Turretin, Topics 1 and 2

I read through Turretin a few years ago.  Now I have time to do a more thorough study.

On Natural Theology

It is partly innate (derived from conscience) and partly acquired (I.3).

God (and divine things) is the object of theology: he is not to be considered exclusively under the relation of deity (per Aquinas), but as he is our God (i.e., covenanted in Christ as he has revealed himself; Turretin, I.5.IV).

Purpose of reason for theology: it has a ministerial function.

• Truth of propositions: axiomatic judgment
• Truth of conclusions: discursus

Faith perceives the consequent, reason the consequences (I.8.11).

The Judgment of Contradiction:

1. Reason judging: the reason in question is that which is restored and enlightened by the Holy Spirit (I.10.1).
2. The principle from which the judgment is formed: axioms which are drawn from Scripture
3. Rule of consequence::

Scriptural proofs for this principle: Matt. 7:15; 16:6; Col. 2:8; 1 Thess. 5:21.

In the 11th Question Turretin affirms the use of the senses.  This allows him to reject transubstantiation.

Second Topic: The Holy Scriptures

First Question: Was Verbal Revelation Necessary?  We affirm. It must also have been committed to writing because of the need to preserve and propagate the word.

1. Although the church before Moses didn’t have the word, and the early church didn’t have all of it, it does not logically follow that the word is inferior.

Sixth Question: From what source does the divine authority of the Scriptures depend?

Turretin points out that the “authority belongs to the genus of things ek ton pros ti….[and] should not be considered absolutely but relatively.  Therefore, Scripture cannot be authentic in itself without being so for us” (II.6.3).

The Bible on its own account is the objective cause of why I believe it.  The Holy Spirit is the efficient cause. The Church is the instrumental cause.  We can give the three-fold reply on account that threefold causes can be granted for the manifestation of anything (section 6).

Twentieth Question: What is the Supreme Judge, Scripture or the Pope?

We prove it is Scripture by:

1. God himself: he sends the judge and we must obey him (Dt 17:10). Christ says to obey and judge by Moses and the Prophets (Lk. 16:29).
2. When Christ sends people to the church to hear, the church is not speaking of matters of faith but of scandal (Matt. 18:17).

Witsius, Notes: Vol 1

This is mainly Books 1-3 of The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man (Reformation Heritage reprint)

Book 1

Chapter 1: Covenants in General

Generally, covenants signify a mutual agreement between parties, with respect to something (43).  A covenant of God, furthermore, “is an agreement between God and man, about the way of obtaining consummate happiness,” including sanctions (45).  This covenant comprises three things: a) Promise; b) condition; c) sanction.

While it is a free agreement between God and man, man really couldn’t say no.  Not to desire God’s promises is to refuse the goodness of God, which is sin.

Covenant of Works: in the covenant of works there is no mediator (49).

Chapter 2: Of the contracting parties of the covenant of works

The CoW = natural law = covenant of nature (50).  Witsius notes that there was supernatural revelation in this covenant (53).

Image of God

The imago dei has knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (54).

Chapter 3: Of the Law, or Condition, of the Covenant of Works

The law of nature: the rule of good and evil inscribed on man’s conscience.  Further, it is identical with the substance of the decalogue (62).

Witsius views the CoW as probationary, yet Adam wouldn’t have “earned” the reward per any intrinsic merit.  The reward is rooted in God’s covenant, not in man’s merit.

Chapter 4: Of the Promises of the Covenant of Works

Man’s natural conscience teaches him that God desires not to be served in vain (71).

Chapter 5: Of the Penal Sanction

Nature of the soul: a spiritual substance endowed with understanding and will (89).  Witsius notes that the soul is conscious of itself, which modern philosophers like JP Moreland call “self-presenting.”

Aquinas and the majesty of God: Adam’s disobedience, no matter how small, is divine treason–it is not honoring and infinite majesty as it deserves. God’s holiness is such that he cannot admit a sinner to communion without satisfaction first made to his justice (94).

Chapter 7: Of the First Sabbath

Contra Turretin, Witsius doesn’t think Adam fell on the first day (126).

Chapter 8: Of the Violation of the Covenant of Works on the Part of Man

Witsius suggests that Satan’s suggestion to Eve that she can disobey God and not die, which is a venial sin, is functionally equivalent to Rome’s definition of venial sin (138).

Foreknowledge and Predestination: God’s knowledge of future things cannot be conceived apart from his decreeing them (141).  The creature acts in concurrence with God’s action. All things come from God. There is only one first cause (I.8.15). If something could act besides having God as its cause, then there would be multiple first Causes, which is polytheism.

God and sin.  If all beings come from God, and even though sin is privation of being, it, too, is a kind of entity, then it also arises from God’s plan (para 22).

Chapter 9: Of the Abrogation of the Covenant of Works

The covenant of law demands a merit of perfect obedience, otherwise Christ would have been under no necessity to submit to this covenant (158).

Book II.

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Covenant of Grace

Definition: a compact or agreement between God and the elect sinner, God on his part declaring his free good-will concerning eternal salvation, and every thing relative thereto, freely to be given to those in covenant, by, and for the mediator Christ; and man on his part consenting to that goodwill by a sincere faith (2.1.5).

Chapter 2: Of the Covenant between God the Father and Son

The covenant of redemption is between God and the Mediator. The will of the Father, giving the Son to be the Head and Redeemer of the elect; and the will of the Son, presenting himself as a Sponsor or Surety for them (2.2.2). Christ’s suretyship consists in his willingness to undertake to perform that condition (2.2.4).

The exegetical foundation is in Zech. 6.13.  There is a counsel of Peace between God and the Branch. 

Covenant and Justification: God the Father, through Christ’s use of the sacraments, sealed the federal promise concerning justification (para 11).  Christ’s baptism illustrates the sealing of the covenant from both sides.

Chapter 3: The nature of the covenant between the Father and the Son more fully explained

Lines of argument:  Christ was foreordained (1 Peter i.20).

Rejects the idea of liberty of will = indifference (p. 187).

The reward the Son was to obtain:

1. Highest degree of glory (John 17.1).
2. Christ’s obedience is the cause of the rewards.

Chapter 4: Of the Person of the Surety

4 things necessary for a surety: true man;  holy man; true God; unity of person.

Chapter 7: Of the Efficacy of Christ’s Satisfaction

The proximate effect of redemption and payment of ransom is setting the captives free, and not a bare possibility of liberty (235).

Chapter 9: Of the Persons for whom Christ engaged and satisfied

Key point: those “all for whom” (2 Cor. 5.15) Christ died are those who are also dead to the old man (257).

Chapter 10: After What manner Christ used the sacraments

Key point: Christ used the sacraments of the old covenant to show them as signs and seals of the covenant, whereby mutual contracting parties are sealed (273). The promsies made to Christ as mediator were principally sealed to him by the sacraments.

BOOK III

Chapter 1: Of the Covenant of God with the Elect

The contracting parties are God and the elect (281). The son is not only mediator but testator, who ratified the covenant with his death. Are there conditions in the covenant of Grace?  Earlier divines like Rutherford spoke a qualified “yes,” though Witsius removes himself from that language. Condition: that action which gives a man a right to the reward (284).

Chapter 12: Sanctification

Witsius gives a warm and pastoral chapter on mortifying the flesh.

Concerning body, soul, spirit:

1. Spirit is the mind, or the leading faculty of man (II.17).
2. Soul denotes the inferior faculties.
3. Yet spirit and soul aren’t two different substances.

God is the author and the efficient cause of sanctification (18).

Chapter 13: Of Conservation, or the manner by which God preserves us

God conserves us internally by the Spirit and externally by the means he hath appointed (55).  This is otherwise known as “P” in the unfortunately-named “TULIP.” Our security is guaranteed because of God’s covenant, not only with us, but between the members of the Trinity (62ff).

Chapter 14: Of Glorification

Df. = that act of God whereby he translates his chosen and redeemed people to the next life.

Nature of the Soul

The soul must continue after death because the righteous who die in the Lord are considered “blessed,” yet how can someone be blessed without knowledge or feeling?

Paradise and the thief on the cross:

It makes no sense to say that the “today, I say to you” refers to when Christ spoke.  The thief already knows that Christ is speaking on that day (p. 95). The thief was asking a “when” question, and Christ gives him a “when” answer.

 

Outline of Calvin’s Institutes, Book 1

Outline and Notes.

Knowledge of God

Calvin placed intuitive knowledge on a more direct footing.  We have direct knowledge of an actually present object:  Intuitive knowledge arises under the direct impact of the divine Being.

1. 1. Calvin: We know God through his speaking to us in his Word (Word, being Logos, inheres in the divine being).
      1. There is a compulsion of Veritas on our minds.
      2. Knowledge of God, like all true knowledge, is determined by the nature of what is known (86).
         1. arises out of our obedience.
         2. evidence: evidence of ultimate reality, which means it is self-evident.
      3. Our intuitive knowledge is in and through God’s Word.
         1. it is reached by hearing, not seeing.
         2. The Word of God we hear in Scripture reposes in the divine Being. That is the objective ground in our knowledge of God.

1. Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self, since God is the standard of knowledge.
   1. Knowledge of God involves trust and reverence (1.2.2).
      1. Knowledge of God, hence, involves obedience.
      2. The object of knowledge, in this case, partially determines how we know God.
   2. Implanted in the minds of men (1.3-4)
   3. Scripture is needed if we are to have true knowledge (1.6-8)
      1. The church itself is grounded in Scripture. Eph. 2.20.
      2. Witness of the Holy Spirit..  God is a fit witness of himself. Isaiah 59.20-21.
   4. Contra fanatical knowledge (1.9).
      1. The Holy Spirit agrees with Scripture.
      2. Word and Spirit belong together.
   5. Contra superstition (1.10-11).
      1. No visible form of God.
      2. Dulia/latria collapses.
         1. It is harder to serve a being than to reverence it (1.11.11).
         2. Scripture itself blurs this distinction (1.12.2). Gal. 4.8.
2. The Being of God and the Trinity
   1. The Father has made his hypostasis visible in the Son (1.13.2).

Book I.V.13-15

“No pure and approved religion founded on common understanding alone.” 1 Cor. 2.8.

Chapter VI: Scripture Necessary

Knowledge of God in Scripture

True understanding emerges when we reverently embrace what pleases God (I.VI.2). This might be what Torrance has in mind when he says true scientific knowledge is when the knower submits to the structures of the object known.  “Right knowledge of God is born of obedience” (Omnis recta cognito Dei ab obedientia nascitur)

Chapter VII: Scripture must be confirmed by the Spirit

(Chapters 7-9 form an excursus on biblical authority)

“Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from heaven, as if there the were living words of God were heard (7.1).  Is Calvin saying the bible becomes authoritative as we assent to its authority?  Maybe.  This is very close to what Barth says about Scripture’s becoming the Word of God in us when we submit to it.

*The highest proof of Scripture comes from God, since Scripture comes from God.  God himself is a “fit witness” for his Word.

Inward testimony of the Spirit

The Spirit must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us of Scripture (VII.4).  Is. 59.21.

Hilary of Poitiers: “For he whom we can know only through his utterances is a fitting witness concerning himself” (De Trin. I.18).

Calvin: “It is not right to subject Scripture to proof and reasoning.”  Proofs only work when the Spirit seals them on our hearts. The only true faith is that which the Spirit seals on our hearts.

Chapter 10.2

Uses language of God in himself, but goes on to say that “Experiences teaches us to find God as he is in his Word.”

Chapter 11: Impropriety of Images

section 1.  “God himself is the sole and proper witness of himself” (cf. Hilary, De Trin. I.8).

sect. 2: How can spirit be analogous to a material object?

Epistemology and Icons

The problem with the dulia/latria distinction.

• Scripture doesn’t use that distinction (Mt. 4:10; Rev. 19:10, Acts 10:25).
• Common sense logic says that one who is enslaved/under service to a greater necessarily gives honor to the greater (pp. 118-119).

DOCTRINE OF GOD, PROPERLY SPEAKING

Chapter 13

Divine simplicity on p. 122.

• The Father’s hypostasis is visible in Jesus (p. 123).

Definition of Person (p.128).

• better spoken of as “subsistence.”
• Persons are distinguished by an incommunicable quality
• John 1:1–Word could not be God without residing in the Father, hence the idea of subsistence emerges.

Distribution or economy in God has no effect on the unity of the essence.

Christology

Calvin summarizes the basic arguments for the deity of Christ.  Not much new here.  However, some points:

• If apart from God there is no salvation, no righteousness et al, yet Christ contains all of these.  Then Christ is God.
• The name of a Jehovah is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are safe.  Yet the name of Christ is invoked for salvation.  Therefore, Christ is on the same level as Jehovah.

Deity of the Holy Spirit (I.XIII.14-15)

*The Spirit is author of regeneration by his very own energy.

*Through him we come into communion with God, so that in a way we feel his life-giving power toward us.

Distinction and Unity of the Three Persons (I.XIII.16-20).

Fairly standard stuff.  Includes Calvin’s famous quote of Gregory of Nazianzus (p.141).

*Father is attributed the beginning of the activity and the fountain of all things; the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the spirit is assigned the power and efficacy of all that activity (sec. 18).

*For in each hypostasis is the whole divine nature understood

Chapter 14: Creation

Standard textbook material.  Rebuts Pseudo-Dionysius on angels.  Calvin is aware of the dearth of evidence for some conclusions and refuses to go beyond it.

Chapter 15: Creation of Man

Basic substance dualism, though Calvin is heavier on the Platonic line.  Rebuts the idea that there is a difference between image and likeness.

Human soul consists of two faculties–understanding and will (sec. 7).  Calvin places himself in the intellectualist tradition by seeing that the will follows the understanding.  He is not a voluntarist.

Chapter 16: Providence

“Fortune and chance are pagan terms” (quoting Basil, Homilies on the Psalms).

Chapter 17: How We May apply this doctrine to our greatest benefit

(1) God’s providence sometimes works through an intermediary (p.210).

(2) God’s Hidden Will: Calvin isn’t actually positing two wills in God, bu notes that it appears manifold to us (sec. 3)

 

Analytic Outline, Balthasar’s Cosmic Liturgy

This isn’t an outline of the whole book–only the first half.  That is where Balthasar’s discussion on Person and Nature is.  I first read this book in 2010 when I was new to Maximus the Confessor.  Those were heady days. 

1. the Free mind

1. 1. Opening up tradition: Maximus undercut Origenism by interpreting Gregory of Nazianzus in Origenist language (35).
   2. Between Emperor and Pope: tore the Greek tradition away from the destructive claws of the Empire.  
2. Between East and West
   1. Religion and revelation
      1. 1. Asiatic view of One and Many; seeking the Absolute which exists in a state of formlessness
         2. Biblical religion: man and God stand in confrontation, not emanation and decline.
      2. Polarities and Synthesis
         1. Maximus held to the Western view of phusis and logos, which grounds the existence of things.  Western thought also added “personal categories.”
         2. He held to the Eastern religious passion.
      3. Three bodies of material to be synthesized
         1. Origen: subordination is metaphysical; problem for Christology.  Falling away from spirits in a collective unity of God; apakatastis.
         2. Evagrius: silence sensible images and conceptual thought; eliminate form from realm of the spirit.
         3. Alexandrian Christology:
   2. Scholasticism and Mysticism
3. The synthesis
4. Divine Unknowing
   1. Lack of knowledge:
   2. The light of God enfolds one beyond the distinction of subject and object (94).
5. Ideas in God
   1. “The idea of a thing is its truth” (Maximus PG 91, 1085AB).
   2. God’s ideas are not identical with his essence (otherwise I, as an idea of God, would be infinite) nor are they identical with the existence of created entities (HuvB, 118).
   3. Epistemology
      1. Maximus reworks some of Ps. Dionysius’ concepts.  When we approach an idea, or rather, when an idea comes across our consciousness, we first have a general impression of reality (pragma) and gradually grow clearer unity reaches the full knowledge of the individual object.  
      2. “What flashes upon us ‘in an undivided way’ (ameristos) in the first encounter () is not some empty general concept of being–a contradiction in terms–but a revelation concerning the Monad (), the unity of that being that truly is one: a logos that instructs the thinking mind that God and the world are undivided and so makes possible all thought of things different from God (123, see PG 91, 1260D).  
6. Ideas in the World: A Critique of Origenism
   1. Maximus filtered Origenist spirituality and removed its fangs.
   2. Origen: there once existed an original Henad of beings.  It is a metaphysics of “peira,” of painful necessity (129).

Syntheses of the Cosmos

1. Being and Movement
   1. The Age.  Finite being is characterized by spatial intervals (diastema), and thereby motion.  
      “To have a beginning, middle, and end is characteristic of things extended in time. One would also be right in adding to this ‘things caught p in the age (aiown).’ For time, whose motion can be measured, is limited by number; the age, however, whose existence is expressed by the category of ‘when,’ also undergoes extension (diastasis), in that its being has a beginning.  But if time and the age are not without beginning, then surely neither ar ethe things that are involved in them” (Centuries on Knowledge, 1.5).
   2. In short, for Origen motion is connected with the fall, while for Maximus it was an ontological expression of created existence (HuvB 141).
   3. Extension:
   4. The definition of every nature is given with the concept of its essential activity (energeia, Ambigua PG 91, 1057B).
      1. The essence of a thing is only truly indicated through the potential for activity that is constitutive of its nature.
      2. A nature is nothing else than organized motion….It is a capacity or plan, a field or system of motion (HuvB 146).
   5. Nature and the Supernatural:
2. Generality and Particularity
   1. Being in Motion.
   2. The motion of a being is its way of establishing itself as a particular, existent thing (155).
      1. The whole structure of existent things, which are not God, is polar (duas). It is a dynamic relationship between the unity of individuality and the unity of generality (157).
   3. Essence in motion. The essence of all created things is motion–in the manner of expansion (diastole) and contraction (systole).
   4. Balance of contrary motions.

Christ the Synthesis

1. Synthesis, not confusion, is the first structural principle of all created being (207).
   1. There is no contradiction between divine and finite life.
   2. We do not look for a synthesis on the level of nature and describe it as a synthesis of natural powers (Nestorius) or a natural union (Eutyches).
2. The terminology
   1. Aristotle: ousia is the highest and most comprehensie of being (216).
      1. The Cappadocians used this as “universal concept
      2. And because Maximus didn’t want to identify God with a universal concept, he places God outside being (Ambigua PG 91, 1036B).
   2. Maximus at times wants to distinguish ousia from this-ousia.
   3. Being (einai). The existential aspect of Being (HuvB 218).
      1. Christ united in his own person “two distinct intelligible structures of being” (logoi tou einai) of his parts.”
   4. Hypokeimenon.  Underlying subject.  Maximus seldom uses this. It denotes the concrete, existent bearer of qualities that determine whata thing is.
      1. It does not mean the same thing as hypostasis. It is more of a point of reference for logical predicates than an existential reality.
   5. Hyparxis. Existence. Used to mean the Being of the Persons of God (tropos tes huparxeos; Cappadocians used this, as did Karl Barth).
   6. Hypostasis. Leontius refined it to mean “being-for-oneself.”  It is what distinguishes a concrete being from others of the same genus (HuvB 223). It is the ontological subject of the ascription of an essence, not the consciousness of such a subject.  
      1. It isn’t merely the contraction (systole) of universal being; it also suggests the “having” of such a being. When the Cappadocian Fathers defined hypostasis as the manner in which each person has his origin, it was to show the reality his having the Godhead.
      2. A nature is the hypostasis’s property (224).
      3. Maximus even suggests that nature is what is according to the image, whereas hypostasis is according to the likeness.  No doubt the Hebrew doesn’t sustain such a reading, but it is interesting that a Greek father would suggest it.
   7. Synthesis
      1. Union (henosis).
      2. Synthetic person.  
   8. Christology of essence.  The act of being is distinct from the actual being of Christ’s human nature. The act of being comes from the divine person, which is why the human nature of Christ isn’t a human person.
3. Healing as Preservation
   1. The exchange of properties

Terminology:

First Substance (Aristotle): the irreducibleness of a thing.  It has an inner field of meaning and power defined in terms of potency (49).  

Analytical Outline of Freedom of the Will

Terminology:

1. Will: that by which the mind chooses anything (1.1).
   1. Act of will: act of choosing.  JE identifies volition with the prevailing act of the soul; what other writers call “voluntary.”
   2. Determined: under some influence to a fixed object.
2. Thesis: it is that motive which, as it stands in the view of the mind, is the strongest that determines the will (I.).

Necessity of consequence:  while JE plays fast and loose sometimes with terms, what he says makes sense, nonetheless.   There is also a weaker type of necessity, accidental necessity.

 

• Part 1

1. Thesis: a man never wills anything contrary to his (greatest apparent) desire (section 1).

2. Section 2: Determination of the WIll

   1. A will is determined when its choice is directed to a fixed object. Motive is that which excites the mind to volition. For Edwards “understanding” is the whole faculty of perception.

3. Section 3: Necessity

   1. A thing is necessary when it cannot be otherwise. Necessity is a fixed connection between things (e.g., the subject and predicate of a proposition).  Contingency is when something has no previous connection.

4. Section 4: Moral Necessity and Inability

   1. Moral necessity is the certainty of the will itself.  Edwards’ argument seems to be that it is impossible for the will to act contrary to its greatest inclination. This impossibility is the moral inability.

   2. Moral inability is the want or defect of an inclination.  Being able is not the same thing as being willing.  I can have the faculty/capacity to do x, yet never actualize it.

5. Section 5: Concerning the Notion of Liberty and Agency

   1. Liberty is the power to do as one pleases.  It doesn’t belong under the category of “Will,” but agency.  Agents are free, wills are not.

 

Part 2: Is there a such thing as Arminian Liberty?

1. Inconsistency
   1. If the Will determines all its free acts, then every free choice is determined by a preceding act of choice.
   2. JE sees a chain of causes in each act of the will.  The key question: is this first act of the Will free or not?  If it is free (in the sense of uncaused), then we have an uncaused Cause (God).  If it isn’t free, then the Will is not free.
2. Is the Will active or passive?
   1. If the Will is active, then the Will is determining other acts of the Will.  If passive, then in what sense is the will a determining factor?
   2. The very act of volition is itself a determination of the mind.
   3. Definition of a cause: an antecedent on which an event depends.
3. Short essay on the Cosmological Argument.
4. The soul, even if active, cannot be the subject of effects which have no cause.
5. JE recaps his argument.
6. Difficulties in the view that the will is uninfluenced
   1. This is like saying that the mind has a preference but at the same time it has no preference.
   2. To suppose the Will to act in a complete state of indifference is to assert that the mind chooses without choosing.
7. Liberty of Will and Indifference
   1. On an Arminian gloss, indifference must be taken in an absolute sense. This is so because if the will is already inclined, then the choosing isn’t solely on the sovereign power of the Will.
   2. Is a self-determining will really free? How can the soul be both in a state of choice and a state of equilibrium?
   3. Does the mind suspend itself in a state of complete indifference?
8. Liberty and Necessity
   1. Acts of will are never contingent.
9. Connection between the Will and Understanding
   1. Every act of will is connected with the perceived good from the understanding.
10. Volition and Motives
    1. Every act of will is excited by some motive.
    2. The motive is the cause of the will’s act.
    3. Volitions are necessarily connected with the motive.
    4. If the motives dispose the mind to action, then they cause the mind to be disposed; and to cause the mind to be disposed is to cause it to be willing; and to cause it to be willing is to cause it to will.
11. God’s Foreknowledge
    1. Thesis: God has a certain foreknowledge of the voluntary acts of moral agents. These acts, therefore, are not contingent.
    2. If God doesn’t have knowledge of the future actions of moral agents, then the prophecies in general are without foreknowledge.
12. God’s foreknowledge inconsistent with contingent actions.
    1. The voluntary acts of moral agents are necessary in the sense of connection or consequence.
       1. For example, past actions are now necessary.
       2. God’s foreknowledge, therefore, gives the actions a kind of necessary ground of existence.
       3. If something is indissolubly connected with a necessary event, it, too, is necessary.
    2. Therefore, there is a necessary connection between God’s foreknowledge and these events.
    3. Infallible foreknowledge proves the necessity of the event foreknown, but does not necessarily cause it.
13. Recap of argument

Part III: Is Liberty inconsistent with moral excellency?

The Arminian objects that anything that is necessary cannot be morally praiseworthy.

1. God’s nature and moral excellency are necessary but that doesn’t preclude His being praiseworthy.
   1. Indeed, it is commanded.
   2. On the Arminian objection, why should we thank God for his Goodness, since His good acts are necessary?
2. Jesus was necessarily holy and couldn’t sin, yet he is praiseworthy.
   1. In this section Edwards upholds dyotheletism.
   2. God promised to preserve and uphold Jesus by his Spirit.
   3. The benefits of Christ’s obedience are in the nature of a reward.
3. Moral necessity and Inability are consistent with blameworthiness because of the fact that God gives people up to sin.
   1. If coaction and necessity prove men blameless, then Judas was blameless for betraying Christ.
4. Command and obligation to obedience are consistent with moral inability to obey.
   1. The Arminian says that the only good acts are when the will acts from a state of Indifference and equilibrium.  Yet, this runs into problems:
      1. If the soul doesn’t act by prior determining influences, then volitions are events that happen by pure chance.
      2. Laws require virtue and repress vice, yet a libertarian action is indifferent with respect to law.
      3. If liberty consists in indifference, then anything that biases the will destroys Liberty.
      4. Yet Scripture teaches that the Saint is most free when he obeys God.
   2. The inclination of a will is itself unable to change.  This would be like saying the mind is inclined otherwise than it is now inclined!
5. Sincerity of Desires are irrelevant
   1. Men are already inclined or not inclined prior to the relevance of needing to be sincerely inclined.
      1. It is like saying a man should sincerely incline to have an inclination.
      2. Being sincere is no virtue unless it is being sincere towards a virtuous thing.
   2. But being sincere destroys the idea of a Will resting in a complete state of indifference.
6. Liberty of Indifference is not Necessary to virtue but actually opposed to it.
   1. If indifference of Will is necessary to Virtue, then the heart must be indifferent to the virtuous act when it performs it!
   2. Therefore, there is no virtue (or vice) in habitual inclinations.
7. Arminian notions of moral agency (indifference) are inconsistent with the influence of motives and Inducement.
   1. If the only good act is one springing from an indifferent will, then what is the point of using motives or promises?
   2. Motives bias the mind and destroy indifference.
   3. If acts of the will are incited by motives, then motives cause those acts, which means the will isn’t self-caused.
   4. If the soul has in its act no motive or end, then in that act it seeks nothing. It desires nothing.  It chooses nothing.

Part IV: Refuting Arminianism

1. Essence of virtue, etc., lies in nature, not in Cause.
   1. We condemn or praise an act, not in its cause, but in the nature of the act.
   2. If we blame the cause of an act, then we have to ask why that Cause is evil, which moves the discussion back to a previous cause, and so on.
2. Metaphysical notions of action and agency
3. On necessity
   1. Strong connection between the thing said to be necessary, and the antecedents.
4. Moral necessity consistent with praise and blame.
   1. When someone does wrong, it is because he is doing as he pleases, and we blame him for doing as he pleases.
   2. We do not speculate on the Causes of his actions (at least not immediately).
5. Objections considered
   1. Necessity does not render endeavors to be vain, for we judge an endeavor based on the success of it, and not simply on the means.
6. We are not fatalists.  Edwards admits he has not read Hobbes.
7. Necessity of the Divine Will
   1. God wills necessarily, yet no one bats an eye at this.
   2. God necessarily acts in a way to exhibit the perfections of his Nature.
8. Necessity of God’s volitions
   1. If presented between two objects, ex hypothesi, God will always necessarily choose between the fittest.
   2. JE then gives an amazing analytical theological discussion about the nature of identity.  
9. Is God the author of sin?
   1. God is not the author of sin in that he is the agent of sin.
   2. Yet God does order the universe in such a way that sin does come about.  Even Arminians must admit this.
10. Concerning sin’s first entrance into the world.
11. On supposed inconsistencies.
    1. God’s secret and revealed will.
    2. Men are still invited to the gospel, even if God has secretly ordered the universe in such a way that men will not respond.
12. On atheism and licentiousness
    1. JE’s apologetics: the doctrine of necessity is the only medium for proving the being of God.
13. Are we too metaphysical? No.
    1. The being of God is metaphysically construed, and this is valuable for apologetics.
14. Conclusion
    1. God orders all events.
15. Appendix
    1. Liberty is the power that anyone has to do as he pleases.
    2. Moral necessity is the connection between antecedent things and consequent things.

John Owen Communion With God (Works 2)

My copy of Owen was from his Works, volume 2.  Nonetheless, this review will also serve for the shorter Puritan Paperbacks edition.  following the review is an outline on the book.

Owen gives us a dense, thorough, yet manageable snapshot, not only of Reformed prolegomena, but of Trinitarian piety as well. Given the current (if overblown) popularity of the YRR crowd–who know not Turretin nor his principia–yet strangely seek Owen, Owen can give them a taste of proper Reformed theologomena. In many ways, this can function as a primer to systematic theology. So here it goes:

Basic definitions:

communion: A mutual communication of such good things grounded upon some union (Owen, II:8). The person of Christ, as head of the Church, communicates grace to us via his Holy Spirit, to the members of his body. Our communion with God is his communication of himself to us, flowing from our union which we have in Christ. Our union with Christ is mystical and spiritual, not hypostatic (313). He is the Head, we the members and he freely communicates “grace, righteousness, and salvation, in the several and distinct ways whereby we are capable to receive them from him.”

Sealing the Union

Any act of sealing always imparts the character of the seal to the thing (242). Owen is clear: The Spirit really communicates the image of God unto us. “To have the stamp of the Holy Ghost…is to be sealed in the Spirit.”

This isn’t the most concise treatment of the issues, but Owen is quite fine in his own way. His writing is only difficult when he gets off topic (as in his otherwise fine Vindication of the Trinity at the end of the volume). Some in the YRR make it seem like Owen is borderline incomprehensible. He isn’t.

Short Outline:

1. That the saints have communion with God
   1. Communion as to state and Communion as to condition
      1. Things internal and spiritual
      2. Outward things
   2. Communion fellowship and action.
   3. Definition:   A mutual communication of such good things grounded upon some union (Owen, II:8).  The person of Christ, as head of the Church, communicates grace to us via his Holy Spirit, to the members of his body. Our communion with God is his communication of himself to us, flowing from our union which we have in Christ.
2. The saints have this communion with the Trinity.
   1. The way and means of this communion:
      1. Moral and worship of God: faith, hope, love.
         1. For the Father: He gives testimony and beareth witness to the Son (1 John 5.9).
         2. For the Son:
         3. For the Holy Spirit:
      2. The Persons communicate good things to us:
         1. Grace and peace (Rev. 1.4-5)
         2. The Father communicates all grace by way of original authority (Owen 17).
         3. The Son by way of making a purchased treasury (John 1.16; Isa. 53.10-11).
         4. The Spirit doth it by way of immediate efficacy (Rom. 8.11).
3. Peculiar and Distinct Communion with the Father:
   1. Our communion with the Father is principialy and by way of eminence (18).
   2. There is a concurrence of actings and operations of the whole Deity in that dispensation, wherein each person concurs to the work of salvation.
   3. If we speak particularly of a person, it does not exclude other media of communion.
   4. God’s love (19).
      1. God’s love is antecedent to the purchase of Christ.
      2. The apostles particularly ascribe love to God the father (2 Cor. 13).
      3. Love itself is free and needs no intercession.  Jesus doesn’t even bother to pray that the Father will love his own (John 16.26-27).
      4. Twofold divine love
         1. Beneplaciti:  Love of good destination for us
         2. Amicitiae: love of friendship (21).
      5. The father is the fountain of all following gracious dispensations:
   5. Communion with the Father in love
      1. That they receive it of him
      2. That they make suitable returns unto him.