Tag Archives: Calvin

Book Review: The Trial of the 16th Century, Calvin & Servetus

01 Tuesday Nov 2022

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The rhetoric around the death of Michael Servetus is extraordinary. On one hand, it seems that John Calvin dragged a peaceable, intelligent, urbane scientist to the stake with his bare hands; forcibly tied the man of the world to the post and lit a fire using nothing more than burning hatred and malevolent intent. On the other hand are those, deny any relationship between the execution and the pastor.  (The weight of popular opinion lying far more heavily in favor of Calvin being a murderous beast.)

If you think I overstate the case, an internet search will set you straight.

If anyone would actually be concerned with the facts rather than accusations of this matter, I have found no better resource than Jonathan Moorhead’s Trial of the 16th Century, Calvin & Servetus. Dr. Moorhead seeks to neither castigate nor defend the participants. Rather, he performs the far more useful historical task of seeking to understand the participants on their own terms.

Moorhead understands his task as follows:

Since the writing of history is an ethical responsibility, it is important to be cautious of anachronism. To judge another culture and time based upon one’s own is unfair, and is a violation of the golden rule to treat others as one wants to be treated. As such, anachronistic judgments are unethical. Each time period must be judged by the prevailing laws of the time, not those of the future. Primary evidence of this, as previously mentioned, is Scripture itself. Charity is thus needed to evaluate those with whom we agree theologically, and those with whom we do not. (Moorhead, Jonathan. The Trial of the 16th Century: Calvin & Servetus (pp. 91-92). Christian Focus Publications. Kindle Edition.)

I found Moorhouse to meet this test quite well. First, he cites to his evidence and does not go beyond his evidence. I never found him inflammatory nor did I see evidence of trying to excuse anyone. Second, he puts the primary “problem” for contemporary understanding of this execution front and center. We find the execution of someone for heresy disturbing, at least. However, in the 16th Century, execution for heresy was a common place throughout Europe and was approved by all governments and leading religious figures.  Moorhead provides numerous quotations from Protestant leaders, so that no contemporary Protestant reader can try to foist this opinion onto some other group nor try to turn Calvin in a 21st Century figure.

Third, Moorheads spends considerable time placing Calvin and the Servetus into historical context. While I have general knowledge of the 16th Century and know some general trends, what I did not know was the immediate context for Calvin and Servetus on the days in question.

Calvin was in the midst of a conflict with the political leaders in Geneva when the events of Servetus took place. There was significant history between Calvin and Servetus. Servetus had his own context which intersected with Calvin resulting in an outcome that neither man could control.

The context and forces pressing upon the people involved extended beyond Calvin or Servetus. Geneva, and the Reformation, were faced with pressures and decisions which went beyond the immediate question of what this City was to do with this heretic. The decisions made in Geneva had effects throughout Europe.

This third element, the particular context for these particular people at this particular time, goes a long to help understanding why other heretics were simply banished, while Servetus was executed.

At the end of the book Moorhead add a helpful Appendix which summarizes the 22 steps in his analysis. For instance, point 1, “Imperial law stated that Anabaptism and denying the Trinity were heresies punishable by death.”

The book was well written and to the point. While one learns a great deal about Calvin, Servetus, as well the political and religious world of the 16th Century, the focus always remains upon the central issue(s), “Did Calvin want Servetus to be executed? Did he try to lure him to Geneva to be killed? Was Calvin the Pope of Geneva that dictated the direction of the trial? Did he murder Servetus?”

I have purposefully not disclosed the conclusions which Moorheard reaches in this book, because I want you to read it.  I highly recommend this volume.

A short bio of Dr. Moorhead’s ministry can be found here.

Thinking of the World in the Light of the Knowledge of God’s Providence

27 Tuesday Jul 2021

Posted by in John Calvin, Providence, Psalms

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In commenting upon Psalm 16:8, “I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken” Calvin writes

We must look to him with other eyes than those of the flesh, for we shall seldom be able to perceive him unless we elevate our minds above the world; and faith prevents us from turning our back upon him. The meaning, therefore, is, that David kept his mind so intently fixed upon the providence of God, as to be fully persuaded, that whenever any difficulty or distress should befall him, God would be always at hand to assist him. He adds, also, continually, to show us how he constantly depended upon the assistance of God, so that, amidst the various conflicts with which he was agitated, no fear of danger could make him turn his eyes to any other quarter than to God in search of succour. And thus we ought so to depend upon God as to continue to be fully persuaded of his being near to us, even when he seems to be removed to the greatest distance from us. When we shall have thus turned our eyes towards him, the masks and the vain illusions of this world will no longer deceive us.

This is an interesting thing: God is the context in which I understand the world and it’s dealings. He is not claiming an esoteric knowledge, because he is looking at world in terms of providence not a prophetic word. It is an interpretative presupposition through which to understand what is taking place.

This makes sense then of how we can continue to believe God is directing events even when God seems absent. If we begin with the presupposition of God’s Providence at all times, we can persist in the confidence even when things do seem lacking in control. It is a sort of mental habit.

This is not to say he is here denying the work of God for it is God who is acting through Providence and God maintains the discipline of the thought and its resulting effect, “he constantly depended upon the assistance of God.”

Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace 1.22, Conscience

23 Friday Apr 2021

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CONSCIENCE AND THE COVENANT OF WORKS

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Gen. 2:16-17

Kuyper begins this chapter with a discussion of conscience. In this opening section he presents two very different concepts of conscience and attributes the modern conscience to be a function of the Enlightenment. 

This discussion of conscience begins with the observation that Adam had no conscience, as we know it. This leads to a discussion of two ways of understanding conscience. In one manner, the newer understanding, conscience is a self-executing faculty which can determine whether a course of conduct is morally appropriate. This faculty as an innate knowledge of what God requires and functions as an “oracle” to our mind.

Functioning in this manner, conscience has an authority independent and over God’s Word. Not raised by Kuyper, but proof of his thesis can be found in the many concessions and transformations of Christian moral behavior and opinion in the world after Kuyper. God’s Word is either rejected or nuanced in such a way as to be meaningless. Any number of examples could be given on the evolution of Christian morality in a number of instances. 

The previous Reformed understanding of conscience before “rationalism was busy trampling faith,”  did not understand conscience as an independent “capacity” but rather as a recurrent reflective mode of thinking. Kuyper identifies three elements of this reflective thought: 

First, it knows the external law of God; the knowledge of good and evil. Second, we have a knowledge of ourselves and our actions. Third, there is a reflexive comparison of our conduct with knowledge of God’s law. He refers to this as a “higher impulse” and pursuant to the impulse we continually reflect on our life in comparison to the law. 

In this respect it then differs from the latter concept of conscience as an independent source of knowledge. 

In this understanding, the conscience is dependent upon the content of the external law which informs and forms the conscience. In looking at some pre-Enlightenment sources, it is possible to see an understanding consistent with Kuyper’s model:

False Rule. 3. Conscience. It is, saith one, my conscience. This is no rule for an upright man; the conscience of a sinner is defiled, Tit. 1:15 conscience being defiled may err; an erring conscience cannot be a rule, Acts 26:9. ‘I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus;’ he who is an heretic may plead conscience; admit conscience to be a rule, and we open the door to all mutinies and massacres; if the devil get into a man’s conscience, whither will he not carry him?

Thomas Watson, “The Upright Man’s Character,” in Discourses on Important and Interesting Subjects, Being the Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co.; A. Fullarton & Co., 1829), 328. Here, he explicitly denies the conscience has any independent moral standard, but it is imported – at the very least one without salvation cannot have a properly functioning conscience. 

There are other uses which are ambiguous on this point, such as Manton’s “That true morality and good conscience cannot be had without the faith of the gospel; so that we are not only better provided, but indeed cannot perform such obedience as is acceptable to God without faith in Christ.” Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 17 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1874), 429. The trouble for the unbeliever is the inability to pacify the conscience because he cannot live right. This raises the question, why does the unbeliever have any pangs of conscience if he is ignorant of the law?

Thomas Boston goes further and writes: “This moral law is found, 1. In the hearts of all men, as to some remains thereof, Rom. 2:15. There are common notions thereof, such as, That there is a God, and that he is to be worshipped; that we should give every one his due, &c. Conscience has that law with which it accuses for the commission of great crimes, Rom. 1 ult. This internal law appears from those laws which are common in all countries for the preserving of human societies, the encouraging of virtue, and the discouraging of vice. What standard else can they have for these laws but common reason? The design of them is to keep men within the bounds of goodness for mutual commerce.”Thomas Boston, The Whole Works of Thomas Boston: An Illustration of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion, Part 2, ed. Samuel M‘Millan, vol. 2 (Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1848), 61.

And similarly by another, “but God hath given both light streaming forth from the word, and he hath given the eye of conscience, that by both these men might come assuredly to know that they are called out of darkness unto light.” James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, vol. 6 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 389.

In another place we see the conscience being deceived and thus judging wrongly: “Conscience is sometimes deceived through ignorance of what is right, by apprehending a false rule for a true, an error for the will of God: sometimes, through ignorance of the fact, by misapplying a right rule to a wrong action. Conscience, evil informed, takes human traditions and false doctrines, proposed under the show of Divine authority, to be the will of God.” James Nichols, Puritan Sermons, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 13.

Edwards occupies an interesting middle position, “Thus natural conscience, if the understanding be properly enlightened, and errors and blinding stupifying prejudices are removed, concurs with the law of God, and is of equal extent with it, and joins its voice with it in every article.” Jonathan Edwards, The Works of President Edwards (Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, Jun., 1808), 442–443. There is a natural conscience which would conform to the law of God, were it enlightened. 

And Luther held to a view that conscience can know of sin but not condemn the man as a sinner, “Zachman writes of Luther’s negative view of conscience: “The conscience can recognize sins (acts), but it cannot of itself, even under the external revelation of the law, acknowledge the person as sinner (nature). The subjective ability to feel oneself a sinner and to sense the wrath of God on sinners is thus a gift of God, and not an ability of conscience.” Justification is solely God’s work ex nihilo, not out of any preexistent salvific matters including human accretions, the murmuring of conscience, etc.” Dennis Ngien, Fruit for the Soul: Luther on the Lament Psalms (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), 155–156.

And Calvin, “In like manner, when men have an awareness of divine judgment adjoined to them as a witness which does not let them hide their sins but arraigns them as guilty before the judgment seat—this awareness is called “conscience.” It is a certain mean between God and man, for it does not allow man to suppress within himself what he knows, but pursues him to the point of making him acknowledge his guilt. This is what Paul means when he teaches that conscience testifies to men, while their thoughts accuse or excuse them in God’s judgment [Rom. 2:15–16]. A simple awareness could repose in man, bottled up, as it were. Therefore, this feeling, which draws men to God’s judgment, is like a keeper assigned to man, that watches and observes all his secrets so that nothing may remain buried in darkness. Hence that ancient proverb: conscience is a thousand witnesses.11 By like reasoning, Peter also put “the response11a of a good conscience to God” [1 Peter 3:21] as equivalent to peace of mind, when, convinced of Christ’s grace, we fearlessly present ourselves before God. And when the author of The Letter to the Hebrews states that we “no longer have any consciousness of sin” [Heb. 10:2], he means that we are freed or absolved so that sin can no longer accuse us.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 1181–1182.

This brings us on both sides of the Enlightenment. While none of these examples hold the conscience an infallible witness, there is at least a general sense of God’s law.

Oddly, Kuyper’s position in some way is closer to John Locke,  Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Book 1, Chapter 2:

“7. Men’s actions convince us that the rule of virtue is not their internal principle. For, if we will not in civility allow too much sincerity to the professions of most men, but think their actions to be the interpreters of their thoughts, we shall find that they have no such internal veneration for these rules, nor so full a persuasion of their certainty and obligation. The great principle of morality, “To do as one would be done to,” is more commended than practised. But the breach of this rule cannot be a greater vice, than to teach others, that it is no moral rule, nor obligatory, would be thought madness, and contrary to that interest men sacrifice to, when they break it themselves. Perhaps conscience will be urged as checking us for such breaches, and so the internal obligation and establishment of the rule be preserved.

“8. Conscience no proof of any innate moral rule. To which I answer, that I doubt not but, without being written on their hearts, many men may, by the same way that they come to the knowledge of other things, come to assent to several moral rules, and be convinced of their obligation. Others also may come to be of the same mind, from their education, company, and customs of their country; which persuasion, however got, will serve to set conscience on work; which is nothing else but our own opinion or judgment of the moral rectitude or pravity of our own actions; and if conscience be a proof of innate principles, contraries may be innate principles; since some men with the same bent of conscience prosecute what others avoid.

“9. Instances of enormities practised without remorse. But I cannot see how any men should ever transgress those moral rules, with confidence and serenity, were they innate, and stamped upon their minds. View but an army at the sacking of a town, and see what observation or sense of moral principles, or what touch of conscience for all the outrages they do. Robberies, murders, rapes, are the sports of men set at liberty from punishment and censure. Have there not been whole nations, and those of the most civilized people, amongst whom the exposing their children, and leaving them in the fields to perish by want or wild beasts has been the practice; as little condemned or scrupled as the begetting them? Do they not still, in some countries, put them into the same graves with their mothers, if they die in childbirth; or despatch them, if a pretended astrologer declares them to have unhappy stars? And are there not places where, at a certain age, they kill or expose their parents, without any remorse at all?”

This is a very preliminary exercise and I have never really thought the issue through before. I without question concur that the conscience can be informed and deformed, and it is certainly no infallible rule. But I don’t think the issue can settled as easily as before and after the Enlightenment. 

Edward Taylor, Meditation 32, Sixth Stanza

26 Friday Mar 2021

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Sixth Stanza

Thine ordinances, Grace’s wine-vats where

Thy Spirit walks and Grace’s runs do lie

And angels waiting stand with holy cheer

From Grace’s conduit head, with all supply.

These vessels full of Grace are, and bowls 

In which their taps do run are precious souls.

Summary

In this stanza, he pictures the flow from grace which runs into the souls of those who receive the ordinance, the Lord’s Supper. Grace is poured out as wine. 

Notes:

The entire stanza is a display of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. The rite is performed with bread and wine, hence the display of wine as the grace of God. 

The praise of the ordinance is not a matter unique to Taylor. Here, is a section from a near contemporary, Thomas Watson:

The gracious soul flies as a dove to an ordinance, upon the wings of delight. The sacrament is his delight. On this day the Lord makes “a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined,” Isa. 25:6. A sacrament day is a soul-festival day; here Christ takes the soul into his banqueting-house, and “displays the banner of love over it,” Cant. 2:4. Here are heavenly delicacies set before us. Christ gives us his body and blood. This is angels’ food, this is the heavenly nectar, here is a cup perfumed with the divine nature; here is wine spiced with the love of God. The Jews at their feasts poured ointment upon their guests; here Christ pours the oil of gladness into the heart. This is the king’s bath where we wash and are cleansed of our leprosy: the withered soul, after the receiving this blessed eucharist, hath been like a watered garden, Isa. 58:11. or like Egyptian fields, after the overflowing of the Nile, fruitful and flourishing; and do you wonder that a child of God delights in holy things? he must needs be a volunteer in religion.

Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial; The Saint’s Spiritual Delight; The Holy Eucharist; and Other Treatises, The Writings of the Doctrinal Puritans and Divines of the Seventeenth Century. Here we see many of the same elements: wine, love, delight, angels, cups, et cetera.

Here are the particular elements of the scene:

The whole takes place at “Grace’s wine-vats.”  The word in the manuscript is apparently “fat,” but vat makes more sense

He then details what is seen there: 

First, it is the place where, “Thy Spirit walks.”  This is an unusual way to speak of the Spirit. But to have the Spirit here at the head of the understanding of the ordinance is quite understandable for Taylor. As Calvin writes in the Institutes, the Spirit communicates Christ to the recipient:

To summarize: our souls are fed by the flesh and blood of Christ in the same way that bread and wine keep and sustain physical life. For the analogy of the sign applies only if souls find their nourishment in Christ—which cannot happen unless Christ truly grows into one with us, and refreshes us by the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood.

Even though it seems unbelievable that Christ’s flesh, separated from us by such great distance, penetrates to us, so that it becomes our food, let us remember how far the secret power of the Holy Spirit towers above all our senses, and how foolish it is to wish to measure his immeasurableness by our measure. What, then, our mind does not comprehend, let faith conceive: that the Spirit truly unites things separated in space

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 1370. And so, the Supper is indeed a place where the Spirits walks (if you will). This point could be further developed, but this suffices to show what Taylor intends by place the Spirit first at these vats of Grace.

Next, he says this is the place where “Grace’s runs do lie.”

This is the place where grace flows, which matches the remainder of the poem’s image of grace flowing from the throne. 

Next, there are angels standing as it were with cups of this heavenly wine, the “holy cheer.” The use of angels is interesting, because angels are not directly associated with the Supper. However, angels are said to be “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit eternal life.” Heb. 1:14. Their mention also identifies this a spiritual or heavenly scene. 

The whole flows from “Grace’s conduit head” – which was identified in the previous stanza as the Father’s throne and the Lord’s heart. 

with all supply: this phrase means it is endless: the source for this grace is full-up.

The use of the word “bowls” in apposition to “vessels” makes it plain these are drinking bowls.

And in the end of the scene we see where the grace flows into “precious souls” – those who receive the supper.

At this point, it should be noted that the understanding of the “grace” received by the recipient differs among the various Christian traditions. And so Taylor would not have the same understanding of either the communication grace from God and the reception of grace by the communicant as would a contemporary Roman Catholic theologian. 

Musical

The first line contains an express pause at the comma after ordinance, but also an unmarked pause after vats:

Thine ordinances – pause – Grace’s wine-vats – pause – where

The “where” sets up the following lines; all that follows answer the question of what is there. Since it is an orphaned foot it rushes on to next line. 

The lines scan regularly from thereon. 

How the Spirit Gives Testimony to the Word

09 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by in Herman Bavinck, Scripture, Uncategorized

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But that must not be understood as if we blindly submit to a thing that is unknown to us. No; we are conscious that in Scripture we possess unassailable truth and feel that “the undoubted power of his divine majesty lives and breathes there,” a power by which we are drawn, knowingly and willingly, yet vitally and effectively, to obey him.60 Calvin knew that in this doctrine of the testimony of the Holy Spirit he was not describing some private revelation but the experience of all believers.61 Nor was this testimony of the Holy Spirit isolated from the totality of the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers but integrally united with it. By it alone the entire church originates and exists. The entire application of salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit; and the witness to Scripture is but one of many of his activities in the community of believers. The testimony of the Holy Spirit is not a source of new revelations but establishes believers in relation to the truth of God, which is completely contained in Scripture. It is he who makes faith a sure knowledge that excludes all doubt.

60 J. Calvin, Institutes, I.vii; Commentary on 2 Tim. 3:16. Ed. note: Bavinck again refers to the literature he cites in par. 21 in Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, which is given above in n. 58.

61 Ibid., I.vii.5. Erasmus also affirms that it is especially the Spirit of Christ who, by his secret working, communicates unwavering certainty to the human mind.” Cf. Martin Schulze, Calvins Jenseitschristemtum in seinem Verhältnisse zu den religiösen Schriften des Erasmus (Görlitz: Rudolf Dulfer, 1902), 54.

 Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 583–584.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 25, “Why Should My Bells”, Stanza 5

15 Thursday Feb 2018

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Dost thou adorn some thus, and why not me?

I’ll not believe it.  Lord, thou art my chief.

Thou me commandest to believe in thee.

I’ll not affront thee thus with unbelief.

Lord, make my soul obedient:  and when so,

Thou sayst, “Believe,” make it reply, “I do.”

Paraphrase: You adorn — give your righteousness and forgiveness — to some; why would you not give the same to me?

The next phrase “I’ll not believe it” is ambiguous. It could me, I will not believe that you would adorn others and not me. Or, it could mean, I can’t believe that you will so adorn me. Or, I will not believe that you could adorn me.  This paradox gets to the crux of the stanza.

In relationships between persons, believe is the means by which love is given and received. For example, imagine two young people who each secretly love the other. Their love is real, but it is uncommunicated. Now imagine that one says to the other, “I love you.” The beloved must believe the love is real to receive the love. If the beloved thinks this is a joke, a farce, a lie, he can never receive the love. The love is real but uncommunicated. Unless and until the beloved believes the love is real the love cannot be communicated.

The same mechanism lies at the heart of Christianity: the love of God is communicated by the means of belief. This ambiguity of the line plays the need and hesitancy of faith.

The poet then turns to prayer, make me believe in accordance with your command.

Allusions:

There are biblical allusions and an allusion to Augustine’s Confessions.

The command to believe:

Mark 1:14–15 (ESV)

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Belief and obedience. Some put obedience and belief as opposites. Taylor would not have held to such a position.

First, Taylor would have held a position consistent with Chapter XIV, Saving Faith Westminster Confession:

  1. By this faith a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein [John 4:42; 1 Thess. 2:13; 1 John 5:10; Acts 24:14]; and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands [Rom. 16:26.], trembling at the threatenings [Isa. 66:2.], and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come [Heb. 11:13; 1 Tim. 4:8.]. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.

Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes: The Evangelical Protestant Creeds, with Translations, vol. 3 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882), 630–631.

There is also a famous parallel in Augustine which sparked the Pelagian controversy:

NOW is all my hope nowhere but in thy very great mercy. Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt [da quod iubes et iube quod vis]. Thou imposest continency upon us; and when I perceived, as one saith, that no man can be continent unless thou give it, this also was a point of wisdom, to know whose gift it was. By continency verily are we bound up and brought into the one,* from which we were scattered abroad into many: for too little doth he love thee, who loves anything together with thee, which he loves not for thee. O thou Love which art ever burning, and never quenched! O Charity, my God! kindle me I beseech thee. Thou commandest me continency: give me what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.

Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine’s Confessions, Vol. 2, ed. T. E. Page and W. H. D. Rouse, trans. William Watts, The Loeb Classical Library (New York; London: The Macmillan Co.; William Heinemann, 1912), 149–151.

To further understand Taylor’s thinking, a passage from John Calvin’s commentary on John 6:44 might help:

Unless the Father draw him. To come to Christ being here used metaphorically for believing, the Evangelist, in order to carry out the metaphor in the apposite clause, says that those persons are drawn whose understandings God enlightens, and whose hearts he bends and forms to the obedience of Christ. The statement amounts to this, that we ought not to wonder if many refuse to embrace the Gospel; because no man will ever of himself be able to come to Christ, but God must first approach him by his Spirit; and hence it follows that all are not drawn, but that God bestows this grace on those whom he has elected. True, indeed, as to the kind of drawing, it is not violent, so as to compel men by external force; but still it is a powerful impulse of the Holy Spirit, which makes men willing who formerly were unwilling and reluctant. It is a false and profane assertion, therefore, that none are drawn but those who are willing to be drawn, as if man made himself obedient to God by his own efforts; for the willingness with which men follow God is what they already have from himself, who has formed their hearts to obey him.

John Calvin, John, electronic ed., Calvin’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998), Jn 6:44.

Scansion:  The interesting usage in this stanza is the repetition of an accent on the first syllable:

 Dost thou adorn some thus, and why not me?

 I’LL not believe it.  Lord, thou art my chief.

THOU me commandest to believe in thee.

 I’LL not affront thee thus with unbelief.

 LORD, make my soul obedient:  and when so,

 THOU sayst, “Believe,” make it reply, “I do.”

Why Common Grace is Not Enough (or even Necessary) for Counseling

20 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Psychology, Uncategorized

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I am working on an essay for the Journal of Biblical Soul Care on the matter of common grace. If anyone has a comment, I would appreciate it. [Sorry for the formatting oddities]

Schematic representation of (1) why Biblical Counseling holds that the Scripture and the Spirit are sufficient for counseling; and (2) Biblical Counseling holds that common grace is not sufficient, nor even necessary for counseling. (This is not to say that common grace observations are not useful, nor that such observations are untrue.  Yet if the Scripture is sufficient for counseling, then counseling can be conducted without reference to a common grace observation.)

 

God

Loss of the created relationship: sin

Man

Gen. 3

This loss flows downward into two separate, but related streams of injury.

 

Sin causes:

 

Subjective/Internal Injury

loss of the image in some respect. (The precise nature of the loss of image due to sin is debated. But at the very least this loss is what is renewed: Col. 3:10.) There is sin, shame and unrepentance.

 

 

The injury

1) makes the man incapable of responding to the objective injuries with joy and contentment;

2) contributes to and creates more objective/external injuries:

a) our personal sin

b) our sin against others

c) our foolishness and sin which cause human and natural injuries (such as a poorly built house which collapses).

 

 

 

 Objective/External Injury

Physical Death

Pain of work

Hostile Environment

Human relationship difficulties

Hostility of spiritual beings

Eternal punishment

 

These things cause additional damage as human beings suffer from the effects of sin and decay (both personal and “natural”).

 

 

 

 

Psychological and emotional injuries fit into both categories: We begin with a damaged human being: both in mind and body. That human being suffers at the hands of others, himself and the sin of others. These injuries show up in the body and mind.

 

Grace

 

Special Grace is given for the restoration of the subjective injury: this is referred to as salvation: justification & sanctification. The renewal of the mind.

 

  

Common grace is given to ameliorate full effects of the objective injury of sin. These injuries cannot be remedied in this age, because sin necessitates death (and all the lesser included injuries).

 

Common grace gives men an understanding of some of the objective, physical effects of sin.

 

 

A note on what can be seen: When we consider the suffering which human beings experience, all human beings (by common grace) can those things which occur in the material universe; however, spiritual elements (the relationship between God and man) cannot be rightly seen or understood without God’s revelation. Human beings do intuit that such a level of explanation exists, and those the various religious and metaphysical explanations of humanity. (See, Daniel Strange, There Rock is not Our Rock).

“To my knowledge, Scripture never uses hen or charis to refer to his blessings on creation generally or on nonelect humanity. So it would perhaps be better to speak of God’s common goodness, or common love, rather than his common grace. The word grace in Scripture tends to be more narrowly focused on redemption than goodness and love, though the latter terms also have rich redemptive associations.”

Frame, John M.. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (p. 246). P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Restoration

 

The mind begins renewal in this age

 

 

 

 The objective injuries will not be renewed until the age to come. Common grace is given so that men will not immediately be annihilated nor destroy one-another.

 

Special grace, as granted by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, is sufficient to remedy the injury to the mind, to the soul.  Special grace informs us of the true basis for the injury and so transforms the mind/heart of man that the man may be able to bear with contentment the injuries and losses which beset us in this age. As the mind is renewed, the man becomes capable of having the fruit of the Spirit and contentment irrespective of the state of one’s personal history, current condition, or physical limitations.

Any examination of the human condition aside from common grace tells us only of the objective, external injuries of sin. Common grace tells us that a man has a disease; or that a man has mistreated by another; or that a man engages in bad acts and espouses a bad motive. Common grace does not tell us why men die (beyond that told us in general revelation). Moreover, common grace cannot remedy the injury caused by sin. For example, medicine may lessen some physical ailment and even postpone death: medicine cannot overcome death absolutely. Common grace may impose limitations on the ability of men to sin against one-another it cannot remedy sin.

In short, common grace seeks to temporarily change the environment; special grace seeks to change the heart.

When this comes to psychology: common grace, at best, can inform some ways to maneuver the objective troubles; but common grace cannot teach us to be content, joyful and loving despite our objective troubles. Common grace observations (if you will) may tell us that children who grow up in abusive circumstances will exhibit more unhappiness on average than those who do not. This is true because sin injures us inside and out, and sin teaches us to sin. Common grace may even notice that sinful patterns have distinct and repetitive patterns. But common grace was never meant to renew the mind and conform us to the image of Christ.

 

Unless and until the relationship with God is restored and the inner man renew

 

No matter how good the common grace observation or strategy; common grace cannot transform the relationship between God and man, and thus cannot transform the man.

 

Addendum:

This is from an email exchange with an OT PhD:

For purposes of this paper, I need only take the existing view(s). Kuyper’s position is important because many of the integrationists quote Kuyper out of context. Kuyper made some sweeping comments about “all the creation” here and there. Since his work on Common Grace (which is massive. Only vol. 1 has been translated into English, there are three volumes; Lexham is publisher), these comments have been used to support a sweeping vision of “common” or even “creation” grace. Kuyper has a narrower definition of common grace than Calvin.

The phrase “common grace” is also problematic because the Bible never calls this “grace”. It is better to call it God’s goodness. I think Kuyper is right that God extended additional goodness in the covenant of Noah — Kuyper’s understanding makes sense of the “as in the days of Noah” language. He says that when the Son of Perdition appears God will withdraw the goodness offered at the time of Noah.

There are two basic elements which are attributed: human achievement and the restraint of sin (human achievement is present in Genesis 4; there is also some mercy shown to Cain: but Cain seems to be limited to Cain). These are emphasized by Calvin and Kuyper respectively. I have not found any analysis of the comparison and contrast between the views: which is interesting. Perhaps there is something in Dutch or German. There is a third element which is the perpetuation of the material world in a regular manner (albeit deteriorating; Rom. 8).

I think there is some work that should be done on this point. Most recent statements in systematics merely quote John Murray’s essay.

All I need to (and can) in this paper is demonstrate that under any of the existing theories of common grace/goodness do not support (1) a proper understanding of Man’s psychological injury; and (2) cannot provide a proper remedy for Man’s psychological injury. Common grace is meant only to ameliorate temporal injury to permit the continued existence of mankind for the purposes of God in creation (primarily, thought not exclusively for the preservation of mankind until the in-time salvation of the elect).

If we were at peace, we would be asleep

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Now, it is much better for things to be in a state of confusion so we will wake up, for if we were at peace, we would be asleep, we would no longer be aware of anything, anything at all. But if things go badly, we are forced to think about God and put our senses on alert and think about a judgment that is prepared, which is not yet apparent, and that is how our Lord leads us to hunger for the last day and the resurrection which has been promised. But the fact remains that men continue to surround themselves with false and wicked fantasies. For, as I have already said, inasmuch as events do not happen as we would like, we are tempted to suppose that God does not think of us or watch over us any longer, that serving him is a wasted effort and that there is no difference whether we live an upright life or not and that the good gain nothing by walking in fear under him.
John Calvin, Sermon on Job 24:1-9

Doddridge on being a minister

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Elders, Ministry, Uncategorized

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Philip Doddridge, D.D., in Lectures on Preaching and the Several Branches of the Ministerial Office, 1808, Boston. The lectures were not published until after Doddridge had died. A short biography may be found here. Dr. Doddridge begins his lectures with 13 general comments about how one can make himself ready for the work of a minister:

See to it that there be a foundation of sincere piety in yourselves, or else there is but little prospect of your being useful or acceptable to others. — Be therefore firmly resolved to devote yourselves to God, and do so solemnly.

Examination:

Piety is an old-fashioned concept, but it lies at the heart of being a Christian. A pastor is one who undertakes to care for the souls of others, to lead them to Christ and to help shelter them from spiritual harm. To understand the word “piety” here and its importance, it would be useful to see it in the context of Calvin’s use in the Institutes, for instance:

Now, the knowledge of God, as I understand it, is that by which we not only conceive that there is a God but also grasp what befits us and is proper to his glory, in fine, what is to our advantage to know of him. Indeed, we shall not say that, properly speaking, God is known where there is no religion or piety

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1 & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 39. In a footnote to this section, Battles writes,

It is a favorite emphasis in Calvin that pietas, piety, in which reverence and love of God are joined, is prerequisite to any true knowledge of God. Cf. I. iv. 4. The brief characterization of pietas that follows here may be compared with his words written in 1537: “The gist of true piety does not consist in a fear which would gladly flee the judgment of God, but … rather in a pure and true zeal which loves God altogether as Father, and reveres him truly as Lord, embraces his justice and dreads to offend him more than to die”; Instruction in Faith (1537), tr. P. T. Fuhrmann, pp. 18 f. (original in OS I. 379). For an examination of “pietas literata” with reference to Erasmus, John Sturm, Melanchthon, and Cordier, see P. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries, pp. 329–356. (In many contexts pietas is translated “godliness” in the present work.)

We would not hire a plumber or doctor, lawyer or gardener who did not exhibit skill and interest in that particular subject. Yet many pastors seem more fit for entertainer than a fit guide in godliness. In any event, Doddridge is right. Here are a couple of questions for self-examination on the question of piety.

Meditation: What do I read? Is my reading affective — does what I read (if it is profitable) something which stirs my heart or changes my conduct? Do I ponder and consider what I read? How is my reading of Scripture? Is it perfunctory or diligent and delightful? Do I read, meditate, change?

Prayer: Do I pray — and not just as a matter of course before meals? Do I pray for holiness? Do I pray for others. (Here is a place to start: http://www.icommittopray.com).

Time: How do I spend my time? Take one week, and track your time in 15 minute intervals? What does it show?

Service: Does you life of faith flow out as love to your neighbor?

Holiness: Would someone who spent much time with you think that this characterizes your life? Is there a growth in holiness?

Resolution: Have you — and if not do so — resolve to God that your will demonstrate this piety.

Pilgrim’s Progress Study Guide Six (The Valley of the Shadow of Death)

16 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in affliction, Andrew Bonar, John Bunyan, John Calvin

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The prior post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/pilgrims-progress-study-guide-5/

Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death:

  1. Why does Christian go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death?
  2. This letter from Samuel Rutherford helps us understand this passage:

WELL-BELOVED AND DEAR SISTER IN CHRIST,—I could not get an answer written to your letter till now, in respect of my wife’s disease; and she is yet mightily pained.[1] I hope that all shall end in God’s mercy. I know that an afflicted life looks very like the way that leads to the kingdom; for the Apostle hath drawn the line and the King’s market-way, “through much tribulation, to the kingdom” (Acts 14:22; 1 Thess. 3:4). The Lord grant us the whole armour of God.

….all God’s plants, set by His own hand, thrive well; and if the work be of God, He can make a stepping-stone of the devil himself for setting forward the work.

For yourself, I would advise you to ask of God a submissive heart. Your reward shall be with the Lord, although the people be not gathered (as the prophet speaks); and suppose the word do not prosper, God shall account you “a repairer of the breaches.”

And take Christ caution, ye shall not lose your reward. Hold your grip fast. If ye knew the mind of the glorified in heaven, they think heaven come to their hand at an easy market, when they have got it for threescore or fourscore years wrestling with God. When ye are come thither, ye shall think, “All I did, in respect of my rich reward, now enjoyed of free grace, was too little.” Now then, for the love of the Prince of your salvation, who is standing at the end of your way, holding up in His hand the prize and the garland to the race-runners, Forward, forward; faint not.

Take as many to heaven with you as ye are able to draw. The more ye draw with you, ye shall be the welcomer yourself. Be no niggard or sparing churl of the grace of God; and employ all your endeavours for establishing an honest ministry in your town, now when ye have so few to speak a good word for you. I have many a grieved heart daily in my calling. I would be undone, if I had not access to the King’s chamber of presence, to show Him all the business.

The devil rages, and is mad to see the water drawn from his own mill; but would to God we could be the Lord’s instruments to build the Son of God’s house….

Samuel Rutherford and Andrew A. Bonar, Letters of Samuel Rutherford: With a Sketch of His Life and Biographical Notices of His Correspondents (Edinburgh; London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1891), 50–51.

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