Van Gogh

Van Gogh, 120 years on

Thursday 29th July marks the 120th anniversary of the death of Vincent Van Gogh

Caravaggio in detail

Caravaggio's 500th

The Italian baroque painter Carvaggio, died five hundred years ago, on the 18th July 1610.  Arminius died the year before.

Caravaggio (c. 1571-1610)

What does God know? Augustine vs. Cicero on God's exhaustive foreknowledge

My thanks to Paul Helm for pointing me this section on God's exhaustive foreknowledge in Augustine's City of God (Book Five, Chapter Nine, "Concerning the foreknowledge of God and the free will of man, in opposition to the definition of Cicero")

To confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that He has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly

What is it, then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of future things?  Doubtless it was this,—that if all future things have been foreknown, they will happen in the order in which they have been foreknown; and if they come to pass in this order, there is a certain order of things foreknown by God; and if a certain order of things, then a certain order of causes, for nothing can happen which is not preceded by some efficient cause.  

But if there is a certain order of causes according to which everything happens which does happen, then by fate, says he, all things happen which do happen.  But if this be so, then is there nothing in our own power, and there is no such thing as freedom of will; and if we grant that, says he, the whole economy of human life is subverted.  

In vain are laws enacted.  In vain are reproaches, praises, chidings, exhortations had recourse to; and there is no justice whatever in the appointment of rewards for the good, and punishments for the wicked.  And that consequences so disgraceful, and absurd, and pernicious to humanity may not follow, Cicero chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future things, and shuts up the religious mind to this alternative, to make choice between two things, either that something is in our own power, or that there is foreknowledge,—both of which cannot be true; but if the one is affirmed, the other is thereby denied.  

He therefore, like a truly great and wise man, and one who consulted very much and very skillfully for the good of humanity, of those two chose the freedom of the will, to confirm which he denied the foreknowledge of future things; and thus, wishing to make men free he makes them sacrilegious.  But the religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains both by the faith of piety. 


Now, against the sacrilegious and impious darings of reason, we assert both that God knows all things before they come to pass, and that we do by our free will whatsoever we know and feel to be done by us only because we will it.  But that all things come to pass by fate, we do not say; nay we affirm that nothing comes to pass by fate; for we demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is wont to be used by those who speak of fate, meaning thereby the position of the stars at the time of each one’s conception or birth, is an unmeaning word, for astrology itself is a delusion.  But an order of causes in which the highest efficiency is attributed to the will of God...

Cicero, then, contends with those who call this order of causes fatal, or rather designate this order itself by the name of fate; to which we have an abhorrence, especially on account of the word, which men have become accustomed to understand as meaning what is not true.  But, whereas he denies that the order of all causes is most certain, and perfectly clear to the prescience of God, we detest his opinion more than the Stoics do.  

For he either denies that God exists,—which, indeed, in an assumed personage, he has labored to do, in his book De Natura Deorum,—or if he confesses that He exists, but denies that He is prescient of future things, what is that but just “the fool saying in his heart there is no God?”  For one who is not prescient of all future things is not God.

The Alice in Wonderland effect

A fascinating observation in today's Guardian:

"...there's an Alice in Wonderland effect on the internet, where a person taken out of his or her context can take on epic proportions in an unfamiliar landscape, usually not in a good way. When physical space is collapsed, people can find themselves a long way from home.


The main point is Morrissey's: the devil will find work for idle hands. There's nothing idler than people on the internet, wanting nothing in particular, just wanting to be nearer the centre of things."

Don't judge the Judge

This post is taken from the series of meditations I have contributed this week at the Reformation 21 Reading with M'Cheyne Blog.  It is in fact from yesterday, and offers some reflections on Matthew 25.

If you have ever watched the auditions stage of American Idol you will have noticed that people without any recognizable vocal talents can become quite agitated with the panel of judges in general, and with Mr. Simon Cowell in particular. Even though they are their to be assessed on the quality of their performance, when the verdict is unfavorable, they think that they have the right to judge the judges.

It is so easy to bring something of that mind-set with us when we are confronted by the hard edged, non-negotiable teaching of Jesus about the day of judgement and endless future punishment for the unrepentant in hell. Our first business is to listen carefully in full recognition that Christ has the right to judge, and we, as sinners, have not been invited to debate what the appropriate punishment for sin is.

We will never come to terms with the doctrine of hell until we realize that the Son of Man is seated upon a judgement throne in his glory (25:31).

Hell is a subject that should fill us with “traumatic awe” (to borrow a phrase from J. I. Packer). Consider the words of Jesus in this chapter. Jesus speaks of exclusion, “the door was shut” (25:10), of the “outer darkness” (25:30). This state of exclusion is marked by anguish and regret, there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (25:30).

This exclusion will be because there has been a separation of the sheep and the goats. Those on his right will inherit the kingdom (25:34), those on his left will depart to the eternal fire (25:41). The sheep are the blessed, beneficiaries of grace (25:34), the goats are under the curse, and will bear the just punishment of their sins (25:41).

The tangible evidence that the sheep really were sheep all along, Jesus says, is found in their attitude to “the least of these my brothers.” In other words the care shown not to the poor in general but to suffering believers, was all along done to the Lord who has identified himself with his people (25:35-36).

A large part of the traumatic awe that comes from contemplating hell is its finality and eternality. Hell is forever. The solemn words of Jesus set in parallel the destinies of the sheep and the goats:

“Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ...And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (25:41, 46)

This age will end, the age to come will not. Jonathan Edwards said that the wicked will wear out the sun in their agony and be no closer in the end.

On 22^nd October 1939 C. S. Lewis preached to a group of Oxford undergraduates pre-occupied and distressed because of the war. He told them that being at university must have felt like fiddling whilst Rome was burning. But he said the real tragedy was not that Nero fiddled while Rome burned but that Nero fiddled on the brink of hell.

It is easy to be so pre-occupied with the here and now that we have no sense that we are creatures of time heading for an endless eternity.

Arminian Bible Bits and Breaking the Dress Code

Hats off to Eddie Eddings

(HT: Lewis Allen)

Gabriel's Oboe

Sublime performances of Ennio Morricone's "Gabriel's Oboe" and "The Falls" by the cellist Yo Yo Ma

The Word of God matters

Last year I had the great privilege of speaking at the Lakeland Bible School, held at the Keswick Convention Centre. 

Some of those sessions have ended up on the Gospel Coalition site, and you can listen to the session on 2 Timothy 3:14-17 "The Word of God matters" here

A script written in eternity

This is my entry for Friday 16th July at the M'Cheyne Daily Readings Blog over at Reformation 21

Matthew 26 is a chapter full of drama.

It contains the dark betrayal of Christ by Judas Iscariot, the insidious evil plotting of the chief priests and elders, and the agonising act of denial committed by the loyalty swearing Peter.

These dramatic moments are far from haphazard intrusions that divert the course of the narrative from its otherwise intended outcome. Each event, the plot, the betrayal, the denial, is woven indelibly into the very fabric of the gospel by the hand and counsel of God (26:24). Jesus himself knows that this is his Father's will (24:42).

Far from being at the mercy of the actions of others the chapter is filled with references by Jesus to his coming death. He says that he “after two days the Passover is coming” and that he, the Son of Man, will be “delivered up to be crucified” (26:2). What is astonishing about these words is not merely their Old Testament background, Daniel's vision of the heavenly Son of Man approaching the Ancient of Days, and coming with the clouds of heaven – the very insignia of deity – but also the fact that vision of the Son of Man seated as King and Judge on the last day has just been impressed on the minds of the Twelve (25:31).

The anointing of the Lord with the expensive jar of perfume has been done, says Jesus, to “prepare him for burial” (26:12). We already know that this will be an imminent event, but the words are accompanied by this symbolic act, the sweet perfume intended to mask the smell of death.

The meal that Jesus celebrates with his disciples marks out the death of Jesus as the covenant in his blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins (26:27-28). The effective application of the benefits of his death to his people, providing for them free and full forgiveness and cleansing, has come at the terrible cost of his own violent death. Indeed the death he will die will be an accursed one, for he will stand in the place of sinners and drink down the cup of wrath that they should drink (26:39; Psalm 75:8; Isa. 51:17; Jer. 25:15-16).

In addition to the words of Jesus about the certainty of his death, the certainty of Judas' betrayal, and the certainty of Peter's denial, we are confronted with the decree of God that these things must take place. Indeed, there are several occasions in the chapter where, breaking through the surface of the text, is the underlying bedrock of Old Testament predictive prophecy.

Jesus is the good shepherd of Zechariah's prophecy sold for thirty pieces of silver. In Zechariah 11 the good shepherd has not only been opposed by worthless shepherds, he has also been despised and rejected by the flock (Zech. 11:7-13).

There is worse to come. The very falling away of the disciples will be in direct fulfilment of the decree of God in Zechariah 13:7. “It is written” that God will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. We are confronted here not only with the certainty of the crucifixion, but also with the stark reality of its origin. God will strike the shepherd. The one spoken of by God in Zechariah 13:7 as “my shepherd” and “the man who stands next to me.” Why will God do this? How can it be right? Why is it necessary? The only cogent answer is that Jesus the sinless one will become the penalty bearing substitute, and although he is loved as a Son, he will be condemned as a sin-bearer.

Quite simply, the script for the betrayal, arrest, trial, sentencing, flogging, crucifixion and death of Jesus has not been penned by a renegade disciple, an acquiescent Roman governor and sin-hardened high priests, it has been written by the Triune God in the counsels of eternity.

In a chapter full of drama, rich with Old Testament quotations and allusions, and where the note of events unfolding according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God is sounded again and again, we should not miss the reference to the Passover in verse two. The only fitting response now is to cry “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth...Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:9-10, 12), as it will be world without end.

God, the final reference point

Van Til got it right:

If one does not make human knowledge wholly dependent upon the original self-knowledge and consequent revelation of God to man, then man will have to seek knowledge within himself as the final reference point.

Then he will seek to have an exhaustive understanding of reality.  Then he will have to hold that if he cannot attain to such exhaustive understanding of reality, he has no true knowledge of anything at all.  Either man must then know everything or he knows nothing.


The only way by which this dilemma can be indicated clearly is by making plain that the final reference point in predication is God as the self-sufficient One.

A Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 17

Whose Son is the Christ? The Ref 21 M'Cheyne Blog

Every day this week it is my turn to contribute to the M'Cheyne Daily Readings Blog over at Reformation 21.  The first entry is a brief meditation on Jesus' question in Matthew 22, "Whose son is the Christ?"

One of the Old Testament texts that dominates the New Testament skyline is Psalm 110:1. It is the Old Testament text to which the New Testament most often alludes.

There are no fewer that twenty one references, quotations and allusions to this verse in the Gospels (Matt. 22:44; 26:64; Mark 12:36; 14:62; 16:19; Luke 20:42-43), the book of Acts (2:33-35; 5:31; 7:55-56) and the Letters (Rom. 8:34; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20; 2:6; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12-13; 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22). There is also a possible allusion in Revelation 3:21.

In Matthew 22 this text lies at the very heart of understanding the person of Christ. In Matthew 22:15-40 Jesus has faced a number of curved balls, a series of questions prompted not by a sincere desire to know the truth but with the desire to “entangle him in his words” (22:15).

After fielding these questions Jesus asks one of his own (22:42-46):

“What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying “'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word.

This text is key to understanding the divine identity of Christ. There are clearly two persons referred to as Lord. David's “Lord” has been exalted to God's right hand, he occupies the place of supreme authority, seated with God on God's throne. Christ is no second Lord of lower rank but shares in his Father's sovereign rule over heaven and earth.

It should not be lost on us that the category for thinking of Christ in this way was not invented by the New Testament writers. They inherited this category for understanding the supreme Lordship and divine identity of Jesus, without modification, from Jesus himself. And in Matthew 22 Jesus makes it clear that David himself held as high a view of the Christ as it was possible to hold. Jesus is Lord. It is worth pondering that David's confession, just like ours, was as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3).

The Unbegotten Son? Is Driscoll right to reject the eternal generation of the Son of God?

This is the second in a series of posts that sets out to examine the claim made by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, in Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe, that the attempt to"define eternal relations in the immanent or ontological Trinity seems misguided" (p. 27) and that "it is best to omit the creedal terms 'begotten' and 'proceeds' from our definition of the Trinity" (p.28).  You can read the first post here. 

I need to underline the fact that the whole chapter on the Trinity is very helpful, and the applications are worth reading, weighing and living by.  In fact, from what I have read so far, the book strongly combines doctrine and application in a way that I, and I hope many other readers, will benefit from.

The eternal generation of the Son of God, that he was "begotten by the Father, before all worlds" is a doctrine found in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, the Chalcedonian Definition, and, among other Reformed Confessions, the Belgic Confession and the Westminster Standards.  It is no small thing to jettison a doctrine with that kind of theological pedigree.  Driscoll and Breshears affirm the eternal Sonship of Christ, but argue that we should not use the category of Christ being the eternally begotten Son.  He is then the eternal but unbegotten Son.

In the next post I will interact with the three reasons they give for omitting the eternal generation of the Son from the doctrines that we should believe, but before doing that there are some matters of theological method that I want to touch upon that would unnecessarily lengthen that discussion, hence this separate post. 

Here are some things to bear in mind as you enter the world of Trinitarian theology. 

Every mental power that you possess is inadequate to grasp the infinities and immensities of the Triune God.  The capacity for rational thought granted to you by the Trinity, a rationality that has, in believers, been sanctified by the Spirit, is a finite rationality that must receive the truth of God's revelation about himself knowing full well that the God who stoops to speak to us is ultimately incomprehensible to us as creatures. 

Faith seeking understanding is no futile endeavour once we place ourselves under the authority of the word of God written, in conscious dependence upon the illumination of the Holy Spirit.  God's verbal revelation to us in Scripture gives us all that we need to know and establishes the boundaries of what may and may not be known. 

Failure to respect the Creator-creature distinction, failure to acknowledge that God accommodates himself to our level when speaking to us, failure to remember that all of God's revelation of himself to us in Scripture is properly anthropomorphic (it is a knowledge of God suited to our capacities as creatures, given to us by God) will leave us in a world of theological confusion, pain and destruction.  In a word this knowledge is analogical. 

For example God remembers Noah in the ark.  We remember where we left our car keys.  But we do not remember things in exactly the same way that God does.  He never forgot where Noah was.  We retrace our steps mentally to figure out where the car keys are, God knows things immediately and entirely.

God reveals himself to us in three persons.  The second person is said to be the Son of the first person.  Indeed he is his only begotten Son, not a Son by adoption but his natural or proper Son.  If we begin with our own experience of fathers and sons we might be tempted to think that designating the second person as the Son of the first inescapably leads us to conclude that he is lesser, that he has a point of origin.  Or, in the words of the Arians, that "there was when he was not."  That would hold true if we were dealing with finite persons.  I have two daughters.  Before they were born I was not a father.  I only became a father when my first child was born.  With finite persons begetting occurs in time.  But God the Father and God the Son are eternal persons.

In human generation a father always exists prior to a son.  In divine generation, because we are dealing with infinite and not finite persons, this is not the case.  Athanasius underlined this point:

Nor, as man from man has the Son been begotten, so as to be later than his Father's existence, but he is God's offspring, and, as being proper Son of God, who is ever, he exists eternally.  For, whereas it is proper to men to beget in time, from the imperfection of their nature, God's offspring is eternal, for his nature is perfect.

When did the first person of the Trinity become a Father?  He has always been the Father, because he has always had a Son.  Did the Son become the Son at a point in eternity past?  If he did then at the same time, if one may bend language in this way, that was when the Father became the Father.

The Father-Son relationship in the being of God is archetypal of creaturely father-son relationships.  The original and proper reality is in God.  In God this relationship is eternal, in creatures it is temporal.

We need to keep in mind the counsel of W.T.G. Shedd:

There is no analogy taken from the finite that will clear up the mystery of the infinite -- whether it be the mystery of the eternity of God, or that of his trinity.

If we depart from this then the next station down the line is Idolville Central.

Some people struggle to accept that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons.  They see that statement and think "but that's three Gods" (the heresy of tritheism), or they reduce the mystery to that of one God playing out three successive roles (the heresy of modalism), or else they consider one person (the Father) to be God and the other two persons to be creatures made by the will of God (the heresy of Arianism).

What categorical mistake unites these three errors?  It is that God can only be one person.  Why would we think that?  Because when it comes to finite essences, finite beings, a second person demands that there be a second essence or being.  That holds true for finite beings.  With God we are dealing with an infinite being.  The real question is, what has he actually told us about himself? 

The Christian Church has confessed, on the basis of the Old and New Testaments, that there is only one true and living God, one being who is eternal, infinite and unchangeable, who is one in substance or essence, and three in persons.  To quote Shedd again:

The essence...is not prior to the persons, either in order of nature or of time, nor subsequent to them, but simultaneously and eternally in and with them

The heresies of tritheism, modalism and Arianism have in common a non-negotiable commitment to think of God according to the measure of the fallen human mind.  They are all afraid of infinitude.  Doug Kelly, in the first volume of his systematic theology, cites some helpful words on this from T. F. Torrance, "the epistemological principle of the Arians (was)...that what men cannot understand cannot be true."  That principle can only ever result in the embracing of heresy.

It is worth us bearing in mind that with regard to God being one in essence and three in person, with regard to the eternal generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, those who have believed these things and defended them have done so conscious of how much these truths are infinitely above our capacity to understand them.  Listen to the voices of four giants as they guide us on these matters.

Consider the wise counsel of the Puritan John Owen:

We have, I say, words and notions about these things; but as to the things themselves what do we know?  What do we comprehend of them?  Can the mind of man do any more than swallow itself up in an infinite abyss, which is as nothing; give itself up to what it cannot conceive, much less express?

 Is not our understanding 'brutish' in the contemplation of such things, and is as if it were not?  Yea, the perfection of our understanding is, not to understand, and to rest there.  They are but the back parts of eternity and infiniteness that we have a glimpse of.

What shall I say of the Trinity, or the subsistence of distinct persons in the same individual essence -- a mystery by many denied, because by none understood -- a mystery whose every letter is mysterious?  Who can declare the generation of the Son, the procession of the Spirit, or the difference of the one from the other?

This counsel echoes that given more than a millennium before by Ambrose:

I inquire of you when and how the Son was begotten?  Impossible it is to me to know the mystery of this generation.  My mind faileth, my voice is silent -- and not only mine, but of the angels; it is above principalities, above angels, above the cherubim, above the seraphim, above all understanding.


Lay thy hand on thy mouth; it is not lawful to search into these heavenly mysteries.  It is lawful to know that he was born -- it is not lawful to discuss how he was born; that it is not lawful for me to deny -- this I am afraid to enquire into.

Gregory of Nazianzen grasped the limitations that these truths place upon us:

But the manner of his generation we will not admit that even the angels can conceive, much less you.  Shall I tell you how it was?  It was in a manner known to the Father who begat, and to the Son who was begotten.  Anything more than this is hidden by a cloud, and escapes your dim sight.

Finally the great Athanasius wrote:

nor again is it right to seek...how God begets, and what is the manner of his begetting.  For a man must be beside himself to venture on such points; since a thing is ineffable and proper to God's nature, and known to him alone and the Son, this he demands to be explained in words...It is better in perplexity to be silent and believe, than to disbelieve on account of perplexity.

When was he rich?

I was reminded yesterday that although grave doctrinal errors call for sophisticated rebuttals, more often than not they are stopped dead in their tracks by some very simple and straightforward Scripture texts, dare I say it, by proof-texts.

It was a complete nonsense for Unitarians, Socinians and others, to argue from the Bible that Jesus was a mere man, that he had one nature not two, and that this sole nature was a human nature.   He was a man, but he was more than a man.  He was and is the possessor of a divine nature.  Jesus is both God and man, having two natures in one person.  Scripture emphasises this, in part, by telling us what he became, and in doing so also telling what he was before that.  The Shorter Catechism helpfully expresses this truth in the twenty first question and answer (emphasis added):

Q. 21. Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?
A. The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.

2 Corinthians 8:9; Phil. 2:7; and John 1:14 lie behind the words of Maxentius (below), and the first of these verses lies behind the anecdote about the Welsh nineteenth century preacher David Morgan:

We do not confound the diversity of natures, howbeit we believe not what you affirm, that Christ was made God; but we believe that God was made Christ.  For he was not made rich when he was poor; but being rich, he was made poor, that he might make us rich.

 

He did not take the form of God when he was in the form of a servant; but being in the form of God, he took on him the form of a servant.  In like manner, he was not made the Word when he was flesh; but being the Word, he was made flesh. 

 On 23rd December 1858, David Morgan ministered at Pen-llwyn and his preaching had a marked prophetic quality:

In the middle of his sermon he startled his audience by suddenly exclaiming, 'If any of you tonight deny the deity of the Son, I have nothing better to tell you than what Morgan Howell, Newport, shouted on Lampeter bridge, "Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor. He became poor when He came to Bethlehem; tell me, when was He rich?"' 

This remark was utterly irrelevant to the preacher's subject matter, and no one could conjecture whence it came, and wither it went. The mystery was solved in the after-meeting, for among the converts were three Unitarians...whose presence in the service was quite accidental, and certainly unknown to the preacher.

They believed he was a mere man but still worshipped him

When it came to degrading views of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ the seventeenth century Socinians were worse than the fourth century Arians. 

The Arians believed that he was the first and greatest of creatures, created out of nothing before the world was called into being.  The Socinians believed that he was a mere man who, on account of his obedience, was exalted to to such a place of honour that he should receive worship.

These differences are simply one of degree.  Both Socinians and Arians committed themselves to believing, teaching and confessing heresy. 

Whether he was made from nothing before the creation of time and space, or whether he was a mere man with no spiritual pre-existence before his conception, he was still a creature, he was still treated by them as belonging to the side of that great division where things are classed as made, created, contingent, finite, and not classed as infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. 

They were both horrifically wrong to make him stand solely with us as a creature, and not to bow the knee to him as Creator and Lord, the eternally begotten Son of the Father, equal with the Father in power and glory.  And that, ultimately, is a wicked thing to do.

The Socinians, however, although they believed that Jesus was a mere man, still worshipped him. 

The infamous Unitarian Joseph Priestly commented in 1782 on this self-evident inconsistency in Socinian doctrine and practice:

It is something extraordinary that the Socinians in Poland thought it their duty, as Christians, and indeed essential to Christianity, to pray to Jesus Christ, notwithstanding that they believed him to be a mere man, whose presence with them, and whose knowledge of their situation, they could not therefore be assured of.

The following extract from H. P. Liddon's The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on this Socinian anomaly makes for interesting reading:

The earliest Socinians taught that the Son of God was a mere man, who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and was therefore called the Son of God.  But they also maintained that on account of his obedience, he was, after finishing his work of redemption, exalted to Divine dignity and honour.


Christians were to treat him as if he were God: they were to trust him implicitly; they were to adore him.  Faustus Socinus zealously insisted upon the duty of adoring Jesus Christ; and the Racovian Catechism expressly asserts that those who do not call upon or adore Christ are not to be accounted Christians.


But this was only the archaeology, or at most the better feeling of Socinianism.  Any such mere feeling was destined to yield surely and speedily to the logic of a strong destructive principle.  In vain did Blandrata appeal to Faustus Socinus himself, when endeavouring to persuade the Socinians of Transylvania to adore Jesus Christ: the Transylvanians would not be persuaded to yield an act of adoration to any creature.


In vain did the Socinian Catechism draw a distinction between a higher and lower worship, of which the former was reserved for the Father, while the latter was paid to Christ.  Practically this led to a violation of the one positive fundamental principle of Socinianism; it obscured the incommunicable prerogatives of the Supreme Being.


Accordingly, in spite of the texts of Scripture upon which their worship of Christ was rested by the Socinian theologians, such worship was soon abandoned; and the later practice of Socinians has illustrated the true doctrinal force and meaning of that adoration which Socinianism refuses, but which the Church of Jesus Christ unceasingly offers to Jesus, the Son of God made man.  Of this worship the only real justification is that full belief in Christ's essential unity with the Father which is expressed by the homoousion. (p. 414)

The insufficient explanatory power of Modalism

Before I post part two of my assessment of the rejection of the eternal generation of the Son of God by Driscoll & Breshears in Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe let me post this item from the archives.  This may be helpful in the light of the discussion thread on the previous post...

One of the heresies to trouble the early church, and not only the early church, for it has to a lesser or greater extent continued to present itself as a plausible alternative to Trinitarian orthodoxy, was the heresy of modalism.

This heresy posits no distinction between the persons in the Godhead, refusing to speak of three eternally distinct persons in communion. Rather, what we have is a God who is one in essence and person. The modalist understanding is that although God manifests himself as Father, Son and Spirit these are not three distinct, co-equal and co-eternal persons. The appearance of the three persons is only the successive appearance of three modes by which God reveals himself.

The modalist interpretation of the relationship between the being of God and the titles Father, Son and Spirit, is, at the very least, an exegetical failure. It fails to fully account for all the biblical material, it fails it synthesize that data, and it fails assign the proper meaning to the texts at hand. This deficiency was pointed out by the fourth century father Hilary of Poitiers:

For there have risen many who have given to the plain words of Holy Writ some arbitrary interpretation of their own, instead of its true and only sense, and this in defiance of the clear meaning of words. Heresy lies in the sense assigned, not in the word written; the guilt is that of the expositor, not of the text.

On the Trinity, Book 2, section 3


Since, therefore, they cannot make any change in the facts recorded, they bring novel principles and theories of man’s device to bear upon them. Sabellius, for instance, makes the Son an extension of the Father, and the faith in this regard a matter of words rather than of reality, for he makes one and the same Person, Son to Himself and also Father.

Book 2, section 4

In contrast to that a minimal framework for Trinitarian belief would include the following affirmations:

A. There is only one God

B. There are three distinct persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son and the Spirit

C. Each of these persons is fully God

What should we consider to be the necessary and sufficient evidence to affirm these points?

1. That it can be shown from Scripture that there are distinctions between the persons, distinctions that show that the threeness of persons and oneness of essence are equally ultimate.

2. That it can be shown from Scripture that the titles, works, and worship that belong properly to the one true and living God, are given to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

3. That we read and interpret the biblical data conscious that the lens through which we view the Trinity is that of the economy of salvation (the Father sending the Son, the Son humbling himself and becoming incarnate as the last Adam, the Spirit of God coming to glorify Christ and apply his saving work). This lens is itself part of the biblical data.

On point (1) this evidence would include texts that speak of :

1.1. The sending of one divine person by another (e.g. Exodus 23:20-21; Isaiah 48:16; Malachi 3:1-2; John 15:26)

1.2. The work of one divine person in relation to another divine person (e.g. Isaiah 61:1-2; Hosea 1:7)

1.3. The ascription of divine titles and works to more than one person within the same literary unit (e.g. Genesis 19:24; Zechariah 2:9-12; Psalm 110:1; Joshua 24:2-12 cf. Judges 2:1-4; Malachi 3:1-2; John 1:1, 18; Galatians 1:3; Revelation 1:8, 17; 22:12-13)

1.4. Reference being made to more than one divine person within the same literary unit, to whom elsewhere in Scripture divine titles and works have been ascribed (e.g. Isaiah 48:16; 63:9-12)

1.5. One divine person speaking of another divine person (e.g. Exodus 23:20-22; Isaiah 48:16; Isaiah 52:13, cf. Isaiah 6:1, 57:15, Hosea 1:6-7; Mark 1:11; Mark 9:7; John 15:26)

1.6. One divine person speaking to another divine person (e.g. Genesis 1:26-27; Psalm 45:6-7; Psalm 110:1; John 17:5)

Some of the texts and categories above are obviously interconnected. Exodus 23:20-21 fits into 1.1./1.3./ and 1.5. The selection of passages above is only representative. As there is a superabundance of NT passages I have chosen more from the OT.

By the way, modalists tie themselves up in knots when the try to explain away the obvious. Jesus prays to his Father. Is this not clear evidence that they are two distinct persons? The modalist would have to say that Jesus' human nature is praying to his own divine nature. But persons speak to each other, not natures.

John Owen, made easy...

Thanks to my friend Lewis Allen for this

Begotten before all worlds? Is Driscoll right to reject the eternal generation of the Son?

Concerning the doctrine of the Trinity, Augustine wrote that "In no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable" (De Trinitate 1.3.5). That is a weighty sentence and worth remembering. In medicine precision matters and we care about it a great deal. In theology it matters even more.

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears new book Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe, has a truly grandstand opening. In unpacking the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity they reason that:

Our longings for love, unity in diversity, communication, community, humility, peace, and selflessness are in fact - by design - longings for the Trinitarian God of the Bible and a world that is a reflection of the Trinity. (p. 12)

What follows, or, more perhaps more appropriately given the subject, what proceeds from this, in the rest of the chapter is a straightforward, robust, well applied articulation, anchored in Scripture, of the truth that:

The Trinity is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons -- Father, Son, and Spirit -- who are each fully and equally God in eternal relation with each other (p. 13).

Now it would be fair to say that most of us find it easier to defend from Scripture the truth that there is only one living and true God, that there are three distinct persons in the Godhead, and that each of these persons is fully God ("which means that they share all the divine attributes, such as eternality, omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence" as Driscoll and Breshears helpfully put it) than we do to explain it. Moreover, we find it easier to demonstrate that the doctrine of the Trinity is found in Scripture than we find it to explain the relationships between the persons that distinguish them as distinct persons.

We know that Father is different from the Son because he is the Father. We know that the Son is different from the Spirit because he is the Son. But this difference is not found in their attributes as God. The Father, as God, is not more eternal than the Son is. The Son, as God, is no less self-existent than the Father is. The Spirit is no creature but is as omnipotent and omnipresent as the Father and the Son. Each person may be described as very God.  These truths are articulated by Driscoll and Breshears, and the corresponding heresies of Modalism (one God playing three successive roles), Arianism (one God, with Christ and Spirit lacking deity) and Tritheism, suitably smacked down.

How then are we to distinguish the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit from each other? Well, historically, this has been done by speaking in terms of their personal properties. The Westminster Larger Catechism sets this out as follows:

Q. 10. What are the personal properties of the three persons in the Godhead?
A. It is proper to the Father to beget the Son, and to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and to the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity.

These are the historic categories that Christians have reached for to state clearly, but not exhaustively, and with a self-confessed inability to adequately explain just how it is so, that the Father is “unbegotten,” that the Son is “begotten” and that the Spirit (who is neither “unbegotten” nor “begotten”) “proceeds,” from the Father and the Son from all eternity. The Son is therefore eternally begotten, and the procession of the Spirit is an eternal procession. These are eternal acts beyond our capacity to understand. You cannot find a point in time before they occurred. The Son was not begotten at a point in eternity past so that he became the Son.

Although Driscoll and Breshears deal with the personal properties of the Son and Spirit in the book my comments here will be restricted to the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. This is an important theological conviction for us to hold to, as I hope to show in due course. This is what Driscoll and Breshears say about it (I've broken up the paragraphs for ease of reading):

As the doctrine of the Trinity developed, theologians struggled to explain the eternal relationships of the Trinity. What differentiates Father from Son and Spirit? Using philosophical methodology, they worked backward from God's economic working in the world to define his eternal relationships.

The Bible says the Father sent the Spirit to conceive Jesus in the womb of Mary. Jesus is therefore referred to as the "only begotten [monogenes] Son." Theologians extended this begetting in history back into the eternal Trinity and posited that the Son is eternally begotten of or generated by the Father.

The whole attempt to define eternal relations in the immanent or ontological Trinity seems misguided. (p. 27)

The doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son of God can be found in the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Chalcedonian Definition, and the Reformed Confessions.  To jettison a doctrine that has a remarkable theological pedigree on the grounds that it has insufficient Scriptural support and is misguided is a significant claim, and one that needs to be carefully looked at and weighed.

Let me raise some preliminary questions about these statements.

•  Is the Sonship of the second person of the Trinity eternal, or is it temporal? 

• When Scripture speaks of the Son being begotten is it only talking about his human sonship and nature derived from Mary? Is this when he was begotten by the Father? 

• Has he always been the Son, or did the second person of the Trinity become the Son of God only when he became incarnate as Driscoll and Breshears seem to imply in the statements above? 

I'm not entirely sure what to make of the statement that “The Bible says the Father sent the Spirit to conceive Jesus in the womb of Mary. Jesus is therefore referred to as the "only begotten [monogenes] Son.” It strikes me as a sentence that doesn't precisely convey what the authors believe about the eternality of the Sonship of Christ.  Are they really suggesting that there is one generation of the Son, and that this consists in his being begotten by Mary?  Do all the references in Scripture to the Son being begotten by the Father refer to this?

We ought to speak of God creating the humanness of the Son from the substance of Mary, but we should avoid any implication that Christ's Sonship was begotten from the substance of Mary. Jesus is not referred to as the only begotten Son because of Mary, but because, unlike us, he is the natural Son of God.

Things are cleared up a little later on in the chapter when our authors helpfully say that “God the Father and God the Son were proverbially face-to-face in eternity past” (p. 34) and of the “unity and love that exist eternally between the Father and the Son” (p. 30). From these last two statements it seems clear that they do hold to the eternal Sonship of the second person of the Trinity in addition to his eternal pre-existence and deity.

Evidently then, the identity of the Son as the Son did not begin in a outhouse in Bethlehem. This is important. The principal casualty in the tinkering with the eternal Sonship of Christ, for tinkering there has been throughout church history, is the eternal paternity of God.  If the Son is not eternal, then the Father has not been the eternal Father, and before we know it the mutual love of the persons of the Trinity has been evacuated of its eternal depth and richness.  We are left with persons, but can no longer speak of how they relate to each other in eternity, and we cannot say with any confidence therefore that this relationship is one of eternal love.  This error is one that, even with their rejection of eternal generation, Driscoll and Breshears clearly avoid.

Driscoll and Breshears affirm that the Son is in eternal relationship with the Father, and the Spirit, but, that we know nothing, and can say nothing, concerning the nature of the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son. They are not willing to affirm that he is the Father's only begotten Son, “begotten, before all worlds.” Although the first person of the Trinity has revealed himself as the Father, and the second person of the Trinity is revealed to us as the eternal Son of the Father, and although the first person is said to have begotten the second person in Scripture (there is explicit Scriptural warrant for this in Hebrews 1:5 and elsewhere, there are nine references given in footnote 66 on p. 27), we are warned that any attempt to define this eternal relationship is misguided.

There are yet more questions to ask. What “philosophical methodology” did these theologians use as they worked backward from what the Trinity has done in time to work out what the Trinity is like in eternity? We are not told. What are we to make of the words of Jesus in John 5:26, “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself,” as passage that Driscoll and Breshears do not refer to or discuss.

In the next post I will take up the three reasons why Driscoll and Breshears think that the attempt to "define eternal relations in the immanent or ontological Trinity seems misguided."