Arranging the Order of the Eternal Edicts

In the last post, we introduced the idea of eternal edicts.  We stated that there are essentially five eternal edicts that we will need to arrange.  Afterwards, we will discuss the more commonly held, and also heretical as we have seen, end of the spectrum.

Did God create evil?  The answer to this question fairly uniformly, if you believe that God is Good (with a capital “G”,) is absolutely not.  This creates a problem for those of us who hold that God is all powerful, all knowing and intentional.  The paradigm that is used is that while God did not introduce evil into the world, God permitted evil to enter the world.  And since He permitted it, He is still sovereign over evil.  He controls evil so that His ends are met even through the presence of evil in the world.  A good example of this is found in the Old Testament in God’s relationship with Pharaoh.  Pharaoh hardened his heart to the pleas of the Israelites, but this was used by God through Moses to fulfill God’s purpose of getting the Israelites out of Egypt.  How did evil enter creation?  Romans 5 tells us that evil entered the world through the action of one man, Adam.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.  (Romans 5:12-14 ESV)

We can say, then, that God permitted the Fall of Man.  We will come back to this passage in a later post to discuss original sin.

The next question is over Salvation.  Since God has allowed the Fall of Man, how will God go about saving man?  The first point to realize is that we are assuming that man cannot save himself.  He is going to require some help from God at the very least, or God is going to have to do all the saving Himself at the most.  This is the basic point in the discussion of synergism versus monergism, does God help man to salvation or does God do all of the work of salvation by Himself. 

If you believe that God does all the work, then we come to our next major issue: how does God decide who He will save and who He will not save?  This is the question that begins to pry open the Gulf between the Reformation and essentially all other positions, whether Roman Catholic, Arminian, Wesleyan or Pelagian.  Notice that this places the vast majority of American “Protestants” on the same side of the discussion as Rome!  Why do we say this?  Let’s look at the issue more closely.  The issue is predestination.

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (Romans 9:6-13 ESV)

I wonder how many people even know that this passage is in the Bible?  Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls….  That has to be the most earth shattering, paradigm blowing passage in the Bible.  God’s purpose is independent of man, independent of our deeds, independent of who is called.  Our salvation is dependent only on Him who calls, not those who are called.  It’s there in black and white.  Why?  That, we are not told.  Look at this passage:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.  (Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV)

What is this about God preparing beforehand?  That sounds like predestination to these hairy ears.  It is not our doing, it is a gift of God, not a result of works.  That’s pretty clear.  The idea of predestination and an elect remnant goes back through the whole Old Testament.  Look at this example:

There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” “Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:9-10, 18 ESV)

God holds back his remnant.  The whole world will be saved through that remnant.  There were many in the covenant community of Israel, but only a few (relatively speaking) were within that remnant of whom God spoke to Elijah. 

Back to the eternal edicts, in which order shall we place them?  Let’s try this one.

• Creation, the Fall, Election, Provide Salvation, Call the Elect.

How does that look on the ground?  God creates man, then He allows man to Fall.  God then elects people from throughout time to be His people, His remnant, His elect.  Remember that for God there is no time.  These are placed in chronological order because we are chronologically oriented creations.  Next, God determines how He will provide for the salvation of His elect.  Finally, He calls His elect to Himself.  This ordering is called Infralapsarian, and it the predominant Calvinist position.

• Creation, the Fall, Provide Salvation, Election, Call the Elect.

How does this look on the ground?  Because Salvation precedes election, we have caused two very important effects.  First, whereas in the example above, only the Elect are saved, now every person on the planet has the opportunity to be saved.  Second, because election occurs after Salvation, the means of Salvation will not be wholly sufficient for some people who will perish.  Therefore, God is unable to accomplish exactly what He intends with the Death and Resurrection of Jesus.  Surely, if God can create the world, He can save exactly the number of people that He intends to save, regardless of the number.  This system is called Amyraldism, and it is the position of the so-called Four Point Calvinists.  It is beyond my goals to explain this nuance at this time.

• Creation, the Fall, Provide Salvation, Call all to Salvation, Elect those who believe

This is the classic Arminian position, and it will seem more familiar to you.  God provides for the Salvation of all man, calls all men to receive salvation, then elects those who believe.  Arminius talks about prevenient grace at this step.  Because he believed in original sin, God still had to provide a part of grace to those who would believe so that they could believe.  Some go so far as to say that God elects based upon foreseen knowledge of who will believe.  Whichever way you explain it, it lessens even more the power and precision of God, at the same time increasing the role of man.  Our egocentricity must supersede the Christocentricity of the Bible, in our fallen minds.

The last question for this post is: did God permit the Fall before or after creation?  If God permitted the Fall prior to creation, then God would have created a flawed world.  If this is the case, then Adam was not a perfect creation capable of the full obedience required by God.  See above that that Adam was of a type of the One who was to come, Jesus.  This position is called Supralapsarianism, and we can see that it is not tenable.  I bring this up because there is a group called hyper-Calvinists who hold this Supralapsarian position.  There are others who hold this view, but I point out the hyper-Calvinists so that you will see that there are some who claim to be Calvinists who may not hold to classical Calvinist doctrine.

In summary, we have examined the eternal edicts from Biblical theology with an eye to first recognizing our own positions and secondly to understanding how the other positions work.  When we examine the implications of one doctrine on others, often we will run aground on a contradiction.  Contradictions mean one of three things, by definition.  Our understanding of one doctrine is wrong; our understanding of the other doctrine is wrong; our understanding of both doctrines is wrong.  Our willingness to let go of our suppositions as we demonstrate that they do not fit with the Biblical text is vital in understanding God and His Word.

In the next post, we will look at the main problem of man: what is it, and how do we fix it?

– Troll –

Online Book Recommendation: One chapter from Horton

Horton's Chapter 29

This is a real treat.  This book was just released last month and has become one of the texts for Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary in California.  This has been made available for free due to the huge amount of attention garnered by Rob Bell.  Please enjoy at your leisure.  I'll be reading the whole book eventually, but obviously I am thrilled to have this opportunity to get a head start.

--Ogre--

Building Blocks: Systematic Theology

It was recently said by a friend: 

If you spend your time bound up in theology and certain religious schools of thought you'll never be loose enough for [the] Holy Spirit to teach you Himself.

The purpose of systematic theology is to provide a framework for interpretation that makes sense of text that at times seem to create paradoxes and contradictions.  A person's view of God very powerfully influences this discussion.  If you believe that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, then you would have to conclude that some views of God and scripture, views that necessarily detract from those attributes, are distortions at best of the truth. There a number of assumptions that all of us bring to the table.  I love being called closed minded when a lack of discipline is being equated with openness.  Who is more open minded: the person who takes scripture seriously and expects the Holy Spirit to teach about Christ, or the person who believes in revelations outside of scripture and then charges the first person with a lack of openness, thereby becoming guilty of their own accusation?

The notion of Sola Scriptura does not mean that everyone runs off to the corner with their Bible and interprets it any way they please then comes back to the table with whatever interpretation they were inspired to concoct.  There are whole epistles about the qualifications of teachers.  We are expected to have teachers.  That is how the Holy Spirit works, through the preached Word and the Sacraments.  Christianity is not an experience; Christianity is a set of facts external to the person made clear by hearing the Word and believed because the Holy Spirit gave that person the gift of belief.

I would digress for a moment and refer you to my prior discussion on this topic.

Let us look for a moment at building a 5000 piece puzzle from the point of view of systemic theology vs the point of view of liberalism.  The systematic theologian starts from the box top of the puzzle with a general idea of what the puzzle is supposed to depict.  Next, there is a separation of pieces into edges and middle, the edges defining the limits or Law.  After the edges are constructed, the middle pieces are further separated into pieces with similar colors or patterns.  Such grouping allows for construction of areas or doctrines.  Finally, when all of the larger patterns are put in place, the leftover smaller pieces are put into place, completing the puzzle.  Most of us never finish the puzzle.  But that's OK, as long as we understand the picture on the box top.

The liberal approaches the puzzle in a different way.  Rules have no purpose or meaning.  There are no doctrines that are sacrosanct.  After a quick glance at the box top, the liberal dumps the puzzle on the table and treats it like a Rorschach diagram, telling us what he sees or feels that the puzzle is depicting.  He might pick up individual pieces and talk about how this piece or that piece proves his interpretation.  He might be very convincing at this tactic.  At the end, the liberal will have told a different tale of what the box top reveals.  There may some similarities.  Some of the words may match.  But on the Last Day, the picture of Redemptive History will be very different.

Can a liberal be a Christian?  Absolutely, but it is much harder to get a vision of the box top when he spends his time telling himself that his vision of the box top is the box top.  Better to let the Author of the puzzle tell you what the picture is, and trust in His revelation.

--Troll--

Why systematic theology?

One of the comments that I often receive is that all I care about is studying and history.  It just isn’t practical.  What about what Jesus does for me every day?  The question is based on a faulty premise, that doctrine is not practical.  In every letter written by Paul in the New Testament, he always starts with doctrine or the indicative before moving to the practical or imperative.  In fact, it has been said of Paul that he could turn a pure law passage back into indicative effortlessly.

Indicative is a type of voice in the conjugation of verbs.  This is the voice used to make statements of fact.  We use the indicative voice to describe people, ideas or events that are objective observations.  It is like watching the evening news.  Everything on the evening news is basically in the indicative voice.

Imperative is a type of voice used to make commands.  We make rules in the imperative voice.  Law is written in the imperative voice.  Imperatives often have rewards and punishments attached to them, blessings and curses in our context.  The Law of the Old Testament is obviously written in the imperative voice.

A systematic theology is a paradigm for interpretation of the Bible.  We all have a paradigm, whether we recognize it or admit it or not.  We all have preconceived ideas that we bring to the table.  Whether we formalize these ideas into a systematic theology or not, these preconceived ideas color how we interpret the Bible.  It is important to identify these biases and recognize how they affect our understanding of scripture.

The systematic theology system that I will be using is Covenant Theology.  My main presupposition is that the whole Bible, including the Old Testament, is about Jesus.  The story of Jesus in the Bible will be referred to as the Redemptive History of the Bible.  Covenant theology assumes that this Christocentricity  exists throughout the whole Bible.  In some discussions, we will see that not all systematic theology systems have this same assumption.  Some systems with have a shifting focus or center.  Other systems will assume a man centered system.  The consequences of these presuppositions on the scripture will prove to be drastic.

A common retort I hear is that some people just like to jump around the Bible and the Holy Spirit will lead them to a verse that “speaks” to them.  While the Holy Spirit may actually choose to work in this way from time to time, this manner of Biblical inquiry has several presuppositions at work as well.  The first and perhaps most basic is that effective use of this strategy assumes a vast and well working knowledge of the text.  The absence of such a background or overview will pluck verses out of context.  This has the potential to do great violence to major themes of the Bible.  Would you pull a line out of a recipe, read it, and assume that you now know how to make cakes?  Oh, by the way, the recipe was for linguine.  You would have known that if you had read the whole recipe.  Context matters.

Imagine for a moment that you are solving a jigsaw puzzle, a really tough one with 5000 pieces.  Some people go about solving the puzzle by finding all the edges and making the frame first.  Others sort by colors and put patches together and then arrange these larger chunks.  Still others hold up the box top and try to figure out where a piece must belong and then sort of place the piece by an implied Cartesian coordinate motif.  Each of these techniques is a system.  A jigsaw puzzle of this complexity demands a systematic approach of some sort.  Such are the riches of the Bible.  We must come after the problem from some systematic approach in order to make sense of it.

Finally, there is the issue of consistency.  One of the key components of logic systems is consistency.  It really chaps me when Christians are so quick to cede the logical ground to atheists and non-Christians.  Logic and consistency are your friends.  If you always go running to fuzzy feelings and nonintellectual approaches to your faith, who exactly are you going to convince anyway?  Will you succeed in convincing yourself?  Really?  Systematic theology has the great advantage of giving you a framework on which to hang the doctrine so that you can make sense of it.  When learning any subject, the first time through you are just memorizing facts.  They don’t really stick very well.  Then, towards the end, something clicks and you start to see the big picture.  Then, when you go back through the facts a second or third time, it is much easier and more of the facts stick.  This is as true with algebra and economics as it is with theology.  Learn to be consistent in your theology.  God does not create contradictions.  That would not be consistent with our view of God.

--Troll--