Tuesday, 17 November 2015
Monday, 16 November 2015
Sunday, 15 November 2015
A Christian Appraisal of Contemporary Philosophy
by Gordon H. Clark
Editor’s note: This lecture was first delivered in 1959.
Young men and women, if they have any ambition, will not be satisfied merely to earn a living and to establish themselves in a comfortable, but meaningless routine. People of serious intentions want to make an effective impact on the world around them. Christian men and women not only want to leave their mark on the world, but they are under divine obligation to make the attempt. To do so, to achieve anything above a mere average result, one prerequisite is an understanding of the civilization of which we are a part. If we wish to be persuasive, we must know what other people are thinking. Therefore, to understand our contemporary society, it is desirable, I should like to say, essential to have a grasp of recent philosophy.
The reason that philosophy is so important in understanding a civilization, the reason why therefore philosophy is essential to anyone who wishes to influence society is simply that on the whole philosophy controls the thoughts of men. People may not be aware of the factors which influence their thinking; they may never have heard of the world’s greatest thinkers; but over a period of time the theories of philosophers are popularized, publicized, and are then incorporated in the thinking of ordinary citizens.
One example of a philosopher controlling the thinking of a later generation, in this case the religious thinking of the early twentieth century, is that of Friedrich Schleiermacher. It was he who produced modernism. There were many Christians forty or fifty years ago who took alarm at modernism, but they did not always recognize its source nor understand its leading ideas.
Therefore they were puzzled at its popularity and were at a loss to meet it. These fundamentalists thought modernism was merely a matter of denying miracles, the Virgin Birth, the Atonement, and the Resurrection. But these were only the implications of modernism. At its basis was a different view of the nature of religion. Schleiermacher had recommended a religion based on experience instead of on revelation. His thought was essentially man-centered rather than God-centered. The Psychology of Religious Experience replaced Theology and the doctrines of the Bible were then discarded one by one. Even today, when the fortunes of modernism have ebbed in the seminaries, millions of people in the pews continue to think more or less as Schleiermacher taught. To meet modernism adequately, one should know its source, its motivation, and the essential structure of its ideas. In general, if one wishes to work with people who have unconsciously accepted the views of an earlier thinker, it is most desirable, I would like to say essential, to understand the factors which have formed their opinions.
However, the contemporary philosophy about which I wish to speak is not the modernism of Schleiermacher and Ritschl. Later I wish to speak of a secular philosophy and of a religious movement that have some basic elements in common and which between them pretty well characterize the thought of the United States today. The secular philosophy is Pragmatism or Instrumentalism, and the religious movement is called Neo-orthodoxy. Both of these derive from one or a few philosophers who lived about a century ago.
Near the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hegel dominated all philosophy. No one else approached him in breadth of interest, profundity of insight, or power of detailed reasoning. His system of Absolute Idealism claimed to have a rational explanation of everything. Reason had solved all problems, and The System was well nigh perfect. After his death his philosophy spread from Germany, overshadowed all else in England, and was widely held in American Universities.
During this time of Hegel’s popularity, there began in Germany, indeed among Hegel’s immediate students, a movement that was destined to control our twentieth century thought. Karl Marx and Soren Kierkegaard both studied under Hegel. Both came to the conclusion that Hegel was terribly mistaken. They agreed that Reason had not solved all problems and that Reason could not solve all problems. In one way and another they and their followers disparaged Reason. Thus, though Marx and Soren Kierkegaard differed on many points of importance, the former being an atheistic socialist and the latter an individualistic Christian, the two of them in their common attack on Reason initiated the irrationalism that characterizes a large section of today’s thinking.
By irrationalism I do not mean a view, like that of Roman Catholic philosophy, which defends a sphere of faith superior to reason; nor do I mean any judicious distrust of so-called rationalizations and quick and easy solutions to difficult and intricate problems. Irrationalism here means a fundamental repudiation of reason itself. In this type of philosophy the very forms of thought, the very processes of logic are denied validity.
To come to grips with the main subject matter it will be enough in the first place to give a short account of the secular philosophies of William James and John Dewey with their immediate European predecessors, Friedrich Nietzsche and Emile Durkheim. Then, in the second place, I shall compare this secular philosophy with some of the basic factors in the religious movement known as Neo-orthodoxy.
Nietzsche the German and Durkheim the Frenchman, sixty or seventy years after the first attacks on Hegel’s deification of reason, arrived at their irrationalism through a biological approach. Though they may not have been the first to apply the principles of evolution to philosophy, they did so more thoroughly than any of their predecessors.
With this approach it follows in both cases that there are no universal standards of morality nor are there fixed forms of logic binding all thought. Both logic and morality are subject to flux. As for morality Nietzsche proclaims the Superman who is superior to traditional standards, and Durkheim has each society produce its own standards so that it cannot be judged on the standards of any foreign civilization.
The effect of this view on the forms of logic can best be approached by emphasizing the naturalism that Nietzsche so clearly expresses. Naturalism, in popular, inexact language, is a sort of materialism. Not only does Nietzsche repudiate the universal Hegelian Reason, he also denies the existence of a soul or mind. For him, as it was for Marx, the starting point of all philosophy is the body. Therefore, he concludes, the notion that the universe is amenable to the forms of human thinking is downright naive.
Everything that reaches our consciousness, so he says, is simplified and adjusted to our needs. We never find a fact of nature; we never grasp things as they are. The whole apparatus of knowing is a simplifying device, directed not at truth, but at the utilization of the world for our human purposes. Logic as an evolutionary development distorts reality, and what we now call truth is simply the kind of error without which the species cannot survive. The basic law of logic is the law of contradiction. We cannot think without it. But this, in Nietzsche’s opinion, is only a sign of our inability – our inability to affirm and to deny one and the same thing. To suppose that logic and the law of contradiction are adequate to reality presupposes a knowledge of reality prior to and independent of this law. Obviously therefore the law of contradiction holds good only for assumed existences that we have created.
Both Nietzsche and Durkheim consider the laws of thought to be the product of evolution. Today men are born with these evolutionary products so bred in them that they cannot think otherwise. These habits are useful, but this does not make them true. According to Durkheim the concepts of time, contradiction, and causality are the outgrowths of religious rites and social ceremonies. There is no universal concept of time or causality; each society has its own. Individuals who used categories different from those of their society were treated as insane, were eliminated, with the result that only those people survived who used the socially approved modes of thought.
William James continues this attack against what he calls the "serpent of rationalism." The Hegelian Absolute is futile and theism is vacuous. The categories of logic are evolutionary products. Space and time are not a priori intuitions but artificial constructions. Other categories could have been developed, and might have proved as serviceable as those we use now.
Toward the end of his life James also denied the existence of consciousness and gave evidence of adopting the viewpoint of behaviorism. At any rate, John Dewey very clearly bases knowledge on biological functions and explicitly professes a certain type of behaviorism.
John Dewey traces all knowledge back to "sensorimotor co-ordinations." Time and time again Dewey objects to "mentalistic" terminology. Mind, he says, is the complex of bodily habits. Indeed, habits formed in the exercise of biological aptitudes are the sole agents of observation, recollection, and judgment. A mind which performs these operations is a myth; concrete habits do all the perceiving and reasoning that is done. In one place Dewey very bluntly says knowledge lives in the muscles, not in consciousness.
Since these muscles and biological aptitudes are directed toward survival, it follows for Dewey that truth, including the laws of logic, is instrumental. Our concepts have been devised as tools for solving our problems. If an idea or concept works, it is true. This pragmatic principle that truth is what works is much more clearly stated in Dewey than in James. From reading James one might suppose that the truth of an idea is tested by putting it to work. If the test is successful, the idea is proved to have been true.
For example, some Christians might borrow from James and say that we should put God to the test; we should believe in God; we should accept the idea of God. Then if our belief is confirmed by success in the affairs of life, or at least in a future life, when God’s judgment justifies our belief, the idea of God will be clearly seen to have been true.
Dewey prevents a Christian from using pragmatism in any such way. For him, "ideas are statements, not of what is or has been, but of acts to be performed." "An idea or conception is a ... plan to act in a certain way." Therefore the idea of God is not the idea of pre-existing Being; it is a plan of action, and its meaning is totally exhausted in the overt muscular movements of solving a problem. Similarly the concepts of physics and chemistry, such as gravitation or sulfuric acid are not statements of antecedent existences, but of operations in the laboratory.
Naturally Dewey says the same thing about the concepts of logic. The law of contradiction is constructed as a useful tool for the purpose of solving a problem. So long as this law of logic is useful, it will be retained. When in the future another problem arises for which this tool is not adapted, we will invent a different concept, we will form a different plan of operation, we will formulate a different sort of logic.
Now, Dewey was such a voluminous writer and his views have been so influential on any number of subjects that it is tempting to continue with an extended exposition of his philosophy. However, the occasion forbids; and having made the simple point of instrumental behaviorism, I must rush on to my criticism of the logic it proposes. The criticism too must be brief and constricted. This I regret, for the matter, in my opinion, is extremely important. Irrationalism is a widespread phenomenon. Essentially the same views are found among the logical positivists and the Oxford analytical philosophers. For example A. J. Ayer, like Dewey, holds that logic is an arbitrary construction and that "it is perfectly conceivable that we should have employed different linguistic conventions."
In a moment it will be shown that Neo-orthodoxy also entertains much the same idea of logic. This is why a knowledge of secular philosophy is so important in religious discussions. They are both branches from the same trunk. None of their forms can be fully understood apart from the common background. Therefore, if the common logic of these several schools is defective, one criticism will engulf them all.
If logical principles are arbitrary and tentative, either because they are the procedural stipulations of the analytical school, or because they are the conventions of a society, or because they are behavioristic muscular habits, and if therefore it is conceivable to employ different linguistic conventions, it should be possible for these philosophers to invent a different convention and to abide by it as they express their views. Can they do so?
Now, the Aristotelian law of contradiction which they reject or which they assert can be rejected requires that a given word must not only mean something, but it must also not mean something else. The term dog must mean dog, but also it must not mean mountain; and mountain must not mean metaphor. Each term must refer to something definite and at the same time there must be other objects to which it does not refer. Suppose the word mountain meant metaphor, and dog, and Bible, and the United States. Clearly, if a word meant everything, it would mean nothing.
If, now, the law of contradiction is not a fixed truth, if it is merely tentative, and if another form of thought is conceivable, I challenge these philosophers to write a book in conformity with their principles. That is, I challenge them to write a book without using the law of contradiction without insisting that words have definite references. As a matter of fact, it will not be hard for them to do so. Nothing more is necessary than to write the word metaphor sixty thousand times. Metaphor metaphor metaphor metaphor. This means, the dog ran up the mountain; for the word metaphor means dog, ran, and mountain. But unfortunately the sentence "Metaphor metaphor metaphor metaphor" also means, "Next Christmas is Thanksgiving;" for the word metaphor has these meanings as well.
The point should be clear. One cannot write a book or speak a sentence that means anything without using the law of contradiction. Logic is neither a procedural convention, nor a product of society, nor a muscular habit. Logic is an innate necessity. Whether it be the secularism of John Dewey and A. J. Ayer, or the religious theory of the Neo-orthodox, or even the frequent pietistic depreciation of our socalled fallible human reason, this irrationalism makes all intelligible religion impossible. Each definite doctrine singly and the sum of them as a verbal revelation are emptied of all meaning. But fortunately this irrationalism makes itself impossible also. The theories of Nietzsche, Dewey, and Ayer are self-refuting because they cannot be stated intelligibly except in virtue of the law they repudiate.
The second half, or I should say the second part of this paper, for instead of being an equal half, it will be only a short appendix, deals with neo-orthodoxy. The exposition of Neo-orthodoxy must be brief and constricted as the preceding exposition was. Only enough will be given to show that Neo-orthodoxy shares the same irrationalism and therefore suffers the same fate of unintelligibility. This is the case because they are twin products of the same anti-Hegelian motif. Karl Marx stimulated the secular and naturalistic reaction, and Soren Kierkegaard furthered the religious reaction. Both held reason and intellect in low esteem.
For Soren Kierkegaard God is truth; but truth exists only for a believer who inwardly experiences the tension between himself and God. If an actually existing person is an unbeliever, then for him God does not exist. God exists only in subjectivity.
The emphasis on subjectivity and the corresponding disparagement of objectivity results in the destruction of Christianity’s objective historicity. The historical is not the religious and the religious is not the historical. Real religion does not consist in understanding anything; it is a matter of feeling and anti-intellectual passion. To base one’s religion on objective history puts it at the mercy of the everchanging results of historical criticism. It is absurd to suppose that eternal blessedness can be based on historical information.
The important matter is not what a person believes, but how he believes. The method of religion is not intellectual; it is an experience of suffering and despair; it is passionate appropriation and decision. What is appropriated is of little importance.
In his vivid style Soren Kierkegaard describes two men at prayer. The one is in a Lutheran church and entertains a true conception of God; but because he prays in a false spirit, he is praying to an idol The other is actually in a heathen temple praying to idols; but because he prays with an infinite passion, he is in truth praying to God. For the truth lies in the inward How, not in the external What. "If only the How of this relation is in truth, then the individual is in truth, even though he is thus related to untruth."
This illustration implies that it is objectively indifferent whether one worships God or an idol. What counts is the individual’s subjective relation to an unknown Something. But if our worship is directed to an unknown Something, rather than to Hegel’s Knowable Absolute, or to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who gives us information about himself, there would seem to be no distinguishable difference between worshipping God and worshipping the devil.
Most of the contemporary disciples of Soren Kierkegaard continue this anti-intellectualism. For example, Reinhold Niebuhr asserts that every affirmation about man’s place in the cosmos becomes involved in contradictions when fully analyzed. There is no escape from rational absurdity. Man is free from reason with a freedom that is above all the categories of philosophy. However, for the purposes of this lecture, I shall confine the analysis to the views of Emil Brunner.
Emil Brunner distinguishes between two varieties of truth. First, there is the ordinary truth of everyday affairs, mathematics, and science. One may call it abstract truth. Brunner calls it It-Truth to distinguish it from the second variety, which he calls Thou Truth. As we pass from logic and mathematics, through sociology and anthropology, on to theology, we leave the abstract It-Truth and enter the religious realm of personal relationships. Here man is no mere neutral observer, as he is supposed to be in logic and mathematics, but rather he is himself affected by the truth and exercises faith and personal trust. At the center of this sphere is an individual’s personal confrontation with God.
In this experience of personal confrontation the traditional philosophical distinction between subject and object is transcended, and the new truth becomes a relationship of subject to subject. God is never an object of knowledge. One who has had this personal confrontation with God, as the Apostles had, may talk about it later. In talking about it, they use subjects and predicates, they use the forms of logic and abstract thought. But what they say is not really true. Abstract, verbal, propositional truth is merely a pointer to the personal truth. Some propositions point more directly than others, but even the words of Scripture are only pointers.
Brunner does not mean that the words of language are conventional, so that different sounds in different languages mean the same thing. Dog and Hund and Chien are all arbitrary sounds to express the same thought. But for Brunner it is not just the sound or word, it is the thought itself that fails to grasp the object. He says quite explicitly that the conceptual content itself, as well as its verbal expression, is not the real thing; it is only a framework, a means, a pointer.
For this reason, says Brunner, we should not allow the logic of our language to carry us too far. Although what we actually say in one proposition may validly imply a second proposition, it often happens that faith must curb our logic. Sometimes we may follow the implications of our thoughts, but sometimes faith causes us to deny in the conclusion what we asserted in the premises.
Thus it is that Brunner uses good logic to refute Schleiermacher; but because good logic supports rather than refutes John Calvin, faith curbs our logic and refutes Calvin for us.
Here, obviously, Brunner is in trouble. For why could he not have accepted logic in the case of Calvin and curbed his logic in the case of Schleiermacher? How does one know when to accept the implications of his own assertions and when not to? This question is a pointer, it points to the arbitrary irrationalism of Brunner’s position. If two implications are equally valid, there can be no reason for following one and curbing the other.
In fact, Brunner is in a worse position even than this would indicate – if worse there be. Since all propositions are merely pointers and since their intellectual content is merely an empty framework, it really doesn’t make much difference whether our assertions are true or false. Not only is it immaterial whether you or I speak the truth, we cannot even depend on God to speak the truth. Brunner quite explicitly says that a false proposition can be a pointer as well as a true one. God himself is free from the limitations of abstract truth and can speak his special variety of truth in false statements.
"Our knowledge of God" to translate from Philosophie und Offenbarung "which we obtain from revelation, is first an As-if Knowledge." That is to say, revelation is not strictly true. We are perhaps to live as-if it were true, but we must not suppose that revelation is the truth. Brunner of course tries to deflect criticism by adding that "This As-if contains no uncertainty – for it is a divinely guaranteed as-if."
It is difficult, however, to derive much comfort from such a divinely guaranteed As-if. For since God sometimes uses falsehood in revelation, the guarantee itself may be As if and false. How could we possibly tell? Even if the divine guarantee were not false, it is still merely a pointer to some unknowable and unintelligible something. It could never be accepted at literal face value.
The underlying objection to Neo-orthodoxy is not that it denies this or that Christian doctrine. The objection is not that it discards half or three quarters of the Bible. The underlying objection is that all intelligibility has vanished. No doctrine remains. Nothing of the Bible is left. Truth has become impossible and we are left to the mercy of blind passion.
This is the outcome of contemporary irrationalism. To it attaches all the opprobrium that the word irrational suggests, and the cost of accepting such a viewpoint is nothing less than insanity.
On the other hand, sanity and Christianity require intellect, reason, logic, and truth, for in the beginning was the word, the Logos, the eternal wisdom of God.
Editor’s note: This lecture was first delivered in 1959.
Young men and women, if they have any ambition, will not be satisfied merely to earn a living and to establish themselves in a comfortable, but meaningless routine. People of serious intentions want to make an effective impact on the world around them. Christian men and women not only want to leave their mark on the world, but they are under divine obligation to make the attempt. To do so, to achieve anything above a mere average result, one prerequisite is an understanding of the civilization of which we are a part. If we wish to be persuasive, we must know what other people are thinking. Therefore, to understand our contemporary society, it is desirable, I should like to say, essential to have a grasp of recent philosophy.
The reason that philosophy is so important in understanding a civilization, the reason why therefore philosophy is essential to anyone who wishes to influence society is simply that on the whole philosophy controls the thoughts of men. People may not be aware of the factors which influence their thinking; they may never have heard of the world’s greatest thinkers; but over a period of time the theories of philosophers are popularized, publicized, and are then incorporated in the thinking of ordinary citizens.
One example of a philosopher controlling the thinking of a later generation, in this case the religious thinking of the early twentieth century, is that of Friedrich Schleiermacher. It was he who produced modernism. There were many Christians forty or fifty years ago who took alarm at modernism, but they did not always recognize its source nor understand its leading ideas.
Therefore they were puzzled at its popularity and were at a loss to meet it. These fundamentalists thought modernism was merely a matter of denying miracles, the Virgin Birth, the Atonement, and the Resurrection. But these were only the implications of modernism. At its basis was a different view of the nature of religion. Schleiermacher had recommended a religion based on experience instead of on revelation. His thought was essentially man-centered rather than God-centered. The Psychology of Religious Experience replaced Theology and the doctrines of the Bible were then discarded one by one. Even today, when the fortunes of modernism have ebbed in the seminaries, millions of people in the pews continue to think more or less as Schleiermacher taught. To meet modernism adequately, one should know its source, its motivation, and the essential structure of its ideas. In general, if one wishes to work with people who have unconsciously accepted the views of an earlier thinker, it is most desirable, I would like to say essential, to understand the factors which have formed their opinions.
However, the contemporary philosophy about which I wish to speak is not the modernism of Schleiermacher and Ritschl. Later I wish to speak of a secular philosophy and of a religious movement that have some basic elements in common and which between them pretty well characterize the thought of the United States today. The secular philosophy is Pragmatism or Instrumentalism, and the religious movement is called Neo-orthodoxy. Both of these derive from one or a few philosophers who lived about a century ago.
Near the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hegel dominated all philosophy. No one else approached him in breadth of interest, profundity of insight, or power of detailed reasoning. His system of Absolute Idealism claimed to have a rational explanation of everything. Reason had solved all problems, and The System was well nigh perfect. After his death his philosophy spread from Germany, overshadowed all else in England, and was widely held in American Universities.
During this time of Hegel’s popularity, there began in Germany, indeed among Hegel’s immediate students, a movement that was destined to control our twentieth century thought. Karl Marx and Soren Kierkegaard both studied under Hegel. Both came to the conclusion that Hegel was terribly mistaken. They agreed that Reason had not solved all problems and that Reason could not solve all problems. In one way and another they and their followers disparaged Reason. Thus, though Marx and Soren Kierkegaard differed on many points of importance, the former being an atheistic socialist and the latter an individualistic Christian, the two of them in their common attack on Reason initiated the irrationalism that characterizes a large section of today’s thinking.
By irrationalism I do not mean a view, like that of Roman Catholic philosophy, which defends a sphere of faith superior to reason; nor do I mean any judicious distrust of so-called rationalizations and quick and easy solutions to difficult and intricate problems. Irrationalism here means a fundamental repudiation of reason itself. In this type of philosophy the very forms of thought, the very processes of logic are denied validity.
To come to grips with the main subject matter it will be enough in the first place to give a short account of the secular philosophies of William James and John Dewey with their immediate European predecessors, Friedrich Nietzsche and Emile Durkheim. Then, in the second place, I shall compare this secular philosophy with some of the basic factors in the religious movement known as Neo-orthodoxy.
Nietzsche the German and Durkheim the Frenchman, sixty or seventy years after the first attacks on Hegel’s deification of reason, arrived at their irrationalism through a biological approach. Though they may not have been the first to apply the principles of evolution to philosophy, they did so more thoroughly than any of their predecessors.
With this approach it follows in both cases that there are no universal standards of morality nor are there fixed forms of logic binding all thought. Both logic and morality are subject to flux. As for morality Nietzsche proclaims the Superman who is superior to traditional standards, and Durkheim has each society produce its own standards so that it cannot be judged on the standards of any foreign civilization.
The effect of this view on the forms of logic can best be approached by emphasizing the naturalism that Nietzsche so clearly expresses. Naturalism, in popular, inexact language, is a sort of materialism. Not only does Nietzsche repudiate the universal Hegelian Reason, he also denies the existence of a soul or mind. For him, as it was for Marx, the starting point of all philosophy is the body. Therefore, he concludes, the notion that the universe is amenable to the forms of human thinking is downright naive.
Everything that reaches our consciousness, so he says, is simplified and adjusted to our needs. We never find a fact of nature; we never grasp things as they are. The whole apparatus of knowing is a simplifying device, directed not at truth, but at the utilization of the world for our human purposes. Logic as an evolutionary development distorts reality, and what we now call truth is simply the kind of error without which the species cannot survive. The basic law of logic is the law of contradiction. We cannot think without it. But this, in Nietzsche’s opinion, is only a sign of our inability – our inability to affirm and to deny one and the same thing. To suppose that logic and the law of contradiction are adequate to reality presupposes a knowledge of reality prior to and independent of this law. Obviously therefore the law of contradiction holds good only for assumed existences that we have created.
Both Nietzsche and Durkheim consider the laws of thought to be the product of evolution. Today men are born with these evolutionary products so bred in them that they cannot think otherwise. These habits are useful, but this does not make them true. According to Durkheim the concepts of time, contradiction, and causality are the outgrowths of religious rites and social ceremonies. There is no universal concept of time or causality; each society has its own. Individuals who used categories different from those of their society were treated as insane, were eliminated, with the result that only those people survived who used the socially approved modes of thought.
William James continues this attack against what he calls the "serpent of rationalism." The Hegelian Absolute is futile and theism is vacuous. The categories of logic are evolutionary products. Space and time are not a priori intuitions but artificial constructions. Other categories could have been developed, and might have proved as serviceable as those we use now.
Toward the end of his life James also denied the existence of consciousness and gave evidence of adopting the viewpoint of behaviorism. At any rate, John Dewey very clearly bases knowledge on biological functions and explicitly professes a certain type of behaviorism.
John Dewey traces all knowledge back to "sensorimotor co-ordinations." Time and time again Dewey objects to "mentalistic" terminology. Mind, he says, is the complex of bodily habits. Indeed, habits formed in the exercise of biological aptitudes are the sole agents of observation, recollection, and judgment. A mind which performs these operations is a myth; concrete habits do all the perceiving and reasoning that is done. In one place Dewey very bluntly says knowledge lives in the muscles, not in consciousness.
Since these muscles and biological aptitudes are directed toward survival, it follows for Dewey that truth, including the laws of logic, is instrumental. Our concepts have been devised as tools for solving our problems. If an idea or concept works, it is true. This pragmatic principle that truth is what works is much more clearly stated in Dewey than in James. From reading James one might suppose that the truth of an idea is tested by putting it to work. If the test is successful, the idea is proved to have been true.
For example, some Christians might borrow from James and say that we should put God to the test; we should believe in God; we should accept the idea of God. Then if our belief is confirmed by success in the affairs of life, or at least in a future life, when God’s judgment justifies our belief, the idea of God will be clearly seen to have been true.
Dewey prevents a Christian from using pragmatism in any such way. For him, "ideas are statements, not of what is or has been, but of acts to be performed." "An idea or conception is a ... plan to act in a certain way." Therefore the idea of God is not the idea of pre-existing Being; it is a plan of action, and its meaning is totally exhausted in the overt muscular movements of solving a problem. Similarly the concepts of physics and chemistry, such as gravitation or sulfuric acid are not statements of antecedent existences, but of operations in the laboratory.
Naturally Dewey says the same thing about the concepts of logic. The law of contradiction is constructed as a useful tool for the purpose of solving a problem. So long as this law of logic is useful, it will be retained. When in the future another problem arises for which this tool is not adapted, we will invent a different concept, we will form a different plan of operation, we will formulate a different sort of logic.
Now, Dewey was such a voluminous writer and his views have been so influential on any number of subjects that it is tempting to continue with an extended exposition of his philosophy. However, the occasion forbids; and having made the simple point of instrumental behaviorism, I must rush on to my criticism of the logic it proposes. The criticism too must be brief and constricted. This I regret, for the matter, in my opinion, is extremely important. Irrationalism is a widespread phenomenon. Essentially the same views are found among the logical positivists and the Oxford analytical philosophers. For example A. J. Ayer, like Dewey, holds that logic is an arbitrary construction and that "it is perfectly conceivable that we should have employed different linguistic conventions."
In a moment it will be shown that Neo-orthodoxy also entertains much the same idea of logic. This is why a knowledge of secular philosophy is so important in religious discussions. They are both branches from the same trunk. None of their forms can be fully understood apart from the common background. Therefore, if the common logic of these several schools is defective, one criticism will engulf them all.
If logical principles are arbitrary and tentative, either because they are the procedural stipulations of the analytical school, or because they are the conventions of a society, or because they are behavioristic muscular habits, and if therefore it is conceivable to employ different linguistic conventions, it should be possible for these philosophers to invent a different convention and to abide by it as they express their views. Can they do so?
Now, the Aristotelian law of contradiction which they reject or which they assert can be rejected requires that a given word must not only mean something, but it must also not mean something else. The term dog must mean dog, but also it must not mean mountain; and mountain must not mean metaphor. Each term must refer to something definite and at the same time there must be other objects to which it does not refer. Suppose the word mountain meant metaphor, and dog, and Bible, and the United States. Clearly, if a word meant everything, it would mean nothing.
If, now, the law of contradiction is not a fixed truth, if it is merely tentative, and if another form of thought is conceivable, I challenge these philosophers to write a book in conformity with their principles. That is, I challenge them to write a book without using the law of contradiction without insisting that words have definite references. As a matter of fact, it will not be hard for them to do so. Nothing more is necessary than to write the word metaphor sixty thousand times. Metaphor metaphor metaphor metaphor. This means, the dog ran up the mountain; for the word metaphor means dog, ran, and mountain. But unfortunately the sentence "Metaphor metaphor metaphor metaphor" also means, "Next Christmas is Thanksgiving;" for the word metaphor has these meanings as well.
The point should be clear. One cannot write a book or speak a sentence that means anything without using the law of contradiction. Logic is neither a procedural convention, nor a product of society, nor a muscular habit. Logic is an innate necessity. Whether it be the secularism of John Dewey and A. J. Ayer, or the religious theory of the Neo-orthodox, or even the frequent pietistic depreciation of our socalled fallible human reason, this irrationalism makes all intelligible religion impossible. Each definite doctrine singly and the sum of them as a verbal revelation are emptied of all meaning. But fortunately this irrationalism makes itself impossible also. The theories of Nietzsche, Dewey, and Ayer are self-refuting because they cannot be stated intelligibly except in virtue of the law they repudiate.
The second half, or I should say the second part of this paper, for instead of being an equal half, it will be only a short appendix, deals with neo-orthodoxy. The exposition of Neo-orthodoxy must be brief and constricted as the preceding exposition was. Only enough will be given to show that Neo-orthodoxy shares the same irrationalism and therefore suffers the same fate of unintelligibility. This is the case because they are twin products of the same anti-Hegelian motif. Karl Marx stimulated the secular and naturalistic reaction, and Soren Kierkegaard furthered the religious reaction. Both held reason and intellect in low esteem.
For Soren Kierkegaard God is truth; but truth exists only for a believer who inwardly experiences the tension between himself and God. If an actually existing person is an unbeliever, then for him God does not exist. God exists only in subjectivity.
The emphasis on subjectivity and the corresponding disparagement of objectivity results in the destruction of Christianity’s objective historicity. The historical is not the religious and the religious is not the historical. Real religion does not consist in understanding anything; it is a matter of feeling and anti-intellectual passion. To base one’s religion on objective history puts it at the mercy of the everchanging results of historical criticism. It is absurd to suppose that eternal blessedness can be based on historical information.
The important matter is not what a person believes, but how he believes. The method of religion is not intellectual; it is an experience of suffering and despair; it is passionate appropriation and decision. What is appropriated is of little importance.
In his vivid style Soren Kierkegaard describes two men at prayer. The one is in a Lutheran church and entertains a true conception of God; but because he prays in a false spirit, he is praying to an idol The other is actually in a heathen temple praying to idols; but because he prays with an infinite passion, he is in truth praying to God. For the truth lies in the inward How, not in the external What. "If only the How of this relation is in truth, then the individual is in truth, even though he is thus related to untruth."
This illustration implies that it is objectively indifferent whether one worships God or an idol. What counts is the individual’s subjective relation to an unknown Something. But if our worship is directed to an unknown Something, rather than to Hegel’s Knowable Absolute, or to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who gives us information about himself, there would seem to be no distinguishable difference between worshipping God and worshipping the devil.
Most of the contemporary disciples of Soren Kierkegaard continue this anti-intellectualism. For example, Reinhold Niebuhr asserts that every affirmation about man’s place in the cosmos becomes involved in contradictions when fully analyzed. There is no escape from rational absurdity. Man is free from reason with a freedom that is above all the categories of philosophy. However, for the purposes of this lecture, I shall confine the analysis to the views of Emil Brunner.
Emil Brunner distinguishes between two varieties of truth. First, there is the ordinary truth of everyday affairs, mathematics, and science. One may call it abstract truth. Brunner calls it It-Truth to distinguish it from the second variety, which he calls Thou Truth. As we pass from logic and mathematics, through sociology and anthropology, on to theology, we leave the abstract It-Truth and enter the religious realm of personal relationships. Here man is no mere neutral observer, as he is supposed to be in logic and mathematics, but rather he is himself affected by the truth and exercises faith and personal trust. At the center of this sphere is an individual’s personal confrontation with God.
In this experience of personal confrontation the traditional philosophical distinction between subject and object is transcended, and the new truth becomes a relationship of subject to subject. God is never an object of knowledge. One who has had this personal confrontation with God, as the Apostles had, may talk about it later. In talking about it, they use subjects and predicates, they use the forms of logic and abstract thought. But what they say is not really true. Abstract, verbal, propositional truth is merely a pointer to the personal truth. Some propositions point more directly than others, but even the words of Scripture are only pointers.
Brunner does not mean that the words of language are conventional, so that different sounds in different languages mean the same thing. Dog and Hund and Chien are all arbitrary sounds to express the same thought. But for Brunner it is not just the sound or word, it is the thought itself that fails to grasp the object. He says quite explicitly that the conceptual content itself, as well as its verbal expression, is not the real thing; it is only a framework, a means, a pointer.
For this reason, says Brunner, we should not allow the logic of our language to carry us too far. Although what we actually say in one proposition may validly imply a second proposition, it often happens that faith must curb our logic. Sometimes we may follow the implications of our thoughts, but sometimes faith causes us to deny in the conclusion what we asserted in the premises.
Thus it is that Brunner uses good logic to refute Schleiermacher; but because good logic supports rather than refutes John Calvin, faith curbs our logic and refutes Calvin for us.
Here, obviously, Brunner is in trouble. For why could he not have accepted logic in the case of Calvin and curbed his logic in the case of Schleiermacher? How does one know when to accept the implications of his own assertions and when not to? This question is a pointer, it points to the arbitrary irrationalism of Brunner’s position. If two implications are equally valid, there can be no reason for following one and curbing the other.
In fact, Brunner is in a worse position even than this would indicate – if worse there be. Since all propositions are merely pointers and since their intellectual content is merely an empty framework, it really doesn’t make much difference whether our assertions are true or false. Not only is it immaterial whether you or I speak the truth, we cannot even depend on God to speak the truth. Brunner quite explicitly says that a false proposition can be a pointer as well as a true one. God himself is free from the limitations of abstract truth and can speak his special variety of truth in false statements.
"Our knowledge of God" to translate from Philosophie und Offenbarung "which we obtain from revelation, is first an As-if Knowledge." That is to say, revelation is not strictly true. We are perhaps to live as-if it were true, but we must not suppose that revelation is the truth. Brunner of course tries to deflect criticism by adding that "This As-if contains no uncertainty – for it is a divinely guaranteed as-if."
It is difficult, however, to derive much comfort from such a divinely guaranteed As-if. For since God sometimes uses falsehood in revelation, the guarantee itself may be As if and false. How could we possibly tell? Even if the divine guarantee were not false, it is still merely a pointer to some unknowable and unintelligible something. It could never be accepted at literal face value.
The underlying objection to Neo-orthodoxy is not that it denies this or that Christian doctrine. The objection is not that it discards half or three quarters of the Bible. The underlying objection is that all intelligibility has vanished. No doctrine remains. Nothing of the Bible is left. Truth has become impossible and we are left to the mercy of blind passion.
This is the outcome of contemporary irrationalism. To it attaches all the opprobrium that the word irrational suggests, and the cost of accepting such a viewpoint is nothing less than insanity.
On the other hand, sanity and Christianity require intellect, reason, logic, and truth, for in the beginning was the word, the Logos, the eternal wisdom of God.
Federal Vision
by David Engelsma
Editors Note: This essay is reprinted from the November 2005 issue of The Protestant Reformed Theological Journal.
Written by several of the leading proponents of the heresy now solidly entrenched in most of the reputedly conservative Presbyterian and Reformed churches, and spreading, The Federal Vision[1] brazenly defends justification by works; universal covenant grace to every child of believing parents, if not to every person sprinkled with water in the name of the triune God; an election unto grace that fails to save; baptismal regeneration; and the falling away of many who were once united to Christ. Among the authors are Steve Wilkins, John Barach, Rich Lusk, Peter J. Leithart, Steve Schlissel, James Jordan, and Douglas Wilson.
Justification by Works
The movement that calls itself the “federal vision”[2] teaches justification by the obedience of the sinner. “The presuppositions undergirding Paul’s statement [in Romans 2:13] include the facts that the Law is ‘obeyable,’ that truly responding to the Law (the Word) in faith does justify” (Schlissel, 260). Romans 2:13 states that “the doers of the law shall be justified.” Schlissel’s comment on the text, that the “Law is ‘obeyable,’” affirms justification by deeds of obedience to the law.
Schlissel denies that Romans 3:28 has any and all human works in view when it speaks of the “deeds of the law”: “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Rather, the reference is only to “Jewish” deeds, that is, ceremonial works done with the motive of meriting salvation (260, 261). According to Schlissel, the apostle merely excludes “Jewish” deeds from justification. Other deeds, deeds performed by the believer in the power of true faith, are included in justification. The Apostle Paul concluded that a man is justified by faith without deeds — any deed and all deeds. Steve Schlissel concludes that a man is justified by faith with deeds — deeds performed by faith.
Peter Leithart charges the Reformation with distorting the truth of justification: “The Reformation doctrine of justification has illegitimately narrowed and to some extent distorted the biblical doctrine” (209). The distortion is the Reformation’s sharply distinguishing justification and sanctification and its insistence that justification is a verdict (211, 213). Leithart argues that justification in Scripture has “a much wider scope of application than the strictly judicial” (209). In fact, according to Leithart, “justifying is never merely declaring a verdict” (213; the emphasis is the author’s). Justification is also the sanctifying work of God within the sinner enabling him to perform good works, which then become part of his righteousness with God, as Rome has been teaching for the past five hundred years.
Resistible Grace
The “federal vision” teaches that the saving grace of God in Christ is universal within the sphere of the covenant, but that this grace can be resisted and lost. Everyone who is baptized, particularly every child of believing parents who is baptized, is savingly united to Christ, although many later fall away and perish:
Baptismal Regeneration
The movement teaches baptismal regeneration. The ceremony of sprinkling with water in the name of the triune God effects the temporary regeneration and salvation of everyone baptized. It effects regeneration by the power of the Spirit, but the ceremony regenerates and saves everyone who is baptized, particularly every infant of godly parents. This regeneration and salvation can be lost. “The threshold into union with Christ, new life in the Spirit, and covenant membership in the family of God is actually crossed when the child is baptized” (Lusk, 109).
The advocates of the “federal vision” teach the falling away of covenant saints from saving covenant grace. They teach the falling away of saints aggressively. The falling away of covenant saints is one of their favorite doctrines:
A Conditional Covenant
The root of the heresy is an erroneous doctrine of the covenant. The doctrine of the covenant being developed by the movement teaches that God graciously makes His covenant with all the children of believers alike. In the sphere of the covenant, regarding all baptized babies without exception, grace is universal. The movement is one of covenantal universalism. But the covenant is conditional. Whether the covenant is continued with a child, whether a child continues in the covenant, whether a child continues to enjoy union with Christ and covenant grace, and whether a child is finally saved by the grace of the covenant depend upon the child’s faith and obedience. The movement is full-fledged Arminianism in the realm of the covenant.
In short, the error whence all the denial of sovereign, particular, irresistible grace springs is a covenant doctrine that refuses to permit God’s election to control covenant grace and salvation.
The Reformed creeds mean nothing to these men, all of whom loudly protest that they are Reformed. The Canons of Dordt reject the Arminian heresy that “there is one election unto faith and another unto salvation, so that election can be unto justifying faith without being a decisive election unto salvation.” The reason is that this teaching is a fancy of men’s minds, invented regardless of the Scriptures, whereby the doctrine of election is
With cavalier disregard for the teaching of the Reformed creeds, James B. Jordan denies that Jesus merited salvation for His people. “Nowhere [in Scripture] is Jesus’ accomplishment spoken of as earning salvation” (192). “What we receive is not Jesus’ merits, but His maturity, His glorification” (195).
Absurdity and “Fuzzy-edged Mystery”
James Jordan’s presence in the book is significant. Jordan is one of the old-guard Christian Reconstructionists, involved in the fiasco of Tyler, Texas, where an early attempt to bring in Christian Reconstruction’s earthly kingdom died aborning. Jordan connects the original movement of Christian Reconstruction with its contemporary manifestation. It should not be overlooked that most of the men of the “federal vision” are zealots on behalf of postmillennial Christian Reconstruction.
James B. Jordan is the wildest hare started by Christian Reconstruction. His speciality is allegorical, fantastical exegesis. In comparison with Jordan, Origen and Harold Camping are pikers. According to Jordan, Adam in Paradise would eventually have eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with God’s approval. Adam would then have died a “good-death.” By this “good-death,” he would have been glorified, maturing into eternal life. This would have enabled Adam to fight the dragon for a while in the unfallen world at large. But Adam would have needed help. Help would have appeared in the form, not of St. George or Frodo, but of the incarnate Son of God. The eternal Son would have become incarnate even if Adam had remained obedient. But the incarnate Son likewise would have passed through the “good-death” of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so that He too could “mature.” This fantasy is further embellished by Jordan with mind-boggling theories about garments and distinctions among animal, vegetable, and mineral (151-200).
If James Jordan is the exegete of the “federal vision,” the movement is not only heretical but also absurd.
The absurd is the unintelligible.
Theological unintelligibility does not trouble Rich Lusk. Bravely drawing the inevitable conclusion from his premise that the Bible is not logical, Lusk is content to “live with fuzzy-edged mystery” (279). “Fuzzy-edged mystery” is “federal vision” language for ignorance. The specific area in which Lusk is content to live in his “fuzzy-edged mystery” is the Biblical doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Lusk readily admits that his doctrine of an illogical Bible, which is full of contradictions, particularly concerning the perseverance of the saints, derives from his “biblical theological/redemptive-historical” method of interpreting the Bible, in opposition to what Lusk calls a “systematic/dogmatic” method (280).
In fact, Lusk’s “fuzzy-edged mystery” is due to his denial that Holy Scripture as the inspired Word of God is non-contradictory and logical, as non-contradictory and logical as the God whose Word it is. As the written Word of God, Scripture is clear, sharp-edged, and certain revelation, particularly of God’s preservation unto glory of every recipient of His grace. Scripture is clear, sharp-edged, and certain to faith.
“Luther’s Malady”
It falls to Steve Schlissel to make the most despicable attack on the Gospel of grace. Schlissel calls Luther’s knowledge of himself as a guilty sinner before a just God, out of which Spirit-worked knowledge came his understanding of the Bible’s Gospel of justification by faith alone, “Luther’s malady” (255). Luther’s sickness! Justification by faith alone, therefore, is a diseased doctrine. Since justification by faith alone is the cornerstone of the entire Reformation Gospel, the entire Reformation Gospel of sovereign grace is sick.
This “malady,” the men of the “federal vision” are determined to cure by a massive infusion of works-righteousness into the theology of Presbyterian and Reformed churches and into the spiritual lives of Presbyterian and Reformed people. The device by which works-righteousness is injected into the bloodstream of the churches and people influenced by the “federal vision” is the doctrine of a conditional covenant.
The heresy of the “federal vision” is deep and broad. It penetrates to the heart of the Gospel, and it extends to all the doctrines of grace. It can be refuted and rooted out only by the doctrine of a covenant of unconditional, particular grace. And this is why the Presbyterian and Reformed churches where the heresy is boldly taught are both unwilling and unable to resist it.
Many in the conservative Presbyterian denominations are waking up, rubbing their eyes, and beginning to see that their communions are embroiled in a controversy that they never dreamed could have arisen in their Reformed churches. The controversy is over the nature and definition of justification. This debate is shaking the foundations of these denominations and is having a distinctly polarizing effect within them and between them.
It behooves every pastor and elder, the overseers of their flocks, to study and assess the now conflicting views that are being proposed regarding the nature of justification – a primary doctrinal concern of the Protestant Reformation. Much excellent material is being written and published regarding this debate.
One of the best books is Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul by Guy Prentiss Waters, B.A. in Greek and Latin, University of Pennsylvania; M.Div., Westminster Theological Seminary; and Ph.D., Duke University (concentrations in New Testament, Old Testament, and Ancient Judaism).
At Duke, Dr. Waters studied under Richard B. Hays and E. P. Sanders, two leading expositors of the New Perspectives on Paul. Dr. Waters is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Institute for Biblical Research. He is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in America.
D. A. Carson, well known New Testament scholar, has written of Waters' book:
In the Preface, projecting the course along which his arguments will run, Waters writes, "I will…attempt to explain why officers and congregants within Reformed and evangelical churches find the New Perspectives on Paul attractive, and why such interest often attends interest in the theology of Norman Shepherd and the theology represented in the September 2002 statement of the session of the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church."
Among the reasons for writing this book, Waters, in the Preface, writes, "I want to illustrate the ways in which the New Perspectives on Paul deviate from the doctrines set forth in the Westminster Standards. I also want to show how Reformed theology surpasses the New Perspectives on Paul in explaining Paul's statements regarding the law, the righteousness of God, justification, and a host of other topics and doctrines."
Waters concludes his book with these remarks:
Notes
Editors Note: This essay is reprinted from the November 2005 issue of The Protestant Reformed Theological Journal.
Written by several of the leading proponents of the heresy now solidly entrenched in most of the reputedly conservative Presbyterian and Reformed churches, and spreading, The Federal Vision[1] brazenly defends justification by works; universal covenant grace to every child of believing parents, if not to every person sprinkled with water in the name of the triune God; an election unto grace that fails to save; baptismal regeneration; and the falling away of many who were once united to Christ. Among the authors are Steve Wilkins, John Barach, Rich Lusk, Peter J. Leithart, Steve Schlissel, James Jordan, and Douglas Wilson.
Justification by Works
The movement that calls itself the “federal vision”[2] teaches justification by the obedience of the sinner. “The presuppositions undergirding Paul’s statement [in Romans 2:13] include the facts that the Law is ‘obeyable,’ that truly responding to the Law (the Word) in faith does justify” (Schlissel, 260). Romans 2:13 states that “the doers of the law shall be justified.” Schlissel’s comment on the text, that the “Law is ‘obeyable,’” affirms justification by deeds of obedience to the law.
Schlissel denies that Romans 3:28 has any and all human works in view when it speaks of the “deeds of the law”: “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Rather, the reference is only to “Jewish” deeds, that is, ceremonial works done with the motive of meriting salvation (260, 261). According to Schlissel, the apostle merely excludes “Jewish” deeds from justification. Other deeds, deeds performed by the believer in the power of true faith, are included in justification. The Apostle Paul concluded that a man is justified by faith without deeds — any deed and all deeds. Steve Schlissel concludes that a man is justified by faith with deeds — deeds performed by faith.
Peter Leithart charges the Reformation with distorting the truth of justification: “The Reformation doctrine of justification has illegitimately narrowed and to some extent distorted the biblical doctrine” (209). The distortion is the Reformation’s sharply distinguishing justification and sanctification and its insistence that justification is a verdict (211, 213). Leithart argues that justification in Scripture has “a much wider scope of application than the strictly judicial” (209). In fact, according to Leithart, “justifying is never merely declaring a verdict” (213; the emphasis is the author’s). Justification is also the sanctifying work of God within the sinner enabling him to perform good works, which then become part of his righteousness with God, as Rome has been teaching for the past five hundred years.
Resistible Grace
The “federal vision” teaches that the saving grace of God in Christ is universal within the sphere of the covenant, but that this grace can be resisted and lost. Everyone who is baptized, particularly every child of believing parents who is baptized, is savingly united to Christ, although many later fall away and perish:
Non-elect covenant members are actually brought to Christ, united to Him and the Church in baptism, receive various gracious operations of the Holy Spirit, and may even be said to be loved by God for a time…. In some sense, they were really joined to the elect people, really sanctified by Christ’s blood, and really recipients of new life given by the Holy Spirit. The sacraments they received had objective force and efficacy [Lusk, 288].
God truly brings those people into His covenant, into union with Christ. They are “in Him,” to use Jesus’ words in John 15. They share in His blessings (think of Hebrews 6). They experience His love, but that covenant relationship is conditional. It calls for repentance and faith and new obedience. God’s choice was not conditional, but life in the covenant is [Barach, 37; the emphasis is the author’s].The new covenant theology in the Reformed and Presbyterian churches teaches that election fails to save many whom God chooses. It teaches that the eternal election of Ephesians 1:4 and Colossians 3:12 fails to save many who are the objects of this gracious choice. “And yet not all who are united to the Elect One, Jesus Christ, remain in Him and fulfill the high vocation that election brings with it. It is still to be seen who will persevere and who will fall away from within the elect people” (Lusk, 294).
Baptismal Regeneration
The movement teaches baptismal regeneration. The ceremony of sprinkling with water in the name of the triune God effects the temporary regeneration and salvation of everyone baptized. It effects regeneration by the power of the Spirit, but the ceremony regenerates and saves everyone who is baptized, particularly every infant of godly parents. This regeneration and salvation can be lost. “The threshold into union with Christ, new life in the Spirit, and covenant membership in the family of God is actually crossed when the child is baptized” (Lusk, 109).
The advocates of the “federal vision” teach the falling away of covenant saints from saving covenant grace. They teach the falling away of saints aggressively. The falling away of covenant saints is one of their favorite doctrines:
Those who ultimately prove to be reprobate may be in covenant with God. They may enjoy for a season the blessings of the covenant, including the forgiveness of sins, adoption, possession of the kingdom, sanctification, etc., and yet apostatize and fall short of the grace of God [Wilkins, 62].
Clearly, then, Hebrews 6:4-8 teaches the possibility of a real apostasy. Some people do indeed fall away, and it is a real fall from grace. Apostates actually lose blessings they once possessed. Apostasy is so terribly heinous precisely because it is sin against grace [Lusk, 274; the emphasis is the author’s].Lusk manages to incorporate all of the false doctrines mentioned above in a paragraph that could have been written by James Arminius or Cardinal Bellarmine:
All covenant members are invited to attain to a full and robust confidence that they are God’s eternally elect ones. Starting with their baptisms, they have every reason to believe God loves them and desires their eternal salvation. Baptism marks them out as God’s elect people, a status they maintain so long as they persevere in faithfulness. By looking to Christ alone, the preeminently Elect One, the One who kept covenant to the end and is the Author and Finisher of the faith of God’s people, they may find assurance. But those who take their eyes off Christ, who desert the Church where His presence is found, who forsake the external means of salvation, will make shipwreck of their faith and prove to have received the grace of God in vain [289].The “federal vision” rejects sovereign grace in the sphere of the covenant. In the sphere of the covenant, particularly among the children of believers, election fails, Christ died for all, grace is resistible, justification is by works, saved saints fall away to perdition, and salvation depends on the will of the sinner.
A Conditional Covenant
The root of the heresy is an erroneous doctrine of the covenant. The doctrine of the covenant being developed by the movement teaches that God graciously makes His covenant with all the children of believers alike. In the sphere of the covenant, regarding all baptized babies without exception, grace is universal. The movement is one of covenantal universalism. But the covenant is conditional. Whether the covenant is continued with a child, whether a child continues in the covenant, whether a child continues to enjoy union with Christ and covenant grace, and whether a child is finally saved by the grace of the covenant depend upon the child’s faith and obedience. The movement is full-fledged Arminianism in the realm of the covenant.
In short, the error whence all the denial of sovereign, particular, irresistible grace springs is a covenant doctrine that refuses to permit God’s election to control covenant grace and salvation.
[Hebrews 6 and similar] passages simply speak of the undifferentiated grace of God [Lusk, 275, 276; the emphasis is the author’s].
God truly brings those people into His covenant, into union with Christ. They are “in Him,” to use Jesus’ words in John 15. They share in His blessings (think of Hebrews 6). They experience His love, but that covenant relationship is conditional. It calls for repentance and faith and new obedience. God’s choice was not conditional, but life in the covenant is [Barach, 37].
To be in covenant is to have the treasures of God’s mercy and grace and the love which He has for His own Son given to you. But the covenant is not unconditional. It requires persevering faithfulness.... The covenant is dependent upon persevering faith [Wilkins, 64, 65; the emphasis is the author’s].
Our salvation covenant with the Lord is like a marriage. If we persevere in loyalty to Christ, we will live with Him happily ever after. If we break the marriage covenant, He will divorce us [Lusk, 285, 286].Contempt for the Creeds
The Reformed creeds mean nothing to these men, all of whom loudly protest that they are Reformed. The Canons of Dordt reject the Arminian heresy that “there is one election unto faith and another unto salvation, so that election can be unto justifying faith without being a decisive election unto salvation.” The reason is that this teaching is a fancy of men’s minds, invented regardless of the Scriptures, whereby the doctrine of election is
corrupted, and this golden chain of our salvation is broken: “And whom He foreordained, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Romans 8:30) [Canons of Dordt, I, Rejection of Errors/2].Contradicting the Canons and breaking the “golden chain of our salvation” bother Rich Lusk not at all. With (undocumented) appeal to Augustine, he distinguishes a “predestination unto grace,” which is only temporary and does “not lead to final salvation,” from “predestination unto perseverance,” which does issue in final salvation (275).
With cavalier disregard for the teaching of the Reformed creeds, James B. Jordan denies that Jesus merited salvation for His people. “Nowhere [in Scripture] is Jesus’ accomplishment spoken of as earning salvation” (192). “What we receive is not Jesus’ merits, but His maturity, His glorification” (195).
Absurdity and “Fuzzy-edged Mystery”
James Jordan’s presence in the book is significant. Jordan is one of the old-guard Christian Reconstructionists, involved in the fiasco of Tyler, Texas, where an early attempt to bring in Christian Reconstruction’s earthly kingdom died aborning. Jordan connects the original movement of Christian Reconstruction with its contemporary manifestation. It should not be overlooked that most of the men of the “federal vision” are zealots on behalf of postmillennial Christian Reconstruction.
James B. Jordan is the wildest hare started by Christian Reconstruction. His speciality is allegorical, fantastical exegesis. In comparison with Jordan, Origen and Harold Camping are pikers. According to Jordan, Adam in Paradise would eventually have eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with God’s approval. Adam would then have died a “good-death.” By this “good-death,” he would have been glorified, maturing into eternal life. This would have enabled Adam to fight the dragon for a while in the unfallen world at large. But Adam would have needed help. Help would have appeared in the form, not of St. George or Frodo, but of the incarnate Son of God. The eternal Son would have become incarnate even if Adam had remained obedient. But the incarnate Son likewise would have passed through the “good-death” of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so that He too could “mature.” This fantasy is further embellished by Jordan with mind-boggling theories about garments and distinctions among animal, vegetable, and mineral (151-200).
If James Jordan is the exegete of the “federal vision,” the movement is not only heretical but also absurd.
The absurd is the unintelligible.
Theological unintelligibility does not trouble Rich Lusk. Bravely drawing the inevitable conclusion from his premise that the Bible is not logical, Lusk is content to “live with fuzzy-edged mystery” (279). “Fuzzy-edged mystery” is “federal vision” language for ignorance. The specific area in which Lusk is content to live in his “fuzzy-edged mystery” is the Biblical doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Lusk readily admits that his doctrine of an illogical Bible, which is full of contradictions, particularly concerning the perseverance of the saints, derives from his “biblical theological/redemptive-historical” method of interpreting the Bible, in opposition to what Lusk calls a “systematic/dogmatic” method (280).
In fact, Lusk’s “fuzzy-edged mystery” is due to his denial that Holy Scripture as the inspired Word of God is non-contradictory and logical, as non-contradictory and logical as the God whose Word it is. As the written Word of God, Scripture is clear, sharp-edged, and certain revelation, particularly of God’s preservation unto glory of every recipient of His grace. Scripture is clear, sharp-edged, and certain to faith.
“Luther’s Malady”
It falls to Steve Schlissel to make the most despicable attack on the Gospel of grace. Schlissel calls Luther’s knowledge of himself as a guilty sinner before a just God, out of which Spirit-worked knowledge came his understanding of the Bible’s Gospel of justification by faith alone, “Luther’s malady” (255). Luther’s sickness! Justification by faith alone, therefore, is a diseased doctrine. Since justification by faith alone is the cornerstone of the entire Reformation Gospel, the entire Reformation Gospel of sovereign grace is sick.
This “malady,” the men of the “federal vision” are determined to cure by a massive infusion of works-righteousness into the theology of Presbyterian and Reformed churches and into the spiritual lives of Presbyterian and Reformed people. The device by which works-righteousness is injected into the bloodstream of the churches and people influenced by the “federal vision” is the doctrine of a conditional covenant.
The heresy of the “federal vision” is deep and broad. It penetrates to the heart of the Gospel, and it extends to all the doctrines of grace. It can be refuted and rooted out only by the doctrine of a covenant of unconditional, particular grace. And this is why the Presbyterian and Reformed churches where the heresy is boldly taught are both unwilling and unable to resist it.
Many in the conservative Presbyterian denominations are waking up, rubbing their eyes, and beginning to see that their communions are embroiled in a controversy that they never dreamed could have arisen in their Reformed churches. The controversy is over the nature and definition of justification. This debate is shaking the foundations of these denominations and is having a distinctly polarizing effect within them and between them.
It behooves every pastor and elder, the overseers of their flocks, to study and assess the now conflicting views that are being proposed regarding the nature of justification – a primary doctrinal concern of the Protestant Reformation. Much excellent material is being written and published regarding this debate.
One of the best books is Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul by Guy Prentiss Waters, B.A. in Greek and Latin, University of Pennsylvania; M.Div., Westminster Theological Seminary; and Ph.D., Duke University (concentrations in New Testament, Old Testament, and Ancient Judaism).
At Duke, Dr. Waters studied under Richard B. Hays and E. P. Sanders, two leading expositors of the New Perspectives on Paul. Dr. Waters is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Institute for Biblical Research. He is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in America.
D. A. Carson, well known New Testament scholar, has written of Waters' book:
In the last few years there have been several careful evaluations and critiques of the New Perspective. This one excels for its combination of simplicity, fair-dealing, historical awareness, and penetration. For the pastor who is vaguely aware of the debates, but who has little mastery of the confusing details, this book's careful presentation of each scholar's position is a model of accuracy and clarity. Even those who have been pondering the issues for years will see some things in a fresh light. The ability of Waters to combine exegetical, historical, biblical-theological, and systematic reflections, and all in relatively brief compass, enhances the credibility of the argument. Combine these virtues with pedagogically helpful chapter summaries and an annotated bibliography, and it is easy to see why this book deserves wide circulation.In reading this book, this reviewer was fascinated by the historical links the author establishes between the early exponents of the "historical-critical" school, F. C. Bauer and Wilhelm Bousset, through Albert Schweitzer, to Rudolph Bultmann and Ernst Kasemann, with the major authors of the New Perspective, E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn and N. T. Wright. Waters has skillfully traced the affinities of the heterodox positions of this two hundred year-old line of critical descent with the contemporary advocates of the New Perspectives on Paul, and beyond that, with Reformed circles close to home.
In the Preface, projecting the course along which his arguments will run, Waters writes, "I will…attempt to explain why officers and congregants within Reformed and evangelical churches find the New Perspectives on Paul attractive, and why such interest often attends interest in the theology of Norman Shepherd and the theology represented in the September 2002 statement of the session of the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church."
Among the reasons for writing this book, Waters, in the Preface, writes, "I want to illustrate the ways in which the New Perspectives on Paul deviate from the doctrines set forth in the Westminster Standards. I also want to show how Reformed theology surpasses the New Perspectives on Paul in explaining Paul's statements regarding the law, the righteousness of God, justification, and a host of other topics and doctrines."
Waters concludes his book with these remarks:
All expressions of Christianity are on the path to one of two destinations, Rome or Geneva. What the New Perspectives on Paul offer us is decidedly not “Genevan”…. It seems that there are elements active in the Reformed churches that wish to lead the church into a sacramental religion, all in the name of being “more Reformed.” If we examine their arguments carefully, we see that what they are really and increasingly saying is that Luther and Calvin were mistaken, and that Trent was right. May God give us grace that we may not squander the rich theological heritage bequeathed to us by the Reformers, historic British Calvinism, and American Presbyterianism. May we model, in spirit and teaching, that “pattern of teaching” preserved so faithfully by our forefathers.After reading this book, it has become clearer to this reviewer that those in Reformed circles who have fallen under the influence of Sanders, Dunn, and Wright – whether they are conscious of it or not – are rejecting the federal theology of the Westminster Standards and are promoting, not just a refinement of the doctrine of justification, but a completely new system of doctrine.
Notes
- The Federal Vision, Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner, editors. Monroe, Louisiana: Athanasius Press, 2004. 299 pages, $21.95 (paper).
- “Vision: 1a: something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy, specifically a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation; b: an object of imagination....2a: the act or power of imagination....”
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