AGAINST CHRISTIANITY

by John W. Robbins  

Against Christianity 
Peter Leithart 
Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2003 
Trade paperback, 154 pages, no index

Dr. Peter Leithart, who holds graduate degrees from Westminster Theological Seminary and Cambridge University, is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, a “Senior Fellow” of Theology and Literature at New St. Andrews College (Moscow, Idaho), and the author of several books published by Canon Press. His essays have appeared in the Westminster (Seminary) Theological Journal, Credenda/Agenda magazine (Douglas Wilson, editor), Biblical Horizons (James Jordan, editor), First Things  (Richard John Neuhaus, editor), and elsewhere. Leithart is opposed to Christianity, as the title of his latest book shows.  

Leithart describes his book as “bricolage,” which is French for “puttering,” an English word meaning “moving or acting aimlessly, idly, randomly.” His book is written in the disjointed, oracular style of Friedrich Nietzsche, to whom Leithart (pronounced “light‐heart”) invites comparison. Nietzsche wrote about Antichrist. Leithart writes Against Christianity.  

Some readers, still sleeping, might object, “But Leithart can’t  mean by ‘Christianity’ what the word ordinarily means.” But that is precisely the point: Leithart  does use the word “Christianity” in its ordinary sense as the name of a set of theological beliefs or a doctrinal system. Those readers have simply not been paying attention: There are prominent men in the PCA, a denomination that professes to believe the Westminster Confession of Faith, that deny openly and loudly, not merely in their cups, cardinal doctrines of the faith, and attack the Gospel publicly, aggressively, and with impunity. There is apparently no one in the PCA with the intelligence, the integrity, and the courage to identify them publicly as the Antichristians they are, and no court in the PCA has brought charges against them, let alone convicted them of heresy and removed them from office. The PCA heretics, far from being removed from office, are protected by a phalanx of pseudoPresbyterian grunts who stubbornly defend them and attack anyone who criticizes them. This writer is acquainted with Elders who have left the PCA because it was impossible for them to discipline heretics entrenched in that organization.

Here is Leithart’s opening barrage against Christianity:

The Bible never mentions Christianity. It does not preach Christianity, nor does it encourage us to preach Christianity. Paul did not preach Christianity, nor did any of the other apostles. During centuries when the Church was strong and vibrant, she did not preach Christianity either. Christianity, like Judaism and “Yahwism,” is an invention of biblical scholars, theologians, and politicians, and one of its chief effects is to keep Christians and the Church in their proper marginal place. The Bible speaks of Christians and of the Church, but Christianity is gnostic, and the Church firmly rejected gnosticism from her earliest days.

Christianity is the heresy of heresies, the underlying cause of the weakness, lethargy, sickness, and failure of the modern church [13]. 

He later repeats paragraph 1 on page 43, substituting the word “theology” for the word “Christianity.”

The reader may be forgiven if he is shocked at Leithart’s vicious diatribe against Christianity. The reader may have thought that the root problem of the modern church is its lack of Christianity. How foolish of him. It is not the lack of Christianity that has caused the failure of the modern church, but Christianity itself, at least according to PCA minister and Westminster Seminary grad Leithart. Christianity is “gnostic” (Leithart either does not know what the word means, or he deliberately misuses the word) and the “heresy of heresies.” Leithart writes with the audacity of an apostate who understands that there is no court in the PCA that will accuse him, let alone remove him from office.  

Leithart writes in the manic, episodic style of the 19th century atheist Friedrich Nietzsche, though Leithart does not enjoy Nietzsche’s talent for epigrams. And Nietzsche is not the only 19th century atheist that Leithart resembles: In the opening paragraph of his book, Leithart adopts the sociology of Karl Marx in his attack on Christianity. Christianity, Leithart says, is an “ideology” developed by the ruling class (politicians and the intelligentsia) whose effect is to “keep Christians and the Church in their proper marginal place.” Like Marx, Leithart regards Christian theology as an “ideology” developed and used for political and sociological purposes.  

In addition to writing like one 19th century atheist and parroting the sociology of another, Leithart makes one logical blunder after another. Christianity, Leithart says, is the “heresy of heresies.” This is reminiscent of another 19th century socialist, the Frenchman Proudhon, who informed the world that “Property is theft.” Leithart’s statement is reminiscent of Proudhon’s, because both statements are literal nonsense, and for the same reason: The concepts theft and heresy logically depend on the concepts property and theological truth respectively. Theft and heresy can be understood and defined only within the context of property and theological truth. One cannot speak of theft in a universe in which there is no property; and one cannot speak of heresy in a universe in which there is no true theology, Christianity. The concept heresy requires and depends on the concept Christianity. An idea is heretical only if it differs from Christianity. To say that Christianity itself is heresy is to talk sheer nonsense.  

And sheer nonsense is what Leithart talks. The trouble is, most professing Christians, if they were to read this evil little book, would not realize that Leithart is talking nonsense. They are so accustomed to hearing sanctimonious nonsense from the pulpit nonsense‐in‐vestments that wannabe priests solemnly intone as “mysteries,” “paradoxes,” “antinomies,” and “tensions” – that they can no longer tell theological truth from theological lies.
 
Leithart continues: “I have stated a simple fact: the word ‘Christianity’ does not appear in the Bible, so it is quite impossible for the Bible to encourage us to believe or preach or practice Christianity”. Since Leithart is woodenly literal, let us play along: The Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, so it is not surprising that the English word “Christianity” does not appear in it. But there are plenty of synonyms for “Christianity” in the English Bible: “the faith once delivered to the saints,” “my Word,” “the Scriptures,” “my doctrine,” “my teachings,” “the words of eternal life,” “the whole counsel of God” and so on. All these terms and phrases refer to the revealed propositions that are reduced to writing in the Scriptures. They all refer to a body of theology, a set of doctrines. They refer to Christianity. Christianity is the propositions of the 66 books of  the Bible together  with their  logical  implications. Christianity is the set of Biblical doctrines.  

It is this notion of Christianity as the set of Biblical ideas that Leithart rejects. He writes: “More important, however, is the fact that the Bible does not even have the concept of Christianity. This, of course, begs the question of what I mean by ‘Christianity’” (14). (Leithart shows his ignorance of both logic and English usage by using the phrase “begs the question” incorrectly. The phrase means “to assume as proven what must in fact be demonstrated.” Leithart uses it to mean “raises the question.”) Here is Leithart’s definition of Christianity:

Christianity sometimes refers to a set of doctrines or a system of ideas. It is contrasted with the teachings of Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam. By this definition, Christianity is what Christian people believe about God man, sin, Christ, the world, the future, and so on.    

In his first sentence Leithart describes Christianity  as a “set of doctrines” or a “system of ideas.” It is this notion of Christianity that he opposes. He denounces it as “gnostic” and “rationalist.” This idea – supported by many Scriptures – the idea of “saving knowledge” is the idea Leithart hates and rejects. Then he goes on to say in his third sentence that Christianity “is what Christian people believe.” Tellingly, Leithart does not say that Christianity is what Scripture teaches, but that Christianity is what Christian  people believe. The importance of this will become clear in a moment.  

The notion that Christianity is “what Christian people believe,” if intended to be a definition of Christianity, is, of course, an impossible definition. Leithart cannot know which people are Christian unless he first knows what Christianity is. C. S. Lewis made the same logical blunder in Mere Christianity, where he proposed to define “mere Christianity” as what most Christian people believe. But unless one first knows what Christianity is, one cannot tell which people are Christian. Such empirical definitions are worse than useless; they deceive both the writer and his readers. Leithart’s procedure, as Lewis Carroll pointed out, also, in the 19th century, is equivalent to hunting snarks. But despite the foolishness of their procedure, there is a reason that both Lewis and Leithart make the same blunder: They both wish to deny that the Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture is the only authority, and they both wish to make the Church the religious authority. This will become more clear a little further on.  

Leithart is not content to say that the word ”Christianity” does not appear in the Bible. He denies that the Bible contains even the idea of Christianity. It is missing not merely the word, but more importantly the idea. He explains further:

The Bible, however, never speaks of such beliefs except as all‐embracing, self‐committing confessions of God’s people. The Bible gives no hint that a Christian “belief system” might be isolated from the life of the Church, subjected to a scientific or logical analysis, and have its truth compared with competing “belief systems”.

So Christian apologetics, the intellectual defense of the faith (that is, Christianity) against other belief systems, is not only wrongheaded, but positively un‐Biblical. There is no belief system, no systematic theology, no organized doctrine called Christianity in the Bible, Leithart says. Such doctrine and theology is the “ideology” of a ruling class of politicians and scholars designed to keep Christians and the church in their inferior place. By this tactic, Leithart hopes to disarm anyone inclined to defend Christianity against his attack.  

Furthermore, Leithart tells us that “The Church is not a people united by common ideas, ideas which collectively go under the name ‘Christianity’” (14). But that is precisely what the church is: “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Communion with Christ and with Christians is sharing the same Biblical ideas. It is not eating the same food (that cannot be done in any case, for what one person eats, another cannot eat) nor having the same emotions, but sharing the same theological ideas. That is why Paul wrote to the Philippians saying that he thanked God for “your fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now” (1:5); why he exhorted the Corinthians to ”speak the same thing...be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10). That is why John wrote that he declares the Gospel to his readers so “that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

Leithart’s attack on theology/doctrine/ideas is part of a contemporary, widespread, and diabolical attack on propositional revelation. Scripture is exclusively verbal and propositional; it is not sensory or pictorial. Divine revelation consists of words, not images; it is addressed to the intellect, not  to the senses; and there is nothing sensate or “sacramental” about it. Leithart’s goal, and the goal of men like him through the centuries, is to replace the invisible Word with something visible – pictures, images, icons, statues, the sacraments, the institutional church, the priesthood, the Vicar of Christ. In their Antichristian religion, the visible, not the invisible, dispenses salvation. They cannot abide the notion that

...that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said unto you, You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit [John 3:6‐8].       

Their religion, the religion of Leithart and his friends, is a descent into Magic – an attempt by earthy, sensate men to control spiritual things by their rituals, symbols, and incantations. That is why they teach that water baptism makes sinners into Christians; that the sacraments are efficacious in themselves; that there is no invisible church; and so on. Theirs, of course, is not the brilliant, pioneering thinking they foolishly think it is. They are traveling a superhighway built and paved by apostate churchmen in the Middle Ages when the light of the invisible Word was eclipsed by the darkness of the visible church, priestcraft, and the idolatry of icon, statue, relic, sacrament, and pope. Theirs is a religion of Medieval Magic. (The reader should consult Carlos Eire’s book War Against the Idols, available from The Foundation.)  

Leithart admits that “the New Testament does use [the word] ‘faith’ to refer to a set of teachings,” but he effectively denies what the New Testament teaches  by adding to it: “‘Faith’ stretches out to include one’s entire ‘stance’ in life, a stance that encompasses beliefs about the world but also unarticulated or inarticulable attitudes, hopes, and habits of thought, action, or feeling.” To support this notion of faith as inarticulable attitudes and feeling, he cites the phrase “one mind” in Philippians 1:27, which passage I quote in full:

Only let your conduct be worthy of the Gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake....

Far from supporting Leithart’s point, this verse asserts what Leithart denies. Paul is exhorting the Philippians to act like the  Christians they are, and with single mindedness of purpose to suffer for “the faith of the Gospel” that they believe. There is nothing “inarticulable” or “unarticulated” about the faith. As for feeling, Paul’s command is that they should not be terrified “in any way,” but remain calm in the face of opposition and persecution.    

Leithart continues his attack on Christianity:

The Bible, in short, is not an ideological tract, and does not teach an ideology. Scripture does present a certain view of the world that has true propositional content. But [you knew that “but” was coming] it is an error, and a fatal one, to suggest that, once we have systematized the propositional content of Scripture, the result is a “worldview” called Christianity to which we can give our assent.... [14‐15].

Leithart finishes the sentence, “and there is an end.” Of course, no Christian theologian ever said “there is an end,” and Leithart quotes no theologian saying that. What he is attacking are the ideas that (1) systematic Christian theology is a “worldview,” that is, a set of doctrines; and that (2) one can assent  to Christianity. It is not only understanding Biblical doctrine (that is, Christianity) that Leithart attacks, but also assenting to Christian doctrine. Christians, he thinks, are made “sacramentally” and communally by authorized representatives of the church; they are not made spiritually and individually by the Holy Spirit directly changing the minds  of  men. “The Church,” Leithart  pontificates, “is salvation” (32, emphasis is Leithart’s). By this declaration he denies Christ’s statement, “My words are Spirit and they are life.” By his declaration Leithart intends to outdo the Romanists, whom he criticizes for having an inadequate view of the Church, thinking that it merely dispenses salvation, when in fact the Church is salvation.

Lest a reader erroneously think that all this is academic and somehow irrelevant to “real life,” I shall continue to quote from Leithart: “What Jesus and the apostles proclaimed was not a new ideology or a new religion.... What they proclaimed was salvation, and that meant a new human world, a new social and political reality” (16).

A century ago, ordinary Presbyterian churchgoers would have recognized Leithart’s words as the language of Liberalism and unbelief, the sociological drivel of Walter Rauschenbusch and his cohorts. But their great grandchildren cannot. They have been so confused by the social  gospel, particularly by its right wing form called Reconstructionism, that they cannot even recognize an attack on the Gospel of Jesus Christ by a Presbyterian churchman.  

Leithart enthusiastically adopts the term and the idea of the “social gospel”:

Since the gospel is about the restoration of the human race in Christ, the gospel is a social gospel from the very outset [38].  ...thus the gospel is sociology and international relations....  ...thus the gospel is politics.... If we are going to stand for this gospel, we must stand against Christianity [40].

Leithart, of course, is simply parroting Anglican bishop N. T. Wright and a dozen other apostate academics when he writes that “the gospel is politics.” Notice that Leithart has come full circle: He began by denouncing Christianity as an “ideology” developed by politicians and the intelligentsia who use it to keep ordinary Christians in their place. Now he asserts that his gospel – which he emphatically denies is Christianity – is inherently political, and that “salvation” means “a new social and political reality.” It is Leithart who substitutes politics for soteriology and political ideology for theology. He falsely accuses others of what he himself is doing.  

Later, in a chapter titled “Against Ethics,” Leithart writes,

Transformation of life, including social and political life, is not an “implication” of the gospel.... Transformation of life is not an implication of the gospel but inherent in the gospel, because the good news is about transformation of life [97].

In writing this, Leithart makes clear that he has a different message, another gospel, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not about transformation of life. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about Jesus Christ and his finished work completely outside of us. The Gospel is not subjective, but objective. It is not about us, but about him. All forms of false religion that have a doctrine of salvation teach that their good news, their gospel, is about “transformation  of  life.” Only Christianity, the uniquely true theology, says that the Gospel is good news about the forgiveness of sins through Christ’s substitutionary atonement and the imputation of his perfect righteousness to believers. Missing from Leithart’s gospel is any mention of, let alone discussion of, man’s sin, God’s justice, the propitiation of God’s wrath by the death of Jesus Christ, and the imputation of his righteousness to sinners through belief alone. That is the “gnostic theology,” the “belief system,” that Leithart hates.

Leithart is thoroughgoing in his Antichristianity: “Conversion thus means turning from one way of life, one culture, to another.” In Leithart’s religion, which is not Christianity, conversion is cultural and social. It is not spiritual, intellectual, or individual, despite Paul’s command, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). The Greek word Paul uses, nous, is as thoroughly intellectual in its connotation as the English words “mind” and “intellect.” Paul emphasizes the transformation of the mind, but Leithart finds that “gnostic” and “rationalist.”    

Like the rest of the medievalists in Moscow, Leithart is opposed to “modernity.” He explains, “Modernity refers to the civilization of the West since about 1500ʺ (17) – that is, since the Reformation. In the modern world, he laments, “Every individual and every group chooses its own values.” Leithart longs for the good old days of iron clothing and serfdom when a totalitarian Church‐State imposed its values on nations and individuals. He denounces political “liberalism,” by which he means freedom, not statism. What really annoys Leithart in the field of politics is the idea of freedom, especially the idea of religious freedom. He writes, “the  American church‐state settlement is founded on heretical ecclesiology. It is founded on Christianity” (35). The “liberal order,” by which Leithart means civil freedom, particularly religious freedom, “is a thoroughly hostile environment” (36). Leithart composes an obscene dialogue, which he sacrilegiously calls a parable, to augment his attack on religious freedom (135).
 
Leithart wants to save his beloved Dark Ages from being blamed for Christianity. He writes, “Though it has its roots in the patristic period, Christianity in its more developed form is the Church’s adjustment of the gospel to modernity....” So, his words imply, Christianity has developed since the time of the Reformation. He continues: “Christianity is institutionalized worldliness, worldliness accepted in principle, worldliness not at the margins but at the center, worldliness built into the foundation“ (17).  

Christianity, that is, the faith once delivered to the saints, is not merely the “heresy of heresies,” but “institutionalized worldliness.” Could Leithart’s hatred of Christianity be stated any more clearly? Nietzsche himself did no better.  

Leithart’s Antichristian theology – his Antichristianity – parts of which are set forth in this book, lead him to oppose economic as well as religious freedom. “McDonaldization” is a threat, because it represents “capitalist economic institutions” (34); “...what the world calls the ‘operations of the market’ the Church must sometimes label as oppression of the needy and grinding the faces of the poor”. Leithart is a socialist opposed to both religious and economic freedom. He is a devout medievalist, that is, a devout totalitarian.  

Chapter 2, titled “Against Theology,” is a continued attack on Christian theology. Leithart does not realize  that  he himself has a theology, so his title “Against Theology,” opposes his own theology. What he really means to say is “Against Christian Theology.” He is not opposed to his own Antichristian theology. He writes:

Formally, the Bible is not a “theology text” or a “catechism” that arranges doctrines in a systematic order. Paul’s epistles have often been treated as mini‐textbooks, but they are manifestly not. They are epistles, encyclicals, addressing specific issues in the churches.... Form cannot be stripped away without changing content, and when Paul’s various statements on, say, justification, are removed from the epistolary and ecclesiastical context and organized into a calm and systematic and erudite “doctrine,” they become something different from what Paul taught [43‐44].

In this paragraph Leithart denies that the chapter on justification in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which, as a PCA minister he has sworn before God and witnesses he believes and teaches, is Biblical. Not only that, he denies that every other chapter in the Confession is Biblical as well. All the Confession is organized into “calm and systematic and erudite doctrine,” and therefore all the Confession is “different from what Paul [and Moses, Isaiah, and Jesus] taught.”  

Leithart, with the audacity of an apostate who knows that no court in the PCA will rebuke him publicly, let alone remove him from office, attacks the Westminster Confession explicitly:

Theology [specifically chapter 2 of the Westminster Confession] tells us that God is eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.     

The Bible tells us that God relents because He is God (Joel 2:13‐14), that God is “shrewd with the shrewd” (Ps. 18:25‐29), that He rejoices over us with shouting (Zeph. 3:14‐20), and that He is an eternal whirlwind of triune communion and love.

In the first paragraph Leithart quotes the Confession, and in the second paragraph he denies that the Bible teaches what the Confession says. This is an example that stands for the completely general principle that systematic theology is different from and a distortion of Biblical theology. Leithart is not attempting to correct the Confession on a single point; he is asserting that no systematic, calm, organized doctrine can be Biblical. Leithart relentlessly attacks systematic theology as un‐Biblical and untrue.

Leithart arrives at his opinion that all systematic theology must be un‐Biblical and therefore false by taking the principal assumption of so‐called Biblical Theology to one of its Antichristian conclusions. That assumption is that historical events and the chronological order of God’s acts of revealing truth to men are more fundamental than, more important than, and somehow superior to the logical order of God’s thought. It is a denial of this proposition: “Forever, O Lord, your Word is settled in Heaven” (Psalm 119:89).    

Leithart makes his assumptions clear:

With regard to content, theology frequently aims to deal not with the specifics of historical events, but with “timeless truths” of doctrine. But the content of Scripture almost wholly consists of records of historical events, commentary on events in prophecy and epistle, celebration and memorial of events in Psalms, and, occasionally, reflection on the constants of life in the form of Proverbs, not with “timeless truths” (44).

Leithart accepts the primacy of events and depreciates the notion of “timeless truth,” thereby revealing himself as profoundly Antichristian, for Christianity is truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “Timeless truth” is a redundancy, for all truth is timeless. Eternality is an attribute of truth, for God is truth.

This is true, not merely of such truths as 2 + 2 = 4, but of all historical truths as well: There never was a time when Christ was not the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. There never will be a time when Christ will not be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And lest someone think that I have tricked him by using that particular example of an historical event, I hasten to add a trivial example: There never was a time when the proposition “April 19, 2004, was a sunny day in Unicoi, Tennessee” was not true, and there never will be a time when that proposition will not be true. If true propositions about historical events could change into false propositions, they would not be true, and God would not be God. From all eternity God decreed that April 19, 2004, would be a sunny day in Unicoi, Tennessee. It is a timeless, eternal truth. There are no truths that are not eternally true.  

Truth, not historical events, has primacy. Christianity is not events, nor is it based on events. Historical events are the product of God’s eternal decree. They are not surds in the universe. Christ was crucified on a certain date in human history because he was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Systematic theology antedates, produces, and explains all historical events; events do not antedate, produce, or explain theology. Leithart gets the relationship between Biblical theology and systematic theology backwards.

Leithart continues his attack on Christian theology and truth: “Even theology proper [the doctrine of God] does not deal with purely ‘timeless’ realities. And how can a ‘doctrine of the atonement’ be formulated as a set of ‘timeless truths’”?

The answer to this last question has already been given: Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The doctrine of the atonement is a timeless truth that antedates creation. Systematic Christian theology, far from being an ideology developed by politicians, is eternal. It is both chronologically and logically prior to history. Leithart would prefer that the doctrine of the atonement not be true than to admit that it is a timeless truth.  

He writes:

Theology is a product of Christianity and aids in its entrenchment. If theology deals with “timeless truths,” then all the temporal things we encounter in life are outside the range of theology. But everything we encounter in life is temporal. Therefore, all life is outside theology.

First, Leithart’s inference in his second sentence is a glaring non sequitur. His conclusion simply does not follow from his premise. I have already demonstrated – and the Bible is full of such examples – how truths about historical events are in fact eternal and timeless.  

Second, it is a lie that “everything we encounter in life is temporal.” Truth is eternal, not temporal, and we cannot live without thinking truth. We cannot think without using the laws of logic, which are eternally true because they are the way God thinks, and the way we think, because the Logos lights our minds (John 1:9).

Third, rather than all life being outside theology, it is Christian theology that gives life: “The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). Christian theology is living and it grants life to believers: John 1:4; 3:15‐16; 6:68; Philippians 2:16, etc.

One of the reasons Leithart makes such false statements seems to be his pagan notion of what life is. For Leithart, intellectual life is not real life. Real life, reflected in the Bible, not theology, is “hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation and genital emissions” (47). “Theology,” he sneers, “is a ‘Victorian’ enterprise, neoclassically bright and neat and clean, nothing out of place” (47). “Let us not talk of theology. Let us talk about the Church’s language and myth” (51).  

Leithart opens his third chapter, “Against Sacraments,” with criticism of the Reformers for “stripping the altars” (71) of icons, statues, and symbols. Of course, there are no altars – let alone icons, statues, and symbols – in Christian churches, and Leithart’s altar‐call is as pagan and idolatrous as Rome’s. He criticizes the Puritans and Protestants  for their hostility to visible religious symbols. He excoriates

a Protestant tendency toward the “primacy of the intellect.” It is rationalism, in that it reduces baptism and the Supper to a means for communicating information. But that is not what rituals are for. Treating baptism and the Supper as disguised sermons reduces them so they can be encompassed and tamed by Christianity [76‐77].

Leithart derives his theology of rituals and sacraments, not from Scripture, which, to his chagrin and annoyance, contains nothing but true information, but from unbelievers full of disinformation. In fact, he derives his notion of the proper function of Christian sacraments from pagan religious practices in ancient Greece and Rome, quoting Simon Price at length (87‐88). Sacraments are “rituals of a new society, public festivals of a new civic order” (77). What the ancient Greek polis did is what the new Church polis ought to do. What keeps us from seeing this, he opines, is our individualism, and he launches into a diatribe against individuals and individualism. Political liberals are always waxing eloquent about the plight of the poor and needy and their love for “humankind,” but they loath individuals and individualism. Leithart writes: “The only ‘individuals’ in the Bible are idols and their worshipers.... And individualism is part and parcel of the heresy of Christianity” (77).    

While discussing rituals, Leithart thinks of wedding ceremonies, and he discloses that he has no idea what makes a marriage: “Wedding ceremonies do not guard the status quo ante [funerals do, he says] but create a wholly new thing – a marriage – and confer, ex opere operato, a new identity upon a man and woman, the identity of husband and wife.” Of course, wedding ceremonies do no such thing, let alone do it Magically, as Leithart says. (He uses the same Latin phrase Romanists use of the Mass.) What makes a marriage, what transforms an unmarried man and woman into husband and wife, is their articulated words expressing their informed, rational consent to this new relationship. There is nothing magical about it; it is intellectual and rational. Leithart has the same pagan view of what makes a marriage as his friends Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson, whom I have discussed elsewhere. (The interested reader should consult my books A Companion to The Current Justification Controversy and Not Reformed at All: Medievalism in “Reformed” Churches.)
 
Lest the reader think that I have misrepresented Leithart as a sacramentalist (since he titles one of his chapters “Against Sacraments”), I quote: “Since there is no salvation without the Church, since, indeed, the Church is salvation, there is no salvation without the sacraments” (85). But we must understand the sacraments as Leithart teaches, not as Christianity teaches. Christian “sacraments flow out of and promote Christianity; and so I am against sacraments to the degree I am against Christianity” (81). But Leithart’s sacraments are not Christian sacraments: His sacraments work ex opere operato, and they are indispensable to salvation.  

Leithart titles his final chapter “For Constantine.” He likes the fourth century Roman emperor who saw an apparition in the sky, or at least said he did, and became a “Christian.” Leithart likes the idea of Christendom: an empire in which the Church occupies the position of primacy. Leithart writes: “...so long as Christianity reigns, the Church can never convert anything. Unless we renounce Christianity, we will have no Christendom”(123‐124). Leithart is correct in viewing Christianity and Christendom as antithetical. The Christian Reformation of the 16th century shattered medieval Christendom. That is one reason Leithart criticizes the Reformers, Protestants, and Puritans.  

Leithart quotes little Scripture in his book, but he does quote many unbelievers, including Aristotle, the Greek genius whose philosophy has corrupted churches and theologies for centuries; N. T. Wright, an Anglican bishop who promotes false gospels through his many books; the Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger, whom Leithart calls “a prophet from among the Gentiles” (46); and the Romanists de Lubac and Danielou, whom he praises for resurrecting the medieval method of typological exegesis.    

Against Christianity is a brazen attack on Christianity.

Chopping Wood With Handle

Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Part 3

Conquering But Not Conqueror

Calvary at Carmel: Elijah’s Bullock, God’s Lamb

by Agana Agana-Nsiire

Based on 1 Kings 18:21 - 39

One of Elijah's great monuments in Scripture is the victory God gave him and Israel over the god Baal and his priests on Mount Carmel. The event is often recounted for the great show of strength God made in sending down fire to consume the sacrifice. It is also remembered for the boldness of God's prophet in challenging the confident ministers of the heathen god.

While these are important aspects in and of themselves, I would like to explore a layer often unexplored, that weaves all these wonderful pieces of the story into the greater fabric of God's plan to redeem His people from the bondage and allure of sin. The story is a beacon call to revival and reformation amongst God's people.

21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.  

During the period of about 931 BC to 875 BC, that is from King Jeroboam of the newly separated kingdom of Israel to Ahab, the nation of Israel was led steadily into a rejection of their faith in God. Influenced by a succession of idolatrous kings, they were led to accept and adopt the gods of the surrounding nations. The gods Baal and Ashtoreth featured prominently as the objects of their worship, and even amidst the pleading of God's many prophets, they insisted that not the God of Elijah, but Baal, should receive the adoration of the people, for it was Baal, they said, who "brings forth the harvest in its season and provides for man and beast." {Prophets and Kings, pp 124}

It is instructive that the story begins with a call to revival and reformation. Elijah's challenge is not merely aimed at demonstrating an empirical truth,  but at turning the hearts of the children back to their Father. There was as much the wondrous love of God at play that day as there was his awesome power and detest of sin. The stoic philosopher Seneca said that "A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners." God showed Himself completely opposite to that vein of thought, and we will explore how, at Carmel, the same hand of reconciliation that was outstretched at Calvary is plainly to be seen.

Jesus' earthly ministry was aimed at leading the people to a decisive decision for God. No longer should the nation of Israel continue in a feigned acknowledgement of God through empty ceremonies and vain ritual. Jesus sought to rekindle the living spirit of faith within their hearts, and to produce once more a worship that could be wholly consumable by the fire from heaven; a worship pleasing to the Father, offered in spirit and in truth.

22 Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 23 Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: 

Elijah's challenge was simple. The claim of the Jewish religious establishment was that God was truly satisfied with the state of their religion. The prophets of Baal thought similarly that they had an efficacious faith, and a god who would listen and act at the beckoning of his priests. Elijah's choice of bull (or bullock) is highly significant. Besides the lambs and goats, bulls were offered as a sin offering on behalf of the entire nation (Leviticus 4: 3 - 12). In the atonement service the priest offered a bull as a sin offering for himself before atoning for the nation with the blood of the goat. Elijah stands as typifying the priest that the people needed. He asks for the bulls because he intends to impress upon the people their national transgression and show, not only that God endorses his ministry as a prophet, but that the sin of the nation is still forgivable.

24 And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. 25 And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.  

"... and the God that answereth by fire...." Elijah uses the Hebrew word Elohim for God, which likely suggests a tacit jab; Elijah certainly did not believe that Baal or any other pagan gods would be able to consummate the heathen sacrifice. He seemed to say that only the one true God, Elohim, would answer this call and show Himself mighty before them all.

26 And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. 

From morning until noon. Long did the priests of Baal cry out to their god. Exasperated with the silence, they burst into that same cacophony that belies the faithless worship of our day. A good friend once told me that if people think that shouting rancorously in church is the way to get God's attention then they have never shouted loudly enough. Their display was a frenzied, excited, exhausting one. They leaped upon the very altar on which they expected the fire of Baal to suddenly descend. The same disrespect for holy places and things, the same presumptuous entry in the presence of Divinity is manifest today, so that the movement of charisma almost succeeds in replacing the power of the gospel with the gospel of power.

It was the prayer of the Jewish leaders to get some sort of approval from God for their actions in crucifying Jesus. They thought not only to do this but also to win back the respect and favour of the people and the Roman authorities, and thereby secure their positions and great prosperity. Theirs was as much a frenzied attempt to demonstrate the power and rightness of their religion as any, and with much public rioting and general confusion they sought to push and nudge the Saviour to the cross.

The Jews that gathered to condemn Jesus were many indeed. There were unions forged between factioning sects such as the Pharisees and Sadducees, old foes such and Pilate and Herod, and different economic and demographic classes. There was a general consensus that Jesus should die, that the national religion should be preserved, as prophesied by the high priest, and that the old order of godless, self-righteous and Earth-centered religion should continue.

Indeed, the Jewish nations chose, and dressed their bullock well. Yet unknown to them, it was not they who chose, but Christ who lay down His own life willingly (John 10:18), and it was not a huge, feisty bull, but a small and servile Lamb, Whom Heaven lay upon the alter for the salvation of the nation of God.

27 And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. 28 And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.  

It appears that the people had gathered at some point in the morning to witness this great event. All the way up to noon, Baal had been prayed to, shouted to, sang to, danced to, self-mutilated to, and all to no avail.

The Jews had two daily sacrifices. The morning sacrifice, and the evening sacrifice, which were to be offered continually, day after day (Exodus 29:38-42, Numbers 28:3, 1 Chronicles 16:40, etc). It appears that on this day the people were to observe which of these competing deities was the true confirmer of the covenant of peace mediated by priests through sacrifice. Baal and God claimed the same powers and the same right to the worship of the people, and the same sacrifices. In effect, Baal claimed the office of atoner for sin, the very position of Christ, and therefore claimed sacrifice in recognition of this, much like God did through the sacrificial system established in Eden.

If Baal was really such a God, then surely he could consummate the morning phase of the daily sacrifice. Surely, he could smell the sweet savour, and answer with fire from Heaven.

29 And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. 30 And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD that was broken down.  

Elijah, in true Divine inspiration, then goes through a sequence that so strongly typifies the action of God in the saving of humanity that it is breathtaking to behold. After the tired priests of Baal have all but given up, Elijah calls out with that same call that Jesus gave and gives to all who turn from Him: "Come near unto me." Once the people had gathered closer, the prophet begins to repair an old, long abandoned altar, on which once upon a time, a pious people, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation used to sacrifice to the Lord. Elijah does not construct a brand new altar. He repairs a forsaken one. The Hebrew term employed here carries the idea of "mending", "curing", as by a physician, "healing thoroughly", and "making whole". Can one fail to notice the idea of reconciliation, redemption and restoration?

The act of repairing this abandoned altar is significant. Jesus' entire mission, and particularly his time on the cross, was meant to repair the foundation of true worship: the heart. He came to heal the broken heart. Is He not called the Great Physician? He says "These people serve me with their lips but their hearts are far away from me" (Matthew 15:8). But in love He declares, "Behold, I stand at the door (of your heart) and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens, I will come in to him" (Revelation 33:20).

All along God has sought the circumcision of our heart (Deuteronomy 10:16, 30:6). This is to say that His greatest desire has been that we freely, committedly bind ourselves to Him. Up there on the cross, the process had already begun. Satan and his minions were at a complete shock as to what was happening. Even they could see, however blind the Jewish authorities were to it, that God, whom they had accused of tyranny, vindictiveness and lovelessness, was in Christ, reconciling man to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19).

31 And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be thy name: 32 And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD: and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed.  

Expectedly, Elijah is not arbitrary in his methodology. He reconstructs this altar with twelve stones, one of each tribe of Israel, representing the entire nation of Israel. He does this despite the division of the kingdom, with Israel now only comprising ten and Judah to the south the other two (1 Kings 11:31). To God, it was still one nation spiritually, special to Him, and needful of holistic salvation.

1 Peter 2:5 intimates a similar idea. The Christian church is made of us, living stones, used to build up a temple in which a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God is made. What can this sacrifice be? Well, just as Elijah was called to bring the people back from disobedience and apostasy, so are we admonished by the penitent Psalmist, that the sacrifice of the Lord is a broken and contrite spirit (Psalm 51:7); a heart that returns from the pits of sin to the bosom of Christ, as the prodigal son to his sweet, long missed home and his welcoming father (Luke 15:11-32).

33 And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. 34 And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time. 35 And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water.

Here we seen in striking colour the image of Calvary merging with that of Carmel. The sin offering is slain, and lies bloody on the alter. Four barrels of water are filled, and poured on the sacrifice, three times. That is twelve barrels of water, again significant of the twelve tribes. The sublime lesson is that God is able to save entirely and utterly, though an entire nation should become so steeped in its sins. Indeed He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by Him (Hebrews 7:25).

While often understood to mean the drenching of the sacrifice and altar so as to make the burning more theoretically difficult, I venture to suggest that there was more to it than just that. The water must also symbolise something more. The priests of Baal, Elijah and the people had not gathered to witness a sacrifice ignited by men through whatever means of fire starting existed in their day. Elijah's challenge was clear: there was to be only one evidence of Divinity that day: the descent of fire from the heavens and its consummation of the burned offering. Surely no one would have expected gods who could send down fire from heaven to be deterred by twelve barrels of water.

Water symbolises cleansing. Not only was the sacrifice drenched but also the entire alter of twelve stones as well as the surrounding trench. The entire nation of Israel was symbolically invited to be cleansed in this act, much like they were when they crossed - indeed as Paul shows, when they were baptised in - the red sea (1 Corinthians 10:1). The water of baptism is the symbol that the sins are washed away, and this was a public invitation to the nation of Israel to return to God and be cleansed.

As the water mingled with the blood of the sacrifice, so it mingled with the blood of the greater Sacrifice on Calvary. The water and the blood are both seen flowing out of His pierced side (John 19:34), a token of life wrapped around the signal of death. By the blood we are purchased by the King, and by the water we are washed, dressed up, and sanctified to dwell eternally in His presence.

36 And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word.  

Once again, only as a result of the direction of He Who fashions history for the accomplishment of His divine plan, it is not until the time of the evening sacrifice, the ninth hour, 3pm as we know it today, that the event reaches the climax. Elijah step forward toward the alter, like Moses stepped forward into Sinai, like Aaron stepped forward into the tabernacle of meeting, to call upon the name of God, to offer sacrifice.

We will do well to be reminded what the entire purpose of sacrifice was in the first place. Sacrifice was necessary because of transgression (Hebrews 9:22), and transgression was there as a result of straying from the terms of covenant (1 John 3:4). It is no wonder that at this time, with the interest of Israel excited, and the man of God in intercession, that Elijah calls upon the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs through whom, at the founding of the nation, the promise was made, and the covenant of peace was established between God and his people.

God was ever willing to bring Israel back that day at Carmel, as He was that day at Calvary, and at the time appointed for the evening sacrifice, which was to be a daily admission of sin and prayer for forgiveness (Exodus 29:38-42), Elijah stepped forward to make the intercession, as did Christ about a millennium and a half later, when He spoke those eternal words about the consummation of the covenant of peace and reconciliation between God and man: "It is finished."

At about noon, the sixth hour, Elijah begins to repair the alter. At the ninth hour, at the time of the evening sacrifice, the offering is ready to be offered up. These three hours were a climaxing of the plan of salvation: a climaxing of the reconciliation of God to man. In this time, the people's attention would have turned from the tired priests of Baal, and would have been fixed with interest of Elijah and the bull that was being prepared to be sacrificed.

The corresponding period in Christ's day was marked by a period of darkness. Matthew 27:45 tell us that darkness covered the whole land. Heaven, in mixed sadness and anticipation, was preparing to receive the greatest Sacrifice ever offered by the hand of men. And about the ninth hour, Christ cried out with a loud voice gave up his spirit, and died.

37 Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. 38 Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.  

Total consummation. God accepted Elijah's sacrifice in spectacular fashion. It was not merely a show of strength. It was not merely a declaration of His superiority over Baal; it was a genuine reminder to the people that if they did right, they would be accepted. The message went to them as it went to Cain: "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?" (Genesis 4:7).

We must also note carefully the prayer that Elijah offers, in answer to which this great manifestation is made. He asks God to demonstrate to the people that He has "turned their heart back again", once again echoing the invitation to repent and turn from their wicked ways. This is the great work of God, His great mystery, and this is the very mission of His Son: Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).

An equally wonderful spectacle greeted the passing of the Lamb of God upon the cross. The heavens grew dark, and there was a great earthquake that shook the land upon His death. This was testament to both the grief of God, and of His acceptance of the sacrifice made by the Son. That this sacrifice is efficacious to the redemption of fallen mankind was evidenced by the immediate resurrection of many dead saints who stormed into Jerusalem and proclaimed the good news of new life in Christ (Matthew 27:52, 53). This was His great fire of consummation. Should God have chosen real fire to consummate this sacrifice, I dare say none who was in the vicinity of Calvary would have survived, for like Elijah's altar, surely the entire mountain, and perhaps more, would have been consumed by the great size and intensity of that divine flame.

As Elijah finished his service at Carmel, so did Christ on Calvary. As Elijah’s was a demonstration of God's power over evil, so was Christ's a demonstration of His victory over sin. As Elijah's was a judgment against the worshipers of Baal, so Christ’s is a condemnation of Satan and his minions. As Elijah's was an invitation to turn back the wayward heart to God, so is Christ's the means by which we may accomplish this, and as Elijah's was the answer to a pastoral, prophetic and timely prayer, so Christ’s is the fulfilling of the greatest desire of all ages: that God Himself would abide in the hearts of His children.

39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.

What more apt response? What more inspired declaration? What clearer word, what simpler truth could have been offered? The people are struck and awed that God has moved in a mighty way before them, and they were convicted. Four centuries ago their fathers had seen His dark clouds upon Mount Sinai and heard His voice, and trembled. Today they once again saw a glimpse of His awesome majesty and mighty power. The people who had hitherto sang the praises of Baal, and praised him for the dew and the rain, now turned their hearts to God, or rather, had their hearts turned by God, so that they acknowledged Him as above all, and over all.

God was true to His word: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

How shall we respond when we see the bruised, battered and killed Messiah upon the cross? Can it be with indifference? Can it be a passing sight we soon forget? Or is it an indelible vision, a Damascus encounter? As Elijah prayed that God would remember and renew His covenant with the people, so Christ has died to ensure that the covenant is fulfilled in each life, and established in each heart. Yet unlike Elijah's bull, which is dead to this day, the wonderful news is that Christ ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). He is the true priest, of which Elijah that fateful day was the type.

Above all the Baals that lure us in these final days, may Christ be central. I invite you to look again upon Calvary. Look again upon the slain Christ, who hangs there because of none other but you. I invite you to allow your heart the entrance of His love, turn from your sin, and be reconciled with He Who loves you like no other person can. Like those convicted children of Israel, let our settled declaration be, that above every alluring pleasure, beyond every selfish ambition and, over every worldly impulse, The LORD, he is the God of our lives and the Author and Finisher of our faith.

Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Part 2

Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Part 1

Valley of Dry Bones

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Mohammedanism-Judaism-Romanism vs Bible Christianity In The Final Conflict Of The Age

Revival Possible and Actual

What to Do With Life's Burdens

The Best Way to Go to Hell

The Firstlings for Heaven

Sell Out to Rome, Why Secrecy?

Repentance

Separation

The Only Two Religions

Characteristics of a Faithful Minister

Sixty Minutes to Go

The Death Rattle in the Throat of Protestantism

Justification by faith alone

The Unconquered Life

The Blockade of the Hell Track

Wrongful Imprisonment

Gospel Basics

Slaying the Ecumenical Monster

Discussion About What Matters: Freedom, Dividing Lines, Catholicity, the...

What think ye of Christ?

True Church of Christ

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.  

Beware of Philosophy

Contemporary Apologetics: Twentieth-Century Confusion

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:

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

1. The Federal Vision, Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner, editors. Monroe, Louisiana: Athanasius Press, 2004. 299 pages,  $21.95 (paper).
2. “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....”