The Holy Spirit’s Role In John Owen’s “Covenant Of The Mediator” Formulation: A Case Study In Reformed Orthodox Formulations Of The “Pactum Salutis”

By Laurence R. O’Donnell III

John Owen (1616-1683) is widely recognized as a preeminent trinitarian and covenantal theologian of Reformed orthodoxy. Scholarship on Owen has tended to focus either upon his trinitarian theology [1] or upon his covenant theology [2] accordingly. Few studies have focused upon the nexus [3] of the two, namely, Owen’s formulation of the “covenant of the Mediator,” [4] a doctrine known in Reformed orthodoxy as the pactum salutis. [5] Furthermore, no studies have examined the Holy Spirit’s role in Owen’s formulation of the pactum. [6] In this essay, then, I attempt to weave together the two threads of this relatively unexplored trinitarian-covenantal nexus by arguing a twofold thesis:

1. Owen formulates the pactum salutis as the “mode” of the trinitarian consilium Dei [7] with respect to salvation, and 
2. Owen explicitly and implicitly assigns the Holy Spirit a role in both the consilium Dei and the pactum.

Before attempting to make headway down an unmarked trail, however, we need to get our bearings in the related scholarship.

Common Criticisms Of The Pactum Salutis

The pactum salutis is a divisive doctrine in Reformed trinitarian theology. One eminent twentieth-century Reformed dogmatician, Herman Bavinck (1854-1921), hails the pactum as “the divine work par excellence,” [8] while another, Karl Barth (1886-1968), derides it as a heterodox “mythology, for which there is no place in a right understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.” [9] Contemporary Reformed theologians are equally divided. Cornelius Plantinga, for example, terms the pactum a “grotesque” and “seemingly barbaric idea” in which the Son is a sort of whipping boy who provides catharsis for the vengeful Father, [10] whereas others advocate for the pactum. [11]

In addition to attracting general trinitarian critiques, the pactum is specifically criticized as being sub-trinitarian for allegedly omitting a role for the Holy Spirit. [12] For example, Robert Letham describes the pactum as an “extreme development” of covenant theology in which the “Holy Spirit tended to be left out” and “strong elements of subordinationism” were put in. [13] Also, Herman Hoeksema critiques Louis Berkhof’s formulation of the pactum for omitting the Spirit’s role and thus implicitly denying the Trinity. [14] Moreover, Willem J. van Asselt attempts to mitigate the pneumatological critique by explicating Johannes Cocceius’s (1603-1669) formulation of the Spirit’s role in the pactum. [15] Looking at Owen’s formulation will thus provide an important historical case study against which such criticisms can be evaluated. [16]

Owen’s Formulation In Pactum Salutis Scholarship

Several historians and theologians take note of Owen’s role in the historical development of the pactum salutis, but few elaborate on his particular formulation. For example, Herman Witsius (1636-1708), in tracing the pactum’s development up to his day, remarks, “Dr. Owen handles this very subject at large on Heb. T. 1. Exercit. iv. p. 49.” [17] However, he offers no explication of Owen’s view. Likewise, J. Mark Beach includes Owen on the list of Reformed predecessors who influenced Witsius’s covenant theology, but he does not elaborate on the extent of Owen’s influence or the nature of Owen’s formulations. [18] Heinrich Heppe simply lists Owen’s commentary on Hebrews as supporting the existence of a federal relation between the Father and Son without giving any interpretative comments. [19] Geerhardus Vos, in discussing the need to distinguish between predestination and the pactum salutis, refers to Exercitation XXVIII in Owen’s Hebrews commentary, but he does not elaborate on Owen’s formulation. [20] Similarly, Herman Bavinck cites Owen’s commentary on Hebrews 7:22 while reflecting upon “scholastic subtlety” in the pactum’s development. [21] However, it is unclear whether Bavinck critiques Owen’s full formulation or merely his exegesis of this one passage.

Jeong Koo Jeon surveys Owen as an important formulator of Reformed covenant theology, but he interprets Owen exclusively in terms of the contrast between the foedus operum and foedus gratiae. Thus, Jeon does not even mention Owen’s pactum formulation. [22] David VanDrunen and R. Scott Clark also refer to Owen’s use of the pactum to argue, contra the Socinians and Remonstrants, “that the subordination [of the Son to the Father] was not ontological but economic.” [23] However, they provide no analysis of Owen’s formulation. Additionally, Ralph Smith briefly summarizes Owen’s formulation of the pactum in his Exercitations on Hebrews and claims that Owen’s “discussion of the covenant itself is not explicitly trinitarian.” [24] He offers no substantiation for this claim, however.

Richard Muller includes Owen in a handful of studies related to the pactum salutis. First, he interprets Owen’s view of God’s love—that the Son is the “principle object” of the Father’s eternal love—as an antecedent to the Reformed development of the pactum. [25] Second, he alleges that John Gill (1697-1771) criticized Owen’s formulation of the pactum for lacking a pneumatological aspect. [26] Gill, however, does not critique Owen’s entire doctrine of the pactum but only his exegesis of Zechariah 6:13 as applied to the consilium Dei. [27] Furthermore, Gill mitigates his critique by admitting that Owen’s view can be harmonized with his own. Thus he writes:

My objections to this sense [of Zech. 6:13 as interpreted by Owen, et al.] have been that this council in eternity was between the three Persons, and not two only; and that that is what is past; whereas this is spoken of as future: but when I consider that Jehovah and the Branch are the only Persons mentioned in the text, and so could only, with propriety, be spoken of, though the council was between the three; and that, in the Hebrew language, tenses are frequently put for one another, the past for the future, and so the future for the past; and things are said to be, when they appear to be, though they are before; the sense may be, that when the Man, the Branch, should grow out of his place, and build the temple, and bear the glory and sit a priest on his throne, then it should clearly appear, that there had been a council of peace between them both, which was the ground and foundation of all: and in this light, this sense of the passage may be admitted, and so be a proof of the point under consideration. [28]

Third, Muller lists Owen as one of the “British writers” who wrote on the pactum “slightly in advance of Cocceius.” [29 ]Neither of these three studies, however, intend to examine Owen’s formulation of the pactum in particular.

The Pactum Salutis In Owen Scholarship

In Owen scholarship there exists a similar situation to the one found in pactum salutis scholarship: his formulation is noted by many writers but not thoroughly examined, especially in terms of its trinitarian and pneumatological aspects. Nevertheless, several Owen-specific studies make important contributions for our investigation.

For example, Robert Letham and Carl Trueman make opposing claims concerning the Holy Spirit’s role in Owen’s doctrine of the pactum. Whereas the former charges Owen’s formulation with binitarianism for allegedly omitting the Spirit, [30] the latter avers that Owen’s formulation is to be commended for its outstanding development of the Spirit’s role in the pactum. [31] These contradicting claims will be evaluated below. Additionally, Peter Toon, in his very brief summary of Owen’s covenant theology, explicitly includes the Holy Spirit as a covenanting party in Owen’s formulation of the pactum. [32] Similarly, David Wong includes the Spirit in diagrams depicting the relationship between Owen’s eternal pactum salutis and Owen’s temporal covenants of works and grace. [33] His corresponding explication, however, does not mention the Spirit’s role.

Other Owen studies indirectly contribute to our thesis. For example, Sinclair Ferguson provides a thorough examination of Owen’s pactum formulation in relation to Owen’s overall covenantal scheme. He argues that, for Owen, the pactum is “the foundation of the covenant of grace.” [34] He asserts further that Owen views the covenant of grace as conditional, just like the covenant of works, but with one major difference: in the covenant of grace the conditions “devolve on the Mediator, rather than on those for whom the covenant is made.” [35] This observation is highly significant since Owen’s view of conditionality in the covenant of grace “makes the covenant of redemption a logical and theological necessity” in his covenant theology. [36] Furthermore, Ferguson summarizes the conditions and promises included in the pactum salutis, the key Scripture texts which Owen uses to prove the doctrine, and the importance Owen places on the pactum in relation to Christ’s atonement. [37] Nevertheless, Ferguson’s treatment is not entirely comprehensive. For example, he limits his study primarily to volumes XII and XIX of Owen’s writings, whereas Owen utilizes the pactum throughout his entire corpus. Also, Ferguson does not mention the Spirit’s role in Owen’s formulation of the pactum.

Brian Kay draws important connections between Owen’s pactum formulation and his trinitarian theology. [38] In light of modern criticisms which paint the pactum as a cold contractual arrangement, Kay explains that, for Owen, the Father’s eternal love is prior to and hence the ground of the Son’s mediation in the pactum rather than vice versa. [39] Furthermore, following Spence, Kay defends Owen’s development of the Western doctrine of appropriations, which is a key counterpart to the pactum. [40] However, he does not examine Owen’s pactum formulation comprehensively, and, aside from a general mention of Owen’s trinitarian covenant theology, [41] Kay does not treat the Holy Spirit’s role in Owen’s formulation.

Summary

These three scholarly landmarks provide both warrant for our thesis and bearings by which we can direct our investigation. Reformed theologians differ widely over the propriety of the pactum salutis, and trinitarian and pneumatological critiques are commonly levied against it. In pactum salutis scholarship Owen’s formulation is well known but remains relatively unexplored. Similarly, in Owen scholarship the doctrine of the pactum salutis—including the Spirit’s role in the pactum—has received some scholarly attention, but no one has attempted a thorough study of these topics. Therefore, our task is to examine Owen’s formulation of the pactum salutis while paying particular attention to the Spirit’s role. We will ask whether Owen explicitly references the Spirit in the context of the pactum. If he does, then these references need to be correlated and analyzed. Furthermore, we will briefly compare Owen’s formulation to other Reformed Orthodox formulations.

Owen’s Formulation Of The Pactum Salutis

Owen uses the pactum salutis in a wide variety of places throughout almost every volume of his collected writings, a breadth which is insufficiently noted in Owen scholarship. [42] The well-known locus classicus for his doctrine of the pactum—Exercitation XXVIII of Owen’s commentary on Hebrews—contains his fullest explication. [43] Thus, our investigation will focus here, and at the same time we will incorporate insights from Owen’s other formulations. [44]

In part IV of his Exercitations, Owen presents the pactum salutis in a Christological context. Specifically, it explains the eternal origin and ground of Christ’s priestly office. [45] Before arguing for the pactum directly, however, Owen spends considerable effort in laying its trinitarian foundations in God’s eternal decrees. Accordingly, there is a twofold structure in Owen’s formulation of the pactum which corresponds with two of his Exercitations:

1. there exist trinitarian transactions in God’s eternal counsels (i.e., Exercitation XXVII), and 
2. these trinitarian transactions take on the form or mode of a covenant (i.e., Exercitation XXVIII). Noting Owen’s correlation of these two aspects is vital for a proper understanding of his formulation.

Trinitarian Transactions In The Consilium Dei

Owen’s first step in formulating the pactum salutis is to argue “that there were from all eternity personal transactions in the holy Trinity concerning mankind in their temporal and eternal condition, which first manifested themselves in our creation.” [46] Before looking at the account of man’s creation in Genesis 1:26, however, he first deals briefly with how man can gain knowledge of God’s decrees.

In Exercitation XXVI, Owen grounds the origin of Christ’s priestly office in “the eternal counsels of God” (XIX:15), which assertion sets the stage for his discussion of trinitarian transactions in the consilium Dei. After dealing with perennially debated questions in the remainder of Exercitation XXVI (i.e., whether Christ would have become incarnate if man had not sinned, how the ordering of God’s decrees relates to Christ’s incarnation, etc.), Owen moves on in Exercitation XXVII to inquire “more expressly into the nature of the counsels of God in this matter, and their progress in execution” (XIX:42). For Owen, man’s only possible access to God’s trinitarian transactions is via revelation. He does not attempt to deduce Christ’s priestly office from the consilium Dei in an a priori manner. Rather, to “avoid all curiosity, or vain attempts to be wise above what is written,” he asserts an a posteriori principle: God’s nature is known through creation (Isa. 40:12-17; Rom. 1:19-21; Ps. 19:1-2), and God’s nature as triune is known only through the creation of man in particular (XIX:43). Therefore, according to Owen, God reveals His trinitarian nature to man in Genesis 1:26.

In this text Owen finds a strong adumbration of God’s trinitarian nature specifically in God’s plural self-identification: “Therefore,” he argues, “the first express mention of a plurality of persons in the divine nature is in the creation of man; and therein also are personal transactions intimated concerning his present and future condition” (XIX:43). By looking to the Trinity’s self-revelation in Genesis 1:26, Owen finds access to the consilium Dei, a specifically trinitarian consilium no less. After treating this verse at length (XIX:43-58), Owen devotes the rest of Exercitation XXVII to arguing that further evidence for trinitarian transactions in the consilium Dei can be found in Proverbs 8:22-31 (XIX:58-71), Psalm 2:7 (XIX:71-78), and Psalm 110:1-2 (XIX:78). He also refutes Jewish, Arian, Socinian, and Muslim non-trinitarian interpretations of these passages.

The Holy Spirit In The Consilium Dei

Owen’s primary focus throughout Exercitation XXVII is upon the Father and the Son. This makes sense when we recall that he sets up his whole discussion of the pactum salutis in the context of grounding Christ’s priestly office in the consilium Dei. Nevertheless, two times in Exercitation XXVII Owen explicitly, albeit briefly, assigns the Holy Spirit a role within these trinitarian counsels.

In the first place, he includes the Spirit as an actor in the trinitarian transactions intimated in Genesis 1:26. “And that which hence we intend to prove is,” argues Owen, “that in the framing and producing the things which concern mankind, there were peculiar, internal, personal transactions between the Father, Son, and Spirit” (XIX:58). He sees in this verse “mutual distinct actings and concurrence of the several persons in the Trinity,” not just the Father and Son (XIX:58; emphasis added). Furthermore, out of this same verse he draws a “basic principle” of trinitarian revelation:

Man was peculiarly created unto the glory of the Trinity, or of God as three in one. Hence in all things concerning him there is not only an intimation of those distinct subsistences, but also of their distinct actings with respect unto him (XIX:58).

Although Owen does not elaborate on the Spirit’s role, he does explicitly list the Holy Spirit as an active participant in the trinitarian counsels of Genesis 1:26, and he affirms a specifically trinitarian, as opposed to binitarian, consilium Dei with respect to man’s salvation.

In the second place, Owen assigns the Spirit a role in the consilium Dei based on Proverbs 8:22-31. With this passage in mind, he writes, “A personal transaction, before the creation of the world, between the Father and the Son, acting mutually by their one Spirit, concerning the state and condition of mankind, with respect unto divine love and favour, is that which we inquire after, and which is here fully expressed...” (XIX:67). Owen does not explain how the Father and Son act “mutually by their one Spirit”; he seems to simply presuppose the Spirit’s role in the Trinity’s eternal counsels.

At the conclusion to Exercitation XXVII, however, he omits the Spirit. He writes: “It appears, therefore, that there were eternal transactions between the Father and Son concerning the redemption of mankind by his interposition or mediation” (XIX:76). Again, recalling the overall Christological context within which Owen formulates the pactum, focusing on the Father and Son makes sense. Since he mentions the Spirit twice in Exercitation XXVII but omits the Spirit in his concluding statement, a bit of ambiguity regarding the Spirit’s role attends his formulation.

There are two more explicit, though brief, references concerning the Spirit’s role in the trinitarian consilium Dei beyond Owen’s Exercitations on Hebrews. First, in the context of explaining how the Father and the Son are indirectly involved in Christ’s incarnation, he writes, “Now, this emptying of the Deity, this humbling of himself, this dwelling amongst us, was the sole act of the second person, or the divine nature in the second person, the Father and the Spirit having no concurrence in it but by liking, approbation, and eternal counsel” (X:175). Owen provides no elaboration on this passing reference to the Spirit other than a general remark regarding concurrence with the entire economy of salvation: the Holy Spirit “is evidently concurring, in his own distinct operation, to all the several chief or grand parts of this work” (X:178). Nevertheless, for the third time we see that he assigns the Spirit a role in the consilium Dei.

Second, amidst his lengthy commentary on Heb. 1:1-2, Owen argues “that the whole mystery of his will, antecedently to the revelation of it, is said to be hid in God; that is, the Father, Eph. 3:9. It lay wrapped up from the eyes of men and angels, in his eternal wisdom and counsel, Col. 1:26, 27” (XX:34). Then he explicitly includes the Holy Spirit as a “partaker with him [i.e., the Father] in this counsel,” along with the Son (XX:34). Thus Owen mentions all three of the divine persons as actors in the consilium Dei.

The significance of these four explicit references to the Holy Spirit’s role in the consilium Dei will become apparent as we look next at how Owen correlates the consilium with the pactum.

The Pactum Salutis As The Modus Of The Consilium Dei

Owen’s second step in formulating the pactum salutis is found in Exercitation XXVIII. He writes, “That there were eternal transactions in general between those distinct persons, with respect unto the salvation of mankind, hath been evinced in the foregoing Exercitation [i.e., XXVII]. That these were federal, or had in them the nature of a covenant, is now further to be manifested [in Exercitation XXVIII]” (XIX:84; cf. 77-78). He then argues in Exercitation XXVIII that the trinitarian transactions in the consilium regarding man’s salvation are “carried on ‘per modum foederis,’ ‘by way of covenant,’ compact, and mutual agreement, between the Father and the Son” (XIX:77). Thus for Owen there is a sense in which the consilium Dei is the pactum salutis. In other words, he finds an inseparable connection between the consilium and the pactum, between Exercitations XXVII and XXVIII.

That Owen draws a connection between the trinitarian counsels of God and the pactum salutis is significant for our thesis in three respects.

An Underdeveloped Correlation

Owen scholarship has tended either to underplay or to miss altogether the connection between Owen’s formulations of the consilium Dei and the pactum salutis. For example, David Wong presents a detailed examination of the role of the pactum salutis in relation to Owen’s covenant theology as a whole. However, in developing the link between Owen’s view of God’s trinitarian counsels and his covenant theology, Wong omits the passage where Owen most fully explicates this relationship—Exercitation XXVII. [47] Instead of connecting the pactum with the consilium, Wong argues that Owen employs a Platonic relation between the pactum and the covenant of grace, [48] and he ultimately rejects Owen’s pactum formulation as a “Platonic philosophical interpolation.” [49] Similarly, Carol Williams surveys Owen’s Exercitations and briefly explains the consilium-pactum relationship, but omits Exercitation XXVII. [50] Robert Wright also notes that Owen grounds Christ’s priesthood in “the eternal counsels of the Trinity,” and he further comments that Owen “devotes a whole essay to these federal transactions between the Persons of the Trinity.” [51] However, he does not elaborate on either topic or their interrelation.

Sebastian Rehnman argues that Owen follows “Coccejus’ notion of an eternal Trinitarian covenant” in arguing “that the covenant of grace has its basis in the eternal covenant, pact, or transaction between the Father and the Son.” [52] Cocceius, however, is only cited once when Owen explicates the pactum, [53] so Rehnman’s observation is slightly overstated. Furthermore, Rehnman mentions Owen’s pactum formulation only in passing, and he does not relate the pactum to the consilium in Owen’s thought. Dale Stover directly relates Owen’s pneumatology to his covenant theology, even discussing Owen’s pactum formulation at points. [54] However, he grounds Owen’s covenant theology not in the consilium Dei but in William Tyndale’s contract theory and in an allegedly abstract, deterministic notion of predestination inherited from William Perkins. [55]

Alan Spence comments on both the trinitarian nature of God’s eternal counsels and the pactum as a specific instance of the trinitarian counsels in Owen’s thought. He also highlights the relationship between Owen’s consilium Dei formulation and his use of trinitarian appropriations, especially in the context of Christ’s incarnation. Yet, beyond grounding Owen’s doctrine of the incarnation in the pactum, Spence does not elaborate on Owen’s consilium-pactum correlation. [56]

Sinclair Ferguson briefly mentions that Owen’s pactum is grounded in a trinitarian transaction, [57] but he references only Owen’s introductory comment on the first page of Exercitation XXVIII [58] and does not examine Owen’s full explication of God’s trinitarian counsel in Exercitation XXVII. He thus misses Owen’s references to the Spirit in the consilium, and he limits the consilium to transactions between the Father and Son. Furthermore, Ferguson considers the consilium-pactum relationship in terms of possibility and actuality, [59] whereas Owen treats this relationship in terms of modus.

Robert Letham avers that “Owen integrates the eternal counsel of God, described as a covenant, with the atonement and justification, providing the context within which both have meaning.” [60] He further comments that Owen “handles the covenant of redemption better than others.” [61] Nevertheless, he alleges that Owen’s pactum formulation “is a binitarian construction. Amazingly the Holy Spirit receives no mention! This, despite Owen’s focus elsewhere on the Spirit.” [62] Letham, however, only references Owen’s formulation in Exercitation XXVIII [63] and ignores his full treatment in XXVII. This same omission undermines the charge of binitarianism: without seeing the consilium-pactum correlation, Letham misses Owen’s explicit references to the Spirit.

Carl Trueman provides a robust evaluation of Owen’s formulation of the pactum salutis. In addition to recognizing the pactum’s role as the eternal ground for the trinitarian economy of salvation, [64] he argues for a “basic axiom of his theology that acts ad extra mirror the internal intratrinitarian relationships.” [65] Thus, Trueman appears to pick up on the logic Owen uses to interpret Genesis 1:26. However, despite his robust treatment, he omits any connection between the concilium and the pactum. [66] It is no surprise, then, that he references Exercitation XXVIII but not XXVII. [67]

A Common Reformed Orthodox Pattern

In addition to its being underdeveloped or ignored, the consilium-pactum correlation is significant in that several Reformed orthodox theologians follow this two-step pattern in their formulations. [68] For example, David Dickson (1583-1662) grounds the pactum salutis in Christ’s investiture with the office of mediator that began within the consilium Dei. In Therapeutica Sacra, he writes:

A divine covenant we call, a Contract or Paction, wherein God is at least the one party Contracter. Of this sort of Covenants about the eternal Salvation of Men (which sort chiefly belong to our purpose) there are Three. The First is, the Covenant of Redemption, past between God, and Christ [whom] God appointed Mediator, before the World was, in the Council of the Trinity. [69]

Dickson further avers that the pactum “is in effect one with the eternal Decree of Redemption,” thus making the pactum coextensive with the consilium Dei regarding redemption. [70]

Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680), Owen’s friend and colleague, formulated his doctrine of the pactum salutis along similar consilium-pactum lines. The argument in Book I of Goodwin’s Of Christ the Mediator begins, “God the Father’s eternal counsel and transactions with Christ, to undertake the work of redemption for man, considered as fallen” and proceeds to the covenant of redemption as “the conclusion of this agreement.” [71]

Furthermore, Patrick Gillespie (1617-1675) uses a similar two-step formulation. In his extensive treatise on the pactum salutis, The Ark of the Covenant Opened, to which Owen wrote the foreword, [72] Gillespie argues that a variety of purposes in the consilium are presupposed by the pactum. For example:

The Covenant of Redemption wherein God entered with Christ, did proceed upon supposition of these things mainly... 1. This Covenant supposeth that God had purposed in himself, and decreed eminently to glorify himself in the way of justice and mercy.... 2. This Covenant supposeth that God had purposed and decreed, that there should be objects qualified, and fit for the glorifying of both these Attributes; and this was absolutely necessary to that purpose.... 3. The Covenant of Redemption supposeth God’s purpose and free decree, so far to follow his Covenant truth and justice upon man, as not to acquit him without a satisfaction to Justice in his own person, or by a surety of the same kind that sinned.... [73]

Thus, for Gillespie the pactum presupposes trinitarian transactions in the consilium Dei. Moreover, John Gill (1697-1771) clearly follows this consilium-pactum pattern in his Body of Doctrinal Divinity. Speaking of the relationship between the consilium and the pactum, Gill writes:

These are generally blended together by divines; and indeed it is difficult to consider them distinctly with exactness and precision; but I think they are to be distinguished, and the one to be considered as leading on, and as preparatory and introductory to the other, though both of an eternal date. [74]

Therefore, upon comparing these fellow Reformed orthodox formulators of the pactum salutis, it is apparent that Owen’s two-step argument for the pactum can be located within a stream of similarly structured formulations both before and after his day.

An Implicit Connection To The Holy Spirit’s Role

Additionally, this consilium-pactum correlation is significant for our thesis in that it provides an implicit argument for the Holy Spirit’s role in Owen’s pactum formulation. This inference can be stated as a syllogism: (a) the Holy Spirit has a role in the consilium Dei concerning salvation; (b) the pactum salutis is the modus of the consilium Dei concerning salvation; (c) therefore, the Spirit’s role in the pactum is the execution of the role that the Spirit received in the consilium.

Even though Owen’s two-step formulation allows for the possibility of inference to the Spirit’s role, we must be cautions here since he does not draw this inference himself. Throughout Exercitation XXVIII, he focuses exclusively upon the Father and Son. Having described the three components of a general covenant and the three supplemental components of special covenants, Owen avers that the pactum salutis is a special covenant. [75] He then devotes the rest of Exercitation XXVIII to marshaling support for the claim that the eternal transactions between the Father and Son display the six components of a special covenant. Significantly, he nowhere discusses the Holy Spirit throughout his explication of these six components; even in his discussion of the distinct covenanting parties in the pactum—the place where we would most expect to find a mention of the Spirit—he only points to biblical passages wherein the Father declares that He will be God to His Son (Ps. 16:2, 9-11; 22:1; 40:8; 45:7; Mic. 5:4; John 20:17; Rev. 3:12) (XIX:84). “The Father,” he writes, “was the prescriber, the promiser, and lawgiver; and the Son was the undertaker upon his prescription, law, and promises” (XIX:85).

In sum, Owen does not assign a role to the Holy Spirit in Exercitation XXVIII. Nevertheless, we should not ignore the inference to the Spirit’s role implicit in Owen’s two-step formulation; for, as we will see in the following section, in writings outside of his Exercitations, Owen does explicitly assign the Spirit a role in the pactum after all.

The Holy Spirit’s Role In The Pactum Salutis

There are two references in Owen’s writings where he references the Holy Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis. In both cases, he merely mentions the Spirit without elaborating on His particular role.

The first reference is found in Book II, Chapter V of Pneumatologia, Owen’s 1674 treatise on the Holy Spirit. In the context of explaining how the resurrected and exalted Christ sends His Spirit to build the church, Owen turns to Acts 2:33 (III:191). In the course of his exposition Owen comments that Christ, before He ascended into heaven, comforted His disciples with the promise of the Holy Spirit and commanded them not to begin building the church until the Spirit had come. The promise of the Spirit, however, did not originate merely at Christ’s ascension. Rather, Owen terms this promise an “everlasting promise”:

And herein lay, and herein doth lie, the foundation of the ministry of the church, as also its continuance and efficacy. The kingdom of Christ is spiritual, and, in the animating principles of it, invisible. If we fix our minds only on outward order, we lose the rise and power of the whole. It is not an outward visible ordination by men,—though that be necessary, by rule and precept,—but Christ’s communication of that Spirit, the everlasting promise whereof he received of the Father, that gives being, life, usefulness, and success, to the ministry (III:191).

While explaining this “everlasting promise,” Owen mentions the Holy Spirit in the context of the pactum salutis. With Acts 2:33 in mind, he distinguishes the inception of “the promise” to Christ in the pactum salutis from the reception of “the thing promised” to Christ in and for the church within the historia revelationis (III:191-92).

The promise, therefore, itself was given unto the Lord Christ, and actually received by him in the covenant of the mediator, when he undertook the great work of the restoration of all things, to the glory of God; for herein had he the engagement of the Father that the Holy Spirit should be poured out on the sons of men, to make effectual unto their souls the whole work of his mediation: wherefore, he is said now to “receive this promise,” because on his account, and by him as exalted, it was now solemnly accomplished in and towards the church (III:192).

Owen sees two senses in which Christ received the promised Sprit. First, in terms of the opera Dei ad intra, the Father promises the Spirit to the Son in the pactum salutis. Second, in terms of the opera Dei ad extra, Christ, at His exaltation, receives the promised Spirit “in and towards the church.” [76] The former promise grounds the latter.

Christ’s promise to send His Spirit to the church can be termed an “everlasting promise” because Christ Himself “actually received” this promise for Himself in eternity via the pactum salutis. Christ’s giving of the Holy Spirit to the church, then, is a sort of re-giving—a historical (opera Dei ad extra) consequent to a heavenly (opera Dei ad intra) antecedent. Furthermore, Owen turns to Psalm 68:18 and Ephesians 4:8 to confirm his interpretation of this “everlasting promise.” [77]

He thus concludes in deep wonder that God “hath knit these things together toward his elect, in the bond of an everlasting covenant!” [78]

Now, we must admit that Owen refers to the Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis only in a passive sense: the Holy Spirit is promised to the Son by the Father as the efficient cause, so to speak, of Christ’s mediation. Nonetheless, herein he explicitly assigns the Spirit a role in the pactum: the Spirit is, from all eternity, the promised dispenser of Christ’s benefits and builder of Christ’s church.

The second explicit reference to the Holy Spirit in the pactum is even more subtle than the first. In Chapter XXVI of Vindiciae Evangelicae, Owen is clearly focused not on the Spirit but on the “compact, covenant, convention, or agreement, that was between the Father and the Son.” [79] Yet, he explicitly includes the Spirit when explaining the general principle of trinitarian appropriations of God’s will in the opera Dei ad intra:

It is true, the will of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is but one. It is a natural property, and where there is but one nature there is but one will: but in respect of their distinct personal actings, this will is appropriated to them respectively, so that the will of the Father and the will of the Son may be considered [distinctly] in this business; which though essentially one and the same, yet in their distinct personality it is distinctly considered, as the will of the Father and the will of the Son. [80]

Even though Owen is clearly focused here upon the Father and Son, he recognizes that the Spirit’s will is coessential with the unified will of the Godhead. Thus, for the second time, he briefly mentions the Spirit in a formulation of the pactum salutis.

The Pactum Salutis And The Historia Revelationis

With Owen’s two enigmatic references to the Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis in mind, we are prepared to evaluate Carl Trueman’s assessment of Owen’s pneumatological contribution to Reformed orthodox formulations of the doctrine. He claims that Owen makes “a significant contribution...in his attention to the role of the Holy Spirit with reference to covenant” by specifically “describing the various roles played in the covenant of redemption by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and in so doing,” Trueman continues, “he is being consistent with his basic premise that every external act of God is in its deepest sense an act of the whole Trinity.”81 After delineating the roles of the Father and Son, Trueman describes the Spirit’s role in Owen’s formulation as follows: “Finally,” he writes, “the Holy Spirit is engaged in the work of incarnation and of Christ’s earthly ministry, his oblation, and in his resurrection.”82 Furthermore, a few pages later Trueman interprets the Spirit’s works in the historia revelationis as an “expression” of the pactum salutis:

Owen’s elaboration of the Trinitarian structure of the covenant of redemption continued throughout his career, and receives perhaps its most sophisticated expression in his Pneumatologia, where he employs some of the most sophisticated concepts in patristic Christology particularly to expand upon the role of the Holy Spirit relative to the Incarnation. [83]

Trueman’s claims involve a conflation, however; whereas the pactum salutis belongs to the opera Dei ad intra, the historia revelationis belongs to the opera Dei ad extra. Christ’s incarnation and earthly ministry belong to the historia revelationis (an ad extra work). Thus, they are not a part of the pactum salutis (an ad intra work). Yet, Trueman describes the pactum as an ad extra work, and he explains the Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis in terms of the historia revelationis (i.e., “Holy Spirit is engaged in the work of incarnation,” etc.). These assertions, then, which view the Spirit’s work in the historia revelationis as belonging to the pactum, conflate the opera Dei ad intra and the opera Dei ad extra. [84]

These conflations appear to be anomalies in Trueman’s overall excellent interpretation of Owen’s pactum formulation. In the very next paragraph, for example, Trueman properly distinguishes the Holy Spirit’s role in the pactum (ad intra) from His role in historia revelationis (ad extra). [85] Furthermore, it may be possible to interpret the passage which Trueman incorrectly cites to support the Spirit’s role in the pactum [86] as indeed referring to the pactum, albeit indirectly rather than directly. Applying Trueman’s “basic axiom” rule mentioned earlier wherein trinitarian “acts ad extra mirror the internal intratrinitarian relationships,” [87] we could argue by inference that the Spirit’s role in the historia revelationis mirrors His prior role in the opera Dei ad intra (i.e., specifically in the pactum salutis). In this light it may be possible to interpret Owen’s remarks about the Spirit’s role in the overall economy of salvation as indirectly relating to the Spirit’s role in the pactum. Speaking of this overall economy, Owen writes:

And thus have we discovered the blessed agents and undertakers in this work, their several actions and orderly concurrence unto the whole; which, though they may be thus distinguished, yet they are not so divided but that every one must be ascribed to the whole nature, whereof each person is “in solidum” partaker. And as they begin it, so they will jointly carry along the application of it unto its ultimate issue and accomplishment.... [88]

Applying Trueman’s “axiom” rule, an inference from the opera Dei ad extra to the opera Dei ad intra could be stated like this: if “the blessed agents” work in their several actions of salvation via an “orderly concurrence unto the whole,” and if “each person is ‘in solidium’ partaker” of the other persons’ works both ad intra and ad extra, then the Holy Spirit must have a role in the pactum salutis (opera Dei ad intra) insofar as the Spirit works “in solidum” and by “concurrence unto the whole” in all of the opera Dei ad extra.

Nevertheless, in light of our investigation of Owen’s mere two explicit references to the Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis, Trueman’s claim that Owen is a singular developer of the Spirit’s role in the pactum seems too strong. Unlike other formulators such as John Gill [89] and Johannes Cocceius, [90] Owen does not provide any elaboration on the Holy Spirit’s role specifically in the pactum.

Conclusions

Our inquiry into the Holy Spirit’s role in John Owen’s doctrine of the pactum salutis has demonstrated (1) that Owen’s formulation of the pactum is interrelated with his formulation of trinitarian counsels concerning man’s salvation, and (2) that Owen assigns the Spirit a role in the pactum, but without elaboration.

The Trinitarian Consilium Dei And The Pactum Salutis

Owen presents his formulation of the pactum in two steps. First, he develops the idea of trinitarian transactions in the consilium Dei. Second, he argues that the pactum is the modus of these trinitarian transactions. In this light his formulation of the pactum in Exercitation XXVIII cannot be properly understood apart from his prior argument for a trinitarian consilium Dei in Exercitation XXVII. This correlation has been consistently underdeveloped. Not a single scholar who has written on Owen’s pactum formulation has referenced Exercitation XXVII, and many studies abstract Exercitation XXVIII as if it were Owen’s entire formulation of the pactum. Therefore, to obtain a full picture of Owen’s formulation, Part IV of his Exercitations on Hebrews must be read as an integrated whole.

Owen’s two-step approach is not idiosyncratic. Other Reformed orthodox formulators of the pactum begin with the consilium and then move to the pactum. One specific implication for Owen scholarship, then, is that a comprehensive treatment of Owen’s pactum formulation needs to include a robust study of Owen’s consilium formulation. Furthermore, there is warrant for raising the question of whether this ignored aspect of Owen’s formulation has been similarly ignored in other studies of Reformed orthodox formulations of the pactum salutis.

The Holy Spirit’s Role In The Pactum Salutis

In quantitative terms, our investigation yields four explicit references to the Holy Spirit in Owen’s formulation of the consilium Dei regarding man’s salvation. Furthermore, we found two explicit references to the Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis. If we follow the reasoning of Owen’s two-step formulation in his Exercitations, then by inference we can conclude that Owen refers to the Holy Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis at least six times throughout his writings. Thus it is incorrect, on the one hand, to charge Owen’s formulation of the pactum salutis with binitarianism or sub-trinitarianism for an alleged lack of references to the Spirit’s role therein. On the other hand, the claim that Owen is a singular developer of the Spirit’s role in the pactum is overstated. The most that can be said is that he neither ignores completely nor develops satisfyingly the Spirit’s role in the pactum.

In qualitative terms, Owen provides no explication of the Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis. Many of his six explicit references to the Spirit occur as mere passing comments in contexts where his focus is directed either toward the roles of the Father and Son exclusively or toward the general trinitarian principles regarding personal appropriations of the Godhead’s undivided will. Furthermore, in contrast to other Reformed formulators of the pactum, he does not provide separate discussions or elaborations on the Spirit’s role. What he does provide, however, is a significant, fully trinitarian Reformed orthodox formulation of the pactum salutis.

Notes

1. Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, The Triunity of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 113-14; Brian K. Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality: John Owen and the Doctrine of God in Western Devotion, Studies in Christian History and Thought (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2008); Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1998); Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, Great Theologians Series (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007); Trueman, “John Owen as a Theologian,” in John Owen: The Man and His Theology, ed. Robert W. Oliver (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R, 2002), 41-68; Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), 74-98; Ferguson, “John Owen and the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit,” in John Owen: The Man and His Theology, ed. Robert W. Oliver (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R, 2002); Kelly M. Kapic, Communion with God: The Divine and the Human in the Theology of John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), esp. ch. 5; Robert Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity in Its Catholic Context and Its Significance for Today,” 2006, http://j.mp/LethamOnOwen; J. I. Packer, “A Puritan Perspective: Trinitarian Godliness according to John Owen,” in God the Holy Trinity: Reflections on Christian Faith and Practice, ed. Timothy George (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 91-108; Alan Spence, “John Owen and Trinitarian Agency,” Scottish Journal of Theology 43, no. 2 (1990): 157-73; Spence, Incarnation and Inspiration: John Owen and the Coherence of Christology (London: T & T Clark, 2007); Dale A. Stover, “The Pneumatology of John Owen: A Study of the Role of the Holy Spirit in Relation to the Shape of a Theology” (PhD diss., McGill University, 1967). Also, although he does not specifically identify trinitarianism as a highpoint of Owen’s academic training, Sebastian Rehnman does note Owen’s thorough imbibing of Western trinitarian sources, especially Augustine, patristic authors, and Aquinas; Rehnman, “John Owen: A Reformed Scholastic at Oxford,” in Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise, ed. Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker, Texts & Studies in Reformation & Post-Reformation Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 186, 188-89, 192-94.
2. David Wai-Sing Wong, “The Covenant Theology of John Owen” (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1998), 129-30; Peter Toon, God’s Statesman: The Life and Work of John Owen, Pastor, Educator, Theologian (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1971), 169-71; Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 20-36; Sebastian Rehnman, Divine Discourse: The Theological Methodology of John Owen, Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2002), 162ff; Jeong Koo Jeon, Covenant Theology: John Murray’s and Meredith G. Kline’s Response to the Historical Development of Federal Theology in Reformed Thought (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, Inc., 2004), 46-56; Carol A. Williams, “The Decree of Redemption is in Effect a Covenant: David Dickson and the Covenant of Redemption” (PhD diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2005), 61.
3. Cf. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 87; Paul Smalley, “A Sweet Mystery: John Owen on the Trinity,” Puritan Reformed Journal 3, no. 1 (2011): 98-99.
4. Owen refers to his formulation of the pactum salutis by various terms such as: “covenant of the Mediator” (John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. W. H. Goold [Johnstone & Hunter, 1850], II:65, 179; III:192; V:191-94; XI:297; XIII:1; XIX:78; XX:56; XXII:505), “covenant of the Redeemer” (Works, XI:123; XIX:1, 428; XX:1; XXI:148, 193), and “covenant of redemption” (Works, XXIV:240, 475); cf. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 25; Richard A. Muller, “Toward the Pactum Salutis: Locating the Origins of a Concept,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 18 (2007): 13-14n23. Elsewhere Owen describes the pactum as “that compact, covenant, convention, or agreement, that was between the Father and the Son, for the accomplishment of the work of our redemption by the mediation of Christ, to the praise of the glorious grace of God” (Works, XII:497; cf. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 25n6). Furthermore, explicit and implicit references to the pactum in terms of eternal transactions and federal relations “between the Father and Son” are found in many places throughout Owen’s theological writings (Works, I:55-56; II:178; V:179-80, 191-92, 258; VI:434, 488; IX:586-88; X:185; XI:299; XII:605; XVI:341) and throughout his Hebrews commentary (Works, XIX:131, 153, 196; XX:45, 225, 410; XXI:413-14, 495; XXII:489, 577; XXIII:57, 448; XXIV:240, 349, 475). Owen also alludes to the pactum in his Greater Catechism, Ch. 12, Q/A 1 (Works, I:481; cf. Williams, “David Dickson and the Covenant of Redemption,” 113) and in his explication of Christ’s love for the church in terms of the Canticles’ conjugal imagery (Works, II:118-19; cf. Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality, 168). For simplicity’s sake, I use pactum salutis hereafter as a summary of Owen’s various terms. Also, when citing Owen’s Works, I follow Goold’s original 24-volume numbering rather than the 23-volume reprints which omit Owen’s Latin works in the original vol. 17 and renumber vols. 18-24 as 17-23 accordingly.
5. Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), s.v., pactum salutis. For a detailed survey of the historical development of the pactum salutis in early Reformed Orthodoxy, see Muller, “Toward the Pactum Salutis.”
6. Several studies have briefly mentioned the Holy Spirit’s role in Owen’s formulation of the pactum (Toon, God’s Statesman, 170; Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 86-93; Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 10), but no single study focuses specifically on this topic.
7. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, s.v., consilium Dei.
8. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 215. On Bavinck’s formulation of the pactum, see Mark Jones, “Covenant Christology: Herman Bavinck and the Pactum Salutis,” in Five Studies in the Thought of Herman Bavinck, A Creator of Modern Dutch Theology, ed. John Bolt (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2011), 129-52; Laurence R. O’Donnell III, “Not Subtle Enough: An Assessment of Modern Scholarship on Herman Bavinck’s Reformulation of the Pactum Salutis Contra ‘Scholastic Subtlety,’” Mid-America Journal of Theology 22 (2011): 89-106.
9. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2004), IV/1:65. Regarding Barth’s criticisms of the pactum, see Carl R. Trueman, “From Calvin to Gillespie on Covenant: Mythological Excess or an Exercise in Doctrinal Development?,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 11, no. 4 (2009): 378-97; Trueman, “The Harvest of Reformation Mythology?: Patrick Gillespie and the Covenant of Redemption,” in Scholasticism Reformed: Essays in Honour of Willem J. van Asselt, ed. Maarten Wisse, Marcel Sarot, and Willemien Otten (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 196-214; A. T. B. McGowan, “Karl Barth and Covenant Theology,” in Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques, ed. David Gibson and Daniel Strange (London: T & T Clark, 2008), 113-35. Pace these studies, Amy Plantinga Pauw notes that Barth does not merely repudiate the doctrine; rather, he “made an appeal to a ‘primal history’ underlying all of God’s relationships ad extra that functioned in a way similar to the covenant of redemption in Puritan thought.” “The Supreme Harmony of All”: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 116.
10. “The Threeness/Oneness Problem of the Trinity,” Calvin Theological Journal 23, no. 1 (1988): 37-38.
11. See David VanDrunen and R. Scott Clark, “The Covenant Before the Covenants,” in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California, ed. R. Scott Clark (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Publishing, 2007), 167-96; cf. Michael Horton, God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), 77-110; Andreas J. Köstenberger and Scott R. Swain, Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2008), 169-73.
12. “Much of the more recent criticism of the pactum salutis revolves around the contention that the Holy Spirit is never mentioned in this agreement. It does not really have a Trinitarian character, it is contended, because only the Father and the Son are named as participating subjects.” Willem J. van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669), trans. Raymond Andrew Blacketer, Studies in the History of Christian Thought (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2001), 233. However, van Asselt provides only one example: Barth’s “mythology” criticism (ibid., 233n11).
13. Robert Letham, The Work of Christ, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 52-53. Letham also critiques Owen’s formulation of the pactum as binitarian for allegedly omitting the Spirit’s role; see Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity in Its Catholic Context and Its Significance for Today,” 10. We will treat his latter critique below.
14. Reformed Dogmatics, 2nd ed. (Grandville, Mich.: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2004), 1:416-17; cf. Ralph Allan Smith, The Eternal Covenant: How the Trinity Reshapes Covenant Theology (Moscow, Ida.: Canon Press & Book Service, 2003), 15. Smith concludes incorrectly that Hoeksema’s critique of Berkhof is Hoeksema’s full view of the pactum salutis, which is certainly not the case.
15. Willem J. van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669), 233-36.
16. David VanDrunen and R. Scott Clark aver that G. C. Berkouwer belongs on the list of modern theological detractors of the pactum for allegedly rejecting it as “a speculative doctrine” and as “tending to tritheism” (VanDrunen and Clark, “The Covenant Before the Covenants,” 194-95). However, these charges mistake Berkouwer’s discussions of the doctrine’s dogmatic difficulties for his conclusion. VanDrunen and Clark reference G. C. Berkouwer’s Divine Election (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), 162-63, whereas his actual conclusion—which undermines their allegations—is found on p. 171: “From the foregoing” Berkouwer concludes, “it is evident that our reflection on the election in Christ and in connection with that on the pactum salutis does not yield an abstract doctrine of election. But such abstraction is a continuous danger to the doctrine—as is evidenced by its history—and must be guarded against continually.”
17. Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man: Comprehending a Complete Body of Divinity (Phillipsburg, N.J.: The den Dulk Christian Foundation; Distributed by P & R Publishing, 1990), 1:177; cf. Muller, “Toward the Pactum Salutis,” 13. I interpret Witsius to be referring to Part IV of Owen’s Exercitations on Hebrews, which, in Goold’s edition, includes Owen’s fullest presentation of the pactum, namely, Exercitation XXVIII.
18. J. Mark Beach, “The Doctrine of the Pactum Salutis in the Covenant Theology of Herman Witsius,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 13 (2002): 102. Similarly, Carol Williams argues that “Owen, Baxter, Cocceius and Witsius” are commonly seen as progenitors of the pactum and that Owen is an important contributor to British covenant theology; see Williams, “David Dickson and the Covenant of Redemption,” 27, 61.
19. Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics Set Out and Illustrated from the Sources, ed. Ernst Bizer, trans. G. T. Thomson (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1950), 378.
20. Geerhardus Vos, “The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology,” trans. S. Voorwinde and W. Van Gemeren, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., 234-67 (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Publishing, 2001), 246; a translation of De verbondsleer in de gereformeerde theologie: rede bij het overdragen van het rectoraat aan de Theol. School te Grand Rapids, Mich. (Grand Rapids: Democrat, 1891).
21. Bavinck, Sin and Salvation in Christ, 213, 213n43.
22. Jeon, Covenant Theology, 1n1, 46-56.
23. VanDrunen and Clark, “The Covenant Before the Covenants,” 196.
24. Smith, The Eternal Covenant: How the Trinity Reshapes Covenant Theology, 20.
25. Muller, The Triunity of God, 266.
26. Richard A. Muller, “The Spirit and the Covenant: John Gill’s Critique of the Pactum Salutis,” Foundations 24, no. 1 (March 1981): 8n19.
27. John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity; or, A System of Practical Truths Deduced from The Sacred Scriptures (London: Wittingham and Rowland, 1815), 1:150 (i.e., Doctrinal Divinity, Book II, ch. vi). For Owen’s exegesis of Zechariah 6:13 in relation to the pactum, see Owen, Works, XII:500-01; XIX:85.
28. Gill, A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity, 150.
29. Muller, “Toward the Pactum Salutis,” 13.
30. Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 8, 10-11.
31. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 86-87, 92-93; Trueman, The Claims of Truth, 145-48.
32. Toon, God’s Statesman, 170.
33. Wong, “The Covenant Theology of John Owen,” 177, fig. 3.3; 271, fig. 3.10.
34. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 25.
35. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 24-25. “And he was the surety of it in that he undertook unto God whatever by the terms of the covenant was to be done for man, to accomplish it in his own person, and whatever was to be done in and by man, to effect it by his own Spirit and grace....” Owen, Works, XIX:78.
36. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 25n1.
37. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 25-27.
38. For Kay’s references to Owen’s doctrine of the pactum, see Trinitarian Spirituality, xiii, 109, 127-29, 154-55, 158, 168, 195.
39. Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality, 127-29.
40. Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality, 106-113, 188-89; cf. Spence, “John Owen and Trinitarian Agency.”
41. Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality, 195.
42. See note 4 above.
43. Owen himself writes that he treats the pactum salutis most fully in his Hebrews Exercitations; see Works, V:191.
44. Owen treats the pactum at length in Book I of The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (Owen, Works, X:157-200) and in Chapter XXVII of Vindiciae Evangelicae (Works, XII:496-508).
45. Step one of Owen’s argument grounds Christ’s priestly office in the consilium Dei (Works, XIX:15), and step two narrows the ground to the pactum salutis specifically (Works, XIX:84).
46. Owen, Works, XIX:43; hereafter cited in text.
47. Owen presents his view of the trinitarian counsels of God in Exercitation XXVII of his commentary on Hebrews, which is entitled, “The Original of the priesthood of Christ in the Counsel of God”; see Owen, Works, XIX:42-76.
48. Wong, “The Covenant Theology of John Owen,” 163.
49. Wong, “The Covenant Theology of John Owen,” 273.
50. Williams, “David Dickson and the Covenant of Redemption,” 232-34.
51. Robert Keith McGregor Wright, “John Owen’s Great High Priest: The Highpriesthood of Christ in the Theology of John Owen, (1616-1683)” (PhD diss., Iliff School of Theology and The University of Denver [Colorado Seminary], 1989), 183.
52. Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 168-69.
53. Owen, Works, XII:503. Only two other citations of Cocceius appear in Owen’s corpus, both of which are found in Theologoumena Pantodapa; see Owen, Works, XVII:158, 382.
54. Stover, “The Pneumatology of John Owen,” 144-213.
55. Stover, “The Pneumatology of John Owen,” 211.
56. Spence, Incarnation and Inspiration, 28-30.
57. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 25.
58. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 25n5.
59. Ferguson reasons that Owen’s doctrine of the covenant of grace relates to his formulation of the pactum in two senses: first, the pactum can only be possible if distinctions among the activities of persons within the unity of the Godhead is possible; second, the pactum can only become actual in the context of Christ’s incarnation. See Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 25.
60. Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 10; cf. ibid., 7-8.
61. Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 10. Compare his earlier statement: “Owen is one of the first exponents of the theologoumenon, the covenant of redemption, and by far the best.” “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 7-8.
62. Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 10. However, he had remarked earlier that Owen “relates all aspects of classic trinitarian doctrine to [the pactum salutis] and guards against misunderstandings in a way that is seldom repeated and never bettered.” “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 8.
63. Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” 8.
64. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 80-83.
65. Trueman, The Claims of Truth, 132.
66. Owen’s fullest formulation of the eternal trinitarian counsels which correspond with the pactum salutis is Exercitation XXVII in his Hebrews commentary (Works, XIX:42-76), which work Trueman omits in his analysis of Owen’s pactum formulation. See Trueman, The Claims of Truth, 129-50; Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 80-99.
67. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 85nn70-71.
68. Similarly, though referring to a broader context, Muller argues that the trinitarian formulation of God’s decrees is an antecedent to Reformed orthodox formulations of the pactum salutis. See Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1986), 167.
69. David Dickson, Therapeutica Sacra: Shewing briefly the method of healing the diseases of the conscience, concerning regeneration (Craig’s-Clofs: Printed by James Watson, 1697), 35. Compare Dickson’s summary in Head II of his shorter work: The Sum of Saving Knowledge: or, a brief sum of Christian doctrine contained in the Holy Scriptures, and holden forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms; together with the practical use thereof (Edinburgh: Johnstone, Hunter, & Co., 1871), 9-11; cf. Williams, “David Dickson and the Covenant of Redemption,” 185-86.
70. Dickson, Therapeutica Sacra, 38; cf. Williams, “David Dickson and the Covenant of Redemption,” 193-98. Owen, however, views the pactum as more than a decree: “Thus, though this covenant be eternal, and the object of it be that which might not have been, and so it hath the nature of the residue of God’s decrees in these regards, yet because of this distinct acting of the will of the Father and the will of the Son with regard to each other, it is more than a decree, and hath the proper nature of a covenant or compact” (Works, XII:497).
71. Thomas Goodwin, The works of Thomas Goodwin, D.D., Sometime President of Magdalene college, Oxford (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1863), V:3-33.
72. #John Owen, “To the Reader,” in The Ark of the Covenant Opened, or, A Treatise of the Covenant of Redemption Between God and Christ, as the Foundation of the Covenant of Grace (London: Printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1677), n.p.
73. Patrick Gillespie, The Ark of the Covenant Opened, or, A Treatise of the Covenant of Redemption Between God and Christ, as the Foundation of the Covenant of Grace (London: Printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1677), 32-33.
74. Gill, A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity, 148.
75. Owen, Works, XIX:82-84; hereafter cited in text.
76. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, s.v., opera Dei ad intra, opera Dei ad extra.
77. Owen, Works, III:192.
78. Owen, Works, III:193. He refers to Isaiah 59:21 in support of this conclusion.
79. Owen, Works, XII:496.
80. Owen, Works, XII:497.
81. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 86.
82. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 86-87.
83. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 92-93.
84. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, s.v., historia revelationis, opera Dei ad extra, opera Dei ad intra, ordo salutis, pactum salutis.
85. “First, the Christological focus of the covenant [i.e., the pactum salutis] indicates that it is rather the foundation of salvation history, its necessary Trinitarian presupposition, if you like, which then makes the historical ministry of Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit in applying the same, and thus the salvation of the elect, an historical reality. It is the nexus between eternity and time with respect to salvation.” Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 87.
86. Trueman cites a brief chapter entitled, “The peculiar actions of the Holy Spirit in this business,” in Owen, Works, X:178-79; Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, 87n75.
87. Trueman, The Claims of Truth, 132.
88. Owen, Works, X:179.
89. See “Of the Concern the Spirit of God Has in the Covenant of Grace” in Gill, A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity, ch. 14 (pp. 173-75). In contrast to Owen, note that Gill devotes an entire chapter to the Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis.
90. van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius, 233-36.

Pierre Du Moulin On The Knowledge Of God

By Mark J. Larson

The impact of Pierre du Moulin surpassed his colleagues, the great doctors of the Reformed world in the first half of the seventeenth century. Several scholars make this point. Roger Nicole asserts, “His stature outranks that of his theological contemporaries, as Louis XIV outranks most other kings of France before and after him.” [1] Brian Armstrong affirms that he was “incontestably the leading ministerial voice of the French Protestant Church in the first half of the seventeenth century.” [2] Émile Léonard refers to him as “ce grand intellectual.” [3] Gédéon Gory ranks him as the greatest among the doctors who followed the Reformers: “Parmi les Docteurs, de Moulin fut, au dire de ses contemporains, le plus grand.” [4]

In this article, I wish to provide a brief overview of Pierre du Moulin’s life and his Protestant scholastic method before examining in more depth his doctrine of the knowledge of God.

Pastor And Professor Of Theology

Du Moulin was born of the higher nobility in 1568. [5] It was a dangerous time for Reformed believers in France; the young boy was almost killed in the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572. Ironically, a Catholic woman hid the child under some straw, protecting him from the attackers who would have murdered him. [6]

He left his parents’ home in Sedan at the age of nineteen and began his formal education, first at Cambridge University under William Whitaker and then at Leiden University with Franciscus Junius. [7] He developed political connections throughout Europe by cultivating personal ties with the leading figures of his time. “He gravitated toward those who held the high positions of state.” [8] He established a close relationship with two monarchs of the early seventeenth century, James I of England and Henry IV of France. He served as an adviser to James I, [9] and he became the chaplain of Henry IV. [10]

As one of the premier theologians of his time, du Moulin was truly a colorful figure. He knew what it was to “smell the smoke of battle,” witnessing Prince Maurice taking the city of Groningen in 1594 and thus putting to an end Spanish rule. He became one of the pastors of the Huguenot church that met in Charenton, about one mile from Paris. [11] Du Moulin labored in this charge for over twenty years. During these years he engaged in public debates at the Louvre. Over three thousand people would come to hear these theological duels, including the king and his court! [12]

The precarious situation of the French Protestants even after the Edict of Nantes is reflected in du Moulin’s flight from Paris in 1621 and in the burning of the church at Charenton in 1622 by Parisian Catholics. [13] Du Moulin sought refuge in Sedan and became pastor of the Reformed church there and professor of theology at the Academy. [14]

This development opened a new era in du Moulin’s career; until this time he had never served as a professor of theology. Shortly after his arrival in Sedan he published De cognitione dei tractatus. [15] Having been entrusted with the responsibility of teaching a school theology, he likewise chose in this particular treatise to utilize a scholastic method in presenting his subject, the knowledge of God. [16]

The thesis of this author’s essay is that A Treatise of the Knowledge of God is in fact a paradigm of Protestant scholastic theology—a reflection of how most theological systems began with the topics of theology, Scripture, and God. It manifests the shape of Reformed scholastic systems, dealing with prolegomenon and the principia theologiae. [17] In addition, his treatment of the doctrine of God is handled in the medieval scholastic order—treating God’s existence, essence, and attributes in succession.

Protestant Scholastic Systems

Du Moulin’s treatise mirrors the layout of typical Protestant scholastic systems of his time, which usually began with the topics of theology, Scripture, and God. [18] These indeed are the three main topics which du Moulin considers in his discourse. [19]

Du Moulin dealt with typical matters taken up in the topic of prolegomenon. He established, for example, the relationship between theology and the arts and sciences by declaring, “For the Arts are the handmaids of divine wisdom, neither do they deserve a place in the rank of honest disciplines if they profess not themselves to be attendants on it.” [20] He maintained further that theologia has both a “contemplative” part and a “practical” part. “In Divinity that part is contemplative, which treats of the nature of God, and of works of creation, gubernation, and redemption; but that part which treats of the offices of piety towards God, and charity towards our neighbor is practical.” [21]

Du Moulin contended that theology surpasses all the other sciences in both its contemplative and practical aspects: “In one as in the other, divinity does infinitely excel all sciences.” [22] To cite just two of his six criteria, du Moulin affirmed that in terms of the dignity of the subject, which is “God himself,” divinity so far transcends all the arts and sciences that “there is no comparison.” [23] With reference to the criterion of the excellence of the end, he maintained that “whatsoever there is of arts or sciences [theology] by a transcendant distance does excel.” [24] The reason for theology’s transcendent excellence is that it does not “propose unto itself any particular or subordinate end, but the last end of all, viz. eternal blessedness, which consists in an union with God.” [25]

We see then that du Moulin presented a locus on prolegomenon, but he also provided a discussion on the topic of Scripture. In his locus on Scripture is a fundamental distinction between revelation and special revelation: “God therefore who with a courser pencil has shadowed himself in his creatures, has expressed himself in his Word in more bright and lively colors.” [26]

He argued at length for the necessity of the Scripture, presenting such considerations as the need for the Word of God to understand creation, the divine government of the world, and the requirements of true religion. [27] The fundamental reason for the need of Scripture is that it alone provides the message of salvation. Natural revelation is deficient in the sense that it does not reveal to us the reality of divine mercy, “without the knowledge of which there is no salvation.” [28] The Scripture, however, provides “the true and saving knowledge of God.” [29] It gives “a knowledge of him, as is sufficient to salvation.” [30]

In a fascinating passage, du Moulin maintained that it is appropriate for salvation to come by the Word: “Because that man fell by believing the words of the devil, it was fitting that man should be raised from his fall by believing the Word of God; for it was requisite that contrary evils should be cured by contrary remedies.” [31]

While du Moulin provided a synopsis of Reformed thought on prolegomenon and Scripture in his treatise, he mainly expounded upon the doctrine of God—reflecting something of the importance that the Reformed tradition has given to the principium essendi. [32] In his locus on God, we find du Moulin using the medieval scholastic procedure of teaching. To this topic we now turn our attention.

The Doctrine Of God

Protestant scholastic theology, like its medieval antecedents, used a particular order in its teaching procedure. There was an orderly procedure in examining a subject, “raising the right question at the right time.” [33] A proper teaching procedure in the scholastic mentality asked these questions in the following order: Does it exist (an sit)? What is it (quid sit)? Of what sort is it (quia sit)? [34]

When this logical teaching procedure is applied to the doctrine of God, as in Aquinas’s Summa theologiae and in Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology, it accounts for the order of presentation. First, there is a consideration of the proofs of God’s existence (Does it exist?). Second, there is a treatment of the essence of God (What is it?). Third, there is an examination of the divine attributes (Of what sort is it?).

This is precisely what du Moulin did in his development of the doctrine of God in A Treatise of the Knowledge of God. He considered, in order, the proofs of God’s existence, the divine essence, and the attributes of God. He was clearly committed to the medieval approach of handling theological topics.

Let us consider how du Moulin dealt with each of these issues in succession in his teaching on God.

Demonstrative Proofs

Protestant scholasticism was willing to look toward medieval models for teaching methodology and order. But it also had another tendency as well. There was a willingness to draw upon, not only medieval pedagogical approaches, but even medieval theology (at points). Protestant scholastic theology, Richard Muller observes, is “in continuity with the great tradition of the church.” [35] With respect to Turretin, for example, there is “a substantive use of medieval scholastic theology.” [36]

We see the same pattern in du Moulin. He had no problem with using several of Aquinas’s classical proofs, and the “absence of clear or direct citation of medieval sources is quite typical of Protestant theology.” [37] The reluctance to cite Aquinas’s name is due to the charged polemical atmosphere at the time. Muller writes, “The polemic between Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians was so heated in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that any positive citation of a potential adversary could easily bring down charges of heresy on one’s head.” [38] Nevertheless, without mentioning Aquinas by name, du Moulin patently used some of his logical proofs.

Consider, for example, his use of Aquinas’s second way, the argument from efficient causality. Both theologians opposed the notion of a cause that goes on to infinity, without stopping at a first cause. Du Moulin stated his thesis: “Besides it is easy to be seen by evident demonstration, that in the order of efficient causes it is impossible to proceed unto what is infinite.” [39] This is precisely the stand taken by Aquinas: “Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity.” [40]

The first reason that du Moulin gave in support of his position is this: “For if there was no chief and primary cause, there would be no second, nor any third cause; and so of the rest, so that by this means, there would be no cause at all.” [41] This was likewise the position of Aquinas: “In all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or one only.” He added, “Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there would be no ultimate, nor any intermediate, cause.” [42]

The second argument presented by du Moulin against the notion of an infinite regress of causes is this: “Besides we should never arrive unto the last effect, for before we could travel to it, infinite causes must be gone over. Now that is infinite which cannot be gone through, and of which as there is no beginning, so there is no ending.” [43] Again, this is the same line taken by Aquinas: “But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false.” [44]

Du Moulin basically presented himself in this treatise as a philosophical theologian, [45] acknowledging at the outset that he wanted to “express how far human reason, having no relation to the Word of God, can advance itself.” [46] He maintained that reason takes two paths to the knowledge of God. There is the way that the common people take—”the vulgar tread in one path” [47]—and here he placed the teleological argument. [48] In addition, there is the way that the philosophers take: “the higher way” when it comes to “the true knowledge of God.” [49]

In this section of his volume, du Moulin readily used the medieval tradition in terms of Aquinas and also explicitly appealed to Aristotle and his conception of “the first Mover...who is immovable.” He was convinced that such logical argumentation in its total effect is cogent: “The scope of all this, is, that by arguments borrowed from the light of human reason...we may teach that...every being does depend and is sustained by one chief and sovereign Being.” [50] Du Moulin contended that “human reason” by “assistance of philosophy” has “come so far as to affirm that there is a God.” [51]

The Divine Essence

After du Moulin dealt with the issue of the existence of God, he turned, in the tradition of Aquinas, to consider the divine essence. Human reason, he affirmed, does fairly well in correctly asserting the reality of the divine existence. Our understanding, however, is struck with blindness when it comes to answering the question as to what God is. “When they come to describe the nature of God” a “huge and thick mist of ignorance does overspread and cloud the sense, and the light of God himself, turned into darkness, does strike the understanding with blindness and astonishment.” [52]

The difficulty in ascertaining what God is, in terms of the divine essence, is due to what God is like and what man is like. In the first place, du Moulin stated, we must recognize that God, by the nature of the case, is incomprehensible. “The essence of God, as it cannot be expressed by words, so it cannot be conceived by the understanding.” “A thing infinite cannot be comprehended by a thing finite.” [53] Later, he expounded further: “To see into the mysteries of God, and to know his essence is not granted unto any creature, no not unto the angels, because there is no proportion between a finite faculty and an infinite object.” [54] The nature of humanity also disables us from coming to an understanding of what God is. There is, as we have seen, man’s finitude; but there is also the problem of human sin, specifically pravitas and neglentia. “There is added not only man’s slowness and infirmity, but his perverseness and neglect.” [55]

This manifest difficulty in attaining a true knowledge of God has led many to embrace a position of agnosticism: “For these causes there have not been wanting some, who turning desperation into censure, have been of judgment that God could not be known, and that in vain they travail that bestow their labors in searching out his nature.” [56] Human reason then is blinded, unable to tell us what God is. Du Moulin, however, allows some exceptions, namely, Plato and Aristotle. “Plato,” he affirmed, “has delivered to the world many true and excellent things concerning God.” Aristotle was even more advanced in his theological contribution. The great Aristotle was even “more sharp in understanding” than Plato. [57]

We are reminded in these statements from du Moulin that Protestant scholasticism had a strong philosophical bent. It presented a “transition,” David Steinmetz affirms, “from the purely biblical orientation of the reformers to the more philosophically oriented theology of the Reformed scholastics.” [58] Muller calls attention to this particular phenomenon with respect to du Moulin: “The fairly positive attitude toward philosophy is, of course, a point of contrast with Calvin and Viret.” [59]

Despite widespread ignorance concerning the essentia Dei, du Moulin will set forth his own conception as to what God is. “I am of opinion, most aptly and as far as man’s capacity is able to conceive that God may be thus defined, God is the first, the most chief, and most perfect Being, from whom there flows and depends all entity and perfection.” [60] God, in His essence, is being. This is a typical scholastic conception: the divine essence consists in the fact that God exists. [61] The definition that du Moulin offered included not only the assertion that God is the fundamental and primary Being, but that all other secondary beings derive from God and depend upon Him for their continued existence. [62]

The Attributes Of God

Having referred to the nature of God in his definition of the divine essence, du Moulin then indicated that he was ready to begin a consideration of the divine attributes. He declared that “God is” the “most perfect Being.” He then added, “For other things which are his attributes, as his eternity, his simplicity, his wisdom, and of like nature are all contained under this word of chief perfection.” [63]

Du Moulin had answered the tacit questions that were traditionally posed in medieval scholastic theology: Does it exist, and what is it? He then turned his attention to one final issue in the doctrine of God, the attributes of the Almighty. He essentially at this point responds to the third classical medieval enquiry: Of what sort is it? He willingly used human reason to set forth something regarding the nature of God’s perfection. In this, he exemplifies the tendency of Protestant scholasticism to give reason “a major role” in theology. [64]

Du Moulin set forth his own conception of the divine nature by using three reasoning processes: negation, analogy, and inference. He first considered the way in which reason ought to move from its reflections upon human perfections and virtues to the examination of God’s perfections. He here proposed that we may know what God is like if we reason by way of negation, or subtraction. “Whosoever therefore will exalt his thoughts without danger to the contemplation of the Divine perfection, must run over in his own mind all the perfections that are in a creature, and abstract and sever from him whatsoever there is of imperfection, and also those perfections which are the helps and crutches of imperfections, all these being subtracted, that which remains will be God.” [65]

Du Moulin took the position that the perfection of God encompasses all the excellencies manifested in rational creatures. [66] He insisted, however, upon a certain kind of exception to this general rule that God’s perfections embrace all the perfections in the creatures: “But those perfections are excepted which are either the remedies of evils or the helps and aids of imperfections.” [67] Once du Moulin announced the exceptive principle that certain creaturely perfections cannot be enfolded by the divine perfection, he provided a number of instances of what he meant. He thereby surfaced some of the divine attributes.

One example of this approach relates to the human perfection of being able to reason logically. “So to discourse and frame a syllogism is a perfection indued by God into the mind of man.” [68] Its presence in the creature, though, is due to the creature’s frailty. “This perfection” is “the remedy of ignorance and a help unto our weakness.” [69] Thus, the human perfection of logical reasoning processes cannot be found in God, for this would indicate weakness within the Deity. “It would be prophane to look for it in God, who disputes not, nor makes it his labor to find out the truth, nor collects one thing by another, for all things are known to him alike, and he understands all things in one pure and simple thought.” [70]

Du Moulin presented God’s nature by way of negation, but he also used another approach. He reasoned by way of analogy, or eminence. He first issued a word of qualification. “Neither would I...infer that if at any time the same perfection be attributed to God and the creatures, that the same perfections are equal in the creatures as in God.” He then cited an example of what he meant: “Wisdom and righteousness are not attributed to the angels as to God, in one and the same sense.” [71]

We must recognize, he contended, that there is an inequality, a distinction, between creaturely perfections and the divine perfections. Nevertheless, there is a similarity in the perfections found both in the creature and in God. The perfections found in God are there in the most exalted sense, while the same perfections in the creature are a resemblance of the divine: “The wisdom and the righteousness of angels are resemblances of the divine righteousness and sparks shining from it, and the knowledge of one does advance our spirits to the contemplation of another.” [72]

Finally, du Moulin discussed the perfections of God by inferential reasoning. He stated his position this way: “Some of the divine attributes are demonstrated by what goes before, while one attribute is deduced from another by a necessary conclusion.” [73] What divine attributes are necessary deductions from others? Among others, du Moulin mentioned God’s immobility and incorruptibility. Immobility is to be inferred from the divine infinity: “Out of the infiniteness of God, his immobility is demonstrated, for whither can he move himself who is everywhere?” [74] Incorruptibility, conversely, may be conceived from the divine simplicity: “From the simplicity of the essence of God, we may deduce his incorruptibility, for all corruption does proceed from the dissolution of the compound.” [75]

In his discussion of God’s attributes, du Moulin proved willing to use human reason in the service of theology. [76] What specific benefits are there in reflecting upon the divine nature by way of these rational processes—reasoning by way of negation, analogy, and inference? Du Moulin mentioned two benefits. In the first place, real knowledge of what God is like may be obtained by using the “wings” of rational reflection. “The understanding of man mounted on these wings, can exalt herself to some knowledge of the divine nature.” [77] Such reasoning processes, secondly, are helpful preliminary exercises to the perusal of the biblical revelation concerning the knowledge of God: “By which preexercitations the mind being stirred up does more greedily receive, and more easily digest the instructions revealed in the Word of God.” [78]

It may be noted that Calvin would have had a problem with du Moulin’s approach to the divine attributes. He affirmed a different position regarding the capabilities of reason. “Human reason,” Calvin declared, “neither approaches, nor strives toward, nor even takes a straight aim at, this truth: to understand who the true God is or what sort of God he wishes to be toward us.” [79] Not all the Reformed, however, would have concurred with Calvin at this point. Peter Martyr Vermigli, for example, maintained that “unaided reason can attain” some understanding of God’s “attributes.” [80] Francis Turretin wrote along similar lines, maintaining that “human understanding” still possesses “rays of natural light.” [81] He even affirmed that “reason is perfected by faith.” [82] He was willing, like du Moulin, to reflect upon the attributes of God by “the three fold way of causality, eminence and negation.” [83]

This does not mean that Turretin and du Moulin were rationalists, placing reason on an equal footing with the Bible. [84] This was not the case. [85] The Reformed scholastics contrasted with the rationalists. There remained a “genuine opposition between orthodox Protestantism and philosophical rationalism.” [86]

Conclusion: Knowledge Unto Salvation

After serving as a pastor for over twenty years, Pierre du Moulin began his new career as a professor of theology at the Academy in Sedan in 1621. He was in his early fifties. Not long after his arrival in Sedan, he published his De cognitione dei tractatus, which was probably a popularized version of his theological lectures.

As we observed in the preceding discussion, du Moulin’s treatise stands as a representative model of Reformed scholastic theology. Du Moulin decided in this volume to develop the doctrine of God by using the teaching procedure of scholastic theology. Like the medieval doctors before him, du Moulin treated in order the existence, essence, and attributes of God. In addition, the treatise as a whole reflects the typical shape of Protestant scholastic systems by dealing with three standard loci: prolegomenon, Scripture, and God. [87] Throughout the treatise, one finds the characteristic tendencies of Protestant scholasticism: the propensity to draw upon medieval theology, the strong use of reason in the development of theology, a strong philosophical orientation, and the making of careful, precise distinctions and definitions. [88]

Finally, it must be noted that du Moulin’s treatise belies the broad generalization that scholastic theology is arid and lifeless. [89] Du Moulin displayed a pastoral concern that so few people ever come to a true knowledge of God: “I cannot but here lament the condition of human understanding which in trifling things does express a most subtle and ingenious industry, but in the knowledge of God alone does languish in a drowsy sloth.” [90] As a shepherd of souls, he urged his readers to avoid the extreme of “negligence” on the one hand and a “saucy curiosity” on the other. [91] In contrast to negligence, he gave the pastoral exhortation: “Labor...that you may attain to the true knowledge of God.” [92] In contrast to a cocky boldness, he warned his readers: “We must take heed, lest while too much we employ ourselves in this study we offend God by our sedulity; which comes to pass, when not content with what belongs unto salvation, we labor in things unnecessary, and by a prophane curiosity search after those things which exceed the compass of our understanding or sobriety.” [93]

The course of true wisdom for du Moulin lay between these two errors: “In the doctrine which instructs us in the knowledge of God, we must labor after those things which serve for the nourishment of our soul, and abstain from those things which break our teeth.” We must “refer all our knowledge and meditation to piety and manners, and to the love of God.” [94]

Notes

1. Roger Nicole, “Book Review,” Sixteenth Century Journal 29, no. 2 (1998): 554.
2. Brian G. Armstrong, “The Pastoral Office in Calvin and Pierre du Moulin,” in Calvin: Erbe und Auftrag, ed. Willem van ’t Spijker (Kampen: Kok, 1991), 164.
3. Émile G. Léonard, L’Établissement (1564-1700), vol. 2 of Histoirie Générale du Protestantisme (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1961), 321.
4. Gédéon Gory, Pierre du Moulin: Essai sur sa vie, so controverse, et sa polémique (Paris: Librairie Fishchbacher, 1888), 3. Cf. J. Van Der Meij, “Pierre du Moulin in Leiden, 1592-1598,” Lias 14 (1987): 32.
5. Gory, Pierre du Moulin, 7. Du Moulin was born on October 16, 1568. He died on March 19, 1658, at the age of eighty-nine.
6. Bernard Cottret, The Huguenots in England: Immigration and Settlement, c. 1550-1700, trans. Peregrine and Adriana Stevenson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 89.
7. Gory, Pierre du Moulin, 13.
8. Brian G. Armstrong, “The Changing Face of French Protestantism: The Influence of Pierre Du Moulin,” in Calviniana: Ideas and Influence of John Calvin, ed. Robert V. Schnucker (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1988), 137. He was particularly devoted to King James I. Elsewhere Armstrong makes the point that du Moulin wanted “to elevate James to the leadership of the Protestant world of the time” (“Pierre Du Moulin and James I: the Anglo-French programme,” in De l’Humanisme aux Lumières, Bayle et le protestantisme, ed. Michelle Magdelaine [Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1996], 22).
9. Brian G. Armstrong, Bibliographia Molinæi: An Alphabetical, Chronological and Descriptive Bibliography of the Works of Pierre Du Moulin (1568-1658) (Geneva: Droz, 1997), ix.
10. Julien Massip, Un Vieux Predicateur Huguenot: Essai sur les Sermons de Pierre du Moulin (Montauban: J. Granié, 1888), 13. He also preached before James I in the royal chapel at Greenwich (Cottret, The Huguenots in England, 90).
11. Léonard, L’Establissement (1564-1700), 318.
12. Armstrong, Bibliographia Molinæi, ix.
13. Raoul Stephan remarks, “A Paris, les fanatiques se vengent sur de malheureux protestants qui revenaient du temple de Charenton et brûlent l’édifice” (Historie du Protestatisme Francais [Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1961], 145).
14. Stephan, Histoirie du Protestantisme Français, 152.
15. Petri Molinæi, De cognitione dei tractatus (London: Apud Iohannem Billium, 1624), was the very first edition that was published. All Latin quotations come from this original text. All English quotations come from Pierre du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, trans. Robert Codrington (London: A. Mathews, 1634). I have updated the text by removing certain archaic Elizabethan expressions. In addition, I have made spelling changes to the seventeenth-century text when it was warranted. Finally, I have followed today’s conventions in terms of when and when not to capitalize, and also occasionally with respect to punctuation.
16. Protestant scholasticism, as to its essential character, was a theology designed for the schools, institutions such as the academies at Geneva or Sedan. Richard A. Muller, in his Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastics Theology, states that “its intention” is “to provide an adequate technical theology for schools” (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985), 8. David C. Steinmetz remarks that when scholasticism is “stripped to its bare essentials,” it is “school theology” (“The Theology of Calvin and Calvinism,” in Reformation Europe; A Guide to Research, ed. Steven Ozment [St. Louis: Center for Reformation Research, 1982], 226). Cf. Richard A. Muller, “The Problem of Protestant Scholasticism—A Review and Definition,” in Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise, ed. Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2001), 53-54; Ralph Keen, The Christian Tradition (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 230-31; James R. Payton, Getting the Reformation Wrong (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 193.
17. The expression principia theologiae refers to the “foundations of theology.” According to the Protestant scholastics, theology has two principia: Scripture and God. There is the revelation, and there is the one who reveals Himself. Muller states, “The scholastic systems frequently begin with a definition of theology followed by a statement of its principia, viz., a locus on Scripture and a locus on God” (Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 245).
18. Muller states, “The topics of theology, Scripture and God stand together at the beginning of most of the Protestant scholastic systems and together provide the basis for understanding subsequent treatment of all other doctrines” (Prolegomena to Theology, vol. 1 of Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987], 20).
19. A fourth of du Moulin’s book takes up the subject of theology (55-72). He refers to this as “the elements of the Christian religion” (55). Another fourth of the volume focuses on the topic of Scripture (34-55). Half of the treatise concentrates on the locus of God (1-34).
20. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 67.
21. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 60.
22. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 60.
23. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 60.
24. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 62.
25. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 62.
26. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 34.
27. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 35-43.
28. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 35.
29. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 44.
30. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 45.
31. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 46.
32. In Reformed scholasticism, the doctrine of God was regarded as the “essential foundation,” the principium essendi. Muller notes that this term is applied to God “considered as the objective ground of theology without whom there could be neither divine revelation nor theology” (Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 246).
33. J. A. Weisheipl, “Scholastic Method,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967.
34. Richard A. Muller, Scholasticism and Orthodoxy in the Reformed Tradition: An Attempt at Definition (Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1995), 10.
35. Muller, Prolegomena to Theology, 13.
36. Richard A. Muller, “Scholasticism Protestant and Catholic: Francis Turretin on the Object and Principles of Theology,” Church History 55, no. 2 (1986): 205.
37. Richard A. Muller, God, Creation, and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius: Sources and Directions of Scholastic Protestantism in the Era of Early Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1991), 37.
38. Muller, God, Creation, and Providence, 37.
39. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 9.
40. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas, ed. Anton C. Pegis (New York: Random House, 1948), 26 (2.3).
41. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 9.
42. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 26 (2.3).
43. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 9.
44. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 26 (2.3).
45. John Patrick Donnelly writes, “In the whole history of theology there is scarcely any major theologian less influenced by philosophy than Calvin (“Italian Influences on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism,” Sixteenth Century Journal 7, no. 1 [1976]: 82). In contrast, both Lutheran and Calvinist scholastics of the seventeenth century are unabashed philosophical theologians.” In his essay “Calvinist Thomism,” Donnelly adds this note: “Neither Martin Luther nor John Calvin were philosophical theologians” (Viator 7 [1996]: 441).
46. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 2. It should be recognized that the entire first half of the treatise is basically an exercise in philosophical theology. It is only at the halfway point that du Moulin announced that he was turning his attention to Scripture (34).
47. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 5.
48. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 7.
49. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 8.
50. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 12.
51. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 19.
52. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 19.
53. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 21.
54. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 25.
55. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 22. De cognitione dei tractatus, 45.
56. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 23-24.
57. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 24.
58. Steinmetz, “The Theology of Calvin and Calvinism,” 225.
59. Richard A. Muller, “Duplex cognition dei in the Theology of Early Reformed Orthodoxy,” Sixteenth Century Journal 10, no. 2 (1979): 58-59.
60. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 25.
61. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 106.
62. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 26.
63. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 25-26.
64. Donnelly, “Italian Influences on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism,” 82. Muller makes the point that “there remains in the Reformers” an “antagonism to the development of a more speculative theological system based on” the “use of philosophical argumentation” (The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000], 176). Du Moulin had no such antagonism.
65. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 32.
66. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 27.
67. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 27.
68. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 28.
69. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 28.
70. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 28.
71. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 31.
72. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 32.
73. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 33.
74. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 33.
75. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 33.
76. Donnelly makes the point that in Protestant Scholasticism “reason and revelation become closely inter-meshed in the theological process.” Cf. Muller, Prolegomena to Theology, 248. The typical linkage between reason and revelation is reflected in the work of du Moulin.
77. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 33-34.
78. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 34.
79. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), 1:278 (2.2.18).
80. Donnelly, “Italian Influences on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism,” 92.
81. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison (Phillipsburg, N. J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992), 29.
82. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 30.
83. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 179.
84. This is the position taken by Brian G. Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth-Century France (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 32, regarding the nature of Protestant Scholasticism. He affirms that the scholastics employed “reason in religious matters, so that reason assumes at least equal footing with faith in theology.”
85. Richard A. Muller makes the point that du Moulin manifests “great respect” for “reason and philosophy” in his treatise, yet du Moulin “concludes that revelation supplies man’s only hope” (Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena to Theology, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], 299). Reason gives man “a sense of terror, an awareness of sinfulness, and a consciousness of just punishment” (298). “Only the gospel reveals God as he wills to be toward man—as Father and Redeemer” (299).
86. Muller, Prolegomena to Theology, 243.
87. Muller asserts, “The Protestant scholastics did develop doctrinal expositions of these two principia and place them at the beginning of their theological systems, usually placing the locus de Scriptura Sacra second in order after a prolegomenon and the locus de Deo third” (“The Problem of Protestant Scholasticism,” 57).
88. Scholasticism was renowned for its precise distinctions. Muller reflects upon the contrast between the Scholastics and the Reformers: “Where the Reformers painted with a broad brush, their orthodox and scholastic successors strove to fill in the details of the picture” (Prolegomena to Theology, 19).
89. Muller refers to the tendency of the “older scholarship” to equate orthodoxy with such pejorative terms as “rigid” and “dead” and to refer to “scholasticism” with terms like “dry” or “arid” (After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition, 25).
90. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 66.
91. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 72.
92. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 70.
93. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 71.
94. Du Moulin, A Treatise of the Knowledge of God, 72.