I just finished a very brief but magnificent article by Joel Garver on the relationship between a strong doctrine of sacramental efficacy and the solas of the Reformation. I enjoyed this because it defies the popular evangelical belief that a robust sacramental theology is at odds with such doctrines as justification by faith alone. In fact, as Joel explains in this article, the very opposite is true. The entire article can be found here.
Contrary to the sweeping denial of the operation of the works principle anywhere in the divine government, the biblical evidence compels us to recognize that God has in fact employed that principle. Indeed, the principle of works forms the foundation of the gospel of grace. If meritorious works could not be predicated of Jesus Christ as second Adam, then obviously there would be no meritorious achievement to be imputed to his people as the ground of their justification-approbation. The gospel invitation would turn out to be a mirage. We who have believed on Christ would still be under condemnation. The gospel truth, however, is that Christ has performed the one act of righteousness and by this obedience of the one the many are made righteous (Rom 5:18,19). In his probationary obedience the Redeemer gained the merit which is transferred to the account of the elect. Underlying Christ’s mediatorship of a covenant of grace for the salvation of believers is his earthly fulfillment, through meritorious obedience, of his heavenly covenant of works with the Father.
-Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prolouge, p. 107
I was excited to hear that Michael Horton has endorsed Scott Hahn’s book Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI. I’ve been keeping up with Scott Hahn’s work for a few years now, and though I obviously disagree with him on many issues, I’ve benefited greatly from his very astute scholarship. Horton here briefly defends his decision to endorse the book, and it provides an example of how Protestant Christians should engage their Roman Catholic friends without compromising their core convictions. The article can be found here.
“When my conscience leads me to despair, the exhortation to try harder will only deepen either my self-righteousness or my spiritual depression. In other words, it will draw me away from my location in Christ and gradually bring me back to that place where I am turned in on myself. If the conscience is to find peace with God, there can be no help from the law; in fact, it is the law that arouses my conscience to my utter sinfulness.
It is therefore critical to bear in mind that the law is innate and intuitive, while the gospel is an external announcement. The command to love is not surprising, disorienting, or strange; it is familiar to us. We know what we should do by nature. Like the Greeks who look for wisdom, as Paul explained, most of our fellow Americans are not looking for salvation from God’s coming judgment but for help in their moral dilemmas. No one will be offended if we tell them that they are good people who could be a little better. The offense comes when we tell them that they- and we- are ungodly people who cannot impress God or escape his tribunal. Until our preaching of the law has exposed our hearts and God’s holiness, our hearers will never flee to Christ alone for safety even if they come to us for advice.”
-Michael Horton, Christless Christianity, p. 130
It’s truly baffling that so many theologians these days are degrading the law/gospel distinction as a Lutheran intrusion into a 20th century sectarian Reformed theology advocated by the likes of Meredith Kline and the guys out in Escondido. It’s especially baffling when you actually consult the Reformed giants of the past, someone like Zacharias Ursinus who holds a special place in our theology and practice as the primary author of the Heidelberg Catechism. I’ve got to ask, where is this animosity coming from? Can these claims be substantiated? Have the covenant moralists actually read Calvin, Ursinus, Olevian, De Bres, Beza, Zanchi, Vermigli, and others on this doctrine? Because as I read 16th century Reformed literature, I not only see the law/gospel distinction, I see the law/gospel distinction as an integral principle which informs our entire understanding of Scripture. The law/gospel distinction isn’t a secondary and indispensable concern, but a central theological paradigm without which Reformed theology and practice is incomprehensible.
Here is but a sample of Ursinus’ explanation of the importance and distinction of law and gospel in the very beginning of his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism. For Ursinus, the doctrine of law and gospel is the doctrine of the church.
“The doctrine of the church consists of two parts: the Law, and the Gospel; in which we have comprehended the sum and substance of the sacred Scriptures. The law is called the Decalouge, and the gospel is the doctrine concerning Christ the mediator, and the free remission of sins, through faith. This division of the doctrine of the church is established by these plain and forcible arguments.
1. The whole doctrine comprised in the sacred writings, is either concerning the nature of God, his will his works, or sin, which is the proper work of men and devils. But all these subjects are fully set forth and taught, either in the law, or in the gospel, or in both. Therefore, the law and gospel are the chief and general divisions of the holy scriptures, and comprise the entire doctrine comprehended therein.
2. Christ himself makes this division of the doctrine which he will have preached in his name, when he says, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name.’ But this embraces the entire substance of the law and gospel.
3. The writings of the prophets and apostles, comprise the old and new Testament, or covenant between God and man. It is, therefore, necessary that the principle parts of the covenant should be contained and explained in these writings, and that they should declare what God promises and grants unto us, viz: his favor, remission of sins, righteousness, and eternal life; and also what he, in return, requires from us: which is faith and obedience. These, now, are the things which are taught in the law and gospel.
4. Christ is the substance and ground of the entire Scriptures. But the doctrine contained in the law and gospel is necessary to lead us to a knowledge of Christ and his benefits: for the law is our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ, constraining us to fly to him, and showing us what that righteousness is, which he has wrought out, and now offers unto us. But the gospel, professedly, treats of the person, office, and benefits of Christ. Therefore we have, in the law and gospel, the whole of the Scriptures, comprehending the doctrine revealed from heaven for our salvation.
The principle DIFFERENCES between these two parts of the doctrine of the church, consist in these three things:
1. In the subject, or general character of the doctrine, peculiar to each. The law prescribes and enjoins what is to be done, and forbids what ought to be avoided: whilst the gospel announces the free remission of sin, through and for the sake of Christ.
2. In the manner of the revelation peculiar to each. The law is known from nature; the gospel is divinely revealed.
3. In the promises which they make to man. The law promises life upon the condition of perfect obedience; the gospel, on the condition of faith and Christ and the commencement of the new obedience.”
-Zacharias Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism (p.2-3)
I’m certainly at risk of missing something or drawing out incorrect conclusions in this article, so I’ll delay any commentary until I’ve meditated over this a bit more. This is Thomas’ first proof for the existence of God, the argument from motion.
“The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e., that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone believes to be God.”
-Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, [I, 2, 3]
Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, which is set in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God as He is nominally defined. The first mover is immobile, not with the immobility of inertia or of passive potency, which implies imperfection and is inferior to motion, but with the immobility of actuality, who does not need to be premoved so as to act. In other words, we must come to a first mover, who acts by himself, who is his own action,and consequently his own being, for operation follows being, and the mode of operation the mode of being. The prime and most universal mover of bodies and of spirits must, therefore, be pure Act, without any admixture of potentiality, both with regard to action and with regard to being; and hence, as will be clearly seen farther on, He must be the self-subsisting Being.
And so it is evident that this prime mover absolutely transcends the changeable world. We shall see farther on that the first Cause is free, and that when it wills, a new effect is the result of its eternal action, and that this has been eternally decreed by it.
-Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, A Commentary On The First Part Of St. Thomas’ Summa
In order to answer this question, Thomas examines the properties which constitute self evidence and proceeds to conclude that God is not self evident. What does it mean for something to be self-evident? Thomas explains that a thing can be self evident in two ways: first, something can be inherently self-evident, though not to us, or it can be both self-evident in itself and self-evident to us. The latter kind of self-evidence depends upon our personal apprehension of a propositions predication in relation to the subject of the proposition itself. The example Thomas uses is “Man is an animal.” If the essence of”animal” (predicate) is understood and the essence of the subject “Man” is understood, then we can move from understanding the essence of the predicate to understanding the subject which it qualifies. This kind of self-evidence is both self-evident in itself and self-evident to all.
If, however, the essence of the subject and predicate of a given proposition are unknown, the proposition will be self-evident in itself, but not self-evident to all. This is where the question of God’s existence and self-evidence comes into play. ”God exists” is unquestionably self-evident in itself, for the predicate “exists” is the same as the subject “God”, something Thomas will explain later in greater length. God is his own existence, therefore “God exists” is a self-evident proposition. If we do not know the essence of God, this particular proposition is not self-evident to us, for we have no epistemic basis for understanding the subject in relation to the predicate. Thomas explains that because of the aforementioned reality, God’s existence must be demonstrated by things “that are known to us”, things that are the subject of empirical observation and rational deduction. Essentially God’s existence, not being self-evident in the sense which Thomas explained, must be demonstrated by effects. Herein lies the fundamental differences between Thomas’s Aristotelian realism and the Neo-Platonic archetypal theology of Augustine. Here is an example of one of Thomas’s great achievements, bringing God back to nature, reconciling reason with the reality of revelation, defending deductive reasoning from the realities (not shadows) of nature and reason as opposed to the inductive spiritualism skeptical of all things earthly.
What is the purpose of this post? Is it really necessary? Personally, I think Thomas’s epistemic observations are very important. Their importance lies in the fact that this particular explanation of God’s self-existence serves as a foundation upon which his proofs for the existence of God will rest. This realism will substantially legitimize Thomas’s entire project to prove the existence of God from earthly realities, realities “familiar to us.” Thomas will proceed, on this basis, to propose his famous proofs for the existence of God, proofs which I believe have helped the Christian apologetic endeavor throughout the centuries perhaps more than anything else proposed by other theologians or philosophers.
I’m really enjoying Chesterton’s little biography of St. Thomas, and I’d encourage anyone to pick it up. It can be read in a few hours, although the content is so rich that I’d advise you take a little more time. Here’s a wonderful section in which Chesterton puts in Thomas’s mouth a reply to the purely spiritual and mystic kind of Christianity brought on by the influx of neo-platonism into the church. Enjoy!
“As we shall have to consider more closely later on, the purely spiritual or mystical side of Catholicism had very much got the upper hand in the first Catholic centuries; through the genius of Augustine, who had been a Platonist, and perhaps never ceased to be a Platonist; through the transcendentalism of the supposed work of the Areopagite; through the Oriental trend of the later Empire and something Asiatic about the almost pontifical kinghood of Byzantium; all these things weighed down what we should now roughly call the Western element; though it has as good a right to be called the Christian element: since its common sense is but the holy familiarity of the word made flesh. Anyhow, it must suffice for the moment to say that theologians had somewhat stiffened into a sort of Platonic pride in the possession of intangible and untranslatable truths within; as if no part of their wisdom had any root anywhere in the real world. Now the first thing that Aquinas did, though by no means the last, was to say to these pure transcendentalists something substantially like this.
‘Far be it from a poor friar to deny that you have these dazzling diamonds in your head, all designed in the most perfect mathematical shapes and shining with a purely celestial light; all there, almost before you begin to think, let alone to see or hear or feel. But I am not ashamed to say that I find my reason fed by my senses; that I owe a great deal of what I think to what I see and smell and taste and handle; and that so far as my reason is concerned, I feel obliged to treat all this reality as real. To be brief, in all humility, I do not believe that God meant Man to exercise only that peculiar, uplifted and abstracted sort of intellect which you are so fortunate as to possess: but I believe that there is a middle field of facts which are given by the senses to be the subject matter of the reason; and that in that field the reason has a right to rule, as the representative of God in Man. It is true that all this is lower than the angels; but it is higher than the animals, and all the actual material objects Man finds around him. True, man also can be an object; and even a deplorable object. But what man has done man may do; and if an antiquated old heathen called Aristotle can help me to do it I will thank him in all humility.’”
-G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 9
If only the church we’re asking Thomas’s questions instead of busying themselves with the newest and most culturally relevant homiletic trends, or the “coolest” kind of music to incorporate into the liturgy, or the best way to deconstruct the words of Scripture for a younger and more illiterate audience. It’s safe to say that the medievals receive a lot of bad rhetoric from our modern culture, when our modern culture is exploring new vistas of depravity so opposed to the theology of Thomas or Francis, that it really is quite profound when you note the contrast. And sure the church was worldly then, moralistic in many ways, and plagued by the reign of the popes. But can we really say that todays evangelical church is any better? The church today is quite possibly twice as worldly, rabidly moralistic, and plagued by self-styled therapeutic popes lording their godless theology over the church in a way which makes the Popes seem orthodox, godly, and theologically stolid. All this to say that we can’t just write off St. Thomas or St. Francis because we’ve heard from a professor or pastor that they lived in the big bad dark ages and didn’t produce anything that we Protestant Christians should dare look at. Read the lives of the medieval saints! Buy Thomas’s Summa Theologica! Read Chesterton’s masterful biographies of St. Francis and St. Thomas! Emulate their radically God-centered thinking in our degenerating church culture of Christianity-lite. These are men who gave their entire lives to studying within the confines of a cloister day and night and refused a living in exchange for extreme poverty, ridicule, affliction, and illness. Read the following questions and concerns written in this introduction to Question 2 of the Summa, and ask yourself – Are these the kinds of questions the church is wrestling with today?
“Because the chief aim of sacred doctrine is to teach the knowledge of God, not only as He is in Himself, but also as He is the beginning of things and their last end, and especially of rational creatures, as is clear from what has been already said, therefore in our endeavor to expound this science, we shall treat: (I) Whatever Concerns The Divine Essence; (II) Of the Rational Creature’s advance Towards God; (III) Of Christ, Who as man, is our way to God.
In treating of God there will be a threefold division:
For we shall consider- (1) Whatever concerns the Divine Essence; (2) Whatever concerns the distinction of Persons; (3) Whatever concerns the procession of creatures from Him.
Concerning the Divine Essence, we must consider:
(1) Whether God exists? (2) The manner of His existence, or, rather, what is not the manner of His existence; (3) Whatever concerns His operations- namely his knowledge, will, power.
Concerning the first, there are three points of inquiry:
(1) Whether the proposition ‘God exists’ is self evident? (2) Whether it is demonstrable? (3) Whether God exists?
-St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, [I, 2, 1]
