I wrote this a few months ago when I was in seminary. I thought it was important to go ad--secondary--fontes in order to further understand the instrument of justification.
Sometime in March I will do some spade work with the primary source (Holy Scripture). We will look at the respective roles of and the relationship between the threefold law we find in the NT, i.e., "the law of works" & "the law of faith" (Rom. 3:27), and "the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2).
Faith and its Many Facets
The following essay will survey John Calvin’s doctrines of faith and assurance in chapter two of book three in the 1559 edition of his Institutes. In order to flesh out the character of Calvin’s doctrine of faith we will first look at the object of faith both for Calvin and his opponents. Then we will turn our attention to the content of faith as taught from their respective positions. In order to appreciate Calvin’s break with the medieval and Catholic tradition we will focus rather narrowly on Calvin’s polemics against the “formed” and “unformed” faith of his Scholastic forebears and Roman Catholic contemporaries. From this vantage point, we will then note the different role of the human will in apprehending faith’s object between Calvin and his opponents. Finally, we will look at the implications of faith as they relate to the doctrine of assurance in the theology of Calvin and his opponents.
The Object of Faith
For Calvin, Christ is both the object and goal of the Christian’s faith (3.2.6; cf. 3.3.19). He says, “For just as [Christ] has been appointed as the goal of our faith, so we cannot take the right road to him unless the gospel goes before us” (3.2.6). Calvin contends sharply against the medieval and Roman doctrine of “implicit faith” in which believers were instructed to embrace as true whatever the church taught concerning God or Christ. Calvin calls the doctrine of implicit faith “fiction” and claims that such teaching not only buries but utterly destroys true faith (3.2.2). In contrast to the Medievals and Rome, Calvin insists that Christ as he is given in the gospel, rather than the church, its teaching, or even a vague depiction of God, is the proper object of a Christian’s faith. He says, “Faith embraces Christ, as offered to us by the Father” (3.2.8).
The Content of Faith
Both Calvin and his opponents believed the intellect played a key role in the apprehension of faith’s object for the Christian. However, Calvin accuses “the Schoolmen” of going completely astray by identifying faith “with a bare and simple assent arising out of knowledge” (3.2.33, emphasis added). By focusing solely on one faculty of the human soul (the intellect) at the expense of the will Calvin believes that Christians are left without any ground for confidence or assurance of heart as it relates to their salvation. He says, “Whatever sort of assent that is, it does not penetrate to the heart itself, there to remain fixed” (3.2.10). Even knowledge, for Calvin, must not be simply understood as bare intellectual assent to faith’s object since “faith is much higher than human understanding” and “ [the mind] is persuaded of what it does not grasp, by the very certainty of its persuasion it understands more than if it perceived anything human by its own capacity” (3.2.14). However, Calvin’s strength over against his opponents is found in the way he incorporates the role of the human will in apprehending faith’s object.
For Calvin both faculties of the human soul must be engaged for faith to properly apprehend its object. The importance of the role of the human will in this process cannot be underestimated for Calvin. He says, “Now the knowledge of God’s goodness will not be held very important unless it makes us rely on that goodness” (3.2.7, emphasis added). Elsewhere he says, “A firm and steadfast constancy of heart is the chief part of faith” (3.2.33). Clearly, for Calvin, true faith does not rest in the intellect alone but includes the role of the human will. Faith is not merely knowledge or intellectual assent through it certainly is not less than that. For Calvin, saving faith consists not only in the intellectually faculty of soul apprehending faith’s object, i.e., Christ, but consists also in an act of the will which trusts and relies on faith’s object.
It should be noted that Calvin’s opponents also place an emphasis on the role of the human will in the Christian’s faith. The Catholic doctrine of fides formata caritate, faith informed by love, taught that faith perfected the will which made Christians capable of producing good works. The performance of these good works, therefore, allowed one to earn merit before God which contributed to their justification. According to the Council of Trent: “For faith, unless hope and charity are added to it, neither unites perfectly with Christ, nor forms a living member of his body” (session 6, chapter 8). Calvin, on the other hand, claimed that the essence of faith consisted in the Christian trusting that God, in Christ, is faithful to save and redeem them as he has promised in the gospel.
Conclusion: Faith’s Implications
One of the chief implications of Calvin’s understanding of faith’s object and its content is found in his doctrine of assurance. Calvin summarizes the Roman and medieval understanding of assurance which based salvation in a subjective assessment of one’s merits and works as “a conditional promise that sends us back to our own works and does not promise life unless we discern its presence in ourselves” (3.2.29). Calvin believes when confidence of salvation is left to the Christian it becomes impossible to know what tomorrow will hold for one’s soul (3.2.40). Therefore he goes to great pains in emphasizing the objective work of Christ and the promises of God’s Fatherly mercy annexed to the gospel as the object of the Christian’s faith. For Calvin these objective promises are not contingent upon one doing anything except trusting, relying on, and resting in these very promises and what they signify. He says, “We make the freely given promise of God the foundation of faith because upon it faith properly rests…faith properly begins with the promise, rests in it, and ends in it” (3.2.29).
For Calvin, contra his medieval and sixteenth century opponents, assurance of salvation is not primarily grounded in the Christian’s objective working, but rather in their subjective trusting in the objective work of Jesus Christ on their behalf for their redemption. In other words, for Calvin, the objective and subjective grounds of the doctrine of assurance find their respective basis in Christ’s work of salvation for sinners and the human will’s trusting in that work on their behalf.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
The Serpent's subtle subversion of sacramental significance
E. Rice here weighing-in after 2 days of eating dried 'cots, reading Vos, and fellowshiping with the Wassells, Shane, and Alex, and looking forward to seeing JP next weekend! You guys are such an encouragement to me for many, many reasons but right now especially because your lives show a response to the gospel that is worthy of the gospel. An unending source of discouragement for me is the unbelief and pathetic responses of so many family, friends, acquaintences in and out of the church who have heard the gospel so clearly yet remain uncommitted to Christ, while at the same being sold-out for worldly pursuits.
Today's post brings up some ideas that Vos presents in the ch. 3 of Biblical Theology covering Pre-redemptive Special Revelation. The first two of four principles that Vos discusses in the chapter are in regards to the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Vos puts forth the idea that the trees have sacramental significance; they are "prefigurations coveying assurance concerning the future realization of the things symbolized." The tree of life symbolizes the principle of life, with the lesson being that "life comes from God, that for man it consists in nearness to God, that it is the central concern of God's fellowship with man to impart this." The tree of knowledge of good and evil was established by God to eventually communicate knowledge of good and evil to man.
Prior to reading this book it has been becoming increasingly clear to me that the Garden and Heaven are not the same thing. I am well aware that in heaven swords will be bent to plowshares and pruning hooks, but to say heaven is a return to the Garden is just plain wrong (and Jehovah's Witness-like)! The most basic differences between heaven and the garden is that the garden is not a permanent dwelling place of God, and the garden is a place of testing. It will be impossible to sin again upon entering heaven; the garden was not heaven, but more like an entrance place into heaven.
Adam was created into an earthly existance with an earthly task which he was to complete prior to entering into a spiritual exsistence in the higher sphere of heaven. We are correct and helpful in reminding one another that God has planned redemption since eternity past, but a more basic truth we often miss is that God has always planned to bring man into a state of everlasting blessedness. Without sin there would be no redemption, but sin is but one of two paths Adam could have taken to gain eternal, personal attachment to God. God is not dependent on man to sin in order to accomplish that plan. The wonder of the Gospel is that following the failure of Adam to keep the covenant of works, God re-extends the reward of life to Adam on the basis of grace!!! God's plan to impart life is not thwarted by sin.
This is what covenant theologians are getting at when they speak of Adam's "probation." The garden was a place of testing. God gave Adam a task: to not eat of the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That is not a picture of heaven. Were Adam to stand through this time of testing, the reward would have been eternal life. The tree of life would have been the sacramental means of communicating that life. In his failure to meet God's demands, Adam's eating of the fruit from the tree of good and evil indicates he would also eat of the tree of life, and reveals that he would rather have life without God. That is so wicked, and completely rediculous, because life consists of nearness to God.
The title of this post is owing to the serpent's actions in deceiving Eve, and Adam, into eating from the tree of knowledge of good-and-evil. The serpent's agenda was to convince them that God was bad, and that the serpent has their best interests in mind. Obviously, the opposite is true: God was testing them prior to confirming them in glory, while the serpent was tempting them in order to ensure their ruin.
What is important to see, is that God's prohibition from eating of the tree does not mean that He was also prohibiting the knowledge of good-and-evil. It is not necessary to commit evil in order to be enlightened! Vos writes,
"Man was to attain something he had not attained before. He as to learn the good in its clear oppostion to the evil, and the evil in its clear opposition to the good. Thus it will become plain how he could attain this by taking either fork in the probation-choice. Had he stood, then the contrast between good and evil would have been vividly present in his mind: the good and evil he would have known from the new illumination his mind would have received through the crisis of temptation in which the two collided. "
The serpent told them that they had to eat from the tree to receive knowledge. He placed envy in their hearts for what God had and was holding from them. Vos writes, "(the serpent said) the tree has in itself, magically, the power of conferring knowledge of good an evil. This lowers the plane of the whole transaction religious and moral to the pagan-magical sphere."
The trees, set up by God, were intended to point to the fact that He alone is the source of life and knowledge. The serpent convinced man that they could be like God through receiving from the fruit of the tree. The serpent distorted the sacramental significance of the trees and ascribed to them power that belongs to God alone.
The parallels are just jumping out at me with the continued distortion of the OT and NT sacraments all down through history. I will save this for another time, and invite you all to weigh in as well.
Today's post brings up some ideas that Vos presents in the ch. 3 of Biblical Theology covering Pre-redemptive Special Revelation. The first two of four principles that Vos discusses in the chapter are in regards to the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Vos puts forth the idea that the trees have sacramental significance; they are "prefigurations coveying assurance concerning the future realization of the things symbolized." The tree of life symbolizes the principle of life, with the lesson being that "life comes from God, that for man it consists in nearness to God, that it is the central concern of God's fellowship with man to impart this." The tree of knowledge of good and evil was established by God to eventually communicate knowledge of good and evil to man.
Prior to reading this book it has been becoming increasingly clear to me that the Garden and Heaven are not the same thing. I am well aware that in heaven swords will be bent to plowshares and pruning hooks, but to say heaven is a return to the Garden is just plain wrong (and Jehovah's Witness-like)! The most basic differences between heaven and the garden is that the garden is not a permanent dwelling place of God, and the garden is a place of testing. It will be impossible to sin again upon entering heaven; the garden was not heaven, but more like an entrance place into heaven.
Adam was created into an earthly existance with an earthly task which he was to complete prior to entering into a spiritual exsistence in the higher sphere of heaven. We are correct and helpful in reminding one another that God has planned redemption since eternity past, but a more basic truth we often miss is that God has always planned to bring man into a state of everlasting blessedness. Without sin there would be no redemption, but sin is but one of two paths Adam could have taken to gain eternal, personal attachment to God. God is not dependent on man to sin in order to accomplish that plan. The wonder of the Gospel is that following the failure of Adam to keep the covenant of works, God re-extends the reward of life to Adam on the basis of grace!!! God's plan to impart life is not thwarted by sin.
This is what covenant theologians are getting at when they speak of Adam's "probation." The garden was a place of testing. God gave Adam a task: to not eat of the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That is not a picture of heaven. Were Adam to stand through this time of testing, the reward would have been eternal life. The tree of life would have been the sacramental means of communicating that life. In his failure to meet God's demands, Adam's eating of the fruit from the tree of good and evil indicates he would also eat of the tree of life, and reveals that he would rather have life without God. That is so wicked, and completely rediculous, because life consists of nearness to God.
The title of this post is owing to the serpent's actions in deceiving Eve, and Adam, into eating from the tree of knowledge of good-and-evil. The serpent's agenda was to convince them that God was bad, and that the serpent has their best interests in mind. Obviously, the opposite is true: God was testing them prior to confirming them in glory, while the serpent was tempting them in order to ensure their ruin.
What is important to see, is that God's prohibition from eating of the tree does not mean that He was also prohibiting the knowledge of good-and-evil. It is not necessary to commit evil in order to be enlightened! Vos writes,
"Man was to attain something he had not attained before. He as to learn the good in its clear oppostion to the evil, and the evil in its clear opposition to the good. Thus it will become plain how he could attain this by taking either fork in the probation-choice. Had he stood, then the contrast between good and evil would have been vividly present in his mind: the good and evil he would have known from the new illumination his mind would have received through the crisis of temptation in which the two collided. "
The serpent told them that they had to eat from the tree to receive knowledge. He placed envy in their hearts for what God had and was holding from them. Vos writes, "(the serpent said) the tree has in itself, magically, the power of conferring knowledge of good an evil. This lowers the plane of the whole transaction religious and moral to the pagan-magical sphere."
The trees, set up by God, were intended to point to the fact that He alone is the source of life and knowledge. The serpent convinced man that they could be like God through receiving from the fruit of the tree. The serpent distorted the sacramental significance of the trees and ascribed to them power that belongs to God alone.
The parallels are just jumping out at me with the continued distortion of the OT and NT sacraments all down through history. I will save this for another time, and invite you all to weigh in as well.
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