Mark Chambers Challenges John Piper’s “Two Wills In God.”

Every so often I will post articles on ironink written by friends. This article is written by Mark Chambers. Mark is a member of the Church I serve and is a very close friend. He is also one of the sharper theological minds that you will come across in or out of the Reformed pulpit. In the article below Mark exposes Dr. John Piper’s inadequate thinking of John Piper’s “two wills in God” theory. It is a theory that has been advanced by other Reformed men besides John Piper and so it is important to consider the reasoning here.

Like all articles I post from other folks, my posting isn’t a blanket endorsement on every point or phrase but it is a insistence that what the author is saying, on the whole, needs to be heard.

I first encountered this article by Piper seven years ago in a book titled “The Grace of God-The Bondage of the Will”. It is a collection of writings from various Calvinists edited by Thomas Schreiner and Bruce Ware and published as a response to the book edited by Clark Pinnock titled “The Grace of God and the Will of Man”. That Schreiner and Ware are Baptists goes a long way in explaining why the confused muddle headedness of Piper’s article was included.

“On to the Two Wills of God

My aim in this chapter is to show from Scripture that the simultaneous existence of God’s will for “all persons to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4) and his will to elect unconditionally those who will actually be saved is not a sign of divine schizophrenia or exegetical confusion. A corresponding aim is to show that unconditional election therefore does not contradict biblical expressions of God’s compassion for all people, and does not nullify sincere offers of salvation to everyone who is lost among all the peoples of the world.”

Several things here.

1. There is no doubt that God shows compassion to all men. The sun rises on the righteous and unrighteous alike. But this doesn’t translate to an earnest desire for their salvation when in fact God has no intention, and never had any intention of saving the reprobate.

2. The possibility for one who is not elect to accept a free offer of the Gospel does not exist and cannot exist, for God has determined from eternity who will and will not accept.

3. It remains then to be asked exactly what is meant when it is suggested that God “wills for all persons to be saved”? If He willed that all persons be saved then all persons would be saved. Piper equivocates on the word will, suggesting that there are two wills when in fact he means something entirely different when speaking of the two. Will is determinative of action. God wills to save and consequently those whom He wills to save are saved. But in what sense then can it be said that God “wills” the salvation of the reprobate? An exercise of the divine will results in the accomplishment of the thing willed and the reprobate are not saved. Does Piper imagine that the reprobate would still be reprobate if God did not will it?

“1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, and Ezekiel 18:23 might be called the Arminian pillar texts concerning the universal saving will of God………….Therefore as a hearty believer in unconditional, individual election I rejoice to affirm that God does not delight in the perishing of the impenitent, and that he has compassion on all people. My aim is to show that this is not double talk.”

Here Piper introduces a point that is both irrelevant and inane. Positive reprobation does not require divine enjoyment or rejoicing in the death of the wicked nor does it mean that He lacks compassion. It is one thing to reprobate and will the destruction of the wicked (to make some vessels for dishonor) and another thing altogether to say that this entails some emotional pleasure for God. Non sequitur—it simply does not follow. Is God not glorified in the reprobation of the non elect?

“Affirming the will of God to save all, while also affirming the unconditional election of some, implies that there are at least “two wills” in God, or two ways of willing.”

Actually what it implies is a confused mind equivocating on the word will. Is God as confused as Piper? God wills, Piper suggests, that the non elect unbeliever accept the “sincere offer”, while also willing their reprobation, the very thing that makes that acceptance impossible. But to suggest that there are two ways of willing requires one to redefine the word will for one of those instances. The result for Piper is that God wills what does not come to pass. Worse. He wills the very thing that He has determined (by His will), cannot come to pass. God wills what he does not will. Piper ought to spend some time reviewing the Law of Contradiction.

“It implies that God decrees one state of affairs while also willing and teaching that a different state of affairs should come to pass.”

It implies that God is confused, decreeing one thing but wanting something else. Piper’s suggestion divorces God’s will from His decree. He decrees one state of affairs, but wills another. This is absurd. Are there conflicting interests in the divine mind? Can God decree a state of affairs without willing it? Does he bring to pass things against his own will? Can God deny Himself? If we approach the word will unequivocally then the only thing God wills is that which comes to pass, i.e. in this instance, the salvation of the elect and the destruction of those whom He reprobates. God works all things after the counsel of his will. How in the world can Piper suggest that God wills what does not come to pass?

“This distinction in the way God wills has been expressed in various ways throughout the centuries. It is not a new contrivance. For example, theologians have spoken of sovereign will and moral will, efficient will and permissive will, secret will and revealed will, will of decree and will of command, decretive will and preceptive will, voluntas signi (will of sign) and voluntas beneplaciti (will of good pleasure), etc.”

All of these are attempts to relieve the equivocation and resolve the imagined paradox between particularism and hypothetical universalism. The preceptive will, moral will, will of command et al are not volition. His will is expressed not by what is commanded, but by what is accomplished. God commands all men everywhere to repent, but he does not will that they do. God’s will is found only in God’s decree.

“Clark Pinnock refers disapprovingly to “the exceedingly paradoxical notion of two divine wills regarding salvation.” In Pinnock’s more recent volume (A Case for Arminianism) Randall Basinger argues that, “if God has decreed all events, then it must be that things cannot and should not be any different from what they are.” In other words he rejects the notion that God could decree that a thing be one way and yet teach that we should act to make it another way. He says that it is too hard “to coherently conceive of a God in which this distinction really exists”

Basinger and Pinnock are absolutely right. Open thiests are heretics, but they are logically consistent heretics. Basinger rightly notes that the decree of an omniscient God requires that things be exactly as they are. A consistent Calvinist has no problem with this. A logically consistent Arminian rejects traditional Arminianism for open theism. But Piper is left with no argument that he can offer against them.

“Fritz Guy argues that the revelation of God in Christ has brought about a “paradigm shift” in the way we should think about the love of God — namely as “more fundamental than, and prior to, justice and power.” This shift, he says, makes it possible to think about the “will of God” as “delighting more than deciding.” God’s will is not his sovereign purpose which he infallibly establishes, but rather “the desire of the lover for the beloved.” The will of God is his general intention and longing, not his effective purpose. Dr. Guy goes so far as to say, “Apart from a predestinarian presupposition, it becomes apparent that God’s ‘will’ is always (sic) to be understood in terms of intention and desire as opposed to efficacious, sovereign purpose.”

Open theists are heretics of the first degree. But what does Piper offer instead? Fritz Guy suggests that God does not always ‘get’ what he wants. But Piper is worse. He suggests that God wants one thing and does another! His is desire is contrary to his decree. I’m not sure which is worse, the finite impotency of the open theist or divine confusion.

“These criticisms are not new. Jonathan Edwards wrote 250 years ago, “The Arminians ridicule the distinction between the secret and revealed will of God, or, more properly expressed, the distinction between the decree and the law of God; because we say he may decree one thing, and command another. And so, they argue, we hold a contrariety in God, as if one will of his contradicted another.”

Edwards is right on the button with this. The issue is not one of two wills but of law (precept) and decree. And he is clear that the two are not contradictory. Why? Because they look to different things. The law is a standard; a demand. It is not volition but an expression of command. God has not willed that his precepts be obeyed, but He did will to command.

“To avoid all misconceptions it should be made clear at the outset that the fact that God wishes or wills that all people should be saved does not necessarily imply that all will respond to the gospel and be saved. We must certainly distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen, and both of these things can be spoken of as God’s will.”

Unbelievable. God wishes? Does He also toss lucky pennies in the fountain while making his wish? Here is a perfect example of equivocation and why Piper is confused. God’s will is indeed expressed in what is accomplished; he wills the salvation of the elect and the elect are saved. It is the doing, the accomplishing that expresses volition. Piper sounds Arminian. Saying that God willing does not imply the accomplishment of what is willed is just astounding. More incredible he says that God does what he does not want to do and wills what he also does not will. Even the Arminian argument makes more sense than this. At least the Arminian has a sound reason for saying that God doesn’t get what He genuinely wills i.e. the libertarian will of the creature. Here Piper posits a confused God who wills contradictory propositions. And what of the astounding statement that God’s wish [wish?] that all would be saved does not guarantee that all will respond? After all, it is God Himself who calls and enables the elect. One wonders exactly what Piper is thinking?

“The question at issue is not whether all will be saved but whether God has made provision in Christ for the salvation of all, provided that they believe, and without limiting the potential scope of the death of Christ merely to those whom God knows will believe.”

Whom God knows will believe? Just how does Piper think God knows such things? It’s hard to believe a 5 pointer could write this. How can a 5 pointer say “provided they believe” when he himself has made it clear that those who will believe were determined before the foundation of the world? One can utter the hypothetical and say “well if they did believe they would be saved” but it can also be said with equal veracity that if the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow morning it will be a dark day. It is true, but also inane. And exactly what is “potential scope”? There is no such thing, at least as Piper would have us think. The potential in the work of Christ, or in anything that God does, is identical to what is accomplished. There is no potentiality in God, no maybes, no ifs, only actuality and full realization. He does what He intends. Potential is the figment of a temporal imagination. Piper is committing an error of category here in what I believe to be a feeble attempt at protecting the infinite value of the cross. But value and application are categorically distinct.

“In this chapter I would now like to undergird Marshall’s point that “we must certainly distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen, and [that] both of these things can be spoken of as God’s will.””

Would like to see happen? Piper is daft. The whole problem is that in Piper’s argument will is defined in several different ways—the most common one being desire. But one cannot do that. He clearly recognizes the difference between decree and command but calls them both “will” and then fails to see the confusion caused by such an equivocation. He needs to correct his language. Additionally it is utterly absurd to suggest that God wills one thing but would rather have something else. Frankly I’d be afraid to say such a thing.

“The most compelling example of God’s willing for sin to come to pass while at the same time disapproving the sin is his willing the death of his perfect, divine Son. The betrayal of Jesus by Judas was a morally evil act inspired immediately by Satan (Luke 22:3). Yet in Acts 2:23 Luke says, “This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan (boule) and foreknowledge of God.” The betrayal was sin, and it involved the instrumentality of Satan; but it was part of God’s ordained plan. That is, there is a sense in which God willed the delivering up of his Son, even though the act was sin.”

SOME SENSE IN WHICH HE WILLED IT? Decreeing the death of Christ and abhorring the evil in it does not constitute a duplicitous will. The will is reflected only in the decree. Finally how can any 5 point Calvinist say that there is “a sense” in which God willed the death of His Son “even though” the act was sin? I’m flabbergasted. GOD WILLED THE DEATH OF HIS SON PERIOD. He was delivered up ACCORDING TO THE DEFINITE PLAN AND FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THE ALMIGHTY GOD WHO WORKS ALL THINGS AFTER THE COUNSEL OF HIS OWN WILL. There is a sense in which He did it all right. It was exactly what He intended and that from eternity. Piper appears to be afraid to say that GOD IS THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF ALL THINGS. If it happens it happens by decree. The only logically sound alternative is the finite god of open theism.

Michael Horton — 1995 / Michael Horton 2012

Nevertheless, Kuyper did make “Christian” versions of many things in the world: Christian schools, newspapers, and political parties tended to obscure the earlier Protestant confidence in the realm of nature as possessing sufficient life and justification for its existence without having to be organized as specifically Christian. This Kuyperian spirit has been especially attractive in some circles in North America, because it is world-embracing and eschews the pietistic retreat from society, and yet it should not be too hastily concluded that one can find a distinctively “Christian” philosophy, political theory, or aesthetic. If these are indeed realms of common grace and natural revelation, they do not require a specifically Christian explanation. Looking for one will only tend to polarize Christians from non-Christians until believers are at last exiled again from the public square forced to pursue their “Christian” philosophy in their own spiritual ghetto.[1]

Dr. Michael Horton
“Where in the World is the Church? A Christian Viwe of Culture and Your Role in It”
Moody Press, 1995 , page 32.

This is an older quote from Mike and it may be the case that he has changed his mind about this, though I would be surprised if he has. I have my doubts about his having changed any given this quote from Mike that is very recent.

“Christians, of all people, should be concerned about the pressing issues in culture and society today. However, even in the same church, where people share the same faith, worldview, and values, there will be different applications, policies, and agendas.”

1.) Mike speaks of an earlier Protestant consideration, pre-Kuyper, of a nature realm that possessed sufficient life and justification for its existence without having to be organized as specifically Christian.

And yet guys like John Knox, who certainly represent the earlier Protestantism that Mike speaks of, could insist that Mike’s natural realm be organized as specifically Christian.

“For it is a thing more certain that whatsoever God required of the civil magistrate in Israel or Judah concerning the observation of true religion during the time of the Law, the same doth he require of lawful magistrates professing Christ Jesus in the time of the Gospel, as the Holy Ghost hath taught us by the mouth of David, saying (Psalm 2): ‘Be learned, you that judge the earth, kiss the Son, lest that the Lord wax angry and that ye perish from the way.’ This admonition did not extend to the judges under the Law only, but doth also include such as be promoted to honours in the time of the Gospel, when Christ Jesus doth reign and fight in His spiritual kingdom, whose enemies in that Psalm be most sharply taxed, their fury expressed and vanity mocked. And then are kings and judges, who think themselves free from all law and obedience, commanded to repent their former blind rage, and judges are charged to be learned. And last are all commanded to serve the Eternal in fear, to rejoice before Him in trembling, to kiss the Son, that is, to give unto Him most humble obedience. Whereof it is evident that the rulers, magistrates and judges now in Christ’s kingdom are no less bound to obedience unto God than were those under the Law.”

John Knox, The appellation of John Knox from the cruel and most injust sentence pronounced against him by the false bishops and clergy of Scotland, with his supplication and exhortation to the nobility, estates and commonality of the same realm (Geneva, 1558) in idem, On rebellion, ed. R. A. Mason (Cambridge, 1994), pp 91-2.

I could repeat these kinds of quote many times over from Reformed men that long predated Abraham Kuyper and at least call into question Mike’s assertion of a earlier Protestant confidence in a natural realm that could be organized neutrally.

2.) Mike almost dismisses the idea of the possibility of Christian philosophy. With such a casual dismissal Mike dismisses the work of Christian Philosophers who believed that they were advancing Christian philosophy. Mike dismisses the work of men like Augustine, Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, C. Gregg Singer, Francis Schaeffer, Ronald Nash, Greg Bahnsen, and any number of other Christian philosophers who insisted that they were advocating Christian Philosophy. This dismissal made so casually is a bit shocking even considering that it comes from a R2K advocate.

3.) The polarization that Mike warns against arising between believers and pagans is the natural consequence of Christianity contra non-Christianity. Is Mike saying that we should jettison Christian thinking so that we can get on better with the non-Christians? And in terms of ghettoizing isn’t the consequence of clash of belief systems the eventual marginalization of those who lose that clash, whether Christian or non-Christian?

Take R2K for example. It is in the midst of a worldview warfare against Historic Reformed doctrine and should it lose it will be ghettoized. Similarly, if Historic Reformed doctrine loses in this worldview warfare against R2K it will be ghettoized. Ghettoization is always the consequences of those who lose worldview clashes. For example, look how ghettoized that the Church in Russian was as a result of losing the worldview warfare with the Bolsheviks. Were Mike alive then would he have been writing things like, “The Russian Church needs to jettison Christian thinking so that we can get on better with the Bolsheviks?

4.) In Mikes second quote he advances the strange idea that people who have the same worldview will have different applications, policies, and agendas. How is it possible Mike, to have the same exact world and life view and yet contend for different applications, policies, and agendas? Can two people have the same Christian worldview and find that one desires the legalizing of abortion while the other desires that abortion be made a crime?

Certainly there might exist slight nuance differences and strategy differences among those who share a worldview but to say that those with the same worldview have different agendas is quite curious speech.

Brief Historical Taxonomy On How Churches Once Viewed One Another

In our pluralistic age it is inevitable that the pluralism that characterizes us leaks into the Church. Today, if one insists that the Denomination in which they are members of, or the faith expression they embrace is the “one true Church,” to the neglect of all other faith expressions or denominations they are likely to be pretty quickly castigated and scorned. This collegiality among different faith expressions and denominations was not always the norm, and would have been considered, even a short 100 years ago or so to be quite inconsistent with Biblical faith.

For example, Dr. Francis Pieper, a noted Lutheran, in his book, “Christian Dogmatics, Vol. III, p. 422,” could write,

“Congregations and Church bodies must be divided into two classes according to their doctrine … “

Pieper then goes on to speak of churches that are orthodox and those which are heterodox with the implication clearly present that only Lutherans are orthodox.

This kind of thinking was also seen in the Lutheran Dr. Walter Maier when Maier refused to speak at a inter-denominational Bible conference because of its heterodox nature. Maier only agreed to speak at the conference when it was agreed that a Lutheran pastor would come in to preside over the conference. With a Lutheran Pastor presiding Dr. Maier could participate because then the conference would be orthodox.

Some of this thinking still carries on today among some Lutherans. I have a Lutheran Pastor friend who would not allow me to join his church since I am Reformed and could never agree with the Lutheran distinctives. I don’t fault him for that stance since it has been the position for much of the Church throughout Church history that organizations that don’t hold to distinctive doctrines as taught in the Scripture are not true Churches and should not be considered as such.

As another example consider the Baptist view of a little over 100 years ago of who does not constitute a true Church.

“It is only courtesy to speak of paedobaptist organizations as ‘churches,’ although we do not regard these churches as organized in full accordance with Christ’s laws as they are indicated in the New Testament… So we in matters … vitally effecting the existence of the Church, as regenerate church membership, must stand by the New Testament, and refuse to call any other body of Christians a regular Church…”

Dr. A. H. Strong, 1836-1921
Reformed Baptist Theologian
Systematic Theology

What Strong offers here is merely the classical view of Baptist Churches. That some Baptist Churches might not hold this merely means that those Baptist Churches are inconsistent with their own doctrine and have yet one more contradiction in their thinking. As an anecdote on this score I am reminded of a woman who was a member in a Reformed Church that I serve. She had been baptized as a infant. She wanted to volunteer to work for a local Baptist school. The Pastor of the Baptist Church was told of this and despite her protestations that she was already baptized as an infant the Pastor insisted that if she was to work at their school she must be baptized as an adult. The Pastor was only being consistent with the kind of doctrine that Baptists, such a Dr. Strong, has been articulating for years. Note that Dr. Strong called paedobaptist organizations “churches” out of a way of being polite. He clearly did not believe that they were Churches. Given the fact that paedobaptist churches eschew universal regenerate membership and credo-baptist doctrine it is only reasonable and consistent that Dr. Strong would speak the same way as the Lutheran Dr. Pieper above.

Note, that neither Dr. Strong, nor Dr. Pieper necessarily believed that those who were in those other religious organizations were not Christians. They merely insisted that their Churches (Denominations) were the one true Church.

The Reformed faith has always concurred with this thinking and have found fault with Baptist doctrine and Lutheran doctrine the same way that Lutherans and Baptists find fault with their doctrine and so likewise did not consider those denominations to be expressions of the true Church.

“The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church– and no one ought to be separated from it….

As for the false church, it assigns more authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God; it does not want to subject itself to the yoke of Christ; it does not administer the sacraments as Christ commanded in his Word; it rather adds to them or subtracts from them as it pleases; it bases itself on men, more than on Jesus Christ; it persecutes those who live holy lives according to the Word of God and who rebuke it for its faults, greed, and idolatry.

Article 29
Belgic Confession of Faith

Because the Reformed Church has believed the above it does not recognize Baptist Churches, Lutheran Churches, Holiness Churches, or Roman Catholic Churches as true Churches since they do not (1) engage in the pure preaching of the Gospel, or (2) make use of the pure administration of the sacraments, or (3) practices church discipline.

Now, once again, this does not mean the Reformed people don’t believe that there aren’t Christians in those organizations but it does explicitly teach, like Baptists and Lutherans and Catholics, that other denominations are not genuine Churches.

Now, currently if any Church or denomination express this once standard vanilla theology that there is only one true Church and those in alien denominations, for the good of their own souls, need to repent and join the one true Church those people are seen as “narrow minded,” “uncharitable,” or “mean-spirited.” But, clearly those who refuse to embrace this once nearly universal teaching who are narrow-minded since they are not broadminded enough to accept Churches who define themselves other then the casual pluralistic way they want to define churches. They are the ones who are uncharitable since they will not accept those who disagree with their pluralistic stamp. They are the ones who are mean spirited since they have decided scorn against those who define the Church as the confessions do.

The ironic thing in all this is that those who want to insist that the Church needs to be defined pluralistically are really members of the same ideological denomination regardless what the denominational stamp is on the church they attend. If all people in Baptist, Lutheran, Holiness, Congregational, Roman Catholic organizations and Reformed Churches are to insist that the genuine Church is where ever people gather who call themselves Christian, regardless of the denominational stamp then they have defined themselves as the same ideological denomination over against those who want to draw the genuine Church definition in different ways as we have seen above.

For Reformed folks we have historically said Reformed Baptists Churches were not true Churches because we are required to “detest the error of the Anabaptists who are not who are not content with a single baptism once received and also condemn the baptism of the children of believers” (Article 35 Belgic Confession) For Reformed folks we have historically said Lutheran Churches were not true Churches since they deny Limited Atonement. For Reformed folks we have historically said that Holiness Churches are not true Churches since they are Arminian. For Reformed folks we have historically said the Roman Catholic Churches are not true Churches because of their semi-pelagianism. None of this means that we believe that all the Christians in those organizations are unregenerate. It merely means that out of love for God and love for them we do not refer to their organizations are Churches.

Later Editorial note:

I believe the drive to see all denominations as all being genuine Churches may be another consequence of our egalitarian age which loathes making distinctions between “this and that.” In an egalitarian age that desires to insist that all people and both sexes are alike it is easy to insist likewise that all churches are alike and eventually, over the course of time, all religions are even alike.

Ask The Pastor — What Of Immanentizing The Eschaton?

Dear Pastor,

As for the question of immanentizing the eschaton, you vote that we usher in the Christian one; I vote that we wait for Christ to usher in the eschaton.

David,

Thank you for your insightful offering.

In reference to ushering in Eschatons. You seemed to miss the point that I was trying to make earlier when I said,

by insisting that the common realm belongs to common grace and natural law what they (R2K adherents) end up doing is creating a vacuum in which the other adherents of other gods will try to immanentize their respective eschatons. So while at least some amillennialists want to avoid immanentizing the Christian eschaton what their retreat ends up doing is allowing the immanentizing of other non-Christian eschatons. We must remember that it is never a question whether or not if some eschaton will be immanentized but only a question of which eschaton will be immanentized. I vote for the Christian one.

There is no neutrality on the question concerning immanentizing eschatons. The question isn’t, “Will we or will we not usher in a eschaton,” the question rather is, “Which eschaton will we work to incarnate?”

Concerning this matter keep in mind that culture is the consequential manifestation of what we believe concerning ultimate theological reality. Now since all theology is teleological and always has the end (eschaton) in mind, it simply is impossible for humans to build cultures where no consideration (whether epistemologically conscious of that consideration or not) is given of immanentizing the eschaton. The culture that we live in right now is the result of some successful theology managing to bring its vision of the future end into the present.

Let me note, that I quite agree that there can be dangers in non-humble considerations of eschaton immanentizing. However, for all the dangers I see there I see far more dangers in a escapism or retreatism which allows the eschatons of pagan gods to have their way.

We need to keep in mind here the words of A. A. Hodge when he wrote,

If the national life in general is organized upon non-Christian principles, the churches which are embraced within the universal assimilating power of that nation will not long be able to preserve their integrity.

A. A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology, p. 283-84

Now, Hodge doesn’t explicitly reference eschaton immanentizing but he has in mind exactly that which I am trying to get at. If we will not live in such a way that puts the feet to our prayers of “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” thus immanentizing the Christian eschaton, we will, as God’s people be embraced in the assimilating powers of non-Christian principles which are working to immanentize their version of their religions eschaton.

Thanks for the conversation David.

Kline Klatch

Recently, in the comments section David R. from Fla. has been mildly defending R2K theory by quoting Dr. Meredith Kline. I thought I would interact a little with David’s pull quotes. I hope to help pull back the curtain on the problems with this thinking.

Some people might remember Dr. Kline as the man who built a straw man out of Dr. Greg Bahnsen’s Theonomic position and then proceeded to destroy the straw man he had built, insuring before he wrote his unseemly attack piece that Dr. Bahnsen would not be able to respond to his attack piece in the same journal in which Dr. Kline attacked Dr. Bahnsen.

David R. writes,

In Kingdom Prologue, Kline has a very helpful discussion of the common grace city and its relationship to the kingdoms of God and Satan. He describes two aspects of the common grace city, that of religious antithesis and common grace, as follows:

David R. then quotes Dr. Meredith Kline,

“There is in the city a spiritual malignancy, the fatal consequence of the usurpation of the world kingdom by Satan and the prostitution of the city to demonic service. In the lurid expose found in the apocalyptic mode of Scripture, the satanically perverted urban power structure is seen as a beast savagely turned against the citizens of the city who refuse its mark…. The victims are not those disadvantaged in things temporal. It is rather a matter of religious antithesis, an ancient diabolical enmity. It is against the redeemed of the Lamb that the controlling powers of the world kingdom direct their hellish hostility.

“Yet in the face of the bestial aspect assumed by the city and the ensuing religious warfare that rages within it,
Scripture affirms the legitimacy of the city. One thinks of the historical context of Romans 13. The legitimacy of the city is affirmed not because the bestializing of the city is a relatively late historical development. As a matter of fact, the Beast-power is not just a phenomenon of the present church age. The founder of the city was himself the slayer of the first martyr-prophet…. Our positive affirmation of the city structure is not based on a mere chronological priority of positive to negative factors in the make-up of the city. It is due rather to the fact that fundamental structural legitimacy is a matter of divine ordinance, not of the nature of man’s administration of the institution. The frightful religious tension of the city belongs to the story of the apostate direction taken by the city potentates and should not be allowed to obscure the character of the city as a structure founded on the common grace ordinance of the Creator.

1.) Dr. Kline would have us believe that the city (common realm) is prostituted to a demonic service that is a beast that is turned against the redeemed of the lamb who are to endure the hellish hostility of an ancient diabolical enmity and yet despite the fact that these controlling powers have usurped the world kingdom so that common realm is implacably opposed to those who will not receive its mark Dr. Kline’s followers would have us believe that some kind of principled pluralism in the common realm can make it so Christians and non-Christians can function harmoniously despite all this hostility?

Well, I suppose some people can reconcile that position.

2.) Note that Dr. Kline mentions in these brief paragraphs both the idea of “religious warfare that rages within the common realm,” and again, “the frightful religious tension of the city.” This is fundamentally important to critiquing the disciples of Kline (the grand-daddy of R2K). Dr. Kline admits of this religious warfare that rages in the city and yet the disciples of Kline insist that the common realm, at least for Christians, is a religious free zone. Christians, according to the R2K acolytes are not to appeal to their Christianity (their religion) in the common realm but instead they are to appeal to natural law. I’ve even had one R2K supporter tell me that it is only natural religion that is to shape the common realm since Christianity was never intended to be a social order factor. Many of the R2K fellows communicate this same thing when they tell you that “there is no such thing as Christian culture,” or when they rail against the idea of Christendom. So, here is the question. If, in R2K thinking, Christianity is not to shape or impact the common realm, which is instead shaped by common grace and ruled by common law, how can it be that there will be “religious warfare that rages within” the common realm, and how can there be a “frightful religious tension?” If the common realm is common and Christianity does not exist in a public square sense in the common realm then whence this frightful religious tension? Whence this religious warfare that rages within the common realm?

Here we have one of the R2K disciples quoting Dr. Meredith Kline and yet Kline assumes to be the case what R2K insists can’t be the case.

3.) Dr. Kline refers to the city (common realm) as “bestial.” By what standard are we defining the common realm as bestial? Naturally that standard has to be the Scripture. Dr. Kline, looking to the standard of the Scripture, insists that the common realm is “bestial.” So, if the common realm is “bestial” it seems like it would be fair to say that the common realm is also evil. (Bestial and evil do kind of go together.) However, the R2K lads insist on telling us that Dr. Kline’s bestial common realm is NOT evil — not bestial — but rather is merely “common.” The common realm can not have in it a Christian culture the R2K lads tell us and yet their mentor, Dr. Kline tells us that the common realm must remain decidedly non-Christian. (After all, if the common realm remain bestial in hardly seems a stretch to insist that a bestial realm yields non-Christian cultures.)

The reason this is so important is that it was the Anabaptists who insisted that the realms outside of their communes were inherently evil. Dr. Kline’s position, like the R2K position, does sound Anabaptist at this point. Note that Dr. Kline seems to be saying that the common realm is animated by “the Beast power.” One wonders how that common realm can be considered common if it is, by definition, animated, shaped, influenced by “the Beast power?”

Dr. Kline continues

“Over against every tendency to identify the city at its essential core with those demonic powers that seize and manipulate the power of the state we must assert the biblical testimony to the goodness of this postlapsarian institution as an appointment of God’s common grace, beneficial and remedial in its functions.”

So, despite all the apocalyptic language earlier used to describe the common realm, the goodness of this common realm is asserted. This is akin to Alexander Solzhenitsyn writing about the horrors of the Gulag Archipelago and then concluding by asserting the goodness of the gulag.

Biblical Christianity, contrary to R2K dualisms, does believe that there is a present evil age that is every bit as wicked as Dr. Kline describes. However, Biblical Christianity doesn’t teach that the present evil age is good or dualistically permanent. Biblical Christianity teaches that this present wicked age is being incrementally pushed back by the age to come that was inaugurated by the coming and triumph of the Lord Christ. God’s Christ, being victorious over this present wicked age, and having bound the strong man is now, by the work of His Spirit and through the Spirit given obedience of the Church and through His providential orchestration of all things, is going from victory unto victory. The age to come is not yet in all of its manifested authority and will not be until the consummation of all things but the fact that the age to come is not yet seen in all its coming brilliance does not mean that it can not, will not, or should not be incrementally and increasingly turning the desert of the present wicked age into the Oasis of the already present and ever increasingly present age to come.

God’s common grace is seen in the reality that the present wicked age is not perfectly consistent with its own Christ hating presuppositions. God’s common grace keeps the present wicked age from nihilistic destruction so that the age to come, of our Lord Christ’s delegated authority to the Church, has the time and opportunity to be about the mission of teaching the nations to observe all things so that age to come goes from glory unto glory over this present wicked age which resists it at every turn.

Dr. Kline continues,

“Summing up then, the meaning or essential identity of the postlapsarian city is not found in identification either with the kingdom of Satan or with the kingdom of God. Nor is it to be explained in terms of a dialectical seesawing between the demonic and the divine. This divinely appointed institution exists within the sphere of common grace, which is the corollary, the counterpoise, of the common curse. The fundamental shape of the city is the resultant of the interplay of these two correlative principles of divine action, a divine wrath and a divine grace that restrains that wrath according to the measure of sovereign divine purpose. Such is the biblical conceptual framework for defining the basic meaning of the city.” (pp. 168-172)

Dr. Kline has thus given us two dualisms.

1.) The first dualism is the dualism between the City of God and the City of man. (Let’s not even venture into the fact that Dr. Kline’s followers uses these in a non-Augustinian sense.)

2.) The second dualism is the dualism that is found in the second duality of the first dualism. In the City of Man Dr. Kline has suggested that there is a dualism that exists between the ying of common grace and the yang of common curse.

Dr. Kline says that the essential identity of the postlapsarian city is not found in identification either with the kingdom of Satan or with the kingdom of God. Another way of saying that is that the postlapsarian city is found in identification with both the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God. After all, remember the descriptors earlier that was given to us by Dr. Kline. The City of Man was “Bestial.” The City of man had a spiritual malignancy. The City of man The World Kingdom had been usurped by Satan and the city of Man was prostituted to Demonic service.

After saying all this, how can Dr. Kline turn around and say “the postlapsarian city is not found in identification either with the Kingdom of Satan or with the Kingdom of God?

Yet at the same time Dr. Kline now says that this city of man is a divinely appointed institution. This is why I say that Dr. Kline is saying not only saying that the City of man’s identity is not to be found either with the Kingdom of Satan or the Kingdom of God, but Kline is also saying that the city of man’s identity is found both in the Kingdom of Satan and in the Kingdom of God.

Notice also, that with Kline’s assertion that the city of man is not to be identified with the Kingdom of Satan we are still left asking, “Where exactly is the Kingdom of Satan in Radical Two Kingdom theology?

Finally, note that Dr. Kline can deny his creation of a dialectic in the City of man all he wants but that is exactly what he has given us. In a very Hegelian manner Dr. Kline has given us, for the City of Man, a thesis which is the Kingdom of God and a antithesis which is the Kingdom of Satan and Dr. Kline has left the synthesis to only be arrived at with the consummation. It strikes me then, that the city of man for those who accept this thinking (R2K), is a Manichean reality. The common realm is a place where ultimate good and ultimate evil are perfectly counter-poised so that neither will have conquest over the other. This is perfectly consistent with Amilliennial eschatology that insists that good and evil grow together and evil only begins to triumph finally on the brink of Christ’s return.

Now keep in mind that this is the quote that was given to me by David R. I have only dealt with that quote which I was given.