Theology – Page 25

Succinct Description On The Difference Between The Conservative & Progressive Mind

“Edmund Burke believed that, since human beings are born into a functioning world populated by others, society is—to use a large word he wouldn’t—metaphysically prior to the individuals in it. The unit of political life is society, not individuals, who need to be seen as instances of the societies they inhabit.

What makes conservatives conservative are the implications they have drawn from Burke’s view of society. Conservatives have always seen society as a kind of inheritance we receive and are responsible for; we have obligations toward those who came before and to those who will come after, and these obligations take priority over our rights. Conservatives have also been inclined to assume, along with Burke, that this inheritance is best passed on implicitly through slow changes in custom and tradition, not through explicit political action. Conservatives loyal to Burke are not hostile to change, only to doctrines and principles that do violence to preexisting opinions and institutions, and open the door to despotism. This was the deepest basis of Burke’s critique of the French Revolution; it was not simply a defense of privilege.

Though philosophical liberalism traces its roots back to the Wars of Religion, the term “liberal” was not used as a partisan label until the Spanish constitutionalists took it over in the early nineteenth century. And it was only later, in its confrontation with conservatism, that liberalism achieved ideological clarity. Classical liberals like John Stuart Mill, in contrast to conservatives, give individuals priority over society, on anthropological as well as moral grounds. They assume that societies are genuinely constructs of human freedom, that whatever we inherit from them, they can always be unmade or remade through free human action. This assumption, more than any other, shapes the liberal temperament. It is what makes liberals suspicious of appeals to custom or tradition, given that they have so often been used to justify privilege and injustice. Liberals, like conservatives, recognize the need for constraints, but believe they must come from principles that transcend particular societies and customs. Principles are the only legitimate constraints on our freedom.

The quarrel between liberals and conservatives is essentially a quarrel over the nature of human beings and their relation to society.”

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jan/12/republicans-revolution/?page=2

1.) Because of their belief in Covenant Theology Reformed people have always inclined towards being Conservative. Covenant theology teaches us that all of God’s people through time are one organic people. We see this in our Baptism services when the Generations assemble at the Baptismal font in order that a member of their family may be ratified in their place in the covenant of grace. This covenant into which they are being announced is a covenant in which their forebears were placed through the centuries and it is a place where Baptized’s generations to follow will also be announced. Also, the very nature of Federal Theology with its idea of Federal Headship pushes Reformed people in a conservative direction. The teaching of Scripture where we find man created as incomplete apart from woman suggests that the individual is not the primary building block of society but rather the community is apriori to the individual. Likewise the idea of the fifth commandment pushes Christians towards being conservative in their disposition. Family is to be honored. Even the very idea of the God as Triune having Eternal community pushes the Biblical Christian towards conservative commitments. The Reformed have always believed that change comes incrementally and organically as is seen by their watch words of doing things, “Decent and in order.”

It is not as if, however, there are not understandings of proper individualism in the Reformed mindset and ethos. The Reformed emphasis on personal and individual responsibility in sanctification bespeaks a proper individualism. The Reformed understanding of justification by faith alone puts the individual as individual before God alone.

However, the Reformed faith favors a conservative dynamic as the individual finds his identity in a community of communities which are prior to him and will long outlive him. Yes, it is true that there will come times when, for the good of the community, the individual flavor will have to exercise itself (as when a community is together going over a cliff) but on the whole the Reformed instinct is conservative because the Bible teaches us this conservative disposition.

2.) On the other hand it has always been variant flavors of Anabaptist “Christianity” which has given us the Liberal Christian. The Anabaptist, like the Liberal, sees the sovereign self abstracted from any context as being the central integer in all that God does. Even when Anabaptist communities arise they are communities that are created by a shared conviction of the priority of the individual over the community. When we look at the Anabaptist doctrine of Baptism which emphasizes the choice of the individual we see the Liberal spirit coming to the fore. When we we see the Anabaptist doctrine (implicit or explicit) of justification by works we see the individual cast upon himself.

Ironically, in contradiction to the quote above Liberals do appeal to a long standing custom and tradition and that is the the time honored custom and tradition that we ought to ignore custom and tradition. Whenever we find a person seeking to overthrow the past whole sale only on the whim that we are sovereign enough to do that we find the Liberal. We have seen massive doses of Liberalism since the Enlightenment. Everything from the breakdown of the community and family through the creation of government schools to separate children from their family, to the giving of women the vote, to the attack on the family with the advent of abortion. All of these changes have come to us from those who believe that society can be reorganized according to the sovereign individual self who is prior to community. Any place you see people working to instantaneously overthrow long set community patterns you find the liberal.

And of course, being a conservative, I would note that Satan was the Liberal par excellent. Satan himself arose to defy the Almighty. Satan, as the Liberal individualist tempted or first parents to seize the Liberal position of the sovereign self in order to overthrow the community order that God has established. Satan, in the temptation of Jesus tempted Jesus to become the Liberal individual by seizing for Himself self aggrandizement.

A Beautiful Quote On What God Pursues As God’s Highest Good

“They (Sundry Philanthropists) say that sin«e disinterestedness is the property of every virtuous act, and selfishness is the hateful root of vice, in all other beings, it would be immoral in God, thus to propose Himself as His own supreme end, and to arrogate to Himself the services of all creatures, exhausting their well-being upon Himself. They urge that this would be selfishness more enormous than that of sinful men, just as its claims are more vast. They exclaim that this scheme makes God the great egotist of the universe. On the contrary, they display their own scheme (their Philanthropy) in enviable contrast for its disinterestedness, as making the welfare of our fellow men the chief end.

These cavils against the Christian law assume that it is intrinsically wrong for a being to direct his aims to his own wellbeing. But this is not true. There is a sense in which self-love is lawful, even for a creature; yea, the absence of it may be positive sin. There is another reason why the selfishness of fallen man is criminal: It is because a question of prior right intervenes. Our Creator puts in claims to the fruits of our existence, which are superior to all others; and therefore it is sin to be supremely selfish, because it robs our Maker of that which we received of Him. But God is indebted to none for His existence and powers. He alone is eternal, uncaused, and independent. Obviously then, it is invalid to reason that, because, in a creature, supreme egotism would be an odious crime, therefore it would ‘be a vice in the uncreated God. That regard for one’s own well-being which, even in the creature, may toe a proper subordinate end, may be in the Creator a most righteous supreme end.

But Christianity can defend itself with more positive arguments upon this point. God, being immutable, is ever actuated by the same motives. But when His eternal purpose of creation and providence subsisted in His mind, “before He had made the highest part of the dust of the earth,” or laid the foundations of the heavens, He must have been self-moved thereto; for the irrefragable reason, that nothing else existed besides Himself, to be a motive. Is it said that creatures, the future recipients of His beneficence, were present in thought, and were the motives of His purpose? The reply is at hand, that they existed as yet, only in His purpose; which purpose was the expression of His own subjective desire and impulse alone, seeing nothing but Himself existed. Hence the very purpose to create creatures to be the recipients of His bounty, was simply the result of self-gratification, because the perfections of nature thereby indulged were infinitely benignant. But whatever was God’s motive in the earliest eternity, is His motive still; for He is without “variableness, or shadow of turning.” When it is remembered that we are creatures, it is easily concluded, that our highest duty is to God. He is the author of our existence, our powers, our happiness, and supporter of our nature. He is our proprietor, in a sense so high that all other forms of ownership almost vanish away, when set beside God’s. He is, moreover, by His own perfections, the properest object of all reverence, homage, and suitable service. So that, manifestly, it is the highest virtue in the creature, that he should offer to God the supreme tribute of his being and service. But if it is obligatory on the creature to offer this, it cannot be wrong in God to accept it.

Hence, we repeat, God’s most proper ultimate end, in all His creation ‘and government, is the gratification of His own adorable perfections in His acting. And the creature’s highest duty is not chiefly to seek his own good, or that »f his fellow creatures; but the glory of God. He is the center, in.’whom originated all beings, and to whom all should tend. His will and glory is the keystone of the whole moral order of the universe. As it was the gratification of His infinite activity which originated all creature existences, with all their powers of doing and enjoying, so it is His self-prompted desire to diffuse His infinite beneficence, which-is the spring of all the well-being in the universe. And here is the conclusive answer to the cavil which we have been discussing: How can it be selfishness in God to make the gratification of His own nature His supreme law, where that nature is infinitely unselfish and benevolent? In this light, the objection is seen to be of a piece with that wretched philosophizing which argues, that, because the loving mother, the sympathizing benefactor, are actuated by their own subjective impulse, in succoring the objects of their kindness, and find pleasure in the act, therefore it is not disinterested. Common sense, as true philosophy, replies: aye, but is not the pleasure itself a pleasure in disinterestedness? What higher definition of a disinterested nature can be given, than to say that its most instinctive pleasure is in doing good?

Thus, as God’s own most suitable end is the satisfaction of His own excellent perfections; so the creature’s chief end is to glorify aod enjoy Him. This benevolent God has, of course, given the duties of benevolence to man a large place in the law which he has enacted for men; but even in our freest acts of beneficence to our fellows, we are required to have a reference supremely to Him whose creatures they are. Love to our neighbor is to be a corollary from love to our God. We are chiefly to seek His glory in their good, as in our own; and these are always in complete harmony. Hence it follows that whenever man makes his own, or his fellows’ good his chief end, he necessarily comes short of that good; and the only way to gain it, is to seek the higher end. Nor is there a paradox, when we thus say, that in order that man may truly attain his own well-being, he must truly prefer something else to it. Is it not a parallel, and an admitted truth, to say, that it is only when the virtuous man prefers some better end than applause, in his actions, that they are truly virtuous and deserving of applause? An instructive instance of this great law of our well-being is found by every one in common life. Who has not experienced this: that the days and the efforts which have been especially devoted to our own enjoyment, have usually disappointed us of enjoyment, while the days, which we devote primarily to duty, are thickly strewn with wayside flowers of unexpected pleasure?

Christian philanthropy’derives its efficiency, no less than its purity, from this, that it all flows from the Christian’s love of his God. He is an object, who never disappoints us, who never changes nor forgets; who never shows Himself forgetful or neglectful of our affectionate service; who never disgusts our efforts by unworthiness; and who has pledged the most generous reward to every true act of humanity. But if we make man our chief end, he usually shews himself, soon, unworthy to be our end. He alienates our love; he disgusts us by the follies and crimes which cruelly counteract our efforts for his good; he renders us indignant by his ingratitude. Such an idol as this can never animate us with a devotion, which will rise to the pure and enduring self-sacrifice of Christian charity. Hence, if for no worse reason, worldly philanthropy is ever feeble, unsteady, evanescent.

R. L. Dabney
Vol. IV — Secular Discussions
The Crimes of Philanthropy — pp. 60-63

The beauty of this includes the idea that God is not only God’s highest good but in the self-giving of God in the Trinitarian communion we also see that God serves as our vision of the most selfless being of all. In the eternal intra-Trinitarian communion each member of the Trinity seeks to selflessly pursue the glory of each of the other member’s of the Trinity. The Fathers resolved to glorify the Son and the Son likewise sought to glorify the Father. The Spirit was sent by the Father and Son to glorify the Son as He glorifies the Father and in accomplishing His work the Spirit glorifies Father and Son who in turn Glorify the Spirit by giving Him as the Church’s inheritance. We see in all of this that God while God is the highest good in all that He pursues, He also is, at the same time, the most self-giving in all that He pursues.

However, in all of this God’s ultimate aim is never the creature. To be sure, the good of God towards the creature (particularly the Elect) is the residue of God’s pursuit in all He does but man always remains God’s penultimate aim and never His ultimate aim. God is eternally satisfied in Himself, and does all He does for His own Glory. Because this is true fallen man has great hope and is called to delight only in what God delights in.

Failure to accept this reasoning is a failure of the modern Church. The modern church fails, in this regard, first of all because we seldom speak about these matters and the reluctance to speak about these matters leaves the stubborn selfishness of man in place. Secondly, as the stubborn selfishness of man is left in place the consequence is that men create whole theologies out of the idea that man is God’s highest good. Man develops systems of thought where Jesus died for men before He died to glorify the Father, and by such “theology,” the good is made the enemy of the best. From here these kinds of theology end up developing the Christian understanding of God’s chief end as one where God exists in order to glorify man and fully enjoy him forever. When this kind of “theology” is given its head it results in man being ensconced as deity and with man viewing God as the great vending machine in the sky, who exists only to give man whatever man wants. God thus is reduced to being the servant of man and anthropology becomes theology. Such “theology,” may be seen in the simple statement, “God loves you and as a wonderful plan for your life,” when perhaps it should be at least understood by people who make such statements that, “God loves God and has ordained a wonderful plan to glorify Himself.”

It may be the case that of all the troubles that roils the modern Church today, the foundational problem is that God’s people, never mind those outside the Church, no longer have this high vision of God. And with this low vision the putatively “saved” man is turned into a even uglier creature then the unsaved man since the putatively “saved” has baptized his self-centeredness and called it Holy.

Genesis to Revelation In Two Sentences

Like a symphony, Scripture is a unified whole that contains multiple diverse themes that are developed and incased in the narratival canonical plotline.

The OT is the story of God, who progressively reestablishes his new creational kingdom out of chaos over a sinful people by his word and Spirit through promise, covenant, and redemption, resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this kingdom and judgment (defeat or exile) for the unfaithful, unto his glory.

The NT heightens and develops the OT score and storyline by giving us Jesus whose life, trials, death for sinners, and especially resurrection by the Spirit have launched the fulfillment of the eschatological already — not yet new — creational reign, bestowed by grace alone through faith alone and resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this new-creational reign and resulting in judgment for the unbelieving unto the triune God’s Glory.

Paraphrase of G.K. Beale
A NT Biblical Theology — pg. 16

Now the question for Dr. Beale would be, “Is the worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this new-creational reign a commission that is exhaustive and totalistic touching every area of life?”

It is hard to imagine a new-creational reign that is limited, muted or stunted in what it re-orders.

Vos on Solidarity w/ Christ … McAtee on Eternal Objective Union w/ Christ

“It is customary to say that he (the author of Hebrews) insists upon the possession by Christ of our human nature as essential to His priestly representation of us. But this is not saying enough. The line of reasoning followed in the second chapter shows plainly that the solidarity lies back of this, that the assumption of human nature through the incarnation is not its basis but only a form in which the principle asserts itself. When we are told that ‘both he that sanctifies and they that are being sanctified are all of one’ (2:11), it would be a mistake to interpret this phrase ‘of one’ of the common descent of Christ with us from Adam or Abraham. That something else is meant the working out of the idea in the sequel convincingly shows. For the author proceeds to prove this fact of this solidarity from the observations that Christ calls believers His spiritual brethren, and that He resembles them by assuming the same trustful attitude towards God which marks them as children of God, nay that He Himself sustains to them the relation of a father to his children. All this lies in the spiritual sphere and while, in its concrete form, not possible w/o the incarnation, is not in principle caused by it. On the contrary, the author represents the incarnation as the further carrying out of a spiritual solidarity already given: “Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself, in like manner partook of the same.” (Heb. 2:14). The joint-sonship of Christ w/ believers does not follow from the incarnation, it produces the incarnation: because those w/ whom He was spiritually identified, those whom He resembled in sonship, partook of flesh and blood, He carried His solidarity w/ them to the point of the assumption of their nature. It is obvious that the root of the identification of Christ w/ us which underlies His priesthood is in His standing before God, in the divine appointment by which His destiny and the destiny of the people of God were forever united. It is what the old theology called the federal oneness of Christ w/ believers that is here taught. That this idea is actually in the writer’s mind follows from one striking feature in the representation which is often overlooked. Believers are not merely called joint-children of God with Christ, but are called ‘children of Christ.’ The writer puts on the lips of Jesus the Isaianic utterance: ‘Behold I and the children whom God has given me’ (2:13) and joins to this the affirmation that, because the children, i.e., Christ’s children, were partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same. They were His children because back of all temporal developments in either His birth or their Birth, they had been given to Him of the Father. He stands not only in general solidarity with them, but in that specific form of solidarity which constitutes Him the Father and them the children – a representation which is unique in the New Testament, where believers are elsewhere called the children of God and the not the children of Christ.

Geerhardus Vos
Redemptive History & Biblical Interpretation –pg. 209-210

A significant problem in much of the Church’s thinking today is its inability to see the temporal as being conditioned upon the eternal. One example of this is discussions regarding union w/ Christ. Currently there is a debate in the Reformed Church as to whether or not union w/ Christ yields forensic justification or whether forensic justification is logically prior to union w/ Christ. My contention, is that both schools have a problem because neither school seems to want to make distinction between existential subjective union w/ Christ, Historic objective union w/ Christ and eternal objective union w/ Christ. Nor does either school currently debating seem to want to make the distinction between existential subjective justification, Historic objective justification and eternal objective justification.

We have to realize that the point that Vos makes here is that before we can talk about a existential subjective union w/ Christ that occurs when the Spirit of Christ applies the benefits of salvation to me personally we must talk about the historic objective union that was in place between the believe and Christ even in Christ’s incarnation and then in His baptism, death, resurrection and ascension. The subjective existential union w/ Christ that was applied by the Spirit to the elect was applied because the elect were united to Christ objectively in all the redemptive work that He accomplished. But even this union w/ Christ has need to be traced back one step further to realize that both the objective Historic union w/ Christ that the elect had when Christ came and the existential union that came into existence when the Spirit made that historic objective union subjective in his application of salvation upon individually elect believers is itself predicated upon the reality that the elect have objectively, from eternity always been united to Christ. This is the point that Vos is making above. The debate isn’t whether or not Subjective existential union w/ Christ is logically antecedent or subsequent to subjective forensic justification. The debate is whether our eternal union w/ Christ is logically antecedent or subsequent to our eternal justification in Christ. All that becomes subjectively true of us when we look to and trust Christ is only true because it was all objectively true in Christ’s death and all that was objectively true in Christ’s death was objectively true from eternity past in the counsels of God.

There has never been a time when the elect have not been united w/ Christ, (this is Vos’ idea of solidarity above) though for many it was true that that the eternal and historic objective truth was not yet a subjective reality. Notice how all this flows seamlessly. What is objectively true in eternity becomes objectively true in space and time by virtue of Christ’s finished redemptive work and this then becomes true existentially for the believing one as the Spirit perichoretically administers the union Planned from eternity by the perichoretic work of the Father and executed in time by the perichoretic work of the Son.

There is much much more to be said here and I may return to this later. We need to speak of how we end up with a works salvation if we don’t make the kind of distinctions we are speaking of here. We need to speak further about the relation between eternal justification and eternal objective union w/ Christ. We need to speak further about the relation, role and character of faith both with these distinctions and without these distinctions.

For now, let what Vos has said sink in. Vos appeals to Hebrews 2:10f to remind us that there has always been from eternity a solidarity (objective eternal union) between Christ and His people. This is significant exegesis and theology because when properly understood this insight moves one from Reformed to Reformed.

Mode of Baptism

St. Paul writes:

1 Cointhians 10:1-2

(1) Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;

(2) And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;

When the Israelites passed through the sea, they were not immersed where they? They were sprinkled, because Paul clarifies that they were baptized by passing through there, yet we know they were not immersed, yet baptism must in any case always have water making contact with the person. To purify people in the Older Covenant, sprinkling was done, not immersion; and we are told by Isaiah in Isaiah 52:15 that Christ would “sprinkle” many “nations” (nations include children).

And also consider what the Spirit says through St. Peter:

Peter writes:

1 Peter 3:20-22

(20) Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
(21) The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
(22) Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.

Peter relates “baptism” to Noah’s flood directly.

Who was fully immersed in the flood? Clearly it was the non-believers; yet Noah and his family were sprinkled by rain, a figure of which is baptism according to Peter.

The Egyptians were the ones immersed. Are you sure you want to be immersed?