Category: Theology

“There are three, and only three, fundamental views of the underlying nature of the social bond. Each of them reflects a particular view of the cosmos, which in turn undergirds the particular view of society. These views are organicism, contractualism and covenantalism. The first two have been dominant in Western philosophical and social thought. The third, being uniquely Biblical, has been ignored.

Organicism. This is by far the most widespread view on man’s history, though not in the modern West. Society is viewed as an organism, just as the cosmos is: a growing thing that has the characteristic features of life. The model institution of the organic society is the family, which is closely associated with physical birth, culture, and physical nurturing, and death. This organic view of society is often associated with the concept of a hierarchical chain of being that links God, man, and the cosmos. It is also associated with magic and with magic’s fundamental princple: ‘As above, so below.’ Man supposedly can manipulate any aspect of the cosmos (macrocosm) by manipulating representative features (microcosm)…. Philosophically, this view of society is associated with realism: an underlying metaphysical unity transcendent to mere individuals ….

Contractualism. This is the dominant view in the modern world, although its philosophical roots go back to the Middle Ages (e.g. — William of Occam). Society is based either on a hypothetical original contract among men in pre-historic or on a constitution of some kind. The primary model is the State, not the family, although in some modern social philosophies, the free market is the model. The familiar phrase associated with this outlook is ‘social contract.’ Men in the distant past voluntarily transferred their individually held politically sovereignty to the State, which now maintains the social order. Each social institution is governed by the terms of an original contract, whether mythical or historical….Philosophically, this view of society is associated with nominalism: the denial of any underlying metaphysical reality or transcendent social unity apart from the thoughts and decisions of individual men. Contracutalism is divined into two major historical streams: individualism (right wing Enlightenment) and collectivism (left wing Enlightenment). The former is evolutionary in its view of society; the latter is more revolutionary.

Covenantalsm. This is not a fusion of organicism and contractualism; it is a separate system. It views society as a complex system of legal bonds, with God as the ultimate Enforcer of these covenants and contracts. There are only four covenants: personal (God and the individual); ecclesiastical (sacramental), familial, and civil. These final three are monopoly institutions founded directly under God’s explicit sovereignty. Covenants alone are lawfully established by a self-maledictory oath under God. The oath-taker calls down God’s wrath upon himself if he ever violates the stipulations (laws) of the covenant document. All other relationships are either personal (e.g., friendship) or contractual (e.g., a legal business arrangement). God is the final Judge because He is the Creator, and He brings His judgments, in time and eternity, in terms of His permanent ethical standards (i.e., biblical law). Covenantalism has developed no separate philosophical tradition in Western history, for Christian philosophers, including those interested in society, prior to Cornelius Van Til (1885- 1988) virtually always adopted in the name of Christ some version of either realism or nominalism. The biblical covenant model is based on creationism, not realism or nominalism. This philosophy asserts an absolute separation of being between God and any aspect of the creation: the Creator-creature distinction. This concept, so fundamental to Van Til’s philosophy, categorically denies the existence of a chain of being linking God to the cosmos (realism). Creationism leads to providentialism, which affirms the absolute authority of God and His sovereign control over all things in history (i.e., His decree), thereby denying the autonomous power of man to name any aspect of the cosmos authoritatively (nominalism). Covenantalism is a separate philosophical system.

Dr. Gary North
Millennialism & Social Theory

Note that Roman Catholicism is more beholden to Organicism types of Social theory. Roman Catholicism promotes the chain of being between God and man. For RC the fall resulted in a loss of being and regeneration includes the recouping of being. Also in RC you find the classical idea magic in the handling a representative aspect of creation in order to manipulate the underlying reality that the representative is representing. (This is what the Mass is all about.)

Protestantism is much more closely aligned with social contract types of social theory, although I would suggest that the Puritan Commonwealth was a precursor to what North labels covenantalism.

It is interesting to note that if Organicism is pushed to far what you will get is pantheistic views of social theory. In Organicism the distinctions between man and God tend to get lost in the chain of being so that heaven and earth become fused and God and man become indistinguishable (at least man at the top of the hierarchical food chain). In Organicism God and man become identified as one so that man becomes God and earth becomes heaven. On the other hand we should note that in Contractualism the tendency is toward Deism. God is really an after thought and the emphasis falls on man. In Contractualism the emphasis falls not on the continuity between God and man as in Organicism but in the discontinuity between God and man. In Contractualism man and God become divorced so that man becomes God and earth becomes heaven.

What is interesting here is that despite the opposite movements of these two grand social theories they end up in the same place with God and Man being identified as essentially the same and as heaven and earth being identified together — either in the earth losing its earthiness in the chain of being or in earth needing to become heaven because heaven as been lost in Contractualism’s nominalism. This is another example of Van Til’s rational and irrational wash-women taking in each others laundry. It is also an example of how opposite worldviews come around and kiss. The argument between Contractualism and Organicism is not really over where they end up but rather whether one should go West in order to get to the East or whether one should go East in order to get to the West.

Finally, I am becoming convinced that the philosphical issue of continuity vs. discontinuity is THE philosophical issue. Just think of all the places where that issue raises its head over and over again.

Continuity vs. Discontinuity of Old and New Testaments
Continuity vs. Discontinuity between the Old and New Covenant
Continuity vs. Discontinuity of God with His creation
Continuity vs. Discontinuity of Justification & Sanctificatioun
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in Social Theory
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in the Incarnation
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in the Eucharist
Continuity vs. Discontinuity between our present bodies and our glorified bodies
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in the Nature of the Eschatological age & the Millennium
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in the the abilities of fallen man (think Natural Law)

Whoa … suddenly the train went off the track with a post by David Bayly over at Bayly Blog. I have some issues to take up with David Bayly here.

DB

Those who seek to undermine rules delight in their exceptions. Exceptions are the camel’s nose. But the fact that cars are to stay in their lanes doesn’t mean we should never, ever leave our lanes (to dodge a dog, for instance), despite the fact that lane-agnostics will jump on such departures as evidence that lane systems never work.

BLM

Ok, what this sounds like if I am to put the metaphor into the concrete is that the fact that women are not to serve as civil magistrates doesn’t mean we should never, ever vote for women magistrates. If that is part of what this analogy is trying to suggest I don’t think it works.

First of all creation order is the universal principle that we are to be sustaining. Violations to the creation order taken by way of exception should be taken by way of clearly articulated scriptural principles. Does God give us clear parameters when it is proper to disobey the creation order? Clarity is important here. I don’t think clarity is achieved when we appeal to historical descriptions in Biblical texts (i.e.– Deborah). By that clarity I can make the case that casting lots by pulpit committees is a Biblical way to choose potential Pastors.

Second, if exceptions can be legitimately pursued in the civil realm without clear didactic teaching from Scripture then why can not exceptions be legitimately pursued without clear didactic teaching from Scripture in the Church or family realm? Maybe Mary would be a better leader in the home than Fred. Maybe Matilda would be a better pastor than all of her male Seminary classmates.

Now I agree that exceptions occur. But I don’t agree that we are the ones who get to determine, apart from prescriptive portions of Scripture, when to make those exceptions. Certainly we may leave our lane but only with Biblical authorization to do so. God can leave the lanes anytime He pleases as He owns the highway. Indeed, He left the lane by installing Deborah, but we should never violate God’s revealed Word in Scripture (creation order) in order to support what we think God might be doing according to His eternal counsels.

DB

It’s not routinely good for Deborah to rule. Her rule is doubly due to effects of the fall. But rule she did–and with blessing.

BLM

Yes, she did rule but the fact that God interrupted His order is no license for His people to interrupt His order by doing something that violates His revealed will as articulated so well by Tim Bayly in his appeal to creation order. If God wants, according to His eternal counsels, a female magistrate (Deborah) or pastor or head of the home (Lydia) let Him do it. All because God raised up Deborah doesn’t mean that we can now vote for female magistrates. There are a good number of dots that have to be connected before we can find some kind of parallel between God violating His creation order and God’s people violating God’s creation order.

DB

Beyond the issue of such clear exceptions to the biblical standard of male authority, there are areas where we might need to discuss whether a position entails the kind of authority Scripture reserves for men. Does every female university professor rule over men? Does every female crossing guard rule over male drivers?

BLM

I haven’t seen any clear exceptions except the exceptions that God makes for Himself.

These problems we are having with this issue finds themselves being reduced if we put this in a biblical setting. In the times of Moses or the times of Christ where were women normatively ruling over men in ways that were not exceptions as created and granted by God? Where we find those exceptions is where we should place our exceptions.

DB

The only kind of logic that has a ready answer for every conceivable situation is the logic: 1) of the Pharisee, or; 2) of the rebel.

BLM

I don’t have a “ready answer” for every conceivable situation but I believe that there is an reasonable answer that can be eventually found for every conceivable situation.

To the law and to the testimony.

Am I a Pharisee or a Rebel?

“The great impact (of the theater)is neither the persuasion of the intellect not a beguiling of the senses…. It is the enveloping movement of the whole drama on the soul of man. We surrender and are changed. Or at least we are when the magic works. Yet the ‘magic’ in the case of effectual calling is always the result of the wisdom of the playwright (Father), the content of the drama itself (Son), and — something that cannot be duplicated by any theater company of creatures — the charisma of the casting director (Spirit), who makes sure that the Word never returns empty, without having accomplished everything for which it was sent.”

Dr. Michael S. Horton
Covenant and Salvation — pg. 225

In the italicized portion Horton is quoting Clifford Geertz’s,
“Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, — pg. 27-28

When the US military took action in Iraq there were different ways of reporting it depending on where you were sitting. If you supported the US action you saw the Iraqi people in bondage to Saddam Hussein and so spoke about the action of the US military as one of liberating Iraq. No doubt there were others who spoke about that same action of the US military as one invading Iraq. The way the nomenclature is crafted reveals ones position on the action.

Something similar happens in discussions on regeneration. The Reformed will look at what God does in regeneration and they see a will in bondage and the action of God as liberating the will. Others see the Reformed doctrine of the Father speaking the Son as an illocutionary act with the Spirit accomplishing perlocutionary comprehension in the listener as an invasion.

How one sees regeneration, whether as invasion where God violently coerces the person or whether as liberation where God releases the person from brutally coercive and oppressive forces will depend on their worldview. Those who see regeneration as God’s violent act are those who see God’s regenerating work just as Muslims sympathetic to Saddam Hussein saw US military operations in Iraq. Those who see regeneration as God’s liberating work are those who see God’s work just as Frenchman saw the Allies arrival in 1944 in Paris.

Now we drop into the equation that those whose wills are in bondage and so are being brutally coerced are people who love their bondage, and insist that bondage is freedom. The effectiveness of their enslaved wills is seen in how they love their chains. Arminians then insist that these people who love their bondage and call slavery freedom should renounce, quite apart from God’s regenerative illocutionary Word and perlocutionary act, their spiritual captivity, and further Arminians agrees with those in captivity that God’s locutionary liberating speech act is an invasion. So on one hand Arminians agree that people in bondage need to be liberated but on the other hand they squeal when Reformed people insist that the Spirit of Christ is the sui generis liberator.

Next the question arises as to how it is that people in bondage are held responsible for the slavery that they can’t help but want. The answer to this question is that they are held responsible because they freely will out of their bonded will to call their bondage freedom all the while retaining the natural faculties to choose to the contrary even if they don’t retain the moral faculties to choose to the contrary. The fall and their shared identity in Adam hasn’t delimited any of their natural capacity or physical ability to choose God. This is why they are held culpable for their God hating leanings. We must understand that because the natural power remains intact in those who bear the image of God that they are rightly held responsible for using that natural power in defiance against their better knowledge.

However natural ability still has to reckon with moral inability. Though the natural and physical functions remain whole they are only as good as the moral dispositions that govern them. Those moral dispositions are given over to an agenda that seeks to dethrone God in favor of the self, all the while insisting that God has done them wrong by denying them full throated autonomy. In this state and condition man will use his natural faculties to attack God’s Godness at every turn and hence he is responsible. He can only recognize this bondage and be rescued from it by being liberated. Indeed, the first glimmerings of being liberated is recognizing the bondage for what it is. Before God can be seen to be anything but a repulsive and cruel enemy the human will must be set free, the heart of stone must be vivified to flesh, and the person must be brought out of their wastrel wanderings to the safety of covenant and the peace of home.

“If we enjoy union with Christ, not only we ourselves but even our works too are just in God’s sight. This doctrine of of the justification or works (which was developed in the Reformed Church) is of the greatest consequence for ethics. It makes clear that the man who belongs to Christ need not be the prey of continual remorse. On the contrary he can go about his daily work confidently and joyfully.”

Wilhelm Niesel
Reformed Symbolics: A Comparison of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism

The Reformed faith deals with the problem of remaining sin in all that we do by teaching this truth that not only our persons but also our works are justified. When this teaching is combined with the ongoing necessity to be conformed to the image of Christ in our daily walk both the dangers of despair over one’s lack of conformity to Christ and the danger of an attitude that concludes that since sin is inevitable in our works why bother contending for righteousness are eclipsed.

There are other ways to deal with the reality of the sin that remains in all that we do after being declared right with God. The Keswick’s contend that sin can be so suppressed that one can have victory over sin and so not sin anymore. The holiness folk contend that sin can not only be suppressed but that it can be eradicated by a second work of grace called entire sanctification or perfect love. My examination of and my experience in these movements though has lead me to believe that what happens in such a move is a defining of sin downward so that people can convince themselves that they really are done with sin.

This is a case where different theology makes a radical difference in personality. The Keswick and Holiness view when seriously embraced by people leads to a incredible self-righteousness. Obviously, if someone has been delivered from sinning there is a incredible temptation to look down on other people who haven’t yet been delivered. Also people who embrace this view end up as people who take sin lightly. Just try convincing someone that they may have a sin problem who is convinced that they have reached a point where they no longer sin.

In the Reformed faith we both hate and yet at the same time recognize that we continue to sin and yet we are neither in despair about that nor are we casual about it since we believe both that all of our works are justified and that out of gratitude for all the Christ has done for us we must continue to seek to ever increasingly be conformed to the character of our Lord Jesus.

Hence being Reformed keeps us from being twisted in our personality by either living in constant despair about the always present sin in our obedience or by living in a wicked presumptuousness that since the lack in our obedience is always forgiven therefore we have no need to be concerned about the lack in our obedience, or by redefining sin as the Keswick and Holiness people do thus creating personalities inflated with self-righteousness.

Being Reformed — it makes for stable personalities and quality character.

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p.s. — An autobiographical word.

I grew up in the holiness movement and was taught entire sanctification. I earnestly sought it but never achieved it — praise God. It is one reason why I left the movement. I just couldn’t convince myself, that I had reached moral perfection. Many of my classmates did make sudden discoveries of their moral perfection in their senior year in college as they could not accept a call to the ministry unless they had been entirely sanctified.

From undergraduate school I went and did my seminary work at a Keswick school. In both my time in the Holiness movement and my time among the Keswicks you could cut with a knife the self-righteousness.

In classes both in undergraduate and in Seminary, in institutions separated by 800 miles, I heard Professors say at the front of classes that I took that “they hadn’t sinned in 30 years.”