John Barach – Remember when it was okay…
Remember when it was okay
John Barach blogged today and said, “Remember when it was okay for Reformed writers to speak like this?” He then goes on to quote S. G. DeGraaf to challenge the current meaning, some hold, of Covenant of Works. As my research has shown the Covenant of Works has not always been constructed the way it is today among the “non-FV’ers.” However, as time has gone on the doctrine of the Covenant of Works gains “clarity” and receives its “mature” formulation.
Remembering when Reformed talked a certain way doesn’t prove anything however or does it? Remember when it was ok to not have a fully worked out doctrine of the Trinity, redemption, etc? Remember when that was ok? However, now that time has gone on and those doctrines have been developed would it still be ok to talk as if they hadn’t?
Would it still be ok to plop myself down in the early part of the 16th century when the imputation of Adam’s sin, covenant of works, etc wasn’t full developed and those things were even often denied? Is it ok to just plop ourself down anywhere in history and jump into the middle of a theological development and begin in the middle as if there hasn’t been any work done?
Truly wondering.
http://barach.us/2007/02/28/degraaf-on-the-pre-fall-covenant/trackback/
Cheers.
CR
Blah Log 
But if the last binding confession we subscribe to was from the 16th or 17th Century, who gets to choose what is considered “maturation”? If the 3FU dont spell out a COW, are men confessionally bound to declare it? If the WCF does not require confessing the imputation of “active” or “whole” obedience are men bound to confess it?
Well, I agree. But. Part of the problem then is, I would say, the “majority” of reformed folk have interpreted the CoW as the “non-FV” and perhaps it has been the assumed position without it being officially binding. In other words, perhaps what has needed to happen was another “assembly” that made their interpretation of the CoW binding. Those who are non-FV have assumed its a binding interpretation.
But the other problem is I don’t think all are going back to the Westminster Assembly’s decision. Prior to 1589 “there is no clear association of the promise of life to Adam if obedience is given to God’s law, nor is there a clear doctrine of federal headship and the imputation of Adam’s sin to his natural posterity.”
I think some might be going back before Wesminster.
Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603)
Cartwright will us the term CoW but will not carry it back to the garden and does not speak clearly about an imputation.
William Perkins (1558-1602)
Uses terms law in nature but does not use CoW.
William Bucanus (150?-1603)
Does not use the term CoW for God’s relationship with Adam. “Bucanus can also be seen as the earliest example of a position like that of…John Murray.”
There a massive amount of pastors and theologians who didn’t believe in the garden relationship as a CoW, nor of imputation, during these times; too many to keep listing.
What got me thinking about all this was I’m reading through God & Adam by Rowland Ward, who the above info comes from, and it is very alarming to read how many people didn’t teach or rejected a CoW and doctrine of imputation. This was a “Remember when it was ok” type of moment. Very disturbing discovery for someone like me, who is working through all this still and was ignorant of the history of the development of a CoW.
Anyway…who gets to choose what is considered “maturation”? Your denominations binding decision at GA, should it get that far. Until then I suppose your stuck with the majority interpretation of the WCF on CoW.
Good times,
CR
Notice, Ward concludes that the MINORITY position is a Covenant of Works based on strict “merit”. Therefore, it would seem those all hyped up on the term are either going beyond what is binding OR going back to something not developed by the Westminister Divines.
Also, the CoW in the WCF is not a question, “active” obedience imputed is. THe COW is a question as it concerns the 3FU, which means its the Dutch synods that need to either add it as binding or not hold men to confess beyond what is demanded.
Rev. John Barach writes to respond to me (very nice too)
hanks for the interaction, Chris. A few comments in response:
1. There’s a world of difference between something like the Trinity and something like the view that Adam was in a covenant where he was required to merit something by his good works.
The doctrine of the Trinity has been agreed upon by the whole church. It’s foundational.
But this particular understanding of the pre-fall covenant with Adam is hardly foundational and hardly something held by the whole church. It isn’t even something held by the whole Reformed church. For instance, it isn’t in the Three Forms of Unity. For that matter, it isn’t even something held by the whole Presbyterian church. Though the Westminster standards do speak about a “covenant of works,” they don’t specify that in this covenant Adam was required to merit something.
So what we have here, even if it is theological progress (which I dispute), has never officially been adopted as a dogma. It’s just one theological opinion among many about the pre-fall relationship between Adam and God.
2. My point in my blog entry was not that I wish we could go back to a time when we hadn’t developed our doctrines as much as we have now.
Rather, I’m pointing out that there was a time in the Reformed world when it was okay to voice dissenting opinions relating to theology (as opposed to dogma) and to the interpretation of passages of the Bible and even, sometimes, to point out flaws in the church’s confessions.
John Murray did this kind of thing in his writing, challenging the Westminster Confession’s distinction between “visible” and “invisible church.”
Cornelius Van Til did this sort of thing a lot. It’s not for nothing that Jim Jordan refers to Van Til as the greatest exorcist of the 20th century. Van Til cast out the demon of Greek thought that held so much theology — so much Reformed theology — captive.
Klaas Schilder challenged several theological slogans. In line with DeGraaf and with some of the American Sessession theologians, he challenged the particular view of the “covenant of works” I mentioned in my blog entry.
He also challenged the traditional distinction between the church triumphant and the church militant, since, after all, the church is heaven is still involved in the fight in some ways and hasn’t reached full bliss yet (not till the resurrection!) and the church on earth is already triumphant, “more than conquerors,” as Paul says.
Schilder taught that we ought to approach the confessions both sympathetically and critically, wanting to uphold them (sympathetic) but also willing to examine them anew in the light of Scripture (critical).
That’s the kind of spirit I miss in much of the Reformed world today. I miss the kind of spirit that let Schilder and Holwerda work as colleagues even though they disagreed on the interpretation of some passages relating to the doctrine of election. I miss the kind of spirit that allowed a pastor like DeGraaf to challenge a particular view of the “covenant of works.”
In other words, in today’s polemics, I often get the sense that certain people think that their view and only their view is the Reformed position, even though their view isn’t spelled out in the Reformed confessions. I hear guys in the URCNA, for instance, talking heatedly about the covenant of works, though the Three Forms of Unity don’t breathe a word about it. I hear people warning against deviating from “classic Reformed theology,” whatever that is, as if we subscribe to “Reformed theology” and not to the confessions. And I hear some people responding to arguments that appeal to Scripture by quoting the confessions instead of Scripture, so that the big question to them appears to be “What do the confessions say?” instead of “What does the Bible say?”
My blog entry was intended to say, “Things weren’t always that way.” Yes, Van Til and Schilder and others generated controversy. But there was a time when debate and dissent were tolerated, permitted, and sometimes even encouraged in the Reformed world, when men went back to the Scriptures to see if things were as others said they were.
And I believe there will be such a time again.