Some have voiced frustration with the discussion here about tradition because it distracts from more substantial conversations about the teaching of FV. At the risk of trying the patience of the anti-formalists, I would like the FV people to consider the following set of quotations from Carl Trueman about James Buchanan’s formulation of justification. I believe it bears on both the form and the content of the debate, and how difficult it is to separate the two — in other words, why it is dangerous to separate the formulation of justification from the Reformed tradition per se (in other words, what happens when you don’t connect the dots between Vos and Ursinus).
Trueman writes:
“. . . tinkering with justification, indeed tinkering with a host of other doctrines with which justification is connected, will serve to place on’s theology outside the bounds of the Westminster Standards. Deny the covenant of works, for example, and one implicitly denies the whole structure of justification taught in the standards. Then again, if one wishes to historicize and relativize imputation by claiming that this doctrine did in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries what some other doctrine can or must do today, one needs to revise and reconstruct a whole host of other doctrines to make the claim coherent; and in doing so, if one is being honest, one is really required to abandon anything even vaguely resembling confessional Reformed orthodoxy. One can repeat the shibboleth of, say ‘union with Christ’ indefinitely — and such a concept is certainly germane to Reformed theology — but unless this is clearly set within a solid, federal scheme akin to that outlined by Buchanan, the content of the phrase will not be Reformed in any meaningful, historic, confessional way. This is not to say that the Westminster Standards, or the Reformed orthodox tradition as a whole, demands precise agreement on every jot and tittle of doctrine . . . but it is to say that both the content of justification and its basic placement within the federal structure of Reformed theology are clear and nonnegotiable for those committed by church vow to upholding the theology of the Westminster Standards.”
While I’m at it, Trueman also writes about Buchanan’s work in a way that I find quite consistent with my own understanding of tradition and how it functions in the work of a Reformed churchman: “Buchanan was not a generic evangelical who responded to the Enlightenment by privileging piety or experience over doctrinal formulation; nor was he a Bible-thumping ‘no book but the Bible’ fundamentalist for whom the church’s doctrinal tradition was just so much quasi-Roman bunkum; nor was he a reactionary obscruantist who was simply committed to mouthing the old shibboleths and talking nostalgically about a mythical golden age of doctrinal and ecclesiastical purity. Rather, he was a confessional Presbyterian, obliged by his ecclesiastical vows not only to take the historic teaching of his church seriously and to expound and defend the theology of the Westminster Standards as consistent with Scripture, but also to use these, and the tradition of theology to which they belonged, as a principal resource for combatting error in his role as protector and shepherd of God’s flock.” (The Faith Once Delivered, ed., Anthony Selvaggio, pp. 61, 60.)
Darryl, believe it or not, I can accept this. But because our Reformed fathers overwhelmingly saw the COW as basically gracious, this means that it follows that those in the modern Reformed tradition who insist that the COW be understood in terms of raw merit have not erred on an incidental point, but have rather overthrown the whole system. Would you agree that a non-gracious COW requires folks to revise and reconstruct everything to make the claim coherent?
Darryl,
This is a salient quote; thanks for posting it.
Do I correctly infer that Trueman holds a repudiation of the CoW demands a repudiation of the Reformation doctrine of justification, or merely the doctrine (“structureâ€) of justification as set forth in the WCF?
If the former, can Trueman document where Luther suspended his mature construction of justification on a Westminster-style CoW?
My line of inquiry here is simply whether the WCF has a monopoly on the Reformation construction of justification.
Are you really meaning to say that those of us in the history of the church who deny (or never knew of) the CoW cannot hold to a Biblical construction of justification?
Doug, I don’t know what raw merit is. I always prefer mine at least medium rare. And I think that’s in line with the tradition. The Shorter Catechism on the “covenant of life” uses neither term, grace nor merit. So we need to do some reasoning here and not be strict literalists. But as I read it, the promise of life upon perfect obedience does not sound gracious in the same way that the promise of life upon faith in Christ does. Nor does the threat of death upon eating the forbidden fruit sound terribly comforting in the way that the promise of forgiveness does.
So while you may not like the use of the word merit to describe the COW — mind you, one of the reasons some are willing to use the m-word with respect to the COW is because the tradition so readily uses the m-word with respect to the second Adam — I’d like you to acknowledge that the use of the g-word is not so easy to use either.
I’m no theologian (I’m sure James will affirm that), but I really don’t see all the hype about merit in the COW. From my limited knowledge of teachings Reformed, my access to God is fundamentally different from Adam’s, and mine looks a lot more gracious and his looks a lot more meritorious.
Please help me. What am I missing?
I agree that the situations look different, but at the end of the day, here is what I mean. If Adam had successfully resisted the temptation, protected his bride, and the garden, and us, would he have had an obligation to render thanks to God for the deliverance? If so, then his obedience was a gift, given to him by a gracious God. It was a different gift than the one we receive when we have our sins forgiven, but it was a gift nonetheless.
I have no trouble with those who agree with me that his obedience would have been a gift in this sense, but who continue to use the phrase “covenant of works,” or the word “merit.” Those who resist saying that “yes, Adam should have given thanks for the deliverance” are advocates of what I am calling raw merit. In this controversy, there have been more than a few of these.
I’d suggest that the human psychology of faith and dependance on God was the same for Adam, for Jesus, and for us. That situation, however, and the specific things for which each was/is to be thankful is different. Adam was not thankful for deliverance from sin and death. Jesus is not thankful that He died for Himself. We are thankful and trusting that Jesus died for us and that we are glorified in Him.
The issue, I submit, is not from merit to grace, but from grace to graceupongrace, from glory to fromglorytoglory.
Doug,
Is there any kind of merit that you will acknowledge except “raw merit”? The problem with your language is that it overlooks the nuance with which the Reformed tradition has treated the COW in terms of merit/justice within the covenant. If Adam had sustained the probation, would he have earned the reward that God established in terms of the covenant? The Reformed tradition has answered yes, not on the basis of “raw merit” but on “merit ex pacto.”
You are free to disagree with that, but that does not exile Kline from the Reformed tradition. That is almost as silly as calling Kline a dispensationalist.
Can you say, with Turretin, Witsius, ect. that the covenant was based on perfect obedience but that the merit was not strict (or raw) but et pactum (of the pact)?
In other words, the covenant of works (nature/life) created a situation in which God’s freely bound Himself to bless the perfect obedience of Adam.
Bill, sure, I could say that. And I would also add that for God to make this arrangement was incredibly gracious. When He freely bound Himself in this way, He was being gracious. And if Adam had obeyed, that would have been even further grace in our father’s obedience. Had it occurred, how could God not have given Adam’s obedience? We’re Calvinists, for crying out loud.
But to return to the initial point that Darryl made above, are we then agreeing that modern Reformed theologians who do advocate a strict (raw) merit system are skewing the entire Reformed system? And that they are not confessional? And that they perhaps ought not to be leading the charge against FV types?
Not sure which of us Mr. Chellis is addressing. For myself, I can say that, but I’d rather not. In other words, I’m not at war with this or that scholastic formula, but I think there are better ways to phrase certain things.
If “obedience” means “faith-full obedience,” fine.
But what does “bless” mean here? I believe the Bible teaches that when Adam had learned wisdom (knowledge of good and evil) by experience, as Hebrews 6:14 says, he would be old enough and ready to go out of the garden into the wider world. That’s the “blessing” of a birthday present, not the “blessing” of something earned. I find absolutely no “merit” theology in the Bible, and I think this is a case where the desire to honor tradition has messed us up. With many conservative 20th century Reformed theologians, I want to jettison this whole terminology. It’s not in the Bible. It’s not helpful. The Reformers should have eliminated the word instead of trying to salvage it.
As a systematician, I always ask what is the negative. That is, by way of negation what is being safeguarded. When a doctrine is rephrased into the “it is not the case that….” mode, you find out (a) whether it’s important or not, and (b) what’s really being said. Theology done by way of eminence and analogy must always be accompanied by the via negativa. I ask “what is any notion of merit designed to safeguard,” and I find no answer. It’s the introduction of non-Biblical language for no good reason that I can find.
But, if someone wants to use it, and carefully define all the words, I’m not at war with him. (Though the past several years has shown that while I’m for peace, a lot of merit people are for war; Ps. 120:7.) Pastorally speaking, however, I’m not interested in putting that kind of language onto people.
I may be overanswering your question. I dealt with it all pretty thoroughly (I thought) in my essay in the Federal Vision book. I don’t know that trying to condense all that here would be helpful or confusing.
Andrew, I haven’t seen any constructions since 1975 that maintain justification without the Covenant of Works. I’m open to seeing though. (Read: we are still battling over Sheperd.)I don’t presume to speak for Trueman on justification. I was simply trying to point out both the way traditions work and the federal context for justification and what happens if you start playing with one piece of the system.
James: how monocovenantal of you.
Doug: you seem to have played a bit of a switch in your response. You say that Adam should thank God for his deliverance (had he kept the covenant). And then you say that his obedience was a gift. I would have thought you’d say that Adam’s deliverance was a gift. Now you’re saying that also his obedience would also have been a gift?
While I’m at it, Doug, do you describe Christ’s obedience as a gift? The connection of the failure of Adam with the success of Christ is why I at least am eager to apply the same criteria to Adam that we hold for Christ. Do you disagree with that construction of the parallel between Adam and Christ?
Darryl, a good example (in addition to Norm) would be Dan Fuller, *Gospel and Law*, (1980).
Monocovenantal? Is that some kind of bad thing? The Three Persons of God live in covenant, and that’s one covenant.
Of course, there are two covenants, childhood and maturity.
And of course, after sin, there are two other covenants: in Adam and in Christ.
And of course there are 8 covenants in the Biblical history, and most of those comes first in a Groom form and then after death and resurrection in a Bride form.
So, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What I wrote is that the psychology of faith is the same but that the situation (read: covenant) is different.
Darryl, merit can certainly carry different shades of meaning; Rome was “shading†it a long time before Protestants ever showed up.
The issue it seems to me is the unnecessarily huge weight that traditional covenant theology (TCT) places on the Jesus-Adam parallel in Rom. 5. Despite the fact that this is a hotly controverted passage (see e.g. Witherington’s recent work on the failure of evangelical theology), TCT simply insists that Jesus’ obedience wins merit before God, understood as that which man deserves, paid by debt, not by grace.
This is precisely how C. Hodge states it in his systematics. The elect will be able to stand at the heavenly tribunal and *demand* salvation on the grounds of meritorious law-keeping, so debt-based is our salvation. Of course, we demand it in that Jesus is God’s creditor and his debt-demand has been imputed to us, but it’s fundamentally a matter of debt, not of grace.
Doug, I’m sympathetic with your attempts here, but it seems to me that the majority (by no means all) of the Reformed tradition constructs the CoW in the manner Darryl, Carl and Kline have described. In my view, we can’t rehabilitate it.
Darryl wrote, “my access to God is fundamentally different from Adam’s, and mine looks a lot more gracious and his looks a lot more meritorious.”
Genesis 2 states pretty clearly that Adam was offered free access to the tree of life. He had ALL the trees, with ONE exception – the tree of knowledge (Gen 2:16-17). We might talk about merit with regard to the tree of knowledge, but as far as access to life, it was pure gift for Adam. He didn’t have to do ANYTHING to get it.
And he was placed in the garden – the sanctuary, where Yahweh walked in the spirit of the day – as soon as he was created. No merit there either. He had access to God immediately upon being created.
Darryl, no switch involved — I am maintaining both. Adam would have thanked God for the deliverance because God granted him that deliverance by giving him obedience. So his deliverance would have been given to him by means of giving him faithful heart-felt obedience.
Yes, I also see the situations of the two Adams as parallel, and I am eager to apply the same criteria to both. When the last Adam stood (and we have an actual example as opposed to our earlier hypothetical), what did He do? He praised God in the great congregation. “For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard. My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever” (Ps. 22:24-26).
Jesus never sinned. Jesus faithfully died, taking our sins with Him. He rose from the dead. Whom shall we thank for all this? We should do the same thing Jesus did — praise God from whom all blessings flow.
[...] 23, 2007 by Terry W. West I posted this in the comment section at De Regno Christi in response to this post by D. Hart. I thought I would go ahead and post it here as well. Trueman says: “Deny the [...]