seeing in a mirror dimly

In this second section of Richard Muller’s, Christ and the Decree, he investigates three influential reformers who were contemporaries of John Calvin: Bullinger, Musculus, and Vermigli.  Unlike the Lutheran tradition, of whom Martin Luther was the source, the Reformed tradition had many influences apart of John Calvin.  Since this is the case, an investigation into the Reformed doctrines of predestination and Christology ought consider these sources – Muller restricts his analysis to these three.

Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575) was Zwingli’s successor in Zurich and produces three massive theological works: The Decades, The Compendium of Christian Religion, and the Second Helvetic Confession.  Bullinger develops a strong covenant-promise motif through his theology stemming from his exegesis of the protoevangelion of Genesis 3.  Christ becomes the mediator of this covenant of grace and executes the decree.  Bullinger has a functional Christology drawn not from the Anselmic theory as Calvin does, but rather from the historical goal of covenant promises.  With this historical-redemptive emphasis, it is no wonder then, that Bullinger’s doctrine of predestination is set within the soteriological locus of the Second Helvetic Confession.  Since election is executed in Christ, the Mediator, reprobation is outside of Christ and its causal explanation must be passed over in silence.

Wolfgang Musculus (1497-1563)  was a highly reputed exegete and theologian who taught theology in Bern and produced commentaries on books of the Bible, and his Loci Communes in 1560.  He emphasised a General Covenant between God and creation, and a Special Covenant between God and the elect, and Christ was the Mediator of the Special Covenant.   So concerned with the historical effecting of God’s salvation was he, that he placed the atonement prior to Christology in his Loci.  He follows Calvin in utilising Anselm when formulating his functional Christology, and points out that Christ is the elect whereby he is the chosen head of the chosen people.  He includes a careful, and scholastic discussion of election and foreknowledge which produces less of a causal rigor than Calvin’s discussion of election.

Peter Martyr Vermigli (1500-1562) was an Oxford lecturer whose work was arranged and published posthumously by Robert Masson in 1576.  Interestingly, Masson arranged Vermigli’s Loci Communes as per Calvin’s 1559 Institutes.  Vermigli’s Christology follows the Reformed functional tradition of not separating the person and work of Christ.  On predestination, Vermigli’s work is completely different in approach to Calvin, but produces the same results.  Vermigli employs scholastic distinctions between absolute necessity (necessitas consequentis) and necessity of consequence (necessitas consequentiae) to differentiate between what we might know as primary and secondary causes.  This distinction produces the main difference between Vermigli and Calvin with the term ‘predestination.’  Because Vermigli accepts what Calvin rejects (a ‘permissive will’ in God), he would apply the term ‘predestination’ to the work of God in the salvation of the elect, and not to the passing over of the reprobate.   This highlights the fact that the concept of a ‘double decree’ in predestination was not simply a 17th century discussion, but an early orthodox one.

Epilogue:

Muller finished this ‘Early Orthodox’ section with an epilogue comparing Calvin to these three contemporaries.  Although there are 4 different approaches here, it is seen that the predestination of individuals is intimated related to Christology.  All four have a functional Christology, Calvin and Musculus share an Anselmic motivation, and Musculus and Bullinger involve a covenant of grace.

What can we learn from all this?

1. Whereas Calvin and Vermigli seem more oriented towards causality than Musculus and Bullinger, there is no motivation to undercut any Christological concerns.   Thus, causal emphasis does not necessarily imply Christologial concern.
2. Vermigli’s distinctions pertaining to God’s will would prove to be more influential than Calvin’s (eg., the uptake of decretive/permissive will).  Also, Vermigli’s infralapsarian position and scholastic distinction would carry more influence.  Thus, other theologians are also crucial to the development of Reformed doctrine.
3. It is to the definition of the doctrine, rather than simply the placement of the doctrine that we must look when examining the causal rigor of the system.   Thus, placement of a doctrine shouldn’t be the only factor of investigation.

Muller finishes the discussion of the early orthodox development of predestination, describing it as follows:

“…the doctrine as expressed by these thinkers was more than simply a scriptural doctrine: it was an Augustinian doctrine, argued as Augustine had argued it, as the divine resolution of the problem of original sin and human inability; and, likewise, it was a doctrine drawn perhaps grudgingly from the schoolmen, argued in the language of the scholastics as a doctrinal issue hedged by definitions of necessity and contingency, primary and secondary causality.”

From looking at Water as the first metaphor Peter employs to speak of cataclysmic return of Christ, we saw that the destruction of Noah’s day was not an annihilation, but we were left with a question: what sort of flood-destruction is coming on the Day of the Lord? Is it a complete annhilation, with the implication that the new creation is totally discontinuous from the present? Or is it some other kind of destruction, such that the coming new heavens and new earth retains a significant continuity? The second metaphor of Destruction sheds some light on these questions…

Now, the first thing to note is that Peter uses the word destruction (And ‘perish’, Greek: απωλεια, απωλλυμι) not to describe the fate of the earth, but to describe the fate of the ungodly (c.f., 2 Peter 2:1,3). The NIV version includes ‘destruction’ in verse 12, but that is better translated ‘dissolved’ as per the ESV (see also the next post: Fire). Thus, in 2 Peter 3, destruction is mainly concerned with those who reject Christ.

V7 “But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
v9: “but [God] is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
v16 “There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction.”

Now, on the surface it would seem that Peter is saying that unbelievers are utterly annihilated on the Day of the Lord. That they don’t experience an eternity of conscious punishment, but are simply destroyed. That the orthodox doctrine of hell is wrong because people simply cease to exist. And this is a view of hell which is growing in popularity in certain evangelical circles. And you can sort of understand why – after all, with a contemporary understanding of love, it’s hard to square with a God who is love. Annihilation is much more palatable when trying to correlate theological concepts to contemporary thought.

Yet, I’m not so sure that Peter teaches that destruction means obliteration unto non-existence. You see, to prove this you’d need, among other things, to maintain that Peter always uses the word destruction to mean completely annihilate. And here’s the thing: Peter uses the same aforementioned greek words to describe the destruction of the world from the flood, that he uses to describe the describe the destruction of the ungodly. Compare these verses:

v6: “the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.”
v7: “the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
v9: “not wishing that any should perish”
v16: “which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction.”

Thus, if you wanted to say that the destruction of the ungodly must mean annihilation, then you’d need to say that the world was annihilated in Noah’s day – which is absurd. Or in other words: because the destruction of the flood was not a totally annihilation of being, neither will the destruction of the ungodly be total annihilation. It will be an everlasting and terrible time of torment.

So, to summarise: ‘destruction’ upon Christ’s return in the thought of 2 Peter 3 applies not to the present creation, but rather to the fate of the ungodly. This is important, because often this sort of language is imposed upon the Apostle’s letter to refer to the destruction of the present creation.

Further, destruction in the thought of the Apostle does not mean annihilation, but rather judgment and its consequences. The destruction of the ungodly and the destruction of Noah’s world are intimately linked such that it is absurd to insist upon an annhilation theory of hell taken from 2 Peter 3.

Now, what does this all mean for the continuity and discontinuity between this present creation and the next? I believe it may shed some light on the previous post’s question about the comparison between the water-judgment of Noah and the return-judgment of Christ.

Here’s the logic: if Peter doesn’t have annhilation in mind with his comparison between the destruction of the ungodly and the destruction of Noah’s world, it would seem a reasonable assertion that he does not have annhilation in mind in his comparsion between water-judgment of Noah and the return-judgment of Christ. Else, a continuity of being would apply to the reprobate, but also a complete discontinuity of being would apply to the present creation – which seems impossible. My point is that Peter’s Noah-based comparisons do not carry completely discontinuous notions of annhilation or obliteration. Without question, there is some level of discontinuity, but Peter’s comparisons carry a surprisingly strong level of continuity.

Granted, this is currently an assertion, but in the final post concerning the metaphor of Fire we shall see that this is the case. But for now, what is clear is that the coming of Christ is a terrifying reality. Judgment will be made on the ungodly and their destiny will be everlastingly awful. And in this light, I am overwhelmed with joy for the fact that in Christ’s first advent, He stood in my place condemned and suffered this for me. What a beautiful Saviour indeed!

Richard Muller‘s Christ and the Decree is an historical account of the development of theological thought from the Reformation through to the Post-Reformation, more precisely, of Christology and Predestination from Calvin to Perkins. I’m reading this with a bunch of good fellas from college during the holidays, and hoping to summarise my findings here! Sorry if it’s a little boring, it really just helps me process my thoughts!

In Christ and the Decree, Muller notices a tendency to for some modern (and now outdated) scholarship to grant Calvin a Christological focus, but deny the post-reformers a similar Christological focus. In other words, Calvin was Christocentric, and the post-Reformers were overtly mesmerized by the decree which grounds predestination. Or even, as some have oversimplified: Calvin vs. the Calvinists (see Paul Helm’s rebuttal here). As a historical theologian, Muller argues, that this is far too grand an assertion, and that the issues at hand are much more nuanced than the neo-orthodox school, or R.T. Kendall would like to imagine. The question is not whether Calvin is a scriptural theologian, and those Calvinists who came after him were speculative theologians, but what of Calvin’s thought was changed and improved within the context of key post-Calvinian theologians.

The introductory chapter of the book lays out the history of Reformation and Post-Reformation interpretation, by bringing attention to the reader the tendency of some scholars to search for a ‘central dogma’ in the thought of the Post-Reformation; a zeitgeist as it were.

So Muller maps out his course of action as twofold: 1) conduct an exposition of predestination and Christology in early Reformed orthodoxy, and 2) analyse their relationship to each other with respect to the soteriological matrix of the reformation theologian. In other words, the task is comparative dogmatics.

The first chapter concerns the theology of the great John Calvin. Because God is, among other attributes, infinite, omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, and man is finite, and limited in knowledge, presence and power, Calvin asserts that man needs a mediator to bridge the gulf of creator and creature – this is Christ who is both infinite and finite; omniscient and limited, omnipresent and local, omnipotent and humanly-empowered. Thus, Calvin writes of Christ:

“Here is something marvellous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning.” (Institutes, II.xiii.4)

This is what has been coined the extra Calvinisticum: finitum non capax infiniti (the finite cannot grasp the infinite). Therefore, we do not comprehend the divinity of the Son, but only its revelation in the flesh. This is important for Calvin because it means that we cannot seek to apprehend God apart from Christ, yet on the other hand, we cannot comprehend the hidden mind of God (e.g., comprehending predestination) because He is infinite.

With Calvin’s Christology, we see that he begins not with the hypostatic union of two natures in one person, but with the Anselmic need for a God-man to rescue us from our sins. This is interesting, because it means for Calvin, Christ as mediator is determinative of his person. Moreover, for Calvin, the proper ground for Christology is Christ-as-mediator, in other words: Soteriology. This is neither a ‘Christology from above’ nor a ‘Christology from below,’ but Christ-as-Mediator.

For Calvin, the 3-fold office of Christ’s work (Prophet, Priest and King) is determinative of the person of Christ; the unity of Christ’s person is bound to the unity of Christ’s work. Thus, the focus of the act of mediation is divine-human person, rather than the flesh assumed by the divine person. One of the implications of this for Calvin, is that a limiting factor of Soteriology is Christ’s work of intercession. The ascended Christ turns the Father’s gaze away from our sins and towards His righteousness, which means that in Calvin’s thought, and as per Romans 8:32-34, the extent of the atonement is coextensive with the scope of who Christ intercedes for.

In this chapter, Muller summarises the three points of contact between Christology and Predestination in Calvin:

1. The definition of election is “in Christ”
2. Predestination is only known in Christ
3. Christ is the author of election as is the Father.

And to finish, Muller summarises: “And just as his person, the agency, the center, and ultimately the content of revelation points back from the historical to the eternal trinitarian identity of God, so does his office as mediator, itself the fulfillment of the threefold mediation of the Old Covenant, point back from itself as medius, as midpoint, to the saving decree which he effects in the elect.” (p38).

I found this chapter quite a challenging read, but one which really spurred on a whole lot of thought. Calvin’s functional Christology is fascinating, and really shed some more light on how he, and perhaps the reformers I’ll discover in the coming weeks, defined the atonement. Moreover, it demonstrates that far from being speculative, the decree of predestination and its execution in time do not have a speculative bent in Calvinian theology. Soteriology is the focus, and Christ is at the center.

Well, we’re back on the Poddy after a short hiatus sitting exams.  Oh, and a well-deserved holiday of course! But we’ve been scheming the next year’s Pilgrim’s Podcast plan of action! Exciting.

This week we had the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Smartt, who is the head of Christian studies at Scots College in Sydney.  He’s a great guy and we had a cracker of a time chatting about important things!

We talked about his journey of faith in the Lord Jesus, which was surprisingly similar to both Steve and mine.  And we chatted about all the ins and outs of high school ministry as a chaplain – lots of gold there!  Especially, the comforting words about God’s sovereignty over our life and choices.  Finally, we also touched what leadership looks like, and the importance of being a servant (Mark 10:45).

All in all, a great podcast! Enjoy! (Especially for those who are set to receive their HSC marks tomorrow!)

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One of the things which I used to believe was that when the Lord Jesus returns, the present physical universe would cease to exist. That it would be obliterated! And this all prior to the new creation forming out of nothing, ex nihilo as per the Genesis account of creation. I fair while ago I changed my mind on this, and working on last Sunday’s advent sermon (2 Peter 3) confirmed my thoughts.

The first of three metaphors Peter employs to speak of the coming advent of Christ is that of Water. He reminds the scoffers of verse 4, that just as the waters of judgment deluged and destroyed the world of Noah’s time – the judgment coming with Christ’s return will also bring destruction. What is amazing here, is the direct comparison between Noah’s flood of judgment and Christ’s return of judgment. Have a look at these verses (and also 2 Peter 3:10-12):

2 Peter 3:5-7  ”But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.  By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.  By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”

What are we to make of this comparison? What light does the water metaphor shed on the destruction of Christ’s return and judgment?

Well, whilst we may initially be inclined to take destruction to mean complete the annihilation of all things, this cannot be the case, at least in the instance of Noah.

When the judgment fell on the world in Noah’s time (Genesis 6-7), the world was destroyed in the sense that it was cleansed of its wickedness, and that the evil people of the world were subjected to judgment.  The destruction of the world in Noah’s day did not involve an obliteration of all things, and provision of all new things.  Note that the mountains and “whole heaven” did not cease to exist, but rather remained (Genesis 7:19).  Thus, the destruction of Noah’s day was not a total annihilation.

That part is simple enough, but what are we to make of this comparison to the destruction on the Day of the Lord?

Obviously it is not a 1:1, univocal comparison – for instance, the scope of the flood-judgment is global, whereas the scope of Christ-judgment is universal.

Analogically then, it may be possible to argue that Peter intends that the day of Christ is significantly more physically destructive than the physical destruction of Noah’s day.  In other words, annihilation.   On the other hand, it may also be possible to argue that Peter intends that the day of Christ is a more significant judgment than Noah’s day.  Judgment is the focus, not annihilation.   Though possible, both of these are arguments from silence and require further information to confirm either as true.

So then, how do we control this metaphor?  The analogical interpretation of the water metaphor seems necessary, but the interpretation needs further data.

Let’s sum up.   It seems evident that the Apostle’s comparison between the flood of destruction in Noah’s day and the coming flood of destruction of Christ’s day sheds some light on the levels of discontinuity and continuity between this creation and the next.   The water metaphor makes it possible to affirm a complete discontinuity, but is this what Peter has in mind?

Stay tuned for some exegetical thoughts on the next two metaphors: Destruction and Fire.   They should help us interpret this metaphor of Water!