In Henri Blocher’s Evil and the Cross (p99, 1994), a paragraph is given to the topic of the decretive and preceptive will of God (which I’ve blogged about before).  It’s worth quoting in full, especially if you’re sitting the exam and want the context of the quote for our question!

“Theologians distinguish between the decretive and preceptive will of God, or the will of eurestia (ie. what God is pleased to have his creatures do).  When we read ‘God wills’ or ‘God wishes’, it is not always with the same meaning.  The wicked sons of Eli did not repent ‘for it was the Lord’s will to put them to death’ (1 Sa. 2.25), and yet we read that God takes ‘no pleasure in the death of the wicked’ (Ezk. 33:11).  In the first case, God willed in the sense that he has written the deed in his book (Ps. 139.16), that he has included it in the programme of everything that happens, in his universal plan or decree.  In the second case, we are dealing with his desire that all should be saved, and it also involves his call, commandment or precept that they should turn and be converted.  We should note carefully that, even at the heart of the decree, if evil is willed in a certain manner, it is not willed as something good.  God wills what is good directly, simply, for himself; he wills evil only in a different manner, while hating it at the same time. It is, to be sure, sovereign, but it is also a permissive will that is being referred to.  Divine causality with respect to good is efficient (i.e. God acts efficaciously, every grace and good gift comes down from the Father of lights, Jas. 1:17).  With respect to evil, it is deficient (i.e. God is content not to act, as if he failed to assist; he did not bring forth the will to do good, nor the deed).  Whereas God himself works good by making it work, evil is always the deed of one or of several created beings, exclusively.“

I might add, that I do very much appreciate D.B. Hart’s theology – especially since he’s a theologian of the classical variety.  But I did find his ridiculous misrepresentation of the Reformed tradition quite frustrating!  Blocher sets out the key nuance very well. If Hart had recognised this, I’m sure his Doors of the Sea would have been much more convincing!  After all, what he’s proposing in primary and secondary levels of causality (p83ff) already exists within the Reformed tradition.

The mission statement of CBE International is as follows: CBE International “affirms and promotes the biblical truth that all believers—without regard to gender, ethnicity or class—must exercise their God-given gifts with equal authority and equal responsibility in church, home and world.”

The conference will be covering theologial topics such as: Trinity and Gender Roles, Reading Genesis 1-2, an Egalitarian reading of 1 Tim. 2, Equality and Difference, Gift-based ministry, Submission, Authority, Headship, and Ecclesiology.

It’s my aim to present the material from the conference in such a light as to be fair to the speaker and not insert too much of my own opinion into the matter (yet – that’ll come at the end!).  Also, though I have recorded them, I should note that I won’t be uploading the questions nor answers from the Q&A sessions.

There are various lectures given to all throughout the day, and a number of workshops throughout the weekend as a whole.  Here’s a list of the lectures and workshops on offer.

Lynley Giles closed the first evening tonight with wise words: although there are people at the conference with different opinions, we ought to be loving and respectful as we seek to search the Scriptures and build one another up in Christ.  I trust these blogposts will reflect this.  And be as challenging and interesting to you as the conference will be for me.

Jonny Gibson, a good friend, and constant source of encouragement and theological sharpening, has put together the article for the Briefing.  Simply put, I have not read such a biblically comprehensive and pastorally sensitive account of the doctrine of hell for a long time, if ever.  Can I seriously commend this to you to read – I’ve been stirred up and challenged in my thinking, evangelism, preaching and pastoral duties as a result of reading it.  Above all however, I’ve found that these articles have brought me back to gratitude, and a desire to give glory to God.

It consists of a short version for print, an extended version online, a theological reflection, and a pastoral reflection.  Get them here:

Extended version online: here.
Theological reflection: here.
Pastoral reflection: here.

(h/t: The Briefing)

Oliver Crisp

Anyway, here’s a brilliant interview with him regarding: theology for the church, creeds, election, Christology, theological method, zombies, religious art, and blogging.  Here’s a snippet from the full interview:

Q: How do you see the relationship between your work in academic theology and the Church’s task of proclaiming the gospel?

A: Theology that is not done in the service of the Church is seriously defective, in my view. Although I work in a so-called ‘secular’ university, I am very conscious of the need to address the Church in what I do. I hope that in some small way my own work may be of use to the Church through the trickle-down effect of students of theology and prospective ministerial candidates getting trained in theology and reading the sort of stuff I write. I have taught in both secular and confessional contexts in the UK and North America, and I think effective theological education is of vital importance for the life of the Church. If we want an educated and effective laity, we need an effective and educated clergy to teach them.

Q: You are an artist and the cover of God Incarnate features your painting, “Jesus of Nazareth”. What is the theological reasoning behind your attempt to portray Christ in that way? I mean, isn’t it Nestorian to try and depict Jesus’ humanity apart from his divine person?

A: It would only be Nestorian if I said ‘this is a picture of a human person called Jesus of Nazareth’.  But this is not supposed to be a portrait of a human person; it is supposed to be a portrait of God incarnate.  So I’m not really sure why this is Nestorian. I think more Protestants should read St John of Damascus’ Three Treatises on the Divine Images.  There is much more there to challenge Protestant sensibilities about religious art that one might think.  As to the theological reasoning for my portrait of Christ, I wanted to depict Jesus as a Semite (not a white European) and in an aspect that emphasized the seriousness of dealing with the God-man. I was tired of seeing the sort of saccharine, ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ portraits of Christ one often sees in popular religious devotion and on the cover of books.

Seumas MacDonald, a great bloke whom I’m had the pleasure of meeting recently joins us on this podcast.  Seumas is currently undertaking his MTh at Moore Theological College and is putting his Latin skills to use as he studies through St. John Chrysostom’s sermons! I’ve found Seumas to be a really lovely and thoughtful bloke who has a serious love of theology – check out his blog here.  And his recently installed languages blog here.

In this podcast, we discuss how Seumas came to faith in Christ, find out a bit about St. John Chrysostom, and delve into the subject of Impassibility: Does God Suffer? Really great thoughts and insights from Seumas, and I heartily recommend his thoughts and suggestions on how to think Christologically.

Read:
Seumas has some follow-up thoughts from the podcast.  Great resources particularly on the subject of Impassibility.

Listen:

PS:
I have no idea what happened at 34:52.  It sounds we were possessed for 5 seconds.  But I can assure you that it probably has more to do with the encoding of the file!

These are a classic.  Kim Fabricius and Ben Myers have put together some simply hilarious poetical guides to modern theology.  Here’s just a few samples.  Go and check the origin post out!

Reminds me of the Critters and Creatures of the Theological Kingdom I blogged about a while ago! Also, here.

Karl Barth
Had to hire a cart
Having no other tactics
To transport his dogmatics.

Colin Gunton
Detected dysfunction
In St Augustine, his nemesis,
Who didn’t have quite enough perichoresis.

David B. Hart
Is not terribly fond of Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, Tillich or Barth,
Crucially not to mention
Balthasar, Jüngel, Lash, Moltmann, MacKinnon …

“Jürgen Moltmann,
Can
The world,” we ask, “live without hope?”
“Nope.”

Bishop Rowan,
All-knowing, ho-ho-hoing
Like Santa, he’s weird:
Maybe it’s the beard.

Bishop Tom Wright
Stays up all night
Writing and writing (and writing) books about the apostle to the nations.
And a resignation.

Crisply Oliver
Decided to follow a
Clean analytical method. But something still seemed left unsaid
So he took up his paintbrush instead.

“It is a bit surprising that the name of Moise Amyraut (Latin form Amyraldus; hence “Amyraldianism”) is not better known in a time such as ours when so many evangelical Christians want to be known as “four point Calvinists.” Many, indeed, in our time seem to want to say (a) that Christ atoned in some sense for the sins of every human being, (b) that nevertheless all men are not saved, and (c) that in the final analysis it is God, not man, who determines what persons shall be saved and which ones lost. But making these propositions work together in a Scripturally and logically cogent way is a task requiring considerable subtlety of mind, and no one, to my knowledge, has ever done it better than Amyraut. Further, Amyraut wove these propositions into the context of a rather distinctive theological approach—a method, emphasis, and style significantly different from those of other theologians of his time (1596–1664). I suspect that the appeal of “four point Calvinism” even today can be best understood by reference to Amyraut’s general theological mentality—a mentality shared to some extent by many today who know little of Amyraut. Thus, both proponents and critics of the “four point” position can benefit from a study of Amyraut’s theology and approach to theology”

It’s been quite interesting to do a little bit of reading about Amyraldianism over the last couple of weeks.  Here’s a few things I’ve discovered:

1. There are different streams of “Hypothetical Universalism” in 17th century thought (Cameron, Testard, Amyrald).
2. Francis Turretin, who famously opposed them, saw them as “our ministers” and thus not outside of Reformed orthodoxy like Roman Catholicism or Arminianism.
3. It is a form of Covenant Theology.
4. It utilises separate Antecedant & Consequent wills, rather than Calvin’s one will, with 2 aspects: Secret/Revealed.  That is, a scholastic distinction between separate wills or decrees.  Amyraut sees a hypothetical universal decree to save all upon the condition of faith, and an absolute decree to grant faith.  The former is antecedant to the decree of Christ’s death.  The latter is consequent to it.  Calvin on the other hand saw that God’s will was simple and one.  And yet it had two aspects: the Secret aspect pertaining to God’s chosen individuals, and the Revealed aspect pertaining to the universal Gospel call.

Basically, Amyraldianism has to do with a re-ordering of the divine decrees, and the insertion of a hypothetically universal decree of salvation.  Let me explain:

In Eternity, there is an antecedent hypothetical decree for the universal salvation of all on condition of their faith.  Logically next, Christ is decreed to die with that intention.  But, logically next – God, foreseeing that nobody would be saved due to total depravity created a consequent decree to grant faith to a particular number.  Do you see how the granting of faith in the consequent will fulfills the condition of the antecedent will?  That’s the logic of Amyraldianism.  I think it’s quite brilliant, actually.

Amyraldus (according to Mark Thompson, the Latinised versions of names were in vogue back then!) wrote the following in his Brief Traitte. See how it pertains to the antecedent decree:

“The sacrifice that He has offered for the propitiation of their offenses has been equally for all.  And the salvation that He has received from His Father in order to communicate it to men in the sanctification of the spirit and the glorification of the body is destined equally to all, provided, I say, that the disposition necessary in order to receive it is also equally present.”

I’ll post up some of my thoughts on this position soon, but for now – I think it’s at least interesting that Turretin considered Amyraldians “our ministers.”  This ought to ease at least some of the tensions between those who hold to Particular Redemption and those who hold to Amyraldianism.

As part of the 2009 Calvinpalooza of events, Richard Muller gave this address at Calvin Theological Seminary in the States.

It is an absolutely superb discussion of the following types of things:

• Is it anachronistic to describe Calvin as adhering to TULIP?
• Did Calvin teach Limited Atonement?
• Why have we moved on since the Calvin vs. the Calvinists thesis?
• How do Humanism and Scholasticism relate to Calvin’s teaching?
• What does it really mean that Calvin moved around the locus of Predestination in his Institutes?
• Is anyone really a “Calvinist”?
• Why pitting the 16th and 17th century Reformed theologians is ridiculous.

All these questions and more by arguably the world’s leading Reformation scholar.  Download the PDF!  Here’s a snippet:

“By way of addressing these issues, we should note first and foremost the problem of TULIP itself — an acrostic that has caused much trouble for the Reformed tradition and has contributed greatly to the confusion about Calvin and Calvinism. (I don’t plan to tiptoe through this issue.) It is really quite odd and a-historical to associate a particular document written in the Netherlands in 1618-19 with the whole of Calvinism and then to reduce its meaning to TULIP. Many of you here know that the word is actually “tulp.” “Tulip” isn’t Dutch — sometimes I wonder whether Arminius was just trying to correct someone’s spelling when he was accused of omitting that “i” for irresistible grace. More seriously, there is no historical association between the acrostic TULIP and the Canons of Dort. As far as we know, both the acrostic and the phrase “five points of Calvinism” are of Anglo-American origin and do not date back before the nineteenth century. It is remarkable how quickly bad ideas catch on.”

And if you’re really keen to dig deeper, check out his Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (picture above – it looks nice on the bookshelf!).  This has proved to be one of my best purchases whilst at college – I’ve found it an invaluable resource for doing a whole bunch of my college assignments!

PS – Just in case you’re wondering, Muller’s argument isn’t a negative neo-orthodox position, but quite a nuanced take on the Reformed tradition.

Christianity and Pastoral Care: With Allen Cook (ex-Chaplain Westmead Hospital, currently Anglican Retirement Villages) and Jan Corbett-Jones (Anglicare).
Family Systems, Church and Home: Jenny Brown (Family Systems Institute)
Christian Counselling: Helen Blake (Counselling @ St. Mark’s Theological College)
Christianity and Psychotherapy (Dr. Carlos Raimundo, creator of the “Play of Life”)
Pastoral Care and Ministry (TBA)

It should be a cracker of a series.  Steve and I want to look at a whole bunch of topics such as: caring for each other at church, what to say/not to say, how manipulation works, signs of spiritual bullying, sexual abuse, and when to seek the experts, and more.

We’ve got a great line-up of guests who are all very experienced and well thought-through in their fields.  If you’d like a particular question to be asked of any of our guests, please email me (via the Contact Page) and we would be more than happy to (anonymously if you like) ask your question.

Steve and I will be praying that these Podcasts will be a great blessing to you.

Scripture

In the narrative of God’s restoration project of the cosmos, we see two sets of things: what God wants and what happens.  God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, yet he does not let it happen (Gen. 22).   He wants Pharaoh to let his people Israel go, yet hardens his heart so that he does not do it (Ex. 4:21).  He has Isaiah tell Hezekiah that he will die, yet adds fifteen years to his life (Isaiah 38:1,5).   He prohibits us from condemning the innocent, yet Jesus is delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23, 3:18, 4:28).   God does not will sin; he is far from iniquity, yet it exists and is subject to his rule (Ex. 4:21, Acts 2:23, Rom. 1:24, 26, 2 Thes. 2:11). He wills the salvation of all (1 Tim. 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9) but has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills (Rom. 9:18).   God commands, prohibits, warns and admonishes us for our disobedience to Him, yet He is meticulously sovereign over all things (Ps. 33:11, 115:3, Dan. 4:25, Is. 46:10, Matt. 11:26, Rom. 9:18, Eph. 1:11, Rev. 4:11)!  How do we begin to understand this?!

Church History

Well, early Church theologians like Tertullian, Augustine, through to John of Damascus and Peter Lombard made distinctions between a ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ will (also “antecedent” and “consequent” among other distinctions) .   This further was developed in the Reformation and Post-Reformation (and by Roman Catholics in the Counter Reformation) such as Calvin, Luther, Zanchius, Walaeus, Voetius to be known as the distinction between God’s “Decretive” and “Preceptive” or “Secret” and “Revealed” aspects of God’s will (Cf., Deut 29:29, esp. Psalm 139).   Modern theologians such as Frame and Carson (and even Barth!) utilise such a distinction also.   Basically, the decretive will of God (God’s eternal decree) orders all events of history (God’s providence) and His preceptive will (God’s precepts) gives an indication of what God wills for us to do.

Objections

Now, some may object that this is an overly scholastic and speculative distinction (why not add Aristotelian, abstract and “not-Trinitarian-enough” to that list!?).   This doesn’t make sense, firstly on the grounds that it was a pre-scholastic definition and secondly, that there are good and bad speculations!  Biblical speculation (as per Sola Scriptura) is surely not bad speculation.   That is, good systematic theology derives from exegesis within a biblical theological framework using historical theology as a guide.  But another may object that if Christ is the full revelation of God – how do we deduce such a distinction simply from His person and work?  Fair question, but it’s changing the goalposts.   This objection presupposes that Christ is the only revelation of God.  To which we would reply that this distinction is grounded on the revelation of the Word of God; that is, the Word of God written!  We are the people of Christ and the people of the Book!

Problems in denying it

If we collapse these two aspects of God’s will into each other, then we are faced with a massive problem: God is robbed of His omnipotence, wisdom, goodness, and immutability.   A significant dualism is introduced between God’s intent and the actual result of world history.   God risks, and God fails. God is disappointed as Satan rejoices. Moreover, core conflicts can be introduced in to the Trinity: for instance, if Christ wills for all men to be saved, then the Holy Spirit must not!

If the decretive will of God is denied, then we will have a very attenuated view of God’s omnipotence, wisdom and sovereignty!  On the other hand, if the preceptive will of God is denied, then we’ll fail to do justice to God’s holiness, the moral demands placed on us in Scripture and with the seriousness of sin.

What’s the payoff?

Thus, this distinction between aspects of God’s will give us great pastoral help with understanding guidance: God sovereignly orders our steps in secret, but reveals the blueprint of human moral conduct (Prov. 16:9).  In regards sin (though this is complex and beyond the scope of this little article!), God permits its intrusion into creation and commands that we flee from it.   In regards salvation, God predestines His elect for salvation, yet since we are creatures who listen humbly to His revealed will in Scripture, we must work out our salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12) and seek to save the lost!   God providentially orders even the minutest elements of the universe, but cares about our most minute thoughts, words and deeds.   He is not a distant and removed Father, but comes close to us in His Son, and speaks to us by His Word.

Update:
For more info, check out Carson (How Long, O Lord?), Frame (The Doctrine of God).