New Book: Trinitarian Theology: Theological Models and Doctrinal Application

"As a Trinitarian scholar, where do you stand on this doctrine of Eternal Relations of Authority and Submission?"

In various forms, this is a question I have repeatedly faced in hallways, conference rooms, and classrooms in diverse venues. The question typically comes from academic theologians, students, and church leaders. Usually, I have to pause the conversation and first explain the way one should go about trying to provide an answer to such a question. This is why I contributed two essays to a recent publication that functions as a "three-views" book.

Our new book considers why and how one should approach the doctrine of the Trinity, particularly in relation to the doctrine of humanity. Since Scripture maintains in its very first chapter that human beings are created in the image of God, a connection is firmly established for Christian theologians. The debated issue today is how exactly should one perceive the connection between God and humanity, especially with regard to gender relations. It was a privilege to work with Matthew Emerson and Luke Stamps, as well as Bruce Ware, as well as with our editor, Keith Whitfield, who conceived the idea for this book. Each of the contributors are both Trinitarian and complementarian, but there is still great diversity between us.

The title of the text is Trinitarian Theology: Theological Models and Doctrinal Application. Immediately below is my concluding paragraph. However, if you want to know how this claim was argued, and you really should want to know that, then you will need to read both of my essays first. These two chapters may be helpful to theologians in other ways, too, since they focus on theological method, divine attributes, and theological anthropology. From an historical perspective, the two pieces interact with the Ecumenical Creeds as well as with more recent theologians, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Stanley Grenz, and Scott Swain, among others.

Of course, you will definitely want to read the contributions from the other writers to this volume so that you might see things in different ways. Finally, review again the biblical passages under consideration, pray for the Spirit to guide you in your interpretation, and come to your own conclusion. But, since you asked a definitive question, here is my definitive answer:

Based on the above scriptural exposition of divine perfection, buttressed by these creeds, I can only conclude that there is no “eternal relation of authority and submission” between the Father and the Son if that claim requires us to diminish in any way the fully and eternally perfect possession of authority and power by the perfect Son and the perfect Spirit as well as the perfect Father. While my theology of perfection and the creeds’ theology of power may not convince, because admittedly all creaturely theologies lack perfection, the One God the Lord remains nevertheless simply, eternally, and immutably perfect.

The book is currently available for electronic purchase through Amazon Kindle and Wordsearch Bible. The publisher, B&H Academic, will have print copies available in the new year, for which the other authors and I are grateful.

While we are speaking of Trinity, gender, and theological method, please check out the excellent new book by one of my brilliant PhD supervisees and a revered colleague at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Hongyi Yang. Her work is A Development, Not a Departure: The Lacunae in the Debate of the Doctrine of the Trinity and Gender Roles and has been widely and properly lauded as a major contribution to the debate. I find it particularly delightful that it was a Chinese woman, converted from atheism to faith in Christ, whom God used to bring together a gaggle of male Christian theologians in order to demonstrate kindly yet soundly where the holes in their arguments reside.

Theological Inferences: Be Careful When Reaching Beyond the Bible

     When Scripture makes a theological claim, it is incumbent upon Christians to affirm that claim. However, the theological task is never a matter of merely repeating Scripture (though we should be doing that more than we do!) The task of theology includes speaking to people today about the coherence of the truth claims made in Scripture. Part of the difficulty in the theological task is that different theologians choose to speak in different ways about the coherence of biblical theology. These competing ways of speaking theology arise due to the nature of one of the necessary, though problematic tools that we employ: theological inferences.
     Let us begin with a relevant example. For instance, when Scripture speaks about human responsibility and God holding people accountable for their attitudes and actions, most theologians automatically posit a doctrine of "free will." Scripture itself speaks of the human constituency in terms of "spirit," "soul," "conscience," etc., but "free will" does not appear to be an explicit biblical category for humanity. "Free will" is thus a theological inference that derives from the theological task. Such theological inferences may be useful as ways to clarify and categorize our thoughts about God and His creation, but they should be carefully used. A theological inference may be true, and may be in some way based on Scripture, but it still remains a human theological inference rather than a theological claim explicitly affirmed in Scripture.
     "Free will," which is, in my opinion, a legitimate theological inference, very often becomes part of the theological framework that theologians attempt to construct. Personally, I have tended to shy away from using it too much, though I freely affirm my fellow theologians in their use of the term. Why do I personally shy away from its heavy use? Well, because once you have one theological inference, you then must relate it to other theological claims and inferences. Why do I then affirm its use? Well, because we must engage in theology if we are to be faithful to the Word and the task of preaching, and there is little doubt that the term is helpful to many preachers.
     Let us dwell upon the first point--the personal reticence to use some theological inferences too heavily--a little more. Again, we appeal to the example of "free will," though there are many such inferences in theology. Once a theologian has posited "free will," he may feel compelled to step beyond that and use the concept in more substantial ways. This is especially true in Western theology. Standing at the headwaters of Latin theology, Augustine of Hippo posited this human constituency of "free will." He then felt compelled to propose how human "free will" should be related to divine sovereignty, which is an explicit theological claim in Scripture. He also felt compelled to relate human "free will" with the problem of the Fall of humanity into sin with Adam. Augustine then went on to make his answers foundational for his doctrines of infant baptism, the relation of nature and grace, etc.
     Inevitably, then, in order to maintain theological coherence, other questions are raised. For instance, how do you relate human "free will" with divine sovereignty and with the Fall of humanity? Well, some theologians see the human "free will" as determined by God from eternity, while others say it was corrupted in the Fall and therefore is no longer "free" per se, while yet others see it as created by God and as being involved in Adam's fall but that human beings retain their freedom even through the Fall. Of course, then these diverse theologians begin to argue and classify each other's ideas and each other with categories. Historically, in the Dark Ages names started being thrown about, such as "Augustinian," "Pelagian," "Semi-Augustinian," "Semi-Pelagian," and later, carrying on the medieval fascination with scholastic systems, "Calvinist," "Arminian," "Modified Calvinist," "Moderate Arminian," etc. Of course, there were also the terms "error" and "heresy" too often loosely scattered.
     Mind you, and here we are being overly charitable, these Christians at their best are each attempting to be responsible theologians and arrive at some conclusion to the matter in order to maintain the coherence of their theology. But also mind this, most departed from direct biblical claims and began to build theological inferences upon both the theological inferences of men and the theological claims of the Bible. This way of doing theology is also tied up heavily with Roman claims for the infallibility of councils and popes. This stacking of inference upon inference and claim upon yet more inferences and claims results in what we call systematic theology. (Yes, I do this type of thing for a living. And, yes, it is something that all Christians should necessarily do, for it is part of submitting our minds to God.)
     However, in spite of the necessity of systematic theology with its structure of inferences and claims, it would be beneficial if we remembered that the human theological inference and the biblical theological claim are not of the same status. When God's Word speaks, it is incumbent upon every Christian theologian to say, "Amen!" When a preacher speaks about God's Word, and the listener's heart is prompted by the Spirit to affirm that that too is God's Word, then say, "Amen!" However, not everything that a preacher says about God's Word may itself be God's Word. (Jesus warned us about this, and those noble Bereans in Acts 17 understood this well, for they judged Paul's preaching by the Word.)
     Part of what this theologian or that preacher says may be an inference, an inference to which my own heart has not been prompted by the Spirit to say, "Amen!" Why would I not say, "Amen!"? The possibilities are (1) that the Holy Spirit has not illuminated that biblical truth to me; (2) that I am in rebellion against God's Word and Spirit; or (3) that the theological inference is itself a human inference that God's Word really doesn't teach. How then do we arrive at the truth of the matter?
     In such cases, humility and community must, among others, step in and have their say. Humility with a theological inference means that I must recognize that my theological inference, such as "free will" or "effectual calling" or "prevenient grace," may have a tenuous biblical basis. Indeed, the latter two inferences strike me as being more difficult to establish than the inference of "free will." This means that there is actually a hierarchy of inferences: on one end are such doctrines as the Trinity and inerrancy, which are soundly based in the scriptural witness, and on the other end are such doctrines as effectual calling and prevenient grace, which are based upon a system of inferences and claims. As one of my fellow faculty said this morning, some theological inferences are legitimate as walls, but not as "load-bearing" walls. This is a very good point!
     Humility demands that I be careful with my theological inferences so as not to assert that they themselves are direct theological claims from Scripture. Humility demands that I be careful not to place undue weight on human inferences. Humility demands that I always hold my system, especially those sections heavily dependent upon inferences, in some degree of suspicion. I may believe in this way of reading Scripture, because I am convinced that it is constructed from the theological claims of Scripture and from legitimate theological inferences from Scripture. However, my theological system is still my response to Scripture, my human construction.
     Community also has a role as we discern the truths of Scripture. This is what Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians 14 and what in the Radical Reformation is called the "law of sitting" (German Sitzerrecht, Latin lex sedentium.)  Let the preachers speak in an orderly way and let the others sit and judge. The Anabaptists were so willing to go into formal disputations with Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman theologians, because they believed truth was arrived at together, that the text would lead Christians together into the truth. Sadly, they were often wrongly accused as heretics and then horribly tortured. Thousands of them were burnt at the stake, drowned for being baptistic, and driven mercilessly from their homes by Catholics and Reformers alike. Christian history presents some horrible lessons for us, today, in these matters.
     In spite of the difficulties of theological construction and discussion, I still believe that we can arrive at theological truth through theological inferences as we listen to Scripture together, but only if we will orderly and patiently hear one another. This entails a willingness to return to Scripture in order to establish each and every claim and inference, alongside the freedom to reject inferences not firmly based in Scripture. This is where we are as Southern Baptists right now. I have longed to see us converse about theology and do this well. I pray we will. I am committing myself to listening patiently to others, even as I remember that theological inferences must be handled carefully, for with them we are reaching beyond the Bible. And reaching too far beyond the Bible is always a dangerous move.

Christian Realism regarding Christian Unity in Paris

Late last month, I was in Paris, France, to deliver a lecture for La Société d'Histoire et de Documentation Baptistes de France (SHDBF), co-sponsored by the Centre Mennonite de Paris. The subject provided by my hosts was "Baptists: Are We Calvinists or Non-Calvinists?" That lecture will be published in their journal, so I have refrained from disseminating it. Nonetheless, I would like to discuss one critical subject that arose in that paper and that came into sharper focus for me during my short sojourn in France: Christian unity.

I have been involved in a number of ecumenical conversations over the years, somewhat formally between world Baptists and Anglicans and between American evangelicals and Roman Catholics, as well as many informal conversations at Duke and Oxford universities and elsewhere. Ecumenical conversations have proven beneficial for my own theological development because they allow one to hear from other Christian traditions and to reflect upon one's own tradition, from within and from without. When engaged from a realistic viewpoint, ecumenical conversations clarify both convergences and divergences between the various Christian traditions, helping to shed light on the glories and inadequacies of each.

And that viewpoint--let us call it 'Christian realism'--provides for difficult though beneficial conversations. On the one hand, there is the hope that Christian divisions may be overcome; on the other hand, there is the constant reminder that significant differences remain. The divisions between the various Christian traditions persist due to apparently irreconcilable historical, theological and ecclesiological foundations. The doctrine of papal primacy is not a mere inconvenience keeping Christians from learning to worship together--it is a sublime Spirit-given truth to the one and a gross human imposition to the other. The doctrine of infant baptism is not a secondary or tertiary roadblock on the highway to Zion--it is a necessary theological building block to the one and a tyrannical violation of human conscience to the other. The doctrine of biblical inerrancy is not a mere historical footnote--it is a fundamental aspect of biblical inspiration to the one and a puzzling theological claim to the other. No matter what our personal or ecclesial desires, the theological facts on the ground remain: although we may each claim the name of Christ, Christians from the various traditions possess fundamental reasons to retain our divisions.

And yet, because this 'Christian realism' is 'Christian', it is replete with the expectation that these divisions will be overcome by and in Jesus Christ, the one Lord that Christians commonly proclaim. The lack of unity among Christians is not a cause for celebration but for mourning. This reality was brought home to me palpably during this lecture delivered in a Baptist church building at 123 Avenue du Maine in the Fourteenth Arrondissement of Paris. In the audience that evening were Baptist, Mennonite and Reformed Christians, laity and clergy, from across Europe, Africa and the Americas. I had historically and systematically laid open both the convergences and divergences between all three Christian groups, and the divergences seem to be so intractable. Towards the end of my lecture, while reminding us of the divergences, I fell back upon Scripture for hope:

The unresolved nature of this dispute--over what is and what is not 'necessary', 'essential' or 'fundamental'--lies at the root of the continuing division between the churches of the Reformed and the churches of the baptizing tradition. Until that is resolved, it is doubtful there will be a reunion. Ultimately, however, there must be reunion, for Christ is our Lord and He has prayed for our unity (John 17). Surely, there will be no divisions at the great supper of the Lamb as the universal church gathers to worship Him who died for the atonement of our sins, who arose from the dead for the redemption of our bodies, and who will one day return for our glorification (Rev 19).

Christian realism regarding Christian unity. The 'reality' is that the divisions between Christians cannot be quickly papered over or glibly bypassed with some temporary emotional sentiment accompanying a facile theological equation. The divisions between the Roman Catholics, the Reformed, and the baptizing churches are deep and, more importantly, they are fundamental. This is the reality we must face. However, our realism is also 'Christian'. And Christ calls His disciples to display their unity in love. He promised such unity would lead the world to see Him in us (John 13:34-35). The Christian hope is that our divisions will be overcome, and they will be at the least eschatologically, but we must do whatever we possibly can to overcome them now, with integrity, on the basis of His will and for the sake of evangelism.

These ideas continued ringing through my head and heart the next day as I visited the Faculté Libre de Théologie Évangélique in Vaux-sur-Seine, which serves theological students in the evangelical free church traditions from both France and Switzerland. Professor Alain Nisus, their primary systematic theologian, invited me to deliver lectures and take questions on free church ecclesiology, and it was a pleasure to get to know this rising theologian, from whom I hope we will hear more. I also enjoyed my conversations with Professor Neal Blough, whose work on Pilgram Marpeck I have long greatly admired. As I sat through worship and a meal with Professors Nisus and Blough, and their academic dean, Professor Jacques Buchhold, I was reminded of those fundamental truths that hold the evangelical free churches together. (The Paris seminary, whose leading scholar is the highly respected Calvinist theologian, Henri Blocher, has an evangelical confession. You may consider her history here and her confession here.) And yet, even among the free churches, we must admit that we maintain ecclesiastical divisions. I pray these, too, will be overcome, for the sake of our witness to the gospel.

A Lecture on "Foundational Theology" or «Систематичне богослов’я»

Карл Барт та Герхард Ебелінг, двоє заслужено відомих німецьких богословів 20-го сторіччя, вони давали однакове визначення богослов’ю як «критичному віддзеркаленню проповіді церкви». ...

Thus began my plenary lecture on "Foundational Theology," which was delivered this past June to the faculty and students of the Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary. The seminary has campuses in both Lviv and Borislov, Ukraine. The lecture was kindly translated into Ukrainian, for which I am thankful. Lviv is the cultural capital of Ukraine and is one of the most intriguing cities with regard to Christian art and history that I have ever visited. For more on UBTS, a conservative Baptist seminary intent on spreading the gospel in Ukraine, follow this link.

The Danger Facing Systematic Theology

As you contemplate the task of moving from Scripture into systematic theology, please consider the following warning from Irenaeus about how the heretics known as the Valentinians distort Scripture to support their ideas. Note that Irenaeus is not against systematic theology; rather, he is against imposing an unbiblical system upon Scripture; he prefers to allow the “order” or “proper connection” of Scripture to assert itself. As we know, this is a perilous but necessary task, and this is why we should be constantly reading Scripture and hearing it, letting its order and proper connections form our theology. (Taken from Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 1, chapter 7, in ANF, volume 1):

Such, then, is their system, which neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which they boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and, to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions.

Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should re-arrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king’s form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king. In like manner do these persons patch together old wives’ fables, and then endeavour, by violently drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions, and parables whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions.

Karl Barth Demonstrates the Insufficiency of Reformed Theological Prolegomena

In The Formation of Christian Doctrine, I discussed four major options for Christian foundations in theological method. These were the (1) Roman Catholic, (2) Liberal Evangelical, (3) Reformed Evangelical, and (4) Free Church models. At one point, I criticized Gerhard Ebeling for ignoring the Free Church model in his understanding of Christian history, wherein he offered only a threefold paradigm, subsuming the Free Church understanding under the "Enthusiastic" as opposed to the Roman Catholic and Reformed models. Here, I would like to extend the critique of insufficient paradigms toward that premier Reformed theologian Karl Barth.

In his Church Dogmatics, I/1, under his discussion of "The Task of Prolegomena to Dogmatics," Barth, similarly to Ebeling, presents only three possible models for Prolegomena: (1) Roman Catholicism, (2) Protestant Modernism, and (3) Protestant Evangelical. These three models correlate to the first three models that I set out in chapter 2 of my book. The fourth model, that of the Free Church, is, however, woefully underestimated by Barth.

Barth, incredibly, subsumes the Free Church understanding within Protestant Modernism. Indeed, without any historical justification for such a dependence, he states that the assumption of Friedrich Schleiermacher, that faith is prior to dogmatic formation, has its "origin in English congregationalism" (p. 38). He then cites articles 20, 23, and 24 of the Platform of the Savoy Declaration as proof, adding further, "They and they alone could authorise Schleiermacher to commence his basic work of introduction with statements borrowed from ethics. And of themselves they are sufficient to characterise these borrowed statements as dogmatics, i.e., dogmatically heretical statements" (ibid.)

So, there you have it, according to Barth, the Free Church theological method is really the basis for Evangelical Liberalism, and the result is "dogmatically heretical statements." Unfortunately, Barth does not justify these statements beyond his cryptic reference to the Savoy Declaration. Later, in the Church Dogmatics and in numerous other writings, Barth will pursue, repeatedly and without satisfactory finality, the problem of relating ethics with dogmatics, a subject treated exhaustively in many of the works of my old professor, John Webster, now at Aberdeen University. Barth never could make the transition from dogmatics to ethics, try as he might, because he was constantly worried that human agency just might impinge upon divine grace.

As I argued during a lecture delivered at Aberdeen a few years ago, Barth would have benefited by a close reading of the work of Pilgram Marpeck. Marpeck, in my opinion, was able to weave his way clearly through the problem of grace and discipleship by allowing the latter an integral function within his theological foundation. In doing so, Marpeck demonstrated a way past the knotty problem that has held Reformed dogmatics in an irresolvable philosophical grip, a grip demonstrated in Barth's own philosophical ruminations regarding the doctrine of election. (Yes, even Barth, in spite of his Christological reading of Romans 9, could not escape the Stoical bases of Reformed thought.)

What I find of especial interest in Barth's flippant dismissal of the Free Church tradition is that he utilized the Savoy Declaration, in its discussions of the Gospel and Grace (art. 20), Oaths and Vows (art. 23), and the Civil Magistrate (art. 24). The Congregationalists/Independents who adopted the Savoy Declaration were, in many ways, just as enamored as Barth with Reformed speculations regarding divine election. However, in article 20, an article that they added to the Westminster Confession, they did leave some room for human response and personal transformation: "for the producing in them a new spiritual life."

And in articles 23 and 24, this opening is explored again. In discussing the taking of an oath, the human person is protected from external coercion with this statement: "neither may any man bind himself by oath to any thing, but what is good and just, and what he believeth so to be, and what he is able and resolved to perform." Again, though in an apparently post-conversion context, the idea of a fully involved personal response by a human being is advocated.

Barth's reference to Article 24, on the Civil Magistrate, is highly disturbing, for in the Westminster Confession, the government is called upon in no uncertain terms to enforce the godly faith. The Savoy Declaration, however, respectful of human responsibility, qualifies the role of the government, bringing the liberty of individual consciences into direct conversation with government authority, protecting the former, in a limited sense, from impingement by the latter.

Let me wrap up this little exercise by noting the problems here with Reformed theological methodology, as exemplified in Karl Barth. By divorcing discipleship from doctrine, Reformed theology has created an irresolvable dilemma that prefers speculation about election to dependence upon scriptural affirmations. By citing his difficulty with the Savoy Declaration, Barth has demonstrated that Reformed theology is uncomfortable with personal responsibility and personal transformation, which are integral to any biblical doctrine of faith. Finally, again, by citing the Savoy Declaration, Barth has demonstrated that Reformed theology is, in its genesis, grossly dependent upon the coercion of consciences through, though here he is later equivocal, infant baptism.

New Essay: "A Call to Theological Maturity"

Robin Foster and I wrote a short essay together that tries to bring some maturity to the use (or not) of "theological triage." You can find this essay at the website, SBC Today.

B.B. Warfield, "The Idea of Systematic Theology"

In spite of a genuine appreciation for his important contributions to pneumatology and bibliology, one ought not care for Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield's definition of systematic theology as a discipline shaped by human philosophy, nor may one agree with his rejection of theology as a Christocentric enterprise. Like many theologians and preachers today, Warfield was never able to comprehend fully the diversions from biblical theology that often result from Reformed commitments. However, one must laud the final paragraph of his essay, "The Idea of Systematic Theology." While downplaying such ideas earlier, Warfield in the end indicates how theology must inculcate a living faith through biblical preaching in order to be truly orthodox, thus demonstrating why the free churches have some limited communion with the evangelicals. It is repeated here in its full Victorian structure:

"If such be the value and use of doctrine, the systematic theologian is preeminently a preacher of the gospel; and the end of his work is obviously not merely the logical arrangement of the truths which come under his hand, but the moving of men, through their power, to love God with all their hearts and their neighbors as themselves; to choose their portion with the Saviour of their souls; to find and hold Him precious; and to recognize and yield to the sweet influences of the Holy Spirit whom He has sent. With such truth as this he will not dare to deal in a cold and merely scientific spirit, but will justly and necessarily permit its preciousness and its practical destination to determine the spirit in which he handles it, and to awaken the reverential love with which alone he should investigate its reciprocal relations. For this he needs to be suffused at all times with a sense of the unspeakable worth of the revelation which lies before him as the source of his material, and with the personal bearings of its separate truths on his own heart and life; he needs to have had and to be having a full, rich, and deep religious experience of the great doctrines with which he deals; he needs to be living close to his God, to be resting always on the bosom of his Redeemer, to be filled at all times with the manifest influences of the Holy Spirit. The student of systematic theology needs a very sensitive religious nature, a most thoroughly consecrated heart, and an outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon him, such as will fill him with that spiritual discernment, without which all native intellect is in vain. He needs to be not merely a student, not merely a thinker, not merely a systematizer, not merely a teacher--he needs to be like the beloved disciple himself in the highest, truest, and holiest sense, a divine."