On Plato's Seventh Epistle

Occasionally I read something that returns my mind to former days of study, when leisure came at a lower cost and the energy behind youthful visions of grandeur still spurred me on to (vain?) inquiries. Today I read an article by Peter Leithart that summarized some general observations of David Bentley Hart about the sacrificial aspects of ancient metaphysics. The following quotation prompted a memory of Plato's Seventh Epistle:

Philosopher may have pretended to put all that behind them, but Hart doesn’t think so: “from the time of the pre-Socratics, all the great speculative and moral systems of the pagan world were in varying degrees confined to this totality, to either its innermost mechanisms or outermost boundaries. . . . none could conceive of reality except as a kind of strife between order and disorder, within which a sacrificial economy held all the forces in tension” (63).

Platonism’s “inexterable dualism” of change and stasis, its “equation of truth with eidetic abstraction” treated the world as “the realm of fallen vision, separated by a great chorismos from the realm immutable reality” (63). Aristotle’s “dialectic of act and potency [is] . . . inseparatble from decay and death” and his “scale of essences” reflected the cosmic determinism of the myths, in which “all things – especially various lcasses of persons – are assigned their places in the natural and social order” (63).

In Neoplatonism, the task of philosophy is “escape” from everything that is not the One – “all multiplicity, change, particularity, every feature of the living world.” Truth “is oblivion of the flesh, a pure nothingness, to attain which one must sacrifice the world” (64).

 The bolded remark prompted my memory, for in Plato's Seventh Epistle he exposits, in brief, what is required of those who would be philosophers over and against those who only pretend. His description reveals some kinship with Hart's observation:

For everything that exists there are three instruments by which the knowledge of it is necessarily imparted; fourth, there is the knowledge itself, and, as fifth, we must count the thing itself which is known and truly exists. The first is the name, the, second the definition, the third. the image, and the fourth the knowledge. If you wish to learn what I mean, take these in the case of one instance, and so understand them in the case of all. A circle is a thing spoken of, and its name is that very word which we have just uttered. The second thing belonging to it is its definition, made up names and verbal forms. For that which has the name "round," "annular," or, "circle," might be defined as that which has the distance from its circumference to its centre everywhere equal. Third, comes that which is drawn and rubbed out again, or turned on a lathe and broken up-none of which things can happen to the circle itself-to which the other things, mentioned have reference; for it is something of a different order from them. Fourth, comes knowledge, intelligence and right opinion about these things. Under this one head we must group everything which has its existence, not in words nor in bodily shapes, but in souls-from which it is dear that it is something different from the nature of the circle itself and from the three things mentioned before. Of these things intelligence comes closest in kinship and likeness to the fifth, and the others are farther distant.

The same applies to straight as well as to circular form, to colours, to the good, the, beautiful, the just, to all bodies whether manufactured or coming into being in the course of nature, to fire, water, and all such things, to every living being, to character in souls, and to all things done and suffered. For in the case of all these, no one, if he has not some how or other got hold of the four things first mentioned, can ever be completely a partaker of knowledge of the fifth. Further, on account of the weakness of language, these (i.e., the four) attempt to show what each thing is like, not less than what each thing is. For this reason no man of intelligence will venture to express his philosophical views in language, especially not in language that is unchangeable, which is true of that which is set down in written characters.

Again you must learn the point which comes next. Every circle, of those which are by the act of man drawn or even turned on a lathe, is full of that which is opposite to the fifth thing. For everywhere it has contact with the straight. But the circle itself, we say, has nothing in either smaller or greater, of that which is its opposite. We say also that the name is not a thing of permanence for any of them, and that nothing prevents the things now called round from being called straight, and the straight things round; for those who make changes and call things by opposite names, nothing will be less permanent (than a name). Again with regard to the definition, if it is made up of names and verbal forms, the same remark holds that there is no sufficiently durable permanence in it. And there is no end to the instances of the ambiguity from which each of the four suffers; but the greatest of them is that which we mentioned a little earlier, that, whereas there are two things, that which has real being, and that which is only a quality, when the soul is seeking to know, not the quality, but the essence, each of the four, presenting to the soul by word and in act that which it is not seeking (i.e., the quality), a thing open to refutation by the senses, being merely the thing presented to the soul in each particular case whether by statement or the act of showing, fills, one may say, every man with puzzlement and perplexity.

Now in subjects in which, by reason of our defective education, we have not been accustomed even to search for the truth, but are satisfied with whatever images are presented to us, we are not held up to ridicule by one another, the questioned by questioners, who can pull to pieces and criticise the four things. But in subjects where we try to compel a man to give a clear answer about the fifth, any one of those who are capable of overthrowing an antagonist gets the better of us, and makes the man, who gives an exposition in speech or writing or in replies to questions, appear to most of his hearers to know nothing of the things on which he is attempting to write or speak; for they are sometimes not aware that it is not the mind of the writer or speaker which is proved to be at fault, but the defective nature of each of the four instruments. The process however of dealing with all of these, as the mind moves up and down to each in turn, does after much effort give birth in a well-constituted mind to knowledge of that which is well constituted. But if a man is ill-constituted by nature (as the state of the soul is naturally in the majority both in its capacity for learning and in what is called moral character)-or it may have become so by deterioration-not even Lynceus could endow such men with the power of sight.

In one word, the man who has no natural kinship with this matter cannot be made akin to it by quickness of learning or memory; for it cannot be engendered at all in natures which are foreign to it. Therefore, if men are not by nature kinship allied to justice and all other things that are honourable, though they may be good at learning and remembering other knowledge of various kinds-or if they have the kinship but are slow learners and have no memory-none of all these will ever learn to the full the truth about virtue and vice. For both must be learnt together; and together also must be learnt, by complete and long continued study, as I said at the beginning, the true and the false about all that has real being. After much effort, as names, definitions, sights, and other data of sense, are brought into contact and friction one with another, in the course of scrutiny and kindly testing by men who proceed by question and answer without ill will, with a sudden flash there shines forth understanding about every problem, and an intelligence whose efforts reach the furthest limits of human powers. Therefore every man of worth, when dealing with matters of worth, will be far from exposing them to ill feeling and misunderstanding among men by committing them to writing. In one word, then, it may be known from this that, if one sees written treatises composed by anyone, either the laws of a lawgiver, or in any other form whatever, these are not for that man the things of most worth, if he is a man of worth, but that his treasures are laid up in the fairest spot that he possesses. But if these things were worked at by him as things of real worth, and committed to writing, then surely, not gods, but men "have themselves bereft him of his wits."

Anyone who has followed this discourse and digression will know well that, if Dionysios or anyone else, great or small, has written a treatise on the highest matters and the first principles of things, he has, so I say, neither heard nor learnt any sound teaching about the subject of his treatise; otherwise, he would have had the same reverence for it, which I have, and would have shrunk from putting it forth into a world of discord and uncomeliness. For he wrote it, not as an aid to memory-since there is no risk of forgetting it, if a man's soul has once laid hold of it; for it is expressed in the shortest of statements-but if he wrote it at all, it was from a mean craving for honour, either putting it forth as his own invention, or to figure as a man possessed of culture, of which he was not worthy, if his heart was set on the credit of possessing it.

 The whole section provides the context for the bolded portions, which show Plato's struggle to reach permanence (knowledge) whilst using the tools of change (names, verbal definitions, images). What must be sacrificed is also telling, and the passage immediately prior to his exposition of the method makes it clear (though the end of the passage above also indicates the sacrifice):

On my arrival, I thought that first I must put to the test the question whether Dionysios had really been kindled with the fire of philosophy, or whether all the reports which had come to Athens were empty rumours. Now there is a way of putting such things to the test which is not to be despised and is well suited to monarchs, especially to those who have got their heads full of erroneous teaching, which immediately my arrival I found to be very much the case with Dionysios. One should show such men what philosophy is in all its extent; what their range of studies is by which it is approached, and how much labour it involves. For the man who has heard this, if he has the true philosophic spirit and that godlike temperament which makes him a kin to philosophy and worthy of it, thinks that he has been told of a marvellous road lying before him, that he must forthwith press on with all his strength, and that life is not worth living if he does anything else. After this he uses to the full his own powers and those of his guide in the path, and relaxes not his efforts, till he has either reached the end of the whole course of study or gained such power that he is not incapable of directing his steps without the aid of a guide. This is the spirit and these are the thoughts by which such a man guides his life, carrying out his work, whatever his occupation may be, but throughout it all ever cleaving to philosophy and to such rules of diet in his daily life as will give him inward sobriety and therewith quickness in learning, a good memory, and reasoning power; the kind of life which is opposed to this he consistently hates. Those who have not the true philosophic temper, but a mere surface colouring of opinions penetrating, like sunburn, only skin deep, when they see how great the range of studies is, how much labour is involved in it, and how necessary to the pursuit it is to have an orderly regulation of the daily life, come to the conclusion that the thing is difficult and impossible for them, and are actually incapable of carrying out the course of study; while some of them persuade themselves that they have sufficiently studied the whole matter and have no need of any further effort. This is the sure test and is the safest one to apply to those who live in luxury and are incapable of continuous effort; it ensures that such a man shall not throw the blame upon his teacher but on himself, because he cannot bring to the pursuit all the qualities necessary to it. Thus it came about that I said to Dionysios what I did say on that occasion.

I did not, however, give a complete exposition, nor did Dionysios ask for one. For he professed to know many, and those the most important, points, and to have a sufficient hold of them through instruction given by others. I hear also that he has since written about what he heard from me, composing what professes to be his own handbook, very different, so he says, from the doctrines which he heard from me; but of its contents I know nothing; I know indeed that others have written on the same subjects; but who they are, is more than they know themselves. Thus much at least, I can say about all writers, past or future, who say they know the things to which I devote myself, whether by hearing the teaching of me or of others, or by their own discoveries-that according to my view it is not possible for them to have any real skill in the matter. There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject. For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself. Yet this much I know-that if the things were written or put into words, it would be done best by me, and that, if they were written badly, I should be the person most pained. Again, if they had appeared to me to admit adequately of writing and exposition, what task in life could I have performed nobler than this, to write what is of great service to mankind and to bring the nature of things into the light for all to see? But I do not think it a good thing for men that there should be a disquisition, as it is called, on this topic-except for some few, who are able with a little teaching to find it out for themselves. As for the rest, it would fill some of them quite illogically with a mistaken feeling of contempt, and others with lofty and vain-glorious expectations, as though they had learnt something high and mighty.

The philosopher must sacrifice the body, the pleasures of common life, and the acceptance of and converse with larger society (though he main gain society amongst his fellow philosophers). One might even say, to the extent that Plato's Republic represents anything close to an ideal, that the philosopher must sacrifice the freedom of individual wills to the pursuit of permanence and of ordering the soul in accordance with its dictates.

Theological Virtues in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity

A Summary of C.S. Lewis’s perspective on the Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope, Love) in Mere Christianity (Book II, chapters 9-12)

Lewis begins his discussion of Charity with reference to his chapter on Forgiveness, which he calls “a part of Charity” (129). He notes that while man consider charity as “alms,” the giving of money to the poor constitutes only part of Charity. The central quality of Charity Lewis calls, “’Love, in the Christian sense,’” which characterizes a state of the will rather than of the emotions. What we like or do not like are not Charity (though they may aid or detract from Charity). Charity desires the good or happiness of others as much as one’s own, and it must be cultivated through habitual actions that put others first, whether or not one feels like doing so. Loving, like hating, increases itself—the more one does acts of love, the more one finds he does love the object of his loving action; and the more one does acts of hate, the more one finds he does hate object of his hating action.

Lewis defines hope as, “a continual looking forward to the eternal world,” remarking that, perhaps paradoxically, such thinking makes men far more useful in the present world (134). He cites history for examples that show that the most heavenly-minded Christians did the most worldly good. The principle runs this way: “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither” (134). Lewis then anticipates his famous “argument from desire,” by observing how often people have desires beyond what any earthy goods can satisfy. He says there are three possible responses to such desires: 1) The Fool’s Way, 2) The Way of the Disillusioned ‘Sensible Man,’ and 3) The Christian Way. The Fool’s way blames the earthly goods for his dissatisfaction and spends all of his energy moving from one pleasure to the next, always seeking after what nothing he seeks can provide. The Sensible Man’s way denies the longing as false and tries to find contentment in the lesser pleasures earth provides. Whereas the Fool runs up a lengthy account of disappointments, the Sensible Man avoids small disappointments, but still misses out on the true satisfaction Reality affords. The Christian way believes it is man’s nature to desire things beyond this world because he was made for another—the natural desire for otherworldly pleasure is evidence of the reality beyond this life. All of the Scriptural imagery for heaven constitute earthly expressions for the inexpressible treasures of Heaven: music indicates the ecstasy and infinity of Heaven; crows, our share of God’s splendor, power, and joy in Heaven; gold, the timelessness and preciousness of Heaven.

Lewis devotes two chapters to Faith, since there are two senses of the word. The first involves belief, or acceptance of the truth of the doctrines of Christianity. The nature of this acceptance constitutes virtue, because it clings to the truth against the sense, emotions, and moods that make unbelief easier or more comfortable. A man may “have faith” in a surgeon’s skill, yet feel afraid when he must go under the knife. His faith shows itself strong when he chooses to quiet his fear in response to his reason’s acceptance of the truth. Faith then, like Charity, requires habituation—a continual effort at overcoming emotions and moods to the contrary. The second kind of Faith pertains to this habituation, since the revelation of faith, or the strengthening of faith, requires that one battle against temptation. Giving in to temptation does show temptation’s strength, but only through resistance does one test the strength of temptation. Since Jesus alone resisted all temptation, he alone knows temptation’s full strength, and it is only in striving to overcome temptation that we discover that God alone possesses the power to resist, and that He freely provides that power to those who seek it. One cannot know how much one needs faith until one tries to be good and fails, and one only understands how much one’s good depends upon God when one’s failure leads one to confess one’s utter dependence upon God for faith and works. In short, one cannot possess great faith without exhibiting great moral effort, yet one cannot achieve great moral effort without the help of God received by faith.

Athanasius's On the Incarnation III

Welcome to the third post in the series on Athanasius's On the Incarnation. The first post discussed some of the historical context surrounding Athanasius's work. The second post discussed the context of On the Incarnation in Athanasius's three-fold portrait (or trilogy) of human salvation.

The third post will begin covering the text of On the Incarnation. The Christian Classics Ethereal Library version of the text is easily accessible, so I'll be using that text for this series of posts. I welcome those interested in an alternative translation and arrangement to seek out John Behr's translation, published by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.

I'll summarize each section followed by commentary in italics.

1.1 Athanasius refers to his first treatise, Contra Gentes, and summarizes his main points against idolatry and for the divinity of the "Word of the Father." He then articulates his plan for the present work, which is to treat the Incarnation of the Word. He states that the sole cause of the Son of God's taking on human flesh is twofold: the love of humankind and the goodness of the Father. Moreover, it is only fitting that the Word of the Father by which the world was made should be the same agent for the salvation of the world. Already in the introduction Athanasius places an antithesis between the wisdom of God and the religion of the Jews and of the Gentiles. That which the Jews reject and the Greeks mock God shows to be fitting and good. The paradoxical nature of God's revelation of Himself to man (what man considers impossible, God shows possible, etc.) arises from man's flight from knowledge and being rather than from the nature of things as God has made them.

1.2 Athanasius refutes three false views of Creation: Epicurean, Platonic, and Gnostic. The Epicureans deny any Mind to order the universe, but assert that all things are self-originated by chance. If no Mind exists to distinguish one thing from another, then the universe would bear no distinctions, but would be a mass of uniformity. The universe has distinction, therefore a Mind lies behind it, and that mind is God. The Platonists believe matter is pre-existent and that God makes the world from this uncreated material. If matter is uncreated, then God is limited in what He can do by the nature of the matter, thus making God subject to something other than Himself, and only a craftsman rather than Creator. God is not subject to any other than Himself, thus He created from nothing (rather than formed from what was already there) the matter from which things are made. Gnostics believe an Artificer other than God the Father created all things. Yet Scripture clearly declares (in places like Matt. 19:4-6 and John 1:3) that the Father creates and nothing is, but that which God created. Athanasisus's refutations are directed against two heathen views and one heretical view. The heathen views (Epicureans and Platonists) he refutes through reason: discerning the necessity of a rational first cause for rationally organized things (Epicurean view), and the aseity of God, that is, God independence of anything not Himself (Platonic view). The Gnostics represent heresy, since Athanasius reasons from Scripture rather than reason to refute their error.

1.3. Athanasius provides a true account of Creation. God, the infinite, created finite things out of nothing (non-existence) through the agency of the Word, as Genesis, The Shepherd of Hermas, and Hebrews declare. God created out of His own goodness; a goodness which did not begrudge the good of existence to non-existent things. Man, God made in His own image, reasonable as God is reasonable, yet in limited degree. Reason gave to man choice of will (to follow or forsake God), which God tested by placing man in paradise (place) with a prohibition (law). Forsaking obedience and immortality man chose disobedience and death--a remaining state of death and corruption. Here Athanasius succinctly serves the orthodox Christian doctrine of Creation and the Fall. Of special note is Athanasius's emphasis on God reason for creating--not His love (though that is true as well), but His goodness. Aristotle considered magnanimity (greatness of soul) to be the crowning virtue of man, and whether or not Athanasius is playing upon this Greek idea, the connection seems suitable. The greatness of God's goodness leads Him to create, that His goodness might be made manifest in and to the things which He makes. Also notable is man's likeness to God--man possesses a share in the being of God through his rational/volitional mind, though his creatureliness limits man's expression of this divine quality. Finally, Athanasius sets up the problem which will result in two divine dilemmas--man's sin has plunged him into death, not just the act of dying, but the state of death and corruption that characterizes even his life in the body.

1.4 Athanasius explains that Creation must be discussed since man's loss of his original state is the cause of the Incarnation of the Word--the love of God caused Him to take up human form for the salvation of man into His initial purpose--uninterrupted, incorruptible communion with God. Man did not remain in the state of Adam's corruption simply, but progressed into greater corruption, which is a return to his original state of non-existence. Not only did man give up the life of God, descending back toward nothingness, but also the knowledge of God by which he participates in communion with, in life with, God. This is what evil is--(the return to) non-being. Only through contemplation of God does man preserve his likeness to God--the turning away from God is both metaphysical (being to non-being) and epistemological (knowledge to ignorance). Athanasius infers this from The Wisdom of Solomon 6:18, "The keeping of His laws is the assurance of incorruption." Athanasius moves from establishing the context of the divine dilemma to providing some definition to the reality of death and its effects upon man. Note especially the intimate relation between being and knowledge. Athanasius appears to place emphasis on knowing as the means to being, indeed, as the foundation of being--to remain in God one must contemplate Him, and so the turning away from the knowledge of God is a divestiture of the life man possesses in God alone. Surely the notion of idolatry undergirds this expression, since in man's giving himself to material things, to idols, he loses his contact with divinity. Note as well the intimacy between knowledge and obedience--contemplation of God includes the meditation upon and keeping of His law.

1.5 Athanasius elaborates on man in his state of innocence--subject to corruption, but shielded by his union with the Word--from which he fell due to the work of Satan and his own choice. From this point of departure Athanasius narrates the decline of man into greater corruption. He finishes by quoting Paul's same litany of corruption in Romans 1. The most significant addition in this section comes from Athanasius's acknowledgment that man depended upon "the grace of their union with the Word" of God in order to remain incorrupt--even in paradise--since man's nature was subject to corruption. Also significant is man's insatiable lust for corruption after the Fall. Athanasius makes apparent man's incapacity to curtail his appetite for evil left to himself.

That wraps up Chapter 1: Creation and the Fall. The next post will examine Chapter 2: The Divine Dilemma and its Solution in the Incarnation.

Athanasius's On the Incarnation II

Welcome to the second post in the series on Athanasius's On the Incarnation. The first post discussed some of the historical context surrounding Athanasius's work. In this second post, I'll briefly set On the Incarnation in its place within Athanasisus's trilogy on human salvation. I'm drawing mainly from John Behr's introduction to the St. Vladimir's Seminary Press edition of On the Incarnation.

It is undisputed that On the Incarnation is the continuation of Athanasius's earlier treatise Contra Gentes (Against the Heathen). Athanasius refers to this work in the preface of On the Incarnation. In Contra Gentes Athanasius sets out to refute idolatry, the overwhelming religious competitor of his day, and demonstrate the reasonableness of the Christian faith. Having done this, On the Incarnation sets out to show how God solves the problem of death, on the one hand, and the problem of human ignorance of God, on the other. The incarnation of God dissolves two divine dilemmas:

The Divine Dilemma of Death: since through sin death has entered the world and laid claim to man,
1. Either God must abandon man to death, showing Himself weak or uncaring for His creation,
2. Or God must disregard His own law, which was that disobedience of the creature would result in death and ongoing corruption.

The Divine Dilemma of Knowledge: since through sin man has turned away from the divine to materials things and lost the knowledge of God,
1. Either God must abandon man to ignorance, showing Himself weak of uncaring for His creation,
2. Or God must reveal himself through the material things to which man has turned, thus breaking His law against idolatry.

The incarnation dissolves both dilemmas, since the God-man's entrance into death fulfills the demands of death such that all humanity may escape; and through his coming as God-man men come to know him as a true man, yet through his divine works that he draws men's mind back to what is truly Divine.

Thus, the two works represent Athanasius's defeat of the idolatry that stands opposed to the Gospel and his articulation of salvation proclaimed by the Gospel.

So what forms the third work, and what is its place in relation to the two? Behr makes the point that Athanasius's Life of Antony, the biographical sketch of the desert ascetic, demonstrates the effects of the work of the incarnation articulated in On the Incarnation in the life of the Church through the life of Antony as a model for imitation. Throughout Life of Antony Athanasius shows that all of Antony's efforts--his renunciation of material goods, his seeking battle with demonic powers in the isolated realms where they dwell, his struggles against the temptations of the flesh, the world, and Satan (or lusts of the eyes, lusts of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life)--are made successful through the work of Christ in Antony. In particular, it is through Christ's conquest of death and corruption in the flesh that has made it possible for men to overcome the corruption of the flesh until death brings them into new life. The general movement of Life of Antony goes from intense solitary preparation for Antony to an outpouring of the fruits of the Spirit's work in his life in the lives of those who come to visit him. Moreover, through the intense suffering of affliction at the hands of Satan and his demons, Antony comes through with greater health and mastery over his body--and all of this Antony attributes to the power of Christ.

Thus, Contra Gentes demonstrates the vanity of idolatry, On the Incarnation demonstrates the hope of humanity, and Life of Antony demonstrates the faith upon which the Church progresses toward the culmination of the eschaton.

In the next post we'll look at Chapter 1 of On the Incarnation.

Athanasius's On the Incarnation I

After a few months of inactivity, I'm ready to jump back in with a writing project. I'd like to attempt blogging through Athanasius's, On the Incarnation, while I am teaching it to my eighth grade class. I'll begin with a post discussing the historical situation in which the book was written, and then a second post will place On the Incarnation within the corpus of Athanasius's writings. Subsequent posts will deal with each chapter of the work.

Just for classroom context, I've spent the first half of the year walking my students through the New Testament and the Early Church, using the Bible; Eusebius's, Church History; and several other primary texts. The main topics included how the Gospels and Acts write history and presents the person of Jesus; how Eusebius writes history and presents the narrative of the Church from a relatively peaceful obscurity through persecution and into an ascendant peace with Constantine. That brings us to Athanasius, whose book, On the Incarnation, both presents the orthodox understanding of salvation as well as the orthodox view of the Son of God in contradistinction to Arius. In order to prepare the students for the doctrinal context of the book, we discussed the Arian controversy as it played out between the first two ecumenical councils. We did this relying upon David Bentley Hart's chapter from, The Story of Christianity, entitled, "One God in Three Persons: The Earliest Church Councils." What follows is a summary of Hart's discussion.

Although the Edict of Milan brought an end to official persecution of Christians, it opened the opportunity for Christians to discuss their own understanding of Jesus Christ, in particular, His relationship to God the Father and to the Holy Spirit. There are three groups of Christians, other than the orthodox, Hart mentions as vying for their understanding of the Son's identity:

1. "Modalists" held that there is only One God who manifests at different times as "Father," "Son," or "Holy Spirit;" these being "modes" of the One God's singularity.

2. "Adoptionists" held that Christ had been a man who had been "adopted" into divine Sonship by the Father.

3. "Subordinationists" held that the Father alone is God in the fullest sense, the Son being a lesser expression of God, and the Spirit being a lesser expression of the Son.

Subordinationists were particularly concentrated in Alexandria, in part, perhaps, due to the fact that Jews and Pagans also held subordinationist views of God. Philo argued that the Logos, "Son of God," through whom the world was created, served as an intermediary between God and the world. Platonists held that the ultimate divine principle (the One) was so utterly transcendent of the world that all other things exist only through an order of lesser, derivative divine principles. Origen of Alexandria was the most influential early Christian thinker of his day, and his thought, though distinct from these Jewish and Platonist views, nevertheless shared some assumptions about the idea of transcendence and mediation; and he was a subordinationist.

It was in this Alexandrian context that Arius's own views developed and exceeded subordinationists. While Origen denied that the Father and Son we coequal, he nevertheless considered them coeternal. Arius went further, denying both coequality and coeternality to the Son, arguing that "If the Father begat the Son, the one that was begotten has a beginning of existence and from this it is evident that there was a time when the Son was not" (Hart quotes this from Socrates Scholasticus's The Eccelsiastical History). Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria during the time of Arius's arguments, expelled him Alexandria and from his position as presbyter there in 321. Arius published his views and even put them into popular song in 323.

By 324 Constantine had conquered Licinius, the last of his rivals, and brought stability to the empire. Having taken up Christianity as a stabilizing religion for the empire, he could not allow the dissension within the Church to continue. When Arius and Alexander could not be reconciled, Constantine called for a universal council of bishops to convene and determine the position of the Church on the relation of the Son of God to the Father. The First Council of Nicaea convened in 325 and included Arius, Alexander, and the young Athanasius (deacon to Alexander) attended in addition to three hundred or so bishops, most of whom came from the Eastern churches. Arius's doctrines were condemned, and only six bishops (included Arius) refused to accept the orthodox formula set forth in the Nicene Creed. The formula included a term foreign to Scripture, homoousios (consubstantial), which means "of the same substance," to describe the relation of the Son and Father. Though the idea reflects Scriptural descriptions of the Father, Son, and Spirit, it would be the source of ongoing strife.

Despite the unifying purpose of the First Council of Nicaea, the Church continued in controversy over the identity of the Son of God; and even Constantine was persuaded to become Arian by several prominent women in his household. Until the First Council of Constantinople in 381, where the final version of the Nicene Creed was formulated, bishops like Athanasius contended for Nicene orthodoxy over and against the majority who were Arians; often being exiled when Arian emperors came to power, or restored when Nicene emperors came to power. During the aftermath two groups articulated alternatives to Nicene orthodoxy:

1. "Homoeans" held that the Son is "of similar substance" (homoiousios) with the Father.

2. "Anomoeans" held that the Son is altogether unlike the Father.

It turned out to be the anomeans, in the figure of Eunomius, who came to represent the most prominent opposition to Nicene orthodoxy in the generation after 325. Athanasius did not live to see the final stroke fall upon the Arian heresy and its correlates--a threefold stroke struck by the Cappadocian fathers: St. Basil of Caesarea, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. Hart notes that their complex defense of Nicene orthodoxy could be faithfully reduced to a simple series of propositions that were central to salvation in the life of the Early Church (represented also in Athanasius's On the Incarnation): "if it is the Son who joins us to the Father, and only God can join us to God, then the Son is God; and if, in the sacraments of the Church and the life of faith, it is the Spirit who joins us to the Father, and only God can join us to God, then the Spirit too must be God."

The debates all turned on the nature of human salvation--what it took for man to be reconciled with God--and, in the end, only God-Man--fully God, fully Man--could reconcile all men to the Father and restore all Creation to incorruption.

In the next post we'll look at how On the Incarnation provides the cornerstone for Athanasius's three-fold portrait of human salvation.

The Intellectual Life as Intellectual Labor, Chapter 2

Sertillanges begins chapter two ("the virtues of the intellect") in Augustinian fashion, by identifying personhood with love: one is what one loves (or phenomenologically, one becomes what one loves). Intellectuals are (or ought to be) lovers of Truth, and therefore servants to Truth, and therefore submissive to Truth's commands.

Submission requires an active directing of passions and moral habits. They must be conformed to the demands that the love of Truth requires. Because of this, Virtue is necessary to the intellectual life as a purifier of the soul-in-service-to-Truth.

The particular virtues that aid intellectual pursuit include studiousness. Studiousness may be understood as diligent continuance of thought directed toward a question of truth. Temperance of mind is another virtue of the intellectual life. Temperance avoids the sloth of negligence as well as the pride of vain curiosity. Temperance aids the soul in avoiding taking up too little (malnourishment) or taking on too much (gluttony).

The vehicle of virtue is prayer. Indeed, prayer may be considered both a propaedeutic to study as well as the vessel by which the Spirit conveys the intellect to the Truth. To arrive at Truth is to arrive at God, the fount, headspring, source. The intellectual comes to the Truth through the effulgence of truths and this requires the humble acknowledgment of Truth as God's own to give, and it requires the humility to ask and receive wisely and freely.

The humility of prayer extends to the body. The body is our own unique tool and charge in the pursuit of Truth. The health and vitality of the body must be maintained to elicit the health and vitality of the mind, and it is often through the body that the mind is able to receive Truth.

For instance, think about the importance of memory for the receipt and retention of Truth. With music one must keep in the memory those notes that have passed out of hearing in order to understand, anticipate, and appreciate the notes that follow. One of the cultivators of memory is the body. Consider the difference of trying to memorize who my "riding partners" by repeating over and over again in the mind their names, as opposed to remembering them by riding with them once and then being responsible to remember them for the next time. The bodily experience of taking a trip together lends itself to the mind more potently than the abstraction of repeated names.

Love, studiousness, temperance, prayer, and bodily care constitute the chief virtues of the Intellectual Life.

History & Historiography

Gordon Clark's, Historiography Secular and Religious, is not a typical historiography, insofar as it does not provide a comprehensive analysis of approaches to history. Rather, it treats of several kinds of secular historiography, showing their deficiencies--not historical in nature, but rather philosophical. For instance, any sort of ethical judgment requires the establishment of an epistemology that forms the basis of ethical norms. Clark shows the inability of secular historians to provide such an epistemological basis.

On the positive side, Clark provides a brief exposition of Augustine's view of history as the representative Christian historiography. Borrowing from Collingwood, Clark addresses four aspects of the Christian concept of history: 1) it is universal, 2) it is providential, 3) it is apocalyptic, and 4) it is periodized.

The first aspect of universal history is easily granted, Clark says, as a necessary consequence of basic theism: "If God is the creator of the universe and exercises omniscient providential control, the theory must embrace all nations in some way or other, no matter how little we may know of them" (221). Augustine, according to Clark, asserts that, "Since the time of Christ the geographical or national center of gravity [for universal history] has been replaced by a spiritual center, the church. The City of God and the worldly city no doubt produce history by conflict, but the whole process is for the good of the City of God" (222). Whereas Collingwood argues that any center of gravity is destroyed by the universal aspect of Christian history, Clark shows that the opposite is the case: it is not that the center of gravity is destroyed, but it is transformed from the geographically localized, to the geographically dispersed; and from the spiritually diverse and changing to the spiritually unified and constant.

The second aspect of divine providence also follows from Christian theism, and the entirety of Jewish history up to the time of Christ is an exposition of God's providential ordering of history for the arrival of His Messiah from among the Jews. Clark quotes Daniel 4:35 as a representative OT acknowledgement of Providence: "All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say, What doest Thou?" (222). It is not the agency of men, or of sociological forces, or dialectical materialism, or any other combination that history is assuredly accomplished, but rather by preordained Providence working through any and all immediate and intermediate powers. Whether by the wisdom or by the folly of men God works all according to His purpose. Collingwood's attribution of providence eschewing the wisdom of men is therefore misleading, and deficient, though not entirely incorrect. Providence uses all means, and no means are free from God's power and purpose.

As for the apocalyptic aspect, Clark agrees that Collingwood rightly identifies the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the central events of divinely ordained history, but Collingwood leaves out significant future details. That all history looks back to the death and resurrection should not obscure the also forward-looking hope of the culmination of history in the return of the Lord at the end of the age (a hint toward periodization). Thus, while Collingwood is deficient on the future orientation of the apocalypic aspect, he still scores well on the point itself, as well as the consequence of periodization, which in the most general of levels would include those times before the event of Christ's death and resurrection, and those following.

To Collingwood's four aspects Clark adds a fifth, borrowing from Herbert Butterfield; it is the methodological significance of revelation (224). The Scriptures are continually on the mouth of Augustine as he unfolds the history of the two cities, and Augustine is not implicit in his use of them, saying, "We must lay down holy scriptures first as the foundation of our following structure (XX, 1)" (224). Butterfield makes the important distinction, according to Clark, "that historical research might prove that Jesus Christ actually lived at a certain date; and such a conclusion of research, like any other properly obtained, would have to be accepted by Christian, Marxist, or Mohammedan. But the divinity of Christ or the rightness of the Reformation is not susceptible of historical proof" (224). Such claim are theological in nature, but indispensable for understanding the course of history within the Christian concept. Clark concludes on this matter, "To cast the results of historical research into the framework of a providential view, one must come to history with Christian ideas already in mind, and this requires revelation as a methodological principle" (225). If Clark is right, and I think he is, the most important knowledge the Christian historian must possess is a knowledge of Scripture, and its own self-revelatory philosophy of history. Without it, the Christian cannot provide a Christian account of history, no matter how comprehensive and erudite his historical research.

Clark concludes the chapter on Augustine by examining some of Karl Popper's claims about Christianity, first by quoting Popper's acknowledgment that one must come to history with a point of view already in mind, and second by an extended refutation of Popper's criticisms of Christian historicism.

The upshot of Clark's exposition and defense of the Augustinian view of history, which is, perhaps, as close as we've yet come to the Biblical view of history, is of enormous importance to the task of educating Christians in matters historical. If the Christian teacher of history does not provide his students with the Scriptural methodology; if he does not continually use the ideas of universality, providence, and the two-fold culminations of death and resurrection and consummation at the end of the age along with its basic periodization, then the Christian teacher does not provide a Christian view of history. At worst he will adopt a secular structure and methodology for viewing history, and at best he will provide a skeptical view of all structures and methodologies, which leaves the Christian without foundation for positive historical claims. Certainly the necessary skepticism toward secular history is without fruit unless the roots of Scriptural history have travelled deeply into the soil of students' minds. Let us hope that more rather than less Christian teachers and scholars of history are making good use of the Scriptures so that this indispensable aspect of Christian doctrine and its applications isn't lost upon future generations.

Two theological theses worth defending

1. Ontology should be the starting point for Christian education, for it is only insofar as we know what is God and what is man that we can know who is Christ as Lord and Savior.

2. Epistemology should be the starting point for Christian apologetics, for it is only insofar as we can justify our claims to the truth as well as our refutations of error that the unbeliever can be shown foolish, and the wisdom of God be acknowledged as true.

As a student of rhetoric I have a suspicion that one of the chief causes for the differences between Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Clark was in the context and audience of the development of their thought. Van Til taught at a reformed seminary where appeals to the Word of God and the basic knowledge of God were as common and acceptable as tap water. Clark taught for almost three decades in the philosophy department at Butler University, an institution of Christian heritage, but not directly governed by any ecclesiastical authority.

There is a different emphasis when one addresses an audience who is in basic agreement, particularly on a presuppositional level, than when one addresses an audience is in basic opposition. While I don't think this observation minimizes the differences between the two apologists, I do think it helps to explain why they developed their thoughts differently, despite being very close in the actual way in which they refuted opponent arguments.

Van Til wanted to begin with the being of God; Clark with the knowledge of God. Van Til was following the Dutch tradition of the Heidelberg Catechism; Clark was following Calvin and the Westminster Confession of Faith.

I think there is value in both approaches, but I think that audience matters, and thus I would defend the two theses at the top as the preferred approach for a sympathetic and unsympathetic audience, respectively.

Special Revelation in the Garden

Although natural revelation and special revelation are both from God, the latter is like a pair of spectacles (so says Calvin) that helps us to understand everything else. Natural revelation was sufficient before the Fall. And if Adam and Eve had not fallen into sin, it still would be sufficient. The Bible only came about because of the Fall. We can’t see properly unless we put on the spectacles.

The above quote came from Lane Keister in a post concerning the reinstatement of theology as the "queen of the sciences." The reason I bring up this section of his post is because I think it includes one of the continuing difficulties that some Reformed folks have with understanding the nature of man in the Garden of Eden prior to the Fall.

If Natural Revelation (NR) is defined as what God has revealed in Creation, apart from any Divine Word, then it is not true that it was sufficient before the Fall. Why not, you ask? Well, the most important reason is that NR does not provide commandments for men to follow, which means that NR could not provide Adam and Eve with the standards necessary for pleasing God in the Garden. Only God's Law-Word could give Adam and Eve the stipulations or requirements for maintaining their holy and obedient status. This is, in fact, what God provided by commanding Adam and Eve to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth; and to subdue it and care for it. It is also what God provided when He prohibited Adam and Eve from partaking of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, lest in eating they transgress and die.

But even if Lane were to qualify his claim so that the pronouncement of Law becomes one exception to the sufficiency of NR in the Garden, he would still suffer from a deficiency. For not only is God's Law-Word required in the Garden, so is His declaration of truth and of blessing. To assume that Adam could intuit from Creation alone all that he was intended to do is to assume that he did not require communion with God in terms of truth and blessing. There is some precedent for thinking that Adam was well equipped to manage Creation on his own. For instance, when God brings the animals to man, the text indicates that Adam named them, but it does not imply that Adam sought out God for knowledge of these names. However, we may wonder how Adam would have been assured that his pronouncements were good and right without God's blessing them and pronouncing them acceptable in His sight. What honorable son does not bring his work before his father for the father's approval? Moreover, how would Adam have known he lacked a counterpart unless God had delivered unto him the animals and given him the task of naming them? God's direction is as much a requirement in the Garden prior to the Fall as it is after the Fall.

As much of a "superman" as Adam may have been, it is obvious that Adam's righteousness and abilities to honor God did not exceed those of Christ, and yet Christ explicitly says that everything He does, He does because it is what His Father has told Him to say or do. In other words, the Divine Word is necessary for the proper functioning of man. Natural Revelation is not sufficient whether prior to the Fall, or after the Fall, to provide man with the proper knowledge he requires to satisfy the Father. And why should it, since the whole purpose of man is to be in communion with God, which certainly implies verbal communication.

So while it is good to affirm with Lane the need for Biblical presuppositions to govern scientific endeavors, it does not require us to accept that Natural Revelation can provide man with the sort of positive knowledge of God that Lane seems to believe it does. Natural Revelation is able to confirm all that Special Revelation provides, and certainly Natural Revelation provides all that is necessary to hold men accountable for their offenses against God. But Natural Revelation is not sufficient for providing man with the knowledge of God that he requires to commune properly with God, in any state of man--whether pre-Fall state, post-Fall state, Redeemed state, or Glorified state.

Whenever Babylon Conquers Assyria

Frederick Nietzsche, no friend of Christianity, once performed an immaculate reductio ad absurdum of scientific materialism in his essay, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. The essay purports to uncover man's "will to truth," by analyzing the origins of language in man's quest to understand the world. The underlying premise upon which Nietzsche builds his argument is that of scientific materialism, that the world is no more than a collection of brute particulars subject to the irrational (i.e. purposeless) forces of nature, which are observable in their effects, but are otherwise inscrutable.

He asserts that any vocalization of a proposition, say, "This is a leaf," depends upon three levels of metaphorical translation: 1st, the nerve impulse that is the sensation of seeing the object, which in turn becomes and image in the mind (seeing and perceiving the object to be called "leaf"); 2nd the formulation of a sound to express the sensation and its image (saying the word "leaf"); 3rd, the categorizing of other similar sensations and images into a form that purports to express a definite class of objects (formulating a concept of "leaf" by which similar sensations are classified).

Nietzsche's criticism of this natural human process is that there is no rational basis for these metaphorical translations--it is simply human beings acting according to their purposeless nature, the same as any animal might react to nerve stimuli. There is no reason to think that man's thinking about objects in the world expresses anything generally true about the world anymore than a gnat's experience  of objects in the world expresses anything generally true about the world. All that human thinking expresses is human experience, which possesses no verisimilitude with the world of nature as it is in itself. Rather, human beings poetize their own experience and regulate one another upon the basis of collective, stipulated designations (which are designed to be productive of pleasure and reductive of pain). Thus, to "tell a lie" is to inflict undesirable or painful consequences according to the herd's stipulated designations, and to "tell the truth" is to produce desirable and pleasurable consequences by the same standard.

Nietzsche goes on to explain where the will to truth originates, that is, what led humans to enforce their designations upon one another in the first place. Nietzsche then concludes by separating two kinds of human expressions for the will to truth, one rational and the other intuitive (he does not say so, but one is the philosopher and the other is the poet, it seems to me).

Nietzsche's aim, one may suspect, is to open up to his age realization of the unfettered possibilities of poetizing the world according to one's own fancy and in one's own image. There are, of course, limitations upon what one can do--one is only human after all--but one need not follow the conventions of the herd, or should one follow the conventions of the herd, one can do so knowing that they are simply conveniences, without rational force. In either case, one may choose to be an overman, the individual who forges his own way apart from or among the herd, though it bring about his own ostracizing from the herd, and even great pain according to his all-too-human frailties. Whatever his hopes, the Christian can recognize in Nietzsche's remarks the intellectual conquest of an "Assyrian captor" by an equivalently dangerous "Babylonian force." That is, the replacement of trust in scientific observation as a guaranty of Truth by anarchical freedom to express one's power in whatever way one is able and willing. In one breath we may be thankful for the removal of an intellectual oppressor, but in the next we may pray for deliverance from the tyrannous idea that has been its demise.

The Church, grounded neither in the brute particulars of nature, nor the anarchical fancies of man, may justly laugh with her Bridegroom at both of these evils, yet only for a moment, since laughter is but the respite to take courage in one's own epistemological self-consciousness under the Sovereign Christ before marching once more to the front, where such vain ideas produce their devastating consequences upon men and things. The Church should not necessarily be opposed to settle down and grow strong in the midst of Babylon, but she should ever be wary of becoming Babylon herself. The quest for wisdom that liberates one from evil and the despair of present pain still begins, continues, and ends where it ever has begun, continued, and will end: with the fear of the Lord. Looking out for oneself and one's neighbor never involves looking to oneself or one's neighbor, but rather to the King, whose Word heralds in peace for all who will abide in its eternal Truth.

Another nail in the coffin of Enlightenment Liberalism

This morning I ran across Al Mohler's analysis of Mary Elizabeth Williams' candid admission that she believes life begins at conception, yet remains undauntedly "pro-choice."

One of her quotations strikes me as one more nail in the coffin of the Enlightenment belief that individual human beings are equal according to the state of nature and have autonomous rights. She says,

Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.

What is revealing about the phrase is not the admission that a human "fetus" has different rights from a mother. We should all agree with that, since it entails, among other things, "a mother over 18 years old has a right to vote, which a fetus does not have." However, the stark, frank, and horrifying claim is what Williams' argues about the status of the fetus as subordinate to the will of the mother.

Autonomous individual rights, which Enlightenment principles sought to establish apart from the Sovereign rule and law of Almighty God, asserted that no one has a right to infringe upon another's autonomy over himself. I cannot take another person's life, or his goods, by any natural right. Yet here Williams argues that, irrespective of the human life in the womb, it does not possess autonomy, even over its own life. She is frank: the baby is a non-autonomous entity.

Now Williams may believe that her claims avoid the inconsistency of her fellow "pro-choice" supporters who want to deny human personhood to a "fetus." She does avoid some, of course, but not the main one. She has only shifted terms. Now, instead of arguing when or whether a "fetus" possesses or is a life, the debate becomes when or whether a "fetus" possesses his or is autonomy. If it is possible for a human life to be non-autonomous, then it is possible for a human life to lose any autonomy it gains, since it has once to be conferred; it can therefore be lost (or, at least, by some construal of how autonomy is gained, it could be lost). In other words, Williams has only traded Enlightenment principles of humanity for some neo-pagan view, for which she ought to establish justification.

Welcome to the new arena, fellow Christians, where we no longer the fact of life, but its relative value.

Sciences are humanities, too.

But the popular image of science is often different from the way it really works. Consciously or unconsciously, scientists are propagandists. To the outside world, they present science as a series of great discoveries, as smooth upwards progress towards truth. But inside science, fierce debates and controversies rage constantly. The public is shielded from these in several ways. First, scientific language is often technical and difficult for the non-scientists to penetrate. Secondly, science textbooks used everywhere from elementary school to university tend to conceal disagreement. This helps students by simplifying material, but it also serves to reinforce the image of science as "objective truth" above all questioning, and thereby reinforces the enormous social and political authority of science.

Disagreement about the interpretation of scientific theories is normal. No major theory of science is free of debate about its truth, meaning and implications.

J.B. Kennedy, Space, Time and Einstein, p. 20.

Principles of the first order

I've been thinking a lot about the proper order of things recently, and in particular the proper order of things that should concern the Christian mind, motives, and efforts. If you randomly select several Christian denominations, you are likely to find that each one differs in what it emphasizes as "first order" principles. I don't mean "first order doctrines," although, unfortunately, those things do sometimes differ. It is less often the case, however, that you see Christians disagree that the Trinity is the most basic of Christian beliefs, followed by the definition of Christ's divinity and humanity, the personality of the Holy Spirit, and other issues directly relating to the nature of the God we worship. It makes sense that any religion that is intellectually rigorous would acknowledge the priority of defining its object of worship, not only for the positive function of understanding what it is one is worshipping, but also for the negative function of distinguishing the object of worship from alternative objects (false gods) and erroneous conceptions of the true object (heresies).

Rather, by "first order principles," I mean those aspects of Christianity that Christians like to emphasize as distinctive of their particular communion. When one moves into the questions of what such "first order beliefs" ought to be, and how those translate into the daily living of Christians in God's overarching purposes, things become quite a bit murkier. Just as Aslan counsels Jill when she is up on the mountain in Aslan's country that the signs she is to remember will not appear as clear when she is in the fog of the world below, so Christians too find that the clearest of doctrines in their intellectual consideration them become murkier when they are applied in the "darkened glass" of this present life. Or better yet, one wonders whether any systematic or universal approach is taken in the development of first order principles? What are the prerequisite principles God has given for us to know as Christians, in order that we may properly integrate all that God has revealed to us, and for the purposes He has given us to follow, obediently?

The following is my attempt to identify and explicate three basic prerequisites of consistent Christianity that are consonant with a Biblical understanding of reality, and therefore are necessary and sufficient for propagating a healthy Church in the midst of a world full of alternatives and errors that will ultimately undermine Christianity and destroy the health of the Church. Let's call these "principles of the first order."

1. Scriptural Presuppositionalism. The first principle has been a facet of the Reformation tradition from the beginning, but has been most explicitly formulated of late by Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Clark in the field of apologetics. Scriptural Presuppositionalism is a first order principle because it precludes the adulteration of God's revelation to man. Unless one begins and ends one's thoughts upon the authority and content of Scripture, one will have an alternative and competitive authority in its place. Christ is clear that one cannot serve two masters, and that man is to live by every word that proceeds from God (Matt. 6:24 and Matt. 4:4, respectively). If one does not begin and end with Scripture, then there is another master he serves and another word he lives by, whether wholly or in part. This first order principle corresponds to the philosophical category of epistemology, or what concerns knowledge.

2. Theonomic Ethics. The second principle has also been around at least since the Reformation, and even the major opponents of the capital "T" theonomy (e.g. Meredith Kline) acknowledge that the Westminster Confession of Faith is a theonomic document. I don't think it is necessary to have a fully developed jurisprudence based upon OT and NT law in order to fulfill the requirements of this second principle. The main point is that for the Church to thrive it must love God's law as summarized in the Ten Commandments, and wish to see others conform to God's law, whether out of genuine love, or fear of divine or divinely ordained (i.e. the State) retribution. Some may grow antsy at such a suggestion, but consider that few people (and none who are relatively powerless) would want to live in a society that did not actively seek to curtail blasphemy, disregard for authority, murder, lying, stealing, adultery, etc. Also, theonomy follows upon Scriptural Presuppositionalism by logical implication. If one's authority begins and ends with Scripture, then one's ethics and code of laws must also be Scripturally derived. What man or group of men will be capable of providing laws and a code of justice equal in wisdom and goodness to those laid down by God Himself? The Church need not agree on whether a fornicator should be executed or only pay remuneration in order to agree upon the necessity of having the State actively seek to prevent fornication. Christians who aren't theonomists seem to unwittingly acknowledge the legitimacy of theonomy in their opposition to things like State mandates for the distribution of birth control and STD vaccinations to children. Is not their presupposition that the State ought to curtail rather than enable fornication?* And the point is not to argue that laws will change hearts, save families, and make societies regenerated. But a society that honors God's law, even if only outwardly, will be a more just society than one that disdains God's law. How much more so for the Church, who is the bride of Christ and beholden to her Husband's commands? This first order principle corresponds to the philosophical category of ethics, or what concerns duties.

3. Postmillennial Eschatology. The third principle is predates the Reformation and it has been the prominent view in the Church until recent years. Like all other eschatologies it acknowledges Christ's sovereign rule and power over all principalities and powers, whereby all principalities and powers shall ultimately be subdued "under the feet" of the conquering King Jesus. The main difference is that postmillennialism further acknowledges that the Church has a direct role in the King's conquest, through the baptizing and discipling of "all nations," according to the "Great Commission" given to the disciples by Christ after His resurrections. Christ first declares that all authority is His, then, upon the basis of that authority He gives the command to disciple the nations, and finally, He ensures their success by promising His presence in their efforts "until the end of the age." That Christ shall reign until all enemies have been put under his feet (the last enemy being death) is of key importance. Interestingly, in Romans 16:20 Paul tells the Church that God will soon crush Satan under their feet! Paul seems to expect that the Spirit is working presently toward that end through the efforts of the Church, rather than forestalling conquest until a cataclysmic end-game-rescue by Christ, whether after a spiraling diminution of the Church in a increasingly sinful world, or by a relatively, but not world-wide effectual influence of the Church. The inseparability of the Head of the Church (Christ) from the Body of the Church (Christians) is another prima facie argument for postmillennialism, if you take the time to think it through. Also, one need not lapse into progressivism (the life of the Church in the world grows better and better uninterruptedly through the passage of time), or perfectionism (the Church grows more and more holy until there is no sin left, and no unbelievers, either) in order for postmillennialism to be true. Postmillennialism does not dictate the pattern of development of the Church in history intermediately, but it does indicate the long term implications of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church and the world up to the end. This first order principle corresponds to the philosophical category of metaphysics**, or what concerns existence.

I've self-consciously limited myself to three "first-order" principles that I think are necessary for consistent Christianity and a thriving Church. If understood properly and consistently related, second order principles that might register high on various denominational lists would fall into their proper place. For example, I would argue that covenant theology is central to the proper interpretation of Scripture. Indeed, I would argue that covenant theology is what Scripture itself reveals as its basic structure for God's relationship with man. Therefore, if I accept Scriptural Presuppositionalism, it follows by logical implication that I will arrive at covenant theology. Some may wonder whether my attention to logical implication is warranted, or even supported by the principles I've outlined as "first order." Again, I think Scriptural Presuppositionalism accounts for the priority of logic in accounting for or judging what the Scriptures principally teach. What the Bible reveals about the Godhead, its use of logic in revealing God's thoughts to man, and the assertion of the priority of truth (which, though not strictly discovered by logic, is nevertheless evaluated logically for firm understanding) all make logic a necessity. I recognize that admitting as much does not guaranty that any of us will use logic properly, but I also affirm that those who take logic seriously will come to more logical conclusions than those who disdain logic, or find it largely uninteresting or irrelevant.

____

*Certainly some people will refrain from fornication, or at least pursue it less vigorously if the potential consequences of it were not otherwise prevented.

**Some may grow curious as to the categorization of postmillennialism as a metaphysic. Strictly speaking postmillennialism is a matter of history, which has to do with the progress of events in the world, and not the nature of the world in terms of its being. Fair enough. However, since the Bible itself rarely speaks in metaphysical terms (at least in terms of the "isness" of things), the import of considering "what the being of the world is," ought to be conceived differently. God's chief concern for man's understanding of the world seems to be its teleological purpose and the means by which God is working the world out toward that end. In other words, God doesn't tell man the "isness" of a tree, but He does tell man that he is responsible to tend and keep the tree in order to please God*** and thereby manifest His glory. Figuring out how to "tend and keep" the tree is the "physics" and knowing the nature of man's relation to the tree ("tend and keep") and his purpose in that relation ("to please God") is the "metaphysics." Teleologically speaking, postmillennialism is the doctrine of God's cosmological purpose, and cosmology is a fundamental branch of metaphysics.

***The phrase "to please God" here is kept simple for the sake of brevity and ease of understanding. There are manifest distinctions and intermediary means that lead up to this overarching end, which deserve to be contemplated thoroughly. The main point is that all of the many, many ways in which God desires us to live before Him in the world are all tied up in the purpose to bring Himself pleasure, or glory.