Morphemics

Real Union and Legal Talk

This is a response to Perry's comments of 3/27/05 down here. Whenever I act in any way, this is evidence that my faculty of will has just been engaged. Natures do not will; persons will according to their natures. Upon his incarnation, the Second Person of the Trinity assumed human nature. Consequently, this same person is fully a divine person and fully a human person. The person acts in unity. Insofar as Christ is a human person, it is not possible for him to perform any actions without engaging his human faculty of the will. The same thing goes insofar as he is a divine person with regard to his divine faculty of the will. A single person cannot will a and non-a at the same time and in the same relationship. Having dual faculties of the will is not going to change this. Dithelitism does not allow the person to break the laws of non-contradiction; rather, the hypostatic union of two natures guarantees that the two faculties always work in concert. There is no problem with a single person willing a plurality of things at the same time, just as long as there are no contradictions in the things willed. When it comes to two acts of the will even more things can be willed. It is also possible to will something that undoes the effects of a previous act of willing. But two acts of the will has little to do with dithelitism. Perry is confusing dual faculties with dual acts. They are not the same thing. Whenever Christ does anything (or any combination of things at the same time), he has done so by a single act of willing. The simultaneous employment of both faculties of willing does not imply two different acts. Natures do not will, persons do. Dithelitism does not mean that there can be simultaneous yet distinct acts of willing in one person; it means that each single act of willing by the one person will have been done by means of two faculties of willing. As to Christ saying, "Not my will but your will," I repeat my original objection- he's not talking to himself. While there is a sense in which all three persons of the Trinity perform the same act due to their unity of essence, this cannot be absolute; otherwise, we end up sacrificing the distinction between the persons. It is true that all three persons are involved in creation and redemption, but this does not mean that all three persons to the same thing. The Son uniquely pays the price of our redemption, the Spirit uniquely works with us in our progressive sanctification. Furthermore, unless we want to assert the heresy of patripassionism, then the suffering of the Son on the cross does not imply that the Father also suffered. The incarnation is the hypostatic union of human and divine natures in the person of the Son, not in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Father's act of giving the Son is a distinct act from that of the Son offering himself. Our knowledge that the three persons of the Trinity share an identity of essence is not based on any identity of act. Identity of act may imply an identity of essence, but, even more, it implies an identity of person (unless we're thinking of complex acts that must be performed by more than one person). The reverse is not the case- identity of essence does not imply identity of act. At most, it implies identity of purpose in action. If the Son sends the Spirit, then the Spirit is in full agreement that he should be sent.

Perry is correct to argue that "to be creator is not in the divine essence, otherwise creation would be eternal." However, this does not prove his point that a person can exceed his nature. To be creator is not in the divine essence, but the ability to create is. Ability does not need to be concerned with what actually happens, only with potential. Even if God had never created, it always would have been in his nature to exercise the option. If the ability to be a creator were not in his nature, then there could be no creation. The fall, whether of angels or of man, does not need to be explained by exceeding nature. While it would be impossible for one whose nature had been confirmed in righteousness to fall, it is not the case that those who fell had been so confirmed. Their natures included the potential for good or evil. And this potential does not require that we posit some defect in their nature. They were created exactly as God intended. If creating someone with the ability to sin because it is in their nature to do so makes God the author of sin, then creating someone with the ability to sin because they can exceed their nature would also make God the author of sin. But God is not the author of sin. Neither man nor the angels were created so that they had to fall.

My use of the word "co-extensive" to describe a nature and a person may not be optimal, but it's the only one I think of at the moment. I do not mean that person and natures are the same thing. I am trying to get to the idea that, when it comes to my own person, no part of that person is not a human person. I, that is, my person, must always be described in terms consistent with my humanity. In acting, my person cannot exceed its nature because all of my person is human. That which is predicable of me is not predicable of my nature, nor is the reverse true. Nonetheless, if something is predicable of me, then a corresponding predication can be made concerning my nature. If I am in pain, then it is in my nature to feel pain. This does not mean that my nature can feel pain. I, the person, can feel pain because it is in my nature, that is, the nature of the person, to feel it. A nature cannot be guilty. Guilt belongs to persons. Still, guilt is due to personal sin and a person cannot sin unless it is in his nature to do so. Appealing to the etymology of "hypostasis" as the most concentrated or real thing in an essence is not going to work. While etymology can be helpful in determining the meaning of a word, it cannot be considered alone. Meaning evolves with usage. In current theological usage, the word means "person." But this only resulted from some terminological wrangling between the Greek and Latin sides of the church. Even in the NT, this word does not mean "person" but "the essential or basic nature of an entity." [It can also mean "that which provides the basis for trust or reliance."] To shorten this section as much as possible, I refer anyone interested in the history of the word's theological usage to paragraphs 3-6 of what I have written here.

God was free to create or not to create, yet the act of creation was determined by his nature. Be careful here- "determined:" does not mean, as Perry later puts it, "to render inevitable one unique outcome." While it may be the case that one's nature could determine his actions in this narrow sense, it more often refers to a range of possibilities. My nature determines that I cannot create even if I wanted to. God's nature determines that he cannot lie. Right now, I would like to be able to snap my fingers and have this entire post be finished. It is not in my nature do actually do this. It is in my nature either to continue writing at the moment or to get up and do something else for a while. The things that I am able to will are determined by my nature, but it does not follow from this that my nature will render inevitable only one of these possibilities. Whatever I decide will be according to the strongest inclination that is in agreement with both my moral and my natural ability.

Persons and natures are distinct; consequently, a person is not going to be explanatorily exhausted by his nature. But a person is not the same thing as what a person does. A person's actions are always in accordance with his nature. This is not to say that we can't be surprised by the actions of someone we thought we knew. If we are, however, we are not required to posit something other than his nature to explain why he did what we did. It's more a matter of learning something else about his nature that we didn't know. I do not make the claim that there is nothing more to being a person than nature, only that a person cannot act beyond the parameters of his nature. Every person has a nature, but the sense in which this nature is possessed goes beyond the usual instances of having something. I do not have a nature in the same sense that I have a car. I can leave the car home if I choose to walk somewhere. For that matter, the car can be stolen. This is not going to happen with my nature. But I also don't have a nature in the same sense that I have ears, legs, fingers, or hair. My nature is not a part of me that can be lopped off and still leave me to be me. My person and my nature are not the same thing; nevertheless, if my person does not have a nature, it is not merely bereft of something important- it cannot exist at all.

Perry observes that "referencing my nature to explain what I am as a person is not sufficient to explain personhood. Why? Because there are, for example, other persons who do not have a human nature." But then, the point has not been to explain personhood as a genus, including human, angelic, and divine. It is to delimit what an individual is and what that individual can do according to his particular species of person. Human persons have human natures; angelic persons have angelic natures. We don't need to worry about running across and then explaining a "personhood."

Perry rejects the idea that "nature constrains, determines or circumscribes an agents act[s]." This idea is how the Reformed explain the impossibility of God sinning. Perry agrees with this impossibility, but explains it as a fusion between God's faculty of will and his personal employment of that faculty. "Likewise," he says, "this is what explains why people in the eschaton cannot sin while we can. Our personal employment of our faculty and the faculty of will itself are not necessarily connected yet since this only occurs in the state of being virtuous." I fail to see, though, how this is not just a way of explaining the very idea that Perry rejects. Nature constrains, determines, and circumscribes an agent's acts precisely because the faculty of willing and the personal employment of that faculty are fused. Contrary to Perry's assertions, this fusion is a necessary part of who we are. Fusion merely describes the mechanics of acting according to ones nature. It is a separate question whether that nature is virtuous, totally depraved, or somewhere in the middle.

Next, Perry offers reasons why it is false to say that an agent always acts on his strongest inclination. "First, because inclinations are not causes and neither are desires. Inclinations, desires, and reasons are dispositional *states* and states don’t do anything since they are not activities. Decisions are activities and hence they explain actions." Evidentally, the only thing that can explain an action is an activity. It would also seem to be the case that activities producing actions are the only things that can rightly be called "causes." None of this follows. Causes are not limited to explaining actions but are properly paired with effects. A cause does not have to do anything in order for there to be an effect. The marble from which a statue is made is a cause. It doesn't do anything other than exist in a state of marblehood but, without it, there could be no marble statue as an effect. This post is an effect, but it is not an activity. One of its causes is my activity of typing. If we look at it another way, though, it is caused by me. I am not an activity, even though I do act. Still, we could say that at least one of the causes of an effect must be an action. There will be no marble statue unless someone performs the activity of sculpting. If we go even further back, the activity of sculpting is due to the decision to sculpt, which is another activity. This decision, in turn, is the direct result of the exercise of the will. From the moment that the will is exercised until the final effect the chain of causation includes some kind of activity. However, this is no argument that those causes which are logically prior to the exercise of the will must include activity. Perry continues, "Second, I can have a desire to do something and yet not do it. And the same can be said for having reasons or inclinations for doing something and yet not do it. If reasons, desires, and inclinations were sufficient for doing some act, then the act would take place. But acts don’t take place without decisions because none of the previously mentioned things are acts, but states." Here, Perry is ignoring a key point of the premise. It is not that agents always act according to their inclinations, but that they always act according to their strongest inclinations. And yes, provided that the external circumstances are right and that the agent has the natural ability to perform a certain action, the strongest inclination is sufficient for that action to take place. While it is true that acts don't take place without decisions, we have yet to explain why decisions take place. Decisions result from an exercise of the will and the will is exercised according to its strongest inclination at the moment. From the available options, you will always choose that which you most desire at the time.

The medieval church had two different schools of thought, each with its own view of merit. In intellectualism, the merit of an act was intrinsic to the act itself. There was a natural correspondance between the moral value of an act and what it merited. In voluntarism, merit was extrinsic to the act, being grounded in the will of God. An act merited just what God said it did, no more and no less. Historically, Reformed theology does not dismiss the idea of merit (although, recently, certain branches are attempting to do just that), the question is more along the lines of who is qualified to merit. The ability to merit is placed in Federal Heads. It is a matter of a covenantal arrangement and, in this sense, Reformed theology is more in line with voluntarism than it is with intellectualism. God states the terms of merit and then binds himself to reward the fulfilling of those terms. If Adam obeys God, something that is entirely within his natural ability, he will be rewarded with living in the presence of God forever. That promised reward is entirely disproportionate to the act; nevertheless, if Adam succeeds, he has every right to expect the reward because God promised it. When the Second Adam comes and merits eternal life for us, even this is not merit in the intellectualist sense. This merit is according to Christ's role as the Second Adam, it is according to his human nature, by which he could never do anything equal in worth to the promised reward. Yet, having fulfilled the terms of the covenant, he has every right to expect that God will give him the promised reward. In the sense of what it means to merit something, Reformed theology can be traced back to voluntarism. It does not follow from this, however, that Reformed theology adopts the more problematic aspects of voluntarism. One key difference is precisely what has been under discussion here- the role of nature in setting the parameters of the will. In voluntarism, God's will is limited by nothing more than the law of non-contradiction. In covenant theology, his will is also limited by his nature. Thus, God could not have created a situation in which either of the Federal Heads had to sin in order to merit eternal life. He could not have made hatred and disrespect for himself a condition of entering heaven. Theoretically, under voluntarism, these were options. God just didn't happen to do them. Covenant theology still retains the idea of intrinsic moral value. Certain activities are just wrong, not just because it is God's will that they be wrong (which it is), but because they go against his nature. The moral law is founded in who and what God is.

As to the charge of nominalism, I can't figure out where Perry is going with this. He writes, "The acts that have merit are not yours in the sense that you did them, they are Christ’s. They are predicable to you by an act of will on God’s part but they are not grounded in you as their actor." Okay, here I can see where he gets the voluntarism, but then he goes on, "This is why justification in Reformed theology is forensic and grounded in a type of Nominalism. The merit of the acts is a label applied to but not grounded in you. Justification then is a transfer of moral credit. The acts are 'yours' only in the metaphysically thinnest of senses as a label, with faith as the only vehicle by which this label is applied to you." It looks like Perry is using nominalism to mean that justification is primarily an act of divine declaration or naming that is not really grounded in reality. This is much like the Catholic objection that forensic justification is a legal fiction. If we aren't really righteous, then merely saying that it's the case, even if God says it, just won't make it so. That objection I can understand, but I don't see how it is connected to Nominalism, which is the rejection of the existence of universal essences. In this view, universals are ways of conceptualizing and naming things that have several common features. But the universals themselves do not actually exist. There are no abstract entities, only concrete individuals. Perhaps the connection is found in giving a name to what isn't really there, but, if so, it's pretty thin. Nominalism is about the denial of actual universals and relegating them to names and mental concepts. It is not about relegating anything and everything to names and mental concepts. Even if forensic justification were no more than putting a label on something that isn't real (which it is not), it still woudn't be about the denial of universals.

The Reformed don't have a problem with the idea that God and man can share in bringing about a single act. We do, for instance, believe in synergism when it comes to progressive sanctification. The writing of Scripture also comes to mind, which is a product both of its human authors and of the Holy Spirit. I'm not so sure that the adjective "wholly" has to be used, but I won't object. Inasmuch as the theme of this debate is monergism, the idea that a work must either belong to God or belong to man really has nothing to do with it. The question is not whether people can go through the motions. They certainly are able to do things that they think will merit salvation for them. Furthermore, there's nothing inherently contradictory in the notion that God might be working through them. Monergism objects to none of this. It's just that everything that needs to be done for our personal salvation has already been done. It's not about the impossibility of a synergy between natures, for this is just what happened with Christ. It's that one person did everything and, as much as we might like to contribute to the cause, we can't. There is no bifurcation between human and divine acts since Christ, who performed the acts necessary to our salvation, is both human and divine. Furthermore, there really is no problem in a Reformed understanding with saying that our acts can merit God's favor. Merit as such is not at issue. We can merit nothing before salvation. We can do nothing to merit salvation or to merit keeping salvation. But then, God's favor is not limited to salvation. There's nothing wrong with thinking of sancification along the lines of merit. God rewards those works that belong to both me and Christ. There is a difference, however, between those works that Christ through the Holy Spirit currently performs with those who are saved, and those works that Christ performed as an individual human being in history to effect our salvation. Synergism in its place is no argument against monergism. They would be contradictory at the same time and in the same relationship, but we're talking about different sets of works.

I must disagree with Perry's assessment that in Reformed Christology there is a co-opting of the one will by the other. If nothing else, this represents an impossible state of affairs. The two wills of Christ refer to faculties of willing; they do not refer to differences in things actually willed. Natures do not will anything; neither, for that matter, do faculties of the will. Persons will. The Logos, who was and still is fully God, has, by virtue of his incarnation, become fully man. When Christ wills anything, his hypostatic union guarantess complete harmony between both faculties of willing. The human faculty of willing is not co-opted but is being employed by a human person. The incarnation is not that a divine person with a divine nature takes on a human nature such that he is now a divine person with a divine nature and with a human nature. It is that a person, who was and is divine by virtue of his divine nature, takes on a human nature such that, while retaining his full divinity, he becomes a human person by virtue of his human nature. The person has both a divine nature and a human nature and is, thereby, both human and divine.

Let us, for the sake of argument, ignore the previous paragraph and say that the divine will does determine the human will in Christ. Perry claims, "This is the locus of Reformed predestinarianism which is essentially rooted in a faulty Christology. If God can determine Christ’s human will legitimately, then he can determine any human will legitimately." We will also adopt a common caricature of Reformed theology- God drags people kicking and screaming into heaven, or he doesn't let people get saved who want to. Predestination involves the co-opting of the will against the will. If this is the case, then a similar co-opting of Christ's will, even if it does result in a kind of monothelitism, wouldn't be all that serious. Considered in itself, monothelitism is not that big an issue. It becomes one when we realize that it implies that Christ is not fully human. But then, if everyone's will is co-opted, then how is Christ any less human if his will is also co-opted? Not that any of this realy is the case. I only mention it to point out either the inconsistency or the irrelevance of saying that monergism implies monothelitism.

Monergism is not, contrary to Perry's assertion, "about precluding the possibility of a human being finding favor with God by anything they do, even with God’s help, thereby supposedly securing the conclusion that only God does anything that pleases God." Recall that in Reformed theology, the monergistic works that merit our salvation are performed by Christ, who is a human being. For that matter, had he not fallen, Adam, who was only a human being, would have merited eternal life for his posterity. None of this forms any basis for concluding that "only God could pay the penalty of sin." First, even if we want to say that the same act does both, paying the penalty of sin is distinct from meriting eternal life. It only returns us to where Adam was, it does not elevate us to where Adam could have gone. Nor is it the case that only God could pay the penalty of sin. On the question of just who could pay the penalty of sin, Anselm provides the best answer in his Cur Deus Homo. It had to be the God-man. Since man sinned, only man was qualified to pay the penalty. But since that penalty involved the fulness of God's wrath, only God was able to pay it.

I did not say that Constantinople III taught that the human will is determined by the divine. In fact, I wrote, "The divine will does not determine the human will; however, the human will is subject to the divine will. The human will is determined by the human nature of the person, which, in this case, has been deified (without losing its own state and nature)." I brought this definition up in answer to Perry's question, "Does the divine will in Christ determine his human will?" The point, however, was not to answer in the affirmative, but to argue against what Perry has assumed to be the case with a negative answer. Perry wants to say that Christ's prayer in the garden is an example of the same subject willing two different things. I've already addressed this from other angles, but the language of the human will following the divine will is sufficient to discount the notion that two faculties of the will implies two things willed. The definition even states, "And these two natural wills are not contrary the one to the other (God forbid!) as the impious heretics assert," which could not be the case if one subject were in the garden willing contrary things with each faculty. Even though the council does not say that the nature determines the actions of the person, this is perfectly consistent with what it does say. I will not go so far as to say that the council required the notion that nature determines personal action, but I cannot say that it required a denial of this view either. The views of Augustine could not have disappeared that quickly. And determination of personal action by nature would not result in a divine person being determined. It would result in the actions of a divine person being determined by his divine nature. Again, do not read too much into "determined" when it is used in conjunction with nature. It does not mean "to render a particular outcome inevitable." The determination of one's nature is more along the lines of setting the parameters for a range of options. "Determined" does take on the stronger meaning when it is a matter of the strongest inclination in the context of natural ability and the right external circumstances. Even at that, the person is not determined, but is always free to act in whatever manner he pleases.

Perhaps I could have been clearer in saying that human nature was created corruptible. I do not mean to say that it was created with the ability to change for the worse as such. This is, in fact, what I am denying against the Reformed view. Human nature itself does not change at the fall. As to explaining how it was possible for the fall to take place, my proposal does do this. I am still retaining the idea that our will is always exercised according to the strongest inclination at the moment of decision. A nature that is confirmed in virtue, even though it has a multitude of good options, cannot be inclined to evil. Likewise, a nature that is totally depraved cannot be inclined to do anything that does not involve sin. Adam was neither totally depraved nor confirmed in virtue. The options toward which his nature could be inclined included sin. On Perry's second point, that courruptibility is accidental to human nature, this does not present a problem. Adam was, as are we, in full possession of this accident. Still, I am more comfortable with the idea that this corruptibility was inherent and that it will be changed in the resurrection. I can see the philosophical reasons behind calling corruptibility an accident, but I don't like the idea that the substance of human nature remains unchanged when we are resurrected. God is perfectly able to change our natures while still allowing us to retain our personal identities as human beings.

Perry returns to the notion that God and those in the eschaton are not able to sin becuase the faculties of their natures are fused with the personal employment of those faculties. But, as I have already mentioned, this describes just what it is for personal action to be determined by nature. Actually, for the sake of argument, we can dismiss the idea that nature determines action. Perry has admitted that "it is impossible for God or those in the eschaton to sin." If it is impossible to perform a certain set of actions, then, by implication, something has determined that these actions cannot be performed. Perry continues by saying that "libertarian freedom doesn’t imply an ability to do acts of differing moral worth, but rather only a plurality of acts." I disagree with him in his assessment of libertarian freedom- it implies the ability to choose any option within the bounds of natural ability. But I'm willing to leave this as a matter of semantics. By saying, "libertarian freedom doesn’t imply an ability to do acts of differing moral worth," Perry has actually articulated a form of compatibilism. All that is needed to preserve the doctrines of God's impeccability and of the unregenerate man's total depravity is to say that their freedom does not imply "an ability to do acts of differing moral worth." God cannot do morally evil acts, the totally depraved cannot perform any acts that are free of sin. Perry's concept of what he calls "libertarian freedom" is such that he cannot object that total depravity deprives man of his freedom (although, he may still object to the concept of total depravity).

Perry correctly states that, "All of the divine essence is in each of the three divine persons equally and fully without division." In this sense, Christ is fully God. It does not follow from this, however, that order to be fully human, he must take on all of human nature. It is not the case that there can be only one of each nature as nature. Rather, the unity of the divine nature exist because it is just that- divine nature. It is an infinite and eternal nature, of which there can be only one. Human nature, by contrast, is finite and contingent. There can be as many human natures as there are human persons. We cannot equate nature with nature without first asking what kinds of natures are being considered. Consequently, Christ's full humanity and full deity is no reason to suppose that he had to take on all of humanity thus redeeming all in the incarnation. Fortunately, we can limit the scope of redemption and make it a lot more substantive than being rescued from annihilation. Christ has come in order that we might have eternal life, which is an altogether different thing than eternal persistence. God is fully able to keep the wicked persisting for eternity. The incarnation is not necessary to do this. It is necessary for Christ to become incarnate if he wants to cleanse his people of their sins, make them partakers of the divine nature, and have them dwell forever in communion with God. There is more to eternal life than just existing forever.

Perry's makes too much of the singular neuter "it" in John 6:39. He writes, "This is why Christ says in John 6:39 'This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise *it* up on the last day.' Christ is the source of life for everyone, even the wicked. All are raised because Christ has been raised." The idea here is that Christ has been given all of human nature in toto and that, by raising it, the nature, up on the last day, Christ is the source of life for everyone. But there is no reason for "it" to mean the mass of human nature. "It" (auto) is singular and neuter because it is tied to "all" (pan), which is also singular and neuter. The word means, "the totality of any object, mass, collective, or extension." The significance of the neuter gender lies, not in the fact that it must refer to a neuter substance, but that the adjective is standing alone. We are justified in asking, "all of what?" but we cannot limit our answer by matters of number or gender. Context is also nice. First, it is "all that He has given me." Nothing in the text indicates that God has given Christ all of human nature. For that matter, nothing in the text indicates that God has given Christ every human person. The text does not deny this, but the most that we can say is that all is limited by what God has given. We do not know from this text whether or not God has given everyone. That is, until we read the following verse, "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." Eternal life is granted to those who look on the Son and believe in him. That Scripture elsewhere teaches the resurrection of the wicked on the last day is no indication that they, too, have eternal life. In fact, it distinguishes between the two, "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2). The problem is that Perry equates death with annihilation. Consequently, eternal life applies to anyone who is not annihilated. This is backward. We should not define life according to an extreme notion of death; rather, we should define death in terms of abundant life. Those who believe on the Son are granted eternal life. Those who do not, even though they may have an eternal conscious existence, are not granted eternal life. According to I John 5:12, "Whoever has the Son life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." Under Perry's view, the second clause describes a null set.

Christ's assuming of human nature constitutes a hypostatic union of natures in the one person of the Logos. His human nature is united with the divine nature. It does not constitute the union of anyone else's nature in the one person. Christ's assuming of the human nature provides the basis of our union with him. This is a natural union of persons. My person is united with Christ's person by virtue of the fact that we each have a human nature. The only way that a natural union of persons would result in universal salvation is if there was only one common human nature to be united to Christ. There is not. The Reformed speak of a personal union with Christ, which is fine if understood in context. Technically, however, this is incorrect. A personal union is the same thing as a hypostatic union. It is the union of two natures in one person. Natural union, on the other hand, is the union of two or more persons by virtue of a shared nature, whether numerically identical, as with divine nature, or just qualitatively identical, as with human nature. When Christ takes on an instance of humanity, he makes it possible, by virtue of the qualitative identity of our natures, for me to be placed into natural union with him. Because of this, I will be raised up on the last day and will be made a partaker of the divine nature even as Christ was divinized as to his human nature when he was declared to be the Son of God at his resurrection. [Note: Romans 1:4 is not talking about the two natures, human and divine, that constitute the person of Christ. It is talking about two successive stages of his incarnation. Resurrection implies divinization of humanity, both for Christ and for us.] The incarnation is a means to an end; namely, that God can be united to his people. This was always the intent from creation. That it is also necessary for the atonement is secondary to this primary intent. The satisfaction and penal models of the atonement have nothing to do with the Latins misunderstanding Chalcedon. It has a lot more to do with their understanding of Scripture and the doctrine of the just for the unjust. Chalcedon was about the importance of the incarnation. It did not say 'important to union but not to atonement' or 'important to atonement but not to union.'

Perry persists in the idea that Christ saved all of humanity from annihilation. Where is the evidence? While it may be the devil's goal to murder people by getting them to sin, we need to ask, "In what does their death consist?" What actually happens to those who sin without remedy? They persist forever in hell. There is no reason, aside from mere speculation, to suppose that this is an upgrade from annihilation. God is not vindicated at all in the fact that humanity exists eternally, for this was never in question. He is vindicated, on both accounts, by how they exist. Either case is a display of his attributes. Perry views healing as the least that God could do. First, note the worst condition in which man can persist and then postulate something even worse (although, I would dispute the idea that annihilation is worse than an eternity in hell- the Great Commission should read, "Go therefore and apologize"). This is wrong. Our healing is according to the fullness of God's grace, not the lowest common demoninator. "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."

It may be that in much of Protestantism, union with God, if they even speak of such a thing, is only a "nominal union constituted by legal relationships or relationships constituted by the transfer of moral credit by means of a volition on God’s part and a cognitive act on our part (faith)." It is quite easy to see the emphasis on the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us as all there is to it. There is a tendency to reduce theology to one's own side of a particular polemical point, ignoring the fact that, before the polemics were made necessary, there were other important things to say. The same thing, for instance, has happened with many Calvinists. They subscribe to the five-pointed TULIP and leave it at that. But TULIP answers specific objections to Reformed theology. It was never intended as the foundation of Reformed theology. Little else in their belief system has anything to do with Reformed theology. Salvation by naked decree has effectively replaced a real union with Christ. Being a Calvinist is not necessarily the same thing as being Reformed. I was a Calvinist for as long as I can remember before converting to Reformed theology.

While such things as divine decrees, forensic declarations, and imputation are all important for Reformed theology, they are not the sum total of that theology. Those to whom Christ has granted eternal life, who believe on his name, are in Christ. This union is not merely nominal but is real. When Paul says that he has been crucified with Christ, he is not using metaphor. He is saying that when Christ died, all those for whom he died were there and united with him in death. We were all raised with Christ and we are all seated together with Christ in heavenly places. This union is not forensic, but is the basis on which forensic declarations concerning us can be made. Christ is declared righteous because of what he has done. He has paid the penalty for sin and has fulfilled what was required to merit eternal life. We are declared righteous, not as a means of effecting our union with Christ, but because we are in union with Christ. The imputation of Christ's personal righteousness to me and of my guilt (both personal and original) to Christ is not, as the Catholics have charged, a legal fiction. It is made possible because there is a real and effectual natural union of persons. Perry complains that grace, in Reformed theology, is rooted in the divine will. This makes it "metaphysically thin." Grace is contingent since "the divine will could have willed otherwise." I'm left wondering whether Perry would prefer that God be left without a choice in the matter. Would this make grace metaphysically fit? Probably not. He did qualifiy the divine will as "absolute." But, in so doing, he is slipping in aspects of voluntarism that don't belong in Reformed theology. We are not talking of God's will considered absolutely, but as it is bound according to his own covenant. God cannot just declare us forgiven. He cannot show mercy at the expense of justice. Yes, there is a point where God must make a decision, where he decrees whatsoever comes to pass. We can place the choice of election in this decree. Still, this is not all there is to it. In order for the grace of God to be effectual, we have to be in union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Furthermore, if we are in union Christ, then God cannot withhold the promised life. We must become partakers of the divine nature. This is the inevitable result of grace.

I specifically had Anselm's satisfaction model in mind when comparing it with the penal model; I wasn't even thinking of Thomas. But now that Perry has mentioned it- "Christ offers the love to the Father that Adam failed to offer"? How, exactly, does the atonement do this? I mean, it's probably a good thing that most sons don't express themselves in such a manner ("I love you, dad," as he lept into the oncoming traffic). While it is the case that Christ offers love to the Father in the atonement, this is hardly the reason for the atonement. Considered in itself, dying is not an expression of love. It needs to have a greater purpose. Go back to the idea that the Father loves us. Think of John 3:16. God gave his Son because of his love for us. Now we can begin to see how Christ's death is an act of love to the Father. He is acting for the benefit of those whom the Father loves. If the Father does not give the Son, if the Son does not offer up himself in death, then we will die. The atonement is substitutionary: Christ dies in our place. That being said, Christ's death in our place is not so much about submitting himself to the devil as it is submitting himself to the wrath of God. Look over Isaiah 53 and see the role that the LORD plays in Christ's death. "The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all (6)...he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed (5)...it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief (10)."

Anselm's views on the atonement are influenced by his contemporary situation. Good luck finding any thelogian on any topic for whom this is not true. It's a flimsy reason for dismissing him. Instead, we need to investigate to what extent his views are also influenced by the teaching of Scripture. Furthermore, the underlying basis of feudalism is not unique to medieval history. It is, in fact, similar to the Suzerain-Vassal relationships that run throughout the OT and upon which the covenant with Israel was modeled. The NT writers were familiar with OT concepts. But we can even go beyond this. The concepts of justice and of punishment for breaking the law are not quaint and feudal. Transgression demands retribution. We have trangressed the law of God. Christ did not. We were not punished. Christ was. This is substitutionary atonement. The LORD crushed Christ so that he wouldn't have to crush us.

Next, Perry quotes from Scripture. Here it is as he has given it:

"Ps 51:16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give [it]: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
Heb 10:5-10 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7Then I said, ‘Here I am–it is written about me in the scroll– I have come to do your will, O God.’ ” 8First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). 9Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

I can only guess that this is to counter the position that the atonement is a price paid to God. After all, if God does not desire sacrifice and offering, then how could he be the one demanding such a payment for sin? Let's consider these passages one at a time. The first is not an absolute statement against sacrifice or burnt offering, but a statement against such things in the absence of a broken spirit and a contrite heart (v. 17). That these are not being set in opposition but in conjunction with one another can be seen in the final verse of the Psalm, "then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar." The second passage quotes Psalm 40:6-8. Here, a contrast is made between the new and the old covenants. When Christ comes into the world, the system of sacrifices and burnt offerings is rendered obsolete. They were designed to be temporary and, once their usefulness is complete, God does not desire them. But this does not mean that God desires no sacrifice in the second covenant. Instead, he has prepared a body for Christ and Christ comes to do the will of God. Verse 10 explains what God's will entailed. The body of Jesus Christ is sacrificed once for all, thereby making us holy. Neither God's displeasure in empty sacrifice in the old covenant, nor his abolishing of the old covenant sacrifices altogether can be used to argue that he was not the one who willed the death of Christ in payment for our sins.

Concerning the Levitical system, Perry writes that it "was desired by God as a reminder and as something that pointed forward to Christ rather than something that turned away God’s wrath." There's really no reason to make a choice here. Yes, the Levitical system did point forward to Christ. It pointed to the once and for all sacrifice of Christ turning away God's wrath. In reference to the biblical language of Isaiah 53, Perry writes, "Christ died *for us* but that of itself does not imply the penal view that Jesus get’s punished on our behalf." From verse 5, "upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace." Nope, no implication there. This is language of punishment. But, according to Perry, "The language in those and other passages only licenses that Jesus suffers on our account and for our benefit..." Even here, he cannot escape the language of imputation. Jesus suffers "on our account." We have been condemned to suffer, but Jesus does it for us, on our account, in our place. And this suffering is not just a natural consequence of the devil's attempted homicide. It is punishment, or chastisement, inflicted on Christ by the one whose will it was to crush him.

The Christus Victor model, in which Christ uses death to destroy both death and the devil, does have biblical support, "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery" (Hebrews 2:14,15). Certain points, however, are not evident here. There is no universal deliverance from death. He helps the children, who, in v. 10, are the sons brought to glory and, in v. 16, are the offspring of Abraham. Second, death does not involve annihilation, but the fear of death involves lifelong slavery. Third, nothing here indicates that destroying death and the devil was the only purpose of the atonement. In fact, if we go to v. 17, we see the same event, incarnation and all, from a different angle, "Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." The phrase "to make propitiation" translates a single word meaning, "to forgive, with the focus on the instrumentality or means by which forgiveness is accomplished." Christ's offering of himself on the cross acomplishes at least two things: 1) it is the intrument whereby death and the devil are destroyed; 2) it is the instrument whereby God can forgive the sins of the people. These are not mutually exclusive concepts. This concept of propitiation is even more explicit in Romans 3:25. God has put forward Christ "as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins." Here, we can see where God is vindicated and, although the passage itself doesn't mention him, we can deduce from other Scripture describing Satan's role as an accuser of the brothers, that God is vindicated over the claims of the devil. This vindication is not, however, removing the devil's right to annihilate people. That's not how it works. Because of the fall, all men deserve death. And yet, for centuries, God "passed over former sins." The vindication found in putting Christ forward as a propitiation is against the Satanic suggestion that God is being unjust in overlooking sin by not carrying out the sentence of death immediately. Paul finishes the thought by saying, "It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

Perry's third account of justification is the one that has to do with our salvation. I'm more interested in his second account, which is "the vindication of humanity against the power of death." Here, Perry is referring to rescuing all of humanity from annihilation. Evidentally, this is as far as the atonement gets us. Perry writes, "Everyone receives eternal existence but how they spend it, in ever suffering or ever blessedness is up to them." Works salvation at its most articulate. Perry contrasts annihilation as the wages of sin with the belief that the soul is naturally immortal, calling the latter "flatly false." But, the (unargued) assertion that the soul is not naturally immortal does not imply that the wages of sin is annihilation. Even if it were the case that the soul is not naturally immortal (and it may not be), we would still need positive evidence of its potential annihilation. The key here is "naturally." Immortality can be achieved in other ways than by what is natural or intrinsic. God can just keep it alive. The point is that Perry needs to prove annihilation, he cannot just posit it.

It is not sufficient for him to say, "The eternal life in Romans 6 is not at variance with my view since it is a gift and the gift is in Christ." Noting who the gift is in doesn't answer the question. We need to know who receives the gift. The context of Romans 6:23 is not universal. Paul is contrasting two sets of slaves: those who are slaves to sin and those who are slaves to righteousness. The same contrast is maintained throughout. Those who receive the wages of sin are slaves to sin; those who receive the free gift have been made slaves to righteousness. The idea cannot be that everyone is now a slave of righteousness and is therefore rescued from the wages of sin, for in Perry's view, it is up to those who are now not annihilated to decide how to spend eternity. This does not match Paul's description of the slaves. He does not place the focus on who owns the slaves, but on whom they obey. "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed." If Perry wants to make this gift of eternal life apply to everyone, he needs to explain how those who end up persisting in hell can be described as "obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching." He needs to explain in what sense obeying sin leads to death if death has been wiped out for everyone because no on is annihilated.

There is no sense in which we can be united to Christ by degrees, first naturally and then naturally and personally. Our natures cannot be separated from our persons. If one is united to Christ, then so is the other. Besides, natural and personal union are not distinguished by uniting one or the both. As I have already mentioned, natural union is the union of persons in a nature and personal union is the union of natures in a person.

The question of whether the false teachers have actually been redeemed is not going to be settled by appealing to the terms used. We could just as easily conclude from Isaiah 55:12 that mountains and hills really do sing because we looked up the words in a dictionary and that's what they meant. There is more to literacy, however, than a knowledge of vocabulary. Perry wants to read II Peter 2:1 as speaking about redemption is such a way that the false teachers have been redeemed, remain redeemed, and are still swiftly destroyed. His solution is natural redemption only. But this has to be read into the text. Nothing in this text, or any other for that matter, supports such a notion. We could also read it to mean that they were redeemed at one time but end up losing their salvation due to their denial of the Master who bought them. This would seem to be the clearest reading if the text were considered in isolation. But there are other passages of Scripture that strongly suggest that redemption cannot be lost. So now we need to start comparing Scripture with Scripture to see which offers the more straightforward teaching. The chain in Romans 8:30, for instance, starts with those whom God predestines and ends up with them being glorified. It would be nonsensical if we inserted "some of" in each link. The idea is that all of those who are predestined end up being glorified. If II Peter 2:1 is teaching what, at first glance, it appears to be teaching, then there is a contradiction between it and other passages of Scripture. On the other hand, if we allow that Peter is using irony when he talks of "the Master who bought them," there is no conflict. The idea is not that Christ has actually bought them and that they are denying him in so many words. It is that the destructive heresies that they are bringing constitute a denial of Christ, even though they may protest to the contrary.

"My point," Perry writes, "in citing John 1:9 was to note that Christ is the source of life for all, and not to argue that all means each and every." But what is Perry's point here? He still believes that each and every person is a recipient of life. He continues, "Christ raises all up on the last day irrespective of their standing thereby showing that he is the source of life for all, which is why John 6 talks about his flesh as a source of life." I'm missing the connection here. In John 6, eternal life is granted to those who believe and who eat the bread. Since not everyone does this, not everyone is granted eternal life (otherwise, there is no point in giving the conditions). The "no distinction" of Romans 3:22 is Jews and Greeks (Gentiles). Both of these groups have sinned. We cannot take this to mean only some people in each group because of vs. 10-18. The indictment is universal. Perry is right about I Timothy 4:10. It doesn't work to say that God is the Savior of all people because he offers salvation. I retract the suggestion. On the other hand, there are even greater problems in making this passage universal. All without distinction is the best reading that comes to mind. In chapter 2:3,4, Paul talks about "God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." This comes immediately after Paul has urged that prayers be made for all people and then specifies what he means: kings and all who are in high positions. All refers to classes of people, not all without exception. It is not unreasonable to assume that Paul would be consistent in his use of the phrase "all people," especially within the same book.

More of Perry on hermeneutics: "Here is why you cannot go to every other passage. First because the theological commitments that guided you with this verse will guide you in evaluating the meaning of those verses making your appeal to the other verses question begging and circular reasoning. Moreover, if we have to go to what Scripture says everywhere else we would never be able to begin the exegetical task since every verse would have to be interpreted in light of its context and so on until we would have to understand the entire Bible first before we understood any part of it." This is ridiculous. No one is saying anything about going "to what Scripture says everywhere else." Immediate context, however, is another matter. So is consulting other passages of Scripture that speak to the same topic. We read a text of Scripture and understand it in some limited degree. As we learn more Scripture we start to make connections to other passages and to modify and improve our understanding of previous passages. It is not a matter of knowing all of it before we can know any of it. It's more a matter of fuzzy knoweldge growing more and more into focus as we become aware of increasing contexts. It is very possible to bring one's theological commitments to Scripture, thereby ignoring meanings of specific passages and contexts. It is also possible to derive our theological commitments from Scripture in such a way that those theological commitments help us to understand passages of Scripture and our increasing understanding of Scripture helps to mold our theological commitments. This is not a matter of circular reasoning, for while we interpret the more difficult passages in light of the less difficult, we do not turn around and interpret the less difficult in light of the more difficult. Perry would have us believe that it is possible to go to a specific passage of Scripture, read it with no regard to context, and thereby emerge with an unbiased interpretation. Bias, after all, comes from theological commitments. But Perry is just assuming that going to other Scripture will be so controlled by theological committments as to result in question begging. Perhaps his interpretation of a single passage is so pristine that he doesn't need to consider other passages of Scripture. Still, when an interpretation of verse X is questioned with the claim that it doesn't match up with verse Y, it is not appropriate to ignore the possibility while blaming the alleged contradiction on the theological commitments of whoever sees a problem. One could try to check the passages himself. It seems, though, that Perry is much more comfortable to let the contradictions stand. He gives an example, "So 2nd pet 2:1 can’t mean that Christ redeems everyone, not because there is anything in the passage that says that but because it conflicts with such and such theological commitments I have with these other passages. But I am not willing to give up these other commitments so 2nd pet 2:1 can’t mean that Christ buys everyone." Something is not occurring to Perry. Perhaps Perry is the one interpreting II Peter 2:1 according to his own theological commitments. Other passages can't mean that Christ doesn't redeem everyone, not because there is anything in the passage that says that but because it conflicts with Perry's theological commitments.

On Romans 5, Perry argues that it isn't talking in legal terms. "Forensic declarations and such can be consequences, but Paul seems to be talking about things done, like people sinning, dying, etc., which I generally don’t think of in terms as forensic declarations. Moreover, since Paul wasn’t a late scholastic nominalist I don’t see any reason to read Romans 5 as speaking about “forensic” declarations and such." I can think of reasons to believe that Paul is speaking in legal terms; namely, some legal terms:
law- a formalized rule (or set of rules) prescribing what people must do;
sin- to act contrary to the will and law of God;
trangression-to act contrary to established custom or law, with the implication of intent;
trespass-what a person has done in transgressing the will and law of God by some false step or failure;
judgment-the legal decision rendered by a judge, whether for or against the accused;
condemnation- to judge someone as definitely guilty and thus subject to punishment;
justification-the act of clearing someone of transgression.

Perry says, "The point is not the law which only serves to show what sin is, but rather that sin by Adam brought death and Christ brought life. The emphasis doesn’t seem in any way to be about a transfer of moral praise and blame but rather of a bringing of death and the bringing of life." Sin by Adam did bring death, but how was this the case? Was it immediate? Was it a natural effect? The context doesn't support an affirmative answer to either question. Death came as the result of a verdict of guilty upon Adam's sin. Even so, life is tied to being cleared of acting contrary to the law. "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men" (v.18).

Perry is "quite right to claim that Reformed theology is anthropocentric." Why? Because, "Take a look at all of the major Reformed systematics or commentaries. Everything is about soteriology per se. Anything that isn’t directly about soteriology is subsumed in some way to serve the explanatory needs of soteriology." I have looked at quite a few of them and this is not the case. Reformed theology does talk about other things. But, yes, the bulk of the theology is related to soteriology. However, this does not translate into "anthropocentric." Soteriology has such a prominent place in Reformed theology precisely because it has such a prominent place in Scripture. Revelation is primarily redemptive. God reveals himself to us in order that we might be saved. It does not follow, though, that the redeemed are the center of attention. It is, rather, the Redeemer. The point in Reformed theology is not what I can get out of God, it is, instead, how God can best be glorified. Whether he is worshipped for who he is or for what he does, God is the one who must receive the glory. If he has chosen to reveal himself as our redeemer, it is not our place to get self-conscious and spend our time talking about something less relevant but oh so much holier. God is most glorified in his work of redemption. If anything shifts the focus to man, it can be found in the topic of the broader conversation: soteriological synergism. Jesus keeps me from being annihilated and then I have to work my way up from mere persistence to glory. It's a lot easier to be Christocentric when Christ gets all the credit in the first place. For that matter, if God's primary revelation of himself has to do with redemption, then what about Perry's questions, "How much time is spent on preaching about salvation and how much about the doctrine of God? How much time is spent on what God does for you as opposed to who God is?" I suppose he wants us to reverse the trend. Talk about theology proper with no tie in to salvation. But then, maybe Reformed preaching is so obsessed with salvation because preaching means preaching Christ, preaching Christ means preaching his person and work, and preaching his person and work means preaching the Gospel. Any Reformed preacher who preaches "who God is" at the expense of the Gospel needs to be brought up on charges and removed from office.

Perry rightly corrects me in saying, "The language of reaching up and laying hold of the merits of Christ by faith is certainly the language of the Reformation era in its major exponents-Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Bucer, Urisnus, Vermigli, et al." Nevertheless, the conclusions that he draws from this language are still in error. He wants to say that this is "semi-pelagian in origin." It makes for a nice bit if rhetoric, since Reformed theology is self-consciously as far from semi-pelagianism as it can get. The language of "reaching up and laying hold" does not imply any work or merit of our own. It should be understood in terms of what faith is: the instrument of our justification and a gift from God. The idea is not that faith is the means whereby we are enabled to reach up, but that the possession of faith constitutes the reaching up. This faith is not "a worthless virtue with respect to our standing." It is the sole instrument of our justification. It is that by which we are declared righteous. Moreover, our righteousness is not merely nominal. We need to distinguish between righteousness and the declaration of righteousness. God puts us into a real and living union with Christ. We are constituted righteous because he is righteous. This is not a nominal relationship. It is not a matter of imputation, it is not a matter of forensic declaration. The evidence of this union with Christ is found in our faith. On the basis of this faith, God declares us to be righteous and imputes the righteousness of Christ to our account. Declarations are, by defintion, nominal. However, the reality upon which the declaration is based is not. God declares me to be righteous according to my faith because he has already made me righteous in Christ.

Posted by kcourter at abril 7, 2005 12:04 AM | TrackBack