Chris has entered the discussion by objecting to my acceptance of Edwards' thesis that "For any given decision, the will will always choose according to its strongest inclination at the moment of decision." Related to this, he also rejects my claim that a person can never transcend his nature unless we posit a metanature; and he rejects my hypothesis that "Adam's natural inclinations before the fall were essentially the same as those of the redeemed before glory." I'd like to address these in order after acknowledging some points of agreement. First, that Edwards' thesis is "not required by Reformed theology or by Scripture." I believe it to be compatible with both but I certainly have no intention of making adherence thereunto a matter of orthodoxy. I am content that those who adhere to Reformed theology acknowledge both that man is a free moral agent and that God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass. They need offer no explanation for how these two truths fit together. On the other hand, I do not believe that Reformed theology is compatible with a consistent libertarian view of the will. Such a view is not even compatible with the notion that God knows everything that will happen in advance, much less with the notion that he decrees everything that will happen.
I also agree with Chris' account of the reprobate's inability to do good. He writes, "They may choose a lesser sin over a greater, they may choose to do the right thing for the wrong reason, and may thus live in a way that is, as far as externals go, morally admirable, but all the while they act from ungodly motives and thus their apparently good works are in fact sins." And with his distinction between "what is possible for me and what is in my power." This is the same distinction, and quite a bit clearer, as that between what I have called natural and moral ability (I don't recall if this is Edwards' terminology or not, it's been a number of years since I read his book). More accurately, when it comes to total depravity, this should be natural ability and moral inability. Or, to put it in terms of power and possibility, it is within the power of the reprobate to do good but it is not possible for them to do so. They are judged, not on the basis of moral inability, but on the basis of what is in their power due to a complete possession of all the necessary faculties. On the other hand, Christ, during his first advent, had all of the necessary faculties for commiting evil but it was not possible for him to do so. He had what might be termed an "immoral inability" (not that anything about him was immoral, just that he was unable to do immoral deeds).
Against my claim that a person can never transcend his nature unless we posit a metanature, Chris writes, "The ability to make choices beyond what our natures determine does not require positing a metanature. There is no contradiction involved in saying that it is our nature to be able to sometimes transcend our nature." But then, the example he provides does not support his objection, "For instance, as mammals, it is our nature to reproduce sexually, but as intelligent beings, it is our nature to be able to come up with non-sexual means of reproduction and transcend our animal nature." Either our nature as intelligent beings stands as a metanature in relation to our animal nature or our nature is better described as an intelligent animal, in which case, we have transcended nothing. Chris continues, "As appetitive creatures it is our nature to follow our strongest inclinations, but as creatures with a free-will, it is our nature to be able to choose to follow a weaker inclination over a stronger." Here, Chris has confused "inclination" with "appetite." He does the same thing in his discussion of two or more conflicting desires. But neither an appetite nor a desire is synonymous with an inclination of the will, although both may serve as factors when it comes to inclining the will.
I need to stop here and clarify just what the will is. The will is nothing more or less than the faculty of choosing. It is not the thing chosen, nor is the various items subject to deliberation before a decision is reached. While both of these constitute legitimate uses of the term "will," the word as it is used in Edward's thesis refers to the faculty of choosing. This faculty, as are all of our faculties, is a part of our nature, which is why monothelitism was rejected. Both God and humans are able to choose by virtue of their respective natures. Since Christ had two natures, it follows that he had two faculties of choosing. Had Constantinople III taken will in the sense of the thing chosen, or had it taken the ability to will as belonging directly to the person instead of being a faculty of the person's nature, then it would not have rejected monothelitism. Although we may speak of the will willing, this should not be confused with the idea that the faculty of choosing has its own ego. In like manner, I can say that my eyes see. But this is not entirely accurate. I see by virtue of my faculty of sight. Even so, I will something by virtue of my faculty of choosing.
If we were by nature nothing more than appetitve creatures, then following our strongest inclination would be the same as following our strongest appetite. But we are not. We have the ability to supress or even to reject our strongest appetite. However, it does not follow from this that we have supressed the strongest inclination upon our faculty of choosing. When considering two or more conflicting desires, Chris said, "I can see no reason to think that I must always follow the strongest one. On the contrary, it seems that whenever I make a decision, my very act of deliberation presupposes that my inclinations need not determine my action." No, the only thing to we need to presuppose is that the strongest desire need not incline the will to action. This does not mean that when a voluntary action has occurred that the will will not have been exercised according to its strongest inclination at the moment of decision. As to the act of deliberation itself, note what Chris has rightly called it. Deliberation is an "act." What is more, it is a voluntary act. As such, it does not precede but follows the will. Essentially, my act of deliberation does not presuppose "that my inclinations need not determine my action." Rather, it presupposes that the inclination to deliberate was the strongest factor influencing my will at the moment it was exercised. I will stop deliberating when the inclination to deliberate becomes weaker than the inclination to make up my mind for a particular option (A or non-A). None of this makes deceptive the phenomenon of making a decision. Deliberation can have a very real effect on a subsequent choice. Through deliberation, we are able to manipulate the strength of our inclinations concerning that choice. Deliberation can allow me to choose against my strongest appetite or desire. Assuming, that is, that this is even relevant. The fact that I have a strong desire does not imply that I am in any position to fulfill that desire (which is why I reject the idea that our strongest desires are equal to the strongest inclinations of our wills).
I move now to Chris' rejection of the hypothesis that Adam's natural inclinations before the fall were essentially the same as those of the redeemed before glory. In making this claim, I do not mean to suggest that environment or habituation to evil are not factors, even though I do reject these as the sole factors explaining our propensity toward sin. I am not concerned with Adam's habit before the fall, only with an account for how he could have fallen. If his nature was perfectly good, if the will always wills according to its strongest inclination at the moment of decision, if a person with a perfectly good nature cannot have an inclination toward evil, much less a strongest inclination thereto, then we are at a loss to explain how a perfectly good agent willed to do evil. My claim is that Adam was not created perfectly good, at least, not in the sense with which this concept is usually invested. Yes, Scripture does state that God saw everything he had created, including man, and that it was good. But we need to keep the pronouncement in context. The created order exists in two different realms: the eternal, eschatological realm and the temporal earthly realm. The bulk of Genesis 1 is about the creation of the the second realm, which is characterized in its initial state as "without form and void." The creation of man belonged to this second realm with the intent that he would be recreated into the first. Redemption is not only about reversing the fall and restoring what we had. It's goal is much higher. Redemption is about giving us what Adam could have gained but failed to get. We cannot take the pronouncement of "good" on this realm of creation and invest it with all the meaning that the same pronouncement would have concerning the eternal realm.
No matter how you look at, since Adam did fall, it follows that he was created such that he could fall. While this does mean that he was not created with the perfection of the heavenly realm, it does not mean that he was "bad or corrupt or ill-made." Chris writes, "Since God created them good, their desire to obey him was stronger than their desire for what was pleasing to the eye and good for food." I don't think this necessarily follows, but it's still possible so I'll accept it. This only brings us back to the earlier point that the strongest desire is not always synonymous with the strongest inclination of the will at the moment of decision. It is within man's ability to overcome a strong desire with reason and thereby act against it. Oftentimes this works to his advantage. There are other times when his reasons are corrupt and sinful. I must reject Chris' claim that "What was evil was their choosing to follow the desire for the lesser good." I agree with the idea that the object chosen was good insofar as God had created it. I also agree that God gave them a desire for what is pleasing to the eye and good for food. However, since every tree yielding edible fruit fell under this category, this cannot be the deciding factor in determining the morality of their choice. When eating of any other tree there was no choice between the greater good of obeying God or the lesser good of eating what was pleasing- they did both. This lesser good remained a constant factor no matter what tree they ate from. We need to explain the fall in terms of what was different. The fall was not the result of choosing a lesser good but the result of flat out disobedience. We cannot reconcile Adam's fall with his supposed perfect nature by trying to look on the bright side of things.
Overall, I agree with Chris' postulate that "Adam and Eve had freedom of decision in the garden to sin or not to sin." I just reject his explanation. Nothing about my hypothesis that Adam's natural inclinations were the same as those of the redeemed before glory can be construed to conclude that "God made human nature such that its strongest desire would of necessity lead it into sin." I've already addressed the difference between desire and inclination of the will, but another common assumption may be hidden behind this charge. The prohibition given to Adam against eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has been understood in two different ways, even within Reformed theology. One of these is perpetual. That is, for as long as Adam did not eat of this tree, he would live. As soon as he did, however, he would fall. Under this rubric, saying that Adam's nature was the same as ours is a virtual guarantee that he would fall. None of us is able to go very long without sinning. On the other hand, this prohibition can also be understood as a temporary probation, which is how I take it. If Adam fails this test, he and all his posterity fall; if he passes, he merits eternal life for all of his posterity. This way it is not a matter of God setting us up for a fall, for we often are able to obey in particular circumstances. Adam's probation was not rigged. While it is true that Adam necessarily followed his strongest inclination, which was for eating the fruit, it is not the case that this inclination necessarily had to be. Adam's nature as created made it a possible inclination, but other factors contributed both to actualizing this inclination and to making it the strongest at the moment he chose to eat of the fruit, not the least of which was his own deliberation. The bondage of the faculty of choosing to its strongest inclination at the moment of decision is not at all incompatible with the ability of a moral agent to make a free decision.
Andrew's last comment was over here on 3/30/200 and I have finally managed to answer. As with previous entries, I will continue to respond directly to Andrew. Consequently, any other readers may find it easier to reference his last comment for context.
You are correct to note that "if the end result of the emphasis is not insignificant, then neither is the beginning emphasis." But this is true in general. If we get down to the specifics of this case, which is the difference between the doctrines of soteriology in Protestantism and Catholicism, the end result is significant. It matters whether we rely on God alone or God and ourselves for our salvation. Demonstrating points of agreement, and there are many, is not going to take away or make irrelevant the points of disagreement.
You write, "...unless you can find a reason to say that God has chosen one particular people over another because of His love for all people, your assertion that He has done such a thing is shaky." My reason is that Scripture teaches it. This is the whole doctrine of election. Aside from particularity being implied in the very concept of choice, we can read that God chooses Israel over all the other nations, that he chooses Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, etc. Read Paul's discussion of the latter example in Romans 9. He presents God's choice of Jacob over Esau as unconditioned. "...though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad--in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call--she [Rebecca] was told,'The older will serve the younger.' As it is written, 'Jacob I loved,but Esau I hated'" (vs.11-13). It is tempting to argue that both this passage and that to which it refers (Malachi 1:2,3) are only talking about national election. Malachi, for instance, is talking about God's choice of the nation of Israel over that of the Edomites. Even Paul speaks of Israel as a nation. This section of Romans concerns God removing his exlusive focus from Israel and placing it on the whole world. But if he can do this, then what about the promises made to Israel? Paul says that "it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring" (v. 8). And lest we think that the children of promise are descendents of Isaac as opposed to Ishmael, he makes a further distinction between the children of Isaac. If Isaac is called the son of promise, but not all of his descendents are chosen; if Paul can say, "For not all who are descended from Israel [an alternate name for Jacob] belong to Israel" (v.6); then we must consider the possibility that Isaac is not the ultimate son of promise. Rather, the promise made concerning Isaac is a revelation of greater things. The son of promise is Christ and the true Israel consists of all those who are in him. The eternal promise is not made to those who are physical descendents of Jacob, but to all those who are in Christ, no matter what there physical ancestry. God's choice of Israel as a nation is perfectly compatible with his choice of individuals to be included among the children of promise. Paul narrows the scope down to individual election when he speaks of Pharaoh. He concludes, "So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills." That God chooses one particular people over another, or even particular individuals over others shouldn't really be a matter of debate. Scripture says that he does. As to the thesis that God loves all people (and, from your argument, I take it that you mean everybody), this doesn't quite fit in with his opinion of Esau. There's nothing wrong with equating election with love, I just dispute your claim that God's love is universal. And it is not an adulteration of God's love to deny that he must love each and every individual. On the contrary, I would see the adulteration of love in the idea that an omnipotent God must love people in such a limited way. In the Calvinistic understanding, when God loves someone, he does everything that is both necessary and sufficient to secure his salvation.
The particularity of the people of God is very much willed by God. When God takes a people unto himself this is just what he is doing. He takes them from the sinful mass in order to dwell with them in eternity. On the view that you have presented, he doesn't really take a people so much as settling with what he can get. You also seem to be confusing the general call with the special call. The case of Christ before his accusers is an example of the former. They have all of the faculties necessary to repent. Nobody is stopping them. The only reason they do not is because they do not want to repent. Ultimately, in the case of those who refuse it, this general call serves to augment their guilt. Furthermore, if there were only a general call, then no one would want to repent, or, if they did want to, they would quickly change their minds after seeing what such repentance entailed. Monergism should never be confused with easy-believism. Those who refuse to cooperate with God in the work of sanctification evidence that fact that they were never saved. The special call is that spoken of in Romans 8:30. Those who are called include those who have been predestined. All who are called will be both justified and glorified. The special call takes place at the point of regeneration. This is the moment of irresistible grace when the Holy Spirit brings us to life by having united us with Christ in his resurrection.
On the subject of intratrinitarian relationships, there is a significant difference between these and those between humans and God. But there is also a significant similarity; namely, that these are both relationships among persons. If we make God so different as to exlcude this point of commonality, we risk losing any meaning at all when speaking of him in personal terms. You have managed to explain why the Son could not have rejected the Father's love; however, this does not address the question, "Is the Son's reciprocation of the Father's love only genuine if he could have rejected it?" Either the Son's love is not genuine, or it stands as a counter-example to the idea that genuine love is predicated on the possibility of rejection. It may be the case that people can reject God's love and that those who do not have genuinely accepted it. However, it does not follow that the genuine nature of this acceptance is predicated on the ability to have rejected it. And, if this is the case, then, although it is evident that some can reject and others can accept, we need to consider whether or not there are factors such that any given individual who accepted could only have accepted (or vice versa). This, in Reformed doctrine, would be a matter of irresistible grace. It's not a matter that anyone accepts against his will, but that, in regeneration, thee will is so disposed as to accept.
Paul does not speak of a division of the will that is proper to the nature of the human person. Instead, this division is proper only to those who have been regenerated and who are in the process of being sanctified. The battle between the flesh and the spirit is more properly understood as between the flesh and the Spirit. It is a matter of the Holy Spirit gradually molding our desires to match God's. And, as long as we are on this earth, with this human nature, it is also a matter of resisitng what the Spirit wants. I won't deny that such a division of the will can exist within an individual. However, it should be clear that "will" is in reference to conflicting desires and not to the faculty of willing or to the exercise thereof.
I have been speaking of man willing according to his strongest want, desire, or inclination. Some of this may be ambiguous, since, as you have shown, words such as "desire" can have other meanings. For now, then, let me narrow my terminology down to "inclination." This way, it will be possible to discuss your thoughts on desire without getting too confused. I plan on dealing more with the topic of inclination in my next post, which will be a response to Chris, so I will limit my comments here. Regarding your example, though, I do mean to say that a man's strongest inclination may be for chocolate cake one moment and for a glass of water the next. This is pretty much why when he is sitting in front of a piece of cake and a glass of water that he either takes a bite of cake or drink of water. He consistently acts according to his strongest inclination at the moment. These are the normal choices. His strongest inclination could also lead him to not eat the cake or drink the water, or it might even lead him to mix the cake with the water. Either way, he will have followed the strongest inclination when presented with the choice of what to do with the cake and water. None of this conflicts with his strongest desire being neither cake nor water. But now, I must consider what you have identified as man's strongest desire.
The first answer to the WSC states, "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." This refers to the intent for which man was created and to the fulfillment of that intent in heaven. This an altogether different thing from the proposition that it is within human nature as such to desire God. Contrary to your claims, I would argue that such an underlying desire does not exist unless God specifically creates it in an individual by means of regeneration. In his indictment of humanity, wherein he sets up the necessity of redemption for every individual, Paul states that "no one seeks after God" (Romans 3:11). Adam's sin is not a case of choosing "according to his immediate perception of the Good rather than according to the eternal Truth of the Good." It wasn't a case of the lesser of two goods. Adam's choice was not merely to eat of the fruit of a particular tree, it was to disobey the commandment of God. This was not a case of seeking union with God in a misguided way. The fall is not just a matter of man falling into confusion and breaking the bond of love. Consequently, the atonement is not just a matter of restoring the bond of love and taking away the confusion. Your statement, "God restored the bond of love between Himself and man in Christ (this, in my opinion, is the whole of the work of the Cross)," is very much in keeping with Catholic theology; especially with Abelard's conception of the atonement. The chief efficacy of Christ's passion is found in its ability to stir us to love God. When we see the cross, we see how much God loves us. Consequently, we are able to focus on something that can lead us past our confusion and allow us to demonstrate our love for God. [For those who have seen it, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" is a prime example of Abelardian theology.] But this whole concept of the atonement begs the question. For while it is true that the atonement demonstrates God's love, we need to ask why and how this is the case. What is it about God killing his own Son, or, if you prefer weaker terms, allowing his son to be killed, that demonstrates his love? I won't argue that the cross does not demonstrate God's love, especially in light of John 3:16. I do want to know why it is that God's love had to be demonstrated in just this way. If it were only a matter of providing a focal point to excite our own love for God, there are surely less drastic options. And here is where the idea of a the substitutionary atonement comes in. When Adam fell, we fell in him. We were all declared guilty and were all deserving of death. In the atonement, Christ dies in our place. Because he has died, we will never die. He pays the price for sin and, having done so, is declared, not just "not guilty, " but "righteous." All those for whom he died, or better, who were crucified with him, are also justified (i.e., declared righteous). Having been justified, we are not merely restored to the same place that Adam was in where we can break the bond of love again. While it is true that we can continue to sin while we remain in this life, it is not the case that the bond of love is ours to break. Christ has purchased our inheritance for us, which was not true of Adam's original state. Although he enjoyed the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit was not with him as an earnest of his inheritance, as he is with us. When we sin, the Spirit does not leave us but continues to sanctify us.
You have attributed Adam's sin to choosing "according to his immediate perception of the Good rather than according to the eternal Truth of the Good." But you go on to say, "In the end, we will see God face to face, and the choice between God and our immediate pleasures will be obliterated because the immediate pleasure will be the vision of God." If this is so, then how is our behavior in heaven any different from choosing according to our immediate perception of the good? My point is not to say that this is right or wrong, only that, ultimately, it cannot be where Adam went wrong. He disobeyed an explicit command of God. There was no immediate perception of any good. Adam is not a figure to be pitied. And then there is your explanation of man's current condition even after the death of Christ.
In the meantime, for man to respond to God’s self-giving with self-giving, he must often refuse the immediate manifestation of his natural desire because it is conditioned by concupiscence and the habits of sin. He must live according to God’s desire rather than merely according to his own. If he does not do so, he breaks the bond of love once again by refusing to give himself over to the Beloved’s will.
And so on, and so on. Adam falls and breaks the bond of love. Christ suffers on the cross thereby allowing us to respond and restore this bond. If we do not continue to live according to God's desire the cycle starts again. We break the bond of love- our own private fall, as it were. The solution is the same. Well, almost. This time, instead of the historical sacrifice on the cross, Christ is resacrificed over and over in the mass. The sacraments, especially this one, become a means whereby we are enabled to restore the bond of love that our sinful behavior has broken. Until we do it again.
At this point, you write:
This, it seems to me, is why Reformed theology must say that man’s nature was changed by the Fall. Otherwise, total depravity and irresistible grace don’t make sense. Speech about forensic declarations only makes sense if you are speaking figuratively about natures and intrinsic ontological relationships. Otherwise, you fall into speaking of God as if He were dealing with legal fictions instead of with created reality.
I will combine a response to this with what you wrote in your email. [For the sake of any other readers, Andrew had written the following]:
It seems like you are raising "forensic declaration" to a metaphysical status, which throws me completely, and then you speak of human nature changing, which, in the Catholic view, is impossible. A change of human nature is equivalent to God changing His mind. Please clarify, then, what you mean by "human nature," "forensic declaration," and so on, because you obviously don't mean what Catholics mean.
First, human nature and its change. This is not a change of human nature (although, I might have used that pronoun), but a change in human nature. That is, our nature does not change into something else. We remain human throughout eternity. This change occurs at the resurrection. Paul describes it in I Corinthians 15:51-53, "Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality." Once this change occurs, the possibility of sin will no longer be in our nature, for death will have lost its sting. As to man's nature being changed by the fall, this is where I disagree with Reformed theology. I find no reason to believe that there was such a change (or, if this change did occur, I will have to insist that the human nature Christ took on is that of man after the fall and not before; otherwise, we are not healed). I think a lot of resistance to the idea that the nature that man has now is the same that he had before the fall is due to the notion that whatever God creates must be pristine and perfect. Why? God can create in this way and has done so in the creation of that realm in which he lives and to which we are destined. But he has also created an entire realm that awaits perfection. Notice the very first description of the earth after we find out that God created it. "The earth was without form and void." And now, consider that man was a product of the earth. The promise of the resurrection, that man will one day be imperishable and immortal, is not a promise to restore him to past glory, but to give him that for which he had always been intended. God meant for man to be both immortal and imperishable; however, he did not create him in this condition. Such a reward would have to be merited. It was to have been given to Adam and to his posterity upon his justification. Had Adam obeyed God, he would have been declared righteous and would have received the promised reward- eternal life. Instead, Christ obeyed God and he received the promised reward. Upon being declared righteous, he was raised from the dead and was made both immortal and imperishable. Both our regeneration and our future bodily resurrection are conditioned upon our union with Christ in his death and resurrection.
On the issue of forensic declarations, considering the way in which many Protestants speak of them, Catholics are well within their rights to label them as "legal fictions." It's as though God just decides to declare something without any basis in fact or reality. But if he can do this, why not just make the declaration without the bother of being crucified? Forensic declarations are not figurative language nor do they have any metaphsyical status. They are legal judgments. If I commit a crime, I cannot be sentenced until a verdict has been rendered. There is a difference between the polutution of sin and our standing before the law of God. It is necessary that we be both cleansed and justified. Redemption involves real ontological relationships. We are actually placed into union with Christ. This is not nominal. We are crucified and raised together with him. None of this constitutes a forensic declaration. It is, rather, the basis in reality whereby God's forensic declarations can be made. A judge must never clear those who have actually committed the crime. This is no less true of God. His verdicts must be according to justice; they must be true. There would be no more justice in God imputing Christ's rigtheousness to me and my unrighteousness to Christ than there would be for some earthly judge to decide that you were guilty of my crimes. A legal fiction, if that's what imputation and justification are, is an injustice of the worst sort. It doesn't work that way, though. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us only because it actually belongs to us by virtue of our union with him. Our justification is declared on the basis that, in Christ, we have already paid the full penalty of sin. Having so justified us, a just God cannot reverse this declaration, for it is not fictional. As you indicated earlier, it is unthinkable that God would change his mind. Justification is not just an indicator of our current status, but is a preview of the final judgment. Everyone will pay the penalty for sin. If not with Christ on the cross, then it will be paid in an eternal hell.
I would agree that miracles "are not properly called revelation in isolation from a subjective apprehension of that which is revealed." The same would go for any thing that purports to be revelation. That which it reveals must be subjectively apprehended. The question, though, is whether this subjective apprehension always takes place at the same time that the miracle is witnessed. How many people witnessed the miracles of the feedings of the 5000 and the 4000? And how many of them even came close to understanding what Christ had revealed until he explained it to them in John 6? The Pharisees witnessed the healing of the blind man in John 9 (if not the event itself, then the results were obvious to them); however, they could not understand anything that this miracle had revealed because they themselves were blind. Revelation is not merely telling us something we didn't know before. Just as not all those who witnessed the miracles of Christ apprehend what these miracles revealed, even so, not all those who find out that these miracles happened through reading Scripture have apprehended what these miracles reveal. As you wrote, miracles are mediums of revelation and not revelation proper. Thus, merely finding out from one medium of revelation (Scripture) about another medium of revelation (miracles) does not guarantee that we will apprehend the revelation itself. This requires the work of the Holy Spirit and, without it, we are like the Pharisees who were as blind spiritually as the man born blind had been physically.
Thanks for clearing up the point about not trying to get rid of those events that make revelation actual. The way you were putting things was confusing and sounded like you were advocating some sort of neo-orthodoxy. I wanted to be sure so that I wouldn't waist any time responding to something you weren't saying. On the matter of classifying the Summa Theologica as revelation according to intension, you're economy of qualities and attributes is leading to an overly liberal idea of just what revelation is. The only attribute you have listed is "a manifestation of the life of the Church." Since both the Summa and Scripture have this in common, then both must be a revelation of Christ. But this does not follow unless, according to extension, "a manifestation of the life of the Church," is revelation. This has not been established; instead, the relationship of revelation to a manifestation of the church's life is one of species to genus. I could, following a similar method of reasoning, conclude that I am a frog, since both frogs and myself are manifestations of biological life. Fortunately, froghood does not exhaust what it means to possess biological life.
One quality that would separate the Summa from revelation according to intension is found in your discussion of the Bereans. We do not have the option to consider rejecting Paul's message. Insofar as it has been inscripturated, it has already been verified as the Word of God and we must accept it as we would any other part of Scripture. We can consider rejecting and even flat out reject a number of things that Thomas has to say. You wrote, "The Scriptures differ from the Summa Theologica in that they more perfectly manifest the essence of revelation..." But this should have hinted at another quality of revelation. When God reveals, he does so inerrantly. Unless you are willing to predicate this of the Summa, then it should not be classified as revelation. And if you're not, then I compelled to wonder just where Scripture's more perfect manifestation of the essence of revelation lies. On the specific matter of considering a rejection of what Paul or any other biblical writer has recorded in Scripture, this should not be confused with considering a rejection of any given interpretation of Scripture. For instance, the issue of women's ordination is not even a matter of improper Scriptural exegesis, for Paul's opinion on the matter is clear. Very little interpretive ability is required. Instead, people have just decided that Paul is a product of his backward times and should be ignored on this topic. But there are also times when Scripture is improperly exegeted, even by those invested with authority in the church to teach it. We should never be passive recipients of biblical teaching but should always compare what has been taught with our study of Scripture. Ideally, this would lead to a deeper understanding and agreement with the teaching received. But it is also possible that something won't add up, in which case we may both consider rejecting and actually reject it. It is one thing to give a church the benifit of the doubt in what it teaches and to accept it even if we don't quite understand it all. It is another not to question or even reject the doctrinal discrepancies that we are able to see.
I will have to disagree with the identification of the grammatical/historical method as another form of allegory. You write that "the historical method depends upon hearsay and the fallible accounts of men." While it is true that we can make use of extra-biblical historical records to help us understand Scripture, the historical method does not depend on these. Rather, the idea is that the Bible itself, especially in its historical narratives, is an accurate record of history. All other biblical genres are predicated on the fact that the historical events recorded actually happened. For example, the didactic writings of Paul, in which he is defining Christian doctrine, would have little authority if the historical events of Christ's salvific work had not taken place. The Psalms are not just expressions of general human emotion, but they find their specific context in the history of Israel (or, even more specifically in most cases, in that of David), which history is a revelation of Christ. The Law is not just an expression of timeless moral principles, but is given to a particular people at a particular point in their history. It is given to the nation of Israel after they have been redeemed from slavery in Egypt. Any revelatory value that the Law has must be considered against this background. On a related point going back to your description of history as "hearsay and the fallible accounts of men," read chapter 28, "To what extent history is an aid," of Augustine's On Christian Doctrine. I think you will find that his view of profane history is not quite as pessimistic. On the matter of "metaphysical truths which are everywhere and always available," is this only what you believe Origen to be doing or do you advocate basing biblical interpretation on these yourself? If so, what are these truths? This would help to know how further to respond to your comments on allegory and interpretation.
As you present it, the Assumption of Mary is based upon her Immaculate Conception. Mary was born without sin; consequently, she did not have to wait until the resurrection to achieve bodily union with God, since the resurrection purifies us of our sins, which Mary did not have. The argument seems to be valid, but what about the premises? First, Mary "was clearly sinless because Christ did not inherit original sin." But this is not so clear. 1) There is the problem of infinite regress. Why didn't Mary's parents have to be sinless in order for her not to be sinless? 2) One view within the church has been that sin is inherited through the father. If so, then the Virgin Birth would prevent Christ from inheriting original sin. 3) Original sin is not inherited at all. It has nothing to do with the personal pollution of sin but is, rather, a guilty verdict pronounced on everyone for the sin of Adam. In this case, original sin does not bypass Christ since he must be declared guilty in order that his death might be just. Unless 1) is answered and 2) and 3) are discounted, then there is no point in seeing whether Mary's sinlessness implies her Assumption.
When discussing specific instances of prayer or prayer in general, you still maintain that Scripture is not a prerequisite. However, you are not consistent as to why this is the case. In the first case, it is because the person praying does not need to have read Scripture in order to pray. In the second, it is because Scripture is not in the definition of prayer. But your argument does not follow. Finding one way in which two things are not related does not indicated that there are no ways in which they are related. This would be like me making the claim that my cousin and I are not related because I am not her nephew. Scripture's function as a prerequisite for the church's life, including prayer, does not require that each individual therein read Scripture for himself. It is sufficient that the church teach its members to pray and that this teaching is either explicitly taught in Scripture or that it can bederived as a matter of good and necessary consequence. As to Enoch and Noah living before Scripture, this begs the question of a point that we have been discussing. Scripture's ability to be a prerequisite for the church's life comes from its status as revelation. Before Scripture was completed there were other forms of revelation. This is no longer the case. Finally, to say that Scripture is not a prerequisite of something in the church's life because it is not in the definition of that thing is to seriously limit its role, if not to deny altogether that it can be a prerequisite for anything in the church's life. I suppose an exception could be made for preaching. But if you're going to deny Scripture's function as a prerequisite to the church's life, then you need to do so in the manner that I have been using the concept; otherwise, we're talking about two different things. Here, then, is what I mean in making this claim: Everything that a church teaches its members to believe or practice must be explicitly taught in Scripture or derived therefrom by good and necessary consequence. Prayer falls under this category.
If it is true, as you have written, that Scripture does not "teach individual responsibility at the expense of corporate unity," then one of three other propositions must also be true. 1) It does teach corporate unity at the expense of individual responsibility; 2) it is not a matter of individual responsibility to oppose heresy- we should ultimately tolerate it; 3) there have never been any cases where a church has been in error and so any reason for making such a choice doesn't exist. You've already agreed to the opposite of option 1, and option 3 is just naive, which leaves option 2. If unbroken communion must be maintained even at the expense of tolerating heresy, then, what distinguishes the church from an inescapable social club? If the goal is unity at all costs, then doctrine, except for the one that teaches this goal, cannot have any ultimate meaning. As it is not a uniquely Christian thing to form groups, the church canno tbe defined on the basis of unity alone. You also seem to be confusing breaking away from a particular congregation or denomination from breaking away from the body of Christ altogether. Leaving one church is not the same thing as not belonging to any church.
I have been trying to draw some connection between Clifton's Trintitarian musings and the broader topic of this debate, which is the supposed heretical nature of monergism and its relation to the will. Despite an introduction that continues to discount strict logical constistency when engaged in "God talk", this post does provide a bit more substance on which to base a response. Even so, I can't guarantee that I'm going to make the connection that Clifton was intending. Consequently, the first part of this post may miss the point. If so, I beg the reader's indulgence and, perhaps, Clifton will clarify things for another attempt. In the first part, I will try to restate what Clifton is saying in the context of the broader discussion. In the second, I'd like to consider his Trinitarian views in themselves and answer some of the objections he has to mine.
It is Clifton's thesis that monergism is heresy. He focuses on total depravity, which is that aspect of man's fallen nature denying to him any ability to cooperate in his own salvation. On the premise that Christ's human nature must be the same as that which man now has (otherwise he could not heal what man now has), Clifton argues that Christ's human will must have been surpressed in order for Christ, as a human, never to have acted in opposition to the divine will. This is because, by nature, Christ's human will should have been prone to the same lack of cooperation as anyone else's will. The effect of this, as Clifton sees it, is practical monothelitism. I won't repeat the responses to this particular point, other than to say that there is reason to disagree. If monergism requires such a view of the will, and if this view leads to monothelitism, then the logical course would seem to point toward another view of the will in order to avoid heresy. Now, the question isn't merely what it takes for synergism to be true, but what it is for a person to have any meaningful exercise of the will.
As far as I can tell , both Clifton and I are in agreement that what is true of one person in this regard, must be true of all persons- human, angelic, and divine. Therefore, if I say that we will according to our natures, then I must also grant that this is the case with the persons in the Trinity. On the other hand, if Clifton can show that, for at least one person of the Trinity, it is the case that the person exceeds its nature such that his will is not according to that nature, then the same possibility must be admitted of all persons. The force of the compatibilist argument is lost since it maintains the impossibility of exercising the will in any other way than according to one's nature. To this end, Clifton posits a model for divine unity that is based, not on the God's nature or the divine essence, but upon, what he has termed, "the monarche of the Father."
The unity of the Trinity is understood, not as a matter of essence, but as a matter of source. That source is a person; namely, the Father. The Father begets the Son and sends forth the Spirit. But then, those who understand the divine unity as a matter of God's nature agree that the Father does this, so there must be more to it. Clifton writes:
But, as St. Gregory [of Nazianzus] has shown, there is no need to preserve God's unity in terms of his essence. The unity of God is preserved in the monarche of the Father. His eternal act of begetting and sending forth is a sacrificial act of love which communicates his divinity, but which because it is a Personal act, is not merely the bequeathing of a nature, but a generation and procession of respective Persons. That is to say, the Son is not a Person in the sense that he receives the Father's personal nature, but because the act of God in begetting is an act of his Person, him who is begotten is a Person, but a Person who has fully the nature of the one begetting him. So, too, for the Spirit, in terms of the act of procession.
Note that begetting and sending forth are considered as an act of sacrificial love. Each is "an act of his Person," and it is on this basis that the one begotten or sent forth is also a person. Earlier, Clifton had said of my own view that it "radically abridges God's freedom. For if it is God's nature to enhypostatize that nature, he cannot but do so, else he is not true to his nature, and thus not God." It seems clear then that, for Clifton, begetting and sending forth can be attributed to the Father's personal will and are not to be considered as results of his nature. Now, how does this relate to the larger point?
Recall that Clifton's claim is that person exceeds nature. This must be in such a way that the actions of a person are in no way bound by his nature; otherwise, this particular claim of monergism is not invalidated. But is it the case that the monarche of the Father, as Clifton as described it, is an example of person exceeding nature in this way? I don't see how. Considering only the person of the Father and his will to cause the other two persons of the Trinity, there is no proof in this model that he has acted in a libertarian sense. Compatibilists can still claim that this is a case of a person acting according to his nature. Be sure not to confuse the Father's begetting according to his nature with the Father's willing to beget according to his nature. They are not identical. It is possible to accept Clifton's account of God's unity flowing from the monarche of the Father as a result of his will and still maintain that willing, for any person, must be according to nature. We can take the minimal view of this: there was nothing within the nature of the Father to prevent him from willing to beget. We wouldn't have to say that the Father's nature compelled him to will begetting. If begetting is, indeed, "a sacrificial act of love," then it would not be against the Father's nature to exhibit such sacrificial love. To say that a person acts according to his nature does not render any one choice inevitable, it only renders some choices impossible. The totally depraved cannot choose to cooperate with the will of God; God cannot choose to lie-nor would he want to.
So far, I take Clifton's point in talking about the monarche of the Father to be a model of libertarian free-will. If so, the monarche has not proven an adequate argument against persons acting according to nature. But then Clifton throws in something that makes things a little less clear. I had been reading his argument about the monarche of the Father in conjunction with the claim that persons exceed their natures like this: The divine nature is triune; however, because the ultimate source of the Godhead is found in the personal will of the Father, then the Father's will must take a logical priority to that nature. The only way that I am able to see this happening is if the person of the Father is abstracted from the divine essence- a thing that cannot be done. Clifton responded:
I said nothing about "abstracting" the Person of the Father from the divine essence. Nor is such abstraction the foundation of my claim that Trinitarian Personhood exceeds divine essence. Rather, my claim is based on the theological fact that God the Father begets the Son and sends forth the Holy Spirit. In terms of real, not merely abstract, cause the one Person of the Father is "exceeded" by the Three Persons of the Trinity, the unity of the Godhead is "exceeded" by the tri-unity of the Trinity. That is to say, the Persons of the Trinity are not merely the same stuff as the Father. They are real, unique and different Persons. Similarly, the tri-unity of the Persons is not merely the same unity of God's nature.
What Clifton describes here is true to his premise of the monarche of the Father. Three persons exceed one person; tri-unity exceeds unity. But this has nothing to do with the proposition that, for any given individual, person exceeds nature in such a way that the will is not determined by the nature. So I'm left wondering what the connection is.
Now I'd like to move on to a consideration of Clifton's view in itself and to a response to his criticism of my views. I will begin with the latter. On my idea of the relationship between person and nature, Clifton writes, "He is claiming, and has claimed consistently, that persons are their natures." As it relates to the Trinity, this brings me dangerously close to modalism (although he allows that I haven't actually crossed the line), because of my "identification of the Persons of the Trinity with the nature of the Godhead." I suppose that modalism would, indeed, follow from such claims and indentifications. Let me, then, try to be as unequivocal as possible: Persons are not their natures. The persons of the Trinity are not the same as the nature of the Godhead. I grant that I may have said something that would seem to imply otherwise, and I may continue to use such formulations. Attribute this to a peculiar inability to articulate clearly a particular concept, but, please, do not continue to draw the implications. Interpret whichever of my statements may seem to make such an identification in light of this statement to the contrary: Persons are not their natures.
Clifton writes that I "even went so far as to agree with [his] assertion that Personhood exceeds essence, but then apparently contradicted [myself] in saying that it was in the nature of the Trinitarian Persons to do so. So it is not clear to [Clifton] which it is: Do the Persons exceed their essence; or are they subsumed within it since that is what their nature is, to exceed their nature?" First, the only way that I can agree that person exceeds essence is if this is the only way to get across the idea that person and nature are not the same thing. This would be an assertion of metaphysics, not an admission that persons need not act according to their natures. Second, I did not actually make the claim that it was in the nature of persons to exceed their natures. This was a rephrasing of Clifton's claim that persons necessarily exceed their natures. I make the equation on the basis of the following premise: For any action that can be predicated of a person, a corresponding property can be predicated of his nature. Thus, I am currently eating a bowl of beans and rice. It is, therefore, in my nature to eat beans and rice. This does not mean that such cuisine is inevitable, only that I am able to eat it. If it were not in my nature, I would have to eat something else. If we're talking metaphysical states, then person exceeds nature insofar as they are not the same thing (for that matter, I suppose we could also say that nature exceeds person). But if the point is necessary actions of the will, then the action predicated of a person corresponds to a property predicated of his nature. Such a case, however, involves a contradiction. The property of exceeding nature cannot reside within the nature itself. And if we allow that properties corresponding to personal action can reside in the person, then this begs the question of why we would need to posit a nature at all. Just say that a person is such and such a way and be done with the whole nature bit. Of course, then there woud be no nature to exceed, returning us to the original problem- do people will in a libertarian fashion or according to the various properties within their person?
I had written, "It is the nature of the Persons of the Trinity to be one God in which the relationships between the persons are expressed in terms of begetting and procession." To which Clifton responded, "If what Kevin says, here, is true, we have an enhypostatizaton of the divine nature, but apparently because it is the nature of God's essence to enhypostize himself in a Trinity of Persons." I'm not exactly sure of his point here. Does "enhypostatization" refer to the forming of persons? In this case, should I assume that Clifton considers such enhypostatization okay, as long as the Father freely wills it in begetting and sending forth, but objects to my claim that such enhypostatization is a result of God's nature? Or should I take the terms to mean "giving permanent substance to attributes." I gather that he objects to this, but it may be because he doesn't view this as merely making an attribute permanent, but of thinking of it as a person. Later on, he wrote, "If we predicate God's unity on his nature, or his essence, we tend toward modalistic conceptions of the Persons (i. e., we enhypostatize attributes, such as 'Love,' which enhypostatization logically fails to give rise to a third Person)..." I'm going to take Clifton's objection to be against placing the cause of the Son and Spirit in the nature of the Father as opposed to the will of the Father, since he goes on to say:
The question, however, logically arises: Must God so enhypostatize his nature? On Kevin's terms, he must do so. But this radically abridges God's freedom. For if it is God's nature to enhypostatize that nature, he cannot but do so, else he is not true to his nature, and thus not God. Nor is it clear why it is that the enhypostatization of God is accomplished by himself in a Trinity of Persons. He might just as well have done so in a Bi-unity of Persons.
To answer the first question- yes, he must. I'll develop the thought further when I respond to Clifton's views on the monarche of the Father. For now, this is not an abridgement of God's freedom since it has nothing to do with his freedom. Begetting and spiration are not acts of the will but are natural effects of what the Father is (and, because I am affiliated with the West, what the Father and the Son are in the case of spiration). Along the same lines, Clifton had continued the previous quote about predicating God's unity on his nature with this:
...or, we tend toward logically ascribing to God the absence of Personal freedom (i. e., all that God does is determined by his nature and thus necessary for him to do lest he cease being God, for example that God must create the world for it is his nature to do so).
This does not follow. Begetting and spiration are not personal actions and are not effected by the exercise of the will. Consequently, they contribute nothing to the question of libertarianism or compatibilism. As to the example "that God must create the world for it is his nature to do so," this is not the same thing. The ontology of persons within the Trinity is inevitable: this is just what God is. The Father had no more more choice in the matter of begetting the Son than he did in his own existence. Willing to create, even though according to his nature, is not the same thing, precisely because it is a matter of the will. To will in accordance with one's nature does not render a particular outcome inevitable. It only means that it was within the range of possibilities. Not everything is. God could not will to create a greater God than himself, nor could he will into existence that infamous rock that he can't move. To think that he can betrays a misunderstanding of ominpotence. These are against his natural ability. In opposition to his moral ability, he could not create an inferior creature (as all creatures must be) with the intent of worshipping it. It is not in his nature to create any of this. However, it is in his nature to create what he did create and would have been in his nature even if he had opted not to do so. To Clifton's observation that it is not "clear why it is that the enhypostatization of God is accomplished by himself in a Trinity of Persons," I can only answer with a question- Does it have to be? It happened.
Anyone who read the Oration that Clifton linked from Gregory of Nazianzus will know the primary objection to my claim that begetting and spiration are not acts of the Father's will. Gregory states in section II, "Let us not ever look on this Generation as involuntary, like some natural overflow, hard to be retained, and by no means befitting our conception of Deity." But my rejection of Clifton's monrache model is not based upon an arbitrary dismissal of Gregory, but on a reading of Athanasius (Discourse III Against the Arians- the link, which is to chapter 30, contains all of the following quotes therefrom), who is explicit in his rejection of the notion that the Son was begotten accrording to the Father's will. Gregory might be mistaken on the matter, but I think it more likely that he and Athanasius are actually in harmony.
It all goes back to Arius and Arianism. Arius believed that the Son was not actually God but only of a similar substance. He was not eternal with the Father but was, rather, begotten in time. A favorite Arian expression concerning the Son was, "There was a time when he was not." Consistent with their beliefs, the Son was begotten according to the will of the Father. Actually, it was the more the other way around and this is how Athanasius took it. The belief that the Father willed to beget the Son led to the conclusion that the Son had not always existed. Athanasius does allow, "Now if any orthodox believer were to say this in simplicity, there would be no cause to be suspicious of the expression, the orthodox intention prevailing over that somewhat simple use of words." We need now to distinguish between what the Arians mean in saying that the Father wills to beget the Son and what the simple orthodox would mean. The meaning of the statement as a premise will be different. Athanasius does not fault the Arians for an invalid conclusion. In fact, he draws the same one. If the the Son is begotten because the Father willed it to be, that is, if the begetting of the Son is according to the Father's free choice, then it cannot be eternal. There must have been a time when the Son was not. Athanasius also argues according to the Son's identity as the Word of God, saying:
For if He too came to be, as you maintain, by will, it follows that the will concerning Him consists in some other Word, through whom He in turn comes to be; for it has been shewn that God's will is not in the things which He brings into being, but in Him through whom and in whom all things made are brought to be...But if the Word is the Framer of the creatures, and He co-exists with the Father, how can to counsel precede the Everlasting as if He were not? for if counsel precedes, how through Him are all things? For rather He too, as one among others is by will begotten to be a Son, as we too were made sons by the Word of Truth; and it rests, as was said, to seek another Word, through whom He too was brought to be, and was begotten together with all things, which were according to God's pleasure.
We can begin to see what the orthodox would mean in saying that Christ was begotten according to the Father's will if we consider its opposite as "against the will" instead of "not according to the will." For instance, I cannot will the daily operations of my heart. It does not work according to my will, it just works. On the other hand, it does not work against my will, as would be the case if it stopped. This would be against my will, but my will could do nothing about it. Gregory's statement about the generation not being involuntary hints at this meaning in the phrase, "hard to be retained." The begetting of the Son is not something that God doesn't want and that he is at pains to stop. However, wanting and willing , even though "will" may be used in place of "want," are not synonymous concepts. Because God wants to create, he wills to create. On the other hand, when, as an inevitable result of his nature, he begets the Son, he desire that this happen is a matter of concurring. In much the same way, I want my heart to beat, but, in a strict usage of the term, I cannot will that it do so. Athanasius has some similar thoughts when he distinguishes the will of God from the pleasure of God:
Since then the Son is by nature and not by will, is He without the pleasure of the Father and not with the Father's will? No, verily; but the Son is with the pleasure of the Father, and, as He says Himself, The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things [John iii. 35; v. 20.]. For as not "from will" did He begin to be good, nor yet is good without will and pleasure, (for what He is, that also is His pleasure,) so also that the Son should be, though it came not "from will," yet it is not without His pleasure or against His purpose. For as His own subsistence is by His pleasure, so also the Son, being proper to His Substance, is not without His pleasure.
Going back to Gregory, he answers those who present a false dichotomy in claiming that the Father begets neither voluntarily nor involuntarily. The implication of the claim is that the Son was not begotten at all. Gregory was dealing with hyper-Arianism, which went beyond the claim that the Son was only of like substance to the Father rather than the same substance, to the claim that he was of a different substance altogether. Begetting was no longer under consideration. Thier argument was, "...if it was involuntary He was under the sway of some one, and who exercised this sway? And how is He, over whom it is exercised, God? But if voluntarily, the Son is a Son of Will; how then is He of the Father?" Gregory answers by considering creation:
Did God create all things voluntarily or under compulsion? If under compulsion, here also is the tyranny and one who played tyrant; if voluntarily, the creatures also are deprived of their God, and you before the rest, who invent such arguments and tricks of logic. For a partition is set up between the Creator and the creatures in the shape of Will. And yet I think that the Person who wills is distinct from the Act of willing; He who begets from the Act of begetting; the Speaker from the speech, or else we are all very stupid. On the one side we have the mover, and on the other that which is, so to speak, the motion. Thus the thing willed is not the child of will, for it does not always result therefrom; nor is that which is begotten the child of generation, not that which is heard the child of speech, but of the Person who willed, or begat, or spoke.
At first glance, Gregory's refutation of being a "child of will" may look as though he disagrees with Athanasius' point that, if the Father willed to beget the Word, this will would involve the interposition of another Word. I believe, however, that Athanasius and Gregory are using "will" in two different senses. Athanasius is using the more technical sense of the will as an operation that immediately results in action. Gregory's meaning is more along the lines of want or desire. Note where he says, "Thus the thing willed is not the child of will, for it does not always result therefrom." That is, mere desire does not always produce results. Gregory has refuted his opponents argument by distingishing between the act and the actor. Whatever is willed is not the child of the act of willing, but of the one who performs the act. But this is all assuming that, for God, the will (i.e., desire) to beget the Son is even like a human will, or even his own will in other cases. Continuing the above quote, he writes, "But the things of God are beyond all this, for with Him perhaps the Will to beget is generation, and there is no intermediate action (if we may accept this altogether, and not rather consider generation superior to will)".
First, Gregory considers taking out the intermediate act all together, saying that the Will to beget and generation are, perhaps, the same thing. But it is his second suggestion that leads me to believe that he cannot be talking about will in the sense of exercising a choice to produce a desired result. He wonders whether we may "consider generation superior to will." If this is the case, then generation, that is, the begetting of the Son, logically precedes the Father's desire that he be, or pleasure in the fact that he is, begotten. Furthermore, this logical order being the case, there must be the elimination of any idea that the begetting of the Son is preceded in any fashion by the operation of the Father's will. For will considered as operation must be preceded by will considered as desire. And to those who would deny this tenet of compatibilism even here, I would ask whether they believe that the begetting of the Son was caused by an operation of the Father's will, but that the Father anticipated no pleasure in the result?
Because of the way in which he is using "will," as desire or talking pleasure in what is, rather than bringing something to pass, Gregory's answer to the notion that the Son's generation is involuntary is not as strong as the other; he basically denies that this is the case. On the other hand, Athanasius, who is using will in the sense of operation, does answer the charge that necessity is laid on the Father if he does not beget by his will:
If then there is another Word of God, then be the Son brought into being by a Word; but if there be not, as is the case, but all things by Him were brought to be, which the Father has willed, does not this expose the many-headed craftiness of these men? that feeling shame at saying "work," and "creature," and "God's Word was not before His generation," yet in another way they assert that He is a creature, putting forward "will," and saying, "Unless He has by will come to be, therefore God had a Son by necessity and against His good pleasure." And who is it then who imposes necessity on Him, O men most wicked, who draw every thing to the purpose of your heresy? for what is contrary to will they see; but what is greater and transcends it, has escaped their perception. For as what is beside purpose is contrary to will, so what is according to nature transcends and precedes counseling. A man by counsel builds a house, but by nature he begets a son; and what is in building at will began to come into being, and is external to the maker; but the son is proper offspring of the father's substance, and is not external to him; wherefore neither does he counsel concerning him, lest he appear to counsel about himself. As far then as the Son transcends the creature, by so much does what is by nature transcend the will. They then, on hearing of Him, ought not to measure by will what is by nature; forgetting however that they are hearing about God's Son, they dare to apply human contrarieties in the instance of God, "necessity" and "beside purpose," to be able thereby to deny that there is a true Son of God.For let them tell us themselves,—that God is good and merciful, does this attach to Him by will or not? if by will, we must consider that He began to be good, and that His not being good is possible; for to counsel and choose implies an inclination two ways, and is the property of a rational nature. But if it be too extravagant that He should be called good and merciful upon will, then what they have said themselves must be retorted on them,—"therefore by necessity and not at His pleasure He is good;" and, "who is it which imposes this necessity on Him?" But if it be extravagant to speak of necessity in the case of God, and therefore it is by nature that He is good, much more is He, and more truly, Father of the Son by nature and not by will. Moreover let them answer us this:—(for against their recklessness I wish to urge a further question, bold indeed, but with a religious intent; be propitious, O Lord —the Father Himself, does He exist, first having counselled, then being pleased, or before counselling? For since they are as bold in the instance of the Word, they must receive the like answer, that they may know that this their presumption reaches even to the Father Himself. If then they shall themselves take counsel about will, and say that even He is from will, what then was He before He counselled, or what gained He, as ye consider, after counseling? But if such a question be extravagant and self-destructive, and shocking even to ask, (for it is enough only to hear God's Name for us to know and understand that He is He that Is,) will it not also be against reason to have parallel thoughts concerning the Word of God, and to make pretences of will and pleasure? for it is enough in like manner only to hear the Name of the Word, to know and understand that He who is God not by will, has not by will but by nature His proper Word. And does it not surpass all conceivable madness, to entertain the thought only, that God Himself counsels and considers and chooses and proceeds to have a good pleasure, that He be not without Word and without Wisdom, but have both? for He seems to be considering about Himself, who counsels about what is proper to His Substance.
Although Athanasius denies that the Son was begotten by the Father's will, he does make a distinction that is helpful in the broader discussion of the operation of the will. The Father's begetting of the Son, even though it could not have been otherwise, was not according to necessity, but according to nature (or, if it is by necessity, it is not an objectionable necessity and implies no subordination or loss of freedom). The same distinction can be applied to the normal operation of the will. Being internally determined according to one's own nature is not contrary to operating the will according to one's own pleasure. External determination, when it is against one's nature or better judgment, is. [And no, the operation of God's sovereign will does not necessarily imply such an external determination. In a Reformed understanding of moral free-agency, it is God's prerogative, always according to justice, to change or to leave unchanged our natures. The ability to decide still remains with us as agents, according to our nature and according to our pleasure.]
Basically, I believe that Clifton has misconstrued Gregory's intent. Gregory does speak of the Father begetting the Son and Emitting the Spirit, but no orthodox trinitarian, which, as should be obvious by now, includes those who say that this was according to nature, would deny this. As to the generation of the Son not being involuntary, Gregory's understanding of the will is in the sense of pleasure in what is, and is not in the sense of the effectual personal operation of the faculty of willing. The latter would have to be the case in order for his Oration to support the argument that the Father must beget the Son as a personal act else his freedom is in jeopardy. More important, however, is the way in which Clifton's conception of the monarche of the Father sits with the views of Athanasius, who will not allow that the idea of God willing to beget the Son can be separated from the Arian idea that there was a time when the Son was not.
I have already alluded to this, but there is, finally, that schism inducing word- filioque. The Western church was hasty to add it, as it is certainly no heresy not to agree. Nevertheless, I believe that adherence to the doctrine taught thereby is both correct and is more in line with the Scriptural teaching that the Son is the image of the Father. Those personal attributes defining the relationship between the Father and the Son excepted (begetting and being begotten), if the Son does not possess the personal attribute of spiration along with the Father, then the image is defective. While of considerably less consequence than the Arian implications of his argument, Clifton's attempt to locate the unity of the Godhead within the monarche of the Father is not going to go over very well with a Western audience. It requires a rejection of the filioque; otherwise, the Spirit is explained not according to unity, but according to duality. On the other hand, Clifton is perfectly free to maintain his Eastern perspective of procession while rethinking the monarche.
I am not inclined to take a very positive outlook on Peter Lombard’s view of grace; nevertheless, I would like to examine various areas in which it might be possible to give him the benefit of the doubt. His view of predestination as it relates to free will is very similar to the prescient view of Arminianism. God foreknows everything that will happen. Although God may act as the ultimate cause for whatever he foreknows, this is not always the case. Especially when it comes to the rational choice of free agents, God just knows. But does this apply to the decision of repentance unto salvation? Peter defines predestination in terms of grace. It is, in the words of Marcia L. Colish, “the grace of preparation which God grants to the elect” (The Medieval Theologians p.172). Salvation involves their cooperating with this grace. The salvation of each individual is assured; however, this may be only in the sense that God knows beforehand what will happen.
There is a point that remains unclear. Does God foreknow that the elect are the only ones who will cooperate with this grace, or is it the case that any one would cooperate with this grace but God only gives it to whomever he wills? While it is the case that this predestinating grace moves the decision of the elect, is it also the case that their decisions somehow move God to bestow this grace? When it comes to salvation, is God’s foreknowledge causative? I tend to think that, in Peter’s estimation, it is not. The context, at least as Colish presents it, is the free will and consequent free decisions of rational creatures. As systematic and detailed as Peter is in his writing, I would expect that if predestinating grace were, in itself, sufficient unto salvation, he would have mentioned this as an exception.
Earlier, Colish has already pointed out Peter’s belief that grace may be rejected, “…not all people receive his grace and those who do may reject it; those who accept it do not always act with it to the same degree or in the same way” (p. 172). In itself, this is not a problem; that is, unless, foreknowledge aside, the ability to reject grace also applies to predestinating grace.
One area in which Peter may talk about sufficient grace is when he is talking about the fallen angels and those angels that have been confirmed as good. Both act with completely free wills, but the fallen angels, from whom grace has been removed, always will to do evil, while the confirmed angels, because they continue they continue to cooperate with the grace that they have been given, always will to do good. By virtue of this perpetual cooperation, they continue to merit eternal life. How is Peter using merit here? It could be that the confirmation of the righteous angels is no more than a matter of foreknowledge. The power to cooperate with grace arises solely within themselves. God just happens to know that they will never fall and has let everyone else in on the secret. Or it could be that the grace of confirmation is sufficient to cause the angels to always will good, even to the point that they could never will to resist it. If Peter will allow for this kind of grace that is able to change the will, then, perhaps the same can be said of predestinating grace. Or not.
Peter’s view of the sacraments is not particularly promising. It is his writing that finally locks down the Roman Catholic number to seven. In all fairness, though, having five too many sacraments is not the issue when it comes to grace. What matters is how these sacraments are supposed to work. Given the appropriate method, minister, and intention, they objectively convey grace. Nevertheless, this grace can only be received if the recipient has faith and the right intentions. One positive point, if this is Peter’s view, is that he has not degenerated to the view of sacraments operating ex opere operato. He does make an exception for infant baptism. Obviously, an infant cannot have proper intentions. Consequently, the grace is conveyed to them and “remains latent in them until they are mature enough to decide whether or not to collaborate with it” (p. 179). Not much different than the other sacraments- the process is just delayed.
Even though the grace of the sacraments is not automatically conveyed without faith, I cannot help believing that Peter views this cooperating faith as a work performed by the one receiving the sacrament. Whatever the case, he does distinguish it from the grace conveyed by the sacrament. In that case, is faith a work arising from within the individual, or is it the necessary result of the grace of predestination?
Because of Peter’s views relating to the extent of man’s depravity, I believe that he sees faith and good intentions as human works. Grace is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Colish writes, “For Peter, the most serious consequence of original sin is the depression of the will” (p.175). In other words, the will is still intact. Peter believes that there is a “spark of reason inclining us toward the good” (ibid). With the grace of God, it may be possible for this spark to act righteously. It cooperates with grace and is thereby meritorious. “And, when God awards the meritorious, He rewards not Himself but the virtues that moral agents have made their own ingrained character traits” (ibid). This, if an accurate representation of Peter’s view, taken in the context of his other beliefs, looks as though Peter fits right into Rome's view of grace. It is necessary to salvation, but the deciding factor is our own good works.
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. Per