Fun with Predestination, Pelikan, and Post-millennialism

I've been working on and wrestling with some pretty rich and thought-provoking material since I last posted. Of course, Calvin's Institutes has been my constant companion throughout this year and has continued to provide depths of profundity for my soul to glory in and my mind to contemplate.

I have also been recently engaging patristics beyond the encounter with the Church Fathers I have found in Calvin (He's a bit too heavily reliant on Augustine but also liberally references Chrysostom, Cyprian, and Ambrose, among others). For those interested (as you should be:) in the development of Christian doctrine immediately following the biblical period and continuing on into the Imperial Church and beyond, Jaroslav Pelikan's first volume, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: 100-600, of his landmark four-volume series, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, is essential reading. I think Pelikan was still a Lutheran when he wrote this, but he eventually became Eastern Orthodox, so reader beware! Exploring patristics as thoroughly as Pelikan did might just blow up some sacrosanct Protestant presuppositions, not to mention certain Roman Catholic ones as well. I just might return to blog about some of the gems from Mr. Pelikan's doctrinal history in the coming weeks.

The other thing that has really flipped my lid lately is Peter Leithart's The Kingdom and the Power: Recovering the Centrality of Church. In relation to Alexander Schmemann's enchanting classic, For the Life of the World, Leithart's book is a distinctively Reformed and biblical continuation of the former's theme of the realization of the Kingdom of God here and now in the Church and its centrality in God's broader, ongoing economy of cosmic consummation. Schmemann's prophetic focus in For the Life of the World is addressing the challenge of secularism in general to the authentically Christian worldview embodied in Orthodoxy. Leithart, on the other hand, writing in the early 90s, speaks a prophetic word to American evangelicals about their exclusively political response to the “culture war,” urging them to respond as the Church rather than as a political interest group, since our hopes for cosmic renewal are caught up neither with America—the "Redeemer Nation"—and its political and military operations nor in some impending dispensationalist scenario. No; our hope is in Christ and His Kingdom as it is already being realized in the teaching, worship, sacraments, discipline, and the spiritual and cultural dominion of the Church.

I think Leithart makes a very strong exegetical argument that I am compelled for the most part to agree with, but I am unfamiliar with and not entirely on-board with the amillennial/post-millennial preterist interpretation he puts forth of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew, Paul's discussion of physical Israel's rejection of Christ in Romans 9-11, and the events in the book of Revelation. Leithart is of the opinion that the events foretold and fulfilled in these famous passages are the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and the Jews’ dispersal by the Romans that followed.

Leithart is not making a concession to Higher Criticism in this position, being in agreement with those who date Revelation prior to 70 A.D. I think it doubtful Revelation was composed before the fall of Jerusalem, but having Christ's prophecies refer to the fall of Jerusalem is satisfying for those otherwise left wondering why the events He told His disciples they would see fulfilled in their generation did not come to pass. At any rate, Leithart asserts that the destruction of the Temple was God's judgment on physical Israel for rejecting Christ and that this event heralded the arrival of the Kingdom of God—Christ's "millennial" reign over the world through the Church until He returns to bring in the full consummation. This is not the literal millennium in Revelation but a metaphorical one between Christ's first and second comings; hence Leithart is technically an "amillennialist" rather than a "post-millennialist," though his scheme is admittedly more of a hybrid of the two than purely one or the other.

These are certainly new ideas for those of us reared on popular Dispensationalist evangelical eschatology. I will simply say that these ideas are new to me but already seem more plausible than the eschatological scenarios the snake oil salesmen have been peddling to us for years. Admittedly, though, I don't need much reason to reject eschatological scenarios that are overly pessimistic, escapist, and just generally Gnostic, especially since these are invariably the ready handmaidens of individualistic, radically anti-materialistic, and consequently world-denying, Church-minimizing, and sacrament-less theologies.

That being said, the view that Leithart puts forward has some problems for me, especially in the characteristically-Reformed assertion that God's covenant with Abraham has been transferred completely from his physical descendents—Israel according to the flesh, the Jews—to his spiritual descendents—the new Israel in which there is neither Jew nor Gentile, the Church. I would argue, of course, that Christ, the Gospel, and His Church fulfill the Law and the conditions of God's covenant with Israel, indeed that for the most part the Church has superseded physical Israel in God's economy of earthly and cosmic consummation. However, I too cannot shake Paul's firm conviction that "all Israel will be saved" on the basis that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:26, 29). God is not through with unbelieving Israel because He is the God who "has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all" (Romans 11:32).

The central passage for resolving what God has revealed to us concerning the physical descendants of Abraham is Romans chapters 9 through 11. It is also the central passage for discussing the biblical teachings on predestination, election, and reprobation. As a recent post of mine indicates, this too is an issue I have been thinking a good deal about lately as well, thanks to my engagement with Calvin’s treatment of predestination in his Institutes. The questions relating to election and reprobation are closely related to the question regarding God's ongoing plan for Israel, as it is specifically in the context of Paul's teaching regarding the unbelief of Israel that his lengthiest and, historically, most doctrinally-decisive treatment of predestination takes place. I will address both issues as I attempt to begin a brief exegesis of Romans 9-11 in my next post.

Predestination Thoughts

I'm currently in Book 3, Chapter 21 of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. This is where he puts forth his comprehensive teaching on the doctrines of predestination and election. I'm still fairly early in his discussion, but so far I'm finding his teaching to be sober, balanced, careful, and non-speculative—all the things that are commendable about him. Instead of forcefully plowing ahead and asserting his point of view, he is careful to let the Bible speak its own words without forcing them into his conclusion. Whether you accept his teaching of double predestination and of unconditional election to salvation versus unconditional reprobation, you can't knock his method.

There are three thoughts that come to mind about my own prejudices concerning this topic. I need to get them out in the open.

First, I am completely comfortable with the idea that salvation is purely by God's free, unmerited mercy without reference to anything I can do, have done, or will do. That sinners accept salvation is totally dependent on God's decision; it is God's means of securing for the elect the end to which He has destined them.

I am not comfortable, however, with the inverse—that our damnation is purely by God's eternal decree and is without reference to the sins that the damned can commit, have committed, or will commit. That people are recalcitrant sinners is God's will; it is His means of securing for the reprobate the end to which He has destined them.

To sum up, I accept that salvation is totally unmerited, but I cannot wrap my head around a damnation that is not conditioned at rock bottom on our sins. I know I can't deserve my salvation, but, if I'm going to be damned, at rock bottom I damn well want to deserve it.

Second, I am not a disinterested party. Granted, I am confident in my own election (looking at the testimonies the Scriptures, the sacraments, and covenant give and my subjective experience of God's grace to me, I have assurance of God's favor-this is a whole other issue, can Christians know for sure if they are "saved"?), but, as a human being, I find disconcerting the notion that at bottom God does not have loving intentions for all of his human creatures. Though I trust that God has saved me, is saving me, and shall save me, I still have an interest in the existential plight of fellow human beings. There's that whole, "Love your neighbor as yourself" thing, you know.

Intellectually, the above is a strike against my ability to make an objective decision regarding the actual teaching of Scripture on this matter. Hopefully, the fact that I am aware of my a priori prejudices can help even this out.

Finally, even if I do not come to accept double predestination as objectively, propositionally true, if one believes, for whatever reason, that he or she is elect, I agree with Calvin that this doctrine should produce humility and gratitude toward God rather than presumption. If it results in presumption, on the other hand, I guess the good circular Calvinist answer would be that it proves the reprobation of the ungrateful sinner who uses it to presume upon God's grace.

At any rate, certain biblical passages do seem to teach at face value unconditional reprobation. Even if the explicit words of such passages are not literally word-for-word true, these passages can still be useful not as timeless, propositional truths but as inducements to bow in humility and gratitude before God that He has chosen to show such mercy to pitiful creatures he could just as easily have chosen to damn. Still, if this scenario were the case, I would worry that it would still paint God to be unjust and amoral and induce us to worship Him just for His benefits to us and not for His intrinsic nature. We shall see.

Thoughts on Calvin

Here is my weekly post for my Reformation and Modern Church History class. I am discussing my impressions regarding John Calvin's personality and theology.

John Calvin looms perhaps as large in my theological imagination as St. Paul. In moments when I forget that the seat of authority rests exclusively in the Scriptures, in those moments when I am over-awed by the power of the human mind to comprehend the mysteries of God and by the eloquence of speech and the written word to express them, I get carried away and ascribe too much significance to extra-biblical witnesses to God's grace and glory. I have often done this with Calvin, and, worse, I have aspired to emulate him and attain to his level of glory. When I recognize this for the sin that it is, I turn to the God who is above and beyond anything we can comprehend and put into words, realizing my own inadequacy of expression in the face of such majesty and wonder, and I worship. Calvin was a great teacher, but, if any honors belong to human teachers, they belong to those through whom God chose to give us the authoritative witness to His revelation in history that is the Scriptures. Paul is to be honored above Calvin and God infinitely above them both.

Nevertheless, we can glory in and praise God for his gifts to others and for the gifts he gives us through them. I thank God for Calvin. I also thank God that through this week's readings and lectures I have had some incorrect impressions corrected.

Much to my surprise, and initially to my chagrin, Calvin describes himself as being of "a timid, soft, and pusillanimous nature." This is much to the contrary of what I had been informed about him. Without ever reading much of his writing, excluding quotations from his writings on the sacraments I have seen in a couple of books, I have long been aware of his importance and influence in the Protestant faith tradition and have been captivated by the grand sound of the term "Calvinism" and by the larger-than-life character of his teachings on grace, God's sovereignty in bringing us to faith and in preserving us to the end, and, of course, his thoroughly orthodox and well-balanced view of the sacraments. In contrast to what I have long thought about much of his teaching, however, I have also long thought of Calvin the man as a somewhat nasty fellow—a combative, dogmatic man who was spiritually prideful and arrogant about his knowledge, had an explosive temper, was generally ill tempered, and was the theocratic dictator who condemned Servetus to death. I also thought that the man who is the champion of the idea that God created the vast majority of humankind for the express purpose of damning them, must himself be as indifferent and un-empathetic toward people as he believed God to be.

What has been revealed to me, however, since I started reading the Institutes this year in commemoration of his 500th birthday (which coincidently falls the same day as my birthday, July 10) and since I have gotten to know him a little more personally this week is that he utterly confounds me. I love him, but he drives me nuts. On the one hand, I do see a man who is a surprisingly (to me anyway) earnest, caring, humble shepherd of his flock. He is also, or at least strives to be, intellectually humble. He does not rise to the heights of speculation that it would be easy for such an intelligent man to rise to. He has a proper and sober regard for the utter mystery of God; he's almost apophatic at some points. Also, I see that he was not a politician but a devoted churchman. Instead of one who thoughtlessly put heretics to death, I see a man who was conflicted and struggled mightily with what to do with Servetus. Instead of someone who imposed his hard, pitiless, indifferent feelings about others on God, I see someone who is simply teaching what his honest reading of the Bible shows, even if it is a teaching that seems indigestible. And yes, Calvin was human. He had a wife and grieved over the loss of his only child.

On the other hand, Calvin is a man of the 16th century with all the flaws of his time. The language he uses to speak of Catholics and even other Protestants in the Institutes is shameful and uncharitable to an extreme. It reveals him to be an extremist who cannot tolerate in the least those who disagree with him. (To be fair, Luther is guilty on this count as well.) Calvin was an old grouch with a bad temper.
(I forgive him for this; I've got a really bad temper myself.) Calvin shares the responsibility for putting Servetus to death. Religious freedom was apparently anathema to him. Also, Calvin, even if he has a right view of human limits and the incomprehensibility of God, still tries to put God and his actions into a rational box. (I concede we need systematic theology, but it inherently trends toward putting God in a rational box.) And predestination to reprobation, even though I have come to accept predestination to salvation, is still an intolerable doctrine for me.

To conclude, I regard Calvin as one of my earthly fathers in the faith. I absolutely love him and praise God for him, but don't grown-up children reserve the right to argue with their parents?