The Trinity, Revisited
May 12, 2008 at 11:41 am (Federal Vision, Trinity)
I have answered Doug’s previous post on his own blog. I am waiting for an answer to those comments. Meanwhile, we can move on to the Trinity.
My previous thoughts on the first major section are to be found here. I don’t have a whole lot to add. I wish to reaffirm the covenant of redemption as being the archetype of the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. I believe that the articles in CJPM and BFA have established this position not only as exegetically tenable, but confessionally compelling. However, there is one massive caveat that must be issued with all such attempts at grounding covenantal theology in Trinitarian theology. We must be exceedingly careful to guard against a social Trinitarian doctrine in our formulations. In other words, we must say that there is One God, and that the intra-Trinitarian covenant of redemption does not mean that the three persons of the Trinity somehow exist independently of each other and somehow need covenant in order to be considered one God. The Nicene formulation on this is clear: they have the same essence. They do not need covenant in order to be considered one God. They are one ontologically, even though the persons are distinct persons. This is a distinction that the aforementioned books have done very well. I do not think Ralph Smith has succeeded in this quite so admirably. I’m sure that if you were to ask Ralph Smith whether he believed in a social doctrine of the Trinity, he would say no. However, it does not seem to me to be apparent that he has sufficiently guarded against the social Trinitarianism implications. It should be fairly obvious, by the way, that this section on the Trinity is highly indebted to Ralph Smith’s books on the Trinity.
rjs1 said,
May 12, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Lane,
Could I link to an excellent article by Rev Dr Iain D Campbell who also writes at the Reformation21 blog and commend it to your readers?
Covenant Theology - an Introduction
Steven W said,
May 12, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I think that Ralph Smith’s solution helps us out of an uncomfortable position, actually, in that he’s trying to define “covenant” by examining God’s nature, rather than leaving it as a primarily voluntary/forensic notion.
Working with the notion of covenant as contract, I’m not sure that actually is so easy to guard against social trinitarianism. Will is a property of nature, after all, and so one has to ask how the Father, Son, and/or Spirit (sometimes He seems to be optional for the pactum salutis) covenant together? If a covenant is an agreement with legal stipulations, how does this work? It would seem to presuppose some sort of plurality prior to the agreement, and that’s not possible with the Trinity.
Another options is that it simply grants priority to the will over other attributes, which would land us in the voluntarist camp, a camp that several of the originators of federalism were in. This, it seems to me, necessitates a basic supralapsarianism, and thus Bavinck’s appeal to divine infinity (and simplicity) would equally invalidate it.
One could simply say that the “covenant of redemption” is a metaphor for the eternal divine will, but I think that historically folks have gone much further than this, since a believe in the eternal and unchangeable divine will is not unique to federalism and has never caused other camps to formulate it as a covenant.
pduggie said,
May 13, 2008 at 8:47 am
To paraphrase and ask if this wtill works: “In other words, we must say that there is One God, and that the intra-Trinitarian love does not mean that the three persons of the Trinity somehow exist independently of each other and somehow need love in order to be considered one God. They don’t need love.”
Does that still work?
I also wonder about Adam and Eve, who were ONE, but their Onenes was covenantal, but at the same time from the fact of Eve’s creation from Adam’s side. There should be a usable analogy somewhere there.
rjs1 said,
May 13, 2008 at 9:31 am
Steven,
You ask; “If a covenant is an agreement with legal stipulations, how does this work?”
I reply; An agreement between the Father and Son is implied throughout the psalms and the NT. One example of the latter is Philippians 2:6-11:
“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
John Gill is most helpful on this: “the exaltation of Christ was not only a consequence of his obedience and death, and his humiliation merely the way to his glory; but his high and exalted estate were the reward of all this; it was what was promised him in covenant, what was then agreed upon, what he expected and pleaded, and had as a recompense of reward, in consideration of his having glorified God on earth, and finished the work he undertook to do”
rjs1 said,
May 13, 2008 at 9:32 am
Oh, and if I could recommend Dickson’s Therapeutica Sacra
Andrew Duggan said,
May 13, 2008 at 10:12 am
Paul,
Consider 1 John 4:8 and then see if you can answer your own question. God is love. Love is something we apprehend from the nature of God, because God is love.
Xon said,
May 13, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Andrew,
Paul’s point, I think, is that Lane’s criticism of Smith doesn’t work b/c for Smith “covenant” is more or less synonymous with relationship and love. Remember that as a somewhat frequent “peripheral” issue in the FV discussion, it is usually said that FV defines covenant as relationship, whereas the “proper” view (this is usually anti-FVers who say this) is that covenant is the basis for a relationship, but is not the same thing as relationship. Ralph Smith is the FVish person who is applealed to for citations whenever this point is made. Smith uses the Trinity to rethink a bit our Reformed notion of covenant. Covenant is not an, in essence, an “agreement” or contract between two parties. Rather, in human-divine relations that is the form that covenants take. But in its essence a covenant is simply a relationship of mutual love and indwelling. The Trinity is a doctrine that says that God in His essence is an eternal covenant between three Persons, each of whom are themselves the fullness of the Godhead because each Person “indwells” all the others (perichoresis). We should take THIS notion of perichoretic mutual inter-relationality and love and use it to shape our understanding of “covenant theology.” Instead, what many Reformed people have done is take human covenants, or human-divine covenants, which have a basically forensic character due to human finitude (we are not mutually indwelling and subsisting in an eternal and infinite reciprocation with the infinte Creator…we are not ontological members of the Trinity, and so our relationship to God takes on a more “visible” and word-based form (an agreement, contract, etc.), and let those shape our thinking about the Trinity. This is a mistake, big time. When we say there is a “covenant of redemption” b/w the Persons of the Godhead, and we think anything like “three people sat down at the table and came to an agreement regarding the redemption of mankind”, then we are definitely falling into “social trinitarianism” land. Lane is right to criticize that sort of formulation of the Cov of Redemption. But it is an odd criticism coming from an anti-FVer against someone like Ralph Smith, because Smith is clear that he sees “covenant” as “love” and “realtionship” in essence. So, when Smith talks about an eternal covenant of redemption, he is really just talking about the eternal Trinity itself. God’s nature is to be a community of three persons all communicating themselves to and loving one another and indwelling one another. And that community of inter-relationality is the archetypal “covenant” which then shapes all of our human/creaturely covenants.
So, if Lane’s criticism of Smith is going to hold, then Paul is pointing out that we have to fill in “love” or “relationship” for “covenant”. But if we do that, then Lane’s statement is outright false, or (at best) confused:
(Again, you can sub in “relationship” for “love” and I think the same basic deal holds.) It would be wrong to say that the three Persons “somehow exist independently of each other,” but it is NOT wrong to say that they “need love/relationship” in order to be considered one God. They don’t need love/relationship.”
If they are not in a relationship of eternal perichoretic love, then how is it the case that they are not three separate deities who simply come together in an arbitrary agreement? The essence of God, as you point out Andrew, is love, which shows that God in His essence is three people bonded together in love. The three are not independent, but they are joined together in love and it is their essence to be so. To say that the three would somehow be one God without love/relationship is hardcore false. :-)
The irony here, if I might stir the pot a little more, is that it is certain (not all) anti-FVers, not Ralph Smith, who have set themselves up for a “social Trinitarianism” problem. Steven already gets at this in his own comment, but the problem here is that if the “Covenant of Redemption” refers to some “agreement” on top of the inter-relationality and love that already exists between the three Persons, then it sounds like the three Persons are acting like three distinct deities who simply come together to make an arrangement. That is social Trinitarianism with a vengeance. But if these anti-FVers try to escape this implication by saying that no, the covenant of redemption just is the same thing as the eternal love between them that is the essence of Godhead, then they are in Ralph Smith’s camp and they sound like FVers regarding covenant, b/c they have just agreed that (at least for God) covenant is simply relationship/love and not some “contract” or “agreement” that gets performed to establish the relationship.
I hope I’m making that problem clear. I think it’s a doozy that needs some serious clarification. This particular thing is latent in our Reformed tradition. It is not a fatal flaw, but we have to sit up straight and pay attention to how we formulate things or else we’ll quickly be outside of historical orthodoxy re: the Trinity.
Xon said,
May 13, 2008 at 3:51 pm
In the above, first para, sixth sentence, it should read “Rather, maybe in human-divine relations…”
I forgot the “maybe.” I actually don’t think Smith would say that even human-divine covenants require a “contract”, but I’m not sure on that point. In any case, though, his position is definitely that contract is not the essential definiens of “covenant.” (I.e., it is possible to have a covenant without having a contract/forensic agreement, and so the latter cannot be an essential quality of the former).
David Gadbois said,
May 13, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Steven already gets at this in his own comment, but the problem here is that if the “Covenant of Redemption” refers to some “agreement” on top of the inter-relationality and love that already exists between the three Persons, then it sounds like the three Persons are acting like three distinct deities who simply come together to make an arrangement.
First, it is not obvious how that conclusion follows.
Second, I think it is vital to see the CoR as a voluntary act of God, just as the act of creation was. God did not require either in order to be God. It was *not* necessary in order for God to already be both loving and relational. So, yes, it was an “agreement” on top of God’s already-existing love and inter-relationality.
Andrew Duggan said,
May 13, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Xon,
While I appreciate the distinction you are trying to make, (although I disagree with it in the extreme) you are (seemingly) missing the much bigger point I was making. You seem to becoming at this as though love is an abstract concept rather than something that is derived from the nature of the substance of God Himself. Making a covenant or being in a relationship is something that God does, Love on the other hand is something God is. (For the record, I’m not even comfortable with that language because I don’t think it does a good enough job demonstrating the difference.) God is Love, God is Life, God is Righteousness, God is Truth. All of those things are not abstract concepts, but are realities because they obtain their definition in God, and God alone. These attributes don’t arise from the relationship of the Persons of the Trinity. They are not bound together in love as though that is description of their relationship with each other, the Persons of the Trinity love each other because Love is an elemental essential attribute of the substance the one God. The Persons of the Trinity are of one substance. Frankly you are reading social trinitarianism into others (and I) wrote.
I object to your use of the word joined with respect to the Persons of the Trinity, that word goes way beyond suggesting social trinitarianism to me. Jesus said “I and my Father are one.” They are not joined together in love, they are one. It seems as though you are saying that the substance of God (as in your use of the word essence) arises from the Persons being joined together in love; to that I cannot disagree more. I think you have it backwards.
The fact that God uses covenants in the execution of His decrees does not give anyone the right to transform the idea of covenant into a communicable attribute of God, which was Paul was doing (or so it seems to me), knowingly or not.
Bottom line: The idea of Love is not something that arises from the relationship among the Persons of the Trinity, but is instead Love is a communicable attribute of the substance (as in the the phrase “same in substance, equal in power and glory”), of God. That was my point.
pduggie said,
May 13, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I’ll just add Xon captured my attempted point well.
My understanding of Smith is that he’s saying trinitarian love and relation is itself the archetype of the Covenant of Redemption and COW/COG.
Xon said,
May 13, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Thanks for requesting that I flesh this out more, David. :-)
There is no problem with “ad extra” divine activity (i.e., creation, redemption, etc.): i.e., activity directed towards finite objects (the created world). Such activity is entirely gratuitous (and even spontaneous, in the best ancient-medieval sense of that term); it is not necessary for God to do, God is not “incomplete” without it, and it “adds” nothing to God when He does it.
But the Reformed don’t just posit redemption; they posit a “covenant” of redemption. An intra-Triune covenant, historically. How can it NOT be ad intra? An ad extra intra-Triune covenant is self-referentially incoherent, or am I missing something about the way the words are being used?
(And this leaves aside the fact that a forensic “agreement” to redeem humanity between the three persons is in no way required to make sense of redemption simpliciter. Just as there is no “covenant” to create specifically, where each Person takes a certain role in creation by some sort of prior agreement. Even though all three do have a role in creation and such, there need not be a “covenant” to explain creation. And so there need not be a covenant to explain redemption. But like I said, that’s an aside that doesn’t relate directly to my other logical challenge to the implications of CoR. Given that a person does assert a CoR, whether they have good reason to or not, what are its implications?)
So, historically the CoR is ad intra, not ad extra, and it seems like it has to be in order to remain coherent since it is, after all, an entirely intra-Triune activity (thus, ad intra). And here Ralph Smith’s position makes perfect sense of the doctrine as an acrivity ad intra: the “Covenant of Redemption” is nothing more than the eternal communion of love among the three Persons. This way we maintain divine simplicity (there are not two “different” ad intra activities God engages in), and really we are just using a Reformed “flavor” to express the ancient doctrine of perichoresis. The three Persons are eternally in “agreement” with one another, b/c they are all in the others and are bonded together in love and communication of the same essence to one another. And so there is already all the “agreement” there can possibly be b/w the three Persons. Whence, therefore, an extra “forensic” covenant between them? Thus, the CoR is not forensic if it is ad intra.
But my comments about tritheism weren’t really directed at ad intra. Remember, I mentioned the CoR as something “added on top of” the ad intra activity. So your attempt to save it by making it ad extra (i.e., not necessary, not adding to or pertaining to the divine nature itself, but involving an exercdise of the divine nature aimed “outside” of itself towards the finite world.
Really, then, I’m finding any notion of a “forensic” intra-Triune covenant problematic, whether it is claimed to be ad intra or ad extra (though that whole distinction wasn’t even in my sights in my earlier comments). If it’s an ad intra “forensic” covenant, then God is no longer simple. The only way to maintain His simplicity is to say that the CoR is the same thing as the eternal ad intra intra-Triune activity of loving communion (Ralph Smith’s position). But in that case it’s hard to see how the activity is “forensic.” (I.e., it isn’t simply the three Persons making a contractual agreement to do such-and-such, but it relates to their very essence).
But, if the CoR is instead said to be ad extra, which is what you seem to be claiming David G., then the “tritheism” problem comes into play directly. The position you have offered is exactly what I was aiming the argument at originally (though I didn’t make that clear b/c I didn’t get into the ad intra/ad extra distinction). There are not three separate “wills” to “decide” to come together in a way that they were not already together ad intra. The three are already totally and completely united ad intra. While there is ad extra activity in which they create, sustain, and redeem a finite world; it isn’t clear what it even means to say that they engage in an ad extra activity (activity aimed outside of thesmelves) in which they all agree forensically to play certain roles in redemption. (This also seems to entail nominalism and voluntarism: since God is now binding Himself to a standard outside His own essential nature. And that is also a problem.)
(Again, if we go Ralph Smith’s way and say that the “covenant of redemption” just is the eternal love and relations between the Persons, then this problem is solved and Reformed theology is just an interesting “flavor” in the historic Christian ice cream shop. This is the way most FVers who have commented on it have formulated the CoR.)
And so now we are tempted to go back to saying that it is ad extra again. But, again, we’ve already seen a problem with that. But we’re back to tritheism again, too, because the three Persons are now coming together to do something that is outside of their nature. They are coming together in a way that they were not already “together” ad intra. And so how can there be another kind of unity which they didn’t already have ad intra, and yet then say that ad intra they are absolutely one? Or, if there’s nothing to the ad extra unity of the covenant that they didn’t already have ad intra, then how is the covenant a “forensic agreement?”
Jeff Cagle said,
May 13, 2008 at 9:15 pm
OK, I’ll ask the dumb questions.
(1) Out of about 200 usages of בְּרִ֔ית “covenant”, it appears that covenants are “made” (”cut”) between people … entered into, so to speak.
Would not entering into a covenant be something that happens at the level of the persons (not the being) of the Trinity? And if so, then why is it important that the covenant one enters into be a relationship of love as opposed to an agreement?
(2) What is Smith’s exegetical case that a covenant is a relationship of mutual love rather than “contract, agreement, alliance, league…” found in a lexicon like BDB? How would these relationships of mutual love be “entered into”? Especially, how would the CoR be entered into? (From the considerations above, I suspect his answer might be “it isn’t”?)
(3) Hebrews 10.7 (from Son to Father): “Here am I; I have come to do your will” — an expression of the CoR or not?
Thanks for the patience with my slowness,
Jeff Cagle
Jeff Cagle said,
May 13, 2008 at 9:18 pm
#12 answers my second question: the CoR simply “is”; it is not “entered into”, on Smith’s account. Yes?
Xon said,
May 13, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Andrew,
Thanks for the continued interaction here. I want to tread gently b/c these are heady issues, and I’m certainly not claiming to be perfect on understanding the Trinity. Yet, that said…
Two things.
1. I’m not actually thinking that love is an abstract concept. In fact, I’ll go further than you did (though I’m only nitpicking here) and say that love is God’s nature. It’s not that love is “derived” from God’s nature (though you say this better a little later anyway). It IS God’s nature. God IS love. But how can God be love unless He is a community of Persons that love each other? What does it mean for there to be One and One only who loves? What does He love? Himself? Ah, but then you’ve just affirmed the eternal generation of the Son (Jonathan Edwards is great on this, as is Augustine). For God to love Himself is actually the Father “generating” a perfect “repetition” of Himself (eternal generation). which does not subordinate the Son ontologically b/c it is an eternal generation. I.e., it is the Father’s essential nature to generate the Son from the first “moment” of His existence (though we can’t really speak of God as existing in “moments” but we get the gist). There is never a time that the Father exists without the Son, and in fact the Father “depends” on the Son just as much as the Son depends on the Father b/c the Father NEEDS the object of His love. (And then a similar argument results for the Holy Spirit: the Holy Spirit simply IS the love that proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Father and Son love one another perfectly, and this perfect activity IS the Holy Spirit. It is another eternal and ontologically co-equal “repeition” of the divine essence, and thus we have three divine Persons existing in eternal communion). So, far from love being an abstract concept, I would say that Love is personified in the Third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit IS the Love of God. God is Love, b/c the Spirit is Love, and the Spirit is God. It’s not depersonalized or abstract at all: rather, it’s as personal as it gets. It is the divine Person of the Holy Spirit.
2. I get that all that patristic (but also Augustinian and Edwardsian) stuff about perichoresis and eternal generation and eternal procession is pretty crazy, and maybe I’m getting it wrong myself. But there is no doubt that you just (accidnetally, I’m sure) departed from historical Christian orthodoxy (East, West; Protestant, Catholic; all of the above) when you said that “Making a covenant or being in a relationship is something that God does, Love on the other hand is something God is.” Acc. to classical orthodox Christain theology (and philosophy), there is no distinction in God between “essence” and “existence,” nor is there a distinction between what God is and what God does. There is no distinction between being and doing. Rather, God is “pure act” (and this is affirmed by the Reformed systematicians; all of them, as far as I know, but I admit that I don’t know as far as others)–there is no unfulfilled capacity in God. All that God IS, He DOES. All that He DOES, He IS. Again, the Father LOVES the Son and the Son LOVES the Father–this is an activity, not a “feeling” or a concept or a “property” that they “have.” To say that God IS love is to say that God LOVES. It is an active thing, so active in fact that it (again) is hypostasized (personified) into the Holy Spirit (the patristic doctrine of eternal procession, with the Cappadocian and Augustinian twist). In the words of Augustine’s “psychological” analogy, the Son is the Father KNOWING Himself, and the Spirit is the Father LOVING Himself. It’s all active, all the time. God is what He does, and He does what He is.
We’re passing in the night here. Social Trinitarianism (ST) is the view that there are three divine individuals who are not ontologically one, but who come together for the purpose of mutual cooperation or interaction, like a social, or a community club: three boys all go into the treehouse to form a “boys’ club”. There is “one club, but three members”, and that kind of “oneness” does not keep there from being three different people. Thus, ST is tritheism b/c there is one divine community, but three divine beings (three gods, three deities).
So, when I say that the three are joined essentially in loving inter-communion then I could not deny ST in any stronger terms. The “connection” or “communion” b/w the three Persons is absolute, infinite, and necessary. It is their essence to be in this relationship to each other. (Whereas three boys are not essentially in the club together: they could leave the club at any time, and they did not “have” to form it in the first place.)
When you say of Jesus and the Father that “they are not joined together in love. They are one,” what are you saying? Are you saying that they are one and the same? In which case you certainly are not a tritheist, but a unitarian. (Equally unorthodox, of course). But if they are different individual Persons, then their “oneness” must involve some sort of “joining” togehter. But, again, I never said they “join” together the way boys join a club. I used the ancient language of perichoresis: “If they are not in a relationship of eternal perichoretic love…” Perichoresis is the doctrine that says that the three Persons each mutually “indwell” one another, so that you never have one without the other two. The Father is in the Son and in the Spiirt, the Son is in the Father and in the Spirit, the Spirit is in the Father and in the Son. Each one of them IS the whole, represented from a different relational “perspective.” The Father is God generating God and processing God. The Son is God generated by God and processing God. The Spirit is God proceeding from God and from God generated by God. In each Person, you have the other two. The Father is ungenerated, but the Generated Son and the Processed Spirit are both “in” Him, etc. There is nothing “missing” in any of the Persons.
This is not social trinitarianism. It is three-in-one-ness as elucidated by the post-Nicean Church and as affirmed in the Reformed tradition consistently (I think) until at least relatively recent times (when some have started to question things like eternal generation of the Son, for instance).
The problem I’m having is that I don’t understand how, on your view, God is three-in-one other than the fact that you are simply asserting the Nicean formula “one essence, three persons”. But HOW are they one? You’re chastising me for using “joining” langauge, even though that is historic and orthdox language to describe these things, which makes it sound to me like you are making the three Persons identical to each other. Afterall, they aren’t joines as one (through love or something else), they just are one. Aside from the notorious ambiguity of a word like “one” (and, yes, “is/are” as well!), it simply isn’t clear how this is a meaningful response to what I said earlier unless you are asserting identity between the Persons. In which case, you don’t have God as three-in-one, but God as one (unitarianism).
On the other hand, though, you clearly do assert that there are three Persons. But then how are they “one”? You won’t let them be essentially joined in a communion of mutual love, so how are they one, then? Since ther’es three of them, they can’t be numerically identical (the way that Clark Kent IS Superman). But they aren’t joined in mutual inter-penetrating love, either, as the church has historically said that they are. So…what’s left? They are joined some other way? But you chastised me for saying “joined.” Here you seem to have a God who is three (tri-theism), rather than a God who is three-in-one.
I’m not really sure how this relates to anything I said, but since you said it here I have to say that it doesn’t really make any sense. On the typical CoR view, covenant IS a communicable attribute of God, since God enters into covenants and people are able to enter into covenants. That’s a communicable attribute. Or, are you saying that covenant is not an attribute of God: it’s just something He does outside of His own nature? This brings in the problems with an “ad extra” Cov of Redemption I mentioned in my previous comment to David G. (and, also, remember that the Reformed have not historically made the CoR ad extra, but ad intra, so you’re actually not even representing the “Reformed” position here fwiw).
I don’t say that love “arises” from the relatoinship b/w the three Persons. I say that love IS the relationship b/w the three Persons. Look, you say yourself that love is an essential attribute of God. Okay, then, what does that mean? I said in my earlier comment to you that this means that God actually LOVES, which requires there to be a “multiplicity” in God: three Persons joined together in love (b/c love requires three, as Bonaventure or Richard of St. Victor or Augustine or Edwards would say: lover, beloved, and the love between them).
You are denying this by saying that I’m making love into an abstract concept, but that’s not what I’m doing (as I explained above). But even further, aren’t you doing the same thing? For one thing you are making this distinction between what God “does” and what He “is” and you are saying that love is something God “is.” Aside from the fact that the Church has never spoken of love that way (Love isn’t something we do? Does your wife know that?), doesn’t this render love an “abstract concept?” Why does the Son love the Father? You say it’s because He has love as the nature of His very substance. How is that substantively different from what I said? I said that the three Persons are united in loving communion (and it is their essenct/nature to be so united), and you are saying “No, the three are in communion because it is each of their natures to love.” ?? This is very unclear. If anything, your formulation seems more “abstract” than mine (even in its less-explained version in my previous comment): the Son loves the Father and the Spirit because it is His “nature” to do so. But this love does not necessarily manifest itself in a communion of love between the three Persons? The pill makes you sleepy because of its dormitive nature, but its dormitive nature does not actually make things fall asleep? I admit; I’m lost as to what you are even asserting here.
You are resting your position on (a) a historically unorthodox distinction between what God IS and what God DOES, and (b) an uncogent explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity in wihch three Persons are each God and yet they are not joined together in love by their very essence, and yet God is still “one” in some sense that is not merely social. None of this is clear, though again I recognize the inherent difficulties of formulating Trinitarian doctrine. But there are resources for formulating it at our disposal other than the bare bones “one in essence, three in person” (or “same in substance, equal in power and glory”). And I’m using historically “approved” language here. As is Smith. If you think that language is inappropriate, then you at least have to recognize that you’re crossing virtually the entire Christian tradition here (and certainly the Western tradition). And you have to offer something more than an assertion that I’m committing “social Trinitarianism” (esp. since that just isn’t right: even if I’m wrong, it’s certainly not b/c I’m a social Trinitarian. Perichoresis precludes social trinitarianism).
The bottom line from my perspective: the Church has historically seen the Biblical statement that “God is love” as a wondeful and beautiful expression of the doctrine of the Trinity. Love requires multiplicity. It requires someone else to love. So if God is love in His very essence, then there must be more than one divine Person so that this essential love can actually be EXERCISED (b/c, again, there is no such thing as an unfulfilled capacity in God. Everything God is, He actually DOES. God is pure act.) But you seem to be shrugging your shoulders at all this and saying “No, the three Persons each exist and they are each God and they each love as part of their essential nature, but this does not mean that they are essentially related to one another in a communion of love.” ??
Xon said,
May 13, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Jeff (14),
Yes.
Andrew Duggan said,
May 13, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Re #14:
It seems to me then they really need to answer the issue of what the meaning of “is” is. Seems like then they are left with the CoR being an attribute of God. I offer is support that the CoR is entered into John 17, Consider the use of the word gave throughout, especially 17:6.
It seems to me that the idea of God the Father giving the elect to God the Son looses all of its meaning if the CoR is something that only is, not not something that was entered into by God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Also consider 17:2
That is hardly the language of the CoR is something that simply is.
Ruben said,
May 13, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Steven, it wasn’t that long ago you told me you could go for some Christological supralapsarianism. What changed?
Xon said,
May 13, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Jeff (13),
Each of the Persons IS the “being” of the Trinity, subsisting in a particular relational hypostasis. As I put it in (15) above (which is totally too long and fine if you don’t notice it there):
Perichoresis is the doctrine that says that the three Persons each mutually “indwell” one another, so that you never have one without the other two. The Father is in the Son and in the Spiirt, the Son is in the Father and in the Spirit, the Spirit is in the Father and in the Son. Each one of them IS the whole, represented from a different relational “perspective.” The Father is God generating God and processing God. The Son is God generated by God and processing God. The Spirit is God proceeding from God and from God generated by God. In each Person, you have the other two.
There is ONE divine essence, and that means that there is NUMERICALLY one essence (the Cappadocians, esp. Gregory, are very clear on this). When we say that there is one divine essence in three persons, we aren’t thinking of it the way that right now in this room there is one human essence, but three persons. The “essence” is not a “kind” which each Person has for himself in His own private instantiation. My dog has the essence of “dogness,” your dog has the essence of “dogness”, etc. Rahter, there is only one (numerically) divine essence. Think of it like a physical object just to crystallize the nature of the claim: there is only one bicycle. But that one bicycle somehow (and this is why physical analogies for the Trinity don’t work, b/c what I’m about to say won’t make any sense) subsists in three different entities that are each completely the bicycle, yet each of them “represent” it in a different way even as they fully “contain” it. Yeah, see, it doesn’t make sense. The best physical analogy, still not a great idea, is one that Gregory (the Cappadocian father) used of three mutual inter-penetrating suns glowing as if with only one radiance. If we try to take a very “pre-modern” view of light, that almost presents an imaginable picture. If three suns were somehow all “in” one another (again, be pre-modern here: there is no displacement of matter problem here, b/c suns aren’t really matter, they are just some magical light substance that enlightens things and is visible and yet has no mass and effects no changes in mass in things they hit), it seems like we could think of them each remaining their own thing (they don’t just all dissolve into one “sun-blob”, but rather each sun remains itself but is also completely filling up the same space as two other suns). And yet the light that radiates out of them looks like only one light, and to our eyes it looks like only one sun. There is still no proper analogy of course (after all, even the sun analogy is three numerically distinct suns).
So, when we’re talking about the Person we are still talking about the Being of God. There’s no way to separate it cleanly into “levels” where one thing happens to the Being but something else happens to the Persons. Each of the Persons IS the one divine Being/essence.
Also, as I tried to spell out a bit to Andrew above in (15), historical orthodoxy says that there is no difference in God between existence and act (God is actus purus, all that He is, He does). And God is also infinite and simple. So, the question of the covenant of redemption is: “Is it an activity the Persons engage in ad intra or ad extra?” If it is ad intra, then it is an essential activity of the Persons in their Triune essence as God. But since God is simple there is only ONE ad intra activity. And so we either have to say that (1) the covenant of redemption simply IS the same thing as the one eternal activity of the Trinity (which means that it is the same thing as God’s essential love; Ralph Smith’s “FV” position), or we have to say that (2) God is not simple (historically unorthodox) b/c He has two different ad intra activities that He does, or we have to say that (3) the covenant of redemption is not ad intra but ad extra (wihch is not the historical Reformed position re: the CoR).
If we go with Smith’s position (1), then we’ve just defined “covenant” as “loving inter-relationship”, since that’s what it is in God and God is (presumably) the archetype for all love that is worthy of the name. So covenant is no longer defined forensically as a contract or legal agreement between parties (though human covenants usually still take that form, due to human temporality and finitude). This is mine and Steven’s position, FV rapscallions that we are.
If we go with (2), then we can have our ad intra forensic covenant (instead of covenant defined as loving relaitonality simpliciter) but we’ve denied divine simplicity (and there might be other problems: I would still worry about “tritheism” here, since if the three Persons are beings who essentially “make a forensic agreement” with each other than it is not clear how they are “one” God. If they are all “one”, then there is no need for a forensic agreement. David G. says “Sure, it’s not necessary, but neither is creation. But creation is ad extra divine activity, not ad intra. So now we’re going to option (3)).
If we go with (3), then we have the three Persons making a covenant with themselves that is also activity “outside” of themsleves, which seems incoherent (An ad extra intra-Triune activity). We also have social Trinitarianism and potential tri-theism with a vengeance, b/c the three Persons are the KINDS of things which can enter into a “legal”/forensic agreement/contract with one another. But if they are perfectly and infinitely united as one ad intra, then this ad extra “agreement” makes no sense. They are already in agreement, in their very nature. So either we have to (a) deny that they are already in perfect harmonious agreement with one another “before” (unavoidable temporal teminology alert!) the covenant of redemption is made, or we have to (b) assert that, even though they are already completely in agreement ad intra, they make an ad extra forensic agreement anyway to do that which they are already agreed to do.
(a) gives us tritheism (or perhaps just social trinitarianism, if there is a way to be a STian without being a tritheist, which I’m not sure there is). (b) is cute b/c it sounds similar to what orthodoxy usually says about creation but applies it to redemption (i.e., creation is an ad extra activity of God that is not necessary and adds nothing to God’s ad intra essence, but is instead a finite reflection of the perfect ad intra glory of God’s essence which God delights in doing even though it isn’t necessary). But there are obvious and back-breaking asymmteries b/w creation and redemption. Redemption involves…redemption. It is a decision to rescue rebellious and sinful creatures, which is wonderful, and what a gracious God we have who decided to do this for us from all eternity. But there is nothing happening “ad extra” in the “decision” to redeem that wouldn’t have already happened ad intra. Creation is not a decision to act. It is an actual activity (The very idea that God makes “decisions” is also problematic if He is eternal and infinite, but how many problems can we kick up here?). But the “covenant of redemption” is this alleged “decision” that God makes to redeem humanity, in wihch the three Persons get together and agree on the different roles each will play in that redemption. The parallel, if there was one, would have to be to a “covenant of creation.” But the Reformed have never posited anything like that. God simply creates b/c that’s what He “wants” to do. The three Persons are all in agreement, and so they all three participate in the creation of the world. But why can’t we say exactly the same thing about redemption? Where is the need for a “forensic” covenant?
So, summing up, it seems to me that if you want a forensic covenant of redemption, then the very best option all things considered is (3)(b), but that is not a very good option. It requires you to make the covenant an ad extra activity, which is ahistorical and incoherent. It also makes the covenant of redemption completely redundant: it is some “re-enactment” outside of God, with forensic elements added on, of an agreement that God already possesses inside Himself perfectly and completely. The three Persons already “agree” from all eternity to redeem fallen humanity, b/c they are a loving inter-penetrating communion of love and so it simply is their nature to redeem the world that rebels against its Creator. Therefore, God DOES redeem fallen humanity. That redemption in space-time history is an ad extra activity of God. But why does it require an ad extra forensic agreement to engage in the ad extra activity of redemption? Why the forensic charade?
Xon said,
May 13, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Andrew (17),
I assume by “they” you mean FVers who take Ralph Smith’s position? We say that the CoR IS (is identical to) God’s love, and God’s love IS an essential attribute as you yourself say. So, yes, the CoR is an essential attribute of God.
The problem view is the traditional formulation that says the CoR is both ad intra and forensic in nature. That makes it the case that it is an essential attribute of God (since it’s ad intra) to enter into a forensic (non-essential) agreement among the three Persons. And then come the problems I’ve been trying to raise.
I don’t understand your argument from John 17 about the CoR being something that “simply is.” Again, in God (acc. to the traditional view), nothing “simply is.” Everything that God is He also DOES. There is no distinction between things God is over here, and things He does over theere. If He is X, then He DOES X. God’s power, for instance, is not just some “ability” He has that “sits there” dormant; rather, it is always and constantly exrecised in a perfect activity. (Now, that activity directs itself to certain finite things ad extra at one time or antoher, like parting the Red Sea on a particular day after the Israelites left Egypt. But the “attribute” of divine power is always “burning,” always running, always doing. In God, the lights are always on for every attribute. He is always exercising every attribute (and really all of HIs attributes are just “modal” ways of expressing His one divine activity of love).
Andrew Duggan said,
May 14, 2008 at 12:20 am
Xon,
Well I did say I wasn’t really happy with the way I put it. I’m not going to comment on whether or not I think holding to a doctrine of tri-theism is is more, less or of equal heinousness in the sight of God as being a unitarian. But in answer to your question, Jesus said “I and my Father are one.” It’s not that They are not loving of one another. I don’t deny that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit love one another, because in fact He does in perfection. You are focusing on the word love, I am focusing on join. So I mean what He meant as far as I am capable of understanding it, or at least I mean to.
You wrote “Love requires multiplicity”, what does that mean in the phrase “Love thy neighbour as thyself”? How does one love one’s self if love requires multiplicity? Deut 6:4 is used by many for a (pardon the phrase) proof text, for the oneness of God in WCF II:1. And that stands at the head of the first and greatest commandment, which Christ said the second was like to it.
I do agree that love is not static.
That notwithstanding, I see the word join as the problem, at least how I’ve always understood it. To me the word join implies multiple substances, whether that is artificial or innate. FWIW, I just did a quick search the entire WCF, WLC, and WSC on the word join and it is not used in any sense in the way you did. It’s not confessional in the way you used it. To me, the meaning of join is the making of one those which are not. The three Persons of the Trinity are already One. God is One. They are eternally co-existent and distinct from each other, but they are One. I don’t claim to understand how that works — do you? — but I believe it never the less.
I still think you have it backwards, for that which there is interaction between the Persons of the Godhead, (CoG/R) you want none, and where there is none (the substance of the Godhead) you seem to want it.
While you say it’s historically unorthodox to make a distinction between what God is and God does, I was intending to make only the same distinction that the WCF does when it uses the word execute with respect to God’s decree in describing His works of creation and providence. We don’t believe that the execution of God’s decrees are God. Perhaps this will be more clear: Love is something that God is in His self-sufficiency, meaning without regard to creation, whereas the CoR is something that God does in regard to a subset of creation (the elect). I’m really not trying to back into that: I guess i was hoping we were on the same page in that regard. The trouble is, we’re not.
In my simple ways I see there is God, His decrees and the execution of His decrees, that is the essence of reality for me.
Or are you not denying any distinction, but only my distinction, perhaps the latter, as we do agree (I think) that human beings are not capable of comprehending the Trinity. The Creator/Creature distinction is one thing and communication is a further complication — sort of like trying to describe a four dimensional object with a two-dimensional frame of reference. In that regard I agree we are passing in the night — I don’t mean to imply anything about God as being abstract, but at least for me language fails.
Back on track, what say you with respect to the CoR being an attribute of God in the same sense that Love being an attribute of God?
God is all- and self sufficient and not in need of creation. Doesn’t the the CoR imply the existence of creation — of at least the elect? How does the CoR as an attribute of God work if God is not in need of creation which is implied by the existence of the CoR? [I don't think it does]
In summary, I understand Paul’s analogy with respect to Love and the CoR, but it has an unintended consequence of making the CoR an attribute of God in the same way that Love is. If you can come up with a way in which the CoR does not imply the existence (even future) of the elect in creation (which the doctrine of the all self-sufficiency of God teaches He does not need) then there is more to talk about.
Andrew Duggan said,
May 14, 2008 at 12:34 am
Xon,
I don’t understand your question in #20, in light of your answers to Jeff C. who wrote in #14
you wrote in #16
In #20, you take me to task for saying simply is when you wrote
But you stipulated to that language already. So you tell Jeff, yes, simply is, but to me you say no. Which is it?
Xon said,
May 14, 2008 at 2:54 am
Ah. I was answering two different things (at least in my mind). I can certainly see how what I said is confusing though.
With Jeff, “simply is” means “has always been that way.” The Covenant of Redemption, on my view (the only form of the doctrine I myself can believe in at this point) is the eternal love between the members of the Godhead. Since this love (covenant) is eternal, it is not “entered into.” To “enter into” a covenant requires temporality: at time t there is no covenant, at time t + 1 there is a covenant. The Persons of the Trinity do not “enter into” anything, b/c they are eternal (atemporal).
With you, I simply misunderstood what you were saying and so my response was a bit off. Sorry ’bout that. :-)
More later…
pduggie said,
May 14, 2008 at 8:02 am
“being in a relationship is something that God does,”
I’m hvaing trouble seeing how it isn’t also or instead something God is, if the trinity is ontological.
Maybe better than “joined” in love, we say “united” in love?
pduggie said,
May 14, 2008 at 8:07 am
When I was growing up, I came to wonder if it wasn’t proper to say “God never decided to choose the elect” since “decided” implies making a choice in time and God didn’t choose the elect in time: they were chosen from eternity.
Maybe all this is doing is pointing out how off-track the Reformed have gotten by speculating about ‘covenant’ to something that needs to be reflective of an Eternal choice.
I’m reading Kenneth Taylor’s Devotions for the Children’s Hour. He keeps saying “here is something we’ll never understand”. I think he’s very right.
Andrew Duggan said,
May 14, 2008 at 8:58 am
This is the point I was trying to make
That is why I think #3 fails.
I think we all agree that
That is why as Lane said,
I could not agree more.
Steven W said,
May 14, 2008 at 11:16 am
Ruben,
I’m still open to the concept that I was talking about, but as I’ve done more historically study, I have realized that what I was talking about (God’s eternal love and plan to use death as a means to glory) is way different than historic supralapsarianism, of which I think is fraught with all sorts of theological problems (namely privileging certain attributes of God over others).
Xon,
Good stuff.
Others,
The Reformed world at large, including FVers, is simply not ready to go monkeying around with these deep issues. All of this “What God is” vs “What God does” stuff is borderline heresy. God is what he does. That’s basic Augustinian theology.
Putting a covenant “on top of” God’s nature and then binding Him to it is essentially nominalism, and takes away the very point of God’s covenant, which is to reveal who He is.
There’s only one will in the godhead, since will is a property of nature (Christ has 2 wills, but only 1 person), and to make something like our notion of covenant, which includes voluntary agreement between parties, something that the persons of the Trinity cut with one another (without allowing for that to simply be an analogy for the Divine nature itself- which is my own position) is to imply a plurality of wills, and thus a plurality of nature.
My advice is to put the brakes on posthaste. The FV controversy is small beans compared to this stuff. What benefit does a man have if he keeps his ordination but loses his soul?
Steven W said,
May 14, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Ok, let me not leave that last line just hanging out there. It was rhetorical.
I don’t think folks go to hell for getting the number of wills in the godhead wrong.
I do think that it is very dangerous and dabbling with real heresy, not the normal fake stuff, to change the basics in an effort to bolster our reformed distinctives. Covenant is good if left in its place, but to push it into the most mysterious of doctrines seems unwise.
And some Reformed folks have left the bounds of nicea (think of those who, in the name of warfield, want to jettison the personal names and their relations), so this isn’t just sheer alarmism.
Tom Wenger said,
May 14, 2008 at 4:47 pm
One thing that Ralph Smith fails to do as well as others in the FV is to take proper stock of how the terms like “love”, “trust”, “father” and “son” are used within their ancient near eastern context. When interpreted in this light, they show that there need not be a movement away from the forensic in order to accommodate familial/relational language. The legal made the relational possible and was the foundation on which the relationship rested.
(I realize that this only loosely relates to the recent comments on this thread.)
Joshua W.D. Smith said,
May 14, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Tom, I think the response from the FV types would be that this limitation of covenantal language to the ANE context is to get the archetypical and ectypical backwards…Human covenants in history are dim reflections of the divine, so any human covenant has to viewed as derivative, not as normative, relative to the divine covenant.
Xon, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that the CoR was not coextensive with the eternal trinitarian covenant as such…Maybe I need to go back and read him again (once I’ve finished grading finals!)…
Joshua W.D. Smith said,
May 14, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Jeff, Ralph Smith has an article here:
http://www.berith.org/pdf/A-Covenantal-Ontology-of-the-Triune-God.pdf
and this one
http://www.trinitarianism.com/pdf/The-Trinitarian-Covenant-in-John-17.pdf
deals with the passage that he exegetes most extensively…
Jeff Cagle said,
May 14, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Hey, thanks for the links.
I find it confusing that, by p. 8, RS has repeatedly asserted that God’s acts in history (including creation), his names, and his interTrinitarian relationships are all “covenantal” — without having yet defined what that word means.
My confusion grows when he appeals frequently to Kline: “Kline interprets the original covenant as a covenant of works — with which I disagree — but
his exegetical reasons for understanding creation as a covenant-making act are solid. He does not specifically identify the notion of “image” as a covenantal idea in so many words, but his view of creation certainly suggests it. In his Images of the Spirit, the covenantal nature of man stands out more clearly. See also, the sections referred to below concerning sonship”
Surely Smith is not adopting Kline’s treaty-driven definition of the Covenant? But if not, then how is he citing Kline’s arguments for support?! Very confusing. On I plow…
JRC
Tom Wenger said,
May 14, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Hey, Josh,
It’s a pretty big assumption (I’m not saying that you’re the one making it) to just plain assert that all covenants are a reflection of their version of what a diven covenant is and certainly seems to beg the question.
Jeff Cagle said,
May 14, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Steven W (#27, 28):
I’ve been thinking about your posts for a while, and I have some questions:
(1) And some Reformed folks have left the bounds of nicea… Are you referring (as Smith does) to Robert Reymond, who denies what he calls “subordinationist tendencies” in the Nicene Creed and affirms that Calvin moved beyond Nicea? Or did you have someone else in mind?
(2) Putting a covenant “on top of” God’s nature and then binding Him to it is essentially nominalism…
I’m lost. What do you mean?
(3) You and Xon have been arguing that we can’t read God’s nature straight off the page of human covenants (”…what many Reformed people have done is take human covenants, or human-divine covenants, which have a basically forensic character due to human finitude … and let those shape our thinking about the Trinity. This is a mistake, big time.” #7). And I can appreciate that.
But now, Smith argues that God’s acts reveal His nature; everything from biology on up to father/son relationships speak to us of God’s covenantal nature. In other words, for Smith, we can read out God’s nature from all of life.
Is this a point of disagreement between Smith and y’all? Or is something else going on here?
(4) There’s only one will in the godhead, since will is a property of nature (Christ has 2 wills, but only 1 person), and to make something like our notion of covenant, which includes voluntary agreement between parties, something that the persons of the Trinity cut with one another (without allowing for that to simply be an analogy for the Divine nature itself- which is my own position) is to imply a plurality of wills, and thus a plurality of nature.
What if we all pretended to be supralapsarian for a moment. The will of God is then to create a people for Himself; the execution of that will is then to decree the fall and redemption.
The CoR is then a function of the persons as a means of achieving the singular will of God.
Does this satisfy the concerns about tri-theism? Or is this what you were referring to in #2?
Thanks,
Jeff Cagle
Xon said,
May 15, 2008 at 9:26 am
Jeff,
Maybe this helps.
We can “read out” God’s nature from all of life because God has made the world a place that reflects who He is, and human beings especially so (since we’re talking about covenants here). It’s not that God speaks to us in “anthropomorphisms,” where He just uses human language and thought categories to talk about Himself b/c that’s all there is but really He’s not much like those things at all. Rather, God has created us as “theomorphs”–we are images of Him, and so we can learn about Him by understanding ourselves.
But, the way in which this works is not that we just look at anything we do and assume that God is just like that. We still have to take the ontological chasm b/w finite and infinite into account, for instance. Creatures are dealt with in forensice in terms, and God often deals with creatures in forensic terms, but the divine Persons themselves do not interact with one another on “forensic” terms b/c they are already joined ontologically/really so that any sort of “legal” union would be redundant at best are a step down at worst.
And so at this point I have to express some concern over Tom W’s statements (#29):
If we’re talking about human covenants, or even the covenant of grace, in which God must “clear us” in court before we can re-united to Him, then this is true. Forensic is not opposed to familial in all situations. But when we are talking about the Trinity, it is entirely novel to say that there is a “legal” relationship between the three Persons. If you are already, from eternity, in perfect familial inter-relations with one another, then what room is there for something “forensic”? What does that even mean? It would be, again, redundant at best or a step down at worst from the sort of relationality the three Persons already eternally possess. And to say that “the legal makes the relational possible and is the foundation upon which the relationship rests” in the case of the Trinity is outright heretical. Scary heretical. There is no Father/Son relationship between the First and Second Persons of the Trinity until they first engage in some sort of contract with terms? How can we say that and avoid tritheism? If we try to do so by saying that the three Persons were already equally and fully the one God before any of this happened–they were fully divine and united as one BEFORE they made the legal covenant and BEFORE they entered into the familial relationships (Father/Son, Father/Spirit, Son/Spirit, Father/Son/Spirit)–then we can’t really do anything except assert the bald formula “one God, three persons.” We have now lost all ability to explain in any way whatsoever what that means. HOW are they “one” God “before” they have entered into their varoius relations to each other? The post-Nicean Church clearly formulated that the relations ARE what marks out the differences b/w the three Persons, but now this novel position is saying that we had three different Persons before the relations existed. So it’s not clear what the “Persons” even are, nor how they are the one God. And so in the end I’m not even sure that we are affirming the orthodox position “one God, three Persons” b/c it isn’t clear what we even mean by “Persons.”
Some concerns, to say the least. ??
Joshua W.D. Smith said,
May 15, 2008 at 10:33 am
Re #33
I’m not sure what the big assumption is, Tom, partially because I don’t quite follow the syntax and structure of your comment:
“all covenants are a reflection of their version of what a diven covenant is…”?
But why is it a huge assumption and begging the question to claim that human relations are ectypes that have their archetypes in God Himself? God’s historical and temporal covenants are expressions of His eternal nature, yes? Isn’t that axiomatic, rather than a petitio principii? But they are only reflections, since they are in fact finite, historical, and temporal, rather than eternal. This is just the standard principle of accommodation–God lisping to us. It shows us things truly, but not perfectly or exhaustively (unless you’re a Clarkian).
I’m just not clear why you found that such a strange claim…
Joshua W.D. Smith said,
May 15, 2008 at 10:44 am
Re # 34
Jeff, I think Steve and Xon’s issues are reading every detail of one particular human covenant (i.e., the CoW, in particular in its ANE treaty forms–see Tom’s comment as an example of this) back into the archetypal one. Smith’s point is that we have to take the totality of God’s revelation into account; he argues that we do indeed find that covenantal relations of various kinds are the rule, rather than the exception, which indicates the general point that God’s nature is in fact covenantal. But then we have to consider God Himself to understand the character of that covenant, since he is sui generis, rather than reading that eternal Trinitarian covenant in the terms of any particular historical covenant…
I’m not sure if that helps.
Jeff Cagle said,
May 15, 2008 at 10:49 am
Xon (#35, part 1):
OK. So what controls our method of reading the characteristics of God out of the world?
I mean, could not we say that treaties are supposed be formalizations of the covenant faithfulness that God has by nature? And in that case, we would have forensic character — not in terms of guilt and innocence, but in terms of binding commitments — to the relations between the persons of the Trinity.
I’m not saying that this is necessarily the case; I share Steven’s nervousness about Trinitarian speculation.
Rather, I just wanted to mention that I haven’t been able to discern any controls in Smith’s method yet.
Jeff
Joshua W.D. Smith said,
May 15, 2008 at 10:56 am
Jeff,
With Kline, Smith is arguing that the creation of man in the image of God is itself a covenantal act, that the image of God consists in “being in covenant.” This means that the usual interpretation of WCF 7, which posits at least a logical if not a temporal distinction between creation and covenant, is inaccurate. Covenant is not something extra, added on to man, but that definitional to the divine image. But that means that covenant is then closely connected to the nature of God…
But Kline also claims that the law covenant is the most fundamental one in creation. But if law is fundamental to the creation-covenant (just had to use a hyphen, since we’re discussing Kline!), and that creation-covenant is fundamental to the image of God, we seem to find that God’s nature is fundamentally one of law…At least that is how it appear to Smith.
So, there’s no contradiction. Smith agrees with Kline on the *fact* of the covenant being definitional to the image of God and to all creation, but he disagrees on the *characteristics* of that covenant. As I have been saying, for Kline (and Tom) to try to (indirectly) read the characteristics of the ANE treaty point-for-point back into God’s own character seems problematic.
Joshua W.D. Smith said,
May 15, 2008 at 11:04 am
Why is there a problem in seeing binding commitments in the relations of the persons of the Trinity? Provided we read this ectypally, in light of God’s aseity. None of the persons of the Trinity requires an oath or sanctions to motivate Him to keep those commitments, since each is entirely perfectly good, righteous, and loving.
The controls on Smith’s method are systematic ones: his exegesis seems to me to be done in the context and confines of classical theism, i.e., the classical attributes of God…
Xon said,
May 15, 2008 at 11:25 am
The Father, Son, and Spirit all “need” one another, cannot exist as what they are without the others, and are fully, infinitely, and perfectly loving and honoring towards one another. I think this could be made the (to use the Reformed Scholastic language) archetype to our human ectypes of commitment, so that our forensic covenants in the human realm are reflections of this eternal love in the divine realm. That sounds absolutely right to me.
But the point is that there are still asymmetries between the archetype and the ectype, as there havfe to be. I’m understanding “forensic” to carry it’s typical “human” meaning, and while it may be a refleciton of divine “reality” nothing like a human contract or legal relationship can take place among the Persons of the Trinity. Their intra-Trinitairan glory of mutual loving relationality can serve as the archetype of our human legal and forensic realities, but that doesn’t mean that the archetype is itself a “contract” or “legal” in nature. Unless we’re using a funky definition of “contract” or “legal”…
There is simply no way to think of the three Persons of the Trinity “coming together” to make an agreement amongst themselves without going into dangerous territory, because the Persons are already by their very natures “together”. As together as they can possibly be. They ARE in agreement with one another, committed to one another, bound to each other, in their very natures.
In the human realm, “contracts” and other forensic activities are non-necessary. Two people can come together to forge a particular agreement if they want, but they don’t have to. Nothing in my nature makes me marry the particular woman I married, (though marriage isn’t really “forensic” either, depending), or buy the particular house I buy. But I am a covenantal kind of creature: my reality is shaped by various covenants, and these often take the form of contracts that I enter into. But this is the “human” side of things, the perspective from the realm of reflection (creation) and not from the “realm” of the original source that is being reflected. In God, nobody comes together and forms agreements: agreement is simply the nature of what God already is. But this nature of God serves as the archetype for our human agreements, which doesn’t mean that it works in exactly the same way (with the infinite perfect God, it cannot work the same way).
And so this is why we can speak of the Persons of the Trinity making a “covenant of Redemption” with one another which serves as archetype for all human (and human-divine) covenants: we can speak this way by saying that the eternal activity of the Triune God ad intra simply is that covenantal archetype. The “covenant” in God is just His eternal activity looked at from a new angle (it becomes sort of our Reformed contribution to the very catholic doctrine of the Trinity, not a whole “new” thing that we smarty-pants Reformed people have figured out that is some additional activity that the Persons of the Trinity do).
But as soon as we say that the CoR is some separate activity from God’s pure eternal activity ad intra, and that separate activity is what serves as archetype for human covenants, then we’re not just flavoring the catholic orthodox tradition. We are now making a hash of it.
Hope that makes sense.
Josh, you asked me about Smith’s view. The truth is, it’s been a while since I read Smith’s stuff. I think I’m representing his view, but if he denies that the CoR is “co-extensive” with the eternal intra-Trinitarian activity itself then I would disagree with him and would say that he’s still stuck in some of the same problematic thinking here. I would still say that his approach is what has “inspired” and sketched a better way forward than the ‘typical’ view we often hear when thinking about Trinity and covenant, though. But that’s all hypothetical: what I would say if he actually disagrees with me on this.
Jeff Cagle said,
May 15, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Joshua (#39):
Can you elaborate? Here’s my confusion:
MK:
Clearly a berith is a legal kind of arrangement, a formal disposition of a binding nature. At the heart of a berith is an act of commitment and the customary oath-form of this commitment reveals the religious nature of the transaction. The berith arrangement is no mere secular contract but rather belongs to the sacred sphere of divine witness and enforcement.
The kind of legal disposition called berith consists then in a divinely sanctioned commitment. In the case of divine-human covenants the divine sanctioning is entailed in God’s participation either as the one who himself makes the commitment or as the divine witness of the human commitment made in his name and presence. — Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue, pp. 1-2.
Now clearly, Smith wants no part of this definition. But then, he cites Kline to support such as:
Each of these relationships is covenantal and definitive of who and what man is. Image, therefore, is a covenantal notion.
Well, “Image” is not (for Smith) a covenantal notion in remotely the sense that “Image” is a covenantal notion for Kline.
So what’s the point of agreeing to *use* the word “covenant” if the meanings are so radically different? It seems like sleight-of-hand, a deliberate equivocation.
Assuming that Smith doesn’t want to do that, then what’s going on?
I probably need to do more reading here rather than engage at this point.
Befuddled,
Jeff Cagle
Joshua W.D. Smith said,
May 15, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Jeff,
A footnote to “A Covenantal Ontology of the Triune God” says: “Kline interprets the original covenant as a covenant of works — with which I disagree — but
his exegetical reasons for understanding creation as a covenant-making act are solid. *He does not specifically identify the notion of “image” as a covenantal idea in so many words, but his view of creation certainly suggests it.*”
Later on in the same essay, Smith quote Kline from Images of the Spirit: “Waiting to be pursued further also is the relationship of the imago Dei to certain other major biblical concepts. Once it is seen that God the Spirit in his theophanic Presence is the divine paradigm in the creation of the image of God, a conceptual overlap, if not synonymity, will be recognized between the
imago Dei and concepts like messiahship and the Spirit’s filling or baptism of God’s people.”
Note that Smith acknowledges that Kline does not talk about the imago Dei as covenantal, but suggests that Kline’s view of creation should lead to such a view. Smith would, I think, say to you that he is expanding upon Kline’s understanding of creation, following what MK says in the second quote (”Waiting to be pursued…”).
Smith also wants to reverse the direction of the argument:
Creation is covenantal (Kingdom Prologue).
The Trinity is the paradigm for creation (Images of the Spirit)
So, we should look at the Trinity as covenantal.
Which leads to rethinking the basic covenant as law, since that paradigm does not fit the relation of the persons of the Trinity.
Kline comes in to support “creation as covenant,” and “Trinity as pattern for creation.” That then leads to critique of Kline’s identification of the basic covenant as the legal one.
Smith would agree with Kline’s definition, I think, as a working definition of how the covenant works in creation (forensic, binding commitment, etc.). But his point is that Kline’s own view of creation should indicate that there is a deeper context, a more fundamental paradigm for the covenants with man than law: i.e., the intra-Trinitarian love.
In short, I think Smith’s issue is the same as mine: If Kline’s view of creation is correct, then the covenant between God and man is not the fundamental one, but is rather patterned on the archetype of the Trinity. Thus, Kline wrongly states that the covenant between God and man (having the form of law) is the most fundamental covenantal idea. Instead, the fundamental idea is self-giving love, so that this is the context in which the law-covenant is given and thus the background against which the CoW must be interpreted.
If I’m formulating this accurately, you see there the issue as it relates to the FV: Kline says that the law covenant is the most basic form, in context of which grace must be interpreted. Smith says that Kline’s own view of the archetype of creation indicates that the law covenant itself is an expression of the Trinity, and so that law covenant should not be identified as the most foundational one…
Don’t know if this helps.
Joshua W.D. Smith said,
May 15, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Summary: Smith would agree with Kline on the definition you cite, as a definition of the covenant between God and man as it is in creation. What he would not agree with is the identification of that covenant as the most basic one, the “original” one one which all others are patterned. He argues that MK’s view of the Trinity as the paradigm of creation indicates that the intra-Trinitarian “structure” is the most basic and provides the context–self-giving love–as the context then for the law covenant with Adam.
Smith argues:
Creation is covenant (as per Kline)
Trinity is the pattern for all creation (also as per Kline)
Therefore, the Trinity is the pattern for the covenant (not the law, contra Kline).
As opposed to:
Fundamental covenant is law
CoR is a covenant
Therefore, law is pattern for CoR (i.e., the Trinitarian covenant).
David Gadbois said,
May 16, 2008 at 1:42 am
Xon,
The CoR is a pact between the 3 persons of the Trinity, so in a sense it is ad intra (if we are only considering the parties “signing” the pact). But the pact has reference to redeeming creation. So it is not entirely internal. If the CoR is an attribute of God (this is essentially what you are getting at, right?), then that makes God contingent on the creation.
As I read through your explanation, Xon (I know you’re not advocating all of the reasoning you present), I’m still left wondering how redemption is a free act of God if it is “nothing more” than the eternal divine love the Trinity has always experienced.
Berkhof explains the connection of the CoR to God’s essence in this way:
This can only be the result of a voluntary agreement among the persons of the Trinity, so that their internal relations assume the form of a covenant life. In fact, it is exactly in the trinitarian life that we find the archetype of the historical covenants, a covenant in the proper and fullest sense of the word, the parties meeting on a footing of equality, a true suntheke.
The voluntary agreement is a manifestation of God’s attributes and nature, but is not equivalent to them.
Xon said,
May 16, 2008 at 12:31 pm
David G.,
First, there is a distinction between the activity of redemption and a covenant the Persons make to redeem. Redemption itself is an ad extra activity. The agreement between the Persons to do that activity is ad intra. Putting aside the temptation to make a big deal out of how you’re using “in a sense” langauge, the simple thing is that it is ad intra for the very reason you acknowledge, not just in “a sense,” but in the sense that the term “ad intra” was meant to convey. As you yourself say, the CoR is an activity “between the 3 persons of the Trinity.” Well, that is precisely what people have always meant with the ad intra/ad extra distinction. If it’s an activity between the three Persons only, then it is ad intra. The fact that it is about the created world doesn’t make it ad extra.
When we say that the CoR is the same thing as the one eternal intra-Trinitarian activity, we don’t mean that it doesn’t have its own particular “object.” We could say this about every mundane event, not just the glorious process of historical redemption. That I would get up this morning at 6:55 am was known from before the foundation of the world by all three Persons, and they were all in loving agreement with one another that it should happen. The particular event–me getting up at 6:55 am on this particular day in human history, is an ad extra activity b/c it takes place outside of the internal Trintiarian activity. The way in which God was operating this morning to carry out His plan that I would get up at that time was an “ad extra” divine activity. But the “decision” or “knowledge” or “will” or “decree” from before the foundation of the world that I should get up at such-and-such a time is ad intra divine activity. Ad intra activity is infinite, perfect, eternal, and simple. It includes all of God’s being within it: all that God is, is being done eternally and perfectly in the one infinite ad intra activity b/w the three Persons. God’s knowledge, power, aseity, love, etc., are all “involved” completely and fully in this one activity. Really, God’s love and His power and His love are all the same thing, ad intra. We call them out with different words to reflect certain differences that we can see as creatures in the way God acts in the world. So, for instance, when the one perfect ad intra divine activity parts the Red Sea, we call that particular ad extra activity an operation of God’s power (even though really it was an operation of His love, grace, justice, goodness, etc., as well). And this is fine.
Ad intra, the three Persons are in perpetual perfect infinite agreement with each other from the foundation of the world. This is because their very nature is love, and true love is always in perfect agreement and unity with the other. So, the ad intra activity of the three Persons from all eterntiy includes their being in perfect agreement with each other about everything, including that I would get up this morning at 6:55 am. When they actually cooperated and carried out that “decree” (kind of trivial to call it a “decree,” I guess we could just call it an “ordination”) within me as I woke up this morning at that time, that was an ad extra activity. But it was an ad extra activity that they agreed to do ad intra from the foundation of the world. And so it goes with redemption. They agreed to redeem mankind and the entire cosmos from sin and death before those the world was even made and before sin and death had even entered the actual picture. They have always, from the eternal beginning, engaged together in the one perfect activity (which is usually called by most theologians “love”). And that perfect activity involved them being in perfect agreement about all things that would even come to pass in the “external” world of creation. And all the ad extra activities the three Persons would ever do together in the created world are “contained” in their mutual loving agreement ad intra from the eternal beginning.
So, redemption is an ad extra activity. But the “covenant” or ‘agreement” by which the three Persons “decided” to redeem the world is an ad intra activity.
So, redemption is not “nothing more than the eternal divine love the Trinity has always experienced.” But the covenant of redemption is. The CoR is just God’s eternal ad intra activity with the redemption of the created world as its object, just like the “agreement” to part the Red Sea was the eternal ad intra activity with that particular event as its object. Redemption is not one isolated event, but an enormous narrative progression, but that doesn’t change the basic point that it is an ad extra activity which was agreed to by all three Persons from the beginning ad intra.
But this means we can’t say that this agreement was “forensic” (in any remotely conventional sense of “forensic”), nor that it was a “voluntary agreement” or that the three Persons ‘came together” to make it, etc. Yes, we can and must say that the three Persons agreed to redeem the world, but we can’t say that they agreed “foresnically,” with stipulations and terms and so forth. Those sorts of things only enter into agreements that involve creatures. What kind of forensic agreement is it if the three Persons cannot break it (they are constitutionally indisposed to break with one another, to ever do anything not in agreement) and if they are eternal beings and so there is no time before the agreement was already “made”? None of these things hold for the divine ad intra activity, and so we can’t talk about the Persons making a “covenant” with each other if we mean anything like that. But if we just mean that they always loved one another (”love” is usually the short-hand for one perfect infinite eternal ad intra divine activity), then we’re good to go.
The covenant of redemption is a bond of love. And it is in that sense that it serves as the archetype for all of our human covenants. We see the love and relationality that are inherent to human covenants, b/c those human covenants are ectypes of the divine archetype (which is love). Our covenants reflect divine love, somehow. But what many Reformed folks have done is go the opposite way (and Josh’s comments above are excellent at putting this succinctly) and say that, b/c our human covenants are legal and forensic, then God’s ad intra covenant of redemption must be legal and forensic. That’s the wrong way to make the move in this case, and it butchers classical orthodox theology proper (i.e., our actual doctrine of God).
Xon said,
May 16, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Oh, and I’m having trouble seeing how that Berkhof quote supports you in this. Reading what you posted by itself (not making some grand comment about Berkhof in general), it sounds quite “FVish” to me (except for the possible snag of the “voluntary agreement” language, which doesn’t really work for God who is already in agreement from the beginning and doesn’t “come together” to make an agreement that wasn’t already established by His very nature as God).
David Gadbois said,
May 16, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Xon, I quoted Berkhof as saying “their internal relations assume the form of a covenant life”, which indicates that the “voluntary agreement” is a manifestation of God’s nature, as opposed to being equivalent to it.
So, the ad intra activity of the three Persons from all eterntiy includes their being in perfect agreement with each other about everything, including that I would get up this morning at 6:55 am.
That’s all fine, but you still aren’t alleviating the problem that God’s essential nature is necessary, while God’s decision/agreement that you wake up at 6:55 is/was not necessary, and that the former certainly cannot be contingent on your existence whatsoever. Perhaps it is the “nothing more” language you guys are using that is getting you into trouble here. Theologians in the past have not seen a problem in affirming the simplicity of God while also affirming that God freely wills certain things, while necessarily willing other things. Although every volition of God’s is eternal, they are not all absolutely necessary.
Yes, we can and must say that the three Persons agreed to redeem the world, but we can’t say that they agreed “foresnically,” with stipulations and terms and so forth. Those sorts of things only enter into agreements that involve creatures.
That rather begs the question.
Here the classical CoR doctrine is actually backed up by exegetical data (the standard proof-texts show a pattern of promises, rewards, and requirements).
Simply pointing out that God cannot break the terms of the covenant is not a defeater. God could not break the CoG either, but He still passed between the animal pieces.
David Gadbois said,
May 16, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Also, Xon, I’ve seen the ad extra/ad intra language used differently from how you suggest. Note the following:
the pactum salutis is part of the opera dei ad extra, is the expression of his will with respect to the creation. Deus ad extra and deus pro nobis are important ideas but have distinctively soteric functions in view.
http://blog.solagratia.org/2006/08/21/%E2%80%9Ccoram-deo%E2%80%9D-the-epistemological-function-of-the-covenant-concept/
This is why I hestitate to call the CoR strictly ad intra.
Heck’s article, worth citing for our purposes here, continues:
Once we define covenant as Zentraldogma, we want to see everything through this lens, and fail to make proper distinctions between God ad extra or pro nobis and God ad intra or in se, between the ontological Trinity and the economic Trinity.28 We dare not construe the eternal generation of the Son, for example, along covenantal lines. We dare not construe the spiration, i.e. procession of the Spirit, as covenantal essentially. The concept of covenant is not exhaustive of theology proper because God is not covenantal essentially. Rather, as we shall see, the covenant is a function of the Creator/creature distinction and we read it back into the self-contained Trinity only on pain of disregarding this vital and basic distinction. Since covenant denotes the ontological and volitional freedom of God with respect to creation and redemption, it cannot apply to the ontological Trinity. God’s intratrinitarian relations (e.g. the eternal filiation) are not free but necessary.29 In the final analysis, the self-contained ontologically trinitarian being of God is actually the necessary foundation for the covenant rather then being covenantal in itself. The archetypal being of God is the foundation to the ectypal being of man. The non-covenantal, self-contained God in se as Trinity is the most basic metaphysical “category,†and not the covenant or the trinity ad extra.
Xon said,
May 16, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I didn’t simply point out that God cannot break the covenant as a defeater. I pointed out that God cannot break the covenant b/c He is already IN it by His very nature from the beginning. Again, this is a particular characteristic of the pactum salutis, which is that it is ad intra.
As for me “begging the question,” the passage you cite belongs to a paragraph that starts with “But this means”, thus making it clear that it is being inferred from prior reasoning. Quoring the passage in isolation is misleading at best, given that I actually was drawing conclusions at that point from things I had said earlier. Those conclusions might have been bad/invalid/weak for other reasons, but they weren’t drawn in a circular way.
As to Heck’s interesting and thoughtful article, his quick statement that the CoR is actually ad extra is puzzling. He attributes it to “Lane Tipton who pointed this out in class.” Okay, what did Tipton point out? That bit you quoted, with some earlier context, goes like this:
Now, the footnote thanking Tipton is after the last sentence. So it seems that Heck is crediting Tipton with the insight that deus ad extra and deus pro nobis “have distinctively soteric functions in view.” Why this is so is not spelled out, nor is it made clear how it even related to Heck’s larger point. Up until that sentence the passage is puzzling anyway. We have said that the CoR is eternal and b/w the members of the Trintiy. This is ad intra, historically. (Heck’s claim notwithstandign, and it isn’t clear how else the ad intra term could make any sense). But Heck wants to make it ad extra, which he simply asserts: despite this stuff we said earlier about it being an eternal activity between the Persons of the Trinity, Heck says, “we must be very clear here: [the CoR] is part of the opera dei ad extra, is the expression of his will with respect to the creation.” This simply is not what “ad extra” means. If this is what ad extra means, again, then God’s decision to save Bob in Syracuse New York at a Billy Graham revival in 1974 was “ad extra.” But it wasn’t. God’s will to do all the things that He did is ad intra. His will is carried out temporall in our realm of space-time, and that is ad extra. The simple fact that God has future temporal events in mind when does not make His will regarding those events ad extra.
I agree with the long quote from Heck, because there he is using “covenantal” to mean a forensic, voluntary agreement. Anyone who tries to say that God is essentially engaging in that kind of thing is running into the problems that Steven and I (et al) have been mentioning from the beginning. But if covenant means “loving inter-relationship and the agreements that follow from that”, then covenant IS essential to God. The generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit have been understood in the Church historically (esp. in the West) to be essential acts of God’s love. God’s love is what requires the generation and spiration/procession. Or, it is b/c we know that God is love through revelation that we know that generation and spiration are required and that God is not one but Three-in-One.
The problem here is talking abotu “necessity” w/ regard to God. Notoriously ambiguous word, and it “grooves” our brains in certain ways that simply don’t work with God. Consider grace/forgiveness of sins. Is it “necessary” for God to forgive sinners? Well, no. but also yes. God is the kind of being who does that which is not necessary. He is, in His essence, a gratuity-working God. Usually analytic philosophy types talk about these kinds of things with terms like “first order” and “second order.” So, forgiveness is a first order gratuity, but it is a second order necessity b/c God necessarily is the kind of being who does things that are gratuitous, etc. (Sort of like how my desire to eat cake is a “first-order” desire, but my desire to desire to eat cake is a “second-order” desire, etc.) I’m actually not keen on that particular way of resolving the issue, either. But the point is that necessity talk causes us some troubles in its own right. It is difficult to clear things up by appealing to what is supposedly “necessary.”
Certainly, we do not want to say that God necessarily willed for me to get up at 6:55 am this morning. As though God HAD to or was compelled to do so. But we DO want to say that the time at which I got up this morning was within God’s will from all eternity. So far so good. But the eternal will of God is ad intra, which means (in part) that it is mysterious. This is not a cop out, this is a fundamental element of what we always mean by mystery (we “see” the economic Trinity, which reveals the immanent somehow but does not enable us to directly comprehend the immanent, etc.). It is God’s essential nature, and His will is eternal and essential (It is essential to God to will as He wills), and yet we don’t want to then say that every individual thing that God wills is “necessary.” The problem here, again, is our concept of necessity, and also just the inherent mystery of the issue (and, again, I’m standing up here for patristic-Augustinian-Nicean theology on the Trinity: I’m not claiming to be able to rationally explain every thing else that might come up in connection with the Trinity. :-) ). Somehow God’s eternal perfect activity “contains” all the things He ever does, and yet we don’t transfer essentiality and necessity to the particular things (so it wasn’t ‘necessary” for Him to part the Red Sea, or to will that I get up at 6:55 this morning, etc.). God in His infinitude and eternal perfection “comprehends” all things in Himself, and so there is nothing that is NOT a direct result of His eternal and perfect nature. And yet not all of it is “necessary.”
Again, God freely wills to DO certain things ad extra. He does not have to do them, and they do not add to or effect His essence in any way when He does them. And yet, His essence is to act in the way that He does, and so His ad intra will to do such-and-such ad extra IS essential, even though His ad extra carrying out of the activity is not. Or something; this is admittedly difficult. But I don’t know of any orthodox Christian thinkers who say that God is simple AND that He somehow wills different things within Himself. His will is all one ad intra, and so anything He wills ad intra is esse