Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal Volume 4.1

mARANATHA BAPTIST

theological

maranatha baptist seminary

volume 4, number 1 | Spring 2014

MARANATHA BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Maranatha Baptist University Maranatha Baptist Seminary

Volume 4, Number 1

SPRING 2014

Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal www.mbu.edu/TheStudy

ISSN 2160-1623

Published semi-annually by Maranatha Baptist University and Maranatha Baptist Seminary 745 W. Main Street Watertown, Wisconsin 53094 920.261.9300 www.mbu.edu www.mbu.edu/seminary

Marty Marriott, President Larry R. Oats, Editor

Communication and books for review should be addressed to the Editor: seminary@mbu.edu, or Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal 745 W. Main Street Watertown, WI 53094 The Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal is published two times a year (spring and fall).

The Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal is a ministry of Maranatha Baptist University and Maranatha Baptist Seminary.

Copyright Š 2014 by Maranatha Baptist University.

All rights reserved. Materials in this publication may not be reproduced without the permission of the Editor, except for reproduction for classroom use by students or professors.

Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal Volume Four, Number One

INTRODUCTION ____________________________________________ 1 A THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP ________________________________ 3 A BRIEF EVALUATION OF EASTERN ORTHODOX THEOLOGY ________ 15 A CHRISTIAN LOOKS AT LAW ________________________________ 33 THE IMAGE OF GOD IN THE DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED ________ 69 BOOK REVIEWS ___________________________________________ 87

Introduction The purpose of the Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal is to provide for our constituency, and for others who may be interested, articles from a Baptist, dispensational, and conservative theological position. Articles are academic and practical, biblical and theological, focused on the needs of the pastor and church leader, and, above all, faithful to God’s Word.

The education of a person in ministry, whether he or she is serving in vocational ministry or as a volunteer, is a continuing process. For that reason, Maranatha publishes the Theological Journal to assist individuals in their ongoing education. Through the Journal, Sunesis, and other venues, Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Seminary seeks to assist God’s servants in whatever ways we are able. Our faculty are available to speak in churches and conferences on the topics on which they write, as well as in other areas of their expertise.

We trust that you will be blessed and challenged as you read this issue of the Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal.

Marty Marriott President Maranatha Baptist University Larry R. Oats Editor www.mbu.edu www.mbu.edu/seminary www.mbu.edu/TheStudy

MBTJ 4/1: 3-14

A THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP Larry R. Oats1 Fundamentalism is best known for its separatism, a willingness to separate when biblical truth is at stake.

Separation, however, is the flipside of fellowship. If we can fellowship with someone (or something like a church or an association), we cannot separate from him (or it). If we do not have a basis for biblical fellowship, then we will struggle with our basis for biblical separation.

There is not enough space to examine everything pertaining to fellowship in Scripture, so this article will look at the primary passages concerning this topic. Since the author intends to focus on the church age, the discussion will be limited to the New Testament.

The word “fellowship” is koinoni,a (koinonia); it refers to association for the purpose of mutual involvement. In the New Testament it routinely carries the idea of religious involvement. This is not the only term that speaks of the unity and fellowship among believers in the New Testament, but it is a significant term. It is translated as “close association involving mutual interests and sharing, association, communion, fellowship, close relationship.”2 The word can be used to refer to a sign of fellowship or a proof of brotherly unity, such as a gift or contribution. The concept can also include activities that accompany the Dr. Oats is the Dean of Maranatha Baptist Seminary and Professor of Systematic Theology.

2 William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 552.

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mutual interests. The definition of fellowship is important.

“Fellowship” in the 21st century is a cup of coffee and piece of pie after the Sunday evening service. This is not the biblical concept of fellowship; biblical fellowship is partnership in ministry.

Acts 2:42 One of the early uses of koinoni,a is found in Acts 2:42.

As a result of Pentecost, the new believers “continued steadfastly” or “devoted themselves” to four practices.

Apostles’ doctrine or “teaching.” didach, (didache) refers to both the act of teaching, as well as the content of the teaching. There were no New Testament books in the early church. The disciples were dependent on the apostles to learn what Jesus did and taught, as well as what further revelation would be given to them by the Holy Spirit. The content of their teaching undoubtedly included the Old Testament (while he was not an apostle, Stephen’s speech to the Sanhedrin in Acts 7 was filled with historical Jewish references), particularly the Messianic passages (since the early church was Jewish) and discussions of how Jesus fulfilled those passages, but it certainly also included the truth of the resurrection, the Christian witness in obedience to the Great Commission, and the apostles’ memories of Jesus’ life, ministry, and teachings.3 Fellowship. Acts 2:42 is the only place the word koinoni,a is used in Luke’s writings, although Paul uses it frequently.4 In secular Greek this term referred to the sharing of goods (2 Cor 9:13) or the communion of a devotee with a god, especially in the context of a sacred meal (1 Cor 10:16).5 Because the term is used in a list, it is 3 John B. Polhill, Acts, New American Commentary 26 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995), 119.

4 Thirteen of its nineteen occurrences in the New Testament are in Paul’s writings.

5 F. Hauck, “κοίνης,” TDNT 3:805.

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difficult to determine its contextual meaning. The following chapters in the book of Acts, however, identify the various ways in which the church members engaged in this fellowship or partnering in ministry. Immediately Luke records that the members of the church shared possessions with those in need (2:44-45). The events which produced the judgment of Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5 show that the sharing of resources was an important and prominent activity in the early church. In Acts 6 the election of the first deacons was undertaken for the express purpose of taking care of the widows. The members were caring for one another because they were in “fellowship” with one another.

There is nothing in the text to indicate that the fellowship involved anyone from outside the church.

Some suggest that the term “fellowship” introduces the next two words; the fellowship between these early believers was expressed in a common meal and in prayer.

Breaking of bread. There is a question of whether this is a reference to the disciples eating in the homes of the various church members or the Lord’s Supper. If “fellowship” introduces this breaking of bread, then this would clearly be the Lord’s Table. The use of the article with “the bread” would seem to emphasize the latter meaning.

Additionally, this list of four activities focuses on the activities of the church as a whole rather than that of just a few members.

Prayers. Literally, it is “the prayers.” Formal prayers were a part of the Jewish worship, and Luke notes in Acts 2:46 and 3:1 that the early disciples were faithful in attending the temple worship. The reference to prayer is probably broader and refers to the prayers of the church, which Luke also includes in his history of the church.6 All four elements were part of the corporate worship of the new church.

6

Polhill, Acts, 120.

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In this passage Paul calls believers into the koinoni,a of Jesus Christ. In verse 7 Paul introduced his discussion of the gifts which have been given to the Corinthians; at this point the gifts are referred to positively. In light of their giftedness, he reminds them of three key truths. First, the day of the Lord is a time of judgment, although those who are believers are free from that judgment. Second, their confirmation of the gospel will lead to God’s confirmation of their righteousness. Third, the goal of the Christian is a fellowship in which the believers become one people under the lordship of Christ.7 Garland translates koinoni,a here as “common-union,” based upon the believers’ shared participation in Christ.

This “common-union” with Christ creates union with His followers and precludes union with idols.8 Thiselton calls this a “communal participation in that of which all participants are shareholders, or are accorded a common share.”9 Since the context is in a letter to a local church, it is obvious that the emphasis is for the church to be united because they are all in fellowship with Christ. The following verses (11-13) demonstrate Paul’s concern that the church n Corinth as divided. The fellowship was damaged and needed to be restored.

However, Paul is not simply declaring that believers in a single location are together in a church. The emphasis is that these believers are in fellowship with Christ, which necessitates union with other believers who are also in a similar union with Christ.

7 David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 35.

8 Ibid.

9 Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 104.

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1 Corinthians 10:16 The context of 1 Corinthians 10:16 is in a section which contrasts fellowship with Christ and fellowship with idols.

This verse asks two parallel rhetorical questions, both of which are to be answered in the affirmative.10 The believer engages in fellowship with the blood of Christ and the body of Christ. In this context the emphasis is that all the members of a church are in fellowship with Christ and therefore in fellowship with each other. The fellowship which each believer has with Christ at the koinoni,a (“communion” or “fellowship”) table, which is more frequently called the Lord’s table, restricts the believer from a similar fellowship with idols.

In 1 Cor 11:23-26 Paul uses the common order of the body and then the blood, the bread and then the cup. Here, however, in 1 Cor 10:16 he reverses the order. By placing the bread at the end of the verse, he is able to introduce the idea in the next verse of one loaf representing the one body of Christ.11 “Paul could have said that believers partake of one loaf because they are one body, because this is also true—but he did not. Rather, he said that believers are one body because they partake of the one loaf.”12 Paul argued that the same effect took place when the Corinthians worshipped the idols. They became one with the demons behind the idols when they partook of the meal dedicated to the idol. The symbol identifies one with the reality.

Therefore, Paul commanded the Corinthians’ not to participate in the idolatry of their past. Biblical fellowship is

Simon J. Kistemaker and William Hendriksen, Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, New Testament Commentary 18 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 340.

11 Kistemaker and Hendriksen, First Corinthians, 341.

12 Richard L. Pratt, Jr, I and II Corinthians, Holman New Testament Commentary 7 (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2000), 167.

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limiting; fellowship with Christ and His people does not allow fellowship with an idol.

Believers participate in the “fellowship” of the blood and body of Christ. The use of koinoni,a refers to the vertical relationship the believers have with Christ. They are not simply associated with Christ, however; they are also in union with fellow believers. As a body of believers, they share in the benefits of Christ’s death and enter into a lifestyle that reflects their identification with Christ.

2 Corinthians 13:14 2 Corinthians 13:14 is the concluding statement in the book of 2 Corinthians. Grace comes to believers from the Lord Jesus Christ. The love which comes from God is demonstrated in saving humans. Fellowship is “of the Spirit.” This may reflect the source of the fellowship (fellowship which comes from the Spirit), or it may reflect the thing in which believers participate (fellowship which is based in the Spirit). The parallelism with the first two elements would indicate that the fellowship should be viewed as coming from the Spirit. The Spirit is the member of the Trinity who creates the commonality which believers find in the church. The fellowship or participation is in the Spirit and in His work in our lives. Paul is praying that the Corinthians would deepen their participation in the Spirit and that the Spirit would expand the unity which he gives to the community.

Galatians 2:9 The previous passages emphasized the association or participation that believers have with God and with one another based on the commonality of their salvation and their participation in the Holy Spirit. Should the study of fellowship end at this point, one might conclude that fellowship is an unlimited experience of Christianity.

In Galatians 2:9 James and Peter extended the right hand of koinoni,a to Paul and Barnabas, so that while the

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Jerusalem church would continue to evangelize the Jews, Paul and Barnabas would go to the Gentiles. This was not just a gentlemen’s agreement over who would do business where. This refers to the common life of the community, the working together for a common good. This indicates the partnering of Jerusalem with the Gentile ministry of Paul.

The “fellowship” (or here perhaps “partnership” would be a better term) which these representatives of Jewish and Gentile missions shared was symbolized by the external action of the clasping of the hands. This fellowship or partnership was an outgrowth of the common life of the Holy Spirit.13 This partnership happened because the Jerusalem authorities recognized that the grace given to the Jews was the same grace given to the Gentiles.

Robertson points out that this partnership into which James, Peter, and John entered with Paul and Barnabas was not solely a fellowship. It was also a declaration of separation, for “the compromisers and the Judaizers were brushed to one side when these five men shook hands as equals in the work of Christ’s Kingdom.”14 This fits with Paul’s arguments in Galatians that the Judaizers were not being faithful to the truth of the New Testament.

Philippians 1:3-5; 2:1 In Philippians 1:3-5 Paul expressed his thankfulness to the church at Philippi. Part of that thankfulness referred to the koinoni,a (“participation”) of the Philippians in the gospel.

The Philippians participated in the gospel (1:5), in grace (1:7), in the Holy Spirit (2:1), in the suffering of Christ

13 Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 164–165.

14 A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1933), Ga 2:9.

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(3:10), and in giving (4:14-15).15 This reflects an active participation in the gospel in a number of ways. They were saved by the gospel, they advanced the gospel in their own community, and they gave to Paul so that he could advance the gospel elsewhere. They were making a contribution (koinoni,a) to Paul (chapter 4) to further the gospel.

This fellowship was more than merely having some things in common. These believers “had been taken up into a divine fellowship. And thus they were united, not upon a social level, but by their commitment to the truths of the Gospel.”16 There was little to bind the church at Philippi together from the world’s view. The New Testament reveals only three specific church members: a violent jailer who would have committed suicide in a crisis, a slave girl who was delivered from a demon, and a business woman who traded in the valuable purple cloth that the wealthy desired.

If you unite with other Christians on the basis of affluence, you will exclude the poor. If you unite along social lines, you will exclude those who do not belong to your own level of society, be it high or low. If you unite intellectually, then you will exclude either the simple or the intelligent. And however you do it, the witness of the Church will suffer.17 They did have one great thing in common, however.

They all had a share in the Gospel of Christ. Paul declared that they had continued in the fellowship of the Gospel from the very beginning of the church until the time he wrote his epistle.

15 Robert Gromacki, The Books of Philippians and Colossians, Twenty-First Century Biblical Commentary Series (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 2003), 22.

16 James Montgomery Boice, Philippians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), 36.

17 Boice, 37.

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In Phil 2:1 there is a series of similar items. para,klhsij (encouragement or comfort) is found in Christ. paramu,qion (consolation) is found in love. koinwni,a (fellowship) is found in the Spirit. Paul is declaring that the fellowship or participation of the Philippians with one another is based in their common possession of the Spirit. In Philippians 1:5 Paul spoke of the partnership which the Philippians had because they had a mutual participation in the Gospel. In 2:1 Paul emphasizes that they had a mutual fellowship or participation in the Holy Spirit. When believers participate in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and participate further in the power of the Spirit, they are then the “glue” of the church.

Philippians 3:10 Paul desired to know Christ more fully. This is one of Paul’s later epistles. It is amazing to think that this far into this great Christian’s life, he realizes how much further he has to go to truly “know” Christ. This greater knowledge is explained by two elements: to know the power of his resurrection and to know the fellowship of his suffering.

The power of the resurrection operates in each believer to give daily victory over sin (Eph 1:18-2:7).18 Jews prided themselves in their religion. Greeks were proud of their wisdom. The Roman, however, was proud of his power, for they ruled the known world. Paul referred to a great power than Rome; the greatest power in the world was that which raised Christ from the dead.19 The fellowship of the suffering refers to the submission of the human will to the divine. Jesus prophesied that each of the apostles would die a martyr’s death (Matt 20:23; 26:36-46). Paul, as well, suffered such a death. Believers today may not die for Christ, but they can and will suffer for the sake of righteousness. Believers deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Christ (Matt 16:24; 1 Pet 18 19

Gromacki, 88.

Boice, 216.

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2:21). In doing so they participate in the sufferings of Christ. In chapter two Paul spoke of Christ’s obedience unto death, and he presents this obedience as a pattern for believers. Jesus “laid aside His outward mantle of glory and took to Himself man’s form and nature, enduring all the sufferings of this world. . . . The fellowship of Christ’s suffering is won at the price of such radical and total obedience.”20 Peter emphasizes that this fellowship involves suffering according to God’s will, for doing good, for the name of Christ, and for being a Christian (1 Pet 3:14; 4;1419).21 Philemon 6 The fellowship of faith is emphasized in Philemon 6.

The grammar in this verse is a bit confusing. The RSV, ESV and NIV render this “the sharing of your faith.” The NEB translates it “your fellowship with us in our common faith.”

The REB states “the faith you hold in common with us.”

The GNB translates it as “our fellowship with you as believers.”

A key problem is that koinoni,a could be taken as either subjective or objective. If it is taken as subjective, the idea is that of a participatory or shared faith. If it is taken as objective, then the fellowship is that which is produced by faith. “Faith” could also be subjective or objective. If the faith is taken as subjective, then it refers to the shared experience of believing. If faith is taken as objective, then the idea is the fellowship of a shared belief.

The subjective sense (see the NEB or REB translation) seems to fit the context best. Paul is encouraging Philemon to recognize that Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus all have experienced a common faith. This gives a theological foundation for Paul’s desire for Philemon to receive Onesimus not as a slave but as a brother.

20 21

Boice, 218.

Gromacki, 88.

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Romans 15:25-28, 2 Corinthians 8:1-6 and 9:6-15 The early church took care of its own. Acts 2:44-45 speaks of the charity of some believers for others in need; this idea is repeated in Acts 4:32ff. In Acts 6:1 deacons were chosen to aid in the “daily ministry” or the providing for the needs of the Grecian widows in the church. The church at Jerusalem was caring for its own members.

Years later Paul began a collection to aid this same church. In the early church Jews had cared for Jews, but in Paul’s day Gentiles were caring for the Jews. koinoni,a is used in Romans 15:26, 2 Corinthians 8:4 and 9:13 to refer to an offering that Paul was planning to take to the Jerusalem church. In 2 Cor 8:1 Paul notes that this was a gift of grace.

He commended the churches of Macedonia for their great joy and their great sacrifice even in the midst of their own poverty; he encouraged the wealthier church in Corinth to follow their example. In verse 4 Paul notes that the giving was a “ministry.” This is the same word, diakonia, that was used in Acts 6 to refer to the ministry of giving to the widows. “Paul understands that God’s grace does not lighten the Macedonians’ afflictions nor remove their deep poverty. Instead, it opens their hearts and their purse strings to others.”22 Paul’s collection, however, was not merely a charitable gift. It was not given out of pity for Jewish believers suffering in Jerusalem. Instead Paul emphasized that this gift was a “fellowship.” The use of koinoni,a means that it was an “outward expression of the deep love that binds Christian believers in one body, the church.”23

David E. Garland, 2 Corinthians, The New American Commentary 29 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1999), 366.

23 Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 520.

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In almost every case, “fellowship” is a union with spiritual underpinnings or spiritual purposes. A biblical theology of “fellowship” is, therefore, a partnering of individuals, churches, associations, ministries or any other group for the purpose of promoting biblical truth, based on a common spiritual foundation. In some passages the emphasis is on the union that all believers should have with one another. This includes cooperation in ministry. It includes churches caring for their own members. It includes churches helping other churches. It also includes a recognition that there are limitations to this fellowship; including some means excluding others.

The question of koinoni,a is, “With whom or with what can I legitimately enter into a spiritual partnership?” Peter, Paul, and others rejected fellowship or partnership with the Judaizers because they were teaching false doctrine. Paul fellowshipped with the Corinthians, however, even though they believed false doctrine. The answer to this dilemma will be dealt with more thoroughly in a later article, but it seems that a key concept is that the Corinthians were teachable. 2 Corinthians does not deal with the same problems that Paul addressed in 1 Corinthians. The Judaizers were not interested in being taught; they were already convinced of the truth of their position and focused their attention on teaching others their version of the truth.

Fellowship, in the New Testament, appears then to have two elements. Because all believers have the same Savior, the same God, and the same Spirit, they have fellowship with God and with other believers. Because fellowship is based on the truth of Scripture, a believer does not have the same amount of fellowship with every believer. Fellowship is greatest in the local church, for there believers know and can easily care for one another. Fellowship cannot be as great with believers outside the local church. When the truth is compromised, the possibility of fellowship is compromised as well.

MBTJ 4/1: 15-32

A Brief Evaluation of Eastern Orthodox Theology Fred Moritz1 A study of Orthodox Theology is important in our day for at least two reasons. First, in recent years several western Protestant theologians have left their communions and become Orthodox. Second, the Emergent movement shows an attraction to elements of Orthodoxy.

The Orthodox churches represent a specific tradition in theology. The Eastern Orthodox tradition developed in the countries around the Mediterranean in the eastern regions of the old Roman Empire.2 By the fifth century there were five major “sees” or centers of Christianity in the postapostolic world: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome. Over time, the Bishop of Rome amassed more power and influence, and by the time of Gregory the Great (590-604) the papacy was identifiable.

The seeds for the division between the eastern and western traditions of Christendom were sown about this time. The standard date given for this division is 1054.

Eastern Orthodox historian Aristeides Papadakis calls that date “inaccurate.”3 Papadakis points out that the “Great Schism” between east and west was “a prolonged process stretching over centuries.”4 The unifying factor between the 1 Dr. Fred Moritz is Professor of Systematic Theology at Maranatha Baptist Seminary.

2 Thomas Fitzgerald, “The Orthodox Church: An Introduction” http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7052, 2.

3 Aristeides Papadakis, “History of the Orthodox Church” http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7053, 8.

4 Ibid.

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various regions over the first centuries of church history was the “faith and authority of the seven ecumenical councils.”5 Papadakis lists several factors that contributed to the schism. They were: 1. The transfer of the Roman capital to Byzantium (Constantinople, now Istanbul) created jealousy and friction. “But if Constantinople, the ‘New Rome’ became the setting for this new civilization, it also became the unrivaled center of Orthodox Christianity.”6 2. The rise and conquests of Islam drove a physical wedge between the two regions.

3. The coronation of Charlemagne (800) further divided the two regions. “For the East, the West was acting as if the Roman Empire, with its legitimate emperor in Constantinople, had ceased to exist. The Byzantine Empire's claims to world sovereignty were being ignored.”7 4. The primacy of the Bishop of Rome was a basic issue. “Rome began to interpret her primacy in terms of sovereignty, as a God-given right involving universal jurisdiction in the Church. The collegial and conciliar nature of the Church, in effect, was gradually abandoned in favor of supremacy of unlimited papal power over the entire Church.”8 5. Another core issue was theological – the procession of the Holy Spirit. “Equally disturbing to the Christian East was the western interpretation of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Like the primacy, this too developed gradually and entered the Creed in the West almost unnoticed. This theologically complex issue involved the addition by the West of the Latin phrase filioque (‘and from the Son’) to the Creed. The original Creed sanctioned by the councils 5 6 7 8

Ibid., 9.

Ibid., 3-4.

Ibid.

Ibid., 10.

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and still used by the Orthodox Church did not contain this phrase; the text simply states ‘the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, proceeds from the Father.’ Theologically, the Latin interpolation was unacceptable to the Byzantines since it implied that the Spirit now had two sources of procession, the Father and the Son, rather than the Father alone.”9 From our perspective the theological issue seems “inconsequential.” The verse in question is John 15:26. In it Jesus stated that he would send the Spirit who proceeds from the Father. The battle seems to have been as much political as theological.

The filioque controversy relates to the question, “Who sent the Holy Spirit?” Was it the Father or the Father and the Son? Historically, this seemingly nonconsequential point has marked the difference between the Eastern and Western churches. The Greek (Eastern) church taught the “single procession” of the Holy Spirit—only the Father was involved in sending the Spirit. On the basis of John 15:26, and the fact that the Son is of the same essence as the Father, the Roman (Western) church taught the “double procession” of the Holy Spirit—both the Father and the Son were responsible for sending the Holy Spirit. At the Council of Toledo in A.D. 589 the phrase “and the Son” was added to the Nicene Creed. The Eastern church refused to accept the doctrine and this was ultimately the issue that permanently split the Eastern and Western churches in 1054.10 In 1054 patriarch Michael Cerularius was excommunicated by papal legates.11 The climax of the Ibid.

P. P. Enns, ed., The Moody Handbook of Theology (Chicago: Moody, 1997), 434.

11 Papadakis, 8.

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“Great Schism” came in 1204 with the sack of Constantinople by western Crusaders.12 The Orthodox communions around the world are known by several names such as the Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, or some other national term. Those terms designate nationalities or regions, but all of these Orthodox traditions are loyal to the Metropolitan of Constantinople. There are about 5 million members of Orthodox churches in the United States.13 Orthodox Theology The Greek Orthodox Diocese of America gives a detailed statement of its fundamental teachings on its website.14 It is a concise declaration of Orthodox theology. Several important highlights require our attention. It is my purpose to “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) in this analysis of Orthodox Theology. As Bible-believing Baptists we find several profound areas of difference with Orthodox Theology. The desire of this article is to offer an analysis that is consistent with Scripture and kind in spirit.

The Church – The Depository of Revealed Truths Orthodoxy affirms that Jesus founded the church and he is its head. It goes on to say: “Christ entrusts His own Being to the Church, handing down divine Revelation, in oral form, and later recorded in written form, to constitute Tradition at large.”15

12 Ibid. This was during the Fourth Crusade. http://www. historytoday.com/jonathan-phillips/fourth-crusade-and-sackconstantinople. Accessed 23 January 2014.

13 Fitzgerald, 1.

14 Rev. George Mastrantonis, “The Fundamental Teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Church,” http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ ourfaith7063. Accessed 21 January, 2014.

15 Ibid.

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The statement affirms that the church is the source of salvation. “There is nothing that contributes to the salvation of the faithful which is not contained in the Church's ministry, its diakonia.”16 Eastern Orthodoxy also holds that the church may be the source of continuing revelation. Mastrantonis states: This Church of Christ has in its nature the tendency to become and to grow; it has the nature to engulf and develop the truths of Revelation; it is to be delved into from time to time to find and pronounce the truths of which the Church is the Pillar. The Church, as a whole, is infallible, but it is not God-inspired to the extent that it has understood the entire depth of the truths and formulated and proclaimed them to the world. 17

The statement goes on to declare that these pronouncements of truth are made through synods. These synods deal with specific questions that may arise at a particular time.

Scripture The Orthodox teaching is clear that both Scripture and tradition are its sources of authority, and that the church is the depository for Scripture and tradition. Mastrantonis states: “The teachings and the practices of the Orthodox Church are to be found in the Scriptures and Sacred Apostolic Tradition, which have been handed down to the Church of Christ in the Revelation of God.”18 He also states: “The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, along with Sacred Apostolic Tradition are the divine Sources in which Almighty God revealed His Will and which the Church accepted as being the only depository for these truths.”19 16 17 18 19

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

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Two other features of Orthodox teaching on Scripture are important. The church teaches: The collection of books that became the Bible developed over the first few centuries of Christian history. The canon as the Orthodox Church preserves it was finalized and approved by the Synod of Hippo in A.D. 393. This included the 27 books of the New Testament and the 51 books of the Septuagint. 20

Note that the Orthodox communions accept the Apocryphal books as Scripture, and they reject the Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament. This website explains: The Septuagint (often abbreviated “LXX”) is the Greek translation of the “Jewish Bible”, translated around the second century before Christ. The LXX is the oldest version of the Old Testament in existence, several centuries older than the Hebrew Masoretic Text (“MT”).

The Orthodox Church considers the LXX more reliable than the MT, as there is evidence that the Masoretes tampered with the translation to make Christian claims about Christ more difficult, and removed several books.

Those books and portions of books in the LXX not present in the MT (the “Apocrypha”) were removed from the Christian Bible by Protestants, who mistakenly believed the books to be uninspired. 21

God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit: The Trinity The Orthodox statement on the true God is consistent with biblical teaching. The statement on the Trinity is an affirmation of biblical and historic teaching on the unity of the Godhead, and on the full deity of each of the members of the Trinity. The statement clarifies Orthodox teaching concerning the procession of the Spirit. This is in contrast to the Filioque statement from the Council of Toledo in 589\

20 http://stgeorgegr.com/orthodoxy/beliefs/bible/. Accessed 21 June 2013.

21 Ibid.

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In the personal attributions of the Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father begot the Son and from the Father proceeds the Holy Spirit. The Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, sends the Holy Spirit to guide His Church (cf. John 15:26). 22

Several paragraphs later the statement explains the Orthodox opposition to the Filioque statement. They wanted to oppose the ideas that the Son created the Spirit or that the Spirit has two origins. Mastrantonis states: It is evident from the Scripture that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only; this was the belief from the very beginning of the One Undivided Church. When the church in the West inserted the “filioque” phrase into the Creed, this innovation precipitated the Great Schism of the Undivided Church. The “filioque” phrase is an error. It is not found in the Scripture. It was not believed by the Undivided Church for eight centuries, including the church in the West. It introduces a strange teaching of a double procession of the Holy Spirit and refers to two origins of the Spirit's existence, thus denying the unity of the Godhead. 23

The statement on Christ identifies Mary as “Theotokos.”24 This leads them to a “veneration” of her, although they separate themselves from the Roman Catholic teaching: Another fundamental belief of the Orthodox Church is the faith in the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Mastrantonis.

Ibid.

24 “Theotokos refers to the person who gave birth to God and Christotokos means the woman who gave birth to Jesus. Theo refers to ‘god’ and ‘tokos’ is the giving birth part. Like the spearbearer or doryphoros, theophoros literally means god-bearer, although Theotokos is also often translated as god-bearer.” http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/christianityglossary/g/Theo tokos.htm. Accessed November 15, 2011.

22 23

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Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal Jesus Christ, Who became “incarnate by the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary and became man” (Nicene Creed) for our salvation. The Virgin Mary Theotokos gave birth to Jesus, Who is the only begotten Son of God. In the Orthodox Church, the Theotokos is highly honored, as expressed in praises recorded in the Scriptures with qualities mirrored in the Magnificat (cf. Luke 1:46 ff.).

Despite the high honor and the highest admiration which the Orthodox Church bestows upon the Virgin Mary Theotokos, it does not teach either her immaculate conception or her bodily assumption into the heavens.

The Church venerates the Theotokos as “holder of Him Who is illimitable . . . and infinite Creator.”25

The Fall and Regeneration The statement on mankind’s fall into sin is consistent with Scripture and affirms that the image of God in sinners is marred, but not lost. It then describes God’s provision of salvation: Man's desire for salvation implies that man feels his inner emptiness and turns to God for forgiveness and redemption. Almighty God in His compassion and love prepared for this regeneration of man by sending His Son, Jesus Christ the Savior.26

We must point out that Scripture takes a different approach to this. Historically, Adam and Eve hid from God, and the Creator took the initiative to come seeking them after their sin (Gen 3:7-10). Paul clearly states that sinners do not seek after God. Certainly we feel our “inner emptiness,” though we aren’t able to explain it. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Cor 5:19).

God reached out to man. No one turns to God apart from the work of God through His Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3).

25 26

Mastrantonis.

Ibid.

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Baptism and Sanctification The orthodox teaching on the saving power of baptism is clear. “By Baptism, the Church holds that all optional and original sins are cleansed by the Grace of God. The Chrismation of a newly baptized person is the confirmation of his faith which is ‘the seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost.’ ”27 Orthodox teaching on confession differs from Catholic teaching.

In the Orthodox Church, the priest merely reads prayers, using verbs in the passive voice, invoking the remission of sins by God. The Church states that after “one baptism for the remission of sins,” the confession of sins through the Sacrament of Repentance is considered God's highest gift to man (cf. Matthew 18:18; John 20:22-23).28

Holy Eucharist In contrast to the biblical teaching that Jesus’ sacrifice was a once-for-all work (Heb 9:28; 10:10, 12, 14); the Orthodox Church unequivocally teaches that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. It calls this ceremony a “propitiatory sacrifice” and describes it as the means by which the forgiveness of sins is obtained:

27 Ibid.

“The sacrament of chrismation, also called confirmation, is always done in the Orthodox Church together with baptism. Just as Easter has no meaning for the world without Pentecost, so baptism has no meaning for the Christian without chrismation. In this understanding and practice, the Orthodox Church differs from the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches where the two sacraments are often separated and given other interpretations than those found in traditional Orthodoxy.” http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship /the-sacraments/chrismation. Accessed November 11, 2011.

28 Mastrantonis.

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Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal This ceremony of the Holy Eucharist is both His sacrifice for the salvation of man and a sacred mysterion.

The Holy Eucharist is the seal of the proclamation of the communion with God. It is the only Sacrament offered by the Church in which the elements of bread and wine not only carry the Grace of God, as a mysterion, but are “changed” into and “are” the very Body and the very Blood of Christ, being a propitiatory sacrifice.

This awesome sacrifice has been entrusted to the Church to be re-enacted and given to the faithful for the nourishment of their faith and the forgiveness of their sins in remembrance of the Lord. 29

Worship This all leads very logically to the Orthodox position on worship. The church is the source of God’s grace and it bestows grace through the sacraments. Matrantonis elaborates: The Orthodox Church, considered the depository of infallible public worship, has been entrusted with the power of God's Grace to gather all its members, to pray and be sanctioned together, to communicate with each other as a spiritual Ecclesia and to be in communion with God and one another. The Grace of God is bestowed upon each Christian by the Word of God in the Person of Jesus Christ and His Church as well as through the sacred ceremonies, mysteria, and other divine services where the presence of every member of the church is important.

The highest pattern of worship in the Orthodox Church is the Holy Eucharist, which is officiated as the Divine Liturgy. In the Divine Liturgy, the Grace of God is bestowed upon the communicants. The faithful partake of the very Body and Blood of Christ for their sanctification and remission of sins. All communicants participate with devotional life and spirit in the Divine Liturgy. The Holy Eucharist, the very Body and Blood of

29

Ibid.

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Christ, is considered by the Church divine nourishment for its members.30

Salvation and Man’s Sin Orthodoxy combines its sacramental view of soteriology with the affirmation of the Nicene Creed that Christ, as the God-Man, came to save. Then speaking about sin, it states its opposition to “two extremes”: 1. The theory that in the innate sinfulness of mankind, human nature is able to practice virtue by itself, making Christ's sacrifice only a moral example (Pelagianism); 2. The theory that the human soul is totally corrupted and man's salvation is God's work alone, predestining man to salvation or to perdition (Augustine).31 The Ecumenical Character of the Orthodox Church The Orthodox Church describes its position within Christendom and its form of church government. It claims to maintain the dogmas of teaching and the rules of administration formulated and taught by the Synods of the One Undivided Ecumenical Church of the first millennium of the Christian era. The Orthodox Church continuously and without interruption is the true keeper of the truths of the Undivided Church, without omissions or additions.32

It specifically Catholicism.

30 31 32

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

distinguishes

itself

from

Roman

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Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal It does not believe in the primacy of any one leader of the Church, nor in the infallibility of any Church leader. It does not believe in the filioque (“and of the Son”) phrase inserted in the Nicene Creed by the Church in the West, nor in communion by only one element of the Holy Eucharist for the layman. It does not believe in compulsory celibacy of clergymen, purgatory, the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, nor in other innovations proclaimed in the West after the separation of the Church. The Orthodox Church continues on the original road, keeping undefiled both the teaching and the type of administration of the venerable, Undivided, and Ecumenical Church.33

The various branches of the Orthodox Church are considered to be “autocephalous” (self-governing). They are “governed uniformly by the same canons of the Ecumenical Church.”34 Observations We should note several important facts as we evaluate Orthodoxy.

Authority The Orthodox Church views itself as a repository of truth and the source of grace for mankind. God has given His truth to the church and all that is necessary for salvation is in the church. The Orthodox Church does not view Scripture as its only rule for faith and practice, but holds to Scripture and tradition as it has been passed on to the church.

The Orthodox view of Scripture is particularly noteworthy. Not only do the Orthodox subscribe to the Apocrypha (as does the Roman Catholic Church), but it uses the Septuagint (Greek translation) in the Old Testament, not the Hebrew texts. They believe the 33 34

Ibid.

Ibid.

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Masoretes tampered with the Hebrew manuscripts and that the Septuagint is older than the Masoretic text. They also believe that the Apocryphal books are part of the original canon of Scripture.

These positions are at odds with the position Baptists and those in the Reformed traditions have historically held.

The subjects of Bibliology and Canonicity are outside the purview of this survey, but we must note that these views of Scripture are not what Bible believers have understood Scripture to teach.

Trinity Orthodox teaching is true to Scripture as it relates to the doctrines of God, Christ, and the Trinity. Its only major difference in these areas is the historic Filioque debate, which eventually led to the Great Schism of 1054.

Sacramentalism It is at this point that the most glaring differences between biblical teaching and Orthodox theology appear.

Scripture clearly teaches that people receive salvation by faith in Christ (Rom 3:21-26). Individuals must come to the place of personal faith in Christ. This brief overview does not allow space to argue in detail that no church is the source of grace to sinful mankind. Nowhere does the Bible teach that baptism washes away any sin, whether original sin or the sins of a lifetime (1 Pet 3:21). The New Testament clearly records that those who were baptized first put their faith in Christ and were baptized subsequent to a confession of faith. Scripture says nothing about the bread and wine at the Lord’s Table becoming the body and blood of Christ.

This article began in an irenic tone, and I want to “speak the truth in love” (Eph 4:15). We must state that the way of salvation that the Orthodox Church teaches and the way of salvation taught in the Bible are different. This is important because there is only one way to God, through Jesus Christ (Jn 14:6; Heb 7:25). The Bible makes it

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abundantly clear that the way of salvation is by faith in Christ, not by any work or ceremony. We face the critical issue of how one becomes a Christian and, thus, the issue of one’s eternal destiny.

Ministry Ministry for Bible-believers is difficult in nations dominated by Orthodox communions. Fundamental Baptist missionaries have experienced difficulty in ministering in Orthodox countries. There can be subtle political pressure or overt opposition to missionaries.

In Russia the attitude of Orthodox churchmen is that “to be Russian is to be Orthodox.” They view identification with the Orthodox Church as a part of one’s national identity. Thus, several foreign national missionaries have been expelled from Russia in the last several years.35 A Russian Orthodox leader has recently voiced the resentment the Orthodox have felt toward the expatriate missionaries, stating: The Orthodox felt and still feel deep resentment at the way—as they see it—evangelicals have moved in on their territory. They feel we suffered persecution in Russia for 70 years, often very severe, and we struggled to keep the faith going under immense difficulties. Now that the persecution has stopped, people move in from the West who have not suffered in the same way for their faith, and they are stealing our people from us. We feel as if our Christian brethren are stabbing us in the back.

I'm putting it in extreme form, but there is this deep feeling.

Bound up with this is the sense in Russia and other Orthodox countries of what is called canonical territory.

Orthodoxy is the church of the land. Therefore, they feel I served Baptist World Mission from 1981-2009. We had one missionary with that agency expelled from the country during my tenure. Orthodox officials influenced government officials to take the action. I know of other missionaries with other agencies who experienced the same fate.

35

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if other Christians come in, they are stealing their sheep.36

Attraction to the Orthodox Church The Orthodox themselves seem to identify the reason for the attraction many evangelicals have toward their communions: An ever-growing number of persons from various backgrounds are becoming interested in the Orthodox Church. These individuals are discovering the ancient faith and rich traditions of the Orthodox Church. They have been attracted by her mystical vision of God and His Kingdom, by the beauty of her worship, by the purity of her Christian faith, and by her continuity with the past. These are only some of the treasures of the Church, which has a history reaching back to the time of the Apostles.37

Ecumenical Ministry I leave this study with a two-pronged conundrum. I am perplexed by the actions of some high profile evangelical leaders, and I am also perplexed by the actions of some self-confessed fundamentalists.

In 2009 a group of religious leaders in America came together to speak on issues of public morality. Their purpose was “to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good.”38 The “Manhattan Declaration” addressed the issues of the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty. The statement ended with a courageous affirmation:

David Neff, “Q&A: Bishop Kallistos Ware on the Fullness and the Center,” Christianity Today (July 2011): http://www. christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/july/fullnesscenter.html.

37 Fitzgerald, 1.

38 http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/the-declaration/ read.aspx. Accessed 24 May 2012.

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Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryodestructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.39

The flaw in the declaration was near the beginning, where the signatories stated: “We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities.”40 Understanding the teachings of the Orthodox communions concerning salvation, and thus concerning what it means to be a Christian, it is mystifying to comprehend how an evangelical Christian, who believes the biblical Gospel of grace through faith, can identify himself with the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics as “Christians.” All are within the realm of Christendom, but by biblical definition, they propound different gospels. If they had come together as religious leaders to use their influence for the commendable principles for which one ought rightly to stand, that would be one thing. The statement of the Manhattan Declaration is quite another.

As a Baptist who believes the sole authority of Scripture and as one who is convinced that the Bible teaches separation from unbelief, I must turn my attention another direction. A great debate rages in certain quarters of the evangelical/fundamentalist world concerning New 39 40

Ibid.

Ibid. Emphasis mine.

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Testament texts. We cannot go into the history or details of that debate here.41 I raise that issue because there has arisen an organization called the Center for the Study and Preservation of the Majority Text.42 Seven men serve on the board of this organization. Two of them are well-known and highly regarded evangelical scholars and researchers. Two more of them are Eastern Orthodox priests. And two more are men who are known as independent, fundamental Baptists.

The evidence we have considered in this paper raises two issues. First, at least four of the men on this board hold to a canon of sixty-six books in the Bible, while at least two others hold to a canon of seventy-six books that includes the Apocrypha. The organization’s website identifies one of the goals of the center as “Providing an international Christian scholarly organization which holds to the Holy, inspired Word of God being preserved within the majority of manuscripts and Traditional text editions of the New Testament.”43 I stop to ask, how do these men hold to the “Holy, inspired Word of God” when they espouse different doctrines of Scripture and, therefore, different canons?

Though they limit their studies to the New Testament where they are all agreed, there are still widely divergent doctrines of Scripture at play in the organization.

Second, the Center for the Study and Preservation of the Majority Text states that it “holds to the Holy, inspired Word of God.” What Gospel does the Word of God teach?

Two opposite Gospels are believed and preached by the members of this committee. At least one of them has invested his life in Bible translation. Another has spent his For the record, I use the Majority Text when I work with New Testament Greek.

42 http://www.cspmt.org/?q=node/9. Accessed 21 January 2014.

43 Ibid.

41

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ministry teaching and training students for the Gospel ministry. Two of these men pastor churches and seek to win people to Christ and build their churches. How can men who professedly embrace the Gospel of the grace of God work together in a ministry to advance the cause of the “Holy, inspired Word of God?� The sacramental gospel is different than the gospel Paul the apostle preached. Our evangelical brethren and our Baptist brethren find themselves in an unequal yoke (2 Cor 6:14-17). In working to advance the cause of a New Testament text, they are laboring with those who preach another gospel (Gal 1:6-9).

I hold no animosity toward our Greek Orthodox friends.

A year ago I was doing some research on the Greek Orthodox tradition. The dean of an Orthodox cathedral graciously received me and evaluated my work. He provided me with additional research resources. We spoke amicably, though we have definite theological differences. What is at stake here is the way of salvation.

I hold no animosity toward my Baptist brethren. I believe they have become unequally yoked, regardless of their motives.

MBTJ 4/1: 69-85

A CHRISTIAN LOOKS AT LAW Michael D. Dean, LLC1 The various disciplines of theology, psychology, economics, jurisprudence, and so on, have been compartmentalized because modern thinkers have generally jettisoned the historic theological or philosophical assumptions of most western cultures. At a minimum, those cultures at least nominally acceded to a superintending personality (or personalities) and thus concluded personality’s attendant characteristics of coherence and purposefulness.

Because I retain similar assumptions, I see fundamental commonalities in all human actions, regardless of the disciplines in which they are grouped and studied.

From those presuppositions derive both what law is and what it ought to be. From them also derives the only defensible union of law as will and law as order, those two components of the age-old conundrum, freedom and form.

Will and Freedom I propose first to identify what a Platonist might call “essences” of law. This requires identifying first what law has in common with all other human enterprises and, second, what all linguistic usages of the term “law” have in common.

Regarding the first “essence” of law, positivism emphasized law as “will.” That conception is a specialized (and tunnel-visioned) application of the theory of psychological hedonism – that “[m]an acts so as to avoid

Dr. Dean is an attorney and the Corporate Counsel at Maranatha Baptist University.

1

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pain and obtain pleasure.”2 The psychological term “action” includes not only conscious, deliberate choices, but also includes instinctive actions and reactions as well as responses to needs or drives endemic to human physiology or human “nature.”3 This broad definition allows the premise that human action is a function of self-regarding benefit as the actor perceives it, whatever the “self” or “perception” may be.

What an actor values as beneficial to himself is a matter of individual perception, making value entirely subjective from an individual perspective. In that sense, therefore, everyone is “self-ish,” without the usual pejorative connotation. The altruist pursues what is “pleasing” to him no less than does the miser. (Most attribute a positive moral valence to the altruist’s pleasures, and a negative valence to the miser’s.)

Paradoxically, humans often place the greatest value on what is nonexistent and what is least likely ever to exist. A “better tomorrow” does not objectively exist for one who seeks it, nor does freedom exist for one who risks his life to achieve it at the time he takes the risk.

Values and human actions to achieve them therefore cannot be limited to a narrowly defined homo economicus.

For a long time men failed to realize that the transition from classical theory of value to the subjective theory of value was much more than the substitution of a more satisfactory theory of market exchange for a less satisfactory one. The general theory of choice and preference goes far beyond the horizon which encompassed the scope of economic problems as circumscribed by the economists from Cantillon, Hume and Adam Smith down to John Stuart Mill. It is much more than merely a theory of the “economic side” of human endeavors and of man’s striving for commodities and an improvement in his material well-being. It is the science of every kind of human action. Choosing determines all human deci2 Guy R. LeFrancois, A Psychology for Teaching (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1975), 160.

3 Ibid., 160-62.

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sions. In making his choices, man chooses not only between various material things and services. All human values are offered for option. All ends and all means, both material and ideal, the sublime and the base, the noble and the ignoble, are ranged in a single row and subjected to a decision which picks out one thing and sets aside another. Nothing that men aim at or want to avoid remains outside of this arrangement into a unique scale of gradation and preference. 4

Ordinal ranking is a somewhat simplistic metaphor, but any action does represent the most highly valued available option at the instant of the action. By “available” option, we understand that it is more accurate to speak of “preferred” pleasure than “greatest” pleasure. (An economist would talk about “marginal utility.”)

“Will” is a unifying commonality of all human action, hence of law. Will is “I value” or “I like.” Will is the selfregarding preference that things be different, that “ought” should become “is.” (Or will may prefer the perpetuation of “is” if “is” would cease to exist without action.)

The definition of “choice” derives from will: it is acting upon will. One may will to do an act, but unless he is actually capable of doing the act, he cannot really be said to choose for or against it. Freedom is thus the ability to choose, to do what the actor wills to do.

An actor’s subjective scale of values constitutes his will, and choice is action upon that will. If the valuer is unable to act or begins to act but is unable to complete his intended act, then he is free only to the extent he has actually acted. In this sense, self-government is the same as freedom. If one cannot actually do as he wishes or wills to do, he is not free and is not self-governing. Without the capability to actually do an act, it is meaningless to say that one chooses against it.

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, ed. (San Francisco: Fox and Wilkes, 1963), 33.

4

4th

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These definitions of “freedom,” “will” and “choice” do not square with common usage, but common usage tends incorrectly to objectively delimit the concepts they describe.

Freedom is subjective because it is a function of value. The less one wills to do something beyond his capability, the more he is free, because freedom is the relationship between subjective desire and objective capability.5 Carrying these concepts to conclusion, self-rule is the ability to act upon one’s own values. Setting aside for now the positive or negative moral connotations of what one does with his freedom, that freedom exists only so long as he is “a law unto himself.” Choice (or freedom) therefore exists in different degrees and different forms until the last capability to act is extinguished. This concept is of cardinal importance, because choice is the first indispensable essence of humanity; the end of choice is the end of “man qua man.”6 Irrespective of the logic of his case for reform of the penal system through use of corporal punishment, Graeme Newman understood human nature and human action.

[B]y far the greatest consequence of . . . de-emphasis in prisons is that fewer persons will come under the direct control of the State (which is what we mean by prisons), and that the major portion of criminal punishment (that is, corporal punishment) will be conducted with the view that it is not criminals per se who are being punished at all, but free citizens who have exercised their right to break the law.

5 This concept is familiar to religions. “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Phil 4:11).

Buddhism takes this principle to the extreme, teaching that freedom or nirvana is the total extinction of desire.

6 In doing away with the choices implicit in “freedom and dignity,” B.F. Skinner also did away with humanity.

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In this way the most basic of all freedoms in a society is preserved: the freedom to break the law. 7

Obviously, environment affects freedom. That is, it affects choice, the capability to act. Environment is all those factors which have acted upon and are acting upon a person to affect his values, and which restrict or amplify his range of choices, that is, the capability to act upon those values. Environment therefore, includes not only the social, geographic and political contexts in which one is born, but also his genetically determined physical, rational and psychological abilities and predispositions.

Environment, of course, poses the question of nature or nurture. To what extent is anyone really responsible for what he does? Is it just (or even rational) to reward or punish? And if so, to what degree? At one extreme, environment is discounted entirely. At the other, nothing exists of the person but environment. Some assessments necessarily fall in between or posit other essences composing personality.

With this conception of human action, how can political law exist? Any social organization or government illustrates how the will of one individual coalesces with that of others.

Smith goes to the polls in a democracy because he wants something other than what exists or because he wants to perpetuate what may not continue without his action of voting. He has already ruled out alternative means to the same end, such as armed rebellion or running for office himself.

A candidate elected from Smith’s district faces the same kinds of choices as Smith. Whatever “law” (that is, behavioral prescriptions) develops from the legislative process, the legislator customarily chooses either to tolerate what he does not entirely agree with or to challenge it within legally acceptable parameters. Rarely does he risk

Graeme Newman, Just and Painful (New York: MacMillan, 1985), 141-42.

7

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the consequences of illegal or unpopular alternative modes of challenge.

The process continues with the government’s agents who carry out legislative choices, and the process comes full circle back to Smith who again ordinarily chooses to accept the status produced by the process. When enough of the populace coalesce to the product of the process or to the procedural restrictions for challenging that product, there is social stability. When enough dissemble, there is revolution or anarchy, an absence of “law.”

The stability of any society depends at bottom on the “law-abidingness” of its citizens, the willingness (or “choice”) of most individuals to coalesce to the system’s prescriptions, whatever they may be. Other political systems have other kinds of processes. Non-governmental structures create law the same way. A voluntary association of two or more individuals by necessity produces interpersonal “law.”

Thus, a commonality upon which all may agree, I believe, is that at least one of the essences of law is will.

Irrespective of the morality of various governments or social organizations, they exist because people have chosen certain actions and because those people value strongly enough (or oppose placidly enough) the resulting behavioral prescriptions that those prescriptions more or less stand.

Stability is always a product of self-choice, either because other options are less attractive or because they are more distasteful.

Order and Form Law as only will comports with Justice Holmes’ definition, in which “the ultimate question is what do the dominant forces of the community want and do they want it hard enough to disregard whatever inhibitions may stand in the way?”8 By this formulation, “ought” is nothing but the

8 Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law (London: MacMillan, 1881), 2: 374 cited in C. Gregg Singer, From

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values of those not presently in power. It has nothing to do with ideas traditionally associated with rightness or justice.

Obviously, there are those who disagree with Holmes.

The more traditional connotations of “order,” “justice” and “rights” all posit something “out there” which renders “ought” something other than just “my way.” Yet Holmes is certainly correct that law with a monolithic theological or philosophical basis fits the “will” conception of law no less than law with modern totalitarian bases. That the majority of thinkers (or at least the powerful and influential) in a prior time agreed that God had dictated absolutes did not change the basic fact that those thinkers still chose to think that way and had the power to impose and did impose the ramifications of their thought upon others.

Smith’s opinions and Jones’ opinions are both opinions, even if Smith claims that his come from God. This quandary introduces the second essence of man and of law – “order” or “form.” Those who fancy themselves agnostic and sophisticated may assert that they do not believe in such superstitions. Remember, however, that the fundamental commonality of all human action is that an actor acts because he prefers something other than what “is.” Without “ought” of some kind or other, there would be no human action whatever. Everyone believes in “ought,” except the dead (and, perhaps, the radically comatose).

The real issue is not whether there is “ought,” but whether there can be any transcendent content to the idea.

Is there Truth? Does it matter? If there is no Truth, or if there is no possibility that such a “something” can ever be discovered or imposed irrespective of its existence, then Mao (and Holmes) was correct that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Of course, Mao was hopelessly unsophisticated. With no “something,” who is to say that O’Brien was wrong?

Winston was happier. Without “something” out there to Rationalism to Irrationality (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979), 374.

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authoritatively enforce “Thou shalt” or “Thou shalt not,” it is useless to talk about any content of “ought,” except as tactical posturing to manipulate those still stupid enough to believe in such things. You like listening to the symphony. I like stealing things. The only thing that matters is which of us has the power or shrewdness to enforce (or get away with) his likes.

This brings me to my thesis regarding order. There is a God out there who establishes “ought,” who will eventually judge each one for his actions and will visit upon him the consequences of those actions which he (God) has determined are right and just. It seems natural to say that God will do this even though he has made free will the essence of humanity. I think it is more right to say that God will do this especially because he has made will an essence of humanity.

In contrast to this proposition, rejection of a superintending authority who imposes real consequences for actions leads only to the chaos and nihilism I have already described. The nihilists, dadaists, absurdists, and so on were the only logical non-theistic thinkers. Without eventual, certain sanction, rejection of a traditional “ought” is the only logical conclusion.

Without God, Becket is correct. “You needn’t look for despair. It is screaming at you.”

The Spiritual Nature of Human Action and, therefore, of Jurisprudence Two premises of my thesis regarding order require some theological and philosophical discussion. First, the Bible is true. Second, it has much to say about human action in general and about jurisprudence in particular. Section I deals with the first premise, section II with the second.

The Nature of Proof All human proof, in the last analysis, is petitio principii – tautology. All systems of thought are based upon presuppositions which, by definition, are assumed and not

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proven. Presuppositions, if logically applied, determine (narrowly) the specific conclusion of a logical process or (broadly) the range of possible conclusions.

For example, after an all-night prayer meeting on the eve of a friend’s surgery, a carcinoma on his chest simply disappeared. His church concluded that God had worked a miracle. The doctor (who was later converted to Christianity by, understandably, my friend) concluded that all the medical tests indicating cancer had been wrong. The church thought the doctor illogical. The doctor, I assume, thought the church crazed. Both had observed the same “facts” (there is a world of presupposition in that term, too) but derived completely different conclusions because they held opposing presuppositions, none of which could be “proven.”

Proof, then, is a matter of what principles are believed a priori. Bertrand Russell’s daughter wrote: In the last volume of his Autobiography, written toward the end of his life, my father wrote: “We feel that the man who brings widespread happiness at the expense of misery to himself is a better man than the man who brings unhappiness to others and happiness to himself. I do not know of any rational ground for this view, or, perhaps, for the somewhat more rational view that whatever the majority desires is preferable to what the minority desires. These are truly ethical problems, but I do not know of any way in which they can be solved except by politics or war. All that I can find to say on this subject is that an ethical opinion can only be defended by an ethical maxim, but, if the axiom is not accepted, there is no way of reaching a rational conclusion.”9

Some thinkers discount, a priori, any consideration of an immanent God. But the presuppositional nature of all thought prevents, as a matter of pure logic, the relative superiority of any natural or supernatural theory. Labeling A. Russell, My Father Bertrand Russell (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1975), 182.

9

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some philosophies as “rational” and others as “superstitious” is therefore inaccurate. Augustine or Aquinas, for example, were hardly “irrational” as the term “superstition” implies. Every thinker employs reason.

Differences in conclusion derive primarily from differences in presuppositions.

Certainty The great criticism of any theological knowledge is that it cannot be known “for sure.” (And, therefore, it isn’t “knowledge.”) But in what surety, for example, does a secularist place his confidence for a better jurisprudence or a better community?

I read Sceptical Essays and Unpopular Essays, In Praise of Idleness and Marriage and Morals, but they all offered the same solutions: reason, progress, unselfishness, a wide historical perspective, expansiveness, generosity, enlightened self-interest. I had heard it all my life, and it filled me with despair. 10

These “rational” beliefs of Bertrand Russell proved illfounded for his own daughter, who became a Christian. “I found no message in his books but failure and despair (for me): men can be . . . men should be . . . men rightly brought up will be . . . the world might be. . . . But what about is?”11 Russell’s conclusions about human nature and the social mechanisms in which he placed his faith were products of his own unprovable, dogmatic epistemological and ontological presuppositions, leaving his conclusions no more or less rationally or empirically demonstrable than his daughter’s conclusions that he was wrong and that Christianity was true.

10 11

Ibid.

Ibid., 188.

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Competence Any proof that the human mind is capable of reasoning to truth must assume that very conclusion (that the mind is capable). Otherwise, there can be no dependence upon the result of the proof process.

This is an illogical tautology, of course. And if certainty cannot be logically assumed, the possibility of uncertainty must be assumed, and that assumption renders invalid any conclusion that human reason alone is capable of certainty – that is, of proof. By reason alone, therefore, it is impossible to prove the existence or nonexistence of God, or of anything else, for that matter. (And even this line of logic assumes the traditional western axiom of noncontradiction.)

If one admits incompetence to determine the certainty of a contingency (such as God’s existence), he ordinarily makes operational assumptions based upon two factors: (1) the estimated probability that the contingency exists or will occur and (2) the estimated “severity” or “magnitude” of its actual occurrence (or nonoccurrence). For example, an air travel disaster is of low probability but high magnitude.

Rain is of higher probability but lower magnitude.

Most human action is, therefore, not a matter of what we ordinarily think of as proof. For life’s mundane matters, this is no great concern. For the big questions, however, those which govern the paths of nations, one ought to consider the problems of proof and predisposition forthrightly.

The “Life” Debate Here I make a practical application. The failure of American jurists to forthrightly discuss these considerations has subrationally imbued the legal community and the public with the false notion that government can be religiously neutral, a discussion more ignored than whether it ought to be.

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Abortion is an obvious example. As the Bible describes it, the magnitude of divine retribution is immense. So if Jahweh condemns abortion, His existence is of critical concern.

Therefore, when government permits and encourages abortion without any consideration of whether God exists or of what he has said, the legal community and the public eventually begins operating under the implicit assumption that God’s existence is very unlikely, because government would certainly not risk horrific destruction for the sake of an esoteric constitutional principle. (I am not here arguing either whether God condemns abortion or whether American jurisprudence should be affected by that possibility. I am only demonstrating that the professed religious neutrality of American jurisprudence is disingenuous.)

The “Education” Debate As another example, even school children intuitively understand these calculations of probability and magnitude. When the government school considers all matters of human significance without any reference to God, the student cannot help but make the same conclusions his older counterpart reaches when observing his government’s consideration of abortion.

Despite the state’s claim to religious neutrality, the subconscious predispositions of generations of student have been imbued with the state’s operational assumptions that God’s existence is of neither sufficient probability nor magnitude to warrant factoring into their calculations.

Again, I am unconcerned here with whether the state may constitutionally include theological considerations in public policy decisions. I only point out that under the disingenuous pretense of neutrality, one predisposition is being advanced and another rejected, neither of which is superior to the other as a matter of pure logic.

The tragedy, even from an educational point of view, is that the “neutrality” belief is illogical and the entire process is generally subrational. It is worked upon children who do

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not have the intellectual sophistication to know what is occurring and therefore condemns them to defective education and uninformed choice at best, or to spiritual ignorance or damnation at worst.

The Nature of Revelation Secular Rejection “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be [even] more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.”12 Following this logic, since revelation is miraculous, there is no superhuman knowledge or authority.

Hume’s tautology has controlled intellectual discourse for two centuries and has required American jurisprudence to rely, in the tough cases, on no better rationale than “tradition.” For example, a tension developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century in the Mormon cases. One line of cases followed Jefferson’s state interest doctrine, the final authority being what the Supreme Court considered the public weal.13 The other line of decisions looked to Christianity to determine whether a practice was morally acceptable and therefore in the public interest.14 This raises the initial problem that some justices believed Christian doctrines true and other justices believed other teachings true, which in turn raises the fundamental question: which, if any, were right?

The doctrine from the first line of cases prevailed, of course, and the Court now generally divides into two Hume, Of Miracles, X cited in John Warwick Montgomery, The Shape of the Past: A Christian Response to Secular Philosophies of History 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975), 290.

13 See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. (1879) and Davis v.

Beason, 133 U.S. 333 (1889).

14 Cf. Mormon Church v. United States, 136 U.S. 1 (1889) and Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1891).

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factions: the “living document” people who approve of modern mores, and the “traditions” people who generally approve of the moral legacy of earlier times and therefore tend to restrict decisions to specific moral precedents, a finesse which yields some of their desired results without admitting reliance on the now discounted religious rationale.15 My point is not to debate whether the Constitution’s framers intended to rely on Christianity for resolution of moral problems, whether the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment intended differently, whether either intended the Supreme Court to be intruding into such matters, or even whether we should care what anyone intended at all. I use American constitutional experience here only as an example of the inevitable result of assuming a secular epistemology.

Biblical Revelation I have already outlined the view that Christianity is just one more idea, the way Smith wants things vis a vis the way Jones wants them. The real question, of course, is whether Smith is right. I will briefly outline some of the reasons why I found rationalist presuppositions deficient and, instead, found convincing the traditional Christian position that the original texts comprising the Bible were the very words of God, with all the necessary conclusions that that presupposition entails.

Deficiency of Rationalism To begin with, Hume’s argument is a sophisticated tautology and demonstrates at least three inescapable limitations of finite, human reason.

Tradition per se justifies nothing. The remark is attributed to Justice Holmes that a rule ought not be followed for no better reason than that it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. 15

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(1) Not even Hume is capable of determining certainly the degrees of miraculousness of all phenomena. Such a feat is necessary to apply his maxim.

(2) The maxim deals only with probability and frequency, not possibility. As with degrees of miraculousness, no one is capable of determining the relative probabilities or frequencies of all phenomena. Essentially, however, that is irrelevant anyway. If a miracle is possible, it makes no difference how often it occurs.

(3) The maxim requires accepting as conclusive individual assessments of miraculousness, probability and possibility. This in turn requires that the existence of miraculous phenomena is dependent upon their susceptibility to human observation and reason, a tautological assumption as I have already stated.

Actually, Hume’s argument reveals that rationalism and atheism are really various manifestations of the irrational belief that man is God, that man substitutes himself as God and decides himself “what is” and “what is right.”

Deficiency of Empiricism Empiricism is just as much a tautology as rationalism.

First, since empiricism (by definition) deals only with the empiric, it is incapable of ruling out nonempiric causes, either positively, by identifying an ultimate empiric cause of all phenomena, or negatively, by empirically demonstrating the impossibility of a nonempiric cause of all phenomena.16 Second, when empiric phenomena contradict established empiric notions, those notions must be adjusted to accommodate the phenomena unless the conditions under which the notions were derived have been suspended. That is, labeling a non-conforming phenomenon “anomalous” is This point addresses Hume’s argument that theologians err when deducing a philosophic cause from empiric observation, an orderly Creator from an orderly creation. But, of course, Hume does even worse and rules out an orderly cause by arbitrarily ruling out such a cause a priori.

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rationally deficient. It is more rationally defensible to allow for nonempiric causation than to accept as explanation the nonexplanation of anomalousness.

Finally, empiricism and nonempiricism are incommensurable. A miracle is, by definition, a suspension of ordinary occurrence and so, by definition, cannot be examined by ordinary methods. If Hume is correct that a philosophic first cause cannot be deduced from empiric data, then it is no less true that empiric data cannot rule out such a philosophic cause.

Empiricists escape these propositions by satisfying themselves with the “anomaly” label or by discounting the phenomenon altogether (Hume’s maxim). My friend’s doctor temporarily took the first escape. He concluded that the confirmation of carcinoma by established medical techniques was an anomaly in that one case.

Labeling, however, is an escape, not an explanation, a truth which the doctor finally acknowledged by becoming a Christian. Most readers of this paper will take the second escape. Such a response is at best lazy and irrational and, at worst, a deliberate polemical subterfuge betraying their own professed reliance on reason.

In light of these deficiencies, the Biblical assessments of empiric and nonempiric data are compelling. Peter, who claimed to have witnessed empirically both the transfigured and resurrected Christ, considered revealed Scripture the “more sure word of prophecy” (2 Peter 1:19). This was consistent with the observation that scientific conclusions undergo constant correction of error from two sources, incorrect perception of data and incorrect conclusions from data. (Then there is still the problem whether the corrections themselves are correct.)

The Nontautological Alternative to Rationalism and Empiricism Even though I acknowledged honestly that all proof is based upon “self-evident” maxims, that realization obviously did not lead necessarily to the conclusion that

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Scripture is true. It did, however, lead to the single, critical axiom that if such a thing as Truth exists, it must derive from a nonhuman source because of the tautological limitation of human thought. I, therefore, took the skeptical position and allowed for the possibility of nonmaterial reality and nonhuman intelligence and knowledge. This conclusion was consistent with Scripture that “wisdom is from above” (James 3:17).

Put another way, the God revealed in Scripture is the only escape from tautology. Most fail to comprehend the visceral significance of “Cogito ergo sum,” later revised to “Dubito ergo sum.”17 Of course, even that assertion, and its necessary derivations, are only acceptable if the proposition is itself self-evident. Only if you understand the limitations of that maxim can you understand why the God of Scripture is the only escape from tautology. We do not stand by reason alone, for “I am with you” (Matthew 28:20).

There is no “ergo” (“therefore”) with Jahweh – only “Sum” (“I am”) (Exodus 3:14).

Even though I have gone beyond traditional apologetics to what I call “presuppositional” apologetics, few nonbelieving readers will find my logic convincing. I remind them of my basic proposition. One will never be rationally convinced of any truth, supernatural or otherwise, if he is honest with himself about the limitations of his own rational capacity, and even those few who believe themselves convinced by my argument alone have still missed the point.

Traditional Arguments The basic premises just discussed cast traditional apologetic arguments in a different light.

17

I am.”

“I know, therefore, I am” was revised to “I doubt, therefore,

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Prophecy Considered by itself, the argument from prophecy is based on a tautological, “self-evident” proposition. That proposition is simply that if someone made hundreds of predictions and each was fulfilled with meticulous accuracy hundreds or thousands of years afterwards, then whoever made the predictions probably had connections with Whoever was really in charge of things. Thus, if fulfilled prophecy is not exactly what it claims to be, then it is either an anomaly of the law of probability or it is a devilishly clever fabrication.

Both I and unbelievers are logical, depending entirely upon our presuppositions. I conclude that I have the intellectually superior position because I am skeptical enough to allow for both natural and supernatural explanations. I do not have to deny evidence by ignoring it, by employing a double standard for evaluating it, or by engaging in far-fetched “interpretation” as “progressive” theologians feel compelled to do.

Patency Patency is also a self-evident proposition and argues that someone who “shows his cards” is more trustworthy than one who plays them “close to the vest.”

In applying this proposition, I concluded that Scripture was far more honest (and more perceptive) than its critics because it was very open about its presuppositions. It was from Scripture that I first realized the presuppositional nature of all thought. Scripture was patent enough to declare its tautology and perceptive enough to assert that there is only tautology apart from the Holy Spirit.18 In contrast, most human teachers and writers (other than the few Russells perceptive and honest enough to Hebrews 11:6 states, for example, “But without faith, it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

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admit their own dogmatism) were ignorant of or purposely obscured their unverifiable assumptions. I, therefore, found Scripture more trustworthy.

Uniqueness An especially convincing reason for accepting Scripture was the self-evident proposition that any thought which is Truth must be unique in some critical respect to all other thought which is non-Truth. Of all religions and philosophies, only Christianity provides justification by grace. Distinct from all other teachings, Christianity declares that human justness is a result, not a cause. Only Christianity provides a Savior.

Like Aina Russell, that fact saved me from despair. I was not predisposed with enough hubris to think my own efforts satisfactory, either for myself or for the rest of the race.

Summary Frankly, it is not my intent in this first section to convince anyone by reason alone that Scripture is true. The most I can hope for is that an honest reader will at least think about what I have said and honestly ask God for divine illumination.

The Consequences of Biblical Truth The Nature of Law and the Nature of God I have already discussed the idea that law is nothing more than acting upon one’s will; seeking to accomplish what one believes is its own self-benefit. If Scripture is true, this is neither surprising nor objectionable. God created all things “for his pleasure” (Rev 4:11). Humanity is created “in his image” (Gen 1:27).

In fact, God’s creation of beings capable of pleasure is wonderful. It has pleased God to endow his creatures with choice, each to determine for himself whether it pleases him

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most to obey or to disobey God. This leads us to consider the will of God as the second essence of law, or form.

The Will of God and the Ethical Basis of Law It is a bitter irony that jurists and legislators disavow the existence of any divine “ought,” yet appeal continually to some nonimmanent justification such as reason or justice. If there is only human authority, why does one need to justify anything? Neitzche and du Sade were among the few to think logically from such a presupposition. They were intensely evil (a conclusion only those with theistic presuppositions can logically make), but they were logical nonetheless.

The offensiveness of those thinkers is unrelated to whether I or they are right. I do not believe in God because such a belief is inoffensive, comforting or functional (as religious pragmatists such as William James might).

Without the ultimate sanction of an objective God, functionality is subjective anyway, and the du Sades by their nature will prevail because the safe inevitably yield to the daring.

Only God resolves such problems. God does not do good because it is good. Good is good because God does it.

It is our infinitely good fortune that God’s innate and indivisible character is benevolent. In God, the subjective and the objective, freedom and form, will and order are unified. There is no existential, impersonal standard of justice “out there.” When Christ declared, “There is none good but God” (Mark 10:18) and “I am . . . the truth” (John 14:6), he was declaring the unique Judeo-Christian proposition that goodness and truth are ultimately a person, not freestanding ideas. There is no freestanding “justice.” There is only “the Just One” (Acts 7:52).

Good, Righteousness and Human Nature The Scriptural concept of justice is simply “getting what one deserves.” Paul tells us that “the law is good” (Romans 7:16). That law prescribes the “just” desserts of certain

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actions, and justice is disastrous for humanity. It is rather by injustice, the death of the just God-man, that humanity has any hope. This is a theological discussion of justice, but these concepts have ramifications for jurisprudential considerations.

Paul makes a qualitative distinction between a good man and a righteous man (Romans 5:7). Human nature bears the image of God, and though that image is marred, many God-like characteristics remain, more so in some than in others.

By this we can understand why Christ condemned the ruler who had violated only one of six social commandments (Luke 18:18-23). The ruler undeniably reflected the image of God in many respects. Scripture makes a special note that Christ loved him (Mark 10:21). he was a good man in ordinary parlance, but he was still condemned because righteousness is not patching up the remnants of the divine image. “[A]ll our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

I have included the preceding discussion to prevent confusion of good and evil as we ordinarily use them as descriptions of the human spiritual condition. The two are related, of course, but not the same. This is a necessary distinction, because one’s view of law’s functions and capabilities are governed primarily by his view of human nature.19 In general, there are two working assumptions about human nature – one, that it is basically evil, and the other, that it is basically good. In nonreligious terminology, Thomas Sowell characterizes these views as the “constrained” and the “unconstrained.”20 In philosophical 19 This is the thesis of Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles (New York: William Morrow, 1986).

20 Thomas Sowell, “Visions and Social Policy,” Lecture at Marquette University, April 23, 1987. See also Sowell, A Conflict of Visions, 18.

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terms, the first view is “in the tradition of Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, and Thomas Hooker – the tradition, in other words, of ‘natural law’ rather than ‘natural rights’ a la Hobbes, Locke, and Rosseau.”21 Scripture clearly aligns with the “constrained” view of human nature. It does not conclude that all men are totally “evil” in the sense that evidence of the divine image remains.22 As a matter for calculation in human affairs, however, the working assumption of Scripture is that human nature is, in general, evil. Evil includes ignorance of God’s laws as well as conscious disobedience to them, despite the common notion that sincerity is virtue irrespective of truth. (To assume that the Lenins and Pol Pots of history were not acting in some respects for the ultimate good of humankind, a sincere and wonderful motive, is to completely misunderstand their ideologies.)

In this discussion, therefore, I use “evil nature” to mean that the incidence of goodness (not righteousness) and knowledge in humans is of such sparse and erratic frequency as to be an unworkable assumption upon which to base human relations. By “good nature,” I mean just the opposite.

As to jurisprudence, the first view (at least in the American experience) has no grand visions that social problems will ever be “solved” because human nature will be human nature, regardless of what social arrangements exist. Because power will inevitably be abused, this view seeks to limit the legal power one has over another and to diffuse concentrations of legal power. Humans are certainly capable of good, but the odds are much greater for the abuse of power than the wise and benevolent use of it. It is better to stifle some good, than to unleash greater evil.

The second view takes the opposite approach. Human nature is basically good or at least generally susceptible to

21 George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 164.

22 Psalm 116:11.

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substantial betterment. Evil results primarily from poor environment, that is, from defective social institutions. If the best and brightest among us are provided sufficient power to properly control those in need of improvement (or, less offensively, to properly arrange social environments by way of better education and the like), then those somewhat lacking in goodness and knowledge will achieve more fully their human potential for goodness and society’s problems will be greatly reduced or eradicated.

These two views have different goals for society. The goal of the first view is quite modest, even “fatalistic.” That view conceives of no more than cautious, laborious, uncertain progress, mindful that no culture in history has yet indefinitely avoided self-immolation by the vicious fires that burn within human nature. Whatever progress occurs is primarily the product of individual human betterment, a process generally beyond the reach of government to effect.

The second view is optimistic. Progress does depend upon human nature, but because that nature is basically good, or at least malleable, controlling social institutions by law will effect substantial social betterment. Social good is not primarily a matter of individual charity or missionary work or personal responsibility in a limited social orbit.

Rather, the only real hope for solutions lies in institutional change.

The first view sees the second begging for tyranny. The second sees the first as accepting a wretched status quo, and it has had the best of it in recent history. (Thomas Sowell once said, “Can you imagine a radical carrying a sign calling for ‘Prudence’?”)

Paradoxically, the second view in actuality often treats human beings as far more limited than even the first view for it presumes that the vast majority of the populace is incapable of taking care of itself without the wise, and necessarily powerful, oversight and management of the special few who are more wise and benevolent.

Obviously, Christ was concerned with the physical needs of people and interpersonal justice. This life is not

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unimportant, nor is it merely an ascetic proving ground.23 In fact, what is done in this life is vital to one’s happiness in the next.

Notwithstanding, the teaching of Scripture on human nature is more consistent with the constrained view of human nature. Christianity’s primary mission is spiritual, and the affairs of this life are not its antecedent or paramount concern. A good society is a beneficial byproduct of individual regeneration; it is not a first cause.

Scripture holds out hope of “final solutions” only in a future perfection after this life and in the personal return of Christ to this earth as absolute ruler.

Certainly the Catholic church and traditional Protestantism have long been concerned with the “catholic” mission of Christianity, that is, the social arrangements and benefits inherent in obedience to Scripture. Until recently, however, few “Christians” ever attempted the “immanentization” of heaven upon earth by strictly secular means.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have witnessed fundamental changes in outlook by many denominations.

“Christians” have engaged in social interpretations of Christ’s teaching,24 including perspectives such as the social gospel movement and liberation theology. In these interpretations of Christianity, the optimistic view of human nature is regnant.

23 That Christians are necessarily “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good” is simply not correct. For example, “It is not well known, but of 68 men on the original list of the Royal Society for whom information on their religious orientation is available, 42 were Puritans.”

Charles Dykes, “Guilt, Responsibility, and Western Prosperity,” The Freeman 28.4 (April 1978): 198.

24 C. Gregg Singer, A Theological Interpretation of American History (Darlington, UK: Evangelical Press, 1981), 142-222.

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Agencies for “Betterment� of Human Nature The Family In keeping with the pessimistic view of human nature, Scripture assigns parents, not government, the primary responsibility for controlling human nature and developing goodness (not righteousness). Historically, parents in America have exercised the virtually autocratic power necessary to direct human nature when it is somewhat malleable in infancy and youth. However, the optimistic view is impatient with the questionable results achieved by the family system of betterment. It recommends state control at earlier and earlier ages in the form of compulsory education, subsidized day care and so on. The pessimistic view fears the creeping despotism of the state in such measures, as the state plows under the institution of the family which, until now, it has been reluctant to invade.

I, of course, believe the family system of betterment is far superior. As a former elementary school principal, I have witnessed in concentration what every parent knows.

Children are wonderfully transparent creatures, capable of the purest kindnesses and the most devilish cruelties.

Absolutely no teacher is capable of adequately directing the moral betterment of thirty such persons.

The benefit of the family is that two parents are responsible for a limited number of children. Control can be more intense because it is numerically limited. The only family role models available are those older than the learners; thus children mimic those wiser and more selfcontrolled than they and not their peers.

If parents make mistakes in religion, education, discipline or philosophy, they damage only a few human beings. When the state makes such mistakes, it damages entire generations. (Convinced of the first view, I view with terror a thoroughly national system of education.)

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The church is the second Scriptural mediating institution. It is responsible for the spiritual and moral direction of individuals and, indirectly, of the culture. In keeping with the pessimistic view of human nature, it serves a function (among others) similar to the family in diffusing power from the state.25 In contrast to these views of the family and church, the optimistic view generally supports educationists who conceive of government schools as the new centers of socialization and value development.26 Divorced from the spiritual direction of the church, such an enterprise is a disaster. Moral betterment and the impartation of righteousness are inextricably intertwined. Once a child is grown, there is little other than a spiritual experience imparting righteousness that will change his nature.

Strictly moral reform does happen, but even that is a voluntary, “spiritual” decision.

Government The third Biblical institution is government. Because Christ’s kingdom was “not of this world,” the Old Testament theocracy had a more detailed description of government 25 “As Hannah Arendt has demonstrated in her classic work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, one of the basic features of totalitarianism is the abolition of all the intermediate structures and institutions within society – the church, labor unions, social clubs, fraternal associations, independent schools, even family solidarity. Its goal in so doing, conscious or not, is the creation of an ‘atomistic mass,’ it is every man for himself and every woman for herself. Individual ties, personal loyalties, friendship, ties of blood, business and religious associations and the like fade into insignificance. The individual exists in only one important relation, to the state power.” Harold O. J. Brown, The Reconstruction of the Republic (New York: Arlington House, 1977), 49-50.

26 See Rousas J. Rushdooney, The Messianic Character of American Education (Nutley, NJ: Craig, 1972).

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than New Testament teachings. The civil functions of the theocratic priesthood were limited to little more than civil cases, criminal justice, military leadership and strictly proscribed taxation. The law contained numerous welfare provisions, but there was no civil enforcement of most.

Social obligations were matters of personal responsibility.

God gave severe warnings about the economic and civil repression that would result if the people chose to look to a powerful state for provision rather than to God and obedience to his law (Deut 17:14-20; 1 Sam 8:11-18).

Though adoption of Old Testament theocracy is obviously not required for modern nations, the basic institutions and their functions can hardly be ignored.

Under that system, government possessed a didactic function in just administration of civil and criminal law.

Beyond that, however, family and religious institutions held complete responsibility for moral betterment.

Aberration: The Improvement of Human Nature by Law The Morality Maxims For most of this century, two absurdly contradictory maxims of government have been regnant: (1) that government’s duties are to promote “the greatest good for the greatest number” and (2) that although government thus seeks the general welfare, it cannot and ought not “impose morality.” These maxims have been so ingrained that many legislators simply act upon them intuitively, without considering their inherent contradictions and the problems such contradictions produce.

“The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number” “The greatest good for the greatest number” is a ratio of superlatives, the equivalent of a race the object of which is to run the farthest distance in the longest time. This maxim is on the wane but, unfortunately, for reasons other than illogic.

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Most legislators are possessed of the notion that, when one is elected legislator, he is individually capable of doing more good than before. Not so. The very police, taxation and spending powers which augment the legislator’s ability to do good as he sees it concomitantly reduce the private citizen’s ability to do good as he sees it. Every dollar taken by a legislator from a citizen reduces correspondingly that citizen’s capability to do good.27 The illogic of the “greatest for the greatest” maxim leads to the opposite of what its adherents profess. Many a legislator seems incapable of disabusing himself of the notion that, once elected, his capacity for good is somehow greater than as a private citizen. He seems incapable of comprehending that he is merely using the law to prevent others from carrying out their ideas of “good.” Backed by force, he now compels them to carry out his idea of what is good.

“Government Cannot Impose Morality” The proscription against “moral imposition” is thoroughly hypocritical, though perhaps not consciously so.

Government is a moral enterprise by nature, permitting or demanding some behaviors and proscribing others. The question is not “whether” morality, but “whose” morality.

For example, since Prohibition, everyone “knows” that government cannot impose morality, but this is only a recognition of my thesis as to law. The failure of Prohibition merely showed that a significant number of persons were not inclined to obey it. Government could have made For example, Tip O’Neill for years used his position of power to ensure that his district received a per capita return of federal tax dollars higher than that of any other district in the nation. Yet during that time he consistently declaimed as a moral conscience on behalf of the poor that government did not do enough for the people. Whatever else one may conclude from this, it seems likely that other representatives and their districts defined the public good in different terms than O’Neill and his district.

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America practically dry had it chosen to be draconian enough to do so.

There are other examples. Government routinely enforces moralisms respecting murder, incest, social duty (through redistributive taxation and spending), gambling and even traffic regulation. The “success” of any law is relative, and these laws “succeed” because relatively more people are disposed to obey them.

Put another way, a legislature cannot provide any amount of good for any number without first making a moral decision as to what that good will be. There is no such thing as political “good” ex nihilo. Rather, those in control of the engines of state inevitably use them to carry out their own conceptions of good as they see it.

In summary, though the “morality maxims” seem to be declining in popularity, their basic notions remain.

Weaknesses of majoritarianism have been exposed, but there is still little recognition or attendant caution that government, by its nature, imposes the morality of those controlling it.

Still, as bad as those notions were, they at least implicitly recognized that the state cannot provide good for all. As history grinds on, many seem to have lost even that link with reality and are somehow convinced that government can (and should) provide the “greatest good for the entire number,” all without making anyone live by a personal moral code with which he disagrees, of course.

Deification of the State The “optimistic” vision of human nature and law conceives the building of an earthly heaven in which social problems shall be “solved.” Those of the pessimistic view realize that problems are not external; poverty, ignorance and war are results of human nature, not its causes. They look for final solutions in a future life and rule by God. The optimistic view is impatient with such a bleak (and humbling) vision. A change of institutions will work a reallocation of wealth and power. Such a reallocation is just

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because each one has a right to fullness as a human being and thus to the resources necessary to achieve that fullness. Those resources, of course, are not created by government. They are first taken from private citizens by the moral authorities in control of governmental power.

The problem of the second view is not only that it considers environment the primary determinant of human nature, but also that it misemphasizes the crucial components of that environment. Poverty is not primarily a material condition, but a spiritual one. It has very little to do with the amount of money one has in his pocket. If government, family, church and school combine to teach a child that he is a helpless victim of circumstance, he will ordinarily learn to think that way; the theory becomes selffulfilling. But if his environment, his “teachers,” convince him that he possesses a free will and bears responsibility for the choices he makes, he will think quite differently. He is no longer a “poor” person.

One of the great differences between ancient paganism and early Christianity was in their varying concepts of responsibility. Responsibility has generally been defined as “the human sense of answerableness for all acts of thought and conduct.” The pagan, however, located responsibility primarily in his environment – e.g., fate, the stars, the gods, and the like, whereas Christian faith insisted on individual moral responsibility.

Orthodox Christianity was not then nor is it now concerned with the pointless questions about heredity, environment, the stars, or any other like search for a cause. Rather, Christians perceived that “the pagan search for causes is a denial of the person and also of responsibility.”28

God has planned that humanity should trust him for things ranging from the simplest provision of daily bread to the mysterious regeneration of human nature. I do not purport to find any bright lines in Scripture where 28

Dykes, 195.

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dependence upon God and personal responsibility leaves off and dependence upon the state and environment begins. I observe only that as a culture ceases to look to God and his prescriptions for such needs and turns instead to an omnicompetent state, that state must necessarily assume the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of a god in order to meet the demands of its worshipers. Unlike God, however, the state is neither all loving nor all wise.

The Fruits of the Vision Believing the Scriptures, I am not surprised at the trends I observe. Solzhenytzin once observed that atheism and materialism are two roads to the same destination. A materialistic society lives by bread alone. And when the state controls the bread – even (and perhaps especially) in the cause of human good and redistributive “justice” – then the state controls society.

The anti-Christ will not come first as a demon to tyrannize and subvert the world. He will come as a savior to ensure a truly just distribution of the necessities of life. To accomplish such a feat, however, he will need control so extensive that, without his approval, “no man [may] buy or sell” (Rev 13:17).

Because the family and church have failed to produce human nature measuring up to optimistic visions, the state continues assuming greater responsibility for and control of behavior. The rehabilitative model of penology, for example, is premised upon the assumption that law has the capacity to remake human personality. Divorced from a Christian view of human nature, that approach has fostered practices which, if perpetrated in other countries, would be considered torture.29 Such an approach does not remake human nature; it obliterates it.

29 See Lee Coleman, The Reign of Error: Psychiatry, Authority and Law (Boston: Beacon, 1984), 196-215. The author is a psychiatrist. The cited portion contains a few of the plain

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As another example, Communist ideology was the most optimistic philosophy in the history of the world. It was primarily a religious vision which taught that the forces of history had selected the socialist state to ready human nature for the perfect, stateless society. Because human nature was monistic, it could be recreated by changing physical environment and social institutions – the effete city life of Phnom Phen for the purifying life of the countryside, for example. To obtain obedience necessary for such a task, terror was a legitimate mediating factor which helped persons calculate values correctly. It was justifiable in light of such a great goal.

I am not so provincial as to think that Americans are fundamentally different or more congenial than Russians or Cambodians. The powerless already suffer the inability to insulate themselves against social institutions. I see no benefit in creating ever more powerful governmental agencies which drag everyone else into the morass of powerlessness against the state, the equality of the pit, all in the name of delivering them from inequality, of course.

Conclusion My conclusions are modest. Law individually is what I like and have freedom to do. Law collectively is what is liked by the persons with capability to make others think that the wishes of the first are the most desirable or the least offensive possible actions. God has permitted choices. Law ought to be conformity to those choices he approves. Law eventually will be that.

As to this life, there is no such thing as a “final solution.” There is only a possibility that evil may be controlled to some extent and the image of God not overly discouraged. This existence is not nothing, but neither is it everything. Happiness is subjective, and the state embarks

barbarous practices endured by prisoners in the name of “rehabilitation.”

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upon a fateful course when it attempts to ensure happiness for each citizen in this life.

There are divine orders which a society cannot long violate. The family is responsible for the character and education of children. The family and church are responsible for the spiritual and ethical direction of the people and the state.

The state is responsible for the physical protection of citizens and for settling interpersonal disputes in accordance with God’s standards to the extent they are knowable. Law’s responsibility includes criminal justice, but even that is primarily a matter of the criminal’s responsibility to a fellow creature. Crime is not a violation of the “king’s” peace in the first instance; it is a matter between the criminal and his victim.

Conceptions of law are based upon views of human nature. Of course, “If men were angels, we should need no government.” But one ought not confuse a just society with a good one. This does not belittle justice. It recognizes instead that the less good the individuals are in the society, the greater the demands upon justice.

In a good society, the requirements of the justice system are relatively simple. As the society departs from godliness, however, the requirements of justice become complex to the point of impenetrability.

If one husband deserts his family, there is little difficulty. If a thousand do, a good choice is more and more difficult. If only one landlord defrauds a widow, there is little difficulty. If a thousand do, a good choice is more and more obscure. The greater the degree of evil, the less competent the law is to deal with it. In one sense, God has no “Plan B.” “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3) It is simple moral rules that make a good society, not elaborate juristic principles. When enough individuals refuse the simple commandment “Love thy neighbor,” it is time to leave the country no matter what the judge does.

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Sorting out rights among the wicked will turn Professor Dworkin’s Judge Hercules into Judge Sysiphus.

Jurist William Gass once counseled to avoid arcane jurisprudential hypotheticals and to stick to “clear cases.”

His “clear case” posited a person murdering, then baking and eating a perfect stranger – something Gass thought no one could dispute as merited illegality. Gass lived during a time before Europe’s most cultured and educated people began making lamp shades out of human skin. Nevertheless, he should still have been aware of practices such as ritual cannibalism and suttee, the Hindu custom by which wives are immolated on the funeral pyres of their husbands. I cite these unpleasantries only to remind the Gass’s of the world that without some authoritative standard, eventually nothing is clear.

Gass was right in at least one respect. There is no ultimate linguistic formula for justice or truth; there is ultimately a Person who is not the sum of whatever logical propositions and descriptions may be written about him. No verbal formula will provide a right, best, or even good solution in all cases.30 Christ revealed as much in his answers to the skeptic.

Asked to define “love” and “neighbor,” he did not do so.

Rather, he told the story of the Good Samaritan. Though precise definitions of the terms were impossible, the Pharisee knew exactly what Christ meant because he had the image of God imprinted on his conscience. The Samaritan was a “clear case,” irrespective of the inability to linguistically define “good.”

In this sense, Christianity supplies the answer which the Greeks lacked. They had no ultimate, real personalization of the great virtues. God does not define those virtues; he is them.

Zeno’s paradox, for example, is at bottom the inability of mathematic linguistics to completely describe the nexus of time and space. Language is likewise incapable of ultimately defining justice, much less exhaustively applying it.

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The Samaritan is a good place to stop. The Pharisee and the Levite passed by on the other side to avoid ritual defilement, all in keeping with the verbal formula of the law God himself had delivered. The Samaritan understood the spirit of the law, the character of God of which the letter is only a finite description. We cannot discount written Scripture, of course, for God works through reason, not apart from it, but comprehending truth about God is ultimately impossible by reason alone.

This article is about jurisprudence. The jurisprudential rule of the Samaritan is that he was not particularly concerned about justice. He had no legal duty to help and had every right to pass by as did the others, but he was not concerned with legality. Above all, he did not send a taxsupported proxy to help. Instead, he personally and voluntarily got his own hands bloody and paid out his own money to help one to whom he had no duty. (When the state forces a citizen to be compassionate or benevolent, it robs him of his choice to do good and thus of his morality, because choice is an indispensable essence of a moral act.31) I realize that my conclusions need qualification. Proper qualification is endless, so I will end with three simple maxims.

1. The Pharisee and the Levite were both just men. I would rather live next to the Samaritan.

2. Society will cease to function when there are more thieves than Samaritans on the road to Jericho, and then it will matter very little what the Pharisee and the Levite do.

31 Politician’s claims of “moral” and “compassionate” social welfare legislation are ignorant and arrogant. Compassion is giving away one’s own money, not someone else’s. And forcing a citizen to be compassionate through taxation robs the citizen of the free choice whether to help.

Thus, government social policy may be a necessary evil.

Perhaps it may even be wise political management. But it absolutely cannot be either moral or compassionate.

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MBTJ 4/1: 69-85

The Image of God in the Developmentally Disabled David M. Anderson, Jr.1 The current culture of America is pushing for toleration of all kinds. On the religious scene, pluralism has become the accepted norm. In the classroom, absolutism is a forgotten bygone. Ethically, many believers are being coerced into accepting propositions which do not fit with their biblical understanding. Sadly, this toleration agenda in today’s world has had a profound effect in the medical world; specifically in the sector of bioethics. The vehicle of abortion is being driven by innumerable sources of misinterpretation and misrepresentation of Biblical and even scientific truth. Euthanasia has become a popular topic as scientists and doctors have endeavored to define what it means to live from a God-less perspective. The list could go on, but the bottom line is this: without the authority of God’s word, man is left to his self-centered and sinful reasoning and logic to determine what is right in these sensitive areas.

This horrific moral scene has only added to the confusion and complexity of society’s interaction with the intellectually and developmentally disabled. A recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed the increasing number of developmental disabilities present

1 David Anderson was a senior at Maranatha Baptist University when he wrote this article. Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal usually publishes one article each year written by a college student in the Department of Bible and Church Ministries.

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in children between the ages of three and seventeen years old.2 Another study by the Census Bureau indicated a 200 billion dollar budget for discretionary spending on those with disabilities, and a 357 billion dollar budget to provide work for those who are of working age but are limited by severe disabilities.3 So far, it seems this country is doing what it can to meet the needs of this growing disabled community. With the present redefining of terms, however, this group of people is endangered by any interpretation of personhood contrary to Scripture.

Therefore, it is indeed necessary to flesh out the doctrine of man and his relationship to the image of God. Only on these grounds will believers understand how they ought to interact and care for the disabled and the outcasts of society. The Bible’s teaching of God’s creation of man in His own image has direct implications for the value and treatment of the disabled. Through the development of a biblical theology of this doctrine, the examination of various perspectives on the value of life, and appropriate synthesis of the two, this article will seek to demonstrate the Godgiven value of intellectually and developmentally disabled people and the proper response elicited by such truth.

Though one must be careful not to overanalyze statistics for developmental disabilities, as it is such a broad brush label, the statistics nevertheless present a consistent rise in such cases.

C.A. Boyle, S. Boulet, L. Schieve, R.A. Cohen, S.J. Blumberg, M. Yeargin-Allsopp, S. Visser, and M.D. Kogan, “Trends in the Prevalence of Developmental Disabilities in US Children, 1997– 2008,” Pediatrics (2011). http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsdev_ disabilities.

3 Matthew W. Brault, “Americans With Disabilities: 2010,” Current Population Reports (Washington DC: U.S Census Bureau, 2012), 70-131. http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p70131.pdf.

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A Biblical Theology of the Image of God in Man In order to build a thorough biblical theology of this controversial issue, it is necessary to examine all the various passages in Scripture pertaining to it. There are only a few passages that speak directly of the image of God in man. Thus, they will be given brief but adequate treatment.

Genesis 1:26-27 It could certainly be argued that this passage is the cornerstone upon which the doctrine of the image of God in man is built. The context is the sixth day of creation. God has just created all the animals and now comes to the peak of this creation week, as he creates that which will have dominion over all the rest of His creation.

Scholars debate whether the terms for “image” and “likeness” refer to the same thing or to a dual aspect of the image of God. Many have claimed that “image” must refer to the concrete and absolute image, whereas “likeness” simply hints at a reflection of who God is. These would say the concrete part of God’s image or the “material image” was only in man until the fall, at which point it was lost.

Because the reflection of God’s image or the “formal image” is unchangeable and cannot be affected by sin, they would claim this portion remains in man.4 However, as one looks critically at the text, it should be noted that “image” and “likeness” here are acting as synonyms describing one fact from two angles. If one assumes a duality by these terms, then it must logically infer that God has a body, for man could not be an exact copy of a bodiless figure.5 Hence, it seems more logical to

4 Charles Lee Feinberg, “The Image of God,” Bibliotheca Sacra 129.515 (July 1972): 243.

5 T. Cabal, “Are the Days of Genesis to Be Interpreted Literally?” in C. O. Brand, E. R. Clendenen, P. Copan, and J. P.

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take a singular approach to these two terms. Gordon Clark further explains this reasoning as he writes, “God created man after his image and likeness. This image cannot be man’s body for two reasons. First, God is spirit or mind and has no body. Hence a body would not be an image of him.

Second, animals have bodies, yet they are not created in God’s image.”6 It seems the correct interpretation of these two terms is to take them as synonyms referring to the same thing.

This passage is also important for the understanding of man’s relation to the rest of God’s creation. Ken Gardoski explains, “The Bible teaches that God made man in his own image, according to his own likeness. This sets man apart from the other forms of life that God created. God has crowned man with glory and majesty and has made him to rule over the rest of God’s creation.”7 It is important to understand from Genesis 1 that man has been given something that makes him the highest of all God’s creation: the image of God. Genesis 5:1 Not much debate has gone on concerning this passage, because it is a basic reiteration of Genesis 1:27. The only point worth noting here is that this statement of Adam being created in the likeness and image of God is the prelude to the listing of the generations which followed Adam. Could it be that Moses, as the Holy Spirit directed him, thought it important to reemphasize this peculiar trait of Adam’s race before recording all who then made up this race? One cannot be conclusive regarding Moses’ intentions, but that point is certainly worth consideration.

Moreland, ed., The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (Nashville: Holman, 2007), 5.

6 Gordon H. Clark, “The Image of God in Man,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 12.4 (Fall 1969): 216.

7 Ken Gardoski, “Right to Life, Right to Death,” Journal of Ministry and Theology 15.2 (Fall 2011): 60.

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Genesis 9:6 If the Genesis 1 passage is the cornerstone upon which this doctrine is built, then this passage might very well be the corner stud. Noah and his family have just recently exited the ark after the great flood. Having smelled the aroma of Noah’s worshipful sacrifice, God is now making a new covenant with him and his family. As he is outlining this covenant, he lays out ordinances by which Noah and his sons will govern the earth that they are about to replenish. Amid these ordinances, God tells Noah that murder shall not be permitted. The basis for this ordinance is that mankind bears the image of his Creator.

Gadorski explains the importance of this passage as he reasons through it: Because God created man in his own image, God highly values human life. God defends man’s right to life against those who would threaten it or take it away. In Genesis 4:10-12 God cursed Cain for murdering his brother Abel (although he spared Cain’s life). However, after the flood in Genesis 9:5-6 God demands the life of anyone who takes the life of another human being: “Surely I will require your lifeblood . . . from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed.” The reason God gives for requiring the life of the one who takes life is this: “For in the image of God He made man.”

Thus in Scripture man’s right to life (not to mention the right of government to carry out capital punishment) is based on man’s bearing the very image of God his Creator.8

This teaching is quite valuable as one begins to develop an apologetic for the sanctity of life issues that are faced in today’s culture.

8

Gardoski, 61.

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This passage is highly controversial, but the image of God is not so much the point of dispute here. Paul is teaching the Corinthian believers about the importance and necessity of role distinction between men and women and fleshing out his teaching in the context of the local church.

His reference here to the image of God in man is really just drawing the Corinthians’ attention back to the created order. So in that sense, it does not add much to the discussion of what the image of God in man actually is.

Nevertheless, Paul’s teaching does highlight the fact that man was made in God’s image so he could glorify God supremely.

According to Genesis, both Adam and Even were created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). What then did Paul mean by saying that man is the image . . . of God in contrast with woman? He probably meant that Adam held a special status (glory) as God’s image because he was created first. God made Adam directly from the dust, but he made Eve from Adam’s body. This gave Adam and his male descendants a unique role on earth that could not be held in the same way by women (cf. 1 Tim. 2:12– 13).

This perspective seems even more likely because Paul not only described man as the image of God, but also as the glory of God. Adam was not designed for his own glory, but for God’s. Before making Eve, God placed Adam in the garden of God and commissioned him to work the land in his service (Gen. 2:15). In this sense, therefore, the male descendants of Adam have a more direct responsibility to serve God in the fulfillment of his creation mandate.9

9 Richard L. Pratt, Jr., I & II Corinthians, Holman New Testament Commentary 7 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000), 184.

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It is not the intent of this article to highlight the different roles of men and women in the church, but from this passage to point out that man was created in God’s image primarily to give God glory.

Colossians 3:10 In this section of Colossians, Paul is differentiating between the old man and the new man. He introduces a crucial “twist” to the understanding of the image of God in this passage. He writes that man is being “renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”

The question at hand then is this: how can man’s image of God be renewed in knowledge? Gordon Clark offers an explanation: The reason theologians have asserted a duality of the image, rather than the unity of the image and the plurality of its activities, the reason also that Paul indicates some sort of duality by mentioning righteousness in Ephesians 4:24 and knowledge in Colossians 3:10 is the occurrence of sin. Since Adam remained Adam after the fall, it looks as if some “part” of the image survived; but since also Adam lost his original innocence and Cain committed murder, was not some “part” of the image lost? Man did not lose dominion over the animals; he also retained some other items; but in comparison with his changed relation to God, animals are of minor importance and the other items require little discussion. Sin, on the other hand, and its effects are of such great importance and require such frequent mention that a duality in the image, one half of which is lost, appears as a natural interpretation. Such an ontological separation of two parts has seemed to many theologians the best method of maintaining both of two truths: that man after the fall is still man, and that sin is far from trivial or superficial.10

10

Clark, 216-217.

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Clark makes a valid point that must be understood regarding the image of God in man. Part of the image of God in man was certainly lost in the fall, but not all of it. So, all of mankind is still in the image of God, but the image has been marred. That is why Paul clearly teaches that the image of God is something that is also renewed in man as he has come into a regenerated relationship with God and is sanctified by him. Thus the image of God in man is not entirely static, but rather a fluid development toward that end.11 James 3:9 James adds yet another important aspect to the doctrine of the image of God in man. In the beginning of chapter three, James presents pointed teaching about the believer’s use of his tongue. This passage is particularly noteworthy because unlike the rest of the New Testament passages with similar language, it does not reference Christ while discussing the image of God. Furthermore, an important clarification can be made here by James’ acknowledgment of all mankind. He does not teach that it is wrong to curse believers who are made in God’s image; rather he teaches the sinfulness of cursing any member of the human race because all are made in the likeness of their Creator. This strongly combats any idea that the image of God is limited to regenerate persons.

Kurt Richardson appropriately elaborates on the teaching of James as he writes, “Clearly, James taught that the original stamp of the likeness of God in the human creature is still present. . . . The human being was made for God, fashioned to know God and to reflect the attributes of God in a creaturely way. To dishonor any human being in

11 Marc Cortez, “The Image of God: 6 Things We Can All Agree On,” http://marccortez.com/2012/07/16/the-image-of-god-6things-we-can-all-agree-on/. Accessed 21 November 2013.

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some way dishonors God.”12 Thus one can safely conclude that God’s image is in no way reserved only for the elect.

Summary It is necessary now to summarize the doctrine of the image of God as it has been discussed thus far. James Bing offers a starting point from a simply logical perspective as he says in one of his sermons, “One thing is sure. At the beginning of creation God did not intend for man to be cruel, criminal, and evil. The very fact that we have the word ‘inhuman,’ meaning animalistic in our vocabulary, implies that the act of being human is an ideal state.” He continues, “And we also have the word ‘humane’ which means ‘civilized,’ and ‘humanitarian,’ which suggest kindness and being helpful to others. The very existence and use of these terms is an indication of our potential worth (emphasis his).”13 The assertions of Scripture must be given more weight than linguistic logic, however. A few claims can be made from the previous examination of Scripture. First, man was created in the image of God, after his likeness. Second, all humanity is unified in the bearing of God’s image - none are exempt. This is clarified in the Traducian teaching of Adam’s relationship to the human race; because the breath of life was only once breathed into man’s nostrils, it can be said that God has ceased from his creative work. Thus, it can be inferred that what was given to Adam in creation has been passed to all men. Third, this image of God was marred in the fall. Following the view of Adam’s natural headship, the image of God was marred in Adam’s sin. Just as the sin nature was passed from Adam to all men, so the Kurt A. Richardson, James, The New American Commentary 36 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997), 157-158.

13 James Bing, “In the Image of God,” http://sermons. logos.com/submissions/106674#content=/submissions/106674.

Accessed 19 November 2013.

12

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marred image was passed. Fourth, this stamp of God’s image confers value and dignity upon all mankind. These four truths are obviously not all that is to be gleaned from these passages, but they form a solid foundation upon which the rest of this article can build.

Now that a biblical theology of the image of God in man has been built, it is necessary to unpack the truth and flesh it out practically. One of the most basic – and admittedly most broad – questions asked on this topic is this: what is the image of God? Several scholars have made attempts to capture the teachings of Scripture and present them logically in explanation. Others have tried to redefine personhood so as to undermine the image of God in man.

Although it will not be possible to touch on all of the various perspectives, it will be helpful to examine at least a few Christian and secular perspectives.

Perspectives on the Image of God Gordon Clark argues that the image of God in man must be reason. He claims that if it were anything more, total depravity and the image of God could not both be encapsulated in man. In other words, mankind can be in the image of God and sin at the same time because sin presupposes rationality and voluntary decision. Animals, then, cannot sin. “Sin therefore requires God’s image because man is responsible for his sins. If there were no responsibility, there could be nothing properly called sin.”14 To this point, some would claim that if one acknowledges that he is dead in sin, then he must affirm either that the image has been lost altogether or that the image has multiple parts. Clark responds with a solution to this paradox by asserting that the image of God is reason.

He bases this assertion on the fact that Christ is the image of God and the wisdom of God (Hebrew 1:3) and on the fact that Adam was given dominion over nature - suggesting 14

Clark, 217.

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that his rationality is what set him apart from the animal kingdom. Therefore, according to Clark, this is how sin and the image of God interact: sin interferes with man’s thinking, but does not prevent man from thinking (e.g.

Adam thinking incorrectly in the Garden of Eden with regard to the fruit). Further proof of this fact is that in regeneration and sanctification the man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

Feinberg recaps some of the ideas of other scholars in his article, “The Image of God.” He summarizes Keil and Delitzsch as finding the image of God in the spiritual or self-conscious personality of man. He also explains Chafer’s thinking, which seems to be in agreement that in light of God’s spirit form, the likeness of man to God must be limited to the immaterial part of man. Feinberg then quotes Calvin’s supporting statement, “there is no doubt that the proper seat of his image is in the soul.”15 All of these men seem to agree in dismissing the possibility of man bearing God’s image bodily. On the other hand, Feinberg accused the Lutherans of having believed historically that the image of God in man was lost completely in the fall.16 Perspectives on Personhood Two differing positions regarding personhood have been developed in more recent times as the culture has called for positions alternative to those of Scripture. Joseph Fletcher has been a leading proponent and writer for the functionalist perspective. He wrote two foundational articles in 1972 and 1974. In his first article, Fletcher produced a list of fifteen positive and five negative criteria for

15 16

Feinberg, 241.

Feinberg, 245.

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determining the personhood of any individual.17 Ware writes about Fletcher’s first article: A pattern is evident throughout Fletcher’s discussion. He proposes some characteristic of fullyformed human life and suggests a minimal level of its expression as necessary for human personhood. What he never suggests, however, is any rational basis by which he determines which characteristics become criteria or what guides his judgment of the minimal levels necessary for personhood to be properly grounded. One is left to wonder from where this list of fifteen positive and five negative criteria arose. 18

In his second article, Fletcher narrowed personhood to four traits. One of these traits proved to be the foundational trait to his whole paradigm: neocortical function. “Only this trait or capability is necessary to all of the other traits which go into the fullness of humanness. Therefore this indicator, neocortical function, is the first-order requirement and the key to the definition of a human being.”19 In other words, the mind or thinking is essential to every other human capacity, according to Fletcher, because of their universality. Ware responded to Fletcher’s assertion by reminding the reader that Fletcher would have to exclude cases like the human embryo and patients in a persistent vegetative state to claim universality.20 Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer developed a similar study pertaining to abortion in which they criticized Fletcher of overlapping personhood with humanhood. They set about to redefine the criteria and came to a conclusion which, according to Ware, confers the moral rights of personhood Bruce A. Ware, “Human Personhood: An Analysis and Definition,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 13.2 (Summer 2009): 19.

18 Ware, 19.

19 Ware, 19.

20 Ware, 20.

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upon many in the animal kingdom while denying these rights to unborn babies, newborns, and many other humans.21 In opposition to the functionalist view is that of the essentialists. This group argues that an individual’s personhood is not anchored in his variable functional capabilities but rather in his essence, as a rational, volitional, spiritual, and personal being. “The point here is not that these qualities necessarily find expression by the individual but that one possesses a nature whose natural kind is, in fact, personal.”22 Ware also recaps the ideas presented by essentialist, Agneta Sutton: Sutton argues that because of the variableness of actual functionings, one can never properly define personhood in Lockean (functionalist) fashion. The Boethian approach takes priority because it focuses on the nature of the individual in question, regardless of whether or not certain functions may be presently manifest. That is, because functions flow out of nature, not the reverse, it makes sense to define personhood on what has priority, namely, one’s intrinsic nature. 23

Sutton firmly contends that actual manifestations of functional capabilities cannot be the determinate factor for personhood. Otherwise, infants, comatose individuals, and perhaps even sleeping individuals would be precluded from personhood. For Sutton, nature is foundational to functional capability expression. “If the nature is present, the individual is a person; manifestation of the functional capabilities of that nature is a relative matter in which some may express more or less, or higher or lower functioning than others. But possession of the nature itself

21 22 23

Ware, 21.

Ware, 21.

Ware, 23.

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is not relative, but absolute; either one has such a nature or one does not.�24 So who is right? Is personhood determined by the exhibition of characteristics declared by society to be that which comprises humanness? Or, is personhood found simply in the essence of personality? The functionalistic approach suffers from its subjectivity. Ware points out, interestingly enough, that the criterion set forth for what determines personhood is basically a mirror image of those defining the criterion. “It is rational, self-conscious, selfdirected, volitional, relational individuals who propose rationality, self-consciousness, self-directedness, volitionality, and relationality as criteria for personhood. In short, individuals like me (in ways I specify) are persons; those unlike me (according to the characteristics I have selected as significant) are not.�25 There is no absolute ground upon which to build the criteria; and this is evidenced by the fact that functionalists cannot agree on which criteria to accept.

However, many theologians have been accused of adopting a functionalist mindset pertaining to the image of God in man. Some of the same characteristics that were adopted by functionalists as fundamental to personhood were used by theologians as such for the image of God in man.

This tension is eloquently resolved by Ware toward the end of his discussion: The only satisfying resolution to this quandary, I believe, is by establishing, as the essentialist model does, the priority of essence over function. More simply, who we are is more basic to our identity than what we do.

This is true both because what we do may vary greatly (i.e., we may grow and develop in certain ways while diminishing or ceasing to function in others) and because the things that we do are always, as Saucy puts

24 25

Ware, 24.

Ware, 26.

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it, “grounded in and are the expression of the ontological being of human person.”26

Thus, the essentialist model seems to be much more in line with a biblical understanding of the image of God in man resulting in personhood.

Summary Having established a foundational biblical theology concerning the image of God in man and having examined some of the more popular perspectives on personhood, it is now fitting to relate this information to the intellectually and developmentally impaired. To start, it is necessary to establish a working definition of the image of God in man.

Feinberg has written it well: The image of God constitutes all that differentiates man from the lower creation. It does not refer to corporeality or immortality. It has in mind the will, freedom of choice, self-consciousness, self-transcendence, self-determination, rationality, morality, and spirituality of man. The ability to know and love God must stand forth prominently in any attempt to ascertain precisely what the image of God is. 27

This definition encompasses what it means to be in the image of God, without limiting it to strictly functional characteristics.28 Ware, 28.

Feinberg, 246.

28 To the statement, “to know and love God is part of what it means to be in the image of God,” some might object that intellectually impaired individuals do not have this ability. They might not be able to express this ability in a way that the intellectually developed would recognize, but they are still given the same nature as the rest of the human race. Just as infants cannot state their knowledge of and love for God, so the impaired will certainly struggle to do the same. Disabilities, like many other 26 27

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Tragically, the current culture of the world is moving rapidly away from the value of human life. Lutheran Services in America, a disability network, explains the situation in their company statement: “People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are among the most underrepresented citizens in the United States.

Because of their disabilities, they are generally less able to advocate for themselves.”29 But this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The statement continues: The continuance of the current system of care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is very much in jeopardy as our society grapples with the challenges of long term care, rising national debt, the desire to reform Medicare and Medicaid, an aging population, and efforts to provide universal health care for all citizens. . . . [R]ecent health care reform proposals have also raised ethical and economic concerns regarding the distribution of resources based on the relative value of humans to society, examining the cost to support them in relation to their economic contributions to society.30

Alarming, but with the current economic and ethical culture of this nation, the days of these disabled seem to be numbered. Recently, there have even been scientific developments in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. This is infirmities including death, are a result of living in a fallen world.

Hence, individuals who suffer from lack of development have not lost the image of God, for the same reason that one who is suffering illness has not. Therefore, one should trust God concerning the soul of the intellectually and developmentally impaired in a similar fashion as he trusts God in the death of a young child.

29 Lutheran Services in America, “A Statement Regarding People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities,” http://bethesdalutherancommunities.org/document.doc?id=40, 1. Accessed 20 November 2013.

30 Lutheran Services, 1.

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being pushed in the UK in an effort to eliminate not only the embryos that contain a gene predisposed to cancer, but also those embryos that contain a predisposition to disabilities and developmental impairment.31 For the believer, it may seem he is fighting an uphill battle in this arena. Nevertheless, the proper treatment of the intellectually and developmentally disabled is necessitated by the doctrine of the image of God in man. The theology built in this paper could be used in various ethical arenas, but it has been the express purpose of this article to call the believer’s attention to a biblical view of the impaired. To treat these individuals with any less love because of their impairment is similar to the one in James 3 who blesses God with the same mouth that he curses his neighbor. Based on the biblical theology of the image of God in man and in response to both right and wrong perspectives on the personhood of the disabled, believers must resolve to act in love toward these dear people – for they, too, bear the image of Almighty God.

31 Andrew Fergusson, “The One Who Smiles A Lot,” http: //cbhd.org/content/one-who-smiles-lot. Accessed 21 November 2013.

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MBTJ 4/1: 87-95

Book Reviews David Beale, Historical Theology In-Depth: Themes and Contexts of Doctrinal Development since the First Century, 2 volumes (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 2013).

532 pages; 516 pages. Reviewed by David Saxon.

During his several decades of teaching church history and theology at Bob Jones University, Dr. Beale became known for painstakingly accurate scholarship, a generous and humble spirit, and an infectious passion for the majesty of God. These three attributes are on full display in this two-volume history of Christian theology.

While most histories of doctrine opt for either a chronological or topical organization of the vast amount of material involved, Beale combines the two approaches.

While pursuing a largely chronological narrative, he mixes in various topical studies, finally settling into a topical arrangement of the majority of volume two. The book advertises itself as an “in-depth” treatment of this enormous subject, and, at times, the detail of the discussions fully delivers on this promise. In one thousand pages, however, the history of Christian theology cannot be explored in depth, and the depth of the coverage varies from section to section. Nevertheless, even the sections that feature more summarizing are valuable.

The strongest aspect of this work is no doubt its handling of the patristic material. Beale’s doctoral dissertation dealt with the eschatology of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and it is obvious that he has spent countless hours exploring the Fathers in the years since.

Approximately fifty-seven percent of the two volumes explores material from the Early Church (through about A.D. 500). Beale devotes most of the first volume to the

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Fathers, and he includes valuable readings from their writings in almost every chapter. His handling of this material is extremely judicious, resisting the temptation to minimize their theological aberrations and make Protestants of them but also undermining Roman Catholic interpretations that are equally anachronistic. Some of the highlights in volume one include his analyses of Tertullian (chapter 17), Cyprian (chapter 18), the Council of Chalcedon (chapter 24, which includes the complete text of Leo’s Tome), and five chapters on Augustine (covering nearly one hundred pages). Volume two returns to the patristic era for detailed discussions of sabbatarianism, the eternal generation of Christ (a doctrine Beale distinguishes sharply from Christ’s eternal Sonship and which he disputes as erroneously subordinationist), and abortion. In four appendices to volume two, he gives detailed attention to various cosmological questions (the shape, age, and creation of the earth), once again drawing most of the material from the Fathers.

Beale devotes only about seven and one-half percent of his work to the ten centuries from 500 to 1500. The most interesting discussion from this period is a long chapter on the Second Council of Nicea, which dealt with the Iconoclastic Controversy. The subtitle of this chapter is “Milieus of a Patristic Theology of Art,” and Beale provides an insight-filled analysis of the relationship between the deification theology of Eastern Orthodoxy and its use of icons in worship. Otherwise, he shows little interest in scholasticism. He provides a “Basic Outline of Scholasticism” that lists the key figures in the movement, and he summarizes its key trends, but the discussion is by no means “in-depth.” One looks in vain for a chapter on Anselm, Aquinas, or even German mysticism with the same depth and attention to detail he shows in his treatments of the Early Church. But all authors must choose their priorities.

The first five chapters of volume two discuss the Magisterial Reformation, and chapter eight covers the early

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Anabaptists. In these chapters, as in the rest of the work, Beale can hardly mention a place, name, or key term without providing a footnote that traces its history, linguistic derivation, or some other interesting tidbit. The two volumes overflow with fascinating facts of this kind.

The chapters on Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin devote most of the space to historical narrative rather than theological analysis. A chapter on Melanchthon includes a survey of nine Lutheran controversies of the 16th century, but the eight pages devoted to them can hardly do them justice.

Beale’s treatment of Calvin’s theology is limited to a survey of the contents of The Institutes of the Christian Religion. A more comprehensive treatment of Lutheran, Zwinglian, Calvinist, and Anglican theology (the last of these receives no treatment) with comparisons between them would have enhanced this section.

To treat modern church history in depth, one must choose particular topics. Many volumes could not address all the strands of theological development since the Reformation. Beale devotes a fairly lengthy chapter to the contest between Arminianism and Dortian Calvinism, although nearly half of it is the complete text of the Canons of Dort. He has a brief but incisive chapter on Baptist Landmarkism, followed by a chapter on Baptist “backgrounds, doctrines, and practices” that includes the text of a number of important Baptist confessions of faith.

Interesting chapters follow on the histories of Harvard and Yale and the development of the New Divinity and New Haven theologies. Clearly, American themes dominate the post-Reformation discussions. Indeed, key Continental thinkers such as Schleiermacher and Ritschl appear only in connection with American developments (such as the theology of Horace Bushnell). The longest and, perhaps, best chapter in volume two is entitled “Evangelicalism and the Bible: Apologetics and Philosophy since 1800.” In a sprawling discussion, Beale summarizes evidentialism, Common Sense philosophy, and presuppositionalism; analyzes Louis Gaussen, the Princeton Theology, and the

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Neo-Calvinist Dutch School (Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, etc.); surveys the thinking of Karl Barth and NeoOrthodoxy; and concludes with brief treatments of Gresham Machen, Cornelius Van Til, and Francis Schaeffer. This is an ambitious program, but Beale delivers interesting discussions throughout.

Beale chooses not to discuss several important themes.

There is no detailed explanation of the origins of higher criticism and its impact on theological liberalism. Perhaps because he tells the story elsewhere (In Pursuit of Purity), Beale gives no attention to the development of American Fundamentalism. The five pages he devotes to Barth in the chapter on Scripture is his only treatment of NeoOrthodoxy; absent are Brunner, Bonhoeffer, Bultmann, the Neibuhrs, Tillich, etc. Some of these thinkers—Bultmann and Tillich, in particular—are sufficiently sub-Christian to warrant exclusion, but it is still surprising to read a history of theology that omits them. No consideration is given to modern theologies such as Liberation Theology, Vatican II Romanism, or Postmodern theologies.

The selection of topics is distinctly practical, addressing matters such as the Sabbath, abortion, and inerrancy that are helpful for Fundamentalists. The treatment of these topics is scholarly and precise while also being passionate and devotional. For the medieval and modern periods, a reader desiring thorough treatment must supplement this work with others. What Beale does, though, he does extraordinarily well, and the books turn out to have a rare quality: they are precise historical theology that engenders worship.

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Robert Yarbrough, 1, 2, and 3 John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008). 464 pages. Reviewed by David Hockman.

Robert Yarbrough’s commentary on the Epistles of John is tremendously helpful in providing a clear explanation of the Greek text of John’s letters. The introduction is concise consisting of twenty-seven pages, which indicates that the purpose is not to cover the introductory items in full detail.

Yarbrough is clear that he views the apostle John as the author of the epistles that bear his name. He does interact with the critical views on authorship and demonstrates why he does not find these views compelling. He views the apostle John to be the author while admitting that this is not the dominant view among scholarship today. He understands that the letters were written in the 80’s to the geographical area of Ephesus.

The commentary’s focus is historical and linguistic. In light of this he provides key insights from the OT and also from John’s gospel that impact John’s letters. He supports word meanings from the Septuagint as well as extra-biblical literature of the day (e.g. ὁ παράκλητος in 2:1 and ἱλασμός in 2:2). His interaction with the Greek text is very valuable in that he points out the significant syntactical uses of various parts of speech. This is extremely helpful in aiding one’s phrase/block diagramming of the text and noting the relationships between phrases and clauses. He often cites Wallace as support and on occasion will disagree with Wallace. For example, in 1:9 where Wallace declares a theological conundrum with the ἵνα clause, Yarbrough sees the ἵνα in 1:9 as a result clause with the idea that God is faithful and just and as a result forgives sin.

Yarbrough notes that there is no agreement among commentators on the structure of John’s letters. He organizes 1 John according to the structure of the NA 27 (1:1-2:6; 2:7-17; 2:18-3:8; 3:9-4:6; 4:7-14; 4:1-5:15; 5:16-

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21). He then understands 1 John 1:5 to provide the thesis of the first letter. He recognizes four purposes for 1 John (1:3; 1:4; 2:1; and 5:13). He views these four as secondary purposes. Instead, he views the indicative “God is light” as that main purpose. He provides others who agree with him.

Along with this focus on “God is light,” he also recognizes the three dimensional view of the aspects of faith that John develops throughout the letters of doctrinal, ethical, and relational (1 John 2:1; 3 John 6). He does discuss the key textual variants but keeps the discussion to the endnotes.

Yarbrough does not avoid the difficult passages. In 1 John 2:2 he deals with the issue of the meaning of ἱλασμός.

He presents the expiation view and provides support for the meaning of Christ’s “cancellation” or “dismissal” of one’s sins. He then turns to the evidence for ἱλασμός meaning the “turning away of one’s wrath.” As typical of his style, he presents evidence from the Old Testament and from John’s gospel that supports each position. He concludes by noting that Christ’s death did wipe away sin’s penalty (expiation) but that one cannot avoid that it also appeased God’s wrath.

He also deals with the extent of the atonement from 2:2. He likens the universal dimension of Christ’s atonement found in 2:2 to the universal nature of God’s promise to Abraham that all would be blessed through Abraham. Also, the sacrifices were offered for “all Israel” but this did not mean every Israelite received personal saving grace. He is clear that 2:2 does not support universalism.

He notes that Christ’s death is the basis for God to extend mercy and how God can temporarily overlook human sin and exercise longsuffering to all mankind. He also concludes on the extent of the atonement that there is a sense that God died both for the whole world and also only for the elect. He prefers to ask, “Is the full eschatological benefit of the cross applied to all equally or only to those who in God’s design (election) receive the gift of grace by

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faith?”1 Yarbrough concludes that for John the answer is the latter and this is consistent with John’s gospel (17:9).

In 1 John 3:4 he deals with the distinction between sin and lawlessness and demonstrates how this impacts 3:6 in understanding the tension in the phrase “keeps on sinning.” He resolves this tension by appealing to the meaning of ἀνομία that he developed in 3:4 (transgression so weighty that the perpetrator is outside the pale of Christ’s followers2). He develops this in light of the context of the letter as a whole. He refers to the three areas the letter develops where one may potentially err: doctrine (faith), ethics (work), and relations (love). Therefore, “keeps on sinning” refers to sins that mark those who do not “abide” in Christ.

In 2 John he provides a cogent argument that the “elect lady” and her children is a reference to the church and its members. He develops the chiastic structure of verse five and six and understands the term “commandments” to refer to more than simply the love command. He interprets this term to refer to the doctrinal, ethical, and devotional integrity before God. He then develops the warning not to receive those teaching another doctrine. He makes the application to today in not accepting Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, or other heretical views in the sense of endorsing their teaching.

In 3 John he notes the error of individuals such as Oral Roberts in interpreting verse two as a promise of material prosperity for all believers. He develops the triad of the doctrinal, ethical, and relational aspects of faith in relation to Gaius’ love toward strangers. These strangers are worthy of such treatment because they took nothing from

Robert W. Yarbrough, 1–3 John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 80.

2 Ibid., 182.

1

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unbelievers. He again delves into the syntax to interpret Diotrephes’ error as “status loving.”

In all, this commentary is extremely helpful on multiple levels as demonstrated in this evaluation. However, I am not convinced of his view that “God is light” is the thesis for 1 John. Since the structure of John is not overtly clear, this leads to a conclusion that disagreement will exist regarding the main focus of the letter. It seems, in my opinion, that 5:13 provides the main thesis as 20:31 does for John’s gospel. In his gospel John wrote for the purpose that one would believe that Jesus is the Messiah and as a result he would have life. Now, in John’s letters he maintains the emphasis on Jesus as Messiah. The light theme does support this focus in contrast to the darkness of the false teachers. However, now in the letters, John writes that they may know they have eternal life despite the teaching of the false teachers. In support of 5:13, John employs various forms of “knowing” God throughout 1 John (2:3, 4, 5, 13, 14; 3:24; 4:2, 6, 7, 13, 16; 5:20).

While appreciating his interaction with the Greek, I found his treatment of the Greek to be more on the micro level (words, phrases, and clauses) rather than on the macro level. As Yarbrough admitted there are many views on the structure of 1 John. Discourse Analysis, which works more on the macro level, aids in understanding the overall structure of a discourse. Longacre published an essay of a discourse analysis of 1 John suggesting it provides a natural outline for the book.3 While Yarbrough demonstrates more of a thematic unity to the book (doctrine, ethics, and relational), it is interesting to note a major similarity between Yarbrough and Longacre. Both note the importance of 4:7-21. Longacre concludes this 3 Robert Longacre, “Towards an Exegesis of 1 John Based on the Discourse Analysis of the Greek Text,” in Linguistics and New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Discourse Analysis, eds.

David Alan Black, Katharine Barnwell, and Stephen Levinsohn (Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 271.

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passage to be the ethical peak of the body of the letter.

Yarbrough concludes that 4:7-14 promotes the assurance of God’s love while 4:15-5:15 appeals for the reader to respond to this love. So, even though the linguistic focus of Yarbrough is not on the overall structure, I found the points of similarity with Longacre to be helpful on a macro level.