Grace in Turretin's CoW

Dr. J. Mark Beach of Mid-America Reformed Seminary, in his PhD dissertation (undersigned by Dr. Richard A. Muller) presented to Calvin Theological Seminary, finds grace in Francis Turretin's conception of the Covenant of Works.

What now??!! LOL.

Christ and the Covenant: Francis Turretin's Federal Theology As a Defense of the Doctrine of Grace, pp. 86-90

The Day After

Today is post-Reformation Day day, and what better way to segue than to discuss Reformed Scholasticism!

The following is Dr. J.V. Fesko's short introduction to the topic by way of a series of posts over at the WSC blog:

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: Introduction

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: Scholasticism Defined

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: Francis Turretin

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: The Benefits for the Church

An Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism: Concluding Thoughts

And this Office Hours episode features Dr. Richard Muller, perhaps the godfather of scholarship on Reformed Scholasticism, discussing the topic with Dr. R. Scott Clark.

While I'm no Barthian, I particularly like Barth when he said this:

"The fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet. The true prophet will be ready to submit his message to this test too." (Church Dogmatics I/1, 279)

Personal Tragedy to Apostasy

I write this post from a position of not having experienced a personal tragedy of the magnitude that would rock the foundations of my faith to the core. In a way, I speak from ignorance, and yet the lives of some of those who have gone before me seem to speak ministration on this issue.

John Calvin lost his wife and son.

John Owen had eleven children. All died in early youth, except one daughter.

Francis Turretin had four children. Only one survived.

More recently, Michael Horton discloses in "A Place for Weakness" how one of his prematurely-born triplets, when older, experienced an accident wherein this elongated toy got jammed down the child's throat. The doctor gave a grim prognosis, but thankfully, the child survived.

As a father, I have often ruminated on the idea of the Lord taking back one of my kids. The same with Him taking back my wife. I have often wondered what my reaction would be. I do not know my heart well enough.

In a way, such thoughts are unwise, for it smacks of the attempt to peer into God's decretive will, and yet it is also wise in that reflection on one's faith, on one's devotion to the Lord, on the depth of one's love for Him, at the time when all is calm, may just be one of the ways in which stability may be had when the storms do come.

There's no minimizing the devastation of losing a family member. Imagining the possibility has often brought me to tears. But should it lead to apostasy? Should it drive one to the despair that leads to destruction? If the Lord Jesus Christ is our treasure, then we should mourn for the loss of a loved one with the passion that is due that love, but then that excruciating pain must be turned sacramental. It should lead us to Christ, whose life and death have redefined "death" for the Christian, with the promise of life forever restored in the future age of glory. Even if we think that the departed is lost by virtue of not being a Christian, our affinity with Christ and His promise of embodied eternal life should prove the stronger tug to renewed rejoicing.

May I love my Lord Jesus Christ more than my wife and children, that I may love them truly while they are here with me in this present age.

The Underdog Scales and Plumbs

Simplicity has often been associated with humility, and this is not without viable cause. However, in the area of the Scriptures and its study, this same criterion has paved the way for much disguised pride.

There is overweening hubris in the distaste for deep, theological reflection. The proud man contents himself with the simplicity of "moralistic, therapeutic, deistic" chaff, whereas the Underdog, with profound affection for God and His revelation, seeks to scale the heights and plumb the depths of the wheat of His Word.


Francis Turretin observes:

For we unhesitatingly confess that the Scriptures have their adyta ("heights") and bathe ("depths") which we cannot enter or sound and which God so ordered on purpose to excite the study of believers and increase their diligence; to humble the pride of man and to remove from them the contempt which might arise from too great plainness. (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, I.2.7.4)

So humility, in fact, is not manifest in the resignation to ignorance but in the passionate pursuit of the knowledge of God, which gives us an antithesis: the proud stupid and the humble knowledgeable.

Was Man's Reason Unaffected by the Fall? Turretin Denies

Gordon Clark and his followers believe and proclaim the affirmative. They assert that the human intellect remained in its pristine condition even after man's descent into sin and that the sin problem is one solely of an ethical nature.

While the sin problem is indeed ethical, an immediate observation is the undue and coerced bifurcation made between reason and the will (an assumed independence). What the position seems to be saying is that the will can act independently of what the mind deems as good and fitting. Even in the case of addictions, where it seems that the will and emotions are acting in rebellion against the mind, the intellectual involvement is ever present in its estimation of the pleasure to be derived from engaging in the illicit act.

But what does one of the prime exponents of Reformed Orthodoxy have to say about the state of reason in unregenerate man? Let us reckon with Francis Turretin's words:

Turretin on the Uses of Natural Theology

Some have imbibed the attitude of being seemingly allergic to any notion of natural theology (or common grace). Hesitant to afford the denomination of "revelation" to anything apart from Scripture, these people eschew the biblically-sound fact that all truth that can be properly called truth is either of the character of natural or special revelation, the former disposed to matters of the created order, the latter to matters of redemption.

Reformed Orthodoxy recognized the importance of natural theology, and Francis Turretin sheds light on its uses:

"Natural theology is useful to men, for we acknowledge its various ends and uses: (1) as a witness of the goodness of God towards sinners unworthy even of these remains of light (Acts 14:16, 17; Jn. 1:5); (2) as a bond of external discipline among men to prevent the world from becoming utterly corrupt (Rom. 2:14, 15); (3) as a subjective condition in man for the admission of the light of grace because God does not appeal to brutes and stocks, but to rational creatures; (4) as an incitement to the search for this more illustrious revelation (Acts 14:27); (5) to render men inexcusable (Rom. 1:20) both in this life, in the judgment of an accusing conscience (Rom. 2:15) and, in the future life, in the judgment which God shall judge concerning the secrets of men (Rom. 2:16)" (Institutes, I.1.4.4)

Item 1 speaks of what is commonly called "common grace." Through the motions of divine providence, God reveals Himself to every human being as the first cause of every creaturely benefit that he or she enjoys.

Item 2 refers to the subjection of every man to God's moral law (natural law implanted in every human heart) by which he discerns God's valuation of good and evil in various contexts and situations, inclined by conscience to choose the former and shun the latter. Though the depravity of man is such that the world is evidence of man having chosen evil most of the time, still it is not as debauched and sinfully convoluted as it can possibly be. Natural law maintains order in society inasmuch as man submits to it, directed and ordered by divine providence.

Item 3 makes much of the fact that man is man because man thinks, and is truly man when he thinks God's thoughts after Him. The intellectual faculties of man were created by God to be the means by which he apprehends God's truth as displayed in nature and salvation.

Item 4 builds on item 3 in that, seeing the wonders of God within himself and in the wonders of creation all around him through reason, man is then moved to seek the means by which he can be made right with God through faith.

Item 5 builds on item 4 in that men do not naturally go the extra mile from natural revelation to special revelation, and that this failure expresses itself continually, temporally, in a nagging conscience (the law accusing), and terminally, in the eschatological eventuality of hell.

Juicing and Natural Theology

I've been juicing for the past 2 weeks or so now, and I must say that it certainly feels good to be doing this little extra thing for my health.

The "rule" is that beetroot, apple, and carrot should be the staple of the concoction, upon which one can add all sorts of other fruits and vegetables. I've been juicing bell pepper, bitter gourd, cucumber, cabbage, onion, garlic, unripe mango, potato, etc.

The star of the show is beetroot. This dark purple root crop has all sorts of "magical" properties. Read about them and be enticed here.

The Coolest of the Reformed Cats

Notice the prominent foreheads? A chief requirement of Reformed coolness.

Turretin was probably wearing a wig or decided on the "heavy metal" look—still within the bounds of cool. LOL.

Westminster Wednesday: Turretin on the Priority of Justification in Mystical Union

Firstly, I must say that I have benefited immensely from the conversations on the doctrine of union with Christ that have ensued over the Net in the course of the past few weeks (which actually has spanned many years already). I am grateful for the contributions of great Reformed minds on both fronts, especially those whom I have had closer contact with, such as Dr. R. Scott Clark, Jared Oliphint and, just recently, Ptr. Rob Edwards (the latter two from WTS, the former from WSC).

As Ptr. Edwards noted on a comment on a blog post of mine, my use of the terms "unionism" or "unionist" may not be quite the best denomination of the view that does not see the priority of justification in the ordo salutis, a view which he espouses. His sentiment arises from the fact that the view does not in fact consider union with Christ as the overarching doctrine upon which every other doctrine has its foundation. To this I offer my apology, as it was not my intention to imply that the aforementioned assumption was the ground of my coining of the term. I merely wanted an easy name for the view. So perhaps I may now safely use the terms without fear of incurring ire.

The comment by Ptr. Edwards on my blog was prompted by my having replied to a blog post by Dr. D. G. Hart on this issue of union with Christ in which I stated that the "unionist" may have the inclination of esteeming biblical theology over systematic theology, hence the adoption of the "unionist" view. I admit the hasty generalization of the statement. However, it does appear that the "major players" in Reformed orthodoxy did hold to the priority of justification on the issue of union with Christ, specifically mystical/existential union.

A Primer on Francis Turretin

Francis Turretin is arguably the greatest Protestant Scholastic of the 17th century.

What is scholasticism?

"A discourse is 'scholastic' only when it follows scholastic method–specifically, only when it concentrates on (1) identifying the order and pattern of argument suitable to technical academic discourse, (2) presenting an issue in the form of a thesis or question, (3) ordering the thesis or question suitably for discussion or debate, often identifying the 'state of the question,' (4) noting a series of objections to the assumed correct answer, and then (5) offering a formulation of an answer or an elaboration of the thesis with due respect to all known sources of information and to the rules of rational discourse, followed by a full response to all objections. When that form or its outlines are not observed in a work, that work is not scholastic. By way of example, Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae is certainly a scholastic work–but his commentary on the Gospel of John is not, even though its content stands in strong and clear relation to the content of the Summa. Another example, taken from a place somewhat closer to home: Ursinus's Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism is, arguably, scholastic. The catechism itself is clearly not–even though the theological content of the catechism closely reflects that of the commentary written on it" (Richard Muller, After Calvin, 26 [found at Richard Muller on 'What Makes Something Scholastic?'])

Who was Francis Turretin?