Come Share In Our Joy

Pasig Covenant Reformed Church's 4th Anniversary pictures.

See last year's anniversary greetings from Dr. R. Scott Clark and Dr. Michael Horton.

Triperspectivalism and the Heretical Fringe

I decided to inform myself about John Frame's triperspectivalism using his own primer found here.

The impression that I got is that his method seeks to find a Trinitarian imprint to everything in reality. I would certainly agree with the premise that all of creation is indelibly marked with Trinitarianism in that the One-and-the-Many, evidenced in the universal-particulars relationship found in every created object, is a creaturely analogization of the mystery of God as being One and Three Persons. However, the aspect of Frame's take on this that rubs me wrong is that (based on my understanding of his proposition) if the complete picture view of truth (exhaustive) is only available to God, then the ectypal truth available to the creature (man) must consist in "perspectives" that cannot claim to be the single body of ectypal truth delivered to man, but that the various perspectives contribute to the apprehension of this true ectypal corpus.

In other words, my particular take on truth is always incomplete and necessitates that I engage the truth perspectives of others in order to progressively arrive at complete ectypal veracity. The implications on the Reformed creeds and confessions cannot be missed. Frame states,

"So I think that perspectivalism is an encouragement to the unity of the church. Sometimes our divisions of theology and practice are differences of perspective, of balance, rather than differences over the essentials of faith. So perspectivalism will help us better to appreciate one another, and to appreciate the diversity of God's work among us."

What I hear him saying is that the Reformed consensus is just a perspective among others, and that we would do well perhaps to hearken to the likes of Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Rob Bell, etc. in order to progressively arrive at unified Christian truth. But then how would error be spotted? The determination of heterodoxy must necessarily be predicated on a perspective as being the only perspective. If he claims this as "the essentials," then by what overarching perspectival standard did he arrive at this delimiting conclusion?

His threefold division of normative (God's revelation), situational (objects, the created order), and existential (man in interaction with the former two) is well and good, in my opinion, but then the permutation of this triperspectivalism, as applied by him, into multiperspectives that are each given credence does give rise to a pluralism that is dangerous and precisely what the Reformed creeds and confessions were meant to curb.

My "Testimony"

I'm sure we've all witnessed this peculiar aspect of broad evangelicalism wherein people go up the stage in order to narrate their own personal "testimonies." Usually, this would consist in the person having received some blessing, either positively or negatively (the former taking the form of additional assets, the latter rescue from loss).

While proclaiming the goodness of the Lord in our lives to others is warranted, it should always be remembered that our lives are not the Gospel, and that we should not fall into the seeker-sensitive mistake of assuming that our "attractive" lives are enough to snatch others from the flames apart from the doctrinal preaching of the person and work of Christ.

With that said, allow me to direct you to my own personal "testimony"—my journey from error into the historic, catholic, and confessionally Reformed faith:


Truly Reformed

The Joy of Being Confessionally Reformed

Hidden Treasure

Proud to Be a Member of Pasig Covenant Reformed Church

Irrationalism, QIRE, and Challies

In this recent blog post, mega-blogger Tim Challies reports of another reason for why he left a confessionally Reformed church in favor of an Anabaptist one, this time the rationale being that the former did not have a strong "evangelistic" suit, born, he claims, out of a seemingly deeply-ingrained distaste for the unregenerate.

While his criticism may indeed be valid, his reaction of going from the context of strong, historical, and Reformed confessionalism to the converse does not share the same quality. In fact, I would say that it is irrational. If irrationalism is the claim that all that is true are the particulars around us, and that there are no universals that dictate upon how particulars operate, then Challies' subsequent embracing of more "feely," experience-driven Anabaptism fits the bill of irrationalism very nicely.

While it is possible for him to assert that the confessionally Reformed faith lacks the quality of "universal" (archetypal), based on biblical theological grounds, it is more likely that the reason he "jumped ship" is that, experientially, he was not being satisfied. This reminds me of Dr. R. Scott Clark's QIRE (Quest for Illegitimate Religious Experience):

"QIRE is then the practical dimension of QIRC. It denies that God mediates His interaction with man through the means of grace, namely, the preaching of the gospel and the sacraments. It posits that man is able to connect with God apart from the institutions that God has ordained in Scripture, thereby blurring the Creator-creature distinction. It is easy to spot more glaring instances of this error in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, but subtle variations also occur in the spiritual disciplines advocacies of many notable figures that are common in supposedly Reformed circles." (Underdog Theology, BOOK REVIEW: Recovering the Reformed Confession (Our Theology, Piety, and Practice) by R. Scott Clark—Chapter I, 'Whatever Became of Reformed Theology, Piety, and Practice?' PART 1)

While Challies' regression from Reformed confessionalism to Anabaptism is lamentable, the blessing that his wisdom has afforded many, through his blog and books, is definitely laudable.

A Primer on Guido de Brès, Father of the Belgic Confession

After reading through his letter to his wife, and after having the fact of his faith that expressed itself in martyrdom hit home further, I now have a "man crush" on Guido de Brès.

Reproduced below is a brief biography:

The Love Letter of All Love Letters: Guido de Brès to His Wife

This year marks the 450th anniversary of the framing of the Belgic Confession. This historic church document is unique in that it is the only one of its kind written by a martyr—Guido de Brès.

Knowing of his impending martyrdom, de Brès wrote a letter to his wife that I can only describe as probably the best love letter that I've ever read: God-glorifying, God-dependent, full of faith and assurance, full of Scriptural truths, and expressing the kind of selfless love that a husband must have for his wife (in imitation of Christ's love for His Bride, the Church).

The Truth Bearers

"Here then, in the last analysis, lies the significance of Dordt for today. The followers of Dordt, together with their brethren, the followers of Westminster, alone have the wherewithal with which to proclaim the gospel of the sovereign grace of God at all. Today the battle of Armageddon is on. It is up to those who prize their heritage as children of the Reformation and, more specifically, of the Reformed Reformation to lead all the true followers of the self-identifying Christ of Scripture against unbelief without and against unbelief within the church"

— Cornelius Van Til, "The Significance of Dordt for Today," in Crisis in the Reformed Churches, Peter Y. De Jong, editor, Reformed Fellowship, Inc., p. 195.

Jonathan Edwards, a Good Yardstick of Reformed Orthodoxy? Nah!

Given the recent wave of sentiment (mostly negative) over John Piper's endorsement of Rick Warren—with the former's thumbs up chiefly predicated on the latter's supposed interest in Jonathan Edwards—I have compiled the following quotes which will serve to cast light on some of Edwards' elemental beliefs:

"One suspects, however, that confessional Reformed folk might not be so ready to identify with Edwards' theology if they understood its debt to modernity and specifically to certain forms of rationalism and idealism." — Dr. R. Scott Clark, 'Recovering the Reformed Confession', p. 84.

"Charles Hodge (1797—1878) offered strong criticism of Edwards's doctrine of original sin and 'continued creation.' Hodge said, 'According to the theory of continued creation there is and can be no created substance in the universe. God is the only substance in the universe.' He concluded that this 'doctrine, therefore, in its consequences, is essentially pantheistic.'" — ibid., p. 85

"He rejected the traditional Reformed doctrine of concursus, that God works fully in every thing but does so through 'second causes' (WCF 5.2), which led to his occasionalism whereby the world is said to be re-created (which notion the earlier Reformed orthodox had rejected) moment by moment." — ibid., p. 87.

"...the measure of one's ministry was no longer whether a minister proclaimed the law and the gospel and administered the means of grace according to Scriptures as understood by the Reformed confessions. Rather, the measure of one's ministry was now the result of that preaching...specifically the degree to which it generated a certain religious enthusiasm or experience." — ibid., p. 89.

"Because of his neo-Platonism, Edwards established an ideal, a paradigm of conversion and religious experience, to be wrought not only progressively by the ordinary means of grace, but immediately by the Spirit." — ibid., p. 93.

"For Edwards, true religion was not simply an orthodox profession of faith...accompanied by an ordinary Christian life lived in the communion of the saints. But he demanded more, an extraordinary experience of grace...Attention is no longer on the objective work of Christ for his people and the secret but ordinary work of the Spirit in his elect through the Word and sacraments." — ibid., pp. 94—95.

"Edwards taught a doctrine of divinization. The only thing missing is the word itself." — Michael J. McClymond, 'Salvation and Divinization: Jonathan Edwards and Gregory Palamas and the Theological Uses of Neoplatonism'.

The Creeds and Confessions—Servants of the Gospel

"In making its confession, the church lifts up its voice to do what it must do—speak amazement of the goodness and truth of the gospel and the gospel's God. Creeds and confessional formulae exist to promote that act of confession: to goad the church towards it, to shape it, to tie it to the truth, and so to perpetuate the confessional life and activity of the Christian community. In this way, creeds and confessional formulae are the servants of the gospel in the church."

— John Webster, Confessing God, 69 (italics original).


"It is not that the authority of the confessions is 'very nearly tantamount to that of Scripture,' but it is tantamount to that of Scripture, assuming that a given confession is biblical and intended to be subscribed because (quia) it is biblical. If a confession is not biblical, it should be revised so that it is biblical, or it should be discarded in favor of a confession that is biblical."

— R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession, 178 (italics original).

Sympathy for the "Devil"?

Frame's flawed and floundering formulation:

"I think it better to regard anyone as Reformed who is a member in good standing of a Reformed church. I realize there is some ambiguity here, for we must then ask, what is a really Reformed church? Different people will give different answers. But, as I said above, I don’t think that the definition has to be, or can be, absolutely precise. The concept, frankly, has 'fuzzy boundaries,' as some linguists and philosophers say.

We should also accept as Reformed people those who hold to generally Reformed convictions, but are members of non-Reformed churches. Again, the phrase 'generally Reformed' indicates that the concept is not precise.

Then, what is the Reformed faith? It is the consensus of Reformed believers.

...to define the Reformed faith as a form of evangelicalism. First, let me say that my definition is a definition of the place of the Reformed faith in the American context. I apologize if in previous writings I have not made that clear. My definition would not be useful in a culture that had not experienced the evangelical movement or something like it. In the American context, Evangelicals are orthodox Protestant Christians, Christians who maintain belief in the supernatural work of God to save us from sin, including Jesus’ virgin birth, miracles, atoning death, resurrection, and return. The Reformed also maintain these doctrines (with some slippage on both sides). Since they hold every doctrine that defines evangelicalism, they can be regarded as evangelicals. But of course they also believe some things that do not define evangelicalism, which makes them a distinct strand of the evangelical movement."

— John Frame, Review of R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice.

Reeks of postmodernism.

Good discussion of the review here.