Timothy George on Historical Theology, Ecumenism, and Christian Higher Education

This episode is a conversation with Dr. Timothy George of Beeson Divinity School. We discuss being a Baptist and appreciating the Great Tradition (2:00), ecumenism and catholicity (7:35), the future of Christian higher education (22:35), and more. Buy Timothy’s books.

Church Grammar is presented by B&H Academic and the Christian Standard Bible. Intro music: Purple Dinosaur by nobigdyl.

Brandon D. Smith is Assistant Professor of Theology & New Testament at Cedarville University, Editorial Director for the Center for Baptist Renewal, and writes things. Speaking of Cedarville, you should check out our Master of Divinity and Master of Ministry programs.

*** This podcast is designed to discuss all sorts of topics from various points of view. Therefore, guests’ views do not always reflect the views of the host, his church, or his institution.


The Trinity and Theological Method

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve most likely seen the debates on the blogosphere and social media about something called the “Eternal Functional Subordination” (EFS) of God the Son and God the Spirit to God the Father, or, alternatively, “Eternal Relations of Authority and Submission” (ERAS). To my knowledge and in my reading, the former is posited by the likes of Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware, while the latter is a phrase used by Owen Strachan  and Gavin Peacock in their new book on complementarianism. These theologians believe Scripture teaches that the Son (and, by extension, the Spirit) eternally submits to the Father. This submission therefore occurs not only in the act of salvation, and particularly in the incarnation, but in the inner life of God as he has existed from eternity. In Ware, Grudem, and Strachan’s understanding, this relationship is what distinguishes the three persons of God; they are all equally God in essence, but differ from one another as persons through how they relate to one another, and particularly in the Son and Spirit’s submission to the Father.

It is no secret that this is a departure from the traditional means of distinguishing between the persons; Ware and Grudem cast doubt upon the traditional doctrines of the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Spirit (I do not know where Strachan is on this). In the Christian Tradition, and in fourth century pro-Nicene theology, the pro-Nicene theologians, like Ware et al., affirmed that the three persons are homoousios – that is, they each share in the one divine essence. But unlike Ware et al., instead of distinguishing between the persons via relations of submission and authority (an idea to which the Fathers were allergic, to say the least), the pro-Nicene theologians argued that the persons are distinguished via their eternal relations of origin. The Father eternally begets, or generates, the Son, and the Father and Son (in the Western tradition) both spirate, or process, the Spirit. This is eternal, so it is not the same as creation, and it is a communication of the divine essence, not a creation of a new god or a hierarchical relationship where one turns into three. Both Ware and Grudem posit EFS as a more clear, biblical means of distinguishing between the persons, rather than through eternal relations of origin.

All of this has been summarized far better and far more clearly elsewhere; I’d recommend Darren Sumner’s post for a more detailed summary of the issue. My point here is not to provide more of the same but instead to bring to light a point that I think has been overlooked. Owen, in his rejoinder this morning, asked that we “reaffirm Scripture as our authority and avoid a New Scholasticism,” because, ” philosophy and history must ultimately kneel before exegesis-and-theology.” Amen to that. I am not sure if Owen is here saying that proponents of the traditional distinctions between the persons are relying on philosophy and history instead of exegesis and theology, or if he is merely cautioning all of us going forward. In any case, he is right that exegesis and scripturally-derived theology, for Protestants, always trumps history and philosophy. But there is more to be said on this point.

First, the pro-Nicene theologians of the fourth and fifth centuries were profoundly biblical in their doctrinal formulations. If you’ve read Athanasius or the Cappadocians or Cyril or Augustine you will know that when they talk about, say, the eternal relations of origin, or the taxis of the Trinitarian persons, they do so under the assumption that what they say must be derived from Scripture. Further, they do so with particular theological assumptions in place, namely, that the scriptures have a particular shape, or economy, to them that dictates how we read passages that speak about the Son. Does a passage refer to the Son in his humanity, or in his divinity? This is not an a-scriptural assumption; the Fathers took care to show that this “rule” is a scriptural one (e.g. their use of Phil. 2:5-11). So when Owen says exegesis and theology rule the day, I say “Amen!” But I also want to note that so did the Fathers, and so do modern day defenders of Nicene-Constantinopolitan Christianity.

The second point worth mentioning here is the relationship between exegesis, theology, and history. While the former two are most certainly the norma normans non normata, history and tradition  cannot and should not be merely cast aside – yes, even for us Protestant evangelical Baptists. The weight of tradition should at the very least give us pause in our hermeneutical endeavors when we think that exegeting a single passage, or a handful of them, can overturn almost two millennia of doctrinal teaching, and particularly when that teaching relates to theology proper and historic Trinitarian orthodoxy.

The Creator/Creature Distinction and Gender Debates

Given the recent posts and Twitter conversations surrounding the topic, and also given that I taught a course this past semester on fourth century theological interpretation in the Eastern Fathers, I have classical Trinitarianism and its relationship (or lack thereof) to the debates on gender roles on my mind. While I am a classic complementarian and hold to classic Trinitarian orthodoxy (the three persons are one in essence and only distinguished ad intra via their eternal relations of origin), I do not see anywhere in Scripture where these two types of relationships ought to be or are related to one another.

This distinction is in fact rooted in the created order. To put it in terms the Fathers used in formulating Nicene and subsequent positions, there is an unbridgeable gap from the creature’s side between the creature and Creator. This divide, known as the Creator/creature distinction, is applicable here, I think. The relations between the persons of the Trinity ad intra  are totally other from relations between creatures, even creatures of the same kind (i.e. male and female human beings). The relations between the persons of the Trinity are mysterious and incomprehensible to finite creatures like us, and to compare them to the relationship between human beings, or  to the mechanisms of church polity, or any other type of human relationship is to bridge the Creator/creature distinction.

I hope that we’ll refrain from employing Trinitarian relations to bolster our positions on gender roles in the future.

Heresy Hunting and Eternal Relations of Origin

I’m a classic complementarian who affirms classic orthodoxy regarding the eternal relations of the persons of the Trinity (i.e. that the eternal relations of origin distinguish the persons, not a social schema). I also believe that what the Bible says about gender is enough to support complementarianism without comparing the relationship between male and female to the inner life of the Godhead. Additionally, I don’t believe the relations of the persons of the Godhead are comparable to relations between male and female. I therefore disagree with those who wish to bolster their position on gender with a social Trinitarian schema, whether it be from an egalitarian or complementarian perspective. I thus disagree with Bruce Ware, Wayne Grudem, and other complementarians who attempt to support complementarianism via the doctrinal innovation known as eternal functional subordination. I disagree not only with tying in gender roles to God’s inner life but also with the social Trinitarian understanding of the relations between the persons of God upon which such a claim is based.

That being said, I’ve seen many on social media and on blogs willing to throw around phrases comparing Ware, Grudem, et al.’s position to heresy. This is unfair, careless, and a straw man. If you read Ware’s Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or Grudem’s systematic theology, both of these theologians strongly and clearly affirm the unity of the Godhead in essence. According to them, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all equally and fully share in the one divine being. They are homoousions. They also, though, posit that the Son willingly and volitionally submits to the Father ad intra. While I have serious disagreements with this latter position, both biblically and historically, this is not a classic heresy by any means. It is an innovation, in my opinion, but one that incorrectly understands eternal relations rather than one that departs from classic orthodoxy regarding the unity of the Godhead.

I’m not sure evangelicals can disagree without someone throwing out a heresy bomb at some point, but we should at least give it a good old college try.

The Benefits of Baptist Theology and Practice

A couple of weeks ago Luke and I wrote two posts on ways Baptists can learn from the larger Christian tradition in our worship practices, specifically through reciting the ecumenical creeds and through more frequent and intentional Scripture readings. These reflections, and more like them that we will write in the coming weeks, are in part a continuation of a paper we delivered together at last year’s ETS meeting and subsequently published in the Journal of Baptist Studies, “Baptists and the Catholicity of the Church: Toward an Evangelical Baptist Catholicity.”

After delivering the paper, one of the questions we received, and one which we continue to be asked, went something like this: “While I appreciate what you’ve said, I find myself on the other side of the coin asking, ‘what can/should other Christians learn from Baptists?'” This is not a question I take lightly, and it is one that I believe we should ask. The reason that we started from the other direction, and continue to write on it, is because we think that it is that side of the coin – what can Baptists learn from other Christians? – that has been neglected in Baptist life. Nevertheless, we still do believe and wholeheartedly affirm that Baptists are theologically and liturgically distinct in some ways from other Christians, and that these distinctions can be sources of growth and reform in non-Baptist denominations. So then, what are some areas where non-Baptists can learn from this “people of the Book?”

1. That nickname, “people of the Book,” points to the first area where non-Baptists can learn from Baptists. We are doggedly biblical, in at least two ways. First, in our theology, we want first and foremost to be faithful to the biblical text. This means that creeds and confessions, while able to serve as hermeneutical guides, are never the last word. If a creed or confession can be shown to contradict or even to obfuscate biblical teaching, then we feel free to revise said creed or confession. We believe that the Baptist vision comes closest to semper reformanda (“always reforming”), simply because we are always willing to reform. Now, this commitment to be biblical has sometimes resulted in distortions of sola scriptura, namely “no creed but the Bible!” and a suspicion of virtually all creeds, confessions, and systematic conclusions. But that has not been the historic Baptist approach to historic theology; instead, Baptists throughout our history have been appreciative of and have learned from Christians in our past and present. But this has been coupled with a willingness unsurpassed by other denominations to depart from those we learn from when they are wrong.

This is particularly true in two areas – baptism and polity. Baptists, in our view, did not go beyond the Magisterial Reformers but instead completed the reform that they began and did not finish. We baptize only adults because we believe that this is the clear teaching of Scripture, rather than an implication of it and/or a practice handed down throughout church history. The same can be said for church polity, with respect to congregational government, regenerate church membership, and the balance of form and freedom in worship practices. This is not to say that implications of Scripture or church tradition are never important, but it is to say that when the Bible clearly teaches otherwise we are called to jettison them and hold on to what is explicit in the prophets and the apostles.

Baptists are also doggedly biblical is in our worship services. We, perhaps more so than any other Protestant tradition, insist on the primacy of the Word in worship, and especially of the preached word. This is of course not to say that other traditions do not emphasize the preached word – Presbyterians particularly come to mind as being similar in their liturgical focus. But it is to say that Baptists have a long history of great preaching and of seeing preaching as the culmination of the worship service.

2. Another way that non-Baptists can learn from Baptists is in our commitment to evangelism and missions. Baptists have a long history of urging hearers of the Word to respond to the message that has been preached. The Word of God calls for a response, both to believers and unbelievers, and so it is wholly appropriate to invite sinners to repent, believe, and be baptized if they have not trusted in Christ, or to repent, believe, and continue in their walk with God if they have trusted in Christ. There are ways to twist this practice into something that is not biblical, and Baptists in the past have fallen prey to these. But that is not to say that the heart of the matter – the call to respond to the Word of God as it is preached – is not biblical. That most certainly is.

Baptists have also been at the forefront of the modern missions movement at virtually every step. While other Christians certainly affirm the need to share the gospel with all nations, it is Baptists who have continued to place this front and center in their local and denominational life.

There are surely other ways that non-Baptists can learn from Baptists, but these are two that come immediately to mind.

Steve Harmon and Baptist Catholicity

I recently read Steve Harmon’s Toward Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision. I’m beginning some sustained work with my friend and colleague Luke Stamps on Baptist life and its relationship to the larger Christian tradition, and Harmon’s collection of essays is one of the most prominent works on the subject. In this post I hope to affirm much in Harmon’s book, but also offer some pointed questions and critiques from a different perspective (i.e. conservative Southern Baptist evangelical) than his own.

First, the affirmations. I cannot say strongly enough how much I agree with Harmon on the need to position Baptist life within the larger body of Christ. Further, as Harmon argues, this happens not only on a theological level (e.g. the doctrine of the unity of the church) but on a liturgical level as well. In my opinion, Baptist life, and particularly Southern Baptist life, would be greatly helped by a more consciously traditional approach to belief and practice, as it roots our local churches not in the shifting tides of culture but in the historic faith and practice of God’s church. By “traditional” I do not mean “what we’ve always done” but what has been passed on to us by faithful believers throughout the church’s history. For me this means particularly affirming the three ecumenical creeds, as well as fitting worship practices that shape and form God’s people. I want to again affirm Harmon here, as he calls Baptists to more critically and consciously engage with the church’s tradition while still holding firmly to a Baptist understanding of religious liberty and the corollary rejection of using creeds to coerce someone’s conscience.

Part of Harmon’s call to embrace the church’s traditional faith and practice is a related call to reject modernist influences on Baptist thought, and I wholeheartedly agree here as well. Harmon ably demonstrates that statements such as “no creed but the Bible,” along with a rejection of many of the historic practices of the church, are not the result of biblical study but rather primarily an embrace of modernity and its axiomatic beliefs in autonomous reason and in jettisoning the past.

I, too, would like to see (Southern) Baptists more critically and consciously embrace the church’s traditional beliefs and practices, and I especially would like to see this in our understanding of patristic hermeneutics and in our worship. Harmon’s call for these is admirable and needed. Still, I had a number of questions and concerns about both his reasons for embracing traditional faith and practice and his articulation of the relationship between tradition and Scripture.

So, second, a question. Why is a more robust liturgical practice in Baptist worship a good thing? For Harmon, it appeared to me that, while eschewing antiquarian appropriations, he gave no more reason for adopting some liturgical practices than “this is the way that the church has always seen fit to shape its people.” That’s an important reason, but in my view it doesn’t go far enough. I would have liked to see more engagement with Augustine’s view of formation, where it is not only our cognitive faculties but also and sometimes primarily our repetitive bodily habits that transform us. Yes, praying the Lord’s Prayer, celebrating the Supper weekly, and reciting a creed or confession weekly are all good things, and yes, they are part of the church’s historic practice, but I think there is even more to it than that, namely that repeated practices shape the church’s beliefs and habits. To be fair, Jamie Smith’s works on liturgy and formation had not yet appeared at the time of Harmon’s book, so that is why I leave this as a question and not as a critique. Perhaps Harmon will adjust some of his language in his forthcoming work.

And lastly, a few critiques – I do not leave these until the end because I think they are unimportant; quite the opposite, actually. Rather, I want to make sure I affirm Harmon’s general purpose first, because I think this is a needed conversation in Baptist life. Still, as a Southern Baptist, I had more than a few issues with Harmon’s articulation of epistemology and Baptists’ relationship with other branches of the Christian faith. First, in terms of epistemology, there were a number of problems. At the beginning of the book Harmon seems to promote a problematic dichotomy between God’s authority and the authority of Scripture (27-29; I’d point to Vanhoozer here to link the two intricately via speech act theory), and throughout the book I sensed that, for Harmon, the Bible is the traditioned collection of writings for God’s people more than it is the direct revelation from God to his people. This is evidenced especially in his discussion on canon (43-46), where he argues that the canon is primarily a product of the church’s decision in the fourth century; Harmon uses this assertion to argue that even the Bible is a product of tradition, and so Baptists already use tradition in their faith in practice by accepting the canon as normative. There are a number of issues here, not least of which is an outdated view of the development of the NT canon contemporary scholarship increasingly recognizes that what we know today as the NT was circulating in fairly uniform codices by the end of the second century – but the primary issue is that this view prioritizes tradition in the canonical process rather than the Spirit-led recognition of God’s special revelation in the biblical books.

Also in terms of epistemology, Harmon continually refers to Alisdair MacIntyre and George Lindbeck, as well as to a more general “postmodern” approach, and seems to root the church’s beliefs about the Trinity, Christology, and Scripture in a communitarian practice rather than in revelation. Harmon does want to affirm that the Nicene-Chalcedonian doctrinal affirmations have their “raw material” (44) in the NT, but in my opinion this is not enough. As David Yeago argues in his essay “The New Testament and the Nicene Dogma,” it is not enough to say that the church’s doctrines are derived from Scripture; we must also say that they are found in the text of Scripture. The doctrinal statements of the fourth and fifth centuries use conceptual terms to render accurate judgments about the language patterns of Scripture. In any case, Harmon consistently refers to a communitarian authority without moving behind it to a supra-communitarian norm, namely God’s revelation of himself in Christ as he is seen in the Spirit-inspired Scriptures. Harmon is right that we cannot humanly achieve a modernistic fantasy of supra-cultural objectivity, but this does not mean that one has not been provided for us outside of ourselves – indeed it has, in Christ who is known through the Bible.

A second issue is found in Harmon’s last chapter, and one that I believe he shares with Peter Leithart. It seems to me that both of these men slide over doctrinal differences with Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, particularly in that they do not give attention to texts like Galatians 1 and 1 Timothy 1. In these passages it is doctrinal error that results in church discipline to the point of “casting out,” not just behavior. Harmon calls differences with Rome on justification, Mary, and Petrine primacy “negligible” (198-201), and suggests that a more careful reading of Rome’s statements on them would render them negligible to other Protestants. I am simply not convinced this is the case based on my own understanding of Roman Catholic dogma.

I’ll conclude this by saying again that I am appreciative of Harmon’s willingness to engage this important topic, for his call to recover in Baptist life many of the church’s traditions in both faith and practice, and for his ecumenical spirit. Still, I think from a conservative, evangelical, Southern Baptist perspective, there is more to be said on the subject and much that needs to be said differently.

 

SBC Joke of the Day

Two SBCers walk into a coffee shop, one a Calvinist and one a non-Calvinist.

They bicker over the order of salvation, if their CP dollars should go to schools and institutions that hire people who have different soteriological positions from them, and who started it.

They never share the gospel with anyone in the shop or encourage one another in the Lord, as good brothers ought. They don’t testify to Jesus, either by their conversation with one another or their lack of conversation with the lost people all around them.

Yeah, I guess that one’s not that funny.

Constructive Southern Baptist Systematic Theology

I don’t even know that this claim can be substantiated, but what are blogs for besides making unsubstantiated claims?

I think we need more constructive Southern Baptist systematic theologies from current Southern Baptist theologians.

To my knowledge, I can only think of either a) theologies of particular doctrines b) non-Southern Baptist baptistic STs or c) the anomaly that is “A Theology for the Church.”

NOTE: Yes we have many historical theologies (Garrett’s massive tome comes to mind) and some biblical theologies (e.g. Schreiner’s NT theology). I’m talking here specifically of systematic theologies, though.

As far as the first is concerned, they are good and helpful in many cases. I’m thinking specifically of NAC’s series including volumes on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and other such works (e.g. Dever and Hammett’s works on ecclesiology, Bruce Ware’s works on theology proper, etc.). I want MORE though – more on that at the end.

In many other cases, though, these theologies on particular topics tend to focus on divisive doctrines like Calvinism and dispensational eschatology, and at this point I think it’d be nice to, you know, talk about something else. Or at least talk about soteriology and eschatology in a more comprehensively systematic context.

As to the second point, Grudem, Erickson, and Geisler have produced systematic theologies from a baptistic viewpoint, but I want to see some SBC theologians do the same.

Finally, I want to commend the purpose and spirit behind “A Theology for the Church,” edited by my former President and teacher Danny Akin. Theology is done in community, and I’m appreciative of that volume’s dedication to that truth and to its desire to combine diverse perspectives in it.

But systematic theology is systematic – it needs to fit together from beginning to end. And so I’d like to see those diverse perspectives found in the different chapters of “A Theology for the Church” get their own individual STs.

I’m looking at you Malcolm Yarnell. I’m looking at you Russ Moore. I’m looking at you Greg Thornbury, Bruce Ashford, Chris Morgan, Greg Allison, Nathan Finn, Craig Blaising, John Hammett, Ken Keathley. And all the people I’m forgetting and offending right now.

I want MORE. More than just books on particular doctrines. I want some big, fat, 7 volume systematic theologies like Baptists used to write in the 1700s. Let’s do this.

From en.wikipedia.org

John Gill Agrees – Write more ST!

 

Ephesians 4 and the SBC

Yesterday in Sunday school I walked with my class through Ephesians 4, which includes the following from Paul:

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph 4:1-6).

In our study of Ephesians we’ve talked about Paul’s emphasis on the unity of the body and specifically about the racial unity of the church. Paul is keen on showing how Gentiles have been grafted into the people of God and urges his readers to live as “one new man” in Christ (2:15). In this section we talked a bit about racial unity, but we also talked about what it means to be unified around God (one Spirit…one Lord…one God and Father of us all) and the gospel (one body…one hope…one faith, one baptism). Even though I didn’t use the language of “theological triage,” I think it’s a helpful way to think about cooperation among Christians and we talked about how a) all Christians around the globe are part of Christ’s one body but that b) denominations exist because we understand certain things differently, especially baptism and church polity, and that c) local congregations and even denominations should not let “tertiary” doctrines or practices divide us.

Therefore it was all the more disturbing, after having studied this passage, to learn of some different events in the last two weeks in churches around the SBC.

First, a friend of mine, who is not white, is being forced out of his church because of his skin color. Obviously, this is in direct contradiction to Paul’s point in Ephesians. This is actually the most disturbing one for me, but I don’t know many of the details and don’t want to share them anyway for his privacy’s sake so I’ll just leave it at that.

Second, another friend, one of my best friends, is being forced out of his church because of his theological stance on a certain issue (I’m sure it won’t take long for you to figure out what that stance is…but I’ll just leave it at that for now). This stance has never in the history of the Church been considered heretical or heterodox, and has strong roots in the history of the SBC. The situation is all the more disturbing because of how it has happened. Although I can’t share all the details, the relevant points are these:

  • My friend never taught, preached on, or publicly or privately alluded to or mentioned his convictions on this issue;
  • One church leader guessed at my friend’s convictions after a teaching series in which my friend used a prominent, non-SBC pastor’s book as a guide (the book had nothing to do with the issue at hand);
  • The church leader had read pejorative articles about this famous pastor in Baptist newspapers, and especially about this pastor’s particular beliefs on this issue;
  • This one leader forced the conflict after a long time of discussion on the issue with my friend. The church leadership decided that it just isn’t what the church believed, even though by their own admission they had never studied it.

Again, my friend was not forced out because he taught something contrary to Scripture, or to Baptist distinctives, or even because he taught anything at all on the issue. He was forced out for merely holding a particular theological stance on one particular issue, a theological stance that is well-grounded in biblical theology and the SBC’s history.

Third, an SBC pastor recently posted a letter on his church website in which he calls for designated giving around SBTS and SEBTS because of their “Calvinistic agenda.” First, I find it humorous that anyone would accuse SEBTS of having a Calvinistic agenda (I can’t speak for SBTS since I’ve never been there, but I seriously doubt their goal is to “make an ‘army’ of Calvinists,” which is what the pastor argues in the article). Second, here we have again dividing lines being drawn where they ought not to be drawn. Perhaps even more disturbing is another article by the same pastor, which argues against multiculturalism in the US. Again, dividing lines are being drawn in places where they shouldn’t be according to Scripture.

I’m writing this as a call to my SBC brothers and sisters: fight for unity. We are called to be unified as a body, and as a denomination when we divide over race and tertiary doctrinal issues, we are not testifying to Christ. We are testifying to our own sinful selfishness and divisiveness. Particularly, let’s fight for unity in two ways:

  • Fight for racial unity. We are clearly not past racism in some of our churches, and that is beyond abhorrent.
  • Fight for doctrinal unity, not on everything but especially on the “main” things, i.e. God and the gospel. Fight for doctrinal unity on Baptist distinctives (i.e. believer’s baptism, congregational polity, etc.). But don’t divide over tertiary issues. As has been stated numerous times by SBC leaders who are calling for unity, the BF&M 2000 is a big enough tent under which many diverse groups of Southern Baptists can unite for the sake of the gospel being proclaimed in all nations.
  • Obviously we can fight for this by proactively promoting and teaching the unity of the body to our people. But we can also fight for it through loving confrontation of those who are obviously not for unity but division (cf. Titus 3:9-11).