Systematic Theology

Book Review: Understanding Scientific Theories of Origins (Part 4)

Wes Bredenhof

See here for Part 1, here for Part 2, and here for Part 3.

Functional Kenotic Christology

Another major theme running through USTO is the theological significance of the incarnation.  According to USTO, the Holy Spirit’s work in the incarnation and in the life of Jesus is a parallel or analogy for how he continues to work in ongoing creation.  As the Nicene Creed says, the Holy Spirit is “the Lord and giver of life.”

A Bible-believing Reformed Christian will have no trouble with the Nicene Creed’s confession of the Holy Spirit.  He is the giver of life.  The Bible teaches that this is true for spiritual life (1 Cor. 12:3) as well as for physical life (Ps. 104:30).

However, USTO works that out in ways that are not only wrong, but verging on heretical.  The error is subtle and not easily discerned.  Here are some quotes to illustrate the teaching I’m concerned about here:

Jesus was fully and authentically human because of the energizing and enabling work of the Spirit. (25)

Jesus lived a perfect life of obedience to the Father because he was enabled to freely and perfectly rely on the Spirit’s power to lead a humble, obedient life…In short, Jesus was sustained by the Spirit, perfected by the Spirit, served the Father’s purposes by the Spirit, lived, died, and lived again through the Spirit. (26)

Instead, what is most remarkable about Jesus is that he lived as an embodied person in perfect relationship with the Father, always enabled by the Spirit.  Moreover, he was sustained by the Spirit in his relationships with other persons and all of creation. (600-601)

All Jesus’ miracles were performed through the power of the Spirit. (601)

And Jesus’ humanity is the ultimate model from which we can learn by the Spirit’s power to exercise our capacities as means through which God is restoring all of creation.  (605)

There are many more such quotes from the book – as I said, it’s an important theme strung from start to finish.

The emphasis is on Jesus as a human being empowered by the Holy Spirit to do amazing things, including obeying God fully.  This parallels what creation can do in cooperation with the Holy Spirit – continue its evolutionary development.  It also illustrates what it means to bear the image of God as human beings.

This teaching has a name:  functional kenotic Christology (FKC).  In God’s providence, while I was reading USTO, I was also reading Stephen J. Wellum’s God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ.  Wellum identifies FKC as a contemporary challenge to orthodox Christology.  FKC is entrenched in “evangelical” theology; some of its advocates include well-known names like William Craig, J.P. Moreland, and Millard Erickson.  According to Wellum, FKC is sometimes associated with “Spirit-Christology” and it’s here that you find mention of Colin Gunton.  Gunton was a British theologian whose work is cited extensively in USTO, including in the portions speaking about Jesus’ reliance upon the Holy Spirit.

Let me explain a little more about FKC.  FKC does not deny the divinity of the Son of God.  It teaches that when the Son of God took on a human nature, his divine attributes became latent.  They were fully there, but not being used.  The Son of God chose to live his incarnate life within the bounds of his human nature, including all of its limitations.  This is the “kenotic” element of FKC.  “Kenosis” is the theological term derived from the Greek used in Philippians 2:7 to refer to Christ emptying himself.  Wellum explains further:

Thus when it comes to how Jesus has supernatural knowledge and exercises supernatural power in his miracles, FKC insists that Jesus does so, not by the use of his divine attributes, but by the power of the Spirit.  Thus, in all of the incarnate Son’s actions, even actions traditionally viewed as divine actions (such as his miracles), Jesus performs them by the Spirit, in a way similar to other Spirit-empowered men and parallel to the Spirit’s work in us.  This is why Jesus can serve as our example, as he shows us how to live our lives in dependence on the Spirit – although he is the paradigm, interpreted more quantitatively than qualitatively.  (God the Son Incarnate, 383).

The “functional” element of FKC comes from the manner in which this teaching addresses the work that Jesus did.

Debates about the doctrine of the person of Christ raged on through the early church.  However, eventually the church adopted what’s known as the Chalcedonian Definition.  Chalcedon is not officially part of our Reformed creeds and confessions, but the content of Chalcedon is found in both the Athanasian Creed (articles 29-37) and the Belgic Confession (articles 18 and 19).  Advocates of FKC affirm Chalcedon formally, but as Wellum points out, “they depart from it at significant points” (Wellum, 396).  This is particularly in regard to how they define “person,” their equating “person” with “soul,” and in their endorsement of the idea that the incarnate Son of God has only one will (monothelitism).

Wellum offers an extensive critique of FKC.  I’ll just briefly summarize it – interested readers should go and check it out for themselves.  He notes two main problems.

First, FKC does not readily account for what the Bible says about the divinity of Christ in his earthly life and ministry.  The works Jesus does are “ultimately acts identified with Yahweh” (Wellum, 406).  If you survey texts like John 5:16-30, Col. 1:17, and Heb. 1:3, it is clear that “in his state of humiliation, the Son continues to exercise his divine attributes as the Son in relation to and united with the Father and the Spirit” (Wellum 406).

Second, FKC sounds Trinitarian enough (and so does USTO), but in reality it fails to do justice to the Trinity, especially in developing Father-Son-Spirit relations.  If the incarnate Son never uses his divine attributes, then his actions on earth were either purely human, or they are the actions of the Holy Spirit.  Where there are actions surpassing what normal humans can do, the Son of God appears to be merely passive in his own actions.  Moreover, the work of the Father in all of this is ignored.  Wellum writes, “…it is not enough to focus simply on the Son-Spirit relations; we must also account for John’s Gospel, for example, which stresses predominantly the Father-Son relations” (408).

FKC is not a theological peccadillo.  This is a major concern.  Most readers of USTO are not going to have enough theological training to discern it.  USTO makes it sound plausible – and they have some Bible texts that apparently support their claims.  Moreover, it is a central part of their effort to integrate evolution with biblical teaching.  It has sometimes been said that acceptance of evolutionary theory requires an overhaul of every area of theology.  The presence of FKC in USTO illustrates that this overhaul is underway.

Click here to continue to Part 5 (the final part)…

De Moor on Science and Scripture

Wes Bredenhof

de-moor-21

One of the reasons history is exciting is that you often find others who have dealt with similar questions to the ones you’re dealing with.  No, they’re not usually identical questions, but they are sometimes similar.  When it comes to these similar questions, it’s also interesting to compare the answers given in history to the answers we come up with today.  Here at Creation Without Compromise we’re especially interested in the questions and answers that have to do with the relationship between science and Scripture.

Today’s venture into history takes us to the late 1700s.  By and large Reformed theology had been devastated by philosophical influences associated with the Enlightenment.  There were only a few holdouts who could be described as confessionally Reformed and orthodox.  One of them was Bernhard De Moor (1709-1780).

After serving for several years as a pastor, De Moor took up a position as professor of theology at the University of Leiden.  In this capacity, De Moor lectured at length on a textbook published by his teacher and friend Johannes à Marck.  These lectures were later published in massive seven-volume set with the catchy title, Commentarius perpetuus in Johannis Marckii Compendium theologiae christianae didactico-elencticum.  De Moor’s book is regarded as the high water-mark of Reformed orthodoxy.  It was a comprehensive overview of Reformed theology as it stood at that time.

Dr. Steven Dilday has taken on the massive task of translating De Moor’s magnum opus into English.  He has been making it freely available online here.  He began in late 2012 and, at this moment, he is currently in chapter 2.  This is obviously going to be a project that stretches over many years!

One of the topics dealt with in chapter 2 has to do with the relationship between science and Scripture.  I would like to briefly survey what De Moor writes on this.  Here we can observe a Reformed theologian from about 200 years ago dealing with questions similar to what we face today.  If you’re interested in reading the English translation of Dr. Dilday for yourself, the topic begins at this blog post.  But I think you will find my summary a little easier reading…

Broadly speaking, De Moor is dealing with Scripture in chapter 2.  In section 21, he begins by noting that the Bible does have a primary subject:  true religion.  The Bible is mainly about “the right manner of coming to know and of worshipping/serving God for the salvation of man as sinner and the glory of God…”  However, Scripture does also speak of other things related to this primary subject.  These other things include natural, historical, and genealogical matters.

 From there, section 22 of chapter 2 deals with the fact that Scripture speaks truly.  De Moor insists that God’s Word speaks truly about all things, including natural things.  This is directly connected to the fact that the One who inspired these writings is the Spirit of Truth.

Here one has to remember that De Moor is commenting or lecturing on a textbook of Johannes à Marck.  De Moor mentions that à Marck points out an alternative hypothesis, namely that “Scripture in natural matters speaks according to the erroneous opinion of the common people.”  The philosopher Baruch Spinoza advocated this position, and so did theologian Christoph Wittich.  De Moor also notes that the English theologian Thomas Burnet took this position in regards to what Scripture says about creation and the Flood.  Just prior to that, he also points out that this was the view of Balthasar Bekker (1634-1698), a Dutch theologian heavily influenced by Cartesian rationalism.

Now I want to pause here for a moment and mention something important about Bekker.  Bekker argued the hypothesis mentioned by De Moor in relation to demons.  Specifically, Bekker taught that the angels (including demons) are not real, but the good angels in Scripture merely speak metaphorically of God’s omnipotence. Bekker also taught the Eve was not tempted by a literal snake in the garden, nor was Christ literally tempted by Satan – it was merely a dream.  At issue was Bekker’s way of interpreting Scripture.  Dutch theologian Wilco Veltkamp has written a dissertation which delves into this.  In a December 2011 article in Nader Bekeken (see here), he explained the connection between the hermeneutics of Bekker and that of theistic evolutionists today.  The connection is a refusal to start with the authority of Scripture and submit to Scripture through to the end of an issue.

Going back to De Moor, this hypothesis gets several points in response, beginning with the observation that its foundation is preconceived human opinion rather than Scripture.  De Moor points that the Bible was inspired in all things by the Spirit of Truth.  Scripture calls God the God of Truth. This hypothesis makes him a liar.  Moreover, God is omniscient and he knows that of which he speaks.  He would also never deceive us or leave us in error.  If this hypothesis were true, De Moor writes, we are at liberty to interpret Scripture as we please and there would no longer be any certainty as to what it actually says.  De Moor quotes Augustine as he insists that none of the canonical writers erred.  He finishes responding to this hypothesis with a reference to article 5 of the Belgic Confession, “We believe without any doubt all things contained” in these canonical writings.

De Moor then adds some nuance to the discussion.  He notes that while the Holy Spirit “never speaks according to the errors of the common people,” he can accurately relate errors made by people.  Further, De Moor acknowledges that Scripture does sometimes speak according to external appearances.  For example, the Greek in Acts 27:27 literally says that the sailors with Paul suspected that some country was “drawing near to them.”  Of course, the land wasn’t approaching the ship, but it is common to speak in that fashion and no one errs in so speaking.

There is one more objection that De Moor addresses – this one also comes from Spinoza.  It’s one that is still trotted out today, albeit in a different form:  Scripture is not designed to teach us concerning natural matters or science.  Instead, the intent of Scripture is to make people obedient.  Today’s version usually refers to faith or salvation rather than obedience.  But certainly we do hear today as well that the Bible is not a “textbook for science” and such things.  How does De Moor respond?  He affirms again the primary purpose of Scripture is to teach true religion.  However, that primary purpose does not exclude subordinate ends such as teaching people the magnificent natural works of God.  One does not rule out the other.  Finally, it would out of place to suppose that the Holy Spirit would use errors to carry out his purposes.  He would never give anything contrary to the truth – it would be out of character for him.

De Moor concludes this section with an intriguing reference to an Order of the States of Holland and West-Friesland, dated September 30, 1656.  This order actually prohibited the interpretation of Scripture by nature, rather than the other way around.  In other words, at one point there was Dutch legislation maintaining that Scripture is to be the lens through which we interpret nature.  De Moor deems this legislation “altogether pious.”

It’s important to remember the era in which De Moor lived – it was the heyday of Enlightenment rationalism.  The Bible was under attack by those who said that it could stand in the face of reasoned scrutiny and scientific developments.  Intelligent people could not take the Bible seriously at face value.  In that milieu, De Moor stood for the absolute authority of the Word of God.  He promoted confidence in the infallible and inerrant Scriptures, also when it came to the relationship between Scripture and science.  He was not a rationalist – no, he was addressing rationalism and doing so on the basis of Scripture.  Those promoting theistic evolution today, especially in Reformed churches, need to ask themselves whether they are carrying on the heritage of theologians like De Moor or betraying it.