Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XX)
The dominant monism of today is a result of the Constantinian
synthesis that birthed Christendom and the Scholastic impulse. Though a
minority movement within the larger fold of Evangelicalism, Calvinism has also
exercised considerable influence in terms of monistic thought and tendency.
Because of the monistic paradigm born of sacralist thought
(which is in reality pagan), there is an aggressive assault on not just dualism
but all notions of duality. This has only increased over the past three to four
decades and in Evangelical and Confessional circles the once controversial
monism has now become the new orthodoxy surpassing even the monistic frameworks
of medieval Roman Catholicism. It has become so extreme that in Evangelical and
Calvinist circles those who have attempted to advocate even the nuanced monism of Lutheranism – its
version of Two Kingdoms (in reality One Kingdom in two aspects) doctrine have
been excoriated as dualists and Gnostics. It's almost as if we have a monist
inquisition at work or a guild of monistic gatekeepers. Monism and the quest
for social and cultural transformationalism that it produces is without
question the orthodoxy of the hour.
But as suggested, the dualism presented as Gnostic (as being always
absolute) is simply not accurate, nor are the tendencies to anachronistically force
Gnosticism into the New Testament. There are certainly false apostles and
heresies in the background and Paul is combating them. But the enemy being
presented by today's Evangelicals is usually a Gnostic straw man that they can
use to beat the drums of the contemporary culture war. Often the false
teachings Paul and the other apostles are combating represent a spectrum. A
kind of proto-Gnosticism is there to be sure but a more accurate understanding
reveals the error to fall within a broad sweep of Hellenistic Judaism, a
complex of monistic and dualistic tendencies. It's not as simple as they make
it. Many of the proto-gnostics held to forms of mitigated dualism thus once
again the attractiveness of their thought and the ease in which it could
operate within the fold of Christian circles which already had teachings which when
viewed prima facie, might seem to be similar
but were in fact quite different.
These already difficult waters have been deliberately muddied
by the proponents of Dominionism and its monistic mandate. By failing to see
the strong and often monistic Judaizing tendencies in their own thought they
miss just how often these same errors are being opposed by the apostles in the
pages of the New Testament. The errors are complex. We must avoid absolute
dualism to be sure but monism represents an equally dangerous threat. The
tension was there in Roman Catholicism but the Protestant Reformation threw
open the floodgates to monistic thought. Though today's teachers argue that
dualism is dominant in Evangelicalism, the truth is that whatever tendencies
existed a couple of generations ago under the aegis of Fundamentalism have been
largely eradicated. Monism, even Hyper-Monism is now the dominant paradigm.
In addition to leading to the overthrow of Christian ethics
and a sweeping redefinition of the Kingdom, there is an impoverishment of the
Scriptures and what they reveal. Theology is flattened, compressed and it's
easily seen as 'the system' is preached from the pulpit far more than the text.
Because the text simply doesn't support
their views and exegetical preaching will expose this. And as these circles
have (by their means of defining the Kingdom) ranged far beyond the Scriptures
in their thoughts and aims, they have opened themselves up to outside influence
and increasingly it is these outside socio-political voices that emanate from
their pulpits, books, and ministries and dominate their concerns. I was
appalled (but hardly surprised) to hear a recent PCA sermon in which more time
was given to Thomas Sowell quotations on money, economics, and ethics than
anything Paul or Christ might have said on such matters. And I can assure the reader
they are quite contradictory. Such churches can proclaim they uphold Sola
Scriptura but they are deceiving themselves and sadly the people in the pew.
In truth duality and dualities are everywhere in the
Scriptures. Primarily this is seen in the Incarnation and as such that supra-
or meta-logical expression is the key or lens through which all Biblical
doctrine is read and determined. The Incarnation is the foundation to all
theological prolegomena. The tensions and equal ultimacies within the Incarnation
along with the inherent duality found in the age old debate over the one and
the many (echoed in Christian Trinitarianism) are the foundation of the
Scripture's internal logic and the foundations for doctrinal expression and
understanding. And yet these are mysteries shrouded in impenetrable duality. They
are doctrines we submit to in awe and wonder and they are a source of hope. We
can apprehend these truths but we cannot comprehend them. Those that have
sought the latter have invariably fallen into error and the foundations stones
they lay establish the wayward trajectory and orientation of their theologies.
In light of the Incarnation, it shouldn't surprise us then to
understand that there are and were dualities in prophetic fulfillment (and the
very nature of typology), there are dualities in every aspect of soteriology,
tensions found in how the various facets work and interact with each other and
in terms of eschatology. We are sanctified and yet waiting to be sanctified and
as such we are called to pursue holiness in the present. This is no less true
when it comes to adoption, mortification, and even justification though many
due to their tradition will not permit themselves to say so.
It is also the case when it comes to questions of assurance
and perseverance. We must not let a couple of texts cancel out dozens of others
– nor do we let the multitude cancel out the outliers – but we seek to
understand how these paradoxes, these seeming contradictions function as
equally ultimate dualities. And in some cases a more careful read of the
context reveals the texts aren't always saying what has become popularly
embraced – 1 John 2.19 immediately comes to mind.
To understand the sacraments also requires a conception of
duality. The abandonment of this notion has led to the impoverishment of the
sacraments and their relegation to being mere tokens – even though in the New
Testament they are presented in efficacious terms and laden with supernatural
virtue. And yes, this issue of duality and its large-scale rejection helps to
explain the overwhelming trajectory even in the Reformed world toward Baptistic
thought – which in many respects has built its house on just such a rejection.
By this I mean not just the specifics regarding their doctrine of baptism. Rather
their doctrine of baptism (and the Lord's Supper) is but the culmination and
result of these forces, these rationalist commitments made in the realm of
prolegomena that (from the vantage point of First Reformation Biblicism) has
led them astray. This discussion regarding duality is directed not just against
Baptistic thought but the spectrum of such thinking that has (especially since
the 19th century) come to dominate the entire Protestant and
Evangelical spectrum. Though there were aspects to the old pre-WWI
Fundamentalism that could be appreciated, it is at this point that we break
ranks and posit a Biblicism quite different from the post-Enlightenment
framework in which theirs has been constructed.
Additionally we find dualities in how wisdom is presented to
us. This is especially true when it comes to not only the Psalms and Proverbs
but to Ecclesiastes and Job. Because dualities are not permitted, the lessons
of these books are often missed (often woefully) which leads to further
epistemological errors. With caution, we can also say the Scriptures present
dualities in cosmology. Indeed the entire breadth of theology reveals this to
be the case. It's not a principle to be forced on the text but a reality that
is to be recognised and will be recognised everywhere – if one has their eyes
open.
This is no less true when it comes to the Kingdom and how it (and
we as citizens of it) functions in this age. A loss of this leads to a
functional Triumphalist Postmillennialism, a monistic attempt to establish the
golden reign of Christ in This Age, prior to the consummation. It rejects the
way of the cross and calls the Church to take up the sword and the coin to rule
and reign in this age and eradicate the evil (and any hint of duality). It is
the utopian Jewish view of the Kingdom so vigorously rejected in the New
Testament and in the Early Church, even by those who adhered to
Premillennialism and its chiliastic reign.
Even those who have recognised something of what is being
said here, due to the influence of Abraham Kuyper and others have nevertheless
rejected the duality. They pay lip service to it by arguing that we should
influence culture, be good citizens and the like but we should avoid losing
sight of the duality and falling into sacralist triumphalism. Given the
dominant ethos of the day it's somewhat refreshing, but what they've missed is
that the duality lies in the fact that we are both eternal and temporal,
sanctified and yet sinners, triumphant and seated on the throne and yet also
taking up the cross. It has nothing to do with compromising our heavenly
citizenship by taking up with the state and its dominion of sword and coin. It
has nothing to do with redeeming culture. They're still adhering to the monism.
They've tempered it and produced something far more palatable and a touch
closer to the Biblical model but they have not escaped it and the dualities
they acknowledge in almost every case violate and gainsay the ethics of the New
Testament and our calling to be Christians.
In one sense we need to be clear and declare that the
aforementioned dualities and tensions are not some kind of ideal we seek after
but are manifestations of the eternal interacting with the fallen world, doomed
to mortality or temporality (which in the context of mortality becomes a curse
and represents decay). We therefore reject absolute dualism or even permanent
duality as these tensions will be eliminated at the Eschaton – but only then
and only by the Coming of Christ. The
dualities are with us for the present and critical to understand.
The Analogy of Scripture which is often cited as a means to
counter the rank Biblicism being presented here is a useful tool but one that
can be abused. Helpful in reconciling narrative discrepancies, the Analogy
hermeneutic when used in the realm of doctrine is a little more than a vehicle
for rationalism and its demand for coherence – coherence as conceived by a
fallen mind bound by space and time. Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians 2 when
after revealing that wisdom is not unveiled by rational predication but by the
revelation of mystery and the power of the Holy Spirit, he then tells us that
such heavenly mysteries are beyond the experiential range of the eye and ear
and indeed they are beyond the conception of the mind (or heart). As such we
can say with some confidence that man's philosophical categories (the empirical
and the rational) are insufficient to parse and comprehend eternal truths (that
we express by means of theology). We can apprehend and understand analogically
but the quest for comprehension or to treat doctrine propositionally (and thus
make it subject to dissection, deduction and further predication) is to rely on
the wisdom of this world (v.6).
And yet even then there are still some enigmas that are
beyond even our imagined abilities at conception. Though we admit that
dualities will be eliminated and that heaven itself is ultimately a monistic
order, we are limited in our ability to understand this or even conceive of
words that could express it. For example consider the Incarnation's permanence
in the Kingdom of Heaven, the fact that the Second Person of the Trinity has
(it would seem) embraced a permanent hypostatic union. Does this not represent
a ratification of duality that is realised even in the otherwise monistic New
Heavens and the New Earth? But such questions and their theological
implications are frankly beyond us and those that think otherwise are tinkering
with things they do not understand and put themselves and their followers at
grave spiritual risk. Like Job, we must lay our hands upon our mouths,
acknowledge that we are vile, and fall silent.
Finally there are large and looming questions with regard to the culture and how we are to view it. This touches on aesthetics and is in many ways an application of Scriptural epistemology and ethics. In other words we're talking about what is commonly referred to as worldview. The ideas outlined in the essays pertaining to the First Reformation demand a posture quite at odds with today's Evangelical norms. Many of these questions were touched upon in the essays that interacted with Francis Schaeffer's 1977 video series How Should We Then Live?, but these issues are of great practical importance and require some further commentary which will be pursued in the subsequent and final chapter of this series.
See also:
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2020/03/how-should-we-then-live-part-1-roman-age.html