Explanations of the Unexamined Life
I am working through the notion of becoming a member in a Reformed Baptist Church. The Reformed Baptists use the 2nd London Baptist Confession as their statement of faith. A few years ago they wanted to update it but did not get enough enthusiasm from all their pastors. If I were using a venerable document, I would be leery of people tinkering with it myself. It has, however, a few things that need to be updated. Among them the most salient is the explicit identification of the Pope as the Antichrist. Another is the section on the state of infants who die.
I do not agree with either of those two things in the LBC2. But what I am really having trouble with is the 7th Chapter. I read it once and thought all things were fine since I am a Progressive Dispensationalist. But after that I started reading about Covenant Theology and realized the language of the LBC2 was full of the technical terms of Covenant Theology. The first section implies the covenant of works, the next section explicitly mentions the covenant of grace, and the last section the covenant of redemption.
One of the difficulties, however, that Reformed Baptists have is that their Covenant Theology recognizes more discontinuities than your standard Reformed Covenant Theology. In fact, I was told by one of them that upon reading of the developments of Progressive Dispensationalism he grew alarmed because he believed that would further encourage the accusations that Reformed Baptists were crypto-dispensationalists.
Dispensationalists explain the relationship of God and man in terms of stewardships. Covenant Theologians explain the relationship of God and man in terms of covenants. I think the concept of a stewarship is an improvement on the concept of the covenant in explaining the relationship of God and man. Covenant Theologians are sometimes liable to take the idea of a stewardship they see Dispensationalists using and understand it as a covenant. So they might be tempted to construe Dispensationalism to teach that each stewardship implies a different way of salvation; which strikes me as a confusing of a stewardship with a covenant.
Covenant Theologians believe there was always a covenant and that man could not attain to life without a covenant. In Eden, they believe, there was a covenant of works. The Dispensationalist is not tempted to think that man needed to attain to life having received it already. But the Covenant Theologian wants a covenant in place, so they say that the distinction between creature and Creator is such there must always be a covenant. A Dispensationalist would reply that all that distinction requires is a stewardship and that the notion of a covenant has been smuggled in.
Covenant Theologians have an overarching covenant in place once the covenant of works is broken: the covenant of grace. The typical reformed view sees this covenant somehow appearing in the Biblical covenants, for example, the Abrahamic. Because the Abrahamic Covenant has something to do with the covenant of grace, and because the covenant of grace definitely has to do with the New Covenant (the Biblical covenants are continuous because they are related to the covenant of grace), most Reformed Christians will baptize infants as a sign of the covenant. After all, the Abrahamic Covenant included the whole family. Reformed Baptists cannot admit that. So their handling of the Biblical covenants and their understanding of the covenant of grace, etc., is closer to John Owen’s who apparently made some adjustments. And they even, I understand, go beyond.
All that to say, I doubt I could ever be a minister in a Reformed Baptist Church even if I aspired to it, which I do not. But being a Progressive Dispensationalist and knowing that Reformed Baptists have to take a different view of Covenant Theology, I entertain hopes of being able to join a Reformed Baptist Church.
Because Baptists are congregationalist in government, they normally refuse to introduce a distinction of beliefs between the parishioners and the clergy. The members of the church all covenant together to uphold the church’s doctrine, not just the ministers. All must believe the articles in the creed.
Those who are presbyterian in polity (not Presbyterians proper, but elder-ruled assembles) have no problem introducing such a division of belief between the members and the elders, because the elders alone are responsible to govern the church.
I hate how you make it sound like I don’t know this and I hate how you make it sound like agreeing with all the articles of the creed isn’t the whole point of my post.
Perhaps I misunderstood your last paragraph.
You could just join Piper’s church. You don’t even have to be baptized there!
Perhaps you’re just not being logical. Look at the size of the creed and compare it with the size of a tome of systematic theology. One agrees to a lot less being a member than being a minister.
The qualifications for being a minister, with the Reformed Baptists at least, are qualifications that would bar most of us from ever joining in the membership. This includes the ability to articulate and explain doctrine. It is one thing to agree to the limited statements of a confession; it is another thing to answer to a group of elders that you have a sufficient grasp of the implications.
My Pastor back home would always emphasize the point by saying, “every church member should do/know these things, but every pastor must do/know them.”
Joel, I’ve been wanting to ask and this seems as good a spot as any: did you every find out why you insist on the filioque clause and did the reasons stand up to Lossky?
I don’t insist on it.
Strange you should ask. I was thinking about it last night again, after having thought I’m not very certain about it—or perhaps it was last Sunday morning I thought about it. I keep thinking about it, anyway.
Lossky’s reasoning is rather unsympathetic to the West. He makes it sound like the filioque clause had accidental origin and was mostly perpetuated due to stubborness. I wonder. On the other hand, I haven’t heard a better reason given for its existence than his. I’ve read meager and unengaged rebuttals (by reformed theologians who have the reprehensible tendency to take a condescending view of theologians of other persuasions). I haven’t read all that much about it, though. I’m not much of a one for scholarship, for all that it took me 13 years to figure it out.
If there were only a good story dealing with it rather than a theological tome, you know? Something that dealt with the vitality of the issue. One can only wish.
Today I wonder if the West’s description is inaccurate. I hate the meager proof texting some do. I know this is not going to serve to convince anybody, but look at Revelation 5.6 and see if it suggests anything to you. What I wonder is whether the apophatic approach is incompatible with the filioque clause. I realize what I’m saying is like a dismissal of some high grade theologizing.
If I had to chose between the filioque clause and apophatic theology, I’d let the filioque clause go.
Lossky was a man in possession of great theological imagination, it seems to me. I am probably not even worthy to venture an opinion against him.
The only historical explanation I’ve picked up is something about Charlemagne and his imperial ambitions (wanting to make the Byzantine Emporer out a heretic), but I have no idea how true it is, or how important. A history such as you describe would indeed be helpful. I’m starting to think that when you abstract ideas out from the tangle of human thoughts and motives and cirumstances in which they actually occured, there must be some change in those ideas, for good or ill…
I want to work on the Revelation passage a little more. It suggests so much that I’m finding it difficult to pick the essential thing to say. One thought I have is that Lossky makes a distinction between the Spirit “going forth” into the world, and his procession in reference to “hypostatic origins,” pp. 55-56. It seems more likely to me that this verse refers to the former than the latter…if either is intended. But there’s so much there…have you seen this verse used to defend the filioque and if so how? Or was it suggestive of same to you?
Yes, Lossky’s portrayal of a Trinity-centered Reality is superior to anything I’ve encountered yet. And I’m beginning to understand your devotion to apophatic theology.
It seems to suggest to me that the Spirit who proceeds, proceeds also from the Son. It does not need to be taken that way, but what is the point of locating the eyes and horns on the lamb and then saying they are sent out into the world if they do not proceed from the Son? Surely it indicates some relationship.
Lossky is concerned that the filioque clause amounts to an explanation of the unknowable essence. I don’t know that I’m convinced that the elaboration on the relationship between the persons the filioque clause implies amounts to an attempt to explain the unknowable essence. If it does, then certainly Lossky’s argument for the need of an apophatic approach convinces me against it.
So do you believe that the procession spoken of in the Creed is the same as the Holy Spirit’s being sent forth “into the world”?
Yes, I see what you mean about Lossky’s argument. It’s an interesting question. At some point it has to become practical, I suppose – which tradition actually produces mystical experience, or do they both?
I think it could be. I’m not being evasive, I’m simply not certain. But my point is not to tell you what I think, but to suggest to you a passage you might find worth considering.
Both traditions have produced mystical experiences.
How disarming! No, I wasn’t trying to “take a stand,” either. And you have given me something to think about. So – thanks.
Fair fortune to your stories, I enjoy them.