Transcript
WILLIS-WATKINS: Last time I left you with the discussion of Saint Thomas's doctrine of the Trinity and the distinction between missions and processions. That is, the time before last. Last time, I left you with exams. I'm sorry that I didn't show for that particular occasion. We had -- I don't know if Mr. Wood indicated to you what was going that particular day. We had a special confrontation with some representatives of Christian Science
who are interested in becoming closely related to the ecumenical movement. And I was drawn in rather quickly on that thing, so I wasn't able to be here. Remember we were talking about the difference between missions and processions according to Saint Thomas's doctrine. And I was telling you why these are important, the difference between mission and procession.
If one does not make this distinction, the Spirit is threatened in His divinity so that He cannot accomplish what His sending and His arrival is meant [for?]. And we would fall again to the civilian way of thinking, namely, that God is triune, there are three persons in the Trinity, only as our mind responds logically to God's revelation.
And the Holy Spirit's arrival and His presence among us cannot be equated with the Holy Spirit himself. Nor can Jesus Christ's arrival, His incarnation, be equated with the eternal existence of the word of God. Their presence in our midst is only the arrival side of the dynamic movement of God toward us. And God is able to move dynamically toward us
only because of the priority of His being dynamically self-sufficient. And we mentioned that mission applies only to the way in which God is for us in time. Mission refers to the way in which God begins to be in a new way where He has always been before. But both of these things are
important to remember. He begins to be in a new way that's one thing which is important. But He begins to be in a new way where He has always been. In other words, God is always omnipresent so that we don't say now the Spirit now comes into the world at Pentecost and His arrival at Pentecost means that He comes
where He has not been before. No. God, the triune God, is omnipresent and so He has always been everywhere in His creation. But He comes to His creation in a new way and He begins to be in a new way where He has always been before. So that the Holy Spirit and the
Son, as well as the Father, were always present everywhere, according to Saint Thomas. Or as it applies to Jesus Christ, the incarnate word, he says, is like a word of speech for as audible sounds express what we think, so the same way Christ's body manifests the eternal word.
The Spirit is visibly sent when He quote showed himself in certain creatures, as in signs especially made for that purpose. Now by this He means, for instance, the way in which the Spirit showed Himself at Christ's baptism in the dove or at Pentecost in the flames. And he takes a cue from Saint Augustine, who says that the prophetic vision
was invisible to people who were around the prophet. But he says whoever saw the fire and the dove saw these by their eyes. That is to say, these things were empirically observable. Anybody who happened at the Jordan or in Jerusalem on those occasions could see the dove and the fire. But whoever saw the fire and the dove saw them by their eyes
and in this, they seemed to be like the burning bush and the pillar of smoke. These things, also, are observable to anyone. Then he says, "For the purpose of the bodily appearances of those things was that they might signify something and then pass away." For the purpose of the bodily appearance of those thing was that they might signify something and then pass away.
Now this is in accordance with Saint Thomas's judgment, quote, that God provides for all things according to the nature of each thing. God provides for all things according to the nature of each thing. And this, I think, is a very helpful or a very far-reaching axiom, as can be seen when we apply it to the difference between the first century men in their worldview
and the twentieth century men in theirs. In other words, when this axiom is applied to omnipresent problem of hermeneutics, it has a good deal to say. I'll let you feel in the implications, but here is simply one, that the Holy Spirit was not necessarily the demanded or expected to manifest Himself in the signs appropriate to the first century
in our day. The Holy Spirit's power must indeed be so harnessed but His power must not be measured simply in terms of the signs which He used to signify His presence in another era. Now I'm going to move quickly to
paragraph 12, which is -- and hold my evaluation of Saint Thomas's doctrine to the conclusion of paragraph 12, which is entitled Reformation, colon, Catholic or radical." Reformation: Catholic or radical. Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity. Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity.
And here what we're doing is going to be measuring one of the Reformer's doctrine of the Trinity to see the way in which this says something about the movement which we call the Reformation. As you all know from your other courses, there is a lively discussion going on among historians and churchmen in general today upon
exactly the meaning of reformation or restitution or renovation of the church. Dr. [Doughery?], especially, has been doing considerable work recently on the concept of reform. What is the reformation of the church? What makes, for example, the Cluniac Reform different from the Reform of Hildebrand, Gregory VII? These are both reforming movements. And what
makes the Reformation of the sixteenth century distinctively reformatory -- or perhaps we should use a less criminological term -- which makes it more reforming? Now what is at stake here is not simply whether or not we can remember church history. What is really at stake here is the reason for our continued existence as separate denominations or as separate communions.
This applies both to Roman Catholicism and to Protestantism. And as for this question of whether or not we have any legitimate right to exist as a separate communion anymore, we're not asking the question why don't we all go back to Rome. We're asking the question why don't the Romans and the Protestants go back to a unity or forwards to a unity
as indicated or hinted at or spelled out in several places in the New Testament, especially the high priest -- the so-called high priestly prayer of Christ. And again, another question. What is the so-called radical reformation? Or was the Reformation necessary? What was the Reformation when it happened? And how did the reformers think of it? What did they think the Reformation was?
And how did their conception of the Reformation differ from what later denominational formulations think of the Reformation? Now all of these things are things which are on the horizon for us as theologians and as churchmen today and they will increasingly be the case in the future. We can all count on the next 15 years as being -- in
being engaged in various levels of ecumenical discussions. Increasingly, we will have Lutherans and Anglicans and other Presbyterians and Roman Catholics drawing you in to discussions on the nature of the church and of reform. To illustrate some of the funny things that can happen, there was a Protestant-Roman Catholic colloquium in Cambridge last year in which there was
a member of the Roman Catholic communion who was a Jewish person who had been converted to Roman Catholicism. And he was a member of the Augustinian order. And during the discussions there, he found himself in the company of some Protestants who were of the view, well, a doctrine doesn't really count, doctrine divides and action unites.
And after all, all Protestants are only modern versions of Saint Francis of Assisi and it's the inner heart that counts. You mustn't fool with all this doctrine. And the person who got most excited negatively about this sort of language was this converted Jew Augustinian who, at great length, took upon himself to instruct his Protestant brethren in Lutheran
theology. And he would remind us -- he said, well, now there was another important member of the Augustinian order who said such and such. And throughout the entire colloquium, he would base his discussion of Catholic reform upon the doctrine set forth by Luther. And this happens. It -- by oftentimes, we have completely lost a great deal of our tradition and the Roman Catholics or some of the other traditions are reminding us of it. Now the main historical
judgment which I am going to set forth here is that the reform represented by the classical reformers -- I'm taking the example of Calvin as this -- that the reform represented by the classical reformers is both Catholic and radical. Both Catholic and radical. It is Catholic because it maintained the central doctrines of the Trinity in
Christology and radical because it reformed the doctrine of justification. Because it reformed the doctrine of justification resultant obedience
-- the resultant obedience of Christians in sanctification. I wish we'd put down something of a chart on your paper to save us (inaudible) is here and doctrine here. [Roman classical?] reformers
and radical... So the question is what is the Reformation and what does the reformation of the church consist? And the classical reformers said when all -- the -- what is required of the church in our day is a reform of the church in root and branch.
In other words, it simply won't do to change a few of the practices of the church. There has to be a radical reformation, a reformation in the root. A radical reformation which extends down to the very doctrine of the church. Now the Roman Catholic reform, the so-called (inaudible) Reformation, took place primarily on the level of practice
because by definition you don't reform doctrine. Doctrine is immutable. It's divine revelation. You don't reform it. Now there were some people who realized you don't reform doctrine, but you can modify it in a [better?] direction by interpreting existing doctrine.
So that's a qualification, that by and large, for Roman Catholic Reformation, reform takes place on the level of practice. For the classical Reformation, there has to be a reform both of practice and of doctrine. And the reform which takes place on this level
in this column, with the magisterial refo-- the classical Reformation here, is that of making the church teaching more Catholic and less Roman. The reform of doctrine, according to the classical reformers, is to make the doctrine of the church more Catholic and less Roman.
And this meant especially the reform of doctrine at two parts. Sola scriptura, scripture alone, scripture alone, and by faith alone, justification, and the relation between scripture and tradition.
Reform of doctrine for these classical reformers did not extend to challenging or undermining or loosening the decisions of the four ec-- first ecumenical councils, that is to say the decisions of the church regarding the Trinity and the nature of Christ's person.
Reform for the classical reformers here on the question of reform of practice meant a number of things. I mention these: the reform of the nature of the ministry, reform concerning the nature of the laity, the priesthood of all believers, reform concerning the means of grace,
for instance, that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper be offered in both kinds, both elements be offered to the laity. And reform in terms of the -- of assuring the church's freedom from the state. The church's freedom from the state. But it is also called, this particular reform movement, the classical reform
movement of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, is also called the magisterial Reformation. Magisterial Reformation because these reformers maintained the mutual responsibility of church and state for each other. That's a nice way of putting it. The radical reformers would say because these
magisterial reformers maintained a Caesural papism, that the church's position in society was guaranteed by the power of the sword. Now let's go quickly to the radical reformation. This is sometimes -- this is called the enthusiasts or the spiritualists. The term radical reformation is a fairly recent -- a recent one in the last 20 years. They were called enthusiasts or
"die Schwärmer" by Luther. And as regards the practice, they -- as -- they, like the Roman Catholics, said the real reform that counts is not reform of doctrine, but reform of practice. This is really the thing that counts. And they are called radical reformers because they broke
the church–state integration, the way in which church and state were integrated in different patterns. When it comes to doctrine, there -- if you want [call it?] about a reform of doctrine,
they -- and one can speak, I suppose, of a reform of doctrine, but their aim, I suppose you could say, is to make the teaching of the church more Christian, more Christian, by making it more primitive and less Catholic. More primitive and less Catholic. The change took place
not on the doctrines of justification, but on the levels of the doctrine of the Trinity and of Christology. In other words, they undid or sought to undo the decisions of the first four ecumenical councils. One of the reasons why they were so adverse to the decisions of the four ecumenical councils, the first four, was that
these decisions were imposed upon the church in their interpretation by the emperor. And the central dogma of the radical reformers was the freedom of the individual
conscience, was the freedom of the individual conscience, and the conviction that Christians should and can live in subsequent centuries the way the disciples lived in the first century.
Now the hermeneutical characteristics of each of these -- we've already mentioned what the relation between scripture and tradition is for Roman Catholicism if we take Saint Thomas as an example of what we mean by Roman Catholic hermeneutics, the relation between scripture and tradition.
For the radical reformers, I will stick my neck out and characterize their principle of interpretation as saying the scripture is self-evident apart from tradition. Scripture is self-evident apart from tradition,
but an operation with precisely the tradition of -- a very pointed tradition of which they stood. And the classical reformers operated with a view of scripture tradition. They said scripture alone
and what they meant by scripture alone in the way they operated was that the Holy Spirit effectually implied the witness of scripture to the heart of the believer and then when this was effectually applied to the heart of the believer,
he in point of fact agreed with the contents of the tradition of the church as stated by the first four ecumenical councils.
Tradition for the reformers, which was effective in their interpretation of scripture, was a tradition of the teaching, tradition of the teaching. Officers of the church. Now all of this is to say that the doctrine of the Trinity
is [a?] central one which distinguishes the classical reformers from some of the more extreme -- one has to put it that way -- from some of the more extreme or most extreme of the radical reformers. That the reformers were Catholic and that they held the decisions of the first four ecumenical councils and that they were radical in
their reinterpretation of justification and sanctification. Now with that, in your own mind or on your paper somehow, indicate that this whole scheme, if I could -- this whole scheme ought to be made into a cylinder so that one indicates that there is overlapping of all of these areas. It's very important to make this scholarly qualification. But obviously,
you have overlappings between these various groups so that you have radical reformers who on certain points and in certain situations are like the magisterial reformers and the magisterial reformers overlap with a number of the Roman Catholics. And especially, I want to -- this little line here indicates the category of the evangelical Catholics. The evangelical Catholics. But -- excuse me, the evangelical Roman Catholics.
Men whose main -- the way they survived in the sixteenth century, their particular form of survival was distinguishing themselves from Lutheranism. Because their doctrine was so close to the Lutherans, they were always accused of being Lutherans. Evangelical. These are men like [Serapandro?] --
Serapandro or another one is [Pontarini?]. These men are very [different?] now because they had a different view of Roman Catholicism than church doctrine, which is -- is somewhat -- somewhat approximated by the liberal Roman Catholic theologians today, Hans Küng and some of these men. Somewhat approximated. Yeah? Sorry.
M: Did the reformers spell out the relationships they felt between themselves and the first four ecumenical councils or did they simply [accept?] the results of those councils because they did not [find them necessary??]
WILLIS-WATKINS: No, they spelled them out. That is to say, if you look at Luther -- Luther's Councils of the Church, 1531, I want to say and I think that's right. Maybe '27, but I think 1531 -- you'll see the way in which he -- one of the things which distinguishes him from the Schwärmer, the enthusiasts, is the way in which the real Christian community abides by
the teaching of the first four ecumenical councils. And Calvin, in his discussion, book -- I want to say book four, I think it's book four -- of the authority of the councils spells this out quite clearly. And the way in which they use the councils above all is the most eloquent testimony to their stance
towards these ecumenical councils. But you see, that's why this term sola scriptura covers a multitude of possibilities, because they can -- sola scriptura does not mean simply that for the re-- for the way the reformers are operating with it, that you just go there and open it because quite obviously there were other people who were going there to open it, too, and they ended up with all sorts of doctrines. And this is most analogous to what happens with
Irenaeus, that there are gnostics who have the same pieces of Christian literature and they're coming up with quite different interpretations, interpretations of scripture which depart from the regula fidei. And you have an analogous situation, I think, in the sixteenth century. Now what I want to go on to presently -- right now is to paragraph 12-B, general characteristics of Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity. Paragraph A was a measuring
stick of the doctrine of the Trinity [and discussed?] with Reformation. Several characteristics of Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity. Incidentally, very little has been done on Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity. The most recent -- well, monograph on the thing is one done by Warfield in, I think, it's 1912, perhaps, 1912 or 1913. Some of you looking for a lively thesis
topic, there's one for you. Now the general characteristics of Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity is that -- the first one is that he had to walk a path between the Roman Church on the one side and the enthusiasts on the other. Secondly, we can detect the movement or development of Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity.
We can detect the movement or development in Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity from 1536 on, although it was always there, even in the first edition of The Institutes in 1536. And that this movement is born from a refusal
to use the language of the Nicene settlement. The development from a refusal to use the language of the Nicene settlement to reliance on that language as a useful tool for interpretation -- for interpreting scripture. This development -- I simply indicate to you the names of the three points by which can
one can measure this development. One is Caroli, C-A-R-O-L-I, Caroli, who accused -- 1536, who accused Calvin of being unorthodox because he -- because he, Calvin, did not want to subscribe to the Nicene -- I'm sorry, to the Athanasian Creed. To the Athanasian Creed.
And the second person is [Servides?]. Calvin found that he had to develop or increasingly state his doctrine of the Trinity with clarity over against the doctrine set forth by Servides, 1553 is the signal date when things got hot in that issue. And 1562 -- that's awful,
isn't it -- 1562, '64, corresponds to the last stage in the development, the last stage in the development which nobody has worked on. I think I can just categorically say nobody so far has worked on it. This is Calvin's correspondence with the Polish brethren over the issue of how Calvin's views differ from those of a person by the name of Valentinus
G-E-N-T-I-L-E, Gentile, and George Blandrata. George Blandrata. The third place, he is -- and in this development, Calvin was increasingly led by his use of Augustine's
predecessors, of Augustine's predecessors, to refute anti-Trinitarian views. Anti-Trinitarian views, strangely enough, were often set forth by men who claimed that they were interpreting Calvin's
teaching. Calvin -- he was located in Geneva and there was a great Italian movement into the northern part of Europe through Geneva. And a number of the Italian reformers would pass through Geneva and would read Calvin's writings or hear him preach and so forth and go to various other parts of Europe and they were quite innovators
in doctrine and they would claim to be interpreting Calvin when they set forth their views. And this is what happened with these two men, Blandrata and Gentile. They showed up in what is now -- in Transylvania and claimed that they were teaching Calvin's doctrine. The Polish brethren wrote Calvin and said, "Now, do you teach this or not?" So Calvin in the years 1562 to '64 had to set forth his doctrine of the Trinity with clarity to show what his teaching was and how it differed from these
anti-Trinitarian interpretations. So what I'm saying here is calling attention to the fact that Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity is much more pre-Augustinian in its use of the church fathers than many of the other teachers of the Western church.
Fourthly, this broad patristic emphasis in Calvin is especially seen in the place he gives -- the place he gives to order, [toxis?], to order among the persons who are eternally one God.
In other words, Calvin is more on his guard against Sabellianism. He's more on his guard against Sabellianism than against the error of making the distinctions among the persons too sharply. And this Sabellianism when -- as you recall, Sabellianism
is that view which says that what we call the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit is only -- are only our designation for the ways in which God reveals Himself to us. There really are not eternal distinctions within the God -- within God. This Sabellianism against which Calvin had to guard himself was either unitarian or binitarian. Either unitarian or binitarian.
There's only one God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit and Christ sort of get in on it. Or while there really -- God is really Father and Son and then the Spirit is sort of a power which emanates from God and can be called divine but He's really not eternal. OK. Now Calvin's doctrine
is -- this is paragraph 3-C. Calvin's doctrine of the necessity -- excuse me, paragraph 12-C. The necessity of the doctrine of the Trinity according to Calvin. The necessity of the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is a necessary teaching by which the church distinguishes between teaching about idols and teaching about God. Those
fantastics -- this is a favorite word of Calvin -- the fantastics who are always dreaming up something new. Those fantastics who teach something about God other than that He is triune are demanding that we worship someone who is really an idol. That this is
Calvin's concern is especially seen in the way he introduces the doctrine -- the discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity in the 1559-60 edition, 1559 or '60 edition of The Institutes, or the final edition of The Institutes. He says but God also designates Himself, God also designates Himself, by another mark to distinguish Himself more precisely from
idols. For He so proclaims Himself the sole God as to offer Himself to be contemplated clearly in three persons.
[I'm not going?] to expand upon this, but notice that for him, the doctrine of the Trinity is a guard against idolatry. Indeed, the possibility of this doctrine. One, the doctrine is possible because God reveals Himself.
God in His very nature is invisible and incomprehensible. He is infinite. His majesty is so terrible that we would be consumed if we attempted to comprehend God in his full majesty. So God in His revelation bends over or stoops low
and accommodates Himself to our condition. And you remember what we just read from Saint Thomas. It would be very interesting to see the relation between this doctrine of accommodation in Calvin and something which sounds very much like it in Saint Thomas. God who is infinite bends over and accommodates Himself to us. There is an excellent discussion of the
doctrine of accommodation in Calvin's doctrine of knowledge of God in Professor Doughery's book, the first chapter. And here, Calvin uses this phrase of lisps that I threw in for your delight last week. The -- not many of you answered the thing. But it's a splendid -- the reason I threw it in is because it's a splendid insight.
What he's saying here, you know, what -- the figure -- and he uses it in a number of places in Institutes, but he says this is the way in which God as a loving Father bends over -- he even said bends over the cradle and babbles to us. The way in which a Father will lean over and talk baby talk. That's what it really means. [Babbiya?] means lean over and talk baby talk to one's children. And this is a sign of the way in which God allows us to know Him
because he stoops low and talks to us in the only language that we're able to understand. This is really lisping or talking baby talk compared with the way God really is. Secondly, this doctrine is a possibility because this accommodation of God to us is found
only in scriptures in a saving way. Only in scriptures in a saving way. God talks to us elsewhere. He talks to us constantly through creation. But our sinful condition has so blinded us that we do not have any saving knowledge of God from creation. In fact, we are only left without any
excuse because of God's continual revolution of Himself in creation. And we see God aright even creation only when we put on the spectacles, the eyeglasses, of scripture. So there's a [culmination of?] God to us and revealing in a saving way comes to us only through scripture.
Three, the expression of the classical Christian teaching about the Trinity helps us in the interpretation of scripture. And it's the heretics who cry out against the terms used by
the classical formulations of the doctrine of the Trinity. I'll read you a portion of this. He's talking about those heretics. You see, Calvin is also someone speaking here autobiographically of the way he had reservations, his extreme reservations at the beginning of his career about using these terms. And he says, "If the call a foreign word that which cannot
be shown to stand written syllable by syllable in scripture, they are indeed imposing upon us an unjust law which condemns all interpretation not passed together out of the fabric of scripture. But if that is foreign -- but if that is foreign which has been curiously devised and superstitiously defended, which conduces more to contention than to edification, which is made use of either unseasonably or fruitlessly,
which by harshness offends pious ears, which detracts from the simplicity of God's word, I wholeheartedly embrace their soberness. For I do not feel that concerning God we should speak with less conscientiousness than we should think, since whatever by ourselves we think concerning Him is foolish. And whatever we speak is absurd." Then he says, "Yet some measure
ought to be preserved." I wanted to listen very carefully to this because Calvin has this remarkable feeling for moderation, for prudence, for what is right and fitting to say at a particular time and not at another occasion. "Yet some measure ought to be preserved." We ought to seek from scripture a sure rule for both thinking and speaking to which both the thoughts
of our minds and the words of our mouths should be conformed. But what prevents us from explaining in clearer words those matters in scripture which perplex and hinder our understanding, yet which conscientiously and faithfully serve the truth of scripture itself? And are made use of sparingly and modestly and on due occasion. There are quite enough examples of this sort of thing. Then he goes ahead and gives you
examples. But now this is the -- you hear Calvin speak this way and you know that you have not entered really into the period of what is called with some lack of justification, the period of Protestant scholasticism. Here's a person who is -- when you read his Commentaries, you pick this up as well. He will come to a particular passage and he will say, now there are five or six possible interpretations of this passage. And what he's supposed to do
is to single one out and say this is the one. And he doesn't. He says all of these are useful and edifying to the church and I recommend all of them to you so long as this central point is conveyed. And he will say what the central point is according to him. I'm going to speak a bit more about Calvin's method of going about theology as tested on the doctrine of interpretation of the Trinity next time.