Month: February 2006

On Saving Faith

Here again, I would speak on matters distinctly theological. In this particular case, the doctrine of saving faith, which is critical to soteriology. My intention with this entry is to provide a personal confession of what I believe saving faith to be within the historic Reformed formulation of assensus, notitia, and fiducia. My intent is not to teach, although I would be delighted if the reader would search the Scriptures to see if these things are so, for I truly believe they are. Instead, my intention is to provide a public profession of my affirmation in the doctrine of sola fide, faith alone. I say now explicitly, I believe that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And I believe that faith is the sole instrument of justification. And I believe that this faith is not of one�s own doing, but is the gift of God, which he gives to whosoever it pleases him. And I believe that we are saved by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ alone, whose righteousness is imputed to those who are gifted faith by God, by which we are considered clean in his sight. And I explicitly deny that any work of the man plays any contributing role in the act of justification. Justification is the gracious and irresistable work of God alone, who bestows his salvific grace upon his elect, those he has chosen before the foundations of the earth were laid.

Now, the following part of the entry comes from a post I made on the Puritan Board concerning the doctrine of saving faith. The topic was concerning Gordon Clark�s view on the matter, which I briefly address before adding my own thoughts.

Dr. Gordon H. Clark (hereafter, Dr. Clark) most certainly took a more technical approach to his formulation of the doctrine of saving faith, I think. Moreover, he reads knowledge to be the traditional Platonic formulation of justified true belief, which meaning it does not always carry, neither in colloquial use, nor in the writings of the Reformers. As a result, some of Dr. Clark�s objections appear to be objections in definition, not necessarily in content.

Dr. Clark�s definition of knowledge, as I asserted before, appears to be traditional, but he also uses the term loosely, that is, colloquially, attributing knowledge to propositions that his epistemology could in nowise justify as being true. He must have either been inconsistent, or acknowledged that knowledge can have more than one meaning. This latter assumption seems most plausible, as he frequently commented that many English words have four or five meanings, and that one should read �Merriam-Webster�s Unabridged Dictionary� if he desires to �know� them. Thus, I do not think Dr. Clark would object if I were to attribute a less technical usage of knowledge to the Reformers, as they do not seem to have always (if not rarely) meant justified true belief.

Well, if the Reformers did not mean Platonic knowledge when they discussed notitia, what did they mean? I have come to believe (certainly not �know� ) that the Reformers spoke of what we would call the �justification� of an object of knowledge. That is, the Reformers spoke of the proposition itself. For example, the proposition, �Socrates is mortal.� This is the conclusion of an argument. In this case, the conclusion of a syllogism, which contains the major premise, all men are mortal, and the minor premise, Socrates is a man. Thus, I would argue that notitia is the �raw objective truth��i.e. true propositions�without concern for the other two elements of faith (assensus and fiducia).

Now, this argument itself is purely logical and intellectual. But unless one believes the premises are true, one cannot believe the conclusion. For instance, if I denied the minor premise (Socrates is a man), the conclusion does not possibly follow. I am left with a bare major premise: all men are mortal. In denying the particular, I have eliminated the possibility of the conclusion following. That is, I do not assent to the minor premise. I do not agree that they are correct. Since I do not assent to the truth of the premises, I cannot possibly trust that the conclusion is correct.

At this point, I think you might know what I am going to propose next, viz. that fiducia is trust in the conclusion. I am also sure that the more astute readers will immediately object that assent and trust here are identical in meaning, for the major and minor premises are themselves conclusions of previous arguments, the whole of knowledge regressing to a beginning. That is quite true and I applaud those who come to this conclusion unaided. I would like to give what I believe is a genuine distinction, though.

Earlier, I suggested that assensus is assent to the premises. Now, for those salvific propositions, this assent is directed at the Scriptures. That is, the object of belief (assent) is the inspired word of God. But it is one thing to assent to the fact that the Bible says one thing or another. It is quite something else to believe the proposition is true. I would therefore submit that saving faith is indeed tripartite and has these three characteristics. (Note that this list is generalized and that qualifications follow.)

1) Assensus – Believing the Bible teaches salvific propositions.
2) Notitia – Cognition of the propositions (understanding them).
3) Fiducia – Trusting (believing) the propositions are true for oneself.

Thus, in this formulation, assensus and fiducia have different objects or different propositions in view. Assensus is trust in the axiom (Scripture), whereas fiducia is trust in the theorem (the salvific proposition). Assensus is trust in the foundation or premises of the proposition, and fiducia is trust in the conclusion, the proposition itself. A demonstration seems in order.

It is written: �For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved� (Rom. 10:13). By declaring �it is written,� I assent that this proposition is biblical. Secondly, I understand it. If it were written in another language besides English (and if I did not already have Romans 10:13 memorized), I would not understand the proposition. Thirdly, I trust the proposition is true. More definitely, I believe it applies to me. With these three elements, I can construct a valid syllogism, which is a particularized salvific proposition:

1) All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
2) I call upon the name of the Lord.
C) Therefore, I shall be saved.

I believe that in this syllogism all three characteristics of the traditional tripartite definition of faith are embodied.

To give some further illustrations�

For many so-called �agnostics,� assensus and notitia apply. They believe the Bible teaches that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be save and they understand the proposition (narrowly speaking) perfectly. But they do not necessarily believe it is true; at least, not for them. For cults and heresies, they may certainly have notitia, but deny that it is biblical, thus, logically negating the possibility of fiducia. For certain irrational definitions of faith (especially Kierkegaard), notita and fiducia are true, but there is no assensus. That is, Kierkegaard believed we must understand and believe the Bible teaches contradiction. Thus, they deny assent to the premises of the Bible. An irrational faith would deny the Bible teaches justification by faith alone because James says we are not justified by faith alone. The irrationalist asserts this is a contradiction that must be believed, even more that it must be a contradiction that is believed. Kierkegaard wrote explicitly that if it were not contradictory then no faith would be required.

Now, in any of the former examples it might be said that I have equivocated. That might be the case. That is the danger of examples. I hope my gracious readers (and you must be gracious for having read this far) will understand the attempt to illustrate the argument, even if it was not done so well. Interestingly enough, this three-part formulation appears to me to be nearly identical with the Platonic definition of knowledge as justified (notitia) true (assensus) belief (fiducia). In any case, I am convinced that saving faith is entirely intellectual, any other sort of extra-propositional volition being extraneous to the sole instrument of justification (faith), thus adding to the transaction something that cannot possibly be justifying.

Granted, the material just presented will probably come across as much more technical than anything the Reformers wrote on the matter. I am willing to accept that charge, but would ask the reader to compare the content of what I have said above with what the Reformers wrote. I believe that while the technical attribution of the three elements of faith given previously are more strictly logical and perhaps philosophical than the Reformers gave, I would suggest that they are faithful to the doctrine of saving faith, especially as Scripture has it. One cannot possibly be a Christian if he denies the content of the Bible (assensus), if he does not understand the content of the Bible (notitia), or if he does not trust in the content of the Bible (fiducia).

Most importantly, the five points of orthodox Calvinism necessarily infer all that must be understood regarding salvation. If one understands that depraved man is unwilling to have faith in God, then God must choose him, regenerate him, justify him, and cause him to persevere. The condition of man and the righteousness of God demand monergistic salvation. That means salvation is solely the work of God.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon

A quick word on future entries

The next entry will discuss how the very idea of �truth� is founded in rationality. It will also serve as a primary to the next section of the outline, which is The Biblical Concept of Truth. In the first part of that section, I intend to demonstrate an axiomatized system of propositional logic from the Bible. To do that, I will be doing quite a lot of reading and studying, so there will be another period of silence. I�m sure that probably bores and annoys the few consistent readers that I have (if any), but the primary reason I started this blog was to record my thoughts on epistemology and to provide quick references to my arguments for people that I meet on the Internet. In any case, I am pretty excited about this endeavor because, to my knowledge, it has never been done before. Or, at the very least, it is an idea foreign to most Christians. I think the greatest benefit of doing this will be to present to Christians the necessity and validity of using logic not only for theology, but also for everything. That is my hope for the project, anyway.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon

God is truth.

We now approach the subject of how God and truth are related and we do so in reverence and prayerfulness, asking God for his illuminating Holy Spirit that those things he has revealed to the minds of men would be here revealed. The study of God, theology proper, is a subject that ought to be approached with the highest of esteem and caution, for we are never closer to blasphemy than when we pervert theology or unleash our tongues in anger. As God is the keeper of all truth, we ask he grace us with a proper understanding of him.

Some of what will be said here will borrow from topics already addressed, as the subjects overlap. It should also be pointed out that those subjects are really dependent on this one, and that the arguments repeated here, really derive their necessity from God rather than the other way around (obviously). The primary meaning of the thesis is that God is the lone source of all truth. It begins by demonstrating first that God is indeed true. The argument asserts that not only is the Godhead truth, but each Person of the Trinity as well, and this is said explicitly in Scripture. The idea is so pervasive in Scripture that a great multitude of verses could be presented; however, just three citations from the Gospel of John will suffice.

The Father is truth:

�This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God . . .� (John 17:3 NASB).

The Son is truth:

Jesus said to him, �I am the way, and the truth, and the life . . .� (John 14:6 NASB).

The Holy Spirit is truth:

�But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth . . .� (John 16:13 NASB).

We should also add this.

God�s word is truth:

�. . . Your word is truth� (John 17:17 NASB).

These four verses demonstrate that the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Scriptures are all true. This evidence, along with myriad other biblical passages that express precisely the same meaning, led the Westminster Divines to conclude that God �is truth itself� (WCF 1:4). What, indeed, could be truer? But lest we should be charged with making an invalid inference�for simply because God is truth it does not follow on this premise only that God alone is truth�we intend to demonstrate that indeed God alone is truth.

There are primarily two arguments that will be pursued to prove this thesis. The first comes in two interrelated parts. In the first part, we wish to show that God is the source of all things. Secondly, we wish to demonstrate that since God preexisted as the truth, only he can be called truth (that is, the source, or foundation of truth) because truth is eternal. The second argument aims to show that nothing temporal can be true.

The first argument follows as such. If God is the source of all things, and if God does not change, then truth does not change, seeing that God is truth, for if truth changed, God would change. The two premises are founded in the following Scriptures:

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things To Him be the glory forever (Romans 11:36 NASB).

�For I, the LORD, do not change �. . .� (Malachi 3:6 NASB).

To the immutability of God, we also add eternity:

Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God (Psalm 90:2 NASB).

Now, the following inference will probably not sit well with some, but this is what the Bible says, so try to stay with me. If God is immutable, eternal, and truth, then truth is immutable and eternal, also. This is not A(ab) < A(ba), mind you (that would be God is truth and truth is God). The argument follows thusly: truth must be immutable and eternal; otherwise, since God is truth, if truth changed, or if truth was temporal, God would change, or be temporal. This would contradict God�s immutability and eternity, and as a result, truth is necessarily immutable and eternal.

If one more passage from John may be permitted, this argument can soon be concluded.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (John 1:1-3 NASB)

Verse three here asserts that nothing that came into being (that is, temporal things, essentially, everything except God) that was not created by the Word of God, who is God and truth.

This brings us to the second argument. This is the part that will upset many people, though why I cannot imagine. Since truth is eternal, but creation is not, it follows that creation cannot be truth. Note that this does not mean creation cannot be true. It means that creation itself has no inherent truth quality. Creation is not true because of anything found in it. Creation is true because God did it. In other words, truth is completely reliant upon God. What God thinks is true and what is true is thought by God. What we think is not necessarily true. It is only true if God thinks it is true.

This leads many people to make a considerable number of objections that attempt to reduce this position to absurdity. One such objection is that if we can never know the truth, then we cannot be saved. This objection misses the point, though. The argument does not assert man can never know the truth. It says that man is not the source of truth. Let us use a particularly useful example.

Sensation is something that many take for granted as true. If you see a hand attached to an arm that is attached to a torso to which your head appears to be attached, you conclude that it is true that the hand in front of your face is yours. This might indeed be true, but you cannot possibly know it. Why not? Because there is nothing necessarily true about your thoughts. You are not truth. There is nothing inherently true about you at all apart from God. Now, it just so happens that since you understand what I am saying, you are rational. As a result, you must be a man made in God�s image, for man alone is rational among God�s creatures. But note that this is only true because it is derived from God�s word. The truths contained in God�s word are necessarily true, for they are a part (an infinitesimally small part) of God�s thoughts.

The next objection comes quickly after this reply. The Bible has many occurrences of sensation, which must be true, since God�s word is true. This is an apt, but irrelevant reply. The argument readily acknowledges that these instances of sensation are true; however, the arguer�s sensations are not accounted in Scripture (that is, your sensations and mine are not in the Bible); therefore, they cannot be said to be necessarily true, for we do not know if these sensations are correct or not. This also gives birth to another objection.

If God knows all things then he must know all instances of sensation; therefore, sensation must produce truth because God is true and he knows them. This argument demonstrates considerable confusion. It is true that God knows all things. It also is true that God knows all instances of sensation. But there are two problems with the objection.

First, simply because God knows what sensations we have and what inferences we draw from those sensations, it does not follow that those sensations and inferences are true. What God knows is that you think such-and-such sensation infers such-and-such proposition. This does not mean that God thinks so. In fact, if that were true, then everything we think would be true by implication.

The second is that, while we apparently have �sensations,� we do not really know what they are or how they work. We take for granted that when we �see� something, that object exists as an entity separate from our visual perception of it. We might even invite a friend over and ask him if he sees the same object. If he concurs, we conclude that the object is objectively sensible. This does not follow, however. First of all, objectivity infers universality. That is, if the object is objectively visually sensible, it must be visually sensible to all sentient beings. Great problems arise from this position. In the first place, there are blind persons who would not be able to see the object. In the second, a colorblind person may perceive the object to be colored differently. Is this different colored object the same as the one sensed by you and your friend? If so, how do you know? Any appeal to sensation at this point will result in a circular argument, and thus beg the original question. Even more, the inference that the object is objectively visually sensible is invalid because you have not tested the inference against all sentient beings. Only after testing the assertion against all sentient beings (and this, of course, must include all dead and all future sentient beings, for the assertion was universal) would you be able to make such a conclusion. But such a procedure is temporally impossible. From this, it necessarily follows that we cannot know whether or not our inferences from sensation are true or not.

Therefore, God alone is truth.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon

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Rationality is Morally Necessary

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. (Romans 1:20, 21 NASB)

Romans 1:20, 21 is the definitive passage that expresses the a priori knowledge of God in man. It seems natural that man, as the image of God (1 Cor. 11:7), would have a priori ideas about God. We probably do not know all the forms or all the information that man has available. But we do know from whom this knowledge comes�Jesus, who is �the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man� (John 1:9 KJV).

There are many interesting theories about what precisely this enlightenment and this a priori knowledge are. Augustine wrote a short little book called De Magistro (roughly translated, Concerning the Teacher) in which he posited a very Platonic idea, which runs thus. Man never learns anything; he only remembers. He gives numerous examples of why he says so and goes round and round with his fifteen-year-old son (the book is written in the form of a dialogue). Augustine�s main argument is that no one can teach any man anything because he must first know the subject on which the teacher would speak before he can understand. If I told you all snarks are delicious, there would be precious little for you to make of this proposition; however, if I told you snarks are delicious, have snouts, cloven hooves, curly tails, a pinkish skin, eat slop, make grunting noises, and taste outstanding when smoked and pan-fried, you would begin to remember the objects that these attributes are commonly associated with and would draw the inference that by snark, I mean pig. And naturally, when we discuss how you knew these attributes of a pig, we would have to inquire into the remembrance of things that occurred when someone first reminded (not taught) you what a pig is. And this would regress to your birth, at which point, Augustine believes his argument is proven that man must be born with a priori knowledge of not only himself and God, but of other objects as well.

This is all very Platonic, and Augustine�s ideas expressed here never really did catch on. Nevertheless, there is a certain value to mentioning it here. If it is true that all men are born with the knowledge of things and need only be reminded of them through interaction with the sensible world then are we also born with the knowledge of good and evil? I believe the answer lies right at the beginning of the Bible.

Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, �Where are you?� He said, �I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.� And He said, �Who told you that you were naked? . . .� (Genesis 3:9-11 NASB)

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has proven to be an exegetical difficulty for many a commentator throughout the ages. I profess it is no easier for me, so I will not undertake to explain the full of its significance here, but will address the consequences of Adam breaking the Lord�s commandment. It becomes clear to us from the account of the Fall that the Tree in some way effected the moral knowledge of good and evil in Adam. We even see that Adam realizes (Augustine: remembers) that he is naked without the explicit revelation of the Lord. That is, God did not tell him he was naked (�Who told you that you were naked?�). From this, we infer that the knowledge of good and evil was something foreign to man in his prelapsarian(1) state. But we did not remain ignorant�Then the LORD God said, �Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil . . .� (Genesis 3:22 NASB). And in some manner, this knowledge of good and evil has resulted in man being wholly set in his heart to do evil alone: �Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually� (Genesis 6:5 NASB). It is also by this event that Paul says sin entered into the world and that all men sinned in Adam (Romans 5:12). Even more, the prophet speaking under inspiration of the Holy Spirit said of this condition, �The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?� (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV).

This brings us to the current topic of why rationality is morally necessary. Man has fallen from his previously perfect state. And note that the use of �perfect� here follows the common biblical meaning of �sinless.� Adam was not perfectly perfect in the sense that God is, but was blameless. Now, however, all men are evil, with wicked and deceitful hearts. It might be inferred from Jeremiah 17:9 that Adam knew his own heart, for it was not deceitful or wicked, but was pure and blameless. As fallen creatures, we do not have this ability, though.

Now, our curse is living with a heart that deceives us. We know the good we ought to do, but our mind provides us with all the excuses we need to not do it. And this should not be missed, of course. What was lost at the fall is the will to do good, not the knowledge or ability to do good. There are many cases in the Bible of postlapsarian man discerning good (Judges 17:13, 1 Samuel 29:9, Job 5:27; 34:4) and discerning what is not good (Ecclesiastes 3:12, Matthew 7:11, Romans 7:18). And this leads us back to vv. 20, 21 in the first chapter of Romans, where we began this entry.

The title of this entry is �Rationality is Morally Necessary.� What I mean to say is that morality is dependent on rationality. Animals, though they have bodies and souls (yes, they do: Genesis 7:15, 22, Ecclesiastes 3:21), they are not the image of God, they are not rational. When God commanded Adam to not eat of the tree, he put it in the form of a proposition: If you eat of the tree then you shall die (Genesis 2:17). Other commands are simply imperatives and not propositions, such as the Ten Commandments. But as objects of knowledge, they are propositions�the eighth commandment forbids stealing; or, if I steal then I am breaking the eighth commandment.

What is morally necessary in the law is the rational basis of the law itself. The law is a standard against which the thoughts and deeds of men are measured. As we have seen, the heart cannot be the standard, for it is deceitful and wicked. Man is not his own judge. This is not to ignore passages such as Romans 14 where it is said that whosoever eats and does not eat of faith, he sins. The heart is not the judge here, but the law, which asserts that whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23) and without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

A few weeks ago, we had examined some of the problems with irrationality. Those points apply explicitly to the topic at hand. One point in particular bears repeating.

The obvious problem with irrationality is that it refuses to submit to the Scriptures. Paul says that the Scriptures are sufficient to make a man wise unto perfection. Those who make their own emotions the basis for morality completely ignore the Scriptures� claim to be the infallible rule of faith.

Irrationality presupposes the non-existence of objective and unequivocal truth. Similarly, though not identically, skepticism, which is the non-cognition of truth, is just as destructive to morality as irrationality. The irrationalist asserts that truth does not exist and the skeptic asserts that truth cannot be known. Both of these assertions necessarily infer that man can neither know good nor evil, and consequently denies the fall and the rational basis of the law. If the proposition, �Stealing is wrong,� is not true, then it follows that man cannot be held accountable for sins. If God�s proposition to Adam in Genesis 2:17 was not true then men should live forever. Even more, we should have no knowledge of good and evil, yet one of the primary arguments for the non-existence of God is the �problem of evil.� The hearts of the heathen do greatly deceive them, for they do not realize (or forget, as Augustine might say) that evil exists as the contradictory of good, and that only objective, universal truth can provide the necessary basis for moral good and evil.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon

(1) Prelapsarian means �before the fall.� Postlapsarian would be �after the fall.�
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