The rudiments of religion

Nicholas Wade in his The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and why it endures, wrote,

“All these new faculties were doubtless drawn upon as natural selection searched for an effective solution to the most pressing of all problems for a social species— how to make selfish individuals place society’s needs above their own. This departure from self-interest required not just moral self-restraint and social cohesiveness, but an emotional commitment to the group so fierce and transcendent that men would quite readily sacrifice their lives in its defense.

“The solution that evolved was religious behavior. It was those who learned to bond to each other through ritual song and dance who developed the most cohesive communities. It was those who believed that the gods or their dead ancestors were seeing into their hearts who hewed closest to their society’s rules. It was those who most feared supernatural retribution who built the most moral societies with the strongest social fabric and the resilience to outlast others. [Kindle locations 673-780]

Comment: Can one retain a religious belief if one believes that? Probably a Darby-type Fundamentalist wouldn’t be able to, but I wrestled through and those Fundamentalist issues long ago and have no problem with it. In my view the method God chose for creation can be seen in biology and genetics.

Fundamentalists have no problem in accepting that the Greek language was in place for the first Christians to use to describe their religious beliefs. God, they believe, created that sophisticated language and had it ready for them to describe his New Testament. Why then balk at the idea that God also had “morals” in place so that people would know when they were being immoral? And what Wade has written is another way of saying what Blaise Pascal once said, that “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”

Escriva's Opus Dei & Frame's Doctrine of the Knowledge of God

With John Frame’s The Escondido Theology and Evangelical Reunion in the back of my mind (but not the reason I decided to watch the movie There Be Dragons – I was skimming through the Netflix movies and thought it would be an action movie about the Spanish Civil War J. Instead, I discovered the movie to be based upon the life of the Opus Dei founder Josemaria Escriva. The “action” surrounds the relationship of Escriva and a perhaps fictitious childhood friend Manolo. The more important part of the movie describes Escriva’s saintly development and his influence on others.

In regard to the “Second Kingdom” and Frame’s “Escondido” conflict and debate, I noticed that Escriva was very-much involved with Christian “application.” Frame’s criticism of the Escondido professors includes his assertion that they teach that “Those who try to show the application of Scripture to the daily problems of believers are headed toward a Christless Christianity.” Did Escriva and his Opus Dei drive his followers toward a “Christless Christianity”? Without knowing fully what the Escondido Professors are arguing (or the effects of Opus Dei), and perhaps having them wrong, if we have our “eyes upon Jesus” which is something urged upon us through Scripture (and in countless sermons I can bear witness to), won’t we want to “behave” and “act” as He would? If so then we have entered the theological world of “application.”

On page 76-77 The Escondido Theology, Frame defends himself against R. Scott Clarke when he writes, “the application of God’s word” was his [Frame’s] focus in the first seventy-five pages [of the Doctrine of the Knowledge of God]. After describing this focus he responds to R. Scott Clark’s criticism by asking, “am I not permitted to make mention of what we do with God’s word? Even after speaking elaborately about the primacy of God in revelation? Theology is certainly something we do . . . and it is certainly the application of the revelation of the Word.”

Perhaps we can’t see it if we just look about us today, but we can learn about it from reading Church history, that is, the swing back and forth between faith and works, or more specifically between the extremes of “one needs only faith and needn’t at all concern one’s self about what one does,” and “one won’t make it to heaven unless his good works qualify him for the trip.”

In reading the excerpt from Escriva’s book it is clear that his works-like injunctions aren’t taught from the average Protestant, and probably not from the average Catholic pulpit. But surely, since we have been saved for good works, it isn’t out of line to describe some of them. [See an excerpt from Escriva’s book The Way at http://www.amazon.com/Way-Essential-Classic-Opus-Founder/dp/0385518293/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355755042&sr=1-1&keywords=escriva+the+way

I wouldn’t support all of Escriva’s injunctions, nevertheless it is refreshing that Escriva saw the lack of “application” in the church of his day and chose to do something about it. Also, it is notable that his superiors, perhaps up to the pope himself, allowed him to create his Opus Dei organization.

When I was in the Charismatic Church “Faith Fellowship” back in perhaps 1979 or 1980, a recent graduate from Talbot, Ron Galla Rini wanted to do something that I now take to be similar to what Escriva advocated (although Ron never mentioned Escriva as far as I can recall). I was influenced by Galla Rini and as a result started a Prayer Meeting at Douglas Aircraft Company. Galla Rini didn’t specify what we should do, and I don’t think Escriva did either, but he urged us to “do something,” to embrace “application.” I was as caught up in application as the movie portrays Escriva’s followers as being. The prayer meeting that resulted was remarkable. Everyone who attended at Douglas was as caught up as I was. We prayed for something one week and then the next week reviewed my notes and asked for a report on whether the prayer was answered. Week after week the prayers were answered. A Plymouth Brethren member (and skeptic) attended and couldn’t reconcile the answered prayer to his belief that his denomination comprised the only true church.

But when the Faith Fellowship eldership discovered what Ron Galla Rini had put in motion they demanded that it be abolished. I was very upset at the time, but years-later suspect that most protestant churches would have acted as the Faith Fellowship eldership acted. It is threatening to have a recent seminary graduate urge a group of church members to go out into their neighborhoods doing what Christ did, or might do. Yet the Catholic Church permitted Escriva to do what he did, and beyond that in 2002, canonized him.

Someone might at this point observe that the Catholic Church has always been more “works-oriented” and as a consequence a natural home for Escriva’s Opus Dei. This is probably true. One recalls that Luther had a lot of trouble with the book of James. But should we also have trouble with it? Is it for Catholics only and not for us? If it is for us as well, we must take seriously James 2:14-20, “What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, "You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works." You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?”

If we think there is a conflict between Faith as we understand it and what James wrote in 2:14-20, then we don’t have an adequate grasp of Faith. I am not, by the way, accusing the Escondido professors of that. I haven’t read them as much as I’ve read Frame. I’m merely asserting this passage of James as relating to Frame’s beliefs -- and Escriva’s as well – mine too.

Mercersburgism, John Frame, Theonomy, etc.

 

If Steven Wedgeworth is accurate (see http://wedgewords.wordpress.com/category/mercersburg/) when he writes, “Another difference [between Modern Theology and Mercersburg Theology] is in their central idea. Modern theology makes the atonement or death of Christ, Mercersburg the person of Christ or the incarnation, its central idea. The importance of this difference can be seen in the fact, for instance, that the atonement itself, or justification by faith, cannot be maintained successfully by adopting the former. According to it, the atonement is made to rest primarily on what Christ has done, not on what he is. It apprehends Christ as a mere individual, God and man in one person, it is true, but yet as a mere individual. Mercersburg theology apprehends Christ as the embodiment of the universal life of humanity, the second Adam or federal head of the race’ and his obedience and death receive their atoning merits from this fact.”

If accurate Mercersburg theology as well as “Modern Theology” comes athwart something I encountered in New Testament Introduction in regard to the Synoptic Problem, it was never a problem for the first generations of Christians. They didn’t have the whole Bible, the New Testament or very likely more than one of the gospels. Neither were they concerned about the theology of the atonement. They were focused almost completely upon the Resurrection, the Easter message: Christ is Risen. For if he is risen then he is as he is the first born among many brethren; which includes us.

Others I read seem to think that Mercersburg Theology was headed in the same direction as Neo-Orthodoxy. Barth took the wind out of their sails because he did it better than they did. I have nothing against Barth btw, one of my few criticisms of Van Til is that he was too harsh on some philosophers and theologians that I admire, R. G. Collingwood for example, but also Barth . . . but whenever I’ve dabbled at reading Barth he is saying something that bears out Van Til’s criticism.

I read Frame’s Evangelical Reunion, Denominations and the Body of Christ back in 1993 just at the time that my OPC pastor asked me  to teach a study on “The Church.” I was heavily influenced by Frame’s ideas on Evangelical Reunion no doubt included some of those ideas in my talk.  Afterward an OPC missionary who happened to be visiting took me to task: There could be no merging with other denominations because there was something wrong with everyone of them.

“What about Christ’s prayer that all those in his Church would be ‘one’?” I asked him.

“That’s all well and good, but we can’t sacrifice sound theology for the sake of a merger. Why not go all the way and merge with the secular world. A merger should never be accomplished at the expense of sound theology.”

This missionary didn’t convince me, but neither did I convince him. Frame seems to have met with the same reaction on a larger scale. His enemies seem to be taking him to task for the same sorts of things. I haven’t pursued Frame’s idea in recent years, but Christ’s prayer is still out there. Something is wrong with the Universal Church if it doesn’t pursue reunion.

I thought about this matter when I began attending the EPC. What, for example, would prevent the merger of the OPC and the EPC. As far as I could tell from reading the EPC charter and listening to the pastor, the only differences were the use by the EPC of modern hymns and women elders, both of which were left open to individual EPC churches.

In regard to Mercersburg, I have been impressed by some of the publications coming out of Princeton & so looked especially at (and finally ordered) the following:

Speculative Theology and Common-Sense Religion : Mercersburg and the Conservative Roots of American Religion by Linden J. DeBie (2008, Paperback)

Synopsis

Evangelicals in nineteenth-century America had a headquarters at Princeton. Charles Hodge never expected that a former student of Princeton and his own replacement during his hiatus in Europe, John W. Nevin, would lead the German Reformed Church's seminary in a new, and in his mind, destructive direction. The two, along with their institutions, would clash over philosophy and religion, producing some of the best historical theology ever written in the United States. The clash was broad, influencing everything from hermeneutics to liturgy, but at its core was the philosophical antagonism of Princeton's Scottish common-sense perspective and the German speculative method employed by Mercersburg. Both Princeton and Mercersburg were the cautious and critical beneficiaries of a century of European Protestant science, philosophy, and theology, and they were intent on adapting that legacy to the American religious context. For Princeton, much of the new European thought was suspect. In contrast, Mercersburg embraced a great deal of what the Continent offered. Princeton followed a conservative path, never straying far from the foundation established by Locke. They enshrined an evangelical perspective that would become a bedrock for conservative Protestants to this day. In contrast, Nevin and the Mercersburg school were swayed by the advances in theological science made by Germany's mediating school of theology. They embraced a churchy idealism called evangelical catholicism and emphatically warned that the direction of Princeton and with it Protestant American religion and politics, would grow increasingly subjective, thus divided and absorbed with individual salvation. They cautioned against the spirit of the growing evangelical bias toward personal religion as it led to sectarian disunity and they warned evangelicals not to confuse numerical success with spiritual success. In contrast, Princeton was alarmed at the direction of European philosophy and theology and they resisted Mercersburg with what today continues to be the fundamental teachings of evangelical theology. Princeton's appeal was in its common-sense philosophical moorings, which drew rapidly industrializing America into its arms. Mercersburg countered with a philosophically defended, churchly idealism based on a speculative philosophy that effectively critiqued what many to this day find divisive and dangerous about America's current Religious Right.

In regard to Kuyper, it seems to me he was a natural ally of both Theonomy and the Escondido Theology. He believed very strongly in the Christian’s role in modern States. I do as well, but could never embrace Kuyper, although he was urged upon me by the first OPC (sort of) pastor we had in Moreno valley. I can’t recall his name but he was ordained in some denomination not approved of by the OPC (or something line that); which didn’t bother him because he was semi-retired and when they cut him loose he retired completely.

In regard to Theonomy I was attracted to it initial and read Rushdoony’’s Institutes, for  if we considered a future in which the Postmillennial time arrived where everyone was Christian (some nominally but most sincerely) then we would be able to create laws consistent with Christianity. What sorts of laws should they be? 

However, I didn’t get very far with this before learning that the Theonomists thought they were in position to know what these laws should be and  furthermore had decided to urge them at once upon the Church and even the nation at large.

A failure Theonomy but also of several other points of view, including the Escondido School, is a lack of appreciation for the fact that God does not create language or societies out of whole cloth. He deals with people as they are and with what they know and believe. Thus, the Mosaic food laws, for example, were appropriate for the people that Moses led into the Wilderness but aren’t appropriate to subsequent social situations.

God deals with people where they are, using their language and their societies as they are. He does not urge a change of language or society. I read Dabney’s biography of Stonewall Jackson in which is a very well-reasoned defense of Slavery. The fact that Paul didn’t urge the abolition of Slavery, I believe, doesn’t mean that he, let alone God, was advocating that economic practice. God’s (and Paul’s) interests lay elsewhere.

The same sort of thing is true, in my opinion, of Paul’s injunctions against women in the Church in his day. That society was a patriarchal society in which women were not educated. But in these modern times women receive the same education as men; so in my opinion Paul’s injunction against women in the church was not intended to be a universal principle. In looking at Paul’s concern we might very well embrace a universal principle against poorly qualified people ascending to important positions of responsibility in any modern denomination.