James White on Hermeneutics

Here is a good primer on the basics of hermeneutics and biblical exegesis by Dr James White.

The Eastern and the Western views on the Trinity?

In the classical Latin Trinitarian doctrine, “Father, Son and Spirit are only ‘relatively’ distinct.” Whatever the interpretation given to the idea of “relation” implies in this statement, it is clear that Western thought recognized the ontological primacy of essential unity over personal diversity inn God; that is, that God is essentially one, except in the divine Persons, who are defined in terms of relations. In Byzantine thought, however—to use an expression from Maximus the Confessor—“God is identically monad and triad,” and there is probably a tendency in both worship and philosophical formulations (as distinct from doctrinal statements) to give a certain pre-eminence to the personal diversity over essential unity. A reference to the Nicaean “consubstantial” was the Byzantine response to the accusation of “tritheism.” (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 184)

In light of the 2016 controversy over the Trinity, and the subsequent rise of Neo-Thomism in conservative Evangelicalism, does any of these look familiar?

Meyendorff on Nicaea and the issue of subordination

It is common in the Neo-Thomist revival to assert that subordination of any kind is contrary to Nicene orthodoxy. Now, whether that is so can be discussed. It is however, interesting to read what an Eastern Orthodox theologian has said about the matter.

By accepting Nicaea, the Cappadocian Fathers eliminated the ontological subordinationism of Origen and Arius, but they preserved indeed, together with their understanding of hypostatic life, a Biblical and Orthodox subordinationism, maintaining the personal identity of the Father as the ultimate origin of all divine being and action: … (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 183)

Now, that is interesting and food for thought.

Meyendorff on the reception of the Fifth and Sixth "Ecumenical" Councils in the West

... although the Quinisext is invested with “ecumenical” authority in the Byzantine Church tradition, it has never been received as such in the West. Actually, since it explicitly condemns several Latin liturgical and canonical practices, it already clearly implies an understanding of Church tradition and authority differing from that of the Latin Church. (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 82)

Are the fifth and sixth councils ecumenical? It seems that John Meyendorff does not think that the Western Church has ever received it as ecumenical. This is not to say that the West has not approved of parts of these councils, but I doubt they endorsed them wholly.

The impact of Pseudo-Dionysius in EO liturgy and sacramentology

Fortunately Dionysian theology has had practically no effect upon such central texts as the baptismal prayer and Eucharistic canons. It served principally to develop and explain the extremely rich fringes with which Byzantium now adorned the central sacramental actions of the Christian faith, without modifying its very hear, and thus leaving the door open to authentic liturgical and sacramental theology which would still inspire the mainstream of Byzantine spirituality. (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: historical trends and doctrinal themes, 30-31)

So, according to John Meyendorff, the impact of the Neoplatonic Pseudo-Dionysian error in Eastern Orthodoxy is seen in its liturgy and view of the sacraments, and thus presumably into its view of icons? I guess that is why the liturgy must re-enact the celestial hierarchy.

A hypothesis on energies and will in medieval Constantinople

This dynamic conception of created nature constitutes Maximus' main argument against the "Monoenergists" of the seventh century, whose Christology considered Christ's humanity as having lost its geniunely human "energy" or will because of its union with divinity. But, for Maximus, created nature would lose its very existence if it were deprived of its proper energy, its proper purpose, and its proper dynamic identity. This proper movement of nature, however, can be fully itself only if it follows its proper goal (skopos), which consists in striving for God, entering into communion with Him, and thus fulfilling the logos, or divine purpose, though which and for which it is created. (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Thoeology: historical trends and doctrinal themes, 133)

When it comes to the issue of will, it is interesting how Eastern theologians like Vladimir Lossky have distinguished between "will" and "choice." To understand why that is so, we have to look at what happened during the 6^th century controversies over monoenergism and monothelitism, which are not exactly topics most people are interested in. Most certainly, the writings of Maximus would be helpful. But in the meantime, from what Meyendorff has written, it seems there is more than meets the eye in this distinction between will and choice.

In the controversy over monoenergism and monothelitism, nature is associated with energy, and energy to will. Therefore, just as there are two natures in Christ, so likewise there are two energies and two wills. In Meyendorff's book, the picture that seems to emerge is as follows: The workings or energes are identified by where they come from, as energies are the dynamic movement (kinesis) of natures. Therefore, in the case of Christ, he must have a human energy because the human nature will "imprint" as such when energy proceeds from it. But energy must be properly directed, and the will directs the energy according to the proper goal (skopos) of its movement (kinesis). In other words, the will moves the energies to its final cause.

This is of course just a preliminary picture for now. But such a picture would make sense of why the Byzatines held that Christ has two wills. If however, we define 'will' differently, then there is no reason why we cannot tie 'will' to person instead of nature, and so better preserve the dynamism of the three Persons.

Ryan Mullins on the New Classical Theists on impassibility

Theologian Ryan Mullins in his latest podcast deals with some bad arguments by classical theists, albeit on the issue of impassibility. You can listen to it here.

What does repentance and faith look like in a fascist or communist?

The furore over Tim Keller's promotion of third way-ism is just another glipmse into the corruption that is mainstream evangelical Christianity in America. After David Wood wrote a sympathatic critique of Keller, the liberal David French, a political commentator who claims to be conservative while corrupting the faith, has attacked such criticism of Keller's compromise as "moral devolution" of the "new Christian right." Rod Dreher in turn criticized French as misreading American society and for creating a false dichotomy between love of enemies and truth.

As a non-American, I try not to comment much on American social issues. However, insofar as it deals with morality, it is an issue that transcends national borders. On this, there is a larger issue than politics here. The issue is what intellectual sin looks like, and what repentance looks like as it pertains to intellectual sin. That sadly has been missing from the discussion so far.

Sin is any want of conformity to, or transgression of, the law of God (WSC Q14). The human person is a whole person, involving the intellect, the will, emotions, and actions. We are to worship God will all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Lk. 10:27), precisely because we are whole human persons. Sin affects all our faculties, thus affecting the intellect, the will, the emotions, and our actions. Therefore, it stands to reason that repentance ought to affect all our faculties too, including the intellect.

Intellectual sins therefore are sins that ought to be repented as the person turns to Christ. On intellectual sins, there are sins due to ignorance, and sins due to sloth. But there are also grievous sins due to extreme rebellion. Just as in practice, there are sins that would call into question one's profession of faith (e.g. incest e.g. 1 Cor. 5:1), so likewise there are grievous intellectual sins that would call into question one's profession of faith. An example of grievious intellectual sin is belief in any system that denies Jesus is God.

Intellectual sins are present when one holds to systems that expressly rejects biblical standards and supplant biblical morality, regardless of whether one goes all the way into full-fledged conversion to that system of belief. In fact, holding to anti-biblical systems while paying lip service to the true God is the very definition of syncretism. Anti-biblical systems currently in vogue are fascism and communism, or a fusion of the two - corporate wokeism. These systems are so anti-biblical they call good evil and evil good. For example, what God calls abomination, they celebrate as virtuous under the vacuous slogan "love is love."

What does repentance and faith look like therefore for a fascist or communist? Given the extreme anti-biblical nature of theses systems, part of being a Christian is to repent of these anti-Christian sysytems of beliefs. There is no way one can be a repentant Christian and still hold that homosexuality is good or neutral in society. Therefore, a Marxist or woke person who has undergone the new birth will renounce their fomer beliefs as false, and turn in new life in the life-giving truths of Scripture.

The furore over Keller "third way-ism" obscures this most important fact: What currently goes under the label progressivism is sin. The solution is not conservatism (a sociological conversion), but true biblical repentance from all these anti-biblical ideologies. When David French promotes Drag Queen Story Hour, his main sin was not going against the sensibilities of conservatives, but in normalizing wickedness in the eyes of God. The issue is not sociological, but harmatiological. That is why Keller's third-way, and French's "moral winsomeness" fails, because they ultimately rejects what God says as sociological and political, rejecting the final authority of God's Word for their own political positions. Just because one side politicizes biblical morality does not mean God's standards suddenly become political, and attempting a compromise with an anti-biblical position under the guise of "third way" and "not being political," "not being partisan," moral witness," and all other empty slogans, is sin. The key issue is not "Is it political?," but "What does God say."

The Communicatio Idiomatum and the person of Christ

The Communicatio Idiomatum helps inform us how predication works between the two natures of Christ, and the one person of Christ. Every other person has one nature, so there is no precedent for a person having two natures. Jesus Christ is sui generis in this regard. The Reformed version of the Commincatio makes predication in the direction of the natures to the person. What is true of the natures is true of the one person. The Lutheran version on the other hand asserts that there is a sharing between the two natures, thus the humanity of Christ can be ubiquitous allowing for the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation with the body of Christ being 'in, with, and under' the elements of the Lord's Supper.

The Communicatio is by and large a philosophical concept derived from centuries of trying to explain how the God-man. However, it is present in seed form in Acts 20:28, where the Church of God is obtained with God's own blood. But we know God is spirit and has no blood, so the only way to understand this is to predicate the divine nature here as true of the one person. Along this line, Jesus is both mutable and immutable, both passible and impassible, both glorious forever, and yet not glorious during His incarnation.

As what is true of the natures is predicated of the one person, it is clear that we can say things about the one person of Christ that we cannot say of God. Jesus hungered, Jesus thirst, Jesus prayed to the Father. While it is in the human nature that at least the first two is true, it is also true that it is the one person who did this. It is contrary to Reformed orthodoxy, and contrary to common sense, to claim that the human nature has agency to so something which the one person does not. In fact, it is fundamentally Nestorian to assert that the human nature has an agency that the "one person" does not, because it means that the human nature is a separate human person. This makes Jesus into two persons: one divine, one human, and that is contrary to Chalcedonian orthodoxy.

Classical Theists are more than welcome to argue for their case. However, being over-zealous to the point of rejecting Chalcedon certainly shows the inbalance on the side of many of these new Thomists. Put is simply, it is never right to be more Thomstic than Thomas, and more "orthodox" than Chalcedon. The minute you ascribe agency to the human nature that is not that of the one person, you have lost it, period.

Confusion over the Kingship of Christ over the nations

Daniel and his friends did the entire pagan program Babylon put them through, astrology and all. Where they drew the line was not in listening to false thinking but in doing wrong things. Paul says noto to be separate from the world but not to tolerate believers teaching heresy.

— Jeremy Pierce (@TheParableMan) May 2, 2022

The "third-way" campaign by those who are seeking to get Christians out of the public square continues. Using elements common to the 2-Kingdom theory, they assert that Christians are currently exiles and they are to live as among a pagan people, not to engage in activism to bring in a "Christian nation." All of this sound very pious, but the problem is that it is just unbiblical nonsense, and 2-Kingdom theory does not even teach that to be the case. 2-Kingdom theory merely asserts that there is the Kingdom of the church and the Kingdom of the world, and God rules both. 2-Kingdom by itself does not say how Christians ought to behave in the public square, unless one ignores the explicit words of its main proponent Dr VanDrunen.

The model for Christian living in the world is indeed the exilic model (c.f. 1 Peter 1:1-2). The Church today is not a theocracy, where Church and State are linked. Old Testament Israel is not our paradigm for living today. As exiles in the world, we are not seeking to dominate the world neither are we seeking to advance God's Kingdom by political means. However, does this imply that Christians are to be quietists and be totally apolitical?

Christians are in two kingdoms: the kingdom of the church, and the kingdom of the world. That means that we are to be engaged in each. Concerning our current presence in the world, we are to engage in it according to natural law, or the law God has instituted in creation. Concerning issues of morality and law therefore, our engagement is to be strictly creational and moral, not cultic, as in to say not of religion. Therefore, just as God condemns pagan nations for engaging in egregious behavior (Obadiah, c.f. Gen 16:15), and especially extreme perverse behavior (Gen 19:23-29), so likewise Christians even in the exile can speak up against such perversion. We note here the categorical difference between egregious violation of natural law and idolatry. Idolatry is sin, but is a sin against God not as Creator. There is therefore no inconsistency for Christians in exilic living among non-Christians, and addressing the wickedness of rank immorality in the world.

The problem of those promoting a "third way" is that they promote a view of sin that is unbiblical. They hold all sins to be equal in kind, though not in intensity. Therefore, who is to say one sin is worse than another? That is why they end up tolerating gross immorality since they see no difference between gross immorality and sin. In their view, someone who mutilates his body as a "transgender" is just as sinful as a glutton, and if the church can tolerate the latter as a member of the church, why not the former? Such people do not understand sin correctly, and it shows. Turning around to attack others as trying to confuse the Kingdom of God with the Church is a false accusation for the most part. In fact, taking their position implies that Christians must tolerate, even celebrate, all manner of sin and filth in society, with no limits whatsoever, a view that certainly goes against the injunction to sek the welfare of the place we are in (Jer. 29:7)

The fact of the matter is that Christ is king over BOTH kingdoms. Those who use the exile motif as an excuse to attack those of us who engage with society are functionally living in denial of the kingship of Christ over creation. They can ssert all they want that they are biblical, but actions sometimes do speak louder than words.

Richard Muller on Communicatio Idiomatum

Communicatio idiomatum/ communicatio proprietatum: communication of proper qualities; a term used in Christology to describe the way in which the properties, or idiomata, of each nature are communicated to or interchanged in the unity of the person. The communicatio can be characterized as either in concreto or in abstracto (q.v.). The former qualification, in concreto, refers to the concretion of Christ’s person in the incarnation and personal union; the two natures are here considered as joined in the person, and the interchange of attributes is understood as taking place at the level of the person and not between the natures. This view was typical of the Antiochene Christology and of the Reformed Christology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The latter qualification, in abstracto, refers to the abstractive consideration of the relation of the two natures to each other distinct from their union in the person and to the exchange of properties between the natures, specifically, a communication of divine properties to the human nature.This view was typical of Alexandrian and Cappadocian Christology in the early church. Both views raise doctrinal problems: the Antiochene position, taken to an extreme by Nestorius, threatens the unity of Christ’s person; the Alexandrian doctrine, taken to an extreme by Eutyches, threatens the integrity of the natures. In addition, the logic of predication argues the illegitimacy of the use of abstractions as predicates. …

… (1) The genus idiomaticum, or idiomatic genus, indicates the predication of the qualities or attributes of both natures of the person of the Mediator, so that the God-man can be said, as one person, to suffer and die but also to govern and sustain the whole creation. The qualities of each nature (idiomata) belong to the person of Christ, but each nature retains its own idiomata, so that the qualities of one nature do not, according to the genus idiomaticum, become the qualities of the other. …

… we note that the Reformed view of the communicatio, which tend to be restricted to the genus idiomaticum, approaches the communication more as a praedicatio verbalis, or verbal predication, of idiomata from both natures of the person, whereas the Lutheran view insists that the person actually bears the idiomata of both natures. The Reformed, in addition, do not view the apostelesmata, or shared operations, of the natures as a genus of the communicatio idiomatum but as a separate communicatio apostelesmatum according to which the divine operations of both natures are brought to completion in the one work of Christ. Thus, the Lutheran teaching is a real communicatio while the Reformed, remaining at the level of a communicatio in concreto only, is quite accurately called antidosis onomatōn (ἀντίδοσις ὀνομάτων), a mutual interchange or reciprocation of names, rather than a transfer or communication of properties, … is… praedicatio vera, a true predication of attributes, but of the person only and not between the natures.

[Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1985), 72-4]

Eobard Thawne as an analogy of the Thomistic trinity

It is almost a truism that attempts to analogize the one true Triune God are doomed to failure, since there would always be more dissimilarities than similarities in the analogy. Since we desire to know how God can be one and three at the same time, any model that does not maintain the tension between the one and the three can be analogized, and none more so than the strong Thomistic model of the Trinity, where the persons are just "relations" within the one being of God.

Before I continue, I will readily acknowledge that many classical theists believe much more orthodox views of the Trinity. Nevertheless, in the interest of showing how certain statements about the Trinity by Thomists are logically suspect, I am purposely accentuating the current emphases into an analogy of the Thomistic trinity.

If the persons are just relations in the one being, if the persons of the Trinity are totally unlike the modern definition of a "person" but are merely relations in the one being, if the only communication within the Trinity is between the divine and the human nature of Jesus Christ, that there is no real communication otherwise within the Godhead including covenant making (any intra-Trinitarian covenant is a figurative covenant not a literal covenant), the Triune God works as one agent and one will, the persons do not will anything but only the one esence wills everything, then the Reverse Flash is a perfect analogy of this "Trinity." How is that, you might ask? The Thomistic trinity has only one essence; Eobard Thawne and his time remnants have one essence. The internal distinction between the Thomistic trinity is one of mere relations; same for Eobard Thawne and his time remnants. In this particular case, the distinction is between Thawne as unoriginate and which temporal context he spawns any one time remnant. But, you may object, Thawen is not eternal, and his time remnants have origins in time. Not really. The Reverse Flash has broke time until he exists necessarily apart from any one timeline, thus he is "unoriginate" in a sense. This goes the same for any one time remnant, which has a "origin" in time yet is tied to no one time and exists necessarily as long as Thawne exist (thus they receive their being from the unoriginate Thawne).

The Thomistic trinity has no real communication within the Godhead but there is a lot of communication towards creation and the towards the persons through the medium of creation, i.e. ad extra. Thawne and his time remnants are the same essence, and their talk comes out of the one will of the one essence of Thawne. They operate as one, having perfect knowledge of each other since they are the same being. Yes, the analogy is not perfect because each Thawen remnant may discover something that Thawne prime did not and thus the need for external talk, so the point of analogy is that all external communication is in a sense due to the external world.

When one interacts with a Thawne remnant, one intereacts with the one essence of Thawne, yet does not interact with the "person" of Thawne prime. Likewise, the Son died, thus God died, but the one essence of God did not die neither did the other persons of the Godhead died. One can almost predicate a form of communicatio idiomatum for Eobard Thawne, but I think you get the picture by now.

When it comes to analogy of the Trinity, Eobard Thawne aka the Reverse Flash makes for a compelling analogy of the Thomistic trinity. Except for Thawne's created status, his limited power, knowledge, wisdom, presence and so on, on the issue of being and person, he seems to be a great analogy for the Thomistic trinity. Now, I do not believe Thawne is an actual analogy of the Triune God, but then, I am not a Thomist.

Against the classical theist view of the "person" of the Trinity

In effect we find in [Marius - DHC] Victorinus a further specification of the energein katharon of the Anonymous Commentary [on Pamenides -DHC]. This energein now turns out to be esse, the unlimited and uncircumscribed being of the Father, from which is derived all the limited and circumscribed being (ὄν) found in the Son. Such esse is anything but “being” conceived as a static condition of existence; it is a kind of inwardly directed activity, containing implicitly life and intelligence as well as existence. In thinking itself it manifests itself as what it is, giving rise to the triad of ese, vivere, and intellegere – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Oddly enough, then, despite all the accretions of Neoplatonism, we are not too far from the self-thinking thought of Aristotle’s Prime Mover. The divine self-intellection remains the activity par excellence, the one that precedes all others, giving rise by virtue of its necessary intrinsic structure to the intelligible order and plurality of the world. (David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom, 115)

Whatever its shortcomings and its difficult and sharply dialectical style, the Mystagogy makes clear the basic Byzantine objection to the Latin doctrine of the Trinity: that it understands God as a single and philosophically simple essence, in which personal or hypostatic existence is reduced to the concept of mutual relations between the three Persons. (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical trends and doctrinal themes, 60)

In disputes over the doctrine of the Trinity, classical theists often claim that we should not import the "modern" ideas of personhood into the Trinity. So what is a person of the Trinity? Well, according to Thomas and Thomists, nothing more than the relations between the persons it seems. The primary focus is the one divine essence, and the persons are the differentiating relations, and nothing more. But how are those persons actually "persons"? Appeal to "mystery" does not help their case, because "mystery" excuses the super-rational, not the irrational. "Analogy" works only when one can show how the analogy works, otherwise the "analogy" is false. Classical theism runs around and around in circles, always ready to attack others with labels of heresy ("subordinationism," "tritheism," etc), but, like Mathew Barrett's book, empty vesssels do indeed make the most noise.

Perhaps a better way to look at the issue is to step away from the heat of the moment and look at how Trinitarianism came to be defined in history. And what one sees does not look good for the Western church. There is nothing wrong with focusing on the one essence, if one focuses at the same time on the three persons. Nevertheless, from the shift in the meaning of energein towards the Latin esse, it seems that a prima facie case can be made that the Western Church has collapsed the emerging category of "energy" into the category of "being." The "energies" of God in the West was collapsed into the category of "actuality." Aristotle's "thought thinking itself" was reformed in the Western church, with the triad of "ese, vivere, and intellegere" reforged into the one being of the divine.

The picture that emerges from this Latin understanding of the Trinity seems to be one being in three instantiations. What does this look like? While limited, the image that comes to my mind is that of Reverse Flash with two of his time remnants. In DC comics and in the Arowverse, speedsters have the ability to create multiple time remnants of themselves, exact same beings (same ontology) as the speedsters but who are disconnected from their original timelines and thus they exist side by side with their same being counterparts. The image that comes to mind is that of Eobard Thawn somehow creating two time remnants in eternity and the three of them exist for all time, if that could happen. This is not to suggest that the Latin Trinity is Eobard Thawne, but rather that the Reverse Flash with two time remnants is an image (an analogy) of how one being can be instantiated into three "persons."

This analogy should show us clearly why the view that the persons of the Trinity are mere relations is just ridiculous. Eobard Thawn, Thawne's first remnant, and Thawne's second remnant are not three persons, even though they have the ability to act differently despite their one essence. Instantiations of one being are not persons, and can never be persons. Persons, as the Greeks know to be the case, have their individual hypostasis (ὑποστασις) or personhood. Speaking of which, it is much more likely that the Greeks know their language and its meaning more than the Latins know the original Greek meaning of hypostasis. When the Greeks maintained that the persons of the Trinity are real persons, without all the qualifiers like "we should not import modern notions of personhood into the Trinity," it is much better to follow the Greeks than the Latins who are hardly experts on the Greek language.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, which seems to have a better doctrine of God, the one God is present in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is a person in the fullest sense of the term, with his own individual personality. While not necessarily taking the Eastern view concerning the filioque, it is clear that the East has some legitimate concerns over it, and behind it all lies a much more developed theology of the Trinity than Thomas Aquinas' view could ever be. It is certainly revealing that modalism and unitarianism is a constant danger in Western Trinitarianism, a sign that Western Trinitarianism, with its deficient view of personhood in reducing the persons to mere relations, has a corroded foundation that opens the way to these trinitarian heresies.

The Reformed Confessional view on DDS

There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and withal, most just, and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. (WCF 2.1)

A Reformed confessional view is a view that is stated in the Reformed Confessions. Obviously, since the Reformed Confessions are not Scripture, what they state is not necessarily biblical and true. However, they are the learned judgments of a group of godly men, and therefore, inasmuch as the view is taught in Scripture, it has authority over the life of the believer and the church.

What the Reformed Confessional view is on a topic is one question. Whether the Reformed confessional view (or one of the views) is biblical or not is a separate question, a question reserved for those who are considering subscribing to those Confessions. The question that I want to look at here is not whether the Reformed Confessional view is biblical, but what it teaches and what it does not teaches, using the Westminster Confession of Faith as an exposition of the Reformed Confessional view.

In Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 2 paragraph 1, a condensed sentence was composed expressing the doctrine of God confessed by the Westminster Divines. Of all that is predicated of God, what is pertinent to our discussion is the phrase "without parts," which in two words expresses the entire doctrine of simplicity. God is a God "without parts." But what does that mean? In David Dickson's commentary of the WCF, we are not exactly told what "without parts" mean, except to say that the reason why this is so is because "God is like to no bodily thing, nor can he be represented by any image of corporeal likeness" [David Dickson, Truth's Victory over Error (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2007), p. 19]. Whatever the phrase "without parts" mean, it protects God's transcendence over the creature.

Reformed theologians have of course aided us in our understanding of the phrase "without parts." Herman Bavinck succinctly states that "simplicity is the antonym of 'compounded,'" and "if God is composed of parts, ... then his perfection, oneness, independence, and immutability cannot be maintained." (Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2.176). Francis Turretin states that simplicity means that the divine nature is not only "free from all composition and division, but also as incapable of composition and divisibility" (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3.7.3). A more recent systematic theology merely states that God is "one and indivisible, not composite" (Robert Letham, Systematic Theology, 157), citing James Dolezal's book on the issue. From all that has been seen so far, it seems that the doctrine of simplicity requires an a priori commitment to some form of Aristotelian mereology, or does it?

It is indisputable that the Reformed confessional view on simplicity emerged in an Aristotelian context. But the question remains as to what the doctrine was meant to be teach. One can either go the route of asserting that the Westminster Divines intended to teach Aristotelian metaphysics, as some have obviously done, or one can state that they are trying to teach biblical truths using the existing prevailing philosophy of their time, Aristotelianism, as a tool. If one takes the former tool, one can either agree with the confessions and assert that they are biblical, or reject the confession as being unbiblical. The three options of dealing with the Reformed Confessional view on simplicity are as follows:

1. Reformed Confessional view is Aristotelian, it is unbiblical and to be rejected
2. Reformed Confessional view is Aristotelian, it is biblical and to be embraced
3. Reformed Confessional view uses Aristotelianism as a tool. It is biblical, but the tool is not essential

There are many today who seems to think we have only options 1 and 2 to choose from. Many who claim to be all about the retrieval of Trinitarian orthodoxy (like James Dolezal) have taken position 2, where Aristotelian metaphysics as mediated by Thomas Aquinas is a prerequisite for Trinitarian orthodoxy. The claim is made that rejecting Aristotle and Aquinas would imply the rejection of the Reformed Confessional doctrine of God (Option 1). However, why are we only discussing options 1 and 2 as if another option is not available for us?

The relation of theology and philosophy is a fraught one throughout the history of the church. In her better times, philosophy is to function subservient to theology, as the handmaiden to theology. In other words, theology uses philosophy in its thought, but it itself beholden to no one philosophy either ancient or modern Philosophy is to be a tool to theology, meaning that if the tool outlives its usefulness, it is to be discarded for another tool. Since God is the God of Creation, He necessarily transcends human thought, and therefore we cannot claim that any one philosophy is fully adequate to address all questions concerning God.

This basic principle (an epistemic application of finitum non capax infiniti) means that option 3 is a more viable interpretation of the Reformed Confessional view of simplicity. We have noted that David Dickson, though commenting on the WCF around that time, did not go into depth into what simplicity means. We note that WCF 1.9-10 teaches the supreme authority of Scripture over all matters of faith. It seems clear that the Divines held philosophy to be a handmaiden to theology, and therefore, they would see Aristotelianism more as a tool than as a system that we must necessarily hold on to. Also, from the doctrine of perspicuity of Scripture, it seems clear that, whatever simplicity means, it must be simple enough to be expressed without philosophical language if it is indeed biblical.

What is the main point about simplicity? Perhaps the question can be asked: What happens if we say that God is not simple? According to theologians, a God that is not simple is made up of parts or divisible into parts. In other words, such a god could be created by combining various substances or attributes together. Or such a god could be divided into lesser "god components." What does that mean in simple terms? A non-simple god can be formed by putting divine parts together like creating a Lego set. Or a non-simple god can have a part removed (e.g. his wrath), and he would still remain "God." A slightly deficient god to be sure, but a "God" nonetheless.

Phrased this way, is there a way to understand simplicity without Aristotelianism? Yes. The core of simplicity is simply this: God cannot be any other from what He Himself is. It is the whole God, or nothing. One gets God, "warts and all," except of course God has no warts.

The Reformed Confessional view on DDS, as more consistently interpreted along the lines of option 3, is the view that God must be taken whole, or none. In line with the Reformed tradition of Sola Scriptura and scientia sub Scriptura, this sems to me to be the most consistent Reformed view on the topic of DDS. One is free to explicate how that works using different philosophies including Aristotelianism, but one is not free to mandate that only one philosophical interpretation of DDS is THE Reformed view on the topic.

RT Mullins' Reluctant Theologian Podcast: Craig Carter, Classical Theism, and Creation Ex Nihilo

Ryan Mullins has a podcast, the Reluctant Theologian podcast. Recently, he did his podcast with guests Andrew Hollingsworth and Jordan Steffaniak on Craig Carter and his wild accusation that anyone who rejects Classical Theism, or rather, Thomistic Classical Theism, would logically deny God's transcendence and Creation Ex Nihilo. Obviously, the charge is ridiculous, and the theologians in the podcast assert that the whole thing is a diversion from the real isue, which is Carter's strong Thomistic version of the doctrine of divine simplicity or DDS. You can listen to that podcast here.