Live your theology.

William Paxton to A.A. Hodge as Hodge took his father’s place as professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton:

The name of this Seminary is known in all the world. Its chief distinction is its Biblical teaching. The ground of its faith is the Bible. Its only question is, ‘What has God said?” Its only proof is God’s Word. Its professors have never reached the point of thinking that they knew more than the Bible. This Seminary has always taught that there are but two questions to be considered. First. Is this the Word of God? Secondly. What does it mean? and this ascertained, there is nothing left but to believe and adore. The preaching which has always been taught in this seminary and illustrated in the pulpits of its graduates has been simple Biblical preaching… The Princeton student has always been known by the honor which he puts upon the Divine Word.

My dear Brother, I need only to say to you ‘continue in these things.

I like this quote from Paxton because it captures so excellently what Princeton and the doctrines taught in the school meant to the Reformed & orthodox world at large. Teaching the Bible faithfully is a good thing. Being true to Scripture is a good thing. Loving Christ is a good thing. Princeton did all of those things notably well.  This quote was given in 1864.  Princeton was solid.

By 1909 students were rebelling against the intellectual theology offered by Princeton, by 1914 Francis Patton was replaced by the progressive J. Ross Stevenson. In 1929 the General Assembly of the PCUSA officially recognized Princeton, making their conservative board of directors  irrelevant and giving control of the University to the liberal board of trustees.  And just like that, not even 100 years after Paxton’s words, Princeton was no longer grounded in biblical faith.

It’s easy to rail against a stickler for doctrinal purity or orthodoxy. It’s easy, when the discussion turns to Biblical theology to say “Enough of this! We ought to be out on the streets, feeding people, giving out tracts, sharing the gospel. No more of this doctrinal talk. No more limiting our ability to reach the lost by subdividing Christendom.”  It’s easy to roll eyes when someone points out the differences between those calling themselves “Reformed” and true Confessional adherents to Reformed theology.  But we do so at our own peril, I think.

By this point in our look at the first chapter of Benjamin B. Warfield’s The Plan of Salvation we’ve seen the biblical pattern of salvation narrowed to a Theistic, Supernatural, Evangelical course.  Warfield now sub-divides that group by identifying where a reliance of a naturalistic or man-centered approach can still be found (no matter how slight).  He begins by examining two groups who while ostensibly Supernatural and Evangelical, still give room to some form of naturalism or sacerdotalism.  First up are the Lutheran Evangelicals, adherents of a “conservative Reformation”. While this group has separated itself from Rome, there can still be found an underlying sacerdotalism, whether it be found in the form of baptismal regeneration or consubstantiation. The other group involved are those pesky Dutch Remonstrants and their semi-pelagianism: the evangelical Arminians. Sacerdotalism isn’t the problem, but a naturalistic man-centered basis for salvation can still be found. The true Reformed and biblical plan for salvation should be uncolored by any influence of of either of these things.

Warfield suggests that the principle classification would should be looking for among evangelicals is not so much the influence of sacerdotalism or naturalism but rather how God exerts his saving power on men:

“The point of division here is whether God is conceived to have planned actually himself to save men by his almighty and certainly efficacious grace, or only so to pour out his grace upon men as to enable them to be saved, without actually securing, however in any particular cases that they shall be saved.”

So the Arminian will say that God has universally made salvation possible to every man. This salvation is from God alone, but there is still a responsibility in man to get all Captain Picard and say “Make it so.”  The problem with this universalist line of thinking is evident.  If as the supernaturalist says, God alone saves the souls of men, and not man, and God alone works his saving grace directly on the soul, a evangelicals hold, then it follows that a God who universally does this to all men should see all men saved.  Unitarians would say here, Amen. Arminians would say, “uh… well, not exactly” and point out man’s responsibility.  But by doing so appeal to naturalism in a professed supernatural system.

“The precise issue which divides the universalists and the particularists is,  accordingly, just whether the saving grace of God, in which alone is salvation, actually saves. Does its presence mean salvation, or may it be present, and yet salvation fail?”

The consistent view in the Theistic supernatural evangelical course is that of the particularist, held by the apostles, Augustine, and the Reformed church at large.  God deals with men on an individual basis and saves them by his grace through an immediate regeneration.  God’s salvation is applied by God and is immediate and sure – not merely allowing for the possibility of salvation. The particularist alone is able to proclaim Soli Deo gloria and remain consistent within his course of thought.

Monday: A break from Warfield in favor of Mr. T’s continuing commentary on the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Tuesday: Back w\ the end of chapter 1 – A three-way battle royal between Supralapsarians, Infralapsarians, and Amyraldians!