Book Review: The Theology of B. B. Warfield

The Theology of B. B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary, Fred G. Zaspel, Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.  Hardcover, 624 pages, $44.00.

Ninety years after his death, Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield continues to be a respected voice in Reformed theology.  Along with Jonathan Edwards, the Hodges, and a few others, Warfield is one of the pre-eminent Reformed theologians in North American church history.  Yet for all his renown, few have given him a careful reading.  Popular ideas persist about what Warfield believed about this or that.  Part of the problem is Warfield himself never systematically laid out his theology in one place.

Fred Zaspel has therefore done us a favour by carefully collating Warfield’s theology into one helpful volume.  After an introduction surveying Warfield’s life and work, Zaspel follows the standard topics of systematic theology and distils Warfield’s thought on each one.  Here and there he also interacts with interpreters, particularly the ones whom Zaspel feels have not done justice to Warfield.

Zaspel himself is a sympathetic interpreter.  A Reformed Baptist pastor in Pennsylvania, he is broadly in agreement with Warfield’s theological bent.  Where he personally might depart from Warfield (regarding infant baptism, for instance), Zaspel remains respectfully silent, just simply laying out the Princeton theologian’s views without comment.  At the end of the volume he does offer some critique, but for the most part he allows Warfield to speak for himself.  That’s not to say the book consists mostly of quotations – most of the time Zaspel summarizes and paraphrases.

The Theology of B. B. Warfield will appeal most to pastors, scholars, seminary students and informed “lay people.”  Like Warfield himself, it is not light and fluffy.  Technical language is used and readers are expected to have an intermediate level of theological knowledge.

There are four areas in the book especially worthy of further comment.  Early on, Zaspel deals with Warfield’s views on apologetics.  He argues that Warfield has been unfairly portrayed by later Reformed apologists such as Cornelius Van Til.  Van Til argued that Warfield did not give adequate expression to the effects of sin upon the unregenerate mind.  Zaspel attempts to defend Warfield against this accusation.  He notes that Warfield did not attribute “right reason” to the unbeliever and spoke repeatedly of the pervasiveness of sin (77-78).  However, Zaspel also states that Warfield maintained that unregenerate man “is able to see the compelling force of ‘right reason.’”  Unfortunately, Zaspel is unable to see that this justifies Van Til’s complaint.  While he adds some useful nuance to Warfield’s views, Zaspel does not succeed in exculpating Warfield on his inconsistencies in apologetics.

Warfield is known as the great defender of biblical inspiration and inerrancy.  Therefore, one would expect a book of this nature to deal with those subjects at length.  Zaspel does not disappoint.  He outlines how contemporaries of Warfield and latter-day interpreters have accused the Princetonian of “rationalistic scholasticism” in his doctrine of the Bible.  He helpfully illustrates how these charges fall well short of the mark.

A third area of interest is Warfield’s thought on evolution.  The claim is often made that Warfield had an appreciation for evolution.  The argument is advanced that if Warfield can be regarded as a great Reformed theologian and he held to evolution, then how can contemporary advocates of evolution be excluded from Reformed churches?  Those making such claims ought to read Zaspel’s careful summary of Warfield’s views and how they developed.  He concludes Warfield could at best be said to have been noncommittal or to be critically agnostic (386-387).  However, Warfield also developed a “strengthening conviction against evolution” (385).

Finally, one of Warfield’s greatest concerns was the influence of perfectionism or Keswick “higher life” spirituality.  In his day there were popular preachers and writers claiming it was possible for Christians to no longer sin in this age.  There were also those who claimed that Christians should not regard themselves as sinners, since they are a “new creation in Christ.”  They denied the biblical teaching that, in this age, we are both justified and sinners (simul iustus et peccator).  These false teachings are still around today.  Today we still need Warfield’s biblical defense against these errors.  Zaspel provides a helpful door.  Warfield approvingly quoted Thomas Adam, “The moment we think we have no sin, we shall desert Christ” (465).

The Theology of B. B. Warfield is a comprehensive guide to the thought of “the Lion of Princeton.”  There’s no question it will be a standard reference for decades to come.  Anyone interested in the development of Reformed theology on our continent needs to have it and read it.

Carson: Hodge’s “Storehouse of Facts”

“Frequently quoted as proof of his irremediable dependence on Scottish Common sense are the following words from Charles Hodge: ‘The Bible is to the theologian what nature is to the man of science.  It is his storehouse of facts; and his method of ascertaining what the Bible teaches is the same as that which the natural philosopher adopts to ascertain what nature teaches.’  These words are commonly taken to reflect at least two unfortunate shifts: first, an uncritical dependence on induction in theology, a method taken over directly from Baconianism mediated through Scottish Common Sense; and, second, a novel view of the Bible that deemphasizes its role as a guide for life, a source for truths necessary for salvation, and a means of grace, while seeing it as a ‘storehouse of facts,’ the quarry from which systematic theology is hewn.

Probably too much is being made of this sentence.  It is essential to recognize that Hodge make his remark in the context of his treatment of the inductive method as applied to theology — and to nothing else.  Hodge develops the thought further to show such principles as the importance of collecting, if possible, all that the Bible has to say on a subject before proceeding to inductive statements on the subject, undertaking the collection (like the collection of facts in science) with care, and constantly revising the induction in the light of fresh information.  He does not in this section of his work seek to establish the nature of the Bible’s truthfulness; his subject is prolegomena, not bibliology.  When Hodge does, in fact, turn to the doctrine of Scripture, he is immensely sophisticated and balanced; but here his focus is elsewhere.  The most that could be deduced from this one passage  about Hodge’s doctrine of Scripture are his beliefs that all the Bible is true, that its content is the stuff of systematic theology, and that its material is sufficiently interrelated to belong to the same system.”

Collected Writings on Scripture, D. A. Carson, 72.

Denominations

This is a repost from February 14, 2007:

Last night as I was driving to and from teaching catechism I was listening to one of the White Horse Inn episodes from the last month or so.  I find WHI to be a good source of encouragement and spiritual/intellectual stimulation.  On this particular program, the word “denomination” was bandied about a lot.  Hearing that word always makes me think back to seminary and the Dogmatics 4411 lectures I heard from Dr. Gootjes in 1997.  Gootjes spent about a month on this topic.  I’ll share some of what I learned from him.   This is just a summary from my notes.  If there’s something I missed or misunderstood, I bear full responsibility.

He began by noting that this word is frequently used today, though it has no origin in Scripture.  That in itself does not automatically mean that we can’t use it (think: “Trinity”).  The word is not used in Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology (the textbook) either.  The term originates in the 18th century with episcopal Protestants in Britain as a collective term for other Protestant churches.  Originally it had a negative connotation, whereas today it always seems to have a positive or neutral sense.  Gootjes mentioned a few authors who discuss denominationalism:  Frame, Schrotenboer, Zwaanstra.  Frame and Zwaanstra were discussed extensively later in the lectures.

The word “denomination” is not normative, but sociological and descriptive.  In today’s world, all sorts of religious groups are identified as denominations.  According to Rossler, “The advantage of the term is that it avoids value judgments…”  For many Christians today, the term “denomination” solves the problem of how to designate various groups.  It seems to be a value-neutral term.

Gootjes went on to note that the Belgic Confession speaks differently about the church and churches.  The Confession speaks normatively.  Article 29 speaks about the differences between churches true and false and also uses the word “sect.”  The distinctions in the Confession are ignored with the use of the term “denomination,” for with that word everything is included which presents itself as church.

The government, for instance, can legitimately use such a word for surveys, etc.  But the term is problematic in an ecclesiastical context because a church which presents itself as a “denomination” must say that every other church also has the right to this term, even though your church may be better.  The notion of a “denomination” functions outside of a normative description of the church.  The concept works with the idea that all those groups being referred to are church, though some are better than others (or worth more, just like we speak of “denominations” of money).

There is a quote here in my notes; I believe it comes from Monsma (The Trial of Denominationalism):  “Viewed from this vantage point, the terms true and false church are incomparable; there are no false churches, strictly speaking.  When a church becomes false, it ceases to be a church.  But there are less perfect and more perfect churches, as there are less pure and more pure confessions.”   Gootjes noted that this perspective puts Monsma at odds with the Belgic Confession.  Monsma says that the words “true” and “false” cannot be applied to churches.  In their place, he wants to use “denomination.”

Now Dr. Gootjes said a lot, lot more on this topic, but I’ll leave it at that.  Let it suffice to say that the word “denomination” does carry theological baggage with it and what we confess can’t be found in that baggage.  So, when we innocently (or perhaps advisedly) adopt the use of this word, we’re also in danger of being saddled with that baggage.

The Categorical Distinction (Archetype/Ectype) in Lutheran Theology

I have written on the categorical distinction before.  Here I introduced Schilder’s thoughts on it.  Here you can find what S. G. De Graaf and F. M. Ten Hoor wrote on this subject.

The Lutheran theologian Francis Pieper discusses this as well in Volume 1 of his Christian Dogmatics.  This is how he introduces it:

Nothing must be injected into the corpus doctrinae [body of doctrine] of the Church which is not contained in Scripture.  And in order to accentuate this characteristic feature of the Christian doctrine, they have called objective theology theologia ektupos, ectypal, or derived, theology, that is, a reproduction, re-presentation, of the theologia archetupos, the archetypal, or original, theology, which is that knowledge of God and divine things originally found only in God, but which God has graciously communicated to man through His Word. (58)

It is interesting that Pieper locates archetypal theology in God’s Word, thereby making it accessible to human beings.

Against theologians like Bretschneider who argued that this terminology serves no purpose and is outmoded, Pieper insisted that this distinction is thoroughly scriptural.  Up till this point in his dogmatics, he has been adamant that nothing can be introduced into theology that does not come from the Word of God.  This is his big complaint about the Reformed: at key points they abandon Scripture for reason.  So, to be consistent, one would expect that Pieper would defend his formulation of the categorical distinction from Scripture.  And so he does, building on the work of older Lutheran theologians such as Rudelbach, Scherzer, Gerhard, and Quenstedt.

So, what kind of biblical evidence does Pieper marshall for the categorical distinction?  The starting place is Matthew 11:27, “All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father.  Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”  Things develop further from there:

• Only God knows God; God dwells in a light which no man can approach unto (1 Tim. 6:16; 1 Cor. 2:10-11; John 1:18a; Matt. 11:27).
• God stepped out of this unapproachable light and revealed himself to man, so that man can, in a measure, know God.  He reveals himself to man in the realm of nature and through his Word.  God’s self-revelation in nature (Rom. 1:19ff, 32; 2:14-15; Acts 14:17; 17:26-27) is the source of natural theology, of the natural knowledge of God. God’s revelation of himself in the Word (John 1:18b; 8:31-32; Eph. 2:20) is the source, and the only source, of Christian theology, of the saving knowledge of God.  Since man can know God only as he has revealed himself, and since he has revealed himself as the God of salvation in the Word, Christian theology must be ectypal; it cannot be anything else than an exact replica of the divine doctrine contained in Scripture. (58)

So, in Pieper’s theology, the distinction serves to draw theologians back to the source.  Our goal is to conform our theology to God’s.  Our aim is to bring our thoughts in line with the thoughts of God revealed in Scripture.  This seems to be somewhat of a different formulation than in many Reformed writers.  For instance, Scott Clark writes in Recovering the Reformed Confession, “So, in Reformed theology, archetypal theology s theology of the first order or original theology, and the revelation we have from God and our account of that revelation is theology of the second order or derivative” (143).  In other words, Clark (and other Reformed theologians would concur, I think) describes Scripture as being ectypal, whereas Pieper seems to say that it is archetypal.

I do not know if Pieper represents the consensus in confessional Lutheran theology on this point.  He has a footnote in which he quotes the post-Reformation Lutheran theologian Johann Gerhard,

The archetypal, or prototypal, theology is in God the Creator, inasmuch as God knows himself in himself and knows the universe through himself by one immutable act of knowing.  Ectypal theology is the outgrowth of archetypal theology (a copy, so to say, of it), communicated to man through God’s grace. (59)

That sounds more like the Reformed formulation.  Scripture is part of ectypal theology.  However, he also has another footnote in which he quotes Scherzer:  “So far as it [the theology of the 'pilgrims'] reproduces and expresses the archetype revealed to us in the Word, it is true theology” (59).  And that sounds more like Pieper.

The categorical distinction grows out of biblical soil and two related biblical convictions:  the creator/creature distinction, and the distinction between God hidden and God revealed (Deus absconditus/Deus revelatus).  I can see why Pieper formulated it the way he did, but I am inclined to think that the Reformed formulation does more justice to that last distinction, one which was key not only for Luther, but also for Calvin.  However one might formulate it, there can be no question (at least in my mind) that it is biblical to distinguish between the things of God that are hidden and those which are revealed (Deut. 29:29).  Recognizing that in theology keeps us humble.

John Calvin: Christ’s Active Obedience

“The second requirement of our reconciliation with God was this: that man, who by his disobedience had become lost, should by way of remedy counter it with obedience, satisfy God’s judgment, and pay the penalties for sin.  Accordingly, our Lord came forth as true man and took the person and the name of Adam in order to take Adam’s place in obeying the Father, to present our flesh as the price of satisfaction to God’s righteous judgment, and, in the same flesh to pay the penalty we had deserved.”  Institutes 2.12.3