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Excursions in Historical Theology
Who is God? What happens in the next life?
3. Who is God? (Westminster Confession, Chapters Two, Three, Four and Five)
3.1 God’s Attributes and the Decrees Chapter II of the Confession begins by stating plainly the unity of God (He is one) and the many attributes of God affirmed in Scripture. Traditionally, theologians recognize three attributes of God which are included in the lists cited in the Chapter, but are not exhaustive. These are: God’s omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence.
Of particular interest in the Confession is the reference to God’s omniscience, or knowledge of all things. “In His sight all things are open and manifest. His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain” (Chapter II, 2). The Puritan view of God’s sovereignty leaves no room for a question about God’s ability to know the future, or even determine the future by decree. A current theological controversy is over a doctrine known as “Open Theism” which teaches that God does not fully know the future because it is contingent on Man’s choices. The teaching is in vogue in some places and is a clear departure from historic orthodoxy.
Paragraph 1 of Chapter III addresses with simplicity, yet depth, the age-old question of God’s sovereignty in light of human actions and designs. “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”
God’s ability to decree and know the future, including the thoughts and choices of mankind are demonstrated by the following scriptures, among others: Ps. 115:3 ; Ps.139:1-4, 15-16; Acts 2:23, 4:27-28, 15:18, 17:26.
3.2 The Trinity
The unity of the Godhead in a Trinity of persons is declared in II,3. The doctrine of the Trinity was one of the most contested doctrines in the patristic era, particularly the deity of Christ. The first great challenge to this belief came in 319 AD in Alexandria from Arius, presbyter of the church in Alexandria. He challenged his bishop Alexander and taught that since the Son was begotten, “there was [a time] when He did not exist.” That is, the Son is a created being and distinct from God the Father, i.e. not fully God. So the unity of the Godhead is denied. This doctrine came to be known as Arianism and was the controversy which provoked the First Council at Nicea in 325 (the Nicene Creed is named for this council, though the Creed itself dates from the Council of Constantinople in 381).
The theological term which defines the divinity of Christ and the relations between the Father and the Son is the Greek word homoousios meaning one or same (homo) essence or substance (ousios). That is, there is no distinction in nature between the Father and the Son. The Nicene Creed captures this idea in the terms “begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father by whom all things were made.” These phrases are all explicit refutations of the Arian doctrine.
Even after Nicea addressed the issues of the deity of Christ there were those who preferred the term homoiousios, meaning of like, rather than same substance. What a difference a letter can make (the i is equivalent to Jesus’ jot, Hebrew yod, from which Greek and Latin get their letter i)! Also, the Arian party remained a force for another 55 years, until the Second Council finally established Nicene Christianity. Athanasius, later bishop of Alexandria, was the great champion of the deity of Christ at the Nicene Council.
Also the affirmation in the Confession regarding the proceeding of the Holy Spirit is a distinctly western view. “(T)he Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.” (II,3, emphasis mine). In a theological distinction important to the Eastern Orthodox, they see the Spirit proceeding from the Father, but not the Son, which, in their view would make Him somehow subordinate to the Son.
It was the Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus, and Basil the Great, whose theological efforts finalized belief in the divinity of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity around the period of the Second Council (381).
These Trinitarian views of the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed are affirmed in the Thirsty-Nine articles and carry over seemlessly, almost without mention, in the Westminster Confession. Much past suffering and trouble translate into a simple acknowledgement of a hard-earned truth. Such is the benefit we receive from those who have gone before us.
There were other Trinitarian and Christological concerns during this early period. Some of them can be summarized as follows:
Marcionism (mid-second century): Marcion was the son of a bishop on the Black Sea in Pontus. He went to Rome and was a presbyter there, but was excommunicated for developing the gnostic heresy of a certain Cerdo. The Marcionite gnostic sect was based in Rome and his ideas spread far and fast. Marcion produced an early, truncated canon. He divorced the Old Testament from the New and excluded many writings from his New Testament canon. His system was dualistic, espousing good and evil as opposing, equal forces. He embraced many of the writings of Paul but rejected others. He insisted that the scriptures we had received were corrupted.
Modalism, Sabellianism, and Patripassianism: This system under several names is Unitarianism. There is no Trinity or distinction of persons in the Godhead, only modes - differing forms -- of the same God. At first it dealt only with the Father and Son. Thus the belief that the Father suffered (Patripassianism). Sabellianism was a form of modalism which included Father, Son and Spirit. In Unitarianism there is no distinction of the persons in the Godhead.
Sabellianism: Photinus, bishop of Sirmium and Marcellus of Ancyra, to 374, were leaders of this heretical belief. They suppressed the distinction of the persons of the Trinity. The persons of the Trinity were "modes" of the divine being, not persons in their own right.
Adoptionism: This is the belief that “Jesus was a human being uniquely chosen to exercise the function or role of divine sovereignty or Sonship. Divine power (personal or impersonal) so resided in Jesus that he may be regarded as a uniquely inspired person like, but far transcending the Old Testament prophets; his anointing by the Spirit (whether by baptism by John or at the moment of conception) created his Sonship, which thus falls in the same class with the Christian’s adoptive sonship given at baptism” (Lionel R. Wickman, “Adoptionism” EEC, p. 12-13). This system denied the unity of the Trinity and eventually denied the divinity of Christ, saying Christ was adopted. Paul of Samosata “taught a modalistic form of Adoptionism and did away with the Son and Holy Spirit”(Hamell, p.58).
Arianism: Named for Arius a priest of Alexandria. He taught that the Son was a created being, made by the Father before the creation. He was son by adoption, then the Holy Spirit was created. He was resisted at the Nicene council. An Arian party remained in and out of the church for 55 years after Nicea.
Pneumatomachoi (Fighters against the Spirit): Macedonius of Constantinople was a leader of this group. They denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Their heresy was combated at the second council, Constantinople (381). The writings of Basil the Great of Caesarea of Pontus were instrumental in establishing the doctrine of the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
Apocryphal works: (Hamell, p.49). Many works were written about or in the name of the apostles but were rejected as spurious by the patristic church. “As to that work which is ascribed to him, called ‘The Acts,’ and the ‘Gospel according to Peter,’ and that called ‘The Preaching and Revelations of Peter,’ we know nothing of their being handed down as catholic writings” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III, iii). Some of the other rejected works were the Gospels according to the Hebrews, Peter, Philip, Thomas, etc.; Acts of Pilate, Acts of Peter and Paul, Acts of Paul and Thecla. Letter to the Laodiceans, III Corinthians, Apocalypse of Peter and Paul, and others.
3.3 God’s Sovereignty and Providence
Chapter III, “Of God’s Eternal Decree,” opens the most difficult of issues in the Confession and in the Calvinistic Reformed faith in general. That is, according to the Confession election or predestination is determined not by foreknowledge, but by the decree of God whereby “for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.” These are difficult words, and they have created consternation for many believers. The clear statement of the Confession is that election is not based on foreknowledge, but rather by decree apart from works, act of will, or foreknowledge. This article has helped spawn two competing systems of soteriology (doctrine of how we are saved) known as Calvinism (in support of the Institutes and embraced at Westminster) and Arminianism (as a reaction to it). I might add that while there is an argument in Scripture for double predestination, this declaration, as is, is not found in Scripture precisely as stated in the Confession.
The Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles addresses this issue in part as follows,
As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ . . . so for curious carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God’s Predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchedness of most unclean living . . . Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture; and in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God (Article XVII).
This position of the Puritans is probably the most controversial of their beliefs.
Calvin taught the doctrine of double predestination unapologetically while hedging his statements with reference to the secret or hidden counsels of God. That is, some truths should not be inquired into too far, lest we attempt to intrude into areas reserved for God alone.
The ancient Council of Orange (529) which clearly stated a belief in election, also vigorously refuted the doctrine of double predestination, “We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema.”
People ask me, “What do you believe?” I believe in the doctrine of election. It is biblical. I believe in the perseverance of the saints – the assurance of salvation to those who are saved. I am not an Arminian. Yet, I feel a case can be made from Scripture to support that point of view. I think the Thirty-nine articles are a better and more temperate statement of the mystery of election than the Westminster statement. So, while declaring myself Reformed, I would follow this axiom: when the Scriptures are Arminian, preach like an Arminian, where they reflect the sovereignty of God, emphasize that. We do not preach a theological system, but the Word of God. We must learn to live with this “truth in tension.” The conflicting issues of election, God’s love for all men, and questions of human agency, are a kind of mystery, a calculus that we only begin to glimpse here on this earth.
3.4 The Creator and Ruler
The Confession affirms certain of the doctrines of Creation. First, the universe both visible and invisible were created by the Triune God ex nihilo, that is, out of nothing. Second, that man (male and female) made in God’s image is the crowing act of God’s creation, and has been given the dominion (stewardship) over the creation.
Along with the doctrine of creation, is the doctrine providence, whereby ‘God the Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and Holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.”
Discussion Questions:
1. Why do we talk about “the presence of God” when God is present everywhere? 2. Do you think it matters whether we are Unitarian or Trinitarian as long as we believe in the deity of Christ? 3. If God controls my destiny, what difference do my choices make?
Readings for Chapter Three
Beall on Calvinism and Arminianism Bettensen, The Arian Syllogism, The Council of Trent, and Arminianism Calvin on Election Leith, The Council of Orange
Glossary:
Arianism: Named for Arius who taught that there was (a time) when the Son was not, thus denying the full divinity of the Son of God. Arminian Soteriology: The theological system of Jacob Arminius which emphasizes the choices and decisions of man in determining such questions as election, predestination, and perseverance of the saints. This system limits predestination to God’s foreknowledge. Athanasius: Presbyter and later bishop of Alexandria who opposed Arianism at the Council of Nicea. He is the champion of Nicene Christianity which defends the divinity of Christ and is the foundation for belief in the Trinity. Calvinist Soteriology: The system of salvation which emphasizes God’s sovereign choices in matters of election, predestination, and perseverance of the saints. While this system acknowledges human choices, they are dependant on God’s sovereign decrees, though not violated by them. Cappadocian Fathers: Basil of Caesarea (the Great), Gregory Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa whose theology firmly and finally established Trinitarian orthodoxy. Council of Constantinople: Second Ecumenical (world) Council in 381 which established the doctrine of the divinity of the Holy Spirit and thus the doctrine of the Trinity. The Nicene Creed is finalized at this Council. Divine Attributes: Three primary attributes of God, among many, recognized by theologians historically are that He is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (almighty), and omnipresent (present everywhere at once).Modalism: The anti-Trinitarian belief that there are no distinct persons in the Godhead, only three modes or manifestations of the one God.Monotheism: Belief in a single God, as opposed to many gods. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are considered the three monotheistic faiths. Hinduism is an example of a multi-theistic faith. Nicene Creed: The Creed accepted by Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant communions as expressing the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith including the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, and the doctrine of the Trinity.Patripassianism: The modalistic (Unitarian) heresy which teaches that the Father suffered on the cross with the Son.Sovereignty: The trait of God whereby he has sole and complete authority over the entire created order and rules it in freedom to do as He wills with all things, but always in keeping with His nature and goodness..Trinity: The belief that one God exists in three co-eternal persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who are of the same essence (homoousios) or nature. Each person (prosopon) is distinct and yet one in essence or substance.
Select Bibliography
James Lee Beall and Marjorie Barber. Laying the Foundation. Plainfield, NJ: 1976.
Henry Bettenson. Documents of the Christian Church, Second Edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Jerry Bridges. Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress,1988.
John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. MacDill AFB, FL: MacDonald Publishing Co., n.d.
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History.
Everett Ferguson, ed. Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990.
Patrick J. Hamell, Handbook of Patrology, Staten Island: Alba House, 1968.
Johannes Quasten, Patrology, Vol. I, rpt. 1992, Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, Inc., 1950.
Schlier, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. I, haireomai, etc. Kittel, ed., Bromiley, trans.
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Pastor P. Steve Paulus D.min. ~ pastor@stauntongrace.org
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