Patriarchy and International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day. International Women's Day started out as a socialist political event but has since morphed into an event that celebrates the achievements of women and that speaks out against violence committed against women and pornography. All of these are good things. However, whenever I turn on the radio and hear one of the promoters of International Women's Day they always seem to be saying that patriarchy is the underlying cause of violence against women and so we must do away with patriarchy.

The terms patriarchy and patriarchalism are used in such a way that they are assumed to be evil and that anything that we simply must figure out what can be classified as patriarchy and then get rid of it. I've noticed this in a number of books that have been published in the past ten years or so. They don't so much argue against a patriarchal as assume it is bad and then try to show how whatever they are arguing against is a form of patriarchalism.

However, just casual observation shows that this is not the case. Many Muslim countries are very patriarchal and allow horrible crimes to be committed against women, but also have very strict laws against pornography. In more egalitarian societies, men are willing to let women do the work so that they don't have to but then strike out against women and the porn industry thrives.

The fact is that people are sinners and they will find ways to mistreat one another regardless of the societal system. The Scriptures support a certain form of patriarchy but turns the patriarchal system on its head. There is a subordination of woman to man but the man's goal in leadership is to lay down his life for the wife as Christ did for the church. The problem both within and outside of the church is that leadership is understood to be for the gaining of power for self. Pastors have become CEOs and women want the same power that men have. But Jesus did not come to be served but to serve. People generally don't fight over who gets to wash feet.

Christianity exalts motherhood and Mary was given the role of being the Mother of God which was not given to any man. The solution is not egalitarianism but a well-ordered society when where men lead and lay down their lives for women rather than abdicating their responsibilities to them and treating them as property.  If everyone is equally engaged in a struggle for power, abuse will continue. The abortion industry thrives on women who use their power to destroy the rights of those younger than them and the men who pressure women to use that power to avoid their own responsibilities. We should do what we can in the legislative process to stop the abuse of women and stop the killing of babies but none of that will stop completely until Christ returns. There is no utopian societal model that can save us.

New Blog on Textual Criticism and Translation

I just started a new blog to deal specifically with the traditional text of the Scriptures and their translation. I'm still messing around with the design of the blog but plan to post translations on a regular basis along with some commentary.

Dave Armstrong, Chemnitz, Lutherans, Tradition, and Evangelicalism

I recently wrote a post on Dave Armstrong's defence of the Immaculate Conception. Armstrong responded to my post and we had a little bit of back interaction in the comments section of his blog. I maintain as I stated in my original post that Armstrong's biggest problem is his failure to understand Greek grammar and how it functions. In other posts he attempts to defend the Immaculate Conception using the following argument:

1. The Bible teaches that we are saved by God's grace.
2. To be "full of" God's grace, then, is to be saved.
3. Therefore, Mary is saved (Luke 1:28).
4. The Bible teaches that we need God's grace to live a holy life, free from sin.
5. To be "full of" God's grace is thus to be so holy that one is sinless.
6. Therefore, Mary is holy and sinless.
7. The essence of the Immaculate Conception is sinlessness.
8. Therefore, the Immaculate Conception, in its essence, can be directly deduced from    Scripture.

Number 1 is true.
Number 2 and 3 are true but I think it misses the point. The angel isn't coming to Mary to comfort her because she is doubtful about her salvation. The angel is coming to Mary to tell her of her unique role. She is the "graced one" whom God has chosen to be the mother of God. God has graced her. God has shown a favorable disposition towards her and given her this role.

Number 4 is true.

Numbers 5 and 6 misread both the Vulgate and the Greek. Armstrong has a false understanding of what "full of grace" means. The Greek literally addresses Mary as the "Graced one." She is the one upon whom God has bestowed grace. Grace is not a substance but God's favorable disposition towards Mary. There are plenty of instances throughout Greek literature where someone bestows grace upon someone else and it doesn't have anything to do with injecting grace into the person. I'm not saying the term "full of grace" is wrong as it appears in the Vulgate. I'm not convinced that Jerome intended "full of grace" to be understood this way. And it does not follow that just because God looked favorably upon Mary in this very unique way that Mary is sinless. Grace is often shown in Scripture to sinful people. We are saved by grace apart from our works. God bestowing grace upon a person does not mean that the person has not sinned.

Numbers 7 and 8 try to divert our attention away from the real issues and assume a number of erroneous things about the Greek. Even if you were to wrongly conclude that Mary being full of grace meant that she was without sin, the text does not say she was always full of grace. Also, the sinlessness of Mary is not exactly the same thing as the doctrine of the immaculate conception. The Eastern Orthodox popularly teach that Mary was sinless as far as her actively sinning goes but deny the immaculate conception and say that Mary was born under the law of original sin (even though this is also denied by some Eastern Orthodox theologians). The Eastern Orthodox say that to teach that Mary was free from original sin would mean that Christ is not her redeemer and Mary very clearly confesses that Christ is her redeemer. Interestingly enough, Thomas Aquinas makes the same argument against the immaculate conception as do a number of significant medieval Western theologians. Eastern Orthodox theologians have also taught that the immaculate conception places Mary outside of the human race.

Among the pre-Nicean church fathers there was strong consensus that Mary was neither sinless nor immaculately conceived. They unanimously declare that Jesus is the only sinless one and both Chrysostom and Tertullian draw attention to examples of Mary's sin. The historic liturgy in use in the Eastern Church also declares Jesus to be the only sinless one. Post-Nicea there is a shift towards teaching that Mary is sinless among the church fathers but it's not until the middle ages that the immaculate conception and there was quite a bit of dispute in the middle ages over it.

The Roman church admits that there are no explicit statements in the early church fathers regarding the immaculate conception but that the teaching is implicit in the church fathers and that the church must continually grow and develop in her doctrine. But this is absurd because the early church fathers were not merely silent on the matter but pointed to actual times when Mary sinned and explicitly declared Jesus to be the only sinless. How can someone claim to be adhering to Apostolic tradition when they teach the opposite of what the church fathers taught? On a great number of issues there are times where the truth is held by a minority but if it is completely absent where is the tradition? How is it handed down if nobody is handing it down and everyone is explicitly denying it? How can it be implied when there is explicit denial? Perhaps we can extract an implicit denial of the Immaculate Conception from the Roman church's explicit teaching of the immaculate conception. It's perfectly reasonable that over time certain doctrines will be more clearly articulated over time but when a church body claims to be teaching something based on Apostolic Tradition that is the exact opposite of what everyone in the early was saying there is no basis for such a claim.

Armstrong has a series of articles examining Chemnitz's Examination of the Council of Trent. The bulk of the articles deal with the issue of Sola Scriptura and in a strange way Armstrong tries to shoehorn Chemnitz into an evangelical mold. Armstrong sets the stage as if the only two options are the two-source theory of Trent or me and my Bible in a closet. But Lutherans and the early church fathers held to the view that tradition serves an important role but is not another authoritative source for doctrine. Rather, Scripture provides the proper interpretive grid for understanding the Scriptures. The Apostolic tradition is cut from the same cloth as the Scriptures. The two source theory did not appear until about the 4th Century and did not become popular until the middle ages. The two source theory was officially adopted at the Council of Trent by the Roman church but there were a variety of different theories that existed up until that point. It can even be argued that with the dogma of papal infallibility that came later, Rome has deviated from the two source theory and instead now holds that the pope is the ultimate source of authority.

Armstrong also discusses the issue of Apostolic Succession. It is certainly true that you find some very strong statements in the early church fathers about the importance of Apostolic Succession. Some branches of the Lutheran church still have Apostolic Succession and it's a good physical representation of what is happening doctrinally. But what happens when physical Apostolic Succession (which itself is at times throughout history doubtful) results in bishops that do not uphold the Apostolic doctrines? Do you place your confidence in the physical line of succession or in the doctrines that were intended to be passed down? What about the modalist popes or popes that held to other heresies? The church seems to have placed a high value on Apostolic Succession but a much higher value on the Apostolic Doctrine. Both Cyprian and Augustine denied papal primacy.


In one article, Armstrong writes:

The central question is whether Chemnitz can prove that the Fathers (and, remember, not just a few scattershot examples, but en masse) believed in Lutheran distinctives, such as those I listed above:

1) imputed justification

2) faith alone (sola fide)

3) assurance of one-time justification and salvation

4) formal separation of justification and sanctification

Numbers 3 and 4 apply to Calvinism and evangelicalism but they are not true of Lutheranism. Numbers 1 and 2 do apply to Lutheranism but notice the standard that Armstrong sets up. If the standard for any doctrine is that the Fathers en masse approve of the doctrine, then a long list of doctrines that the Roman church now teaches would not pass muster. Many of the current doctrines of Rome are out rightly denied en masse by the church fathers. Imputed justification and sola fide may have gone through periods where they were found only among a minority of church fathers but they were never completely absent. Keep in mind that there was a period of time in which Arianism was also the position that was held en masse by the church.


Then Armstrong writes:

Moreover, as in the Bible and Tradition issue, the Protestant apologist has the burden of considering the overall theology of any given Church Father. Not only do Chemnitz and others who attempt the same thing, fail to show that the Fathers hold to the four Lutheran distinctives above, and other related ones, but they quickly pass over or completely ignore other relevant beliefs that would indicate an express disagreement with Lutheran (or "mainstream" Protestant) soteriology. I can think of a dozen such tenets, right off the bat (let's refer to them as "the dirty dozen"):

1) Infused, internal justification (as opposed to extrinsic, or external, or imputed)

2) Baptismal regeneration

3) Free will

4) The possibility of falling away from salvation (as opposed to "perseverance" or "eternal security")

5) Merit

6) The sacrifice of the Mass

7) Penance

8) Purgatory

9) Prayers for the dead (presupposes purgatory)

10) Salvation as a process, not a one-time proclamation or declaration

11) Faith and works organically, formally united (as opposed to being formally separated)

12) Sanctification and justification organically, formally united (as opposed to being formally separated)

[Lutherans fully accept #2, and pretty much #3 and #4, though in a somewhat different sense than Catholics do, but disagree with the other nine. They agree that works are compulsory in the Christian life, yet separate them from justification per se, which is solely imputed]

This section is very strange because it begins by acting as if Chemnitz has to prove the church fathers denied all the things taught on this list in order to prove his case but then acknowledges at the end that Lutherans do not deny some of the things taught on the list. Armstrong acknowledges that Lutherans do not deny 2, 3, or 4 but there are also other things on this list which Lutherans do not deny.

In response to 6, Lutherans acknowledge in the Book of Concord that mass is a sacrifice. It is referred to as a euchastic sacrifice. What Lutherans deny is that it is a propitiatory sacrifice and Lutherans place the emphasis on the mass being Christ's body and blood rather than on the sacrificial aspect since Jesus said that this is his body and blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

In response to 9, the Lutheran confessions do not condemn prayers for the dead. In fact, the Lutheran liturgical form for funerals includes a prayer for the departed. Prayers for the dead do not presuppose purgatory. The Eastern church has prayers for the dead but no doctrine of purgatory.

In response to 10, Lutherans do not teach that salvation is just some one time event that a person experiences at the time he first believes. We are in need of daily justification because we sin daily..

In response to 11, Lutherans do not separate faith from good works.

In response to 12, Lutheran do not separate justification from sanctification.

So in reality, we are left with 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8.

As for 1, Armstrong acknowledges that Chemnitz provides patristic support but basically says that he can provide more for the Roman Catholic view. But just because a view is more popular during certain periods of time that does not guarantee adherence to Apostolic tradition Arius' view of Christ was at one time the more popular view. You can read Chemnitz's quoations from the church fathers here: http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/djw/lutherantheology.chemnitzjustification.html

3 is very vague. What does he mean by free will? It's actually pretty easy to find a wide variety of views on the issue of free will among the church fathers.

5 is vague as well. The church fathers had a wide range of views on the issue of merit.

7 is very vague. Luther did write about penance and it is spoken about in different ways by different church fathers. You can read about the development of penance here: http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=24314

8 is just kind of strange because the Eastern churches have no doctrine of purgatory and the doctrine remains ambiguous in the Roman church. Some speak of it as a place while other speak of it as a process. Some even refer to it as a purifying that happens instantaneously at death. The next pope will no doubt say something about purgatory that's a bit different than the current one and we're all supposed to declare whatever the current pope says to be Apostolic tradition.

Dave Armstrong's Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception

The Roman church teaches that when Mary was conceived in the womb she was kept free from original sin and filled with sanctifying grace. It wasn't until 1854 that this doctrine became an official teaching of the Roman church. This teaching was not established by appealing to the Scriptures but rather by appealing to "implicit" teachings in the church fathers. Unlike the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary which is not contradicted by the Scriptures and which is very strongly and unanimously taught by the church fathers, the immaculate conception contradicts the Scriptures and has very weak support among the church fathers. Even in the middle ages significant theologians like Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas denied the immaculate conception. The doctrine most likely developed as an attempt to safeguard the doctrine of the sinlessness of Christ but as Thomas Aquinas points out, if Mary were sinless Christ could not be her redeemer.

But more recent Roman apologists in an attempt to win over evangelicals have tried to defend the doctrine immaculate conception from the Scriptures. On page 178 of  A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, Dave Armstrong discusses the use of the term "full of grace" and says:

It is permissible, on Greek grammatical and linguistic grounds, to paraphrase kecharitomene as completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace.

In the book, Armstrong does not treat the above as a direct quotation from any particular source but he does provide a footnote that says

Blass and DeBrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 166; H.W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), sect 1852:b.

The book does not cite Blass and DeBrunner as a direct quotation but if you search the internet, you'll find plenty of people quoting this as if it were a direct quotation from Blass and DeBrunner including Dave Armstrong on his blog. But page 166 doesn't say anything that resembles what Armstrong is saying here. Blass and DeBrunner simply mention that the perfect stem is used to denote "a condition or state as the result of a past action." The passage cited by Smyth says, "Completed action with permanent result is denoted by the perfect stem." None of this sounds anything like what Armstrong is saying. The passage clearly says that God graced Mary but it's rather insane to try to derive the doctrine of the immaculate conception from that.

The ever-virgin Mary can truly be called the Queen of Heaven. She was given the most important position of any human being by being chosen by God to be the Mother of God. But Mary was a sinner who needed Christ to suffer and die for her just as well all do.

The Englishing of 1 Peter 3:21

In 1981 Michael Totten wrote an article on Reformed and Neo-Evangelical Theology in English Translations of the Bible. In the article he examines how various translations have dealt with passages that deal with the sacraments and eschatology. The RSV received the best score and in all the passages he analyzed the ESV has followed the RSV. One of the passages he deals with is 1 Peter 3:21. He lists the RSV and NASB, and Beck's translation as containing acceptable translations of this verse while the KJV, NKJV, NIV, and a host of others do not. The Living Bible presents an absolutely ridiculous translation. I checked the NLT and it is not as ridiculous as the Living Bible but makes the same errors as the KJV, NKJV, and NIV.

Much of the confusion is the result of confusion over the meaning of the word eperotema.  The NIV translates this word as "pledge." The KJV and NKJV translate this word as "answer." The word eperotema took on the meaning of "pledge" or "answer" in the second century in legal documents such as the Justinian code but there is no evidence that it had this meaning at the time of the writing of the New Testament.  As Totten points out the most common translation error is to see the parallel between "flesh" and "good conscience." Eperotema comes from the verb eperotao which means "to ask" or "request." So it is rightly translated by the RSV and NASB as "appeal." Baptism is an appeal or request to God for a good conscience. The translation of "pledge" seems to be driven more by theological presuppositions than by solid lexical evidence and context. Baptism now saves you because it is an appeal to God for a good conscience and God grants that request. Peter is not saying that baptism now saves you because baptism is a promise you made to God that you have a good conscience.

Translations that substitute "answer/pledge" for "request/appeal" also tend to confuse the Greek grammar just to make sense of it all. They make the good conscience the source or agent of the pledge. But this completely misses the parallel between "flesh" and "good conscience" found in the Greek. If the good conscience is the source or agent of the pledge then it would seem that "flesh" would have to be the source or agent of the removal of dirt which wouldn't make any sense at all and which no translation to my knowledge does.

Baptism is not the removal of dirt from the flesh.
Baptism is an appeal to God for a good conscience.

1 Peter 3:21 comes immediately after a passage which speaks of how God saved Noah through the water. This seems unusual in some ways. Ordinarily we would think of God saving Noah through the ark and some commentators have tried to go this route but the passage is pretty clear. God saved Noah through the water. God saved him from the unbelieving world. God destroyed the unbelieving world through the waters of the flood but saved and Noah and his family by using the water to lift him into safety while in the ark. Peter literally says that baptism is the antitype of the flood which would make the flood the prototype. Baptism is the greater fulfillment of what happened in the flood.

I came across the following rather unfortunate poor translation in the EOB:

This is an antitype of baptism, which now saves you. Baptism is not the putting away of the impurity of the flesh but the appeal of a good conscience {in your relationship} toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As a whole I really like the EOB. It's translated by Eastern Orthodox Christians and based on the New Testament text used in the liturgy. Unfortunately, most modern translations are based on a text created in the academy and then translated by Bible societies. Other sections of the EOB are actually translated very well especially those passages dealing with the sacraments. But this one is not. It confuses the antitype with the prototype and says that the flood is the antitype of baptism. It also says that baptism is "the appeal of a good conscience toward God." I've unsuccessfully tried to contact those responsible for the translation and I'm sure they would be willing to correct it if I could find the right person to tell. They also depart from their own Greek text by having "saves you" instead of "saves us."

The ESV, RSV, and NASB already do a fine job but this is my own proposed translation:

The antitype baptism now also saves us, it does not remove dirt from the body but asks God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Ezekiel and the Omnipotence of God

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. (Ezekiel 37:1-10 ESV)

At the time of creation, God spoke all things into existence. He did not work through any human agent. But after the creation God often chooses to work incarnationally through sinful man. However, we are often told that to believe that God works in this manner is superstitious by both "liberals" and "conservatives" in the church. After all, the pastor is just a man and we know from observing him that he is a sinful man. But we see from this passage in Ezekiel that when God commands man to speak as his mouthpiece, what the man says actually comes to pass. When man invents his own words to speak on behalf of God they are powerless and idolatrous but when man speaks what he is commanded to speak by God they are powerful, effectual, and performative.

When the minister speaks the words of absolution they actually forgive sins because God has commanded Him to speak those words. After the minister consecrates the elements the body and blood of Christ are received. To say that this is impossible because a human body cannot be in more than one place at any given time is to deny God's omnipotence. Despite the pious language that might surround such a denial, the denial is the result of unbelief and a mind plagued by doubt sown by Satan.

Calvinists and the Trinity

In Geneva there was a man by the name of Caroli who became part of the Calvinist Reformation but eventually went back to Rome and started accusing Calvin of being an Arian. Caroli demanded that Calvin sign in agreement to the Apostle's, Nicene, and Athanasian Creed. Calvin refused on the grounds that he was bound to the Scriptures alone. Calvin spoke highly of the Apostles' Creed, objected to the condemnatory language in the Athanasian Creed, and mocked the form and language of the Nicene Creed. Calvin wrote:

And as for the Nicene Creed - is it so very certain it was composed by that Council? One would surely suppose those holy Fathers would study conciseness in so serious a matter as a creed. But see the battology here: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God." Why this repetition - which adds neither to the emphasis nor to the expressiveness of the document? Don't you see that this is a song, more suitable for singing than to serve as a formula of confession?

Calvin may think the Nicene Creed is just a bunch of stammering speech but I strongly disagree. The Nicene Creed faithfully confesses what the Scriptures have to say about the Trinity. The Trinity is a profound mystery. We cannot fully comprehend it and we are completely dependent upon God's revelation to know anything about the Trinity. The fathers at Nicea and were very careful in their language not to go beyond God's revelation and thereby deny the threeness or the oneness of God as it has been revealed to us. To be fair to Calvin, he also teaches the threeness and oneness of God in his writings. But in his attempt to defend himself against the charge of Arianism, he also taught the aseity of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Calvin taught that the Son and the Holy Spirit have their being from themselves. Warfield believed that this teaching of the aseity of the Son made Calvin one of the greatest Trinitarian theologians of the Western Church by eliminating all subordinationism and many Calvinists and non-Calvinists in the Western Church have adopted Calvin's language.

But this is a substantial departure from Nicene Trinitarian language. In the Nicene Creed the Father is unbegotten and possesses asiety, the Son is begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (and the Son in the Western form of the Creed. I will refrain at this time from commenting on the filioque). The majority of Calvinists have adopted Calvin's language but as at least one Calvinist theologian by the name of David Engelsma has pointed out:

The Father begets the Son.This begetting is an eternal activity of bringing forth another who is different from the Father as the second person but also like the Father as His "express image."Contrary to Calvin, the begetting of the Son is the Father's bringing forth of the Son, not only as regards the Son's person but also as regards the Son's being. In the interests of defending the oneness of God and of guarding against any subordination of the Son, Calvin restricted the Father's begetting of the Son to the generation of the Son's person. The Son, Calvin contended, has His being from Himself. Calvin's doctrine of the generation of the Son, however, does not do justice to the begetting of the Son that is implied by the names Father and Son and that is expressed by John in the word monogenees. Calvin's doctrine of aseity jeopardizes the essential oneness of the Father and the Son and weakens both the relation and the personal difference between the two. The idea of begetting, both biblically and in human experience, is that of bringing forth a being from one's own being....There is in John's description of the Son as the "only begotten" no limitation of that which the Father has begotten to the person of the Son. The Son is begotten of the Father in His entirety, person and being. It is exactly the generation of the being of the Son out of the being of the Father that is the reason why the being of Jesus the Son of God is the being itself of God. The generation of the being of Jesus Christ was of critical importance at Nicea. Jesus Christ was confessed to be of "one substance (essence) with the Father" inasmuch as He is "very God of very God," that is, "out of very God." But the Son is out of God by virtue of being "begotten of the Father before all worlds." Nicea understood the begetting of the Son to be a begetting of essence, or substance.

There is no subordinationism within the Nicene formula when properly understood and there is a real confession of Threeness in Nicea that is diminished in Calvin. As Roger Beckwith points out there is also a difference in Calvin in the way that he explains this Threeness. Calvin does not explain the Threeness in relational terms as the church fathers did.

Instead, he directs attention to their distinctive roles in the activities of God, the Father as originator, the Son as wise director and the Spirit as powerful executor, which could be regarded as just other sorts of relationships, not characteristics of the Persons themselves.

Calvin also denies many of the Trintiarian interpretations of Old Testament texts and the traditional interpretations used to support the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. Although Calvin himself teaches the eternal generation of the Son, it's easy to see how later Calvinists like Robert Reymond and Lorraine Boettner would end up denying it. With the doctrine of the aseity of the Son it's difficult to maintain the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son. It's also easy to see how the idea of God as one person could develop in the theology Cornelius Van Til. Calvin himself doesn't make it into the "heretic" catagory when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity but he certainly lays the groundwork for others to become outright heretics. Calvin does not give us further insight into the doctrine of the Trinity but rather introduces obstacles to a true understanding of the Trinity. In some ways I think this is comparable to Augustine's doctrine of the sacraments. Augustine himself did not separate the sign from the thing signified but the introduction of this Platonic language laid the groundwork for others such as Calvin to do so.

While researching this topic I had discussions with several Calvinists. Some of them disagreed with Calvin and thought the Trinitarian language of Nicea was more accurate. Others adopted Warfield's approach of trying to harmonize Calvin and Nicea. Others denied the eternal generation of the Son. Some of these last group even claimed that they could still confess Nicea since the trajectory of Calvinist theology has developed in a different direction from other theologies. But this empties the language of the Nicene Creed of all meaning if it can be constantly reinterpreted. It's already problematic that Calvinists who deny baptismal regeneration also don't interpret "one baptism for the remission of sins" according to its original intent. According to the Scriptures we are baptized into the name of the Trinity, our sins are washed away, and we are regenerated. According to the Calvinist baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. There is a history in Calvinism of subscribing to creeds insofar as they agree with Scripture rather than because they are a faithful explanations of what the Scriptures teach. This is especially true in the Presbyterian tradition and that is where you find most of those who deny the eternal generation of the Son.

This is also the symptom of another problem in Calvinism and in other ways in Roman Catholicism. They do not view the faith as something to be handed down but as something that is under constant development. We have not become wiser than the fathers who received their doctrine of the Apostles. By thinking ourselves wiser we show ourselves to be fools. This can be seen in the many ways in which Calvinist Trinitarianism continues to traject in various directions. Especially among the disciples of Gordon Clark there seems to be no end to those who think they have figured out what nobody else has. The abandonment of the historic liturgy in much of Calvinism has resulted in non-Trinitarian forms of worship. Lip service is given to the Trinity but preaching is often just about an all powerful sovereign God. Pastors who deviate from Nicene Trinitarianism are often accepted as long as they confess the limited atonement and other unique Calvinistic doctrines.

But the doctrine of the Trinity was central to early Christian church as can be seen in the creeds and the liturgy. When the Trinity becomes secondary there is a lack of continuity with the church that Jesus built and continues to build. If we do not worship the Trinity we worship a different god. God is not just some uncreated creator who sovereignly acts. Glen Scriviner provides 13 disastrous implications of viewing God first as the uncreated Creator rather than as the Trinity. I disagree and omit one of them but the rest are spot on:

1.) You will never get to a Nicene trinity – you must deny ‘God from God’ – a begotten deity. (This was the danger Calvin courted (and those who have followed him.)) click here for more
2) You make God both dependent on creation and shut out from it
3) You will therefore never know God – that is, God in Himself.
4) Faith therefore becomes not a laying hold of God but of intermediary pledges from the unknown God.
5) Assurance becomes impossible – the hidden and unreachable God determines all
6) Salvation becomes not a participation in God but a status conferred external to Him.
8) Evangelism entails the impossible task of introducing Jesus into a pre-formed deistic doctrine of God. “I always believed in God, but the evangelist showed me how Jesus is also that god-I’d-always-believed-in.” Jesus gets squeazed and dissolved into the pagan’s god.
9) In your Christology you will uphold the fundamental incommensurability of ‘Unoriginate’ attributes and ‘originate’ attributes. Thus the Word cannot become flesh and the fulness of the divine nature cannot dwell bodily in Jesus. This is because Christ’s bodily form does not allow for your pre-supposed divine attributes (assumed according to the ‘Uncreated Creator’ definition of God). You will therefore ‘lock off’ certain divine attributes from the realm of Jesus’ flesh – i.e. you will become Nestorian.
10) You will define God’s Glory in terms of aseity – making Him the most selfish Being in the universe rather than the most giving.
11) Christ crucified then becomes a bridge to God’s glory rather than the very expression of it. (A theologia gloriae rather than theologia crucis).
12) You will consider “Glorifying God” to mean ‘what we give to Him’ – our worship etc (works!) – rather than ‘being swallowed up in His communion of other-centred love’ (faith!).
13) If God is fundamentally an individual, the Christian life becomes individualised. Instead it ought to be communal – a participation with and among persons.