Category Archives: Theological Issues

Posts on theological issues not in other categories

Calvin: "God shall cease to be the Head of Christ"

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This is a follow-up to my recent post on the doctrine of eternal subordination within the Trinity and the related discussion at the Complegalitarian blog. This doctrine has recently become popular among complementarians, many of whom also call themselves Calvinists and so presumably value the teaching of John Calvin. Recently at the CBMW Gender “Blog” (in fact not a real blog because there is no opportunity for discussion) Calvin was listed among ten theologians who, it was claimed, held to this doctrine. Wayne Grudem, in his Systematic Theology (as quoted by Molly), takes this further, claiming that

the idea of eternal equality in being but subordination in role has been essential to the church’s doctrine of the Trinity since it was first affirmed in the Nicene Creed, … it has clearly been part of the church’s doctrine of the Trinity (in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox expressions), at least since Nicea (A.D. 325).

But can this claim be substantiated? I will not attempt to discuss all the ten theologians’ views. But in a comment on Complegalitarian Suzanne (apparently not Suzanne McCarthy) found a quote from Calvin which clearly shows that he did NOT believe in the eternal subordination of the Son. I have verified the quote from my own copy of Calvin’s Institutes, 2.14.3 (vol. 1 p. 486 in my copy, in the translation by Battles), and here I quote part of what Suzanne quoted with some additional text to introduce it, with my own emphasis:

That is, to [Christ] was lordship committed by the Father, until such time as we should see his divine majesty face to face. Then he returns the lordship to his Father so that – far from diminishing his own majesty – it may shine all the more brightly. Then, also, God shall cease to be the Head of Christ, for Christ’s own deity will shine of itself, although as yet it is covered in a veil.

In other words (and this is confirmed by reading the context), it is clear that to Calvin the distinction in honour between Christ and God the Father is only a temporary one which will cease when Christ has “discharged the office of Mediator”, that is, completed his saving work by bring his people to glory. Thus Calvin clearly shows that he believes in the temporary rather than eternal subordination of the Son.

If, as Calvin teaches, God shall cease to be the Head of Christ, that means that 1 Corinthians 11:3 is only a temporary teaching. So, if this verse is given the weight that many complementarians put on it, the “headship” of a husband over his wife (whatever that might mean) is also only temporary and will no longer be applicable in the eternal kingdom of God.

The Bible overthrows the hierarchical worldview

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Molly Aley at the Complegalitarian blog offers a robust (and award-winning) criticism of CBMW’s claims about the doctrine of eternal subordinationism in the Trinity. In her own comment there she describes how at Bible college she was taught a strongly hierarchical worldview, which she has now rejected, which linked subordinationism within the Trinity with a strong concept of non-mutual authority in church and home.

Nick Norelli may reject this kind of link, but it was clearly made at Molly’s patriarchal Bible college, as well as by the moderate complementarians of CBMW and the egalitarian Kevin Giles. Molly shows that the link goes beyond 1 Corinthians 11:3 on which I disagreed with Nick, to encompass fundamental issues of one’s worldview, in which there is a clear division between hierarchical and egalitarian presuppositions.

My contention is that the Bible deliberately rejects the dominant hierarchical worldview of the ancient world and teaches a fundamentally egalitarian viewpoint. This criticism of hierarchy undermines the basis of both patriarchy and complementarianism in gender relations as well as of the eternal subordinationism in the Trinity.

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Subordinationism, the Trinity, and gender relations

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Nick Norelli offers a thoughtful review of Kevin Giles’ book The Trinity & Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God & the Contemporary Gender Debate. I have not read the book, but this makes me want to.

But I cannot accept the way that Nick seeks to dissociate the two issues which Giles links in this book, subordinationism within the Trinity and complementarianism in gender relations. I cannot comment directly on the arguments Giles uses to link these matters. But the counter-arguments which Nick comes up with are to me very unconvincing.

Nick claimed that my first comment on his blog pointing out the weaknesses of his argument “completely lacked merit”. To be fair, I had accused him of “expound[ing] bad theology”, so I can’t complain at receiving a robust response. But here I bring my comments to a wider audience for it to judge between us.

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Apostasy, backsliding, and perseverance of the saints

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Since I use the word “apostasy” here, I want to acknowledge Ruth Gledhill’s very worrying post Sharia in Iran: ‘Death to converts’. It seems that the government of Iran wants to impose the death penalty for “apostasy” from Islam, which will apply to those of other religions who have even one Muslim parent. But this is not my real theme in this post.

I have been having an ongoing conversation with John Hobbins about the conditions for Christian salvation. As I reported here, it started in the comment thread of this post on John’s blog, and it continued in the comments on this post. I think the discussion is more or less finished. Now I want to present here some of my conclusions, although I don’t think John will agree with them.

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John 3:16 and limited atonement

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Yesterday I wrote about Bible Verses that Simply Can’t Mean What They Say, in response to Elder Eric’s satirical post on the same subject at Tominthebox News Network. I tried to keep what I wrote then in the same humorous vein. But the comment thread on Eric’s post has moved into a serious discussion of the issues I raised, and now I want to take this matter further.

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John Hobbins and the Galatian heresy

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I admire John Hobbins for attempting to build bridges with observant Jews, as is obviously his intention in this post and several other recent ones. Indeed his attempt has had some success, for the Jew David Guttmann has responded very positively.

Unfortunately I cannot give the same positive response. For John has made the same mistake, and a very serious one, as so many other Christians who have attempted dialogue with adherents of other religions. That is, in an attempt to find common ground with those other people, he has abandoned some of the basics of orthodox Christian teaching.

In John’s case, his error is made clear in the title of his post: Why Torah observance is rightly understood as a means of salvation. The problem is that in Christianity it is not – on any generally understood definition of Torah. John starts his post by claiming that

Most versions of Judaism and Christianity understand Torah as a means of salvation.

But, as I point out in my first comment, this is simply not true of any orthodox version of Christianity, Protestant, Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. Continue reading →

Bible Verses that Simply Can’t Mean What They Say

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Elder Eric of Tominthebox News Network reports the following:

Asbury Theological Seminary has published a statement that it hopes will assist evangelical churches fend off the increasing threat posed by Calvinism. Asbury, which according to its website “is rooted in the Wesleyan-Arminian theological tradition,” firmly stands against Reformed Theology. In order to stress this point, the faculty recently published a small pamphlet entitled, “72 Bible Verses that Simply Can’t Mean What They Say.”

The report goes on to list these 72 verses.

Not sure whether to believe this one? I’m sure I don’t.

But I can offer the following scoop:

In response to the statement from Asbury Theological Seminary, a spokesman for Tominthebox Reformed Calvinist Theological Seminary issued the following statement:

We are very concerned that our brethren in the Wesleyan-Arminian theological tradition have issued such a long list of “Bible Verses that Simply Can’t Mean What They Say”. We do not accept that any of these verses don’t mean what they say.

But we agree that there are some Bible verses which simply can’t mean what they say. We are currently working on a full list of these verses, but for the moment we will offer just one such verse as a sample:

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Clearly this verse cannot mean what it says, for as good Reformed Calvinists we know that God only loves the elect and that eternal life is only offered to these same elect people.

For some reason Elder Eric dissociated himself from these comments, but as I pointed out elsewhere Calvin himself would not have accepted his arguments.

Meanwhile Doug Chaplin has this irreverent thought (his words) about the following verse, John 3:17:

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world — he’s going to have a church to do that.

A Revelation 13 government?

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Ruth Gledhill reports an amazing statement by Bishop Graham Dow of Carlisle, at a meeting in connection with the Church of England’s General Synod. The bishop reportedly said:

I happen to believe that our Government is moving into the realm of imposing its morality and it has therefore become a Revelation 13 Government rather than a Romans 13 Government. In the view of the Book of Revelation, the Roman Empire had become a demonic beast and was imposing its morality.

When asked for clarification by Riazat Butt, the Muslim woman who is the new religious affairs correspondent of The Guardian newspaper, Bishop Dow expressed his surprise that press correspondents were present. But they had been invited. It seems that Rowan Williams is not the only bishop who needs some elementary lessons on handling the media.

But what of the bishop’s suggestion? We mustn’t forget that when Paul wrote Romans 13 the Roman empire was already much more repressive than any modern western democracy and strongly imposed its morality and religious practices on the whole empire. Our British government is in some ways moving in a bad direction, but it has a long way to go before it matches Romans 13, let alone Revelation 13. It is surely not helpful in a situation like this to throw around words like “demonic”, even in meetings which are thought to be private.

Another quiz: What is the Kingdom of God?

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I just found this quiz entitled What is the Kingdom of God? As this subject interests me, I will put myself in a theological box, as they put it in the post where I found the link to this quiz, even though it is not Friday. So here are my results:

What is the Kingdom of God?
created with QuizFarm.com
You scored as The Kingdom as a counter-systemThis approach has been adopted by Anabaptist and similar groups who saw themselves as recapturing the essence of true Christianity in opposition to a “Christianised” society and an institutional church.

The Kingdom as a counter-system
92%
Kingdom as a Christianised Society
67%
The Kingdom as Earthly Utopia
50%
The Kingdom is mystical communion
42%
The Kingdom is a Future Hope
42%
The Kingdom as Institutional Church
33%
Inner spiritual experience
33%
The Kingdom as a political state
33%

Interesting to see that I came out with the Anabaptist position of a Christian counter-system, although I wasn’t consciously thinking on those lines. But, and this is one of the points which I had trouble explaining to John Hobbins in our discussions on pacifism, I don’t take this to the extreme of withdrawing from the world, and so some of my answers reflected my position that I should be seeking to bring the values of this counter-system into the wider society.

A meme points to peacemaking

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Doug has tagged me with an interesting meme:

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

Like Doug, I discounted the Bible on my desk, so I picked the first book that came to hand on my bookshelf. This happened to be “Studies in the Sermon on the Mount” by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Here is what I found on p.123 – I have included the preceding sentence so that this makes sense:

Why are peacemakers blessed? The answer is that they are blessed because they are so absolutely unlike everybody else. The peacemakers are blessed because they are the people who stand out as being different from the rest of the world, and they are different because they are the children of God. In other words, I say, we are again plunged immediately into New Testament theology and doctrine.

Interesting comment in the light of my ongoing discussions with John Hobbins on pacifism, and most recently on peacemaking in Africa, issues on which John seems unwilling to be even a little bit “unlike everybody else”. So I will content myself with tagging John on this one.