Considering the Reformed Confession, Part 2

The second chapter of R. Scott Clark’s book, Recovering the Reformed Confession, begins his more in-depth analysis of the crisis he laid out in the first chapter.  Here he tackles The Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty.

This chapter begins oddly by offering a few examples of this quest in Reformed circles.  Those are KJV-only advocates (I’ve missed this movement in the Reformed community), arguing against women in the military (I’m not sure I see the connection here as he explains it), and the Biblical Counseling movement (since he seems to view counseling as a medical issue instead of a sanctification issue in many cases).  He just drops those, without anything to back up his claims.  There is no smoking gun that these are related to the Illegitimate Quest.  Full preterism and denying the free offer of the gospel are about the only ones that I see as connected to this quest.  And those 2 are problematic.

But he spends the chapter focusing on a literal 6-day creation, theonomy and covenant moralism.  His argument is that in the shifting sands of modernity (or would that be post-modernity) some look for a solid place to stand.  Their insecurity, he says, leads them to seek certainty in all the wrong places.  He sees the role of fundamentalism as important in this.

“In fact, it is not a belief that the Bible is true which makes on a fundamentalist; rather it is the belief that one’s interpretation is inerrant which qualifies one as a fundamentalist.”

An interesting definition or defining factor.  But is he certain they are wrong?

6 Day Creation

He begins with the “rise” of a literal 6-day creation as a boundary marker.  In recent years, this was an issue in the PCA as they tried to determine if ministers should subscribe as strictly to this part of the Confession as other parts of the confession, like justification.  He notes that the RCUS adopted this as their denominational position in 1999.  I have not even heard of the RCUS.  The  OPC and URC have all studied it as well.

They defend this position from Scripture and the Westminster Confession of Faith (4.1).  This is what is so interesting to me.  He tries to say that the meaning of the Confession is not clear.  Since they may have been arguing against Augustine’s instantaneous creation instead of modern science’s evolution, 6 days doesn’t mean 6 days- it might mean something else.  This is a doctrinal statement, not a literary genre that may use figurative speech.

This language, he does not deny, is found in the original WCF which is in his “Golden Years” of Reformed Orthodoxy and is one of the Confessions he uses to determine Reformed Orthodoxy.  But somehow this problem is the result of the Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy of the 20th century and 7th Day Adventists.

If we are confessional, as he says, what is wrong with saying one must believe the Confession or bring it up as an exception?  Clark seems to be inconsistent on this matter.  He’s now picking and choosing which parts of the Confession (as a strict subscriptionist no less) are boundaries for orthodoxy.  Where else are we to look for the boundaries for orthodoxy regrading creation if not the Confessions?

In this context he argues that such a boundary marker would exclude Hodge, Machen, Warfield and Bavink from our Reformed Community (we’ll see if he ever includes Jonathan Edwards in the Reformed Community).  Like A.A. Hodge, they point to our fallible interpretation of  natural revelation as though it is MORE authoritative then Scripture.  I would not say they are not part of the Reformed Community or not Christians (as the fundamentalist would) but I disagree with their rationale which seems to succumb to the same rationalism that Clark says is the root of the problem.  They seem to think the doctrines of geology as irrefutable (wouldn’t that be enough like inerrant to pose a problem?).

Arguing on the basis, as he does, of our prior misunderstanding of phenomenological language seems like apples and oranges to me.  One’s astronomy may not be fundamental to one’s faith, but creation is a bit more important, as we see some Reformed theologians begin to doubt the existence and actions of Adam.  This is evident by the fact that the question of a geo- or heliocentric universe is not found in any Reformed Confession.  But creation is.   But he claims this is a matter of science, not theology, though the reality of creation is presented as theology throughout Scripture.

Remaining unconvinced, let’s move on to Theonomy/Reconstructionism.

I am not a theonomist, but I know a few.  And either they are mistaken or he is mistaken.  The application of biblical case law is during the millennium, after the “Christianization” of the world through the gospel.  That would seem an important distinction to me.  Never the less, the study in the PCA was not to determine if the denomination should be theonomic, but if theonomy (which was troubling many congregations) was unorthodox.  To argue the unraveling of Reformed Theology on the basis of very small movements seems pointless.

I’ll let Frame’s comments suffice:

Clark says that the Westminster Standards, in their original form, were theocratic, but not theonomic: that is, they accepted “the civil enforcement of the first table of the Decalogue” (62) (theocracy), but did not believe that the civil government should enforce every detail of the biblical civil law (theonomy). It is interesting to me that Clark regards the Standards as theocratic. Given his earlier formulation of confessionalism, requiring our allegiance to the Reformed standards and theology of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is strange that he does not give some attention to defending theocracy. Of course, he indicates that the theocratic teaching of the Westminster Confession was rescinded by the American Presbyterian churches in 1729 (63, note). But 1729 was in the eighteenth century, well past Clark’s confessionalist boundary of 1699. And this would be a very convenient place for Clark to advocate his allegiance to the confessions over against “American individualism.” But at this point it appears that Clark’s two kingdom theology trumps his confessionalism, though he gives no substantial argument to this effect. Theocracy is inconsistent with two kingdoms, since it charges the civil magistrate with the enforcement of true religion. At the end of the book (343) he says more explicitly that “Christendom was a mistake.” But it was a mistake that was only corrected in the eighteenth century. Clark doesn’t see any need to revise his general definition of confessionalism to accommodate that kind of correction.

Covenant Moralism

As the new kid on the block this is the growth industry.  Unlike theonomy it is gaining adherents.  This would seem to be the only argument in which the original version of the WCF would clearly be on his side.  But he spends little to no time explaining how covenant moralism developed, or what it is.  He asserts things, but never demonstrates them or proves them.

In all his talk of the theology of the cross he doesn’t discuss the progress of sanctification as seen in places like Philippians 2 and Titus 2.  Grace teaches me to lead an upright and godly life in this age.  This is not a theology of glory, but a biblical theology reflected in our Confessions of Faith.  It isn’t moralism.  But we are left to assume the nature of the Auburn Ave. and Federal Vision theology and why he fears it.

Frame sums it up well:

My impression of the debate about justification through the centuries is that it is not primarily an attempt to lessen mystery or to increase it. Both Protestant and Catholic views lessen mystery in some areas and increase it in others. Rather, the argument is about the meaning of Scripture. That is as it should be. The issue is primarily exegetical, not, as Clark thinks, epistemological.

As a result, I am not sure Clark has proven that these issues are a quest for rational certainty.  They are all exegetical in nature.  They are a question of what lies at the core of Christianity, not the idea that their interpretation is infallible.