1. The Conclusion opens with the following statement: “This study began with claims of Garcia’s identifying causal language as the trademark of historic Lutheran theology. The evidence gathered here challenges the viability of such a thesis.” But, as demonstrated repeatedly, I have never “identified causal language as the trademark of historic Lutheran theology,” and nothing the author has noted in my writings suggests otherwise. There is no such thesis. Nor has he identified any other author who has proposed this thesis.

2. “While lines of division can certainly be drawn between Lutheran and Reformed theologians, the employment of causality and metaphysics in the doctrines of justification, sanctification, and union with Christ is not one of those lines.” Indeed, and I submit my own work as further evidence of this.

3. “Aristotelian metaphysics is common to both camps.” But the author’s conflation of “causality” and “metaphysics,” and the general language of “Aristotelian metaphysics,” confuses more than it explains, since we have not seen much evidence in this essay of a sense of “metaphysics” that means more than “causal language” and the like. Neither does this conclusion reflect a grasp of the various ways Aristotelian language was used among the Lutheran and Reformed theologians of the early modern era, as well as even within each tradition.

4. Fesko continues,

“This raises important questions that are best illustrated by one of Garcia’s claims. Garcia argues that Melanchthon’s cause and effect explanation of justification and good works later became standard in the Lutheran tradition; he then goes on to quote Charles Hodge (1797-1878), ‘There has never been any real difference of opinion among Protestants… It was universally admitted that good works are not necessary to our justification; that they are the consequences and indirectly the fruits of justification, and therefore cannot be its ground.’ Garcia argues that Hodge’s statement is ‘rather remarkable,’ implying that at minimum, the statement has more in common with Lutheran expressions, or at maximum, that Hodge is Lutheran at this point.”

a. Fesko has read the statement incorrectly. In the context of my remark (in the Conclusion of Life in Christ, p. 267, n. 24), it is clear that what I find “rather remarkable” is Hodge’s statement that “There has never been any real difference of opinion among Protestants…” regarding the relationship of justification to good works. And it is indeed remarkable, given the considerable variety of views on this relationship not only among the sixteenth-century Protestant theologians I discussed at length in my book, but also among Protestants between the Reformation and Hodge’s day – including Nevin, with whom Hodge was of course in polemical conflict over the idea of union with Christ and Calvin. Simply from a historical perspective, Hodge’s sweeping denial of any real difference among Protestants is, as I say, remarkable. In other words, Fesko obscures that I am not referring to the view that justification is the cause, in some sense, of good works as remarkable, but to Hodge’s sweeping historical error.

b. Yes, Hodge’s way of characterizing the relationship of justification to good works here does have “more in common with Lutheran expressions,” but as my statement makes clear, I refer specifically to Melanchthon’s way of relating these graces, particularly in his Romans expositions which I had discussed at length in the book and which are the background for my observation here. That way of expression did in fact become characteristic of the Lutheran tradition, evidenced in the Symbols of that tradition and in Melanchthon’s relationship to them. My remark only makes sense if someone has read Hodge in light of my discussion of Melanchthon’s expositions.

c. Fesko is here referring to a footnote in my Conclusion, and he is not the only one to refer to it (and to misuse it badly without regard for its context). Thus I might add here another “remarkable” note: it is remarkable that this footnote – the point of which continues to hold in view of the evidence – has received this attention, when other, more pertinent footnotes, and in fact most of the body of the book as well, have not.

5. Fesko will now proceed to capitalize still further on his misreading of the point in my footnote regarding Hodge. He states,

“Given the uncovered evidence, Garcia’s claim actually makes an important, albeit unintended, point. While space does not permit a full elaboration of the point, Hodge’s expression has a great deal in common with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century expressions. Given Hodge’s commitment to the Westminster Standards (1646), a confession written during a time when Aristotelian metaphysics was quite common in Reformed theology, it is only natural that he would retain such expressions in his theology. In other words, Hodge seems to be more in tune with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century expressions than Garcia.”

a. Given that Fesko has mistaken what it is that I find “remarkable” in Hodge’s statement, I simply observe that nothing in my footnote regarding Hodge so much as suggests his expression regarding justification and good works is unique to him or without precedent in the Reformed tradition.

b. I am not sure why Fesko is as liberal with “low blows” as he is in this essay, but I will resist the temptation to enter into a Pauline “I speak as a fool” mode regarding my allegedly being “out of tune” with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century expressions, particularly the Westminster Standards. Quietly shaking my head and moving on to the next matter will have to do.

Instead, I would note an inconsistency in the approach of Fesko which mirrors a more general issue in recent rhetoric: when I or others refer to the importance of the language found in Calvin or in some other writer, Fesko and others with him protest with a finger-wagging, tsk-tsk reminder of the facts that no one Reformed theologian should be confused with the tradition, that only the Symbols of the tradition speak for the tradition, etc. (I call them facts because I generally agree with this protest, incidentally.) But if this holds for Calvin and others, surely it holds for Hodge too, does it not? Why then is Hodge’s view – his own view on justification and good works, or his view of what Protestants “always” believed – representative? What makes it “more” representative than, say, Calvin’s? Or if one is going to argue that Hodge’s view is Calvin’s view, why is Hodge’s view more representative than Garcia’s? Or Gaffin’s? Or (fill in the blank)? Why Hodge and not Nevin, for instance? Appeal to the Symbols begs rather than answers the question, since all of these figures relate positively (I will assume, for the sake of argument) to the language of the Westminster Standards – as well as to various models found within the history of the Reformed tradition. So, again, if it is invalid to appeal to Calvin as representative, despite his historical importance for the shaping of the Reformed tradition in its infancy (cf. the alleged Calvin-onlyism with which Fesko is so concerned), why is it then valid to appeal to Hodge as representative, despite his lesser historical importance for the shaping of the Reformed tradition? Is it because he says what Fesko says? I disagree with some of what Calvin says in his theology and exegesis, but I find him instructive on many other things. So my motivation in studying Calvin isn’t due to my need for a prominent voice to back me up. I can agree with Calvin and disagree with Hodge on a question, and vice versa, and so on with a host of other Reformed theologians. How, on the grounds of his objections to Calvin-onlyism, can Fesko appeal to Hodge at all? Or to Calvin? Or to Zanchi?

c. To demonstrate his point regarding my ignorance of the use of Aristotelian-type language in the Westminster Standards, Fesko refers to the use of “secondary cause” and other “causal language” in the Westminster Confession. Apparently this is designed to persuade me and the reader that the Westminster Standards use the causation language I am thought to deny to Reformed theologians and the Reformed tradition. To which I reply, yes, of course, not only do the Standards use the language of causation, etc., and I also note this sounds a lot like what I described in chapter 3 of Life in Christ (et al.) regarding Calvin’s exegesis of Romans and his use of the notion of secondary causation.

6. We then read, “In fact, some of the recent literature that has eschewed metaphysical explanations and sought to eliminate the use of the ordo salutis in favor of a model that employs union with Christ as the controlling paradigm, begs the following question: What philosophical paradigm is being employed in contemporary formulations?”

The example the author cites for this point is a comment by Julie Canlis in which she refers to Gaffin as one who has prioritized “union over a traditional ordo salutis.” Fesko then notes that Canlis refers to Gaffin’s book on the resurrection. If Canlis’s own work is Fesko’s concern, it is a new concern raised in the Conclusion and even here Fesko does not deal with her arguments at all. And since Gaffin does not, in fact, seek to eliminate the use of the ordo salutis by way of his theology of union with Christ, this bears no actual relationship to Gaffin except apparently to offer some more guilt by association. Fesko will do this again in the next essay. Two pages later, on p. 53, in an essay on the ordo salutis that uniquely and extensively illustrates the root fallacy (professors and teachers, take note), the author will blend Gaffin (and Evans) together with Otto Weber, Barth, and Pannenberg on the way to including Schweitzer in this mix.

7. Then,

“Garcia’s conclusion and even desire to eliminate causal language from historic and dogmatic soteriological formulations has more in common with post-Enlightenment theology than that of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To say, for example, that to employ cause and effect language to explain the relationship between justification and sanctification is to admit that they can be separated is more indebted to Enlightenment views of causality than those of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Reformers and Early Orthodox theologians knew nothing of effects without causes.”

a. Granted it is a broken record, but I have made no such conclusion nor expressed any such desire.

b. It is noteworthy that Fesko works throughout the essay, as here, with the tacit assumption that Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment ways of speaking or thinking are necessarily to be rejected, particularly if they are different from Reformation and post-Reformation forms. Related to this is his un-argued assumption that Enlightenment views on causality are necessarily inferior to pre-Enlightenment views. I grant no such assumption. This needs to be demonstrated rather than assumed; otherwise we are dealing with naive primitivism that assumes what is older is necessarily better – a view which, importantly, denies that the Spirit is at work in history and in the Church sanctifying her in her grasp of the truth. What is new is not necessarily better, but what is old is not necessarily better, either. To appeal to a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century theologian saying what you wish to say is not the same as making a biblical or theological argument.

c. In this statement, Fesko supplies a footnote that reads, “To see how Garcia takes the historical conclusions of his work and employs them dogmatically, see…” and refers to one of my journal articles on imputation. In this article I propose that Calvin’s critique of the aberrant views of Andreas Osiander points to profitable ways to think Christologically about the relationship of imputation to union with Christ. (I later concluded the proposal in a more focused way here.) Again it would appear that, for Fesko, it is invalid to use historical conclusions from historical research in a dogmatic context. I do not know how it is possible to do otherwise, at least if one believes the history of the Church’s theological reflection on Scripture and the Faith has any contemporary relevance at all. And if it does not, are we not then re-inventing the Faith over and over again? Is there nothing we can learn today from what our Fathers have said and taught before us? Furthermore, what is Fesko doing throughout this book if not employing his own historical conclusions for a dogmatic end, that end being the dogmatic claims of what belongs to the Reformed tradition and what does not? This holds even more fundamentally when Fesko turns soon to the question of the ordo salutis and argues an explicit dogmatic point from an explicitly historical analysis.

8. He continues, “Or to claim that to employ cause and effect language implies that it corrupts justification as a forensic declaration because justification becomes generative of sanctification has more in common with Enlightenment mechanistic views of causality than sixteenth- and seventeenth-century metaphysical models.”

a. Yes, so we should not read early modern theologians such as Calvin or Vermigli or Zanchi as though they have a generative model of causation in view but understand their use of “cause” and “effect” in early modern terms. In other words, we must stop doing what the author has been doing throughout even as he has told us not to do it.

b. Furthermore, given our own historical location, we should thus also clearly and insistently refrain from pretending that our own use of causal language is necessarily empty of that generative or mechanistic sense which was occasionally present but not dominant in the early modern era. Instead, if we are going to use that language, we are obliged to clarify what we do and do not mean by it.

c. If we refuse to clarify what kind of causation model we intend, then, given our historical location with regard to causation language, it is not sufficient simply to deny that one’s doctrine of justification – when it is a doctrine of justification as the cause of sanctification and its good works – does not have a transformative, non-forensic core. One must demonstrate why it does not within the causation model one has proposed. I have suggested my own proposals for how this might be done, but I have yet to see an example of such a demonstration among those who, like Fesko, still retain, in their rhetoric, the productive or generative notion. To say this is an Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment concern is not a reply, not least since we speak in an Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment environment.

9. After some remarks on faith, passivity, and causality that I confess I do not understand, we read, “Garcia, therefore, appears to be using an Enlightenment grid to analyze the causal language of the sixteenth and seventeenth century and hence produces questionable results.” If necessary, see above for a response to this claim.

10. In the closing remarks to his Conclusion, Fesko asks, “In the age of quantum physics and theories of relativity, are there better paradigms to be employed in the explanation of soteriology? Has Aristotelian metaphysics seen its best and brightest days?” Given that he does not suggest otherwise, it would appear Fesko is rather confident that there are no better paradigms at hand and that Aristotelian metaphysics has not yet seen its best days. But this is a curious point since he has emphasized the differences between the Aristotelian paradigms at work in the Reformation and post-Reformation eras, and the modified Aristotelian paradigm at work in the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment eras. So which Aristotelianism is the better one: the older one that only relates ideas in terms of consequent necessity and the like, or the later one which includes clear notions of production and mechanism? And why? And how should one use Aristotelian terms like cause and effect in this era in a way that avoids the pitfalls of whichever version of Aristotelianism we wish to reject? We are not told. Instead we are reminded that, in the sixteenth century, this was a “common sense” way to explain the facets of salvation (pp. 51-2), as though it is still common sense today in the same way.

The author will move on to discuss the ordo salutis in his next essay, so this concludes the review of this first essay in the book. I have reviewed the introduction and this first essay at such length (13 posts and nearly 30K words) because the matters are of such great importance – not only the matters of theology and history, but of scholarly rigor and responsibility. I should hope that that much is clear in what has been examined so far. The other essays in this book, which I will continue to review in turn, evidence the same problems as this opening essay does. But it is critically important to recognize these problems as more than technical and, thus, to understand the reason for these many review posts: this is nothing like pedantry, and in the context of current debates and publications, as well as ecclesiastical realities, these essays contribute fuel to the sober sentiment that, however much we may wish to believe otherwise, we face in our day a complicated crisis in contemporary confessional Reformed scholarship.

The post Fesko’s Beyond Calvin (13), Metaphysics and Justification, pt. 9 (Conclusion of Essay) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

But there is a further, and arguably more critical issue which arises in a reading of the essay: by “metaphysics,” Fesko seems to have in view little more than “philosophy” or “Aristotle’s causes” or some such general notion, not “metaphysics” in the classical and specific sense. This phenomenon prompts the question whether or not the author knows what metaphysics is in academic discourse and, if so, why he decided to speak of the “use of metaphysics” so insistently when all he means is “use of philosophical language and arguments” and often something as rudimentary as “use of causal language.” It is important to see how this works out, so I ask you to bear with me.

At the outset of his discussion entitled “Why was Aristotelian metaphysics so important?” Fesko summarizes certain facts for the reader. He notes, for instance, that the early modern era was saturated with Aristotelianisms of various kinds, that the Reformers “never eradicated all use of philosophy in their theology” (46), and that the difference in the use of philosophy between the Reformation and post-Reformation theologians is a difference in degree, not in substance. In all of this, which should be uncontroversial for most readers (though I wish it were uncontroversial for all, and so I’m thankful for Fesko’s reminders here), Fesko appropriately footnotes the helpful discussions of the question by Bagchi and Muller. He goes on to note that Aristotelianism underwent modification in the medieval and Reformation eras because “it was the common way for theologians to explain the world around them” (47).

However, his next statement indicates (again) where he believes this survey of the basics leads us. He states,

“Hence, the metaphysical explanation of justification and its relationship to sanctification as well as union with Christ is an effort to relate the various and sundry parts as a whole. This is something that Garcia does not seem to grasp. Garcia writes: ‘Within Calvin’s soteriological model, to make sanctification follow justification as an effect is to concede the theological possibility that one may be truly justified but not yet sanctified, with the result that the legal fiction charge, to which Calvin was always sensitive, would be validated.’ Yet such a conclusion misses the point of employing metaphysics and causality to explain the relationship between justification and sanctification and reflects an Enlightenment view of causality where observed causes and effects might not be linked, or even torn asunder.”

Where to begin? But I will try.

1. Fesko notes the obvious, namely, that “metaphysical” explanations – by which he still seems to mean simply explanations that use causal language – of justification in relation to sanctification and union with Christ are efforts to relate “the various and sundry parts as a whole.” This, Fesko claims, is something I do “not seem to grasp.” Interesting. I wonder where Fesko gets the idea I do not grasp that causal language was used by Calvin and others in his day to relate these various theological realities, particularly since my book, which Fesko has in view throughout, is devoted specifically to that relationship and, as noted in previous posts, there is quite a lot in the book – and in positive form – about the place of causation language in those relationships. But to wonder this is to assume that Fesko has read the book with attentive care, and I regret that this is not an assumption any reasonably objective reader of the texts in question is able to grant on the basis of the evidence. And in saying so I purposely understate the fact. This only leaves other options for explaining why Fesko would suggest such a thing, but these are options that move us beyond the objective texts and evidence into the nebulous and dangerous regions of motives and intentions.

2. Fesko takes particular umbrage with my claim regarding the theological possibility created by models which make sanctification the effect of a prior justification. The problem here is that, if one was to go to the place in Life in Christ where Fesko is quoting (see p. 264), it is quite clear that this is not my personal assessment but my characterization of what Calvin is arguing. Granted that there continues to be a pandemic assumption that anything a Reformed theologian says about Calvin’s views is taken, ipso facto, as a statement of the theologian’s own views, let me point out what should be obvious: Garcia doesn’t believe Calvin is Scripture and that Calvin is always right, and on any and every point in this book and elsewhere, “Calvin says x” is not the same as “Garcia says x.” (Which also means, relevantly, that if I wish to argue a theological point of my own, I will not do so exclusively or even primarily by expounding Calvin but by expounding Scripture in conversation with the tradition. The only exceptions occur in those studies when Calvin or some other theologian has articulated a matter in a way that helps us make better sense of Scripture, as I’ve done twice on the question of imputation in relation to union with Christ.) And in this passage, quoted by Fesko, Garcia is providing a description of a theological orientation with which Calvin appears to be working (Fesko’s quote begins, correctly, with the words, “Within Calvin’s soteriological model…”). So one must deal with this characterization at the level of its fidelity to Calvin’s writings and arguments, but Fesko has treated it my theological proposal instead.

3. Fesko’s claim that my alleged blindness to the Reformation and post-Reformation use of “metaphysics” “reflects an Enlightenment view of causality where observed causes and effects might not be linked, or even torn asunder,” is ironic. In fact, beyond what I actually argue in my work, Fesko, like other recent advocates of this view, is working here with a range of assumptions regarding “metaphysics” and causality that are later than the Reformation era. Only with the rise of Cartesianism in the sciences, and the attendant move toward mechanistic and biological uses of the vocabulary, did causation language begin more deliberately to entail views on how things originate or are produced. As Walter Ott among others has demonstrated, prior to Cartesian developments in metaphysics, causation language had been employed largely to provide descriptors of logical, rather than generative or mechanical, relationships: x causes y in the sense that y is entailed as a logical necessity given x. This is in keeping with what I suggested in an earlier post regarding an appropriate way in which we can say that one grace causes another in the duplex gratia: given one truly present redemptive grace in a person, the other(s) are logically (theologically) necessary, inasmuch as there is only one Christ in whom all graces are enjoyed in union with him, and thus there is no one grace without the other(s). In Life in Christ, and at length, I try to demonstrate how Calvin’s theological reactions to the Roman Catholic and Tridentine charge of licentiousness (which they claimed the Reformation doctrine of justification created space for) reflects – rhetorically as well as substantively – just this model of logical relationships.

To be sure, on pp. 48-9, Fesko provides an overview of the changes introduced by Descartes, but he oversimplifies those changes by reducing them to the question of epistemological confidence in how things appear to our senses. More significantly, he seems to miss completely the implications of the Cartesian changes for his assumptions regarding what is meant by “cause” in the writings of Calvin and others. While he emphasizes that it was simply a way to insist justification and sanctification are inseparable but distinguishable (48), he equivocates repeatedly on what “cause” therefore means when it comes to how those graces are related to each other.

Put differently and more pointedly, the mere use of causation language has not been in dispute, but the function of that language in the broader exegetical, theological, and polemical contexts is a more complicated matter. Fesko’s tacit confidence, in reading texts, that the historical uses of causation language reflect our own modern use of “cause” in the form of a generative or mechanical relationship is an easy mistake, certainly, but it is also a further example of the Whig historiography of which we were warned by the author early in this book. And this, to use Fesko’s language, is something Fesko does not seem to grasp.

The post Fesko’s Beyond Calvin (12), Metaphysics and Justification, pt. 8 (Aristotelian Metaphysics) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

1. Following up on the survey of Zanchi, Fesko quotes Trelcatius on imputed righteousness working inherent righteousness in some sense.

a. The quote reads, “The nearest cause indeed of a righteous work, is inherent righteousness; but the chief and principal cause is the Spirit of Christ imputing his righteousness to us and by the power of that imputed righteousness, working this inherent righteousness in us.” After the quote, Fesko states, “From this statement it seems clear that Trelcatius is saying that the imputed righteousness is the source (or power) of the inherent righteousness in redemption” (44).

Perhaps, but “clear” it is not. Fesko quotes from the 1610 English translation, but the Latin is at least convoluted: “Iusti operis Causa proxima quidem est iustitia inhaerens praecipua vero, ac primaria, Spiritus Christi, iustitiam Christi nobis imputantis, et ui imputatae illius iustitiae, hanc inhaerentem, in nobis operantis.” The punctuation may need revision, and the Latin is somewhat ambiguous when it comes to who or what the “power” is that “works.” Especially if we remove the commas around “hanc inhaerentem,” the idea could be either the power of the him whose righteousness it is (Christ), or the power of the righteousness of him itself (the imputed righteousness of justification). Though the latter is more likely, the idea still seems to be that the Spirit is causing whatever power Trelcatius locates in the imputed righteousness. Or something like that.

b. Of course, the translation on which Fesko depends is certainly a possible and valid way of rendering it. Let us assume it is the better rendering. But again the most this demonstrates is that Trelcatius held this view. With regard to Trelcatius, it is interesting that Fesko notes that Trelcatius’s text is “taken from his compendium of Calvin’s Institutes, which shows how Calvin was received and understood” (44, n. 41). Yes, but this would seem to point in the opposite direction of his earlier insistence regarding Calvin and the need to revise perceptions of his relative importance: granted his work was important in its day, but how many compendia of Trelcatius were published after his death? Or of Zanchi? Or Alsted?

2. A central question we should ask as we read is, How should we understand the significance of the lines Fesko quotes in this section?

a. Firstly, Fesko lists a range of writers, but none of these authors is given any close attention; lines are pulled from their writings that seem to suggest something like the author’s thesis, but there is little to no context given to the reader. These extracted sentences – and Fesko provides only one sentence or less for each of these, with the exception of Junius who also quotes a line from Augustine – should not be confused with careful analyses of each writer and their ministerial and polemical contexts. They should stand as quotes, yes, but they cannot stand as something more substantial as more than that.

b. Secondly, we have to remember the curious nature of the essay as a whole: specifically, there is no need to wrestle with these quotes in a way that suggests the author’s phantom interlocutors actually exist. Again, I am not aware of anyone in Fesko’s purview who has suggested that causal language is not used among Reformed theologians of the Reformation or post-Reformation eras, that no Reformed theologians speak of justification as causing sanctification, or that Calvin is the sole measuring stick of Reformed theology. And we certainly must not be afraid of disagreeing theologically with a Reformed author, which is a question quite distinct from the historical one. Indeed, not having that kind of vested stake in what they say (and not having to pretend they all said the same thing) frees us up to read them on their own terms. At the same time, the citations Fesko offers do not include any explanations – by the writers or by Fesko – of how the language of “effect” or “consequence” or “fruit” are being used or understood, particularly in light of the options for this vocabulary which we recently outlined.

c. Thirdly, and related to our previous point, Fesko understandably leads us to read these quotes as steps on the way to confirming his thesis.  Halfway through the section, he says: “Quite clearly, causal language is part and parcel of Reformed explanations of union with Christ and explanations of the relationship between justification and sanctification” (45). The final sentence in this section confirms this is the goal: “Given the presented evidence, it is sufficient to say that one cannot draw a line of division between Lutheran and Reformed theologians of the Reformation and Early Orthodox periods on the use of causal language with regard to justification, sanctification, and union with Christ” (46). But our principal problem with this essay is that the thesis is already an anomaly. It’s a thesis which, as we’ve said several times now, bears no relationship whatsoever to what is argued in any of the literature Fesko notes. Thus the goal is, from the start, not so much unattainable as irrelevant.

3. More importantly, though, and more positively, I would strongly recommend more serious attention to the qualifying note Fesko sounds immediately after saying the words quoted above, viz., “Quite clearly, causal language is part and parcel of Reformed explanations of union with Christ and explanations of the relationship between justification and sanctification.” His very next words are: “This is not to say that every rank and file Reformed theologian of the two periods explained things in this manner,” (45, emphasis mine) and then his quotes from Wollebius, Junius, and Polyander demonstrate this to be true. Each of these writers, says Fesko, “argues that the indirect effects of faith are justification, sanctification, assurance of salvation, and Christian freedom” (45, emphasis original).

a. Yes, indeed, there was historical variety in expression, and if we could acknowledge this not only as a historical reality but as a guide to acceptable modes of expression, this would be a significant advance.

b. Note that I say “acknowledge as a historical reality,” which is not to suggest they are therefore all equally sound theologically. They are not, and the standard for determining which modes of argument and expression are more sound than others is the teaching of Scripture, not what Calvin or anyone else said. We must be willing to evaluate all of these modes of expression theologically without doing so by denying their historical variety. But this also reminds us that the most a volume of strictly historical studies like these can accomplish is answer, or attempt to answer, a historical question (what was said and why), not a biblical and theological question, even as the historical study is of course a necessary part of the process of reaching those conclusions.

c. Also, the theological distinction between “faith” and “justification” implicit in Fesko’s qualifying statement is a very welcome one since these two terms are so frequently and erroneously treated as synonyms, especially in contemporary readings of historical texts in the context of justification controversies.

d. However, we cannot affirm the importance of this concession without noticing that it appears to take away with one hand what the author has been trying throughout the essay to push forward with the other, namely, the author’s “part and parcel” argument.

4. Finally, and less importantly, in an unfortunate misstep Fesko footnotes pages in Richard Muller’s very important series, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, but he cites the earlier version of volume 1, not the more standard, revised, and expanded edition included in the set released by Baker in 2003. Not having a copy of the older, 1987 text, this makes it difficult to trace Fesko’s use of Muller.

Our next post follows Fesko’s transition into a discussion of why “Aristotelian metaphysics” was so prominent in early Reformed theology. This will be the most natural point for us to raise questions about the author’s reference to “metaphysics” and his assumptions regarding what “cause” means in this period.

The post Fesko’s Beyond Calvin (11), Metaphysics and Justification, pt. 7 (Other Reformed Witnesses) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

1. Having noted there are thankfully some studies out there on Zanchi, the author then states: “Some have been dismissive of his contributions, albeit based entirely on secondary sources” (41, italics mine), and then footnotes only one example: William Evans, Imputation and Impartation, 49-50. We are confused from the start since we have been led to expect “some” but find only one listed, but perhaps if we go to Evans we will find him referring to others. Alas, we do not. Moreover, we also do not find in Evans the “dismissal” of Zanchi of which Fesko accuses him. Instead, over these two pages we read Evans outlining Zanchi’s role in the development within Reformed theology of the language used for relating divine and human activity in salvation. Evans, in this section, correctly notes that the earlier Reformation theologians, both Lutheran and Reformed, had definitively established a positive relationship of divine monergism and real human involvement in salvation, but these basic convictions quickly resulted in controversies in both traditions. The controversies were more pronounced within Lutheranism, but Reformed theologians too quickly began to try to expound on the divine-human relationship in salvation in order to fend off destructive misunderstandings.

One facet of this development is Zanchi’s (and others’) employment of the Thomistic conceptual structure and vocabulary for the psychology of faith. Note that I say Thomistic “conceptual structure and vocabulary,” which is what Evans focuses on, and that this is not the same as suggesting they imbibed Thomism as a whole or even per se. Instead, this process is reflective of the high comfort level Reformed theologians enjoyed with the deployment of various scholastic distinctions and forms of argument in order to better explicate shared theological convictions.

Fesko has claimed Evans “dismisses” Zanchi, but when we turn to Evans himself we read him introducing Zanchi as one who endeavored, with his teacher Vermigli, “more fully to explain the relationship between the divine and the human, the change which grace effects in the human person, and at the same time to guarantee the gratuity of justification” (Evans, 49). Evans also stresses “the importance of the development” of the increasing use of habitus language in Zanchi as something that “should not be underestimated” (emphases mine). And then refers specifically to Zanchi as “crucial to this development,” a development Evans regards as inevitable given the need to explain faith and grace more fully (Evans, 49, emphasis mine). We do not find anything like a dismissal of Zanchi here. Perhaps Fesko disagrees with what Evans notes regarding Zanchi’s role in a period of transition, but disagreement with an author does not easily translate into an argument that the other person has dismissed his subject.

2. Fesko then moves to a commendation of Zanchi as a theologian of union with Christ and, regrettably, he again adopts the procedure of elevating Zanchi by demoting Calvin:

“While union with Christ appears somewhat incidentally in Vermigli and appears more strongly in Calvin, union features more prominently in Zanchi. In fact, unlike Calvin, it is fair to say that the doctrine of union with Christ took on a greater significance for Zanchi’s soteriology. Calvin’s employment of the doctrine of union with Christ pales in comparison to Zanchi’s use of the same…” (41-2).

Please note:

a. There are essays on both Zanchi and Vermigli to come later in the book so we must defer more substantial remarks till that point. But it must be stated here that to suggest union with Christ “appears somewhat incidentally in Vermigli” can only be said by someone who has not read much in Vermigli, who perhaps has read Vermigli only in English translation, and who has perhaps forgotten that he will later in this book devote an entire essay to Vermigli on union with Christ.

b. Comparing (or contrasting) the relative significance of union with Christ for Calvin and Zanchi in this way is tendentious at best. To claim, too, as Fesko does, that Zanchi’s doctrine of union with Christ “helps contextualize Calvin’s doctrine” (43, italics mine), is simply extraordinary in the contexts of both history and theology. To be sure, Zanchi uses the union idea with extraordinary frequency, but “significance” must mean more than “union word count,” and the suggestion that Zanchi’s theology of union with Christ is as significant as, or even more significant than, Calvin’s theology of union with Christ is a remarkable historical proposal.  For those familiar with the literature it borders on the absurd and begs for proof. But it is not a proposal defended or documented in this essay. We will see if it is warranted in light of the essay on Zanchi to come.

c. Regarding the oddity of depending on what I call “union word count,” we find the same methodology in the author’s remark that “Zanchi’s devotion of an entire locus on union with Christ is unparalleled in Calvin” (42). Besides the fact that Institutes 3.1.1 – the introductory chapter on “the way we receive the grace of Christ” which focuses on the Spirit of union with Christ – does this very thing (and thus “unparalleled” becomes another example of overstatement), since when is it sound methodology to scan a table of contents (there is no “locus” on it) in order to discern theological function or importance? And yet this is not the only example out there: I have encountered the suggestion that the Westminster Standards do not have an important role for union with Christ because there isn’t a distinct chapter on it. Perhaps not having a chapter called “union with Christ” is instead evidence of the contrary, namely, that it is so widely important that it permeates many chapters and is not reduced to one. (I suggest you try this out.) At the least, this is a specious approach for a scholarly argument and seriously damages what remains of the author’s credibility in dealing with the issues and the texts.

d. Fesko proceeds to note that Zanchi “can also talk about justification and sanctification employing causal language” (42-3), and a bit later states that Zanchi’s statements “show that Zanchi saw no conflict between union with Christ and causality language” (43), yet again indicating he continues to attack the phantom authors who allegedly argue otherwise. Significantly, he then quotes Zanchi as follows:

“As the vine branches or olive branches do not bring forth fruit from themselves, but only by the power of the vine or live tree in which they are engrafted, so we likewise do not of ourselves do good works, but by virtue of Christ’s Spirit, into whom we are incorporated, and from whom we draw even that life, by which we live, Christ himself working in us by his Spirit “both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” “For without me,” he says, “you can do nothing” (43, quoting from Zanchi, De Religione, 21.3 (I.362-63).”

It’s a beautiful statement by Zanchi, but Fesko needs to qualify what we are reading so he goes on to say immediately: “Now in the very next section Zanchi then goes on to write: ‘Good works are not the cause, but the effects of our union with Christ, and our justification, and our life.’ Zanchi identifies both union with Christ and justification as the cause of good works…” (43). I am tempted to enter now into a lengthy corrective, but I’ll just point out what seems rather obvious: at the very most, this quote suggests Zanchi sees good works as the “effects” not only of union with Christ and justification but also of “our life” – does this not lead us naturally to ask in what way are good works the effects of each of these realities? Presumably they are not effects in entirely the same way but in different respects, so what are those differences? We are given only the quotation followed by the selective assertion, not an explanation of how it conforms to the author’s specific thesis.

e. As another example from this section, we read the author on Zanchi and the “two kinds of righteousness,” imputed and imparted. He writes, “Couched in the doctrine of union with Christ, Zanchi explains that righteousness is given to the believer by two different ways: imputation and real communication” and then quotes Zanchi as follows:

“These two means of communicating other good things, and especially the justice and righteousness of Christ, are so joined and linked together in themselves, as it were the cause and the effect, that they are not severed asunder, nor ought to be severed by us, no more then

[sic] the sun beam can be severed from the sun, or the sun from the beam” (43, quoting Zanchi, Spiritual Marriage, 134).”

After which the author states: “Here Zanchi employs an analogy very similar to Calvin (the sun and its rays), and possibly even gleaned from him, but yet is not averse to saying that imputed righteousness is the cause of imparted righteousness – they are linked as cause and effect” (43-4). But are they so linked? Perhaps so, but in light of the context of union with Christ for this statement, which the author has just noted, isn’t it more likely, or at least possible, that the “sun” is Christ or union with Christ rather than imputed righteousness? Since the author sees the possibility of a Calvin source for the “sun and rays” image (which traces back, I note, to Melanchthon as well), I note that we should hear Calvin’s voice in the “sever” image as well, since Calvin uses that image very frequently but in order to argue that justification and sanctification are inseparably given in union with Christ, not imputation, so that to contemplate one without the other is to “sever Christ” or to “tear Christ into pieces” (see, at length, Life in Christ, pp. 228-41).

So to assess the author’s claim we must turn dutifully to Zanchi’s text, using the very same edition the author quotes (the 1592 English translation). This is what we find (pardon the length but the wider context is the point, I’m afraid) – the section in which Zanchi’s statement is found is headed with “Nowe touching those benefits which concerne the spirituall life, the communicating of them is thus,” under which we read as follows:

“(1) God has set and established all good things in Christ alone the Mediatour, so that unlesse they be communicated, and come from Christ as from the fountaine, none can be made partaker of them. (2) To this have almost all the Scriptures relation, which teach that salvation is to be sought in Christ alone, 1 John 5… Coloss. 1. … Again, 1 John 1. … and infinite other such like places. By which is sufficiently prooved, that in the Sonne of God alone, made man, are all the treasures of heavenly and divine good things; as the Apostle in plain words testifieth. Coloss. 2.3. (3) These treasures are truly communicated to them alone, who are so united to Christ, that they are made one bodie and one flesh with him. (4) For the Apostle saith, that Christ is the Saviour of this bodie, that is, of the Church, which is his bodie and flesh, and of all the faithfull, who are one flesh with Christ, and bones of his bones. (5) But this union and incorporation cannot be made but by his Spirite, and by our faith, as the Scriptures everywhere teach. (6) Therefore this communication of the treasures of Christ, doth truly belong and appertaine to the whole Church, the true and onely spouse of Christ, and to every faithfull man therein which hath the Spirite of Christ” (132-4).

And then we have the lines quoted by Fesko: “(7) But this communication is of two sorts: either by imputation, or by reall communicating,” etc., lines which, if Fesko had quoted them more extensively, would come shortly to include these as well:

“(12) For the latter part [of Psalm 32, quoted] noteth inherent righteousness, the former noteth imputative righteousness; and he hath joyned both together, that we may not thinke that the one may be severed from the other. (13) For it falleth out so also oftentimes in mariage matters. To whom soever it shal happen to be made the spouse and wife of some King, to her are usually given espousals, rich gifts, and princely ornaments to weare, whereby she may be discerned from other women, and may also be knowne apparently to be the wife of such a King.”

And then, in Zanchi’s transition from imputation to “real communication” (sanctification and its good works), we read,

“And thus much of the former means, whereby all the treasures of Christ, and especially his righteousness is communicated to us, to wit, by imputation. But of the latter means whereby the benefits of Christ are communicated, that is, by reall communication, there are almost infinite testimonies in the scriptures, so that it needeth no long proofe…” (139).

It would appear that, in context, while his language is sometimes ambiguous, it is union with Christ rather than imputation which functions as the true “sun-source” of the “treasures of Christ,” and especially the twin treasures of imputation and renovation. Indeed, his procedure sounds almost like an echo of Calvin’s own in Book 3 of his Institutes: union with Christ by the Spirit, and then the two principal benefits, except that Zanchi discusses imputation first and renovation second.

f. Lastly for now, and at a more general level, it is clear the author is parading the importance of union with Christ in Zanchi in order to redress what he perceives to be a blinding neglect or oversight in the literature. I am grateful he wishes to point us to Zanchi on union with Christ, and I agree more attention to Zanchi on this question would be interesting and useful. But I cannot help but smile as I read the author arguing in this way about Zanchi, Calvin, and Calvin-myopia, not least because (1) he is evidently offering a corrective to my own alleged neglect of Zanchi on union in favor of Calvin, and (2) in the book he is zealously critiquing, I wrote the following:

“Though his is easily the more familiar, Calvin’s theology is not the sixteenth-century Reformed theology most impacted by the doctrine of union with Christ. This distinction should belong to Jerome (Girolamo) Zanchi (1516-1590) whose treatise De spirituali inter Christum et ecclesiam, singulosque fideles, coniugio (Herborn, 1591, drawn from his exposition of Ephesians) applies a marital-type union idea to a wide range of theological questions. This text was translated as An Excellent and Learned Treatise, of the spirituall marriage betvveene Christ and the Church, and every faithfull man. Written in Latine by that famous and worthie member of Christ his Church H. Zanchius: and translated into English (Cambridge: Printed by John Legate, printer to the University of Cambridge, 1592). The marital-union possessio and proprietas model associated with Luther above is also present in Zanchi, Spirituall Mariage, 43. Cf. also the discussion in Zanchi’s 1585, De religione christiana fides, esp. Ch. XII, recently published as De religione Christiana fides – Confession of Christian Religion, 2 vols, ed. Luca Baschera and Christian Moser (Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 125; Leiden: Brill, 2007)” (Life in Christ, p. 78, n. 98).

I will need to repeat this quotation from my book when I come to the later essay on Zanchi, but for now I leave it to the reader to compare Evans and Garcia with the author’s interaction with the historical texts he uses and the texts and arguments he criticizes.

The post Fesko’s Beyond Calvin (10), Metaphysics and Justification, pt. 6 (Zanchi) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

Fesko recognizes that Vermigli sees union with Christ as the “source” of good works, but goes on to qualify what importance this has to his thesis: “However, like Calvin, he too could use causal language” (39). But, again, neither I nor anyone I am aware of has suggested otherwise, neither for Vermigli nor for Calvin. But let’s move on to something potentially more productive for the debate as a whole.

Fesko goes on to quote Vermigli’s words in defense of good works. Let’s follow this closely. Vermigli says, using the translation by Frank James, “Because we do not reject good works, we say that they ought to be held in a place of honor, since a very close connection obtains with the immediate consequences of justification.” Fesko follows this quote with the words: “Note here that Vermigli considers good works the consequence of justification.” Yes, a consequence, but what kind of consequence? Since Fesko has just seen Vermigli identify union with Christ as a/the source of good works, how should we understand good works as a consequence of justification? This is an important question and exploring it may go a long way to bringing about rapprochement among those who disagree, so I would encourage us to think carefully through this.

Does Vermigli mean that justification as such produces good works or does he mean that the reality of justification – the fact that a person is justified or does “have” justification – requires, as a consequence of necessity (a possible use of the language which Fesko acknowledges in a footnote here), that other graces must also be present, such as good works? Let’s remember the sixteenth century context for saying things like Vermigli says here. In his historical context, since Vermigli is explicitly concerned to argue for the value of good works, we can expect that their value would be in question only if justification “by faith alone” (properly understood) is also being defended, in which case Vermigli’s language is not only sufficiently clear but quite similar to Calvin’s. What Vermigli is saying, on such a reading, is that given union with Christ (which Vermigli sees as the source of good works), there is no such thing as having Christ for one benefit but not for others. If one has Christ for justification, one has him for the good works of sanctification as well – and we can add for adoption, and glorification, etc. This was Calvin’s insistence in connection with 1 Cor. 1:30 throughout his ministry.

In fact, outside of the historical context of the Reformers’ responses to Rome, there is – do I dare to use this language? – a “theological indifference” about which grace of the ordo salutis one places in either of the two slots in the argument here. Simply stated, given the Christ and the Spirit of a Reformed understanding of union with Christ, the reality of any one blessing, including justification, entails the reality of other blessings as a consequent necessity. Theoretically, if sanctification were the grace in need of clear defense and justification (properly understood) were taken for granted, the terms could be reversed in the argument: “if there really is sanctification in Christ, there is justification in Christ too, since there is only one Christ and both are in him.” But since justification by faith in Christ alone is the distinct note being sounded by the Reformers over against their detractors, justification is the “reality” front and center in their theology, and since good works are allegedly marginalized or even unnecessary if one affirms justification as the Reformers did, then, for them, the good works of sanctification are predictably a (or the) consequent necessity of justification in view.

A little later Fesko notes Vermigli’s statement regarding good works as the fruit of justification. “To be sure,” says Vermigli in the quotation, “

The post Fesko’s Beyond Calvin (9): Metaphysics and Justification, pt. 5 (Vermigli, Consequent Necessity) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

1. The author continues what I have suggested is a solemnly erroneous handling of Calvin’s words regarding good works as inferior (secondary) causes of eternal life by stating, “Calvin’s use of metaphysical distinctions here not only shows how the various aspects of redemption relate to one another, but is the way he gives justification priority over sanctification.” And then Fesko supplies the following footnoted comment for this statement:

“In Garcia’s analysis of this passage

[Calvin’s Institutes, 3.14.21 – MAG] he argues that Calvin can use causation language, but that it can only be understood in the context of replication, the idea that believer’s [sic] imitate or replicate the conduct of Christ through the power of the Spirit, a concept quite different from Thomas a’Kempis’ imitatio Christi. Hence, causation language must be read in the context of replication: ‘Calvin regards what comes prior in God’s appointed ordo as ‘causing’ what follows, thus making it possible to insist that Christian obedience, as it comes before the reception of the inheritance of eternal life, yields this reward. Hence, in Calvin’s replication principle, the sequential contextualizes the non-meritorious causal’ (Life in Christ, 144-45). While this observation may explain the function of good works as ‘inferior causes,’ it still does not adequately address the priority Calvin gives to justification by placing justification first in the sequence” (38, n. 16)

Some thoughts:

a. We have already discovered that Fesko sees justification in the Calvin quote only because he has inserted it there. But it is also noteworthy that here Fesko acknowledges that I do in fact argue that Calvin “can” use causation language. This does not sit easily, however, with his claim in the very next sentence of his essay that I “claim that causal language is the exclusive property of the Lutheran tradition” (38).

b. Fesko’s curious zeal to mitigate my positive language regarding Calvin and causation is focused on my explanation that Calvin’s model of Spirit-“replication” (my term, not Calvin’s) contextualizes his use of traditional causation language here. (On my proposal for a model of replication, see ch. 3 in Life in Christ and the “in this way” portion of Calvin’s argument in Inst. 3.14.21.) According to Fesko in this footnote, I believe causation language in Calvin can “only” be seen in a context of replication. However, Fesko does not account for the patent counter-evidence for his claim, namely, the other times I see Calvin using causation, including in the context of justification, without my suggesting he is employing his replication model. On Fesko’s reading there should not be any examples of my doing so, and it is a standard test of a thesis to ensure one accounts for all extant and possible evidence to the contrary. In this case the counter-evidence is not difficult to locate. Again I can refer to the same chapter in Life in Christ (which Fesko cites) where I point to Calvin doing exactly this in chapter 3 of his Romans commentary. On p. 118, I state explicitly in a summary of Calvin’s argument:

“Second, and consequently, only Christ can transfer to us the righteousness necessary for justification. Thus the righteousness of faith is the righteousness of Christ. These two points are summarized using the Aristotelian causes: the efficient cause (causa efficiens) is God’s mercy, the substance (materia) is Christ, and the instrumental cause (instrumentum) is the Word with faith.”

Moreover, in my footnote in this paragraph I list other scholars who have discussed the history and development of Aristotelian causation, the use of the Aristotelian causes in Calvin, and the uses of Aristotle in the Reformation period (p. 118, n. 73). This extends my evidence on this point from a previous post.

c. Thus, put simply, the fact that I do see causation language elsewhere in Calvin, and not “only” in a replication model, empties Fesko’s claim of any substance.

2. Secondly, the two sentences which make up Fesko’s next paragraph, in which he begins a discussion of “Other Reformed Witnesses,” read as follows:

“Part of the problem with Garcia’s claims is that he examines a narrow cross-section of theologians, largely Calvin, Luther, and Melanchthon and then makes sweeping conclusions about two entire theological traditions without presenting more evidence. To this end, when we expand our study to explore other Reformed witnesses, it will become evident that causal language was present in the Reformed tradition during the sixteenth and seventeenth century.”

And now some observations:

a. Before saying anything about other Reformed writers, it should be remembered that my monograph was a study of Calvin, not the whole of the Reformed tradition, and I assume it is still acceptable to write a study of Calvin even if he is not the one-stop-shop of Reformed theology. However, since Fesko is particularly concerned that I have, in his ironically sweeping way, made “sweeping conclusions about two entire theological traditions,” I would note that my analysis of Calvin and his contemporaries investigated the messy exegetical, theological, and polemical elements which played the pivotal roles in the gradual divergence of the Reformed and Lutheran traditions. I made conclusions about two traditions from the perspective of the trajectories embraced at the point of their origins as two distinct theological, if not yet confessional, traditions. More specifically, my work has pointed to the theological issues that established (or perhaps more likely reflected already latent) distinguishable and complex trajectories which did continue beyond the period of the Reformation, but it was not designed to cover the subsequent history in anything like a comprehensive way. My suggestive pointers to what would come later depend on the reader’s knowledge of those texts and continued trajectories, particularly in the period of confessionalization.

Certainly, the at-first subtle divergence of these trajectories was not sudden, nor was it over one disagreement or event, nor was it complete as though they had nothing important in common. But these two traditions did diverge, and this divergence was demonstrably rooted in nuanced differences over how to understand the mode of Christ’s eucharistic presence and the manner of our union with him. It was, at its core, a difference in the Christological framework for eucharistic presence and communion, and thus has everything to do with soteriological union with Christ, as they themselves repeatedly insisted in their polemical writings.

We should believe them when they say so as doggedly and as often as they do. As my book as a whole argues, if we think eucharistic presence or union with Christ is a question “curtained off” from questions of saving union with Christ, it’s because we’re assuming a model of salvation which has little in common with both Reformed and Lutheran theologians of the sixteenth century. If our own model puts these questions in different boxes, a model which is foreign to theirs, we cannot hope to understand why they moved back and forth between salvation and sacrament so seamlessly and argued a point in one theological setting with a view to its relevance to both settings. This is the real Whig historiography. Just ask Luther or Zwingli what their debate was “really” about, and then ask Westphal and Calvin.  Read the exchanges between Calvin and Westphal. Those who point to ideas like predestination or the Supper as the only “real” differences between the Lutheran and Reformed traditions lack familiarity with the texts and the patterns of argument in the sixteenth century. Fesko’s (and a few others’) inability to make sense of what I argue regarding Calvin’s 1559 refutation of Osiander reflects just this (very modern) inability. But more on that later on, d.v.

b. It would be defensible, I think, if I had focused largely and perhaps even exclusively on Calvin in my monongraph on Calvin, at least if I had done so responsibly. But despite this most recent claim in Fesko’s essay, I did not examine only “a narrow cross-section of theologians, largely Calvin, Luther, and Melanchthon” (39). My chapter-length discussion of various late-medieval and Reformation trajectories on the ideas at issue includes material on late-medieval taxonomies of union (Altenstaig’s 1517 Lexicon Theologicum) and the vocabulary of Eastern theologians and western spiritualists, medieval marriage sermons, a lot of (positive, incidentally) material on union with Christ in Luther’s theological development (gladly leaning on the fine work of Heiko Oberman for this), Martin Bucer’s model of a threefold justification, Peter Martyr Vermigli’s location of justification within the context of regeneration, Melanchthon, and the sadly overlooked  contextual importance of the Regensburg Colloquy. In my analysis of Calvin’s Romans commentary, I examined not only Calvin and Melancththon but also the Roman apologist John Eck, Grimani, Guillaud, Cajetan, Erasmus, Lefebvre, Bucer, and Vermigli. In the subsequent chapters I also look at Bullinger, Westphal, Lombard, Aquinas, Osiander (at great length), Brenz, Flacius, J. Andreae, and the Formula of Concord. I leave it to the reader to evaluate Fesko’s claim in light of this tabulation.

c. Once again, please note that I am not arguing anything like “while I only referred to x I did read y” or “I was aware of and thinking of z.” No one can read an author’s mind; we only have their published work to evaluate. So I am referring only to what is objectively verifiable in the text that Fesko purports to criticize. In other words, I am evaluating the author’s use of Life in Christ in the same way readers should evaluate his read of any other publication noted in his book. And again the author has, in my view, manifestly rendered an ill-founded judgment which misleads the reader. If a general guide is helpful, my analysis of Calvin in relation to Bucer, Vermigli, and Osiander (plus some minor figures) easily account for most – perhaps almost all – of the main argument in Life in Christ (chapters 2-5 plus appendixes), and this does not include Luther and Melanchthon whom Fesko does acknowledge I have examined. Indeed, on examination there is little in the book that looks only at Calvin; most of the book reads him in conversation with his most influential contemporaries.

d. Finally, we note the final words of the author in this paragraph introducing a new section: “… when we expand our study to explore other Reformed witnesses, it will become evident that causal language was present in the Reformed tradition during the sixteenth and seventeenth century.” With this reminder of the author’s goal in this essay, the reader is also reminded that the essay as a whole is an exercise in regrettable “shadow boxing:” it is trying vigorously to disprove a claim no one has made, certainly not the alleged interlocutors noted in the essay.

We will turn next to the author’s brief summaries of Vermigli, Zanchi, and others.

The post Fesko’s Beyond Calvin (8): Metaphysics and Justification, pt 4 (From Calvin to Other Reformed Witnesses) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

The biblical text in question this time is Rev. 19:8. The passage, starting with v. 6, reads as follows (ESV): “Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out: Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure – for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.”

Note that the text states explicitly that the “fine linen” is “the righteous deeds of the saints.” In his book, Justification, Fesko still finds imputation in this, and he cites Beale in support. First, Fesko’s explanation:

“We must realize that the righteous deeds of the saints originate with God, not with the believer. Moreover, that the deeds are given to the saints is evident in both Isaiah 61:10 and Revelation 19:8. When we correlate these data with Revelation 20:11-15 and the book of life of the Lamb that was slain (Rev. 20:12; 13:8), what emerges is that it is the obedience, or righteousness, of Christ that is imputed that is the ground of judgment for the believer. We see the same wedding-garment imagery connected with the work of Christ in Paul

[Eph. 5:25-27 quoted here-MG]. The bride of Christ, then, is clothed in righteousness which by imputation is the righteous deeds of the saints” (327, emphases mine).

At the end of the quotation from Eph. 5, Fesko footnotes “Beale, Revelation, 942,” and it seems likely that Beale is his support for connecting Isaiah to Revelation 19 as well, though this is not indicated. Now we turn, then, to Beale’s commentary on Revelation, to which Fesko appeals in support. Beale’s discussion of the “wedding clothes” covers pp. 934-44. Here are some of Beale’s remarks:

“If Mounce’s line of thought is on the right track, then it would be better to view vv 7-8 as indicating that a transformed life of good works (though certainly not perfection) is not only ‘the proper response’ to justification but a necessary external response or ‘badge’ required before entrance to the wedding of the Lamb is granted. Theologically, this would mean that justification is the causal necessary condition for entrance into the eternal kingdom, but good works are a noncausal necessary condition. In this regard, cf. also Rom. 2:6-8; 2 Cor. 11:2” (935).

“Without exception receiving white clothes elsewhere in the Apocalypse precisely conveys the idea of purity resulting from a test of persevering faith (see on 3:5-6). Therefore, the white clothes here should be equated not with the ‘righteous deeds’ of perseverance, as in the view described above, but with the reward or result of such deeds. In this light the final clause of v 8 could be interpretatively paraphrased as ‘the fine linen is the reward for (or result of) the righteous deeds of the saints.’ Another viable translation would be ‘the linen is the deeds putting right [acquitting, vindicating] the saints‘ (taking ‘of the saints’ as objective genitive rather than subjective genitive [‘righteous deeds performed by the saints’]). Yet another viable rendering would be ‘just judgments on behalf of the saints.’

“The white robes, then, might represent two inextricably related realities: (1) human faithfulness and good works (as a necessary evidence of right standing with God) and (2) vindication or acquittal accomplished by God’s judgments against the enemy on behalf of his people… The context and usage of dikaoma support a meaning of ‘vindication’ or ‘acquittal’ resulting from divine judgments on behalf of the saints… Nevertheless, that Rev. 19:8b also envisions ‘righteous acts by the saints’ must not be lost sight of” (937-8, emphases are Beale’s).”

Then, in his conclusion to the section, Beale summarizes his findings which are, in short, that the phrase in question “connotes both righteous acts performed by saints and their vindicated condition resulting from their faithful acts or, more likely, from God’s righteous acts of judgment against their oppressors” (941, emphasis Beale’s). He continues to say that “the dual notion of righteous acts by saints and God’s righteous acts for saints is suggested by at least seven observations,” (emphases Beale’s) which he then lists. The seventh of these is apparently the place Fesko intends to cite in support of his imputation-reading of the passage. Fesko’s statement again, immediately after citing Eph. 5 and footnoting Beale: “The bride of Christ, then, is clothed in righteousness which by imputation is the righteous deeds of the saints” (327, emphasis mine).

And now, again, Beale’s words:

“Likewise, Eph. 5:25 affirms that it is Christ who sanctifies and cleanses his bride, the church, so that she will be ‘holy and blameless’ at the end of time…”(942, emphases Beale’s).

However, whereas Fesko appeals to Beale in favor of imputation, Beale’s exposition does not go in that direction. Instead, Beale’s next remarks are:

“Consequently, the saints are clothed with pure linen as a symbol of God’s righteous vindication of them because, though they were persecuted, they were righteous on earth. The full meaning of the pure garments is that God’s righteous vindication involves judging the enemy, which shows that the saints’ faith and works have been right all along. The dual sense of ‘pure linen’ in 19:8 suits admirably the rhetorical purpose of the entire Apocalypse, which includes exhortations to believers to stop soiling their garments (3:4-5) and not to be ‘found naked’ (3:18; 16:15). This underscores the aspect of human accountability, which is highlighted by 19:7b: ‘his bride has prepared herself.’ … From the human side, the good works focus on the saints’ witness to their faith in Christ, which is supported by the focus on witness in v 10 and by the direct linkage in 3:4-5 of white clothing with the notion of witness (cf. likewise 3:14 with 3:18)” (942, emphasis Beale’s).

Beal’s “dual” notion (of righteous acts by saints and God’s righteous acts for saints) is completely absent from Fesko’s one-sided and distorted reading, as is the clear idea in Beale that, while a gift of God in Christ, the good works are still the believers’, and not by imputation. But the reader is led to think that Beale’s highly regarded work on Revelation supports Fesko’s conclusion, despite not only what Revelation says but also what Beale wrote. Thus, again we see a selective and misuse of sources in order to argue for a justification-centrism that might circumvent a place in Scripture in which good works are not merely the fruit or consequence of justification and are not merely expressions of gratitude. In this case, considerable effort is spent, not only in the use of Beale but in this section of Fesko’s book as a whole, to make Rev. 19:8, “the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints,” say something more like “the fine linen is the righteous deeds of Christ imputed to the saints.”

The post Fesko’s Beyond Calvin (7): An Addendum on Transforming Texts appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

I gasped the first few times I read the the passage we are looking at today. I gasped because I saw immediately what the author had done to the the words of Calvin, realized immediately why he had done so, knew what he would have had to ignore to get there, and feared what further damage this would do to the way Calvin is read by others.

Fesko’s quote from Calvin appears exactly as follows (38):

“These do not prevent the Lord from embracing works as inferior causes. But how does this come about? Those whom the Lord has destined by his mercy for the inheritance of eternal life he leads into possession of it, according to his ordinary dispensation, by means of good works. What goes before in the order of dispensation he calls the cause of what comes after. In this way he sometimes derives eternal life from works, not intending it to be ascribed to them; but because he justifies those whom he has chosen in order at last to glorify them, he makes the prior grace

[justification], which is a step to that which follows, as it were the cause. But whenever the true cause is to be assigned, he does not enjoin us to take refuge in works but keeps us solely to the contemplation of his mercy.”

The most important feature of this quotation is not so much what Calvin says but what Fesko says in the name of Calvin: note that the word “justification” is in brackets. This is because Fesko has added it to Calvin’s quote, believing that Calvin is here speaking of justification as “the prior grace which is a step to that which follows.” Immediately after this passage, Fesko says the following:

“Calvin is willing to assign good works the role of an inferior cause of salvation, but properly understood and within the context of his explanation it is ultimately a consequence of God’s decision to save the sinner. But what is important to note is that Calvin calls justification a cause of good works… Calvin’s use of metaphysical distinctions here not only shows how the various aspects of redemption relate to one another, but is the way he gives justification priority over sanctification. At this point Calvin’s use of metaphysics presents counter-evidence to Garcia’s claim that causal language is the exclusive property of the Lutheran tradition.”

Some observations:

1. Regarding Fesko’s last sentence, I trust that the material covered in our last post is more than sufficient to set aside the author’s unfounded assertions that I claim causal language is the “exclusive property of the Lutheran tradition.”

2. The first sentence in Fesko’s statement is accurate. But because “good works as inferior cause of salvation” evidently sounds in his ears at least potentially problematic, his conjunction is “but” rather than “and,” and he goes on say what he thinks is really “important to note” about what Calvin says. But this is where things go south quickly: he claims Calvin here “calls justification a cause of good works.”

What makes this section of the book problematic, even uniquely and solemnly problematic, is that the author has not only misunderstood but also transformed Calvin. Misidentifying the antecedent in Calvin’s statement, he inserts “justification” in order to have Calvin say what he wants him to say. Doing so would of course ostensibly support the validity of the author’s thesis here and throughout the book, namely, that justification is the cause of sanctification theologically. But he has taken this step despite a host of red flags both in Calvin’s text as well as in the book (Life in Christ) that he is allegedly refuting.

In support, please note the following:

a. When we remove the author’s editorial change (his addition of “justification”) to Calvin’s quote and then read it again the way Calvin actually wrote it, it is clear that the “prior grace” of which Calvin is speaking is not justification but good works, which is the topic of the section and the question he is addressing. Reading the quote from the beginning makes this transparent: With an eye to the language of Rom. 2:6-7 (see later below) Calvin is affirming that good works are inferior (secondary) causes of eternal life, and the rhetorical question he is seeking to answer concerns how that can be so.

His answer, in outline form, is that (a) God has destined that he will bring his children to possess eternal life by way of a certain order or pattern; (b) this pattern is found in the story of Christ himself (cf. Rom. 8:17): humiliation to exaltation, suffering to glory, obedience to eternal life; (c) this pattern, grounded as it is in the story of Christ himself, anchors our hope and expectation that eternal life will be the “end” of our course of obedience, not as a matter of meritorious causation but because God has determined to bring us to glory by way of that Christ-path; (d) for which reason “steps” in that path, including the good works in view in Romans, are “causes” of what follows inasmuch as this is how God has shaped our life in Christ; (e) the Spirit is the Agent of this work of “replicating” in us what is true of Christ; and (f) this pattern in the life of the Church is the content and form of our union with Christ by that Spirit. This is what union with Christ looks like at the level of Christian experience. The “prior grace” Calvin has in view is the reality of good works, and this is a “step” to what follows, ultimately eternal life. It’s because Calvin is more than aware of distortions of this relationship along the lines of meritorious causation – and yet refuses to give up the language of real causation simply because it is distorted – that he uses the language of “as it were:” “he makes the prior grace, which is a step to that which follows, as it were the cause.”

3. Calvin’s statement is from the period ending with 1539/1540. This is when the first revision of his Institutes was published. But this particular statement must be read alongside the first edition of his commentary on Romans, which he was working on at the same time. Putting his 1539/1540 commentary on Romans 2:6-7 alongside this 1539 addition to his Institutes shows he has the same subject matter in mind:

4. Clearly Calvin has the question of good works as cause in view, not justification as cause. Consider now what obstacles the author had to jump over in order to misrepresent Calvin in this case.

a. Not only the opening and closing sentences of the Calvin quote he uses, but even the opening words of the author’s own paragraph (“Calvin is willing to assign good works the role of an inferior cause of salvation”) should have signaled to him that he is mistaken. All three sentences make clear Calvin is referring to good works in his reference to a “prior grace” that is a cause of what follows, not justification, since he is explaining how eternal life follows good works sequentially as effect to (secondary) cause. But Fesko is so eager to explain the notion away that he misconstrues Calvin’s argument.

b. The editor’s heading for this section in Calvin’s Institutes, in the edition Fesko is citing, is titled, “Sense in which good works are sometimes spoken of as a reason for divine benefits” (LCC XX: 787, emphasis mine). This is not Calvin’s section heading, but the fact that it’s there should have at least alerted the author to good works, not justification, as the antecedent in Calvin’s argument. To this we can add the fact that all the preceding sections in this part of the Institutes are also headed by the topic of works and their value, making it clear that’s the topic and problem under consideration.

c. This section of the Institutes is a final, summative statement on the real, soteric value of good works for the Christian, as the next page (788) makes clear. It also transitions the reader into Calvin’s rejection of the notion of human merit (Inst. 3.15).

d. The book the author claims to be critiquing along these lines, Life in Christ, should have alerted him to the true subject matter in Calvin’s statement. Life in Christ includes an extensive analysis of this passage in Calvin’s Institutes, as well as the Romans commentary passage, and all of this in the context not of justification as the cause of sanctification but of the challenge of this kind of “conditional language” (if obedience, then eternal life) as it was navigated not only by Calvin but by Melanchthon and others. Even though the author is disagreeing with this analysis, the whole analysis works with a contextual reading of what Calvin is speaking of. It seems safe to conclude once again either that he did not read the book he is criticizing or that he has at least failed to read it with care.

e. It is noteworthy that the author chooses “justification” as the term he will insert into Calvin’s statement. It reflects the justification-centrism that characterizes the book as a whole. It reminds us, moreover, of the author’s warnings against “Whig historiography” in his introduction.

f. The most regrettable feature of this misuse of Calvin is not only the way the author has led the reader down the wrong path, but the way it keeps the reader from considering the truly important and fascinating question of how the early Reformed theologians worked carefully with the text of Scripture – using Aristotelian causation as a tool but transforming it to conform to biblical teaching – in order to affirm clearly certain ideas that had been abused by their opponents. In other words, they did not go the route of saying that it is no longer safe to use biblical language because that language could be distorted. Instead, they insisted that the language of Scripture belongs to the Church.

Calvin’s eschatological transformation of the Aristotelian causation model is key in this, and finds interesting parallels in the work of Vermigli (see his commentary) and, rather remarkably, John Owen, who wrote:

“Now, the connection and coherence of things being manifold, as of cause and effect, of way and means and the end, this between mortification and life is not of cause and effect properly and strictly, – for ‘eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ,’ Rom. vi.23, – but of means and end. God hath appointed this means for the attaining that end, which he has freely promised. Means, though necessary, have a fair subordination to an end of free promise. A gift, and procuring cause in him to whom it is given, are inconsistent. The intendment, then, of this proposition as conditional is, that there is a certain infallible connection and coherence between true moritification and eternal life: if you use this means, you shall obtain that end; if you do mortify, you shall live. And herein lies the main motive unto and enforcement of the duty prescribed” (Works, v. 6, p. 6).

In light of all this, the construction of law-and-gospel which sees sanctification as the reflex of justification, which teaches that gratitude is the only rationale for the good works of sanctification, and which filters conditional language out of view as law-not-gospel cannot survive a close reading of the texts of the tradition like these. To be sure, that construct is hardly absent from Reformed writers, but it is manifestly not anything like the unanimous and insistent witness of Reformed writers. Reformed theologians like Calvin, Vermigli, Owen, and others, including the Westminster Standards, do not hesitate to recognize the positive relationship of good works and eternal life. We often see good works described as the real existential fruit of justification but not always or necessarily as the theological fruit of justification (remember “faith” is not a synonym for “justification”), and we discover good works commended not only along the lines of gratitude but also, like Calvin, as the “way” to eternal life:

“These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that, having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life” (WCF 16.2, emphases added).

“Q. 32. How is the grace of God manifested in the second covenant? A. The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that he freely provideth and offereth to sinners a mediator, and life and salvation by him; and requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him, promiseth and giveth his Holy Spirit to all his elect, to work in them that faith, with all other saving graces; and to enable them unto all holy obedience, as the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which he hath appointed them to salvation” (WLC 32, emphasis added).

For more material on this and related questions, see the fine study by David C. Fink, “Divided by Faith: The Protestant Doctrine of Justification and the Confessionalization of Biblical Exegesis,” Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 2010. Of course, I also have to suggest that you consider reading chapter 3 of Life in Christ. Much of what I have said here depends on that lengthy examination of how conditional language was both the specific challenge faced by Reformation-minded theologians, and how Calvin did in fact adopt a distinct (and, in my view, generally compelling) approach to it.

The post Fesko’s Beyond Calvin (6): Metaphysics and Justification, pt 3 (Changing Calvin) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

“Garcia argues that, for Calvin, the duplex gratia of justification and sanctification is grounded in the more fundamental category of union with Christ and therefore justification cannot be accorded any sort of priority over sanctification. By contrast, he concludes that Lutheran theologians do not ground justification and sanctification in union, but rather instead place the two in a causal relationship: justification causes sanctification, or sanctification is the effect of justification” (34).

In my last post I evaluated the claim that I have argued Calvin denies “any sort of priority” of justification to sanctification. I have found it wanting, not only in light of what I think but in light of what I have said (and not said) in publication. The second of the two sentences quoted above transitions the reader to the burden of the essay as a whole.

Well, not exactly.

The “any sort of” remark to the side, in those two sentences the author does accurately summarize what I have concluded in my book, although I would express the matter with slightly more nuance: to the extent categorical language can be useful, Lutheran theologians typically do not ground justification and sanctification in union with Christ but instead root sanctification in justification as effect to cause, given their understanding of justification as theologically central. Moreover, my book seeks to demonstrate there are sensible exegetical and polemical-theological reasons for why the Lutheran tradition started on this trajectory and continued on it, more or less, through the period of confessionalization. Importantly, in my argument at least, this approach among the early Lutherans is a concrete and practical phenomenon on display in how “conditional” passages in the Scriptures are handled, rather than an abstract idea functioning only at the level of bare formulation. Also, in contrast to Calvin and other early Reformed theologians, as well as the Reformed symbols, the Lutheran tradition has not regarded justification and sanctification as derivative aspects of union with Christ. And once again there are sensible exegetical and polemical-theological reasons for why the Reformed tradition started on its trajectory and continued on it, more or less, through the period of confessionalization. In other words, while I am focused on Calvin and the theologians of his day rather than the traditions as a whole, as Fesko properly notes here I have argued a particular conclusion regarding the kind of causation-model that, in the sixteenth century, became characteristically Lutheran.

So when we read the author’s next sentence (which opens the second paragraph), in which the author refers to the difficulty of “investigating the viability of such a claim” (my emphasis) within the scope of his essay, and when we read in the same paragraph that he will “focus upon the narrow question of the doctrine of justification and metaphysics in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed theology with particular attention to its relationship to sanctification and union with Christ” (35), the reader expects that the “claim” is what we just read: my argument for a certain kind of causation model for justification and sanctification in relation to union in the work of Calvin and his Lutheran counterparts. Further, in light of the author’s appropriate and helpful warning against readings of the Reformation that naively perceive it as a “recovery of the gospel” which “preclude

The post Fesko’s Beyond Calvin (5): Metaphysics and Justification, pt 2 (Causation) appeared first on Greystone Theological Institute.

As a last preliminary remark, let me also add that I will endeavor to evaluate this essay against the evidence in published texts. I mention this because the author has focused his energies on my own work in this essay, and the temptation is strong to criticize his arguments at the level of what I meant to say or what I really believe. If that is what I want to do or believe I have to do, I will try to remember to tell you what I am doing: I will note the shift in my remarks explicitly because I do not think it is fair to expect others to know what someone means or thinks “behind” what he actually says in (ideally peer-reviewed) published and thus public material. (Published corrections, clarifications, or retractions are always completely valid, of course, because they belong to the literature.) Thus, I will try to interact with Fesko’s treatment of my work in the same way as I will treat his handling of anyone else’s work: at the level of the texts, both the author’s and the historical texts under consideration. Again, if I break from this to explain myself in a way that my published words don’t do sufficiently, I will signal the change and will not hold Fesko liable for failing to read my mind. (They did not offer a mind-reading class in my seminary, at least.) And now, some reflections on the first paragraph of the essay:

1. In the opening paragraph, the author notes there have been several studies in recent years on the topic of union with Christ, and indicates that he has decided to pay particular attention to my book, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin’s Theology (2008). He then states, “Among Garcia’s many conclusions is the claim that in the wake of the justification controversy surrounding Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander, there was a decided break between Calvin and the subsequent Reformed tradition and the Lutheran tradition on the doctrine of justification.” The author then footnotes p. 251 in Life in Christ. Please keep this statement handy and note the following.

a. First of all, as a matter of clarification for the reader rather than critique of the author, the syntax of Fesko’s statement is somewhat unclear: do I claim there was a “decided break” between Calvin and the subsequent Reformed tradition and then another break between Calvin and the Lutheran tradition? The earlier version of this sentence in the CTJ article is a bit clearer, and I think it more likely that Fesko means I argue that Calvin and the Reformed tradition are on one side of the “decided break” and the Lutheran tradition is on the other side.

b. I would like to draw attention, however, not only to the author’s claim but what he has based this claim on. He has asserted specifically that I posit a “decided break” between Calvin (in concert with the later Reformed tradition) and the Lutheran tradition on the doctrine of justification, and that I see this as occurring in the wake of the Osiandrian controversy. My work on Calvin’s refutation of Osiander is among the most important arguments in my book, and the argument I make regarding the significance of that refutation is cumulative in nature, so Fesko is justly sensitive to its importance. However, as I hope to demonstrate in later posts, I am rather strongly persuaded that he does not understand what I have argued regarding Calvin and Osiander, why I have argued it, and how it relates to the thesis of the book as a whole.

In this first hint of the problem (and it is only a hint so far), compare Fesko’s statement in this first paragraph of the essay with what I say in my book in the place he cites. Once again, here is Fesko: “Among Garcia’s many conclusions is the claim that in the wake of the justification controversy surrounding Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander, there was a decided break between Calvin and the subsequent Reformed tradition and the Lutheran tradition on the doctrine of justification” (footnoting Life in Christ, p. 251). And now here is what p. 251 in my book actually says (I will quote into p. 252):

The reader will recognize that at this point an interesting historical-theological question emerges. If this reading of Calvin’s refutation of Osiander is correct, then at least the possibility should be entertained that the Osiandrian controversy, and specifically Calvin’s 1559 refutation, marks the inception of an explicit divergence between Lutheran and Reformed in the area of salvation. Their sharply divergent perspectives on Christ and the Supper having been established years earlier, it is arguably here, in 1559 at the height of eucharistic controversy, that the soteriological implications of their sacramental differences are for the first time identified and employed at length by an active participant. In other words, this explicit divergence in relating justification and sanctification, evident already in earlier decades as demonstrated in Chapter 3 above, arose out of the simultaneous eucharistic (Supper) and Osiandrian (justification) controversies of the 1550s, but was not related directly to these controversies until Calvin creatively merged them, using Osiander as his foil.

[start p. 252] That said, it is of the greatest importance to observe again that the Osiandrian affair did not nullify the significant continuity that obtained, and continued to obtain in great measure during the period of Orthodoxy, between Lutheran and Reformed understandings of justification as the imputation of Christ’s uniquely meritorious righteousness. But the controversy did clarify what was already evident earlier, that the Lutheran and Reformed strands of the Reformation had in fact adopted distinguishable understandings of the justification/sanctification relationship.

c. We notice, then, that I state that “an interesting historical-theological question emerges” from what I have documented in the Calvin-Osiander material, which is to say I am proposing it for consideration. In truth, I am more confident now than I was back then that my conclusions are sound, but in the text Fesko cites I am expressing myself tentatively. We can add my “if this reading… is correct” and “at least the possibility should be entertained” to evidence of my effort to propose for consideration.

d. In the passage above, I do not argue that there was a “decided break” in the wake of the Osiandrian controversy. I argue instead that there was a divergence in relating justification and sanctification, evident already in earlier decades, and that what is new is not the divergence but the explicit nature of it in the nature and manner of Calvin’s refutation of Osiander. It is not new to the Osiandrian controversy: it was already implicit, it now becomes explicit.

e. Further, I do not argue that there was a break at the level of the doctrine of justification simpliciter. I speak specifically of a divergence in relating justification and sanctification. The difference is monumentally important. I argue here and repeatedly elsewhere that it is not the doctrine of justification as such (i.e., how we define it in, say, catechism questions) but the way justification and sanctification are related that is the area of divergence. Note the second paragraph I have cited above, which makes all of this quite clear.

f. Finally, please note the express concern in the passage quoted to accent (“it is of the greatest importance”) the areas of significant and continued commonality between Calvin and the emerging Lutheran tradition.

2. I will have to leave more Osiander-related material to a later point. For now, we continue to a place in this opening paragraph that is only two sentences later. Here we read the author state: “Garcia argues that, for Calvin, the duplex gratia of justification and sanctification is grounded in the more fundamental category of union with Christ and therefore justification cannot be accorded any sort of priority over sanctification.”

a. The reader will note the strong language here: Garcia argues that, for Calvin, justification “cannot be accorded any sort of priority over sanctification.” Not only is this an example of over-reaching; this is simply false, and demonstrably so. The reader will recall how I affirmed a sort of priority in my last post, but this is not a new affirmation. In a 2007 piece for Ordained Servant, of which we can be sure Fesko is aware and which was published long before the book under review, I said the following (in response to questions about a previous article in which I reviewed another volume):

There has been some question too about my own understanding of the relationship of justification and sanctification, particularly about any “priority” of the former to the latter. First of all, I would guess we all find language of “priority” to be at least somewhat ambiguous. What does one mean by priority, even “logical” priority? Is it chronological? Causal? Of central importance? Something else? I find that proponents of the priority of justification are ordinarily unable to explain this idea without using causal language (suggesting, for instance, that sanctification “flows from” or in some sense arises from justification as its effect) and without being left with a doctrine of union with Christ that is merely formal or nominal.

However, I would alert the reader to the fact that, in my article, I affirmed one sense in which I think language of priority is helpful: experiential, and not theological. As I said in reply to a point raised in Dr. Jones’s essay, “I am not aware of anyone who would deny this [i.e., the realization that one is pardoned motivates obedience to the will of God], and speaking in this way of ‘motivation’ is surely appropriate. But we must not confuse the existential—what can be described in terms of my experience of grace—with the theological, as Jones, Godfrey (270, on Calvin), and others in CJPM seem to do.” This is a useful and biblical way to think about priority, and I do not find it contradicts what is said in the OPC’s Justification Report. In the Report, the relevant language speaks specifically of justification as the prerequisite to sanctification understood as a process (p. 60 in the edition published by the CCE). Because justification is in its very nature definitive (i.e., non-progressive), its being prior to progressive sanctification is self-evident and beyond dispute. What the Report does not affirm, however, is that justification is the prerequisite to definitive sanctification.

b. Moreover, I do not claim any such thing in the book Fesko is using for his analysis. To see this, note that Fesko follows this sentence with another before offering documentation for his claims. This next sentence is centrally important to his essay’s concern. It reads, “By contrast, [Garcia] concludes that Lutheran theologians do not ground justification and sanctification in union, but rather instead place the two in a causal relationship: justification causes sanctification, or sanctification is the effect of justification.” He then footnotes the following places in Life in Christ as support: pp. 61ff., 104-05, 241, 260-61, 264, 267 n. 24. It is to these places in my book that we are to expect evidence in support for both of the author’s claims, namely, that I do not see in Calvin “any sort of priority” for justification in relation to sanctification, and that I argue that Lutherans see justification as the cause of sanctification. Please note:

c. There is nothing on p. 61 about either of these questions. Or on p. 62. Or on p. 63. Or on p. 64. In fact I do not know how far I should read in the “61ff.” to find the evidence for these claims. There is nothing in the entire section about either topic. It is a section describing (in positive terms) Luther’s relationship to mysticism, his transformation of the medieval “marriage sermon” tradition in the direction of his doctrine of justification, and his rich understanding of union with Christ.

d. Pp. 104-05 do indeed discuss Melanchthon’s understanding of the justification-sanctification relationship as a matter of cause-and-effect. In fact I develop my argument in pp. 103-6. This argument is based on Melanchthon’s expositions of Romans, which are the immediate concern and which are quoted and evaluated in this section of my book. There is nothing here, though, that suggests that Calvin denies “any sort of priority” of justification to sanctification.

e. There is nothing on p. 241 about either of these questions.

f. There is nothing on pp. 260-61 about Calvin denying “any sort of” priority of justification to sanctification. There is important material about the second idea, though, which is the Calvin-Lutheran relationship. I’ll quote my words again for your careful comparison with what Fesko has asserted regarding my views. From p. 260:

Second, “doctrine of justification” needs explanation. If agreement on the definition of the term “justification” is in view, such as what might be sought at the catechetical level, then the question is easy to answer in the affirmative. Calvin’s understanding of “justification” is basically synonymous with the brief definitions found in the classic Lutheran confessions. In his theology as much as theirs justification is a forensic declaration grounded upon the uniquely meritorious righteousness of Christ imputed to a believer by faith, entailing the forgiveness of sins and a righteous standing before God. The effort, it should be said, to pit union with Christ against forensic imputation in Calvin may be seen now to be deeply mistaken.[1]

If, however, “doctrine of justification” means more than a bare-essentials definition such as one finds in a confessional document – if it includes, for example, the relationship justification bears to other aspects of God’s saving work and the context in which justification is to be understood, the discussion of which is naturally involved in any treatment of the theology of justification – then one must answer negatively. Unlike his Lutheran counterparts, Calvin did not ground good works in imputation or justification but in union with Christ. In contradistinction with Melanchthon, for example, Calvin argued a positive, soteric value of good works as the ordinary prerequisite for receiving eternal life. It appears that basic differences exist in their respective understandings of justifying faith: at the heart of the inseparability in Calvin’s unio Christi–duplex gratia formulation is a justifying faith defined not only passively, as a resting on Christ alone, but actively, as an obedient faith that, resting on Christ alone, perseveres in the pursuit of holiness.

g. There is nothing on p. 264 about either of these questions. On this page I speak only of Calvin’s own views. There is no mention of his denying “any sort of” priority of justification to sanctification.

h. On p. 267, n. 24, I do note an example of how a more Melanchthonian form of speaking can be located within later Reformed theology. The note reads:

In later Reformed theology, a more Melanchthonian (i.e., classical Lutheran) pattern of argument appears to have become standard, resulting in the frequent exposition of justification and good works as cause and effect. See, e.g., what in light of our findings is a rather remarkable statement by Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (1871; rep. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), vol. 3, p. 238: “There has never been any real difference of opinion among Protestants… It was universally admitted that good works are not necessary to our justification; that they are consequences and indirectly the fruits of justification, and therefore cannot be its ground.”

Of course, as a footnote on the penultimate page of the book (not counting appendices), it is an observation whose validity depends on what I have argued in the 250+ pages that precede this note. There is nothing, however, about the “any sort of priority” matter.

Those are the places cited thus far in support of the author’s claims. And here ends our reflections on the first paragraph of the essay. We’ll turn to the following paragraph in our next post, but only briefly and as a way into the first paragraph of the main section of the essay.

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