Westminister Incoherence?
A fellow Lutheran, Eric Phillips, draws our attention to what he believes to be incoherence in the Westminster Confession. What say you?
Chapter 8 of the Westminster Confession of Faith has two sections that
bear on this question. The first, section 2, is entirely orthodox:
"The
Son of God, the second Person in the Trinity, being very and eternal
God, of one substance, and equal with the Father, did, when the
fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the
essential properties and common infirmities thereof; yet without sin:
being conceived by he power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the
Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct
natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together
in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which
person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator
between God and man."
That’s the level of definition, though.
When it comes to applying this principle in a practical way, the WCF is
considerably less successful. Section 7 is a complete train wreck:
"Christ,
in the work of mediation, acteth according to both natures; by each
nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet by reason of the unity
of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes, in
Scripture, attributed to the person denominated by the other nature."
Up
to the semicolon, it makes sense and is orthodox. It even carefully
attributes the action to the Person "BY each nature" rather than to the
natures themselves. After the semicolon, though, it’s incoherent.
First, how can the unity of the person be introduced by the word "yet,"
as if it were a new consideration being introduced, when it is in fact
the basis of the statement just made? Second, how many persons do we
have here? The clause "attributed to the person denominated by the
other nature" sure makes it sound as if we have a person for each
nature. Third, if we assume that they couldn’t mean that (because it
would completely contradict what they’ve just said), we could make a
helpful edit and change that perplexing clause to "attributed to the
Person, as denominated by the other nature." But then the question
arises again, what the heck is "yet" doing introducing this sentence?
They would end up saying, "Even though the one Person acts by means of
both natures, Scripture sometimes attributes human qualities to that
Person while at the same time calling Him God." And that would be
complete nonsense, since the habit of Scripture they describe _depends
on_ the fact that the Person acts by means of both natures. In fact, if
the Person really is composed of two natures, there is no need to
explain it as a scriptural figure of speech when that one person is
called both man and God. So it doesn’t seem as if the WCF could mean
THAT either, but the only other option I see is to read it as teaching
two persons in Christ.
Completely incoherent.
True, and not just incoherent, but heretical. But this isn’t the only heresy that vexes the Reformed. They replay all of the Christological errors of the early Church — a tragic consequence of their denial that Mary was the Theotokos. Luther, as I understand it, grasped that if Mary was not acknowledged as the Mother of God, all sorts of very negative Christological consequences would be unleashed. And the Reformed demonstrate the truth of that concern, I think.
But for me as the term Mary Mother of God refers or accentuates Jesus – not Mary. What she bore was Jesus who as God-Man. So the title is an honor to Christ not to Mary.
No, the Christological error of Calvinism comes from shear rationalism also the preoccupation to answering the hidden things of God. Psychologically, if you can not explain it, you should not believe it – that is the sad part of Calvinism. Also, it detaches Jesus from the doctrines of grace etc.
I am grateful for Eric Phillip’s note on the Westminster Confession of Faith. I agree that Chapter 8, Section 7 is indeed a confused, conflicted mess. It affirms that the Holy Scriptures fail to correctly communicate truth about Christ to us. Instead, those who adhere to the WCF must place greater reliance upon human reason than upon the straightforward testimony of Scripture in order to determine what God really intends to say.
The result in Section 7 is a defacto refutation of the affirmations of section 2 and its own claim for “unity” of two natures in the person of Christ.
From my perspective, the fundamental stumbling block of Calvinism (besides avoiding at times the clear, straightforward testimony of God) seems to be their eagerness to assign to the uncreated God (Eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) properties of Creation, especially that of “size”.
“Size” is something we are bound by in our created state. Length, width, depth, mass, time – all these things are created realities. God is neither bound by them nor can he (nor the Son in his resurrected and glorified spiritual state) be defined by them.
The eternal Son, being uncreated, could take on the human nature (such sinless nature originally being created by the Word of the uncreated God) without any consideration of physical size. A 2-inch tall human frame could easily be the residence of all the fullness of the Godhead as a 5-foot-6 one. When among us, Christ chose a fleshly frame suitable to be like us. However, as God, he truly was entirely fully present in all the fullness of his divinity, just as the Bible repeatedly affirms. There was no “extra-Calvinisticum.” The body of Jesus was not a “puppet” on the end of a hand. God was truly with us in Christ – entirely. Emmanuel!
When Calvinists bind human nature (sizeless) to the temporary human fleshly frame (size defined), they ignore the uncreated reality of God and the fact that Creation is God’s work, not his prison. (Like a craftsman and his work – the work does not define or limit the craftsman but the other way around. See Eph. 2:10)
Such position also misrepresents the clear teaching of the Bible that in the resurrection we will have “spiritual” bodies – fundamentally different than those we have now. For us then, as it was for Christ in His post-resurrection appearances, passing through locked doors would not be a problem, although we won’t have to worry about locked doors in heaven!
In consequence, the risen Christ, with his glorified human nature and resurrected spiritual body is no less able to be fully present in the Lord’s Supper, at all times and in all places, without diminishing or dividing His fullness.
Anything less avoids the clear testimony of God in His Word, is not worthy of a truly infinite God, and results from erroneous human imposition of limitations of Creation upon the uncreated Creator. It is to make God in our own image.
For me as a Lutheran pastor who has taken many {generally profitable} theological courses in conservative Reformed (Calvinst and Arminian) colleges, it’s not ubiquity but rather uncreated Divinity that allows the Word to truly become flesh and dwell in His Divine fullness among us and even now to come to us in, with, and under the bread and wine in Communion.
And best of all, as orthodox LCMS Lutherans, we have no need to correct the Word of God in order to confess it in all its glory. Let God be God!
The Westminster statement is an attempt to make sense of a statement like “God died on the cross” without having to say the divine nature died. Their key error in this is not exactly a wrong conception of the two natures, perhaps (They show this elsewhere!), but a misunderstanding of how the Biblical terms work.
To explain this sentence using Westminster’s terminology:
yet by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to human nature, dying, is attributed to the person, who is denominated, or named, God, from the name of his divine nature.
In contrast, Chemnitz says: “those things which are properties of the one nature in Christ are attributed to the person in concreto” Chemnitz doesn’t say the name of the person which is used comes from a nature. And in his first chapter of The Two Natures in Christ, he explains that God and man are concrete terms. Names of the person, not of a nature.
Is Westminster right when it says that the ‘denomination’ God is from the other nature? No. ‘God’ is a concrete term, not an abstract term. It refers to the person and not one nature. If Christ had only a human nature, then he wouldn’t be called ‘God’. But ‘God’ is not the name of a nature, but of a person. Persons have names. Natures are abstractions which persons also have.
The problem with the Reformed here is their reading of certain concrete terms referring to the person as if they were abstract terms referring to a nature.
As a Luther-leaning presbyterian, I can tell you this section of the WC is part of a complex of comments (imbedded within various sections) designed to defend the Calvinist view of the Supper. This description reads like several addendums (part of why they don’t make sense) in both the Christological and Sacramental sections which are, in essence, cross references to logically support other sections. Not a bad practice per se, but a problem if the position variously supported (Christ’s limited physical presence via Reformed understanding of Chalcedon) is wrong.