One resource that can be recommended without reservation is Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought. This work is a collection of primary sources up through Grotius (1538–1646). The reader would have to look elsewhere to come up to the present day. But the volume by the O’Donovan’s (husband and wife) would virtually constitute a course in and of itself in political theology. Often, when I am quoting this or that source, I am relying upon From Irenaeus to Grotius.

Thus, in what follows I offer ten of the most important works on political theology, starting with a compilation of voices from the Early Church, and concluding with other key resources that could be consulted. As Ecclesiastes 12:11, “Of making many books there is no end,” and thus this list is just the beginning. But for anyone who wants to do the reading, these ten steps are worth taking.

1. Selected Early Christian Texts and Early Church Fathers

Since it is impossible to limit the reading to one definitive work in the Early Church, here are five critical contributions: Justin Martyr, the Epistle to Diognetus, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.

Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 90/100–165) is known for three key works: First Apology, Second Apology, and Dialogue with Trypho. In his First Apology he is writing Emperor Antoninus Pius (reigned A.D. 137/38–161). Here, Justin Martyr defends Christians as good citizens (pp. 2, 4), as ones who “more than all other peoples . . . are your helpers and allies in the cause of peace” (p. 12) and as ones who are happy to be judged fairly. Justin Martyr also boldly writes that there is no ruler more kingly or just than Jesus Christ (p. 12).

The Epistle to Diognetus is worthy of mention. The date is uncertain, but Michael W. Holmes suggests between A.D. 117 to after 313.^[1] This letter is of interest to us for what the author says in section five. He writes of how Christians function as citizens: “while they live in both Greek and barbarian cities, as each one’s lot was cast, and follow the local customs in dress and food and other aspects of life, at the same time they demonstrate the remarkable and admittedly unusual character of their own citizenship. (5.4). Indeed, Christians “live in their own countries, but only as aliens; they participate in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign.” (5.5). We see themes here that Christians are still wrestling with today.

1. Michael W. Holmes, ed. The Apostolic Fathers, second edition. Translated by J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House), 293.

Theophilus of Antioch (died c. A.D. 183–185) is known to us through his work, To Autolycus. He writes the striking line: “I will pay honour to the emperor not by worshipping him but by praying for him.” (p. 11). The emperor is not a true God, but was made by the true God. (p. 11). The emperor is not to be worshipped; the emperor is simply to rule justly. (p. 11).).

Irenaeus (c. A.D. 125–c. 202) is most well-known for his Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (a relatively short work), as well as his Against Heresies (a much longer, five-volume work). In Against Heresies he reflects upon the nature of the civil magistrate. Civil government comes about due to sin (in agreement with Augustine, and in disagreement with Thomas Aquinas). Civil government is an agent of justice, and provides at least a modicum of justice while living in this life. He interprets the “rock” of Daniel 2:41­–45 (a rock not made by human hands) as Christ, who will ultimately crush the kingdoms of this world. (5.26).

Tertullian (c. A.D. 155–c. 220), was the most significant western theologian before Augustine (A.D. 354–430). Tertullian, like many who follow him, contends that civil laws must be just, and must never require something fundamentally immoral. And law must only conjoin that which is fundamentally good (Apology 4). Good civil leadership must show diligence to go through and expunge and clear out clearly unjust laws (Apology 4). Similarly, judges should only take action when the evidence is clear (Apology 4.). Christians should pray for the emperor (Apology 30). In an interesting move, Tertullian asserts that “nothing is more foreign to us than the state (res publica). One state we know, of which all are citizens—the universe.” (Apology 38).

2. Augustine, City of God

Augustine’s classic work, City of God, must be on any reading list of this sort. Augustine (A.D. 354–430) wrote this work between 413 and 427, after Alaric and the Visigoths had successfully invaded Rome in A.D. 410. Some of the pagan opponents of Christianity claimed that Rome had fallen to the Visigoths because Rome had forsaken their traditional gods and religious practices, and had (at least in some ways) turned to Christianity. Augustine argued that the history of the world was really the history of “two cities”—the city of God, and the city of man. The city of God was constituted by those who loved God, even if this led to contempt for oneself, and the city of man was created by those who love the self, even if this led to contempt for God. These two cities—in the present time—are intermingled, and will remain so until the end of time. At that point, the city of man will be judged, while the city of God will reach its ultimate end—which is the company of the saints enjoying and gazing upon God.

Of particular interest is that Augustine argued not only that the Roman republic had had problems long before Christianity entered the scene (thus Christianity could not be justly blamed Rome’s challenges), but the problem was much, much deeper. If justice was giving each person his due, the commonwealth must account for Christ and for what Christ is due. Christ is owed ultimately love, allegiance, and obedience. Hence, true justice can only be achieved when Christ is Lord of a commonwealth (City of God II.21).

3. Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225–74) did not write the equivalent of a City of God, but he wrote at some length on the nature of civil government. I fudge a bit here and mention two works by Thomas: his classic, Summa Theologiae (I–II, QQ.90–97) and his De Regno (Concerning the King). In his Summa Theologiae Thomas treats “Of the Essence of Law” (Q. 90), the “Of the Various Kinds of Law” (Q. 91), “Of the Effects of Law” (Q. 92), “Of the Eternal Law” (Q. 92), “Of the Eternal Law” (Q. 93), “Of the Natural Law” (Q. 94), “Of the Human Law” (Q. 95), “Of the Power of the Human Law” (Q. 96), and “Of Change in Law”) Question 96. Subsequent questions focus on different aspects of biblical law, the “New Law,” and then moves on to questions of grace and merit (Questions 98–114).

We will not work through the details of Thomas’ understanding of law here. But he is an extremely important pre-modern Christian example of an attempt to think through the nature of what he calls “human law” (the various law codes created by human/earthly political bodies), and how such laws are inextricably linked to God’s law—including the “eternal law” which exists in the mind of God, the “natural law” (our “participation” in the eternal law), as well as law found in the Bible itself (I-II, QQ.98–105).

4. Dante Allighieri

Dante Alighieri (A.D. 1265–1321) was one of the most important persons of the middle ages. He is especially well known for his The Divine Comedy—published in three books: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. His work that concerns us here is his De Monarchia (On Monarchy—dated between 1310 and 1312, but even possibly as late as 1317).^[2] Interestingly, Oliver and John Lockwood O’Donvan call Dante’s De Monarchia a “naturalistic apology for the Roman Empire.”^[3] Dante, we might say, helps lay the groundwork for conceiving of the civil government as truly an independent authority, not in any way subject to, or reliant upon, the church. The O’Donovans suggest that three key arguments animate De Monarchia:^[4]

2. So O’Donovan and O’Donovan, From Irenaeus to Grotius, 413.

3. O’Donovan and O’Donovan, From Irenaeus to Grotius, 413.

4. These three come from O’Donovan and O’Donovan, From Irenaeus to Grotius, 413–14.

1. “Universal monarchy alone brings the uninterrupted and all-encompassing peace that enables mankind to fulfill its divinely willed, natural task of actualizing the ‘possible intellect’ in its multifarious potentialities.”
2. “Roman people acquired universal empire by divine and natural right.”
3. “Since the goals and foundations of empire and church are so disparate, their earthly heads must be independently constituted and must act independently.”

In short, one of the most significant voices of the Middle Ages was arguing for the independence of civil government—especially the government of Rome. And his affirmation of the independence of the Roman government, including a kind of independence from the Roman Catholic church.

5. Martin Luther

Martin Luther (A.D. 1483–1546) wrote voluminously, and for our purposes we turn to his Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523). We might also turn to The Address to the German Nobility (1520) or The Freedom of the Christian (1520), which also treat similar issues. Luther is rightly known as one who gave voice to a certain notion of “two realms” or “two kingdoms.” There is the temporal realm or kingdom and the spiritual realm or kingdom. These two realms or kingdoms have two different governments—essentially the civil government and the church. These two authorities, realms, or kingdoms, are generally independent and do not really overlap. Their “jurisdictions” are essentially separate. Both of these realms—in their different ways—nonetheless serve God’s purposes, and serve God’s kingdom. The civil government provides (at its best) at least basic justice in the world, which is especially a service to non-Christians. And of course, the church serves the purposes of God’s by being a gospel outpost in the world, providing the preaching of the gospel and the offering of the sacraments. Whether this general paradigm is ultimately satisfactory is another question.

6. John Calvin

John Calvin (A.D. 1509–1564) is one of the most important figures in the Reformation, being a central figure in that tradition we generally label “Reformed.” We will be considering his Institutes of the Christian Religion (published first in 1536, and being expanded and edited and reworked, with the final edition being published in 1559). If Luther is a (the) key proponent of his version of a “two-kingdom” theology, Calvin is the key proponent of a similar, but nonetheless distinct Christian political option, a “two-realm” political theology.

O’Donovan and O’Donovan’s comment is noteworthy: “John Calvin may largely take credit for conceiving and implementing a reintegration of political order and spiritual community that transformed the historical complexion of Reformation Christianity.”^[5] Like Luther, Calvin will use the language and imagery of the “two kingdoms.” As Calvin sees it, there is a “twofold government in man . . .”—the spiritual and the political (Institutes III.XIX.15). These two realms or kingdoms exist—interestingly—in each person: “There are in man, so to speak, two worlds, over which different kings and different laws have authority.” (Institutes III.XIX.15). Calvin’s main treatment of civil government is found at the very end of Institutes, in the fourth book (IV.XX). For Calvin these two realms are “completely distinct” (Institutes IX.XX.1), but both are ultimately to serve God, and they are not “antithetical” (Institutes IV.XX.2). But Calvin is no modern. He can consider these two realms or kingdoms distinct, but nonetheless write:

5. O’Donovan and O’Donovan, From Irenaeus to Grotius, 662.

Yet civil government has its appointed end, so long as we live among men, to cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church, to adjust our life to the society of men, to form our social behavior to civil righteousness, to reconcile us with another, and to promote general peace and tranquility” (Institutes IV.XX.2).

The civil magistrate is ordained by God and bears the power of the sword. Properly understood, the office of the civil magistrate extends “to both Tables of the Law” (Institutes IV.XX.9). Calvin offers a three-fold division of the Mosaic Law: moral, ceremonial, and judicial. The Law’s ceremonial and judicial components have been fulfilled in Christ, but the moral law is still binding, as it is “the true and eternal rule of righteousness, prescribed for men of all nations and times, who wish to conform their lives to God’s will” (Institutes IV.XX.15).

It is worth noting that Calvin argues that various nations all give testimony to fundamental or basic moral tenets and laws, and these are essentially consistent with the Mosaic Law (Institutes IV.XX.16). Finally, while civil government is ordained by God, he ends the Institutes by arguing that obedience to the civil magistrate should never lead to disobeying God (Institutes IV.XX.32). We will see this principle worked out in greater detail in Junius Brutus and Samuel Rutherford (see below).

7. Stephen Junius Brutus

“Stephen Junius Brutus” is clearly a pseudonym. Scholars suggest that the author is perhaps Hubert Languet or Philippe de Mornay (perhaps both?).^[6] The work by Brutus in question is Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (equals roughly, “A Legal Claim Against Tyrants”), published in 1579. This work is considered a key part of so-called “resistance theory” in Protestant political theory. The book contends that there is a proper time and context in which Christians can (and should) resist unjust rulers. Glenn Sunshine summarizes four questions which are at the heart of this work^[7]:

6. See Glenn Sunshine, “Introduction,” in Stephen Brutus Junius, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos: A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants, translated by William Walker (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2020).

7. Sunshine, “Introduction,” v–vi.

1. “whether subjects are obligated to obey princes when they command things contrary to God’s law” (Brutus’s answer is “no”).
2. “whether subjects are obligated to resist princes when they command things contrary to God’s law” (Brutus’s answer is “no”).
3. “whether and under what circumstances subjects can resist a prince who opposes God’s Word” (worked out in some detail in the work).
4. “whether princes must aid subjects of another prince who are persecuted for their faith or are being tyrannically oppressed” (a “yes” concerning those who are persecuted, and a qualified “yes” concerning those persons being oppressed tyrannically).

Key to Vindiciae is the notion of covenant. God, the king, and the people are all related covenantally. Subjects are required to obey the civil magistrate when the magistrate is keeping his covenantal obligations. When the king becomes a tyrant, or breaks covenant, resisting the king is justified. However, it is the role of lesser or inferior magistrates to lead out in any attempt at resistance.

8. Johannes Althusius

Johannes Althusius (A.D. 1577–1638)^[8] was a German Protestant Reformed political theorist, most well-known to us through his work, Politica, subtitled Politics Methodically Set Forth and Illustrated with Sacred and Profane Examples. It was published in 1604. Althusius is representative of a political stream of thought that might be most easily grasped by comparing and contrasting it to Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), and Hobbes’s work, Leviathan (published in 1651).

8. At times in this section I am using material from my essay, “Althusius, Johannes,” in Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, edited by Karla Pollman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

Hobbes held that persons are born free, but in a state of inextricable conflict and violence with other persons. In order to secure some safety and peace, these free persons grant political authority to a centralized political entity—“Leviathan.” And especially importantly, this transfer or granting of power is essentially a one-way transfer of power. Political “sovereignty” now rests with the “Leviathan.”

For Althusius, the “rights of [political] sovereignty” reside not in the magistrate (e.g., the king), but in “the commonwealth or universal association,” in the people themselves. That is, while political authority and power can be invested in a larger and centralized power, that delegation of power is never a transfer of power which can never be retracted. Political “sovereignty” still (even after power is delegated) ultimately remains with the people themselves. Additionally, in a commonwealth there are always a multitude of co-existing and overlapping “political” authorities and associations—city councils, county governments, trade unions, etc. Althusius even dares to look at the twelve tribes of Israel, and ponders what such a disbursement of power might mean for contemporary reflection on the nature of political power and statecraft. We might say that in our time, the “Hobbesian” vision of political authority “won.” Althusius “lost.” And—in one sense—we are all “Hobbesians” now. But perhaps the future of political stability, wisdom, and health might be restored by revisiting the wisdom of Althusius.

9. Samuel Rutherford

We are interested here with Rutherford’s Lex, Rex, (A.D. 1644) subtitled, A Dispute for the Just Prerogative of King and People: Containing the Reasons and Causes of the Most Necessary Defensive Wars of the Kingdom of Scotland, and of Their Expedition for the Aid and Help of Their Dear Brethren of England; in Which Their Innocency is Asserted, and a Full Answer is Given to a Seditions Pamphlet, Entitled “Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas,” or The Sacred and Royal Prerogative of Christian Kings. Rutherford was Scottish and participated in the Westminster Assembly. In his Lex, Rex, Rutherford (A.D. 1600–61) spoke of “two kingdoms,” but made something very clear: the king himself is not the law, but is subject to the law. The king has a duty to obey the law, and is obligated to the people themselves, who have granted or delegated power to, the king. Rutherford could write that power is “unlimited in the people, and bounded and limited in the king, and so less in the king than in the people.”^[9] We see themes that also appeared in Althusius’ Politica. Christian citizens have the duty to resist the magistrate when the magistrate has become tyrannical. We have here another brick in the wall of Protestant resistance theory. Also, since it is the people who grant the magistrate his power, the people have the authority to withdraw that power. Rutherford is arguing a full-throttled rejection of, and theological challenge to the “divine right of kings.” While Romans 13 must be a part of any biblical theology of the nature of political power and authority, the whole counsel of God must be worked through and applied. Rutherford was trying to offer just that sort of perspective.

9. Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex (Harrisonburg, V: Sprinkle Publications, 1980), 82; quoted in Douglas F. Kelly, The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World: The Influence of Calvin on Five Governments from the 16^th Through 18^th Centuries (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992), 68.

10. Oliver O’Donovan (1945–)

Finally, we turn to perhaps the most important twentieth (and now twenty-first) century Protestant political theorist, Oliver O’Donovan. O’Donovan has taught at a number of universities, including Oxford, Edinburgh, and the University of Toronto. While he has written many works, we are especially interested in his The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (1996). Interestingly, O’Donovan notes that while he set out to “discover the kingship of Christ,” he has been accused of writing a “defence of Christendom.”^[10] This is a dense work, and O’Donovan wrote that while The Desire of the Nations was something of a “political theology,” he hoped to follow-up with a “political ethics” (at least partially, or largely realized in his subsequent The Ways of Judgement and his three-volume Ethics as Theology, and his The Disappearance of Ethics).

10. Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), ix.

O’Donovan writes the following in The Desire of the Nations: “Theology needs more than scattered political images; it needs a full political conceptuality. And politics, for its part, needs a theological conceptuality. The two are concerned with the one history that finds its goal in Christ, ‘the desire of the nations.’”^[11] “Political theology” is one sense inescapable: “theology is political simply by responding to the dynamics of its own proper themes.”^[12] O’Donovan makes it clear that the faithful and thoughtful Christian cannot—if they are faithful—endlessly postpone or evade the question of “political theology.” He writes:

11. O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations, 2.

12. O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations, 3.

Political theology tries to recover faith in God, Christ and salvation what scepticism surrendered to mechanistic society. Theology must be political if it is to be evangelical. Rule out the political questions and you cut short the proclamation of God’s saving power; you leave people enslaved where they ought to be set free from sin—their own sin and others.^[13]

13. O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations, 3.

While dense, this work is necessary reading for contemporary persons wanting to engage one of the most important Christian political theologians of our era.

Conclusion

To keep this list to ten I am conscious of passing over a number of persons who could have been considered. We could have looked at John Knox (A.D. 1505–1572) and his “The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women,” or his “The Appellation of John Knox from the cruel and the most unjust sentence pronounced against him by the false bishops and clergy of Scotland to the nobility and estates of Scotland,” or his “Letter To His Beloved Brethren the Community of Scotland.” When we looked at Rutherford, we could also have considered George Buchanan’s De Jure Regni (1579). Moving to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, one perhaps glaring omission is Abraham Kuyper (A.D. 1837–1920), whose notion of “sphere sovereignty” has resonated so significantly with Evangelicals during and since his time.

We admit to having passed over much of Catholic thought, too. One could advantageously turn to the Roman Catholic Catechism to begin to grasp the insights of Roman Catholic social theory and political understanding. Going further back, one could turn to Pope Boniface VIII’s papal bull, Unam Sanctam (1302), which offers a Catholic version of a “two-swords” understanding.

As far as overviews, I was immensely helped as a younger man by David Hall’s Savior or Servant: Putting Government in Its Place (republished in 2022). And with particular attention to liberty in the Calvinist tradition, I was also helped by Douglas F. Kelly, The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World: The Influence of Calvin on Five Governments from the 16^th Through the 18^th Centuries (P&R, 1992). Indeed, of the writing (and reading!) of books there is no end, but attention to an immense literature dealing with questions of political power and authority, and how Christians can most wisely think (and act) in terms of these issues, is an important task. And with this list in hand, the budding political theologian is now ready to do the reading. Tolle Lege.

Twenty-seven years ago, having not yet finished my dissertation, I was assigned to teach a course on “Biblical Theology” for the first time. As I remember, there was no existing syllabus when I took over the class. So, in the summer before the course began I started putting together a syllabus and reading list and sketching out this new course. At the time—1998—only a few initial volumes in D.A. Carson’s “New Studies in Biblical Theology” series (IVP) had been published. And the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (IVP, 2000) was still a few years away.

But I had stumbled upon that tradition of biblical theology which still nourishes me today—the tradition of Geerhardus Vos. I got to him indirectly, by way of a very fine book by Richard Lints, The Fabric of Theology: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Theology (Eerdmans, 1993). Lints’s book is worth remembering, for a part of Lints’s goal in that book was to show the relationship between systematic theology and biblical theology.

In particular, Lints turned to the work of Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. (an intellectual descendant of Vos), and Gaffin’s work on the relationship between systematic theology and biblical theology. Gaffin had written a seminal essay, “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology,” in 1976.^[3] Gaffin was himself building on the work of John Murray, who also depended on Vos. Of note was Murray’s 1963 article, “Systematic Theology: Second Article.”^[4] And fifteen years before him, Eerdmans released Vos’s Biblical Theology (1948).^[5] This volume, plus Vos’s essay, “The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline” set the direction for Murray, Gaffin, and Lints—as well as Vern Poythress, who addressed many of these issues recently. Following in the tradition of Vos, Murray, and Gaffin, Poythress contributed a taxonomy of ‘biblical theologies’ to the discussion with his 2008 article, “Kinds of Biblical Theology.”^[6]

This is not the place to give a detailed history of every twist and turn in the development of what we generally call “biblical theology” today. But it is important to see how persons like Vos, Murray, Gaffin, and Poythress are central to the field of biblical theology as it has developed in the last roughly 130 years.^[7] Today, we can note the significance and importance of these men in the development of the kind of biblical theology we see in more conservative, and especially Reformed, circles.

This flowering of biblical theology can be seen in the multitude of works of someone like Australian Graeme Goldsworthy. From his According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible (originally published in 1991) to his most recent work, In These Last Days: The Dynamics of Biblical Revelation (2024), he has been joined by numerous scholars at Moore College in Sydney, Australia, to continue a tradition of Biblical Theology form a distinctively Reformed position. And the fruit of this biblical theology movement can be especially seen in series like the New Studies in Biblical Theology, which began under the editorship of D. A. Carson and is now led by Benjamin Gladd.^[8]

Most of us who have come of theological age during this renaissance of biblical theology, and have found ourselves attracted to the Vos/Murray/Gaffin/Poythress “school” of biblical theology never would have really seen a contradiction between “systematic theology” and “biblical theology.” I have taught biblical theology for twenty-seven years, and I generally spend a good bit of the first part of the semester working through fundamental questions: What is biblical theology? What is systematic theology? How to do they relate? Are they really different disciplines—or the same fundamental project seen from a different angle?

These questions become all the more interesting, and perhaps perplexing, when we see that the “father” of biblical theology, Geerhardus Vos, also wrote a Reformed dogmatics—somewhat recently translated into English by none other than Richard Gaffin (and published between 2012 and 2014).

I suspect that the discussion between biblical theology and systematic theology is, in one sense, just beginning. I suspect it will be a much longer conversation, and it will take time to continue to think through some very challenging issues. How do we move from the Bible to doctrinal construction? How does the biblical language that speaks of God “hearing,” or “reaching down,” etc., really work? I wonder if in a few thousand years (one-hundred thousand? five-hundred thousand) seminary students will be saying things like: “I have read somewhere that back in 2025 Evangelicals were really thinking through how biblical theology and systematic theology relate.” Some might even scratch their head and wonder why such a discussion even took place. We shall see.

Conclusion

Those two carts I drag into class aren’t just about showing students what books exist—they’re about helping students they’re about helping students locate themselves within a living tradition, so that they can address the present issues they face grounded in the past. The genealogy traced here from Vos through Murray, Gaffin, and Poythress to contemporary scholars like Goldsworthy and the NSBT series reveal that biblical theology, at least in its Reformed expression, has never been a rebellion against systematic theology but a framework for it. And Reformed systematic theology, for that matter, has never been a flight away from the grounding of biblical theology, but a deeper exploration of its realities.

My previous article dealt with the state of biblical theology today—the live debates and controversies surrounding its ongoing use both in the church and the academy. But the best way to address today’s questions is with an awareness of where we’ve been. Anyone seeking to address the debates today would do well to root themselves deeply in the best of sources the tradition has to offer. In this short essay, I’ve sought to provide you with a road map to do exactly that.

The historical trajectory I’ve sketched here—this particular tradition of books and thinkers—represents only one stream in the broader river of biblical-theological studies. But it is the stream that has proven most fruitful and faithful to Scripture, not only for me and my students, but for the church.

So far this month, we at Christ Over All have covered what biblical theology is, its history, why it still matters, how it relates to systematic theology, and how to use it in preaching and apologetics. In a second article this month, I will provide a contextualized bibliography of the most important sources in the development of evangelical biblical theology. But today, my task is different. I want to orient us to the current debates surrounding biblical theology, and chart a path forward.

To grasp the state of biblical theology today requires us to look back a few years. I think it is clear that perhaps one of the most important ways to “get into” the state of biblical theology today is to grasp that there is a long and ongoing discussion about the relation of biblical theology to systematic theology. That discussion is closely related to the question or issue of the resurgent interest in, and advocacy of, “classical theism.” And that issue is closely related, or bound up with, the resurgent interest in Thomas Aquinas, and the call by some Evangelicals to essentially embrace Thomism (or a form of Thomism). We will try and briefly navigate these conceptually overlapping issues.

Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology

There has been a debate or discussion in Evangelical circles for a number of years related to the relationship between biblical theology and systematic theology. I will cursorily summarize three key exchanges and then offer three points of evaluative reflection.

John Frame, Richard A. Muller, and David Wells

First, in the 1990s there was a series of point/counter-point type of exchanges between John Frame, Richard A. Muller, and David Wells. Frame had reviewed Muller’s The Study of Theology: From Biblical Interpretation to Contemporary Formulation (Zondervan, 1991). Muller then responded in the same year in the same journal with “The Study of Theology Revisited: A Response to John Frame.” This generated a response from Frame where he defends something “close to Biblicism.” David Wells responds to Frame’s “biblicism” article in the same issue of Westminster Theological Journal. Muller then responded again, outlining his understanding of the nature of theology. Finally, in the same issue of Westminster Theological Journal, Frame wrote a reply to Muller and David Wells. Briefly put, Frame was arguing for something like “biblicism,” while Muller and Wells were arguing for something like a historically-rooted version of classical theism.

Carl Trueman and Graeme Goldsworthy

Next, a similar debate occurred in 2002 between Carl Trueman and Graeme Goldsworthy. The lines of division are not perhaps the exact same, but they are similar. In his inimitable style, Professor Trueman suggests that the “biblical-theological/redemptive historical movement from Moore College” (i.e., the general conservative Evangelical stream of biblical theology) was a welcome development in 20^th century Evangelical theology. However, we now see a kind of crisis in Evangelical systematic theology, and it seems that the discipline and tools of biblical theology are of only some use in navigating this current crisis.

The triumph of biblical theology may be leading Evangelicals to give short shrift to the historical/dogmatic tradition, which is always in need of explication, and of being applied in new situations. Perhaps the economic emphases in biblical theology are not especially helpful in hammering out the necessary ontological work of systematic theology. Trueman wants to encourage his fellow “rebels” to do more than biblical theology; he wants them to return to the creedal tradition of the church, securing ontology not simply the economy.

In a subsequent issue of Themelios, Graeme Goldsworthy responded. Goldsworthy is happy to grant that there might be a crisis in systematic theology, but he asserts that biblical theology is not to blame for that. Goldsworthy also argues—contra Truman—that biblical theology, properly practiced most certainly does not entail a rejection of ontological considerations. Goldsworthy argues for the “interdependence of ontology and economy.”

In an interesting move, Goldsworthy is quite happy (and eager) to note that biblical theology already presumes a kind of dogmatic starting point—the canon of Scripture as God’s inspired Word. As Goldsworthy notes, “The very idea of doing biblical theology can only proceed from having first formulated dogmatic constructs, however tentatively.” Goldsworthy argues that attention to the economy (especially the Son’s incarnation and earthly life, death, and resurrection) and to reflection upon the economy all drive the process of systematic theology in general and “ontology” in particular.

Goldsworthy approvingly quotes the former Moore Theological College principal, Peter Jensen: “Without biblical theology, doctrine is arbitrary, but without doctrine, biblical theology is ineffective.” Goldsworthy argues, “We cannot formulate dogma without biblical theology, but we cannot do biblical theology without dogmatic constructs.” As Goldsworthy sees it, systematic theology needs biblical theology: “Systematic theology is plainly impossible without biblical theology.” Indeed, “Biblical theology is necessary to prevent this de-historicizing of the gospel by anchoring the person and work of Christ into the continuum of redemptive history that provides the ‘story-line’ of the whole Bible.” And finally, from Goldsworthy, “You will never be a good biblical theologian if you are not also striving to be a good systematic and historical theologian, and you will never be a good systematic theologian if you ignore biblical and historical theology.”

Classical Theism and Thomism

Third, in recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in both “classical theism,” as well as Thomism.^[1] While these realities are currently “hot topics,” they seem to me to have a kind of genealogical connection to what we have just covered. But especially in terms of Thomism and Evangelicals, we might look back a few years to Arvin Vos’s^[2] Aquinas, Calvin, and Contemporary Protestant Thought: A Critique of Protestant Views on the Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Eerdmans, 1985), but more recently David Van Drunen and David Sytsma, Aquinas Among the Protestants (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017). And yet even more recently, we might think of a 2022 issue of Matthew Barrett’s Credo: “What Can Protestants Learn from Thomas Aquinas?” Crossway has even announced a five-volume series, “Thomas Aquinas for Protestants,” under the editorship of Matthew Barrett and Craig Carter.

Equally, we should not ignore the important book by James Dolezal, All That is in God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism (Reformation Heritage Books, 2017). In this volume, Dolezal claims to detect a dangerous trend (“theistic mutualism”) in the ranks of Evangelical theologians. Dolezal defines “theistic mutalism” as “the belief that any meaningful relationship between God and man must involve God in a transaction wherein He receives some determination of being from His creatures.”^[3] Dolezal considers a wide array of Evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers to be “theistic mutualists”: John Frame, Bruce Ware, D.A. Carson, J.I. Packer, Donald Macleod, Ronald Nash, and others. The answer to this challenge is a kind of reappropriation of Thomism. But it is worth noting that Dolezal, like Trueman, sees serious problems (or deficiencies) with a reliance on biblical theology. Dolezal writes, “The contemplative approach to theology has been somewhat obscured in recent history by the rise of biblical theology as a specialized method of theological inquiry.”^[4] And he continues:

These two approaches [“contemplative theology” and “biblical theology”] to Christian doctrine need not be in conflict. I readily affirm that biblical theology has been a profound catalyst for improving and enriching our understanding of the progress of redemption.^[5]

A nice gesture, but then:

But it seems to me that biblical theology, with its unique focus on historical development and progress, is not best suited for the study of theology proper.^[6]

6. Dolezal, All That is in God, xv.

Now we are getting to the heart of the matter:

The reason for this is because God is not a historical individual, and neither does His intrinsic activity undergo development or change. This places God beyond the proper focus of biblical theology.^[7]

7. Dolezal, All That is in God, xv.

Steven Duby has also articulated something similar to what Dolezal is arguing. When he summarizes his book, God in Himself: Scripture, Metaphysics, and the Task of Christian Theology, Duby writes:

This study has attempted to set forth a rationale for the pursuit of theologia in the strict sense of the word: knowledge of God in himself without primary reference to the economy.^[8]

8. Steven J. Duby, God in Himself: Scripture, Metaphysics, and the Task of Christian Theology. Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 293.

Along similar lines, we might point to two recent articles by Michael Allen—a two-part essay, simply entitled, “Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology.”^[9] Peter Nesbitt, in another Christ Over All essay, addresses Allen’s argument, so I will be brief. Allen, who is himself sympathetic to the resurgent interest in “classical theism” (and especially over against his former colleague, John Frame), is suggesting—somewhat like Trueman, that the rise of biblical theology met a need at the time, but it may be time for Evangelicals to shift focus a bit. In short, Evangelicals must always give proper emphasis to the importance and place of Christian dogmatics. There are many helpful points in Allen’s essays, but one must ask the question: Are we really at a place where we need to move on from biblical theology?

9. Part 1 is hyperlinked first, and part 2 is hyperlinked second.

Where Are We At?

I have offered a very brief genealogical sketch to try and illustrate that there is an ongoing discussion (most nicely put) or intramural skirmish (more realistically put) between two very general camps: Those who are more-or-less in the “biblical theology camp,” and those who are more-or-less in the “systematic theology/classical theism” camp. This schema is no doubt too simplistic. I am generalizing to try and get a hold of where we—as Evangelicals—are.

I find myself in an interesting position. I have over a quarter of century teaching theology, and I have taught what is generally called “classical theism.” I have utilized the works of Richard Muller, Paul Helm, Gerald Bray from our own era. I have utilized Frances Turretin and others from the Protestant Scholastics. I have utilized Muller’s superb Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms—both when teaching theology at the seminary level, and when teaching Latin at the undergraduate level. At the same time, I have utilized the works of John Murray, Cornelius Van Til, Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., John Frame, Vern Poythress, and particularly Graeme Goldsworthy. These are my people, and I will always be indebted to them.

There is a lot that might be said about the “state of biblical theology today.” Let me simply offer a few general summative thoughts about the current state of biblical theology today, focusing my attention on the current (but also ongoing and reaching back a number of years) discussion related to the relationship of biblical theology to systematic theology (and classical theism).

1. I hope that biblical theology never loses its purchase and place in Evangelical Theology.

When I read someone like John Murray or Graeme Goldsworthy, the great value is that it appears I am trying to work to theological conclusions that inextricably flow from, and are grounded in, the biblical text. I understand that my systematic theology/classical theism friends will immediately thrust up their hands and say, “Me too!” Granted. My point is this. Having been in this world for over thirty years (if we go back to Ph.D. days), it is completely possible and virtually likely that, depending on one’s context, one could do a Ph.D. in theology at a prestigious school, and do very little meaningful work in the biblical text. One of the reasons I will be eternally grateful for stumbling upon Goldsworthy’s According to Plan many years ago is that I was forced to reckon with the centrality of the Bible. And this leads to my next point.

2. The importance of attending to the structure of the biblical canon should never be abandoned.

Again, my systematic theology and classical theism friends (and they are my friends) are raising their hands. Fair. My point is this, biblical theology nourishes the theological endeavor by keeping front and center that it is not just “abstract” notions with which we are concerned, but that it is necessary to attend to what we have in front of us—the biblical canon. Vos was clear that both biblical theology and systematic theology are “biblical.” The difference is that biblical theology is more of a “line” and systematic theology is more of a “circle.” That is, both biblical theology and systematic theology “transform” the biblical material. They do something with it. As Vos sees it, “In Biblical Theology this principle is one of historical, in Systematic Theology it is one of logical construction.” ^[10] When I hear certain persons warning that attention to the economy is not very helpful for “contemplative theology,” I get nervous. If “true” or “contemplative” theology is not nourished by close attention to attending to what God has done in history, I am concerned.

10. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2014), 25.

3. The best way to relate biblical and systematic theology will continue to be an essential issue.

I do not see this issue going away anytime soon, and it should not. Perhaps those of us who teach in both of these areas can be of help. We shall see. At best these disciplines should be friends. And most persons in this discussion—if I understand them—would essentially agree. For these two disciplines to mutually reinforce each other, Goldsworthy (cheekily?) suggests the imagery of “perichoresis,” a term he borrows from systematic theology. Indeed, it will require theologians who have some expertise or capability in both fields. And I believe the best of Evangelical theology will always be flipping back in one’s Bible to think, re-think, and re-think again whether one’s theological construction or suggestion really flows from the biblical text.

Affirming a Bible-in-hand type of systematic contemplation, I think Michael Allen may have overshot things just a bit. For in one sense, I think the world of biblical theology is just getting started. Let me offer an example.

I have spent some 30 years reading Augustine, writing on Augustine, and teaching Augustine. It would have been quite easy to—early on—simply decide to be an Augustine scholar and not really be too concerned with the minutiae of the actual biblical text. But if one is a true theologian, and is reading Augustine, one must always be asking: “Did Augustine get things right here?” “Why is Augustine one of the patron saints of Roman Catholicism?” “Was Warfield right when he said that the Reformation was the victory of Augustine’s doctrine of grace, while Roman Catholicism is the victory of Augustine’s doctrine of the church?” These questions drive the historical and systematic theologian back to the Bible.

In short: the Evangelical theologian must always be doing the hard work of re-thinking and re-working one’s theological constructions according to Scripture. He or she will always be aware that even the greatest of our theological heroes could be woefully and tragically mistaken. And thus, in keeping with the Reformation, we will semper reformanda—always be reforming.

Conclusion

There is much more that could be said, but I hope biblical theology continues to develop and strive and blossom—and I hope systematic theology does the same. We must practice biblical theology and systematic theology in such a way that these two streams interpenetrate one another again,^[11] so that both continue to grow and thrive. May God bring it about.

11. Again, think Goldsworthy’s image of “perichoresis.”

1. This essay is adapted from my forthcoming book, What is Critical Theory: A Concise Christian Analysis (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Publishers, 2026).

Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. Even if one has never heard of Marcuse or read him, his ideas permeate our culture in significant and deep ways. Marcuse is one of the early members of what is sometimes called the Frankfurt School (the key or founding school of the so-called Critical Theorists), a group Jewish and Marxist intellectuals in Germany, going back to 1920s. Besides Herbert Marcuse, key members of the Frankfurt School would include Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. (The seminal twentieth century philosopher Jürgen Habermas—still living as of early 2025—would eventually join the ranks of the Critical Theorists at the Frankfurt School).

The Frankfurt School sought to explain a central problem: Why had the hoped for Marxist revolution not occurred in Germany like it had occurred in Russia? If World War I (and eventually World War II) had not been enough of a world crisis to spur on the revolution, what would bring about the anticipated and hoped-for revolution? These early Critical Theorists—including Marcuse—began to re-think and re-work their Marxism, and these theorists produced a significant amount of literature in which they considered how Marx and Marxism might have to be reconsidered, adjusted, and even rejected at times, to account for the failure of the revolution to materialize. Other issues were seen to be at stake—especially issues of culture, religion, and the family. Man might not be simply a material and economic creature after all (as Marxism seemed to presume). Perhaps Marx had not seen as far and wide as he needed to see.

One of the most important of the Critical Theorists was Herbert Marcuse, and he offered his own understanding of the world and what had gone wrong with things. He had, in a sense, his own understanding of “sin.” I want to suggest that one way of interpreting the Critical Theorists is that they have their own understanding (or “doctrine”) of:

(1) Creation or the nature of reality (their own metaphysic)

(2) Sin

(3) Redemption, eschatology, and history

Here, let us briefly look at the thought of Marcuse, keeping in mind that Marcuse has, in a sense, his own understanding of “sin” (i.e., what has gone wrong with the world).

Herbert Marcuse and the Reality of “Sin”

For Marcuse, one of the marks of the “one-dimensional” society is that man has ceased (or has partially ceased) to realize his own great desire for full and free sexual expression. In short, the technological society has so shaped man that he has, in a sense, forgotten his true sexual desires and impulses (or has partially done so). Marcuse contrasts the “Pleasure Principle” (i.e., we all really desire to maximize unfettered sexual pleasure) with the “Reality Principle” (i.e., to have society and order there must be a restraint on such unfettered sexual desire). But now, in our technological, one-dimensional society, the “Reality Principle no longer seems to require a sweeping and painful transformation [i.e., muting, suppressing] of instinctual needs [the Pleasure Principle].” Indeed: “The individual must adapt himself to a world which does not seem to demand the denial of his innermost needs—a world which is not essentially hostile.”[2] That is: we have become so conditioned by technological society, by our “one-dimensional” culture, that we no longer (basically) have a sense that our deepest (i.e., sexual) needs are not being expressed and fulfilled and enjoyed.

2. Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston:  Beacon Press, 1964), 74.

For Marcuse, our dilemma is that we have forgotten who we really are and what we really want. Thus, Marcuse coins the phrase “institutionalized desublimation.” “Institutionalized” is fairly straightforward: amidst our technological society, our one-dimensional culture so works that we forget our deeper and truer self (the one that wants—rightly—unfettered sexual pleasure). By “desublimation” Marcuse means we can experience a limited amount and extent of sexual pleasure, and this pleasure is encouraged by our technological and capitalistic society. But this partial fulfillment of our sexual pleasure can blind us to the fact that we are not experiencing the full sexual freedom that we truly desire.[3] Marcuse puts it this way:

3. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 75-76.

This liberation of sexuality (and aggressiveness) [i.e., the kind of liberation encouraged by technological and capitalistic society] frees the instinctual drives from much of the unhappiness and discontent that elucidate the repressive power of the established universe of satisfaction.[4]

4. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 76.

For Marcuse this “desublimation” may lessen a person’s desire to seek full liberation, and thus the person who experiences “desublimation” may be almost unconsciously submitting to a “one dimensional” technological and capitalistic culture.

What Turning from Sin Looks Like for Marcuse

One of Marcuse’ key books is his 1955 Eros and Civilization, subtitled, A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud.[5] His thesis in Eros and Civilization is quite clear: every effort must be made to liberate persons from anything that will inhibit a proper kind of erotic pleasure. Marcuse speaks positively of “Polymorphous sexuality,” and writes: “the new direction of progress would depend completely on the opportunity to activate repressed or arrested organic, biological needs: to make the human body an instrument of pleasure rather than labor.”[6] In short, Marcuse is arguing that the forces and reality of “civilization” mitigate against erotic satisfaction. He writes: “the erotic energy of the Life Instincts cannot be freed under the dehumanizing conditions of profitable affluence.”[7]

Marcuse takes for granted “Freud’s proposition that civilization is based on the permanent subjugation of the human instincts . . .”[8] Indeed: “Free gratification of man’s instinctual needs is incompatible with civilized society: renunciation and delay in satisfaction are the prerequisites of progress.”[9] And again: “The methodological sacrifice of libido, its rigidly enforced deflection to socially useful activities and expressions, is culture.”[10] Hence, culture is the culprit, for culture by its very existence hampers or impedes the “free gratification of man’s instinctual needs.”[11]

Marcuse summarizes Freud’s Pleasure Principle and Reality Principle as being in fundamental conflict.[12] Like other Critical Theorists, “society” or “civilization” (the Reality Principle) mitigates against true human freedom (the Pleasure Principle). As Marcuse writes: “The replacement of the pleasure principle by the reality principle is the great traumatic event in the development of man . . .”[13]

In summarizing Freud, Marcuse does not hesitate to speak in architectonic terms of this struggle between the “Pleasure Principle” and the “Reality Principle.” As Marcuse writes: “Freud considers the ‘primordial struggle for existence’ as ‘eternal’ and therefore believes that the pleasure principle and the reality principle are ‘eternally’ antagonistic.” In short, we have something like an older metaphysical and moral dualism. We have something like the old Manichean dualism between good and evil, but transposed into different categories: the “eternal” struggle between (1) the provenance of true freedom, which is sexual—the Pleasure Principle, and (2) that which constrains and leads to repression of one’s desire—the Reality Principle.

Not only is “civilization” in general hostile to human well-being. Work in particular is hostile to human well-being—at least “non-libidinal” work.  That is, work in itself is essentially hostile to true pleasure. Marcuse can write, “Labor time, which is the largest part of the individual’s life time, is painful time, for alienated labor is absence of gratification, negation of the pleasure principle.”[14]

14. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 45.

This can be confusing. What Marcuse is getting at (at least in his own time, this book was written in 1955) is that work in the West is generally “alienated” from one’s deepest desire for pleasure. It is non “libidinal” work—work disconnected from the “pleasure principle” (which again is primarily sexual). In order to have a functioning society, the “reality principle” must dominate over the “pleasure principle.” So, in general, work can be seen as a part of the “reality principle”—a principle or realm in fundamental conflict with the “pleasure principle.” So, as Marcuse sees it, as far as Freud worked things out, he was fundamentally right—at least it seems. What Marcuse does—here moving past Freud—is suggest that there is a way for the pleasure principle to be dominant. Or to put it more subtly, there is a way for every aspect of human life to be “libidinal,” to become sexualized. That is: a new reality principle must, and can, be forged.

Marcuse strikingly gives voice to Freud’s understanding of sexual desire, and how his understanding relates to more traditional understandings of sexuality. As Marcuse summarizes Freud, before civilization comes into being and clashes with the deepest, unfettered sex instinct, “sexuality is by nature ‘polymorphous-perverse’.”[15] As society (the “reality principle”) comes to dominate, society condemns or marginalizes “as perversions practically all its [i.e., the sex instinct’s] manifestations which do not serve or prepare for the procreative function.”[16] As Freud saw things, sexual experience apart from that which is directed toward procreation promises more pleasure than sexual relations directed to procreation. What is the source of such a promise of increased sexual bliss promised by such perversions?: “their rejection of the procreative sex act.”[17] What Marcuse says next is striking:

The perversions thus express rebellion against the subjugation of sexuality under the order of procreation, and against the institutions which guarantee this order.[18]

18. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 49.

In short, these various sexual perversions are rebelling against the notion that sexuality has as a key goal the procreation of children, and these same perversions are in rebellion against the institutions which encourage such a traditional sexuality: and certainly the key institutions in mind here must be the traditional family as well as traditional religious organizations (including the church).

Marcuse continues:

Psychoanalytic theory sees in the practices that exclude or prevent procreation an opposition against continuing the chain of reproduction and thereby paternal domination—an attempt to prevent the “reappearance of the father.[19]

19. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 49.

In short, as Marcuse understands Freud (and Marcuse seems to approve of Freud at this point), the various sexual practices that “exclude” or “prevent” procreation are a way of resisting, stopping, halting “paternal domination,” or what in more recent decades would simply be called “the patriarchy.”[20] It is important not to miss this. For Marcuse, the link between (1) sexual pleasure and (2) procreation is a link which should be challenged, or rejected, or at least mitigated. The block quote just above is central. Marcuse sees in “the practices that exclude or prevent procreation” a helpful and necessary reality. These “practices”—practices that “exclude or prevent procreation”—are good and right practices that can help to resist patriarchy or “paternal domination.”

20. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 49.

This kind of thinking has borne fruit even today. There was a notable anecdote at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in the stream of Marcuse’s philosophy: a mobile clinic offering free abortion and free vasectomies. I think it is highly unlikely that the organizers of this initiative were sitting around reading either Eros and Civilization or One-Dimensional Man. But, this particular “practice”—a mobile clinic offering free abortions and free vasectomies—can rightly be interpreted as conceptually linked to, and ideologically quite consistent with, the voice and counsel of Herbert Marcuse.

Here again we see something of the “gnostic” tendency of Critical Theory. It is not that civilization can be destructive, or might do harm, or will possibly at times lead to conflict. Rather, civilization—in its essence—is destructive, harmful, or full of conflict. As Marcuse writes: “the very progress of civilization leads to the release of increasingly destructive forces.”[21] The Christian can most certainly say that after the fall, civilization will indeed be filled with destruction, harm, and conflict. But the Critical Theorists appear to inject such destruction, harm, and conflict, into the very essence and nature of things. Indeed, as Freud himself wrote, his intention in Civilization and Its Discontents is as follows:

21. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 54.

to represent the sense of guilt as the most important problem in the development of civilization and to show that the price we pay for our advance in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt.[22]

22. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, translated and edited by James Strachey (New York and London:  W.W. Norton & Company, 1961), 97. There are numerous editions of this work. This quote comes from the first page of chapter eight, where Freud is summarizing the entire work.

It is also important to keep in mind that with Marcuse, the development of the traditional family is a part of the problem. Thus, “the reduction of Eros to procreative-monogamic sexuality [i.e., traditional marriage between one man and one woman] . . . is consummated only when the individual has become a subject-object of labor in the apparatus of his society . . .”[23]

23. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 90.

In an intriguing way, Marcuse has his own version of a creation and fall motif. As Marcuse summarizes Freud, once upon a time there was a Camelot. In Marcuse’s “pre-fall” world the “pleasure principle” and the “reality principle” co-existed peacefully. What disrupted this peaceful co-existence?: civilization. Thus, as Marcuse works this out, civilization “can develop only through the destruction of the subhistorical unity between pleasure principle and reality principle.”[24] That is: as man forged civilization, this happy co-existence between the pleasure principle and the reality principle could no longer remain. But Marcuse thinks Freud came up short in thinking through possibilities for a better future. Freud could have done better than he did, as Marcuse sees it. What Marcuse wants to do is to move beyond what Freud concluded, but to do so by being consistent with Freud himself. In short: Marcuse believed that it was possible to forge a new reality principle, in which “repression” would be unnecessary. This “new reality principle” is essentially Marcuse’s redemptive story.

24. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, 147.

Conclusion

If we get the doctrine of sin wrong, the rest of our worldview falls apart. Because Herbert Marcuse understands the human problem (“sin”) as the institutionalized repression of sexual desire, his version of “redemption” entails a fundamental challenge, not only to civilization, but to each and every family. As our culture drifts farther away from the biblical worldview, our churches must redouble our commitment to teaching and preaching on sin: sin is rebellion against God, violation of his law, and breach of covenant—all driven by the exaltation of the self over against God. It is the exchange of God’s truth for a lie, and the worship of the creature rather than the creator. Let us never exchange the bible’s view of sin for weak, man-centered counterfeits. If we do, the rest of our theology will soon follow.

1. Henri Blocher, Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle, NSBT 5 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997). Note: the enumeration of these footnotes differs from those used in the full chapter, since this is an abridged version and does not include the same number of notes.

In this chapter I will aim to get at the heart of the theological issue which separated Augustine and Pelagius (and the Pelagians), especially on the question of original sin. Attempting to understand Augustine—in particular, to grasp how, in some ways, his thought developed over time; and how in other ways, it remained constant over time—requires a deep immersion in several of his writings, including more than a couple dozen works spanning from near the beginning of his ministry up until the time of his death. In this chapter we will look at a number of Augustine’s works,^[2] as well as the key works of Pelagius and the Pelagians. I will proceed along the following lines: First, I will offer some preliminary thoughts to orient our study and draw attention to the text in Confessions that appears to have triggered Pelagius’s concerns. Second, I will explore the thought of Pelagius in relation to Adam, sin, and Adam’s relationship to the rest of humanity. Third, I will proceed to explore the heart of Augustine’s concerns with, and responses to, Pelagius and the Pelagians. Fourth, I will offer some theological reflections on the significance of Pelagianism and why it is necessary to deal forthrightly with these lines of thought today. This survey of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin has covered a dozen or so works by the Bishop of Hippo, written over some 35 years from around 396 to his death in 430. Before offering a few theological reflections and conclusions, it may be helpful to briefly summarize what we have learned thus far.

2. Unless otherwise noted I will be utilizing the New City Press translation of Augustine’s works. When I have chosen to offer my own translation of Augustine, I will make this clear. Additionally, I will be using English titles for Augustine’s works, and will generally use the titles found in the opening pages of Allan Fitzgerald, ed., Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd mans, 1999), xxxv–il.

Origins of the Pelagian Controversy

Pelagius’s opposition to Augustine’s teaching was triggered by a snippet he heard from the African doctor’s book of personal confessions. In his Confessions Augustine had written,

On your exceedingly great mercy rests all my hope. Give what you command, and then command whatever you will. You order us to practice continence… O Love, ever burning, never extinguished, O Charity, my God, set me on fire! You command continence: give what you command, and then command whatever you will.^[3]

3. Augustine, Confessions X.29.40, emphasis added.

It was Augustine’s maxim, “Give what you command, and then command whatever you will,” that gravely concerned Pelagius. For him, Augustine seemed to be saying that the ability to obey God must somehow come from God. That is, what animated (and agitated) Pelagius, was that Augustine appeared to be saying that if a sinner were to be able to obey God’s commands, God himself must be somehow intricately related to human obedience. This is, of course, exactly what Augustine would proceed to argue throughout a lifetime of writing. Indeed, in his anti-Pelagian writings (including his writings against the so-called “semi-Pelagians”) Augustine speaks clearly, and at length, about the priority of God’s grace, the efficacy of God’s grace, and the life-transforming nature of God’s grace.

Given Pelagius’s commitment to the freedom of the will, in which a person could choose or not choose how to act, Augustine’s position was unacceptable. Behind Pelagius’s opposition lay commendable motives. As B. R. Rees comments,

He was at heart a moral reformer who, as he became familiar with Christian society in Rome at the turn of the fourth century, became also more and more critical of its moral standards and responded to the general laxity and extravagance he saw around him by preaching the need for simple and virtuous living based on man’s freedom to choose for himself what he would, and would not, do.^[4]

4. Rees, Pelagius: Life and Letters, 1:3.

For Pelagius, to wrest the responsibility from man and place it in God’s hands would lead only to more licentious living. That is, Pelagius thought Augustine’s notion that God must “grant” the ability to obey the Lord in effect was a denial of the importance of human agency in human obedience. Throughout his literary corpus Augustine circles back to this issue repeatedly (especially in his anti-Pelagian writings). In particular, Augustine often turns to key texts like Philippians 2:12–13 and Ezekiel 36:26–27 to show that God “granting” the ability to obey the Lord does not diminish human agency in obedience, but rather grounds human obedience.

Pelagius (and fellow Pelagians) would criticize Augustine’s position in print, leading to an astonishing literary output on Augustine’s part. Interestingly, given the nature of literary exchange at the time, literary combatants would often “write past” one another, as their writings traveled from one interlocutor to the other. Augustine’s writing and thinking were honed as he responded to Pelagius and the Pelagian position, although it is probably correct to say that the essential seeds of his own position were present in 396.^[5]

5. Editor’s note: 396 is the date of Augustine’s writing to Simplicanus. Green provides extended treatment this source in the original chapter, which is not included in Christ Over All’s abridgement.

The Thought of Pelagius

We turn now to the writings of Pelagius himself, starting with his commentary on Romans, to understand the main contours of his thought on original sin.

Editor’s note: In the full version of this chapter, Dr. Green analyzes four of Pelagius’ books. Here, we will look at two of those, along with the summary of Pelagius’ views from the Council of Carthage (411/412).

Pelagius’s Commentary on Romans

On the crucial text of Romans 5:12, Pelagius argues that when Paul wrote, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin,” he meant that sin entered the world “by example or by pattern.”^[6] That is, Adam was an “example” or a “pattern,” but this does not mean that we are truly and really bound up with Adam’s transgression. Pelagius makes this clear when he comments on the latter part of the verse: “and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Pelagius writes, “As long as they sin the same way, they likewise die.” Strikingly, Pelagius even says, “For death did not pass on to Abraham and Isaac.”^[7]

Pelagius makes an interesting move at Romans 5:15: “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.” Pelagius interprets the verse to mean, “Righteousness had more power in bringing to life than sin in putting to death, because Adam killed only himself and his own descendants, but Christ freed both those who at that time were in the body and the following generations.”^[8] In other words, rather than speak in asymmetrical terms in order to highlight and magnify the superabundant and glorious and majestic nature of God’s grace, Pelagius does the opposite. He highlights the asymmetrical nature of the passage by downplaying the destructive and universal nature of Adam’s trespass. That is to say, Pelagius (rightly) picks up on Paul’s emphasis on the asymmetrical relationship of (1) Christ’s act of obedience—and accompanying life/righteousness to (2) Adam’s act of disobedience—and its consequence of death, corruption, and condemnation. But Pelagius uses the asymmetry to draw attention to the “lesser” nature of Adam’s transgression: Adam “killed only himself and his own [immediate] descendants,” but not the rest of the human race. Adam “became only the model for transgression” for the human race.^[9] Hence, Pelagius argues, “Just as by example of Adam’s disobedience many sinned, so also many are justified by Christ’s obedience.”^[10]

Pelagius’s commentary on Romans reveals a clear articulation of the tenets of classical Pelagianism, especially that of Pelagius’s denial that Adam’s progeny is in any meaningful way bound up with Adam’s transgression. In short, for Pelagius, Adam’s sin serves simply as an example for those persons who follow Adam.

Pelagius’s Little Book of Faith

Around 417, Pelagius wrote a letter to Pope Innocent I, and included a statement of faith with it, which he called Little Book of Faith. On the whole, the statement is orthodox: Pelagius affirms the Trinity, condemns Arius and Apollinaris, and adheres to the full humanity and deity of Christ. However, he is critical of Augustine at points, the first of which occurs in section.^[11] Pelagius pushes back against the notion in Augustine’s Confessions that God is required to enable man toward obedience; he engages again the maxim that triggered the controversy in the first place: “Give what you command, and then command whatever you will.” In response, Pelagius writes,

11. Augustine, Confessions X.29.40. As previously noted, the larger context in Augustine is, “You command continence: give what you command, and then command whatever you will.”

We do also abhor the blasphemy of those who say that any impossible thing is commanded to man by God; or that the commandments of God cannot be performed by any one man, but that by all men taken together they may.^[12]

12. Pelagius, Confession of Faith, 2.

In section 25, Pelagius has Augustine in view again when he writes,

Free will we do so own, as to say that we always stand in need of God’s help; and that as well they are in an error who say with Manichaeus that a man cannot avoid sin, as they who affirm with Jovinian that a man cannot sin; for both of these take away the freedom of the will. But we say that a man always is in a state that he may sin, or may not sin, so as to own ourselves always to be of a free will.^[13]

13. Pelagius, Confession of Faith, 25.

The term “free will” is of course contested in Christian history. Some, like Augustine himself, can use the term, but define it in his own way—such that indeed man has “free will,” but that man (especially in his unregenerate state) is “free” to obey a will which is inextricably bound up with sinful desires. Pelagius can sound almost “Augustinian” when he says that “we always stand in need of God’s help.” But this statement must be interpreted in light of the context. Especially important is the end of this quotation, where Pelagius affirms, it seems, what is generally called a “libertarian” view of free will: “a man always is in a state that he may sin, or may not sin, so as to own ourselves always to be of a free will.” In short, “free will” really seems to mean for Pelagius that our act of the will (again, especially in an unregenerate state) is in no meaningful way connected to, hampered by, or bound up with a deep and intractable sin problem.

On the Deeds of Pelagius

Having surveyed a number of works from Pelagius, we turn now to the results of the Council of Carthage (411/412). The council offered a helpful seven-point summary of the views of one of the key Pelagians—Caelestius, a fourth-century, contemporary follower of Pelagius and one of the key proponents of his views. A certain Paulinus saw seven key errors in Caelestius, which were debated at the Council of Carthage. Augustine lists them in his On the Deeds of Pelagius:^[14]

14. Augustine, On the Deeds of Pelagius 11.23; see also Augustine, On the Grace of Christ, and Original Sin I.3and 4. Augustine was not at this council, and so is relying on testimony.

1. “Adam was created mortal so that he would die whether he sinned or did not sin.”
2. “The sin of Adam harmed him alone and not the human race.”
3. “The law leads to the kingdom just as the gospel does.”
4. “Before the coming of Christ there were human beings without sin.”
5. “Newly born infants are in the same state in which Adam was before his transgression.”
6. “The whole human race does not die through the death or transgression of Adam.”
7. “. . . nor does the whole human race rise through the resurrection of Christ.”

These seven axioms or principles reveal the inner logic and nature of Pelagianism.

Summary

It is perhaps worth summarizing some of the key tenets of Pelagius and the Pelagians before moving to Augustine’s response. First, Pelagius is quite clear that persons subsequent to Adam (i.e., Adam’s descendants) follow Adam by imitation rather than by propagation. This is central to understanding Pelagius: there is no real connection to Adam, in the sense that Adam’s act of disobedience fundamentally shapes or marks those who follow him.

Second, Pelagius tends to emphasize that there is a fundamental continuity between pre-fall man (Adam before the fall) and post-fall man (all of Adam’s descendants). To grasp this is to begin truly to understand Pelagius’s theology and mindset. Pelagius can look at pre-fall man and post-fall man and see a real and fundamental continuity. There is no fundamental rupture as one moves from the pre-fall era of history to the post-fall era of history.

Third, Pelagius has a lower view of what man was before the fall. This is tied to the previous point. Pelagius sees all man’s current failures and sins as not fundamentally a rupture in man. That is, since there is not a pre-fall realm from which Adam tragically fell—and with Adam, his progeny—there is in a sense a “lower” view of man in his very nature. Not to get too far ahead of things, but one might say that with Augustine there is a grandeur and a magnificence of man that is simply absent in Pelagius. When man—in the present—sins, it is as if Pelagius believes, “Well, this is simply what man does. Sometimes he obeys, sometimes he disobeys.”

Fourth, Pelagius, in his attempt to secure man’s freedom or liberty, perhaps constructs his anthropology so as actually to render incomprehensible a meaningful understanding of human freedom and nature. On this point, B. B. Warfield makes a penetrating observation, suggesting that one of Pelagius’ chief errors was his emphasis on

1. each individual act of man over against, or at the expense of,
2. man’s character.

As Warfield writes, “[Pelagius] looked upon freedom in its form only, and not in its matter.”^[15] Likewise, with Pelagius, “the will was isolated from its acts, and the acts from each other, and all organic connection or continuity of life was not only overlooked but denied.”^[16]

Fifth, Pelagius’s way of reading the old covenant and new covenant (only briefly touched on here) reveals a fundamental hermeneutical weakness. It appears that there was virtually no sense of a historical-redemptive reading of Scripture in Pelagius. The great biblical tensions of the already–not yet, and of the law’s holiness, righteousness, and goodness, combined with its pedagogical role which culminates in Christ, the end of the law, are strangely missing in Pelagius. The idea that the old covenant was good, but had a fading glory, while the new covenant is truly better, with an unfading glory, seems to have no purchase in Pelagius’s theologizing.

Augustine’s Response to Pelagius and Pelagianism

Editor’s note: In the full version of this chapter, Dr. Green analyzes around a dozen of Augustine’s works in which he responds to Pelagius. Here, we will look at three of those.

The Punishment and Forgiveness of Sins and the Baptism of Little Ones

Augustine wrote this volume in 412. It consists of an Introduction plus three “books” (essentially modern-day chapters). The work was a response to a certain Marcellinus, who had written to Augustine with questions about Pelagianism. One of the ways in which Augustine attempts to critique Pelagius and the Pelagians is by a discussion of infant baptism, and the Pelagian position on original sin in relationship to infant baptism. Augustine returns to this theme of infant baptism at a number of points in his writings. There are three key lines of (Pelagian) argument to which Augustine responds.^[17]

17. These three are found at the beginning of Book III of The Punishment and Forgiveness of Sins and the Baptism of Little Ones, the first and second in 1.1 and the third in 2.2.

First Line of (Pelagian) Argument: Adam’s Death Was by Necessity of Nature.

The Pelagians essentially argued that death is a natural reality, and that Adam would have died whether he sinned or not.^[18] In contrast, for Augustine, death enters the world through the sin of Adam, and is not ultimately a “natural” reality. Augustine argues that if Adam had not sinned but had continued to obey the Lord, then he would have been eventually translated into an elevated existence, where temptation to sin would no longer exist and where death would not exist. Augustine does clarify that Adam could have been mortal by nature, but that does not mean that death is by nature. As he writes, “the body could be mortal without being destined to die, before being changed into that state of incorruption which is promised to the saints at the resurrection.”^[19]

Second Line of (Pelagian) Argument: There Are in This Life Those Who Have No Sin

In Book II Augustine addresses the second of the three Pelagian arguments. He states the key question as follows: “Is there anyone now living, or has anyone ever lived, or will anyone ever live in this world without any sin whatever?”^[20] In response, Augustine points to the Lord’s Prayer and the line “lead us not into temptation,” which, he argues, would make little sense if combating sin was not a significantly challenging and difficult issue.^[21]

Third Line of (Pelagian) Argument: Another Way to Deny the Transmission of Sin

In Book III of The Punishment and Forgiveness of Sins and the Baptism of Little Ones Augustine summarizes and responds to a third significant argument of Pelagius, summarized in his Romans commentary.^[22] “They say ‘If the sin of Adam did harm even to those who are not sinners, then the righteousness of Christ also benefits those who are not believers, because he says that human beings are saved through the one man in a similar way and in fact to a greater extent than they perished through the other.’”^[23] The Pelagian argument—against original sin being in any way passed on to Adam’s descendants—appears to be as follows: Since we know that Christ’s act of obedience does not (at least ultimately) benefit all persons (i.e., those who are not believers), we have to say that Adam’s sin does not affect all persons.^[24] In response, Augustine turns to both Scripture and two key early Christian leaders—Cyprian and Jerome—to try and show that Scripture and the historical Christian church have consistently taught the truth of original sin. There is, of course, Romans 5: sin entered the world through one man. But interestingly, Augustine is quite happy to say that even if one might contest the exact meaning of Romans 5, Scripture as a whole consistently teaches the universal sinfulness of man.^[25]

Augustine on Nature and Grace

Augustine’s Nature and Grace (415) was written to answer certain questions posed by some persons perplexed by the thought of Pelagius. In it, Augustine seems to respond to Pelagius’s work Nature, which had been given to him by two former followers of Pelagius, men by the names of Timasius and James.^[26] It appears that, upon reading Pelagius’s Nature, Augustine shifts his stance significantly regarding Pelagius: from (1) criticizing a mistaken brother in the Lord, to (2) criticizing someone who was opposing the very gospel of Christ.^[27] Looking back at this work, Augustine wrote in his Retractations,

There also came into my hands at that time a book of Pelagius in which he defended human nature, with as much argumentation as he could, in opposition to the grace of God by which the sinner is justified and by which we are Christians. I, therefore, called the book by which I answered him, Nature and Grace. In it I did not defend grace in opposition to nature, but the grace by which nature is set free and ruled.^[28]

28. Augustine, Retractations II.68.42 (on Nature and Grace). I use here the common English translation “Retractations” for the Latin “Retractationes.” The Latin title “Retractationes” can be something of a “false friend” when translated. In English, it does not really mean “retractions.” It probably means something like “revisions” or “reconsiderations”—and some English translations use one of those latter terms. I use the older translation “retractations” simply because of its historic, common usage.

It would be hard to find a better summary of at least a strand of Augustine’s understanding of grace, than this last line: “In it I did not defend grace in opposition to nature, but the grace by which nature is set free and ruled.” Pelagius had written an intriguing (if nefariously clever) work entitled Nature, in which he wrote along the following lines: (1) God by grace creates nature; (2) hence, nature is inherently “graced”; (3) thus, when one—out of one’s own “nature”—comes to saving faith, or obeys the Lord, one does so by “grace.” Augustine notes more than once that it took a while for him to grasp exactly what Pelagius was doing. But Augustine eventually came to see that what Pelagius was doing, in terms of grace, was thoroughly different from what he read in Scripture. One of the literary results of coming to terms with Pelagius’s thought was Nature and Grace. This final line by Augustine encapsulates a precious Augustinian insight: while grace need not be viewed in “opposition” to nature, yet it is the case that grace is needed to “set free” nature and to “rule” nature.

As noted above, a key question in the debate is whether there are any who have never sinned.^[29] Augustine summarizes Pelagius (not mentioned by name) as follows: the Pelagian notion is that human nature is “capable by itself of fulfilling the law and attaining perfect righteousness.”^[30] But, if this is really possible, Augustine replies, Christ died in vain.^[31] He goes on to argue, “But if Christ has not died in vain, then the whole of human nature can be justified and redeemed from the perfectly just anger of God, that is, from punishment, in no other way than by faith and the mystery of Christ’s blood.”^[32]

Pelagius’s argument was based on the following:

1. It is God by his grace who has created all things, including human nature.
2. Man, by nature, can obey the Lord and fulfill God’s commands.
3. Since man’s nature is provided by God’s grace, man can come to saving faith, or obey God with the “help” of God’s grace.

Augustine finds (at least) two things questionable in Pelagius’s argument:

1. First, Pelagius ignores the distinction between pre-fall man and post-fall man (and a big part of Augustine’s subsequent response is to highlight that after the fall we all start with wounded natures in need of healing). That is, for Pelagius, post-fall man has all the powers and abilities that pre-fall man had. Indeed, the fall did not bring about any change in man’s fundamental situation.^[33]
2. Second, Pelagius seems to argue that man at present needs no additional help or grace from God if he is going to obey God, which sounds essentially like saying that man really does not need help or grace if he is going to obey God.

33. The importance of the distinction between pre-fall man and post-fall man is hard to overestimate. For Augustine, something radical happened with Adam’s transgression, and Adam’s act truly or really affected both Adam and his progeny. For Pelagius, since Adam’s transgression has no real effect on Adam’s progeny, there is no real distinction between pre-fall man and post-fall man. This distinction is largely in terms of moral or ethical state and ability, rather than in terms of metaphysics or ontology. That is, both pre-fall man and post-fall man are human, and both bear the image of God (i.e., at the metaphysical or ontological level). However, there is a chasm between pre-fall man and post-fall man in terms of moral or ethical state and ability.

Augustine’s response is to say that,

1. There is a significant difference between pre-fall and post-fall man in regard to his “nature.” Pre-fall man is innocent; post-fall man is corrupt and guilty.
2. Even apart from this pre-fall/post-fall distinction, it is inadequate to say that since our created nature comes from God, somehow this “counts” as God “helping” us to live a sinless life:^[34] “He has attributed the ability not to sin to God’s grace, precisely because God is the author of the nature in which he claims that the ability not to sin is inseparably implanted.”^[35]

Augustine’s assessment is that Pelagius needs to admit that we need a savior. That is, we need a savior from outside of us to rescue us. We need something more than simply the “grace” given in nature to deliver us from the problem of sin.

The City of God

In his classic work The City of God (426) Augustine treats the question of sin, and especially original sin, in some detail. All the key elements of Augustine’s mature thought appear in two key books (books 13 and 14) of The City of God.^[36]

36. The City of God selections in this section are from the Marcus Dods translation of 1950 (Modern Library Classics [New York: Random House]).

Augustine affirms that all of humanity was “in” Adam:

But as man the parent is, such is man the offspring. In the first man, therefore, there existed the whole human nature, which was to be transmitted by the woman to posterity, when that conjugal union received the divine sentence of its own condemnation; and what man was made, not when created, but when he sinned and was punished, this he propagated, so far as the origin of sin and death are concerned.^[37]

37. Augustine, City of God XIII.3.

A few lines later, Augustine continues to describe the way in which Adam’s posterity came into the world corrupted and changed by Adam’s transgression:

[T]he first man did not fall by his lawless presumption and just sentence; but human nature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an extent, that he suffered in his members the warring of disobedient lust, and became subject to the necessity of dying. And what he himself had become by sin and punishment, such he generated those whom he begot; that is to say, subject to sin and death.^[38]

38. Augustine, City of God XIII.3.

At points, Augustine says not only that all persons were in Adam in some sense, but that all persons are Adam: “For we were all in that one man, since we all were that one man who fell into sin through the woman who was made from him prior to sin.”^[39] Indeed, all persons after Adam come into the world with a vitiated nature: “And, once this nature was vitiated on account of sin, and bound by the chain of death, and justly condemned, man could not be born of man in any other condition.”^[40]

39. Augustine, City of God XIII.14, emphasis added.

It should be noted that for Augustine, Adam and Eve, in a sense, sinned before they sinned. That is, there was a kind of “secret” turning of the will in on itself before the actual eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As Augustine writes, “Thus, the evil act—that is, the transgression of eating the forbidden food—was committed by people who were already evil, and it would not have been committed if they had not already been evil.”^[41] He goes on: “The first evil, then, is this: when man is pleased with himself, as if he were himself light, he turns away from the light which, if it pleased him, would have made him light himself.”^[42]

For Augustine, human nature itself was changed due to Adam’s sin: “human nature was changed for the worse and was also transmitted to their posterity under the bondage of sin and the necessity of death.”^[43] He expands:

43. Augustine, City of God XIV.1.

For God, the author of natures, not vices, created man upright; but man, being of his own will corrupted, and justly condemned, begot corrupted and condemned children. For we all were in that one man, since we all were that one man who fell into sin by the woman who was made from him before the sin.^[44]

44. Augustine, City of God XIII.14, emphasis added.

Thus, after Adam’s sin, Augustine describes Adam’s progeny as “the whole mass . . . condemned, so to speak, in its vitiated root.

[Editor’s Note]: Green surveys a number of Augustine’s other works, most importantly his writings against Julian of Eclanum, a prominent Pelagian apologist, before providing the following summary.

Summary of Augustine on Original Sin

This survey of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin has covered a dozen^[45] or so works by the Bishop of Hippo, written over some 35 years from around 396 to his death in 430. Before offering a few theological reflections and conclusions, it may be helpful to briefly summarize what we have learned thus far.

45. As noted above, Christ Over All’s abridgment of this chapter covers only three of these sources.

First, Augustine affirms the goodness of creation, including—even after the fall—the goodness of man, rightly considered. That is, man as creature (i.e., as one who continues to possess “createdness” even after the fall), can be said—again, in a sense—to be “good.” Augustine thinks this way because, especially after his departure from Manichaeism, Augustine has a robust doctrine of the goodness of creation. This is not to deny radical sinfulness. Rather, if man lost all trace of goodness as a creature, he would—on Augustine’s view—cease to exist (given Augustine’s understanding of evil as a “privatio boni”—a privation of good).

Second, and following from above, there has been a radical and real rupture in the universe—especially in terms of mankind—with Adam’s sin. Something has radically shifted or changed with Adam’s sin. Man (both Adam and his descendants) is still human, but there is a deep deformity in post-fall Adam and his descendants. 

Third, Augustine—contra Pelagius and the Pelagians—sees a strong relationship or continuity between Adam and his descendants or progeny. Augustine may not have worked this out in detail in ways we would prefer, but there is no doubt that Augustine saw all of mankind subsequent to the fall of humanity as wrapped up in, or bound up in, Adam’s transgression. Indeed, Adam’s sin is transmitted, somehow, to all of his progeny. Later Christian theology, especially among the covenantal emphases of the Reformed tradition, will speak more explicitly about Adam’s covenantal or federal headship. Augustine is not as explicit with this kind of terminology, but he certainly lays the groundwork in such a way that later Protestants might be seen as developing strands of thought found in the Bishop of Hippo. 

Fourth, Augustine takes seriously that death enters the world through sin, and that therefore death does not preexist the fall. Pelagius indeed has to deny this, and Augustine’s awareness of Pelagius’s thought at this point heightens Augustine’s concerns about the theology of Pelagius and the Pelagians.

Fifth, for Augustine fallen sinners (especially before salvation) act out of who they are, and who they are is radically fallen beings. Augustine speaks of the fallen person, in a sense, as “free,” but it is a fallen freedom, a limited freedom, and indeed a “freedom” in need of redemption. The unconverted person is indeed free to do what he wants, but he is not free, really, to choose his wants. Thus, Augustine talks of the unconverted person as “free,” but it is a freedom to act in accord with who he is, and the unconverted person is thus also “bound” to act in accord with his will—which is a will bound up with Adam’s sin. Augustine employs the language of being sinful originaliter and being sinful actualiter. All persons after Adam come into the world sinful originally, and add to this predicament by their actual sin—in the course of their lifespan.

Theological Reflections

In summarizing the key tenets of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, I present the following theological reflections.

First, Augustine and Pelagius fundamentally disagree on whether there is a true difference between pre-fall man and post-fall man. This almost seems too basic to state, but it is important to note that this fundamental difference runs through much of the Augustine-Pelagius debate. Is creation good? Of course, says Pelagius, and hence man does have the ability to obey God by his nature (a good nature given by grace). Of course, says Augustine, creation (and man’s nature, ultimately) is good, but one must remember that there is a radical and fundamental fracture which runs through the heart of creation because of the fall, and this radical and fundamental fracture runs especially through the heart of man. Man is different after the fall from what he was before the fall. That is, post-fall Adam and his heirs are all guilty, corrupted, and have a proclivity to sin. Pre-fall man possesses neither guilt, nor corruption, nor a proclivity to sin. It is here that we face squarely the importance of a historical Adam and a pre-fall era in which man was originally righteous. If an affirmation of a historical Adam is lost, it seems that the rejection of a pre-fall era is certain to follow, and thus too the original innocence of the first man. 

Second, Pelagius has a lower view than Augustine of what man was before the fall. Pelagius sees all man’s current failures and sins as not fundamentally due to a rupture in man. That is, since there is no pre-fall realm or era from which Adam tragically fell—and with Adam his progeny—there is in a sense a “lower” view of man in his very nature. That is, when man, in the present, sins, it is as if Pelagius believes, “Well, this is simply what man does. Sometimes he obeys, sometimes he disobeys.” Because Pelagius has a lower view of who or what man is before the fall, it makes sense that Pelagius would see man’s plight after the fall to be less desperate and less significant. Man does not fall from any great height, so to speak. Indeed, since there is no serious link (in terms of sin, etc.) between Adam and the rest of mankind, the Pelagian theological substructure seems to sit nicely with both (1) a lower view of man before the fall—persons after Adam are in essentially the same situation as Adam himself; and (2) a higher view of man after the fall—man is in a less desperate situation than envisaged in the traditional Augustinian framework.

Third, if one posits that one follows Adam only by imitation rather than by generation or propagation, then one could easily begin to posit that we “follow” Christ only by imitation, and not by a more profound and intimate and significant connection. Augustine repeatedly drew attention to this: to the extent that one denies that someone can be caught in the transgression of Adam, one denies, at least in principle, that someone can also benefit from the obedience of Christ. 

Fourth, Pelagius, in his attempt to secure man’s “freedom” or “liberty,” has perhaps constructed his anthropology so as to render incomprehensible a meaningful understanding of human freedom and nature. B. B. Warfield offers a perceptive insight on Pelagius in this regard. Warfield suggests that one of Pelagius’s chief errors is his emphasis on each individual act of man over against, or at the expense of, man’s character. As Warfield writes, “[Pelagius] looked upon freedom in its form only, and not in its matter… the will was isolated from its acts, and the acts from each other, and all organic connection or continuity of life was not only overlooked but denied.”^[46] If Warfield is correct, in Pelagius’s attempt to safeguard or defend the free individual— by emphasizing the free individual acts of the person’s will, he is actually engaged in a kind of deracination of what it means to be human. That is, in emphasizing the freedom of each individual act of the will, Pelagius does not give attention to how our various acts as persons can shape us over time, whether in a more- or a less-moral direction. As Warfield notes, “After each act of the will, man stood exactly where he did before: indeed, this conception scarcely allows for the existence of a ‘man’—only a willing machine is left, at each click of the action of which the spring regains its original position, and is equally ready as before to reperform its function.”^[47] In short, while trying to secure the freedom of man, Pelagius may have been helping, conceptually, at least, to destroy the freedom of man.^[48]

Warfield notes that lurking in the background of Pelagius’s error is a failure to grasp the fundamental unity of the human race in Adam. He writes, “the type of [Pelagian] thought which thus dissolved the organism of the man into a congeries of disconnected voluntary acts, failed to comprehend the solidarity of the race.”^[49] Thus, while traditional Christianity has affirmed that man is a fundamental unity—we are all in Adam—Pelagius severed the link between mankind and Adam. Warfield notes, “The same alembic [here, “chemical”] that dissolved the individual into a succession of voluntary acts, could not fail to separate the race into a heap of unconnected units.”^[50] War- field continues: “If sin, as Julian declared, is nothing but will, and the will itself remained intact after each act, how could the individual act of an individual will condition the acts of men as yet unborn?”^[51] Or, we might ask, If the act of one’s own will—that is, a particular act of the will—does not affect oneself, ultimately, how could one man’s (Adam’s) act affect the rest of the human race? Thus, a certain kind of philosophical commitment by Pelagius to the notion of the radical disjunction of a person’s individual acts makes it conceptually impossible for Pelagius to consider that an actual person (and his acts) could be somehow meaningfully tied to the rest of the race.^[52]

Fifth, a comment on Romans 5:12 is necessary. It is important to recognize that rarely is a theological construct so built on one or two words, such that a difference of interpretation on that word or words will render the whole theological construct suspect. As we have noted, Augustine was at least happy to surrender this passage, and to argue for his position on the basis of other Scriptures and biblical and theological reasoning. As John Rist has asserted, “if Augustine were deprived of the use of it [Romans 5:12], his theology would not be affected.”^[53] Especially as one reads through Against Julian and An Unfinished Work, it becomes clear that Augustine’s position on original sin is not tied only or simply to a certain way of reading Romans 5:12, and it certainly does not necessarily hinge on the Latin in quo or the Greek ἐφ᾿ ᾧ. Rather, Augustine’s position is a biblical-theological construct built on a more general reading of Scripture. 

53. John Rist, Augustine Deformed: Love, Sin, and Freedom in the Western Moral Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 20.

Sixth, Pelagius’s way of reading the old covenant and new covenant (only briefly touched on here) reveals a fundamental hermeneutical weakness. There is virtually no sense of a redemptive-historical reading of Scripture in Pelagius, as far as I can tell. The great biblical tensions of the already–not yet, of the law’s goodness and righteousness, combined with its pedagogical role which culminates in Christ, the end of the law, is strangely missing in Pelagius. The idea that the old covenant was good, but had a fading glory, while the new covenant is truly better, with an unfading glory, gets no purchase in Pelagius’s theologizing. In Pelagius, the Bible is essentially a very flat book. Pelagius has no problem saying that surely at least some OT saints would have lived perfectly holy and righteous lives. Whereas the Christian church has wrestled with the realities of old and new covenant, the ways in which we have moved from shadow to reality, from type to antitype, these fundamental biblical categories and hermeneutical queries are strangely lacking in Pelagius’s theologizing. Did his hermeneutic lead him astray? Or did fundamental theological commitments keep him from attending to Scripture as he ought?

Conclusion

The debate between Augustine and Pelagius (and the Pelagians) on the question of original sin is one of the most important and intriguing in all of church history. To be an “Augustinian” on this issue is—almost—shorthand simply for being a traditional Christian. Reflection and study of this debate is also a reminder of how much hinges on key theological decisions. With this central debate, we see the importance of grasping the distinction between a pre-fall era and a post-fall era. When this distinction is lost it is impossible to and propagate the remainder of the traditional Christian theological structure: death coming into the world through sin; the last Adam (Christ)—of whom the first Adam was a type —overcoming death in his own death, burial, and resurrection; the fundamental distinction between a pre-fall world (including mankind) and a post-fall world; the fundamental unity of the race as contained in, and derived from, the first couple; and the necessity of radical grace if sinners are going to be rescued and brought to saving faith. I suspect that the extent to which the Christian church remains faithful over time will depend in large part on how faithfully the church understands and perpetuates key truths found in the works of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.

It is a common trope for Christians to look back to the early centuries of the Christian church, and make comparisons between those early centuries and our current situation as Christians in the twenty-first century. But just because this is a common move does not mean it is illegitimate or unhelpful. It is wise and good to look to the past for help in living faithful lives in the present. Indeed, remembering the past simply is one key component of living biblically faithful lives. Thus, at the end of book of Malachi, when the Old Testament era is coming to an end, when the need of a new covenant has become virtually depressingly clear, one of the Lord’s final prophetic words to the people of God is “remember the law of my servant Moses” (Mal. 4:4). In short, living biblically faithful lives includes the importance of looking to the past, and remembering what God has done and said. That is why I consider in this article the circumstances surrounding Augustine’s famous reflection on the city of God and how it relates to the kingdom of God.

The Fall of the City of Rome

Augustine (A.D. 354–430) had at one time lived in Rome, one of the most important cities–perhaps the most important city–of his era. But when Alaric and the Visigoths invaded Rome in A.D. 410, Augustine was residing in Hippo, in north Africa, where he would live out his days. Augustine was at that point (in Hippo) a busy bishop, engaging in the typical challenges of pastoring people, and engaging in multiple administrative tasks. Alaric and the Visigoths had successfully invaded Rome, entered the city, and inflicted significant damage. The city was not decimated, but it was now evident that Rome was not impenetrable. But to grasp the significance of this event for Augustine and his era, it is helpful to take a couple of steps back.

Some 100 years prior to Alaric’s sack of Rome, it had been a quite different political and cultural era. Emperor Diocletian reigned from A.D. 284–305 (he will reign in the eastern empire starting in 286 having appointed Maximian as co-emperor to rule the western half of the empire). Diocletian had engaged in some of the most severe Christian persecutions of any emperor (starting in 303). In a startling development, Constantine will become emperor in 306, and will reign until 337. Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 gave Christianity full legal status. However, it was Theodosius I in 380 who issued the edict, Cunctos populos, which reads: “It is our will that all peoples ruled by our government shall practice that religion.” In short, while Constantine granted Christianity full legal status, it is Theodosius I who establishes Christianity as the official religion of the empire—thirty years before Rome fell.

The New “Christian Times”?

Augustine himself seems to have been moved and excited by what seemed to be happening in history. The empire had gone on from a policy from bloody and intense Christian persecution to one where the Christian faith was prospering, and had even been given preferred legal status. In a sermon in 404 Augustine could write:

Kings, lately, are coming to Rome. It’s terrific, brothers and sisters, how it was all fulfilled. When it was being uttered, when it was being written, none of these things were happening. It’s marvelous. Take note of it and see, rejoice.^[1]

1. Augustine, Sermons (Dolbeau 25; 360b) 25.

Augustine was thrilled at what he took to be the fulfillment of Scripture. He goes on to write:

Let them occasionally at least be curious about the divine scriptures, let them find there so many things foretold which they can now see happening.^[2]

2. Augustine, Sermons (Dolbeau 25; 360b) 25.

He proceeds:

They’re astonished, you see, at the way the human race is converging on the name of the crucified and streaming together, from kings to ragamuffins. No age passed over, no manner of life, no school of thought. It’s not the case, you see, that the unlearned have believed and the learned haven’t, or that the low-born have believed and the high-born haven’t, or that women have believed and men haven’t, or that children have believed and old people haven’t, or that slaves have believed and free persons haven’t.

Indeed:

Every age has been called to salvation, every age has already come, every degree, every human level of wealth and property. It’s high time for all and sundry to be inside. Now just a few have remained outside, and they still go on arguing; if only they would wake up some time or other, at least at the din the world is making! The whole world is shouting at them.

In short, it seemed that at the very beginning of the fifth century Augustine and the Christians were witnessing a significant fulfillment of prophecy, and the victory of Christianity in the world. These were exciting times, perhaps even the “Christian times” (Christiana tempora), where prophecy was being fulfilled in recognizable and tangible ways. Robert Markus writes:

Most Christians [around this time—c. A.D. 404] shared the euphoria expressed in Augustine’s sermon. Bishops like Ambrose of Milan thought they could discern the signs of the times in the flow of events; they saw the new order of Christianity superseding the ancient Roman traditions, the mos maiorum [literally or woodenly: “the way of the greater ones”=”the way of the ancestors”].^[3]

3. Robert Markus, “Saint Augustine’s Secularization of Rome,” Church Life Journal: A Journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life (August 28, 2020). Accessed on November 16, 2024.

So, things had changed significantly in the course of 100 years or so—from the persecutions of Diocletian starting in 303, to a kind of enthusiasm100 years later, when Scripture seemed to be being fulfilled, and kings were bowing to the Lord Jesus.

But then Rome was successfully invaded in A.D. 410. The pagans had already been mocking Christians for the Christian’s notion of the Christiania tempora—the “Christian times.” Were such invasions something Romans should expect in such ostensibly wonderful “Christian times”?

Enter The City of God

The pagans indeed blamed the Christians for fall of Rome. These pagan criticisms might be summarized a couple of ways. First, the pagans argued, the Christian faith emphasized the importance of a “higher and nobler country” to which Christians had allegiance. Surely, if that were the case, Christians could not be reliable and faithful citizens in this realm. Secondly, certain other Christian teachings—man being made in the image of God, Christians of different nations being my brothers and sisters, love for one’s enemies, the virtues of meekness and patience—would also make it hard for Christians to be good citizens of the empire.

These are not small criticisms, and thoughtful Christians should take them seriously, which is what Augustine did. Augustine’s general lines of arguments in The City of God could be summarized as follows.

(1) Rather than discourage or inhibit meaningful citizenship, Christianity—based on texts like Romans 13—makes citizenship a Christian duty.

(2) Christianity does not require the rejection of force or arms, but requires that all such use be carried out justly, and that wars are only entered into if such an act can be justified.

(3) Christianity cannot be blamed for the various injustices in Rome, and for the fall of Rome, for Rome had plenty of travails, injustice, and suffering well before Christianity emerged.

(4) While Rome prides itself on being a just republic, it never really was a just republic, for true justice can only be realized when Christ is lord of a republic.

It is worth lingering on this last point, for here we see Augustine giving voice to a line of argument which would have been somewhat foreign to the Greek and Roman philosophical and political tradition he inherited. In a traditional understanding of justice, one thing is absolutely central in defining justice: justice is giving someone his or her due. There may be other angles or aspects of justice, but justice can certainly not be less than giving someone his or her due.

Some Christians with left-ward leanings have tried to skirt this traditional understanding by saying that justice is the restoration of a right relationship. Then, such persons will at times advocate this or that schema for redistributing wealth on a major scale, etc. But something gets lost in this discussion. It is fine to say that justice is the restoration of a right relationship. But how is that realized: by giving someone his or her due. There may also be the need of forgiveness, etc., but when we are simply speaking of justice, it is impossible to escape or circumvent the notion that justice must entail giving someone his or her due.

But as a Christian, Augustine forces his readers to think in fundamentally Christian terms about justice, especially justice at the level of society in general. Augustine’s argument is simple and straightforward. Justice requires giving each person his or her due. But this means that Christ ought to be given his due. And what Christ is owed is absolute worship, adoration, and allegiance. Thus, a republic can never really be a just republic unless Christ is being honored as Lord. Augustine could write:

But the fact is, true justice has no existence save in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ, if at least any choose to call this a republic; and indeed we cannot deny that it is the people’s weal [well being].^[4]

4. Augustine, City of God, II.21.

In one sense, the last 1600 years of “political theology” has been one long attempt to work through (or evade) Augustine’s thinking on this point. It is unlikely that Christians will quit wrestling with all of the various entailments (including political entailments) of the first century confession, “Jesus is Lord” (Rom. 10:9).

Augustine will argue that all of world history can be understood as the story of “two cities”—the city of God and the city of man. These two cities are—at one level—simply (1) believers (the city of God) and (2) unbelievers (the city of man), although Augustine can equivocate a bit here. Sometimes the two cities are more less (1) spiritual concerns/realities (the city of God) and (2) earthly/everyday concerns (the city of man).

One’s “citizenship” in one or the other of these two cities is determined by one’s loves: “two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.”^[5] This radical nature of Augustine’s insight here may not startle as it should. Augustine is contending that at the very center of created reality is the nature of one’s loves. At the core of one’s destiny is the human heart. This is an insight that should be reflected on at length.

5. Augustine, City of God, XIV.28.

These two cities start with Adam (who at first is simply the first person in the city of God). With sin we see the city of man emerge. These two cities grow, and in the present they are “intermixed” and “intermingled.” At the final judgment, the city of man (in the sense of those who persist in unbelief) is judged, and the city of God blossoms fully, and its citizens will enjoy being in the presence of God forever.

The Kingdom of God

It is perhaps legitimate to see the city of God as close to the New Testament conception of the kingdom of God. Augustine is working in an architectonic kind of way when he speaks of “two cities.” The city of God can perhaps be seen as roughly equivalent to broader category of “kingdom,” and at times can be seen as roughly equivalent to the somewhat narrower category of “church.” He is at times speaking in rather sweeping terms. Empires like Assyria, Babylon, and Rome are clearly exemplars of the city of man, while covenantal epochs or realms like Seth, Abraham, Noah, Moses, and David are exemplars of the city of God.

Augustine was probably what we often called today an “amillennialist.” He seems to affirm that these two cities will essentially plod along in the course of history. The city of man will eventually be destroyed, and the city of God will eventually reach its blessed and final destiny—the company of God’s people in the presence of God. Yes, the city of God grows, but Augustine does not seem to have a category for the city of God growing and becoming the main player in history. That is, the notion of God’s kingdom or “city” transforming the current world does not seem to work its way into Augustine’s framework. The notion of Revelation of 11:15—”The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,” and the possibility that this might happen in history, does not play a major role in Augustine’s understanding of the growth of the city of God. The somewhat excited tenor of his sermon in 404 (see the first footnote, above), with apparently awe-inspiring fulfillment of Scripture, as evidenced in the “Christian times” hope of that sermon, seems muted or absent in City of God. Augustine has not ceased believing that God keeps his word, but perhaps the successful invasion of Rome had chastened him a bit.

Enduring Significance

Augustine’s City of God is important for Christians today for a multitude of reasons, but I will mention three in particular.

First, Augustine provides a model for how Christians ought to think of all of world history in explicitly Christian and biblical categories. As Christians raise children and attempt to think about the world we live in on God’s terms—and not ours—Augustine offers a model for making sense of the world in explicitly biblical categories. That is, for Augustine, world history simply is the history of the two cities. Instead of Christians taking for granted the way the secular academy (or the secular worldview more generally) makes sense of the world, Christians would be wise to follow Augustine by attempting to make sense of all of reality in explicitly biblical categories.

Second, Augustine works out of a kind of proper “subjectivity”—in the sense that the human person has a central role in the world. I do not mean here to advocate for a kind of relativism. Rather, Augustine could affirm both the radical sinfulness of the human person and the centrality of the person—and his or her loves—to all of reality. If aspects of the classical world which preceded Augustine made too little of the importance of the individual person, and if the modern world has at times made too much of the individual person (with the narcissism which has pervaded much of the modern age), Augustine rightly balanced the importance of the individual person and his or her loves.

Third, Augustine’s understanding of justice, and his linking of justice to the reality of honoring Christ is fruitful and worthy of reflection. Many of us in the modern world have been conditioned to look everywhere but Christ and his word when trying to think through the various challenges and perplexities which face us. When Augustine argues that true justice means giving Christ his due, we should listen to him. Christians are justice people, and we should follow Augustine and think about justice in explicitly biblical categories.

Conclusion

Like Augustine, we should be confident that God’s city shall prevail. Indeed, God’s kingdom is a kingdom which shall indeed prevail. God’s “righteous branch” shall “execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer. 33:15). There may appear to be throughout church history moments which seem more like “Christian times” or less like “Christian times,” but we know that a day is coming when all time will be truly Christian. Jesus is Lord.

Certainly 2020, George Floyd, Antifa, BLM, and Covid did little to help things. And now we are on the cusp of the 2024 election. And Evangelicals, it seems to me, have shifted, or are shifting. And assuredly the events of 2020 and following play their part.

During each election cycle (and I believe this is the case since I would have first been able to vote in a presidential election in 1984), Christians (at least most traditional or generally conservative Christians) are generally told that the decision is between a party that is generally way off base (the Democrats) and a party that is less than perfect, but the better option (the Republicans). In short, the Republicans are less than ideal, but they are better than the Democrats. This is fair enough. In the current iteration of the Democrat Party, there are plenty of reasons not to vote for the Democrat Party—particularly for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. At present, the Democrat Party is fully committed to:

• Full-scale support of abortion (including, generally, government funding).
• Full-scale support of homosexuality.
• Full-scale support of the trans movement.
• Full-scale support of an open border.
• Full-scale support of various efforts to centralize power due to the “threat” of climate change.
• Supporting the right of public schools to not inform parents of their children’s supposed confusion on “gender.”
• Full-scale support of unhelpful and divisive racial ideology, as well as “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”

Republicans at their best counter the Democrats on these issues—but not always so. But in a truly astounding turn in recent weeks, some Democrats are saying the quiet part out loud: it is also time to restrict speech. For those who have been paying attention, this is not a surprise at all. Indeed midway through Biden’s term there were the beginnings of establishing an Office of Disinformation, which undoubtedly would have been advocating severe limitations on free speech. And clips of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walz can be easily found online, where they are justifying clamping down on free speech in the name of stopping “disinformation” or “misinformation.” As Matt Taibi recently asked on his and Walter Kirn’s show, “America This Week”: “Are there any liberals left?” (America This Week, September 23, 2024). So, I think a case can easily be made that a Christian cannot in good faith support the Democrat Party, especially in terms of the current presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

But I also want to suggest that both parties share an awful lot. The main thing they share is straightforward: Neither party is really committed to the constitutional order laid out in the U.S. Constitution. This may sound counter-intuitive, but give me a moment. Article I, Section 8 lays out the role and authority of the U.S. Congress. Article II, Section 2 lays out the role and authority of the President. Article III, Sections 2 and 3 lay out the role and authority of the judicial power—at the federal level. Take the role and authority of Congress. Article I, Section 8 is clear that Congress has certain delegated authority. That is, the States gave Congress its delegated authority through the vehicle of the U.S. Constitution. And the Tenth Amendment makes it clear: “The Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people.” Note the logic here: the Federal Government (including Congress) have only those powers “delegated” to it. All other powers remain with the States, or the people.

It is clear that the Democratic Party is not interested in abiding by the constitutional constraints on power. For example, when Obamacare was being debated and considered, Nancy Pelosi was asked by a reporter where the Constitution gave Congress the authority to engage in such sweeping legislation, she simply scoffed at the reporter and asked, “Are you serious?” And well she should have, in a sense. This is because neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have been committed—for a very long time—to the constraints on power outlined in the Constitution.

Try an experiment for a week, or month, or several months. Every time you read about Congress passing legislation, or the President issuing an “Executive Order,” or the Supreme Court issuing a decision, ask one question: Does the Constitution give the respective branch the authority to make such a decision? Here is what I predict: You will find that in virtually every act (whether of Congress, or the President, or the Supreme Court) you will discover that the respective branch simply did not have the Constitutional authority to act.

And once one makes that discovery, things can be a bit uncomfortable. “You mean . . . uh . . . I live in a situation where all the high-sounding talk about ‘democracy’ and ‘the constitution’ is virtually meaningless?” Yes, I do. And it is uncomfortable. The Anti-Federalists saw this. They warned that the Constitution would not be able to restrain government power, and that there would be no way to constrain the Federal Government if the Constitution was adopted. And they were right.

But let me end with some good news. There is hope. If God can raise the dead, he can bring reformation and revival to the United States. Christianity once inspired our forebears to limit government, to think in terms of human liberty—and hence the need for limited, constitutional government. God can do a great work in our country, and lead people to think again in more explicitly theologically-informed ways about the nature of political order. This will likely take quite a long time. Our founders thought in terms of a principled limitation on power, and they were at least partly animated by a certain conviction: Given the sinfulness of all persons, it is wise to decentralize and limit political power. Our forebears also recognized that society is not equal to (civil) government. That is, one can believe that society should “do something” without believing that the (civil) government ought to “do something.” And I put “civil” in parentheses to make a basic point: Our forebears recognized that there were multiple legitimate “governments”: the individual, the family, the church, and the civil magistrate. That basic insight will likely take time to recover, but such an insight could emerge again as basic biblical principles begin go develop in the citizenry as churches are planted, the Scriptures are preached, and lives (and minds) are transformed. May God bring it about.

Theology or Philosophy?

I have taught theology for over twenty-five years, and have taught philosophy as well. One of my main interests going back to doctoral studies is Augustine (A.D. 354–430), the great Western church father and author of such seminal works as Confessions and City of God. I often broach the question of theology and philosophy by turning to Augustine. I tell students that if you were to ask Augustine, “Do you consider yourself more of a theologian or more of a philosopher?”, he would probably scratch his head and say something like: “Well, now that I am a Christian I am really more interested in knowing God and seeking truth. That is my interest. I am not all that concerned whether you call that ‘theology’ or ‘philosophy.’ In fact, I am not all that sure I would separate the two in some kind of hard and fast way.”

Now, the reader may suggest I am engaging in special pleading here. Perhaps. But I do think he would have chafed a bit at the suggestion that theology and philosophy can be distinguished in the way we—including many Christians—tend to do today. Augustine would have chafed—and I think we should chafe—at the tendency one often sees of saying something like the following: “Theology starts with faith and revelation; Philosophy starts with reason and seeks truth on that basis.” That is, there can be a tendency for Christians to think of theology as a kind of faith-centered, revelation-based endeavor, and there can be a tendency to think of philosophy as a kind of reason-centered exercise that more or less works things out intellectually in an essentially neutral way.

Can Christians Be Philosophers?

In the course of Western philosophy itself some have said forthrightly that any notion of Christian philosophy is a complete non-starter from the get-go. For example, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), in his Introduction to Metaphysics, says that the traditional Christian cannot really engage in true philosophy. Why? Because the traditional Christian believes in a trustworthy Bible which is divine revelation, and because the Christian already has an answer to a key question in philosophy: “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” The Christian has this answer “before it [i.e., the question] is even asked.”^[1] So, as Heidegger sees it, “true” philosophy must not engage in the intellectual endeavor (the philosophical quest) if one already has certain key convictions in place (e.g., there is a God, the Bible is His trustworthy word, etc.).

1. Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, translated by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 7.

But we should pause here and reflect: Why should the Christian play by these artificial rules? In fact, has Heidegger “snuck in” his own dogmatic and “faith-based” convictions? Indeed, his own faith commitments allow him to box out the Christian’s faith-rooted convictions simply by asserting the “true” philosophy cannot begin with faith commitments? In short, is Heidegger actually a dogmatic theologian—just in his own particular way?

And all that discussion begs a very important question: Where does one “start” in one’s intellectual work? Let us turn to the Apostle Paul, and his letter to the Romans. In Romans 1:18–23 Paul instructs his readers that every person who has lived knows God and has (at least until conversion) suppressed this knowledge. Indeed, Paul can say in four different ways emphasized below that all persons—based on God’s revelation in and through the created order—know God:

• For what can be known about God is plain to them (Rom. 1:19)
• “God has shown it to them” (Rom. 1:19)
• “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived” (Rom. 1:20)
• “[T]hey knew God” (Rom. 1:21)

So, for Paul, every person who has ever come into the world knows God—not necessarily savingly—but really knows God. So, Heidegger knew God, and like all persons who have not bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus, he suppressed this knowledge—for all persons “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18). So, what do we say to Heidegger? Suppose I lived in mid-century (last century) Germany, and bumped into Heidegger at the local coffee shop, and we began to talk—he in his German, and I in my very rough German. At some point in the conversation Heidegger learns that I am a Christian and that I sometimes teach philosophy. The conversation at that point might proceed as follows:

Heidegger: “Nein! [no!] You cannot teach philosophy, for you are a Christian. You are starting with your belief in God!”

Green: “Oh Professor Heidegger, you are starting with your belief in God too.”

Heidegger: “Ah, but I do not believe in God.”

Green: “I actually think you do ‘believe’—for you know God. If you say you do not believe savingly, or have not trusted in Christ, I am happy to believe you. But I think you are mistaken to say you do not know God—if in fact you are saying that you don’t really trust in Christ.”

Heidegger: “Of course I do not trust in Christ. I am no Christian.”

Green: “I understand that, and I do pray you will come to Christ. But, as I see things, we both engage in philosophy with certain fundamental commitments, and these commitments are a kind of ‘faith.’”

Heidegger: “But I do not start with any sort of ‘faith’ commitments!”

Green: “I actually think you do. Where did you get the assumption that one must begin the philosophical endeavor apart from, or without any, faith commitments?”

Heidegger: “Isn’t that obvious?

Green: “Not to me. For I think we both start by living in a world in which God has truly revealed Himself to us. I have responded in faith to this God, by trusting in his Son. It sounds like you have not.”

And so the conversation goes.

If we are to trust the Apostle Paul, all persons “start” their thinking (including their philosophizing) already as “theologians” of a sort. That is: every person who philosophizes “starts” their thinking having either:

1. bowed the knee to the God who has efficaciously and truly revealed Himself to all persons in and through the created order,
   
   or
   
2. having suppressed the knowledge of that same God who has efficaciously and truly revealed Himself to all persons in and through the created order.

Conclusion

My own conviction is that when one starts with Paul and Romans 1 in mind, this changes the contours of the question of the relationship between theology and philosophy. We begin all of our thinking as creatures—creatures living in God’s world, living on His terms, and living in a world in which God has efficaciously revealed Himself to all persons. Thus, there is no true “neutrality” in the intellectual endeavor. We all philosophize as theologians—whether it is at the “top” of our minds or not—and as creatures who are either bowing our knees to the Lord Jesus or not.

1. Augustine, The City of God, translated by Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1950).

2. Rome was not “conquered” by the Visigoths, who withdrew after three days. Nonetheless, it now seemed that Rome was no longer impenetrable.

The glorious city of God is my theme in this work. . . . I have undertaken its defense against those who prefer their own gods to the Founder of this city—a city surpassingly glorious, whether we view it as it still lives by faith in this fleeting course of time, and sojourns as a stranger in the midst of the ungodly, or as it shall dwell in the fixed stability of its eternal seat, which it now with patience waits for, expecting until “righteousness shall return unto judgment,” and it obtain, by virtue of its excellence, final victory and perfect peace.^[3]

3. City of God I. Preface.

During this period, certain persons were apparently making a number of criticisms about Christianity. In sum, the Christian faith was seen as antithetical to good citizenship in the present. How could someone who saw all persons as fellow image-bearers and saw fellow-Christians as a spiritual “brother” or “sister” give meaningful allegiance to their own particular earthly city? How could someone who believed his true citizenship was to be found in some heavenly city be able to be a good citizen in this city?^[4]

4. See Ernest Fortin, “Civitate Dei, De,” in Augustine Through the Ages, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 197.

In response to these and related questions, Augustine writes that he has “things to say in confutation of those who refer the disasters of the Roman republic to our religion, because it prohibits the offering of sacrifices to the gods.” Augustine goes on to state his three objectives in writing:

[1.] For this end I must recount all, or as many as may seem sufficient, of the disasters which befell that city and its subject provinces, before these sacrifices were prohibited; for all these disasters they would doubtless have attributed to us, if at that time our religion had shed its light upon them, and had prohibited their sacrifices. [2.] I must then go on to show what social wellbeing the true God, in whose hand are all kingdoms, vouchsafed to grant to them that their empire might increase. I must show why He did so, and how their false gods, instead of at all aiding them, greatly injured them by guile and deceit. [3.] And, lastly, I must meet those who, when on this point convinced by irrefragable proofs, endeavor to maintain that they worship the gods, not hoping for the present advantages of this like, but for those which are to be enjoyed after death.^[5]

5. City of God I.36.

Augustine addresses the first two objectives—demonstrating that Rome suffered disaster before adopting Christianity and that Rome owed its success to the one true God—in Books 1–10, as he lays out his critique of various pagan arguments against Christianity. Then, in Books 11–22 he tackles the final objective—addressing those who recognize the earthly benefits of Christianity yet continue in paganism— by outlining (at great length!) “the origin, history, and deserved ends of the two cities”—the city of God and the earthly city.^[6]

6. City of God X.32.

Augustine’s arguments against the pagans are manifold. At times he uses rather straightforward logical argument and historical analysis. For instance, Rome suffered many attacks and evils before Christianity was the dominant religion. Rome had never been able to truly achieve justice, even before Christianity emerged. Moreover, the Roman gods had logged a long and sordid track record of capriciousness and pettiness and immorality.^[7]

7. These arguments are found in Books II and III of The City of God.

Augustine also notes that in many ways Christianity has been good for the city of Rome. Thus, Augustine asserts that when barbarians attacked Rome, many Romans survived because they took refuge in Christian churches, which—Augustine argues—the barbarians refused to attack.^[8]

8. City of God I.1.

Augustine also argues (Book IV) that the only reason any city—including Rome—achieves any success or stability of happiness is due to the providential workings of God, and Augustine even argues that a true republic can really only exist where Christ is Lord of that republic.

Augustine is concerned to show in The City of God the nature of the two cities and their interrelationship. While “success” and “failure” in the earthly realm cannot always be directly related to human obedience and disobedience, nonetheless, blessing often does follow obedience. Augustine writes of the “successful” Roman leader, and suggests that his success may have been greater if he had followed the one true God.^[9]

9. City of God IV.28.

Ultimately, for Augustine, God sovereignly reigns over all kingdoms: “God can never be believed to have left the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside of the laws of His providence.”^[10] Likewise:

10. City of God V.11.

[W]e do not attribute the power of giving kingdoms and empires to any save to the true God, who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but gives kingly power on earth both to the pious and the impious, as it may please Him, whose good pleasure is always just.^[11]

11. City of God V.21.

Augustine summarizes his overarching purpose for The City of God as follows:

In truth, these two cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed until the last judgment effect their separation. I now proceed to speak, as God shall help me, of the rise, progress, and end of these two cities; and what I write, I will write for the glory of the city of God, that, being placed in comparison with the other, it may shine with a brighter luster.^[12]

12. City of God I.35.

Two Cities, Two Loves

In Book XI of The City of God, Augustine begins to trace out “the origin, history, and destinies of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly.”^[13] In the opening section of Book XI, Augustine writes these summative words about the two cities:

13. City of God XI. Argument.

I will endeavor to treat of the origin, and progress, and deserved destinies of the two cities (the earthly and the heavenly, to wit), which, as we said, are in this present world commingled, and as it were entangled together. And, first, I will explain how the foundations of these two cities were originally laid, in the difference that arose among the angels.^[14]

14. City of God XI.1.

What are the two “cities”? The answer is a little more complicated than is first supposed, for the definitions can shift a bit throughout The City of God, as well as throughout Augustine’s other writings. At times the “earthly city” denotes the typical affairs of this temporal realm: politics, for example.^[15] At other times, the “heavenly city” represents Christians, while the “earthly city” often means something like the lost/unsaved/reprobate.^[16]

15. This is the meaning in Exposition on the Psalms 61 (verse 8).

16. City of God XIV.1.

The two cities are intermingled in the present, and will be until the final judgment.^[17]

The two cities have their origin—ultimately—in Adam himself. For at first there was only the city of God, and no earthly city—for the earthly city only truly comes into being with sin. At the very end of Book XIV of The City of God, Augustine gives perhaps the clearest summary of how the two cities are most centrally rooted in two loves: either (1) love of self or (2) love of God.^[18] Augustine can also speak of the two cities as (1) the redeemed who trust Christ and (2) the lost who will never trust Christ. He says, “The [human] race we have distributed into two parts, the one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God. And these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which the one is predestined to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil.”^[19] All of history can be understood in terms of the origin, growth, and end of these two cities: “For this whole time or world-age, in which the dying give place and those who are born succeed, is the career of these two cities concerning which we treat.”^[20]

17. Expositions on the Psalms 61 (verse 5).

18. City of God XIV.28.

19. City of God XV.1.

20. City of God XV.1.

Augustine consistently teaches that the earthly city comes to end, while the heavenly city does not. Thus, the earthly city “shall not be everlasting . . . when it has been committed to the extreme penalty.”^[21]

Ultimately, the true founder of the earthly city is Cain, who founds the earthly city in slaying his brother.^[22] There are thus two lines—one proceeding from Cain (the earthly city) and one proceeding from Seth (the heavenly city), and these two lines constitute the two cities.^[23] Adam is then the father of these “two lines, proceeding from two fathers, Cain and Seth, and in those sons of theirs whom it behooved to register, the tokens of the two cities began to appear more distinctly.”^[24]

21. City of God XV.4.

22. City of God XV.5–8.

23. City of God XV.8.

24. City of God XV.17.

The two cities run parallel courses throughout history, and “both cities, in their course amid mankind, certainly experienced chequered times together just as from the beginning.”^[25] The members of the two cities are compared to different fish that swim together in the sea: “There are many reprobate mingled with the good, and both are gathered together by the gospel as in a drag net; and in this world, as in a sea, both swim enclosed without distinction in the net, until it is brought ashore, when the wicked must be separated from the good, that is the good, as in His temple, God may be all in all.”^[26]

The “two cities,” then, can be understood as one way of simply tracing out the history of redemption. To call Augustine’s The City of God a “philosophy of history” may be true enough, but it may be better to see this key work as Augustine’s way of tracing out the history of redemption. This in fact may be the best way to think about a “philosophy of history.” That is, instead of thinking of “history” (in an almost “neutral” or “secular” sense), and then thinking of God’s actions in history as a supplement to “neutral” or “secular” history, it is probably better to think of all of history as encompassed within the more fundamental story of the history of redemption—which Augustine traces out in terms of the two cities.^[27]

25. City of God XVIII.1.

26. City of God XVIII.49.

27. For a very helpful way of getting into these kinds of issues, one might turn to Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, revised edition, ed. K. Scott Oliphint (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2015).

The End of the City of God

Augustine teaches that the end or final destiny of the city of God is eternal blessedness. Augustine spends a large portion of the last book of The City of God (Book XXII) dealing with this state of blessedness. Key to this final state is, of course, the resurrection. In the resurrection, all of the inhabitants of the city of God will be raised up and transformed such that there is no deformity, and that all is in perfect proportion. Indeed, Augustine writes:

Anything misshapen will be set right; anything smaller than is fitting will be supplemented from resources known to the creator; and anything larger than is fitting will be removed, but with the integrity of the material preserved.^[28]

28. City of God XXII.19.

In the future city of God there shall be an “eternal blessedness,” and Augustine makes the provocative suggestion that we will make “great and marvelous discoveries,” and these discoveries shall “kindle rational minds in praise of the great Artificer,” and there shall be “the enjoyment of a beauty which appeals to the reason.” Rather than play reason and beauty against each other (as is sometimes done today), the beauty we see and experience in the city of God in the future shall actually “appeal” to reason.^[29] This future knowledge “shall be perfected when we shall be perfectly at rest, and shall perfectly know that He is God.”^[30]

29. City of God XXII.30.

30. City of God XXII.30.

In this future state it is most certainly the case that free will is not lacking. Rather, “[The human will] will, on the contrary, be all the more truly free, because set free from delight in sinning to take unfailing delight in not sinning.”^[31]

31. City of God XXII.30.

Augustine’s City of God is long, and it takes some diligence to plow through it. But as Christians walk as pilgrims to the city of God, there are few better guides which will help us navigate Christian faithfulness in our day than the Bishop of Hippo and his magnum opus. Take, read; take, read.

***

Editor’s Note: This essay has been adapted from Bradley G. Green’s book, Augustine of Hippo: His Life and Impact (Ross-Shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2020).

The Reality of Confessions, Statements, and Creeds

Christians throughout their history have determined that it is necessary to articulate the faith. Whether we call these articulations “creeds,” or “confessions,” or “statements” is somewhat beside the point—as every effort of this sort shares a basic family resemblance: the desire to articulate something important or essential or pressing about what we as Christians believe. I, as a Baptist, was taught that we have “no creed but the Bible.” This has a kind of bravado and swagger about it, but is it really true? Is it the case that Baptists—if we are consistent—have “no creed but the Bible”? I have come to reject this understanding. Indeed, even the Anabaptist Schleitheim Confession (1527 A.D.) is, well, a confession (and yes, I know it is a big debate to trace the relationship, or lack of a relationship, between the Anabaptists and contemporary Baptists). It is a summary of Christian belief—whether we call it a confession, a statement, or a creed.

The purpose of this article is to ask a basic question: Is Nicaea enough? Or more importantly: Is the Nicene Creed (381 A.D.) adequate as a summary of Christian belief, confession, fellowship, and shared ministry? The more one reflects on this question (as I see it) the more complex one sees that such a question is. If one is asking whether all Christians should affirm the Nicene Creed, the answer should be a hearty “yes” (though Calvin’s reservations about the exact way to understand the source of the Son’s deity is a legitimate reservation with which I have sympathy). But if one comes from a different angle and asks if the Nicene Creed is optimal or sufficient for meaningful Christian belief, confession, fellowship, and shared ministry, then a different answer might emerge. In short, if one asks the latter kind of question, it may very well be the case that the Nicene Creed in fact is not enough.

So perhaps there are two questions one should think through:

1. Is the Nicene Creed adequate as a summary of Christian belief, confession, fellowship, and shared ministry?
2. Should all Christians be able to affirm the Nicene Creed?

I will suggest that we answer “no” to the first question and “yes” to the second question. I take it as a matter of course that all Christians should answer “yes” to the second question—we will not linger much more on that question here. But we will linger on the first question in this article.

Why the Draw to the Nicene Creed as Enough?

On the first question, we might ask why would one be inclined to think that Nicaea might be enough for Christian belief, confession, fellowship, and shared ministry? One might be the understandable impulse or desire for unity. There is a right and proper yearning, on my view, for Christian unity. Most of like to be liked, and would not—generally—seek to live a life of tension, friction, disharmony, and disagreement. If we are honest, most of us probably think along the following lines: “It would be nice to live a life where we get along with all or most persons, and where our lives are not marked by combat, fighting, debating, and constant disagreement.” We know from Scripture that a day is coming where there will be a blessed and joyous unity. Indeed, we know that in the future the wolf will lie down with lamb (Isa. 11:6). But we also know that it is a mark of unfaithfulness and unbelief to say, “peace, peace” when there is no peace.

But it is a mistake—a serious one—to yearn in the wrong way, or to yearn for unity without grasping where one is in history. Political commentator and theorist Eric Voegelin warned against “immanentizing the eschaton.”^[1] Voegelin meant by this terminology that it is a perennial temptation to try and force the blessed future eschatological state into the present by the use of force (Voegelin was particularly concerned with what develops, and had developed in the 20^th century, of using centralized political power to “usher” in the eschaton). Perhaps, analogically, it is also mistaken to so wish for peace and unity that one fails to have the courage to live in our age of antithesis, where there is an animus which exists between the things of the evil one and the things of God (e.g., Gen. 3:15). That is, we live in the period of the already-not yet, where the future state of unity and peace has not arrived. It is not wise, prudent, or faithful to fail to know our place in God’s economy. Thus, we should both (1) seek unity where we can, but we should also (2) know that we shall not find perfect unity in the present time.

1. One can find this theme in Eric Voegelin’s magisterial five-volume Order and History (first published with Louisiana State University Press from 1956 through 1987) , or Voegelin’s own summary of his thought in the much shorter, New Science of Politics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952).

It is perhaps also the case that to think that the Nicene Creed is enough is perhaps rooted in a desire to return to an age where the universal Church seemed—at least in broad outline—to be a united church with a common theology. But this is only somewhat the case. In the fourth century, Nicene trinitarianism “won” in 325 A.D. at Nicaea (and again in 381 A.D. at Constantinople). But Athanasius, the leading proponent of Nicene Trinitarianism in the fourth century, was forced out (banished) from his teaching/bishop position some five times over seventeen total years in the course of his ministry. In short: the church was only “united” to a certain degree.

Or perhaps the desire to think that the Nicene Creed is enough is rooted in the conviction that once one has got the Trinity and the deity of the Son and Spirit figured out, that is enough. That is, cannot the Christian church simply rally around a simple confession that there is one God, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully divine persons? Certainly, a Christian should confess no less than this, but is there any good reason to think that such a confession is enough?

John Henry Newman and James Orr

Perhaps we might find help in the 1901 work, The Progress of Dogma, by Scottish divine James Orr. But to understand James Orr’s work we must briefly recall the work of John Henry Newman. Orr wrote his volume just over ten years after the death of John Henry Newman (1801–1890). Newman was a prominent thinker during his era and has had significant impact on (especially) Roman Catholic thought since his time. He converted from Calvinism to Anglo-Catholicism, and eventually to Roman Catholicism. Among other contributions, he is known for a creative way of thinking about the development of doctrine over time. Rome, in general and until the time of Newman, tended to want to say that the Roman Catholic dogmatic system could more or less be found in the earliest instantiations of the Christian church. Newman offered a different understanding, which has alleviated Rome of the burden of having to find Rome’s theology in the earliest history of the church. In short, Newman argued that the development of doctrine can be thought of as analogous to how a seed grows into a tree. Over time, the tree grows, certain parts are pruned, and other parts are encouraged in their growth. It might seem difficult to recognize that the tree comes from such a small seed, but if you could go back and observe, one would be able to discern a real, organic connection between the seed and the full-grown tree. Partially in response to Newman, James Orr offered his own understanding of how doctrine (or dogma) grows or changes over time.

Orr creatively suggested that the Christian church—as we look back through time—has tended to take on, or work through, a certain doctrine during one era, then another doctrine in the following era, then another doctrine in the following era, etc. That is, there is only so much time and mental energy to work on a particular doctrine at a given time. So, the Christian church at first—in the first and second century—seemed to take the time to work out its understanding of religious authority, seen in the forming of the New Testament canon in the first and second centuries. Then, in the third and fourth centuries, the church devoted itself to working out key elements of the doctrine of the Trinity (especially the Son’s relationship to the Father, and then the person of the Holy Spirit). Then, in the fourth and fifth centuries the church devoted itself to working through the person of Christ (culminating in Chalcedon in 451 A.D.), as well as working through the doctrine of God’s grace (as seen in the debates between Augustine and the Augustinians against Pelagius and the Pelagians). Orr’s work may not be the final word, but it at least provides one way of thinking through how and why the church has seemed to focus on certain doctrines at certain points in its development. Nick Needham has suggested that Orr may have been unduly influenced by a too-optimistic view of the church’s growth and progress throughout history.^[2] But, Orr can help an Evangelical to think through how it is perfectly reasonable for the Christian church to improve or develop in its doctrinal understanding over time. And Orr can help us see that one need not see the Nicene Creed as either a golden era or as the high point of doctrinal development. Rather, we might expect to see the church grow in its understanding and its construal and articulation of Christian truth. But, we need not see the church’s growth in doctrinal understanding framed as a kind of linear progress in a more or less unbroken improvement over time. But Orr differed from Newman in that Orr—as a Protestant—did not feel the theological pressure to organically link all later official Catholic teaching to the earlies Christian movement (the New Testament).

2. Nick Needham, “The Tragic Enigma of John Henry Newman,” in CRN Journal (Spring 2001), 15.

A Biblical Perspective on the Development of Doctrine and Creeds

Perhaps a more biblical perspective on the development of doctrine would say something like the following. In the history of Israel, we see success at times and serious failure at other times. This same kind of jagged history of success and failure is something we might expect to see in the rest of history. Thus, in 1 Kings 3–10 we see significant success in Israel under Solomon’s wise leadership. We witness Solomon’s wisdom, the growth of Solomon’s kingdom, Solomon’s building of the temple, the queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon, and a recounting of Solomon’s wealth at the end of chapter 10. But then 1 Kings 11 begins with recounting Solomon’s fall, and in 11:9 we read: “And the LORD was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD . . .”. And as we read the history of Israel we see that the Northern Kingdom (Israel) falls to Assyria in 722 B.C., and that the Southern Kingdom (Judah) falls to Babylon in 586 B.C. In short, we see blessed success and tragic failure—at times in the very same narratives.

All Christians have—ultimately—an “optimistic” eschatology. We know that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9), and that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). We may disagree about the details, but all Christians know—at least in the broad contours—how this story ends. God wins. But between now and the end of all things we are certainly not promised a smooth journey to the ultimately victorious ending of all things.

Thus, in church history we should expect and anticipate God’s ultimate victory over all evil. But we should also anticipate that the path from our own present to the ultimate end will likely be rocky, full of ups and downs, full of beautiful doctrinal construals and affirmations, but also full of bizarre and perverse doctrinal collapse and heresy. For this reason, we should anticipate and labor towards continual and repeated efforts to articulate the Christian faith as clearly and persuasively as we can.

Also, while we should probably not expect a linear and continual improvement of the church’s doctrinal understanding, we should anticipate that God will continue to break forth fresh things from His Word. But James Orr probably did get right that the Church will over time work out its understanding more and more. Two crucial and beautiful developments since Nicaea should be immediately apparent to the Evangelical.

Augustine and the Grace of God

First, Augustine’s articulation of the grace of God in salvation would seem to be—to many of us—a proper working out of implicit and explicit biblical truths. Augustine’s theology of grace was of coursed worked out in a particular time amidst particular circumstances: the late fourth and early fifth centuries, often in response to Pelagius and the Pelagians. Should at least some meaningful understanding of the grace of God be a part of basic Christian confession of faith? Should Pelagianism be considered within the bounds of Christian orthodoxy? A good case can be made that Augustine’s articulation of grace—in conflict with Pelagius and the Pelagians—was a good and proper articulation of what is implicit and explicit in the Bible, and as such that an articulation of the grace of God should be found in any confession or statement or creed which serves as a good summary of Christian belief.

The Reformation and Justification by Faith

Second, the doctrine of justification of faith as articulated during the time of the Protestant Reformation is of course well past the time of Nicaea—by some 1200 years. The Protestant has historically believed that the Reformers were not first and foremost innovators (as Jacopo Sadoleto labelled the Protestants in his 1539 letter to the Genevans). Rather, Protestants have historically believed that the Reformers were recovering a fundamentally biblical insight: sinners are declared righteous by God (the one who justifies), on the basis of Christ’s finished work (the ground of justification), and through the instrument of faith alone (the means of justification). The Reformers simultaneously (1) recovered a biblical insight and (2) sharpened a key biblical insight in the midst of conflict and debate. The Reformation’s recovery of the doctrine of justification by faith alone is either a good and right expression of Christian truth, or it is a real mistake. Protestants continue to rightly believe that the New Testament doctrine of justification became muddled and confused over time. The Reformation was a helpful recovery, and not a departure from apostolic Christianity. No appeal to the Nicene Creed will settle that question, as important and wonderful as the Nicene Creed is.

Conclusion

Christians can look back with awe and gratitude to how God has led Christians to clarify and articulate the faith throughout its history. Christians can simultaneously (1) affirm past creedal wisdom like the Nicene Creed, as well as (2) gratefully recognize that God has continued to lead His church into truth and wisdom throughout her history—we took note of Augustine’s articulation of grace and the Reformation’s recovery and articulation of justification by faith alone. The biblical Christian will be simultaneously looking backward and forward. The biblical Christian will give thanks for past wisdom and will be looking forward to what is required in his or her own day.

We should also expect that the church will grow in its understanding over time, and this growth in understanding will almost assuredly lead to the need of articulating and expressing its doctrinal beliefs again and again. And we should also not be surprised if God in his grace leads the church to more and more clearly explain and express its understanding of Christian truth. And we should not be surprised if at times, under God’s gracious hand, the Church recovers certain truths that have become somewhat confused or muddled or even lost over the centuries. And neither should we be surprised if God in his mercy allows Christians to sharpen truths over time, and even draw out new and wondrous things from our old, old Canon.

Schaeffer was born in the Philadelphia area on January 30, 1912, and died in Rochester, Minnesota, on May 15, 1984. Many of us may have become aware of Schaeffer as a sporty looking older man with a goatee, wearing lederhosen, and lecturing in the Swiss Alps at L’Abri (“L’Abri” is French for “shelter”). But Schaeffer was quite American. He attended Westminster Theological Seminary for a year (founded in 1929), where he studied with Cornelius Van Til. He transferred after a year to Faith Theological Seminary (founded in 1937), a newly formed seminary closely aligned with, but not controlled by, the Bible Presbyterian Church. Schaeffer was the first graduate of Faith Theological Seminary. I will not go into further detail on that era of Schaeffer’s life except to note one interesting item: Schaeffer himself was a kind of “presuppositionalist,” though Van Til offered significant criticisms of Schaeffer’s method. One time Van Til and Schaeffer were brought together to try and discuss their differences. In the midst of that meeting, Van Til was asked to summarize his own approach to apologetics. Van Til apparently gave a particularly insightful and short summary of his own position. After he was done, Schaeffer commented that he wished it had been recorded, for what Van Til had said was in fact Schaeffer’s own position exactly, and Schaeffer said he would not disagree with a single thing Van Til had said.

But though Schaeffer was a very American man, he is known to many of us through his work at L’Abri in southwestern Switzerland, about 55 miles east of Geneva. He and his wife Edith moved to Switzerland in 1947 or 1948 (I have seen both dates) to start L’Abri, something of a Christian community, study center, or place of respite. Schaeffer and others at L’Abri would lecture, and there was plenty of time for discussion. Through word of mouth, many persons heard of L’Abri and found their way to this Swiss outpost. At one point, the Schaeffers were receiving around 31 visitors a week. Luminaries such as Os Guinness and Hans Rookmaaker would make their way to L’Abri and would be influenced by Schaeffer.

Many of us who came of age in the 1980s came to know of Schaeffer through a number of key works dealing with fundamental questions of apologetics:

• The God Who is There
• Escape from Reason
• He is There and He is Not Silent

Or perhaps we came to know of Schaeffer through certain works dealing with general challenges in Evangelicalism. For example:

• The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century
• The Church Before the Watching World
• The Great Evangelical Disaster

Or perhaps we came to know Schaeffer through his interest in certain culture issues, especially the moral question of abortion and the question of the role of civil government:

• Pollution and the Death of Man
• How Should We Then Live?
• Whatever Happened to the Human Race?
• A Christian Manifesto

But Schaeffer was also intensely interested in what we often call “spirituality.” Thus, he wrote such works as:

• Two Contents, Two Realities
• The New Super-Spirituality
• True Spirituality
• The Mark of the Christian
• No Little People

I want to draw a few insights from that last book: No Little People, first published in 1974. This book is a collection of sixteen sermons. The first chapter is “No Little People, No Little Places”—the title of this talk.

No Little People

The initial theme of this chapter is Moses’s “rod.” In Exodus, Moses was called to go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. You know this story. Moses engages in a conversation with the LORD concerning what he is to say when the Israelites doubt that the LORD has really spoken to Moses.

Exodus 4:2 reads: “The LORD said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ He said, ‘A [rod] staff.’” You know the story:

• (4:2–4) The LORD tells Moses to throw his rod on the ground. He does, and it turns into a serpent. The LORD commands Moses to put out his hand and catch the serpent by the tail. He does so, and it turns back into a rod.
• (4:5–7) The LORD then tells Moses to put his hand insides his cloak. He puts his hand inside his cloak, takes it out, and it has turned leprous “like snow.” God commands Moses to put his hand back in his cloak. He does, then takes it out, and it has returned to normal.
• (4:8–9) For the third sign, the LORD tells Moses that he (Moses) will take some water from the Nile and pour it on the ground. It will turn to blood on dry ground.

Moses proceeds (4:10–12.) to express concern about his own speaking abilities. The LORD’s promise is straightforward: “Go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

Moses still doubts (4:13), the LORD’s anger is kindled, and the LORD says that Aaron, Moses’s brother, will accompany Moses. The LORD promises to speak through them both, and Aaron—at least at this point of the story—will be the one to speak to the people on behalf of Moses (4:14–16).

4:17: Moses is reminded to take his rod.

Moses will depart from Jethro, his father-in-law (4:18), and when he departs he takes with him what is now called “the rod of God.” As Schaeffer sees it, the “rod of Moses” has become the “rod of God” (p. 6).

This rod shows up again in Exodus 7:15–17 where the LORD again gives Moses a certain command. Moses has gone to Pharoah more than once since his original call in Exodus 3. At this point in the story, the LORD says:

“¹⁵ Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the [rod] staff that turned into a serpent. ¹⁶ And you shall say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.” But so far, you have not obeyed. ¹⁷ Thus says the LORD, “By this you shall know that I am the LORD: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood.’”

A couple verses later (4:17), we read:

“Thus says the LORD, “By this you shall know that I am the LORD: behold, with the [rod] staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood.”

The LORD says to Moses (4:19):

“Say to Aaron, ‘Take your [rod] staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’”

And in Exodus 4:20:

“Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the [rod] staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood.”

After the Israelites have left Israel and are engaged in their desert wanderings, we see Moses’s rod again.

In Exodus 17:5–6, Moses is told to take his “rod,” to strike the rock once in order to provide water for the people of Israel.

Also in Exodus, when engaged in battle, Moses will hold up his rod. When he does so (17:11), Israel prevails in battle.

And later in Numbers 20:8–9. This is toward the end of the wilderness wanderings, and the Israelites again need water. The LORD says:

“Take the [rod] staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.”

Of course, Moses errs and does not just tell the rock to yield its water. He actually strikes it twice (Numbers 20:11). Because of this error—and this may strike us as odd—the LORD tells Moses that Moses will not enter into the promised land (Numbers 20:12—“because you did not believe me”).

Schaeffer’s point is that God used Moses. God even used Moses’s rod to accomplish great things. Schaeffer writes that the various ways God used both the rod of Moses and Moses himself gave him courage as a young man engaging in ministry.

Schaeffer is not naïve. He knows it is God who performed the mighty, divine, saving acts in and through Moses and the rod of Moses—which had become the rod of God.

Schaeffer writes (p. 8):

Consider the mighty ways in which God used a dead stick of wood. “God so used a stick of wood” can be a banner cry for each of us. Though we are limited and weak in talent, physical energy, and psychological strength, we are not less than a stick of wood. But as the rod of Moses had to become the rod of God, so that which is me must become the me of God. Then I can become useful in God’s hands. The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God. There are no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people. The problem for each of us is applying this truth to ourselves: is Francis Schaeffer the Francis Schaeffer of God?

No Little Places

Schaeffer then turns to the question of “place.” As the Christian matures—especially the Christian minister—should he be constantly looking for the next, bigger, place? Schaeffer writes: “As there are no little people in God’s sight, so there are no little places” (p. 9).

Schaeffer understandably turns to Luke 14:7-11 (pp. 11-12):

⁷  Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, ⁸ “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, ⁹ and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. ¹¹ For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Schaeffer is quite candid in his comments on this passage: “Jesus commands Christians to seek consciously the lowest room. All of us—pastors, teachers, professional religious workers and nonprofessional included—are tempted to say, ‘I will take the larger place because it will give me more influence for Jesus Christ’” (p. 12).

Schaeffer gives two reasons why Christians should not, generally, seek a bigger place.

First, the Christian should take “the smaller place so you have quietness before God” (p. 130). This was quite intriguing to read. Schaeffer is clear that he is not advocating a kind of monasticism, as he writes, “There is no monasticism in Christianity” (p. 13). But Schaeffer may be on to something. If you are seeking largeness, you do in fact likely need to wait on the Lord and try to discern what in your heart seeks something bigger.

Secondly, Schaeffer writes, “If we deliberately and egotistically lay hold on leadership, wanting the drums to beat and the trumpets to blow, then we are not qualified for Christian leadership” (p. 13). Schaeffer here seems to equate seeking a larger place with a kind of desire for attention and fanfare and undue attention—certainly something any Christian should avoid. Schaeffer lived this out. Some of us lived closer to Schaeffer’s time, and we perhaps look longingly at the quaint chalet in the woods. But to start such a ministry in the 1950s would not have been a way to “win friends and influence people.” If anything, such a venture (L’Abri started in 1955) would certainly not have (at least immediately) drawn attention to oneself. A friend of mine visited L’Abri and shared with me that it is strikingly small. But God blessed Schaeffer and his ministry. He may not have been the technical scholar of other apologists and writers of his time, but God blessed his ministry, and many were both strengthened in the faith and many were brought to the faith through his work. God seemed to draw people to this Swiss chalet to be ministered to by a somewhat odd-looking fellow in lederhosen—not even a true European!

Although I am no Moses, I too felt intimidated when first starting out in ministry. And for analogous reasons. Growing up, and hearing much of the preaching I heard, I was given the impression that when preparing to preach one must mystically wait for “the message” that God has for the people. I was scared and too intimated. How do I get “the message.” The preachers I was hearing just seemed to receive the messages they preached.

It was not until after seminary when I was beginning doctoral study that I really began to grasp some basic things. For me, one of the key texts was Paul’s teaching on the gospel in Romans 1:16-17:

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

I realized that the gospel itself is the power of God, and that power is what is necessary to bring someone to faith. As I worked things out and continued to study and learn, I realized that the gospel is the message of certain first-century events—central to this of course being the death, burial, resurrection, and appearances of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15). I realized that the message of those events is “the gospel” that must be shared. I began to learn that the preacher is a herald. Yes, we must work especially hard to communicate certain texts where “the gospel” might not seem to be front and center. Fair enough. But I had learned a valuable lesson. God has revealed Himself to us in Holy Writ, and the preacher’s preaching task is—in one sense—very straightforward.

Rather than wait on a mystical “message,” I was simply to explicate, explain, and teach what is found in Holy Writ. I should perhaps say I am most certainly not discouraging—in the least—prayer, asking the Lord for spiritual discernment, etc. We all must do that as we engage in ministry.

But I felt a world of unnecessary pressure fall off of my shoulders. I was—when preaching—engaging in an explication and teaching of Holy Scripture. Yes, I would use discernment, and I might let this or that particularly unique cultural moment inform my teaching and preaching. But I was no longer engaging in a guilt-inducing quest for “the message” I was to preach.

We have in recent times witnessed the death of Tim Keller. I, like many of you, I suspect, have learned much from Tim Keller. I had the opportunity to hear him preach once in an evangelistic effort when I was on sabbatical. But I wonder if he erred in his over-emphasis of “the city.” Certainly, God has his people—”every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9), and God shall bless every nation through the patriarch Abraham (Genesis 12:3).

But I wonder if there was something of an unhealthy romance concerning the city. This is just a hunch I have. If God calls you to go, by all means go. But what if God calls you to Toone, Tennessee? Or Willow, Alaska (about 2 hours north of my hometown of Anchorage). Or some other small town in your neck of the woods? Certainly, evangelism may take longer with the slower pace of life and the smaller population. But image-bearers of God live in these small towns. I have had two persons in somewhat recent years say to me, “I am not called to take care of the temple; I am here to bring people in.” Three cheers for a passion for evangelism. How can a Christian be otherwise? But this sentiment concerns me a bit. This kind of slogan initially has a kind of great spiritual zing to it. But even a little thought reveals how deeply mistaken it is.

The church (regenerate persons) is, in the new covenant, the people of God. One biblical image or metaphor for the church, or the people of God, is that we are the “temple”—the “temple of the holy spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19). Would not then pastoral ministry—whether in Toone, Tennessee, or in Willow, Alaska, or in Manhattan, be equally concerned—as a part of the ministry, in taking care of the temple? The location is not particularly important—in terms of worth or value. Pastoral ministry at least includes the task of shepherding a flock, of helping the temple be all that it can be, of engaging in that kind of ministry that will prepare the bride to be “holy and without blemish,” one day to be presented back to the bridegroom (Ephesians 5:25ff).

Now, to work with Paul’s metaphor—we are eager to add stones to the temple, we are eager to see the temple grow, for the “new man” to expand, to see more persons come to faith. But where that takes place is of little importance to us, really.

Schaeffer was right. There really are no “little people.” There are just people. There are not “little ministers” and there are not “little laypersons.” And there are certainly not “little places.”

May God be pleased that we serve faithfully wherever He has us. If he wants to move us on, so be it. And if he does so, we will trust that He has His own good reasons for doing so, both for our good and for His glory.

Douglas Wilson. Mere Christendom. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2023. 280 pp. $21.95.

Douglas Wilson stands in an intriguing place in contemporary Evangelicalism. His reach and influence are significant, and even folks who enjoy his writings and podcasts might be nervous or hesitant to bespeak such things. “Doug who? No, um, uh, I never read or listen to Wilson. What kind of person do you take me to be?” For my part, I have benefitted from reading Wilson for many years. And one can benefit from reading someone even if one has a number of points of disagreement.

Even if one disagrees with Wilson (in much or in little), he is a joy to read. He has real wit, is a wordsmith, and knows how to skewer foolishness. He does not hem or haw—I mean he really does not hem or haw. If you are a middle-aged or older evangelical leader and you wonder why the young Christian men in your circles are reading or listening to or watching Douglas Wilson, you should read this book.

As Wilson notes at the beginning of Mere Christendom, this book began as a series of blog posts. His grandson Knox Merkle helped take a number of Wilson’s blog posts and draw them together, and then Wilson took that and produced this book.

The thesis is straightforward: “I argue here for a principled abandonment of the disastrous experiment of secularism, and for a corporate confession of the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, and all done in such a way as to preserve our liberties” (xi).

Part 1: “Where We Are Now”

The book is divided into four sections of roughly sixty pages each. Part 1 is something of a brush-clearing exercise. Wilson makes the kinds of points he has made for many years and here and there attributes (at least aspects of) his thinking to the likes of Calvin, Kuyper, and Rushdoony. In short, secularism is wicked and is not religiously neutral. Thus, we already have a kind of religion at the heart of public life—the religion of secularism. He rightly notes that if democracy is really the key, why would secularists mind if enough Christians democratically chose to re-instate Blue Laws (where businesses would be closed on Sundays) and the like? Wilson is having fun, and (I am pretty sure) good-naturedly poking holes in the secularist worldview.

Part 2: “Mere Christendom”

Part 2 begins more explicitly to make the case for mere Christendom, which he defines as

a network of nations bound together by a formal, public, civic acknowledgment of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the fundamental truth of the Apostles’ Creed. I mean a public and formal recognition of the authority of Jesus Christ that repudiates the principles of secularism, and that avoids both hard sectarianism and easy latitudinarianism. (69)

This might shock some Christians, especially Baptists (of which I am one). But Wilson deserves his due. Perhaps his strongest rhetorical point is one to which he often turns: any social or political order will always be rooted in some set of transcendent commitments, and these are always ultimately religious. Hence, we always have—in one sense—a theocracy. The question, then, is “not whether, but which.” That is, it is not a matter of “whether we will be governed by Christ, but rather which christ we will be governed by. The Lordship of Christ is not an option that we might select from a row of numerous options. It is Christ or chaos. It is Christ or Antichrist” (70).

Within part 2, Wilson provides a “Brief Scattershot Primer on Christian Nationalism” (ch. 6). For those who are not following this debate, there is a lively discussion in the US on the question of Christian Nationalism, with Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2022) being central to this discussion [I have critically reviewed Wolfe’s book for Christ Over All here and here]. Wilson is a gifted and sharp polemicist and rhetorician. His view, put simply, is this: “I am a Christian and I do love my nation. . . . What shall we call that?” (84). The answer, for Wilson, is “Christian Nationalism.” However, Wilson is clear that Christian Nationalism is not to be confused with Mere Christendom. What, then, is the difference and relationship between them? “Mere Christendom is the sum total of lots of smaller Christian nationalisms” (87). I think Stephen Wolfe and Wilson are actually engaging in quite different projects. Wilson is a Bible guy; Wolfe is engaged in a quite different undertaking: a kind of syllogism (built upon the idea that the civil magistrate ought to lead his people toward their spiritual good—which ultimately is Christianity), and which builds on Wolfe’s understanding of “grace perfecting nature” (i.e., he is engaging in kind of Thomistic project, largely rooted in the maxim: “grace perfects nature”).

And Wilson knows both his history and his US Constitution well enough to know that the first amendment prohibits Congress from establishing a national religion, and when the Constitution was ratified, a number of states already gave official sanction to a particular Christian denomination. Hence, a simple appeal to the first amendment of the US Constitution is not adequate—at least by itself—to defeat Wilson’s argument for a more explicitly Christian social order.

Part 3: “Lies About Mere Christendom”

Part 3 continues the polemic by making the case for Christendom. Wilson begins by tackling the question: Wouldn’t it be oppressive? His reply is astute: “But what happens if we stay with secularism? Well, it is just possible, for example, that we might find ourselves in mandatory celebrations of the kind of sodomite practices that got the attention of the avenging angel of the Lord for the cities of the plain. We might find ourselves dismembering millions of babies. What if something like that were to happen?” (128). Again, Wilson reveals that he is a gifted communicator.

Part 3 also includes some of Wilson’s most interesting reflections on the Bible and hermeneutics. In this part of the book, and elsewhere, he describes himself as a “‘general equity’ theonomist” (165) or a “theocratic libertarian” (120) who affirms “Christocentric Theonomy” (177). “General equity” comes from the Westminster Confession 19.4, which reads: “To them [i.e., to Israel] also, as a body politic, He [i.e., God] gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging under any now, further than the general equity thereof may require.” I think Wilson is wanting here a kind of theonomy which is more attuned to how the wisdom of Old Testament law might be brought to bear on the present—but doing so in a more nuanced way (perhaps) than the theonomy of yesteryear. Wilson, with the term “theocratic libertarian,” essentially means (I believe) that the civil government should generally not engage in any activity unless Scripture explicitly (or implicitly?) gives it the authority to do so.

I think by “Christocentric Theonomy” Wilson is attempting to bring Christ a bit more front and center than might have been the case with the theonomy of a few decades ago. I would encourage the reader to read this section slowly. Wilson is doing something a bit different from his predecessors like R. J. Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen. Wilson seems like he is enjoying the ride and knows this all may take quite a while. As a postmillennialist, he is happy to wait things out. “We have plenty of time,” he says (179). Wilson certainly is rooted in the theonomy tradition, but seems to me to have modified that over the years. A “general equity theonomist” inches closer, I suspect, to what many folks subscribing to the Westminster Standards might affirm (though many would rather steer clear of the term “theonomy”).

Part 4: “How to Restore Christendom”

In part 4, Wilson continues the argument, spending significant space on historical issues. He rightly argues that the American War for Independence (1775–1783) and the French Revolution (began in 1789), though closely related in time, were very different kinds of wars. In a sense, the American War for Independence was not a revolution—in that no one went to Westminster to execute the king. Rather, it was a kind of war of secession. Wilson is advocating a (likely) slow change, rooted in reformation and revival. This will be centered in faithful preaching and teaching, hopefully leading to personal repentance and social transformation. Such events will lead people to ask: What difference does the Lordship of Christ mean for all of life?

Analysis

Wilson is a talented orator and debater, but he is also a Bible guy. In a recent podcast for Christ Over All, I asked Wilson about this, for I discern in him a different emphasis to that which I discerned in the writings of Bahnsen, Rushdoony, and Gary North some 35 years ago. Wilson was raised a good Southern Baptist. In fact, I wonder if that background does not percolate through, here and there, in his thinking. That is, Wilson does not seem interested in the least in seizing power for this or that political entity or taking over school boards or rushing to change this or that law. Rather, he is happy to take his own time with his Bible and postmillennialism in hand, believing that as God has mercy on people they must eventually ask: does all of this Christian stuff have any influence on how I think, how I vote, and what the various forms of government promote or forbid?

If “Christendom” simply means the attempt to apply the lordship of Christ in every realm of life, most Christians (at least the more or less Reformed folks) will have little problem with this. If “Christendom” implies a kind of established state religion, many will be rather skeptical—including (and especially) Baptists. Baptists (and many others) will rightly perhaps chafe at the word “Christendom,” since it conjures up a close (entangling?) relationship between the civil magistrate and the Christian Church. Can one be a Baptist and still hold out for Christendom? If a Baptist does want to hold out for such a reality (i.e., Christendom), it would likely need to be a different kind of Christendom from what has been seen before—one where various local churches (apart from Rome) grow and begin to influence the world around them. This influence would be non-coercive, and not as interested in the use of the sword. It would likely foster Christian educational institutions (from the youngest ages through graduate education). It would be eager to send missionaries around the world to evangelize and plant churches. It would indeed seek to remind the civil magistrate that a civil ruler is “God’s servant . . . a servant of God” (Rom. 13:4); the civil ruler is an “avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom. 13:4); and such civil magistrates are “ministers of God” (Rom. 13:6).

Most of us would like to see people come to faith, families seek to live out the lordship of Christ, schools seek to live out the lordship of Christ, to see persons apply the lordship of Christ to their businesses, their relationships, their use of discretionary income, etc. But many will want to think especially hard about how the lordship of Christ effects thinking about statecraft. Wilson could have written essentially the same book and called it something like Mere Christian Worldview, or Mere Lordship of Christ, etc. But the word “Christendom” will understandably make some skittish.

Many years ago I heard Tony Evans give a talk at regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. Pastor Evans was asked a question about all of his efforts to pastor, help with Christian schooling, provide mercy ministries to poorer people in his area, and the other myriad admirable projects he was engaged in. Someone asked (and I paraphrase here): “Pastor Evans, you are dispensationalist and not a postmillennialist. If we know Jesus is going to return before the millennium, why engage in so many acts of mercy and various social ministries?” His response was quite impressive: “Whether my various efforts are consistent with my eschatology, I don’t know. All I know is what the Bible says. I am commanded to engage in these kinds of ministries of mercy, so that is what I going to do.” Was Pastor Evans trying to build “Christendom”? Probably not. He was simply trying to be, even if he did not use the term, a kind of Reformed Kuyperian—he was trying to apply Christ’s lordship to “every inch” of life as best as he knew. Wilson is essentially doing a very similar thing, in general. He, however, combines his various efforts with a commitment to postmillennialism as well as a version of theonomy—and the latter will make his critics especially nervous.

Conclusion

If secularism continues in our day to run roughshod over any semblance of moral dignity and moral sanity, it is going to be interesting to see how Christians—especially evangelicals—respond. If Aaron Renn is correct that we now live in a “Negative World”—one in which our culture has adopted a negative view of Christianity, what is going to emerge out of this era? As Christians continue to find themselves on the ropes on any number of issues, they are naturally asking very basic questions: how did we get here, and how do we now live? What ought to replace secularism? Christians who don’t follow Wilson should still read him. And if they are not persuaded by his answers, they should then attempt to think through for themselves what exactly the Lordship of Christ does mean in every realm. The term “Christendom” may not be attractive to many, and understandably so. Nonetheless, I would encourage Christians to read and engage Wilson and learn from him and not simply glibly dismiss him.

Bradley G. Green

Union University

Jackson, Tennessee, USA