We are in the middle of a short series of Analyses on Tom Wright's book Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. (The trajectory of the series is not quite turning out as originally planned, but never mind.)
This month we continue our examination of the Bishop's argument first by underscoring the point made by John Piper in The Future of Justification that God's righteousness is wider than covenant faithfulness. This is not only a point of sound theology, but also a point of logic.
We then see that most of the elements of the Reformed account of the atonement and its place in justification are in fact endorsed by Wright - Christ's death is the 'basis' of justification, he acts as a substitute, as a result of which God 'reckons' us to be 'in the right'.
In the next post, in September, I do not pursue the obvious next question, which is: What then is so new about the new perspective if so much of the old perspective is still in place? Rather, I shall ask- what is it that Wright objects to about the place that the Reformed account of justification finds for the imputation of Christ's righteousness? And is he consistent to object to it as he does?
The second post is a further draft extract from the forthcoming Calvin at the Centre (OUP), this time on Calvin and Stoicism.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Why Covenant Faithfulness is not Divine Righteousness (and cannot be)
In numerous places in Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision Bishop Wright claims that God’s righteousness is his covenant faithfulness. I deliberately stress the ‘is’. How is Wright taking it? One way would be to understand it as ‘God ‘s covenant faithfulness is (an expression of) his righteousness’. But it is clear that he means something much stronger: more like, ‘God’s righteousness is (nothing other than) his covenant faithfulness’.
I think we need to pause for a moment or two on this claimed identity between righteousness and covenant faithfulness. It means, for one thing, that there is no other way that God could express his righteousness than by way of covenant faithfulness. Why? Because the one is the other. So in order to be righteous God must establish a covenant and be faithful to it. God cannot do other than he has in fact done. This would be seem to be, shall we say, rather restrictive? Where is God’s freedom in grace? In his wisdom, could he have seen fit not to establish a covenant? If so, would he nonetheless be righteous?
In making a covenant (with Abraham, say) is God acting righteously? Strictly, not according to Bishop Wright. He is only acting righteously in keeping his covenant, in being faithful to it. Weird. For Wright seems to be implying that God’s making a covenant could be an act of whimsy, caprice, sheer arbitrariness, coin-tossing, or whatever, but that everything changes when it comes to keeping the covenant. Can that be right?
These are points of logic, or conceptuality, I know. They are none the worse for that. But alongside them there are the exegetical remarks made powerfully by John Piper in Chapter 3 of The Future of Justification.
God’s covenant faithfulness
Piper claims that ’Wright’s definition of righteousness does not go deep enough’ (62). What he means is that Wright’s account of divine righteousness starts and stops with his account of divine actions. (62-4) Piper says
Wright treats righteousness solely in terms of God’s actions.
So according to Piper the sense of ‘righteousness’ is wider than that of covenant faithfulness, important though such faithfulness is.
Yet it is not merely a question of some definition of righteousness not being adequate, of how we are to understand that righteousness. It is also, and more fundamentally, the question of the coherence of any account of divine righteousness that does not begin with who God is. Being, the being of God, must come first; acting is a consequence of being. This is true generally; glass is not fragile because it easily smashes, it easily smashes because it is fragile. Henry is not vain because he is always preening himself in front of the mirror, but his preening is an expression of his vain disposition. In God’s case, doing righteously follows from being righteous. Acting faithfully is a consequence of being faithful, of having a faithful character, or a character apt for being faithful. Wright’s account is not deep enough, in Piper’s estimate, because it does not start with the character of God, but with the actions of God.
Piper’s identification of this failure in Wright is of considerable significance in his treatment of the Bishop’s view. But it is also more generally important in Christian theology. For various reasons it is at present hugely fashionable to think of theology in narrative form: in terms of covenant (Horton), speech-act theory and ‘theodrama’ (Vanhoozer), and of history (N.T. Wright), for example. More generally, it is vogish to think predominantly in the category of history, redemptive history, biblical history, ‘biblical theology’, and to downplay or abandon the categories of systematic theology. In Wright’s case this way of thinking is habitual because he is first and foremost a historian, and so first and foremost he thinks in terms of historical sequences, of sequences of action, human and divine, and of their significance. He is much less interested in the ‘creedal’ statements in Scripture. He has little feel for the doctrinal debates in the history of the Church, and he sticks as closely as he can to the very words of Scripture and to the use of any analogies and metaphors that throw light on these.
But Piper has put his finger on an inherent weakness with such approaches. To be contributions to Christian theology they all need what a mere narrative, a mere sequence of events , does not and cannot deliver. They need a doctrine of God. What Piper is concerned to do is not to ‘shrink’ the discussion, (as Wright supposes (154)), but to broaden it, to show that God’s covenant , both his making it and his keeping it, stand within the framework of a deeper recognition of God’s character, or attributes. God’s righteousness is his resolve to be true to himself, in all aspects of his character. Such righteousness is ‘ultimately defined in relation to this ultimate value, the holiness or the glory of God ’ – this is the highest standard for “right” in the universe’. (64) ‘This is part of his nature. It is part of what it means to be God. This is the deeper foundation for covenant-keeping (and all other divine action) Coming from this deepest allegiance of God is what makes an action “right” or “righteous”’. (65)
And later
A Riposte
This is what Tom Wright says by way of a riposte
This is good example of the regular way in which ‘narrative’ approaches to the text of Scripture inevitably reduce God’s character to what he does. There are several points to be made:
Such an approach excludes any reference to the need for a covenant (a unilaterally established way of salvation from sin, a restoration) in the first place. It starts the theology too far down the line, too late. Does God’s righteousness have nothing to do with the need for a covenant? Wright says, ‘Dealing with sin, saving humans from it, giving them grace, forgiveness, justification, glorification – all this was the purpose of the single covenant from the beginning, now revealed in Jesus Christ.’ (74, author’s italics). Indeed, and well said. But why are such gifts necessary? But why is it necessary to deal with sin? What is sin? And is it plausible to suppose that righteous Noah (Gen. 7.1), or the hypothetical righteous men of Sodom for whom Abraham interceded (Gen. 18), were faithful to a covenant? To which covenant?
Sure enough, God’s attitude to sin, his grace, the provision of forgiveness, the vindication of men and women by Christ – is part of what it means for God to be righteous. But this does not exhaust God’s righteousness, it (merely!) expresses it. God is faithful to the covenant of grace and redemption from sin that he has righteously established. It is for this reason that Piper thinks that Wright’s insistence that God’s righteousness is his covenant faithfulness is a ‘belittling’ of it, as Wright puts it (74). Rather, it must be filled out, by understanding God’s righteousness as an essential feature of his character. If anyone ‘belittles’ it is Wright, who reduces the righteousness of God to a set of God’s actions. But God acts (and must act) consistently with his nature. So the fundamental question is, what character does the God who does all this have?
How exactly?
So how, exactly, are believers declared to be in the right? What is that declaration and its relation to justification? This is another way of asking that question : How can believers be declared in the right? What is the basis or foundation of such a declaration? (113-4). What are the grounds or reasons for reckoning righteous? Such questions are raised in one’s mind fairly early on in Wright’s exegetical survey of righteousness in Paul’s letters; in fact, raised a number of times. They come up when Wright repeatedly says: for Paul, believers are righteous, they are declared to be ‘in the right’. (133) But how is it that we have no reason to think that the court that issues such a declaration is not a kangeroo court? How can we be sure that the judge is not a crook, but someone to be relied upon? As initially presented, this idea of being declared in the right seems to be curiously hollow. As a consequence of Christ’s death and resurrection, (but never mind how), God declares believers to be in the right. But what makes the court righteous? And what makes its declaration righteous? Even when the Bishop does fill out ‘righteousness as connoting mercy and kindness, faithfulness and generosity’ (69) it is still a strikingly procedural understanding of imputation – Mercy in respect of what? Kindness on account of what?
Wright makes clear, in a footnote, ( Ch. 7 fn. 7, 229) that he does not like the language (used by Piper, and hosts more, of course) of the ‘basis’ of justification. But eventually the need to talk in such ways becomes inescapable, as Wright takes us into the heart of Romans. They are forced upon us by what Paul says. God declares a person righteous by not counting their trespasses against them (138), which in turn prompts the question: what trespasses – how are they to understood? And in virtue of what is it about Christ that results in one’s trespasses not being counted? Does Paul have no answer to such questions?
Substitution
Given the naturalness of such questions it is not surprising that Wright himself provides an answer to the very questions that he thinks ought not to be asked: He says that Christ’s faithful death , ‘the representative and therefore substitutionary death’ is the foundation (180-1) of justification. ‘Foundation’ is obviously another word for ‘basis’, the word Wright uses twice in 113-4. So by this stage in his discussion it is evident that Wright has been able to overcome his reluctance to talk some of the traditional language, the language of what grounds or provides the basis for our justification – what was sometimes called – in language which no doubt Wright likes even less than ‘basis’ – the material cause of our justification.
And what does Christ deliver, by his death and resurrection? – Wright’s answer is that the death and resurrection of Christ is the basis of the pardon of our sins, ‘overarching human sin’ (174). Christ deals with sin (74) in his death , making justification possible. (179) And he does so by being our representative or substitute. (181).
For all the protestations to the contrary, then, the distance between Wright and the traditional view of justification is narrowed at a point like this, narrowed because once he recognises the need for an account of the basis of justification, then the concept of substitution is forced upon him by the argumentative structure of what St. Paul really said.
So that’s the first point,. God’s righteousness is seen in his condemnation of sin.Wright’s account of Paul’s teaching regarding the basis or foundation of the ‘overarching’ problem of sin involves substitution. So God's righteousness cannot only be his covenant faithfulness.
Imputation
Further, Bishop Wright is also happy to use the language of imputation. Well, he does not quite use that word ‘impute’, but he uses the word ‘reckon.’ (Early on he chides J.I. Packer for writing that though Paul does not actually talk of ‘imputed righteousness’ he does talk about ‘reckoning righteousness’ which (Packer thinks, but Wright demurs) amounts to the same thing – the language of imputation is a good and necessary consequence, Packer might say, of Paul’s language of ‘reckoning’ and ‘counting as’. (29-30)) So how has God ‘dealt with our sin’? Answer: he has dealt with it by reckoning us to be ‘in the right’ in virtue of what our substitute has done.
So, almost in spite of himself, Wright identifies three vital concepts which he sees in Paul – Christ’s death the ‘basis’ of justification; then substitution - Christ is substituted as the faithful Israelite; and the outcome - as a result God ‘reckons’ us to be ‘in the right’.
So what now prevents him from subscribing to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness that is vital to the Reformed understanding of the atonement?
I think that I know the answer!
To try to show this, in the third post we shall take a look at Wright and righteousness.
I think we need to pause for a moment or two on this claimed identity between righteousness and covenant faithfulness. It means, for one thing, that there is no other way that God could express his righteousness than by way of covenant faithfulness. Why? Because the one is the other. So in order to be righteous God must establish a covenant and be faithful to it. God cannot do other than he has in fact done. This would be seem to be, shall we say, rather restrictive? Where is God’s freedom in grace? In his wisdom, could he have seen fit not to establish a covenant? If so, would he nonetheless be righteous?
In making a covenant (with Abraham, say) is God acting righteously? Strictly, not according to Bishop Wright. He is only acting righteously in keeping his covenant, in being faithful to it. Weird. For Wright seems to be implying that God’s making a covenant could be an act of whimsy, caprice, sheer arbitrariness, coin-tossing, or whatever, but that everything changes when it comes to keeping the covenant. Can that be right?
These are points of logic, or conceptuality, I know. They are none the worse for that. But alongside them there are the exegetical remarks made powerfully by John Piper in Chapter 3 of The Future of Justification.
God’s covenant faithfulness
Piper claims that ’Wright’s definition of righteousness does not go deep enough’ (62). What he means is that Wright’s account of divine righteousness starts and stops with his account of divine actions. (62-4) Piper says
Not in the least do I wish to question that God’s righteousness impels him to be faithful to his covenant promises, to judge without partiality, to deal with sin “properly”, and to stand up for those who are unjustly oppressed. But God’s love (hesed) and his faithfulness (emet) and his goodness (tov) could also be said to produce these actions. Yet God’s righteousness and love and faithfulness and goodness are not all synonyms. So the crucial question in defining the righteousness of God is: What is it about God’s righteousness that inclines him to act in these ways? Behind each of those actions is the assumption that there is something about God’s righteousness that explains why he acts as he does. What is that? That is the question, so far as I can see, that Wright does not ask. (62-3)
Wright treats righteousness solely in terms of God’s actions.
So according to Piper the sense of ‘righteousness’ is wider than that of covenant faithfulness, important though such faithfulness is.
Yet it is not merely a question of some definition of righteousness not being adequate, of how we are to understand that righteousness. It is also, and more fundamentally, the question of the coherence of any account of divine righteousness that does not begin with who God is. Being, the being of God, must come first; acting is a consequence of being. This is true generally; glass is not fragile because it easily smashes, it easily smashes because it is fragile. Henry is not vain because he is always preening himself in front of the mirror, but his preening is an expression of his vain disposition. In God’s case, doing righteously follows from being righteous. Acting faithfully is a consequence of being faithful, of having a faithful character, or a character apt for being faithful. Wright’s account is not deep enough, in Piper’s estimate, because it does not start with the character of God, but with the actions of God.
Piper’s identification of this failure in Wright is of considerable significance in his treatment of the Bishop’s view. But it is also more generally important in Christian theology. For various reasons it is at present hugely fashionable to think of theology in narrative form: in terms of covenant (Horton), speech-act theory and ‘theodrama’ (Vanhoozer), and of history (N.T. Wright), for example. More generally, it is vogish to think predominantly in the category of history, redemptive history, biblical history, ‘biblical theology’, and to downplay or abandon the categories of systematic theology. In Wright’s case this way of thinking is habitual because he is first and foremost a historian, and so first and foremost he thinks in terms of historical sequences, of sequences of action, human and divine, and of their significance. He is much less interested in the ‘creedal’ statements in Scripture. He has little feel for the doctrinal debates in the history of the Church, and he sticks as closely as he can to the very words of Scripture and to the use of any analogies and metaphors that throw light on these.
But Piper has put his finger on an inherent weakness with such approaches. To be contributions to Christian theology they all need what a mere narrative, a mere sequence of events , does not and cannot deliver. They need a doctrine of God. What Piper is concerned to do is not to ‘shrink’ the discussion, (as Wright supposes (154)), but to broaden it, to show that God’s covenant , both his making it and his keeping it, stand within the framework of a deeper recognition of God’s character, or attributes. God’s righteousness is his resolve to be true to himself, in all aspects of his character. Such righteousness is ‘ultimately defined in relation to this ultimate value, the holiness or the glory of God ’ – this is the highest standard for “right” in the universe’. (64) ‘This is part of his nature. It is part of what it means to be God. This is the deeper foundation for covenant-keeping (and all other divine action) Coming from this deepest allegiance of God is what makes an action “right” or “righteous”’. (65)
And later
Paul’s vision of God’s righteousness is not synonymous with God’s covenant faithfulness or his impartiality in court. It is deeper than both of these. They are some of what righteousness does, not what righteousness is. God’s righteousness is no more defined by his covenant-keeping than a man’s integrity is defined by his contract keeping. There are a hundred other things integrity prompts a person to do besides keep contacts. And there are a hundred other things God’s righteousness prompts him to do besides keep covenant. (164)
A Riposte
This is what Tom Wright says by way of a riposte
Piper’s attempt to show that that there must be a’ righteousness’ behind God’s covenant faithfulness is simply unconvincing (46) …..Again, it seems that Piper has read it, but he never engages with the basic proposal I make, which is that - fully in line with Daniel 9 and the multitude of Isaiah and Psalms that talk in the same way – ‘God’s righteousness’ here is his faithfulness to the covenant, specifically to the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, and that it is because of this covenant that God deals with sins through the faithful, obedient death of Jesus the messiah. (Rom.3.24-2)
This is good example of the regular way in which ‘narrative’ approaches to the text of Scripture inevitably reduce God’s character to what he does. There are several points to be made:
Such an approach excludes any reference to the need for a covenant (a unilaterally established way of salvation from sin, a restoration) in the first place. It starts the theology too far down the line, too late. Does God’s righteousness have nothing to do with the need for a covenant? Wright says, ‘Dealing with sin, saving humans from it, giving them grace, forgiveness, justification, glorification – all this was the purpose of the single covenant from the beginning, now revealed in Jesus Christ.’ (74, author’s italics). Indeed, and well said. But why are such gifts necessary? But why is it necessary to deal with sin? What is sin? And is it plausible to suppose that righteous Noah (Gen. 7.1), or the hypothetical righteous men of Sodom for whom Abraham interceded (Gen. 18), were faithful to a covenant? To which covenant?
Sure enough, God’s attitude to sin, his grace, the provision of forgiveness, the vindication of men and women by Christ – is part of what it means for God to be righteous. But this does not exhaust God’s righteousness, it (merely!) expresses it. God is faithful to the covenant of grace and redemption from sin that he has righteously established. It is for this reason that Piper thinks that Wright’s insistence that God’s righteousness is his covenant faithfulness is a ‘belittling’ of it, as Wright puts it (74). Rather, it must be filled out, by understanding God’s righteousness as an essential feature of his character. If anyone ‘belittles’ it is Wright, who reduces the righteousness of God to a set of God’s actions. But God acts (and must act) consistently with his nature. So the fundamental question is, what character does the God who does all this have?
How exactly?
So how, exactly, are believers declared to be in the right? What is that declaration and its relation to justification? This is another way of asking that question : How can believers be declared in the right? What is the basis or foundation of such a declaration? (113-4). What are the grounds or reasons for reckoning righteous? Such questions are raised in one’s mind fairly early on in Wright’s exegetical survey of righteousness in Paul’s letters; in fact, raised a number of times. They come up when Wright repeatedly says: for Paul, believers are righteous, they are declared to be ‘in the right’. (133) But how is it that we have no reason to think that the court that issues such a declaration is not a kangeroo court? How can we be sure that the judge is not a crook, but someone to be relied upon? As initially presented, this idea of being declared in the right seems to be curiously hollow. As a consequence of Christ’s death and resurrection, (but never mind how), God declares believers to be in the right. But what makes the court righteous? And what makes its declaration righteous? Even when the Bishop does fill out ‘righteousness as connoting mercy and kindness, faithfulness and generosity’ (69) it is still a strikingly procedural understanding of imputation – Mercy in respect of what? Kindness on account of what?
Wright makes clear, in a footnote, ( Ch. 7 fn. 7, 229) that he does not like the language (used by Piper, and hosts more, of course) of the ‘basis’ of justification. But eventually the need to talk in such ways becomes inescapable, as Wright takes us into the heart of Romans. They are forced upon us by what Paul says. God declares a person righteous by not counting their trespasses against them (138), which in turn prompts the question: what trespasses – how are they to understood? And in virtue of what is it about Christ that results in one’s trespasses not being counted? Does Paul have no answer to such questions?
Substitution
Given the naturalness of such questions it is not surprising that Wright himself provides an answer to the very questions that he thinks ought not to be asked: He says that Christ’s faithful death , ‘the representative and therefore substitutionary death’ is the foundation (180-1) of justification. ‘Foundation’ is obviously another word for ‘basis’, the word Wright uses twice in 113-4. So by this stage in his discussion it is evident that Wright has been able to overcome his reluctance to talk some of the traditional language, the language of what grounds or provides the basis for our justification – what was sometimes called – in language which no doubt Wright likes even less than ‘basis’ – the material cause of our justification.
And what does Christ deliver, by his death and resurrection? – Wright’s answer is that the death and resurrection of Christ is the basis of the pardon of our sins, ‘overarching human sin’ (174). Christ deals with sin (74) in his death , making justification possible. (179) And he does so by being our representative or substitute. (181).
For all the protestations to the contrary, then, the distance between Wright and the traditional view of justification is narrowed at a point like this, narrowed because once he recognises the need for an account of the basis of justification, then the concept of substitution is forced upon him by the argumentative structure of what St. Paul really said.
So that’s the first point,. God’s righteousness is seen in his condemnation of sin.Wright’s account of Paul’s teaching regarding the basis or foundation of the ‘overarching’ problem of sin involves substitution. So God's righteousness cannot only be his covenant faithfulness.
Imputation
Further, Bishop Wright is also happy to use the language of imputation. Well, he does not quite use that word ‘impute’, but he uses the word ‘reckon.’ (Early on he chides J.I. Packer for writing that though Paul does not actually talk of ‘imputed righteousness’ he does talk about ‘reckoning righteousness’ which (Packer thinks, but Wright demurs) amounts to the same thing – the language of imputation is a good and necessary consequence, Packer might say, of Paul’s language of ‘reckoning’ and ‘counting as’. (29-30)) So how has God ‘dealt with our sin’? Answer: he has dealt with it by reckoning us to be ‘in the right’ in virtue of what our substitute has done.
So, almost in spite of himself, Wright identifies three vital concepts which he sees in Paul – Christ’s death the ‘basis’ of justification; then substitution - Christ is substituted as the faithful Israelite; and the outcome - as a result God ‘reckons’ us to be ‘in the right’.
So what now prevents him from subscribing to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness that is vital to the Reformed understanding of the atonement?
I think that I know the answer!
To try to show this, in the third post we shall take a look at Wright and righteousness.
Calvin and the Stoics
Providence and Human Agency
I shall first try to show this by noting what Calvin and the Stoics say about the nature of the causal activity of people. Neither Calvin nor (as we have seen) the Stoics hold the view that the future is fixed irrespective of what men and women desire that future to be, and what they intend and bring about. For the Stoics, a person is fated to enjoy or suffer something not irrespective of their desires and intentions, but through their operation. That is to say, most events are no fated in isolation, but co-fated in a causal and in some cases a teleological sequence
For the Stoics such co-fatedness had a varied character. Some events are causally necessary and sufficient for others. If Laius is fated to have a son then he is fated to have intercourse with the son’s mother to be. Sometimes they are logically necessary. if Milo is fated to wrestle then he is fated to have an opponent to wrestle with, since it is logically impossible to wrestle without having someone to wrestle. So Laius cannot be ‘simply’ be fated to have a son, or Milo to wrestle. Doing either involves other people, and so the fact that Laius is fated to become a father (if he is) cannot be a recipe for idleness, as opponents of Stoicism claimed. But the relation of the elements that are co-fated may be weaker than such a necessary causal connection, it may involve the existence of general but not universal connections; in order for me to recover from my illness it may be necessary for me to consult the doctor, and necessary that I know this, but I may consult the doctor and still not recover. It may in general be necessary for me to take care if I am to cross the road safely, but I may on some occasions be careless and still make it to the other side. As Bobzien says
For the ‘efficiency’ of the refutation of the Idle Argument (which after all is applied to particular situations, since actions are particulars), the existence of an empirically accessible, universal relation of necessary condition is not required and no causal theory with universal laws of nature has to be presupposed. For a non-futile action it is sufficient that there is a chance that the action matters for the outcome in that there is a probability that it is a necessary condition for triggering or preventing a prospective cause from being active and thus furthers a certain envisaged result.
So, for both Calvin and the Stoics, because the order of things is a causal, teleological order, we cannot be idle or imprudent if certain of our goals are to be achieved. So the Stoics reject the ‘idle argument’ that if the future is fixed then there is nothing that we presently do that can affect or influence it.
So, transposing this outlook into Calvin’s theism, while it was eternally ordained by God (let us suppose) that Joe climbs the ladder, God's decree that he does so is a necessary condition of the truth of 'Jones climbed the ladder'. But it is not by itself sufficient, because the decree has also to take effect in time. In ordaining that Joe climb the ladder God must also ordain that there is an available ladder, that Joe was not too frightened to climb it, that he had an objective for which ladder-climbing is necessary, the desire to climb, and so forth. And for this sort of scenario to be a cure for Joe’s idleness then he must want to climb the ladder, knowing or believing that it is (probably) connected with something further that he wants to achieve. Such factors have to be ordained in the correct causal and teleological order and to 'fall out' thus.
Further, this co-fatedness is what explains why Joe uses the ladder, in the way that merely to assert 'he was fated to climb the ladder does not. 'Whatever you do it was fated that you do it' offers no guidance as to what you should do. To the question 'Why are you turning on the television?' 'Because I am fated to turn it on' or ‘God has decreed that I do so’ are not justifying reasons for that action in the way that 'Because I want to see the match this afternoon' is. It's not a reason because (according to Stoicism) I am fated to do everything I do, or (according to Calvin) everything I do is decreed by God. But (in general) I have no epistemic access to the future. All I know (by past experience in some fashion) is that in order to watch the match this afternoon I have to take necessary steps to do so. I might not take those steps, and still, by a series of unintended coincidences, see the match that I wanted to see. But this is no way to live. Effort is causally contributory to an envisaged end. Calvin is assuming, of course, that for the most part God does not disclose the future to us until it becomes the present. So he is saying that at the human level, action causally contributes to what occurs, and so having reasons to do a certain action and to refrain from doing another sort of action are explanations of why I act or forbear to act. Nevertheless, what I do is necessitated by the divine decree.
Of course both Stoic fatalism and Calvin’s appeal to the divine decree impose fixity on the sequences of events. Yet if the type of fatalism, (for the Stoics) or providence (for Calvin) were that sometimes called logical or ‘simple’ fatalism, such that Joe is fated to climb the ladder whether he wants to or not, or perhaps even though he does not want to, and particular events are fated in abstraction from any particular causal nexus, then his wanting or not wanting to climb the ladder does not explain anything about how it comes to be climbed. Nothing explains that except fate, or the God of such fate. Calvin cites Cicero’s De Fato on the connectedness of means and ends.
In the Institutes Calvin’s appeal to co-fatedness (he does not use the term confatalia as far as I know) occurs in a variety of contexts. His use of it to reject the idle argument occurs in his discussion of the use to which the doctrine of providence ought to be put. Those convinced of the doctrine should view their lives and the lives of others not only in terms of secondary causes, which he here calls 'means', but in terms of God's will, the primary cause. But in referring to the primary cause, they should also not forget or neglect the place of secondary causes.
Such immanent causation, the order of secondary causes, coincides with part of the Stoic view, the considerations used to rebut the idle argument. Where it differs is that for Calvin God is at work through these chains of immanent causation; that is, they have a transcendent causal source and not, as with Stoicism, a merely immanent source. What happens is the result of God’s use of means to achieve his ends, means which he also decrees, of course, and also announces the connection between means and ends. If I am destined to post the letter, then I am destined to use the appropriate means to post it. If I want to cross the road safely, then I must (usually) be alert to the traffic. This connection of means and ends, or more precisely, this general though not universal connection of means with ends has, for Calvin, a consequence that may seem surprising. There is an element of 'as if' in Calvin's practical approach to providence. While the future is fixed we approach the future as if it were open. He says,
There does not seem to have been the same emphasis in early Stoicism. Later Stoics, such as the Roman Stoic Epictetus ( c.55-c.135) had a great interest in the moral value of their outlook. Fatalism should promote a prudent approach to life, to living within one’s limits, avoiding recklessness and risk, and so living in accordance with Nature. According to Bobzien, Epictetus, and no doubt others, were thus future-orientated, whereas earlier Stoics such as Chrysippus tended to be past-orientated.
Calvin’s outlook here is rather different. He has a concept of nature, though it does not play a central role in his thought on providence. The pivot is ‘the will of God’, understood as covering both the command of God and his decree. Confidence in the wisdom, power and grace of God that belief in his providence promotes, and a willingness to do what he has commanded, arm us against the undeniable vagaries and (epistemic) uncertainties of what God has decreed. Nevertheless there is something of the Stoic in this:
There is another context of Calvin’s in which co-fatedness is invoked, though again not in name. Calvin argues that God's determination confers necessity on what otherwise would not be so. He gives the example of Christ's bones.
The prophecy (i.e. a revelation of a divine decree) that none of Jesus' bones will be broken is co-fated (or co-decreed) with the failure of anyone to break any of his bones. So what failed to happen depended upon the prophetically-announced decree and is explained by it. The co-fatedness (or co-decreed) account of Jesus’ bones would be something like: the infallible prophesy, Jesus' bones will not be broken, is co-decreed with certain other events e.g. that there are no successful attempts to break them, or no attempts at all, and no ‘accidental’ breakings.
The ultimate explanation of why events, including human actions, occur is not in the last analysis to be referred to any immanent set of causes, much less to a set of causes to which God himself is bound. Calvin is not willing to consider the power of such a series, particularly the idea of a necessary set of causes, apart from the one who ordains it, Almighty God. But this does not mean that Calvin denies the existence of such a series. It is simply that this is not the whole story. What it does show is that Calvin is not attracted by immanent fatalism and in particular he is adamantly opposed to astrological fatalism, the more so if it is claimed not only that the stars are merely the evidence of fate, but that they act independently of God, and even more so were it claimed that even God himself is bound by what is written in the stars, written by a non-divine hand.
So it is the type of causal necessity that is at issue between Calvin and Stoicism, (and not chance or fortune). This is underlined by the next question considered by Calvin in the Institutes. Does nothing happen by chance, nothing by contingency? The question obviously implies a negative answer. So the necessitarian presumption is retained. Nevertheless, even for Calvin, human choices are voluntary in an irreducible sense. God necessitates all that happens, but in a way that is consistent with the varied natures of things. It follows that 'chance' is for Calvin a purely epistemic term, following Augustine.
Augustine is approvingly noted by Calvin as one who rules out chance, and even rules out that things occur partly by man's free choice, partly by divine providence, and 'he also excludes the contingency that depends on human will'.
So it is clear that Calvin, though ostensibly taking a via media between fortune and chance on the one hand, and Stoic necessity/fatalism on the other is, like his mentor Augustine, in virtue of his commitment to divine sovereignty, inclined more to the side of fatalism than to the side of fortune and chance, or to some view of providence which has to find place for the 'contingency which depends on human will'. The sense of fortuitousness is purely epistemic, since necessity is the basic metaphysical component in his account of providence.
'That which God has determined, though it must come to pass, is not, however, precisely, or in its own nature, necessary.' It is a case of the necessity of the consequence, not of the consequent. This necessitarianism is not logical necessity or in some weaker sense inevitable, having a causal necessity deriving only from immanent forces. If God had created a Stoic world, adopting a deistic stance towards it, this would not for Calvin have been equivalent to the Christian doctrine of providence, because it would lack the divine attention that is paid to the governing of each particular.
Calvin’s form of compatibilism is grounded in the autonomy of human (and angelic) agency, like the Stoics. Autonomy in the sense that human agency is not simply the effect of sets of external forces. In this sense God works through those distinct individual natures that he has created and upholds, and not merely through laws of nature and initial conditions which together are causally necessary and sufficient for everything that occurs in the world.
All of this reminds us that insofar as Calvin is a determinist as a result of holding his view of providence, he does not avow determinism, any more than he avows providence, for theoretical reasons. He does not adopt his view of meticulous providence because he thinks that it solves philosophical problems. Undoubtedly, his doctrine of primary and secondary causes (taken from the medieval tradition) and his distinction between doing and willingly permitting (taken from Augustine) involve theoretical, philosophical difficulties. Calvin acknowledges as much when he stresses the mysterious character of the doctrines that involve these distinctions. Yet he adopts these views, aware of their attendant difficulties, because he believes that other views involve an even greater difficulty, that of not doing as much justice to the Scriptural data as his own view.
So it is doubtful that Calvin thinks that appealing to a hierarchy of agents, and his utilising of the distinction between doing and willingly permitting, are sufficient to explain God's relation to sin. One clue to this is that he frequently appeals to the 'modesty and sobriety' of his immediate readership to ward off what he regards as invalid inferences of both a theoretical and a practical kind. If someone draws the inference that because he is an instrument of divine providence then he is not to be blamed for his evil, Calvin regards this as a serious mistake not because he can provide a convincing argument to the contrary, but because (as, he believes, his Christian readers will readily concur) such a proposal is immodest. Why should someone think of making such an inference except to further express and to safeguard their wickedness? To objections of a more theoretical kind that don't express such an antinomian tendency but focus instead on Calvin's failure to demonstrate his position, he would I suspect be more accommodating. But because he is ultimately concerned to foster the correct practical religious responses to the doctrine of providence rather than to offer a satisfactory explanation of it, the plain fact is that he is less interested in pursuing the theoretical issues. His confidence in his position does not arise from a belief that he has explained it, nor answered all objections to it, but because he is persuaded that this is what Scripture teaches.
Here as elsewhere, Calvin's first aim is persuasio rather than demonstratio.
I shall first try to show this by noting what Calvin and the Stoics say about the nature of the causal activity of people. Neither Calvin nor (as we have seen) the Stoics hold the view that the future is fixed irrespective of what men and women desire that future to be, and what they intend and bring about. For the Stoics, a person is fated to enjoy or suffer something not irrespective of their desires and intentions, but through their operation. That is to say, most events are no fated in isolation, but co-fated in a causal and in some cases a teleological sequence
For the Stoics such co-fatedness had a varied character. Some events are causally necessary and sufficient for others. If Laius is fated to have a son then he is fated to have intercourse with the son’s mother to be. Sometimes they are logically necessary. if Milo is fated to wrestle then he is fated to have an opponent to wrestle with, since it is logically impossible to wrestle without having someone to wrestle. So Laius cannot be ‘simply’ be fated to have a son, or Milo to wrestle. Doing either involves other people, and so the fact that Laius is fated to become a father (if he is) cannot be a recipe for idleness, as opponents of Stoicism claimed. But the relation of the elements that are co-fated may be weaker than such a necessary causal connection, it may involve the existence of general but not universal connections; in order for me to recover from my illness it may be necessary for me to consult the doctor, and necessary that I know this, but I may consult the doctor and still not recover. It may in general be necessary for me to take care if I am to cross the road safely, but I may on some occasions be careless and still make it to the other side. As Bobzien says
For the ‘efficiency’ of the refutation of the Idle Argument (which after all is applied to particular situations, since actions are particulars), the existence of an empirically accessible, universal relation of necessary condition is not required and no causal theory with universal laws of nature has to be presupposed. For a non-futile action it is sufficient that there is a chance that the action matters for the outcome in that there is a probability that it is a necessary condition for triggering or preventing a prospective cause from being active and thus furthers a certain envisaged result.
So, for both Calvin and the Stoics, because the order of things is a causal, teleological order, we cannot be idle or imprudent if certain of our goals are to be achieved. So the Stoics reject the ‘idle argument’ that if the future is fixed then there is nothing that we presently do that can affect or influence it.
So, transposing this outlook into Calvin’s theism, while it was eternally ordained by God (let us suppose) that Joe climbs the ladder, God's decree that he does so is a necessary condition of the truth of 'Jones climbed the ladder'. But it is not by itself sufficient, because the decree has also to take effect in time. In ordaining that Joe climb the ladder God must also ordain that there is an available ladder, that Joe was not too frightened to climb it, that he had an objective for which ladder-climbing is necessary, the desire to climb, and so forth. And for this sort of scenario to be a cure for Joe’s idleness then he must want to climb the ladder, knowing or believing that it is (probably) connected with something further that he wants to achieve. Such factors have to be ordained in the correct causal and teleological order and to 'fall out' thus.
Further, this co-fatedness is what explains why Joe uses the ladder, in the way that merely to assert 'he was fated to climb the ladder does not. 'Whatever you do it was fated that you do it' offers no guidance as to what you should do. To the question 'Why are you turning on the television?' 'Because I am fated to turn it on' or ‘God has decreed that I do so’ are not justifying reasons for that action in the way that 'Because I want to see the match this afternoon' is. It's not a reason because (according to Stoicism) I am fated to do everything I do, or (according to Calvin) everything I do is decreed by God. But (in general) I have no epistemic access to the future. All I know (by past experience in some fashion) is that in order to watch the match this afternoon I have to take necessary steps to do so. I might not take those steps, and still, by a series of unintended coincidences, see the match that I wanted to see. But this is no way to live. Effort is causally contributory to an envisaged end. Calvin is assuming, of course, that for the most part God does not disclose the future to us until it becomes the present. So he is saying that at the human level, action causally contributes to what occurs, and so having reasons to do a certain action and to refrain from doing another sort of action are explanations of why I act or forbear to act. Nevertheless, what I do is necessitated by the divine decree.
Of course both Stoic fatalism and Calvin’s appeal to the divine decree impose fixity on the sequences of events. Yet if the type of fatalism, (for the Stoics) or providence (for Calvin) were that sometimes called logical or ‘simple’ fatalism, such that Joe is fated to climb the ladder whether he wants to or not, or perhaps even though he does not want to, and particular events are fated in abstraction from any particular causal nexus, then his wanting or not wanting to climb the ladder does not explain anything about how it comes to be climbed. Nothing explains that except fate, or the God of such fate. Calvin cites Cicero’s De Fato on the connectedness of means and ends.
In the Institutes Calvin’s appeal to co-fatedness (he does not use the term confatalia as far as I know) occurs in a variety of contexts. His use of it to reject the idle argument occurs in his discussion of the use to which the doctrine of providence ought to be put. Those convinced of the doctrine should view their lives and the lives of others not only in terms of secondary causes, which he here calls 'means', but in terms of God's will, the primary cause. But in referring to the primary cause, they should also not forget or neglect the place of secondary causes.
For he who has fixed the boundaries of our life, has at the same time entrusted us with the care of it, provided us with the means of preserving it, forewarned us of the dangers to which we are exposed, and supplied cautions and remedies, that we may not be overwhelmed unawares. Now, our duty is clear, namely, since the Lord has committed to us the defence of our life – to defend it; since he offers assistance – to use it; since he forewarns us of danger – not to rush on heedless; since he supplies remedies – not to neglect them. But it is said, a danger that is not fatal will not hurt us, and one that is fatal cannot be resisted by any precautions. But what if dangers are not fatal, merely because the Lord has furnished you with the means of warding them off, and surmounting them? See how far your reasoning accords with the order of divine procedure. You infer that danger is not to be guarded against, because, if it is not fatal, you shall escape without precaution; whereas the Lord enjoins you to guard against it, just because he wills it not to be fatal.
Such immanent causation, the order of secondary causes, coincides with part of the Stoic view, the considerations used to rebut the idle argument. Where it differs is that for Calvin God is at work through these chains of immanent causation; that is, they have a transcendent causal source and not, as with Stoicism, a merely immanent source. What happens is the result of God’s use of means to achieve his ends, means which he also decrees, of course, and also announces the connection between means and ends. If I am destined to post the letter, then I am destined to use the appropriate means to post it. If I want to cross the road safely, then I must (usually) be alert to the traffic. This connection of means and ends, or more precisely, this general though not universal connection of means with ends has, for Calvin, a consequence that may seem surprising. There is an element of 'as if' in Calvin's practical approach to providence. While the future is fixed we approach the future as if it were open. He says,
Hence as to future time, because the issue of all things is hidden from us, each ought to so to apply himself to his office, as though nothing were determined about any part. Or, to speak more properly, he ought so to hope for the success that issues from the command of God in all things, as to reconcile in himself the contingency of unknown things and the certain providence of God.
There does not seem to have been the same emphasis in early Stoicism. Later Stoics, such as the Roman Stoic Epictetus ( c.55-c.135) had a great interest in the moral value of their outlook. Fatalism should promote a prudent approach to life, to living within one’s limits, avoiding recklessness and risk, and so living in accordance with Nature. According to Bobzien, Epictetus, and no doubt others, were thus future-orientated, whereas earlier Stoics such as Chrysippus tended to be past-orientated.
Calvin’s outlook here is rather different. He has a concept of nature, though it does not play a central role in his thought on providence. The pivot is ‘the will of God’, understood as covering both the command of God and his decree. Confidence in the wisdom, power and grace of God that belief in his providence promotes, and a willingness to do what he has commanded, arm us against the undeniable vagaries and (epistemic) uncertainties of what God has decreed. Nevertheless there is something of the Stoic in this:
But when once the light of divine providence has illumined the believer’s soul, he is relieved and set free, not only from the extreme fear and anxiety which formerly oppressed him, but from all care. For as he justly shudders at the idea of chance, so he can confidently commit himself to God. This, I say, is his comfort, that his heavenly Father so embraces all things under his power - so governs them at will by his nod – so regulates them by his wisdom, that nothing takes place save according to his appointment; that received into his favour, and entrusted to the care of his angels, neither fire, nor water, nor sword, can do him harm, except insofar as God their master is pleased to permit.
There is another context of Calvin’s in which co-fatedness is invoked, though again not in name. Calvin argues that God's determination confers necessity on what otherwise would not be so. He gives the example of Christ's bones.
At the same time, that which God has determined, though it must come to pass, is not, however, precisely, or in its own nature, necessary. We have a familiar example in the case of our Saviour’s bones. As he assumed a body similar to ours, no sane man will deny that his bones were capable of being broken, and yet it was impossible that they should be broken (John 19.33, 36). Hence, again, we see that there was good ground for the distinction which the Schoolmen made between necessity, secundum quid, and necessity absolute, also between the necessity of consequent and of consequence. God made the bones of his Son frangible, though he exempted them from actual fracture; and thus, in reference to the necessity of his counsel, made that impossible which might have naturally taken place.
The prophecy (i.e. a revelation of a divine decree) that none of Jesus' bones will be broken is co-fated (or co-decreed) with the failure of anyone to break any of his bones. So what failed to happen depended upon the prophetically-announced decree and is explained by it. The co-fatedness (or co-decreed) account of Jesus’ bones would be something like: the infallible prophesy, Jesus' bones will not be broken, is co-decreed with certain other events e.g. that there are no successful attempts to break them, or no attempts at all, and no ‘accidental’ breakings.
The ultimate explanation of why events, including human actions, occur is not in the last analysis to be referred to any immanent set of causes, much less to a set of causes to which God himself is bound. Calvin is not willing to consider the power of such a series, particularly the idea of a necessary set of causes, apart from the one who ordains it, Almighty God. But this does not mean that Calvin denies the existence of such a series. It is simply that this is not the whole story. What it does show is that Calvin is not attracted by immanent fatalism and in particular he is adamantly opposed to astrological fatalism, the more so if it is claimed not only that the stars are merely the evidence of fate, but that they act independently of God, and even more so were it claimed that even God himself is bound by what is written in the stars, written by a non-divine hand.
So it is the type of causal necessity that is at issue between Calvin and Stoicism, (and not chance or fortune). This is underlined by the next question considered by Calvin in the Institutes. Does nothing happen by chance, nothing by contingency? The question obviously implies a negative answer. So the necessitarian presumption is retained. Nevertheless, even for Calvin, human choices are voluntary in an irreducible sense. God necessitates all that happens, but in a way that is consistent with the varied natures of things. It follows that 'chance' is for Calvin a purely epistemic term, following Augustine.
I say then, that though all things are ordered by the counsel and certain arrangement of God, to us, however, they are fortuitous – not because we imagine that fortune rules the world and mankind, and turns all things upside down at random (far be such a heartless thought from every Christian breast); but as the order, method, end, and necessity of events are, for the most part, hidden in the counsel of God, though it is certain that they are produced by the will of God, they have the appearance of being fortuitous.
Augustine is approvingly noted by Calvin as one who rules out chance, and even rules out that things occur partly by man's free choice, partly by divine providence, and 'he also excludes the contingency that depends on human will'.
So it is clear that Calvin, though ostensibly taking a via media between fortune and chance on the one hand, and Stoic necessity/fatalism on the other is, like his mentor Augustine, in virtue of his commitment to divine sovereignty, inclined more to the side of fatalism than to the side of fortune and chance, or to some view of providence which has to find place for the 'contingency which depends on human will'. The sense of fortuitousness is purely epistemic, since necessity is the basic metaphysical component in his account of providence.
'That which God has determined, though it must come to pass, is not, however, precisely, or in its own nature, necessary.' It is a case of the necessity of the consequence, not of the consequent. This necessitarianism is not logical necessity or in some weaker sense inevitable, having a causal necessity deriving only from immanent forces. If God had created a Stoic world, adopting a deistic stance towards it, this would not for Calvin have been equivalent to the Christian doctrine of providence, because it would lack the divine attention that is paid to the governing of each particular.
Calvin’s form of compatibilism is grounded in the autonomy of human (and angelic) agency, like the Stoics. Autonomy in the sense that human agency is not simply the effect of sets of external forces. In this sense God works through those distinct individual natures that he has created and upholds, and not merely through laws of nature and initial conditions which together are causally necessary and sufficient for everything that occurs in the world.
All of this reminds us that insofar as Calvin is a determinist as a result of holding his view of providence, he does not avow determinism, any more than he avows providence, for theoretical reasons. He does not adopt his view of meticulous providence because he thinks that it solves philosophical problems. Undoubtedly, his doctrine of primary and secondary causes (taken from the medieval tradition) and his distinction between doing and willingly permitting (taken from Augustine) involve theoretical, philosophical difficulties. Calvin acknowledges as much when he stresses the mysterious character of the doctrines that involve these distinctions. Yet he adopts these views, aware of their attendant difficulties, because he believes that other views involve an even greater difficulty, that of not doing as much justice to the Scriptural data as his own view.
So it is doubtful that Calvin thinks that appealing to a hierarchy of agents, and his utilising of the distinction between doing and willingly permitting, are sufficient to explain God's relation to sin. One clue to this is that he frequently appeals to the 'modesty and sobriety' of his immediate readership to ward off what he regards as invalid inferences of both a theoretical and a practical kind. If someone draws the inference that because he is an instrument of divine providence then he is not to be blamed for his evil, Calvin regards this as a serious mistake not because he can provide a convincing argument to the contrary, but because (as, he believes, his Christian readers will readily concur) such a proposal is immodest. Why should someone think of making such an inference except to further express and to safeguard their wickedness? To objections of a more theoretical kind that don't express such an antinomian tendency but focus instead on Calvin's failure to demonstrate his position, he would I suspect be more accommodating. But because he is ultimately concerned to foster the correct practical religious responses to the doctrine of providence rather than to offer a satisfactory explanation of it, the plain fact is that he is less interested in pursuing the theoretical issues. His confidence in his position does not arise from a belief that he has explained it, nor answered all objections to it, but because he is persuaded that this is what Scripture teaches.
Our true wisdom is to be embrace with meek docility, and without reservation, whatever the holy Scriptures have delivered. Those who indulge their petulance, a petulance manifestly directed against God, are undeserving of a longer refutation.
Here as elsewhere, Calvin's first aim is persuasio rather than demonstratio.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
