Analysis 5 - Are revealed truths timeless?

Eternity, with all its years,
Stands present to thy view;
To thee there's nothing old appears;
Great God! There's nothing new.

- Isaac Watts

I have not tried to count the number of times when I have read that Berkhofian systematic theology, and the idea of propositional revelation that underlies it, expresses the Christian faith as ‘timeless truth’, or as ‘timelessly true’, or even as ‘eternally true’. Those who say such things clearly regard timeless truth as a bad thing, something to be avoided at all costs, even at the cost of adopting a narrative or theodramatic or speech-act approach to revelation and theology. (I suspect that this charge, like others I have mentioned elsewhere, in connection with Charles Hodge, is passed from hand to hand rather unreflectively. Is it a case of 'proposition-denial', I wonder? I may be mistaken. We may then get to the bottom of things, though I am not hopeful.)

For it is hard to fathom what those with this distaste for the timelessness of truth really object to. I have yet to find critic who will state – timelessly or otherwise, clearly or fuzzily – what the problem is: why, if revealed truths are timeless, what’s so bad about that? So in the interests of furthering communication among those interested in systematic theological method I shall now attempt to try to work out what the timelessness charge is all about.

Timelessness and the eternity of God

In the mainstream Christian tradition – Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin, Edwards - God's existence is timeless, in the sense that he is outside time, without a past or future, existing in a timelessly eternal present. Despite what Isaac Watts invites us to sing, on this mainstream view divine eternity has no years, though everlastingness has all the years anyone could wish. It's because of this that for eternal God there's nothing new about the years of his creation. But it’s surely not in this sense of timelessness that some people think that the Berkhofian approach delivers ‘timeless truth’. After all, Berkhof himself isn’t timeless, as God is thought to be, and his Systematic Theology has a date of publication - 1939.

Still, if God is timelessly eternal then at least some propositions about him will be timelessly true in this very robust sense. God is timeless is presumably a timeless truth, if it is a truth. And whatever is essential to God will, in turn, be robustly timeless – God is just, God is love, God is one in three. Of course it may be that narrative theology and theodrama entail that God is in time. I certainly hope not. But even then God is just , if not timelessly eternal, is presumably true for all time, and so everlastingly true.

But let's suppose that one can be a theodramatist and still hold that God is timelessly eternal. As we've seen, such doubters about the viability of Berkhofianism who nevertheless believe that God is timeless will – like it or not – be committed to some timeless truths – perhaps to an infinite number of them. Nevertheless, I don’t get the feeling that the excoriation of ‘timeless truth’ is due to the thought that Berkhofianism commits one to the view that theological truth in general is timeless as the eternal God is timeless. I hope that I’m right about this too.

Timeless truth and the divine decree

In the Reformed tradition especially, everything is said to be timelessly decreed by God. On this view, all events, including all assertions, may be said to have an ‘eternal’ character, albeit in a rather stretched sense. Events occur in time, assertions are made in time, but each such occurrence is eternally decreed to happen. Does a particular view of scripture, propositional revelation, entail such a view of God's will, of his plan? Does Berkhofianism? Clearly not. Does the 'timeless' charge amount to saying that it does? I hope not. There are many who uphold the view that revelation is propositional who would vehemently deny that everything is eternally decreed by God. And I imagine that there are those who deny propositional revelation who nevertheless think that all things, including all assertions, are decreed by God.

Timeless truth and time

Having identified some obvious red herrings, let’s see if we can make progress.

Here’s what I have come to think. In saying that Berkhofianism is committed to 'timeless truth' what the objectors have in mind is not the robust timelessness of God’s eternal existence, nor that associated with eternal divine decrees, but tenselessness. Copper expands when heated is a tenselessly true proposition. Of any time it is true that copper expands when heated. That truth is not true of some time rather than another (as There is presently a copper coin on the table is true of the present, or as I bought the copper kettle last Thursday is true of last Thursday). (Robust timelessness entails tenselessness but not vice versa.) What the objectors object to is timeless truth in the sense of tenseless truth that (they think) Berkhofianism is saddled with.

But if this is what they mean, that the truths of the Christian gospel are distorted by Berkhofianism into something that is true of all times, tenselessly true, then this also is wide of the mark.

Events in time, and statements about these events, are crucial to the Christian gospel. That Jesus Christ our Lord was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead and buried..... is true, is integral to our faith, wouldn’t you say? The truth of this set of sentences, the one just expressed in italics (let’s call it ‘A’) is about some particular time, or times, the time or times of the birth, suffering, and crucifixion of the Saviour, whenever exactly these times were.

So the idea that Berkhofianism commits one to eliminating all references to events from true statements about the Christian faith is simply crazy. A glance at the text of Berkhof will show how plainly false such an idea is. For example, in his discussion of the Incarnation he writes ‘His (The Son of God’s) active participation in this historical fact is stressed, and His pre-existence is assumed.’ (Systematic Theology, 333))

Nevertheless although A is true of a time or times when certain events occurred, the truth of A does not depend upon when A is stated. And most certainly it is not true only at the times to which it refers. For we may not know what those times are. Whenever people recite A as part of a Creed, and in whatever language they choose, they make a statement, or statements, which Christians believe to be true. Christians down the centuries, reciting A, have expressed the same truths. We may say this, then: that as regards the central affirmations of our faith, their truth is not affected in any way by when they are asserted. We might say of such assertions: once true, always true, permanently true. (Those with extra sensitive mental antennae kindly note that for present purposes I eschew considering the sense in which the Creed may be said to true before the events which it refers to occur. I don’t think this affects the present issue. In any case, one thing at a time.)

Is this what the worriers about timelessness have in mind, that the truths of the Christian faith are now forever true? Are they bothered by the thought that it is now true that A is true, and that it will always be? Surely not. Heaven forfend! What has happened to our faith if it is not now forever true that our Saviour was born of a virgin? Jesus stopped being born, he stopped suffering and so on, but the statements Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, Jesus suffered, etc. never stop being true.

Truth and theodrama

We see here, incidentally, one source of concern that Berkhofians have over current emphases on speech-acts, theodrama and the rest. For speech-acts and dramas are events. Are events true? They happen, but are they true? Clearly not. Paul asserted (with the help of his stylus), Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. (Let’s call this ‘B’) Paul’s asserting B was an event. This does not entail that B is true. To focus on the fact that he uttered B, and upon parsing its theodramatic importance, while at the same time disparaging or downplaying propositional revelation, ('the Hodge-Henry hypothesis'), distracts us from the matter of truth.

It is true that Paul asserted B. But is B true? If we focus on what he asserted, rather on the fact that he asserted it, then we focus on the issue of truth or falsity. What he asserted moves to the centre of our attention, displacing interest in the fact that he asserted it. Isn’t this how it should be in our systematic understanding of the faith? Of course it is of some interest that Paul asserted B, that he did so when he did and in the context that he did. No doubt these things affect the meaning of what he asserted, and so help to determine what the truth is that he uttered. Attention to these things is part of the process of establishing what he wrote. Yet in our systematic theological endeavours we must repeatedly move from the assertions of scripture and the conditions under which they take place to what is asserted in them, the theological truth-content. From context to content.

For the big, significant fact is not that Paul asserted B, but that B is true, and that what he asserted is now and will forever be true and so is, in that sense, timeless. It is time-indifferent. To the extent that our attention is focused on the occurrence of events, utterances, or actions, to that extent we are distracted from issues of truth. Our attention is not on what is time-indifferent, but exclusively upon certain times, the times of the utterances or actions. There is a world of difference between the expressions ‘Paul wrote "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners" at such a time and place for such and such readers’, and Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

When we focus on the truth of what Paul asserted, rather than the fact that he asserted it, or facts about the fact of his asserting it, are we abstracting? Is what Paul asserted, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, abstract? Clearly it is: it is abstracted from the original occurrence of the speech-act, the original assertion: it is the content of that assertion. We may not know the original setting of B. Does that stop us from presently asserting it? We may not have a notion about when the so-called Apostles' Creed was formulated. I certainly don't. Having abstracted this content, the fact of the matter that Jesus came into the world to save sinners, or was born of the virgin Mary, these assertions then becomes available for re-asserting.

We can see from this that abstracting the cognitive content of the event from Paul’s assertion is not a failing. It is not a weakness of the idea of propositional truth that such truths are 'abstract'. Rather, their being abstract is a strength. It is necessary if we are to be in the position of considering the truth of such assertions, and of asserting them today and tomorrow. So they must be abstract. But is our abstracting of them an act of detachment? Are we, in abstracting them, and then confessing them, detaching ourselves from them? Are they then of merely theoretical interest? Whoever would think such a thing? Cannot one's conscience be bound to the word of God when one makes such affirmations?

The puzzle

Here’s what is puzzling. The critics of Berkhofianism, it seems, are not worrying about whether or not God is timelessly eternal, nor about whether he timelessly decrees everything that comes to pass. Or if they are worrying about these things, these worries are clearly separate matters from the question of the nature of divine revelation. They seem to be worrying about the idea that Berkhofianism is committed to the elimination of events from theology. But surely not. I dare to presume and hope that they are not worrying about the fact that the historical events which, Christians claim, are at the heart of their faith, expressed in credal formulae and in other such ways, are, once they are formulated, forever and so time-indifferently true. They are available for confession, for praise and worship and for much else, at any time.

So then, if we are agreed that about, what are those who are bothered about the connection between propositional revelation and timeless truth worrying about? Can anyone say?

Analysis 4 - Bishop N.T. Wright's ordo salutis

We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort....

Articles of Religion, Article XI


In systematic theology, as elsewhere, it is sometimes important to distinguish between what is logically distinct from what is temporally distinct, and temporal events from temporal states and processes. We can illustrate this from a brief consideration of aspects of a recent paper by Bishop N.T. Wright, 'New Perspectives on Paul', (in Justification in Perspective, ed. Bruce McCormack, (Grand Rapids, Baker and Rutherford House, 2006). All page references are to this article.)

Here Wright places his own views on justification by faith within the framework of the Reformed ordo salutis. At several points he makes it clear that he is writing within a Reformed context, (256) and that his remarks are intended as a contribution to Reformed dogmatics. (257, 263) So the paper provides an opportunity, perhaps the first opportunity, to attempt to construct Bishop Wright's understanding of the ordo salutis, and so to make a straight comparison between it and the classic Reformed position. The paper raises several other important issues which we shall not consider here.

What Wright says

To provide the context for this attempt, here are some of the things he says:

I understand the ordo salutis to refer to the lining up, in chronological sequence, of the events that occur from the time when a human being is outside the community of God's people, stuck in idolatry and consequent sin, through to the time when this same erstwhile sinner is fully and finally saved. (255)

At this point I am implicitly in dialogue with a general trend, at least since the sixteenth century, to make "conversion" and "justification" more or less coterminous - a trend that has been sped on its way when "conversion" is understood as "the establishment of a personal relationship with God" and justification has been understood in a "relational' sense, with the meaning not of membership in the covenant, as in the Old Testament, but of this personal relationship between the believer and God. (256)

I have already described how Paul understands the moment when the gospel of Jesus as Lord is announced and people come to believe it and obey its summons. Paul has a regular technical term for this moment, and it is neither "justification" nor "conversion" (though he can employ the latter from time to time); the word in question is "call"....But if the call is the central event, the point at which the sinner turns to God, what comes before and after? (256)

But what matters for our purposes even more is the question of what comes after the call. "Those he called, he also justified" (Romans 8.30). In other words, Paul uses "justify" to denote something other than, and logically subsequent to, what we have often thought of as the moment of conversion, when someone who has not before believed the gospel is gripped the by word and the Spirit and comes to believe it, to submit to Jesus as Lord. Here is the central point in the controversy between what I say about Paul and what the tradition, not least the Protestant tradition, has said. The tradition has used "justify" and is cognates to denote conversion, or at least the initial moment of the Christian life, and has then debated broader and narrower definitions of what counts. My reading of Paul indicates that he does not use the word like this.....For Paul, justification is something that follows on from the call through which a sinner is summoned to turn from idols and serve the living God, to turn from sin and follow Christ, to turn from death and believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead. (256-7, italics in the original. )

The ordo

The ordo salutis as understood in Reformed theology typically goes as follows:

a. Regeneration/effectual calling
b. Conversion, including repentance and faith
c. Justification
d. Sanctification
e. Glorification

Some of these steps are logical only, some are both logical and temporal. (See for example L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 418, as well as his general characterization of the ordo. (416))

For Bishop Wright the ordo salutis is a chronological sequence, and an important early occurrence in it is conversion or as Wright prefers, effectual calling. So taking his cue from Paul in Romans 8, effectual calling is followed by justification; the 'alsos' of Paul are understood temporally. Bishop Wright holds that justification comes after the call in time. It starts once conversion ends. So those who claim that justification is 'coterminous' with conversion or calling, the time when the sinner turns to God, represent Paul's position inaccurately. Wright stresses this by italicising that for Paul justification is something that follows on from the call (top 257), that it is after the call (256). Although he mentions that he thinks that for Paul ‘justify’ denotes something other than and logically subsequent to the event of conversion, he goes on to take logical consequence here at least to involve temporal consequence.

Justification is preceded by divine foreknowledge, (256) and is the consequence of the enlightening, illuminating work of the Spirit. Justification is, in a similar way, followed by glorification.

As noted, on the classic Reformed view, effectual calling is a comprehensive divine gift, encompassing, through the agency of the Word and Spirit, both the grace of faith and of other Christian benefits, notably 'justification, adoption and sanctification'. (Shorter Catechism 32) So that while justification is not 'coterminous' with calling, it is nevertheless an aspect of what God bestows as a result of the faith granted and exercised in effectual calling. What kind of aspect? Is it an event that follows calling, as Wright claims? No, it is not. Rather it is a logical consequence of faith, a consequence established by the divine promise. It is not that people believe, and then justification, the result, occurs. It is as people believe that they are justified. So justification is logically distinct from faith, (and from other aspects of effectual calling) and not temporally distinct. Another reason that justification is not coterminous with conversion is because through faith the state (not the process) of being justified is inaugurated, a state which persists after the period of conversion is over. On the Reformed view justification is not an event, as Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus, or Augustine's conversion recounted in Book 8 of his Confessions, were events. 'Being justified' is different from 'having been justified'. Nor is it a process, something which develops and changes over time. Rather, if someone comes to be justified, he stays justified for all eternity. A person is never more justified than when he is first justified.

It is relatively easy to see why Bishop Wright sees the need to insist on justification as a temporal occurrence after effectual calling, calling it a central point of controversy (256) since he proceeds to insist that justification/vindication is God's declaration on account of what has happened in effectual calling - forgiveness of sins, and covenant membership. Such justification is a foretaste of the vindication proper which will occur at the last day on the basis of a life lived as a faithful covenant member. It is important to note the emphasis that Wright places upon this eschatological vindication.

So we might summarise Wright's ordo as follows:

(1) Divine foreknowledge (256)
(2) Divine 'marking out ahead of time' (256)
(3) Calling - summoning to turn from idols and serve the living God (257) through the word and Spirit (257), bringing about believing submission to Jesus as the risen Lord (257), dying with him and rising to new life in him through baptism. (260) Faith is the first fruit of the Spirit's call. (257)
(4) Justification/Vindication. God's verdict – his authoritative declaration of what is in fact the case (260) - consequent upon the event(s) that constitute the calling, a declaration that the one called is in the right (forgiveness of sins through the death of Jesus) and a member of the true covenant family of believing Jews and believing Gentiles. (258)
(5) Sanctification?
(6) Glorification - the final declaration, foreshadowed in the earlier justification, sharing the glorious rule of Jesus as Lord. (257)

What is the nature of justification? Wright devotes a great deal of attention to this in the paper, naturally enough, given that it originated as a contribution to a conference on that topic. Here some of what he takes the tradition to task about surfaces. As noted, he prefers the term 'vindicate' rather than 'justify', but as far as I can see there's no issue here. The substantive issue is what justification/vindication is grounded in. For Wright in his vindication of the sinner the righteous God declares the person to be in the right in view of his faith in Jesus and his covenant membership, these being not two things but two aspects of the same thing, or two way of describing the same thing. (Wright does not make this clear). 'It is God's declaration about the person who has just become a Christian'. (260) Vindication 'is God's declaration that a person is in the right - that is, (a) that the person's sins have been forgiven and (b) that he or she is part of the single covenant family promised to Abraham'. (260) It is fair to say, I think, that for Wright this first vindication is more event-like than state-like. At the same time Wright emphatically denies that justification is on the basis of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. (252, 256) 'It is not God's own righteousness or Christ's own righteousness that is reckoned to God's redeemed people but, rather, the fresh status of "covenant member" and/or "justified sinner", which is accredited to those who are in Christ, who have heard the gospel and responded with "the obedience of faith"'. (253)

The basis or ground, then, of vindication insofar as it immediately follows effectual calling, is the presence of faith and of covenant membership. Vindication is on account of these things. Two further matters to note. Vindication here and now is to be understood as anticipatory of the future (a final vindication ‘on the basis of the entire life a person has led in the power of the Spirit - that is, it occurs on the basis of "works" in Paul's redefined sense'. (260)) It is fair to say, I think, that for Wright this eschatological vindication is its chief sense. For he says vindication 'occurs in the present as an anticipation of that future verdict', (260), it is God's present assurance that a person is in the covenant. And he makes a point of emphasizing justification by workis and of chiding some for being embarrased by the idea. It is not clear, on the evidence of this paper, whether or not anticipatory justification guarantees future and final justification or not.

In the above sketch of the ordo, sanctification is followed by a question-mark because Wright says little or nothing about it in the paper, except that it is a once for all happening initiated in baptism. (257)

With the help of the distinctions between temporal and logical order, and events and states, we are able to see that Wright's view of the ordo salutis follows a recurring pattern in Protestantism: the rejection of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, and justification on the basis of some change or achievement in the person concerned. That justification is temporally after the beginning of these changes is vital to this view of the ordo. Different versions of this pattern can be found in Arminianism, and other movements affected by Arminianism, such as Baxterian neonomianism and Cambridge Platonism. The pattern is: justification is grounded (partly at least) in subjective states. In Wright's case, in faith and covenant membership, unmerited gifts of God, (257) and all that they imply. Justification/vindication is temporally subsequent to being in the covenant, it is an assurance of it. (261) If, as Bishop Wright says, his account of justification 'does the job' of the Reformers' imputation of an alien righteousness, (260-1) then it does that job very differently.

If Bishop Wright has a controversy with the Protestant tradition, as he says that he has, then there is little that is new about his own proposal, even though it may be founded upon a novel account of what St. Paul really said. It’s the old, old story; a moralistic declension from true evangelicalism.

Thanks to Guy Waters for his helpful suggestions.

Analysis 3 - Systematic and Biblical Theology

‘Let me be clear: while I affirm theodrama as a unified macroperspective, I also affirm a plurality of canonical microperspectives that bring different aspects of the theodrama into the foreground.’ - Kevin Vanhoozer.

Berkhofian systematic theology offers us a snapshot of the cognitive framework of the faith. In that sense what is asserts is timeless, even though, as with all fallible human endeavours, it is always open to revision. The snapshot can be brought into clearer focus, or given a wider angle. For some people, one source of the unease with Berkhofism is that it is not ‘dynamic’ enough. But in fact it is not dynamic at all. It is avowedly ‘static’. In the interests of promoting ‘dynamism’ efforts are currently made to integrate systematic theology and biblical theology. But nothing but confusion can arise from such attempts.

According to Geerhardus Vos ’Biblical Theology is that branch of Exegetical Theology which deals with the process of the self-revelation of God deposited in the Bible.’ (Biblical Theology, 5) Intrinsic to this definition is the idea of process, of temporal sequence. So there will be trouble if we attempt to conflate Berkhofism with Vosism. A ‘dynamic’ or a ‘theodramatic’ approach to systematic theology conveys a strong desire to conflate them, to merge a concern for logical consistency and difference and implication with the flow of particular narratives. But it is doomed to failure.

What happens is that in this effort to combine a narrative and a logical approach to theology the narrative approach invariably wins out. Stories are so much more fun than logical deductions and discriminations. The result is : it is impossible to combine the narrative and logical approaches in this way. It can’t be done. That’s why ‘narrative theology’ of whatever stripe can never take the place of systematic theology, nor revamp it, and current attempts to make the one supplant (or ‘energise’) the other are simply misguided, and dangerous in their consequences.

Of course systematic theology deals with temporal sequences - with the entire drama of redemption - and with sequences within that grand sequence, such as conversion, and the nature of the Christian life. But it does not treat these sequences simply or chiefly as sequences, but seeks to integrate their essential features with other aspects of God's revelation which are not temporally sequential, aspects which have to do (in the old language which makes some people shudder), with essences and natures, such as the existence and nature of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and with human nature, prelapsarian, lapsed, redeemed and glorified. With the nature of faith, and the nature of sin.

Vos himself was fully at ease with the distinction between systematic theology and biblical theology, and with the legitimacy of each, being somewhat Berkhofish in his own right. (He was the author of a multi-volume systematic theology in Dutch). His view of the relation between the two is worth noting.

There is no difference in that one would be more closely bound to the Scriptures than the other. In this they are wholly alike. Nor does the difference lie in this, that the one transforms the Biblical material, whereas the other would leave it unmodified. Both equally make the truth deposited in the Bible undergo a transformation: but the difference arises from the fact that the principles by which the transformation is effected differ. In Biblical Theology the principle is one of historical, in Systematic Theology it is one of logical construction. Biblical Theology draws a line of development. Systematic Theology draws a circle. (15-16)

The insoluble problem that those who favour some kind of integration between biblical and systematic theology face is that they overlook this fundamental point: that logical distinctions do not necessarily correspond with temporal sequences, and that temporal sequences may have non-temporal aspects, or presuppose what is non-temporal.

Let us take an illustration. The ordo salutis (Rom 8.28 etc.) is a sequence, part of the grand narrative of redemption. But the concepts introduced into our understanding of that sequence, and the distinctions between them, between regeneration, conviction of sin, penitence, faith, assured faith, the external call, effectual calling, justification and sanctification etc. are logical distinctions. Do they all also record temporal distinctions as well? Is justification an event? And is sanctification another, coupled to the carriage of justification and pulled along by it? Is the carriage of justification in turn pulled along by the carriage of faith? Where does adoption fit in? Has it to be squeezed in somewhere between regeneration and faith? Or between faith and justification? Or is adoption simply another description of one or more of these elements? And what about union with Christ: is this also part of the temporal sequence of separately-identifiable occurrences? If so, can we find a gap for it, a spare carriage for it to occupy? Is the decree of God, eternally foreknowing the redeemed, also an event?

Systematic theology in the Berkhofian sense has its eye on distinctions and discriminations in an effort to link one area of biblical revelation consistently with all the others, to integrate the whole. Hence Vos's figure of a circle. Some of these distinctions are temporal, one thing following in time after another, some are causal, one thing bringing about the other, while others are purely logical, one thing being distinct from another. But biblical theology in the Vosian sense has its eye on the temporal unfolding of the one redemptive-historical sequence. It is a line.

The logical distinctions inherent in systematic theology, and which we may be inclined to dismiss as 'academic', are vital. If we remain for the moment in the area of the ordo salutis then we need to be able think clearly about what goes on, and the significance of what goes on, when men and women are called by grace. Systematic theologians do this by formulating distinctions in an effort to discriminate the various elements in conversion as these are revealed to us in Scripture, and to protect them as far as possible from misunderstanding. So an understanding of conversion in which regeneration (logically) precedes faith is importantly different from one in which faith logically precedes regeneration, even though these two elements – regeneration, faith – may be temporally simultaneous, and may be partly hidden from public view in every narrative account of conversion that Scripture gives us. These two understandings of conversion are importantly different because of what each of these understandings implies about the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion. These discriminations are thus not made for merely ‘academic’ purposes. They are not mere logic chapping. Following one, and not the other, has ramifications which reverberate across the whole fabric of theology.

Part of the fruit of achieving a degree of understanding of conversion, say, is that it is possible to attempt the integration of the various elements that divine revelation discloses about conversion, including of course reports of conversion in Scripture, part of its narrative, with the teaching of other areas of revelation, for example, with the work of the Holy Spirit in applying the fruits of Christ’s redemption, and the nature of human sin. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that the systematic theologian must make the various discriminations of the elements within effectual calling with an eye that is fixed at the same time on the biblical teaching on, for example, the work of the Holy Spirit.

Take the conversion narratives of Lydia, or Zaccheus, or Saul of Tarsus, or the Ethiopian eunuch, or…..Could one formulate an adequate doctrine of conversion by making a generalisation from an induction of these cases? Obviously not. The differences between them are fascinating and important. But what is conversion? Are these all cases of conversion? And what of Nathanael, of Judas, of Ananias and Sapphira? So how is a theology of conversion to be established? By taking the biblical narratives of conversion (real or apparent) as one datum, the biblical teaching on human sin as another datum, its teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit as another, and so on. How are these to be brought together? That’s work for the systematic theologian.

Even where there is a temporal sequence, it does not follow that each element in the sequence is an event which brings about, in a causally efficacious way, the next element in the sequence. Regeneration may cause faith, but does faith cause justification? How are we to understand the 'he alsos' of Romans 8.28 etc.? Does Paul imply, in that passage, that faith causes justification? Yes and no, as the later proposal that faith is to be regarded as the instrumental cause of justification indicates. Does justification cause glorification? That would be confused. Though justification is logically prior to sanctification, it is neither temporally prior to sanctification, nor does it cause it, and it does not cause everything that follows, like one moving carriage may shunt the next one.

It has been said that it is a mistake to think of the elements in the ordo salutis as a series of acts. That is a helpful remark, except that we need to reflect further about an ‘act’. Is the Coronation Service one act, or many? Does the act that is the crowning of the Monarch include within it other acts? It would seem so. Is effectual calling one act, or many? Is it an act that has many elements? Is union with Christ an act? If David enrols at Eton College the expected male child that his wife Maureen is carrying, is the child already in the school?

As Bishop Butler once observed, everything is what it is and not another thing. Logical sequence is not necessarily temporal sequence. Temporal sequence is not necessarily causal sequence. Systematic Theology cannot be Biblical Theology. It cannot be theodrama either.