DIFFERENTIA II: TRUE VERSUS FALSE
We begin with the essence of true theology. This is really another way of speaking of the whole of doctrine being in harmony with the “essential doctrines” of the faith. Here Junius does approach a kind of realism. There are those concepts that (1) are by nature and others (2) not by nature. Those objects of the mind which subsist by nature form a genus, and those not by nature are species. His example of the former is Justice, and of the latter, the just man.1 The universal is seen to be “more remarkable” than that which is concrete.2 Objects are then considered under two heads in re and in intellectu.3 Consequently nominalism is rejected since it sees abstract mental objects as purely and simply in the mind.
Keeping in view that his aforementioned concepts “by nature” are universals, he adds that the theology that is by nature (universal truths) can become corrupted “by admixing anything concrete.”4 So a theological system that has at its foundation truths that are about things more immaterial, eternal, immutable, and necessary is a system most true. It is quite unfortunate that he was lean on examples of such essential doctrines, or examples of “concrete” deviations from them.
Then he comes as close as he can to speaking as if realism is essential to the integrity to the theological system: “And so this theology is one, eternal, and immutable. For that which is necessarily true, the same is necessarily one.”5 And elsewhere, “this theology has one essential form, wholly perfect, set forth perfectly as a whole, and the whole in itself and in all its parts constant and immutable.”6
Almost parenthetically Turretin uses the term archetypes in a way similar to the classical philosophers had spoken of “forms” or “essences,” or in other words, universals.7 It is true that his primary meaning is the same as in Junius. The archetypon is that “idea of all things out of himself” (formal cause of all things) and yet the divine decree (efficient cause of all things) issues forth into all other relationships comprising the ectypa in time. One implication of this is that any truth about lower things operating by proximate cause, is necessarily subordinate to that truth about ultimate things. The ultimate things of God have a priority as an essential.
When Turretin applies this to the whole system of theological truth, by “fundamental” he will mean essential; and by “essential” he will consequently mean something that is more theologically universal. This is how we must understand statements like this: that the “criteria for distinguishing fundamental and non-fundamental articles can be derived from the nature and condition of the doctrines themselves.”8
This may still seem like circular reasoning at first glance. However, he further distinguishes between two kinds of truths, both important, yet not equally central: “that they be primary and principal truths upon which all others are built as upon a foundation—and being removed, faith itself is overthrown; not secondarily and less principal, by the removal of which faith is only shaken.”9 Turretin says that a false theology is one in which “the greater part is false and the errors fundamental.”10
For Mastricht, it is implicitly Christ at the center. We discern this from his definition of theology that is living for God in Christ. But we also gather this when he discusses a false theology as any that has not Christ at its center. This falsity in essentials can happen in various ways. A false theology is so because it is “either ignorant of Christ or speaks falsely about him.”11 This forms a division of three kinds. In the first category are (1) barbarians, (2) modern Jews, and (3) Muslims. In the second category, in order of nearness to those unbelievers, there are (1) Socinians, (2) Anabaptists, and (3) Papists. Then finally there are “the schismatics, who usually end up in heresy,”12 among whom are the Lutherans and Arminians. Unfortunately, he does not elaborate on this “usually end up in heresy” tendency in any scientific way.
The two basic divisions of Junius overlap here at a crucial point. He contrasts true theology with pagan theology. At the place he does this, natural theology is the assumed larger genus. The attentive reader who is charitably reading Junius will reason that by “pagan theology” he does not mean all of natural theology, since he had already designated a true natural theology. Mastricht draws a sharper line here: natural theology must be carefully distinguished from pagan theology as such, “because the latter is false and the former is true.”13 The difference is not mere semantics, but Mastricht’s attention to this particular detail is a genuine advance. When he asks whether the pagan theology is “true,” he has in his mind its truth as a system. Thus one can accept Plato’s reasoning about the soul being immortal without embracing Platonism as an “ism.”
By the twentieth century, Reformed arguments against natural theology as a system did not simply mean “pagan natural theology, but even ostensibly Christian dogmatic theology that is erected on purely rational foundations.”14
Now if pagan theology begins in common notions, from general revelation, what constitutes the difference? In other words, when precisely do things start to go wrong in natural theology? Junius locates the differentia in three misuses of those common principles: 1. though shared in common, as erroneous inference from them; 2. they can be veiled, so they are unclear; or 3. we may see them only partly, and so imperfectly.15 Up until this point there is not much here that would have been radically different from the Thomists on natural theology. This is where the soteriological critique comes into play.
Junius’s theses 16 to 19 show what natural theology ought to do by way of perfection, yet in the fall can do no such thing. Hence the need for supernatural theology.16 This is worth much reflection. Here again not many would disagree that natural theology cannot achieve that which supernatural theology is meant to do. Since other theologies from Romanism to Arminianism to Socinianism, each in their own way, do privilege aspects of fallen nature in a way that is capable of saving grace, one can see the concern. However we may often neglect other truths and leave them open to rear attack by so pressing our energies upon the vulnerability of one truth.
The impression may be easily received that when a pagan and a Christian both utter an identical proposition—e. g. “The First Cause cannot have any potentiality”—that the pagan proposition is false and the Christian proposition is true. Muller recognizes that this “double truth” tension was addressed by Keckermann and Alsted especially.17 Junius’s conception of “nature” in this context is at the very least unclear.18 By limiting his breakdown to “true” versus “pagan” natural theology, that which is not explicitly verified by “supernatural” (or later, “revealed”) theology is thus subjectivized.
When the issue turns to kinds of false theology, Junius is much clearer. He says that there are two kinds: the first common, and the second philosophical. The former is compared to roots, the latter to the trunk of a tree. That trunk then issues forth into three branches: (1) superstitious; (2) natural; and (3) civil.19 Although the branches of the metaphor are his, those three categories are derived from Augustine, which he in turn drew from Varro.20 To speak of the essence of a false theology of course assumes an essence of true theology.
DIAGNOSIS: WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE FALSE?
Junius gives mixed signals on a science of polemics. Such a study is in one place called “pointless”21; or perhaps only that it has been sufficiently done before. Nonetheless his metaphor of the tree is his science. So returning to that metaphor, with its roots in common principles, its trunk is made of the inferences we draw, and branching out to the various parts of life to which theology applies. False theology is philosophical when it takes those same common principles, adding “the development of reason and other helps,” a key phrase being “through a mistake in reasoning.”22 So it is not any philosophy that automatically makes for false theology, but one that is erroneous by normal rules of reasoning. He lays the blame for error at the inferential level: at “the trunk,” in the metaphor. Note also that the philosophical kind “is immediately spread into those three branches.”23
False theology is called “theology” improperly and arises in one of four ways: by opinion, equivocation, perversion of judgment, or else “resting” on nothing.24 In most cases here, Junius identifies a kind of indeterminacy of method. In the ectypal theology that is in the subject (Thesis 35), he says that method cannot be delimited, mainly because it is very different among all men.”25 Although this might dissuade us from thinking we can discern when theology turns false, does this not imply that some come nearer to perfection (or the archetypal form) of method than others?
Speaking of metaphors, Turretin’s own metaphor of the house with its foundations is equally helpful here. There are three kinds of errors: those (1) against the foundation, (2) about the foundation, and (3) beside the foundation. The first directly contradicts the essential doctrine; the second overthrows it by implication, whether intentional or not; and the third is about a genuine non-essential.26 So a “fundamental” is one of the pieces of the foundation. We can go wrong with our number of fundamentals, he infers, either by defect or excess. “The Socinians err in defect who admit very few fundamentals,” so that they could begin to rearrange everything. The Papists “err in excess,” seeing all things as dogmatically settled, so that they could rule the whole Christian conscience. “The orthodox hold the mean between both. As they necessarily build upon some fundamentals, so they neither restrict them too closely, nor extend them too far.”27
But here is the point of departure for Turretin: “They who quietly rest in the terms of an implied contradiction where there is opposition [to an essential] … are to be regarded as overthrowing the foundation no less than those who directly attack it.”28 Why is that?
It is because the essence of the system is objective. To cite a basic example, if the full humanity of Jesus is undermined, then so is his redemption of humanity. That someone may not intend such a consequence is simply irrelevant to the logic of the system. This logical relationship is itself an object of the mind, and its essence is independent of any finite mind.
Both Turretin’s constructive dogmatic theology and his polemical form assume a certain metaphysical outlook.
Whether one views that outlook from the philosophical language of realism or else natural theology, the basic object that both are dealing with is God. Whether one is speaking of universals (divine attributes or ideas) as a realist, or of natural theological arguments, the subject matter is that same principium essendi of dogmatic theology. To recognize all else being integrated by theology proper is not to employ a crass central dogma method. Even the loci method does not demand that all doctrinal heads are equal. What is said about God is supreme, as all else derives its being and explanation from God.
For Mastricht, one thing that causes false theology is dispensing with method to begin with. He cites 1 Timothy 4:16 and 2 Timothy 2:13 as imperatives for avoiding and refuting the false,29 so that distinguishing the true from the false is our duty.30 He points to “Anabaptists, enthusiasts, and fanatics,” as those who “reckon that all method should be eliminated from theological matters.”31 Even odder to our modern ears, he includes the magistrates as those who have a duty to remove heresy.
Where specifically does false doctrine begin according to Mastricht? It fails to rest in, by adding to or subtracting from, that scriptural body of doctrine. As previously mentioned it has not Christ at its center. Such doctrine is “either ignorant of Christ or speaks falsely about him.”32 At best, Christology is subjugated to other doctrines that should instead be informed by the person or work of Christ. At worst, it is not the biblical Christ at all in one’s system. Following Mastricht’s definition of theology, the real heart of false theology is that it has not godliness as its end.33 Conformity to Christ is that end, and thus our failure to properly relate every other piece of theology to Christ is the undoing of wisdom.
CONCLUSION
Asselt’s observations are closest to my own. Essentially, the Reformed Orthodox quickly found themselves playing defense, instead of offense, as the early modern pressure for “scientific status” in all disciplines forced a Reformed prolegomena that was merely “holding its own.”34 Moving beyond Asselt, while rationalism fit more naturally in “the Arminian rejection of the scholastic distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology,”35
I suggest that the Reformed fear of the several false natural theologies (whether Romanist, Socinian, Remonstrant, or Cartesian) paralyzed their positive reflection on the relationship between reasoning at the foundations and how that might be reconciled with a fuller doctrine of revelation.
Turretin’s place is particularly symbolic because of how his son, Jean-Alphonse Turretin, represented his own appropriation of rationalist categories to articulate the Reformed system in the wider intellectual landscape. Thus it has been surmised that a rationalist germ latent in that Reformed system was its ultimate demise. A far better explanation is a lingering anti-objective seed of Scotism as the culprit. The campaign of the Samur school, and especially of Louis Tronchin in Geneva, outliving Turretin by two decades and tutoring the younger Turretin,36 was able to sell a rationalist brand of natural theology to an intellectually hungry generation who sensed natural theology had been unduly repressed.
Bavinck also saw the connection between the prior treatment of natural theology among the Reformed and the rationalism that eclipsed it. However, he blames not the repression of natural theology in the former, but the autonomy of it in the latter.37 The Reformed architects of prolegomena were very keen on clearly stating to pastors and seminarians that while grace perfects nature, saving grace cannot depend upon any principle of fallen nature. This goal was certainly achieved, but at what cost?
We might say that the soteriological critique of natural theology was an axe that cut too far into the root of true theology. The point is not that the Reformed Orthodox “failed” in their basic project of developing prolegomena, but neither should we pretend that in just a brief century they had achieved all of the same heights as those of the Middle Ages had.
No doubt the various Reformed emphases on Scripture and on grace would have eventually caused the Reformed theological method as a whole to excel those of the rest of Christendom. But then came the Enlightenment and a dominant failure of intellectual nerve among the Reformed. Where Junius, Turretin, and Mastricht were profound, they hand down to us a starting point to prolegomena and not a finished product. They stood on the shoulders of giants. We might follow their example by doing the same.
(#ReformedScholasticism #ReformedOrthodoxy #prolegomena #Turretin #Junius #Mastricht)
1. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 163.
2. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 163, cf. 166, 185.
3. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 189.
4. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 164.
5. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 191.
6. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 231.
7. Turretin, Institutes, I.iv.1.6-7.
8. Turretin, Institutes, I.i.14.20.
9. Turretin, Institutes, I.i.14.19.
10. Turretin, Institutes, I.i.2.5.
11. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I, 79.
12. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I, 80.
13. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I, 78.
14. Suddoth, “Revisiting the ‘Reformed Objection’ to Natural Theology,” 54.
15. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 148.
16. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 160, 161.
17. Muller, PRRD, I:279.
18. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 220.
19. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 96.
20. cf. Augustine, City of God, VI.5
21. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 95.
22. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 97.
23. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 96.
24. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 96.
25. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 95.
26. Junius, A Treatise on True Theology, 217.
27. Turretin, Institutes, I.i.14.9.
28. Turretin, Institutes, I.i.14.1,2,3.
29. Turretin, Institutes, I.i.14.10.
30. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I, 64.
31. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I, 86.
32. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I, 70.
33. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I, 88, 90.
34. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I, 79.
35. Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, I, 65-66.
36. van Asselt, Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism, 87.
37. van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology,” 334.
38. Klauber, “Reason, Revelation, and Cartesianism,” 328-29.
39. Suddoth, “Revisiting the ‘Reformed Objection’ to Natural Theology,” 52.
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