John Owen on Natural and Moral Ability

I'm now half way through John Owen's masterful (and massive!) treatise on the Holy Spirit and have been amazed by some of his insights which were later articulated and popularized by Jonathan Edwards in his treatise on the Freedom of the Will.   The following passages taken from Book 3, Chapter 4 seems to me to be of immense importance for every Calvinist to understand if we are to preserve intact the two poles of God's Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility and avoid tripping and falling into the pit of hyper-Calvinism like some of our eighteenth-century Baptist forefathers:

"That Adam in the state of innocency, besides his natural life, whereby he was a living soul, had likewise a supernatural life with respect unto its end, whereby he lived unto God. This is called the “life of God,” Ephesians 4:18, which men now in the state of nature are alienated from; — the life which God requires, and which hath God for its object and end. And this life was in him supernatural: for although it was concreated in and with the rational soul, as a perfection due unto it, in the state wherein and with respect unto the end for which it was made, yet it did not naturally flow from the principles of the rational soul; nor were the principles, faculties, or abilities of it, inseparable from those of the soul itself, being only accidental perfections of them, inlaid in them by especial grace."

"In life spiritual the soul is unto the principle of it as the body is unto the soul in life natural; for in life natural the soul is the quickening principle, and the body is the principle quickened. When the soul departs, it leaves the body with all its own natural properties, but utterly deprived of them which it had by virtue of its union with the soul. So in life spiritual, the soul is not, in and by its essential properties, the quickening principle of it, but it is the principle that is quickened. And when the quickening principle of spiritual life departs, it leaves the soul with all its natural properties entire as to their essence, though morally corrupted; but of all the power and abilities which it had by virtue of its union with a quickening principle of spiritual life, it is deprived. And to deny such a quickening principle of spiritual life, superadded unto us by the grace of Christ, distinct and separate from the natural faculties of the soul, is, upon the matter, to renounce the whole gospel. 

Here are a few reflections on the implications of Owen's theology:

1) The Donum Superadditum for Reformed Protestants

Notice that Owen makes a distinction in this passage between the "rational soul" and the "quickening principle" which was originally "concreated" with the soul of Adam and Eve.  Although Owen affirms in good Protestant form that Adam was created in positive state of righteous (rather than a neutral state following Roman Catholics), the doctrine of the donum superadditum is certainly lurking in the background in these passages.  At the Fall Adam lost this supernatural gift and in conversion it is once again "superadded" to us.

2) Natural Ability vs. Moral Ability

Both Owen and Edwards make this distinction which is very important in understanding the doctrine of Total Depravity.  What exactly does it mean for the Apostle Paul to say that humankind is "dead in trespasses and sins"??  Does this imply (as in some crude Arminian caricatures of Calvinism) that humans have totally lost both their rational and moral abilities?  Can unregenerate humanity, dead in sin, reason successfully east of Eden now that the donum superadditum has been lost???   Owen's answer to this question is very insightful- the natural ability of the rational soul is left intact even though the "quickening" principle has been lost.   This does not mean that human reason has been untouched by Original Sin - such would be the heresy of Pelagius!!  Owen affirms in these passages that the rational soul has been "morally corrupted" but it has not by any means been totally destroyed.  Our rational faculties are still basically intact in terms of their natural abilities.   What Owen is doing here (and what Edwards also does) is to make a distinction between Natural and Moral ability in formulating a doctrine of Total Depravity.   Fallen men and women, according to both of these theologians, are naturally able to obey the commands of God because the rational soul is still functioning.  Fallen humanity, however is morally unable to obey the commands of God because the "quickening" principle has been lost!   Until that quickening principle is restored through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, humans will never use their natural, rational abilities to do what is pleasing to God.   This distinction is brilliant because it preserves both the responsibility of humankind before God (we are naturally able and thus must answer to God for our rebellion!!) and the sovereignty of God in salvation (God must restore moral ability through regeneration according to His sovereign, electing, grace). 

3)  Christian Apologetics

The distinction between Natural and Moral ability seems to me to help focus the debate between Presuppositionalists like Van Til and Evidentialists like William Lane Craig.   In reading Van Til firsthand over the past month, it seems to me that he does not clearly make this distinction and as a result embraces a rather unrealistic doctrine of Depravity that implies that non-believers are unable to reason coherently apart from Biblical presuppositions.  In other words, Van Til seems to teach that fallen humanity is both naturally and morally unable.  This seems to me to be a view of Total Depravity that is neither demanded by the Scripture nor evidenced in the real world, since many non-theists and deists have made significant contributions to the furthering of human knowledge without giving any credence whatsoever to the Bible or Christian theism.   The distinction between Natural and Moral ability also helps me come to terms with the dialectic in Calvin's theology between his very robust doctrine of Depravity and his deep admiration of the contributions of the ancient Greek Philosophers who were clearly unregenerate.  (Zwingli went so far in his bias toward renaissance humanism as to suggest that they were regenerated apart from the gospel!!).

John Owen on the Loveliness of Christ

I came across this beautiful passage in my reading today of John Owen's Treatise Of Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (1657).  This short excerpt is found in the second part of the treatise where he is talking about the believer's communion with Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity:

Christ is:

Lovely in his person, — in the glorious all-sufficiency of his Deity,

gracious purity and holiness of his humanity, authority and majesty, love

and power.

Lovely in his birth and incarnation; when he was rich, for our sakes

becoming poor, — taking part of flesh and blood, because we partook of

the same; being made of a woman, that for us he might be made under the

law, even for our sakes.

Lovely in the whole course of his life, and the more than angelical holiness

and obedience which, in the depth of poverty and persecution, he exercised

therein; — doing good, receiving evil; blessing, and being cursed, reviled,

reproached, all his days.

Lovely in his death; yea, therein most lovely to sinners; — never more

glorious and desirable than when he came broken, dead, from the cross.

Then had he carried all our sins into a land of forgetfulness; then had

remade peace and reconciliation for us; then had he procured life and

immortality for us.

Lovely in his whole employment, in his great undertaking, — in his life,

death, resurrection, ascension; being a mediator between God and us, to

recover the glory of God’s justice, and to save our souls, — to bring us to

an enjoyment of God, who were set at such an infinite distance from him

by sin.

Lovely in the glory and majesty wherewith he is crowned. Now he is set

down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; where, though he be terrible

to his enemies, yet he is full of mercy, love, and compassion, towards his

beloved ones.

Lovely in all those supplies of grace and consolations, in all the

dispensations of his Holy Spirit, whereof his saints are made partakers.

Lovely in all the tender care, power, and wisdom, which he exercises in the

protection, safe-guarding, and delivery of his church and people, in the

midst of all the oppositions and persecutions whereunto they are exposed.

Lovely in all his ordinances, and the whole of that spiritually glorious

worship which he has appointed to his people, whereby they draw nigh and

have communion with him and his Father.

Lovely and glorious in the vengeance he taketh, and will finally execute,

upon the stubborn enemies of himself and his people.

Lovely in the pardon he has purchased and does dispense, — in the

reconciliation he has established, — in the grace he communicates, — in

the consolations he does administer, — in the peace and joy he gives his

saints, — in his assured preservation of them unto glory.

What shall I say? there is no end of his excellencies and desirableness; —

“He is altogether lovely. This is our beloved, and this is our friend, O

daughters of Jerusalem.”

Why You Should Read the Puritans!

I came across this excellent preface in a book I am reading for my MA thesis that captures the main reasons why I invest so much of my free time in studying the history and theology of the English Puritans.  As an Evangelical Baptist in the Reformed tradition, reading Puritan theology is a bit like having a chat with my grandfather or learning from the wisdom of one of the older members of my congregation.  Generally speaking, my studies in Church History over the past ten years or so since I first began to read biographies of my heroes of faith, have helped me to grow in my walk with the Lord and understanding of the Christian faith in ways that I find difficult to express - so I'll let Ligon Duncan help me out and hope that you catch the bug too!:

"Perhaps never before as much as now, the evangelical church needs to learn from the Puritans.  We live in a time of tremendous change and upheaval in Christendom.  Things once taken for granted as true and right and good, are being questioned - in both theory and practice - and there are disturbing signs that the spiritual health of the Western church is in a serious state.  In such a time as this we need 'light from old times' to guide us into the future.  The Puritans offer us that kind of light and we have, apparently, forgotten their wisdom.  What are some of the practical benefits of studying the Puritans?

First, the Puritan movement bequeathed to us a tradition of pastoral theology unsurpassed in the history of Christianity in the English-speaking world.  We need to hear them because a significant proportion of the church of our day has decided that its ministry should be carried out pragmatically rather than theologically.  'What works' is more important to some today than 'What is Biblical'.  The Puritans were not tempted by such modern folly and in their history, lives and writings they offer to us a pattern of minsitry that was both theologically informed and pastorally effective.  If we truly want to minister Biblically and effectively in the twenty-first century, then was are wise to sit at the feet of the Puritans.

Second, Puritan theology (simply defined as Biblical, evangelical, and Reformed theology) has served for more than three centuries as the basic doctrinal framework for evangelicalism.  It has been influential throughout the Protestant world in the English speaking churches and especially in the Baptist, Congregational, Independent, Anglican and Presbyterian traditions.  However, in the turmoil of post-modernity, the old doctrinal distinctives of evangelicalism are breaking down.  We hear of Protestants returning to Rome or converting to Eastern Orthodoxy.  We shudder when acclaimed evangelical scholars suggest that we need to rethink and redefine the doctrine of 'justification by faith alone'.  We are numbered by the widespread lack of knowledge of Protestant first principles in the various evangelical churches.  In this light, knowledge and appreciation of the times and teachings of the Puritans can serve to inoculate us against the false teachings and faddish Christianity of our own age.  And perhaps the glory and biblical fidelity of their teaching can reclaim a hold on our hearts, saving us from slavery to the spirit of the times or from an irrational reactionary search for spirituality in mysticism or ritualism. 

Third, the modern church seems allergic to theology and doctrine.  And yet truth is essential for healthy Christian experience and service.  The Apostle Paul himself argued throughout his letters that the saving knowledge of God is essential to Christian living.  This entails knowing God personally and learning about Him through His word.  Because of this, all Christians are called to be theologians - the question is whether we are going to be good ones or bad ones!  - and that is where the study of the Puritans comes in.  The mastering of the theology of the Puritans will provide the Christian with a wholesome and comprehensive grasp of biblical truth.  That truth, in turn, is crucial for Christian living becasue what we believe affects how we live.  Bad theology leads to bad practice.  As Stephen Charnock said so long ago: 'It is impossible to honour God as we ought, unless we know His as He is.'  The study of the Puritan's work will give us a surer knowledge of God as He has revealed Himself in the Scripture.  For these reasons, and more, we need to become reacquainted with the lives and times and teachings of the Puritans."

To this, all I can add is a hearty 'Amen'!  If you'd like to join me in rediscovering our heritage as Evangelicals through our Puritan grandparents here is a good place to start:

1) Joel Beeke, Meet the Puritans:  Click Here

2) John Brown, The English Puritans:  Click Here

3) Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints:  Click Here

3) Banner of Truth Reprints/ Abridgments - go to http://www.amazon.ca/ and type in 'Puritan Paperbacks'

Puritan Pastoral Theology 101 (Part I)

As I prepare to make a transition this April from Student Ministry in a parachurch setting to Pastoral Ministry in a local church setting, I picked up a copy of Richard Baxter's classic work on Pastoral Theology entitled The Reformed Pastor which I've had good intentions to read since I first got hooked on the English Puritans in Seminary.

Richard Baxter was one of the foremost Puritan pastors of the seventeenth-century who was a friend and associate of Thomas Manton - the subject of my MA research at McGill.  Both Manton and Baxter belonged to the non-separatist Presbyterian party within the Church of England and were forcibly ejected from their pastorates as a result of the 1662 Act of Uniformity for their refusal to conform to the Book of Common Prayer shortly after the Stuart monarchy was restored under Charles II.  As a pastor, Baxter was second to none and wrote The Reformed Pastor to train and equip young men preparing for the ministry.   By 'Reformed', Baxter is not referring to the Calvinistic Doctrines of Grace, but to the need for pastors to be renewed or 'reformed' in their pastoral practice.  As I work through this book in the coming weeks, I will share some of Baxter's pastoral wisdom.  Citations are from the Banner of Truth paperback edition.

The Pastor's Duty to Oversee His Own Spiritual Health

Before a pastor can properly tend God's flock, he must take care of his own spiritual wellbeing:  "We have the same sins to mortify, and the same graces to be quickedned and strengthened, as our people have:  we have greater works to do that they have, and greater difficulties to overcome, and therefore we have need to be warned and awakened, if not to be instructed, as well as they." (51)

The first duty of the reformed pastor, therefore, is to "see that the work of saving grace be thoroughly wrought in your own souls." (53)  Baxter warns that God does not save clergy because of their vocation or gifts and urges pastors not to be complacent in making their own calling and election sure before they climb into the pulpit to urge others to renounce sin and to embrace Jesus Christ as Lord:  "God never saved any man for being a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher; but because he was a justified, sanctified man, and consequently faithful in his Master's work....  It is a fearful thing to be an unsanctified professor, but much more to be an unsanctified preacher.  Doth it not make you tremble when you open the Bible, lest you shouls there read the sentence of your own condemnation?  When you pen your sermons, little do you think that you are drawing up indictments against your own souls!  When you are arguing against sin, that you are aggravating your own!  When you proclaim to your hearers the unsearchable riches of Christ and his grace, that you are publishing your own iniquity in rejecting them, and your unhappiness in being destitute of them!  What can you do in persuading men to Christ, in drawing them from the world, in urging them to a life of faith and holiness, but conscience, if it were awake, would tell you, that you speak all this to your own confusion?  If you speak of hell, you speak of your own inhereitance:  if you describe the joys of heaven, you describe your own misery, seeing you have no right to 'the inheritance of the saints in light.'  What can you say, for the most part, but that it will be against your own souls?  O miserable life!  that a man should study and preach against himself, and spend his days in a course of self-condemning!  A graceless, inexperienced preacher is one of the most unhappy creatures upon earth:  and yet he is ordinarily very insensible of his unhappiness; for he hath so many counters that seem like the gold of saving grace, and so many splendid sotnes that resemble Christian jewels, that he is seldom troubled with the thoughs of his poverty." (54) 

Not only must a pastor ensure that a saving work has been wrought in his own heart before proclaiming the gospel to others, he must also make sure that his faith remains fresh and vibrant, and that his heart remains warm with the gospel of grace:  "Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace, but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves teh sermons which you study, before you preach them to others...I confess I must speak it by lamentable experience, that I publishe to my flock the distempers of my own soul.  When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused; and so I can oft observe also in the best of my hearers, that when I have grown cold in preaching, they have grown cold too." (61)  The only way to keep the fire stoked, says Baxter, is for the pastor to make his prayer life the first priority in his ministry:  "Above all, be much in secret prayer and mediation.  Thence you must fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifices:  remember, you cannot decline and neglect your duty, to your own hurt alone; many will be losers by it as well as you.  For your people's sakes, therefore, look to your hearts." (62)

The reformed pastor must always lead the flock by example:  "Order your families well, if you would have them do so by theirs.  Be not proud and lordly, if you would have them to be lowly.  There are no virtues wherein your example will do more, at least to abate men's prejudice, than humility and meekness and self-denial." (65)

The godly pastor must excel in works of charity and benevolence and demonstrate frugality and generosity in the way he lives and stewards his financial resources:  "Go to the poor, and see what they want, and show your compassion at once to their soul and body.  Buy them a catechism, and other small books that are likely to do them good, and make them promise to read tehm with care and attention.  Stretch your purse to teh utmost, and do all the good you can.  Think not of being rich;  seek not great things for yourselves or your posterity." (66)

Pastors must strive daily to root out or to 'mortify' (a good Puritan word!) sin and avoid ministering in a state of hypocrisy:  "If sin be evil, why do you live in it?  if it be not, why do you dissuade men from it?  If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it?  if it be not, why do you tell men so?  If God's threatenings be true, why do you not fear them?  if they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men with them, and put them into such frights without a cause?"  (68)

Finally, pastors must take steps to prepare themselves with the necessary skills for the work of the ministry which normally includes the pursuit of formal theological education as God provides the time, resources and opportunity.  If formal theological education is not a viable option, the pastor should, like Charles Spurgeon, pursue his own course of independent study by immersing himself in theology and the study of the biblical languages.  The Puritans placed an extemely high value on the education of their clergy as evidenced by the fact that most of the Ivy League schools in New England were founded by Congregationalist and Presbyterian Puritans for the training of the next generation of ministers (ie. Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc.).  This Puritan concern for theological education persists in the Reformed tradition today as all Presbyterian pastors are required to complete an MDiv before they can complete the process of ordination.  Here is what Baxter has to say about the importance of education:  "O brethren!  do you not shrink and tremble under the sense of all this work?  Will a common measure of holy skill and ability, of prudence and other qualifications, serve for such such a task as this?  I know necessity may cause the Church to tolerate the weak; but woe to us if we tolerate and indulge our own weakness!  Do not reason and conscience tell you, that if you dare venture on so high a work as this, you should spare no pains to be qualified for the performance of it?  It is not now and then an idle snatch or taste of studies that will serve to make an able and sound divine [puritan word for pastor/theologian]  I know that laziness hath learned to allege the vanity of all our studies, and how entirely the Spirit must qualify us for, and assist us in our work; as if God commanded us the use of means, and then warranted us to neglet them...O, therefore, brethren, lose no time!  Study, and pray and confer, and practise; for in these four ways your abilities must be increased." (71)