# WCF 2.1 prooftext question



## chbrooking (Jun 16, 2010)

I've started a study for the men of the church where we look at the history leading up to and surrounding the assembly, study a harmony of the reformed confessions (focussing on WCF,WLC and WSC), then examine the prooftexts and try to understand the hermeneutical reasoning behind adducing the texts they chose.

I realize that the prooftexts were an afterthought. But it doesn't seem that the assembly took parliament's charge lightly. They seem to have given it their all. So it's worthy of study in its own right, but it gives us an excuse to spend most of our time in the Bible.

Anyway. Sorry for the long-winded explanation. I am wrestling with why *Acts 14:11 and 15* were cited in support of *"without ... passions"*.

I'm not so much looking for what "without passions" means. I've got a handle on that. What I'm looking for help with is, *"Why was THIS text adduced in support of this point in the confession?" * 

If you know of other, perhaps better texts that might have been cited, feel free to offer those, too.

Thanks in advance.


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## sastark (Jun 16, 2010)

I believe the point is that Paul is a man and has the nature of a man; whereas, God, being not a man, does not have a nature like men. Paul is trying to prove to the mob that he is not a god, because he is a man and there is a fundamental difference between God and man.


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## chbrooking (Jun 17, 2010)

While this is a very helpful response, I'd like to bump this just once. 

Not-like-men is not necessarily "without passions", i.e., unaffected from without. It just seems a strange text to choose for this.


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## Prufrock (Jun 17, 2010)

I think the Westminster Annotations are helpful here with respect to the intent of the scripture reference; they, along with other commentators of the time, take homoiopatheis to mean, "mortal, as you are, subject to death as all others....not without the infirmities of flesh and blood," referencing James 5:17. It is taken as an attempt of Paul to communicate that they did not just share the same physical appearance as those offering up sacrifices, but that they, too, (and unlike God) were men subject to mortality, or passion -- that is, the change which happens *to* them. Consider the meaning of pascho. To paraphrase this reading of Paul: "Why do you do these things? Don't you see that we are not simply the gods come down in human form, but that we, too, are truly mortals, capable of undergoing change and influence, dying and changing in state even as you are! Put away these things and worship to the true God who made the heavens and earth: he is not subject to the change inherent in created things, for he is the maker and author of all creation!" Not that Paul was trying to teach them that God was without passion, but rather that his statement assumes the fact if it is to make sense.


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