# A. A. Hodge: Outlines of Theology



## RamistThomist (May 6, 2020)

While this book can never approach the grandeur of his elder, neither will it have the literary quality of Shedd, it probably surpasses them both in its usefulness to the teacher. Unlike Shedd, Hodge doesn’t get distracted by side projects. However, not all of Hodge is equally strong. 

The book follows questions 1-39 of the Shorter Catechism, though not overtly. Hodge is strong in every single area that today's Young, Restless, and Reformed are weak. In other words, Hodge is strong in a lot of areas. 

_Arguments for God_

Contra Hume, and anticipating Plantinga and others, Hodge notes that “order and adaptation can only spring from an intelligent cause” (37).

Pantheism denies the moral personality of God, man, or both (51).

_On The Bible_

Contra Rome: When Paul uses tradition, he signifies “all his instructions, oral and written, communicated to those very people themselves, not handed down” (83).

“Romanists appeal to the Scriptures to prove that the Scriptures cannot be understood, and address arguments to private judgment of men to prove that private judgment is incompetent” (91).

_Attributes of God_

When we say God is infinite, we do not mean that he cannot be an object of knowledge, as though knowing him would place a limit. Rather, infinity means there are no limitations which involve any imperfections whatsoever (133).

The divine attributes are the divine perfections (135).

There can only be one infinite being. “If there were two infinite beings, each would necessarily include the other, and be included by it, and thus they would be the same, one and identical” (139).

Per God as spirit: “Spirit is that substance whose properties manifest themselves to us directly in self-consciousness” (140).

Knowledge of God: the mode of divine knowledge: God perfectly, individually, distinctly, and immutably knows all things. He knows them through himself, through his own essence” (145). God’s necessary knowledge is the act of the divine intellect, without any concurrent act of the divine will. His free knowledge is his knowledge being determined by a concurrent act of his will.

Relation to moral action. God’s knowledge of future contingents makes the events certain, but it does not rule out moral certainty of creatures (147).

Will of God: we reject the liberty of indifference applied to God. The decretive will of God is God efficaciously purposing the futurition of events.

_The Trinity_

“Substantia, as now used, is equivalent to essence, independent being” (164). True enough, but substance implies accidents, whereas essence does not. A subsistence is a mode of substance

He is skeptical of the Johannine Comma (177).

He sees “sons of God” in Gen 6 as “angels” (178).

Eternal Generation: eternal personal act of the Father. He generates the person of the Son by communicating to him the whole indivisible substance of the Godhead (182). It is a communication within the Godhead.

_The Decrees of God_

Immanent and intrinsic decrees are the generation of the Son and spiration of the Spirit

God’s decree doesn’t mechanically cause every event. The decree provides in “every case that the event shall be effected by causses acting in a manner perfectly consistent with the nature of the event in question” (203).

When God decreed everything, he did so as a complete system, having its own internal causes and effects. As a rational agent, I also act in relation to a complete system. God’s decree does not separate effects from causes and means. God’s decree makes the event certain in the future, yet “not as isolated from other events….but as dependent upon means and agents freely using those means” (212).

_Angels_

Nothing in Scripture says angels are completely destitute of all materiality; indeed, they took bodily form, ate food, and lodged in houses (252, referencing Gen. 18:8 and 19:3).

_Preservation_

Contra Edwards: JE says that what we call “the course of nature is nothing separate from the agency of God” (Original Sin, IV, ch. 3). This makes God the only real agent in the universe, and so logically involves pantheism.

When God chose his great end, he also chose innumerable subordinate ends; these are fixed; and he has appointed all actions and events in their several relations as means to those ends” (262).

“All events are so related together as a concatenated system of causes, effects, and conditions, that a general Providence that is not the same time special is as inconceivable as a whole which has no parts, or a chain which has no links” (266).

_Moral Constitution of the Faculties of the Soul_

The faculties of the soul are the capacity of the one agent (280). We choose not to speak of the liberty of the will, but the liberty of the man willing.

Df. will = the faculty of volition, together with all spontaneous states of the soul (282). It acts in accordance with intrinsic moral tendencies in the soul.

A man is morally responsible if he is in possession of his reason, and self-decided in his will (285).

Df. virtue = a peculiar quality of certain states of the will. Its essence is that it obliges the will (286).

Turretin: the essential nature of liberty does not consist in indifference.

Man may act against motives, but never without motives (290).

God from eternity foreknows all the free actions of men as certain, and he has foreordained them to be certain (291).

_Creation of Man_

Pelagians believe that man was created with no positive moral character (302).

_Original Sin_

We deny that the corruption is physical (excluding possible effects). Rather, it is purely moral and “biases the understanding” (325). It consists in a morally corrupt habit. It leads to a schism in the soul (329).

“A universal effect must have a universal cause” (330).

_Inability_

The permanent affections in the soul govern the volitions, but the volitions cannot alter the affections (339).

_Contra Traducianism_

I don’t think Shedd had published his Dogmatic Theology yet, for had he then Hodge’s charges wouldn’t hold. Hodge thinks traducianists hold to a “pure realism, which is a “single generic spiritual substance which corrupted itself by its own voluntary apostasizing act in Adam. The souls of individual men are not separate substances, but manifestations” of this single substance” (351-352). Hodge is here quoting his father (II: 251ff). Both are mistaken on what realism entails. Human nature is a substance, not the property or quality of a substance (see Shedd, 469). It is individualized in a concrete person.

The problem here is that Hodge is operating under a faulty notion of realism. First, our human nature isn’t a manifestation of “humanity.” It is in fact a real human nature. He wants to argue that since the traducianists think human nature can be divided or partialed out, then it is false. Shedd responds that in the beginning, human nature became four instead of two (Shedd 490, modern reprint). Is that a partialing of human nature? It seems to be, yet it also seems correct. There is a constant “diminution of the primitive nonindividualized human nature when once its division and individualization begins by conception.”

Hodge later says that this is 1) Indefinite, 2) fails to explain moral responsibility, 3) assumes laws of natural development limit God’s agency, and 4) doesn’t explain why only the first sin is the one for which we are punished (364).

In response
1*) ?????
2) Again, it isn’t clear. We are also guilty for our own individual sins. Yet, we are also guilty for concupiscence, which came from Adam.
3) Again, I am not sure why he thinks that.
4) On everyone’s account, we are only guilty for Adam’s first sin. 

Guilt and punishment. Guilt is just liability to punishment

_The Person of Christ_

Mediatorial actions pertain to both natures (381).

Do we worship the human nature? We distinguish between the ground and object of worship. The ground of worship is the divine Person, but we do worship the human nature alongside the divine (383). Strictly speaking, we don't worship, either. Worship terminates on the person.

_Nature of the Atonement_

Following his father, AA Hodge gives a lucid account on the nature of guilt and punishment. A penal satisfaction concerns crime and person. A pecuniary concerns debt and things. The former terminates on the person of the criminal; the latter on the thing due (401).

Hodge also denies that “Christ suffered Hell.” This charge comes up on the internet against Protestants. Hodge specifically states that “He did not suffer the same sufferings either in kind, degree, or duration, which would have been inflicted on them, but he did suffer precisely that suffering which divine justice demanded of his person standing in their stead. His sufferings were those of a divine person with a human nature” (406).

Sin as macula is not laid on Christ. Sin as reatus is (408).

_Effectual Calling_

Regeneration: it is a conversio habitualis seu passiva, “the change of character in effecting which the soul is the object, not the subject” (449). Conversion is the opposite.

_Justification_

Standard stuff here, but Hodge does a good job contrasting the Protestant and Romish views. 

Rome: we have a first justification for Christ’s sake. We then (maybe?) have a second one through and in proportion to his merit.

We regard justification as a judicial act, they an infusion of grace. We say the merits of Christ are the ground of justification, they the merits are made ours by sanctification. We say faith is the instrument. They the beginning and root.

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## Pilgrim (May 7, 2020)

Would you say that, if it isn't the best, this is nevertheless the most accessible theology book on Old School (Northern) Presbyterianism? Beyond that, I think most people would find this book to be easier to use than Dabney's Systematic Theology as well.

Doesn't his father's ST have block quotes in Latin? That wouldn't have been a big problem for educated people in that day, but it definitely is in ours. A.A. Hodge puts the cookies on the lower shelves, if not the bottom shelf. 

I haven't spent a great deal of time with Shedd. His "side projects" are interesting and are one of the main reasons to get the book, probably. But even with it being so large, he seems to neglect some of the basics, or treats them in an unconventional way. If memory serves, Shedd doesn't really have a section on ecclesiology.


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## RamistThomist (May 7, 2020)

Pilgrim said:


> Would you say that, if it isn't the best, this is nevertheless the most accessible theology book on Old School (Northern) Presbyterianism? Beyond that, I think most people would find this book to be easier to use than Dabney's Systematic Theology as well.
> 
> Doesn't his father's ST have block quotes in Latin? That wouldn't have been a big problem for educated people in that day, but it definitely is in ours. A.A. Hodge puts the cookies on the lower shelves, if not the bottom shelf.
> 
> I haven't spent a great deal of time with Shedd. His "side projects" are interesting and are one of the main reasons to get the book, probably. But even with it being so large, he seems to neglect some of the basics, or treats them in an unconventional way. If memory serves, Shedd doesn't really have a section on ecclesiology.



It's the most accessible. It doesn't have the Latin overload his father had. Dabney's chapters aren't that long, so it, too, is more accessible than people realize. Shedd is supreme, but he is underdeveloped on a number of points.


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## Pilgrim (May 7, 2020)

BayouHuguenot said:


> It's the most accessible. It doesn't have the Latin overload his father had. Dabney's chapters aren't that long, so it, too, is more accessible than people realize. Shedd is supreme, but he is underdeveloped on a number of points.



RHB had Shedd at a great price about a year ago, so I finally picked it up, having heard good things about it for a long time. But I haven't taken the time to really delve into it. 

I think A.A. Hodge's "Outlines" was the first Reformed theology book I acquired, unless you count Berkhof's "Summary of Christian Doctrine."


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## Taylor (May 7, 2020)

Pilgrim said:


> If memory serves, Shedd doesn't really have a section on ecclesiology.



Neither does (Charles) Hodge. It's a common criticism.

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## Taylor (May 8, 2020)

Pilgrim said:


> If memory serves, Shedd doesn't really have a section on ecclesiology.



Now that I look, I don't think Dabney's does, either. Interesting.


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## py3ak (May 8, 2020)

Taylor Sexton said:


> Neither does (Charles) Hodge. It's a common criticism.



Charles Hodge has an extensive discussion on ecclesiastical matters however, in his _Discussions in Church Polity_.

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## RamistThomist (May 9, 2020)

py3ak said:


> Charles Hodge has an extensive discussion on ecclesiastical matters however, in his _Discussions in Church Polity_.



And Thornwell, while never writing a formal ST, also devoted much attention to polity matters (often in response to Hodge).

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