# Piscator and Shepherd on Justification



## greenbaggins (Mar 28, 2007)

My good friend Wes White has just finished a paper which I have posted on my blog. It is meant to be rather a bombshell in the discussion of Shepherdism. Check it out.


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## Redaimie (Mar 28, 2007)

I found the article quite helpful especially the point that Ursinus denied the active obedience of Christ but it had no implications on the Heidelberg Catechism because his view was developed years after the Heidelberg was written. 
The fact that Norman Shepherd and Piscator have different views as well was very informative. 

I have enjoyed reading your blog it is informative & a blessing.

Thanks for all the clarity you provide.


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## greenbaggins (Mar 28, 2007)

Thanks for your encouragement, Mary. These are vital issues, especially in the light of what will shake down in the PCA in the next year or so. Happy to see to the OPC standing tall!


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## R. Scott Clark (Mar 28, 2007)

You might want to take a look at the essay on Active obedience in [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Covenant-Justification-Pastoral-Ministry-Essays-Faculty-Westminster-Seminary-California/dp/1596380357/ref=gfix-ews-form/104-6830588-2299109?ie=UTF8"]Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry[/ame].

That essay takes a slightly different view of Ursinus, though there was not space to argue the point.

Consider several questions in the Summa theologiae (c. 1561):

Q. 16:



> 16 Q What does it mean
> to love God with all one’s heart all one’s soul and all one’s strength?
> 
> A It means to acknowledge Him alone as God,
> ...



Q. 18 has Christ fulfilling the law. The question is whether Ursinus had Christ fulfilling the law _only_ as a qualification for his sacrifice or whether his fulfilling of the law is _also_ imputed to us.

Q. 38 says that "forgiveness of sins, righteousness, 
and eternal life" are freely given to believers. That Ursinus says both the privative (_remissio peccatorum_) and the positive (righteousness; _iustitia_) are given suggest basic structures in Ursinus' soteriology that work against the thesis that Ursinus denied the IAO.

Then there is Ursinus' use of "merit" in the Summa that also works against the thesis that he supported the denial of IAO. In Ursinus' understanding of Christ's merit, he did not just merit his own righteousness to qualify himself as a sacrifice, but rather his (condign) merit is imputed to us. See ST, 38, 58, 65, 78. In ST 126, merit does function chiefly in a privative manner (to qualify Christ to provide the forgiveness of sins) but ST 134 goes on to add the positive or the second aspect of double imputation (IAO). 

I have not checked DeMoor's comments but will do. I have found, in the past, that sometimes the 17th c. fellows get historical claims wrong. Turretin claims that Thoms said "theology teaches God, is taught by God and leads to God." He even gives a place in the Summa where it's supposed to be. It isn't there. His memory tricked him. Olevianus is claimed by some to have held Piscator's views (Piscator was CO's son-in-law) but I find no evidence of this. Some of the 17c fellows, I think, just assumed a connection, that if P held it then CO must have as well.

In fact, I don't find either Olevianus or Ursinus discussing the question _explicitly_. I'm making inferences. It's interesting that neither, so far as I know, spoke to the question explicitly when both had opportunity to do so.

At any rate, it seems to me that there are at least some reasons not to conclude that Ursinus did in fact teach or imply the denial of IAO. This question needs more research.

I do agree with Wes, however, that whatever the case re Ursinus, it is true that he did not reason as Shepherd does and that Shepherd's denial and other errors are quite outside the pale of confessional orthodoxy. I agree with him that the Reformed churches did tolerate at least some of those who denied IAO, though the French churches (as I show) were quite hard on Piscator and quite insistent that he quit corrupting their students! He replied, as errorists always do, "I'm just following the Bible."

rsc



Redaimie said:


> I found the article quite helpful especially the point that Ursinus denied the active obedience of Christ but it had no implications on the Heidelberg Catechism because his view was developed years after the Heidelberg was written.
> The fact that Norman Shepherd and Piscator have different views as well was very informative.
> 
> I have enjoyed reading your blog it is informative & a blessing.
> ...


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## greenbaggins (Mar 28, 2007)

Scott, what do you make of Wes's claim that Ursinus changed his views from holding to the IAO (*while* drawing up the HC), but changing afterwards, when he came under the influence of Piscator? It does not seem to me that you addressed this in your response. But let's continue the discussion.


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## R. Scott Clark (Mar 28, 2007)

I'd like to see the evidence that Ursinus, who was rather older and firmly established in Heidelberg by the time Piscator showed up, was influenced by Piscator. Second, is there any evidence that Piscator began teaching the denial of the IAO before 1595? If not, then he did not begin teaching it until after Ursinus was dead for 10 years. If this is true, it would make it complicated for P to influence U! The controversy with the French churches began in 1603 (ending in 1614). If we're to think that P began teaching this in the 60's (in his early 20s) then he was teaching it for forty years before the French reacted. That seems unlikely. It's more likely they reacted within 7 or 8 years after he began teaching it and students began returning back to their churches and preaching it.

Schultens (whom I haven't read) seems to assume that Piscator was teaching the denial of IAO by '66 or so. Piscator was 20 years old in '66. Why on earth would Ursinus be listening to a 20 year old student? 

There's a relatively easy was to test the theory that Ursinus changed his view (why do folks always do this with Ursinus' Summa? He never disavowed it. He used it in class as a tool. Check his lectures on the HC published as the Commentary on the HC. He gave these lectures for decades from the publication of the catechism until his death in '85 and they reflect his mature views. Further he wrote dogmatic works that could also be checked. 

Re-reading his lecture/comments on Q. 60 (ET, 327-28) I do not see anything that could be construed as an overt denial of IAO, though there is language that could be construed to support viewing Christ's obedience as his qualification to be our Redeemer and that (his qualification) being the thing imputed to us. 

The difficulty, however, of reading Ursinus' comments to deny IAO is that he did not make his denial explicit and elsewhere (e.g., p.331) seems to regard Christ's merits as more than merely his qualification to be a Savior.

Further, I don't see anything fundamentally different in the Lectures on the catechism from what is in the ST, since it is also very strongly Anselmic.

If we ask, "Did Ursinus consider that Jesus was justified by his works and that his righteousness was imputed to us?" The answer (by implication on p. 333) is yes. 

Further, see his comments on Q. 56 (ET, 305ff). In two places he thinks of justification as both the remission of sins and positive achievement of righteousness. He seems to reckon that Christ in his obedience (p. 306) accomplished both. 

Again, these are inferences from a few pages of an Engl. trans. (which is not utterly free of interpolation), but they don't provide prima facie evidence for Schultens' claim.

As to the claim that tolerance of the denial of IAO was "widespread," that is possible, but I should like to see more evidence. I discuss Pareus in the chapter. I also cite J H Alsted, so denial of the IAO wasn't the uniform German Reformed view. 

Anyone who knows the background of Heppe's Reformed Dogmatics knows to be careful about using it as a definitive source. It's a helpful place to find quotations in English (which should be checked against the primary sources always, there are errors in the ET). After that one should be very careful with Heppe. His agenda was to set the German Reformed against the more strongly "Calvinist" wing of the Reformed churches in order to facilitate his ecumenical program.

rsc


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## Redaimie (Mar 28, 2007)

Thanks Dr Clark
I plan to get that book as soon as I finish "By Faith Alone" which I just got in the mail.

I haven't read enough about Ursinus to know what his ultimate view was so I'll have to leave that to my betters but I do think it's a great point that no matter what his later view was he did not deny the "active" obedience of Christ imputed to the believer when the HC was being written.




R. Scott Clark said:


> You might want to take a look at the essay on Active obedience in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry.
> 
> That essay takes a slightly different view of Ursinus, though there was not space to argue the point.
> 
> ...


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