Necessary Volitions
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Prufrock
Arbitrary Moderation
Ruben,
1.) I am assuming you mean necessary with respect to God willing?
2.) If so, as I am quite certain you know better than I, we introduce the distinction between necessity absolute and necessity upon the supposition of the decree. With regards to the former, ad extra works are free, or the will of God is indifferent; with regards tot he latter, we can possit a hypothetical necessity (e.g., God, having decreed to save Peter and Paul, cannot not save Peter and Paul).
1.) I am assuming you mean necessary with respect to God willing?
2.) If so, as I am quite certain you know better than I, we introduce the distinction between necessity absolute and necessity upon the supposition of the decree. With regards to the former, ad extra works are free, or the will of God is indifferent; with regards tot he latter, we can possit a hypothetical necessity (e.g., God, having decreed to save Peter and Paul, cannot not save Peter and Paul).
1. Yes.
2. I understand the distinction, though I doubt I'm as familiar with it as you are. Naturally, the decree renders everything it encompasses necessary. However, sometimes people speak as though:
A. God could not have decreed otherwise than He did, or
B. Certain ends being decreed God was obliged to decree certain means (those, and not others) to accomplish those ends.
It is to both of those points that my original question was directed.
2. I understand the distinction, though I doubt I'm as familiar with it as you are. Naturally, the decree renders everything it encompasses necessary. However, sometimes people speak as though:
A. God could not have decreed otherwise than He did, or
B. Certain ends being decreed God was obliged to decree certain means (those, and not others) to accomplish those ends.
It is to both of those points that my original question was directed.
WCF 3:1, "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass."
I think it radically reshapes theology to remove the freedom of God. 1st, it would give the creature a right to hold God to account for what He has decreed, contrary to the theodicy of scripture. 2nd, it would take away the element of mystery in and amazement at God's purpose to which the Scriptures repeatedly refer, especially with respect to God choosing one and not choosing another to eternal life. 3rd, it would not trace all things back to the good pleasure of God, which must be acknowledged by all reformed people as fundamental to that glory which Scripture ascribes to Him.
Certainly, but at the end of the day there is no solid debating point. As soon as it is acknowledged that vindictive justice requires that the sinning soul shall die, and it is seen that redemption releases the sinning soul from (1.) death, and (2.) self-atonement, then the question is fully conceded to the voluntraryist position.
Larger Catechism, answer 71, "Although Christ, by his obedience and death, did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice in the behalf of them that are justified; yet in as much as God accepteth the satisfaction from a surety, which he might have demanded of them, and did provide this surety, his own only Son, imputing his righteousness to them, and requiring nothing of them for their justification but faith, which also is his gift, their justification is to them of free grace."
There can be no doubt that the doctrine of satisfaction and justification involves the relaxation of vindictive justice in certain points.
You must be reading Redemption Accomplished and Applied. The answer is an obvious yes. I think it is highly speculative to think of the atonement apart from election. One ends up (a.) making the glorification of Christ a means to an end which has man as its focus, and (b.) finding all sorts of effects in the death of Christ which were no part of His actual mission in coming into the world.
Indeed not. I read it a few years ago. Thank you for the clarifications.
Given the debates that I know circulated, would you say that the voluntaryist position is mainstream Reformed? And why does it seem that it rather dropped out of favour at some point?
Given the debates that I know circulated, would you say that the voluntaryist position is mainstream Reformed? And why does it seem that it rather dropped out of favour at some point?
"Mainstream," yes, in the sense that it is the logical starting point for reformed theology, and that earlier reformed writers instinctively espoused it as a part of the system even when they were not consciously addressing the issue. We see the rise of infralapsarian vindications of the justice of God, a conservative response to the Socinian rejection of satisfaction, and various attempts to explain the freeness of the gospel offer result in modifications to the starting point in the seventeenth century. The eighteenth century reaction to Deism and the imperceptible adoption of romanticism's deification of nature in the nineteenth century leads to some curious terms and ideas which have come to bear on the modern discussion. Then liberalism's rejection of substitutionary atonement inevitably leads to a desire to ground satisfaction in the very nature of salvation. So the theologians of the twentieth century adopt the necessity of the atonement in the same way the theologians of the seventeenth century reacted to Socinianism. Obviously the voluntaryist position is not mainstream reformed today. But I think the forces which have led to that shift can be proven to be an unhealthy influence and ultimately lead to the demise of reformed theology.
That's very interesting. It does seem like the freedom of God would be a fundamental postulate, and I thought it was an accurate observation that no ad extra work can be considered absolutely necessary, but the Reformed theologians who, in various ways, seemed comfortable virtually asserting that some ad extra works were necessary gave me some pause. Of course, that also seems to raise the question of how one would distinguish: because if election or incarnation was necessary, why not any other operation? And so God is limited, bound and circumscribed by a fate beyond His own will.
What distinguishes the voluntaryist view from the potentia absoluta which Calvin denies (Institutes, III.23.2)?
What distinguishes the voluntaryist view from the potentia absoluta which Calvin denies (Institutes, III.23.2)?
I don't think one will find a more forceful statement of the voluntaryist position than that section of the Institutes. Calvin's answer to a lawless God is simply God's perfection. That perfection we cannot comprehend; therefore we are incompetent to pronounce judgment. The problem with necessity is that it is man's way of pronouncing judgment on what God may and may not do.
Prufrock
Arbitrary Moderation
Ruben, to further expand upon Rev. Winzer's last post: I don't think it should be said that Calvin denies the potentia absoluta of God, at least as it was understood by the Reformed tradition. He *did* reject certain late medieval triflings with the concept of God's absolute power which had led some men to posit monstrous notions (with which rejection he stands in harmony with later dogmatics, as well).
a mere housewife
Not your cup of tea
Thinking about this, and understanding it better has helped me to have more trust and love of God's will, an unconstrained and 'most pure working' -- as opposed to grinding submission to a grinding necessity of justice and mercy, which must crucify those it loves and destroy those it hates etc. I haven't willingly entertained such thoughts of God, but the idea seemingly underlying things I've read before that He is driven to extremes of mercy, as much as justice, because of being bound by the necessity of His nature much as we are, has been very detrimental to joy in His wisdom, or to trust and love of His Will. When I can think of the cross as the way He has freely chosen to display the glory of His justice and mercy, I understand better what it means to 'glory' in it.
Thankyou for this wonderfully stated perspective. Thomas Goodwin has an insightful remark in this connection -- "It is the proper use of wisdom to make all ends meet." When we understand the freeness of God in giving His Son we are better able to see the "meeting" of all His perfections.
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