Southern Presbyterian Virtual Library

I suppose that the three great Southern Presbyterian Theologians may be identified as James Henley Thornwell, Robert Louis Dabney, and John Lafayette Girardeau. I have attempted to provide below as complete a virtual library of their works as can be accessed as complete works for free. Obviously, there are fragments from these men scattered in numerous other places on the Internet, and there are additional reprintings of their works that are available at a cost. If any of my readers happens to know of links to additional free, electronic copies of the works of any of these gentlemen, please let me know.

James Henley Thornwell

• The collected writings of James Henley Thornwell (Volume 1)
• The collected writings of James Henley Thornwell (Volume 2)
• The collected writings of James Henley Thornwell (Volume 3)
• The collected writings of James Henley Thornwell (Volume 4)
• The life and letters of James Henley Thornwell (Google 1)
• The rights and duties of masters. (Google 1)
• Fanatism[!]--with little reason, science or common sense, unmasks itself
• Our danger and our duty
• Report on the subject of slavery
• The arguments of Romanists from the infallibility of the church and the testimony of the fathers in behalf of the Apocrypha (Google 1)
• Discourses on truth: delivered in the Chapel of the South Carolina College (Google 1)

Robert Louis Dabney

• Syllabus and notes of the course of systematic and polemic theology
• The sensualistic philosophy of the nineteenth century, considered (Google 1)
• Sacred rhetoric : or a course of lectures on preaching
• A review of Theodosia Ernest, or, The heroine of faith
• A defence of Virginia, (and through her, of the South) in recent and pending contests against the sectional party (Google 1)
• Life and campaigns of Lieut.-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, (Stonewall Jackson) (Google 1) (Google 2) (Google 3) (Google 4 abr.)

John Lafayette Girardeau

• The life work of John L. Girardeau, D.D., LLd. (this is more of a biography than actually a collection of his works - unfortunately, most of his works seem still not to be freely available)

To the glory of God,

-TurretinFan

Response to Objections Regarding Merit and the Covenant of Works

In Paul's epistles to the Romans and Galatians, Paul drives home a message of the futility of works to provide merit, and the need for grace. This message is an important aspect of the gospel, for those who seek salvation through works will perish:

Romans 9:31-33
31But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. 32Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; 33As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

One of the Reformed criticisms of Catholicism is its emphasis on works, i.e. on legalism. On the other hand, Reformed apologists have had to address those erring in the other direction, the antinomians. The Antinomians acknowledge the futility of works, but then improperly conclude that consequently the law is to be ignored.

Less dramatic than either of those departures from orthodox theology is the Arminian position. One of the consistent Reformed criticisms of the Arminian position is that it converts faith into a work, and makes faith the meritorious cause of salvation. Thus, while Arminians would affirm the futility of works for salvation, they inconsistently undo that affirmation by converting faith into a work. It should be noted that some of the papists have done the same more boldly by substituting "faithfulness" (i.e. obedience) in place of faith.

The Arminian error in this regard seems to stem from a lack of appreciation of the relation both between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, as well as from a lack of appreciation of the difference in the way in which life is received in the two covenants. But it is not Arminians alone that seem to have this problem.

I recently came across comments from two pastors (both of whom signed the Federal Vision Joint Statement - and both of whom apparently are pastors at a PCA church - link) that exhibited something of the same misunderstanding. These men, of course, would not be considered Arminians, and I suspect would be gravely offended if someone were to call them such a name.

Here are their comments:

Jeff Meyers wrote:

If all you mean by “meritorious” is that an act or action fulfills the terms of a particular covenant, then faith is meritorious in the covenant of grace because it is required, according to the terms of the covenant, for attaining eternal life. If Adam’s obedience “would have been the meritorious cause of his obtaining life,” according to the terms of that pre-fall covenant, then our faith is the meritorious cause for obtaining life in the covenant of grace. After all, we’re not talking about “strict merit.” That is one of Mark’s major problems with all this merit talk.

(source)

Mark Horne likewise wrote:

Finally, whether or not the Westminster Standards ought to claim faith is a condition of the covenant of grace, the [sic] do so. This means that faith is pactum merit, and would allow us to say that faith is “improperly” meritorious.

(source - same combox)

The parallel these gentlemen are making (1) demonstrates a misunderstanding of the Westminster standards, and (2) undermines the law/grace distinction.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'll provide a quotation:

3. Nevertheless, the good works of sincere believers are, like their persons, in spite of their imperfections, accepted, because of their union with Christ Jesus, and rewarded for his sake. All our approaches to God are made through Christ. It is only through him that we have access to the Father by the Spirit. Eph. ii. 18. "Whatever we do, "in word or deed," we are commanded to "do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." Col. iii. 17.
As to the relation of good works to rewards, it may be observed —
1.) The word "merit," in the strict sense of the term, means that common quality of all actions or services to which a reward is due, in strict justice, on account of their intrinsic value or worthiness. It is evident that, in this strict sense, no work of any creature can in itself merit any reward from God ; because — (a.) All the faculties he possesses were originally granted and are continuously sustained by God, so that he is already so far in debt to God that he can never bring God in debt to him. (b.) Nothing the creature can do can be a just equivalent for the incomparable favour of God and its consequences.
2.) There is another sense of the word, however, in which it may be affirmed that if Adam had in his original probation yielded the obedience required, he would have "merited" the reward conditioned upon it, not because of the intrinsic value of that obedience, but because of the terms of the covenant which God had graciously condescended to form with him. By nature, the creature owed the Creator obedience, while the Creator owed the creature nothing. But by covenant the Creator voluntarily bound himself to owe the creature eternal life, upon the condition of perfect obedience.
It is evident that in this life the works of God's people can have no merit in either of the senses above noticed. They can have no merit intrinsically, because they are all imperfect, and therefore themselves worthy of punishment rather than of reward. They can have no merit by covenant concession on God's part, because we are not now standing in God's sight in the covenant of works, but of grace, and the righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone, constitutes the sole meritorious ground upon which our salvation, in all of its stages, rests. See chapter xi., on Justification.
In the dispensation of the gospel, the gracious work of the believer and the gracious reward he receives from God are branches from the same gracious root. The same covenant of grace provides at once for the infusion of grace in the heart, the exercise of grace in the life, and the reward of the grace so exercised. It is all of grace - a grace called a reward added to a grace called a work. The one grace is set opposite to the other grace as a reward, for these reasons: (a.) To act upon us as a suitable stimulus to duty. God promises to reward the Christian just as a father promises to reward his child for doing what is its duty, and what is for its own benefit alone. (b.) Because a certain gracious proportion has been established between the grace given in the reward and the grace given in the holy exercises of the heart and life; but both are alike given for Christ's sake. This proportion has been established — the more grace of obedience, the more grace of reward — the more grace on earth, the more glory in heaven — because God so wills it, and because the grace given and exercised in obedience prepares the soul for the reception of the further grace given in the reward. Matt. xvi. 27; 1 Cor. iii. 8; 2 Cor. iv. 17.

(A.A. Hodge, A Commentary on the Confession of Faith, commentary on Sections IV-VI of Chapter XVI of the WCF, pp. 226-28, 1870 ed.)

What A.A. Hodge is explaining is that there is:

a) Strict merit (which man can never have); amd
b) Pactum merit (which Adam had).

Neither is applicable to a believer, because the covenant of grace is all of grace. Thus, it is written:

John 1:16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

And this is essential to the law/grace division, as John's gospel continues:

John 1:17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

But perhaps some more explanation would be helpful:

In entering upon the exposition of this section, it is proper to remark, that, at the period when our Confession was framed, it was generally held by the most eminent divines, that there are two covenants connected with the salvation of men, which they called the covenant of redemption, and the covenant of grace; the former made with Christ from everlasting, the latter made with sinners in time; the righteousness of Christ being the condition of the former, and faith the condition of the latter covenant. This distinction, we conceive, has no foundation in the Sacred Scriptures, and it has long since been abandoned by all evangelical divines. The first Adam is said to have been a figure of Christ, who is called the second Adam. Now, there was not one covenant made with Adam, the condition of which he was to perform, and another made with his posterity, the condition of which they were to fulfill; but one covenant included both him and them. It was made with him as their representative, and with them as represented in and by him. In like manner, one covenant includes Christ and his spiritual seed. The Scriptures, accordingly, everywhere speak of it as one covenant, and the blood of Christ is repeatedly called "the blood of the covenant," not of the covenants, as we may presume it would have been called, if it had been the condition of a covenant of redemption and the foundation of a covenant of grace. — Heb. x. 29, xiii. 20. By the blood of the same covenant Christ made satisfaction, and we obtain deliverance. — Zech. ix. 11. We hold, therefore, that there is only one covenant for the salvation of fallen men, and that this covenant was made with Christ before the foundation of the world. The Scriptures, indeed, frequently speak of God making a covenant with believers, but this language admits of an easy explication, in consistency with the unity of the covenant. "The covenant of grace," says a judicious writer [Wilson of London], "was made with Christ in a strict and proper sense, as he was the party-contractor in it, and undertook to fulfill the condition of it. It is made with believers in an improper sense, when they are taken into the bond of it, and come actually to enjoy the benefit of it. How it is made with them may be learned from the words of the apostle, — Acts xiii. 34 : 'I will give you the sure mercies of David,' which is a kind of paraphrase upon that passage, — Is. lv. 3 : 'I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.' God makes the covenant with them, not by requiring anything of them in order to entitle them or lay a foundation for their claim to the blessings of it, but by making these over to them as a free gift, and putting them in possession of them, as far as their present state will admit, by a faith of his own operation."
The supposition of two covenants for the salvation of mankind sinners, is encumbered with various difficulties. One is obvious. In every proper covenant, there are two essential parts — a conditionary and a promissory. If, therefore, there be a covenant made with sinners, different from the covenant made with Christ, it must have a condition which they themselves must perform. But though our old divines called faith the condition of the covenant made with sinners, they did not assign any merit to faith, but simply precedence. "The truth is," as Dr Dick has remarked," that what these divines call the covenant of grace, is merely the administration of what they call the covenant of redemption, for the purpose of communicating its blessings to those for whom they were intended; and cannot be properly considered as a covenant, because it is not suspended upon a proper condition." The "Westminster Assembly, in this section, appear to describe what was then usually designated the covenant of grace, as distinguished from the covenant of redemption. But, though they viewed the covenant under a twofold consideration, as made with the Surety from everlasting, and as made with sinners in time, they certainly regarded it as one and the same covenant. "The covenant of grace," say they, "was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed." The doctrine of our standards on this deeply interesting subject, may be summed up in the following propositions: —
1. That a covenant was entered into between Jehovah the Father and his co-eternal Son, respecting the salvation of sinners of mankind. The reality of this federal transaction, appears from Ps. lxxxix. 3: "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant." The speaker, in this passage, can be no other but the Lord, who is mentioned in the beginning of the Psalm; and it cannot reasonably be questioned, that the words spoken have their ultimate and principal fulfillment in Jesus Christ, and assert a covenant made with him, of which the covenant of royalty made with David, King of Israel, was typical. In other places of Scripture, though the word covenant does not occur, we have a plain intimation of all the essential parts of a proper covenant. In Is. liii. 10, we have the two great parts of the covenant — the conditionary and the promissory; and the two glorious contracting parties — the one undertaking for the performance of its arduous condition — the other engaging for the fulfillment of its precious promises: "If his soul shall make a propitiatory sacrifice, he shall see a seed which shall prolong their days; and the gracious purpose of Jehovah shall prosper in his hands." — (Bishop Lowth's Translation.)
2. That this covenant was made with Christ, as the head, or representative, of his spiritual seed. This is confirmed by the comparison between Christ and Adam, which is stated by the apostle, — Rom. v.; 1 Cor. xv. 45, 47; which clearly establishes the truth, that Adam and Christ severally sustained a public character, as the federal heads of their respective seeds. Christ and his spiritual seed are called by the same name (Isa. xlix. 3), — a plain evidence of God's dealing with him as their representative in the covenant. Christ is likewise called the Surety of the covenant (Heb. vii. 22); and the promises of the covenant were primarily made to him — Gal. iii. 16; Tit. i. 2.
3. That this covenant originated in the free grace and sovereign will of God. The Scriptures uniformly ascribe this transaction to the good pleasure of Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will, and represent it as conducing to the praise of the glory of his grace. — Eph. i. 3-6. On this account this covenant is, with great propriety, called the covenant of grace, because it originated in the free grace of God, and conveys the blessings of salvation to sinners in a manner the most gratuitous.
4. That this covenant was established from eternity. The covenant of grace is called the second covenant, as distinguished from the covenant of works made with Adam; but though the second in respect of manifestation and execution, yet, with respect either to the period or the order in which it was made, it is the first covenant. The Head of this covenant is introduced (Prov. viii. 23), saying, "I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, ere ever the earth was;" i.e., he was set apart to his mediatory office and work, covenant of grace from everlasting. The promise of eternal life is said to have been given us in Christ "before the world began" (Tit. i. 2); and the covenant is frequently styled an everlasting covenant. — Heb. xiii. 20.
5. In the administration of this covenant, God "freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved." Though Christ, in this covenant, represented only a definite number of mankind, who were "chosen in him before the foundation of the world," yet, in the administration of the covenant, a free offer of salvation by Jesus Christ is addressed to sinners of mankind indefinitely and universally. — John vi. 32; Is. lv. 1; Rev. xxii. 17. This offer is not restricted, as Baxterians allege, to sensible sinners, or those who are convinced of their sin, and their need of the Saviour; for it is addressed to persons sunk in total insensibility as to their own miseries and wants. — Rev. iii. 17, 18. This offer is made as really to those who eventually reject it, as it is to those who eventually receive it; for, if this were not the case, the former class of gospel-hearers could not be condemned for their unbelief. — John iii. 18, 19.
That God "requires of sinners faith in Christ that they may be saved," admits of no dispute. The part assigned to faith, however, has been much controverted. Many excellent divines, in consequence of the distinction which they made between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace, were led to speak of faith as the condition of the latter covenant. But the term, as used by them, signifies not a meritorious or procuring cause, but simply something which goes before, and without which the other cannot be obtained. They consider faith merely as a condition of order or connection, as it has been styled, and as an instrument or means of obtaining an interest in the salvation offered in the gospel. This is very different from the meaning attached to the term by Arminians and Neonomians, who represent faith as a condition on the fulfillment of which the promise is suspended. The Westminster Assembly elsewhere affirm, that God requires of sinners faith in Christ, "as the condition to interest them in him." But this is very different from affirming that faith is the condition of the covenant of grace. That faith is indispensably necessary as the instrument by which we are savingly interested in Christ, and personally instated in the covenant, is a most important truth, and this is all that is intended by the Westminster divines. They seem to have used the term condition as synonymous with instrument; for, while in one place they speak of faith as the condition to interest sinners in the Mediator, in other places they affirm, that "faith is the alone instrument of justification," and teach, that "faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness." As the word condition is ambiguous, apt to be misunderstood, and is frequently employed in an unsound and dangerous sense, it is now disused by evangelical divines.
6. That God promises his Holy Spirit to work in his elect that faith by which they come to have a special interest in the blessings of this covenant. This implies, that a certain definite number were ordained to eternal life, and that all these shall in due time be brought to believe in Christ. — Acts xiii. 48. It also implies, that they are in themselves unwilling and unable to believe (John vi. 44); but God promises to give them the Holy Spirit to make them willing and able. — Ezek. xxxvi. 26. Faith, therefore, instead of being the condition of the covenant of grace, belongs to the promissory part of the covenant. — Rom. xv. 12. It is the gift of God, who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.— Eph. ii. 8; Phil. ii. 13.

(Robert Shaw, An Exposition of the Confession of Faith of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, pp. 88-92, Eighth ed. 1867, commentary on Chapter VII, Section III of the WCF)

I would draw the reader's attention particularly to the following excerpt from the above discussion:

Many excellent divines ... were led to speak of faith as the condition of the latter covenant. But the term, as used by them, signifies not a meritorious or procuring cause, but simply something which goes before, and without which the other cannot be obtained. They consider faith merely as a condition of order or connection, as it has been styled, and as an instrument or means of obtaining an interest in the salvation offered in the gospel. This is very different from the meaning attached to the term by Arminians and Neonomians, who represent faith as a condition on the fulfillment of which the promise is suspended. The Westminster Assembly elsewhere affirm, that God requires of sinners faith in Christ, "as the condition to interest them in him." But this is very different from affirming that faith is the condition of the covenant of grace. That faith is indispensably necessary as the instrument by which we are savingly interested in Christ, and personally instated in the covenant, is a most important truth, and this is all that is intended by the Westminster divines.

Perhaps I should conclude this post with a last selection:

5. Lastly, The covenant of grace doth so exclude our boasting, as the covenant of works did not. This is clear from Rom. iii. 27. "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith." But if any deed or work of ours be the condition of the covenant of grace, in whole or in part, our beading is not excluded, but hath place therein, as in the covenant of works; the difference being at most but in point of degrees: for, according to the Scripture, it is working, or fulfilling the condition of a covenant, that gives the ground of boasting ; Forasmuch as "to him that worketh, the reward is reckoned of debt:" and life being of or by works in the covenant of works, though not in the way of proper merit, but in the way of paction or compact only, this gave men the ground of boasting in that covenant, according to the Scripture. Therefore, so far as life and salvation are of or by any work or deed of ours, as fulfilling the condition of the covenant of grace, our boasting is not excluded, but hath place therein as in the covenant of works. Wherefore, since the covenant of grace is so framed, as to leave no ground for our boasting, no work or deed of ours, but Christ fulfilling all righteousness, even that alone, is the condition of the covenant of grace: and our life and salvation are neither of works, nor by works, as fulfilling the condition of the covenant: Tit. iii. 5. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. Eph. ii. 9. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

(Thomas Boston, A View of the Covenant of Grace from the Sacred Records, p. 74, 1797 ed.)

-TurretinFan

Edwards and the Other Hodge on Merit and the Covenant of Works

Here are two more folks' thoughts on merit and covenant of works:

If this principle be correct, if the law demands entire conformity to the nature and will of God, it follows:

1. That there can be no perfection in this life. Every form of perfectionism which has ever prevailed in the Church is founded either on the assumption that the law does not demand entire freedom from moral evil, or upon the denial that anything is of the nature of sin, but acts of the will. But if the law is so extensive in its demands as to pronounce all defect in any duty, all coming short in the purity, ardor, or constancy of holy affections, sinful, then there is an end to the presumption that any mere man since the fall has ever attained perfection.

2. It follows also from this principle that there can never be any merit of good works attributable to men in this world. By merit, according to the Scriptural sense of that word, is meant the claim upon reward as a matter of justice, founded on the complete satisfaction of the demands of the law. But if those demands never have been perfectly fulfilled by any fallen man, no such man can either be justified for his works, or have, as the Apostle expresses it, any καύχημα [kauchema, boasting], any claim founded on merit in the sight of God. He must always depend on mercy and expect eternal life as a free gift of God.

3. Still more obviously does it follow from the principle in question that there can be no such thing as works of supererogation. If no man in this life can perfectly keep the commandments of God, it is very plain that no man can do more than the law demands. The Romanists regard the law as a series of specific enactments. Besides these commands which bind all men there are certain things which they call precepts, which are not thus universally binding, such as celibacy, poverty, and monastic obedience, and the like. These go beyond the law. By adding to the fulfillment of the commands of God, the observance of these precepts, a man may do more than is required of him, and thus acquire an amount of merit greater than he needs for himself, and which in virtue of the communion of saints, belongs to the Church, and may be dispensed, through the power of the keys, for the benefit of others. The whole foundation of this theory is of course removed, if the law demands absolute perfection, to which, even according to their doctrine, no man ever attains in this life. He always is burdened with venial sins, which God in mercy does not impute as real sins, but which nevertheless are imperfections.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, volume 2, pages 185-86 (1872 ed.)

3. It is in this doctrine that the most essential difference lies between the covenant of grace and the first covenant. The adverse scheme of justification supposes that we are justified by our works, in the very same sense wherein man was to have been justified by his works under the first covenant. By that covenant our first parents were not to have had eternal life given them for any proper merit in their obedience; because their perfect obedience was a debt that they owed God. Nor was it to be bestowed for any proportion between the dignity of their obedience, and the value of the reward; but only it was to be bestowed from a regard to a moral fitness in the virtue of their obedience, to the reward of God's favor; and a title to eternal life was to be given them, as a testimony of God's pleasedness with their works, or his regard to the inherent beauty of their virtue. And so it is the very same way that those in the adverse scheme suppose that we are received into God's special favor now, and to those saving benefits that are the testimonies of it. I am sensible the divines of that side entirely disclaim the Popish doctrine of merit; and are free to speak of our utter unworthiness, and the great imperfection of all our services. But after all, it is our virtue, imperfect as it is, that recommends men to God, by which good men come to have a saving interest in Christ, and God's favor, rather than others; and these things are bestowed in testimony of God's respect to their goodness. So that whether they will allow the term merit or no, yet they hold, that we are accepted by our own merit, in the same sense, though not in the same degree, as under the first covenant.

(Works of President [Jonathan] Edwards, Volume 5 (of 10), pp. 447-48, 1829 ed.)

-TurretinFan

Thoughts / Distinctions on Merit and Adam

Is the Covenant of Works a covenant based on merit? We affirm.

By the covenant of works, we mean that covenant provided to Adam, which takes the form, "do this and live." Thus, when we speak of the covenant of works, we are not distinguishing between the New Testament and the Old Testament, but between the Covenant of Works made with Adam and the Covenant of Grace through Christ (under various administrations, prominently the Mosaic and the Apostolic administrations).

By merit we do not mean merit in a strict sense, for merit in a strict sense would require that man give to God something more than God deserves. God, as Creator, deserves perfect obedience. Thus, it is impossible for man ever to have strict merit in the sight of God.

Nevertheless, there is covenantal or "pactum" merit in the Covenant of Works. Thus, God (by virtue of the covenant of works) bound himself to permit man to live if he obeyed. Thus, we do not refer to merited eternal life except upon condition of eternal obedience.

Thus, we do not deal in respect to this question with the issue of whether Adam would have been confirmed in obedience, if he had endured for a period of time in a state of obedience.

Our reasons for believing that there is merit (broadly defined) in the Covenant of Works is as follows:

1) Adam earned/deserved/merited death. Scripture teaches us that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). The concept of wages implies merit, for wages are earned.

2) Christ earned/deserved/merited life. God had promised, if a man would keep God's statutes and judgments "he shall live in them: I am the LORD." (Leviticus 18:5) Christ kept them perfectly, and consequently deserved life.

The two principles serve to explain salvation

1) By Adam's disobedience we have come under the curse of the law, and have further doomed ourselves by our own personal disobedience. (Romans 5:12)
2) Since perfect obedience is the requirement of the law, it is impossible for the demerit (both Adam's as our federal head and our own) to be overcome by through our own merit obtained through the law. (Romans 3:20 and Galatians 2:16)
3) But Christ's death would be a violation of the Covenant of Works, since God promised life to covenant keepers. (Leviticus 18:5)
4) Moreover life for the elect would be a violation of the Covenant of Works, since man deserves death rather than life. (Romans 6:23)
5) Wherefore, Christ voluntarily (John 10:18) took the place (Romans 5:8) of the elect. (Hebrews 12:2)
6) Thereby, He was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21); and
7) We (the elect) were made the righteous of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

We refer to this as double imputation. Thus, Christ was slain for us. He is our vicarious, substitutionary atonement. By double-imputation he was punished and we are made free. His merit (and life) becomes our merit, and our demerit (and death) became his.

If the covenant of works is not one of meriting life by obedience (Adam failing), then Christ could not merit life by fulfilling the law. But if Christ did not merit life, then God is not strictly just in giving life to the elect. Yet God is just and the justifier of the elect, namely those who believe in Jesus. (Romans 3:26)

Praise be to our Gracious and Just God,

-TurretinFan

The Real Turretin and Pictet on: Christ's Righteousness

Turretin writes:

Such is the perfection of the atonement, that it corresponds to the justice of God revealed in the Word, to the demands of the law, and to the miseries and necessities of those for whom it was made. Had it been in its own nature deficient, and derived its sufficiency only from God’s acceptance of it through mere grace, then the victims under the law might have possessed equal efficacy in making atonement for sin, contrary to Heb. x. 4. Its perfection is derived from its own intrinsic fulness of merit. It is perfect: (1.) In respect to parts; because it satisfied all the demands which the law makes upon us, both in relation to the obedience of life and the suffering of death. By enduring the punishments due to us, it has freed us from death and condemnation. And by its meritorious efficacy, it has reconciled God the Father to us and has acquired for us a title to eternal life. (2.) It is perfect in degree; for Christ has not only done and suffered all that which the law claims of us, but all this in a full and perfect degree; so that nothing more, in this respect, can possibly be desired. The perfection in degree is derived from the infinite dignity of the person who suffered and the severity of the punishment exacted. (3.) Hence follows the perfection in its effects. In respect of God, it has effected an entire reconciliation with him; in relation to sin, it has wrought full expiation and pardon; and in relation to believers, its effects are perfection in holiness and complete redemption, both as to deliverance from death, and as to a title to life and its possession.

(Turretin, On the Atonement of Christ, 1859 ed. p. 68)

And Pictet writes:

And not without reason is this office assigned to faith, before all other graces, because it alone, out of all the others, can subsist or stand with divine grace, seeing that it is employed, as it were, in the mere receiving and aprehending of an object which is placed without it, and because, as Toletus a Papist observes, by faith it is more clearly shewn how man is justified, not by his own merit, but by the merit of Christ, and by it alone is “boasting excluded.”

(Pictet, Christian Theology, p. 370)

Witsius Explains the Righteousness of Christ

Herman Witsius
The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man
Book II, Chapter V

XI. But we must proceed a step further, and affirm, moreover to that the obedience of Christ was accomplished by him, be believed, that it was in our room, in order thereby to obtain for us a right to eternal life. The law, which God will have secured inviolable, admits none to glory but on condition of perfect obedience, which none was ever possessed of but Christ, who bestows it freely on his own people. This is what the apostle declares, Rom. v. 16: "But the free gift of Jesus Christ is of many offenses unto justification:" that is, though we want those works, for which the reward may be due; nay, though for so many sins we may have deserved an eternal curse; nevertheless, there is something sufficient, not only for abolishing many offenses, but likewise to be the meritorious cause of righteousness; namely, the obedience of one; and it becomes ours by gratuitous gift. More clearly still, ver. 19, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made [constituted] sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made [constituted] righteous." The former "one man" was Adam, the root and federal head of mankind. By his disobedience, all mankind, as belonging to him, were involved in the guilt of the curse: and as he sustained the person of all, what he did amiss is accounted as done by all. The other is the "one man" Christ, who neither sinned in and with Adam, nor had the dominion of sin and death passed upon him, and who is worthy to be both lord and head, a second Adam, and the origin and source of the inheritance to be devolved on his brethren. He is possessed of an obedience, even to the whole law of God, which enjoined him to have a perfect love for the glory of his Father, and for the salvation of his brethren. By that obedience, the collective body of those who belong to him are constituted righteous; that is, are judged to have a right to eternal life, no less than if every one had performed that obedience in his own person.

*** Emphasis in original. Edited by TurretinFan (2008) to modernize spelling -- found at pages 178-79 of Volume 1 of the 1837 edition of this eminent work in systematic theology ***

Wisdom Chapter 14 - Test of Irony

The following is chapter fourteen from the uninspired book of Wisdom.

1 Again, one preparing himself to sail, and about to pass through the raging waves, calleth upon a piece of wood more rotten than the vessel that carrieth him. 2 For verily desire of gain devised that, and the workman built it by his skill. 3 But thy providence, O Father, governeth it: for thou hast made a way in the sea, and a safe path in the waves; 4 Shewing that thou canst save from all danger: yea, though a man went to sea without art.

5 Nevertheless thou wouldest not that the works of thy wisdom should be idle, and therefore do men commit their lives to a small piece of wood, and passing the rough sea in a weak vessel are saved. 6 For in the old time also, when the proud giants perished, the hope of the world governed by thy hand escaped in a weak vessel, and left to all ages a seed of generation.

7 For blessed is the wood whereby righteousness cometh.

8 But that which is made with hands is cursed, as well it, as he that made it: he, because he made it; and it, because, being corruptible, it was called god. 9 For the ungodly and his ungodliness are both alike hateful unto God. 10 For that which is made shall be punished together with him that made it.

11 Therefore even upon the idols of the Gentiles shall there be a visitation: because in the creature of God they are become an abomination, and stumblingblocks to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the unwise. 12 For the devising of idols was the beginning of spiritual fornication, and the invention of them the corruption of life. 13 For neither were they from the beginning, neither shall they be for ever.

14 For by the vain glory of men they entered into the world, and therefore shall they come shortly to an end. 15 For a father afflicted with untimely mourning, when he hath made an image of his child soon taken away, now honoured him as a god, which was then a dead man, and delivered to those that were under him ceremonies and sacrifices. 16 Thus in process of time an ungodly custom grown strong was kept as a law, and graven images were worshipped by the commandments of kings. 17 Whom men could not honour in presence, because they dwelt far off, they took the counterfeit of his visage from far, and made an express image of a king whom they honoured, to the end that by this their forwardness they might flatter him that was absent, as if he were present.

18 Also the singular diligence of the artificer did help to set forward the ignorant to more superstition. 19 For he, peradventure willing to please one in authority, forced all his skill to make the resemblance of the best fashion. 20 And so the multitude, allured by the grace of the work, took him now for a god, which a little before was but honoured. 21 And this was an occasion to deceive the world: for men, serving either calamity or tyranny, did ascribe unto stones and stocks the incommunicable name.

22 Moreover this was not enough for them, that they erred in the knowledge of God; but whereas they lived in the great war of ignorance, those so great plagues called they peace. 23 For whilst they slew their children in sacrifices, or used secret ceremonies, or made revellings of strange rites; 24 They kept neither lives nor marriages any longer undefiled: but either one slew another traiterously, or grieved him by adultery. 25 So that there reigned in all men without exception blood, manslaughter, theft, and dissimulation, corruption, unfaithfulness, tumults, perjury, 26 Disquieting of good men, forgetfulness of good turns, defiling of souls, changing of kind, disorder in marriages, adultery, and shameless uncleanness.

27 For the worshipping of idols not to be named is the beginning, the cause, and the end, of all evil. 28 For either they are mad when they be merry, or prophesy lies, or live unjustly, or else lightly forswear themselves. 29 For insomuch as their trust is in idols, which have no life; though they swear falsely, yet they look not to be hurt. 30 Howbeit for both causes shall they be justly punished: both because they thought not well of God, giving heed unto idols, and also unjustly swore in deceit, despising holiness. 31 For it is not the power of them by whom they swear: but it is the just vengeance of sinners, that punisheth always the offence of the ungodly.

Now I ask you which is more ironic: that I (not believing this passage to be the Word of God) accept this passage as generally true, or that others (believing this passage to be the Word of God) nevertheless claim that the prohibition on idols did not last for ever (as stated in verse 13) but ceased after the Incarnation. Which is more ironic, that I believing this to be uninspired believe it teaches the truth (generally) or that they believing it to be inspired nevertheless do not follow its teachings, but make and use in worship images both purporting to be of God and of holy men.

-TurretinFan

Chinese Government Distributing Bibles

I ran across this interesting blog post at the Theologica blog(link). The post explains that the Chinese government (!) will be distributing 10,000 bilingual Chinese/English Bibles in the Olympic village. I hope that many of those Bibles will not make back home, but will be redistributed to the billion or so Chinese folks who have not read it. I know 10,000 is an insignificant number among so many people, but it is a start.

Praise be to God for this concession from the government of the world's largest nation,

-TurretinFan

Response to Paul Hoffer

Paul Hoffer, who submits to the dictates pope Benedict XVI, has a misleading article entitled, "A Protestant Proving the Superiority of Scriptural Revelation by Quoting from the Deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom of Solomon." (link to Mr. Hoffer's article)

Let's handle the headline first.

1) The "Protestant" who cited Scripture is me, but the "Protestant" who was proving the Superiority of Scriptural Revelation was Carl F. H. Henry.

2) I quoted Scripture, not the the apocryphal book entitled the "Wisdom of Solomon." In fact I quoted from the inspired books of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

3) I did not quote those passages, in this case, to prove the Superiority of Scriptural Revelation, but simply to distinguish Special Revelation (Scripture and other Prophecy) from General Revelation (aka the light of Nature).

Now, let's turn to the body of Mr. Hoffer's post. After essentially reproducing my post in its entirety, Mr. Hoffer remarks:

Does anyone else find it ironic that the proof texts for the notion that Scriptural Revelation has priority over general revelation that Turretinfan, a Protestant who follows the dictates of John Calvin, offers the reader are two passages where St. Paul is quoting from the Deuterocanonical book of Wisdom of Solomon (Rom. 1:18-23=Wisdom 13:1-9; Hebrews 1:1-4=Wisdom 7:26)?

I answer:
A) Again, note that these are not presented as "proof texts" (though they may well prove the matter, that was not the point) for Carl F.H. Henry's statement, but simply to educate the reader as to the difference between general and special revelation.
B) Although Mr. Hoffer may follow the dictates of Benedict XVI, Pastor Calvin is simply a persuasive authority on Scripture. He was a wise man, but only Scripture has the ability to bind my conscience, not even the words of such a great Christian man as John Calvin.
C) The Apostle Paul was the author of Romans, but the tradition that Paul was the author of Hebrews is questionable at best. There is, in fact, a good Scriptural argument against Pauline authorship of Hebrews, but I do not wish to sidetrack this post with that argument.
D) Paul and the Author of Hebrews do not quote from the Book of Wisdom in the passages of Scripture I quoted.
i) Romans 1:18-23 does not quote Wisdom 13:1-9

Romans 1:18-23
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

Wisdom 13:1-9
1Surely vain are all men by nature, who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things that are seen know him that is: neither by considering the works did they acknowledge the workmaster; 2But deemed either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven, to be the gods which govern the world. 3With whose beauty if they being delighted took them to be gods; let them know how much better the Lord of them is: for the first author of beauty hath created them. 4But if they were astonished at their power and virtue, let them understand by them, how much mightier he is that made them. 5For by the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the maker of them is seen. 6But yet for this they are the less to be blamed: for they peradventure err, seeking God, and desirous to find him. 7For being conversant in his works they search him diligently, and believe their sight: because the things are beautiful that are seen. 8Howbeit neither are they to be pardoned. 9For if they were able to know so much, that they could aim at the world; how did they not sooner find out the Lord thereof?

Undoubtedly, there is a similarity of theme between the two, but the relation is not Paul quoting the Wisdom of Solomon. In case you think the issue is the translation (both are taken from the King James Version above), I have provided the Greek original and Latin Vulgate translations below.

ii) Likewise Hebrews 1:1-4 is not quoting from Wisdom 7:26.

Hebrews 1:1-4
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; 3Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; 4Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

Wisdom 7:26 For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.

Again, there is some similarity between the description of "Wisdom" in the book of Wisdom and the description of Jesus in the book of Hebrews, but the author of the latter is not quoting from the former. Again, in case you think the issue is the translation (both are taken from the King James Version above), I have provided the Greek original and Latin Vulgate translations below in the respective Greek and Latin appendices.
E) Even if Paul and the author of Hebrews had quoted from the uninspired book popularly called the "Wisdom of Solomon," that would not be particularly significant. After all, Paul wrote to Titus:

Titus 1:12 One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.

Yet no one believes that the pre-Christian Cretan poet Epimenides authored Holy Scriptures. If Paul drew on uninspired pagan poets, it would be no surprise that Paul might draw on uninspired Hellenstic Jewish writers as well. Thus, even if Paul were quoting or even merely plagiarizing Wisdom, it would really have no particular bearing on the canon issue, as Mr. Hoffer seems inclined to suggest.

In short, with all due respect to Mr. Hoffer, I don't find any real merit in his post.

-TurretinFan

Latin Appendix

Romans 1:18-23
18revelatur enim ira Dei de caelo super omnem impietatem et iniustitiam hominum eorum qui veritatem in iniustitiam detinent 19quia quod notum est Dei manifestum est in illis Deus enim illis manifestavit 20invisibilia enim ipsius a creatura mundi per ea quae facta sunt intellecta conspiciuntur sempiterna quoque eius virtus et divinitas ut sint inexcusabiles 21quia cum cognovissent Deum non sicut Deum glorificaverunt aut gratias egerunt sed evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis et obscuratum est insipiens cor eorum 22dicentes enim se esse sapientes stulti facti sunt 23et mutaverunt gloriam incorruptibilis Dei in similitudinem imaginis corruptibilis hominis et volucrum et quadrupedum et serpentium

Wisdom 13:1-9
1vani sunt autem omnes homines quibus non subest scientia Dei et de his quae videntur bona non potuerunt intellegere eum qui est neque operibus adtendentes agnoverunt quis esset artifex 2sed aut ignem aut spiritum aut citatum aerem aut gyrum stellarum aut nimiam aquam aut solem et lunam rectores orbis terrarum deos putaverunt 3quorum si specie delectati deos putaverunt sciant quanto dominator eorum speciosior est speciei enim generator haec omnia constituit 4aut si virtutem et opera eorum mirati sunt intellegant ab ipsis quoniam qui haec constituit fortior est illis 5a magnitudine enim speciei et creaturae cognoscibiliter poterit horum creator videri 6sed tamen adhuc in his minor est querella et hii enim fortassis errant Deum quaerentes et volentes invenire 7etenim cum in operibus illius conversentur inquirunt et persuasum habent quoniam bona sunt quae videntur 8iterum autem nec his debet ignosci 9si enim tantum potuerunt scire ut possent aestimare saeculum quomodo huius Dominum non facilius invenerunt

Hebrews 1:1-4
1multifariam et multis modis olim Deus loquens patribus in prophetis 2novissime diebus istis locutus est nobis in Filio quem constituit heredem universorum per quem fecit et saecula 3qui cum sit splendor gloriae et figura substantiae eius portansque omnia verbo virtutis suae purgationem peccatorum faciens sedit ad dexteram Maiestatis in excelsis 4tanto melior angelis effectus quanto differentius prae illis nomen hereditavit

Wisdom 7:26 candor est enim lucis aeternae et speculum sine macula Dei maiestatis et imago bonitatis illius

Greek Appendix

Romans 1:18-23
18 αποκαλυπτεται γαρ οργη θεου απ ουρανου επι πασαν ασεβειαν και αδικιαν ανθρωπων των την αληθειαν εν αδικια κατεχοντων 19διοτι το γνωστον του θεου φανερον εστιν εν αυτοις ο γαρ θεος αυτοις εφανερωσεν 20τα γαρ αορατα αυτου απο κτισεως κοσμου τοις ποιημασιν νοουμενα καθοραται η τε αιδιος αυτου δυναμις και θειοτης εις το ειναι αυτους αναπολογητους 21διοτι γνοντες τον θεον ουχ ως θεον εδοξασαν η ευχαριστησαν αλλ εματαιωθησαν εν τοις διαλογισμοις αυτων και εσκοτισθη η ασυνετος αυτων καρδια 22φασκοντες ειναι σοφοι εμωρανθησαν 23και ηλλαξαν την δοξαν του αφθαρτου θεου εν ομοιωματι εικονος φθαρτου ανθρωπου και πετεινων και τετραποδων και ερπετων

Wisdom 13:1-9
1Μάταιοι μὲν γὰρ πάντες ἄνθρωποι φύσει, οἷς παρῆν θεοῦ ἀγνωσία καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὁρωμένων ἀγαθῶν οὐκ ἴσχυσαν εἰδέναι τὸν ὄντα οὔτε τοῖς ἔργοις προσέχοντες ἐπέγνωσαν τὸν τεχνίτην, 2ἀλλ᾿ ἢ πῦρ ἢ πνεῦμα ἢ ταχινὸν ἀέρα ἢ κύκλον ἄστρων ἢ βίαιον ὕδωρ ἢ φωστῆρας οὐρανοῦ πρυτάνεις κόσμου θεοὺς ἐνόμισαν. 3ὧν εἰ μὲν τῇ καλλονῇ τερπόμενοι ταῦτα θεοὺς ὑπελάμβανον, γνώτωσαν πόσῳ τούτων ὁ δεσπότης ἐστὶ βελτίων, ὁ γὰρ τοῦ κάλλους γενεσιάρχης ἔκτισεν αὐτά· 4εἰ δὲ δύναμιν καὶ ἐνέργειαν ἐκπλαγέντες, νοησάτωσαν ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν πόσῳ ὁ κατασκευάσας αὐτὰ δυνα τώτερός ἐστιν· 5ἐκ γὰρ μεγέθους καὶ καλλονῆς κτισμάτων ἀναλόγως ὁ γενεσιουργὸς αὐτῶν θεωρεῖται. 6ἀλλ᾿ ὅμως ἐπὶ τούτοις μέμψις ἐστὶν ὀλίγη, καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ τάχα πλανῶνται θεὸν ζητοῦντες καὶ θέλοντες εὑρεῖν· 7ἐν γὰρ τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῦ ἀναστρεφόμενοι διερευνῶσιν καὶ πείθονται τῇ ὄψει, ὅτι καλὰ τὰ βλεπόμενα. 8πάλιν δ᾿ οὐδ᾿ αὐτοὶ συγγνωστοί· 9εἰ γὰρ τοσοῦτον ἴσχυσαν εἰδέναι ἵνα δύνωνται στοχάσασθαι τὸν αἰῶνα, τὸν τούτων δεσπότην πῶς τάχιον οὐχ εὗρον;

Hebrews 1:1-4
1πολυμερως και πολυτροπως παλαι ο θεος λαλησας τοις πατρασιν εν τοις προφηταις επ εσχατων των ημερων τουτων ελαλησεν ημιν εν υιω 2ον εθηκεν κληρονομον παντων δι ου και τους αιωνας εποιησεν 3ος ων απαυγασμα της δοξης και χαρακτηρ της υποστασεως αυτου φερων τε τα παντα τω ρηματι της δυναμεως αυτου δι εαυτου καθαρισμον ποιησαμενος των αμαρτιων ημων εκαθισεν εν δεξια της μεγαλωσυνης εν υψηλοις 4τοσουτω κρειττων γενομενος των αγγελων οσω διαφορωτερον παρ αυτους κεκληρονομηκεν ονομα

Wisdom 7:26 ἀπαύγασμα γάρ ἐστιν φωτὸς ἀιδίου καὶ ἔσοπτρον ἀκηλίδωτον τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνεργείας καὶ εἰκὼν τῆς ἀγαθότητος αὐτοῦ.

Why Does Scripture have Epistemic Priority? Carl F. H. Henry Explains

"The scriptural revelation takes epistemological priority over general revelation, not because general revelation is obscure or because man as sinner cannot know it, but because Scripture as an inspired literary document republishes the content of general revelation objectively, over against sinful man's reductive dilutions and misconstructions of it."

-Carl F. H. Henry (God Revelation, and Authority, vol. 1, 1999, p. 223)

What is general revelation? It is the revelation discussed here:

Romans 1:18-23
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

This is in stark contrast to special revelation, which is the kind of revelation discussed here:

Hebrews 1:1-4
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; 3Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; 4Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

Praise be to God for not leaving us with general revelation alone!

-TurretinFan

What Calvinism Is Not!

Many of Calvinism's most vocal critiques could learn a thing or seven from Gordan Runyan's latest post at Reformed Mafia (link). Gordon explains what TULIP:

T => Total Depravity = Really and truly dead in sin => R
U => Unconditional Election = Only cause of salvation to be found in God => O
L => Limited Atonement = Substitutionary and definite atonement => S
I => Irresistible Grace = Enlivening power of God on dead sinners => E
P => Perseverance of the Saints = Salvation is eternal life => S

(or ROSES, by another name)

is not. Frankly, given the number of misconceptions out there, this post is worth its weight in gold.

-Turretinfan

An Anti-Christ: Vissarion

Glen H at Pot and Torch Apologetics has a thorough article on an anti-Christ whose real name is Vissarion. (link) He is a Russian man who has gained a cult following in a fairly remote part of eastern Russia.

Let me ask the reader a question. How in the world could we tell if this man really is the Messiah returned a second time? Would we simply go to him and believe what he says because he claims to speak the Word of God?

I hope no one would be so foolish. There are, however, those who read this blog who accept what their churches have to say as though that were God's Word. Their churches don't claim to be the second coming of Christ, but they do insist that their doctrines cannot be tested by individuals on the basis of Scripture.

By comparison to Vissarion (and he is not the only man claiming to be Jesus and gathering a following after himself), we can see the need for Scripture. It is Scripture to which we turn to know whether this man is the Messiah or an Anti-Christ. It's the same way we test the claims of any teacher and of whole churches of teachers.

We start from what we know to be the Word of God, and go from there. I hope, dear readers, that you will do the same. Most error is not as obvious as a man pretending to be Jesus. More often in comes in more subtle forms. The way to root it out is by searching the Scriptures.

To the glory of God, and the vindication of His truth,

-TurretinFan

Bentlism vs. Exclusive Psalmody

I ran across this post (link) which provides a useful pair of videos. If you are not already sick to death of Bentley's demonic anti-Christian "revival," you may want to watch the first clip in its entirety (especially the reminder at the end). Otherwise, for the point I am making, you need only to watch the first minute or so of each. The post is provided by the blog titled (in this case somewhat unexpectedly) Let My People Read, by someone who is more charismatic (in both senses) than I am.

Now, for the comparison, watch the video embedded in this post (link).

One form of worship shows us the imitation of the world: the other shows the transformation of the world. One video shows man-made worship: the other inspired worship. One is the logical conclusion of strange-fire innovations in worship: the other a restoration of Orthopraxy.

Thankfully most folks who reject the Regulative Principle of Worship (or who consider the lyrics of praise merely an element) do not take it to this absurd logical conclusion.

-TurretinFan

P.S. It's worth noting that the Psalms are still sung in "Orthodox" churches, normally (if not always) as the Apostles would have done in the synagogues, a capella. There have been some innovative additions in the song of EO worship as well (various Troparia, for example), but less addition is found there (in that regard) than one finds in a typical church that has innovated more freely. A post today by the Romanian Orthodox poster, Lvka provides some examples: (link - there may be some objectionable icons in some of the still images that accompany the audio in the clips Lvka has embedded).

Pope Gregory VII from the German Perspective

The Character of Pope Gregory
extracted from
The Variations of Popery
by
Samuel Edgar, D.D.
(1855 ed., pp. 111-12)

Gregory the Seventh, who obtained the papacy in 1073, was another pontifical patron of iniquity. He was elected on the day of his predecessor's funeral, by the populace and soldiery, through force and bribery, without the concurrence of the emperor or the clergy. Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino, on this head, accused Hildebrand to his face of precipitation. He obtained the supremacy, in the general opinion, by gross simony.[FN1] He had the hypocrisy or hardihood, nevertheless, to pretend that the dignity was obtruded on him against his will.

Benno has sketched the character of this pontiff in strong colors. This cardinal accused his holiness of simony, sacrilege, epicurism, magic, sorcery, treason, impiety, and murder. The Italians of Lombardy drew nearly as frightful a portrait of his supremacy. These represented his holiness as having gained the pontifical dignity by simony, and stained it by assassination and adultery.

The councils of Worms and Brescia depicted his character with great precision. The council of Worms, comprehending forty-six of the German prelacy, met in 1076, and preferred numerous imputations against Gregory. This synod found his holiness guilty of usurpation, simony, apostasy, treason, schism, heresy, chicanery, dissimulation, fornication, adultery, and perjury. His infallibility, according to this assembly, debased sacred theology by innovation, and scandalized Christendom by his intimacy with the Princess Matilda. His holiness, in the sentence of the German prelacy, preferred harlots to women of character, and adultery and incest to chaste and holy matrimony.[FN2]

The council of Brescia, in 1078, portrayed his supremacy with equal freedom. This assembly, composed of thirty, bishops, and many princes from Italy, France, and Germany, called Gregory a fornicator, an impostor, an assassin, a violator of the canons, a disseminator of discord, a disturber of the Christian commonwealth, and a pestilential patron of all madness, who had sown scandal among friends, dissension among the peaceful, and separation among the married. The Brescian fathers, then declared his holiness guilty of bribery, usurpation, simony, sacrilege, ferocity, vain-glory, ambition, impiety, obstinacy, perverseness, sorcery, divination, necromancy, schism, heresy, Berengarianism, infidelity, assassination, and perjury. The sacred synod having, in this manner, done justice to his character, deposed Gregory from his dignity by the authority of Almighty God.[FN3]

The fathers of Worms and Brescia supported the Emperor Henry against Pope Gregory. Their condemnation of the pontiff therefore has, by Labbé, Alexander, and Binius, been reckoned the effect of personal hostility, and, on this account, unworthy of credit. Their sentence, indeed, is no great evidence of their friendship for his holiness. But these two councils were, in this respect, in the same situation with the other synods who have condemned any of the Roman hierarchs. The Roman synod that condemned John the Twelfth, the Parisian assembly that convicted Boniface, the Pisan and Constantian councils that degraded Gregory, Benedict, and John, all these were placed in similar circumstances, and actuated by similar motives. But their sentences are not, therefore, to be accounted the mere ebullitions of calumny. Gregory's sentence of deposition against Henry was, according to the partizans of popery in the present day, an unlawful act, and beyond the limits of pontifical authority. The fathers of Worms and Brescia, therefore, had a right to withstand Gregory in his assumption and exercise of illegal and unconstitutional power.

[FN1] Du Pin, 2. 210, 215. Bruy. 2. 427.
[FN2] Labb. 12. 517. Cossart. 2. 11, 48. Bruy. 2. 471. Alex. 18. 398.
[FN3] Labb. 12. 646. Alexander. 18. 402.

***

Edited by TurretinFan (2008) to update spellings and footnote numbering/format. Book available at no charge in electronic form from Google Books (link). It should be noted that obviously the account above is the account from the German perspective, not the Italian perspective (which would praise Gregory). Even the accounts from the Italian perspective, however, acknowledge that Gregory VII had started his career serving a simoniacal pope ("There could be no doubt as to Alexander's successor. Hildebrand [later called Gregory VII] had been virtually Pope during two pontificates. The efforts of the Clugny party against simony and clerical marriage had been inspired by him, though he had begun his career as the chaplain of a simoniacal Pope." The Age of Hildebrand, M. R. Vincent, 1896, p. 64).

Gregory VII is that pope whose intrigues in European politics led to Emperor Henry IV standing standing barefoot in bad weather for three days in a castle courtyard, which (in turn) led to Gregory's own deposition and exile by Henry subsequently. In the development of the papacy and its arrogation over the European church, Gregory's role is significant, although he died defeated and in exile with an appointee of Henry IV on the papal throne.

Thus, even works that essentially write off the German councils make comments such as: "Gregory's character was in many respects a grand and noble one. But impartial history decides that the good he accomplished was far more than counterbalanced by his fanatical enforcement of celibacy (q. v.), which has continued to this day to demoralize the Romanist clergy, and by his semi-blasphemous assertions of almost divine power for the papacy. His earlier efforts for ecclesiastical reform were, no doubt, sincere and earnest; but at a later period he was led astray bу the ambition of exalting his see over all the dignities and powers of the earth, spiritual as well as temporal. Not content with making, as far as in him lay, the Church independent of the empire, and at the same time establishing the control of the papal authority over the princes of the earth, objects which he left to be completed by his successor, Gregory determined to destroy the independence of the various national churches. His object was to raise the pope to supreme power over Church and State throughout Christendom. By a constitution of his predecessor Alexander II, which he dictated, and which he afterwards continued, it was enacted for the first time that no bishop elect should exorcise his functions until lie had received his confirmation from the pope. The Roman see had already, in the 9th century, subverted the authority of the metropolitans, under pretense of affording protection to the bishops; but now it assumed the right of citing the bishops, without distinction, before its tribunal at Rome to receive its dictates, and Gregory obliged the metropolitan to attend in person to receive the pallium. The quarrel of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, with William Rufus, was owing to that monarch not choosing to let him go to Rome, whither he had been summoned. The practice of sending apostolic legates to different kingdoms as special commissioners of the pope, with discretionary power over the national hierarchy, originated also with Gregory, and completed the establishment of absolute monarchy in the Church in lieu of its original popular or representative form. This doctrine of papal absolutism in matters of discipline was by prescription and usage so intermixed with the more essential doctrines of faith, that it came to be considered аз a dogma itself, and has defied all the skill of subsequent theologians and statesmen to disentangle it from the rest, while at the same time it has probably been, though at a fearful cost, the means of preserving the unity of the Western
or Roman Church. The measures accomplished and attempted by Gregory were (1) the abolition of the influence of the Roman nobility in the election of the pope; (2) the removal of all authority in the election of the popes from the emperors of Germany; (3) the establishment of the celibacy of the clergy; (4) the freedom of the Church in the matter of investitures." (internal citations omitted) Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, McClintock et al. 1891, pp. 1003-04.

But even leaving aside Gregory VII, if one wanted a more undisputed example of papal simony than this (or than the pope under which Gregory VII got his start), one need only turn to Alexander VI (pope from 1492-1503), formerly Rodrigo Borgia. Of the manner of his election, of the depravity of his life, and of the gruesomeness of his death, I will for now leave the reader to discover for himself. While the ambitions of Gregory VII may have contributed to the Great Schism (1054) (or may simply have been the product of that political defeat), Alexander VI (among other factors) set the stage for Luther.

King on Repentance

Pastor King provides an excellent discussion on the importance of repentance.



It's less than 15 minutes long. It's specifically geared toward those who consider themselves Calvinists, but it is also relevant to Arminians, Semi-Pelagians, Pelagians, and in fact every man. Listen carefully - try to pay attention for a quarter hour.

-TurretinFan

Defending Turretin from the Federal Vision

GreenBaggins has provided a defense of Turretin to misuse by Federal Visionist Mark Horne (link to Greenbaggins). This fits nicely with two previous posts I provided on this blog, one relating to McMahon's defense of Turretin from FV abuse and another talking about Turretin's view of the covenant in the garden (which connects to the issue of merit that GreenBaggins addresses). (link to my blog post regarding McMahon defending Turretin) (link to my post noting Turretin vs. Goodwin on the Garden Covenant)

-TurretinFan

Contraception Excursion

Matthew Bellisario has posted a blog entry responding to Gene Bridge's comments on a tangential aspect of the on-going Sola Scriptura debate (link to debate) (link to Gene's comments - first comment - second comment) (link to MB's Response - caution: large purported image of Jesus at top of site: a fact that will probably be of note only to my more Puritanically inclined readers). (UPDATE: Incidentally, welcome to those visiting via Mr. Greco's link ... you may be particularly interested in the sidebar debate taking place in this post's comment box.)

The comment that my friend Gene Bridges made, which provoked Matthew Bellisario was, as stated by MB: "He says that Catholicism does not condemn contraception, but only distinguishes between natural and artificial contraception."

In support of Gene's comment, I submit the following evidence: "The second area which His Holiness would stress is that of promotion. He repeats his encouragement and gratitude to all those who work for the promotion of natural family planning, whether directly with couples, or in medical and social endeavors." and "It is important that public authorities and international bodies, medical personnel and social workers, marriage counsellors and educators should recognize the high positive values that are to be found in the natural methods, in which the dignity of the human person is fostered: a knowledge and understanding of fertility help to assure personal autonomy by liberating couples from artificial means, while leading them to a degree of sexual self-mastery which is in direct contrast with the permissiveness and promiscuity that today constitute grave social problems to be solved." (source - note that this is from the official Vatican website)

The comments above are part of a message from pope Paul VI (sent by Cardinal Villot to Cardinal Cooke on May 24, 1978). If that evidence does not demonstrate exactly what Gene Bridges was saying, I don't know what would.

Nevertheless, let's examine Bellisario's rather interesting counter-argument.

1) He quotes this definition: "Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14)."

2) He argues that "Those using what the Church considers to be natural is not really contraception at all. In fact even if one follows the NFP [Natural Family Planning] it is never 100% and therefore the person is not acting in a way as to eliminate the pro creative [sic] from the act itself."

3) He ignores that even the use of barrier and chemical methods have a less than 100% success rate in preventing procreation.

In other words, if one ignores the plainest and simplest meaning of "contraception" (i.e. a practice that limits or avoids conceiving children - aka pre-conception birth control), in favor of a meaning that requires that the act have an 100% success rate, one can avoid distinguishing between NFP and artificial contraception - but at the cost of permitting most forms of contraception, including forms (such as the use of certain latex products) that everyone knows Catholicism opposes.

So, when one evaluates MB's accusation, "This Gene Bridges hasn't a clue as to what in the world he is talking about, nor what The Catholic Church teaches," one may find oneself arriving at a very different conclusion from that of Mr. Bellisario.

-TurretinFan

N.B.I have intentionally avoided discussing the issues raised in the debate regarding the significance (or not) of this matter to the topic of Sola Scriptura.

UPDATE: August 3, 2008 - MB has provided a second post (link - same 2nd commandment warning as above) in which he continues to refuse to let Gene Bridges' statement have any meaning. Apparently, Gene Bridges is not allowed (in MB's world) to disagree with MB's church over what constitutes "contraception." Why is this not just impolite but absurd?

Maybe an analogy would be helpful:

Suppose that Gene's church claimed to be against gambling, but suppose that they actually permitted betting on horse races. Someone would be within their rights to say that Gene's church was actually only against certain kinds of gambling. If Gene replied that his church defined gambling as betting on cards, and that consequently the critic has no idea what they are talking about, we'd laugh him out of town.

The same goes here. MB's church defines contraception (according to MB) in a way that excludes certain kinds of things that actually prevent conception. The fact that MB's church supposedly defines contraception only to include things that they prohibit is a laughable defense to the natural vs. artificial critique. In fact, Natural Family Planning (NFP) is often used expressly to engage in sexual intercourse without producing conception. That's a contraceptive practice, broadly defined - just as betting on horses is gambling, broadly defined.

MB's response that "The prior post I that put up explains what the Church teaches as a definition of contraception ... NFP does not fall into that category," is exactly as convincing as Gene's hypothetical response that "My previous comment explains what my church teaches as a definition of gambling ... betting on horses does not fall into that category," would be: not at all. If Gene in that hypothetical example then tacked on insults about the critic not knowing what he was talking about, or the like, we'd say he wasn't just absurd, but rude too.

Of course, the most absurd aspect of the whole discussion about contraception is the fact that MB's church is plainly wrong. If there is anything wrong with contraception (and there is no need to debate that here or at all), it has nothing to do with how that contraception is accomplished (whether by spilling it on the ground, using a piece of latex, or only having carnal knowledge of one's wife when there is low "risk" of conception). There's nothing inherently sinful about wearing latex, or particularly righteous about keeping track of fecundity with a calendar and thermometer.

In fact, if contraception is not an illicit goal, then arguably the technique of abstaining from that kind of physical intimacy for one to two weeks a month is wrong (because although contraception is not itself an illicit goal it may be an insufficient justification for withholding sexual relations within marriage), while wearing a contraceptive device would be acceptable in God's eyes (since it would permit the continuity of sexual relations).

FURTHER UPDATE: August 3, 2008 - MB has posted yet a third post on this subject. (link - same warning as usual). MB still does not get that NFP is contraceptive behavior. He even makes the claim: "So now am I going to let these two define what is an act or is not considered to be an act by their own musings? I think not. NFP cannot be a form of contraception because there is no act causing it. There is nothing that keeps the sexual act from happening except for abstinence. In order for Bridges and Tf to be right they would have to prove that every couple not engaged in sexual intercourse would be considered to be engaging in a contraceptive act. This is complete nonsense."

MB's argument falls apart again, when one scrutinizes it logically:

1 (per MB): NFP consists of not engaging in carnal knowledge at certain times.
2 (per MB): Not engaging in carnal knowledge is not an act.
ergo: NFP is not an act, consequently NFP cannot be a contraceptive act.

At first glance, this might seem to have merit. How can not doing anything be an act? But if we apply it to an analogy, we can soon realize how foolish it is:

1 (analogy): Neglect consists in not feeding one's children.
2 (analogy): Not feeding one's children is not an act.
ergo: Neglect is not an act, and consequently cannot be an improper act.

I hope everyone realizes that such an argument is absurd.

But MB tags on a little something extra: he claims that, "In order for Bridges and Tf to be right they would have to prove that every couple not engaged in sexual intercourse would be considered to be engaging in a contraceptive act."

On the other hand, however, that's a bit like saying that to be right about the analogy one would have to prove that every family not engaged in feeding their children would be considered to be engaging in neglect. Both claims (both MB's and that of the person in the analogy) are overblown.

All we have to show is what everybody with any brains already has figured out: people who are using NFP to avoid conceiving children are engaging in a contraceptive technique. The technique even has a name: the rhythm method.

In his pontificating, MB finally decides to expose his lack of familiarity with issues relating to contraception: "We can also see that TF still does not understand what NFP is either, after I have explained it in my earlier posts, because he says its failure rate is the same as the "withdrawal method?" What? Once again I am baffled here."

But the bafflement is really not our fault. MB should do his research. Here's a link providing an example of the statistics of failure rate for NFP/rhythm method (link). Here's a link providing an example of the statistics on the failure rate of the withdrawal method (link). As you can see, the failure rate is about 20% in both cases. Of course, that's the "in practice" failure rate, as opposed to the "perfectly performed" failure rate. One hopes that MB will read and learn.

MB even goes further and complains about GB and I supposedly being reticent to admit a mistake. MB's a bit hasty in this regard. GB probably hasn't even yet seen MB's correction regarding the withdrawal method, and I did not adopt GB's position. Apparently, MB is desperate for an example of an error, and so he's trying to latch firmly on to this issue of the withdrawal method not being kosher among papists.

But before we close, let's get back to that ridiculous logic that because NFP involves abstaining from sexual relations, therefore it cannot be considered a contraceptive technique. By that logic:

1. Fasting cannot be a meritorious act, since it is simply abstaining from eating.
2. Virginity cannot be a virtuous state, since it is simply abstaining from sexual intercourse.
3. Celibacy (i.e. what many mistake for chastity) ... see (2).
4. Sobriety cannot be a virtuous lifestyle, since it is simply avoiding drunkenness.

In short, no patterns of negative behavior can be good, if no patterns of negative behavior can be bad. Of course, no good member of the church that is in communion with Benedict XVI can rightly deny the virtue of fasting, virginity, "chastity," and sobriety, even though those are primarily negative activities: abstentions from various otherwise desired acts.

NFP (i.e. the rhythm method) is just another method of conception. It may be more natural than Onanism (spilling it on the ground - sometimes equated with the withdrawal method), but it is still an intentional act (of omission) aimed at preventing reproduction. A pattern of NFP behavior in which a couple engages in sexual relations at certain times rather than others in order to avoid conception, is plainly contraceptive behavior, just as eating a small amount of food every three hours can be a weight loss technique, and limiting yourself to one beer after dinner can be a sobriety technique.

YET FURTHER UPDATE: August 3, 2008 - Not able to get enough of this subject, MB has replied yet again (link - same warning regarding prominent violation of the 2nd commandment).

Now, having demonstrated his bafflement a number of different ways, MB demonstrates that he cannot address the actual arguments presented. Instead he states: "I guess every person now who is walking the face of the earth who is married and not having sex is engaged in a contraceptive act according to TF."

That, of course, is not what I have said. NFP can be used to enhance fertility, just as it can be used to promote infertility. Couples who are not making love today in order to make love more productively tomorrow are obviously engaged in conceptive behavior, just as couples who are consciously forgoing lovemaking today to avoid conception are engaging in contraceptive activity.

NFP is to sexual activity as dieting is eating. Both are negative activities, designed to alter the consequences of the abstained-from activity in some way, as part of pattern of behavior.

Finally, MB crosses the line:

"We also see that they can make false statements like telling us the "withdrawal method" is approved by the Catholic Church, and then once they realize they are wrong the [sic] try and [sic] sidestep the issue. Unbelievable here folks. But this is par for the course when dealing with these guys. Truth has no place in their thinking."

a) Truth has no place in their thinking? That's an outrageous statement, even for Bellisario. In fact, Bellisario hasn't even waited to hear Gene's response! Talk about not caring about the truth: Bellisario is rushing to accuse Gene of not caring about the truth without waiting to see Gene's response to the claim that Gene made a mistake.

b) Par for the course when dealing with these guys? More rhetorical banter.

c) They try to sidestep the issue? It would be more accurate to say that MB has been trying to dodge the issue from square one: the issue being Catholicism's irrational distinction between contraception using the rhythm method and other forms of contraception. Whether they also accept the withdrawal method is a moot point, except for Bellisario's urgent quest to find some mistake (not matter how small) in my friend Gene's statement.

d) "They" can make false statements? Even assuming that Bellisario could establish that Catholicism condemns the withdrawal method (not just by the ordinary, but by the extraordinary magisterium), how does Gene turn into "they"? Of course, we know how it turns into "they," because it's convenient for the rhetorical opponent-bashing that MB has decided to engage in.

Finally, MB wraps up his post with a link to try to bolster the invalid distinction between contraception and natural family planning.

And again, here's another quotation from materials from the Vatican's own web site, reinforcing Gene Bridge's original comment:

"6. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the publication by my predecessor Pope Paul VI of the Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae. The truth about human sexuality, and the Church's teaching on the sanctity of human life and on responsible parenthood, must be presented in the light of the theological development which has followed that document, and in the light of the experience of couples who have faithfully followed this teaching. Many couples have experienced how natural family planning promotes mutual respect, encourages tenderness between husband and wife, and helps develop an authentic inner freedom (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2370; Humanae Vitae, 21). Their experience deserves to be shared, for it is the living confirmation of the truth which Humanae Vitae teaches. In contrast, there is a growing awareness of the serious harm caused to marital relationships by recourse to artificial contraception, which, because it inevitably thwarts the total self-giving implied in the conjugal act, at one and the same time destroys its procreative meaning and weakens its unitive significance (cf. Evangelium Vitae, 13)." (link to source - Official Vatican website)

Here's another:

"Their humanizing character is all the more obvious from the fact that using the natural methods requires and strengthens the harmony of the married couple, it helps and confirms the rediscovery of the marvellous gift of parenthood, it involves respect for nature and demands the responsibility of the individuals. According to many authoritative opinions, they also foster more completely that human ecology which is the harmony between the demands of nature and personal behaviour." (link to source - Official Vatican website)

UPDATE: August 4, 2008 - MB still continues to hope to deny that rhythmic contraception is contraception. (link - same warnings about a big picture that aims to portray the second person of the Trinity) It's somewhat amusing, because MB rushes to call GB a liar (as noted above). Now, when GB starts to explain himself, MB continues to suggest the GB is just making stuff up. I think it is apparent who is more familiar with the topic, between the two of them. MB claims that he has proved that "the Church" has not endorsed the withdrawal method. Of course, a more carefully reading of Gene's comments is that Gene has asserted that there is no infallible condemnation of the withdrawal method. As far as I can see from MB's 5 posts (so far) on the subject, MB has been unable to point to any infallible condemnation of the withdrawal method.

MB points to individual statements of individual popes, but while there is a sense in which such teachings are the teachings of the Church, they are not normally considered "infallible," a fact that MB very well knows.

Furthermore, while MB claims that the very general remarks that he quotes "would include the 'withdrawal method'," they certainly don't specify that method. Furthermore, MB simply fails to address GB's point that those comments have been interpreted as referring to acts involving mechanical and chemical intervention.

MB even fails to see such an interpretation popping out at him from a quotation be pulls down from the Official Vatican web site: "Their experience deserves to be shared, for it is the living confirmation of the truth which Humanae Vitae teaches. In contrast, there is a growing awareness of the serious harm caused to marital relationships by recourse to artificial contraception, which, because it inevitably thwarts the total self-giving implied in the conjugal act, at one and the same time destroys its procreative meaning and weakens its unitive significance." (emphasis added for those who have trouble reading)

And, of course, as noted above - this is all just a minor tangent as far as I am concerned. Everyone sees that Catholicism promotes rhythmic contraception, whether or not anyone wants to argue about their promotion of other kinds of non-artificial contraception.

Additionally, MB provides an article that attempts to dissect the various intentions in rhythmic contraception as distinct from other kinds of contraception. The clarity of the article leaves something to be desired. But it reduces to this:

1. There is an intention to do the act (drink an elixir or abstain from sex); and
2. There is an intention for the act (to avoid conceiving children).

The problem with the attempt to divide these intentions (and it is not an invalid distinction), is that the condemnation of other forms of contraception than the rhythm method must incorporate the type (2) intention, while to permit rhythmic contraception, one must ignore type (2) intention.

In other words, there is nothing sinful about intending to wear latex or drink a draught of chemicals. There's nothing intrinsically evil about latex or progesterone (or whatever). There's nothing intrinsically evil about putting on one or drinking the other. If anything makes their use wrong, it is the type (2) intention: the intention that the act is aimed: avoiding conception.

But the same is true of rhythmic contraception. The acts of measuring body temperature and mucosal quality, and scheduling intercourse are not intrinsically evil, but (assuming that contraception is an illicit end) the use to which scheduling is put can be wrong.

In other words, the attempt to assert that it is ambiguity in "intent" that leads to a distinction between rhythmic and other kinds of contraception is not a legitimate attempt. It fails, as has been demonstrated.

UPDATE: August 4, 2008 - Mr. Bellisario has not yet had enough of the topic of contraception. Although he offers no defense of the faulty logic, he throws around a few insults and links to yet another article that he thinks proves that NFP is not contraception. Ironically, even the abstract of the article distinguishes between "artificial" contraception and NFP. (link to Bellisario's insult-riddled post - with the same warning as above, that one will be exposed to an enormous attempted portrayal of my Lord and Savior, the Alpha and Omega).

There is some sense in which the article that MB links to, attempts to address the objection that rhythmic contraception is just another form of contraception. It doesn't do so by the ipse dixit approach ("we just define contraception thus and so"), but by distinguishing the moral basis.

The core of the article's argument is this:

There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as moving the sexual act from one time to another time. Suppose one wants to say the act is “moved” from a fertile Monday to an infertile Friday. But one cannot say this. A human act is something that is unrepeatably defined temporally. A sexual act on Monday and a sexual act on Friday are two different acts. The act of abstaining from the sexual act on Monday and of engaging in a sexual act on Friday is not an act of transferring the sexual act from Monday to Friday, because it is a logical impossibility, strictly speaking, to transfer a specific act. The unrepeatable Monday-sexual-act cannot be moved to Friday any more than one can move the Monday itself to Friday.

This argument relies on the reader agreeing with the concept that a human act cannot be moved. In fact, such an expression is common. For example, one might say: "I will mow the lawn on Tuesday, instead of Monday this week, since Monday I will be too busy responding to articles linked by my esteemed colleague."

We would all be comfortable with such an expression. In fact it is quite an ordinary way of speaking. There's a certain poetry to saying that a specific act cannot be moved in time from one place to another, but - in fact - that is exactly what rescheduling is.

Furthermore, such rescheduling has moral significance. The law of the Sabbath provides a great example. As the reader may recall, labor is generally prohibited on the Sabbath. Consequently, it is necessary to move some labor from the Sabbath to another day. In the time of the wilderness journey, when the Sabbath was on Saturday, the people of Israel moved their food-gathering of Manna from Saturday to Friday, collecting twice as much as usual on Friday in preparation for the Sabbath (at least, those who were obedient did).

It is obvious that they are not transporting the act of gathering food through time in any mystical way, but simply rescheduling. Nevertheless, scheduling (and rescheduling) are real acts, and they do involve moving the action being scheduled from one time to another.

It may well be that "mowing the lawn on the Sabbath" and "mowing the lawn on Friday" are two "different acts" if one sophistically attempts to define the act to include the date of the act. Nevertheless, just as there is virtue in rescheduling the lawn mowing to Friday from the Sabbath (because avoiding work on the Sabbath is virtuous), there is evil in rescheduling sexual relations to avoid conceiving (if, in fact, contraception [trying to avoid conception] is an illicit end).

In short, we can see both from ordinary speech and the analogy to the Sabbath that the argument in favor of rhythmic contraception cannot be maintained on the grounds provided in the article by Alexander Pruss, to which MB linked.

UPDATE: August 5, 2008 - MB continues his campaign of accusations against my friend Gene, this time calling him a "plain liar" and an "obstacle to truth." (link - usual caveats) He compares him to Bill Clinton and says that Gene "is nothing more than a 'Slick Willy'."

Ironically, MB himself in his eagerness to find fault in my friend Gene, makes a rather fundamental lexical fallacy (i.e. that if a word can mean what one wants it to mean, that therefore it meant what one wants it to mean). It's the same fallacy we see time and time again in the form of eisegesis. It's a bit more blatant here, since MB is seemingly unwilling to read Gene's comments as part of a harmonious whole, hoping to set one of Gene's comments against another of his comments. The viva voce of Gene is ignored in favor of an attempt to make Gene say something Gene didn't mean.

Interestingly, MB's main basis for calling Gene a liar is that Gene hasn't proved Gene's assertion that Rome is not monolithic on the issue in question. I have to say, I rarely see this kind of impatient rush to accusation. MB doesn't even ask nicely, he demands. I suspect that Gene may be waiting patiently to see how much mud MB will throw and how extreme his assertions will get, before revealing his sources. In fact, having taken a peek around the Internet, I think I may be able to see where Gene is going with this.

Regardless, what is interesting is that MB has gotten so caught up in mocking and accusing (though his accusations have shifted) that he has lost sight of the bottom line.

*** end of update ***

Bottom Line: Rhythmic contraception (NFP applied to avoid conception) is a type of contraception, and (seemingly) the only kind currently widely accepted in Catholicism. It is considered "natural" and the other kinds are "artificial" or unnatural. That's the terminology Rome has adopted, and Gene got in trouble with MB for repeating. I suggest MB take it up with his bishop rather than picking on my friend Gene (who, by the way, is quite capable of defending himself, if one is willing to wait 24 hours ... check out the combox of this post).