The Regulative Principle: Scripture, Tradition, and Culture
An Email Debate Between Darryl Hart
and John Frame
Note,
2006 (JF): In 1998,
some students organized an email debate between Darryl Hart, then librarian at
Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and John Frame, then
Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological
Seminary in California. The debate was carried on the Warfield list, moderated
by Andrew J. Webb. I have edited the text by (1) removing the email arrows and deleting
some lines relevant only to the email system, (2) introducing names and titles,
so that readers can more easily understand who is talking at each point, (3)
setting quotations in a more standard form, so that readers can see more easily
where A is quoting B, rather than stating his own position, (4) rearranging the
material somewhat, so that, e.g., Hart’s answer #1 immediately follows Frame’s
question #1, etc. I have also added a few footnotes to bring readers up to date
on developments since 1998. I have reproduced the text and posted it at www.frame-poythress.org with the
permission of Darryl Hart.
Moderator
Date:
Thu, 5 Feb 1998 00:06:35 -0500
To:
Warfield List <bbwarfld@erols.com
From:
"Andrew J. Webb" <ajwebb@erols.com
Subject:
WARFIELD: THE DEBATE HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!
Hi all,
As of
now (12:00AM 2/5/97), no emails from anyone other than John Frame or
Darryl
Hart will be processed by the list for the duration of the RPW debate.
At the
end of the debate you will have an opportunity to ask both gentlemen
questions
related to the topic. They have agreed to field a total of 20
questions
from the audience. I will be vetting the questions, so it won't
necessarily
be the first to arrive that get processed. PLEASE DO NOT BEGIN
SENDING
QUESTIONS TO THE LIST UNTIL I TELL YOU TO DO SO.
The
Subject of the debate is:
-----
"How
does one go about defining the Regulative Principle of Worship?
The
relationship of Scripture, our confessional history, and the
contemporary
audience."
-----
The
format is as follows:
1.
INTRODUCTIONS (bios to follow)
2.
INITIAL ARGUMENTS
3.
INITIAL REPLIES
4.
DIRECT QUESTIONING OF ONE ANOTHER (Frame to ask the first question, per
coin
toss (on a 1948 two shilling piece) -- THIS PORTION OF THE DEBATE WILL
NOT RUN
MORE THAN 14 DAYS
5.
CLOSING STATEMENTS
6.
QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE [20]
Are you
all sitting comfortably? Good, then let's get started.
Your
Servant in Christ,
Andy
Webb
Andrew
& Joy Webb
(215)
682-9373
"...there
is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we
preach
what is nowadays called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it
Calvinism;
Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else."
- Charles
Haddon Spurgeon
Introductions
Darryl Hart
Date:
Thu, 5 Feb 1998 00:07:55 -0500
I am an ecclesiastical mongrel. I grew up a dispensational-Scofield-Reference-Bible-toting,
fundamentalist Baptist. (My folks went to
and now
the OPC (where I also serve as elder -- or in PCA lingo "ruling
elder").
Our reasons for changing denominations
stemmed more from grad.
school
and job changes, than from dissatisfaction.
(Who me, defensive?)
Even though I hold down the position as librarian as WTS,[1] my
academic
training
is as a historian. I studied as an undergrad
at
University
(as a film major -- don't ask), then WTS for an MAR, then on
to
Ph.D. in
American history.
My favorite authors are J. Gresham Machen, Wendell Berry, H.
L. Mencken
and
Joseph Epstein.
That's more than you would get on a dust jacket, but a
little less, I
hope,
than on late afternoon TV.
John Frame
Date:
Thu, 5 Feb 1998 00:09:41 -0500
I was born (1939) and raised in the
affluent
family. I came to trust Jesus as my savior during the teen years
through
the ministry of Beverly Heights U. P. Church. Through grade
school
and high school years I studied piano, organ, clarinet, harmony,
counterpoint,
improvisation, played in band and orchestra, sang in
choirs,
so music has always been a big thing with me. Worship, musical and
otherwise,
has been central to my Christian life.
I earned the A. B. from
Philosophy.
It was at college that I began to study the Bible in a
serious
way and, naturally, was drawn toward Reformed theology and
apologetics.
I earned the B. D. at WTS (which they now call an M. Div.) in
1964,
then earned two more masters' degrees at Yale, focusing on philosophical
theology
and contemporary theology. I did not finish my doctorate;
finished
all but the dissertation. So I am not "Dr. Frame."[2]
In 1965-66 I interrupted my graduate
program to work at my home
church
for a year. I was organist, choir director, pastoral visitor,
occasional
preacher and Bible teacher.
In 1968 I began teaching systematic
theology and apologetics at
WTS-Philadelphia.
In 1980, I left there to teach at the new western WTS
campus
in
and
systematic theology.[3]
I was ordained a minister in the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church in
1968. In
1989 my local congregation switched from OPC to PCA and I went
along
with them. I am an associate pastor of New Life PCA,
where I
lead worship from the piano.
I've published eight books on various
topics: epistemology,
ethics,
apologetics, ecumenism, worship. My two books on the last topic are
“Worship
in Spirit and Truth” and “Contemporary Worship Music: a Biblical
Defense.”
These are both published by P&R.
In 1984 I married Mary Grace Cummings.
OPC people know the
family:
her Dad ministered in the OPC for forty years or so. Three of her
brothers
are OPC ministers. We have three grown children by her previous
marriage:
Debbie (28), Doreen (26), and David, aka Skip (25). Mary and I
have by
our own marriage two boys, Justin (11) and Johnny (9). Mary home
schools them.
Actually they major in soccer, but we are trying to steer them into
music. Justin
has played cello since age 3, and Johnny violin since about 5.
They
both also study piano, but reluctantly.
Initial Arguments
Frame
Date:
Thu, 5 Feb 1998 21:53:50 -0500
"How
does one go about defining the Regulative Principle of Worship (hence
RPW)?
The relation of Scripture, our confessional history, and the
contemporary
audience."
I am not asked to actually define the
RPW, but rather to discuss
how we
should "go about defining" it. Our question is methodological rather
than
substantive.
We must begin with a distinction.
Definitions of the RPW can be of
two
kinds: historical and normative. A historical definition will simply
try to
outline what people have meant by the phrase. The actual phrase
seems to
date from the early nineteenth century, but users of it have
evidently
used it to summarize the principle used by the early Reformed
thinkers
(say, 1520-1700) to determine what belongs in worship. Further,
the
phrase "RPW" generally refers more specifically to the formulations
of
the
English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians of that period. I don't, of
course,
want to go into the question of how much these traditions agreed
with
Reformed thought on the continent. But if I were engaging in research
as to
the historical meaning of the phrase "RPW," my work would focus on
the
British theologians rather than the continental ones, because the
former
are the ones more often cited by those who use the term. Further,
the most
elaborate confessional expressions of the RPW are in the
Westminster
Confession of Faith, a product of Puritan and Scottish
theology.
Study, then, of this theological and confessional tradition would
yield a
historical definition of the RPW.
Search for a normative definition would
overlap the above area of
study,
but in some respects it would be rather different. Reformed theology
holds to
the principle sola Scriptura [see my article on this subject in
the most
recent Westminster Theological Journal, edited by Darryl Hart],[4] so
the goal
of a normative definition would be to discover how God in
Scripture
regulates human worship. At the outset, we should assume that
such a
normative definition may or may not agree with the historical
definition
of the term.
We do face here some strategic
questions. One possibility is that
the
biblical teaching will be so different from the historical concept of
the RPW
that the very phrase "RPW" would be better abandoned. That is the
alternative
chosen by Ralph Gore, for example, in his dissertation "The
Pursuit
of Plainness."[5]
My own view is that the biblical teaching about
God's
regulation of worship is CLOSE to the Scottish-Puritan concept, but
not
identical with it. The Bible shares with the Scots and Puritans the
central
insight that we should include in worship only what pleases God,
and what
pleases God is defined by the Bible, sola Scriptura. Therefore, I
am
willing to describe the biblical view as the Bible's "RPW." But I
believe
some aspects of the Scottish-Puritan view go beyond the Scriptures,
particularly
(1) their attempt to define a RP that pertains to worship and
not to
the rest of life, and (2) the calculus of "elements" and
"circumstances"
by which they tried in my view to make the RPW more precise
than it
is in Scripture.
So my short answer is: define RPW historically
from the British
Reformed
theological/confessional tradition; define it normatively by the
Scriptures.
A further complication, of course, is
that for Presbyterians the
Westminster
Standards have a normative function. That is, what I have
called
the historical definition of the RPW is in some measure normative.
Here it
is important for us to recognize immediately that the confessions
are
“secondary” standards; they are not our “ultimate” norms. So our basic
distinction
still holds.
The other important consideration here is
that the
Divines
did not put their entire theology of worship into their
confessional
standards. Some seem to think that the references to the RPW
in the
Confession in effect make the entire Puritan theology of worship
(secondarily)
normative in our churches. I disagree.
It is legitimate to
consult
the Puritan theologians occasionally for help in understanding the
technical
expressions in the Westminster Standards. It is not legitimate to
conclude
that the WCF's reference to "circumstances" implies the
normativity
of all the definitions of circumstances found in the Puritan
literature.
Does "the contemporary
audience" play a role in our defining of the
RPW? In
a word, no. But of course we must know something about contemporary
people
if we are to communicate with them in their language. Worship is
communication,
among other things. So if we are properly to apply the RPW
in
planning actual worship services, we must know something about
contemporary
people.
Hart
Date:
Sat, 7 Feb 1998 12:38:28 -0500
If I were an rational, autonomous self,
the kind presupposed by the Enlightenment but said not to exist by Cornelius
Van Til, I would define the regulative principle of worship by reasoning as
follows: there is this being bigger and more powerful than I to whom I should
show some respect and honor. It only
makes sense that I should ask him (I hope this isn't a gender inclusive God)
how he wants to be shown respect and honor.
Then, after hearing R. C. Sproul's proofs for the existence
of God,
specifically
the God of the Bible, and after reading Francis Schaeffer's He
Is There, He Is Not Silent, and realizing that this God has
revealed
himself
in the Bible, I then figure I might as well go to that book, God's
word, to
see how he wants to be worshiped.
But, of course, I am not an
Enlightened, independent individual. I
am
actually quite situated. I worship in a
Presbyterian denomination, I
work at
a Reformed seminary, I order books for a theological library on the
premise
that I can tell the difference between Reformed and other kinds of
theological
literature. This means that I come to
the Bible not in a
vacuum
but as Presbyterians and Reformed folk before me have interpreted
it. So I go to texts like Mt 4:9-10; 15:9; Acts
17:25; Col 2:23; 1 Sam
15:22;
Deut 12:32; 15:1-20; Ex 20:4-6 and see the scriptural basis, though
of
course contested by other Christians, for the regulative principle.
But it gets even worse. Not only do I find myself situated in a
theological
tradition that shapes my understanding of the Bible and how I
interpret
it to arrive at a definition of the regulative principle, but I
remember
the solemn vows I have taken before God and his saints in the
visible
church. One of those vows, of course, is
"Do you sincerely receive
and
adopt the Confession of Faith and Catechisms of this Church, as
containing
the system of doctrine taught in Holy Scriptures?" In this vow
I not
only locate myself explicitly within the Reformed tradition, but I
put my
own integrity on the line and identify myself, my word, my honor,
with the
statements and arguments of the Westminster Confession and Larger
and
Shorter Catechisms. I do not want to be
guilty of the same sort of
subscription
that occurred during the modernist-fundamentalist controversy
(and for
that matter still goes on in most mainline churches) where
officers
subscribe to the creedal standards of their communion but then
deny and
contradict, both implicitly and explicitly, what those standards
teach,
arguing that those creeds were true in their day but not in ours.
Dr. Machen (OK, his was only honorary!) called that kind of
subscription,
intellectual
dishonesty. So in my answers to
questions like those before
us in
this debate I must give some attention to the Westminster Standards
lest I
be guilty of the same kind of dishonesty.
The Westminster Standards, therefore,
become like a presupposition
guiding
my understanding, not only of worship but of the whole Christian
religion. And much to my relief, those standards have a
very good, clear,
and
concise statement of the regulative principle.
The briefest statement
comes
from the Shorter Catechism, answer 51, which states that the second
commandment
forbids the worshiping of God by images or any other way not
appointed
in his word. Other statements of this
principle can also be
found in
answer 109 of the Larger Catechism and chapter 21, sect 1 of the
Confession
of Faith. But the important point for me
is that second half of
the
Shorter Catechism's answer, that we may not worship God in any way not
appointed in his word.
We may not worship God as we devise, as we prefer,
or in a
way that won't give the unchurched offense.
Rather we must worship
God only
as he desires. And given what Reformed
folk believe about special
revelation
and its finality, the only place to go to see how God desires
to be
worshiped is in his word.
Initial Replies
Frame’s Initial Reply to Hart
Date:
Sat, 7 Feb 1998 21:14:10 -0500
My chief problem with Hart's opening
statement is that he makes no
distinction
between what I called in my statement the historical and
normative
forms of the RPW. Indeed, that is his whole point. His argument
is that
we should never pit the biblical principles against the
historical-confessional.
We should rather read the Scriptures exactly as
the
tradition has done. So the historical and the normative RPWs are
exactly
the same. The alternative is autonomy, enlightenment rationalism,
big-denomination
modernism, etc. Here he cites his (and my) heroes Van Til
and
Machen.
First of all, Van Til was as Reformed
as he could be, but for him
"autonomy"
did not mean having a critical attitude toward one's tradition.
He did
have a high regard for Reformed tradition, and he did tend to think
that any
deviation from the Reformed faith was a compromise with autonomy.
But the
compromise was not in questioning the tradition. It was in
asserting
one's own metaphysical (libertarian free will) and/or
epistemological
(my mind over Scripture) independence from God. He never
argued
as Hart does that because we are "situated" in a particular
tradition
we must read the Bible exactly as that tradition has done.
Indeed,
although he subscribed to the Westminster Standards ex animo, he
differed
with parts of the Confession's teaching on the Sabbath.
If it is "autonomous" to
differ with one's tradition, what about
people
who are "situated" in Arminian, or Roman Catholic, or Charismatic
traditions?
Are they, too, to be meekly submissive to their teachers and
traditions?
Or are they to be like the noble Bereans and search the
Scriptures
to determine if these things are so (Acts 17:11)?
In fact, Hart's kind of argument is
ironically and curiously
anti-Reformed.
For the Reformers were highly critical of their own received
traditions,
of Popes and Councils. They taught "sola Scriptura," in which
Scripture
alone is the ultimate standard of truth. They gave the Bible to
the
layman, in the vernacular, and urged him to test all theological
controversies
by it. Unquestioning acceptance of tradition, such as Hart
recommends
to us, is much more like the Roman Catholic view of authority
than
like the Reformed. It is the Romanists who have regularly told us that
we are
situated in a tradition, that we should not even consider bringing
arguments
against it. It is they who have brought the charge of autonomy
and
individualism against Protestantism in general. On the contrary, the
Westminster
Confession, to which Hart and I subscribe, makes clear that
Scripture
alone is the ultimate authority (chap. 1, especially), even over
against
synods and councils (chap. 31:3).
I agree with Hart that Presbyterian
churches are confessional
bodies
and that creedal subscription should not be tongue-in-cheek. But
Hart
fails to deal with the problem we have in using confessions that are
350
years old. Is it not likely that if the Spirit has continued to teach
the
church during those 350 years that we will have learned something new?
And, if
the confessions are not infallible documents (Hart doesn't QUITE
say that
they are) is it not possible that we might not find them wrong
about
some things? Well, there are arguments between "strict"
subscriptionists
and others about how to handle that problem. But nobody, I
think
(or is Hart the exception?) wants to say that every officer must
literally
believe every statement in the Standards. Every Reformed
denomination
has some way of dealing with "exceptions," such as Van Til's
exception
on the Sabbath.
Further, if no exceptions may be taken
(or if exceptions may be
taken,
but not taught, as some "strict" subscriptionists wish), then don't
the
confessions become, for practical purposes, equal to Scripture?
Certainly
they become incorrigible, unreformable. They are no longer
subject
to the higher standard of Scripture.
Does Hart really wish to say that
"The Westminster Standards,
therefore,
become like a presupposition guiding my understanding not only
of
worship but of the whole Christian religion"? I gather he has Van Tillian presuppositions
in mind here. But I must ask, what does it mean to say that the Standards are
"like" a
presupposition?
Are they something less than ultimate presuppositions? That
would, I
think, favor my point rather than his. Or are they presuppositions
in the
same sense Scripture is? That view, I think, would be terribly
dangerous.
Then the Standards would become the very criteria of truth and
rationality.
They could never, even conceivably,
be successfully
challenged.
Like traditional Roman Catholicism, then, we would be subject
to two
streams of authority, which are really one, equal in authority and
mutually
interpretative. That view is clearly contrary to the
Confession
itself, for it makes a particular council, the
Assembly,
a "rule of faith, or practice," contrary to WCF 31:3.
So Hart and I are 180 degrees apart on
the methodological question.
Evidently
he has rejected entirely the argument of my "Biblicism" paper
that he
published in the WTJ. And I reject just as vigorously what he
appears
to me to be saying here.
On the substantive question, we may not
be as far apart. This
statement
of his is perfectly acceptable to me:
But the
important point for me is that second half of
the Shorter Catechism's answer, that we may not worship God
in any way not
appointed in his word.
We may not worship God as we devise, as we prefer
or in a way that won't give the unchurched offense. Rather we must worship
God only as he desires.
And given what Reformed folk believe about special
revelation and its finality, the only place to go to see how
God desires
to be worshiped is in his word.
And the Scripture texts he cites are
mostly the central ones in my
own
thinking. I do think using Acts 17:25 to prove the RPW is a bit of a
stretch.
Matt. 4:9-10 tells us that God is the exclusive object of worship
rather
than that Scripture is the sole revelation concerning worship. It does
deny to
Satan the right to tell us what to do, but I trust that is not
controversial
among Christians. There is a connection between God as the
object
of worship and Scripture as the exclusive law of worship, but Matt.
4:9-10
doesn't state that connection. And I assume Hart means to refer to
Deut.
18:1-20 rather than 15:1-20. The rest are unquestionably important in
establishing
the doctrine. None of these, in my view, presents the Puritan
distinction
between elements and circumstances, nor does any of them
differentiate
between one rule for worship and another for the rest of
life.
The irony is that this very Regulative
Principle clearly excludes
what
Hart seems to be saying elsewhere about the incorrigible authority of
tradition.
The real RPW for him seems to be the authority of Scripture plus
the
Reformed tradition.
Hart’s Initial Reply to Frame
DATE: 2/9/98 7:27 PM
Sorry for the delay.
I wish I could blame it on Sabbath observance alone.
But it also follows from not knowing how to import a text
file into a
CompuServe
"create mail" window. So I've
had to type this twice. What a
guy.
One of the reasons I was ambivalent about a debate on the
RPW was that it
would
not really be about worship, but rather about hermeneutics,
theological
method, and ecclesiology. Maybe that is
what all debates about
worship
finally turn into, not whether we have praise bands or sing a
capella
psalms (isn't this what happened in the CRC over whether to ordain
women?). Still, I am going to write more about
hermeneutics and
subscription
than a definition of the RPW.
Prof. Frame's initial statement accomplishes almost by a
sleight of hand
what
some readers may miss because of wanting to understand the RPW. In
his
rather common sensical approach to defining the RPW he distinguishes
between
historical (what I would call "descriptive") and normative
meanings. Again, this should strike most of us as quite
level headed,
especially
when he goes on to say that the RPW historically may mean one
thing in
Puritanism but another in the Bible.
Churches and the authors of
creeds
are not infallible and so their efforts will always fall short of
the
inerrant intentions of God's word. And
as it turns out, the Puritans
did err
in their defintion of the RPW. For Frame
the biblical RPW applies
to all
of life but for the Puritan RPW it does not; and the biblical RPW
is not
so precise as the Puritan RPW when it distinguishes between
circumstances
and elements.
Now if we embark on a discussion of these differences
between the Bible and
the
Puritans we will have missed Frame's remarkable feat. For what he has
really
done is not only to take issue with the Puritan RPW. He has also
set the
Bible against the tradition to which he and I belong (as officers
in the
PCA and OPC, and as professors at Reformed seminaries). And it is
this
antagonism or, at least tension, between the Bible and the Reformed
tradition
that bothers me and it is what bothered me about Prof. Frame's
book on
worship, Worship In Spirit and Truth.
As I went through that book I read chapters first on the OT,
the NT and
then the
RPW. It all seemed so biblical, so
sola-scriptura-like. But what
I ended
up with was a view of worship that not only allowed for practices
that
Presbyterians in the past would have disapproved. More important, I
wound up
with the conclusion that the Reformed tradition is at odds (in
Frame's
words, "not identical") with the Bible.
Now, of course, as an adherent of the Reformed Faith I don't
like hearing
that my
convictions are not biblical. But my
feelings are not at issue.
Rather, what is very disconcerting is the matter-of-fact way
that Prof.
Frame
leads us to this conclusion. I don't
sense any regret, hesitation,
or any
of the angst that plagued Luther as he took his stand against the
tradition
of the church. Instead, as I read Prof.
Frame I come away with a
"ho-hum"
expression that the Reformed tradition is not biblical on worship.
But I would think that the presuppositionalism of Van Til
would make us
very
cautious and regretful about reaching such a conclusion. For his
apologetics
tell us that because of our enmity against God, an enmity that
still
afflicts believers, we will not always interpret the Bible correctly,
but in
fact may be prone to distortion and make it say what we want it to.
What is
more, because of the human tendency toward sin and unbelief, I
would
think that if my interpretation of the Bible conflicted with that of
the
Puritans or Calvin I would be cautious about going with my
understanding. Am I wiser than they were? How could I be right and they
be
wrong? Doesn't their body of work stand
up better than mine? After
all,
will anybody be reading me in 400 years (for edification, that is, not
for
laughs)?
A related problem, though, is again the matter-of-factness
of Frame's
assertion
that there is the biblical RPW here and over there, not too far
away, is
the Puritan RPW. (By the way, you also
see the RPW in the Belgic
Confession,
art. 32 and questions 96 to 98 in the Heidelberg Catechism, so
it isn't
exclusively British.) Could it be that
what we really have is
Frame's
RPW against the Puritan RPW? In other
words, is the Bible so
easily
interpreted and understood? Again, if
Van Til and Kuyper were right
I think
the answer to that question should be "no." And if that is the
case
wouldn't we want the help of saints from the past and the present who
have won
reputations for their wise insights into Scripture and who are
entrusted
with the faith once delivered.
But the problem of the Bible against the Reformed tradition
not only
pertains
to hermeneutics but also to subscription.
If there is a Puritan
RPW
taught in the Westminster Standards and I have taken a vow to uphold
and
defend and conform to those standards (TWICE, once at the seminary and
once in
the church), shouldn't I be a little more timid about saying the
Puritan
RPW doesn't conform to biblical teaching?
If I thought it did not
conform
at the time of taking my vows then I
shouldn't have affirmed them.
And if I came to this conviction since joining
the WTS faculty and since
ordination,
then I should notify my session about the change of my views,
and I
should overture presbytery right away to initiate proceedings to
revise
the doctrinal standards of my communion and my school.
In other words, the matter-of-factness of Prof. Frame's
statement distorts
just how
serious the issues involved in it are.
I apologize for going over my suggested limit of 750 words,
but I want to
make one
more point before ending. It concerns
Prof. Frame's effort to
extend
the biblical RPW to all of life since the whole of the believer's
life,
and not just worship, is rendered as service and praise to God. This
extension,
though sounding devout, is a ready-made argument for theonomy.
By limiting the RPW to corporate worship, the Westminster
Divines were
putting
limits upon church power and the power it has over individual
consciences. In public worship the session may bind the
consciences of
believers
as long as they have scriptural warrant for all that is done (or
have a
good and necessary deduction from the Bible).
But by extending the
RPW to
all of life Prof. Frame appears to want to give the session power to
bind the
consciences of believers in all areas of their vocation and
Christian
walk. Frankly, this is scary. The church may have clear
teaching
that pornography is sin, but it has no legitimate authority to
declare
to me that John Updike's book, Couples,
is pornographic and
therefore
it is a sin if I read it.
Questions by Frame and Hart to One Another
Frame’s First Question
Date:
Wed, 11 Feb 1998 19:20:58 -0500
I
gather that Hart and I are now to spend about the next 14 days
asking
and responding to questions from one another. That would be from
today,
2/11, to 2/25 (Ash Wednesday).
My first question:
Is it possible, on your view, for the
Reformed confessional RPW to
be
wrong? If not, how do you distinguish your view of Scripture and
tradition
from the Roman Catholic? If so, and if such an error exists, how
could
we, granted your hermeneutic, discover the error and reform the
confessions
according to the Word of God?
Hart’s Answer to Frame’s First
Question
Date:
Thu, 12 Feb 1998 22:31:18 -0500
It is possible for my understanding of the RPW to be
wrong. It is also
possible
for the Westminster Standards to be wrong.
As the Confession of
Faith
says in ch. 31.iii, synods and councils "may err; and many have
erred." The Standards, therefore, are not
infallible. The Bible is our
primary
standard, the Confession, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms
secondary.
But such an admission does not really settle the matter
because I have
taken a
vow which says that the Standards contain the system of doctrine
taught
in Scripture. So if the Bible is
infallible, one might think its
system
of doctrine also infallible, unless we argue, as some evangelicals
do, that
systematic theology diminishes the truth of the Bible. This does
not mean
that the Westminster Standards contain that infallible system of
doctrine
taught in the Bible. But they come
close, and to my knowledge do
not
contain any errors. That is why I took
my ordination vows and
subscribed
to the Standards, ex animo, at
profession
of faith. If the Standards are wrong,
then I am wrong. As the
Standards
put it, (WCF 22.iii, a man may not "bind himself by oath to
anything
but what is good and just, and what he believes so to be, and what
he is
able and resolved to perform" (such as saying that the WCF RPW is
true). For this reason, vows are "solemn"
acts, and bind our consciences,
even
"to a man's own hurt" (WCF 22.iv).
So if I have any reservations, I
can't
subscribe to the Standards.
But what happens if my study of the Bible, the counsel of
friends, a
particularly
good sermon, or even a ruling of the Supreme Court persuades
me that
the Standards are wrong? Do we have any
means to revise the
Confession
and catechisms? The answer is OF
COURSE. But the way to revise
is not
simply in my own mind, or in consultation with my editor, or by
testing
my views in the publishing market. The
way to revise creeds is
through
the church, specifically through the Presbyterian system of graded
courts. So first I tell my session (as an elder) or
my presbytery (as a
minister)
of my new views. If they conclude that
my views are outside the
bounds
of the Standards, then either I resign my office, or I write an
overture
to call for a revision of the Standards.
And then I try to
persuade
the church. Should I fail in my effort I
can either resign or
force
the church to try me for teaching views contrary to the Standards.
(The latter path lacks some of the drama of Luther's
courageous stand
against
means
exist for revising creedal standards and we find those means in the
visible
church.
Still, as I study the Bible to see if the Standards are
right, my vows do
function
as a kind of presupposition. I don't see
why that is an
objectionable
conception of presuppositions (though I don't claim Van Til's
endorsement.) All I mean by this is that since we can't
ever come to the
Bible
neutrally, we must come with some kind of bias or point of view. Why
can't a
Reformed perspective be the bias that shapes my reading of the
Bible? In fact, if I have taken a vow that says the Westminster
Standards
are
true, and if by my vow I have acknowledged that I may be judged
"according
to the truth or falsehood" (WCF 22.I) of what I have sworn, then
why
doesn't the conviction that the Standards teach God's truth involved in
my
ordination vow become a presupposition?
In other words, if Van Til is
right
about the absence of neutrality in our hermeneutics, I don't see how
the very
intimate, personal, and basic act of subscribing to a creed is
anything
less than an indication of what I believe to be true, or the way I
look at
reality, or the way I approach the word of God.
Hart’s First Question to Frame
Date:
Thu, 12 Feb 1998 22:32:55 -0500
Liberal Presbyterians in the 1920s said that the Westminster
Standards, as
documents
written almost three centuries before, were outdated on the
vicarious
atonement. Today some Presbyterians,
Prof. Frame among them, say
that the
Westminster Standards (now 350 years old) are dated on worship.
What is the difference between these two claims about the Standards? Why
is the
latter acceptable and the former unacceptable?
Frame’s Answer to Hart’s First
Question
Date:
Fri, 13 Feb 1998 22:30:24 -0500
This comparison is disproportionate, to
say the very least. A
number
of things should be said about it.
1. Liberalism was not just an assault
on the vicarious atonement
but also
on the Virgin Birth, the miracles, the Resurrection, the Return of
Christ,
the inspiration of Scripture, indeed everything supernatural in
Christianity.
Machen rightly called it a different religion from biblical
Christianity.
Now I realize that Hart is not claiming that my error is that
bad, but
he might have chosen an example less loathed in our circles-- say,
Frank
Breisch trying to maintain a continental Sabbath position in the OPC.
Hart
chose, rather, to compare me to the 1920s modernists largely, I think,
for shock value. But that shock value is
entirely irrelevant to my
position.
I hope that the readers of the Warfield list, therefore, will be
able to
distinguish Hart's substantive point from its rhetorical excess.
2. The liberal claim was not just that
the vicarious atonement is
"outdated,"
but that it cannot be believed by modern man. On the contrary,
I don't
care a fig what modern man thinks he can believe.
3. Even those who earnestly defend the
Puritan elaborations of the
Regulative
Principle must admit that they are not as central to Christian
tradition
as is the vicarious atonement. The vicarious atonement is an
ecumenical
doctrine, confessed in the Nicene Creed ("and was crucified for
us under
Pontius Pilate"). All branches of the church, even those who
dissent
from the Chalcedon Declaration, hold that the atonement was
vicarious.
But the Puritan RP distinctives are held only in the western
church,
only in the Reformed tradition, and not uniformly even there.
(Anglicans
who hold to the 39 articles reject them; many Presbyterians
ignore
them.)
4. Similarly, I think it is obvious
that vicarious atonement is far
more
central to the biblical gospel than are the Puritan elaborations of
the RPW,
even granting the truth of the latter.
5. You may wonder at my phrase
"Puritan elaborations." That is
important.
Hart enormously exaggerates the matter when he attributes to me
the view
that the Standards are "dated on worship." That makes it sound as
though I
object to everything the Standards say about worship. That is
nonsense.
In fact, I affirm the historic Reformed position on worship,
including
all the confessional statements of the RPW to which he and I have
referred
earlier in this debate. That includes WCF 20:2, concerning which
my only
complaint is that it doesn't go far enough. I know that Hart
rejects
my account of 20:2, but he has not persuaded me that I am wrong
about
it.
6. Why is my claim
"acceptable" while the liberals' claim was not?
It
should be obvious why the liberals' claim was unacceptable; Hart and I
would
not differ much on that score. Why is my view acceptable? Because it
is
Scriptural, and Scripture is the church's primary standard. The
liberals'
views were not.
7. Evidently, however, Hart is asking a
narrower question: why
should
Frame's view be acceptable in terms of the church polity of the PCA,
in which
he has taken ordination vows? (a) Because my view is not, in my
own
estimation, a dissent from the confessional documents. If others want
to
pursue the matter, they are free to do so.
(b) The PCA ordination vows require
that "if at any time you find
yourself
out of accord with any of the fundamentals of this system of
doctrine
[i.e. the system taught in Scripture, contained in the Confession
and
Catechisms], you will on your own initiative, make known to your
Presbytery
the change which has taken place in your views since the
assumption
of this ordination vow." Now PCA people have debated the meaning
of "system of doctrine." But even a strict subscriptionist